Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him! Let all the upright in heart exult!
– Psalm 64:10
There are two exclamation points in this verse, and there’s a reason for that.
Psalm 64:10 Encourages Us to Focus on God Amidst Tribulation
If you read the whole psalm, you see David who’s writing this, crying out for God’s help when he’s surrounded and threatened by enemies all around him. The whole psalm starts in verse one by saying, “Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint preserve my life from dread of the enemy. Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the throng of evildoers.” And so David finds himself surrounded, yes, by evildoers, by those who want to do harm to him. And he gets to the end in his psalm as he’s cried out to God, he says, “Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him! Let all the upright in heart exalt!”
So see the description there, David, as the righteous one, as the upright in heart. And when you are seeking righteousness, when you are living upright in heart, and even when surrounded by evil and wickedness and people who are wanting to harm you, you can rejoice in the Lord and take refuge, again, we see this all over the Psalms, refuge in him. As I read this psalm, I just think about when you and I are surrounded by sin and wickedness, and even people doing harm to us, it is so tempting and easy in a sense to justify sinful thoughts in us, our sinful desires when we think about others, or even sinful words that we might say or sinful things that we might do, it is so easy, so tempting to react to people who are sinning against us by sinning against them.
And Psalm 64:10 is shouting with exclamation points, “Don’t do it. Live in righteousness, be upright in heart and rejoice and find your refuge in God.” What a good reminder.
Psalm 64:10 Challenges Us to Live in Righteousness
God, help us when we are sinned against not to sin in response. Lord, we pray that you would help us to be righteous. Help us to be upright in heart, to be right before you, our desires to be right before you. God, we pray that our words would be right before you and others.
God, keep us from acting in ways that are not righteous. Help us to be holy in the face of evil coming at us. Keep us, we pray, from giving into that evil ourselves. Jesus, we praise you as the perfect example of this on a cross. You prayed for those who were crucifying you, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
God, we pray that you would make our hearts like the heart of Jesus. God, help us to love our enemies and pray for those who would do harm to us. Help us to faithfully pray for them and for their good and for righteousness to reign. Yes, in those situations, we pray for an end to evil and wickedness and harm toward us, at the same time, God, we pray more than anything for righteousness to reign in our hearts in the middle of whatever happens around us.
Jesus, you are our only hope. Lord, your life in us, your spirit in us are only hope for this kind of righteousness and upright heart. And we pray for people who have not heard the good news of your righteous life and your substitutionary sacrifice on a cross for their sins so that through faith in you, they can be made righteous before God.
Praying for the Zamral People
We pray for the Zamral people of India, this small people group in Madhya Pradesh, most of whom are unable to read, write, God, we pray for the spread of your good news to be proclaimed among the Zamral, that they might be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. God, as we pray for the Zamral of India, we pray for our persecuted brethren in different parts of India. We pray that when they’re surrounded by evil against them, that you would help them to be righteous in heart. We ask that the gospel would spread through them as a result. Oh God, we pray all of this according to your word in Psalm 64:10. In Jesus’s name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
