"Help! You're All I've Got"

[0:00] Psalm 63 was just read for us. A psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. So David, the chosen king of Israel, chosen by God, is on the run.

[0:19] He has been king in Jerusalem for many years, but now he is fleeing his capital city, not knowing if he will ever return or even if he will survive the week. His adult son, Absalom, has spent the last four years plotting and quietly winning over the hearts of many of the people of Israel, and now Absalom has made his move.

[0:41] He has assembled those loyal to him and declared himself king over the nation. He plans to kill his father David and establish his own rule.

[0:54] So David realizes the tide has turned against him very quickly. So he leaves Jerusalem that same day, not wanting to bring violence and destruction to his beloved city.

[1:05] And he takes his family and those who are still loyal to him, and he heads out into the wilderness. David is in the midst of losing absolutely everything.

[1:17] And one day he has gone from being king in comfort and peace to seeing everything slip away. His people, his kingship, his family, his security, and even maybe his own life.

[1:34] And it is that situation that inspires this psalm, Psalm 63. David wrote this psalm because of that experience, and that helps us see how this psalm connects to us today.

[1:50] If you are facing a situation of serious physical need or lack of resources, whether it's groceries or housing or transportation or medical care, or if you're in some situation of danger to yourself or to your family, if you're in the midst of intense family breakdown and conflict and hurt that doesn't seem like it's ever going to be repaired, if you're facing the loss of your position or your career, facing the loss of your financial stability, maybe even facing the loss of what it is that you thought God had called you to do in your life, if you're in a situation where your enemies are multiplying who want to see you go down in some way, or just in general, if you're in a situation where you don't feel like you have the resources or the capacity to handle this, that it's gone way beyond you, that you've lost everything that you were relying upon to deal with life.

[2:50] If you're in a situation like that, Psalm 63 is helpful for you and for me because David models for us confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency.

[3:02] David models in Psalm 63 confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency, and so Psalm 63, if we're going to follow David, is a call for us to cultivate our own confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency.

[3:18] Now I say we have to cultivate it because our confidence in God is not automatic, it's not default, it's not a switch that we can flip on and off. It requires attention, it requires development, it requires growth over time.

[3:30] When I talk about God being sufficient, I mean that He is more than enough for all of our needs in every situation. And I say that His sufficiency is unequaled because no one and nothing else in the world comes close to what He is for us.

[3:49] So David models this confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency, and this Psalm has three stanzas, and so in this Psalm, David expresses his confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency in three ways.

[4:01] Three ways that God is sufficient for David, and that He is sufficient for us. Stanza 1, verses 1 through 4, David is confident that God is worth it like no one else.

[4:16] That's the first way that God is sufficient. God is worth it like no one else. David is confident of that. In the midst of the most personally and politically difficult time of his life, David is taking the time here to reorient himself to his true source of confidence.

[4:33] Reorient himself to what really matters, to what's most important in his life when everything else has been stripped away. And at this point, he could have completely given up his confidence in God.

[4:45] It is very possible that he felt rejected by God. After all, he was in danger of losing the throne that was given to him by God, and as he left Jerusalem, he said to those around him, I don't know if God is going to bring me back.

[4:59] And so he could have said, God is of no help to me here. What good is God? What is God worth for me now? And then begun planning and strategizing as if he was all on his own.

[5:13] But that's not how he responds. This is what he says in verse 1. Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you.

[5:25] My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. David is not willing yet to believe that God has abandoned him.

[5:39] He might feel like that is what happened, but he doesn't accept it yet. And so he's choosing to focus on God as his most urgent need. You can hear the desperation in these verses.

[5:50] He is searching for God, and the word that he used here, earnestly seeking for God is a restless, desperate, not going to give up kind of search, back and forth, back and forth. Got to find him. Got to find him.

[6:00] Where is he? And what's driving this search is his compelling need for God that must be satisfied. He is thirsting and fainting for God, he says, like a man in a desert is desperate for water.

[6:14] When you're in the desert, water is your number one priority. You're constantly losing water through sweat. You're facing the heat of the sun on you that's baking your skin. And as you lose your hydration, your cells begin to contract.

[6:30] David says he's like that in a desert where there isn't any water. His soul is beginning to contract for lack of God. But just like you said, it's like I'm in a desert where there is no water.

[6:41] It seems like God is nowhere to be found right now for David. And the intentional poetic irony here is that David is actually physically in the wilderness right now.

[6:52] This isn't just a rhetorical, spiritualistic, overdramatic flourish on David's part. Food and water are real needs for him and for those around him right now. But it's not food and water that he's most concerned with.

[7:06] He's most concerned to find the God who seems to have abandoned him because he believes that God is worth it. He's worth that kind of search, that kind of desperation, that kind of prioritization that puts him above even immediate physical needs.

[7:25] God feels so distant and absent right now, and it may very well be that this situation is straight from God's hand. But instead of all that pushing David to put his confidence in something else, it actually drives him to be even more desperate for God.

[7:39] So in Psalm 63, he's reorienting himself away from the immediate tactical and survival concerns and putting his confidence away from military planning and physical strength and putting it in God.

[7:51] Even when God doesn't seem to be coming through for him right now, because he says God is worth it.

[8:03] But this confidence that David has in God, this desperation for God is not new for David. He isn't just turning to God because he's in trouble right now. This isn't a foxhole conversion. This is the consistent pattern and practice of David's life.

[8:16] Verse 2, David says, So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. This is not the first time David has felt this kind of desperation for God.

[8:31] This is not the first time he has searched for God. This same hunger and thirst that he has now is the hunger and thirst that has driven him in the past in happier and more comfortable times to the sanctuary in Jerusalem, to see God's power and glory and to praise him.

[8:48] So David's confidence that God is worth more than any physical provision has been cultivated throughout his life. And this psalm, in the midst of so much danger, is just a natural continuation of what David's life has been like in times of peace.

[9:04] David has always been seeking God. And there's something to be said here for the importance of regularly gathering with God's people to worship God and hear from him.

[9:21] It changes you. It's not just once in a while. It's not just when you're in trouble. Cultivating a confidence in God's unequal sufficiency means every week, whether you feel like you need it or not or you want it or not, you are gathering with God's people.

[9:35] Verse 3. It's been referenced already this morning. Probably the best verse in the psalm and maybe the best verse in the whole book of psalms.

[9:47] Verses 3 and 4 say, Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live.

[10:00] In your name I will lift up my hands. In case the first few verses were just a little too poetic, a little too metaphorical, in case David hasn't been clear enough yet about his priorities in this situation, he says it plainly.

[10:14] God's love, God's steadfast, covenantal, relational, unfailing love is worth more to him than his very life. And when David says this, he knows that he might not live out the weak.

[10:27] The danger we have today reading the psalms is that they can seem just kind of like spiritualistic poems disconnected from reality, maybe written by monks who are out in a monastery somewhere in the mountains who spend all their time fasting and praying.

[10:47] But it's the exact opposite. The psalms were written by people in the midst of life, in the midst of challenging situations, and they are never overdramatic. They are never overly spiritual.

[10:58] They are always exactly what people think and what they mean and what they need in the midst of the most challenging situations in life. So when David says, your steadfast love is better than life, he means it because he knows his life may be about to end.

[11:11] In other words, if the situation with Absalom continues to go sideways, if he ends up losing his throne, if everything he's built over the years as king falls apart, if he spends the rest of his life on the run and eventually is killed at the command of his own son, but he knows that God's love is with him, David thinks he still comes out ahead.

[11:36] Because God and his love is worth so much more than any of that. And he's going to spend whatever life he has left, whether it's a week or years, giving praise to God.

[11:48] Because when you have something that valuable, you can't help but praise it. And this right here is what keeps God from being some sort of genie in a bottle to David and to us if we follow David's example.

[12:03] God isn't just someone David calls on when he's in trouble, when he needs someone to swoop in and rescue him and defeat his enemies and then disappear once his wish has been granted.

[12:15] David says, everything can go wrong. You can choose to not give me anything, not save me at all, but if I have your love, I have what matters most.

[12:26] I will be satisfied. God is worth it like no one else. And we praise what we value. It's that simple.

[12:37] David says, I'm going to praise you with joyful lips and your names are going to raise my hands because we praise what we value. We praise what's important to us. We praise what we think is special. We praise our favorite restaurant.

[12:50] We praise our preferred technology devices. We praise our kids. We praise athletes and teams. We praise singers and political figures. We praise our country and our Bill of Rights.

[13:02] And David would say to us, God's love is worth more than all of that. Try losing all of those things. Could you still overflow with praise and consider that you have what is most valuable in the whole world?

[13:19] So David is confident that God is worth it like no one else. Everything else can go. God is worth it like no one else. Stanza two, David is confident that God satisfies like no one else.

[13:36] This is verses five through eight. So far in this psalm, God has been distant. David has been seeking God desperately, knowing that he's worth it, but he's still been thirsty.

