The Morning Resolve: Finding God's Straight Path In A Crooked World Series

The Morning Resolve: Finding God's Straight Path in a Crooked World

Sermon on Psalm 5

Introduction

What is the very first thing that occupies your mind when you wake up in the morning? Before your feet even touch the floor, in that quiet, vulnerable moment between sleep and the full awareness of the day, where does your mind go? If we are truly honest, most of us are immediately pulled into a vortex of digital demands and daily duties. The soft blue light of the phone screen is our sunrise. We are greeted not by the stillness of dawn, but by a deluge of emails, a torrent of breaking news, a stream of social media posts showing us the curated highlights of everyone else's life. Before we have even had a chance to fully form a thought of our own, our minds are hijacked by the world's agenda. The anxieties of the day rush in like a flood-the looming deadline at work, the tension in a relationship, the health concern that won't go away, the financial pressure that feels like a physical weight upon our chests.

The psalmist David, though living three millennia ago, knew this battle for the first thoughts of the day. As a shepherd, a fugitive, and then a king, his mornings likely dawned with immense pressure. He faced threats of assassination, the burden of national leadership, and the constant danger of his own moral failings. His life was anything but peaceful. And yet, it is precisely out of that pressure-cooker existence that he pens this 5th Psalm. This is not a song from a peaceful monastic retreat; it is a battle plan from the front lines of a difficult life. It is a morning prayer, a divine blueprint for how to orient our hearts and minds at the dawn of each new day, a lesson in how to find a straight path in what is, and always has been, a very crooked world.

In this powerful Psalm, David gives us four foundational pillars for a life that walks in God's favor. It begins with a simple, yet profound, morning resolve.

1. The Priority of Morning Prayer (vv. 1-3)

David begins with an impassioned cry. Notice the two distinct requests in verse 1: "Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation." He asks God to hear not only his articulated, spoken prayers-the "words"-but also the silent, formless groaning of his soul-his "meditation." He is inviting God into the deepest, most hidden parts of his being.

But it is verse 3 that contains the revolutionary strategy: "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up." Let's not read that verse too quickly. The word "direct" here is a powerful, sacrificial term. It's the Hebrew word used for laying the wood and the sacrifice in order upon the altar in the Tabernacle. David isn't just tossing a sleepy, casual prayer toward heaven. He is deliberately, carefully, and reverently preparing his heart. He is saying, "God, the very first and best part of my day-my time, my attention, my energy-I am placing it on Your altar as a dedicated offering."

Imagine a world-class musician before a concert. Does she just walk on stage and start playing? No. She meticulously tunes her instrument. If even one string is off, the entire performance will be dissonant. David is teaching us to tune the instrument of our souls to the pitch of heaven before we attempt to play the music of our day. If we don't, we will be out of tune with God's will all day long.

And after he directs his prayer, he says, "...and will look up." This is not a posture of doubt, but of eager expectation. He doesn't just launch his prayer like a message in a bottle into the cosmic ocean. He looks up, scanning the horizon of his day, expecting to see God at work. He believes the God he prays to will hear, and that He will answer.

Application: What would change in our lives if we adopted this single verse as our own? What if, for one week, we made a covenant to give God the "firstfruits" of our day? This means the phone stays on the nightstand. The TV stays off. Before the worries of your world rush in, you find a quiet corner and you deliberately direct your prayer to God. You don't have to be eloquent. You can simply pray this psalm back to Him. Tell Him, "Lord, today I direct my prayer to you, and I am looking up, expecting you to lead me." You are setting the spiritual tone for your entire day, declaring your dependence on Him before you declare dependence on your own strength, your own plans, or your morning cup of coffee.