"God, Please Hurry!" (Scruggs) | Psalm 70

Sanctuary

07.05.2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_01 2:14

And that psalm is about how hard it is as we wait for God to act. But in then Psalm 70, it's telling God to hurry, to actually act quickly. And what is true of God's word, we need all of God's word, and we need all of the Psalms as well. Specifically with Psalm 70, I wanted to start with an illustration that I hope is helpful. Right now, there is a pilot in the airplane in the sky. And at the same time as this pilot is flying, there's an individual sitting in front of a radar screen and listening. And they are listening for the moment where it moves from a pilot flying in the sky in this daily routine to what would come over the radio repeated three times. Mayday, maidday, mayday. And this is from a French word that actually means help me. And in that daily routine, all of a sudden, people and details are coming together because there's a pilot in the sky saying, help me, help me, help me. And they're doing everything on the ground to ensure that they can rescue this individual. It goes from a daily routine to a rescue. And Psalm 70 is about that. David crying out to God, help me, help me, help me. And by verse 4, help us. We need your help. We need you to rescue. And I think we're invited to sing and pray and preach these psalms to address God with as much confidence as David and Psalm 70. But I have the feeling for some of those who are in the room today, at some point you hesitated praying this prayer and singing this psalm. Maybe in your life you have just felt too many times, it seems as if I'm sending this out, and I get an out-of-office response if I get any kind of response at all. That's why we need to sing the Psalms. That's why we need to be reminded on this Lord's day of this psalm. So let's pray together before we consider our two points. Entreat, pray your urgency, and entrust, hand it over. Let's pray before we consider that first point together. Father, we would just pray by your Spirit you would meet us where we are this day. That like David, we would be confident in this request to you. And we would find confidence as we just sang this psalm together. And a God who is willing and able to help by way of rescue. Father, we are grateful for your word. Meet us we pray. Amen. Let's begin with our first point together. Entreat, pray your urgency. According to C.S. Lewis in his letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer, he had this insight. We must lay before God what is in us. So if you think it, if you feel it, pray it. Say it to God. Because he continues, we must lay before God what is in us, not what ought to be in us. So David, in this urgent request, addresses his prayer to God of what is actually in him. And he begins in verse 1, make haste, O God, to deliver me by addressing God as God. It has to do with his power and purpose and plan in this world. So it's a powerful plan. Not only is it a powerful plan, it's his rule and reign in the world, especially when it comes to enemies and sin. The question that David is asking, who is in charge in this situation? It's God. Powerful. Not only is he powerful, it's his rule and reign. And by saying God, oftentimes in the temple or with God's people in the Psalms, it's getting back to the temple, which is to be in God's presence because God is with us. So it's power, it's rule and reign, it's presence. But then he can continues, make haste, O God, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. And by using God and then using Lord, it's all caps. This is the Lord that is in relationship with his people by way of covenant. It's the creator, and we are meant to be those who are created. It's the helper to those who are helpless. It's the strong to the weak. And all this by way of relationship. So what David is doing in this Psalm, and God's people are supposed to take up this verse as well together. Speak up and sing up. Pray up to God and Lord for his power and his presence from his reign to a relationship with his people. That's the one David is making his request to. Many questions, any questions, be direct. And then he makes this comment. Say what is in you to God, the Lord, for quick help. Did you catch that repetition? God help me. Help us. Make haste. We don't use this very often. Make haste, hasten to me. Do not delay. When is the last time you requested of the Lord to hurry up? To actually be quick. We enjoy this video as a family, and uh our boys play baseball, so we spend a lot of time at the baseball field. But there was a video years ago of it looked like, you know, this tall. It's probably five or six. He's running from third to home. And what happens in this video, all the parents, grandparents filming, the coaches yelling, he decides to go into slow motion. So they're saying, hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. Make it to home. It's as if our lives depend on it. Run quick. Hurry. And we would prefer the runner from third to home. Who is the fastest kid on the field? Do you have a God in slow motion? Or the fastest one on the field? Hurry, hurry, hurry. And David knows who he is addressing, God and Lord. And then David makes this insight from verse one of who God is, and David recognizes who David is. Verse 5: This is the shepherd king of Israel, David. He addresses himself, verse five, but I am poor and needy. Poverty of spirit is consistently commendable in Scripture. That you would be poor. Remember in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. So poverty of spirit and neediness. And are you a needy person? What little I know about this context, and I'm trying to get to know y'all as fast as I can. Are we a needy people? The amount of times I've heard someone say to me, let me know if you need anything. How often do you say that to someone else? Let me know if you need anything. God is saying of us this morning, let God know if you need anything. Because it's commendable to be poor and to be needy. And that's why Michael Reeves put it this way as we entreat, we pray our urgency. He writes, Being a Christian is first and foremost about receiving, asking, and depending. It's when we don't feel needy that you lose your grip on reality and think or act in an unchristian manner. In fact, as you grow as a Christian, you should feel not more self-sufficient, but ever more needy. It is the exercise of faith that you actually do need God and you are a needy receiver. So God is saying to us this day, let God know if you need anything. So we say what is in you to God and the Lord for Him to act quickly as the one who is poor and needy. And that brings us to our second point this morning. Hand it over to God. And we get the real life-threatening struggle that David is in with his enemies. Enemies that seek his life