[13:47] But David isn't just confident that God is worth the searching and the fainting and the praise. He is also confident that God actually will show up at some point and satisfy him.

[14:00] David is confident that his search for God has an end point. Verse five, In verse one, David's soul is fainting and thirsting for God and here his soul finds abundant provision.

[14:24] The fat in the rich food here refers to the best possible food in quantities that are more than enough. Fat in rich food means not a cheap frozen pizza, but a large Chicago style deep dish pizza where you try to scoop up a slice and the cheese just keeps stretching and stretching.

[14:42] Fat in rich food means not a hot dog, but a huge juicy steak that's seared perfectly on the outside with the right amount of color on the inside. Fat in rich food is the kind of meal that's so delicious and so packed full of good things that when the server comes around to offer you dessert, no matter how much of a sweet tooth you have, you're just not interested because the main course has been so phenomenal and so filling.

[15:07] And that's how David expects that God will satisfy the hunger and thirst of his soul. David doesn't expect that God is going to give him just enough scraps to scrape by, but instead that he's going to be completely satisfied.

[15:23] David knows that even if he is in the wilderness physically, his soul can have the best possible feast. So the question then is how does this happen?

[15:36] How does God provide this fat and rich soul food and how does David receive it? Verse 6 tells us, I'm going to read verses 5 through 7 all together. David says, Meditation on God and what he has done is the means of soul satisfaction.

[16:14] David spends his uninterrupted time at night meditating on God. He could be spending this time sleeping or developing his military strategy or just plain worrying, but he considers this quiet, alone time an opportunity to feed his soul with who God is and what he has done for him in the past.

[16:34] The word meditation in our culture is primarily influenced by Eastern mystical concepts. And most commonly, the direction that those kinds of traditions give, generally speaking, is to clear your mind as much as possible.

[16:50] And that is the opposite of the biblical picture of meditation. Biblically speaking, meditation involves filling your mind with some specific truth of God and then turning it over and over in your head over a period of time.

[17:06] The word meditate itself here can refer to muttering something under your breath over and over as you think about it. Kind of thinking out loud for a long time. And we all actually have a lot of experience meditating, believe it or not.

[17:25] Whether you've done yoga or not, you have a lot of experience meditating. Here's an example. You know those times when someone says something to you that's hurtful and it really bothers you.

[17:39] And so you spend the rest of the day replaying it over and over in your head. And you think about the conversation led up to that statement and you think about their tone of voice and their body language as they said it and you ask yourself, is there any other way they could have meant it than what you originally thought?

[17:57] And of course, the best part, you think of all the things that you could have said or should have said in the moment that would have been so perfect if you had just been quick enough. That's meditation. Chewing on something over and over and looking at it from different angles and we're all good at meditating on something.

[18:16] Meditating on insults, meditating on what it is that we don't have, meditating on what it is that we want to inquire, the next thing we want to buy, meditating on the movie that we just saw, meditating on the news.

[18:33] But few of us, including myself, take time to be good meditators on God. But if David is right in this psalm, and he is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, if David is right in this psalm, if we ever want to be truly satisfied in God, we have to learn to meditate on Him.

[18:53] If we want to experience God's unequaled sufficiency in any situation of life we may be in, we must meditate. And so where do we get this truth of God to meditate on?

[19:06] Well, it's from His Word, of course. Meditation is the way the food of who God is gets from the table of His words into our hearts where it can nourish and satisfy us.

[19:18] And if you're like me, you often expect God to instantaneously and effortlessly deposit His fullness into your soul after about three minutes of Bible reading or prayer.

[19:29] And God may choose to do that once in a while. But most of the time, God sets His Word before us and He says, take a bite and start chewing. And practically speaking, I have two recommendations for how you can grow in meditation.

[19:48] First of all, memorization. Memorize God's Word. It's almost impossible to meditate on God's Word if you haven't memorized it and it's almost impossible to memorize God's Word without meditating on it.

[20:02] So memorize God's Word. Choose a verse. Memorize it. Meditate on it. And then my suggestion would be instead of going then to some other verse somewhere else in the Bible, choose the verse right after that and memorize that one and keep going until you have a whole chapter memorized.

[20:20] So memorization. Secondly, music. Music is an excellent aid to memorization. So find music that is either exactly the words of God said to music or music that is very clearly grounded in God's Word and has a lot of that content in it and listen to that music as you're in the car, as you're washing dishes.

