My Soul Thrist
Notes
Transcript
My Soul Thirst
My Soul Thirst
Psalm 63 is one of my favorite to read, it has beautiful description of David’s longing for the Lord.
O God, you are my God; 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.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
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;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
What an amazing words that David proclaims. And most of us would say these very same words on good day. We might sing songs speaking about how we hunger and thirst for God, but most of the time that is because life is going the way we want it too. The bills are being paid, we have friends, we have a good job, we are in love.
But what we everything fails apart? What about when life is at its hardest and we just can’t take anymore?
Do we cry out like David,
O God, you are my God; 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.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
I said this is one of my most favorite and cherished Psalm because of when David wrote it. David had some amazing moments in his life, Even having God tell him that God would establish an everlasting throne and King through David’s family line. That would cause to declare “So I will bless you as long as I live.”
But once again that isn’t what motivated David to write this Psalm. There are two possibilities for the context of this passage. Either David is fleeing from Saul who was trying to kill Him, or the one that makes more sense in the King is fleeing from Absalom who wants to kill him. This Absalom who just so happens to be His own son.
I could never imagine one of my sons coming after me seeking to end my life saying, “Dad this is my house now, your done old man.” and then proceeding to chase me out the door with a butter knife.
In second Samuel 16 we see a depressed King who is actually being ridiculed and having rocks thrown at Him.
And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today.” So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust. And the king, and all the people who were with him, arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself.
It is under these circumstance:
On the run for His life
In the dessert
being mocked
in despair
David lifts his head and declare, “God you are my God, I earnestly seek you; my soul thirst for you.”
In the midst of trials we go to a personal God
In the midst of trials we go to a personal God
David’s says “you are my God.” David runs to the God who is personally known.
We know this because David is reminded of seeing the Lord, “I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.”
David knew God on a personal level. God had previously satisfied the longing of his soul and He would certainly do it again. David is confident of this a declares “So I will bless you.”
Why trial come our way what is our response? When we are in the midst of the valley of the shadow or death where to we turn?
The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego is a testament to this very principle which is “When we face trouble we can turn to a God that we know Personally”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
“Our God whom we serve is able.”
Do you believe that today about the God you serve? Do you know it to be true about God in all circumstances?
When your world is crashing down, can you say with David “God you are my God, I know you and I put my faith and trust in you alone. You are what I need now more than anything.”
David’s experience points to His greater need
David’s experience points to His greater need
David is in a dessert experiencing the dry waterless wilderness and it is this very thing that reminds him of the thirst of his soul for God.
When our worlds come crashing Down can we say like David, “God in the midst of this I earnestly seek you.”?
Look at the emotion in the language David uses, “Earnestly I seek you.”
God is the priority in the life of David even in the midst of trials. This is what heroes of the faith show by the way they live out their faith.
There is a whole chapter of Hebrews that is dedicated to showing how men women from the bible lived by faith, because
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
These hero’s of the faith had there eyes focused on the kingdom of God and not of this earth, and they stand as an example for us
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
C.S. Lewis, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
Why does fear control your life? Why does hurt determine how you live, how you feel, and how you love?
Have you lost sight of the kingdom of God? Has your gaze gone from God to the problems and situation that you are currently in?
To be earnest is too strongly desire, with a focus on relationship with, to try to learn whereabouts.
Some Bibles say “early” - but this too is showing an earnest desire for God above all things, as is seeking God early, before anything else.
David continues with these emotionally charge words. He says “my soul thirst for you”-
To thirst here- is to intensely desire something as extension of being in a state of needing a drink.
David is saying “Without you God I will die.” This is also seen in the language that He uses in the next line “My soul faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
David would have understood this description all too well because He was in the midst of it. His soul faints without God- His soul becomes weak, and loses strength, bordering on losing consciousness.
So the is how is your faith?
What a dire situation David paints, but yet this is how he feel in the midst of this storm.
He doesn’t blame God,
He doesn’t curse God,
He doesn’t even question God
But in the midst of everything fallen apart in His life, His son is trying to kill him, he lost his throne, he is wandering in the dessert, He turns to God saying, “God I need you!”
Suffering Leads us to God
Suffering Leads us to God
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Suffering, Reason for
The following quotation is from a Christian man who has been an invalid all his life, one of those lonely and obscure people who live in constant pain, who do not know what it means to be able to use their physical body in any way without pain and suffering:
“Loneliness is not a thing of itself, not an evil sent to rob us of the joys of life. Loneliness, loss, pain, sorrow, these are disciplines, God’s gifts to drive us to his very heart, to increase our capacity for him, to sharpen our sensitivities and understanding, to temper our spiritual lives so that they may become channels of his mercy to others and so bear fruit for his kingdom. But these disciplines must be seized upon and used, not thwarted. They must not be seen as excuses for living in the shadow of half-lives, but as messengers, however painful, to bring our souls into vital contact with the living God, that our lives may be filled to overflowing with himself in ways that may, perhaps, be impossible to those who know less of life’s darkness.”
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;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
God is faithful, and therefore we can like David here but our faith in Him.
The author of Lamentations gives this lost list of terrible things that he had to endure during captivity, even his enemies putting gravel in his food, which was a type of torture that would eventually break away all your teeth, and it is in the midst of all of these terrible things he says,
Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
When dark times of the soul come, when the world is falling apart do you remember and meditate on God’s faithfulness. God’ steadfast love endures forever.
Can we sing the Old Hymn
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
When darkness veils his lovely face
I'll rest on his unchanging grace
In every high and stormy day
My anchor holds within the veil
This hope that we sing of is the message of Christ. It is through Christ taking our place and suffering, being wiped, mocked, spat upon, and they dying on the cross, that we can come to God.
This is the Gospel, which means “good-news”. Why is it good news, because no longer are those who put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour have had their debt paid by Jesus who took their place. He paid for our salvation through His blood being shed on a cross.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Can we Glorify God in our sufferings?
Can we Glorify God in our sufferings?
This is not asking if it is possible, but are we capable?
David says “my mouth will praise you with joyful lips” This thought is echoed all-throughout Scripture. We see it Job who when he lost everything says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed by the name of the Lord.”
Job get struck with sickness and sores to the point where he is scrapping them off with broken pottery, his owe wife bleeds with him to curse God and just die, but in the midst of the suffering Job says, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” Job goes on to make this one more amazing statement and says in Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, I will hope in Him”
Fast forward to a Man who knew sorrows, who suffered for crimes he didn’t commit, who was killed with the transgressor even though he Himself was faultless. A Man who cried out to God speaking of His gruesome Death “Father glorify yourself.”
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Christ has set an example of what worship looks like in the midst of suffering. God was glorified through the cross, because those were enemies of God how now become sons of God.
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Christ example of suffering unfairly for our sins, is our very example of how to suffer for the glory of God. Trials we face can bring glory too God and growth in our faith as we trust God through every storm we face.
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Persecution
One of the most inspiring examples of courage in the history of the church was the martyrdom of Polycarp, who was burned at the stake for his faith. The aged Polycarp had been arrested by the Roman authorities and brought to the arena for execution in front of the cheering crowd. The proconsul pressed him hard and said, “Swear, and I will release you. Revile Christ.” Polycarp replied, “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King that has saved me.” (Cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 15.)
May everything we do be done for the glory of God. May our worship in the midst of sorrows and pain be as sweet as when everything is perfect in our lives.