The Progression of Prayer

My heart is filled with thankfulness to Him who reigns above, whose wisdom is my perfect peace, whose every thought is love. For every day I have on earth is given by the King. So I will give my life, my all, to live and follow Him.” That’s a beautiful hymn. if God’s people would take their Bibles and turn to Psalm 77. Psalm 77.

This morning I want to address the subject of prayer and that shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise since we’re studying the Psalms and the Psalms are basically prayers to God. We know that we are commanded to pray. We are expected to pray. We are encouraged to pray and we are given many examples to pray. But I’d like us to zero in on the overall idea of prayer, what it is, how it’s done, and how it develops over time. As soon as we mention the subject of prayer, we have to acknowledge that there are various elements to prayer, different kinds of prayer. I never miss an opportunity to use that simple acrostic A-C-T-S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. And I recite that frequently because every time I do, someone comes up to me and mentions that they had never heard that before.

Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication, the making known of our requests. And so there is this prayer of adoration where we express to God the reason for our worship of Him, There is the prayer of confession expressing to God our agreement with Him regarding some sinful behavior about which the Holy Spirit has convicted us.

And there is the prayer of thanksgiving by which we express our gratitude to God for what He has done in our lives or in our midst. There are many different facets of prayer. But whenever anybody speaks about a prayer request, it’s almost always a prayer of supplication. Something that we want from God, something that we want Him to do. It’s true that leading a group in a prayer, someone will inevitably suggest elements of adoration, Some friend may come to you and confess some misdeed to you and appeal for prayer.

And we are often asked to rejoice with someone, to give thanks. But typically, a prayer request is for some great need. You’ve got folks at the door, I’m sorry. Drop that out if we can. When we come before God with a prayer need, we are entering into a process, if you will, a living, developing spiritual process. We’re communicating with the living God.

And in that realm, God is shaping us and our prayers. And that shaping process is such that even the particular request in the end differs greatly from the prayer that we uttered at the outset. God is shaping us through the process of sanctification that we know, but he also desires to shape our prayers as well. And the shaping of our prayers over time is that which the psalmist models in Psalm 77.

Paul said it well. In Romans 8, we do not know how to pray as we should. The Lord’s disciples seemed to recognize this early in their walk with Christ when they appealed to him, Lord, teach us to pray. The Lord’s brother, James, the one-time leader of the church in Jerusalem, said that often we pray with wrong motives. God works this out over the course of our praying, correcting our motives, correcting our prayer, shaping it, if you will. The Apostle John urges us to pray according to God’s will. Aligning our will with God’s, that has to be done over the course of time.

Psalm 37.4, a verse that is so often abused, says, delight yourselves in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. That verse does not mean that we can demand of God whatever our heart desires and that God somehow has to comply. What it talks about is the fact that God’s will over time will bring our desires into alignment with His, so that our prayers line up with His will, not our own. Let’s look to Psalm 77 with that desire to see the transformation of the psalmist’s prayer over the course of these 20 verses. Psalm 77.

My voice rises to God and I will cry aloud. My voice rises to God and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord. In the night, my hand was stretched out without weariness. My soul refused to be comforted. When I remember God, then I am disturbed. When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint.

Selah. You have upheld my eyelids. Yeah, pardon me. You have held my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I’ve considered the days of old, the years of long ago. I will remember my song in the night. I will meditate with my heart and my spirit ponders. Will the Lord reject forever? And will he never be favorable again? Has his loving kindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Or has he in anger withdrawn his compassion?

Selah. Then I said, it is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. I shall remember the deeds of the Lord. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on all your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. God is great, like our God. You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your strength among the peoples. You have, by your power, redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you, O God. The waters saw you. They were in anguish. The deeps also trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth a sound. Your arrows flashed here and there. The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea, and your paths in the mighty waters, and your footprints may not be known. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Here in Psalm 77, as we see the transformation of this psalm writer’s prayer, we see the process of God shaping our prayers and refining them. And this may or may not have been the writer’s original design. He obviously goes before God with a specific request for his own purposes, but undoubtedly we can observe and learn from the development of his prayer over time.

