SPEAKER_00: Psalm sixty-three.
SPEAKER_00: O God, you are my God, and earnestly I seek you.
SPEAKER_00: My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_00: So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
SPEAKER_00: Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
SPEAKER_00: So I will bless you as long as I live.
SPEAKER_00: In your name I will lift up my hands.
SPEAKER_00: My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.
SPEAKER_00: When I remember you upon my bed, my meditate and meditate on you in the watches of the night.
SPEAKER_00: For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing my for joy.
SPEAKER_00: My soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me.
SPEAKER_00: But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: They shall be given over to the power of the sword.
SPEAKER_00: They shall be a portion of for jackals.
SPEAKER_00: But the king shall rejoice in God, all who swear by him shall exalt, for the mouths of the liars will be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: But hopefully get to meet you over a cup of coffee after the service.
SPEAKER_02: We do psalms in the summer.
SPEAKER_02: That's uh been our practice now for a number of years.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it started at Psalm number one.
SPEAKER_02: Here we are at Psalm uh 63.
SPEAKER_02: So if you've got uh it on your phone or if you've gone old school and actually have a physical Bible, you can turn that up.
SPEAKER_02: Our mission, uh City Church, if you don't know what our mission is, I'm sure some of you here are ready just to repeat it with me, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh but if you don't know what our mission is at City Church, I'm gonna tell you our mission is to connect people to Jesus, to grow them to spiritual maturity, that they might serve the community and go to the nations.
SPEAKER_02: There's four verbs there: connect, grow, serve, go.
SPEAKER_02: That's how you remember it.
SPEAKER_02: We connect people to Jesus, that's our desire, that they might grow to spiritual maturity, that they might serve within the context of the church family, but also in any sphere that God might place them in, and then go as missionaries to those contexts with the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're about, first and foremost.
SPEAKER_02: It's not flashy, it's maybe not particularly trendy, but that is our mission as a church to see people come to know Jesus and in knowing him come to Christian maturity.
SPEAKER_02: That second part, grow, of maturing as believers, is uh an important part of our mission because what we're not about as a church is just uh getting as many people as possible uh to make quick, uh, shallow decisions for Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We're not about trying to manipulate you into raising your hand or coming forward or uh or even uh praying a special prayer at the at the end.
SPEAKER_02: We're not just about the quick decisionism.
SPEAKER_02: We want people to come to a genuine faith in Jesus and then to grow in that faith, as Paul would say in Colossians chapter two, about putting roots down into Jesus so that you might become like a tree.
SPEAKER_02: That's actually the image of Psalm 1, the very first Psalm, which is really the doorway to the whole book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_02: The whole book of Psalms wants you, wants us to be maturing as followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: It wants us to be doing that grow thing.
SPEAKER_02: We also think that it's it's good because a maturing faith, a maturing Christian, one who follows Jesus, is one who it brings honor and glory to God.
SPEAKER_02: What doesn't glorify God is what we have seen in the past and the history of our country of just empty religion, just doing going through the motions on a Sunday morning or on a Saturday evening, but having no bearing on the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: The life that glorifies God is a life that doesn't just uh talk the talk but walks the walk also.
SPEAKER_02: That actually is bringing the lordship of Jesus, the good kingship of Jesus to bear in every area of our lives.
SPEAKER_02: How we relate to one another, how we use our money, how we use our body are the decisions that we make.
SPEAKER_02: That's the life that uh if you are a Christian, you should be aspiring to live because that's the life that glorifies God.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we want you to grow as Christians.
SPEAKER_02: We also want you to grow because actually we believe that it's good for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just what God wants, what he desires for you.
SPEAKER_02: He it is actually good for you.
SPEAKER_02: He desires your good.
SPEAKER_02: Because to grow in Jesus, to grow in faith, is well, it's first and foremost about growing in things like love, joy, peace, uh, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and and self-control.
SPEAKER_02: And and doesn't uh everybody need a little bit more of at least some of those things?
