Open your Bibles, if you would, to Psalm 17. Psalm 17. A prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord. Attend to my cry. Give ear to my prayer that is not from deceitful lips. Let my vindication come from your presence. Let your eyes look on the things that are upright. You have tested my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me and have found nothing. I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. Concerning the works of men, by the word of your lips, I have kept myself from the deeds of the violent. Uphold my steps in your paths that my footsteps may not slip. I have called upon you, for you will hear me, O God. Incline your ear to me, and hear my speech. Show your marvelous lovingkindness by your right hand, O you who save those who trust in you from those who rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings from the wicked who oppress me. from my deadly enemies who surround me. They have closed up their fat hearts with their mouths. They speak proudly. They have now surrounded us in our steps. They have set their eyes crouching down to the earth like a lion that is eager to tear his prey, and as a young lion lurking in secret places. Arise, O Lord, confront him, cast him down. Deliver my life from the wicked with your sword, with your hand from men, O Lord. For men of the world who have their portion in this life, and whose belly you fill with your hidden treasure, they are satisfied with children, leave the rest of their substance for their babes. As for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, help us to hear this prayer, to learn about the King who can pray such a prayer. Help us to learn who He is, and then to learn to be like Him, so that we too can pray such a prayer. We ask that we would be like the King, that we would be in Your likeness, such that You could visit us by night and find nothing. Help me to speak boldly and powerfully about the glory of the Son of God who prays this prayer. Help us all to be transformed by what we hear of him. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. One of the 19th century commentators that I was reading commented that few Psalms are as frequently sung in the church as this one. I was somewhat taken aback having never sung Psalm 17, but it was very popular at one point in the history of the church. This is a prayer that goes where a few of our prayers dare to go in terms of appealing to God and saying, look at me and see how righteous I am. The king appeals directly to the judge and says, you're my witness judge. You know I haven't done anything wrong. This prayer is the prayer of righteousness. If you'll notice, the first line, hear a righteous cause, O Lord, perhaps translated a just cause, same word in Hebrew. And then the final verse, verse 15, first line, as for me, I will see your face in righteousness. Prayer begins with righteousness and ends with righteousness. It is a prayer. of righteousness, the kind of righteousness that defies the prosperity and enmity of the wicked. This is a prayer that our righteous King prays and that he teaches us to pray as well. He starts, of course, with his plea. Hear a righteous cause, O Lord. We've come a long way from Psalm 4 where he says, Answer when I call, God of my righteousness. He had God's righteousness given to him in Psalm 4. Now he says, my cause is righteous. In fact, my prayer is righteous. Hear a righteous prayer. Not only is God righteous, the King is righteous too. And he says, my cause is right, Lord. Vindicate me. God is the judge. He is the one who hears pleas and causes and controversies and decides cases. That's how the king addresses him. Hear a righteous cause. God is judge who listens to these pleas and utters a verdict in the king's favor. The king is being attacked by his enemies. They are like a lion trying to kill him. Verse 12. So he brings his cause to God and says, Lord, help. Judge between me and them. Who's right? Who ought to prevail in this situation? And the first thing we should do as we read the prayer is think about our King, the one who prays this. Who is able to pray this prayer? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only one whose cause is always righteous. You and I are right sometimes, perhaps even most of the time. None of us would dare to say, I am always in the right. My cause is righteous now, and it will be righteous tomorrow, and I will never be in the wrong. Only Jesus can always say, My cause is righteous, Lord. So we should learn about our King that His cause is always righteous. We should learn that that's who He is. He is perfectly righteous. Then we should imitate Him and reject the enemies. We should follow God's commands. We should be righteous like Jesus is. And then we should pray this prayer in righteousness. When the king says, listen to my prayer, it's not from deceitful lips. Let my vindication come from your presence. Let your eyes look on the things that are upright. So we ask God to hear, to look, and to send forth vindication. The king wants the Lord to say, yes king, you are right, and the enemies are wrong. Now, the king provides some evidence or something about his character to say, this is why you should vindicate me, Lord. He describes his righteousness in terms of three particular body parts. He's not afraid to say, I have been specifically good with specific actions from specific parts. He starts with the heart. You have tested my heart. He's appealing to God. He doesn't say, I have tested my heart. He doesn't say, I'm pretty sure my heart is clean. I've conducted an analysis of my heart and I know of nothing against myself. He actually dares to appeal to the judge as his witness. Now, you have to be very sure of yourself if you're going to do this. To say, judge, you know this, is a very aggressive move. The king