There’s an interesting feature in this psalm. There are over 40 main statements. They’re all parallel with one another. One right after the other. There are certainly subordinate thoughts that are woven throughout this psalm. And these subordinate thoughts provide important detail. But there are only a handful of these subordinate thoughts.

Four of them occur in verse two, glance there, in the day of trouble, in the night, when I remember, when I sigh. There’s also a quote, a subordinate quote, in verse 10. It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. And there is a final prepositional phrase at the very last verse. by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

All of the rest of the statements are primary. They’re simple sentences, one right after the other, at least 44 in all. With regard to the overall structure of this psalm, it’s very straightforward. It’s not a terrifically complex psalm, as in our previous psalm, Psalm 46.

This psalm breaks naturally on the Selahs of verse 3, 9, and 15, and it gives us four sections of nearly equal length. I would suggest to you that these four sections capture the stages of transformation of the psalmist prayer. It should be noted here that the psalmist brings a request before God, not for his own personal need, but on behalf of his people, his nation. We’re not told about any specific context for this psalm, and so we don’t know the specific need that his nation was facing. One reformer simplified this psalm by saying, this psalm sets forth to us God and the ways of God, how he works and what he does, and that’s true. There is theology embedded in this psalm, but it is very much a prayer. The psalmist goes before the Lord for the sake of God’s people, not for himself. And whether he knows it or not, our writer models for us the progression of prayer, the stages of transformation in a saint’s prayer. Now, for our purposes and by means of application, I want to make this Psalm lesson very practical.

And for us, as a church, I would suggest to you, as I often have, that our greatest prayer need is that God would provide elders to shepherd this flock. We have now, for six years, lacked a plurality, at least one additional elder. That’s not just a concern that affects me, that’s a concern that affects our entire church.

Last month, In our adult Sunday school class, we embarked on a review of Shepherdology, a study of church leadership. And during that initial class, we noted that while there are many different models of church leadership, one of them, that is leadership by a plurality of elders, is God-given.

God tells us what model of leadership we are to use in his church. Ephesians 4, Paul tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ gave gifts to his church in order to meet her needs. The church needs the offices that Christ has provided. In verses 11 and 12 of Ephesians 4, he says that he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers.

Why? For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ. Now, if you know me, you know that that word pastor there is much better translated as shepherds. That’s the way it’s translated everywhere else that that word appears. It refers to a plurality of elders given for the spiritual care of his flock. He knows our need because it’s his model of leadership for the local church.

If Christ gave those things to meet the needs of his churches, and we as a church do not currently enjoy that, then we must fervently appeal to God in prayer that he would provide for what he knows we need. Well, as I said, whether he knew it or not, When he wrote this psalm, the psalmist has much to teach us about the matter of prayer.

Let’s consider the stages of transformation in a saint’s prayer. As we look at the progression of prayer, the first stage of prayer is the initial appeal in prayer. this very first stage in the development of our prayer is to pray. And I know that sounds obvious and simplistic, but it may well be the very hardest part of prayer, just getting started, just pulling aside from the crowds and the noise and the opportunities and the duties and the family, just pulling aside and bowing our head and going before the Lord in prayer. That may be the hardest thing of all.

The psalmist knows this and he models it. He begins, my voice, he says in verse one, my voice rises to God. And with that voice, he declares, I will cry aloud. This is a fervent and passionate prayer. He not only calls out to God, but he does so audibly. For emphasis, he repeats that declaration, my voice rises to God, together with a statement of certainty that God will hear him. He believes that he’s not just blurting out words into the atmosphere.

He believes that he has a direct line of communication with God himself, and he’s using it. recurring feature of the Psalms that the writers frequently appeal for God to hear them. But they also acknowledge that indeed he does hear them. Psalm 4-3, the Lord hears when I call. Psalm 5-3, you will hear my voice. And it’s one of the Apostle John’s great encouragements in that first epistle that he wrote. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

In this time of national trouble, distress, or adversity, the psalm writer knew where to turn. We cannot be certain what the trouble was exactly, We can be certain that he knew what to do. He knew to pray. And in verse two, he tells us, in the day of trouble, I sought the Lord. He went to God in prayer, knowing that God would hear him. And his was not just a casual or fleeting prayer, but as James calls it, fervent prayer. Listen to this, the second statement of verse two.

