Take your Bibles this afternoon and turn to Psalm 63. Psalm 63. It's really a great privilege for us to serve and minister with you. Florence and Grace Fung did a great job putting together a teen activity for us with great food and fellowship and Pastor Dan and Chris went with us. Also, up to Mount Davidson, we had a great time. If you want to see some photos, some pictures, I think they're on the Facebook page. Great time with some of the teenagers yesterday. I was very blessed because they were teenagers that I had the privilege of preaching to. last summer at Wolf Mountain Camp. And it's great to see so many of them again. And it's also great to look around the auditorium and know a number of you that I have met in my previous visits here to San Francisco. And of course, I've known your pastor for many years and his family members. I've known Dan and Chris Pelletier for quite a number of years. So thankful to serve again alongside of them. And we have a great week planned and it's going to go by too fast for me. And I'm so thankful for the opportunity we have to minister with you. We desire this week to point your attention to a good and great God. And that's really the message and the subject that we're going to look at here in Psalm 63. Would you agree with me that we desperately need a spiritual awakening? In America, in this church, and yes, in local churches across America, in the greater Christian community, we desperately need a real, genuine work of God. We need a spiritual awakening, because the church often becomes, as some say, dead. We need to be made alive. We need to wake up to the reality of what is around us, the reality of God, the reality of grace, the reality of God's glory. You know, there have been multiple times in American history when the church desperately needed a heaven-sent revival. And I believe we are in such a time in American history. One of the great revivalists that I'm sure you have heard of is a man named Jonathan Edwards. Many years ago, in the first Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards wrote a little pamphlet that was distributed across the colonies. It was a pamphlet entitled, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of God. In this little document, he was interested in defining and dialoguing about Significant characteristics that prove a real revival is happening Do you realize that some people claim revival? Some people have a false revival. Some people are looking for revival in all the wrong places and so in this document he gave five characteristics of a spiritual awakening and he was experiencing this in the colonies. He was a part of this and These are the five characteristics he mentioned. And I believe this would be a proper goal and a foundation for us as we approach a week of immersing ourselves in the Bible and coming and worshiping the Lord, that these characteristics, these distinguishing marks would be something we shoot for. This would be a good goal for us. First of all, he said, you are having a spiritual revival when esteem for Jesus is lifted. Do we need to love Jesus more? We do the church needs to love Jesus We need to lift him up and one of the reasons why almost every Sunday in the morning service I will preach about Jesus about the gospel and a number of different messages that I could do that with but I want to lift up Jesus at the beginning of the meeting because real revival is is when we honor Jesus, and we honor Him in a more pure and special way. Secondly, Jonathan Edwards said, you are having a spiritual awakening, number two, when Satan's kingdom is attacked. Are you aware that what we are doing right now, preaching, sharing the word of God, the very nature of Bible teaching and preaching is an attack on Satan's kingdom? because he's a liar and the father of lies. And so it's good for us to expose ourselves to Bible teaching, Bible preaching, several days in a row, so that we can attack the kingdom of Satan, which I hope that will happen this week. Number three, Jonathan Edwards said, you are having a spiritual revival when people love the scriptures more. This would be a wonderful result of a series of services like we're doing this week. is that we would all grow in our love and appreciation for what we have in the Word of God. Do we not have everything we need for life and godliness found in the treasures of this book? And I hope as you hear the preaching that it will be so biblically centered that you would leave each service appreciating God's Word more, loving God's Word, and realizing it has the answers for your life. Number four, Jonathan Edwards said, you are having a spiritual awakening, a real revival. Number four, when men and women are led away from falsehood into the truth. And again, this is one of the purposes of meeting together and preaching the Bible is to dispel the error, to remove the lies. We live in a wicked culture, lots of false philosophies, lots of false religions. And the scripture says in Colossians 2, 8, Beware lest any man spoil you or literally take you captive. Beware lest they may spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Folks, it's good to come out of the world into God's house and to expose the error and be led into the truth. That's what we desire to do this week. That's real revival. And then he said, number five, the last characteristic he gave is you are having a spiritual awakening when there is an increase in your love toward God and toward your fellow man. More love for God and more love for each other. And I do think an outgrowth of a real work of God is always more love for each other in a local church. And I think that would be a wonderful result of this meeting this week. And do you believe that these characteristics could happen in your life? more love for Jesus, attacking the kingdom of Satan, loving the scriptures more, being led into the truth, and loving God and loving others more. Do you believe that could happen for you? Second question, do you believe that could happen at Hamilton Square Baptist Church? You see, revival is not necessarily a full auditorium. You