The first passage is from John 6, 35 through 40. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Amen. And then Psalm 63, verses one through eight. A 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 have 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. Amen. Let's pray. Again, we ask the Lord boldly of you that you would help us to hear what you speak to the church, to us individually through these words, Lord, that you would give to us a godly humility, open our hearts, let us see wondrous things from your law. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. When are you most dissatisfied with life? When are you most downcast or despondent or just simply unhappy? For me, it's often when it's late at night, or extremely early in the morning, and I'm laying in bed, and I just wish that I could fall asleep, but I absolutely can't, and I know that because of my lack of sleep, the next day is gonna be miserable, and I'm gonna be cranky, and I'm gonna feel that weight, and just sort of burden of a sleepless night, and it's gonna be very, very, very hard. Those moments for me are ones of great anxiety. They're ones of great unrest, There are moments when I do find my mind wandering to sometimes very dark thoughts. Well, the image of this psalm has switched in the verses we are focusing on this evening from that of a wilderness, that is a dry and dreary place, to that of the darkness of a night devoid of sleep, a night in which rest flees, a night in which the psalmist here, David, longs for rest but doesn't have it. That is, if there was a devoid of sustenance in the wilderness, now there's a devoid of sleep, and the night watches as David lies awake on his bed with the Lord, but there's a surprise. There's a surprise in these verses. When we look back at verse five, my soul will be satisfied. There's a satisfaction. There's an abundance. There's a feast of fat and rich food set before David in the midst of both the wilderness and the sleepless night. In other words, there's a joy that is his because God is his help and his covenant. Lord, it's a joy that is even to be had in those very dark moments and in those very difficult days. Because the Lord is the one who supplies what Jesus calls the abundant life, which is grabbed hold of and expressed and described really by David here in these verses. And so I want that to be our theme. Our theme is really that of abundance. Abundance in the midst of lack. That odd paradox. I have the world, even when it feels like I have not even sleep. or anywhere to lay my head. This is the expression of David in this psalm. And I hope we can see it here in three points brought out here. First is the abundance of joy that is found in the Lord. Secondly, the abundance of help that comes from the Lord or from God. And then finally, our third point here in these verses, how to find this abundance, even in the midst of great lack. So let's begin. Let's look at verse 5 and following. We'll take this a little bit out of sync of the way the verses are expressed. We'll really basically focus on verse 5 and then... focus on verse seven and eight and then go back to verse six. And there's a purpose to that because of the way this is structured. Hebrew poetry is often structured such that the middle of, I've said this before, the middle of the poem is where the meat is. It's like where the aha moment is. In English poetry, it's usually the end of the poem. By the time you get there, everything wraps up, everything makes sense. But in Hebrew poetry, it's often backwards. It's in the middle where things matter. And so we'll look at the first part of this section of Psalm 63 and then the end, and then we'll circle back to the middle and make it all make sense. But first notice that the first thing David is speaking of here is an abundance of joy in God, even in the midst of a dry and weary land where he feels far from the Lord, where he technically, given that God's presence comes to a location and a place in Israel, in the temple, technically he is far from the Lord in the wilderness. And yet he can say, as he experiences a sleepless night there, that he is satisfied, or he will be satisfied, with what God provides to him in the midst of such a dry and weary place. Now notice how he expresses his joy here in the Lord. He expresses it first as a spiritual feast. Look at verse five. My soul will be satisfied with fat and rich food, which is not often the way we speak of satisfaction. Or if I were to give you an invitation, come to my house. We're going to have a cookout. There will be fat and rich food here for you. We don't say that, but have you ever been to a place where you have, I mean, my, uh, My upbringing was one in which the quintessential feast was a pig picking, where you have a whole hog that is split open and they cook the whole thing and they chop all of the meat on the inside and you come and you slather it in sauce and it's like a glorious occasion. And if you know anything about barbecue, especially North Carolina barbecue, what is it? But fat and rich food. It's not the lean cuts of the pig. It's the fatty cuts because that's where the flavor is. That's where the goodness is. And very much that is biblical because according to the Bible, the fat belongs to the Lord. The fat