SPEAKER_02: To grow in faith is good because, as we'll see from this Sam, it actually helps us to traverse and uh and persevere through some of the difficult and arid seasons of life.
SPEAKER_02: So many people are shipwrecked and destabilized and lose their hope because of circumstances and suffering.
SPEAKER_02: Whereas actually being a follower of Jesus over uh a uh a long count of years, that steady daily obedience to him, it actually becomes like ballast in your boat.
SPEAKER_02: You know what ballast is?
SPEAKER_02: Ballast is the it's the it's the concrete slabs that are put in the bottom of a ship to weigh it down so that it doesn't capsize.
SPEAKER_02: To mature as a Christian is to get more and more faith ballast in your boat, and that's what we want for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not only desirable because it honors God or because it's good for you, but it but because it is how we are that city on a hill.
SPEAKER_02: It's how we witness to the world.
SPEAKER_02: Because again, our world is looking for meaning and satisfaction, the longings to the deepest yearnings of our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: We're just signing that uh that line, our souls are restless until they find rest in you.
SPEAKER_02: That's actually a quote from a man called Augustine, uh, who lived in the uh fourth, fifth century.
SPEAKER_02: He said, and he tried to satisfy his soul with lots of things with wine, women, and song.
SPEAKER_02: And he realized actually, my soul is restless and can only find rest in you.
SPEAKER_02: And that's true of all of us, and we'll unpack that in just a second.
SPEAKER_02: But as people look at your life, they see something different.
SPEAKER_02: That's why maturing as a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: I noticed this when we uh when we moved house.
SPEAKER_02: People who are my neighbors couldn't give a rip about uh about the doctrine that I have.
SPEAKER_02: Not really.
SPEAKER_02: They don't really interested in whether or not I can kind of begin to explain what the doctrine of the Trinity is.
SPEAKER_02: They want to know do I have integrity?
SPEAKER_02: Am I talking the talk and walking the walk?
SPEAKER_02: Is my life different because of what I say I believe?
SPEAKER_02: Put it another way, am I growing in my faith in the Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 63, as I was reading it this week, it's actually it's quite aspirational, it's quite challenged by it because David is saying things like, I'm I'm yearning for you above all else.
SPEAKER_02: Your love is better than life itself.
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you right now, I read that and I think I want, I want, I want to get there.
SPEAKER_02: I want to be more there than I am right now.
SPEAKER_02: And I suspect that actually that will only be fully completed when I see Jesus face to face.
SPEAKER_02: But it is that is part of the journey of this life is journeying more and more into that.
SPEAKER_02: And so I invite you this morning to join me in that journey of becoming more and more dependent upon God, upon the Lord Jesus, of seeking to mature in Him.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 63, in that sense, is it's aspirational.
SPEAKER_02: It's uh the maturing Christian's interaction with God in all circumstances of life.
SPEAKER_02: As is so often the case, the evidence of our maturity is not shown when the sun is shining down on us, but actually when the dark clouds of suffering and trial have rolled in.
SPEAKER_02: That's what really reveals what we what we value.
SPEAKER_02: Haven't you found that?
SPEAKER_02: So why you why do you run when things are going wrong?
SPEAKER_02: That reveals something of your of your heart.
SPEAKER_02: But in that wilderness, in that time of trial, David gives us two images that are going to kind of filter down through our time this morning.
SPEAKER_02: And it is the image of fainting for God and of feasting on him.
SPEAKER_02: It's nice to have uh alliterative points.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it may help you remember them, fainting and feasting, but I haven't just plucked them out of thin air.
SPEAKER_02: They're there in the text.
SPEAKER_02: My flesh faints for you in verse one, and then down in verse five, he is talking about being satisfied with rich food, of uh, of delving deep, of feasting in this banquet of God.
SPEAKER_02: So let's let's think about these two images of fainting and feasting.
SPEAKER_02: First of all, fainting, fainting for God, yearning for him.
SPEAKER_02: Again, as we have had in these last couple of weeks, we uh find ourselves in the wilderness with King David.
