Psalm 17

When you think about God taking a deep dive into your heart and mind and looking around, what sort of response do you have?  I think it’s perfectly normal for us to hope that those one or two areas remain unseen and unsearched and yet the truth is, God already knows.  His intent, though, isn’t to look for flaws in order to condemn us. His desire is to heal us.  I believe one of the best things that happens to us when we follow Jesus is that we can have a truly clear conscience, not because we’re perfect but because we can be totally open.

We’ll be looking at Psalm 17, a prayer of David that invites God to look into his heart and to bring about justice. 

Transcript

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When you think about God doing a deep dive into your heart and mind and having a little look around, what's your response? You know, I think it's pretty normal for most of us to hope that those one or two areas remain unfound, unseen, and unsearched. The truth is, though, God already knows all of that stuff anyway. Here's the thing. He doesn't look into the depths of who we are in order to find flaws so that he can condemn us. His desire is to make us clean, to heal us, to make us whole again. One of the best things that can happen for us as Jesus followers is that we can truly have clean and clear consciences, not because we're perfect, but because we can be completely honest and open with God. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I'm genuinely glad that you've joined us today. We're in Psalm 17, a prayer composed by David that invited God to look into his heart and to bring about justice. Go ahead and open up your copy of God's Word to Psalm 17, and we'll take that in together. But before we do that, let's pray. Jesus, thank you that you know us. Lord, you know the ins and outs of all that we are, and as complex as we feel to ourselves, God, you you understand understand us perfectly. God, we trust you, and we ask, Lord, that you would just lead us in the best possible way over these next several minutes. We love you, amen. All right. Psalm seventeen, a prayer of David. Hear me, Lord, my plea is just. Listen to my cry. Hear my prayer, it does not rise from deceitful lips. Let my vindication come from you, may your eyes see what is right. Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil, my mouth has not transgressed. Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded. My steps have held to your paths, my feet have not stumbled. I call on you, my God, for you will answer me, turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who are out to destroy me, from my mortal enemies who surround me. They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance. They have tracked me down, they now surround me with eyes alert to throw me to the ground. They are like a lion hungry for prey, like a fierce lion crouching in cover. Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down, with your sword rescue me from the wicked. By your hand save me from such people, Lord, from those of this world whose reward is in this life. May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies, may their children gorge themselves on it, and may there be leftovers for their little ones. As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face. When I awake I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. Let's take a moment to just pause and listen to what God is showing us. You can pause this if you'd like. All right. Let's go ahead and make a few observations about David's prayer. It really comes to us, I would say, in three distinct kind of movements or parts to it. And you can kind of recognize them by those three leadoff statements. The first part starts with hear me, right there at the very beginning, and then the second part comes to us where he says, I call on you in verse six, and then finally, rise up, Lord, in verse 13. And what I mean by that is you could take verses one and two, and if you wanted, I'm not suggesting that we do this, but if you wanted, you could take out verses three through five, and it would still kind of make sense. Verses three through five kind of serve as a reflection. Verses 10 through 12 also serve as another reflection. And then finally, verse 15 is a is kind of a uh a reflection as well, just a very brief one there at the end. So we just see these three kind of pushes, these three requests bought brought to the Lord, and we'll sort of take our time as we go through each one. So that first one there is just very simply hear me. I I'm coming to you, God. I I I want to uh to have this conversation with you, and these things are on my mind. And he makes that all you know pretty clear that he's uh feeling uh like he he maybe he needs that vindication or that judgment. Some of your translations might say judgment, um a just judgment, a judgment for him to come from God. May your eyes see what is what is right. And then he reflects, starting there in verse 3, uh kind of back into himself. And it's like he's coming to the Lord and and he's saying, God, I want you to hear me, and and this is the condition of my heart. And I know that when we like assess ourselves, we're not always the best judges of character, but there is something about searching your own heart and inviting the Lord to search your heart where you where it that is that freeing moment, kind of like what we were talking about at the beginning, that when we invite the Lord to move into our hearts, if we have that feeling of like, you know what, I've I've done my best to be open and clean here. And it's not about perfection, but it is about like, have I confessed my sins? Have I, is there any like false or deceitful motive in me? And if not, then we can just rest in that, right? Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, like it's meeting with me even when other eyes aren't on me, when I'm in the privacy of of the of the evening and and ready to rest. Uh Lord, you can look at me at any time. People have tried to do different things, David talks about here in verse 4. They've tried to bribe me and and win my my affection that way, but no, I've remained true. My steps have held to your paths, my feet have not stumbled, right? So hear me, God. This is where I'm coming from. And then the second movement comes in. I call on you. And I love some of the language that he uses here, and I I appreciate the the sense that comes from phrases uh like, keep me um as uh the apple of your eye, right? He just turn your ear to me, uh, show me the wonders of your love. All of that is there. Hide me in the shadow of your wings. I'm bouncing around a little bit here between verses six through nine. But there's that that again, just that it's almost this like uh adoration and and and delight that that David has in the Lord and that he senses the Lord has in him as well. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? To think about God delighting in you, um, just uh looking at you as being the apple of his eye, just being that that jewel, that precious one, that that treasured person that he looks at me just like, man, I I'm so glad that you're a part of my family, kind of a deal. I I love how that comes across. And then he begins to move into like uh there at the very end in verse 9, you know, hide me from the you're in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who are out to destroy me, from my mortal enemies who surround me. And then again he moves into reflection, but this time not about himself, about them, about his enemies, verses 10 through 12. They close up their callous hearts, right? There's a hardness there. They they speak with arrogance, they've you know, they're predatory in their nature. And so he's asking, right? He's asking for protection, he's asking for even deliverance from the the enemies that surround him, and that's a that's a big deal that's happening in his life at the time. And then finally we get to that third movement where he says, Rise up, Lord, and that comes to us there in verse 13. Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down, uh, save me from such people, and and then just deliver justice. And that that again is David's heartbeat. I think we have enough uh experience now looking at the Psalms that we can recognize that, especially for David, that request is a common request. Like he spent a lot of his life facing enemies, he spent a lot of his life fleeing from enemies, he spent a lot of his life asking God to deliver him from peril. And as much as he had moments that were peaceful, and last week we got to look at Psalm 16, which was one of those moments. This is a really common thread throughout David's uh prayer life and throughout the things that he wrote down that we get to have a peek into now because uh they're here for us. And finally, he concludes with this sense of clarity, uh, as for me, verse 15, I will be vindicated and will see your face. When I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. I wanted to talk a little bit about the words that the translation that I'm reading from, which is the NIV, the newer version, 2011, and they made a choice to use the word vindicated. Uh, I will be vindicated and will see your face instead of using the word or the combination of words of in righteousness. In righteousness, I will see your face, I think is close to how some of the other translations have it. And I was like, oh, that's striking, because you know, the word for righteousness doesn't necessarily push into vindication, but I I think the sense is there. By the way, this isn't me trying to defend one translation over another, but it just it made me think is kind of what I'm driving at. Because um, in in the beginning, um the uh the vindication he talks about in verse 2, let my vindication come from you, may your eyes see what is right. In other translations, it actually has the word judgment in there, but it's that sense of a judgment that is for him, right? That his name has been cleared. He's been declared to be righteous. Does that kind of make sense? So he the the translators are using the word vindication because they see that as um righteousness that's been proved, right? Righteousness that's been like he's been vetted, and it's like, oh no, he he is exonerated, he is acquitted of whatever accusation might be out there, he's declared to be righteous, and I think that's where that stems from. Anyway, it just made me stop and think, and I was like, oh, we should talk about that. Um, because righteousness, like to be right before the Lord, includes that sense of being declared clean. That whole sense of that clean and clear conscience is there for us. So let's reflect on just a couple of things uh before we head off into whatever the Lord has next for you. The first question is just building on what we've been talking about. Do I have a clear conscience? And if when we stop and think about that question, we're like, huh, huh, then there might be something there for us to confess, to let go of. And if that's you, do it. Just move into that time where you just say, Lord, search me. See what's in there. And if you already know about something that's that's there, that's been left undeclared, right, unconfessed, confess it to the Lord. Receive the forgiveness that is yours through him, and then you get to move on in freedom once that's done. And then, secondly, am I satisfied with whatever God has for me? David says there at the end, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. That will bring me this contentment. And however things shake out, is God really enough? Is he sufficient for us? Can we rest in that contentment simply because God is here, God sees us and knows us. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for the goodness of today. God, thank you that you give us every protection that we need and that you are there for us no matter uh what's taking place in our lives. God, we desire to be clean before you so we confess what needs to be confessed. Thank you, Jesus, for forgiveness. Thank you for that clean slate. We love you. Amen.