“This is the word of God. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before you for kingship belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.”
– Psalm 22:27–28
As this Pray The Word episode begins, I want to give a little heads-up on a different direction we’re going to take over the next month in Pray The Word episodes. We are 31 days away from the Presidential election in the United States. I know not everybody who listens to this podcast is from the United States, but I know most listeners are and amidst the tense, and I would say toxic, political climate around us, I’m zealous to, in my own life, and the lives of those God’s entrusted me to shepherd in the church, and even through this avenue to encourage us, with God’s word, to lead us to meditate on the word of God during these days, and to pray specifically, according to God’s Word in different ways, amidst a Presidential election.
We have developed Radical, just a 31-day prayer guide that goes along with a book that I’ve written, just a little short book called Before You Vote, Seven Questions Every Christian Should Ask, just trying to help people think through how to glorify God in an election and how to do this with unity together in the church, around Jesus and his word. You can find out more information about that book as well as the prayer guide at radical.net. But what we’re going to do in these Pray The Word episodes, for these 31 days is we’re just going to take different verses from God’s word. We’re going to pray according to a different verse each day in ways that I hope will help us during these days, fix our minds and our hearts on God as the King, who rules over our nation and all nations.
God is King even in Uncertainty
Even during an election season full of uncertainty, we should remember that God is king.
I hope this will be applicable, helpful, even for those of you who are followers of Jesus in other countries. Even as we ask you to pray for us in the United States, I hope that many of these things will apply to you and your country. I remember, vividly reading this chapter, these verses on the side of a mountain in the Himalayas, in the middle of unreached peoples, ethnic groups, and a nation where there is so little access to the gospel, and getting to Verse 27 and just falling on my face on that mountainside.
As we see this promise, all the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations. Som worship before you, pray for all nations to know Jesus as Lord, and then to read Verse 28, for Kingships. Here’s the declaration. “Kingship belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.” As we think about a Presidential election, electing someone to lead a country, it is so good to know that the ultimate King, the sovereign ruler is not up for election. He reigns today. He will a month from now. God will reign a year from now and 10 trillion years from now he’ll still be reigning and he is good. He is the Lord. He is perfect. God is Holy. He is just. He is righteous. God is loving. He is merciful.
Psalm 22:27–28 Praises God as King
Let Psalm 22:27–28 lead us to praise God as the King, over any nation we’re in, and specifically for those of us who are living in the United States. Kingship belongs to the Lord. God, we praise you as King overall. Jesus, we praise you as Lord overall. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to you.
One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you are Lord to the glory of God, the Father. We exalt you, our King, our Lord, our ruler, the one who reigns over our lives. This is where our hope is. Oh God, we put all our hope in you, all our trust in you, not in who’s going to get elected. We don’t put our hope or trust, and who’s going to get elected as the leader of our country. We trust in you as the leader of all things, not just our country, the leader of our lives, the leader of our families, the leader of the church leader of the nations.
God, we praise you and we praise you, that you are the leader we need. You are perfectly just. You’re perfectly righteous. You are holy holy holy. A world, a country of very imperfect candidates and imperfect leaders. There is no one who compares with you. Oh God, there is no one who compares with you Jesus and we are so thankful we find such refuge in your reign and your rule over all things.
Psalm 22:27–28 Prays for God’s Rule over All the Nations
We praise you that kingship belongs to you and you rule over the nations. You rule our nation and God, we pray. I pray that you would bring many people to know you as King. Even during these days, you would help us to proclaim you as King, to have far more conversations during these days about you as the King we need, then even the conversations we’re having about who we might vote for. God, we pray that you’d help us to point to you as King.
We pray for that in the United States. We pray for that among all nations. So God, we pray for the Oromo Garre people in Kenya, this Somali people group of about a million people in Kenya. God, so few of them just, a handful of them, who may be followers of Jesus. God, we pray that they would come to know Jesus is King. You would cause the gospel to spread to them. Oh God, we praise you. God help us to make your glory as King known in our nation and in all nations, as we pray, as you taught us to pray Jesus. Our father in heaven. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We praise you, King, over our nation and all nations in Jesus’ name we pray. 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.