SPEAKER_02: Again, he is facing uh trial and difficulty, as in Psalm 61.
SPEAKER_02: He's uh he's out of the city, he's pushed away, he's in exile.
SPEAKER_02: There are people after his life, the king is is on the run.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm really glad actually that David doesn't just give us a status update when when things are going well.
SPEAKER_02: King David doesn't Instagram filter his life, he never has.
SPEAKER_02: He's always telling us, uh you know, things are really bad right now.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, and tweet.
SPEAKER_02: There's something really honest and earthy about David.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't try and put a veneer on things.
SPEAKER_02: If he's feeling angry, he speaks about his anger.
SPEAKER_02: If he's feeling overwhelmed with grief, he speaks about that.
SPEAKER_02: If he's joyful, he speaks about that.
SPEAKER_02: But he's not one-dimensional.
SPEAKER_02: And again, we find ourselves in the wilderness and he's telling us about his trouble.
SPEAKER_02: Why does God put him in the wilderness?
SPEAKER_02: Why does God allow the wilderness?
SPEAKER_02: Why does God allow us?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's that's probably one of the first questions that you go to when you find trial.
SPEAKER_02: You go, well, why?
SPEAKER_02: Why has this happened?
SPEAKER_02: Why now?
SPEAKER_02: Why has God allowed this?
SPEAKER_02: Why does God put us in the wilderness?
SPEAKER_02: I think part of the answer is that God tends to strip away everything because we have a tendency to become addicted to the gifts that he's given us rather than trusting him.
SPEAKER_02: We fall in love, don't we, with money, with power, with sex and comfort, approval and control.
SPEAKER_02: Why does God wrestle them from our grasp?
SPEAKER_02: Why does he take them away?
SPEAKER_02: Because he hates us?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: To show us that they are only shadows of the surpassing satisfaction that he offers.
SPEAKER_02: To show us that they're gifts.
SPEAKER_02: We're so prone to falling in love with the gifts and forgetting the giver.
SPEAKER_02: God in your life will sometimes turn out all the other lights so that you are drawn to the light of his goodness and grace.
SPEAKER_02: Have you experienced that?
SPEAKER_02: Or you feel like you feel like you're kind of holding on to this rock cliff and and and and every every handhold, the handhold of other people, or the the handhold of of money and comfort, or the handhold of a sense of control, they're all kind of crumbling in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: You think, well, where can I go?
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus is there, he said, I am the rock, grab that.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the only one left.
SPEAKER_02: As the old hymn says, when every earthly prop, that is the things that you would lean on, when every earthly prop gives way, he is still my strength and stay.
SPEAKER_02: On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other grind is sinking sand.
SPEAKER_02: God puts us in the wilderness so that we realize that all other ground is sinking sand, you see?
SPEAKER_02: But it's interesting, David doesn't ask why.
SPEAKER_02: David doesn't ask why, instead, he asks who.
SPEAKER_02: Instead of asking why God has done this, why that why God has allowed this to happen, he asks, well, okay, who is God?
SPEAKER_02: Who is the God who is with me in this?
SPEAKER_02: And do you see his answer at the very start of verse one?
SPEAKER_02: Oh God, you are my God.
SPEAKER_02: You are my God.
SPEAKER_02: He is drawn, first of all, to the relationship that he has with God.
SPEAKER_02: You are my God.
SPEAKER_02: Remember our mission statement?
SPEAKER_02: What's the first part?
SPEAKER_02: We exist, city church exists to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To connect people to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That is, to establish that relationship between you and the God who made you so that you can sit here and go, yes, God is my God.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is my Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is my savior.
SPEAKER_02: He is my God.
SPEAKER_02: I have a relationship, a connection with him.
SPEAKER_02: That's my starting point.
SPEAKER_02: That's the starting point of all Christian maturity.
SPEAKER_02: That's the starting point of all wrestling through uh trials and suffering.
SPEAKER_02: You remember, okay, who is God?
SPEAKER_02: Is he bad and capricious?