is not afraid to say it. because he is the son of God, he knows what his father knows, and therefore he says, you know I'm righteous. You and I both know that I'm righteous. Christ has this kind of trust because he already knows what his father knows, and he knows that God's verdict is righteous. My king is righteous. Therefore he says, you have tested my heart. If your heart isn't clean, none of the rest of you will be clean. Because from the heart comes everything you do. But, of course, the converse is also true. If your heart is clean, then everything you do will be clean. Because it comes from a good heart. Make the tree good, and it will produce good fruit. Make the heart good, and it will produce good actions. The king says, my heart is clean. So we should trust, first of all, that our king's heart is clean. Our king is righteous. He will never mess up. And as this political season swings into high gear, we can see the human need for a perfect king. You can see it in the partisans of either party. Our candidate is everything we ever needed. He is so good. He's going to be magnificent. Someone who's not politically involved can look at both candidates and say they're terrible. But the political partisans adore their candidate. They think they have the king who is righteous. As Christians, we need to take that step back and say we do have the king who's righteous and he's not running for president in 2024. His name is Jesus Christ and his heart has been tested by God and been found completely perfect. We need a perfect king. We have a perfect king. But not only do we need to trust that our king is perfect, we can take it a step further because he says he will give this perfection to us. Acts 15, God who knows the heart bore witness to the Gentiles, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. God can take a dirty heart and cleanse it. And when He does, when He cleanses your heart, then you can say with the King, you have tested my heart, and you have found nothing, not because you're so amazing, not because you and I are really good at scrubbing our hearts and getting them all clean, but because God cleansed the heart. If God cleans your heart, and then God comes and inspects it, for filth, what will he find? He will find that he did a pretty fantastic job. He will find that when he cleansed your heart, he did it as only God Almighty can. So have faith in your king that his heart is pure, but also have faith that he is the purifier of hearts, and that he won't do a half-hearted half-baked job on your heart. Once God purifies your heart, it's clean. Our King's heart is clean from birth, but our hearts are clean from rebirth. So the King says, my heart is clean, and he adds, my mouth is clean. My prayer is not from deceitful lips. I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. What comes out of your mouth shows only too accurately who you are. There is a direct link between the heart and the mouth. Anyone who can bridle his tongue is a perfect man and able to control the whole body. And so when the king says, my mouth is clean, you know how perfect he is. All of us have had that experience. It just popped out. Sorry, that is not what I mean, that is not what I think. But of course, if it popped out, it was in there somewhere. It wasn't in someone else, it was in you, and that's why it popped up. The king says, my mouth has not transgressed. Everything I've said is a word that I've meant, that needed to be said, that should be said, that was rightly said. Jesus speaks the truth. He promises to cleanse your heart, and as your heart is cleansed, that will work itself out in cleaner and cleaner speech. But in this life, the tongue can no man tame. But we need to learn to practice to tame the tongue, to be like our King. How do you control your tongue? Seek the Spirit to purify your heart. That's how. Don't even think about keeping off your tongue the words that form in your heart. It isn't going to work. If the words are in your heart, they will get on the tongue one way or another. Only a clean heart can keep a clean mouth. If your heart is pure, your tongue will be too. Our Lord's heart is pure and His tongue is clean. He also speaks of a third body part, the feet. By concerning the works of men, I have kept myself from the paths of the destroyer. Uphold my steps in your paths. He walks in the way of the Father, not in the way of sinners, but in the ways of God, the ways of the Lord, which are right. Rather than assaulting and killing those who get in his way, the king says that he has stayed away from all such paths of violence. How does a young man keep his way pure? by taking heed according to God's word. How does the king do this? Keeping his footsteps from the paths of violence. The same way, by listening to the word of God. He doesn't say, I tied my feet up with ropes. He says, I listened to your word. And that is what keeps my feet. And then he prays, uphold my steps, that my footsteps may not slip. The king recognizes that his faithfulness is in some sense contingent on prayer, that he needs God's help to stay on the right path. If you want to stay on the right path, you need to listen to the word of God and you need to pray and ask God to keep you there. For King, please, further, save me from my enemies. Not only does he pray, keep me in your path, but then he adds, keep me from the destruction that the wicked want to bring. Verse 6 highlights how effective prayer is. I have called on you for you will hear me. That is why we pray. If someone is not listening, most of us, stop talking. You find out that the room is empty, that the person you thought you were talking to is gone, you close your mouth. But when you find that the person is listening, you talk, and that's what prayer is. God hears, therefore we call on him. At God's right