What is your favorite Psalm? Maybe a better question would be; do you have a favorite Psalm? I was recently reading about the Nobel prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky. Brodsky spent quite some time in prison in the old Soviet Union as well as years in exile. While in prison, Brodsky, a Russian Jew and dissident, memorized many Psalms both in Russian and English. He cited the 90th Psalm as his personal favorite. I am currently reading a biography on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer’s favorite was the 119th Psalm. In answer to an Internet survey, most respondents pointed to the 23rd Psalm. That was there favorite.
However, today I want to talk to you about one of my favorite Psalms – the 63rd Psalm. Chrysostom, (Chris-os-tom) one of the leaders of the early church, said that nary a day should pass without the public singing of this psalm. In the early days of the Christian church, this psalm was sung every morning or every time there was a public gathering.
The Psalm is divided into four parts:
- Desiring God (verses 1-2)
- Praising God (verses 3-5)
- Remembering God (verses 6-8)
- Rejoicing in God (verses 9-11)
With that simple outline in mind, I want to focus for a moment on the circumstances that surrounded David as he wrote this psalm:
- Surely, things were going well with him,
- The affairs of state could not have been any better,
- The Gallup Polls revealed unprecedented popularity for the king,
- His life and family were in proper order.
RIGHT? WRONG!
The psalm was written by David while he was hiding in the wilderness of Judah. He was probably fleeing from the armies of his own rebellious son Absalom. Although he was king, his enemies were seeking to overthrow him as well as take his life. He had been driven from Jerusalem, the capital city, to run and to hide in caves. Life was hard, very hard. It is the midst of such dire circumstances that the writer penned these very special lines of hope.
If you are going through a difficult time; if you are suffering though a dry place, then this psalm is just what the doctor ordered. It was written with people like you in mind. I have for you six points that should help you though your crisis. Six steps that should help you keep things in proper perspective.
1. DAVID GETS PERSONAL WITH GOD
Verse one begins with these words: “O God, you are my God….” In fact, the words “I, my and me” can be found some twenty times within these eleven verses.
The Lord wasn’t some vague, mystical something to the writer. NO! He was David’s friend; David’s God! Notice how this is borne out in the familiar Psalm 23:1, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
Then again we see this in 1 Chronicles 28:20 as David tells Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD GOD, MY GOD, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you….’”
David the king was wanting people — his son, his family, everyone — to know his Lord. He sang of Him. He testified of Him. He danced before Him. The Lord was the king’s delight!
Such a personal relationship with God has long been the privilege of those who know the Lord.
- Hannah, Samuel’s mother sang in 1 Samuel 2:2, “There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like OUR God.”
- Nehemiah likewise noted in Nehemiah 9:32, “Now therefore, O OUR God, the great, mighty and awesome God….”
- Job 19:25 adds, “I know that MY Redeemer lives….”
- Luke 1:46-47, “And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
These individuals were not ashamed of the Lord. He wasn’t some night thing that they kept hidden away until everyone else was asleep. No, they loved and knew Him. He was the center and focus of their lives.
- God was in their music
- He was in their hearts
- He was in their dreams
- He was in their hopes
- He was in their prayers
- He was in their past
- He was a part of their future
David, like these others, was saying here that He knew God personally.
2. DAVID EXPRESSED HIS DESIRE FOR GOD
Back to verse 1.
- “Earnestly i seek you;
- My soul thirsts for you,
- My body longs for you….”
Let me remind you, David was in a desert place here. As you can see from the pictures taken in that area, the place is barren and dry. As a result, the king was hungry and thirsty. However, the king’s greatest hunger and thirst was not physical, but spiritual.
With his whole being, he yearned after God. Psalm 42:1-2 (New Living Translation), “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.” The idea that was being expressed here was, David was nearly faint with longing.
Someone wrote: “What life does to us depends on what life finds in us, and David had in him a deep love for the Lord and a desire to please Him.” Simply put, David wanted God as much as God wanted David.
Do you remember Job? Job was one of the greatest men of his day; He had tremendous wealth; He was a man of renown. Nevertheless, he lost his crops, his servants, his houses and barns, as well as each one of his children. Then, to top it all off, his health failed him and his wife gave forsook her faith!
