SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey y'all. It's good to be in the Republic. I love to I do that to our church in Kansas City, and it was like, what does that even mean? And I, but you know what it means, right?

unknown 0:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Really good to be here. Can I is it okay? I did this the earlier service and I forgot that it was a it wasn't live. So would you join me in saying hi to my wife, Karen, who's back home? Hi, baby. Good to see you. Good to see you. Well, I'm really glad to be here again. Uh let me tell you, I I love this church. God's God's doing amazing things here. I don't know if you know this, but this is not the typical church plant. It doesn't happen like it's happened here. So this is Holy Spirit anointing on your leaders and all of your volunteers. So I think it would be good to thank God for the leadership that you have. Love you guys. So I did I did come back in the summer, and um, hey, this is pretty this is pretty crisp and cool out there today. Would you agree? We were in Panama on a we were just in Panama a week or so ago in the rainforest, and uh that was nasty hot and humid. It clouded up and rained in our shirts every day. That's pretty typical for this part of the world in the summertime. I'm from West Texas and we never had rain, and so uh uh this is so lush and green here. Um it's summertime. Do you have favorite songs that you like to sing in the summertime, or maybe a favorite song that you remembered from back in the summertime? So uh I will go ahead and bear witness to this, and all of the rest of you can be wrong. Okay? This is the best way to set up people listening to you by offending them at the very beginning. So um, the best music that ever existed was in the 1970s. Even my sons like 1970s music, they have really good taste. Um, but I remember in the summertime when I was a kid, we lived kind of out in the country, and there was a swimming pool at the Elk's Lodge that my dad was a member of for the purpose of the swimming pool that we would ride our bikes to. It was about 10 miles in, and so every summer we would ride in, we'd go to Elk Swimming Pool, and they would always be playing music. And my favorite summer song was Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts. All the boomers are going, yeah, oh yeah. Take me, take me back. So why don't you turn to the people that are next to you and say, if I had a favorite summer song, what would it be? Tell them what your favorite summer song would be. The song that you like to hear in the summertime. Go ahead, share with one another. Clayton, Courtney, I have to tell you, it's obvious that the 11 o'clock service listens to music. The 9 o'clock service was like really quiet. So uh what would be just go ahead and shout it out. What would have been your favorite summer song?

unknown 3:34

Saturday in the park.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Saturday in the park, another boomer here. What in September. What? See you in September, okay.

unknown 3:44

Surfer girl by the beach boys.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

What?

unknown 3:46

Surfer girl by the beach boys.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Surfer girl by the beach boys, yeah. We had some guy at the ninth service yell out wipe out. And so I think it was back in the 60s, okay? Anyone else? Do what?