know, we got a lot of chairs upstairs. We got a lot of seats down here. It would be great, wouldn't it, if all of them were full? If you believe that'd be great, say amen. If you don't want that, maybe you should go somewhere else. Of course, we want a full church, but the goal is not to have a full church. The goal is to draw people to God, to show people who he is and what he means and what his son Jesus has done for us. Would it be great if in every service we had people coming to the front, making decisions, and especially people getting saved? Would that be great? Absolutely. They used to call that the sawdust trail in the old revivals in America. because they would have an outdoor meeting, or even a tent, they would lay down the sawdust down the aisle, and when people would walk down the aisle, the dust would fly, and often, many, many people were making decisions. But just because you have a full church, and just because a lot of people respond, does not necessarily mean you're having a real, genuine work of God. Folks, what we want is something real. We don't want something false and fake. We want a sincere awakening to God, His grace, and His glory. And I believe if these are going to occur, these characteristics are going to occur in me personally, in you personally, or in this congregation, and yes, in America, there is one central characteristic or action that needs to be in our life. And it is found here in Psalm 63. I believe a spiritual awakening, like I'm describing, a real work of God, is dependent on how we seek the Lord. A spiritual revival is dependent on and proportionate to how we personally seek the Lord. Notice Psalm 63, verse one. Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while I live. I will lift up my hands in Thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with morrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips. when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches, because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after thee, thy right hand upholdeth me, but those that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth, they shall fall by the sword, they shall be a portion for foxes, but the king shall rejoice in God. Everyone that sweareth by him shall glory, but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. Verse one really gives us the theme of the psalm. Oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. Folks, we have a lot of talk about spiritual awakening or revival. There's a lot of revival meetings, there's a lot of revival preachers, there's a lot of revival prayer meetings, but the fact is we're not experiencing a lot of real, genuine spiritual awakening. Spiritual awakening and revival is dependent on each of us in our attitude, in our aggressiveness, in how we seek the Lord. My friends, this afternoon, if we won't seek God, we won't see revival. It's not about just having services. It's not about just singing songs and doing what we usually do in our scheduled events. It's about each of us having a deep awareness of God that motivates and drives a passion for Him. As it says in the last verse of the psalm, but the king shall rejoice in who? God. This is what it's all about. God is the one who sends it. God is the one who motivates it. God is the one that we should be seeking. And I believe in this Psalm, David shows us four ways that we should be seeking the Lord. If a spiritual awakening is directly tied to our seeking, then the question is, how do we seek him? We seek him in these four ways. Number one, we seek the Lord deliberately. seek the Lord deliberately. We see this in verse 1 when he says, I will. As a matter of fact, there are 19 personal pronouns in this psalm. Often they are connected with this commitment or this choice, I will. And if you do just a casual study of this phrase in David's writings, you would find that it is one of the most repeated phrases in the Psalm book of the Old Testament. I will do this. I think of Psalm 101, verse 3. I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. And that's just one illustration and actually multiple times in Psalm 101 and many other places where he links up his personal, these personal pronouns about himself with a conscious, deliberate choice. Now, I know this is not very profound, but it's important that I say it. No one seeks God until they choose to. No one seeks the Lord until they choose to. As a matter of fact, there might be people in this room, and in this entire week, you did not really choose to seek the Lord. Maybe it's been longer than a week. Maybe it's a month. Maybe it's even a year. Nobody seeks God without a deliberate decision to seek Him. I will seek Thee. David's desire to seek God rested on his confident assurance that God was his. His possession of God breeded his passion for God. And this is why it says at the beginning of the psalm, O God, thou art my God. And maybe the reason why so many Christians are complacent and cold and not deliberate in their decision of choosing to seek the Lord is because maybe they're struggling with doubt whether He's really their God. Is He really your God? And if He is, then there should be this conscious, deliberate decision, I will. You'll see this phrase, I will, several times in this very psalm. Look down at verse 4. I will bless thee, showing a deliberate decision. I will, verse 4. I will lift up my hands in thy name. He says it again in verse 7. I will rejoice. You know, it is important that we make deliberate decisions to seek the Lord. Now, I know you're expecting me to say this, so I'm going to say it anyways. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Question, does it take a deliberate decision to come to Hamilton Square Baptist Church? I've seen the traffic around here. It takes a deliberate decision. Seven o'clock those evenings, and then of course on Easter Sunday as well. The scripture does say, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. And this is your church, this is a good church. They're having special services. We're the ones ministering, but who's the one we're worshiping? God, it's all about God. It's really all about your attitude and your surrender to God to make a deliberate decision. Now, I don't expect anyone to get fired from their job to come to the services this week. I wouldn't expect you to do that. But by all means, don't stay at home and watch television when you could be in God's house. Seven o'clock, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Don't just go home and relax when you can give a little bit of extra effort this week to be in God's house. Do you know back in the first great awakening and the second great awakening, they would actually have multiple weeks of services. so much so that some of the businesses in the communities would actually shut down so that everybody could go to the revival services, to the spiritual awakening conferences, or whatever they would call them. And people would go night after night after night. I don't think it's too much to give four extra nights this week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We're giving you a break on Monday. I don't think it's too much to ask to say, I love God, I fear God, I serve God, I will deliberately seek the Lord. Now, you don't have to come to church to seek the Lord, but this is a special opportunity for you to make it a priority and deliberately choose to honor God. How can we expect to have a spiritual awakening if we're not going to seek God personally, corporately, as a church, as an individual? David sought God, and he sought God deliberately. There's a second way that he was seeking the Lord. Remember, a spiritual awakening to God, His grace, His glory, and His gospel. That awakening can happen, but it only happens when we seek the Lord. We seek Him, number one, deliberately. Number two, we seek the Lord diligently. Diligently. We see this clearly in verse 1. The key word here is early. This is a Hebrew word that actually could be translated into our English as diligently. It's the same word that is used to describe the consistent, diligent discipline of a parent. In the book of Proverbs it says, chasten your child betimes. The word betimes is the old English word translated for the same Hebrew word. It literally means chasten your children early or diligently. I think early is a good word for that as well, when they're young. But chasten them, the idea is chasten them diligently. So would it be appropriate for me to say that if you do not read your Bible at 5 a.m., you're not obeying this verse? It's not really the application here, is it? Some of you are not even awake at 6 a.m., maybe 7, maybe 8. The point is not the time of day, the point is the intensity. The point is not even necessarily the quantity of time, but rather the quality of time. The passion of your heart, the diligence of your heart to spend time with God. Now, is it appropriate to read your Bible in the morning? I think so. But the point is not that you have to read your Bible in the morning. The point is there needs to be an aggressive, diligent pursuit of God in your life. He who truly longs for God longs for God now. Where's the passion? Where's the diligence to get to know God, to seek God early? Psalm 105, verse 4 says, Folks, I believe there are very few passionate people and a whole lot of passive people. Sad to say, our churches are full. a passive, complacent people. We kind of are living in a, kind of a Laodicean church age, a lukewarm church. There needs to be an internal zeal, a fervency that motivates us to seek the Lord in this way. The scripture says in Deuteronomy 4 verse 29, but from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him. If you seek for him, how? With all of your heart. All of the intensity of your heart, all of the zeal of your heart. Jeremiah 29 verse 13, and you shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all of your heart. Folks, we will never have the distinguishing marks of a work of God, love for Jesus, love for the scripture, love for God and others, a hatred for the kingdom of Satan and being led into the truth. We will never have a real revival if we don't get serious and passionate and diligent about seeking God. There is no program that you can stamp across the local church to make sure you have a real revival. There is no scheduled event that can happen at this local church to guarantee you're going to have a real work of God. It's all about God's people having a deeper understanding of God, which motivates a spiritual awakening. So we seek the Lord with all of our heart. And can I just encourage you as you come this week, which I hope you do, that you would come with a real desire and intensity of heart that says, Lord, I want to grow. God, search me, try me, know my heart. I want to know you more. I want to love you more. I want to serve you more. I want to fear you more. That's the kind of spirit that will spark Real revival in your heart and you know what it'll spread it'll spread to your family members. It'll spread to other families It'll spread to this church But it starts in you starts in your personal spiritual growth, spiritual awakening, seeking the Lord diligently. All right, so number one, we seek the Lord deliberately. Number two, we seek the Lord diligently. Why are we talking about this? Let me remind you, a spiritual awakening is directly proportionate to how we seek the Lord. And if we're not gonna seek the Lord, we're not gonna have a real revival. We may have a phony one, We may have it scheduled and maybe even call it revival. But it's not real until God's people get serious, deliberate, and diligent. Number three, how do we seek the Lord? Deliberately, diligently. Number three, we seek the Lord desperately. Desperately. He says, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. Notice this, my soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and weary land, a dry and thirsty land where no water is. He uses the idea of thirst. We know what thirst is. Thirst is an insatiable longing for something that is vital for our survival. Nobody can survive if they don't have water. I imagine when I read this, somebody out in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and