Psalm 63

[0:00] Amen. Thank you so much, Ian. What a blessing it is. In eternity when we're not going to be thinking about ourselves much, right?

[0:37] We're not going to be, our minds aren't going to be dwelling on our problems or things that relate to us. And because our souls are going to be, for the first time, we're going to behold the glory of God and our hearts and our souls will not cease to praise what we have seen.

[1:03] And that's so encouraging. Thank you, worship team, for leading us this morning in worship. And this morning we're going to start our series in the Psalms, and it's our Advent series, and it's called Gifts of the Coming King.

[1:22] It's our series theme, Gifts of the Coming King. And today we're going to start with Psalm 63, and we're going to see that the coming King, Christ, has given us a new thirst and a new satisfaction.

[1:39] I really enjoyed reading through this psalm the last month or two, and I started reading through it just in my own quiet times in the morning with the Lord.

[1:51] And I was drawn to this psalm because of the language that it uses. And it's my prayer that the things that the Lord has shown me through this psalm would be some of the same things that I'm able to convey and that your hearts are able to see this morning.

[2:08] I don't hold the key to figuring out what the psalm is saying, right? There's nothing special about what I've done here, right? It's what the Lord has put on my heart as to what I feel like David is going on in David's heart and David's life as he's penning this 63rd Psalm.

[2:26] And so as I was going through it, there was one question that was really, really heavy in my heart. And it was so heavy, and it was something that I kept asking myself, and it was what kept drawing me back to this psalm, Psalm 63.

[2:40] And it's worth asking. And so the question was, does my soul thirst for God like David's did? And do I find satisfaction in God like David did?

[2:52] And so that's going to be our question today. Okay, here we are, gifts of the coming King, a new thirst and satisfaction. And go ahead, Andrew. So today's question, this is what I want us to be able to answer. If we can't answer this question today, then we're missing it.

[3:06] And so the question is, do I thirst for God and find satisfaction in him? And the I is me, right? But the I is every soul here.

[3:17] Whether you've been going to church your whole life, whether this is your first time, it doesn't matter. And so I think we can answer that question by looking at God's word and seeing David's example.

[3:28] And then comparing what we see in our hearts and our lives to what we see in David. And so please bow your heads with me as we pray. Father God, I pray two things this morning, Lord, and it is that, God, that we would accurately see you this morning.

[3:55] Psalm 34 says that we would taste and see that the Lord is good. God, that's my first prayer is that we would see you. God, that we would understand what we're seeing. Lord, my second prayer for us this morning is that each and every one of us, God, would see ourselves in light of you.

[4:14] God, and so please enable me. Lord, your spirit empowers the heart of the believer, so let your spirit use my words and my lips to, Lord, answer those two prayer requests this morning.

[4:33] God, that your glory may shine brightly. God, that we might magnify your name. Amen. And so we see this example of David in Psalm 63.

[4:48] And Ian just read it before, and the first thing, the first verse of the psalm is just amazing. So God, you're my God. Earnestly I seek you. This is the ESV.

[4:59] My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you. As in a dry and weary land where there is no water. And so does my soul thirst for God? A soul that thirsts for God seeks God.

[5:13] And the soul that thirsts for God seeks God in light of trying times. And so the context for this psalm, right, is so critical to our understanding. And so here's David, right?

[5:23] He's in a difficult time. He's in what some consider the darkest days of his life. He's running from his son, Absalom. This is most likely what's going on here. He's running from his son, Absalom, right?

[5:34] And he's not in a good place. He's not in a comfortable spot. He's in a very vulnerable situation because he flees to the wilderness of Judah. But it's probably not a tropical wilderness.

[5:46] It's more like a desert wilderness. And so he's in this extremely trying time. He doesn't have much food as we see. He doesn't have much water as we see in the text.

[5:56] And it's a very weary place, right? The desert's not a comfortable spot to be, let alone when you're being chased by your son, who is attempting to take your throne as king and to take your life.

[6:11] And so David's in a pretty unsatisfying spot in every way. And this causes him to feel a symptom, right? And he starts to sense a lack.

[6:21] And we would think the most obvious thing here, right? If you're in the desert and there's no food or water, your lack is probably, what's on your mind, right, is probably food and water.

[6:33] And so that's the most obvious thing to us. And verse 1 says, As in a dry and weary land where there is no water, there's no mistaking. There's definitely something missing there.

[6:44] And he's feeling these symptoms of not having food and water in the wilderness. And so a soul that thirsts for God seeks God in light of trying times.

[6:56] And a soul that thirsts for God seeks God in light of spiritual thirsting. And so the next step, the most sensible thing we would have seen David do, right, is what? Is say, I'm going to get something to drink.

[7:08] And we think that's what his next move is going to be. And there's no doubt that he did want something to drink. And we can't say that to no extent did he ever look for something to drink, right?

[7:20] We can assume that he did. There was some sort of desiring food and drink, right? But that's not what we see in the text. David's physical symptoms caused his mind to be reminded of a spiritual state he was in.

[7:35] And the spiritual thirsting of his heart. And so what was he spiritually thirsty and fainting for? The Lord. More than water, more than food.

[7:47] How do we know this? Let's look at our text again. Verse 1, Psalm 63. He says, earnestly I seek you. He wasn't talking to food or water here, right?

[7:59] Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you. As in a dry and weary land where there is no water. He could have cried out to God for nourishment, right?

[8:16] He could have said, God, I earnestly sink water. My soul thirsts for something to drink. My flesh faints for a roast beef sandwich, whatever.

[8:27] Because I'm in a dry and weary land where there's no water. That's not what he says. And so for David, the spiritual implications of thirst were more important than the physical implications of thirst.

