My Soul Thirsts | Psalm 63

Good morning. It's such a privilege to worship the Lord with you this morning. If you have a Bible with you, we're gonna be spending our time in Psalm 63, so you can go ahead and turn there.

The last couple weeks, my wife and I, we've spent a good amount of time in our evenings watching the Olympics. We've loved getting to sit back and watch these fantastic athletes perform, and it's just amazing to see these feats of strength and speed from athletes who have been training their whole lives. I mean, it's kind of incredible to think that these athletes have devoted their whole lives to this one moment.

That only happens once every four years. All of them looking for a chance to seal their name in Olympic history. But when all is said and done, most of them go home without a medal.

Sure, those who do medal might have a little bit of satisfaction for a time. But that glory is fleeting. Four years from now, a new Olympic champion will be crowned.

And as the years drift by, they will drift out in history and out of our memories. So even one of humanity's highest achievements, that of winning an Olympic gold, can only provide a joy that is temporary. But, our passage this morning in Psalm 63, it serves to direct our gaze to a satisfaction and joy that will never end.

And so, if you would, in reverence for God's word and in fear of him, let us stand and hear God's word as I read from Psalm 63.

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. 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.

But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for jackals.

But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exalt, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

So, the occasion that David is writing this Psalm, it's significant to consider. See, verse one, or right at the title there, it says, that this is a Psalm of David when he's in the wilderness of Judah. See, David's not writing this from a plush chair back at the Royal Palace where he's surrounded by luxury, a wealth of delicious food, security from his guards all around him.

No, David is rather writing from a destitute and barren place, as we see in verse one. He's out in a dry and weary land. And then verse nine reveals that he's also on the run for his life.

Scholars debate whether this is early on in David's life when he's running from Saul or maybe later on when his son Absalom stirs up a rebellion against him and pushes him out of Jerusalem, so he has to run out and retreat to the wilderness. But in any case, that's not all that significant. What's significant is that the occasion that David is stirred up to write this Psalm is while he is cut off from his regular luxuries, while he is in the wilderness.

And that ought to be of particular comfort to us, right? Who, no doubt, at some season in your life, you're going to pass through a time of being in the wilderness, right? A time where God feels distant, right?

Where relationships have grown cold or dry, where it just seems like everything you try to initiate in life just ends in failure, and there's little hope or reason to move on. But while David is in these circumstances where there's barrenness all around, we sense no barrenness in his soul. How can this be?

Well, it's that the satisfaction that David experiences in communion that is in relationship with God, it melts away all the other burdens and cares of his life. So regardless of whatever circumstance in life you are facing right now, Psalm 63 would call you to seek your satisfaction in God. So while this call to seek your satisfaction in God alone, that's a relatively easy concept to grasp mentally, but it's very difficult to carry out in practice.

We need constant reminders of this. This has been true for God's people in all times and places in history. There was an early church father around the 5th century. His name was John Chrysostom, and what he said regarding early Christians is that among the primitive Christians, it was decreed and ordained that no day should pass without the public singing of this psalm. See, the early Christians, they found that daily clinging to the truths in this psalm were an essential part of their day. We would do well to learn from their example.

And so my aim this morning is to encourage you out of this psalm to seek your satisfaction in God alone. All right, we're gonna do this by considering three aspects of David's experience with God. First, by looking at his longing for God. Secondly, his satisfaction in God. And third, the confidence that he can have in God. 

And so each of these experiences of God that David experiences, they're identified in the text by David's use of the phrase, my soul.

So look at this, in verse one, he says, my soul thirsts. And then in verse five, he says, my soul will be satisfied. And then in verse eight, he says, my soul clings.

See, these statements concerning David's soul, they reflect an intensely personal devotion to God that David knows and experiences. They arise out of David's inmost being as a result of his relationship to God. And they can help provide us a framework for understanding our own relationship to God.

So let's jump in then to the first two verses we're going to be looking at for David's longing for God. Start saying, Oh 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.

You can just hear the longing behind David's word. He says, my soul thirsts. My flesh faints.

David is longing for God with his whole being, with whole body and soul, such that he goes on in verse two to say, so I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. The way that David speaks here, it assumes a prior experience and closeness with which he's felt to God in the past, and which he's longing for again. But at the moment, it feels distant.

It's kind of like the longing one would feel for a loved one who's moved far away. And David's missing that communion and fellowship that he had once been able to enjoy with his God. And so while he sits in the wilderness, David's literally surrounded by a dry and weary land.

