Psalm 63
Hear God’s word, Psalm 63. Oh
God, you are my transcendent God. As day dawns, I seek you. My soul is thirsty for you. My
flesh faints for you in a land of drought and fainting without
water. Just as I have gazed on you in
the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory, just so your
committed love is better than life and my lips will acclaim
you. Just so, I will bless you during
my life. In your name, I will lift up
my hands. As with choice and succulent
food, my soul will be satisfied. And with loud shouting, lips,
my mouth will offer praise. Whenever I remember you on my
couch, I keep musing on you in the night watches, because you
have been such a help to me. And in the shadow of your wings,
I keep shouting aloud. My soul has determined to stick
close behind you, Your right hand ever holds me firmly. And
as for those bent on destruction who keep seeking my soul, they
will go to the lower places of the earth. They will consign
him to the mastery of the sword, a portion for jackals they will
be. And as for the king, he will rejoice in God. All who swear
by him will give expression to their praise because the mouth
of those who speak falsehood will be closed. Amen. This is God’s holy and inspired
word. If you turn on your television,
you see all kinds of reports of political intrigue. They involve
Russia. It involves the FBI. It involves
the CIA. It involves reporters. It involves
countries, nations, people. It’s got us all in a bog. Well,
King David dealt with a little political intrigue himself. If
they had had a hourly minute-by-minute news service. The news service
of the time when Psalm 63 was written would speak about Absalom
and Absalom’s four years of setting himself up against his own father,
David. David, after he had been established
as king over Israel, had a son who decided that he could do
it better. And so Absalom, his son, spent time saying to people,
you can go to my father if you like, and you can get his judgment,
or you can come out to me and I’ll give you a better deal,
better judgment. And so he won the hearts of many
of the people. My father is harsh, I’m more
gentle, and other such things. And so we have political intrigue
surrounding our our Psalm, our King David here. Now in the case
of our current political leaders, if there is a threat on them,
they can just go in the basement, into the bunker, they can lock
themselves in, they got all the important people with them, they
got all the things they need. But for David, he had to sneak
out of Jerusalem and into the Judean kingdom. desert. Now we
know from our other studies of other Psalms that David was pretty
familiar with sneaking out in the desert because he had to
do that quite a bit when Saul was after him. So David, when
he penned Psalm 63, is likely in the desert of Judea fleeing
for his life. That’s why we’ll read a number
of little phrases about, I’d rather have God than my human
life. But he’s out of Jerusalem. Think
about that. He’s out of Jerusalem, the city
of David he’s out of Jerusalem where the presence of God dwells
in the tabernacle and he’s out of Jerusalem, his own fortification,
where he is safe. He’s out in the wilderness. He’s,
as it were, out in the open. He’s not safe. Maybe some of
you have watched these movies over the last couple of years,
Air Force One, White House Down, some of these movies where the
theory behind the story is, what if the president wasn’t safe?
What if he couldn’t get in his bunker? What if he wasn’t in
Air Force One? What if he couldn’t get in the beast, you know, the
big car? What if he was just out there in the open and somebody
could get him? What would that be like? Well,
David didn’t have all those luxuries. He is out in the open. He has
his mighty men with him and certainly some allies. But what do we see
about King David in the midst of this terrible situation, this
difficulty? We see one key thing. He longs
for God. In the midst of all his hardship,
he longs for Almighty God. Now, one thing we like to say
in the Christian faith, this is from our Puritan forebears,
is that Sunday is a market day for the soul. We can go to the
grocery store anytime we want. There’s 24-Hour Harris Teeter,
there’s Super Walmart that’s always open, there’s, you know,
whatever our favorite store is, it’s readily available to us
to go in and get groceries. And so we don’t have to go to
market day. But back in the Puritan days,
they had the market day where you went and the farmers brought
their wares, the others brought their wares, and you went and
you picked and you chose and you paid and you took home what
you needed. And so Sunday for the Puritans
was the market day of the soul, where we could come into the
house of God and be filled full of his grace and have enough
provisions to last another week. Now, some of you are probably
like me. You’re on the diet plan where you don’t want to lose
too much weight because the stored up fat may be helpful, right?