SPEAKER_02: Does he hate me?
SPEAKER_02: No, because he's already shown me in Jesus that he doesn't.
SPEAKER_02: Who is the God that is in the wilderness with you?
SPEAKER_02: David doesn't faint and long for some distant deity.
SPEAKER_02: He longs for the God who is his God, the God who knows him, the God who he knows because God has spoken.
SPEAKER_02: The God who has saved him, the God who has loved him, who has made him king, who has set his feet upon the rock.
SPEAKER_02: We have this interaction with God, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: That God is the one who needs to show up when uh when things are going uh really badly, but we kind of park him to the side when when things are going well.
SPEAKER_02: And they well, I've got this now.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, God's not a superhero.
SPEAKER_02: God's not like you know, like Thor or Superman or Batman.
SPEAKER_02: Where you just can't, if you're a damsel in distress, you cry out and he swoops in, and then you thanks very much, God, and then he flies off again.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, you have no relationship with the superhero God.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is a God of commitment, of covenant joining, of promise keeping.
SPEAKER_02: I will not forsake you.
SPEAKER_02: And David starts there.
SPEAKER_02: Oh God, you are my God.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't start with why, he starts with who.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, one of the signs of Christian maturity is when you are in the pit and you're tempted to go, why?
SPEAKER_02: Why is this happening to me?
SPEAKER_02: What could I have done?
SPEAKER_02: Those are the wrong questions to ask.
SPEAKER_02: Start with who.
SPEAKER_02: Who is God?
SPEAKER_02: David is in a physical wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: We know that from uh the little superscript above verse one, Sam of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
SPEAKER_02: That is, he's away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: David's in a physical wilderness, a place of actual physical thirst and hunger.
SPEAKER_02: But he realizes there that there are longings deeper than his present circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: And so he writes, the end of verse one, my not my mouth, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know you have a soul?
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that you have a soul?
SPEAKER_02: And did you know that that soul can thirst?
SPEAKER_02: That it needs to drink, that it has longings and yearnings.
SPEAKER_02: People tend to call these soul thirsts desires.
SPEAKER_02: People talk in terms of what they desire.
SPEAKER_02: People are driven by the desire for love, for comfort, for meaning, for intimacy, for a sense of who they are.
SPEAKER_02: You have one or more of those desires probably bubbling up to the surface even this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Where do those desires come from?
SPEAKER_02: They're surely not the result of just a material universe.
SPEAKER_02: So why would somebody evolve to long for meaning and significance?
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe for a desire to reproduce.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you could justify it as a desire for sex, but surely not for meaning.
SPEAKER_02: Surely not for intimacy or for comfort.
SPEAKER_02: No, the desires that drive us every day are evidences that there is something more to you than just a meat machine.
SPEAKER_02: That there's something more to you, and you know it instinctively, that's part of probably the reason why you're here this morning.
SPEAKER_02: They cannot quite be satisfied by those things.
SPEAKER_02: Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
SPEAKER_02: You have a soul, I have a soul, and it thirsts and it longs.
SPEAKER_02: So, what does David do?
SPEAKER_02: As we've seen before, he looks back to evidence of God's past satisfaction of him, and he projects that forward also.
SPEAKER_02: So you have verses two and verse four.
SPEAKER_02: So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, that's the the temple, beholding your power and glory.
SPEAKER_02: So he remembers those past experiences when he was, in a sense, kind of at the very epicenter of God's presence as he understood it, when he felt like he was at the on those mountaintop sort of experiences, when he could hear the uh the crowds around Jerusalem replying to him as he led them in the in the worship in the liturgy of of ancient Israel.
SPEAKER_02: When he heard the the cries of the prayer, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and he was remembering all of those things.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's nourishing him in a sense, but it's also it's also not quite enough because he's doing something else.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he remembers times when he met with God, but he doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't say in verse 4, and I know that one day I'm gonna go back to the temple and we're gonna have a great worship service, and I'll be back on the mountain, and and there it'll be great.
