Jesus in the Morning

Prayer matters, and how we pray matters. Do you ever find yourselves either forgetting to pray or praying the same kinds of prayers over and over again to the point where your prayers seem to lose their heart? Sometimes we struggle with prayer. There could be so many reasons why we struggle but I think the primary reason is that we forget our great God.

What we need is a good reminder every now and then of God’s character and nature, a reminder that will encourage us to call out to God with renewed faith and passion. Psalm 5 serves as that great reminder for us this morning.

Psalm 5 is a lament psalm combined with a psalm of confidence. It was written as a prayer to be prayed in the morning during the morning sacrifice at the alter of the Lord. It is filled with reminders of God’s character and also serves as a template of a great way to start out our day.

Jesus is King

The Psalmist begins his prayer by acknowledging that the LORD is King over all the earth. The Psalm is attributed to David, and so what we see is one king submitting to another King. Yet God is not just any other king, is He? No, God is the King of Kings and the Lord of lords! All nations and peoples are bound by the will of God. Only the Almighty Sovereign of the universe could say, “I am God, and there is no one like ME, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” Of whom could it be said, “any are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand (Proverbs 19:21)” other than the eternal King. It is to God the King that King David submits to for help, and as David first begins his day with submission to God, we would do well to follow his example.

Even though we in America do not have a king ruling over us and our country, there is still a kingdom that is ruled by a most wonderful King in which we may be blessed to find citizenship. The Kingdom is the Kingdom of God, and its king is Jesus. It may seem like a very vague kingdom right now because the kingdom is only established in part through all those who belong to it through faith in Jesus. Jesus is not ruling from a throne on earth but from His throne in heaven and that distance, that separation between us and Jesus may cause us to forget our heavenly citizenship. Yet Jesus is near to the Christian through His Holy Spirit who ministers to us according to Jesus’ will, and we have the very word of God given to us in the Bible by which we may learn the divine decrees of Christ our King.

If we forget that Jesus, the King of kings, is in fact alive and continually working on establishing His kingdom on the earth and is ruling from heaven with all the authority over heaven and earth given to Him by God the Father, then we inevitably forget that He hears our prayers. If we forget that God hears our prayers then we will not pray, and if we do not pray then we will go about our business with the complete weight of the world continually on our shoulders and we will be crushed.

Our glorious King hears our voice because He is constantly listening for our voice. As the Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 3:12, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to our prayers (1 Peter 3:12).”

When we wake up in the morning, let us remember that Jesus is our King and we are His citizens if we obey His voice. Let us submit our desires, our wills and everything we love to the care of Jesus who listens for us and always hears us when we call. And when we remember that Jesus is King, may we then remember that Jesus is a good King.

Jesus is a Good King

After acknowledging that God is the eternal King and then submitting to Him through his prayer, the psalmist proceeds to affirm that God is in fact a GOOD King. Now, he does not do this by recounting the wonderful blessings from God. Instead, the psalmist declares the goodness of God by declaring God’s hatred of what is bad. And he does not mince words, either. Listen to the words of verses 4-6:

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;

evil may not dwell with you.

5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;

you hate all evildoers.

6 You destroy those who speak lies;

the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

How could the psalmist be describing God’s goodness while speaking about the people God hates and abhors and will destroy?? Well, because God is a good King, He does not take any part or pleasure in anything that is not good, i.e., wickedness. Not only that, but anything that is not good He does not and cannot allow to dwell in His presence. Pure goodness and wickedness are complete opposites and cannot ever combine. As oil and water must by nature be separate, so too must goodness and wickedness. Therefore, the goodness of God for the righteous is demonstrated by God’s hatred of the wicked.

That God would hate the wicked causes many, myself included, to pause. We like to say, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” because that seems to work better with what we know about God. However, when considering God’s pure and eternal judgement, it’s the unrepentant sinner that receives the fullness of God’s wrath, not his sin.

In Revelation 19, Jesus is described as carrying out the wrath of God. He is pictured as a riding a white horse ready to make war and carry out righteous judgement. His eyes are a flame of fire and he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood. The armies of heaven, clothed in pure white linen, followed Him to war and from His mouth came a sharp sword with which He would strike down the nations and rule them with a rod of iron. The war will end when the armies of men are slain by the sword from His mouth and all the birds of the earth will gorge themselves with the flesh of the dead.

So, what are reminded of in these three verses is that God’s hatred of the wicked and complete separation from evil demonstrates His goodness and zeal for what is righteousness. All that is wicked will be destroyed while that which is good and righteous will remain forever.

We don’t usually like to think about God’s hatred of all that is evil, yet we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring that aspect of God’s character. If we wake up in the morning and remember that God is good and pure and holy and has nothing to do with evil, we may be encouraged! It’s a reminder that the injustice in the world will not go unpunished, God will never change and cannot be corrupted, and that He will surely work to remove from His children all remnants of sin. But I think it should also serve as a motivation for us to communicate the truth of Jesus to those whom God currently hates. Everyone needs to know that wages of sin is eternal death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus the Lord.

While God hates the sinner, He also demonstrates His great love, because as we see from Psalm 5:7-8, God is also a Loving King.