He's no doubt experiencing different desires, desires for food, for drink, for shelter, right? But in all these things, they are serving to fuel and remind David of his deeper longing for God. So there's two big observations that can be made from David's longing for God.

One is that David longs, right? Consider the very terms to describe that. He's earnestly, I seek, my soul thirsts, my flesh faints.

So I have looked, beholding. And then the second thing to observe is that in every case, all of these terms of longing are directed toward God. So we can relate with that feeling of longing, right?

That desire. Have you ever been thirsty? When I think back of being thirsty, I remember this time back in high school, my dad had a friend who owned a small field with bales of hay that were out in the square bales that farmers have.

And I needed to go and grab those and bring them into the barn. And I was the only one working. It's a super hot summery day.

And I'll just start by saying, I'm not a tough country farm boy. I'm a city slicker. And so I went out there and I had something to prove.

I was like, I'm going to get this done so fast. This guy is going to be amazed at me. And I'm just running through the field, trying to stack these hay bales.

And I quickly burned through my one little bottle of water. And for the next four hours, worked slavishly just to try to impress this guy. And I was too proud to ask for more water.

I just remember at the end, I was literally crying tears of exhaustion. I was so tired, so thirsty. All I could do was daydream about a drink of water. 

This is the kind of thirst picture that we have of David. Everyone here knows what it's like to crave something, right? So whether it's a physical appetite, like hunger or thirst, or maybe a deeper soul craving, something like the longing for man's approval, the longing or desire to have control, or the perpetual need to be entertained, right?

It could even be something good, like having respectful and well-behaved children, or the feeling of security, or maybe the desire for a spouse. But whatever the case, if you are looking to anything in life besides God to satisfy you, you are going to be left perpetually discouraged, disillusioned, and without hope. They are all, like the prophet Jeremiah says, broken cisterns that hold no water.

All the longings you feel in your life, they are reflective of your soul's deeper thirst for God. And they're either going to serve to direct you to him, or they're going to become to you as an idol, which ultimately destabilize and corrupt your life. Ecclesiastes 3.11 says that God, or he has made, that is God, has made everything beautiful in its time.

Also, he has put eternity into man's heart. Yet, so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. God has eternity written on the hearts of every person, filling them with a desire to be satisfied with him.

But as we pass, as pilgrims on earth, we are always going to struggle to see God with clarity. So, how is it that we get the kind of longing for God that David is experiencing? Where does this come from?

Well, no one by nature actually longs for God, right? Romans 3 reveals to us that no one is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks God. Our affections are naturally drawn to all kinds of other things.

God must break through our sinful fog and reveal himself to us. He does so first through nature, right? He reveals himself generally through the things that he's made.

And secondly, he reveals himself specifically through his word in clear ways that he's communicated to us. And most specifically and with most clarity when the word became flesh and he sent his son into the world. And what David is experiencing, he experiences as a result of God's revelation to him.

I mean, consider David's life. David was a young shepherd boy, and God appeared to him, reveals himself to him by calling him out and Samuel the prophet goes and anoints David as king. And as David, you read these stories, as David goes through various life experiences where God's meeting his needs, God's speaking to him, showing him such that David is then able to write that familiar Psalm, Psalm 23.

After experiencing God throughout his days, he can write, The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Being satisfied in God's shepherding care over his life, all his other desires are met. He shall not want.

That is why then David can begin his prayer here, saying, Oh God, you are my God. This is a remarkable claim. Right? How many people in our day can truly make the claim that they possess God?

Right? The creator and king of the universe. Many people do not even know that it is God that their souls actually crave and desire.

Can you pray as David does? There's nothing greater than being able to claim God as your own.

Right? To relate to him and to know his love and care toward you personally, there is nothing greater. We all are amazed at greatness.

We're all drawn to greatness. We all want to experience great things, right? We want to have a great house, a great family, a great neighborhood to live in, great friends.

How about being associated with the greatest being in the universe who owns everything, controls all things, and is able to work in every situation, all things for your good. To possess this God as your very own, there is nothing greater. And when you do possess something that's great, even if it's something like candy or something that you enjoy, you taste it and you want more, right?

Possession of something great gives way to desire. Possession gives way to desire. And that is why we hear David say, Why, earnestly, I seek you.

Why is it that David says, earnestly? Well, this Hebrew word there, it could really mean early or eagerly, right? That describes David's desire for God, that early and eagerly, the first thing that David thinks about when he gets up in the morning is, how can I meet with God?

I long to be with God. That's a convicting thought, right? What's the first thing that crosses your mind when you wake up in the morning?