[8:39] And so David decided to seek God in the desert. Seek God. And how did he seek God, right? He sought God. The text says in that first line, God, you are my God.

[8:52] Earnestly I seek you. And so he sought God like one would who is dying of thirst. See, he seeks God. He seeks God desperately.

[9:04] And earnestly can probably be best translated early, right? So he's seeking God early. Perhaps that means early in the morning. But regardless, it means David's chief priority was seeking God, not nourishment.

[9:19] And David's passion and the thing that was driving him was his spiritual thirst. He pursued God earnestly as a matter of first importance with the same mental vigor, right, and focus of someone who would be seeking water who was dying of thirst.

[9:37] That's how David sought God. And so why did he do that, right?

[9:48] I mean, of course he knew that he's going to seek God. And he's not actually expecting God to like divinely give him water. That's not the point of what he's saying here. He's trying to quench a spiritual thirst.

[9:59] And it's because of what he had experienced in what we see in verse 2, the sanctuary. We're going to read that in a second. And so what David missed most, what he longed for most while in the wilderness, was a physical and spiritual closeness to God, right?

[10:14] A nearness to God. A fellowship with God that he had experienced in Jerusalem, back at home, in the sanctuary, standing in public worship before Almighty God.

[10:24] And that's what he felt most deprived of. And we got to see this because the rest of this doesn't make any sense if we don't understand this part of the text. And this was of highest value to David, right, feeling this spiritual lack.

[10:40] And so he knew how he could become satisfied. And so his mind began to dwell on past worship. Let's read verse 2. Go ahead, Andrew.

[10:55] And so a soul that thirsts for God does so in light of past worship. And so the past worship for David was literally the physical house, the sanctuary, where David had his earthly interaction with God, right?

[11:09] This is where he encountered God. This is where he went to meet with God. And it had the physical elements of worship, right? The Ark of the Covenant, which is actually what this represents. The power and glory of God is seen in the Old Testament.

[11:20] It's said to be the Ark of the Covenant. And so there's the physical elements of worship. There's the rituals, right? And there's an opportunity to stand in the Lord's house in his presence.

[11:32] And so there's the spiritual connectedness to the Lord that David missed, right? And so he didn't miss church, right? That's not what I'm saying. He's not thinking about church instead of filling himself with water in the wilderness, right?

[11:50] It wasn't church that he missed. It wasn't the ritual of coming on a Sunday morning, say. It was the fellowship, right? It was the connection to God. It was the communing with God that he missed.

[12:01] It was seeing God in the sanctuary, knowing more and encountering more of God's power and glory in person, right? Because it says beholding your power and glory.

[12:13] And so David had many times before gone to the sanctuary, gone to the house of the Lord to worship. And so he felt a deficit, right?

[12:24] When that wasn't available to him in the wilderness, he felt a great deficit. He felt a great need, right? It wasn't just a need to go to church. Oh, I missed church this Sunday. It was a need to, I need to go meet with the Lord.

[12:37] I need to fellowship with my God. I need to encounter my God. I need to know more of my God, right? And if you look at the language here, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you.

[12:51] Like, are you kidding me? That's crazy. You can just see how desperate David is to meet with his God. And so these past experiences in worship in the sanctuary, right, they were drawing David back.

[13:08] They were drawing his heart back. And so he begins to slowly, he begins to dwell on the things of the Lord. He begins to dwell on his past experiences. He begins to dwell on past worship and what he's seen and encountered of in relation to God.

[13:20] Because he knew that the most important thirst to satisfy, right, was his spiritual thirsting and being communion with God. So he sought God. And he sought for God to satisfy his greatest thirsting.

[13:33] And so a soul that thirsts for God is satisfied in God. So what does David find in recalling and reliving the sanctuary times, his times of worship, right?

[13:45] The same things that he had seen in the past, seeking God. And these things were so powerful, right? They were so impactful in his heart and his life that his mind was beckoned back, right?

[13:56] He was pulled back. And verses 3 to 7 reveal a little bit about what he found and what he had encountered in the sanctuary, his time with the Lord. And so we're going to start reading at verses 3 to 4.

[14:09] So look at verse 3 of Psalm 63. Psalm 63.

[14:41] Psalm 63. This is one of the lines that as I was reading through this and preparing to share today in the last couple months, just meditating, just spending time and praying through and just looking at this verse over and over.

[14:57] This is crazy. Look what he says. Your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you. Think of what David must have encountered in the times of the Lord, right?

[15:11] To be able to say something like that. What kind of fellowship is that? What kind of communing with God is that? Clearly he had seen, right, the unsurpassing greatness and value of God's love.

[15:29] This was the basis for his thirsting. This was the beginning of his thirsting was God's love, both in the wilderness and in times past. Right?

[15:42] And so that phrase, better than life, you know, for David, I can't help but think to say, like, for David to experience and encounter God's love, he's basically, I see him saying, I don't care about anything else.

[15:55] Right? This is what matters. This is what matters the most. Your steadfast love is better than life. Right? Not just water. Right?

[16:08] For a possible David was willing to exchange his physical life to encounter and to know and to see the steadfast love of God. And that's amazing.

[16:18] The steadfast love of God is his loyal love. Right? His immovable love.

[16:29] His enduring love. And David saw that God's steadfast love far surpassed, right, earthly pleasure, earthly desires.

[16:43] And what did it do? I mean, these verses just blow me away. It's so powerful. What does he do when he sees this love? It says, his soul was filled with praise.

[16:56] Right? My lips will praise you. I think, like, have I ever said that to God? You know?

