Psalm 5 Healthy Tension

1 Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning. 2 Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. 3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. 4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. 5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. 6 You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. 7 But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. 8 Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. 9 For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue. 10 Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. 11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. 12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.

Psalm 5: Healthy Tension

INTRO: As a parent I learned that depending on your personality and how you were raised you will have a tendency to be more disciplinary and strict or you will have the tendency to be more nurturing and easy going. The reality you have to be both, so there is a tension that you have to hold between these two, because often they seem to be the opposite.

This psalm points to another tension that we need to hold on to, recognize the holiness and greatness of God and the open access we have to Him through Christ.

We see this tension in the first section of this Psalm in v1-3.

Psalm 5:1–3 ESV

In these verses we see David appealing to God to answer his prayer, which is a common plea in the psalms, as we have seen already in the previous psalm.

Most importantly in these three verses we see the proper tension that David had:

At one side he recognized the holiness of God, the greatness of God and his own unworthiness to approach God.

In the other side, he recognized the closeness of God, that he could say my King and my God.

Like parents who have a tendency to one side or the other, as American evangelical believers we tend to overemphasize the closeness of God and often forget the holiness of God.

Often when we pray we just assume that God will listen, or we presume that God is in a sense at our service. We forget who God is. He is holding the universe in His hands and He is the Eternal King, who has past, present and future in His hands. He is at all times being worshipped by all the angels, archangels and seraphins.

Yet so often we are guilty of approaching Him as if we “made his morning” And while God treasures our time with Him, we need to be certain our hearts and intentions are properly acknowledging WHO HE IS.

We need to have the same heart attitude that a Bible translator had when translating John 1:12: But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

With great tears in his eyes he said he couldn’t translate as children, but was begging to translate as servants of God. Because he had a good grasp of the holiness of God and the our unworthiness

Like in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, who said: “I’m not worthy to be called your son, treat me as one of your hired servants”

The first few words of this psalm reminds us that we need to put ourselves in our place and remember that God is God. That we serve Him and not the other way around.

How often do we approach God in prayer in an apathetic or just plain selfish way. Even the coming to church we make it about ourselves and what we get out of it, or nowadays we might so afraid to get virus that we are disregarding the meeting together to worship God. On Sundays when we prepare our hearts to come to church, we need to remember that the reason we gather together is to worship God.

When I look at my own heart and my own sinfulness I’m shock that God hasn’t not not consumed me and He has shown us so much mercy and grace.

This doesn’t mean that we follow a specific formula every time we pray like: “give ear to my words O Lord” or like in the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father in Heaven hallowed be your name” but it is our heart attitude, remembering who God is, remembering who we are. In life if we have to before a judge we show respect and honor, how much more honor and respect we should have when we come before the judge of the universe.

PAUSE

Then it says in v1 of Psalm 5 consider my groaning. It does not say consider my words here it says groanings, groanings is when you cry out but there are no words that come out, or when you can’t find words to express your feelings.

What an encouragement we as New Testament believers have, not only that God hear our words and groanings, but we have the Holy Spirit interceding for us.

Romans 8:26 ESV

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

This appeal for God to hear our groanings and cries continues in v2 of Psalm 5;

Psalm 5:2 ESV

2 Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.

In this verse we see the reasoning why God should listen to our cries and groanings, it is because our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. David here says “my King and my God” these words might reminds us of very similar expression used in the New Testament. Thomas one of disciples, doubt that Jesus was resurrected, then after Jesus appeared to Him, Thomas fell at his feet exclaiming “My Lord and my God” (John 10:28)

This expression points to a genuine faith in God, in Jesus Christ. To Him we do pray, because we know Him, we know He is Risen, we know that we come to His feet and open up our hearts and cry out. We can confidently come to God know that He himself is interceding for us, knowing that He cares about what we are feeling and experiencing.

Even though we know that we have no right on our own to come before Him, that if we are covered by the blood of Jesus we would be consumed by His holiness. That even now after being redeemed we often sin in many ways, and without Christ we are wretched and hopeless.

After these two verses where David is modeling to us that first we need to recognize our place and who God is and then confidently and boldly pray, we might expect David now would express his concern or pain or intercession for someone else, but instead David says the following in v3

Psalm 5:3 ESV

3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

David’s flow of confidence and boldness to approach God is to say that he is committed to pray, that in the morning I’m going to pray. When we really spend time to recognize who God is, and how much we depend on Him, and we are reassured of the confidence and boldness that we can approach God.

Like a parent you have to nurture and discipline, you have to be both. As we approach God we need to hold tight to this tension between God’s Holiness, our unworthiness and the open access that we have to Him.

Luther had a famous saying: Christians are at same time Sinners and Saints

Sproul explains what Luther meant by this phrase:

“In and of ourselves, under the analysis of God’s scrutiny, we still have sin; we’re still sinners. But, by imputation and by faith in Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is now transferred to our account, then we are considered just or righteous. This is the very heart of the gospel.”

