A Desert Psalm - Part 1

Christian work of the report. Going through the amount off of his own heart. If his life was marked by one trial of Robert was that mean for you that I love your monitors the Psalm 63 for encouragement that God's blessing lists about your problem and more about your perspective from falls apart his message at Deseret News today, we open our Bibles to Psalm 63 were studying some of the Psalms that David gave us to help us during times like were going through right now. Today were going to talk about a desert Psalm desert is often used as a metaphor for difficult times water there. It's hot when I came to California, but he was telling me how wonderful was to go to the desert on the weekend. I never could figure that out and I remember one Sunday I told our folks.

I'm not going to the desert because that's where Satan took Jesus to tempt and boy did I get a lot of flak out all of the desert people got after me after I said that. But here we are again in the Psalms.

This is the Psalm for the desert you understand what I mean were studying the songs together and I would encourage you to open your Bible. Psalm 63 we've entitled this desert saw and if you have a copy of the Scripture open to Psalm 63 you will notice that the superscription over the Psalm gives us the title for our discussion for the superscription reads like this, a Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Psalm written in the desert, I would imagine that I can speak honestly. When I say that most of us if were not totally naïve to expect that somewhere along the way.

During our lives were going to experience some difficulty.

Nobody really expects to get all the way from the cradle-to-grave without a few bumps in the road most of us figure will get that stuff out of the way when our children are smaller when we go through midlife and then we will settle in for the last quadrant of life to enjoy all of the things that we look forward to enjoying when the pressures were off in the last part of our life will ultimately be all that we had hoped it would be now.

We may not be so naïve as to believe that totally but there's at least a portion of that tucked away in our memory bank. If were honest and that's why it is especially tragic when you read or hear the story of someone who faces their most difficult times in the twilight of their life, such as the story of King David.

It wasn't as if he hadn't had trouble already.

We all know of his running from Saul and the internal problems within his kingdom. But now, as he should have been enjoying his accomplishments.

Things got worse than they'd ever been before for his family began to come apart at the seams. The setting of the Psalm to which we have opened is the story of the rebellion of his son Absalom, Absalom, the one whom the Scripture tells us was fair to look at a good looking man. One of the few people in the Bible whose outward appearances described for us.

He apparently had charisma and he had gotten the people of Israel to be his followers and he began to do his subtle work in the kingdom to overthrow his father's rulership. One of the insights we have from the Old Testament is that he would wait at the gates of the city for the people to come to Jerusalem. As they gathered to the city he would begin to talk with them about their problems. The Scripture says they came with their lawsuits and as they would talk with Absalom, he would commiserate with them and he would say something like this. It's really a shame that we don't have a king who cares about you if we had a king who cared about you.

You would be able to deal with these issues. Now, if I were king I would care about you and the word got out that Absalom was a man with a heart for the people. While King David had withdrawn from the people and no longer cared little by little, Absalom began to gather the following in word came to King David that there was a coup underway in his own court. The word itself was a sword to his heart.

Absalom's own son trying to usurp the authority that belonged alone to him.

But the story got even more painful if the fellow his favorite counselor and friend was in on the deal and Emma saw his nephew was a part of the coup as well. David did know what to do it as he thought and waited. Absalom strength continue to grow. Finally, Absalom reorganized himself and set up his headquarters in heaven a few miles from Jerusalem sent word out to all the kingdom that when they heard the trumpet blow. They were all to rally to his leadership.

When David heard that word.

He knew that his only way to deal with this was to get out of the palace and out of the city and away from danger, because he feared for his own life as we open our Bibles to Psalm 63. David is retreated from Jerusalem. He's taking his faithful followers with him. His small band of men in his army. They got across the Kedron Valley out into the desert of Judah were David is going to try to wait and figure things out. Fortunately for us we know a little bit about what was going through his mind at the time because he opened his journal and a recording for us. The 63rd Psalm which tells us what was going on in his heart. No, I daresay most of us will never have a story is sordid and difficult is the one I just told you happened to us in our lives. Hopefully all of our children will be loyal to us, to the very end faithful as our friends and encouragers but all of us find our way into the desert from time to time. All of us find our way into trouble, difficulty, so we didn't expect. So David's words here in the Psalm 63 provide for us a mirror into our own lives a look into our own experiences and what he teaches us his profound truth, he is vulnerable. He does not try to hide his pain or his anguish.

But in the midst of his desert experience. We see and we hear the heart of this man who was called a man after God's own heart. The first thing you notice as you began to read the 63rd Psalm is that David is now isolated in the desert and he is wanting God, there is this great hunger in his heart for God, he is been deserted by his family and he now has been isolated to the place where his relationship with God has become the paramount thing in his life. Notice what he said all 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. One writer pictures David out in the desert and he writes these words, we may imagine the psalmist in the wilderness. It is night and he stands at his tent door.