I hear at least one adherent to my diet plan. And I know there’s
a couple others in the room probably. But the theory is you don’t want
to lose too much weight because you may get yourself in a situation
where you haven’t got any food and that stored up fat will help
you. And that’s not a real good diet plan. But spiritually speaking,
that’s the diet plan David is on. He’s out in the wilderness,
he’s away from the temple, away from Jerusalem, away from the
presence of God. He’s all alone. He’s in trouble.
He’s on the run. And there is a sense where in
all of his fears, and in all of his frustrations and hardships
and facing the potential loss of life, even by his own son,
that the stored up fat, as it were, from his having been in
the presence of God, is now feeding him. It is his sustenance. He’s had enough at other times
where he is in a situation where he is without, he has something
to lean on. So this psalm is about longing
for God. When Mandy and I were in school,
we had an English department. that tricked you into becoming
a reformed Christian, a Bible Christian. And one of the ways
the English department of our little college tricked you into
being a reformed Christian is it had you read a lot of St.
Augustine. Now, St. Augustine wrote his autobiography,
his confessions, and he opens his confessions by saying these
words, oh Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts
are restless until we rest in you. And so you hear from time
to time people speak of every human being made with a God-shaped
hole. And we’ll attempt to fill that
God-shaped hole with everything, love, pleasure, money. success, you name it, fill in
that hole as you please. But that hole will still be wanting
because it can only be filled by one thing, and that is God.
And so we have a God-shaped hole for which we are made to long
for God. But here we go living in a culture where we run, run,
run, run, run, and we never stop, we never think, we never meditate.
And what happens to us who mean well as Christians? we might
find ourselves with no desire for God. And think for just a
moment, maybe this is a little too medley, but think for just
a moment about the era of cooking in the last 50, 75 years. What
has revolutionized cooking? The microwave. And so you can
have a hot meal fast, and in seven minutes you can cook a
lasagna that used to take an hour and a half on 350. And wonder
of all wonders, it’s a great thing. But we have then moved
our microwave culture into our religious life. a seven minute
devotion, and then we’re somehow filled up with God. Or we wanna
squeeze God in an hour instead of giving him the whole day. And so we run, run, run, we have
no time for God. And what ends up happening is
a Christian can find him or herself in a place where they really
have no desire for God, and they still have that God-shaped hole
that is empty. And so that’s a trouble spot,
that’s a problem. So here’s the question for you. The theme is we want to long
for God. David longs for God. So here’s the dilemma. Do we
know that we have an empty hole in us that’s a God-sized hole?
And do we desire to fill it? Or do we know there’s a hole?
but have no time or desire to fill it. We’re in one of those
two camps. And the question that this Psalm
will lead us to is, do we want to do something about it? Do
we want it to be the heartbeat of our lives? Do we have a daily
desire for a dose of God? Notice how in verse one speaks.
King David, he says, oh God, you are my transcendent God.
As day dawns, I seek you. My soul is thirsty for you. My
flesh faints for you in a land of drought and fainting without
water. Notice what he presents to us. You are my God. As the day dawns,
I seek you. My soul is thirsty for you. My
flesh faints for you in a land of drought. Somehow in our household,
we’ve gotten on to the 50s station. And what do they sing in the
50s? Do-wop, do-wop, she’s so fine. Do-wop, do-wop, he’s so
fine. Do-wop, do-wop, look at her blue
eyes. Do-wop, do-wop, look at his hair.
Do-wop, do-wop, you know, on and on it goes. And you hear
in those songs how much we love other people. Why do we love
those other people? Doo-wop, doo-wop, because the
blue hair, the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the whatever. Did
I say blue hair? That can be the case. These days it can be
the case. That’s exactly true. But where
is our doo-wop, doo-wop, and I’m not suggesting doo-wop music
in church. Don’t get me there. But where is our doo-wop, doo-wop,
God is so fine. He is so majestic. He is so holy. He is so otherly. He is so wise
and good and just and righteous and loving and merciful. Where
is our doo-wop, doo-wop for God? Well, do we earnestly seek him?
That’s a terrible thing to put. Y’all gonna. I think we’re gonna
toss out the organ and bring in the four tops or something.