unknown 4:00

I'm sorry, I'll sorry, I'll sorry.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Okay. So we all have like songs. So you're in you're in summertime songs. You're doing a book, uh, preaching through the book of the psalms, not going through all of them, but it's psalms around here, and so you're doing psalms in the summertime, and I'm gonna share with you like uh this would be top on my playlist for uh uh summertime psalm. The psalms are basically the song book of the people of faith, the hymn book of the Hebrews. And um, so I'm gonna invite you, if you would, just in reverence to God's word, would you stand as I read from Psalm 63? Psalm 63. 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've looked on you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory, because your steadfast love is better than light, 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 is satisfied as with 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've 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. And then you get the context for all of these words. But for those who 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 the jackals, but the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. This is God's word. Amen. You may be seated. So, this is what I know about all of us. We are all creatures of longing. We all we all spend our lives trying to satisfy longings that are deep down inside of us. We long for our stomachs to be filled, we long for friendship so that we experience connection. We long for meaningful work so that our lives somehow have some significance. We long for success, we long for approval, we long for comfort, we long for security, we long for forgiveness. We long for all kinds of things. And there comes a point in life, I believe for all of us, you have one of these moments that you realize nothing in this world, nothing in this world, can fill the hole that is in your soul. Have you ever stood in front of the refrigerator late at night, you're looking for a midnight snack, and you open it up, and the refrigerator's full, and you look at it and then you close it because there wasn't really anything that, you know, hit you, and so you open it again thinking magically something's gonna show up if I keep opening it and then it's gonna be there. I don't, and you don't even know what it is. And that the problem wasn't that there wasn't any food in the refrigerator, the problem was that what you're hungry for couldn't be found there. And a lot of us spend our lives opening and shutting all different kinds of doors looking for the thing. And we think, well, maybe it's a new relationship, or maybe if I get that promotion, or maybe if we finally move into that bigger house, or maybe if we go on that vacation, or maybe if I get the approval of that purpose person, or maybe if I make that next purchase, and all of us who have done that have come back empty, and the reason is that there is nothing in this world that's big enough to fill the hole in your soul that can only be met by longing after God. So that's what we're gonna talk about today: longing after God, being satisfied by God. So let me set up the context for you because all of these psalms have a context, and if you if you read in your Bible, what you will probably see is this is identified as a psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. And there's a likelihood that this was describing the experience that David was having as he was in the wilderness running away from his son Absalom, who was wanting to usurp his authority. You can read about that in 2 Samuel 15 through 17. Absalom decided that it was time for him to be king, and so he did this coup and had other people around him, and he did all the right manipulative kind of things to people and spreading all kinds of falsehood. And David ended up being told that Absalom wanted the kingdom and was going to kill him, so he was on the run and he took off into the wilderness for safety. And it was there, in the midst of the wilderness, that David once again was reminded of his need for God more than anything else. Let me say this about your wilderness. And some of you may be in a wilderness right now. Some of you might be on the backside of where you ever thought you would ever be. This is what I can say about the wilderness. The wilderness will expose all of our false dependencies and pseudo-saviors that we look for to try to give our lives significance and meaning. So, what we're gonna talk about, what are the characteristics of people who have a desperate kind of longing for God? And I'm gonna make it easy in terms of remembering and have everything start with a D. And so let's look at these, and they're all action-oriented. This is what we can say about people who long for God. Number one, they desire God before anything else. So as I say all of these things and we go through them, the question that you and I need to be asking ourselves is this is this true of me right now? Not to beat us up, but to build us up, to call us forward, to move us greater into a depth of longing after God. David says this, I desire God before anything else, and my desire for God is personal. He starts off in verse one saying, Oh God, you are my God. Now notice that it he doesn't just simply say, Oh God, but he qualifies it by saying, Oh God, my God. David is not approaching God like a stranger. David is not, David is not approaching God as if he doesn't even know who he is. He's saying, you are my God. You don't use the word my unless there is intimacy and confidence in the relationship. If I were to tell you Karen is my wife, I'm not saying that I own her. I'm saying that there is a closeness of relationship there. We are connected to each other. There is a belonging, a sense that we belong together. When David says, you are my God, he is saying, my longing after God is not the longing of a stranger, but it's the longing of a lover who wants to be