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse four.
SPEAKER_02: So I will bless you as long as you as long as I live.
SPEAKER_02: In your name, I will lift up my hands.
SPEAKER_02: Now, something that I I should have emphasized in verse two, because there's a little parallel going on here.
SPEAKER_02: This is why it's important for you to have the Bible in front of you, because we're gonna just be looking at it in a little bit of detail.
SPEAKER_02: So, verse two, so I have looked upon you where is In the sanctuary, in the temple.
SPEAKER_02: But in verse 4, Jesus does, or Jesus, David doesn't say, I'm going back there.
SPEAKER_02: He says, No, no, I can bless you now in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: I can worship you now in this season of trial and of suffering, in this pit that I'm in.
SPEAKER_02: In your name.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't wait to go back to the sanctuary to worship God.
SPEAKER_02: He can he realizes his faith is growing, he's maturing, do you see?
SPEAKER_02: That he can worship God where he is in the circumstances that he finds himself.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like, well, I've just got to wait until I start to feel a little bit closer to God, and then maybe I'll go back to church and you know I'll maybe go back to community group in September, but I don't really feel very close to God right now.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, things aren't really great.
SPEAKER_02: No, he doesn't do any of that.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't wait until he's back into the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_02: He realizes that God is with him there in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: Again, it's a similar sort of thing that we saw in Psalm 61.
SPEAKER_02: That even though he's in the wilderness, he's no further away from the center of God.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't wait for the big mountaintop experience again.
SPEAKER_02: He brings, in a sense, his knowledge of God down into the valley.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I'm going to praise you right where I am.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to seek you here.
SPEAKER_02: I'm yearning for you now.
SPEAKER_02: I need you to satisfy the longings of my heart's heart where I am.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Why does he look to God in this sort of way?
SPEAKER_02: Why does he look to God as the one who can only satisfy the deepest longings of his heart?
SPEAKER_02: It's because of verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: An amazing verse this is.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 3, because your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: Let's stop there.
SPEAKER_02: God's steadfast love is a way of describing God's never-ending, never giving up, always and forever love, as the Jesus Storybook Bible calls it.
SPEAKER_02: It's not the Jesus Storybook Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Is it the Jesus Storybook Bible Phil?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02: That's how that is God's steadfast, unbreaking, never giving up.
SPEAKER_02: God of the second chances, sort of love.
SPEAKER_02: Because your never-ending, never giving up love is better than life.
SPEAKER_02: Just take a moment and reflect upon what David is saying here.
SPEAKER_02: Because your steadfast love is better than what?
SPEAKER_02: Better than sex?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Better than money?
SPEAKER_02: Better than a nice job?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Better than life.
SPEAKER_02: Man, I want to get there.
SPEAKER_02: Because your steadfast love is better than life.
SPEAKER_02: And I imagine that.
SPEAKER_02: You may be sitting here thinking, does anybody really believe that?
SPEAKER_02: Does anybody really buy that?
SPEAKER_02: Does anybody buy that?
SPEAKER_02: That God's love is better than life.
SPEAKER_02: And then you remember, don't you?
SPEAKER_02: You remember the the countless men and women on down the the years and centuries who have been faced with that decision and who have said your love is better than my life.
SPEAKER_02: And who have found themselves martyred for their faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: For the commitment that God's never giving up, always and forever love is better than anything else in this world.
SPEAKER_02: You go on to churchandchains.ie or or open doors just for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Those two websites that specialize in bringing news to you and me of the persecuted church, and you do a you do a just a quick scroll, and it's almost overwhelming.
SPEAKER_02: You see what is happening to brothers and sisters all across the world who are faced with that reality.
SPEAKER_02: Is God's love better than my life?
SPEAKER_02: And they answer and they say yes.
SPEAKER_02: And they answer it at great cost.
SPEAKER_02: David realizes something that we all need to grow in.
SPEAKER_02: I guess that is the essence of Christian maturity and what it means to mature as a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That in God, in having him, in him being my God, we have something better than anything in this world will afford us.