hand is safety. This psalm says, the last psalm says, at the right hand of God is pleasure. Pleasure forevermore. Here, verse 7, you say by your right hand those who trust in you from those who rise up against them. How does the king deal with enemies? He goes to prayer. Prayer is how the king counsels you to deal with enemies. The world, the flesh, and the devil. Now you won't find a single psalm in the 150 where David discusses his favorite brands of swords and spears. or describes his workout routine and how he keeps himself fit and strong and able to tackle Philistines hand to hand. Never does he say, this is how I got so good with the sling so I could take down Goliath. This is how I was able to kill the lion and the bear. He doesn't get into that. Whenever he speaks about the enemies, he says, God, save me. Physical training is of some value. Learning to handle a weapon, there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a lot in the Psalms about calling on God, being protected from your enemies, not by the strength of your right arm, but by the strength of God's right arm. You can't beat the world, the flesh, and the devil by investing in guns and ammunition. You simply can't. And that's why the king never talks about that and always talks about calling on God because God hears. He compares himself to two highly precious things. Keep me like these things, he says. The first one is the pupil of God's eye. How much do you do to protect your eyeball? If something is flying at your eye, everyone in this room put up his hand to protect his eye. That means that you value your eye more than you value your hand. As useful as your hand is to you, you would rather go without it than go without that eye. And the king says, God, protect me like you protect your eyeball. He also then asks him to protect him like a bird protects its baby chicks. Hide me under the shadow of your wings. These are two highly precious things. How do mothers protect their offspring? How do all of us protect our eyeballs? Basically, at any cost. We will do whatever it takes to save our eyes and to save our children. He doesn't say, protect me like you would a valuable vinyl record still in the original box, or keep me like the US government keeps the gold in Fort Knox. That kind of keeping is not good enough for the king. He wants something a lot more visceral, a lot more personal. That's the kind of relationship that our king has with God. God, you value me as much as you value your own eyeball. The pupil of your eye, that's how God keeps his king. God answers this prayer. But of course, as we recognize that God answers this prayer, we have to recognize that God let the pupil of his eye go into this wicked world. And there, Jesus was betrayed by Judas. He ran into a corrupt religious establishment with the Sanhedrin. He was cut down by a corrupt political system like the one headed by Pontius Pilate. The king says, God, save me like I'm so precious to you. And when you're that precious to God, as his own son obviously is, he might still allow these things in your life and mine. The way God keeps His King is the way that He might keep you. As you pray for protection from enemies, understand that sometimes He is going to answer this prayer for protection through a vigorous and dangerous conflict with the wicked. The kind of conflict with the wicked that Jesus underwent in His life on earth. He had to deal up close and personal with the wicked who ended up by killing him. And this is after saying, God, keep me as the pupil of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings. He transitions to this mini portrait of the wicked. Just a few verses as he describes what the world, the flesh, and the devil are like. Those who want to harm the king are described, first of all, as proud. They're fat and proud. With their mouths, they speak proudly. They had pride on their face, Psalm 10 says. Psalm 17 says they have pride on their tongue. How do you identify the wicked? They're the ones marching in pride parades. They're the ones giving proud speeches. They're the ones who are thinking, looking, and talking like they are extremely impressed with themselves. The wicked walk in that arrogance all the time. Their goal is to throw the king to the ground. They have set their eyes to cast us down to the ground, he says. They want to make you go down just like they want to make the king Go down they attack like a lion eager to tear like a young lion lurking in secret places The world wants to corrupt us the devil wants to corrupt us our own flesh is already corrupt The king so describes who he's up against And he says god deliver me Arise, oh lord. Remember we've seen this many times in the psalms He's talking to God, who is sitting on his throne, and he says, God, stand up. When you see someone sitting down, and then they jump out of their chair, you know they're serious about whatever it is you're discussing with them. The king says, God, stand up. Arise and confront the wicked. And he asks God to deliver my life from the wicked with your sword, with your hand. God has a hand, God has a sword, metaphorically speaking, and he uses them to deliver the king. To be delivered from the wicked is, above all, to be saved from becoming like them. Yes, the wicked want to kill us at times. Yes, they want to harm us. But the biggest thing the world, the flesh, and the devil are after is simply to get us to sin, to make us be like they are. The world wants us to live for what the world has to offer. The devil doesn't care what kind of sin we sin, as long as it's a sin, he's happy. And the flesh says, gratify me, gratify me, gratify me, do what I want. Don't do that hard self-denying thing that God wants you to do. The world, the flesh, and the devil usually work together. And their goal is to bring us