This evening, I would ask you to turn into the Word of God to Psalm chapter 50. And as well, if you could turn into the back of your Psalter hymnals to number 57, where we will be considering how Psalm 50 fits together with Lord's Day 45, question and answer 116. So once you've found it in your Bibles, if you want to put it aside, Let's say together, page 57 in the back of our Psalter hymnals, Lord's Day 45, question and answer 116. I'll read the question and I would ask if you will all respond together. Question and answer 116. Why do Christians need to pray? Because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And also because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts and thanking Him for them. Keeping that in mind, let's look at Psalm number 50. Our text for this evening is verse 14 and 15, but I'll actually read the entirety of the psalm. So our text again is 14 through 15, but I'm going to begin at verse 1 and read to the end of the psalm. Psalm 50, a psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes and will not be silent. A fire devours before Him, and around Him a tempest rages. He summons the heaven above and the earth that he may judge his people. Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, and I will testify against you. I am God, your God. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world is mine and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice thank offerings to God. Fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me. But to the wicked God says, what right have you to recite my laws, or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you join with him. You throw in your lot with adulterers. You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. You speak continually against your brother and slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent. You thought I was altogether like you, but I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face. Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces with none to rescue. He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God. Once again, our text for this evening, Sacrifice, thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you will honor me. So ends the reading of the Word of God this evening. Let us pray together. Lord, we do indeed thank you for your word. It is such a wonderful blessing for us. And we who are weak need to hear its truths daily. We ask, Lord, that you would open up your word to us this evening, that you would nourish us by it, and that we may honor you. This we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Well, I hope you've made the connection for what we're talking about this evening. From the question and answer we said 116, why is it necessary for Christians to pray? And from our text this evening, offer thank offerings to God, sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me. Both this text and the question of the Catechism are about prayer. It's telling us why it is so important, both the text and both the catechism, of why it is so important for Christians to pray. When you think about your times of prayer, how often is it something we just walk through? How often is it something we just go about the motions through? You pray before dinner because that's what you always do. You pray before the games at the Christian school or with the church league because that's what you always do. You pray with a gathering with school friends or when driving to work because that's what you always do. But why? Why is it necessary for Christians to pray? Certainly not just because that's what you always do, because as we see in this text, formalism, doing things just out of tradition, doing things because that's how you've always done them, is spoken against. A few days ago, we all gathered together for Thanksgiving. We gave thanks to our God. How are we to thank Him? Why is prayer so important? Well, as the Catechism says, it is the most important part of our thanksgiving before the Lord. And that's saying something because we do a lot to show thanksgiving to the Lord. We say that in all we do, in all we say, in all we think, that we are showing thanks to our God. In church, we read from His Word, we sing praises to His name. But He says, prayer is the most important part of our thanks. The Catechism says, prayer is the most important part. And that would fit very well with what we read in this psalm, in verses 14 and 15, because if we notice, this is a psalm of Asaph. And Asaph was a Levite. And it stands to reason that Asaph had quite a bit to say about the worship that was going on before God. And what we find is when Asaph looks at the tabernacle worship, he doesn't say you need to bring bigger bulls, you need to bring bigger goats. No, he says you need to sacrifice thank offerings. You need to fulfill the vows. You need to call out upon the Lord in the day of trouble. All three of these statements he's telling us to pray. Prayer. We are to pray. These two verses describe the prayers that we are to give to God very simply. He tells us we are to pray because God requires it. And because God responds to it. This is why we are to pray. Because God requires it and because God responds to it. Well, the very fact that I state God requires it shows us that these words of the psalmist are only for those who are God's children. These are only for those who believe in the God of the Bible. Who believe that the Son of God died upon the cross for them. Because it is only those people who God can require anything. Think about our prayers. We come to God in Jesus' name. God does not require the prayers of somebody Who's just lost their job Who has no faith Who cries to the heavens Why me? That's not the type of prayer the psalmist is talking about Nor is he talking about the prayers That any number of religions offer up He's talking about the prayer of God's people Prayer is for the children of God Prayer is for you and I and we can pray for the sake of Jesus Christ. The catechism tells us prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And what we see about this requirement is in these two commands. In verse 14 we read, Sacrifice thank offerings to God. Fulfill your vows to the Most High. And the reason I think this so clearly speaks to the prayers of our God is it wouldn't make sense for the psalmist to go verse after verse saying, why does God need the blood of goats and bulls? The cattle on a thousand hills are His. He is not hungry. He is not thirsty. If He was, does He need your sacrifices? No, He could receive it Himself. But then immediately the psalmist says, sacrifice, thank offerings. It's not a contradiction. He's speaking to the sincerity of prayer. The sacrifice, the thank offering, are our prayers. It's not a physical sacrifice. But rather, it's speaking to the sincerity of prayer. That's a reminder, just as it was for the Israelites, for us today. To not come to our Lord lightly. Prayer is a serious thing. And when we come before our God with our thanks, it is to be of a sincere and serious nature. Never pray out of tradition. or simply out of habit. It's very good to have habits of prayer before meals. I grew up praying before meals. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do that. But every time you come before the Lord, it is to be a sincere matter. It's not something to say lightly. I remember one scene in a sitcom where they all sat around the table and said, rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, and started eating. And it got a nice chuckle from the laugh track. But I'm sure it didn't get a nice chuckle from God. We are to come before the Lord sincerely in our prayers. Never pray out of tradition. Never pray simply for the people in the room. And I can tell you very honestly, this has become a temptation for me more and more the longer I am in the pastorate. That I worry about what the people standing around me think of my prayer. And I neglect the fact that I am praying to God Almighty. When you approach the Lord, bring a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Sacrifice a thanksgiving offering. Come before Him in sincerity. Offer this spiritual sacrifice of bringing your prayers, your praises to the Lord. So the psalmist says sacrifice, and then he moves on to say fulfill your vows to the Most High. That's a very interesting statement. And what we're to take from that, I believe, is what the idea of vows often mean in the Old Testament. When the people would take vows, when they would fulfill their vows, as Calvin says, it's the idea of rededicating their life to God. In prayer, when we come to God in prayer time and time again, it reminds us whose we are. It reminds us that we are God's. It reminds us to rededicate our life daily to living this life of thankfulness to our Lord. So while this idea of offering a sacrifice reminds us of the sincerity of prayer, this reminds us of the ongoing nature of our prayers. Our prayers are to be ongoing. Our prayers are never to end. There's never to be a time where we say, I think I've prayed enough. I don't need to pray again. We should be constantly coming before our Lord to fulfill our vows to the Most High. And our ongoing thanksgiving, again, is referred to in question and answer 116, where we're told that prayer is something where we are to continually groan. We are to continually becoming before our Lord's throne of grace, praying to Him. Praying that our lives may be thankful, thank offerings to Him. Because keep in mind that the catechism says our prayers are the most important part of our thanksgiving. But it doesn't say the only part. Remember, this question only comes after questions 92 through 115, where we see how the law of God, the Ten Commandments, is how we show our thanksgiving to God. And prayer and the life we live are very complementary things. Because in question and answer 86, we're told that in all our living, we may show that we are thankful to God for all He has done for us. And when we remember what prayer is, communication with God, if our prayers are sincere and our prayers are ongoing, it cannot help but help our Christian living. Because when you're on your knees before the Lord, it is harder to stumble. When you pray continually for forgiveness from the sins that you struggle against, it becomes harder to commit those sins again and again. Because in those prayers of thanksgiving, we are reminded what a great God we have. And we are reminded what this God has done for us. So it necessarily serves as an aid to our Christian life. We come to our Father in Jesus' name. And when we end our prayers with that, that's not something to be lightly said. It can frustrate me when people don't end their prayers in that. Or when they say, in your name. No, it's in Jesus' name. And when we come before our Lord in Jesus' name, it reminds us exactly who we are. We are those who have been delivered. We are those who live lives of thanksgiving. When we offer a sacrifice, when we fulfill our vows to our Most High God, we are reminded we are reminded of who the God is that we serve and we are better equipped to serve Him this idea of ongoing thanks that we see is contrasted with the ongoing ignorance of the people of God that's the reason I read verses 16-22 because just as in verses 7-13 we see the Lord speaking of not being formal formal in your prayers, not just going about it because you've always done it, but being sincere. On the other side, he says, have your prayers be ongoing, as opposed to those we see in verses 16 through 21, through 22, rather. Those who use their mouths not to call on God, but to speak slander, as we see in verse 20. To use their tongues for deceit, in verse 19. To use their mouths for evil. To forget God, in verse 22. who have no right to recite His law, no right to have the covenant upon their lips. What we see here in verse 15 is the appropriate way we are to speak to our Father. In verse 14, rather. We are to fulfill our vows rather than to be those who only use our tongues for slander and deceit for evil and hypocrisy. We are to pray because God requires it. It is the most important part of our thanksgiving. But that is not all. As we see in verse 15, we are to pray because God responds to it. God responds to it. And it's interesting because all three of these terms, sacrifice, fulfill, and call, are imperatives. They're commands. They're directives for the people of God. But this last one, the third and final, is sort of an odd thing. Because a call is different than the others. You can