It is in the midst of all of this calamity that we find this blessed declaration, Job 1:20-22, “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.’ In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”
In Job 13:15 he yet adds, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him….”
In effect this great man was telling the Lord, “God there’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you, believing in you, hoping in you — nothing!”
- Such hope was not based on Job’s wealth — again, he had lost it.
- It wasn’t based on the well being of his family — again, His children had died violent deaths.
- It wasn’t based on the faith of his family – again his wife had thrown in the towel.
- It wasn’t even based on his own well being. At his point in time, the brother was covered from head to toes with painful boils.
Job’s hope was simply based on his intimate love for and faith in God!
I want to return now to Psalms 63. David adds in verse 3, “Because your love is better than life….”
How many things can you think of that are better than life? Dan Beard, former commander of the Boy Scouts of America, wrote an article in the June 1937 issue of “Boy’s Life” magazine. I have here a short portion of that article: “Many years ago I asked a Southern duelist why he indulged in such a primitive method of settling disputes; why he risked his life and that of his opponents over trivial or imaginary offenses. My fire-eating friend straightened himself to his full six feet four, looked me sternly in the face with his steel grey eyes, and replied, ‘Dan, there are some things more valuable than human life.’”
Let me ask you:
- Is having a new automobile better than life?
- Is having a million dollars better than life?
- Is having the latest IPod?
- Is having pleasure?
- Is having a great education?
Scott Hammond has a blog posting entitled “10 Things More Important Than Money”. Here is his list:
- Family
- Friends
- Your health
- Kids
- Education
- Having fun
- Solving social problems
- Your neighbors
- Appreciating/valuing what you have
- Your reputation
Those things may be better than money; but are they better than life? Or to put it another way, would you exchange your life for any or all of them?
On my “better than life” list, I would have down:
- My wife and family.
- Friends – I’m talking about really close friends here. I mean, REALLY close friends.
- My country.
- My relationship with God.
David said the Lord is better — of more value — than life itself! Life is dear, God is dearer. To dwell with God is better than life at its best. A thousand lives without Him cannot equal one life abiding in Him.
Job had a similar view as he noted in Job 23:12, “I have… treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”
Psalm 73:25 adds, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” In other words, all of his other desires were as if they were nothing — zero – goose-eggs — zip — compared to the Lord!
The Apostle Paul said much the same thing. He looked back over his life prior to his coming to know Christ. He had been a leading religious figure. A judge. A powerful man with all of the right connections. In that light notice with me Philippians 3:7-9 from The Message, “The very credentials these people are waving around as some-thing special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.”
Of a truth, there was desert all around David, however the desert had not touched David’s heart! He maintained his desire for the things of God.
3. DAVID OFFERED PRAISE UNTO THE LORD
Psalm 63:4, “I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.”
In spite of everything Satan threw at him, David still majored on praising the Lord:
- In verse 3 he glories in the Lord
- In verse 4 he praises the Lord
- In verse 5 he again praises the Lord
- In verse 11 he yet again praises the Lord.
Today, tomorrow, as long as he had breath, David said his first order of business was to offer praise unto His God!
- WHO did he praise? God.
- WHAT did he praise? God’s love and God’s provision.
- WHEN did he praise? All of the time but especially during the stillness of the night as well as the early hours of the morning.
- WHERE did he praise? In a dry and weary land according to verse 1. While he was in his bed, according to verse 6.
- WHY did he praise? Because God was His God. He also worshiped because he had experienced the Lord in power and glory. As a result, he knew that God would be faithful to him and that God could be and should be trusted.
- HOW would he praise? With uplifted hands. With joyful lips. With a whole heart!
When I think of people who were known for praising the Lord, I think of Billy Bray. He truly stands out as a trophy of God’s grace. Billy was a drunkard. He used to drink all night. He dreaded going to bed because he was afraid that he would wake up in hell. A friend once said of him, “He was the wildest, most daring and reckless of all the reckless, daring men.” After Jesus saved Billy from such a life, Billy had two constant companions: a Bible and a hymn book. He fell in love with the Savior. He could not help but worship Him.