[17:09] Look where he is. He's in a desert. And he's got nothing. You know? Can I even say that on a Sunday morning? What a love David must have been considering.

[17:25] Right? What a work it must have been doing in his heart to dwell on the steadfast love of God and to be able to praise the Lord in the time he was in. How great is verse 4?

[17:39] I will bless you as long as I live. In your name I will lift up my hands. The irony here, right, is that David didn't know how long he was going to live.

[17:53] He had no idea. Right? But it didn't matter to him. Even if he knew he was going to die in 10 minutes by the hands of evil men, right? It didn't matter. He was still going to be praising the Lord until it happened.

[18:05] Right? And so this idea of praising the Lord, the text says, what does it say? In your names I'll lift up my hands. Right? An act of submission and saying, God, I'm good with what your sovereign will is, Lord.

[18:17] I'm good with it. I have peace about that. Seeing God's steadfast love just causes his heart to erupt in praise.

[18:29] He submits a God's sovereign plan despite not really knowing. He didn't know what was going to happen. I can't help but think that that is such a great example of a full reliance on God's sovereignty.

[18:48] Right? We can lose a lot of stuff in life. Right? But submitting our lives, being okay with what happens to our lives is probably one of the most powerful things.

[18:59] To give over to the Lord. And so, the soul that thirsts for God, sees God through God-centered, I'm sorry, satisfied in God through God-centered meditation.

[19:18] This has to be probably my favorite verse in this whole psalm. My soul will be satisfied. Let's read verse 5, 6, and 7. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.

[19:31] My mouth will praise you with joyful lips. When I remember you on my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night. You've been my help. In the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy.

[19:46] Right? These verses are just amazing. And David's thirsting soul is so satisfied in the Lord. And David knew that he would be satisfied in the Lord.

[20:01] That's part of the reason he went to God. It's because he knew the satisfying of his soul. Satisfying in the resolving of the situation would... Nothing would happen unless he found a satisfaction in God.

[20:19] And so, it's amazing to see in verse 1, David says, my soul thirsts for you. And then here in verse 5, he says, my soul will be satisfied. Right?

[20:29] And it started in... Based in God's love. And now here he is. God-centered meditation. If you think of the state of David's body at this point, right?

[20:42] It's hard to say exactly how long he's been in the wilderness, right? Say it's longer than a day. I'd say it's less than a week, though. So, he's been there a few days. And the state of his body, right? What kind of state is our body going to when we don't have food and drink, right?

[20:54] Pretty... We get kind of scared, right? I mean, we have reserves in there somewhere, right? I get hungry after like a couple hours, right? And so, it could have been a while for David since he had some kind of nourishment.

[21:12] And to think that... Like, what does it even mean for your soul to be satisfied as with fat and rich food? Right?

[21:23] Fat is... Not the scary fat, right? Not like, oh, I don't want to get fat. Fat like what sustains you, right? Like when a baby drinks a mother's milk, right? The fat in the milk is what sustains that child.

[21:39] To think about what it means to be satisfied in the Lord as you would with food. And I think about Thanksgiving dinner, right?

[21:50] And so, I usually eat way too much. Most people do. And... But when I'm done with Thanksgiving, right? I don't think I've ever had a Thanksgiving dinner and then said like, step back from the table, plopped on the couch and been like, I'm not satisfied, right?

[22:07] No. Has anyone ever had that before? Unless you're not eating, right? That meal is satisfying. Why? Because you're like me. You eat way too much, right? There is no need for more nourishment after that meal.

[22:23] There's no need for... There's no void. There's no satisfaction void after Thanksgiving, right? And that's what David felt, right? David was filled to the brim, right?

[22:37] He was maxed out, if that's even possible. He was fully and perfectly satisfied in God. He was fully content.

[22:48] But we can't forget where he was, right? He was fully content and satisfied. His soul was satisfied in the Lord in the desert where he had nothing.

[23:00] But verse 5 isn't by itself, right? Verse 5 continues in 6 and 7. It says, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night.

[23:20] And so David has such a joy in fellowshipping and considering God, right?

[23:32] Even when he's just totally exhausted, right? He had to stay watch because there's evil lurking. He had to stay up and take a shift.

[23:45] You know? He's so sleep deprived. David's not, he doesn't care about his tight eight hours, right? I try to keep a tight seven to seven and a half. If I get eight, that's great, right?

[23:56] But I'm pretty focused. I'm pretty focused on it. And I can get kind of irritated when, you know, when I don't get that. Maybe some of y'all could resonate. I know everyone loves sleep.

[24:07] But he didn't care about that. He saw his waking up in the night to watch, to stand guard as a joy. He saw it as a privilege.

[24:19] He was so excited. And it's not like he stumbled out of bed and said a prayer and was like, oh, okay, God. He said, my soul's going to be satisfied at 2, 3, 4 a.m., whatever, and the watch is the night when I consider you, God.

[24:32] God, that's how great a time of communion with God David was having. He wanted to spend more time with the Lord.

[24:45] He doesn't gripe because he can't sleep. He rejoices and he feels satisfaction because of the thirst-quenching ability of God.

[24:56] And he recalls that God has been his help in times past. Verse 7, you've been my help. In the shadow of your wings, I sing for joy.

[25:12] Even though his life is on the line, right, it's uncertain. He sings for joy in the Lord because God is protecting and providing for him. And so this idea, right, of the shadow of your wings is, I mean, kind of makes sense, right?

[25:27] A little bird comes in underneath the mother's wing and the mother closes the wing on a little bird, right? And the bird feels so protected, right? The bird's not scared anymore.

