But You, oh God, my Lord, deal on my behalf for Your namesake because Your steadfast love is good. Deliver me.
– Psalm 109:21
What a verse about two-thirds of the way through this psalm. So David’s writing it. It starts with him saying to God, “Be not silent, oh God, of my praise, for wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause.” David is being attacked here by people who are coming after him with deceitful mouths and lying tongues. Encircling him with words of hate and he is looking to God. He says, “Be not silent, oh, God, of my praise.”
Psalm 109:21 is a beautiful picture of faith.
Even that in and of itself is so instructive for us when we are walking through challenges of any kind. Whether that’s attacks coming against us or any challenges, or trials that we’re facing in this world. To immediately look to God, to say, “Oh God of my praise. I’m looking to you as my defender amidst these attacks, my provider amidst these trials. I’m looking to you.”
And then you get down to verse 21, which I read. He says, “You, oh God, my Lord, deal on my behalf for your name’s sake.” What a good prayer. God, I trust you to be my defender. That’s not easy to do when you’re attacked. To trust that God is your defender. Instead of working to defend yourself or again when you face trials of all different kinds in this world. To trust that God is your provider and he will help you. That God is the redeemer and he will restore that which is broken.
This is a beautiful picture of faith here in Psalm 109 that I pray for in my own life and I want to pray over all of us, no matter what attacks might come like David is experiencing in Psalm 109, whatever attacks might come from the adversary in your life amidst trials and challenges that you face, that you and I would look to God and trust in him as our defender. Happily trust in him as the one who defends us. Who else would we want to defend us but God?
Psalm 109:21 calls us to trust God as our defender.
It’s his opinion that matters most. We live for him and we trust in him as our defender, as our provider, to trust in the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The earth and all that is in it belong to him, to trust in him as our provider and our helper and to ask him to deal on our behalf for his name’s sake because his steadfast love is good and he promises to deliver all who trust in him. Oh God, we praise you. You are our praise, Psalm 109:1.
You are our Lord, Psalm 109:21 and your steadfast love is so good. It’s our life. It’s better than life. We praise you for your faithful love for us and we praise you for your promise to deal on our behalf, to work as the defender of all who trust in you and look to you, as the provider of all who trust in you and look to you, as a sustainer and deliverer of all who trust in you and look to you.
So we look to you amidst all kinds of different things in our lives especially when we are attacked in different ways, like David is here in Psalm 109 or just attacked by the adversary in all kinds of different ways. God, we look to you as our defender, our deliverer, our provider, our sustainer, our redeemer, our helper and we ask for your help. For your name’s sake, God, in our lives, shows yourself as the Great Defender. Show yourself as the Great Provider. Show yourself as the Great Redeemer.
This verse also reminds us to pray for those who persecute us.
Jesus, we praise you for modeling this for us even when you were being attacked, beaten, crucified, the way you prayed, Lord Jesus, for those who were killing you. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. God, we pray for that kind of heart in us when attacked. When others seek to harm us, we pray, Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they do.
We pray you’d to help us to live with your love, Jesus, and with the trust that you had in the Father in that moment, that we can have now by your power in us. God, help us to trust you just as Jesus did as our deliverer. Oh God, we praise you for raising him from the dead, for your resurrection, Lord Jesus, for defeating death so that we don’t ultimately have to worry about anything in this world because you’ve conquered sin and death on our behalf.
Prayer for the Shahari People
All glory be to your name, oh God our Lord, and, oh God, we pray that you’d help us to spread your steadfast love for your name’s sake, that others might know you as their deliverer and their savior and their redeemer. God, we pray specifically for the Shahari people of Saudi Arabia and Oman, for 87,000 of them. Hardly any followers of Jesus, if any known among them. God, we pray, deal on their behalf. Cause, we pray, the gospel to spread to the Shahari people of Saudi Arabia and Oman, that they might know your steadfast love that is good and that delivers them from sin and death. God may it be so. We pray all this in light of your Word in Psalm 109, which we love, in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