and seek his harm and seek him being faithful. That's their frustration with David. Those are his enemies, and as we learned briefly from Psalm 42 a couple of weeks ago, the enemy is the type of when you feel as if you are spiritually drowning. They are saying of you, where is your God? They are saying, in your tears, where is your God? They are saying, spiritual drowning and spiritual dryness in your tears. They're saying, in all those moments, where is your God? They're saying, when we are the walking, wounded, where is your God? And now in Psalm 70, the ones who are asking of such questions of God's presence and power, his reign and relationship are now seeking the life of David. We find out in verse 2, the one who is seeking my life, the enemy who delights in my hurt, the one who says, Aha, aha, and that's malicious triumph at the expense of the faithful. That's the enemy. Saying, Where's your God? And seeking to pursue your life and to harm you because you actually have faith in this God. And I think it is powerful and sad, and sometimes I wonder of my own faith when we receive information of what it's like on the ground from our ministry partners. Loss of relationships with family and friends, because of a conversion among them. They have actually buried brothers and sisters that they dearly love, all because of faith in Christ. One within this week that Bibles were discovered and destroyed just because they found God's word in a home. So can you imagine the loss of relationships burying brothers and sisters in Christ and hiding your Bible in your home as if it's like illegal drugs? That's the type of persecution David knows, and I think we know as well, and that's why he's saying, Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life, let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let them turn back because of their shame. And I think for us this morning, and maybe you have felt the way of our ministry partners, but I think again, in our social setting. What has it cost you socially and financially for being a Christian? What has it cost you? And some, I think, even among our family members, it's like, okay, at the holidays, we're not going to talk about politics. Don't ask about the boyfriend, girlfriend. And we can't talk about spiritual, religious things. And for some of us, the things in our life we're so serious about and have had so much impact in us as the formation of a people we can't even talk about with our very families. So we know of this feeling and that isolation, the conversation you're not included in because you're a Christian. The vacation nobody asked you to come to because you're going to ruin the party. This happened with me at the parade yesterday. I walked up, someone's like, hey, this is Jean-Marc, one of our pastors. And then he goes, Should I hide my beer? And it was 10 40 a.m. That's up to him, not me. It's those moments, but in this psalm, David does not seek personal or communal revenge. He leaves it to God. He entrusts God. He says from, and it moves from me, hand over those who seek God. In verse 5, may all those who seek you trust you that you will help us and that you will save us. And the day will come and is now that we rejoice and we were glad in you. May those who love your salvation stay forevermore. God is great, and David is making a shift. There's those who seek my life. And while they are seeking my life, we are seeking our God and Lord, and we are saying of him, He is great. That's why Tim Keller wrote these words. Circumstances can drive us to seek God, yet even before they change, we can say the Lord is great. He continues, we say the Lord is great when we find that God Himself and His salvation are enough. And we say together, God is great and we believe it, and not only do we believe it, we say it, and not only do we say it, we live it. My question for you this morning, how do we know of his greatness? We now know this in Jesus. It is moving us towards him, the one who has a powerful plan according to his purpose. The one God's people said, Jesus, he will save his people from their sins, but we will also call him Emmanuel because God is with us. It's his power and his presence, it's his rule and reign over darkness, where we're learning in John, where he continues to bring light, to shine in the darkness. And it is by way of relationship. For those of you who are in Christ today, just a word to you. That aha moment or seeking my life and pursuing my harm is something said about Jesus actually on the cross in Mark 15. We read these words, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross. But that's the point. In that moment for sinners who are saved, we've been crying out to God for help in our sin. And Jesus actually meets us where we are. And so what that means, if the enemies are willing to say that at Jesus on the cross, they're going to say it about his people too, as we see in Acts. But we also have my last point of application. What do we do about the enemies? And even for Jesus on the cross, he spoke words of forgiveness. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. We know in Mark's account that he is between two criminals, and one might be the first Christian. And what's fascinating, the second one, according to Mark chapter 15, the second one who might be the second Christian is a Roman centurion. So that's a Roman soldier, is a Gentile, not a part of the visible people of God. And at the conclusion of the cross before the resurrection, he says these words, truly, this was the Son of God. In other words, they both get that this was a rescue mission. They both get it. And so what that means for us this morning, that we do know that his salvation is great. We do know that he is the one to save. We do know that he is the one to rescue us. We do know that he is the one to deliver us. We do know that now in Jesus. So in his name and in this recume, this rescue mission, it can be personal. Follow the me's and the my's in this chapter this afternoon. And it's also communal in verse 4. That we can entreat, we can pray your urgency. And I would invite you to do so. And we can entrust our enemies, we can hand them over to God. For some, they will experience his judgment and punishment. And for other enemies, like I was before I was in Christ, we get to become children. We can conclude of Jesus. Truly, this is the Son of God. Let's close in prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you again for your word. Thank you again for this psalm. I would just pray that we would even experience on this Lord's day eyes to see the great rescue mission embodied in Jesus Christ. And by your Holy Spirit, we would conclude with David and the centurion. God is great. This is the Son of God. Look at all what God has done on our behalf. In the name of Jesus, we do pray. Amen.