Longing for God

I wonder if we should let's read Psalm 63. We've done a big chunk of it, but seeing as we're preaching on it, maybe we'll, good idea for us to read through the whole Psalm, and then I'm just really, this morning, gonna take us through this psalm and see what this prayer, this whole psalm is a prayer, and we'll just look at it as a prayer, and what can we learn from it as a prayer. So let's read Psalm 63. This is a Psalm of David when he was in the Desert of Judah. He says, Oh God, you are my God.

Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods. With singing lips, my mouth will praise you. On my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night.

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. They who seek my life will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth.

They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals, but the king, the king will rejoice in God. All who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouth of liars will be silenced. I once read a book, an old book, it was written in 1866. A book called Crime and Punishment by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Has anyone ever had a crack at reading this book?

Good luck if you try. I tried, I didn't quite finish it. It was, you know, it was written in Russian and had to get translated into English and it's a really fancy work of literature, but very complicated and intense. So I gave up. But one of the things that struck me though in the bit as far as I came was a conversation that takes place between a drunken poverty stricken man called Marmeladov.

So this guy has a conversation with the main character, a guy with also a strange Russian name called Raskolnikov. And in this conversation, this drunken down and out guy, Marmeladov, tells his story of destitution and of poverty. And part of his story is how he once went to a landlord to ask this landlord for a loan. Even though he knew that the landlord would 100% refuse him the loan, the other guy, Raskolnikov, then asks him, sort of a little bit perplexed and confused.

He says, well, if you knew that this guy would refuse you the loan, why did you bother asking him? And then Marmeladov responds with these, what I found to be remarkable words. And I might whack that first slide up. Please go, yep. Excellent.

Marmeladov says this. He says, well, when one has no one, nowhere else can one go. For every man must have somewhere to go, since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere. This guy will go and ask for a loan because, even though he knew he's gonna get refused, because at least then he feels he's got some way to go.

At least then he feels he's got an option that he can execute, even though he knows it's not gonna yield any fruit. And then I wanna suggest this morning that many of us have been in this distressing place of this character called Marmeladov. It probably, for us, wasn't poverty as bad as it was his case. But we have had struggles. I think of things like struggles with loneliness, severe loneliness, and that plays itself out with a longing, whether that's for a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a life partner that's just not coming, just not happening.

Loneliness due to death, due to loss. We've lost people. Loneliness because we do not have friends. Koobie mentioned this morning in his prayer, people who struggle with sickness. We think in our day and our times of people who struggle with illnesses like depression, like anxiety.

Struggles with busyness and the pressures of life. Losing our jobs, being out of work with no way in the foreseeable future of actually providing for our families and keeping ourselves going. We are in this spot quite often in our lives where we have to have somewhere to go. And this morning I want us to focus a little bit on that. If we are there, for whatever reason, in that place, where do I go?

What do I say? I must have at least somewhere to go. We've established that. And then the psalm that we read this morning, this is where it comes in. This is, as we've said, a prayer of a man who found himself in exactly that spot.

It's a prayer of David. And just a little bit of background to this prayer. David, as he prays this prayer, is far, far from his home. He's hiding. He's in the Desert of Judea.

He's not only hiding, he's actually on the run. He's fleeing. He's a fugitive. He's running from his own son and a bloodthirsty mob of gangsters, you could almost say, that are coming after him because they want to overthrow him and take his rightful rule as king over Israel. And I guess we kind of know a lot about people wanting to overthrow other people to take over their rule, given our politics recently.

This is sort of something that's getting more and more commonplace nowadays. David's in this place. He's running. Okay? He's distressed.

These are huge family crises that he has to deal with. But more importantly, for David though, as he's in this desert, is the fact that he is far, far away from this place. The most important place for any devout Old Testament Israelite. A place that's called the sanctuary in the Psalms. The tabernacle, the place where the physical presence and the glory of God amongst His people dwell.

Now, you know, if you know your Bible, David's time it was a tabernacle, it got replaced with the temple. Eventually it got replaced with Christ and God's presence living in His people. David's longing in his day for this place. He's longing for this place where God's presence is dwelling, where it's shown amongst His people. Once a year, the high priest would go into a section. Yes, it does.

At the back there there's a section in the tabernacle called the most holy of holies. And once a year, the priest would go in and he would have the blood of a goat that he would offer on an altar or he would sprinkle it in the holy of holies to make atonement for the sins of the people. A little bit disgusting, but it's showing us the seriousness of sin. It required the blood of a sacrificial act to forgive the sins of the people.

And it's the privilege of going to this place, to worship God there that David yearns for most as he's stuck in this place, as he's stuck in the desert. He misses this. When he says, Oh God, you're my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

He says, I have seen you in your sanctuary. I have beheld your power and your glory. And if anything about my current situation here frustrates me, it's the fact that I can't be there right now, that I cannot be with you. Now, a lot has changed since David's time. We know that.

