Introduction

Have you ever heard of a man named Steven Speilberg? Of course you have (unless you’ve been living in a cave) Steven Speilberg is one of the most famous film directors of all times. He has just a few blockbuster hits under his belt including:

• ET
• Jaws
• Jurassic Park
• Indiana Jones
• Schindler’s List

There are many others as well. Spielberg has written, produced or directed dozens of movies. He has received multiple Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Jurassic Park alone grossed over 1 billion dollars worldwide. He is very successful at what he does.

As of 2014, Forbes reports that Steven Spielberg’s personal assets were estimated to be worth just over 3 billion dollars. He is part of a very elite multi-billionaire’s club. Let me give you an idea about how much money 3 billion dollars is. Spielberg is 67 years old right now. With access to the world’s best health care, he might live for 25 more years. If Spielberg spent $300,000 every day for the rest of his life, he would still be able to give a sizable inheritance to his grandchildren when he dies.

As far as I know, Steven Spielberg has never claimed to be in need. BUT…If Spielberg ever came out and said something like, “I am poor and needy,” we would wonder if he was insane! He has 3 billion dollars. If I was to compare my finances to his, he is wealthy beyond my wildest imagination. In our minds, we judge wealth by way of comparison. How much does one person have in comparison to somebody else?

• If I compared my wealth to that of Steven Spielberg, I am certainly poor and needy
• On the other hand, the vast majority of people in the world (80+%) make less than $10,000 per year. SO, If I compared my wealth to most of the world, I am a very wealthy man.
• If Steven Spielberg were to compare his vast wealth to that of Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world, Spielberg would look like a hobo in comparison. Gates in worth 25 times more that Spielberg is.

Bill Gates is currently worth 76 Billion dollars and counting. There is only 1 person in the entire universe that Bill Gates could look at and say, “I am poor and needy in comparison to You.” And that person is our God and King! In comparison to our God, Bill Gates does not have anything at all. He is poor and needy right along with the rest of us.

76 Billion dollars is nothing if you compare it to someone who has infinite resources. What percentage is 76 Billion of infinity? It does not even register. There is not a fraction or a decimal point that goes that small.

And that is the kind of wealth and value and resources that our King has. Our God is so powerful, that he simply speaks things into existence and make them out of nothing. If he wanted 100 Trillion dollars, it’s really no problem. He can simply speak it into existence and it’s His. He created things like light by simply saying, “Let there be light,” (Genesis 1:3) and light showed up where there was no light before. (I think conceptualizing and creating light was a little more complicated than creating some dollar bills) Material wealth is not a big deal to a God who created and manages everything in the universe. It all came from His mind and it all belongs to Him

King David was a talented man with some wealth (kind of like Speilberg). He was a King. He had an army. He lived in a palace. He had everything that money could buy, yet he recognized that compared to the infinite resources of his God, he was poor and needy and in need of a lot of help.

Follow along with me as we go through Psalm 86. We are going to focus on the first 10 verses today.

The circumstances that surround Psalm 86 are unknown. What we do know is that when David wrote it, he was facing serious opposition from men who were fierce enemies. His opponents were both the enemies of Israel and the enemies of God but they looked as though they had the upper hand. David was scared. He was desperate. He needed help so he humbled himself and called upon the God who has infinite resources and a proven track record with Israel.

The Prayers of God’s Humble Servants Produce Real Hope during Crisis (v.1-4)

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
² Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
³ Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
⁴ Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

If I tried to get either Bill Gates or Steven Speilberg on the phone right now, do you think that the call would go through? Probably not. People with considerable means are usually very well protected. Usually only the rich and powerful and influential will get on the calendar of wealthy men. I am too little – too insignificant – to be able to call up Bill Gates any time I want and ask him for a favor.

But, (this is mind-blowing) I can call upon the God of infinite worth any time I want and ask Him to meet me in my time of need. I can access God any hour of the day. He’s interested in hearing about huge breakthroughs we’ve made in the ministry (100’s saved) and tiny little victories (enough to pay the bills). I can speak to Him about big problems or about little problems. He’s a perfect Father and is interested in hearing from His children.

Although God is of infinite value and infinite worth, He will come down to our level and meet us right where we are. The King James translates the text to read like this: “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me.” I think the King James paints a good word picture here.

John 4:24 tells us that God is a spirit, and so he doesn’t really have hands or knees or ears like ours, but the King James text offers a vivid illustration of God coming down to our level to hear our prayers. It’s a picture God towering above me in all of His majesty and worth and glory, and He hear me praying. Hearing my little petitions He then:

• …kneels down on his hands and knees and
• turns a listening ear to my little plea.

The infinitely exalted God has respect for my little prayers (and yours). I’ve heard people say before that they don’t want to tell God about their needs because they don’t want to bother God with their problems. He’s too busy, right? He’s got better things to do than to listen to me about my problems.

God’s not busy. AND He’s certainly not too busy for His children. If we were trying to do everything that God does, we would be incredibly busy, but that’s why you aren’t God… and that’s why I’m not God. God did not create a universe that He can’t control. God didn’t bite off more than He can chew. God can control galaxies and supernovas and volcanoes and the orbit of the planets without ever breaking a sweat. He rules the universe with His feet up. He has time on his hands and He is especially interested in the needs of his children.

