Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

A couple of weeks back Jodee and I went out for our anniversary.

We got reservations down at the Thunderbird and got to spend a couple of hours together over a nice meal, and then went on a drive together—we wound up going to Tractor Supply! (After 27 years the bar for a nice night out gets lower, I guess!)

But imagine that we set the bar really high, and I really went all out—fancy dinner, flowers, a weekend getaway to the mountains—really put together a terrific anniversary celebration.

And Jodee says to me, “This is wonderful!

What a great weekend, this is so sweet!”

And I answer, “Well, I kind of had to do something, otherwise you’d be mad at me for forgetting!”

How do you suppose the rest of that weekend would go?

She wants to know that I’m spending this time with her because I want to, not because I have to!

My relationship with my wife is not driven by duty, it is driven by delight.

I have to wonder, though, if we don’t fall into the trap of approaching our relationship with God that way sometimes?

That we think more in terms of our obligations to God than anything else.

Think about it for a moment—did you come here this morning because you felt it was expected of you, somehow?

That you come here to worship because “that’s what a Christian does, and I’m a Christian, so here I am!”

You have set aside this morning for your spiritual pursuits because that’s what you do on Sunday mornings, but you have “everything else” in your life starting tomorrow (or this afternoon).

You came here today because your schedule opened up and allowed it (or you’re listening to the recording online because you had other obligations.)

You are “powering through” your Bible reading on the days you get to it because you want to make sure you can get through the whole thing in a year.

To one extent or another, every one of us falls into the pattern of treating our relationship with God like an obligation or a duty.

Contrast that attitude toward God with David’s here in Psalm 63:

Psalm 63:1 (ESV)

1 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.

A relationship with God surely involves faithfulness to Him, obeying His commands:

John 14:15 (ESV)

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

But it is also far more than mere obedience, mere intellectual acknowledgement of His existence—the Apostle James says

James 2:19 (ESV)

19 You believe that God is one; you do well.

Even the demons believe—and shudder!

What we consistently see through the Scriptures is that saving faith is marked by a heart that delights in God.

Peter writes in his first epistle:

1 Peter 1:8–9 (ESV)

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Did you catch that?

You “believe” in Him AND “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory”, obtaining your salvation.

Saving faith in God is marked by a deep and powerful and abiding love for God.

As we saw earlier this year in our study of 1 John:

1 John 5:1 (ESV)

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

Everyone who believes in Jesus is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father has been born of God.

Both are present in saving faith—belief and love, obedience and delight, trust in God and desire for God.

The way I want to say it this morning for us is

The faith that SAVES is marked by a soul that CRAVES

One of the characteristics of saving faith in God is a deep and abiding delight for Him.

Or to come at it from the other direction, if you have a deep delight and joy in God and treasure Him like nothing else and want more of Him more than you want more of anything else, that is an indication that you have believed on Him for salvation.

And so what I want to do this morning is walk through Psalm 63 so that you can evaluate the state of your soul this morning, to see if you find the signs of this kind of delight in God in your life.

I want to do this so that you may have that assurance that you really are believing in Him for your salvation.

This psalm is another one that was probably written while David was on the run from his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15)—another song he sings when he is driven into the wilderness away from God and His sanctuary, away from God’s people and the worshipping community there.

But even in the wilderness, even with all of the trauma and heartbreak and turmoil of his condition, David still exhibits the characteristic of a soul that craves God:

I.

Your LOVE for God is not an “ADD-ON”, it’s an ADDICTION

Psalm 63:1 (ESV)

1 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.

Psalm 63:8 (ESV)

8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Now, it’s not to make light of addictions that people struggle with, but there really is something here that demonstrates the way David’s soul craves God—like an addict needing a fix,

You can’t FUNCTION without Him (v. 1, v. 8)

Does the description of David’s physical state when he is apart from God’s presence—desperate thirst, weak and fainting—sound like the way your soul craves God?

For many people, worship of God, time in His presence through His Word and prayer, is a nice “add-on” to their lives.

If they go a few days without reading the Scriptures, if their prayers are occasional and brief a couple times a week, if they get around to worship two Sundays out of the month, it’s really no big deal.

Is your love for God an “add-on” to an otherwise functioning life, or is your love for God an addiction that leaves you weakened and gasping without it?

Saving faith is characterized by a love for God that isn’t a mere “add-on”; you can’t function without Him.

And not only so,

You can’t stop THINKING about Him (v. 4, v. 6)

Psalm 63:4 (ESV)

4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

David doesn’t just “set aside time” to bless God, to praise His Name—he says “as long as I live” he will bless and praise God.

He doesn’t say, “Well, Sunday mornings from 9:45 to 12:30 is my time for thinking about God and spiritual things.

Starting on Monday morning, though, I need to ‘get back to reality’”.

It’s easy for us to separate our lives into our “spiritual” or “Christian” life and “the rest of my life”; but David says “There is no part of my life, no moment of my life that I live from here to the end of my days when I am not blessing God and rejoicing in Him and exalting Him...” In verse 6 he goes on to say

Psalm 63:6 (ESV)

6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

Even in the middle of the night, David can’t get his mind of his craving for his God!

His love and delight in God was so pervasive that even when David was laying awake in the middle of the night, his thoughts didn’t dwell on the danger he was in, the threat to his kingdom—even the terrible rift between him and Absalom did not dominate his meditations there on his bed.

What fills your mind when you wake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling through the darkness?

Is it your anxieties, your frustrations, your lusts, your loneliness?

There in the silence and privacy of your mind in that hour, your thoughts can turn anywhere at all, and no one ever knows.

Where do your thoughts turn in the middle of the night?

Psalm 63 says that a soul that craves God—a heart that loves God not just as an “add-on” but as an addiction—can’t stop thinking about Him even when all of those other anxieties and sins and stresses clamor for attention.

It is God that “giveth me songs in the night” (Job 35:10).

The faith that saves is marked by a soul that craves—your love for God is not an “add-on”, it is an addiction.

And David goes on to demonstrate here that

II.

Your WORSHIP of God is not a DUTY, it’s a DELIGHT

Psalm 63:2 (ESV)

2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

David is gasping in the wilderness because he has been separated from his source of life and joy—the presence and power and glory of God revealed in worship.

He has come to the sanctuary in the past, but now he is on the run from Absalom, unable to be in God’s presence with His people in worship.

And so he remembers back to those times when he was able to enter God’s presence in worship.

A soul that craves God like this means that

You come to BEHOLD His GLORY (v. 2)

Why have you come to worship this morning?

Because it is expected of you?

Because you like to socialize?

Because you want to be seen as pious?

Because it’s important for your kids to be here?

Or have you come here this morning like David, desperate for another encounter with the power and glory of the God of the Universe who loves you and gave Himself for you?

Is your worship a mere duty, or is that duty suffused with overwhelming delight in the power and glory of your God?

David is desperate for a return to the delight of worshipping God in His sanctuary—a soul that craves God drives you to come to worship to behold his glory, and

His MERCY makes you SING (v.