All these sacrifices were only temporary measures pointing to the real deal. One day when the real sacrifice would come, when Jesus Christ as God's Son would be sacrificed once and for all for the forgiveness of all sins of all times. The presence of God then moved out. It's shown now not in a place on earth, but it's actually in the hearts of His people. That's where the presence of God is now.

Yet despite the fact that God shows His presence in the hearts of Christians, you and I both know that we still hit those tough spots. We still hit those tough spots in life where we still long for His presence. Really, I guess from David's prayer, the first thing that I really want to point out is this longing. This fact that the prayer shows us that David longs for God's presence when things get tough. I want to suggest to us that whether we know it or not, that's the thing we really long for when things are tough.

Often, frustrations and our confusion and our hurt is a longing for God, a deep longing for God. And maybe you're here this morning and you don't believe in God. I want to challenge you and bring you to the point of thinking about it. Ask yourself the question whether what you really are looking for isn't the presence of a loving creator God that's missing from your life. We see that from David's prayer.

Now, I once read a story, and I forgot where, so I'm really borrowing it without permission here. This is a story of a Christian student who sat in a philosophy lecture. During which the lecturer called forward rational arguments from students to try and convince him that God is real. This student sat quietly in the back of the lecture hall until the very end, just before the lecture finished. I guess you could say the lecturer kind of won the discussion or the debate.

The student stood at the back of the theatre, and he took an apple out of his bag. And then he asked the lecturer, well, no. He took a bite out of the apple. And then he asked the lecturer, he said, Sir, can you tell me what this apple tastes like? The lecturer thought about it for a while and, sort of seeing where he was going with this, said, well, no, I can't.

For me to do that, I suppose I'll have to take a bite of that apple and taste it for myself. Exactly, the student responded. Unless you've tasted God's presence yourself, no rational argument in the world will by itself move you to see it. The best I can do, sir, is to describe to you what it tastes like for me, and that's exactly what David is doing in this psalm.

He does it in those verses two to eight that we read this morning. He describes to us just how good God's presence is to him. And we see a couple of things clearly. Firstly, we see that David is 110% satisfied with God. He says, your love is better than life.

He longs for God because His love is better than life. The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the oldest and best written Bible studies in the history of the church, and one that we are quite proud of as a Reformed tradition. This catechism asks this question, and I don't think I've got it on here. No. Here we go.

I've got one there. First question of the Heidelberg Catechism. What's your only comfort in life and death? What's the only thing that really satisfied you? The only thing that really makes life worth it for you?

The only thing that you can say, this is all worth it. What is that one thing? That's the question. What's your only comfort in life and death? And it answers that question with this.

It says that I'm not my own, that I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what David feels here when he says, your love is better than life for me. I'm so overwhelmed, I'm stoked that I have You, God. That for me is better than life itself. It's my only comfort, is that I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.

That is the only thing that really matters. It is better than life. And that's what the apple tastes like. David's saying that this whole desert saga, this mess of fleeing from his murderous son, all of this is a fleeting shadow compared to the fact that he is loved by God. And because of God's love for him, he says his soul will be satisfied as with the richest of food.

We love the imagery of my soul will be satisfied. How do you feel once you've had a really big, good meal? You sit back, you relax, and you are satisfied. David kind of pictures his soul as a person, as a metaphor. He just had a meal, who is full, who is satisfied by God.

David is 100% satisfied with God, and I want to bring it across here to us and say we can be 100% satisfied with God too. Let that be for us in those places, those circumstances, and you are, many of you are right now in that space, in a state of life like that, whether you're young, whether you're older. Let your soul be satisfied with God. Secondly, we see that David's satisfaction in God thrusts him to burst into song, praising God with all he's got. And that's where our call to worship came from this morning.

Out of this satisfaction of God comes this desire to sing. David says that in his words. He says, Lord, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live. And in your name I will lift up my hands.

With singing lips, my mouth will praise you. Because you're my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. A few weeks ago, I bought what I considered to be some awesome shoes from Big W. And I bought them for, guess how much? Not $10, not $5, $4.

And you know what the first thing was? It's not these shoes. I'm actually not wearing them because they did fall apart. They were pretty rubbish for $4. You know what you do when you buy something and it's at a good price and you, what was the first thing that I did when I walked with my friends and I wore these shoes?

You know, they said, oh, you got new shoes? I said, yes. And then I said, guess what? Bought these shoes for $4. I couldn't shut up about it because it was a bit of a girl, really.

I sound like a girl. But it struck me as I did that, that is the nature of good news, isn't it? We can't really shut up about good news. It's not possible. And that's David right here.