It’s not gonna happen. But do we have a daily desire
for a dose of God? Will we sing about God? Will
we be joyful about God? Because we have earnestly sought
him and found him and found our satisfaction in him. That’s the
presentation David gives here in verse one. Oh God, my God,
As the day breaks, as the day dawns, I seek you. My soul is
thirsty, my flesh faints for you in a land of drought and
fainting without water. Don’t we live in a land, I mean,
we don’t want to spiritualize David being in the desert and
say, oh, we live in a desert too. That desert is 2018. It’s
a dry and weary land. But let’s spiritualize for just
a moment. Don’t we live in a dry and weary
land? Absolutely. I mean, what is tonight? It’s
tonight, the Grammys. Yeah, and what did we put up
with a couple weeks ago? The Golden Globes. What’s that? Oh yeah, there’s all these awards
where people basically self-promote themselves and pat each other
on the back and say how good one another is. And then one gives
the award one year and one gives it to his buddy the next year
who gave it to him last year. And there we have it. It’s a dry
and weary world. It’s a meaningless world. And
so we should seek after God. Now in verses two through eight,
you’re going to find David talk about the benefits of finding
satisfaction in almighty God. I mean, here’s David, king over
Jerusalem, king over Israel. He’s full of wealth, full of
power. He’s lost everything temporarily. He’s got his own son, his own
flesh and blood, wanting his neck. but he’s still got God. He’s still got some of that fat
stored up. And think for just a moment about
your life if God took away everything. He did that to Job. If God took
away everything, he took away your health, he took away your
bread, he took away your water, he took away your money, he took
away your strength, he took away your numbers, your armies, he
took away your children, he took away everything that you valued,
what would you then have left? you’d still have God. You’d have
nothing from an earthly perspective, that’s true. And those would
be big losses. But what is God saying? What
is God saying? If you ask, you better be willing
for an answer, right? What is God saying to David? What is
he saying to us? What is he saying to Job? He’s
grabbing us by the face like our parents did and saying, look
at me. Look at me, I’m sufficient. You
don’t need your armies. You don’t need your census. You
don’t need your bread, your water, your money, your strength. What
does Jesus tell us in the gospels? You can eat bread all day long,
but unless you eat of a certain kind of bread, you’ll what? You’ll
go hungry. You can have water all day long
from this well, but this well you’ll only come back to because
why? You’ll be thirsty. And so you want living water.
And so we get the idea from scripture that The God-shaped hole can
only be filled by God himself. And while these things are blessings
in life, they do not fill that hole. And so what conclusion
should we come to? What conclusion should we come
to if we desire God and we have experienced him? We should see, we should see that God is good.
David in the Psalm speaks twice of the present, the past, and
the future. verses one through four or five. And then, in the flip of the
Psalm, six through 11, he goes backwards and speaks of the past,
the present, and the future. And in all three cases, past,
present, future, and present, or, yeah, past, oh, it’s present,
past, and future, and then it’s past, present, future, the first
half, and then the second half, he says, I can tell you things
about you, God, that are true, and they’ve been true in my life.
And therefore, in this big old mess with my son, where I fear
my life, I can say truly I have tasted and I have seen and I
have received the goodness of Almighty God and I’m ready for
whatever comes my way. I’m ready for trouble should
it come. David has a head knowledge of
God. He has a heart knowledge of God
and he has an experiential knowledge of God. Notice what he says in
verse two. He says, just as I have gazed
on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory,
just so your steadfast or your committed love is better than
life and my lips will acclaim you or praise you. And he says
in verse four, just so I will bless you during my life. In
your name, I’ll lift up my hands. As with choice and succulent
food, my soul will be satisfied. And with loud shouting lips,
my mouth will offer praise. I’ll remember you on my couch,
verse six says. When I sleep at night, I’ll keep
musing on you in the night watches. Did any of you ever wake up at
night and you can’t sleep? And what do you do? Get up and
watch TV. Do you ever lie there and just
think about things and how God has been at work or struggles? What’s that little song we hear
at, is it White Christmas? When I can’t sleep, I lay there
and I count my. Blessings, yeah, a little song.
