Psalm 63, let's give our very careful, diligent attention to God's word. The Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I've looked upon you in the sanctuary beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live in your name. I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. When I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night. For you have been my help and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. Those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for jackals. but the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exalt, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. The most important things to know about this psalm is its setting. So it's given to us by way of introduction at the very beginning. This is a psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Now, David fled to the wilderness of Judah twice in his life, as we have it recorded in the Old Testament. And the first was when he was fleeing King Saul, and second time later, when he was fleeing his own son, Absalom. And this setting of the psalm is almost certainly that second time David fled into the wilderness when he was fleeing from Absalom. This is probably the case because in verse 11 he refers to himself as the king, something that would have happened later after he had fled from Saul. So David is under siege. This is the setting of this psalm. His kingship is threatened, his life is threatened, all of it by his own son. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine it. His own house is in turmoil. He's retreated now to one of the most barren and harsh environments in the world, the desert wilderness of Judah. It is a place that, as David says in verse one, is a dry and weary land where there is no water. But here's the thing about this psalm. David's intention is not to draw our attention to the land, David wants to draw our attention to his very soul of which the land reflects. The desert wilderness is a picture of his soul. And as you think about the context and the setting of this psalm, no wonder his soul is a dry and weary land where there is no water, considering the enemies and the events that have conspired against him. Life doesn't get much lower or harder than this, what David is facing here. And right away as we look at the psalm here and we see David expressing this anguish and really misery, I'm reminded of the very important question that Carl Truman asks, in an essay when he asks, what can miserable Christians sing? I think you've probably heard me mention this essay before. What can miserable Christians sing? Of course, what he's asking is if all of the modern Christian music that we hear so much of is upbeat and what's Caleb, they're being positive and encouraging, right? If it's all happy, What are we seeing? When life is a barren wilderness, when our souls are a barren wilderness, is there any music, are there any songs, are there any psalms for those of us who are suffering? And sometimes all of the modern Christian music that we hear almost says no, there's no room for you in the church if you're suffering because we're all happy over here. That's what we sing. So it's an important question. What can miserable Christians sing? And the answer, of course, is they can sing the Psalms. They can sing God's word because the Psalms are full of miserable believers, people that are suffering. Here David is suffering. His soul is almost devoid of life, devoid of refreshment. Truman, reflecting on this case where the Psalms and songs of lament and struggle and difficulty have been almost ejected entirely from the church, he writes in this essay, I'd like to make just one observation. He says, the Psalms, the Bible's own hymn book, have almost entirely dropped from view in the contemporary Western evangelical scene. He says, I have an instinctive feel that it has more than a little to do with the fact that a high proportion of the psalter is taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken. In modern Western culture, these are simply not emotions which have much credibility. Yes, people still feel these things, but to admit that they are a normal part of everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one has failed in today's health, wealth, and happiness society. He's speculating, why have these psalms, songs, laments dropped off from singing in the church? He goes on, he says, one would not expect the world to have much time for the weakness of the psalmist cries. David is weak here, isn't he? The world has no time for this kind of weakness. And then Truman says, it's very disturbing, however, when these cries of lamentation disappear from the language and worship of the church. And this, of course, is one of the reasons why the psalms, and a psalm like this is so important, and that they should not be ignored. They help us to admit what is so often very, very hard for us to admit, don't they? That often life is extraordinarily hard. That our souls are often thirsting and that we ourselves are weak and frail, and that we often live our days, day after day after day, lonely and hurting. These things are hard to admit. The Psalms help us to come face to face with this reality under which we often live in this fallen world. We need the Psalms. We need Psalm 63 because they give voice to the weak, frail, desperate, desolate soul who needs God. There's really a sense, isn't there, that the church is not for the strong and the mighty. It's for men and women like King David who are weak and who live under sometimes a constant sense of spiritual desperation. That's where David is as he's writing this psalm. What can miserable Christians sing? They can sing, we can sing the