SPEAKER_02: That to know him and to know his love set upon us supremely in the Lord Jesus is better than our circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: It's better than the places that we find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_02: Because his love, it does not, it does not increase when things are good, nor wane when things are tough.
SPEAKER_02: It endures, whether we are in the sanctuary or in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: This, brother, this is this is Christian maturity to to with ever increasing measure look at your life and to say that I would suffer the loss of that.
SPEAKER_02: If it meant that I could still see and savor and delight in God.
SPEAKER_02: That everything that I have is a is a is a gift given to me to steward with gentleness and generosity.
SPEAKER_02: But it can go on the altar if God asked it for of me.
SPEAKER_02: There's huge implications of that, isn't there?
SPEAKER_02: It's worth asking yourself when it comes to your relationship with God, you know, are there are there non-negotiables?
SPEAKER_02: If God asked this of me, I'd be done with him.
SPEAKER_02: If you answered that, then there's something that you have or something that you want that is more significant than the love for God, love of God for you in your life, in your value system.
SPEAKER_02: Again, this is why we need the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: The wilderness shows us what we truly value.
SPEAKER_02: The wilderness not only shows us what we truly value, it actually shows us what really matters.
SPEAKER_02: You kind of experienced that a little bit during COVID, didn't you?
SPEAKER_02: When everything got cut off.
SPEAKER_02: We got cut off from one another.
SPEAKER_02: Our sense of control of our lives was just completely up-ended because it was always just a fiction, anyway.
SPEAKER_02: People lost jobs, people lost loved ones.
SPEAKER_02: There's lots of turmoil, difficulty.
SPEAKER_02: Why does God do that?
SPEAKER_02: Why did He allow that?
SPEAKER_02: Why does He allow these things that we rely upon to crumble away in order to show us the kind of solid rock that He is?
SPEAKER_02: I had this image in my mind, and I didn't write it down because I was like, oh, you'll not be able to explain it very well, but I've told you that I'm going to say it now.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like, it's almost like you're standing in quicksand.
SPEAKER_02: You're that kind of that kind of mud that's just kind of dragging you down, and and you're you're you're crying out in the midst of that quicksand.
SPEAKER_02: And everything that you're grabbing on is coming away in your hand, and you find yourself getting deeper and deeper.
SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly you realize that as you cry out to God, there's a rock comes up from the center of the earth and it lifts you up out of that quicksand.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that helped you.
SPEAKER_02: That helped me this week.
SPEAKER_02: David faints for God.
SPEAKER_02: He has longings and yearnings that go far beyond his circumstances, that he knows that only God can satisfy.
SPEAKER_02: And then the image switches from verse 5 onwards.
SPEAKER_02: He goes from fainting for God to feasting on him.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our second point.
SPEAKER_02: Feast on God.
SPEAKER_02: When David is far from God and in trouble, he cries out to him.
SPEAKER_02: And God meets him in that wilderness, and David feasts on him.
SPEAKER_02: Let's read verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.
SPEAKER_02: My mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember upon my bed and meditate upon you in the watches of the night.
SPEAKER_02: For you indeed have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
SPEAKER_02: My soul clings to you.
SPEAKER_02: Your right hand upholds me.
SPEAKER_02: David isn't just looking for God, just to do enough, just to kind of help him.
SPEAKER_02: Just kind of, oh, if you could just kind of get me get me started, I'll do the rest.
SPEAKER_02: He isn't looking for a God who will just kind of set him back on the rock and then clear off.
SPEAKER_02: He isn't expecting some ration of grace from God.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, he's looking for he wants a banquet.
SPEAKER_02: So I want, I want all of you, all that I could take in.
SPEAKER_02: I want to feast upon your greatness, goodness, glory, and majesty.
SPEAKER_02: I want to, I want my soul to gorge itself on your perfections.