[25:38] The big, the comforting, the soft wing of the mother bird, it almost creates a naivety, right, in the baby, which isn't wrong with his naivety to what's really going on outside of the wing, right?

[25:56] That's the kind of comfort David felt in the Lord because of how he had seen the Lord work on his life in times past and because he knew it to be true of the Lord as a God that provides.

[26:13] And so what we see here in these few verses, in verses 3 to 7, or verses 1 to 7, is we've seen David cry out, said, Lord, I'm thirsting for you, God.

[26:24] I'm fainting for you. And so he seeks God by recalling to mind the things of God in light of what he's seen in the past. And look what he finds, right? He finds nourishment.

[26:36] He finds a spiritual nourishment. He finds a spiritual thirst-quenching satisfaction, right? Far beyond what a glass of water could have brought him or a warm meal could have accomplished physically.

[26:49] And so even though he's still in the wilderness, right? He's not out yet. He's still there. He's still deprived of food and water. His body is still asking him to take a drink, right?

[27:04] But he's nourished. And he expresses what we've seen here. Satisfaction, joy, safety, feeling provided for, feeling content, and of course, praise.

[27:22] And so a soul that thirsts for God and is satisfied in God, that soul will result in praise. And this psalm is littered with praise.

[27:37] And so are many other psalms, right? Declaring adoration to God. The psalms are so great to pray through because it really makes you look at your own heart and think, you know, what does praise to God look like?

[27:51] This is what it looks like right here. Praise that comes out of one's lips comes from deep within a heart.

[28:04] Like a kettle placed on a burning stove, right? The stove's turned on. The surface is warm. And the kettle is placed on. And there's water inside. And so the water in the kettle begins to warm up.

[28:18] And it gets hotter and hotter and hotter. And the temperature's higher and higher and higher. And the kettle can't help. But to let out a shout, a whistle, right? Kettles whistle.

[28:29] It has to. It can't not whistle, right? Because of what's gone on inside. That's what I thought of when I saw David here.

[28:40] And he had every excuse not to praise God, right? But he couldn't help it. He said, verse 3, my lips will praise you. Verse 4, I will bless you as long as I live. In your name I'll lift up my hands.

[28:52] Verse 5, my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. In verse 7, in the shadow of your wings I'll sing for joy. David's been truly satisfied.

[29:05] Right? And his soul's thirsting has been quenched. He's not going through the motions here, friends. Right? He's not going through the motions of praise and worship.

[29:17] This isn't lip syncing, right? This is true, deep, honest, fully saturated, all in praise for the God of the universe.

[29:27] And the amount of praise and the quality, the words of praise that we see here, I think, do justice to where David's heart was.

[29:39] He was satisfied in God. So as we continue on in our text, soul that thirsts for God endures with confidence in God.

[29:52] Because God is victorious over evil. I think we really can't fail to see what's going on in these next few verses. So David has sought God.

[30:03] He has become, because he was aware of his spiritual thirsting, he was satisfied. His thirsting was quenched in God. His thirsting was satisfied in God. And it brought him to result in praise.

[30:15] And it encouraged him to cling to the Lord and endure confidently during his trial. Verse 8 reads, My soul clings to you.

[30:30] Your right hand upholds me. What a strong confidence. Confidence. And we can tell from the preceding verse, there's no doubt that God would sustain, David didn't doubt God would sustain him spiritually in a desert place, right?

[30:48] But he was also confident God would protect his actual life, his physical life too. He's confident. He recognizes that it's not in his own strength or ability, his own means, that he's holding up his soul.

[31:03] And David says, his soul clinging to God, right? That represents, he's admitting that it's God's power and strength and God's sovereign will that upholds even David's life in light of his inability to control a situation.

[31:21] Right? And so I think this is really cool what happens here. And so David doesn't say, I cling to you, God, right? As if one who has fallen off a cliff, right?

[31:31] And they're holding just by these four fingers and saying, I really hope this hold, I'm clinging to the cliff, I hope the rocks don't give way. It's not that kind of clinging. It's not clinging with great uncertainty.

[31:42] It's clinging like a child who clings with their arms around a parent's neck, right?

[31:53] And they're scared and they're not going to let go. But ultimately, as the parent knows, but so does the child that if their arms were to slip, if their grip were to be broken, that it's not actually their arms that are keeping them up.

[32:13] It's not actually the child's arms that are keeping them sustained, right? It's the parent who's been holding the child, right? That's who's been holding the child. And the parent, as parents, we hold our children so many times, time and time again, right?

[32:31] The child has a confidence in the parent, even if their old clinging were to fail. And so David says, my soul clings to you and your right hand upholds me.

[32:43] It's not, I'm clinging to you, God, and I hope I don't fall. It's I'm clinging to you and I know your right hand upholds me. And the right hand of God represents his power, his might and sovereignty.

[32:58] Sovereign hand over what? We talk about sovereign hand. What is it? What's the deal? It's evil. Sovereign hand over evil.

[33:09] Let's read verses 9 to 11. Those who seek to destroy my life shall go down to the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword.

[33:21] They shall be apportioned for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult. For the mouths of liars will be stopped. And although it hadn't transpired yet, David had full faith that God would deliver his physical body, that God would deliver him over the sin and evil that was encroaching.

[33:47] And those who sought to destroy him would be removed from earth because desiring evil against God's people is an act that God intervenes on. Verse 10 is possibly a prophecy on David's part because indeed his greatest enemy, Saul and Saul's army, would not prevail over David and Saul would fall to the power of the sword.

[34:14] And this image of the portion for jackals, it's a bit tough to digest, but it reveals the men lying dead on the battlefield, right?