The light of moon and stars falls on a sandy way stretching in the dimness and mystery. He is lonely and sad and the emptiness of all around in the memory of better times breeds this great longing in his soul.

Can you imagine it. Can you imagine what is in this broken hearted man's soul and mind.

Out in the desert, looking around at the parched wasteland and feeling that it represents what's going on in his own life. Personally, as he faced this experience he was drawn again to his love for Almighty God. First of all, we notice his desire. All 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. The first phrase in that verse is interesting. It is in the language of the Old Testament is Elohim Eli all creator God, my God, David sees all around him the barrenness and feels the intensity of it in his own soul and he cries out to the God who is created all things and he says all creator God. You are my God, and then he uses three expressions to describe his hunger and thirst for intimacy with that God he says, Lord ICQ early will I seek you. The first word is the word seeking this expression in the Hebrew is related to the Hebrew word for dawn and it literally means that the earliest thought. He has as he awakens is that he seeks after God. This word early. Will ICQ has such an impact upon the Psalm that in the Armenian churches and in the Greek Orthodox Church as they often referred to this Psalm is the morning Psalm and in their liturgy.

They sing it every morning because of this expression early. Will ICQ. David says I'm seeking after then he uses the expression on her thirsting after you and looks around at the parched desert where there are no wells of water and he feels as if that represents his own life and he has this unquenchable thirst and he wants that thirsts to be realized in God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus said in Matthew 56 and David said in Psalm 42 verse two. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. This is describing his desire for God. What is caused is desire. He's always had a desire for God. But this experience that which is now finding himself has driven him to a great hunger uses 1/3 expression seeking after God thirsting after God longing for God. Notice he says my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

The word longing here is actually the word to faint.

David says Lord I'm such a place where I'm literally without strength and I ain't all God for your presence. What is happening to him physically is taken on a spiritual and yet a deeper physical dimension so that he feels the pain in every part of his body and get that pain drives him to long for God CS Lewis is written a wonderful expression on the Psalm is called reflection on the Psalms. If you enjoy reading the Psalms and you ever find the book by CS Lewis. It's worth having. Because he writes about the Psalms is no one else I have read and he made this comment about David's hunger for God. He said the poets in David's day knew far less reason than we do for loving God, they did not know that he offered them eternal joy still lasts that he would die to win it for them, yet they express a longing for God for his mere presence, which comes only to Christians in their best moments when we been isolated by trouble or difficulty, then that hunger and that cry for God become so paramount what a graphic picture of the psalmist's painting force in the early versus the dry and thirsty land that surrounds him physically is the picture of his soul.

Without God, he is lived long enough to discover that the world even the palace is a desert place of disappointment and discouragement and defeat and would not bring him pleasure.

Someone is made this very valid analogy that Satan doesn't know anything at all about pleasure. His specialty is amusement. Only God knows anything about pleasure. How many of us have learned the hard way that when we been seeking after pleasure. What we end up with is amusement pleasure comes from God. In fact, the psalmist writes in Psalm 1611. You will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. True pleasure comes from knowing God and knowing that we are known of God and being at rest in his presence. Then David makes a very important decision about God. In this section. In verse two he says so. I have looked for you in the sanctuary to see your power and your glory.

Now, in order to understand this. I have to fill in a little empty place about the story of David as he is fleeing from Absalom record tells us that as he was leaving the city. Unknown to him by phone. Some of the priests as they knock had gone back into the sanctuary where the ark of the covenant was kept in without David's permission. They had put the iron bars through the rings, and they lifted the ark of the covenant on their shoulders and when they got out of the city and were crossing the Kedron Valley. David realized that they had taken the ark of the covenant from the city of Jerusalem and they had brought it out into the wilderness where David was fleeing from his own son. Now if you study the Old Testament you know that the ark of the covenant was a very important piece of furniture in the tabernacle, for it represented the visible, tangible, almost touchable presence of God when the ark was stolen. Israel was in great disarray. The presence of God was symbolized by the ark of the covenant. I don't know about you but if I'm David.

If ever there was a time in my life when I wanted the ark of the covenant going along with me into the wilderness wherever I would go this would amend the moment.

I'll take all the help I can get thank you but I want you to read with me what happened from second Samuel chapter 15. Notice what it says. There was a duck also and all the Levites with him bearing the ark of the covenant of God, and they sat down the ark of God and the buyer far went up until all the people had finished crossing over from the city.

Then the king said to Sadock carry the ark of God back into the city.

If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord. He will bring me back and show me both it and his dwelling place. Therefore, Sadock, and a buyer far carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem and the remainder wasn't in a strange thing which you've done that. I don't know if I would have likely in this situation that David found himself and I think I might've said just bring the ark.

Will let it trail along with us wherever we go, we need the presence of the Lord, but David send it back to the city because he knew. First of all, that's where it belonged, and secondly, David needed more than the token presence of Almighty God. He needed the actual presence of Almighty God. He sent the visible representation of the presence of God back with this statement in his heart.