SPEAKER_02: And notice that as he feasts on God, it actually begins to reframe his circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: So he talks about in verse 6 about how he's he's tossing and turning on his bed.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, my wife will attest that I don't really have this problem, but some of you will uh will struggle with sleeplessness.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I sleep as though God is sovereign, which he is, just 99, see in the morning.
SPEAKER_02: But others, uh you wrestle, you toss and turn.
SPEAKER_02: That's when they you know that's when the you know the monsters come at night, don't they?
SPEAKER_02: It's when you start believing lies, when you start playing things over in your head, or it just feels like you're wired and sleep has has fled from you.
SPEAKER_02: David here in verse six doesn't say, I feasted on you, and just like you know, you had a good meal, the next thing you want to do is take a nap, and so I fell asleep.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say no.
SPEAKER_02: He's feasting on him, but he's still sleepless, he's still restless.
SPEAKER_02: The circumstances haven't gone away, do you see?
SPEAKER_02: He's feasting, but he's still in the wilderness, and he's still feeling that that tossing and turning, that that anxiety, there's still pressures pressing in on him, but he's reframed that time.
SPEAKER_02: Because that time's no longer time for replaying conversations or strategizing how to fix something, or worrying about what the next day will hold.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, he's reframed it.
SPEAKER_02: That's all those times of sleeplessness are now times of praise.
SPEAKER_02: They're times of meditating upon who God is.
SPEAKER_02: Uh meditate, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: Uh people hear the word meditate and uh and think of kind of an Eastern notion of meditation, a kind of clearing of your mind.
SPEAKER_02: Biblically speaking, that's not that's not meditation.
SPEAKER_02: Biblical meditation, if you want a good image for medit for biblical meditation, go out into the countryside and look at a cow.
SPEAKER_02: A cow meditates when it's had a bit of a feed because it just chews and chews and chews and chews.
SPEAKER_02: And it chews the cud and it ruminates.
SPEAKER_02: That's biblical meditation.
SPEAKER_02: Biblical meditation is to sit there like a cow and just chew and chew and chew on who God is and what you know about him and how you have seen him uh work in your life in the past and what he has done for you in the Lord Jesus is not about clearing your mind, it's about filling your mind with him.
SPEAKER_02: Again, like I said last week, you're listening to voices all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And at nighttime, when you're tired, that's when the worst voices come out to play.
SPEAKER_02: And so perhaps that is the most important time that you need to begin meditating on who God is, on what he has done to combat those voices of lies with the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_02: You with me, Ben?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02: You see, sometimes God isn't looking to change your circumstances, but he's always looking to change you.
SPEAKER_02: And what does David feast upon?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he gives us some clues in the in the verses.
SPEAKER_02: He feasts on, first of all, uh, on God's character.
SPEAKER_02: My soul will be satisfied uh with fat and rich as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed.
SPEAKER_02: He remembers, he meditates, he chews over the character of God.
SPEAKER_02: That's a very important thing.
SPEAKER_02: Well, especially when you're tempted to blame God or to ask him, ask why something has happened.
SPEAKER_02: Well, remember the kind of God who is out there, the kind of God who has drawn you into relationship with himself.
SPEAKER_02: What's he like?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he's slow to anger.
SPEAKER_02: He's gracious, he's abounding in love, he's powerful, all-seeing, never-changing, sovereign, good, a God to the fatherless and the helpless, to the widow and to the orphan.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of God you wrestle with in the watches of the night.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of God you meditate upon.
SPEAKER_02: And so he chews over the character of God.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, he remembers God's past help, verse 7, for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
SPEAKER_02: He looks back and said, You haven't let me down yet.
SPEAKER_02: So I was in a cave running from Saul, and when I was in that cave, I remember then it looked like a canopy of wings that were sheltering me and keeping me safe.
SPEAKER_02: And it felt as though your wings were covering me and with me and sustaining me and protecting me.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm remembering that now.
SPEAKER_02: And as followers of the Lord Jesus, brothers and sisters, we are sheltered under eternal wings.
SPEAKER_02: That God will bring us safe, safe to that heavenly shore, to Canaan's side, where sickness and death will be no more.