You don’t count your sheep, you count your blessings. You list
them, you name by one by one. He says that in verse six. When
I remember you on my couch, I keep musing on you in the night watches
because you have been such a help to me. And in the shadow of your
wings, I keep shouting. So there’s a sense of saying,
I have tasted God, I’ve trusted God, I’ve seen God work, I’ve
received his blessings, I’ve seen him in his sanctuary, I’ve
experienced his covenant love, and now I’m gonna tell everybody
about it. He says it in verse three and
verse seven. Verse three, your love is better
than life, my lips will praise you, they’ll acclaim you, I’ll
tell others. Then in verse seven, because you’ve been such a help
to me in the shadow of your wings, I’ll keep shouting aloud. We’ve
gotten away from Christian testimonies in the church. You know, it’s
a little hairy. I don’t know what people are
going to say. When I was growing up in church, we had Christian testimony
time. And my family would sit there and say, oh, Lord, so and
so stood up. And the rule was, this was funny,
the rule was it had to be brief, biblical, and beneficial. Well,
no one was ever brief. Rarely were they biblical. And
hardly was it beneficial, except for the person who got up and
told. But this was the 1980s thing we did in church. We had
a little time where people could give their testimonies. And it’s biblical
to give a testimony. We just happen to do it through
the songs we sing, you know, we use that as a tool. It can
be a little hairy, you know, opening up the mic, you never
know what you get. It can probably be good on a lot of occasions,
but it can be a little scary. But the Bible does tell us The Bible
does tell us we ought to give testimony to God. Anybody read
the ARP magazine this month? Has a little article in the back
that says, giving your testimony about God’s goodness is a good
thing. Where does that come from? It comes from Psalms, like Psalm
63. So we should tell others, God is good. Have a friend in
the ministry who will come and greet you and say hello to you,
and he’ll stare you in the eyeballs and he’ll say, isn’t our Lord
a good Lord? That’s kind of awkward, but it’s a good question. And
what kind of answer does it deserve? Yes, he is a good Lord. It’s a good question to ask.
It’s a little awkward, but it’s a good question to ask. But we
should tell others. What is our little rule? Saved people sing. So when a saved person doesn’t
sing, you have to wonder what? Are they saved? Like, do you
know you’re saved? I mean, if you got off out of the raging
sea, like, you know, a couple days ago, some people got rescued
off of that ferry boat that sank. They found a little dinghy floating
out in the ocean. They rescued, I think, six people.
Wouldn’t you get back on land and be jumping up and down and
dancing and singing? I sure would. And we’ve been
saved by the blood of the cross. And yet we come to church sometimes
and we sing, what a friend we have in Jesus. Like, you know,
we’re the depression club. Saved people sing. Saved people
give their testimony. And so we should tell others
how good God has been. A third thing we ought to think
from this passage is that God, we want God to keep us close. We want God to stay with us. We want to be with him. Look
at verse 80 says, my soul has determined to stick close behind
you. Your right hand ever holds me firmly. Now that’s the weird
translation from this a little study of the Psalms. So let me
read what it says in the regular Bible, verse eight, Psalm 63
says, my soul clings to you and your right hand upholds me. Now
that word, that word clings pops up in a couple of places. Place
number one, Genesis, a man shall leave his father and mother and
shall what? Cling to his wife, hold fast to his wife. That word
pops up in place number two, the book of Ruth. Naomi says,
go back to your home place. And what does daughter-in-law
number one say? Okay, see you later. But what
does Ruth say? Where you go, I will go. Your God will be my God. Your
people will be my people. And she clung to her mother-in-law,
Ruth, same word. And so what does David say about
his soul? My soul will cling to you, for
your right hand upholds me. So think for just a moment. when
we get faithless, when our faith is shaken. The going gets tough,
life gets hard, and we say, God can’t save me. His right hand
isn’t strong, and we’re like Abraham, who a couple times in
his little story of his life, he says, there’s no food, and
so I’m gonna go down to Egypt. I’m gonna go get the pagans to
help me. We do that from time to time, don’t we? We lose faith
in God, but what does he say? I’ll cling to you, for your right
hand upholds me. And so how do we stay close to
God? How do we cling to God? Well, this Psalm gives us a hint
or two. Our theology does as well. First of all, we ought
to have some time in the day where we spend it with God. We
read our Bible, we pray, we think, maybe we sing, we hum. We keep
a little journal, we write a prayer list, sometime, somehow, someway.
