As we come together tonight, especially to pray, if you would turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm number 85. Psalm number 85 is here. The psalmist sets before us a wonderful prayer to God as well as an exhortation to pray. So Psalm number 85 will be reading the whole psalm, verses one through 13, especially notes In our sermon, verses one through seven. Psalm number eighty five, which is a psalm of the sons of Korah. Lord, you are favorable to your lands. You restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people. You covered all their sin. You withdrew all your anger, your wrath. You turn from your hot anger. Restore us again, O God, of our salvation and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. But let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him. That glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky. Yes, the Lord will give what is good and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps away. Beloved, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, Scripture and the history of the Christian church shows us and testifies to us that the true powerhouse of the church, humanly speaking, is the prayer meeting. The example of the apostolic church, the first Christian churches who zeal for praying together as a people, as groups, as families, as congregations. Their zeal for prayer meetings should itself serve as an example to us of why and how and for what we are to pray for. The Book of Acts testifies over and over again that the church gathered together to pray. And as they prayed, the church increased and the word of God was successful. in its accomplishment of salvation. And so God in his good providence has provided us an opportunity to relay a good foundation of praying to make a regular practice of joining our hearts, especially in prayer, that this should be a priority in the life of our homes, but especially we as the house of God, as the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me commend to you, as we think this evening about prayer and about a prayer meeting, to commend to you a little booklet that I have given to some of you in the past. It's called The Family at Church, Listening to Sermons and Attending Prayer Meetings by Joel Beeke. I encourage you to get a hold of that little booklet to read and to think about why the church has, over its history, gathered together to pray for the success of the gospel. Now, we do know that prayer is one of God's outward and ordinary means by which he accomplishes his will among us. By prayer, the Lord himself invites us sinners to pour out our hearts before him. He promises to hear our prayers in his grace. The song says, Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you. God pledges to answer our requests that we ask of him in accordance with his will. Our Lord Jesus Christ says this. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. God even promises to bless our prayers, to use them in his amazing providence and his sovereignty. He uses our prayers to accomplish his powerful work. And he describes God throughout the Old Testament. He describes the blessing that God gives to prayer, comparing it to the renewal of the earth that rain brings from heaven. He says this, for example, Malachi chapter three, put me to the test, says the Lord of Hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. Hosea, the prophet, said it like this. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. And again, I will be like the dew to to Israel. He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take roots like the trees of Lebanon. When we pray, God promises to bless us like sending rain down upon us to give us growth, to cause us to have life and vitality. And praying is so necessary for us. It's so vital for our Christian faith and for our experience as churches together that Paul says God himself even assures us his own promise that we will have the spirit of God praying through us and in us when we do not know how we ought to pray as we should. He calls us to pray. He commands us to pray. He promises to hear. He will bless our prayers. But even when we do not pray as we ought, God himself steps in and intercedes. The Holy Spirit, we are told in Romans 8. Likewise, the Spirit himself helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. So we have gathered tonight to pray, to adore God, to confess our sins, to beg God for His work in our lives, to give us maturity in our souls, to plead for the conversion of the lost. Many of us who know many unbelievers plead for their salvation. And we do this together. We do it as a body of believers. We do it as a spiritual family, as members of that household of God. that the prophet Isaiah spoke of. C. H. Spurgeon, the great preacher, once said that we are to pray together for this reason. He said this when first one, I believe that is when first one and then another and yet another throws their whole soul into prayer. The kingdom of heaven is conquered and the victory is very great indeed. To lead us into prayer then tonight, I want to turn your attention to the first part of Psalm 85, especially verses one through seven. We should know well the history of Israel. God liberated them from slavery in the land of Egypt. He brought them up to a land of promise, and we know even from the beginning, they sins and they sin again and they continue to sin. And when the Lord had finally enough of their sins, He exiled them amongst the nations, first by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians. But then God graciously kept his promises and restored. His church, he sent them back to the land of promise, and that's where Psalm 85 picks up these temple singers, the sons of Korah lifted up their voices in song and in praise and in prayer. And you see this. They've sinned again. They've experienced redemption, they've experienced exile, they've experienced restoration. But yet, as they pray and as they sing. We ask why? And the question is, why are they praying this way? It's because once again, they had fallen flat upon their faces and sin. And so they prayed this and they offered up prayers like this for a new reformation of the church. for a revival of God's work amongst his people constantly sin and can do no otherwise. And so they prayed here as you see their restore us again. Oh, God of our salvation, will you not revive us again? Verse number six, that your people may rejoice in you as we go to the Lord in prayer tonight. Let us join the psalmist in recollecting, first of all, the Lord's work among us. You see here in the first couple of verses that he uses six past tense verbs, verses one, two and three. The psalmist says you were favorable and you restored first one verse number two. Notice you forgave and you covered in verse three. You withdrew and you turn They recount and recollect what God had already done for them, and he had done so much for them. That it was easy to forget what he had done, that might sound strange to us, but that's our own experience, isn't it? But God does so much for us that we are so easy to forget all that he's done. We take it for granted. He's lavished upon us abundantly, Paul says, his grace in Christ, all his mercies, all of his forgiveness. But yet we are so easy to forget. And