Desiring the Divine
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 8 viewsNotes
Transcript
Longing, desire, thirst, urge, motivation, craving, passion, yearning, appetite, eagerness
We fight apathy, disinterest, indifference, coolness, aversion to spiritual matters.
1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my meat day and night, While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him For the help of his countenance.
Introduction:
Our text tonight gives us a singular thought around which the rest of the Psalm is based. This is the thought of thirsting after God.
This is an urge which must be met by some means. It is not simply an expectation, but an overwhelming need for God to move and answer our prayers.
Often, our walk with Christ can have seasons during which we feel that our own motivation, our eagerness for the things of God has dwindled. We have become “weary in well-doing.” God never intended for His child to have an emotionless, stale, indifferent kind of relationship with Him.
Our relationship with Jesus ought to be marked by passion, a yearning “to know Him and the power of His resurrection.” There ought to be a longing to “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The Psalmist utilizes this beautiful picture to help illustrate this truth, the concept of thirst. Thirst is a natural and unrelenting desire for water, for something to refresh and reinvigorate our bodies.
Our spirit ought to thirst after a spiritual refreshing and revitalization.
But in order for the deer to go to the water to drink, it must first thirst.
A salt lick is a block of mineral salt which can be set out for animals to use. It is what it sounds like, it is a block an animal can lick and receive salt.
Natural [salt] licks are [also] common, and they provide essential [minerals] required in the springtime for bone, muscle and other growth in deer and other wildlife.
These licks provide nutrients and they have a wonderful side effect. They create thirst.
Interestingly, thirst it natural, but it can also be cultivated.
Tonight, we’ll look at a salt lick for sinners, spiritual matters which can create a thirst for God.
Inability to Worship
Inability to Worship
Psalm 42:2 (KJV 1900)
2 ...When shall I come and appear before God?
Not having the ability to worship God can cultivate a thirst for the divine.
We have seen this through COVID-19. The period in which we could not meet for worship had one of two effects on Christians. It caused them to drift further from God, or it created a desire to be in the House of God.
During the writing of this Psalm, “appearing before God” was a reference to worship at the Tabernacle of God. We have the privilege every day of access to God’s throne room. What a waste it would be to neglect it!
I cannot imagine what the reaction of some Christians around the world would be if they knew that in a place where Christians are allowed to openly worship their God, so few are faithful.
The inability to worship can create a thirst for God.
Next, is something essential for us all.
Recognition of Our Need
Recognition of Our Need
Psalm 42:3–4 (KJV 1900)
3 My tears have been my meat day and night, While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me....
The Psalmist describes a time in his life during which he could not eat, because of his weeping. It was a trial, a hardship which consumed him emotionally, but spiritually it reminded him of the greatest longings of his heart.
This was a time in which there was no assistance given from friends. Like Job, the only encouragement he received was to give up on God.
Throughout this Psalm is woven the idea that though we can desire and thirst after God, we will at times fail to feel His presence. Job also speaks to the temptation to think that God has abandoned us.
1 Then Job answered and said, 2 Even to day is my complaint bitter: My stroke is heavier than my groaning. 3 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!
8 Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; And backward, but I cannot perceive him: 9 On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: 10 But he knoweth the way that I take: When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Never believe the lie that God does not care. Bring you heart to God. He is the healer of broken hearts.
Psalm 42:4 (KJV 1900)
4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me....
A Reminder of God’s Character
A Reminder of God’s Character
5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him For the help of his countenance. 6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee From the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. 7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. 8 Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night his song shall be with me, And my prayer unto the God of my life.
He is a God of Hope
He is a God of Hope
Our circumstances may be impossible, but God is the God of Hope.
Our flesh may seem insurmountable, but Jesus is the God of Hope.
Our future may seem bleak, but God gives Hope.
Be reminded tonight of the hope that we find through Jesus.
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. 8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
He is a God of Strength (v. 7)
He is a God of Strength (v. 7)
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, And are counted as the small dust of the balance: Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before him are as nothing; And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. 18 To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
He is a God of Encouragement (v. 8)
He is a God of Encouragement (v. 8)
Unanswered Prayers
Unanswered Prayers
9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? 10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
So often, I give up on prayers that I don’t believe God is answering.
Could it be, God is driving me to have a greater thirst for Him?
When:
God seems difficult to find?
Worship seems dry and empty?
Discouragement becomes a way of life?
Genuine worship seems to escape you?
There is Hope for a Thirsty Soul
There is Hope for a Thirsty Soul
Why all this about thirst? What good will it do to be thirsty?
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, And floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, And my blessing upon thine offspring:
