“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?”
– Psalm 22:1
I’m guessing many of you recognize this verse because Jesus said these words on the cross as he was experiencing separation from the Father as he stood as a substitute for us in our sin and he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He was experiencing the separation you and I deserve from God in our sin. He was paying the price as our substitute, enduring the judgment and wrath of sin that we deserve. And, he was doing it in our place.
Jesus was forsaken on the cross to save us. He was separated from God so that we never will be.
Psalm 22:1 Illuminates What Jesus Did on the Cross
This verse just causes us to praise Jesus for the cross, to praise Jesus for experiencing our separation, so that we might know his salvation and then you get down to Verses 27 and 28 and they say, “All the ends of the Earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all of the families of the nations shall worship before you for kingship belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.” Basically a picture of how God will draw all the families of the nations to himself and to his salvation.
So put verse 1 together with verses 27 and 28. Jesus has died, he’s paid the price for not just my sin and your sin, he’s paid the price for sin among the families of the nations, among peoples around the world, including peoples who right now have little to no knowledge of the Gospel, who don’t know what Jesus said on the cross because they don’t know who Jesus is. They don’t know that Jesus died on the cross for their sins.
This Verse Reminds Us to Pray for Those Who Don’t Know Jesus
I think today about the Waki people in Tajikistan. The Waki people, there are no known believers in this very remote people group in Tajikistan. They’re included among the families of the nations and none of them even know that Jesus died on the cross, that he suffered our separation for the sake of their salvation. So Psalm 22 just drives us to pray, Lord Jesus, first and foremost, we praise you for enduring the separation we deserve so that we might be saved from our sins.
Thank you for being forsaken that we might be saved. We praise you for doing this for us and we praise you for doing this for the Waki people in Tajikistan as well. God, we want those families and that nation, that people group to know your grace and to know your love, to know what Jesus has done for them so please oh God, cause these remote people in Tajikistan to hear this news, we pray, please send out missionaries, send out laborers to take the Gospel to them. God, please use our churches to take the Gospel to people groups like this. Please use our lives toward this end.
Psalm 22:1 Calls Us to Praise God and Worship Him
God, it’s not tolerable that so many people in the world right now have yet to even hear what Jesus said on the cross because they don’t know that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. God, change that we pray, we pray you to change that for the Waki people. We pray that you would bring that people group to worship before you. Psalm 22:27. We pray for that for them and thousands of other people groups like them. Please cause them to worship Christ. Please save them from their sins through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for them. We pray, even as we praise you for your salvation in our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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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.