In the night, my hand was stretched out without weariness. My soul refused to be comforted. We’re not told yet whether or not he’s sleepless, but whatever was important enough for him to go before the Lord in prayer, even in the night. It was an important enough thing that he engaged in prayer without weariness. His prayer and the cause behind it energized him. It stirred his heart.

And when he speaks of an outstretched hand there, it signifies open-handed waiting upon the Lord’s provision. I’m sure that we’ve all had occasions of these kinds of prayer needs, whether it’s sickness, personal or otherwise, social unrest, a great need of some sort. We come before God and we plead for him to give what it is we seek. I can think of more than one heart-wrenching occasion where I spent the whole night agonizing in prayer. You’ve had the same. In such circumstances, we are so consumed with the need that the clock on the wall seems to disappear. We lose all track of time.

It’s the need, it’s the prayer that energizes us so that we, too, are not weary. That’s what the psalmist is talking about here. And our psalmist is not looking for a quick hint of assurance from God. When he says at the end of verse two that his soul refused to be comforted, he’s talking about the kind of engagement in prayer where the child of God refuses to let go. He waits on him for a solid assurance. Nothing else will do.

And until he has such affirmation, he remains at his post before God in prayer. Suddenly, in verse three, it seems as if the psalmist feels the full weight of what it is he’s doing. And you’ve had this moment as well. He has come before Almighty God, the creator of the universe, to plead this matter. And this suddenly troubles him greatly. I am disturbed, he says.

All that is left in him is a sigh as he collapses in a heap before God. I was struck with how accurate one man of God characterized this experience. He said, there are moments in the life of every believer when God and his ways become unintelligible. We get lost in profound meditation and nothing is left to us, but a despondent sigh.

This is so true, but we don’t quit. We press on. In those moments, we persevere in prayer. And so with regard to the restoration of a plurality, we might say that we’ve prayed, we’ve asked God for this. We’ve recognized our need, we brought it before the Lord in prayer, And surely before we’ve even uttered such prayers, the Lord knows our need. Surely we have sought the Lord, we’ve cried out about our need. But we will not, we must not relent in our prayerful appeal for this very necessary provision for our church. There’s a second stage in this progression of our prayer, a second stage in the transformation, not only the initial appeal, but secondly, the compelled perseverance in prayer. We find it in verses four through nine.

If a natural wakefulness was part of the initial prayer to God. Here in verses four and following, it is a forced wakefulness that unfolds. It seems that God himself is stirring his servant to continue in prayer. He’s not only encouraged, he is prodded. He is forced to stay awake in prayer. Consider the way that the psalmist says this in verse four. You have held my eyelids open. What a graphic statement.

We’ve seen in other psalms that sleeplessness is a recurring event for God’s people, especially in seasons of great difficulty. And here it is the upset for the challenges facing his nation that keeps our psalmist awake, even beyond his own ability to remain vigilant.

He can’t sleep because God won’t let him. God has incited and stirred him to a devotion to prayer. He knows that God would have him to be so engaged. He is troubled so much that he can’t even speak. He has prayed and prayed until his voice and his thoughts and his pleas are exhausted. His prayers seemed to have withered and dried on the vine. But his heart swells with hope.

He thinks on God and his faithfulness in the past and the days of old, years long ago, he speaks. And those memories stir him to renew his prayer efforts. Verse five, I will remember. I will meditate. My spirit continues to ponder. This is the saint’s private wrestling with God in prayer, meditating in his heart, pondering in his spirit. He seeks no wisdom or counsel except that from God himself. These are those hours when we prayerfully seek, search God’s word and seek God’s affirmation in his word. These are those hours where we prayerfully Persevere.