[20:49] And that will help you meditate on who God is and what He has done. So, if you are hungry and thirsty for God and you do not feel that He is satisfying you, or if you are hungry and thirsty for something else and you've been feeding on something else and you are afraid that God actually will never be enough to satisfy you and you're afraid to even try, you're always chasing something else because you really don't have confidence that God satisfies, let me ask you, based on this psalm, whatever situation you're in, how is your meditation?

[21:24] it's not all there is to the Christian life, it's not all there is to being satisfied in God, but it is essential. That is how David himself was satisfied by God's unequaled sufficiency.

[21:38] And I also think it's important for me to push a little bit harder on us as Christians today, followers of Jesus today. Here's why. David found God completely satisfying like no one else at a time when he had a much more limited revelation of who God is than we do today.

[21:58] He didn't even have the entire Old Testament, he's here writing part of it. And today we have something so much greater than what David had, we have the revelation of God the Son.

[22:10] Hebrews chapter 1 says, long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. That's where David is, long ago, many times, many ways, God is speaking through the prophets. The author of Hebrews says, but in these last days, the days that we are living in right now, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

[22:34] The Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. God has revealed himself most completely and most clearly in his Son, Jesus.

[22:47] So we have available to us today a better picture of who God is than David ever did. We have four whole Gospels telling us what Jesus did, what he was like, how he talked, what he said, how he responded to people, what his priorities were.

[23:07] And then we have the rest of the New Testament expounding upon what all of that means. And we have the Old Testament to go back to with Jesus in mind to understand more of who Jesus is and what he is doing and what his mission is and what God has been up to all along.

[23:22] In the midst of all that, we have the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus to help us and give us insight. So here's the challenge for us as Christians. Maybe it sounds crazy.

[23:36] David was a man after God's own heart. A hero of the Old Testament who wrote part of Scripture itself. He is a model for us in many ways including in Psalm 63 and yet any Christian today has the potential to know God better and to find more satisfaction in God than David ever did in his life here on earth.

[24:00] That is available to any Christian today. So let's be good stewards of the revelation of the Son that we've been given.

[24:14] If you have a competitive streak, it's okay to feel a little competition with David and say, I'm going to find more satisfaction in God than you did, David. David is confident that God satisfies like no one else and as he meditates on God, his soul finds satisfaction and sustenance in the midst of trouble.

[24:35] And he restates this dynamic in verse 9. Verse 8, I'm sorry, my soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me. David says, I come with my desperation and my need and my thirst.

[24:48] I cling to you and you provide what I need. You satisfy, you uphold, you sustain. God is sufficient. David is confident that God is worth it like no one else.

[25:05] Regardless of what he may lose in this life, he is confident that God satisfies like no one else. But so far, David hasn't said anything about his present dangerous situation.

[25:17] He's made a reference to being in the wilderness, but he hasn't said anything about his enemies, about the fact that people are trying to kill him, that people are trying to take his throne. David doesn't yet have deliverance and this is where he turns in the final stanza of the psalm, verses 9 through 11.

[25:34] And here we see that David is confident that God comes through like no one else. David says, but those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth.

[25:53] They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

[26:11] David has made it very clear that God is more than enough for him regardless of what he may lose. But he also believes that God is ultimately a God of justice and that wrongdoers won't prevail forever.

[26:26] He believes that God will save him and that God's salvation will be decisive and clear. He believes that God will uphold his own glory. In reference to his enemies, the many people who have joined in Absalom's rebellion, all the turncoats and the sycophants who have just been biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to take David out and elevate themselves.

[26:53] David says three things are going to happen to them. They're going to go down into the depths of the earth, they're going to be given over to the sword, and they're going to be a portion for jackals, scavengers.

[27:05] To go down in the depths of the earth, obviously to go down to the lowest place possible in the Bible, not just to die, but to be swallowed up. In Psalm 63 here, to be swallowed up in God's judgment, to be given over to the power of the sword means that they will not die quietly.

[27:25] Their deaths will be violent and bloody. To be a portion for jackals means that they will not have an honorable burial or a peaceful resting place.

[27:38] To be left for jackals was a shameful thing. In other words, David is saying that by God's decree and power, all of his enemies will be damned, slaughtered, and dishonored forever.

[27:55] When God finally acts on David's behalf, it's not going to be half-hearted or subtle. It's going to be decisive and clear. God's going to come through like no one else.

[28:07] These traitors that are trying to take David's kingdom, God is going to take absolutely everything from them. Now David knows that there are times when God allows his people to suffer in the wilderness.

[28:22] He's experiencing that in the moment. But he also believes that part of God's unequaled sufficiency means that when God comes through for his people, he really comes through.