Psalms. And it's in this state of misery that David does the only thing he can do, he cries out for God. It's very simple, he cries out for God, who is his only hope. Verse one, he says, oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you. As I read the song, I'm struck by what David is doing here, how this is so much more than a mere spiritual exercise for King David. Calvin will say that David is doing more than praying here. I don't know exactly what that means, but I think I have an idea of what he's saying, this is not David just sitting quietly saying, okay, I need to pray for a minute and then moving on with his life. This is not King David having a morning quiet time with coffee and a notepad and a Bible, just kind of sitting there and having a good old time, which can be an important thing to do. But here there is a raw physicality even to what David is doing. His soul thirsts for God, but he also says his flesh, his flesh faints for God as well. He wants to make it clear that every single aspect, his whole self, every single aspect of his being is impoverished and hurting apart from God. And his desire is for God, his desire is for God. God alone is his need. David, I think this is a key to the psalm, not only the setting, but the fact that David diagnoses his own sickness and understands what his real problem is. God alone is the medicine he needs. I don't mean to trivialize God in that sense, but David is right to understand that this soul sickness that he feels, the only remedy is God. This is important because it's precisely here when we diagnose ourselves, what's wrong with us, that we can go wrong and be led astray. We feel sickness sometimes in our own souls, don't we? And we ask the question, what's wrong with me? Have you ever asked that question of yourself? I have asked that question of myself many, many times. What's wrong with me? What's wrong? What do I need? David's asking the question in the psalm, his soul has wilted, it's parched, he's soul sick, and David's diagnosis isn't, my problem is I need to believe in myself more. I can do it. It's not an I can do attitude. His problem, his diagnosis is not what I need is self-fulfillment or self-actualization. His diagnosis and his solution is not, I need to self-medicate or drown my problems with drink. His diagnosis and solution is not I need more distraction and entertainment. It's not I need more money. It's not I need a lover or a husband or a wife. It could be a temptation, right? You think something's wrong with me. What's the solution? I just need someone new in my life. David doesn't say my soul is thirsty. I just need a vacation. He doesn't even say what I really need is to get out of this barren desert. Get back to the palace, boy, I would really be, that would be nice. He doesn't even say that. He doesn't say I need to change my circumstances. None of those things have the power to heal the soul sickness that King David is feeling. So his diagnosis is crucial, the treatment is crucial. He's lost fellowship and communion with God. That's his problem, that's his soul sickness and so what he needs is nothing short of God himself and God alone. Only God can quench his thirst and only God can quench our thirst, right? Dear friends, I wonder if one of the greatest problems that we have that so often leads to our kind of just stumbling about and making a mess of things is that we've simply failed to properly diagnose our situation. And so we go pursuing all kinds of other treatments and medicines and remedies when in reality that thirst and craving you feel so deep within you cannot be satisfied by anything other than God alone. And David knows this. David knows this. This is at the heart of the psalm. This is part of the beauty and importance of the psalm. He diagnoses his need accurately. Do you know it? Are you able to diagnose your need? Do you ever say to yourself, what's wrong with me? I say that all the time. And then you remember, I know my need. I need God. I'm soul sick for the Lord God. I'm famished. and impoverished without him. Of course, Saint Augustine famously has diagnosed this soul sickness, praying, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. And you all know that quote, I'm sure. So, the diagnosis is that David, in his sickness, needs God. And what David does then in the heart of this psalm is quite simple. He sets God before him. He sets God before him and he recalls this myriad of ways that he encounters God and engages with God and communes with God in his life. And there's all kinds of wonderful things here that David brings to mind as he pursues God actively. And we're looking at verses two through seven now. Look at how David engages with God and how this involves the whole of his person. This is really what stands out to me in this psalm. The whole of his person is involved here. This isn't a kind of intangible, mystical, spiritual encounter that David is speaking of, not at all. He engages God with his eyes, verse two. He beholds him in the sanctuary, he beholds his power and glory. Certainly David has seen God act in power and might, and you have seen God act in power and might, you have. If you're a Christian, you've seen it, you've seen it. The fact that you're a Christian is something you can see. To behold God's power and might. You might not be able to see God, but you can see his power, can't you? We could spend the rest of tonight on into next month, and the following month, and the following month, just among us here, sharing stories with one another about how we've seen God's power and might. This is part of how David encounters God once again and communes with God once again with his eyes, beholding God's work in this