Luke 11, Jesus tells what I hold to be a theoretical story of a friend who comes seeking wisdom, seeking something from his friend, seeking bread at midnight, and he just keeps knocking until the homeowner gets up and gives him what he needs. Spread. Jesus says, ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be open to you. We must persevere in prayer. Verses seven through nine, he rattles off the very questions with which he’s wrestling. In the dark corner of his heart, he entertains our very human inclination to negativity. He mulls over these six questions, all of them dismal and depressing. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never be favorable again? Has his loving kindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious or has in anger withdrawn his compassion?

But as gloomy as the questions are, they actually seem to point the psalmist upward. Each of the questions is rhetorical, and each of them could be, should be, answered with a strong and definitive no. The Lord will not reject. forever. He will indeed be favorable in time. He has not withdrawn his mercy, his loving-kindness. He has not broken his promises. It would be impossible for him to cease to be gracious, nor has he withdrawn his compassion. The psalmist ponders God as he is.

The answer becomes clear. We can learn from this too. I often balk at the idea that just any man can be trained and taught how to be an elder. It’s true that I’ve taught through Shepherdology now four times in six years. We’ve done so not to teach men how to be elders. Rather, we’ve done so to teach Men, what an elder is.

And to wait on God to stir their hearts and to make it clear to the church, if anyone is called. Ours is not to become impatient with God or force the issue. Ours is to persevere in prayer and wait. The third. stage of transformation in the saint’s prayer, and we see it in verses 10 through 15. In this progression of prayer, not only the initial appeal and the compelled perseverance, but thirdly, the helpful recollection in prayer.

Still in prayer, the psalmist wells with enthusiasm at the reasonable answers to his morbid questions. And he acknowledges immediately here in this new section that God Most High has changed his heart. God has taken away his grief that he might more vigorously pray. Perhaps it was some sin that he confessed. Perhaps he gained some new perspective. Perhaps his doubt had begun to fade. Whatever it is, his sullen grief has lifted. Gone. God has touched him. God has changed his heart, changed his perspective, and now he redoubles his effort to think on things as they are.

Well, this is Paul’s admonition to us in Philippians 4, isn’t it? Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence in anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. And that’s exactly what the psalmist is doing.

It’s greatly beneficial for God’s children to think on God as He is. Not to focus on their dismal circumstances, wondering if God has changed in some way. And so our writer commits himself to doing just that, remembering who God actually is. Not as we doubtfully fear him to be.

He devotes himself to remembering the deeds of the Lord, the marvelous things that God has done, his wonders, his works, his miracles. These are the things to which he now turns his mind to ponder, to meditate upon. This will encourage our friend. It will restore his hope and his faith.

As one godly pastor put it, history and prophecy are the two great sources of comfort to the saints. Isn’t that beautiful? History and prophecy are the two great comforts to the saints. History tells us what God has done. Prophecy tells us what he will do. Both are tremendous sources of encouragement to God’s people.

No sooner does our writer begin to think about God as he is, his mind is flooded with the true character and nature of his God. Verse 13, God is holy. He is separated from his created humanity because of their sin that one writer described it as his sacred apartness. I love that. And if God is without sin, he can be trusted to do what is good and right and just, always. Not only that, verse 13, God is great. We sang about that this morning.

In that he is creator, sovereign, and redeemer, no heathen God is even alive, let alone approaching any of God’s greatness. And if God is great, then there is nothing that he can’t accomplish. Verse 14, he observes that God is not only holy and great, but he is the God who works wonders. He has a miracle working God.

And the pages of scripture are filled with accounts of his wondrous deeds. He has displayed his strength, the psalmist acknowledges, before the Gentile world. As the heavens, remember Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. As his invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature reveal, Romans 1, God has shown himself to everyone ever created. And the greatest of all deeds, verse 15, he has redeemed his own people. whether out of bondage to Egyptian pharaohs or bondage to sin. And as God is the God of redemption, he will yet save his people.

In our own circumstances, this is no less required of us to think of God as he is. He is the one who established the church. which Christ Jesus purchased with his own blood. Jesus exhorted his apostles that the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Are we to begin to think that God will not supply his church with everything that we need? We saw in our study of 1 Corinthians 12, The Holy Spirit sovereignly and variously gifts God’s children and then places them in Christ’s body, the church, just as he desires. And so surely God will provide what he has already determined is one of his church’s most basic needs.