As evangelicals we tend to maybe overemphasize our state of saints through Christ. Because of our flesh, the world and the devil we might think that our righteousness somehow is because of our own actions, and forget that we are righteous not because of anything we have done or will ever do, it is only because of the blood of Christ.

More often than we think. We need to be reminded of God’s attributes and our humble state. It is when we are reminded of these two (God’s greatness and our unholiness)that we will be more committed to pray.

(SLOW) When we fully spend the time to recognize our wretchedness and how Holy and awesome our God is and how great a treasure we possess in Christ. The result is a commitment and a desire to spend more time praying.

In verse 3 of Psalm 5 all the verbs are in the imperfect, which indicates that it is an action that happens in the present and it continues in the future. David is saying that he had prayed in the morning and he is going to continue praying in the morning. That he is going to continue watching waiting for God to act.

Here David not only says that he is praying and continue to pray, but also that he is going to watch and wait for God to act. Often we forget to watch the result of our supplications, here this verse reminds of the importance of not only pray, but expect and look out for God to respond in some way or another.

Do you know that if you ask any follower of Christ at the end of their life what they wish they would have done more? often on the top of the list is praying more.

Corrie Ten Boom says it this way...

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” Corrie Ten Boom

Often people don’t even know where the spare tire is, you only think about it when you get a flat tire.

If prayer if your spare tire you will pray only when you think you need it.

We don’t think about the steering wheel either, but in a sense we are on it all the time. It is a habit that guide you, that’s how prayer should guide our every action, though and word.

We see the importance of prayer also in the pattern can be observed from psalms 3-6.

Psalm 5 can be recognize for being another morning Psalm, bc of v3. We have actually already seen one pair of morning and evening Psalm, Psalm 3 and 4, This is the second set Psalm 5 and 6. This pattern teaches us that we should start the day and end the day with our devotions and prayers.

Spurgeon said: “Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night. Devotion should be both the morning and the evening star”

As an aside note… since we just started a new year not too long ago, you might have considered some new year resolutions: besides having a yearly plan to read the Bible, doing a morning and evening devotion is a great resolution. In addition, if you like to use/read devotionals I highly recommend Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” devotional. (Pick it up and show book)

But the bottom line for resolutions or devotions and time with God actually is making it a priority and making it happen and focusing on progress and not perfection.

It takes time, planing and determination to take time each morning, to pray. Perhaps you didn’t like the idea of morning and evening devotions as a resolution. Maybe it doesn’t work in your current point in life, but there is always time to make a resolution to pray more. Instead of making a resolution that is difficult to achieve, try to make one that is achievable to your own schedule. Maybe it’s purposefully pausing, even for 5 minutes, alone in the bathroom, driving or over lunch etc. But it’s a time for you to pray rightly positioned before God and waiting and watching for His response.

If we apply what we learned so far from only these three verses, all of us would be greatly benefit from this Psalm. But God teaches us more as we look at the next section from v4 - 6,

Psalm 5:4 ESV

4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.

Psalm 5:5 ESV

5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.

Psalm 5:6 ESV

6 You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

In these three verses we see a reflection on the wicked. So far each Psalm referred to the wicked in different ways. In Psalm 1 it compares the way of the righteous versus the way of the wicked. Then Psalm 2 referred to wicked in relation to the rebellion against God. Psalm 3 David was attacked physically by the wicked. Psalm 4 David’s character was attacked by wicked people.

Now In these three verses we see a progression of the description of the wicked. As v4 evil, v5 boastful; and v 6 those who speak lies, bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

But if we look at this in more detail we also see a progression of how God views sin: v4 God does not delight in wickedness; v5 God hates all evildoers; and v6 God will destroy and abhors the wicked.

These two progressions indicate that as David is spending more time with God he is seeing sin more and more the way that God sees it. As a result David grows in awareness of the seriousness of sin and in his knowledge of how God hates sin.

In the same way, as we spend more time with God we will see sin more and more the way God sees it and have a better grasp of the holiness of God.

Corrie Ten Boom goes on to say:

When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles, When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devils shouts for joy.

From v4-6 of Psalm 5 we can see why Corrie might have said that the devil shout for joy when one stops praying, when we stop praying and reading our Bibles we will forget how much God hates sin, we will forget how serious sin is, we might think that what others do is sin, and think that when we sin is the same as making a mistake. We will have the wrong understanding of who we are and who God is. We might think that we are better than other people, that we are “good” people and since I am a righteous person that I have the right to come before God.

And we are back to my lesson in verses 1-3. All too often our lazy, apathetic and selfish approach to prayer reveals where we are in the progression of wickedness and sin rather than achieving the result we intended it to. Thankfully, David reveals in the following verses exactly how we are to respond and react.. v7

Psalm 5:7 ESV

7 But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.

After seeing sin and sinners the way God sees it, the world might expect David here to say something like this: God I thank you that I am not like other men: robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Like the Pharisee praying in Luke 18

But instead David prays like the tax collector in Luke 18 who said: God, have mercy on me, a sinner. David says: “God it is only because of your abundant love that I can come before, nothing in my hands, nothing in me it is only because of you and your steadfast love I can enter your house.

