David: Man Of Prayer Series

INTRODUCTION

How do we pray? Could we pray better? If I asked you, who in the Bible is an expert in prayer, who would you say? You might say David. The psalms are prayers and at least 75 of the 150 psalms in the Book of Psalms were written by David.

We’re in a series on David, the shepherd who became king of Israel.

In my first talk I explained why David is such an important person in the Bible. One reason David is so important is that he’s a model, or type, for Jesus. In David we see something of Jesus.

My second talk was about the early part of David’s life. Samuel anointed David future king of Israel. Things started amazingly for David. For example, he defeated Goliath! But very quickly, things went downhill. Saul grew jealous of David. He saw him as a threat. David was forced to flee. He became a fugitive, living in a cave. It wasn’t a pleasant situation. But when every other means of support was stripped away, David turned to God. He wrote:

I cry to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my refuge,

my portion in the land of the living” {Psalm 142:5]

Perhaps this time of trial helped David learn that God is our only true rock and refuge. It’s a lesson which is difficult to learn when we have other means of support around us.

Today, I’m doing the third talk in the series. I’ve called it, 'David: man of prayer'. I’m going to look at how David prayed. Prayer was clearly a huge part of David’s life. We can’t talk about David without talking about his prayers. But talking about David’s life of prayer in general would be far too big a subject! So, I’m going to zoom in on one kind of prayer David prayed: prayers when he was facing trouble. And specifically, how he remembered God when he was facing trouble. This is probably the most common kind of David’s prayers in the psalms. David was often getting bumped by the world around him!

Before we start to look at this, I’d like to go back to a famous story from Jesus’ life. Jesus’ disciples were rowing across the Sea of Galilee. Jesus wasn’t with them, but he comes later, walking on the water. Peter wants to have a go at walking on the water. He says to Jesus:

Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ Jesus said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me’ [Matthew 14:18-20].

Peter was in trouble. He’d taken his eyes off Jesus and looked at the waves. Then he began to sink. He should have kept his eyes on Jesus. But he cried out ‘Lord, save me’, and Jesus did.

David also faced lots of metaphorical storms in his life. His psalms are full of references to persecution, trouble, danger, stress and accusations. He talks about his enemies’ words being like arrows, about a deep mire, about a flood sweeping over him.

David did what Peter did. He called out to God to save him. The first verse of Psalm 69 is,

Save me, O God!

For the waters have come up to my neck.

In other places David prays, ‘Keep me’ (Psalm 17:8), ‘Rescue me’ (Psalm 31:2) or ‘Hide me’ (Psalm 64:2).

But David did more than that. He did what Peter, when he was out on the lake, didn’t do. He kept his eyes on God. He remembered WHO GOD IS. Specifically, David remembered WHO GOD IS, WHAT GOD HAD DONE and WHAT GOD WOULD DO.

It’s very helpful to us. We know that in a storm we have to keep our eyes on Jesus. But how exactly do we do it? David shows us.

WHO GOD IS

When it comes to WHO GOD IS, the quality of God which is absolutely at the forefront of David’s thinking is GOD’S LOVE. Let me put this into context. There are 40 or 50 verses in the Psalms which say that God is great. But there are well over 100 verses in the Psalms which talk about God’s ‘steadfast love’! Some versions use the phrase ‘unfailing love’ or a similar phrase instead of ‘steadfast love’. David wrote about half of the Psalms, and he certainly talks about God’s steadfast love. God’s steadfast love is what motivates God to save David. For example, David prays, ‘Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; SAVE ME FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR STEADFAST LOVE’ [Psalm 6:4]. Or in another place, ‘Make your face shine on your servant; SAVE ME IN YOUR STEADFAST LOVE!’ [Psalm 31:16].