their canteen has now come to the last drop, and now they have miles and miles to go, and they have absolutely no way to quench what thirst that they have. This is the spirit of the psalmist. It's a desperateness. He's thirsty for God. Psalm 42 verse 2 says, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. My friends, I don't think this describes most Christians. We're really comfortable, we're really okay, and really have everything handed to us, and we got technology, and we got all the food we need, and we got the wealth, and the success of America, and the freedoms of this culture, and we really get kind of complacent, and the reality is, without God, we're nothing. We desperately need God. We need to be thirsty for him. And then he says that he longs for him. His flesh longs for him. I think he uses this word flesh to denote the entirety of his being, longing for God. This is a very significant Hebrew word that he uses here, the word longeth. It was used in the ancient world to describe, this specific Hebrew word was used to describe someone who was so desperate for something that they actually physically were ill. so desperate that it caused physical problems, physical maladies. That's the word he chooses to use here. He says, my flesh longeth for thee. Some translations would say, my flesh fainteth for thee. This is definitely describing someone who absolutely cannot possibly go on without God's power and His strength and His love and His mercy on their life. This is the spirit of the psalmist in many other places. Psalm 38, verse 9, Lord, all my desire is before Thee. Listen to this, and my groaning. Why would he be groaning? Because he's desperate. He's longing for God. My groaning is not hid from Thee. Psalm 119, verse 174, I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord. Psalm 143, verse 6, I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as in a thirsty land. And here's the amazing truth. The Bible tells us that if we'll get thirsty and we'll get hungry for God and long after Him, He will satisfy us. He's the only one that can satisfy us. Psalm 36 verse 8, they shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasure. Psalm 17 verse 15, as for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. Listen to this, I shall be satisfied. Have we not come to the realization? that only God can satisfy the thirst. Only God can fill us up and make us really content with life. No amount of money, no amount of fame, no amount of pleasure, no amount of popularity will ever satisfy your soul. Only God will satisfy. Even in this very Psalm, Psalm 63, verse 5, he says, my soul shall be what? Satisfied. only God will satisfy you. And this is the spirit of the psalmist, he's desperate for God. He says it in verse 8, my soul followeth hard after thee. You can just sense the emotion, you can sense the seriousness and the profound truth that he's giving to us that we cannot possibly ever go on without God. He is the source of life. He is the source of our spiritual growth. He is the one that sends revival, and we desperately need Him. The Scripture says in Matthew chapter 5, blessed are ye who hunger and thirst after righteousness. I love what C. H. Spurgeon said. He said, a weary place and a weary heart make the presence of God even more desirable. If there be nothing below and nothing within to cheer us, it is of a thousand mercies that we can look up and we can find all that we need. Only God can do that. And you know what, folks? I don't know that we're that desperate. Early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee. So we seek the Lord deliberately. We seek the Lord diligently. We seek the Lord desperately. And finally, let's notice number four. We seek the Lord devotionally. Devotionally. And even when I say that word, I'm sure you've heard somebody ask you this. Hey, have you had your devotions? That's a good question to ask people. It's a good question for us parents to talk to our children about. But you know what? Sometimes we get so program oriented that it's really all about having devotions instead of actually being devoted. You know, it's not about having them, it's about being devoted. And actually, I would rather someone read their Bible for five minutes and actually sincerely be fully devoted to God than for them to read their 30 minutes or an hour just to kind of mark it off their list and say, I had my devotions. What is your heart like when you seek the Lord? We need to seek the Lord in a devoted, devotional way. And I think the simple pattern that we see in this Psalm is this, see God, respond to Him. See God, respond to Him. And this is what we should be doing when we read our Bibles. Look for God. He's on every page. He's in every verse. His attributes and His character qualities are in every story, and especially profoundly taught to us in the Gospel message. So the Bible is really all about God and his working in our lives and his redemption for us. And so he's in every story and on every page. Look for God. And when you see God, you respond to him. Where do we see that in this Psalm? Look what it says in verse two. He says, to see, as he's seeking the Lord, he's seeking the Lord to see him. And we know he's not talking about with the physical eye because no man has seen God at any time. So what he's talking about here is the eye of faith. We need to see God with the eye of faith. What do we see about him? Well, David said he saw his power. Question, have you? Have you experienced with the eye of faith that God is all-powerful? Psalm 62 11 says, power belongs to the Lord. Question, is there anything too hard for him? Is there anything impossible to God? Nothing is impossible when we trust in the Lord. If He's a God that can speak the world into existence, I think we can trust Him to have the power and the sovereign will to control everything about our lives. What did David see? He saw God's power. Secondly, he saw God's glory. Verse two. This is another very important word in the Old Testament. The word glory literally means His weightiness, His heaviness. It's the