It may look different based on your personalities, your gifts,
the way you learn, it may look different. Don’t put yourself
in a mold that somebody else forces on you. But have some
time where you are alone with God and you think on him and
his goodness, you cling to him. But even bigger than that, stay
close to the church. Stay close to the people of God.
Stay close to the ordinances of God. Stay close to the means
of grace. Be in the church when the elders have it open. Be close
to the word, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship. Suffer together
with your fellow Christians. Part of the church, part of the
reason we exist as a church is to be a foxhole. It’s a crazy
world out there. The bullets are whizzing by.
Satan hates you. He hates your marriage. He hates
your family. He hates your Christian walk. He hates the way you’re
raising your children. He hates the way you’re serving
him. And the bullets are flying out there. Satan wants you dead.
And we come in the house of God and we cling together and we
cling to God together. And so we stay close to God in
that way. So is our problem solved? David’s
problem solved. We just love God and all will
be hunky-dory. Well, how does that work out
for David? As much as he said here of God’s steadfast love,
as much as he said here about I’ll hide in you, as much as
he has said here about I’ll cling to you, I’ll love you, I’ll extol
you, I’ll tell others how great you are, Absalom is still circling
and wanting to kill him and wanting to steal his father’s throne.
So David is saying this in the midst of the not yet. He’s saying
this in the midst of a problem, a big problem still existing. And notice his confidence, verse
nine through 11. But those who seek to destroy
my life, he’s saying this about his son here, you shall go down
into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the
power of the sword. How is it that Absalom’s gonna
die? David and his army with Joab are gonna kill 20,000 who
are with Absalom. And Absalom is gonna get hung
up in a tree, remember by his, was it by his hair? And what
is Joab gonna do? He’s going to run him through.
And what does David do? He’s going to weep. Oh, Absalom.
Oh, Absalom. He’s going to mourn. He’s going
to go home and he’s going to hide in his bedroom and he’s going to
cry. And what are his friends going to have to come say, David,
wake up your enemy who nearly killed you. And we, who stood
up for you and stuck by you, he is dead. You quit mourning
him. And you look in thankfulness to those who stuck by you when
your own son was so treacherous. But David here, he’s going to
be confident in God. They shall be given over as a
portion to the jackals. The king shall rejoice in God,
and all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars
will be stopped. And so you’ve got to have two
hands going here. One is the real world. The real
world with pain and suffering. The real world, as my kids learned
yesterday, has cheating referees. Not the do game, this is at the
Y. Well, we could, we could, anyway. Cheating referees, a
stock market that crashes, though it’s going gangbusters at the
moment, but the real world, cancer cells, the real world, pain and
suffering and darkness and hardship. But then on the other hand, a
satisfying covenant-keeping God. And that’s the two worlds we
live in. We live in the reality of the
effects of sin and the fall, but we also live in the promises
of God that are being slowly realized and will be fully realized
at the day when Jesus comes to make all things new. I want to end tonight by reading
to you verse four. glorious things of thee are spoken.
Our hymnal only has three verses. This is a fourth verse, which
I think is really wonderful. It says, Savior, if of Zion’s
city I through grace a member am, let the world deride or pity. I will glory in thy name. Fading
is the worldlings pleasure, all his boasted pomp and show, solid
joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion’s children know. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we thank you for this truth from King David. We thank you that
his experience was translated into trust. pen was put to parchment,
and we have this, his confidence, his confidence in you, the covenant-making,
covenant-keeping, steadfast, loving God, who loves with a
love that will never let us go. We pray that when our world is
shaken and that when our enemies rise up, that we would look to
you, that we would live off the fat that we have eaten on the
Lord’s day, and that all week we could delight in you and keep
close to you. but that we would live out of
that strength, which is ours in Christ Jesus. Thank you for
his precious blood, which has bought us. Thank you for the
gifts of the church, the Holy Spirit, and the graces that we
have to live life in this fallen world in the midst of a crooked
and depraved generation and before a dark and dying people. We pray that we live out of strength
and not out of fear or weakness. Give us faith to believe these
things to be so in Christ Jesus name. We pray amen. Let’s respond
to God’s word. We’re going to sing a little
rendition of Psalm 63 by loving kindness is better than life.
It’s number 69 in your handle.