Leadership by a plurality of elders. There’s a fourth and final stage of this prayer. As we look at the progression of prayer, not only the initial appeal and the compelled perseverance, the helpful recollection, but fourthly, the specific examples in prayer. Our psalmist has initiated his prayer to God. He has persevered in that prayer. He has stirred his mind and heart to a greater faith by his memories of God’s attributes. What else is left but to identify specific examples of God’s wondrous deeds?

Now commentaries, I’ll tell you, are divided here regarding the specific references of verses 16 through 19. Some see these as pointing simply to the powerful effects displayed in the average storm. Clouds pouring forth water, sounds of thunder, lightnings, and the like. Others attribute these references in their entirety to God’s great miracle of parting the Red Sea, which issued forth the salvation of God’s people from the Egyptians. Verses 16 and 19 strongly point to that conclusion. Verse 16 says, pictures the waters as so fearful of God that they tremble in retreat. Verse 19 speaks of a way, a path in the mighty waters. But the effects of even an average thunderstorm, as mentioned in verses 17 and 18, are absent from the original count.

And so that remains a problem. But if God can miraculously provide a magnificent cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, and divide a great sea through which Israel could walk on dry land, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that here the psalmist is adding detail that the original did not. Thunder, lightning, You may well have attended that pillar of fire and cloud and the parting of the sea. We cannot be certain here.

The bottom line is the magnificent power of God is often spoken of in this same kind of imagery. Listen to David’s description of God’s presence from Psalm 18. The earth shook and quaked. The foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken because he was angry. Smoke went up out of his nostrils and fire from his mouth devoured. Coals were kindled by it.

There’s really no reason why we can’t think of the psalmist stringing together several magnificent descriptions of God’s powerful presence. including the parting of the Red Sea. The psalmist is talking about actual events during which God had powerfully and fearfully made his presence known.

But that intense imagery, glance at it, it gives way to another truth. That God’s history of Redeeming and saving his people. Verse 20, you led your people like a flock. By the hand of Moses and Aaron. There’s a wonderful contrast between the intensity of the storm mentioned above and the serenity, the salvation he speaks of here. Both are illustrations of God working in our world. And so it is with regard to elders. God has seen fit to supply everything that he demands.

Initially, God provided apostles for the establishment of his church by the preaching of the gospel. But as his church began to grow and flourish, God began to provide shepherding elders for the ongoing leadership of his churches. Elders were mentioned in the churches of Jerusalem and Judea. They’re mentioned in connection with nearly all the churches that Paul planted in Asia, as well as Eastern Europe, Ephesus, Philippi, and even that rough and obscure little island of Crete.

Here’s my point. If God has faithfully ordained a model of leadership by a plurality of elders, And if God has faithfully provided such leadership for his churches throughout the centuries, and if God has faithfully provided elders even for this church over the course of 28 years, can we not expect in hope and by faith that he will again provide for this basic need?

We can, and he will. Ours is to persevere by faith in prayer, bringing our requests before him. As with everything, everything that we could ever ask, he knows what we need before we even verbalize it. And yet he tells us to ask, would you humble yourself before him? Our merciful God, we thank you for this psalmist and for his prayer. We thank you for this model that he presents to us, even if unwittingly, to see a prayer transformed over time, not just a simple appeal and not just dogged perseverance, but ultimately a changed heart as he reflects upon who you are and all that you’ve done. Father, we would echo that same model.

We know what you have done. We know what you demand of your churches. We know what you have designed. And so we come before you and plead for your provision of grace that you would open your good and benevolent hands and give to this church what you know it needs.

A plurality of elders to shepherd this beloved flock. Lord, we plead for that. Lord, we acknowledge your grace at work in our lives, the transformation that you have done in our very lives. And so we pray for any who do not know our Lord Jesus, that they would come to know him, that they would see that he is the only provision for sin, that He is the Savior of the world, the Redeemer, even as is mentioned here in this very Psalm. Lord, we pray that you would draw them to yourself in faith, that you would unite them with us in the great all that we have, a mission to proclaim Christ throughout the world. We thank you and we praise you. In Jesus name, amen.