Hebrew word kavod. It was used to describe somebody like Eli who fell over and died because he was heavy. He was kavod. In a spiritual sense, it denotes the significance of the character of God. God's character is weighty. He is heavy with significance. We need to see his glory. Thirdly, verse 3, what did David see? He saw his lovingkindness. And once again, intentionally he is using a word that would run through the Old Testament. This is the word hesed, which is the lovingkindness, mercy, tender mercies of God. It's the fact that God always loves us all the time and His love will never change. It's his loving kindness. It's the kind of love that he had for the children of Israel, even when they're complaining in the wilderness, right after he brought them across the Red Sea. It is his covenant-keeping, tender love and mercy. And it is demonstrated through Jesus Christ at the cross. He loves us with an everlasting love. David is expressing with the eye of faith, his power, his glory, and his loving kindness. Folks, we need to see God. Question, could he have mentioned probably 10 to 20 more attributes of God at least? Of course he could. God is glorious. God is truly, as we might say, awesome. The question is, are we seeing him with the eye of faith? Because when we see him, we will respond to him. What was the response? Verse three, my lips shall praise thee. This is the proper praise. It is a praise that is rooted in your understanding of God, your faith in God alone. And you praise him for who he is and you praise him for what he does. Not only did he praise him, but verse four says, I will bless thee. honor Him, extol Him. Verse 6 says, I will remember God. And verse 6 also says, I will meditate on God. Wouldn't you agree with me that this is really good devotions? When you see God in His Word, and because of it, you praise Him, bless Him, remember Him, and meditate on Him. Folks, that's what spiritual growth and spiritual awakening is all about. See God, respond to God. This is how we seek the Lord devotionally. Folks, I encourage you, don't just grab your Bible and try to read your chapter a day. Look for God. Oh, I know that we put it on a schedule, that's a good thing to do, but make sure you're looking for God and look for Him with the eye of faith and live your life responding to the excellence and the greatness and the majesty of God. Folks, this is what I believe is the key ingredient to a real spiritual awakening, seeking the Lord. One of the greatest messages ever preached, probably anywhere but especially in American society, was a message preached by the same person I referred to earlier, Jonathan Edwards. Do you know the name of the message? Sinners in the hands of an angry God. doesn't really sound like your typical revival message. But you know what? It was a message that was so full of God. And isn't that what it's all about? It was about who God is and how he judges and how he can forgive. And it was said that while he was preaching that message, which by the way, he would read it. He was a monotone preacher. He wasn't very flamboyant. And yet he packed his sermon so full of God that it was during the middle of the message as he was preaching, people would come down and get saved. People were going out and feeling like they had to trust God. They had to trust him or they were gonna be thrown into his wrath. I don't believe, I literally do not believe most churches today, even in our conservative movement, would accept that kind of a message today. We want everything to make us feel good. We want everything about Christian growth and Christian maturity and Christian life, which those are appropriate themes. But Jonathan Edwards saw a spiritual awakening occur because it was all about God. And that's what we need to get back to. We need to get back to a life that is all about God. Deliberate, diligent, desperate, devotional. You know what, folks? If that's the kind of life we will live, we will personally be able to experience a spiritual awakening. Maybe you feel like you need to be woken up. Maybe you feel like a little spiritually down or dead or depressed. You need to get back to God. Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. This is the key ingredient. This is what will generate a real personal and yes, even a public revival for the glory of God. What does God need to do in your life today? Maybe there's some deliberate choices that need to be made, even this week. Maybe there's more of a passion, more of an intensity that needs to be put into your seeking of the Lord. Maybe you just need to get desperate. You need to realize that without Him, you're nothing. Or devotional. in your seeking, but this is the key ingredient. Those who seek the Lord are those who will experience a spiritual revival. As Psalmist David said in Psalm 85 verse six, will thou not revive us again? That thy people may rejoice in thee. And this is the key. We must seek the Lord. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? In just a moment, I'm gonna have Allison just play softly a song on the piano. just to give us an opportunity right now, right here in this quiet moment to express to the Lord from our heart where we're falling short of this. And maybe even right now, you just need to take a deliberate, decisive, desperate, diligent moment for you to give your heart to the Lord. Maybe you're a Christian, you know you're saved, but you know you're lazy, you know you're complacent, you know you're not committed. Right now, just take that moment and talk to the Lord. I'm just gonna ask you to quietly play, and let's just bow our heads, and let's just talk to the Lord in this moment. Lord, thank you so much for what you've taught us from this beautiful psalm. I pray that you would keep our eyes open to who you are, to what you mean to us. Help us, help us not to be so deceived by the ways of this world that we forget there is a good and great and powerful and merciful God who is real. He's with us. You long to have this kind of personal relationship with us. Thank you so much for teaching us your ways. In Jesus' name, Amen.