Loving King

If God only acted upon His hatred for sinners, then all of humanity would have been destroyed long ago. But the very fact that sinful, wicked humans still roam the earth proves that God’s hatred is tempered by something. That something is love.

Because of humanity’s sin against God, there is nothing we deserve in the eyes of God other than eternal punishment in hell. We have acted wickedly against a good God and the penalty is expulsion from His presence forever. However, God may also love those whom He hates

The psalmist is a testament to that love as we read in verse 7. After describing the hatred of God for the wicked and His expulsion of wicked from His presence, the psalmist said, “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.” It was only through the love of God that the Psalmist could enter the house of God when the wicked were shut out. It was God’s love that prevented the psalmist from being counted among the wicked. The Christian can say the same thing.

For the Christian, it’s only God’s love for us while we were still sinners that we can confidently say we have been forgiven. Had God possessed only hate for sinners, He would not have sent us Jesus who died to take the wrath of God upon us. But He also loves us at the same time. He provided a way for us sinners to be made clean and welcomed back into fellowship with Him, and the Holy Spirit of God makes this all possible by healing our spiritual blindness and allowing us to see the goodness of God through Jesus Christ His Son.

When we recognize the graciousness of God who demonstrated love toward sinners He hated, there is only one appropriate response: worship. We should bow down and worship our loving King Jesus who gave His life to pay our ransom. Could you imagine how our days would change if they started with some form of worship to God as we remember all He has done for us? What might be different if we counted our blessing at the beginning of our day instead of at the end? I think we would enter into our days with renewed joy and a spirit of thanksgiving which would certainly be a blessing to us and those around us.

Our King who is good and loves us is sure to answer the prayers of those who love Him, even the prayers for justice.

Just King

In verses 9-10, the mind of the psalmist again returns to those who do not follow God. When he considers the adversity he and the rest of the righteous experience by the hand of those who do not love God, he cried out for God to carry our justice by punishing all those who rebel against Him. The liars, the destructive, the bringers of death, he prays for God to judge them according to their own actions by casting them out from His presence forever.

Scripture is clear that eternal judgment and separation from the goodness of God is the ultimate end for all those who do not live by faith in Jesus. It may sound callous to ask for God’s judgement upon others, yet in it we see his desire to see his people freed from oppression. In his mind, the way that would happen is if God would remove the oppressors. When considering it in that light, we must realize that we desire that too…we desire that all those who would deceive our children and encourage them to live sinful lives would be judged and stopped. As a pastor, I find myself praying against false teachers whose teaching might deceive the hearts of my church flock. I want these people and false teachers and wolves in sheep clothing to be stopped for the sake of my children, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ. It is not wrong to ask God to bring about justice in this way as long as we leave the judgement in His hands and trust Him to do what is best. Whether the unjust are stopped now or not, they will all receive their eternal judgement when they stand before God.

How wonderful it is that King Jesus is just! Everything will be made right, and the citizen of heaven will enjoy justice from God forever! This frees us to place into God’s hands the troubles and concerns of the day. We have no need to create our own form of justice or carry out our own judgement or vengeance for there is no need to worry about those who might come against us when Jesus is our King.

Jesus favors the righteous

The final portion of the psalmist’s morning prayer is a petition for God’s blessing on all those who take refuge in Him. While the wicked will be judged and cast out of the God’s presence, those who submit to the LORD God will rejoice and experience God’s protection. Why is this so? Because of verse 12: The LORD blesses the righteous and covers him with favor as with a shield.

I think it’s worth pointing out again that God’s favor rests upon those who seek Him. Those who do not seek God do not receive God’s favor and are therefore hated by Him. God loves His children of faith with a never ending steadfast love with which He does not love the rest of the world. And how did you and I and all the other born again Christians come to receive this favor? While God hated us in our sin, He chose in His love to give us undeserved favor leading to salvation.

When you wake up in the morning remember that you are loved by Jesus, a King who favors you as His child above the other peoples of the earth, not because of what you have done, but because of what He has done for you. Let this motivate you to worship Jesus in the morning and throughout the day.

Jesus is a King who favors the Righteous.

Conclusion

During his morning prayer, the psalmist came before the Lord and professed five things about God He is Eternal King, He is good because He hates evil, He is loving, He is Just, and He favors the righteous. These five things about God are all great news for the one who loves God!

Because God is Eternal King, He is the only one with the power to truly help us in our need.

Because He is all good, He hates evil and the evildoer and will never participate with sin or be corrupted.

Because He is loving, He provides a way for people to be forgiven and come back into fellowship with Him and He answers our prayers.

Because He is just, we never need to carry out our own form of judgement or vengeance on those who treat us unjustly and so we may live with peace.

And because He favors the righteous, we who are made righteous by His favor have every reason to worship Him in the morning and throughout the day.

I challenge all of us to be intentional about starting each day by submitting to and reflecting on the character and nature of God. He is awesome in all of His being and He alone is the one whom we should seek. This is a great way to be daily transformed into the image of Jesus so that we may be a living testimony to Jesus and bring glory to Jesus each and every day.