SPEAKER_02: We are sheltered.
SPEAKER_02: God has done it through the cross and resurrection of his son, and he will bring us safe.
SPEAKER_02: And so he looks back and he draws faith and help from that.
SPEAKER_02: And then he thirdly calls to mind God's present help.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 8, my soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me.
SPEAKER_02: Your right hand, that that kind of, sorry, lefties, uh, that kind of dominant hand of strength.
SPEAKER_02: That's the the idea here.
SPEAKER_02: Is it that God is putting his strongest hand to work to help David?
SPEAKER_02: How utterly helpless we feel in the midst of suffering, how weak and alone.
SPEAKER_02: Not so the Christian.
SPEAKER_02: God's mighty strength upholds us, upholds you eternally.
SPEAKER_02: He holds you fast.
SPEAKER_02: He will not let you go, he does not let you falter or fail.
SPEAKER_02: He will keep you to the end.
SPEAKER_02: Do you believe that?
SPEAKER_02: David faints for God, and he feasts upon him as that rock rises from the quicksand.
SPEAKER_02: He draws strength from who God is.
SPEAKER_02: And the result, as we close, in verses 9 to 11, is a sense of increased hope for future vindication.
SPEAKER_02: Those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth.
SPEAKER_02: That is, his enemies will be put to shame in the end.
SPEAKER_02: They shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be the portion of jackals.
SPEAKER_02: It's a very graphic image of just unburied enemies.
SPEAKER_02: But the king, the king shall rejoice in God.
SPEAKER_02: All who swear by him shall exalt, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.
SPEAKER_02: The maturing Christian weathers the storms of life with increased resilience.
SPEAKER_02: And that's not arrogance.
SPEAKER_02: It's not arrogance.
SPEAKER_02: It would be arrogance if it was if it was oriented towards your own strength, if it was oriented towards your own knowledge, your own ability.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not.
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's supremely demonstrated for us, exemplified for us in the King, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: The Lord Jesus embodied this for us in his life and ministry.
SPEAKER_02: He embodied this idea of wanting to uh uh feast on God, of wanting to commune with his father, of heading out uh early in the morning to to be with God.
SPEAKER_02: He also embodied this idea of uh of feasting upon him as as being more satisfying than than bread.
SPEAKER_02: You have this incident in John 4 after he's spoken with the woman at the well, and uh the disciples had gone off to uh to find food, and they come back to Jesus and uh and they say to him, Well, have you have you had anything to eat yet?
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus replies and says, I've I've been sustained, I've fed from the work that I am doing.
SPEAKER_02: There's more that is satisfying to me than bread.
SPEAKER_02: What is sustaining for him is to do the will of his father.
SPEAKER_02: And at the end, he knew that the love of his father was better than life.
SPEAKER_02: And so he willingly laid it down, so that we might know the unending, never breaking, never giving up, always and forever love of God.
SPEAKER_02: To follow him, then is to love what he loved, to delight in what he delighted in.
SPEAKER_02: To mature as Christians, that's what we want at City Church for you to mature as Christians is to increasingly look to Jesus the King for our delight, comfort, security, approval.
SPEAKER_02: For sure the gifts of this world are wonderful and given to us by a gracious God for us to enjoy, but our hearts were never made for them.
SPEAKER_02: They cannot sustain the weight that we are tempted to place upon them, they cannot slake the thirst that our soul has, no more than salt water can quench those on the sea.
SPEAKER_02: To mature as a Christian, to treasure God more and more, He will glorify Him in our lives, He will transform your outlook.
SPEAKER_02: It by His grace will create a legacy of faith in your family, and it will Be a witness to the world.
SPEAKER_02: A world in desperately need in desperate need of that soul quenching living water, of that rest for restless souls.
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you know people who aren't here this morning, you think, yeah, their souls are so restless.
SPEAKER_02: They're looking for things here, there, and everywhere.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's actually you this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Our souls are restless until they find rest in you.