For me, it's often, you know, what am I going to eat? What am I going to do today? You know, I have a whole list of things that I want to tend to, and oftentimes, spending time with God drifts into the background as much less important.

And I think this can be one of the challenges as we look at Psalm 63. There can be a difficulty as we read this, because we're like, okay, that's great, David. You long for God and you thirst for God, but I don't always feel that.

And we can get discouraged, right? And think, David's better than me, he's greater than me. I'm just a slacker.

And what we're to see in this is not, wow, look at David and his great longing for God, but rather we're to direct our gaze toward him whom David's longing for. The point of this passage is not to be amazed at David's longing, but rather to direct our gaze toward whom David is longing for. And so, though we are weak, though it's hard for us to long for God, God meets us by various means of grace.

And one of those is in times of need. As David's here out in the wilderness, this is a real grace in his life. The fact that he's in the wilderness in a time of need, he is drawn to thirst for God all the more.

We can relate to that. It's not often that when we're feeling the most secure, most stable in our lives, that we're longing for God the most. Rarely is it in times of security that you crave God most.

Everyone probably in here would say the time that they felt closest to God, the most longing for God, is in a time of need. Right? God uses times in the wilderness as a blessing to restore our longing for him and to strip away all other comforts that we might be looking to.

And it can't just come from me telling you about it. You have to experience God in these ways. It comes from going through financial need, and when God meets you there, you come to know him as your provider.

Or if you're going through sickness and God meets you in that situation, you come to know him as a healer. Or when you're feeling in a season of loneliness, or people feel like everyone's abandoned you and God meets you there, you come to know God as your comforter. See, recognizing these things, they begin as a concept in God's word, but then as you experience them in the day-to-day reality of your life, they press in and become a real experience of God.

This is such a grace in how he meets us and produces more longing for him. A second way he does this comes in verse 2, and that is through the blessing of corporate worship. David is recalling that where he says, so I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

There is a distinct blessing that we experience in beholding God in worship, right? When we worship together, we have a strengthening and refueling of our joy and love for God, right? David recalls that here out of past experience, when he was actually able to go into the sanctuary and spend time worshiping God corporately with his people.

But now as he's in the wilderness, that feels distant. But even so, the way that David describes that here, so he's in the wilderness, he says, so I have looked upon you. He's still directing his gaze toward God and experiencing grace.

He doesn't long for the sanctuary, for the sanctuary itself, but rather God, to behold his power and glory. See, to meet with God is not, you don't need a physical sanctuary for this. You don't need to have a specific geographical location and space to meet with God.

God's glory and power can be seen, right? Standing on a mountaintop, looking out over a beautiful landscape, or seeing a thunderstorm developing in the might and power and majesty of all of that, or a crop of corn growing up in the field, or a baby cooing and cuddling as it rolls around on the floor. All of these things are testaments of God's power and glory on display, right?

They can be seen wherever a longing heart thirsts to behold them. And so I would encourage you cultivate your communion with God. Spend time with him.

The more that you spend time with God, both personally, in his word, through prayer and meditation on the truths he's revealed to us, and also corporately with people, believers, encouraging each other, sharpening each other through public worship and Bible studies. These increase our ability to recognize God throughout our day. And we need this in the busyness of our lives, right?

It's easy for the busyness of lives and our sinful cravings to fog the lenses with which we're seeing the world. And we need God's timeless truth to break in, clear the fog, and enable us to see him for the satisfying treasure that he is. So long for more of God.

There is no greater satisfaction to be found in him. That brings us to our second point where we see the satisfaction of God starting in verses 3, which I think is the climax of the entire Psalm. David says, because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

This is the ground for all that David has said before and all that comes after it. His longing for God, his satisfaction in God, his confidence in God are connected to this proclamation. Because your steadfast love is better than life.

This is a remarkable claim, right? A love that is better than life. I mean, it kind of resonates with our culture to point to love as the answer for everything, but oftentimes when our culture talks about it, yes, people are obsessed with this idea of love, but what they mean is really this blurry, vague sentiment, which doesn't mean a whole lot.

Take the popular phrase, love is love, right? That doesn't really tell us anything about love. It just boils down to mean this vague sense of just do whatever makes you happy, right?

But in contrast to this, God's love is much different, right? God's love is personal. It's objective.

God is not just loving us from the heavens, right? He comes down into our lives, right? He's not just looking to give us things, he's looking to give us himself.

This is no Hallmark movie kind of love, right? And it can't be, right? Because life has so many good things to enjoy.

Life is beautiful, right? There's, you know, beautiful landscapes to behold, sweet times of family over the holidays to enjoy, right? Delicious food to be tasted.