As great as He is, he loves his children to come boldly before His throne of grace. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” So how does God want us to approach His throne of grace? I see two things in the text:

1. Confident about His power and
2. Humble about ourselves

Confident about His Power and Humble about ourselves

Not “bothering” God with our problems is a form of pride. Let me explain. When you and I neglect to take things to the Lord in prayer and instead, choose to figure it out for ourselves, we are saying to the Lord that we don’t really need His wisdom or resources. We have it all under control…You just keep out of my business

There is a phrase that if often quoted in Christian circles that says, “God helps those who help themselves.” Many people think that it is a verse from scripture. The truth be known, the phrase probably originated in Aesop’s fables. It was commonly said by Benjamin Franklin and a variation of the phrase is found in the Koran. It is not from the Bible and it’s not consistent with what the Bible actually teaches.

A more Biblical statement might be, “God helps those who humble themselves”

• Helping myself depends on me and my resources and my effort.
• Humbling myself requires me to draw from Gods inexhaustible resources and God’s unlimited power and God’s infinitely wise commands.

Confidently drawing near to the throne of grace, means we are actively recognizing that God has all the power and all the resources. He is infinitely wealthy. We have nothing if it had not been provided for us by His hand. He is full of resources. I, by way of comparison, am needy and full of wants. I have absolutely no right to approach this God, except for the fact that I am His child.

A humble man

• is confident about God’s power.
• Trusts His wisdom and
• Is willing to submit himself to God’s control.

Some people might look at verse 2 and ask, isn’t David being proud with the statement he makes about himself? It doesn’t seem very humble to say “I am godly.” Look at Verse 2

Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.

David was being oppressed and persecuted and he had not sinned.

• If you were given a ticket for going 23 miles per hours in a 25 mile per hour zone, it is not self-righteous if you defend your innocence – it is truthful!
• If you were wrongfully accused of cheating on a test, it is not self-righteous to prove that the answers are yours – it is truthful!
• If you were put into prison for manslaughter, it is not self-righteous to defend yourself in court. – it is truthful!

It is not self-righteous for good men to plead their innocence if they are really not guilty. David is pleading his innocence before the Lord, but he is very intentional about not placing his trust even in his own righteousness. He says, “save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.”   His trust is still firmly placed in the Lord and not in himself. He establishes his innocence and then cries out for God’s grace:

Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.

The King James says, “for I cry unto thee daily.”

The great difference between sinners and disciples is this:

• Sinners cry out to the Lord only when they are in trouble and then quickly forget about the Lord when the trial is over
• Disciples cry out daily to their King and rely on Him in the good times as well as the more difficult times.

Disciples know that the nearer they are to God, the more satisfied they become. Nearness to God is as satisfying to them spiritually as a cold glass of water is physically on a hot summer afternoon. In the good times, disciples want to draw closer to the Lord and when the difficult times come, they are just talking to an old friend when they are talking to the infinitely powerful King of Kings. Disciples know that their hope for deliverance does not come through their own self-effort but from God’s goodness, forgiveness and steadfast love.

Our Hope for Deliverance is Firmly Rooted in God’s Goodness, Forgiveness and Steadfast Love (v.5-7, 10)

⁵ For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
⁷ In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.

When you and I offer forgiveness, it often takes time. Sometimes we have to talk ourselves into it. “I don’t feel like forgiving him, but I suppose it’s the right thing to do.” Sometimes we have to get our minds right and gain victory over our flesh before we can really say, “you’re forgiven.” We are prone to say half-hearted statements like, “I guess I’ll forgive you, this time.” If we were honest, forgiveness doesn’t come naturally to most people.

God isn’t like us when it comes to forgiveness. The mercy of God is a mercy without a delay. He has a trigger finger on forgiveness. Before we can get the words out of our mouth, “God can you forgive me…” he interrupts with an emphatic “YES!”

God has his mind set on doing good. He doesn’t have to work himself up to it. It’s natural for Him to be Good and Goodness is His natural reaction to every situation. Everything God does is Good because God is the very embodiment of Goodness. Oh, and He has plenty of Goodness. His Goodness never runs low and never runs dry. His goodness is an inexhaustible supply.

There is a very old saying that says, “there is no fishing like fishing in the sea, no service like the service of a king.” What they mean is that the abundance and the pleasure that all fishermen look for is found in the sea. There is seemingly no end of good fishing in the sea. Likewise, the kind of deep and rewarding service that men look for is found at it’s best in the service of a King. There is no end of good service to be done for a good king.

With our God, there is no bottom to the depth of His goodness and his disciples can look forward to an eternity of good works to be done for His glory.

So David cries out to the God who is a never ending source of goodness to meet him right now in his crisis. God is not just merciful and gracious… BUT God is ABUNDANT IN MERCY and FULL OF GRACE. He does not just offer his love, but he is ABOUNDING with UNWAVERING LOVE. Psalm 103:8 says, “The Lord is merciful and gracious,     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

The kind of God we need when we are going through difficult times is a God who is both powerful and good. It is only in God that we find absolute power and absolute goodness side by side and in abundance.