down and make us wicked. The king prays against that. He says, God, stop the world, the flesh, and the devil. And he describes the enemies a little further. Who are these wicked? They're men of the world who have their portion in this life. And he describes them so positively. that a couple of Bible translations have actually said he's got to be talking about the righteous in the rest of the verse. He says, deliver me from men of the world, and then he goes back to describing the righteous. But he's not describing the righteous. He's describing a type of worldly person, what we would call a secular person, someone that you can see all around us today. What does he say about these people? They belong to the world. That's their home. That's where they conduct business. That's what they know, that's what they can talk about. They can discourse fluently about Wall Street or about this or that that belongs to this world. They have their portion in this life. Psalm 16 talks about God as inheritance. Psalm 17 says the wicked, whatever they can get, whatever piece of the world they can grab, that's their portion and they are content with that. They're 401K. their vacation house, their car. These things are all they want. And God gives them money, whose belly you fill with your treasure. They are satisfied with children and leave their substance for their babes. They have a good life by earthly standards. They leave a nice fat inheritance for the kids. Oh, when I'm gone, Johnny will enjoy all of this. That's the man of the world. He doesn't want any more than that. He is content with what is available within the horizon of this world. Why would I need pie in the sky, by and by? I've got a great life, good kids, good retirement, lots of travel and fun. What else could someone's heart wish? That's what the man of the world says. The king says, deliver me from that kind of person. I don't need that in my life. Psalm 73 describes the wicked by saying, they have everything that heart could wish. And that's these men of the world. In a certain sense, brothers and sisters, to pray this prayer is to say, God, deliver me from the prosperity of the wicked. Don't let me end up like this where I am satisfied with my own nice piece of the world. It's not wrong to have a nice house and car and kids and retirement and a good inheritance to pass on. And if that's enough for you, if that's all you want out of life, God needs to deliver you. Being delivered from being like the wicked may mean being delivered from prosperity as well as being delivered from evil. I'm not saying that poverty is a beautiful bride, as Saint Francis of Assisi used to say, but it is true that being satisfied with riches and only riches is not a mark of godliness, but a mark of worldliness. The King says, there is nothing wrong in my heart, but I need to be delivered from these kind of people. You take care of them, Lord. You give them what they want out of life. That's all they want. They're satisfied. But I am not satisfied with that, and please keep me from ever being satisfied with it. If you don't have those things, it's easy to imagine that they would be enough, that they would satisfy you. If you do have them, obviously you would know these things don't typically satisfy. People who have everything that heart could wish, want more. God says, you don't need these things. If you get them, that's great. There's more to life than that. What will the king be satisfied with? As for me, I will see your face in righteousness. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Men of the world are satisfied with getting their piece of the action. The king says, I'm not satisfied with anything less than the face of my father. There's a big contrast there. And we live, of course, in a culture that is utterly obsessed with the satisfaction of having enough of what the world offers. Wealth is where it's at, people. You hear that constantly. That's what the people around you believe. You yourself believe it in part. Just like the fish is wet, that's the culture that we swim in and we tend to think that. We have to be schooled by the King and taught to pray, I am satisfied by the face of God and only by the face of God. You will see God's face in righteousness. That's the thing. If the man of this world who has everything that heart could wish, if he dies and sees the face of God, it will be an unrighteousness. The Greeks had these stories that messed things up, right? You look at the gorgon and the gorgon's head kills you, regardless of what kind of person you are. That's a distortion of the truth. The reality is, if you look at the face of God and you're righteous, you will be satisfied. If you look at the face of God and you're unrighteous, That's what kills you. Your own sin blocks you from seeing the glory and the beauty of God. If you are righteous, if you follow the King, if you understand that He cleanses the heart, if you believe that and walk with Him through your life, you won't be satisfied with treasure and children and leaving a nice pile for them. You'll want more. You'll want to see the face of God. Not just any old way, but specifically in righteousness. As one who has done what is right, who has been made righteous by God's Son, and who is satisfied by the face of God. If you pray like your King, you will see His face. Let's pray. Father, we will behold Your face in righteousness. We know that You cleanse our hearts and that nothing and no one else can. Help us not to be satisfied with the things that the world offers. Help us to be satisfied only with Your likeness, being like You and seeing You. Father, the world is not enough. Only You are enough. You have made us for Yourself. and our hearts are restless till they rest in you. Give us that rest. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.