And life is valuable. Think about what someone would go to, to preserve their own life, right? People will work through blood, sweat, tears.

People will even be willing to part with possessions or even a limb to preserve their own life, right? But for all of life's value and joy, even the best that life has to offer cannot compare with the value of knowing God and all his love for you. Charles Spurgeon summarized it well when he says, to dwell with God is better than life at its best.

Life at ease, in a palace, in health, in honor, in wealth, in pleasure. Yeah, a thousand lives are not equal to the eternal life which abides in Jehovah's smile. People can grow weary of life, but no one can grow weary of the love and favor of God.

This seems contrary to our human nature, right? In our human nature, we think of God as boring, the church and his people, and what's going on there. This is just one big buzz kill and killjoy on my fun.

The world, that's who really knows what pleasure is, and out there is where I'm actually going to find my joy. Right, but Psalm 16 helps set us straight. Right, it says in the end of Psalm 16, you make known to me the path of life.

In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. It's in God's presence that fullness of joy is actually found.

Right, any pleasure that you've enjoyed in this life, right, even the best that life has to offer is but a fraction of what is found in God. They're like crumbs off his table. Right, everything that you've tasted that's good in this life is ultimately just a reflection of the true joy that's found in him.

But when we prefer other things to God, which happens more often than we'd like to admit, okay, it's really the product of our sinful nature, which CS. Lewis, he famously described this way, that it's contented, rather, to settle for playing with mud pies because it knows not the pleasure of a vacation at sea. We are far too easily pleased.

In other words, God is not boring. No, no, brothers and sisters, we are the boring ones. And so for now, as we pass through this life, we're going to be met with wrestlings between our spirit-filled desires and our fleshly desires, struggling to behold God as glorious.

But the clearer that we see God and his love for us, the more that these desires are going to be aligned with and satisfied in God. And so though now we may see dimly, especially as you walk through seasons in the wilderness where God feels distant, one day all who belong to him will see him in glory. And the loving smile of our Father in heaven and the words of commendation from him will turn all of the thorns, all of the trials, all the sufferings of this life into joy.

They will be as nothing compared to the surpassing love of God toward us in Christ. That's incredible to imagine, right? It just makes you want to praise God, right?

And that is what happens in David. Aware of God's love and the satisfying, secure future that he has, he's moved to praise. Where we see in verse 3 and 4, he says, 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. Right?

When we see something great, we cannot help but praise, right? When I'm watching the Olympics and I see these girls do this tumbling thing down the balance beam and they double flip and stick the landing, I can't help but be like, Wow, clap my hands. Right?

This is a natural response. But at the end of the day, you know, the stadium clears out, people go home and the glory fades. This is not the case in David's experience of the glory he beholds in God.

He says, notice in verse four, So I will bless you as long as I live. It sustains him all his days. It's not a fleeting joy that he's experiencing.

And it's out of this praise that David gives this kind of fun illustration I really like as I love food. And so he says, he describes the deep satisfaction in God as my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. The satisfaction David finds in God, it's not like a saltine cracker that's just holding you over till dinner starts or till the real meal happens, right?

It's not a tuna sandwich that you eat for lunch just to save money and to check the box because I'm hungry. But no, it's a rich and lavish feast of steak and potatoes and that is the kind of experience he feels in God. And the way that David is describing this, the context he's experiencing this, it's not limited to mealtime, right?

Look in verse 6. He says that this is happening when I remember you upon my bed and when I meditate on you in the watches of the night, right? David is so enamored and taken with God's love toward him and the satisfaction he finds in God that it keeps him up at night, right?

He lays there in bed just pondering these things. We can learn much from David here, right? Have you ever had a sleepless night?

There can be nothing so frustrating as laying there in bed, rolling around, thinking, I just need to get to sleep. I have so much to do tomorrow. This is so annoying, right?

But what we can learn from David, we're not to waste our sleepless nights. Oftentimes, these are given to us out of God's kind and loving providence to direct us to Him. Right, rather than rolling around frustrated and restless, take this as an occasion to just entrust yourself to your loving Father and take time to pray and meditate on all that He is for you.

And in the end, you're gonna find your soul and your body strengthened in a way that sleep never could. See, David is sustained and satisfied in his life by remembering who God is and what he's done for him. And we see this more specifically in verse 7, because he says, for you, that is God, have been my help.

And in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. Right, while David's life has been filled with countless trials and challenges, he can look back and see God's faithfulness through it all. And as he thinks back and remembers this, there is a sort of satisfying joy and confidence that rests on him, right?

