Psalm 9
April 25, 2021
Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are as painted for us in the beautiful picture of this psalm. You are judge. You are just and righteous. You reign as King. You are everlasting and Judge of the whole earth. You care for the needy and oppressed. You are worthy of our trust and hope; you are our refuge. Your name is unique and can be trusted. You are the God of fidelity, always doing right by us, never abandoning us.
Thank you for the victories you gave to David, king of Israel, and to your people as represented and led by David. You delivered them from various enemy nations, neighboring and far away, in battles small and large. Looking back from our place in history, we thank you for the victories you gave to the Son of David, Jesus the King. We see your judgments and deliverances in his life as he showed compassion for the needy; in his death as he suffered the greatest human injustice and yet thereby satisfied divine justice; in his resurrection as he sealed ultimate victory and guaranteed cosmic justice in the age to come.
You worked all of this, you expressed all these righteous judgments, so that we could go free, live under grace, and now live with confidence in your just and righteous fidelity to fulfill all your promises and commitments to us, secured by our King, Jesus.
In light of this victory that you, our King and Judge, have brought about, we seek you, as the psalm says. We cry out to you for daily victories as we live life in union with Christ. Give us daily victories this week over the world, the flesh, and the devil. We confess our vulnerability, our failures, our choosing false ways, being wise in own eyes, being conformed to this age, and trusting in false refuges.
We pray for the oppressed church, the persecuted church, around the world. In your justice give deliverance to our brothers and sisters who are suffering for Christ. We pray for the unreached peoples around the world and unbelievers nearby, within our sphere of influence—peoples and persons who are oppressed by the devil, by sin, by faulty worldviews that will fail in the end. Give your spiritual victory of salvation.
We pray for the church at large and for our church in particular. We ask for your work of renewal, reformation, repentance, reinvigoration. May we increasingly live out compassion and justice as you see it and as you have designed it. Help us to continue cultivating the community of peace and justice that you design your church to be; teach us to be part of your solution, not a part of the problem, in our society around us.
May we grow in the confident and patient hope expressed in this psalm. May we grow in our praise and rejoicing. May we take refuge in you. May we be a blessing to others who do not yet know the good news of your justice in Jesus Christ.
We pray in his name, and all God’s people said, “Amen!”