[34:27] And their bodies are lying there and they're being eaten by animals. But what it shows is a true victory for God, right? There's no place for evil against God's people.

[34:38] So the sovereign hand that David clung to was the same hand that would defeat the enemies when pursuing David in the wilderness. And what would David do as a result of the sovereign hand?

[34:50] Verse 11, The king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. And David's confident that those who are God's people, those who swear by God, declare their allegiance and commitment to God.

[35:05] They will rejoice. They will exult because the evil, the mouths of liars will be stopped. Evil will be stopped. And God's people would prevail in victory.

[35:21] And so I can't help but think, like, what an amazing way for this psalm to end, right? And it started with David desperately pleading for God, saying, Lord, I'm thirsting for you, I'm longing for you in this dry and weary land.

[35:37] And he was pleading for a spiritual thirst to be quenched. That's how it starts. And it ends with David who has sought God and whose soul has been satisfied even in the darkest of times.

[35:48] King rejoicing in victory. A king who is valiantly courageous through his God. A king who has declared sure victory over his enemies even before it has happened. A king who was sure that God would bring salvation to him and those who swear by God.

[36:08] So I have a question. Do you, friends, do you have faith in this God, in the God of David? Verse 11 says, The king shall rejoice in God and all who swear by him shall exult.

[36:28] So have you sworn by God? Have you sworn to God? Have you made a commitment to God? Are you, God, a loyal follower of God? Are you a pursuer of God in your life?

[36:41] I think what the ESV lacks, and I believe it's the King James that says, all who swear by him shall glory. So, why should we glory in that?

[37:03] Right? And here it comes, right? This is the gospel. This is the Christian gospel. Because just like David encountered evil and God defeated it, in verse 9, so also Christ, in our version of this story, Christ has defeated sin and death too.

[37:26] This is the gospel. David's salvation was in God's victory over evil, and you and I can receive salvation salvation because Christ has triumphed over it.

[37:44] God has designed humans from the very beginning to bring him glory, right? In the Garden of Eden, in the book of Genesis, we know this. And that was his design that Adam and Eve and all people would bring God glory, and creation would bring him glory.

[38:00] All created things. But man sinned, and Ab and Eve chose to seek something that wasn't God to satisfy their own thirsting for something else and break that relationship.

[38:16] And likewise, everyone in this room has made the same decision at some point to break God's law and to break that relationship. And so for thousands of years, there was a deficit in relationship with God that was started in the Garden.

[38:42] And this is what we celebrate at Christmas. Christ came as a king to reestablish that relationship by paying the penalty for our sin on the cross with his own death.

[38:57] Christ has defeated the power of sin and death so that you and I no longer have to pay the price for the bad choice, for the bad decision, for the sin that we've made in our life.

[39:09] One sin equals it all takes as one. And so Christ came in triumph over death and sin by dying on the cross, by being buried, but then by raising again, he conquered sin and death and he made a way for us to stand right before God.

[39:27] That's what he's done. That's the gospel, the Christian gospel. But it doesn't just end there, right?

[39:40] Verse 11 says, all who swear by him shall glory, shall exalt. It's because we're all left with the decision either we end up in hell because we haven't chosen to receive Christ's blood as a payment for our sin or we make a covenant with God, we make a commitment with God, we become a follower of Jesus by saying, Jesus, your blood paid for my sin.

[40:09] That's what I cling to. And so we can then glory because we are given a new life and a new spirit when we make the decision. And that's a decision that can be made at any point, any time in anyone's life.

[40:27] And so the gospel starts as this psalm does with a little bit of a discouraging focus almost.

[40:40] David's in a bad place. But the psalm ends saying, those who swear by him shall exalt. And the psalm ends with new life, with new joy.

[40:54] And that's the Christian gospel says that when we receive Christ's blood by faith in him alone, by his grace, the free gift, we have new life.

[41:07] And this is where this psalm gets interesting. And because of the new life we have in Christ, the new destiny, the new motivations, the new desires we have in Christ, our lives are changed, right?

[41:27] And they're not just changed in an eternal sense. Christ isn't a ticket out of hell. Christ is your answer. Christ is the only way you will not go to hell for eternity.

[41:40] But receiving Christ is not receiving a ticket out of hell alone. Receiving Christ means receiving a new life. And so this psalm, which may seem like really foreign and abstract to us because we think like, I don't have evil guys chasing me.

[42:02] You know, I'm good. I'm satisfied. The psalm takes a whole new form when we look at it in light of gospel truths.

[42:14] So this is what we're going to do. Because your new life in Christ changes what you seek, it changes your satisfactions, and it changes how you endure against evil.

[42:30] So back to our question. Do you thirst for God and do you find satisfaction in Him like David did? And I found my answer to be yes, sometimes.

[42:46] Right? But I want to more. Sometimes no. Go ahead, Andrew. This is our series theme, Gifts of the Coming King, Gifts of the King.

[43:07] The gift of the new life in Christ, gift of new life in Christ the King means a new thirst, a new satisfaction, and the ability to endure in life's trying times, bringing due glory to God.

[43:22] So here's reasons why we might not thirst for God and find satisfaction in Him. Go ahead. Why not?

[43:34] Well, maybe it's because we're seeking things other than God. Right? So David, he recognized these symptoms, right? He had these feelings and these symptoms of physical thirst and a desire for physical nourishment.

[43:50] But he probably also had with it other feelings and symptoms, right? He may have been a little lonely. He was probably a little frustrated in his son.

[44:01] He was maybe feeling distant from people and maybe a little bored too. And he was probably a little discouraged and unsure of his future, maybe a little anxious.