He has got something that he cannot shut up about. He stumbled across the presence of God, which to him, even in his situation in that desert, means that he can sing. He's not in that desert lamenting, and David can lament. We know that from the Psalms. But he's also a guy who can sit there in that situation, and he can say, I can sing.

Even though I'm away from really feeling that God is close, I'm away from the presence, I'm away from the sanctuary, I can still sing because I know God's goodness. I know God's love for me. I know that that is not gonna go away. And I'll apply this just a little bit later to us.

I'll get to the final point. We see in the last few verses of the Psalm that David longs for God because he knows that God will vindicate him. Okay? The last bit reads like this. It says, They who seek my life will be destroyed.

They will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in God. All who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced. The word vindicate.

We don't really work with that word much. We don't really say, I wish I was vindicated, or will you vindicate me? It's an odd word in our language and our culture. The word literally means simply to support or to defend or to prove right and justify someone. So if you've been wronged, for the accused in a court, for the truth to come out and to say this was the real truth, we're justified.

That's what vindicate means. David is confident. He's confident that in time, with God's help, his enemies who are pursuing him in the desert wrongfully, that these enemies will be proven wrong. He's quite forceful about it. He uses the word they will be destroyed.

The mouths of those who slandered him will be silenced, and he will again be openly praising God with others who love and seek God. Now, we know from David's story, as you read through First and Second Samuel, eventually he does get out of this desert place. He does get back on his throne. He gets restored to the kingship. It all comes good for him in the end.

But I was wondering how do we apply this to our lives, you know? As Christians, we sort of struggle a bit with this retribution, this revenge, vindictive attitude. We're told not to have that actually. And I thought to myself, well, maybe there's just a couple of small things for us to get here. Firstly, I think this issue of vindication has a here and a now aspect, which may mean that as Christians we may endure hardships and suffering with the hope and the faith that God will change our circumstances here and now, physically, like He did for David.

Examples for these might be a Christian business person who is ridiculed for his or her Christian business practices by competitors or by colleagues. We may believe and hope and pray as Christians that we will be vindicated here and now. But our colleagues will see that we are right, we do have a point. At school, at uni, you may be made a lot of fun of by your friends for what you believe and for how you live. There is an aspect of hoping that your friends will get and will understand what you're about and what your faith is about here and now.

There is that and we can pray for that. If we've lost a job, we're in a circumstance where we can't provide, we do have the hope that God will provide for us, that He will get us out of that, that He will defend us and provide for us again. But I think that for the Christian, there is something far bigger going on when it comes to this issue of vindication. Paul writes to Christians in a letter. Which letter is it? I didn't put it in here.

In a letter addressed to Christians who were in serious need of immediate vindication, Paul writes, I think it's Philippians. No, Romans, sorry. Paul writes this to the Romans. He says, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Do not take revenge, my friends, Paul says to them. And just when you think, where is the justice in this for the Christian? If any and all injustice extended to me because I'm a Christian cannot be revenge, where's the vindication? And then Paul says these very, very serious words.

He says, but leave room for God's wrath, for it's written. It's mine to avenge. I will repay. Christians may live, may cope, may endure the fun, the making fun of, the mockery and the scorn of this world because we know that the great day when God will avenge is coming. We're told to just wait.

The great day of judgment when, in the words of Psalm 63, the mouths of liars will be silenced. That day is coming. And so the message is there for us to just hang in there. Until that day, we live in the hope that all who believe in Jesus will be completely and ultimately vindicated. Let's wrap this up.

In the beginning, we asked, when we hit these tight times in the desert, and you know what they are for you, where do we go? What do we say? How do we pray? The Psalm really doesn't prescribe to us steps that we have to take. It's not like a recipe that you can follow and do one, do two, do three, and there it is, you have the presence of God.

It's fixed. It doesn't say that you must long for God or you must be satisfied by Him. This is simply a prayer. A prayer of a man who knew God's presence, a man who knew what the apple tasted like. He knew it so well that he longed for it even during the night.

It was like breath to him. He longed for it because it was better to him than life itself, and he longed for it because he knew that God would eventually let it all come good. For you in your time of the desert, let me express some wishes, I guess, in a prayer form. May God bless us all, and may He create in us this desire, just as He blessed David with this desire to have God's presence living in him. And Narang, may God bless you as you worship together and you fellowship together with His presence as you come together on Sundays.

May the times that you are in the desert be very few, but when you are there and you do have this desire that David had for God's presence, pray this psalm. Sing. Praise Him. Because we know that He's with us. There's an old saying that says, never forget in the darkness what you saw in the light.

He's always there, He's always with us, and therefore we may always sing until the day when all of this is going to come good for us.