with the beloved. Desire God before anything else, that means you desire God personally and you desire God as first priority. As first priority. David says in verse one, earnestly, I seek you. Earnestly. Another way of translating that would be eagerly or early. He's saying, God, your first priority. He's in a crisis. Absalom's trying to steal the kingdom. David's lost his home. David's lost his position. David is facing an uncertain future. And what does David not say that he's longing for? He doesn't say, Oh my God, I am longing to get my kingdom back. I'm longing for the throne. I'm longing for my authority. I'm longing for my status. I'm longing for the accolades. I'm longing for the authority. I'm longing for the approval. I'm longing for the status. He doesn't say that. And he's lost all of that. What he says is the first thing I want is not a solution, God, to my wilderness wondering. The first thing I want is you. I want you. And then David says, listen, desire God supremely. Before anything else, desire him personally as first priority and desire him supremely. He says, My soul thirsts for you. You know what your soul is? Your soul is your whole being. Psalm 103 that the pastor quoted this morning, when he says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. That's what your soul is, all that is within me. And David is saying this, my soul, all that is within me, God, thirsts for you. He says, I'm in a dry, I'm in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Obviously, he was not in Magnolia, right? It's not a dry and weary land where there is no water. Maybe he would have been like from where I'm from, out in West Texas. Yeah, it's like that. Years ago, years ago, I did some training for marathons, and that's not to brag by any any uh reason at all. The only reason I did that was not a bucket list. We were raising money for clean water for world vision. And one of the things that they said is if you can get your folks to run or walk a half marathon and get people to sponsor them, then you can raise money. So we had about 600 people from our church who did that, and we worked with other churches, and over a three-year period of time we were able to raise about two million dollars for clean water. And I am not a runner. If you were to see me run, you would not go. That guy is like a gazelle. You would go, that guy looks like a bulldog trying to run. If you ever, you know, bulldog. Anyway, I won't demonstrate, but I'm not uh I'm not fleet-of-foot. I am uh I am slow and methodical and desperate when I run. Uh and so uh I was told, listen, if you can run this long, uh within 18 weeks we can train you to run a marathon. So I ran uh two marathons, Kansas City Marathon twice, and then Chicago Marathon. And uh and I did finish before they had the you know the street sweepers come and clean the streets. It was a long, long, but I better stop. I'm not gonna go any further. Let me just say this. When I was doing training, we did training in the summertime. Kansas City gets hot too, gets humid. And so this was like July or August, and I had a long run of about 12 miles, and I ran out of water at about mile nine, and it was like I needed water so bad. Have you ever had cotton mouth? You know what I'm talking about? Where you don't even have enough saliva to spit. It was, I'm sorry, but it's kind of gross. Um, but that's the way it was for me. And so I I changed my running course to go find a convenience store because I needed water so bad. Water was my supreme desire. My legs were cramping, nothing else mattered. I wasn't thinking about work, I wasn't thinking about anything beautiful, I wasn't praising the Lord. I wanted water, so I rerouted my entire run just to find water because thirst supremely changed everything. David is saying this: this is how to seek God, not casually, not occasionally, but desperately. But the presence of God. That's what you need. Last night after I got here uh in my hotel room, uh I was reviewing my message, and then I spent some time uh doing two things. One was listening to some music, and the other was watching reels of dogs. And so I confess a guilty habit that I have is I like to watch reels about dogs, and I've been watching wire-haired dachshunds. For some reason, they're just so cute, and then I love watching anything with puppies. Does anybody else do this? Anyone, any men want to raise your hand? Bunch of liars. Anyway, I love dogs, I love puppies. We got two of them. Anyway, uh, and the other thing that I was doing is I was listening to music, and there was a song, This is the air I breathe. It was written a long time by uh by Michael W. Smith, but you had uh uh the Johnsons and Carrie Job and the worship group, and they were singing uh This Is the Air I Breathe, and uh and part of the chorus is I'm desperate for you. I'm desperate for you. And I was just raising my hands going, God, that's where I am right now in my life. There's a desperation to know you more. And David is saying, Listen, people who desire God more than anything else, that's what they desire. They are they are desperate for God, and the wilderness will elevate the desperation. So I don't know what your wilderness is, but are you looking for just a solution to the dryness, a solving of a problem, or are you looking at this as a catalyst for you to seek after God? Dr. uh Al Bean is one of my mentors, and uh he sent me a text this week. And uh and I just want to you don't know him, but but he's just a super godly person. He was my Old Testament professor in seminary, and I like to say that whenever he prays, you just feel him like grabbing a hold of heaven and shaking, and it's like God is listening to Dr. Albeen. But he sent me a text at 550 uh yesterday morning. He says, The Lord brought you and Karen to mind this morning through Jeremiah 2, 2 through 3 and Deuteronomy 8, which have some wilderness themes in them. And he said this, Perhaps no one loves the wilderness except