[44:18] And so David had symptoms of his physical situation and we gotta recognize, friends, our physical situations as being trials, right?

[44:31] We need to have spiritual eyes and see our physical condition, our physical feelings that our situations bring up in life as trials. And they have spiritual connotations, right?

[44:44] So anything you feel in the realm of work, family, home life, or social and public life, I think that includes everything. Anything that you feel is a physical symptom.

[44:58] So here's the example for me. And this is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to talk about Psalm 63. Since having our second child, we have had an increase in, shall I say, joyful noises in the car.

[45:13] And unlike most kids, our daughter doesn't enjoy the car seat. And I think in the four months we've had her, I think we've probably had two car rides that did not have a lot of crying in them, right?

[45:30] So anytime we're in the car, the baby's upset. She cries. And so this makes me frustrated, right? Why? Well, because unless you're a lot different than me, you probably don't like when babies cry.

[45:44] Right here. Right? Right here. And then also, you want to resolve it. You want to fix the problem. Especially as a man, it's like, I want to fix this.

[45:58] It's okay, honey. What do you want? So I want to fix it, and I'm frustrated about it. And I let myself get frustrated about this a lot.

[46:10] And it was happening every time we were in the car. And I knew it was going to happen every time we were in the car. And I tried to prepare for it, but as you could tell, it didn't matter.

[46:22] Right? I got in the car, got in my chair, hadn't even turned the car on yet. Wah. You know, whatever crying sounds like. And so it happened every time. And then the Lord showed me, okay, see your physical situation?

[46:36] You see what's going on, the symptoms you're feeling? Frustration. Discouragement. You're getting hot and sweaty. You're getting anxious. He said, you need to look with spiritual eyes at that situation.

[46:54] Right? So, the gifts of the coming king. new life in Christ gives us, the gospel gives us the ability to see things with spiritual eyes. And so, my pursuit no longer became doing this and trying to rock her because that actually hurt my shoulder and it didn't actually help.

[47:14] And my caring wife would often tell me, honey, it's not, you know, it doesn't help. And with time and every day that week that went by, it helped less and less. I tried to change my shaking technique and tried to, whatever, it didn't work.

[47:30] But I started taking a different approach to it and I started to, a couple weeks ago, a month ago after Mike talked about making war against sin, I entered the car one day and I told Jules and she reminded me of this this morning, I entered the car and I said, babe, I'm making war right now because I knew within a matter of seconds I was going to be so frustrated with her crying that it was just going to mess so much with her mind, right?

[47:58] And I'd probably just spent time with the Lord and I came in with a joyful spirit and I was ready, right? And boom, it happened. And so, the Lord revealed to me, start to make war against the sin, start to see it with spiritual eyes, realize the spiritual void in your heart and work on that.

[48:17] because I know there's times that I deal with physical situations in a spiritual way and it works, right?

[48:32] I could sit all day with her crying in the house and I could deal with it with spiritual eyes and I could approach things spiritually and it helps. There's something about the van and being trapped in there.

[48:45] Being trapped in the wilderness of the van. But it's been so freeing since then because the Lord has let me seek Him in the van and I've done it by considering first you have to consider to seek God.

[49:10] You have to see it as an option. I have to consider seeking God as a means to a spiritual thirsting as a means to satisfying a physical problem and that's what the gospel gives us, right?

[49:20] And so the gospel allows my heart to be sensitive to feel the Spirit's leading to say seek this on a spiritual level and so I have and I find myself seeing spiritually like, you know why you're frustrated right now?

[49:38] It's because you're not satisfied with the Lord. That's why you're frustrated, right? It's because you don't see that these trials you go through are actually times to build your faith and to grant you endurance. That's why you're frustrated.

[49:51] You know, that's how you resolve your physical situation to see them with spiritual eyes and so let's look at what David did. There's two ways to resolve our physical situations, right?

[50:09] First of all, there's physical and there's spiritual. In physical, there's two ways to do it and number one is not God. So David could have sought not God by desperately seeking water, talking about that, or seeking consolation in friends or some kind of other physical means, right?

[50:27] Or David could have sought not God by seeking sin and he could have sought to resolve his physical situation in sin to drown it out.

[50:38] He could have sought drunkenness. He could have sought his way to a nearby village and sought physical pleasures, right? He could have been angry at God and cursed God like Job's wife told him to do.

[50:53] So David could have sought not God to resolve his physical problem. He could have sought sin to give an appearance of resolving his physical problem, right?

[51:03] But that just allows the spiritual thirsting to increase. And so I think we do the same things in that we attempt to resolve the feelings that we get at work or at home or with family or whatever.

[51:20] We see the physical issues. Maybe we're discouraged and down. Maybe we're anxious. Maybe we're just not feeling satisfied, right? And so we seek the physical things. We seek things like Netflix, right?

[51:33] Maybe we seek to like go out and have a good time, spend some money, go to a nice restaurant. Like we try to cover these voids we have in our hearts because of our physical situations which happen to everybody every day.

[51:45] We're always encountering these situations and we're always left with some kind of remotely negative feeling and if we seek to solve them physically it ends in sin or it ends in an unsustained satisfaction.

[52:02] And so just think about that. Be aware of the spiritual implications of your physical situations. And so David was. He saw, alright Lord, actually the biggest thing to do here isn't to get water, it's to fill this spiritual void, the spiritual gap that I see.

[52:19] And so he did. He sought God and passed worship. He remembered how filling and how satisfying God was in the past in his times of communion with him and he sought to fill that.

[52:34] And so David missed his time in the sanctuary and so I have a question. Do you miss your times with the Lord? Do you miss those? Like have they had an impact on you?