[28:36] And notice here that David is not taking vengeance into his own hands. He's not putting any timetable on this. David was a warrior, but this violent picture here is inspired by God and is a description of God's judgment, not David's personal vendetta.

[28:55] David is confident that God is going to come through. He's not going to have to try to fight and scratch for it himself. So if that's what happens to David's enemies, what will be the result for David and for others who trust in God with him?

[29:12] Verse 11, but the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. The king shall rejoice not in his restored throne or his return to a comfortable life in Jerusalem.

[29:30] The king shall rejoice in God. David sang for joy and praised God for his sufficiency when he was in the desert, when his life was in danger, and he's going to do the same thing when he gets back home.

[29:43] He's going to rejoice in God. David's confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency, it's not temporary. His praise for God is not just on the basis of his need for God in the moment.

[29:56] When everything is restored to David, he's going to rejoice in God, just like when he was in the wilderness. So what about us?

[30:08] How does God come through for us like no one else? There are certainly times in the life of everyone who is a follower of Jesus when God saves and restores and vindicates in clear and amazing ways.

[30:24] God does what no one else can do, whether that is healing the body in miraculous ways or breaking an addiction that seemed unbreakable or providing financially in impossible situations or moving geopolitical people and forces that seemed immovable.

[30:39] but he doesn't always save his people in the short term in the ways that we would like him to. So how can we lean on verses 9 through 11 today?

[30:53] Can we put our full weight on them that God is going to come through for us like this? Not just sometime, but for sure. Can we have confidence in that? We can lean on verses 9 through 11 today if we remember that we are in a different and better situation than David was.

[31:17] Verses 9 through 11 are a picture of God defeating the enemies of his anointed king, establishing his king as supreme, and bringing joyful peace to all those who are faithful to that king.

[31:30] You can probably see where this is going. Jesus is the last and the greatest king in the line of David. Jesus is the king that God promised would sit on David's throne forever, and we, whose faith is in Jesus, we are those who swear by King Jesus.

[31:54] And Jesus has enemies in this universe. sin and death and the devil and all who are under the devil's control.

[32:07] We see evidence of them every day. Jesus has enemies. And because we swear by King Jesus, all of them hate us too.

[32:20] And sometimes in this life, we are in the desert pursued by our enemies, especially our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. in the desert, pursued by the enemies of King Jesus.

[32:33] But someday, God is going to come through for us like no one else can. God is going to come through for us like money can't, like the United States military can't, like the Bill of Rights can't.

[33:00] God's King is going to return to the world that belongs to Him. He will gather His people to Himself and the Father of lies and everyone who has joined Him in His lies will be silenced.

[33:13] And instead, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, is King to the glory of God the Father. God is going to to happen. Everyone in this room is going to experience that in one way or another.

[33:31] You can have confidence in that. You can stake your life on that. Verses 9 through 11 are relevant to you because that is part of God's plan.

[33:42] We saw that worked out for months as we worked through the book of Revelation. God's plan for the fullness of time, He's going to come through for us like no one else can. And when you have confidence in that, when your confidence is there, everything else that pops up in life that is scary to you, is challenging to you, is a loss to you, gets put into perspective a little bit more.

[34:14] And everything else that you're tempted to put your confidence feels very, very small when you see that, when you see the way that God has promised to come through for you.

[34:31] The psalm is a call for us to cultivate our confidence in God's unequal sufficiency. God is worth it like no one else.

[34:43] God satisfies like no one else. God comes through like no one else. So today, whatever trouble or loss you're facing, and every day that comes until our King returns, let's put our confidence in God's unequaled sufficiency for us as His people.

[35:05] And to close, instead of praying my own prayer, I'm going to pray Psalm 63 aloud one more time, and I'm going to make it plural.

[35:18] So it's going to be a prayer from us as Christ the King Church to our sufficient God. Let's pray. O God, You are our God.

[35:34] Earnestly, we seek You. Our souls thirst for You. Our flesh faints for You as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

[35:46] So we have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and Your glory. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, our lips will praise You.

[35:59] So we will bless You as long as we live, and in Your name we will lift up our hands. Our souls will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and our mouths will praise You with joyful lips when we remember You upon our beds and meditate on You in the watches of the night.

[36:17] For You have been our help, and in the shadow of Your wings we will sing for joy. Our souls cling to You. Your right hand upholds us.

[36:30] For those who seek to destroy our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters around the world shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword.

[36:42] They shall be a portion for jackals, but the King shall rejoice in God. All who swear by Him shall exult. For the mouths of liars will be stopped. Amen.