the Lord. Because he loves the faith and trust he finds in his own there. David's in the wilderness, and David is trusting God. He's not looking to get out of the wilderness, he's just looking for God, and God loves the heart where the wilderness brings out a desire for him. So longing after God means that we desire God before anything else. Number two, it means we delight in God above all else. We delight in God above all else. David says in verse one, uh verse three, because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. This is one of the most remarkable statements in the entire Bible. As a matter of fact, if you're looking for the foundation of this psalm, there it is. Because your love is better than life. Let that sink in for just a minute. Let it sink in. What do you love about life? What is it that makes your life life? Some of you, life for you is fishing. Can I get an amen? Clayton, does nobody in this church fish? Life for me is being On the lake. Baseball. Golfing. What else? Hunting. Gardening. College football. Whoa, what was that? What was that? I need to hear that. Serving my wife. Giving it up. Yes. Well done. Man, we ought to stop for closing prayer right there. I mean, we're not going to get any better than that. You know, if you're in Kansas City, and I can say this because I'm from Texas, but I live in Kansas City, is, and you can say this in Texas as well, but especially in Kansas City, my life is barbecue. Amen. There you go. Barbecue, cinnamon rolls, bacon, and butter. All the things that my cardiologist says will make you a healthy man. Anyway, we have these things that we delight in life. David is saying the thing that is better than life itself, better than, better than all of life. Just think about this. God's steadfast, unfailing, unchangeable, unthwartable, never-ending love for us is better than life. It's better than life. We would say the death, burial, and resurrection of the one and only Son of God, never been one like him before. There will never be one like him again. He gave himself up for us. There's nothing better in life than that. There is nothing that compares. It's not life plus God's love that brings me delight. It's God's love alone. I want that tattooed on my heart. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. We delight in God's love above all, delight in God above all else. We delight in his love. We delight in his presence. He says, My lips will praise you. Do you know what praise is? Praise is the overflow of delight. It's the overflow of delight. You naturally praise that which you enjoy, right? You naturally praise that which you enjoy. I have three grandchildren. They're the most beautiful and smartest children that have ever been born. Your grandchildren may be okay, but compared to my grandchildren, I don't think so. They don't get any better, they don't get any better than that. Maybe you maybe you enjoy talking about your vacations, your favorite restaurants. You talk about what captures your heart. I was on a plane coming back from Panama, and there was a guy on the plane. Uh, we had flew to Houston, then we're flying to Kansas City. There was a guy next to me. I just started talking to him. He looked like uh looked like he might have something to do with soccer because he had a lanyard on, and I found out he was one of the photographers for FIFA that had just left Houston, was going to Kansas City and coming back here. And I said, Well, listen, when you're in Kansas City, you need to make sure and get you some barbecue. Now, why would I do that? Because I'm one of those people on the plane. I will talk to people. Why I wanted to talk to him about Kansas City barbecue is because I enjoy it. So here's the deal: David says, praise reveals what captures our heart. Praise reveals what captures our heart. Praise reveals what we delight in. Praising God is the overflow of saying we enjoy our God. And we're not gonna stop. My wedding ring, this is my fourth wedding ring. And Karen, you know this. This is my fourth wedding ring. Uh, the first wedding ring we bought. Karen and I got married very young, 19 and 18. Our first wedding ring, uh, I mean, we spent as much money as we could. This beautiful wedding ring. It was brushed gold, had a little bitty tiny diamond in there that you could see if you had like a super big magnifying glass, you could find it. But anyway, uh, was playing volleyball one time at a lake, and I went up to spike it because look at me, I'm a spiker, right? Nat was about five foot tall, and that was coming out, jamming it on the children. And so I was I was slamming it, and my ring flew off, and we couldn't find it, so I lost my first best wedding ring at the lake. Karen's father had an additional wedding ring because he had a new ring made for uh for his business, and the wedding ring was uh he he he traded it for the one that he had made. And so I was wearing my father-in-law's wedding ring, which is kind of weird when you think about it, but I'm not gonna go there. And so I was wearing my father-in-law's wedding ring, and then one day we were doing yard work and we were transplanting some bushes, and I was in there and the wedding ring came off, and I didn't know until later, and I wasn't gonna go dig up all of the bushes, and so um, so I lost that wedding ring, and then it was like the receptionist where I worked at the time, Pleasant Valley Baptist Church. She said, Merle, you really you really need to get a ring on your finger. It doesn't look right. Pastor's up there without a wedding ring, and she goes, Here's one that we found in the church. I'm not kidding you. And and whatever the story was, that some dude threw down his wedding ring. I don't know, did they take it off a dead body? Did some guy go, I'm done, whatever. And so I wore, I wore a random wedding ring for a while. And the King Karen goes, You gotta get you gotta give that back. That is just not right. So I ended up getting it