is the best part of the animal, the best part of the meat. And it is the very definition of rich food. And David is saying here, in the midst of a dark and weary night in a dry land, I will feast. on the greatest of food, this greatest of feasts, a spiritual abundance set before him of fat and rich food. This invokes imagery of the temple where sacrifices would be made to the Lord and where the fat will be reserved for the Lord because it's the best part. David is saying, and his expression is joy in the midst of lack even, I have the best part I have it in the Lord. And so he expresses his joy first in the image of a spiritual feast and a great abundance set before him in the midst of his enemies, you might say, as he's on the run from either Absalom or Saul here. and he reflects on the great feast that the Lord invites him to, and that is a feast of joy in God. The second way he expresses his abundant joy is through a song of praise. Look at the second part of verse five. My mouth will praise you with joyful lips. Or even in verse seven, in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. Imagine he's in a very dark and weary place, And what has his soul led to do but to vocally praise God, to lift his voice to him, to sing hymns and psalms of praise? It reminds me of Paul and Silas, as they found themselves in a very dark place. They found themselves imprisoned. And in the middle of the night, and the night watches in Philippi, what do they do as their feet are held in bonds and chains, as their arms are chained together? They sing hymns and they sing psalms unto the Lord And God actually uses that when the prison is opened and none of the prisoners flee and it's made clear that God is active. God even uses those songs of praise perhaps as a witness to prepare the jailer to confess a need for Christ and to say, brothers, what must I do to be saved? This is what David does to express his joy in God. He lifts his voice in praise. This is a deep well of joy that spills over in praise and adoration of God, even from a sleepless bed. Now, Walton said, and we know it in our gut, that the joy that is spoken of here in this psalm that is found all throughout the Bible is not the same thing as happiness. It's not the same thing as giddiness. It's not the same thing as something that is fleeting. It's not the same thing as an emotion. It is so much deeper than that. So what separates this joy that David is speaking of here from, well, just simple happiness, which is a good thing, which we all desire and delight in. What separates from a few things. First of all, what David speaks of here is not tied to his circumstance. This is not a joy, this is not a praise of God that is tied to, well, the Lord has led him to green pastures. He's actually in the opposite of green pastures. He's in a sleepless night, he's in a dry and weary land. Rather, this joy is tied not to circumstance, but to covenant. It is to God's faithful relationship that he established with David, that he has with him. The very covenant that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ that we ourselves enjoy with God. A covenant is that relationship that is bounded by and affected by promises, and like assurances, and protection, and care, and allegiance. And God has made covenant with David, and he's made covenant with us, and he's made promises to us, and that is the deep foundation into which David drives his joy. It is not in his circumstances, it's in the covenant that he has with God, God whose character is unchangeable, and whose promises will always be kept. And this is a joy for that reason that does not fade or diminish as comforts flee. When we are sleepless, it is not a joy tied to circumstance, but to the covenant we have with God, which for me is a bit convicting, because it's so easy to let outward comforts, when they run away, when they are not present, to drive in my, I don't know how to say it, my spirituality, my grasp of the Lord, my joy in the Lord, my ability to sing praise to the Lord. When I'm sleep-deprived, when I'm tired, when I'm too hot, when I'm too cold, when I haven't had enough food or coffee or something, it makes it really hard, and these are really first-world problems, are they not? But how easily do small distractions keep me, as often I bet they keep you, from finding this deep well of joy in the Lord, that it should not be tied to outward circumstances, but rather to the covenant and character of God? This joy is also something that is not shallow. Shallow joys are okay. They're a blessing that God gives to us. The joy of, say, a good physical meal that you probably had for lunch a couple of hours ago, that is to be delighted in, but it's very fleeting. It's fleeting in that perhaps you might feel miserable afterwards. It wasn't perhaps the most healthy thing to consume. Perhaps it's fleeting in the sense that you found joy in it, but then, lo and behold, four hours later, you're hungry again. It's not a bad thing. It's just not an ultimate thing. But the joy that David expresses here that is described as a feast with fat and rich food and with a mouth that is filled with joy and just overflows and prays to God, like this is not shallow, it is soul deep and it's part of the kingdom of God itself. Paul said that