world. And David engages his heart. He speaks of God's steadfast love, verse three, and he acknowledges that it's better than life. He engages his lips, verse three. His lips will praise God. and he engages his tongue, verse 4, so I will bless you as long as I live. You know how Eskimos have a bunch of words for snow. We have one word, snow, maybe ice, and Eskimos have hundreds and hundreds. You've heard that before. I don't know if that's true or not, but everybody says it. Here David, thinking of his mouth, and thinking of what it's for, to praise God, has all kinds of words described, His mouth, His lips, His tongue. I don't know if He actually says tongue. Does He actually say tongue? Well, anyway, He engages His tongue, verse 4, whether He says it or not. So, I will bless you as long as I live. And also, verse 4, He engages His hands. In your name, I will lift up my hands. His soul is engaged with the Lord. Verse five, being satisfied with him is with fat and rich food. And also, verse five, his mouth praises God with joyful lips. Verse six, his memory is engaged with the Lord. When I remember you upon my bed, And his thinking, his thinking, his meditation through the watches of the night. If you were to ask David as he's going to bed, what are you thinking of, David? What are you thinking of as you go to sleep? What are you doing? What are you thinking about? And David would say, I'm thinking about God. I'm remembering him. I'm meditating on him. I'm consumed with thoughts of God because I need him. Remember the St. Clair Ferguson question from a few weeks ago? What was the question? What do you think of when, There's nothing else to think of when you're not thinking of anything at all? For David, I think the answer is, when there's nothing else to think of, he's thinking of God. That seems to be clear. He's going to bed, lying down. God is on his mind. He's engaging his mind with thoughts of the Lord. And in verse seven, his singing is engaged with the Lord. In the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. His mouth, his lips, his hands, his mind, his heart, his singing. Every part of David's being everything that makes him who he is, his whole person. Is seeking God? He's diagnosed his problem, he is soul sick without God, without communion with God, and the answer is to engage every part of who he is in this active pursuit of God, knowing him and worshiping him. If his need is God, then his hands ought to be lifted up in praise to God, his lips opened in praise, his mind engaged in thinking about God. And again, this is not a kind of mystical spiritual experience for David or just kind of an intangible thing. I mentioned the idea of a quiet time and I, I think it's an important, I don't know if we wanna use those words, maybe that's what I'm challenging. The idea of private personal prayer and devotion is incredibly important, but I think David would have scoffed at the idea of a quiet time. I think he would have not had any idea what we mean today by that. If by quiet time we think of passively sitting there, hardly moving, A quiet time is not at all how King David engages in communion with the Lord. He engages with the Lord, with his whole self, every part of his person, actively, probably loudly, in communion and fellowship. with God. I wonder, look at David here in this desperate, difficult situation, recognizing his need as God and engaging his whole self in this pursuit of God. I wonder if our modern version of Christian spirituality has been sanitized and tamed to our own detriment, where we might speak of a quiet time. King David speaks of a whole person, wholehearted, soul-searching quest to cling to God. It's this active, I don't have the words to describe it. I'm trying to think of some analogies. I've come up with a couple of terrible analogies, I'm sure. So an amusement park analogy, maybe. We think of communion with God. This is such, my analogies are so bad sometimes. This is why there's so few of them, but. And, yeah. I wonder if we think of communion with God and the amusement park analogy, that might be like a nice quiet merry-go-round, just kind of quietly, maybe a little bit up and down. But King David, it seems to me, when he's thinking of communion with God, he's thinking of a roller coaster with all of its thrills and maybe sometimes even danger as he engages his whole self in this. Or think of a sport as an analogy. For many of us, communion with God is a quiet golf match, a pleasant walk through the woods, right? Ball and a stick and you hit it and you move on quietly, meditating. For David, it seems like his communion and engagement with God is more like a hockey match, not the violence of it, but the physicality of it even, and the whole person engaged, every part of him, including even his body, his soul and his flesh, engaged in this pursuit of God. These may be awful analogies, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. If our greatest need for the soul sickness that we so often feel is God, then Every part of our being ought to be engaged in pursuing God, and that's exactly what David is doing here. So he says in verse eight, my soul clings to you. The King James says, my soul followeth hard after thee. We often use this language of clinging for marriage. Husbands and wives leaving their parents and clinging or cleaving together. It's the same word that's used in Genesis 2.24. Husbands and wives will hold fast to one another. It's the same word here in verse eight. My soul clings to you. Marriage. is a good analogy. I also think parenting is a good analogy, too, when we think of our little ones. I think a little Levi, he's one and a half, and sometimes he'll just cling to me or