bring a sacrifice. You can fulfill something. But a call necessarily has to look to the one who is called. A call does no good if on the other end of the phone nobody picks up. A call in the bottom of a gorge with a giant boulder on your leg, out to the heavens if nobody is at the top of that gorge to hear you, does no good. A call relies on its object. And we're reminded that God responds to us. He will deliver. But He will deliver to those who call. As question and answer 116 goes on to say, God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts. God will deliver us. He says, call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you. We can think of this in two ways. God has delivered us in His Son. In Jesus Christ, God has delivered us from sin and the power of Satan. Galatians 1.4 says, Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. So when we call out in the name of Jesus to our Father in Heaven, He hears our cry of distress. He assures us of forgiveness for the sake of His Son. We can be confident that we cry out as His dear children. And we can also come to Him in this idea of our troubles throughout this life. He continues to deliver us. Whenever we are in trouble, whenever we are in doubt, whenever we are in fear, we can cry to Him with the confidence that He will never let us go. As Romans 8.35 says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? And the answer is certainly not. There's one thing that can never be taken from us. If the Word of God is banned from a country, and people cannot even get copies of the Bible, If they have heard the word of truth, if they have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ, prayer can never be taken from them. And often as we look in the Bible, we see examples of people who under great duress and great hardship still have prayer. They may be in prison, they may be dying, they may be persecuted, but they still have prayer. That can never be taken away, beloved. Never forget that. that no matter what woes of this world come upon us, prayer can never be taken away. We can cry out to our Lord with the confidence that He hears us, that He will respond, that He will deliver. And what we're told is that we will cry out, He will deliver, and we will honor. We will honor Him in verse 15. And this goes along with the ending of question and answer 116 and thanking Him for them. We will thank our God. We will honor Him for this deliverance that He gives to us. We are led to adore our Lord all the more when we come to Him in thankfulness. Which leads us back once again to the first point of sacrifice and fulfilling. Bringing our thanksgiving to the Lord. And I think this is such a fitting charge to give honor and thanks. Have those be mutually reinforcing things when we come to our Lord and God because so often, beloved, our prayers are degraded to mere supplication. We come before our Lord and we say, give me this, give me this, give me this, give me this. But our God has given us so much more than we can ever thank Him for. that honor and thanksgiving should be the primary things that we come to Him with. God hears our cry. God hears our cry. Because one hung upon the tree, and his cry was unanswered. He cried out, Father, why have you forsaken me? And no answer came. He bore that sin that we should have to suffer. He bore that indifference, that wrath. He bore that so when we call out, we don't get a busy signal. We don't get a number has changed recording. But we have a direct line to our Father in Heaven. Because of His death and resurrection, we are children of God so when we call to him we have the confidence that he will respond so therefore we can call out in boldness this term that we see in the psalm in verse 15 call is not the first time we see it though it's rendered a little differently in verse 1 and verse 4 when it speaks of God summonsing when God giving a summons to the earth when God gives a summons to the heaven above it's this same term that we are told To call. We are to call in boldness. Not in timidity. Not in fear that the Lord will not hear. Again, this ties in with the phrase, pray continually, groan inwardly. When we come to our God, we come in confidence that He will hear us because we are His children. 2 Corinthians 1 tells us, for no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And through Him the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. God's promises are true. So when we come, when we feel down, when we feel that we are straying, when we feel that the Lord has let us go, we can cry to Him in boldness, You promised that You will keep me because Your Son died for me. and He will hear us. Come in confidence. Come in boldness. Beloved, do not come to our Lord with formal prayers that you only do out of tradition, that you only do for the crowd gathered around you in the room. Don't do it because you just feel like it's something you should do that you've always done. Nor should we forget about prayer. As the men in verses 16 towards the end of the psalm would do. Neglecting to come before our Lord and God. Pretending that he does not hear. Pretending that he does not care. But rather thank God. Thank God for all he has done. For all he continues to do. For the blessings of body and soul that are ours. Thank God with sincerity. Thank God continually. for he hears our cries and he responds. What a majestic Father in heaven we have who hears us, who loves us, who never turns a deaf ear to us. Let us turn to that God and thank him for all he has done. Let us pray. O God our Father we come before you in awe of who you are we love you Father for what you have given to us we who have done no more than to sin against you you love us you have given us your son Lord and we thank you. We thank you for this gift of new life. And we'll continue to thank you, Lord, all the days of our lives. Make us strong, Lord, for so often we want to look away. We do not want to thank you. Keep our eyes fixed upon you, Lord. Keep our thanks sincere. Keep it ongoing. It's things we pray, Lord, knowing that you hear us, for you are our glorious Father. you are the most high king and you hear us for the sake of your son and we thank you in his precious name in the name of Jesus Christ we pray and all God's people said Amen