[52:46] You know, do you have times with the Lord, Christian, that you can recall while in a difficult situation, trying time. And so the gifts of the king, the gospel allows us access to God that we wouldn't normally have, right?

[53:02] Apart from God, David could have not entered the sanctuary. David could have had no part in fellowship with God. And so also you and I, without the gospel, we don't have access to God, so we can only choose not God, we can only choose sin, and we can continue to be unsatisfied.

[53:27] But we've been given a new heart and soul, right? And so the God in us, the spirit in us, is longing for communion with the Father. He's longing for fellowship with the Father. And do you sense that in your hearts?

[53:38] Or is there a dullness because you've pushed that away for so long? So, seek to resolve your situations that you encounter each day.

[53:49] Seek to resolve them with spiritual eyes and see the spiritual void or the spiritual gap that's actually causing some of these things to go on in your heart. And it's not about a church building, right?

[54:03] It wasn't about that David was in a church building that allowed him to do this. He returned to it in the wilderness. He wasn't in a church building in the wilderness, right? But he still had that fellowship with the Lord.

[54:15] And so the second thing, do you thirst for God and find satisfaction in him like David did? Go ahead, Andrew. Because if not, maybe it's because you're satisfied in something else.

[54:29] And this one's huge. The words that David uses in this psalm to describe his soul satisfaction are unparalleled.

[54:51] And when we seek other things, when our soul longs for a satisfaction and resolution of the situation we're in, right? We know it doesn't endure. We have to go back to it.

[55:03] And if it's sin, it actually makes us feel terrible once it's happened. different. And so David knew that his true satisfaction would be only in God.

[55:14] So that's why he pursued that with spiritual eyes like he did. And when we don't go to God and we become satisfied with, I don't know, social media, we're going to have to go back for another hit.

[55:29] We're going to go back like an addiction. We're going to have to go back because it doesn't sustain. What sustains? My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.

[55:44] That's a sustaining satisfaction in God. And the gospel changes our heart's desire, right?

[55:55] People who don't know Jesus don't desire the things of God and so we can watch people who don't know Jesus go through life never being satisfied, right?

[56:07] And maybe that's the reason we have so many just ridiculous things that we do these days and the amount of slander and the amount of hatred and the amount of just wickedness.

[56:21] The soul that satisfies something other than God is not satisfied. The gospel gives us a new desire and a desire to long to be satisfied and quenched in the love of God and thoughts of Him.

[56:36] I think part of the problem is we don't believe it, right? We don't believe that the promises and provision of God, His ability to satisfy us, is really there, like it really exists.

[56:49] No thanks, I'm going to go to something else. No thanks, I'm just going to invest more in what I already have going that's not spiritual. I'm going to invest more here, I'm going to enjoy this more because, I don't know, can God really satisfy a soul?

[57:05] Because I want a lot, right? I want to be satisfied. Can God really do that? Looks like He did with David. And so do we trust God to be able to satisfy our heart's longing?

[57:24] David found himself praising the Lord in the middle of the night, right? He's praising Him, he's considering God's love, considering what God had done for him.

[57:36] And so I'd ask, what do you praise with your lips? People, TV shows, your money, your family, your skills, accomplishments, your abilities?

[57:50] What do you praise? Well, you probably praise most of the things that you are satisfied the most in, and you probably are satisfied the most in the things you seek, right? So it's a cycle, it all falls into place.

[58:03] So what do you praise with your lips? What do you praise with your heart? Do you praise God? Praise will result from a soul that's satisfied in God.

[58:17] And so if you don't find yourself praising God, I'm not saying you have to like join the worship team and be up front and speak from a microphone and like that, like, do you praise the Lord in your heart? Or do you praise Him with your lips and with your mouth?

[58:31] And I would beg that if you don't, your soul's never been truly satisfied in God. And if your soul's never been satisfied in God, and you don't seek God, and you don't stand confident in God, is He your God?

[58:50] something to ask. And the goal in that is not to get people to question their faith in Christ.

[59:04] That's not my goal. My goal is to say, look at the picture we get of the heart of a man who sought God, who is satisfied in God. That's what we should yearn for, friends.

[59:16] We have hope. We have hope because the gospel gives us hope. And the gospel gives us the ability to say no to other things and say yes to the Lord.

[59:28] And the gospel gives us the ability to be satisfied deeply and truly in God and to encounter Him and to enjoy Him, whereas previously we had no ability to do that. And so, we all need to do some diagnostic work, right, to see the tight grip that these satisfying things have in our hearts.

[59:48] Why do you love them? Just look at how you spend your time. What do you spend most of your time doing, right? Are you willing, what do you spend most of your time enjoying? What do you devote your time to?

[60:02] What do you devote your effort and energy to? Right? The answer to finding satisfaction in God is to first start not finding satisfaction in other things, right?

[60:14] We have to filter those things out. And that's the diagnostics, the heart work that we all need to do. Just look at how you spend your time. John Piper has this phrase that I've come to really enjoy and he talked in a sermon once about, what is your superior pleasure?

[60:35] Right? So, at elders meetings we've asked ourselves, like, what's your satisfaction been in? What's your joy been in this week? And so I encourage you to ask yourself that question or ask your spouse or significant other or ask your Christian brothers and sisters, what's your satisfaction been in this week?

[60:51] What has your superior pleasure been this week? And I think satisfaction in God begets satisfaction in God, right?

[61:02] Psalm 34, taste and see that the Lord is good. You're going back. Tasting and seeing the Lord is good, you're going back. So, Sprite soda has this tagline, right?