And that's true for us. Think about, when you remember things, there is a real joy and satisfaction that can come, even if it's something like a holiday or a family experience. You think back on those times, there's something satisfying there.

So it is when you think about what God has done for you, and it produces a satisfying confidence that enables you to take the next step and face the next day. And so being satisfied in God, we see David then able to continue into his circumstances, right, with confidence, stability. Which brings us to our third and final point is that David has a stabilizing confidence in God.

Verse eight, we see this, he says, My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. It's interesting, the words that David uses to describe his confidence is, my soul clings. That verb clinging, it's not a verb that denotes one's own individual strength, but rather a desperate need and resolve to grasp with all his strength, as if his life depended on it.

And so yes, David is clinging to the Lord in faith, but what really is holding David fast is the mighty right hand of his father in heaven. It's kind of like a dad with his young boy, maybe two-year-old son, who they're at the ocean. And as the dad takes his son out into the ocean to be in the water and the waves are crashing around the boy, the boy is scared and he grasps his dad.

And what keeps the boy there secure is not the fact that the little boy is grabbing his father. No, no, what's keeping the boy secure from the waves taking him out and pulling him out to the deep is the strong and loving arms of his dad. That is the security that David feels.

He knows that he is secure in his father's arms. And so he is able to go on in verses, the rest of this to describe his confidence. There's no indication here that David's circumstances have changed.

He's still in the wilderness. And yet he can go on to say, those who, but those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword.

They shall be a portion for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him will exalt, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

In these verses, David is expressing a confidence in God's ability to make right all that's wrong in his life. In verse nine and 10, he's saying, he's confident that God's gonna bring justice to his enemies. And then in verse 11, that while he's doing that, David will be held secure in the joy of his God.

And so because of this, he doesn't feel compelled or strained to have to fix his own circumstances or to have to avenge himself. Rather, he can entrust his life to the Lord as the faithful judge. He knows that his wanderings through the wilderness, which have been brought on by his enemies, okay, they're not the final word.

His lot is in God's hands, right? And that this time in the wilderness, it's only gonna give way to his good and God's triumphant glory in his life. So how is it that David can have this kind of confidence?

How is that possible? Well, it's because David is satisfied in all that God is in, is for him, right? It's not in the things that God could potentially do for him.

That is significant to get. His security is coming in being satisfied in God, not in the things he could get from God. So while he's here in the wilderness, he's not asking to be back at the palace.

He isn't asking for his own safety. He's not asking for the provision of a hot meal. No, he's longing and seeking after God himself, knowing that it's in the loving arms of his father in heaven where he is in the safest, the best, and most satisfying place he could ever be.

And that is why in verse 11, it says, the king rejoices, not in deliverance, not in a nice meal, not in that everything worked out good, but no, he's rejoicing in God. So David is finding in God himself the satisfying joy that keeps him secure no matter the circumstances. Well, that is great for you, David, right?

But some of us might be thinking, how do I know that's true for me? I mean, I'm not the anointed king of Israel, right? My life is so much different than David's.

How can I be sure that this is true for me? Well, you can be sure because 2,000 years ago, God came down to us by sending his son, Jesus, into the world. This changes everything.

Recall Jesus and his encounter with the woman at the well in John 4, where he says, everyone who drinks of this water, that is the physical water at the well, they will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Christ alone provides access to the living water that can satisfy the thirst of your eternally longing soul. Earthly pleasure cannot satisfy this longing. They were never meant to.

Rather, they are meant to arouse and suggest the real thing. And so on one level, we must take care never to despise these earthly pleasures as the blessing that they are, or fail to give thanks to God for them. But on another level, we must never mistake them for the real thing that they are but an echo of.

See, your soul, it longs for communion and fellowship with the God who made you. Only through Christ can this longing be met. See, Christ has dealt with your biggest problem, that of your sin which has made a separation between you and God.

Through Christ, through his life and sacrificial death on behalf of all who trust in him, we have peace with God. We have access in to the presence of God's soul-satisfying presence, right? This is available to all who come to him, which is why David said, or why Jesus says just a few chapters later in the Gospel of John, that if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Who is allowed to come? Anyone who thirsts.

What must we do? Believe in him. So if this morning you know that you are not trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, okay, I would just urge you, repent of looking to anything else to satisfy the longings of your heart, and trust in all that Christ promises to be for you.

And if you are trusting in Christ this morning, continue to cling to him. In him, whatever wilderness you may be passing through in life right now, this is only serving to prepare for you an eternal weight of glory and joy beyond all comparison.