• If God was powerful, but not good, He would be a tyrant. Herod the Great was a tyrant. He was powerful. He was important. He was wealthy. He built such magnificent structures – many of which still stand today. However, he was not good and he is known as much for his tyranny as he is for his architectural brilliance.
• On the other hand, if God was good but not powerful, He would be powerless to help His people. If God were generous and good, but had nothing to give, then His people would walk away empty-handed when they needed Him the most.

Either of those alternatives would be terrible, but with our God, we see both goodness and power existing perfectly side-by-side. We have both a good and a powerful King as our comfort and strength. We can see God’s goodness and power on display all the time when we look at his creation. If we skip ahead to verse 10, David writes, For you are great and do wondrous things;     you alone are God.” All that God does and all that God makes is good (like He is) and it has an element of wonder to it:

• Take for example the winds during the monsoons. They are powerful. They throw things around. Everything is impacted by them, but they are totally invisible. It’s a little mysterious.
• Or consider the lightening. From seemingly out of nowhere a bolt of electricity comes crashing down from the sky. A single lightning bolt can be up to 1 billion volts in power. Electricity raining down from the sky is a little mysterious.
• Or consider a delicate flower that grows in the midst of the monsoon storms up on Mingus Mountain. It is light and beautiful and delicate. It is rich in details and perfectly formed, yet it birthed out of a storm and grew from a seed that was dead. It’s a little mysterious

Spurgeon says, “Only to fools is anything which God has made uninteresting: the world is a world of wonders.” So to this God of incredible wonders and absolute power and endless goodness, David lifts up his prayer…go back to verse 6

⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
⁷ In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.

Life is short and we are busy people. We really don’t have time to fool around with things that don’t work. It would be useless and ineffective to call out to a God who could not or did not hear us. As a church, we are not committed to prayer because we are fascinated by prayer for its own sake. Prayer is not an end in itself but a means to a glorious end. The object of prayer is not to put together perfect sentences and sound pious.

The experience of mature believers has proven time and time again that God really does listen to and answer to prayers of His disciples. The scriptures say “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:16) Prayer is a practical and effective means of obtaining help from God in our time of need.

People who pray are people who wield tremendous spiritual power. Ephesians says that we should be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”

Let me ask you this – what is more powerful: The Chinese army marching across the country, armed with nuclear bombs or a godly old man talking to an infinitely powerful God in his prayer closet. I believe it is the man in prayer. (And that was proven by what we studied about Hezekiah) If we really believe that God is more powerful than armies, we will become people who are committed to praying at all times – understanding that prayer is powerful in our fight against the enemy.

Prayer is the way that we call upon all the supernatural resources of a God who has a perfect track record and who has been totally faithful to His people throughout history.

The Greatness of our God in the Past is Totally Relevant for Today’s Circumstances (v.8-10)

⁸ There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.
⁹ All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
¹⁰ For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God.

Let’s say for a minute that we took all the so called gods of this world and every imaginary deity came into actual existence and was given divine power. So standing side-by-side we have Zeus and the Greek gods, Budda, Allah from Islam, all varieties of tribal gods, the Baal’s from the Old Testament, the Egyptian gods and Pharaohs, the Pagan gods, the Romans gods, the Norse gods, the New Age gods in Sedona and so on. Thousands of gods standing side by side. If you were to give them the power their followers claim they possess and measure them all… …only our God would emerge as King.

When compared to all the other man-made gods in this sick and fallen world, our God reigns supreme and we reject all others! Our God is far above all other gods!

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.

You may ask, “what if these nice people are really sincere in their worship of one of these thousands of other gods?” They may be sincere, but they are sadly deceived. Is there real help in the prayer offered to an imaginary god?

Imagine that you were going through some financial difficulty in your family and instead of talking to your spouse about the problem, you decided instead to talk to your imaginary friend? Lara would not stand for me talking to an imaginary friend about our family’s problems while ignoring her. She would be greatly offended.

Our God won’t tolerate us talking to an imaginary god while ignoring Him. The psalmist says:

⁹ All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.

David’s enemies were proud of their violence and their abilities in war. They were people who ignored God while worshipping false, man-made gods. They were totally indifferent to the God of Israel. David said that all that will one day change

It was tempting for David to fix his gaze on the immorality and godlessness that surrounded him. And sometime we are tempted to do that too. BUT he quickly turned his eyes away from his enemies and their fables and fixed his attention once again on the God who he served.

The God of Israel had been totally faithful to His people. The God of Israel is also totally faithful to us, His church. God had saved him and guided him all his life and once again David was placing his confidence in the Lord during his time of need. Romans 2:4 states that God’s kindness to us in the past was meant to lead us to repentance. Let me offer you this life application from this text

Life Application

Many of you are faced with a seemingly impossible trial today and you are trying to do it all in your own power. You are operating under the motto “God helps those who help themselves,” and you are weary in the battle. I want to encourage you today to take out some time and spend it alone with God in prayer.

God helps those who humble themselves and seek his face and turn from their sin. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”