in Romans 14, verse 17. For the kingdom of God is not found in eating and drinking, but in righteousness and peace. and joy in the Holy Spirit. So this is a spirit-raw deep joy. It's founded upon the covenant of God. It is also the product of grace, not of our efforts or our experience. Just the Lord is the one who works for our good, and that is the foundation of whether or not we have this joy. And that means that it's Godward. My lips praise you, David says. Under the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. This is all Godward. It's a joy that is expressed to the Lord, even as it's from the Lord and it's founded on the Lord's goodness to it. All that is to say that this is an abundance of joy that David has in God here, even in the midst of a dry and weary land and a sleepless night. So first he expresses an abundance of joy. The second thing he expresses here is an abundance of help from God. Look at what he says here in verse seven, well, quite clearly. He confesses it in a very general way. He expresses his soul's dependence upon God, who is his help, and he confesses it generally. You have been my help. That's basic. He looks, he thinks of how God has blessed him up to this point, how he has proven himself to be his help and his strength and his deliverer and his refuge and everything to him in his life up to the point that he finds himself now in the wilderness. He also confesses it covenantally as well. Again, as with the phrase fat and rich food, the phrase in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy has temple imagery. When we hear that phrase in the shadow of your wings, we might be tempted to think of a bird. We'd be wrong. The wings that are spoken of here are the wings that would have adorned the Ark of the Covenant, as a cherubim are spread above it, above what is the mercy seat, where the blood of the sacrifice would be presented on the Day of Atonement, and where God would come down in a glory cloud and rest upon that that Ark of the Covenant as a testimony of his grace as he comes to meet with his people and that he accepts his sacrifice. And it's there, it's under those wings of the cherubim, it's there above the Ark of the Covenant, it's there in the presence of God and the Holy of Holies as a sacrifice of atonement has been made that David can say, I am safe and I am helped. And it's under the shadow of your wings. In other words, to paraphrase this spiritually and covenantally history of redemption is to say, when I dwell in the safety of your salvation, when I am covered by your grace, oh Lord, that's when I sing for joy. So this is an abundance of help that is first and foremost help in the sense of redemption and salvation from sins and from judgment and from unrighteousness. It is God meeting the demands of his law to provide a sacrifice that makes atonement That is the one who comes and offers blood that is sprinkled on the altar, but it is his own blood that God might be favorable towards us, have grace towards us on the basis of the work of his son. Like this is the chief supreme place where we find an abundance of help. It's that God has made atonement. He has brought us redemption. We dwell safely. under his wings that is the wings of his presence there and the holy of holies and this is where david is safe and forgiven and where he finds the joy mentioned uh in the earlier part of these verses and this is something this dependence this help of upon the Lord is something he clings to absolutely wholeheartedly. He says this, enough of this, in verse 8, my soul clings to you. I have the imagery of like a, have you ever seen an eagle come down and grab a fish out of a stream, like something like that, like a salmon? And what does this bird do? This raptor as it comes down, it sinks its talons into the fish and the flesh of it, and it holds it tight, it holds it very, very Securely and Might not be the best metaphor to use here But it's that level of clinging to something of grabbing hold of and not letting go That David expresses here perhaps another way of saying it if you have a rock climbing or something and you're riding the precipice the edge of a mountain a cliff and you're you're looking down which you should never do I guess and What do you do? You grip as tight as you can that wall that is your salvation. That is what David does here. My soul clings to you. I sink my talents into you in a good way. This is the perfect expression of faith and dependence. It's what marks the faithful people of God. It's like I have nothing else to depend upon, David says, and my soul itself, which is saved by you, is the one that holds fast to you. Think of Mary Magdalene. You read of her a few weeks ago. as she saw Jesus in this resurrected appearance, the first one, actually, to her. And what does she do when she sees her Lord? Well, she confesses, ribona, which means teacher, and she clings to him, you imagine her grabbing his feet, like he's not ever, she's not ever gonna let go. Jesus has to tell her, do not cling to me yet, because I've not yet ascended to the Father. But that level of grasping Christ and with the ambition to not let go is what David expresses here. And it's ultimately an expression of dependence. The Lord is our help, and so let's hold on to him. Let's