Then in the second part of this verse it points to the attitude that we all should have before the Lord. When we recognize our own sinfulness and God’s holiness we can only bow down and fear the Lord.

For some years I was attending evangelical churches that had the habit of kneeling when praying at church. We all can have different opinions on that, but the very act of being on your knees for me makes my heart more inclined to think of myself less or lower and having a higher view of God.

Then in the next verse we first the actual first petition that David made in this Psalm.

Psalm 5:8 ESV

8 Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.

As we have seen over and over again in the Psalms, It seems like a lot of preparation before the request.

Like when painting there is a lot of preparation, muddying, sanding, softening rough parts, then more sanding, then when you think you’re done you sand more, then the painting is the easy part, it actually it just highlights the quality of the preparation. As we can tell you from experience, if you had taken any shortcuts or “ignored” any imperfections you will very clearly see it once the paint is applied!

Here David’s request highlights a humble heart that ask the Lord for guidance to lead him, make God’s way clear, straight. The enemies and the circumstances are making it difficult to see the clear path which is going to glorify and honor God. If nothing else this is a great prayer that we all need to ask of God often.

I don’t know about you, but today with where we are and how things are developing it seems so hard to know what is the way we should walk, think let alone whom you can trust. It seems like that everything is polarized even withing the church, believers and our neighbours and that the only option for anything is an extreme position. In moments like this we need to pray “Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.”

After asking for direction the Psalmist turns back to wicked again.

Psalm 5:9 ESV

9 For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

We might wonder why David is turning back to the wicked again, it seems as if he is reflecting and asking the Lord for clear direction, then he remembers that the words of the wicked cannot be trusted and how their words are full of deceit…the words come out from a wicked heart.

When we look at our world without Christ, we shouldn’t be surprise that people are ultimately seeking destruction, and their words cause more division, more hurt. If we are honest we will realize that even in the church others might have said something that cause hurt, or even we might have said something that hurt others.

James 3 reminds us that the tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Psalm 5: 9 is quoted by Paul in Rm 3:13 where Paul is summarizing the sinful state of the human race, that at heart is in rebellion and in sin. As we look at the world, we need to read Rom 3. We see the same in this verse where it points out that what comes out the mouth is what defiles a person, because they come from a sinful heart.

But we can’t only look outside of us, if we are honest with ourselves and with God we will recognize that with our mouths we have sinned, that we are not guiltless, that ultimately as of ourselves we are unrighteous.

Then we would come to God and say: O wretched man that I am, O God be merciful to me a sinner, and we will go home justified not because of our righteousness, but because of Christ’s righteousness imputed on us through his blood. This is practical grasping of the tension between God’s holiness our unworthiness and the access we have through Christ.

But, we are not done yet with this Psalm, now we come to the second petition of this psalm.

Psalm 5:10 ESV

10 Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.

This is known as a imprecatory petition. That is a prayer asking for judgment on the wicked.

Should you be considering praying a similar prayer there are a few principles that are spell out in this Psalm that we should bear in mind.

v1-3 points that believers trust God with all their thoughts and desires

v4-6 points that God’s righteousness demands judgment on the wicked.

V10 points that vengeance belongs to God alone, there is no room for personal retaliation

v11-12 God’s covenant love for his people means God is always will intervening for his people

When these principles are in place it is proper for us to pray like David did here. Here David is asking for God to condemn sin, notice that the focus here is sin. To ultimately remove sin from this world, to bring to an end the rebellion against God.

When we see the effects of evil in our world, we cannot take matters in our own hands, but we need to pray that God will judge sin and then trust in Him that He will judge rightly.

However, we can’t forget that we don’t have any righteousness of our own. It is only by God’s grace and mercy that we didn’t receive the judgment that we deserve.

If we don’t recognize our unrighteousness and our desperate need for Christ’s righteousness, we would be like a child pointing finger to a brother that he would get disciplined without realizing that you are the next.

PAUSE

Next we come to the last section of Psalm 5, v11-12 which has a joyous request of David

Psalm 5:11 ESV

11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.

Psalm 5:12 ESV

12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.

V11 presents a contrast between the wicked in v10 with the judgment that will come and now the righteous in v11 find his refuge in God. Considering this contrast is hard not to think that every sin (thought, deed, word) was punished by Christ on the cross or it will be punished in the last judgment. Those that repent and believe and trust in Jesus, they found refuge in Him.

The request, petition is for all who take refuge in God to rejoice. May they rejoice, bc they found God, and their sins are paid in the cross, no matter what happens to the world around us we have everything possible to rejoice, we have Christ.