[61:19] Maybe you know what it is. Obey your thirst, right? And I think that's so true in the spiritual realm, right? I don't drink Sprite, but I think it's so good because when we start thirsting for the Lord because that's who we're created to be, that's who we're designed to thirst for, when we start finding satisfaction in Him and Him, we're going to continue to thirst for the Lord.

[61:47] We're going to obey. Our heart's going to say, David's heart was soft and it said, seek God. Obey this thirsting for God. And so he did. He sought God. So we have to begin to make this trend in our hearts and our lives, right?

[62:01] And let's keep each other accountable. for that, right? And I'm up here talking, but like, I'm a brother, you're a sister, right? That's what we do as God's people.

[62:12] Let's do this together. Let's keep each other accountable for what is earning our satisfaction. Our new life in Christ gives us the things that our thirsting longs for in non-God-centered things.

[62:32] We long for a sense of worth, value, joy. We long to be innovative or creative. We long to be special. We long to be seen by others as something unique, right? You know what satisfies all those things, right?

[62:45] The gospel. Right? In God's eyes, we are something worthy. We are something valuable. we do have something to offer.

[63:03] We do have skills, right? They're called giftings. There's things that every believer in Christ has that he or she is supposed to live out and to give to others. The things that we seek in not God are the things that the gospel has given us in Christ.

[63:19] Christ. And when we seek to fulfill those desires and other things, we are stealing from the Lord that which he's worthy of. And that's great glory.

[63:31] And so, we're almost done. But as a response to this, satisfied in something other than God, my answer would be spend some time with God, right?

[63:41] And enjoy him. And see what that does to your soul. And do some diagnostic work on your heart. So, almost done. Why does all this matter? And so, why does it matter if I thirst for and find satisfaction in something else, right?

[63:59] Because if we don't think that matters, then all the words I'm saying probably won't have much value. Who cares? I don't care what I thirst for. I don't care what I find satisfaction in.

[64:09] I'm a Christian. It's because we can't endure life's trials apart from God. God. And life's trials are not just trials.

[64:24] They are war. If God is your God this morning, you are in the most difficult, the most trying, the most severe battles the world has ever seen. Ephesians 6.12 says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

[64:45] Wow. God is not right? And so there's this great spiritual battle happening every day around us. The forces of evil, as Psalm 639 says, they're out, they're seeking to destroy our lives.

[64:56] Not our physical lives, right? But Satan, but the forces of evil are longing to steal our thirsting, and to steal our satisfaction, and to steal what we stand confidently in, because every ounce of adoration and submission to sin that evil that Satan can get, he'll take.

[65:15] Why? Because he's taking it from what could be God's. It's a war. We're in a battle. Scripture tells us, maybe you know this verse, right?

[65:29] The devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking one to devour. Every day, every moment. We're in a war. A war with some pretty serious spiritual repercussions.

[65:44] Spiritual decay and destruction. Evil's chief satisfaction is our spiritual destruction, because it takes away from our giving glory to God.

[65:57] But we won't care about that if we don't have a proper understanding of the gospel. Gifts of the coming king. The gospel gives us new life, a new purpose, right?

[66:12] Not to seek the things that are easiest or most comfortable. It's not to indulge in the sin that gives the appearance of being satisfying, resolving our physical trying times, right?

[66:25] Because when we approach our daily battle, having sought other things than God as fueling satisfaction, we will not endure. We will not endure. We will give in to the battle.

[66:37] We will give in to temptation and the allure of the world and of culture. David seeking God and finding satisfaction in him was how he was able to praise God and glorify God and endure to the darkest days of his life.

[66:57] And the new purpose of those whose salvation has come by Christ's conquering sin and death is to glory in God. Verse 11, all who swear by him shall exalt, shall glory.

[67:12] Bringing glory to God even in trying times. How? Why should we be careful? Why should we be diligent? Because by seeking God and by being satisfied in him and by enduring in trying times, by our lips singing his praises, we will give the God the glory that he deserves because he's God and because of what he's done for us.

[67:42] Because of who he is. And so the gospel message in our new life in Christ is so foundational to this text. And that's all I have.

[67:56] I've continued to meditate on this for about two months now and I would pray and ask that you all would take this text with you, Psalm 63, and consider it and look to see, look to continually answer that question.

[68:10] Do I thirst for God? Do I find satisfaction in him? And realize that the gospel has given us a new purpose in our lives and it is to be satisfied and thirsty and stand confident in God so that we can give him the glory for who he is and what he's done.

[68:26] And that is our purpose in life. And if we don't have that in our field of vision, we won't endure in our pursuing the right satisfaction. We won't endure in trials and difficult times.

[68:39] The gospel and the God of glory who demands great praise needs to be our motivation in these things. And so I trust that you've heard these words this morning and that the Lord will continue to use these things in your heart to bring you in a closer walk with him as he has with me.

[68:58] So please pray with me. God of all glory, thank you for saving us, God.

[69:24] And Lord, thank you that new life in Christ and the gospel of Christ transforms our hearts, Lord, and it doesn't just get us out of hell and into heaven, God, but it allows us to, Lord, thirst for the things and be satisfied in the things that truly, Lord, honor you and that truly actually sustain our hearts and lives.

[69:52] And God, we thank you for this gift of the King of Jesus Christ who has allowed this all to happen. Lord, may our hearts well up with a thirsting and a yearning and a longing to be satisfied in you.

[70:10] God, may we desire so deeply because of the new soul and the new motivations and life you've put on us to bring you great glory, God, that your name might be lifted high, so high, God.

[70:30] In Christ's name we pray, amen.