hold fast to him. Let's never let go of him, David claims to God, and we're tempted to cling to many other things but the Lord to be the source of our help. Whether it's our own health, our own wealth, our own comfort, the things we possess, Even good things, like the relationships we enjoy with others, our closest loves, our spouses, our children, we might cling to those to provide help to us in an ultimate way that only God can provide. And that ultimate place only belongs to the Lord, and David expresses it here. And so the big question that we can ask from this, then, is where does David find such abundant joy and help? Or perhaps better yet, how does he find this abundance, even in the midst of lack? And the answer brings us to our third point. And the answer is simply this. It's meditation. It's faith in action. It's faith that dwells upon itself. It's paying attention to the Lord. It's remembering Him. Turning over in my mind or in your mind what you know of the Lord what you confess to be true about him What you know to be true about him what he has revealed about himself. It is remembering the Lord meditating upon him It is being active in your mind and your heart Thinking on him it spills over in prayer and adoration and all that David expresses here look at verse 6 because this is the this is the hallmark is the linchpin of these verses here and In order to trace out the thought, David first confesses, this abundant joy, my soul will be satisfied with fat and rich food. My mouth will praise you with joyful lips. When? when I meditate on you, or when I remember you upon my bed, and when I meditate on you in the watches of the night. That's when the feast is brought to him. That's when he abundantly is satisfied with the spiritual food of God. It is when he confesses and rests in the Lord who is his help. It's when he finds joy under the shadow of his wings. It's when his soul clings to him. It's when he remembers the Lord upon his bed, and when he meditates on him in the watches of the night. In other words, to meditate, to David here, is the way to seize hold of this abundance that the Lord promises. It's a way to grab hold of the spiritual and covenantal abundance that God alone gives. And it goes far beyond anything earthly, anything that's fleeting, even the best this world could offer. This is a biblical thing, to meditate on the Lord in the watches of the nights. Let me give you a few other verses that proclaim this very promise or command from the Lord here, to meditate on the Lord. Psalm 1 verse 2 begins the whole book of Psalms and sort of patterns the whole book. Calls us to look at the book of Psalms as a source of meditation before the Lord, when it says that the righteous man, his delight is in the law or the instruction of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night. Actually, in that psalm, meditation is the distinguishing mark of the blessed and righteous, well-rooted tree and man, the one who trusts in the Lord. Joshua 1.8, just as the people of God were preparing to go into the Promised Land, as Joshua is now leading God's people, God commands Joshua and says, this book of the law, this book of instruction, the first five books of Moses, we consider it, it will not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. It will be Joshua's source of energy, spiritually speaking, and strength to go forth and take possession of the promised land. Psalm 77, verses 11 and 12, the psalmist there states, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your reminding deeds, which is the very thing David expresses here. I will remember you upon my bed, meditate on you in the watches of the night, in the way the Lord has been his help. 119 verse 15, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119 verse 27, make me understand the way of your precepts and I will meditate on your wondrous works. Psalm 104 verse 34, may my meditation be pleasing to the Lord for I rejoice in him. The New Testament, Philippians 4a, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, holy, good, whatever, is worthy of good report, think on these things, or meditate deeply on these things. Or even Paul's instruction to Timothy, as he calls him to do the work of a minister faithfully, he says, meditate or dwell upon these things, give yourself wholly to them, that you're profiting or you're progress might appear to all people. It's a call for Timothy to meditate on doctrine and his calling and his teaching and thoughts. This is a very important thing. It's what God says and commands of us multiple times in multiple places to be people who are mindful and filled with God's Word and meditate on it day and night. It's been kind of a theme we've looked at over the past few Sundays together, is this call to meditate, which, as I've said, does not involve, as it does in a lot of the world's eyes, an emptying of your mind, perhaps even just a mantra to hold in your mind, a few verses or a few words here and there. where biblical meditation is the complete opposite. It's a completely, like chock full, filling your mind. It's causing it to overflow in praise and adoration of God. It's hiding God's word in your heart that you might dwell upon it at all times, both in the good days and in the bad days and the hard