If God wants me to be all right with this.

I will be and if he does it. I won't be but what I need now is not the ark of the covenant I made Almighty God himself to descend upon this encampment and be with me through this wilderness experience. How many of you have been there you've gone through this experience and you don't need somebody to give you something to hang around your neck. You need Almighty God to be there with you in his presence in the midst of it. So he makes this decision and he sends the ark back and he goes out into the desert with the promise of God's presence in the third verse of the song we see David's delight in God. He said because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. David's life is hanging in the balance, and yet he realizes that true life is only found in God and he says to the Lord in his prayer, Lord God, your better than life to me. Your lovingkindness is better than life to me how many of you know why God's lovingkindness is better than life, it's better than life because it extends beyond life doesn't. As we know it here. You know what a picture this is the heart of David made a lot of mistakes in his life. He was a human leader. Yet the one thing that is consistently true of him was that he was a man after God's own heart, and when the pressure was on. He grabbed hold of his relationship with God. With both hands and he sought after God with all of his heart during my almost people asked me some interesting questions. Sometimes task me if I was afraid and I said no.

I was scared to death mess. The honest truth couple people asked me if I cried. I want to tell was know their business. But that's not a godly thing to do and up until the period of time after the procedure I could've said you know what I didn't cry, knew what was coming and God prepare me for it.

But there was one day when I cry. I'm not happy about.

Tell me about my tears, but it serves a very important point here, so let me tell you about was Easter Sunday Don and I were holed up in a hotel and Delmar California for the outpatient stem cell transplant program at Scripps clinic.

Probably the lowest time in the experience just happened to be that weekend and I was feeling lousy, but it was Easter was Easter Sunday. So I got up early and I made my way out to the little living area and I fell to sit down and turn on the television find something to encourage me on this Easter Sunday there was Easter music and great pageantry in worship and I turned it on and I started to watch it and then almost without any knowledge that it was coming, I began to sob convulsively. I was harassed. Donna came in from the other room and she said are you all right said no I'm not. I said I'm a big church, I won't be here. I don't belong here a belonging church and I realize that day home port and that is to be a single pastor, Jeremiah, you're the preacher you supposed to be there on its beyond that it's not just preach. I long for the opportunity to worship God and to be with God's people, and to realize the joy of being in the house of God, desiring to be with him and I know you can be with God without being in church understand all that but there's something special about God's place with God's people, and especially on resurrection Sunday a man and I've found in my heart to get better as fast as I could. I think that's what David felt out there in the desert. He remembered the experiences in the tabernacle worshiping with God's people. He remembered the great feast days and all the pageantry of lifting up praise to God as he sat there in that desert tent. His heart looked back over those years to that experience and he cried out for that time of intimacy with God, desiring God well in the next few verses, David gives us some very important clues to what happens. What were in the desert and how we walk with God in the desert.

We've expressed his wanting God in the midst of this difficult time.

But now we learn what were supposed to do one were with God in the desert and we learned this from reading David's own words. First of all, he begins with this very important key that when you're walking with God in the desert. You began by praising him.

Verses four and five because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Thus I will bless you while I live I will lift up my hands in your name, my soul shall be satisfied is with Marilyn, fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips some friends. What is there about the priority of worship and praise this Old Testament book, even praising God lately you know we get into a little runt when we go through things like were going through right now, we become complainers we complain about all the things that aren't the way they used to be. I'm guilty we all are. What a difference it would make if one word tempted to complain about something, do it again lady did. Who sent me an email this week. She said pastor Jeremiah I've been thinking about all the problems ran but I've been blessed so much. As I reflected on my life and remembered all the things a gun is done for me.

Here the 10 top things God's done for me my life and she gave me the list and I thought yes that's what we should do and when you have a list like that when you do that you praise God, you think you me worship him. You lift up your heart toward him and you say Lord these are tough times, but you've been good and you are good and every good gift comes from you and every good thing in my life is from you. God so in the Scripture said shall not take the good and the bad shall not be okay that sometimes everything is not perfect were in a not perfect time right now. Here's my counsel from the Psalms, praise God. Praise God for who he is and what is done they don't like the steam you probably won't want to listen to the rest of this month consents in every song. It's every place you look at such a surprise to me an awakening in my own spirit of the priority of worship and praise for the believer today for more information on the Jeremiah series when your world. Visit our website really often tend three ways to help you stay connected monthly magazine Turning Point and daily email devotional sign up today Jeremiah.org/ready that David Jeremiah.org/ready when you do ask for a copy of David's helpful shelter in the short to be an encouragement to you during Pres. gift of any amount is Jeremiah studies in the English standard and new international version as well as in standard a large print in the new King James in a variety of cover. Visit Jeremiah.Luke/radio I'm very join us tomorrow as we continue the series when your world falls apart point Jeremiah thanks for taking time to listen to trim piece in question