back, and we got this wedding ring right here. But if somebody were to offer me a choice between keeping my wedding ring or keeping Karen as my wife, it wouldn't be a difficult decision. The ring is of value because it points to the relationship we have. Can I tell you what happens sometimes with us as followers of Jesus? Sometimes we become more interested in the valuable things God gives to us. More than God Himself. We want his blessings, and there's nothing wrong with wanting the blessings. Nothing wrong with wanting his provision, his protection, his answers. None of those wrong at all, but they are no substitute for the greatest gift, which is God Himself. Amen. We delight in God above all else. We delight in his love, we delight in his presence, and we delight in his sufficiency. My soul, verse 5, will be satisfied with fat and rich food. And all the foodies in the house said, Yes and amen. Yes and amen. Yesterday, when I got here, I was very hungry and I wanted Mexican food, and you can find it in Texas. You can't really find it in Kansas City like you have down here. So David is David is where? David is physically in the wilderness. David is in a place of desolation, but he's saying, in my place of desolation, feasting is going on because I am feasting on God, and God is enough. St. Augustine said this: Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you, O God. Some of you are restless today, and you can't identify the restlessness, so let me identify it for you. You are restless because you are built to long for God, and until you meet Him in Jesus, the longing will never, ever escape you. It will never escape you. If you've ever gone to a restaurant when you're really hungry and the food arrives, and you're with a group of people, and everybody's really hungry, you take the first bite, and for a moment nobody talks. Do you know why? We're savoring the food. We're enjoying it. David says God's presence satisfies the soul like a rich feast satisfies a hungry person. Christianity is not merely about some historical facts, although it is about historical, verifiable facts. Christianity is about enjoying God. So I put it like this God's most glorified in us when he becomes our greatest delight. Or John Piper said it like this God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Third of all, longing for God is characterized by depending on God through all things. We depend on God through all things. In every season, David says, When I remember you on my bed, one of the key terms in the Old Testament is about remembering. Moses would tell the people of God to remember all of the activity of God. Remembering is something sacred about remembering all the things that God has done. David says, when I'm laying down at night, I'm not ruminating about all of the things that are wrong. I'm not ruminating on all the things that maybe I should have done better. David says, On my bed I am remembering God. I meditate on, I meditate on Him. And let me just say this. If you know how to worry, how many of you know how to worry? Show of hands? Put the hands up. You know how to worry? If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. You just need to change the focus. Instead of focusing on all the possibilities of what could go wrong, meditate on all the ways that God has done good. Not just in victories, but in the darkness, in the uncertainty, in sleeplessness. Depend on God in every season, depend on God's strength. Your right up hand, your right hand upholds me. The right hand is the is the is the image of God's authority, God's power, and he says, I'm gonna cling to you. I love the balance. David clings, God upholds. David holds on, but God's grip is stronger. You depend on God's faithfulness. My soul clings to you. David knows God has been faithful in the past, therefore he can trust him with the future. The wilderness does not change God. Not at all. It doesn't change God. David has confidence because God has never failed. When our boys were young and we would be crossing a busy parking lot, they would grab my hands. And their safety ultimately didn't depend on their little hands hanging on to me. Their safety depended upon my hands holding on to them. Our safety is not found in how tightly we hold on to God, but on how faithfully he holds on to us. God will never let you go. Cling to the one who is holding on, who's holding on to you. C.S. Lewis once wrote this If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is I was made for another world. Psalm 63 teaches that. The longing that you have in your heart is not your enemy. The aching in your soul is an indication. Let it be a GPS that guides you to God, who is your ultimate satisfaction. So let me bring my part to a close by simply asking you three soul questions. Question number one What are you desiring most today? And just be honest. What are you desiring most today? Number two, what are you delighting in most today? And number three, what are you depending on most today? Because what you desire most, what you delight in most, and what you depend on most tells you what is ruling your heart. And Psalm 63 says this desire God before anything else, delight in God above all, depend on God through all things. Stop trying to stuff too small a stuff in there and let God be the one that fills you. I'm gonna invite you to stand. I'm gonna read a prayer that comes out of a book called The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and then I'll turn this over to Pastor Clayton. So, in a spirit of prayer, receive this. Oh God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I'm painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. Oh God. I want to want you. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me your glory. So I may know you indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, Rise up, my love, and come away. Then give me grace to rise and follow you. Through Jesus we pray.

unknown 37:02

Amen.