times and the good times. It's that the Lord's word that drive you, that when you find yourself in a dry and weary land, in a dark and sleepless night, like you have a well that you can draw from knowledge of God's word in ways. So what is it to meditate? The word itself is helpful. It's a pastoral word, meaning it deals with the pasture. It's a word that speaks of an animal, like a cow, that is a ruminant. It chews the cut, it swallows a chunk of grass, partially digests it, and then, not to be too gruesome, coughs it back up and does it again and again and again. It's like, ruminate is probably the best word here. It's just not a good one to use. It's not one that we use that often. But it captures that imagery of taking something in, internalizing it, and then bringing it back up to our minds. You know, mentally regurgitating it. Again, it's a bit of a rough concept, but it's very, very accurate in what meditation is. It's a reflecting upon what we know of God, even if it's very little. Taking that little bit we might know of the Lord and rolling it over in our mind, over and over again, reflecting on it, especially reflecting on the words of the Lord in scripture, and remembering God's past faithfulness to us, to his people covenantally and his redemption that he's provided in his great and mighty deeds, like the exodus, like creation itself, like the deliverance of Noah and his family from the flood, like his work with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as we've looked in Genesis, oftentimes, Working to fix things given their ungodliness and their folly and their sin. How they make a mess of everything. What does the Lord do? He still fulfills his promises through his people. Like remembering these, the Lord's past covenantal faithfulness to his people. and reflecting on it, and as well as remembering the Lord's past covenant faithfulness to us individually. Remember who we once were, and who God made us to be now. The Lord has saved us from our sins, and he's brought abundant redemption to us. He's saved us from a life of destruction, and he's redeemed us, even our wayward and our sinful ways and thoughts and patterns, like he's, in some ways, he's redeemed us from those, and he's even used them for good, perhaps. Remember God's past faithfulness. Reflect upon scripture. Fill your mind with it. There's a couple of practical ways to do this. Even if you're older, seek to memorize scripture. Even a little bit here and there. It's not that hard. And yes, our minds grow a little bit, maybe, you know, a little bit not as strong as we grow older, but yet the Lord still does call us to pursue this. Another practical way of doing this is write it down. You know, keep a prayer journal. Actually, write down your meditations on the Lord. Write out your prayers to Him. This is a very, very good way of meditating on the Lord, especially in the washes of the night when you can't sleep. Go to the living room, flip on a light, and just take a pen and paper in hand. Take your Bible, read a verse, write down what comes to mind, and finish it all off with prayer and praise. Meditation is not a means and end in and of itself. It goes to, it leads to, and it's fulfilled by, as David expresses here, a mouth filled with joyful praise, adoration of God, prayer to Him, and praise to Him for who He is and for what He has done. That's what it is to meditate. But notice, finally, a conclusion here that when do we meditate? But in the wilderness. And the night watches, I would say, today. Now, there's that great phrase from 2 Corinthians 6, like, today is the day of salvation, which is not a way of saying, like, well, tomorrow isn't and yesterday isn't, but it's a way of saying that right now, the moment in which we live is the moment to be active, excuse me, to be active on these things, to respond in adoration, to respond in meditation, to respond in prayer. So today is the moment to do this. When you go home tonight and you prepare to lay your head down to rest, many of you know what it is to find a sleepless night ahead. Like, read one verse before scripture and say, if I'm gonna wake up at three in the morning and not get back to sleep, this will be the thing I think about. This will be that which I ruminate upon. This will be what drives me, not worries about the day ahead, not about how miserable the day will be because I only got two hours of sleep, not worrying about what you said to that person two days ago, but rather setting your mind and affection and attention upon the Lord whether it's in the night watches or in the bright shining light of a new morning. Let the Lord be, let him be your joy. Let him be the source of your thought in life. May you meditate on him for he is good. Let us hear the words of David here. Let us be reminded the Lord's covenant faithfulness and good to us. Let us be people who are filled with a joy that is rock solid, that is far beyond our circumstances. and that is founded on God's covenant faithfulness to us. Let us be those who find our help in the Lord, who live beneath the shadow of his wings, who are covered by his grace, and because of that, take even the darkest earthly situations and use them as times in which we might seek the Lord who is good to us and who is our help. Let's pray.