so God, like a father, lavishes down upon them his gifts. It's as if God has spoiled his little child Israel with so many treasures of heaven that they took them all for granted. And that's why these sons of Korah who sang for the people, they recount, they recollect the work of God amongst them. He was favorable, he was gracious, he restored. He forgave, he covered their sins, he withdrew his anger and he put a smiling face again upon them. He turned away his hot anger and his smile once again shined down upon them. Brothers and sisters, as we Recollect with our minds what God has done for us in the past that should stir our hearts. To offer up thanks and praise with our lips, we saying that we offer up ourselves to God in this house of prayer, we dedicate ourselves. And as we remember, as we recollect what God has done for us as a church, whether we were here 12 years ago, whether we have just come. We should remember all of God's works. The lost have been found in this church. They professed faith in Christ. They have been baptized. Many of our children who have grown up in the Christian faith have professed that they, too, love Christ and that they, too, have professed his name before us and before the world. We've had those excommunicated in our church returned and restored. Those who are wayward, those who have backslidden have been renewed by God's grace and by His mercy. Those who have mourned have been comforted. Those who have been confused have been guided straight by the Word of God. Those who have been lonely have been loved by us. Our gracious triune God, like with the Israelites as the psalmist there sings and prays, To God, our gracious, trying God in the same way has been good to us. He's done far more abundantly than all we can ask or ever think, as Paul says. And all that he has done amongst us has been like the experience of the Israelites. Who sang in Psalm 126, when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. The grace of God so enrapturing us as if we were in a dream. As we go to God in prayer, let us also join the psalmist in repenting of our innumerable sins. The fact that the psalmist recollects what God did in the past and then asked here in verse number four for presence restoration for six for a revival once again amongst them. Implies that they sinned just like their forefather. God was favorable. He was gracious to them. Yet Israel was ungrateful. God restored them, yet they fell once again. He forgave, but Israel continued to sin. He covered their sins, yet they openly defied him once again. He withdrew his wrath, but they deserved it anew. He turned his anger away from them, but once again they experienced The turning of his face. Have we done any differently? Can we not cry out tonight in truth from our hearts as Paul said, Oh, wretched man that I am. Can we not cry out with the Psalms, I am a worm, not a man. We are miserable offenders, we pray often in our church. Wicked by nature, dark in heart, obstinate in our wills, selfish in our desires. Yet, the grace of Jesus Christ remains. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is the riches of his kindness, his forbearance, his patience that leads us, Paul says, to repentance. His abundant grace is the very foundation of our prayer. Without his grace, we are hopeless. Without his grace moving us to pray, we would have no assurance of our prayers ever being answered or heard. The Lord is still gracious. The prophet described it in Isaiah, chapter 65, that God spreads out his hands all day long to us, to a rebellious and a wicked people, his hand and his arms stretched out to receive us. And notice here two wonderful and practical points in terms of our praying that when the psalmist is there recounting God's goodness, asking for restoration because they have sinned once again. Notice this. What we learn from that is that no matter what our sins are, they cannot keep us as God's children from running back to God and repentance. No matter the sin that we ourselves have erected between us and God, those cannot keep us as the elect of God from God himself. And notice as well, secondly, that our sins cannot make God forget his covenant promises. He doesn't just, or they don't just pray here. These sons of Korah, they're not just praying a generic sorry to God. God restore us. God revive us. Notice the basis of it is God's very grace itself. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord. Grant us your salvation. Even in their sinful states. Those sins could not keep them from God. Those sins could not keep God from keeping his promises. And that's why. As we go to the Lord in prayer, that's why we must join the psalmist in pleading the reviving work of God in our midst for six, will you not revive us again? Restore us, O God. Just as he had once, verse one, restored the fortunes of Jacob, it's the same term. God once restored them, and now the Israelites are praying that he would again restore them and revive and renew them. And notice that revival is real here in this passage. It's not the euphoria and all the hoopla that we might associate with that word revival. It's literally to give new life. To give life again, revive, oh God. We once were alive and well, then we fell dead and God, as it were, comes and spiritually resuscitates us. He breathes back into us the breath of life, the Holy Spirit. He breathes into our valley of dry bones and resurrects us. He breathes upon our will that is bent inward in selfishness and turns it outward to him. He breathes upon our dark hearts and makes them once again hearts that are on fire with love for him. Will you not revive us again, he says. That your people may rejoice in you. As we pray, loved ones, as we think about what the psalmist says or the significance of this, we should pray in particular. As for seven describes. That God would revive in us the experience of his amazing grace, show us your steadfast love, O Lord, grant us your salvation. That little that that word there, steadfast love, is the term that's used throughout the Old Testament for God's being faithful to his covenant. That he's made a promise once and for all, and it is written in stone and it can never be erased or changed or altered in any way whatsoever. And over and over and over again, the Old Testament prays that God would be a God of steadfast love, of constant covenant faithfulness. We pray with the psalmist here that God would renew us and revive us in the understanding and the experience and the reception again of his grace. And we should also plead with God. For six. That he would revive us for the purpose. Of having again the joy of the Christian life that your people may rejoice. in you. God has been good. God has been great. God has been gracious to us as the psalmist describes. Yet we sinned. We've sinned over and over and over again. But he is the same God. He's covenant. A covenantally faithful God. He's the same God yesterday, today and forever. He's the same God who delights in reviving as people who desires to restore. Who takes pleasure in lifting us up once again? As we go to pray, remember these things. That this is our God. Who invites us to pray, who promises to hear and who will answer when we cry out to him in true faith. And all God's people say, Amen.