Title: Longing for God (Lent Day 7 Sermon)
Longing For God
Psalm 63:1-3
1 O God, you are my God. I seek you earnestly, but in a dry and weary land where there is no water, my soul longs for you and my body longs for you. 2 So I looked to you in the sanctuary, to see your power and your glory. 3 My lips will praise you, for your love is better than life.
1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You. In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You. (NKJV)
Sometimes I feel like this. “If we know God, how much can we know?” “Can you know God at all?” There are times when I think. Because the God of the Bible is too vast and too complex for us to know and understand. God is the one who made the stars in the sky, and he is the one who guides human history with his almighty power. On the other hand, the God we feel in our Christian experience is also very close and familiar to us. Then God is like a heavenly Father who knows every need and can take all our worries to Him.
The Bible says that God is too great and great for us to fully comprehend. But that God wants us to be known at the same time. God created us to have a personal and intimate fellowship with us. That God has placed in us the desire to know Him. This was something that God had already revealed to Solomon. “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.” Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Isn't it really interesting to say? He said, “He has planted eternity in the human heart.” We use the word “install” a lot these days. Installing a program on your computer is called “install”. When God created man, he installed a program in the human heart to long for eternity. The program that God “installed” while giving our lives is working in you and me. Some people have the program working very actively, some people are not active but the program works faintly, and some people live as if they don't have it at all. By the way, the program is supposed to work if even a little opportunity is given to such a person's mind. Because God installed this program in everyone's heart with the beginning of their life.
Now, then, read the 63rd Psalm we read today again.
1 O God, You are my God;
Oh God, my God,
Early will I seek You;
I look for you from early morning.
My soul thirsts for You;
My soul is thirsty for you.
My flesh longs for you
My body thirsts for you.
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
In a barren desert without water... … .
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
I found you in the sanctuary.
To see Your power and Your glory.
I want to see your power and your glory
3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
Because your kindness is more precious than life
My lips shall praise You.
My lips are about to praise you.
Isn't the earnest desire for God shown in this prayer? That's what I thought as I read this psalm. “Once in a lifetime is good, God, make me yearn for you so much!” This psalmist gets up early in the morning. He is thirsty. His thirst is not because he can't drink water. His soul thirsts for God. For this psalmist, God is the first thing he should seek when he wakes up early in the morning. See what the spiritual life of this psalmist is like. He seeks God eagerly like a wanderer in a desert wasteland, looking for water to drink with a burning thirst.
This psalm is said to have been written by David. He must have been in a desert wasteland when he wrote this psalm. Bible scholars say that David wrote this psalm when he fled to the wilderness of Judea to escape the pursuit of his son Absalom. All but a few loyalists who were with him until the end all sided with the emerging power, Absalom. He took refuge in a humble manner. By then he was already old. With that old body he had to run away from his son. Absalom, a son who was no one else, had expelled his father and threatened the life of his father David.
What could have sustained his life as he hid and fled in search of shelter? Were the loyalists by your side? Was it because Joab, Basilai, Abishai, Hushai, Ittai, and the priests Zadok and Abiathar who had worked with him were with him on the way to escape? It wasn't. What sustained David's life at that time was his past experience of meeting God personally. He said, “I looked to you in the sanctuary, to see your power and your glory” (verse 2).
David was longing for the day he would return to Jerusalem, even in the midst of hardship and in the crisis of his life. Jerusalem is where the temple is located. He was waiting for the day to return to Jerusalem and worship God again in the midst of life in a barren wasteland. This hope in God supported David's life. “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You. “lovingkindness” is a compound word of “love” and “kindness”. Biblical scholars combine these two words to express the word “Son of man (Hebrew qesed)” in the Bible.
Isn't that a great confession of faith? It is said that God's kindness is more precious than sustaining one's life while wandering in the wilderness. What does this word mean in other words? “If only the mercy of God would come upon me… ..even in this crisis of life, ‘God of Lovingkindness’, if only this God is with me, my life will be preserved by His grace!” Isn't this a word that comes from absolute faith in God?
Beloved, this is the heart of the saints. This is the heart of the saint who thirsts for God. How can the saints quench this thirst? Only God's power and His glorious presence can quench the saint's burning thirst.
See what David wanted to see. He said he wanted the power of God to be shown in his life. He said he wanted to see the glory of God coming down during worship. He said he wanted to experience “the lovingkindness of God.” Why? It was to praise God. He wanted to live a life that praised God for the rest of his life.
Folks, don't think of praise as simply singing. Praising God is not just a song, it means acknowledging all that God has done. The most important thing in David's life was to acknowledge God as God. So he wanted to experience God, to see the power of God, and to see the glory of God.
What are you desperately wanting now? Take a look at your life now. What do you yearn for? Do you have an intense “desire” in your mind to get it as soon as you wake up? What is that? is someone you love? Or is it an intense desire for success? If I could write just three things on a piece of paper right now, would my thirst for God be written on top?
Oh God, I want you.
Oh, God, it’s You I want.
As long as I live my life I want you.
I want You in my life.
I am thirsty. neck burns.
I feel dry and thirsty.
I am weak.
I feel weak.
I am lonely.
I feel lonely.
I need your power.
I need your power.
I need your glory.
I need your glory.
I need your argument.
I need your lovingkindness.
It is more precious to me than life.
It means more to me than life itself.
I want to praise you.
I want to praise You.