cling to mom. And he's fickle, so sometimes he'll want to cling to mom, sometimes he'll want to cling to me. And he'll hold on as tight as he can. He was doing this a little bit last night at the church picnic, right? I walked away and he just threw a fit because he wanted to cling to me. Don't put me down, he'll make it clear. You can pry him off sometimes, but he'll despair if you pry him off. This is how David is with God, clinging to God. If he's pried away from God, he will despair. And this is how we are to be with God, clinging, holding fast, following hard, hanging on for dear life, hanging on for dear life. Now, we know theologically, biblically, that God will never let us go, right? He will never, never let you go. Nothing can separate you from the love God has for you in Christ. not even death itself. His love is so vast and so powerful that even in the Psalm, verse three, David says that God's love is better than life. You can lose your life, but you will never lose God's love for you. You can die, but you can never escape the reaches of God's love for you. It's stronger than life, better than life, stronger than death is what I meant to say, more powerful than death. So, don't think that our clinging to God is the means by which we achieve salvation. God saves us. God causes us to cling to Him, we might say. And this should be our mindset, the pattern of our lives every day, every day. What did you do today? I cling to God with everything that I have, all of my might, all of my energy, my whole self. It's a pattern of my life every day, every day, every day, with every bit of strength that we have. And then in the last three verses here, verses 9, 10, and 11, David turns his attention to his enemies. those who have caused Him to flee into the wilderness, and He speaks of their destruction. They will go in the depths of the earth. They will fall by the sword. They'll be eaten by the jackals. The turn here at the end of the psalm from speaking of this fellowship and communion with God to these declarations of violence against his enemies, this turn is so astonishing that some have suggested that this psalm is stained by what happens here at the very end, that maybe these are later additions haphazardly tacked on to this psalm by a more violent-minded person. But this isn't the case at all. David has simply brought us back to the desert, to the reality of the extraordinarily difficult situation that he's found himself in. And here we see in these last verses a very powerful truth that even when we are surrounded by those who would seek to destroy us, even when we are surrounded by death, by the worst imaginable scenarios that life can throw at us, even then, even then, like David, we can find our satisfaction in God. Again, this is where the idea, I'll just push a little more on the idea of a quiet time, as important as it is to personal, private prayer. Sometimes our situation in life doesn't allow for a quiet time. You're a mom with young children running around like crazy from morning till night, and when they go to bed, you pass out. So your days, look a little more like what David's, not that he's, your children are enemies pursuing you. Sometimes it might feel like that. But that in the difficult situations of life when everything is chaos, you can find a soul-quenching satisfaction in God. You know, it doesn't have to be I have to, I just have to get away and sit down and be quiet. I need my circumstances to change. No, this psalm is teaching us regardless of your circumstances, regardless. You can be satisfied by God. Your soul can be satisfied by him. It is in the midst of this most difficult moment in his life that David seeks the Lord and finds the Lord and rejoices in the Lord. And as he speaks of his enemies here, he's expressing in these last verses his hope, his hope for salvation, his hope for an end to all wickedness and rebellion against God. That very hope seems to fuel David's desire for God and his communion with God even more. So he says in verse 11, but the king shall rejoice in God. The wicked will go their way, they will fall in their pursuit of evil, but the king will rejoice in God and keep rejoicing and keep rejoicing and keep rejoicing no matter what they do. Think about this in the psalm as we wrap up tonight. David expressed this incredible hope and love to God and need for God and desire for God before Christ came, before he was, he speaks of seeing God's power and glory. Think about how much more clearly we today see God's power and glory in the face of Jesus Christ. David knew a fraction of what we know about God because so much more of who God is has been revealed upon the coming of Christ. And with that fraction of what he knew, he longed for God with Every part of His being, you know so much more about who God is through Christ who has revealed God so fully to us. You know so much more than King David. Do you desire God so much more than He? We know that God the Son was willing to come and die for us. King David didn't know that. He didn't know that. He had a hope for salvation. He didn't know that God the Son would become a man and come and give His life in love for us. We know that. And how much more ought that to fuel our desire for God, our quest for Him, our clinging to Him, our thirst for Him in both our souls and our flesh? Well, let's pray. Almighty God, we love you and we thank you for this word and this psalm and may we Never be afraid to admit our own weakness, because often it is in doing so that we simultaneously admit our need for you and our thirst for you. And may our clinging to you ever be the pattern, therefore, of our lives. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.