Billy said concerning his salvation, “In an instant the Lord made me so happy that I cannot express what I felt…. I praised God with my whole heart for what He had done for a poor sinner like me.”
Once Billy told a group of Christians, “I can’t help praising the Lord! As I go along the street I lift up one foot, and it seems to say, ‘Glory!’ and I lift up the other and it seems to say ‘Amen’; and so they keep on like that all the time I am walking.”
Billy and David had much in common.
- Psalm 33:1 notes: “Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.”
- Psalm 147:1 adds: “Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!”
4. DAVID MEDITATED ON THE LORD
Psalm 63:6, “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.” David remembered God when he was in bed; he thought of Him throughout the solitude of the night.
Do you ever have a difficult time getting to sleep? We all do at one time or another. So often, when we lie awake, we remember the problems of yesterday or the challenges of tomorrow. Let me offer this piece of advice to counter those difficult moments. Rather than counting sheep:
- Try meditating on the Lord.
- Remember His Word.
- Call to mind His goodness.
- Count your blessings.
- Remember His mighty power.
- Pray.
David speaks of the night watches. The Hebrews divided the night into three watches and later the Romans divided it into four night watches. For someone such as David to be aware of the night watches, he had to have had some sleepless nights. No doubt everyone here knows that a night can be shattered into millions of fragmented and fretful watches. The Psalmist is telling us here, in those moments, discipline yourself to meditate on God.
When my dad died on Christmas Eve, 1994, my mother immediately committed Psalm 4:8 to memory. For quite some time she would quote it every night before she went off to sleep. The passage simply says, “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” The blessed passage was her meditation.
Isaiah 26:3 (King James Version) adds: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”
David was dealing with huge family problems, a civil war, as well as numerous other issues. None-theless, he remembered God, and God remembered him. By his meditation on the Lord, David found sustaining power as well as the perfect peace of God that passes all understanding!
5. DAVID RELIED ON THE LORD FOR HELP
Psalm 63:7 declares, “Because you are my help. I sing….” In spite of his dreadful circumstances, David sang.
Both you and I know that there is a vast difference in songs. In preparation for this message, I visited a website that listed the song titles to 100 of the world’s saddest songs. Here is a sampling of what I found:
- “Surround Yourself With Sorrow”
- “Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song”
- “He Stopped Loving Her Today”
- “Crying”
- “Funeral For A Friend”
- “Let the Sad Times Roll On”
- “It’s So Sad to Be Lonely”
- “I’m So Afraid”
- “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
- “The End of the World”
- “The Last Word in Lonesome is Me”
I can promise you this, David didn’t sing any of those songs. Rather he shouted out songs like:
- “Victory in Jesus”
- “How Great Is Our God”
- “Mighty To Save”
- “God of Wonders”
- “Awesome Is The Lord Most High”
- “How Great Thou Art.”
- “A Mighty Fortress is our God”
He sang for he knew in the end he would triumph.
While on the topic of David’s reliance on the Lord, I want to point out the important role that prayer played in the brother’s life. As you read the eleven verses of Psalm 63, you will find that:
- David practiced intercessory prayer
- Conversational prayer
- Praise and worship
- He offered prayers of thanksgiving
- He sang as he prayed
- He rejoiced as he prayed
- And he spoke with faith as a result of his prayers
6. FINALLY, DAVID CLUNG TO GOD
Notice verse 8, “My soul clings to you….”
- The Amplified Bible says: “My whole being follows hard after you and clings closely to you….”
- The Message puts it this way, “I hold on to you for dear life, and you hold me steady as a post.”
What do you think of when someone uses the word cling?
- Maybe a piece of lint that clings to a sweater?
- Or a pit bull dog that clings to the leg of the postman.
To cling means “to hold tightly to something. To cleave.”
The Psalmist seeks to challenge us here to cling to the Lord. Cling with strong affection. Cling as if your very soul depended on it. It does.
David cried, “My soul clings to you.” He didn’t just cling with his arms, his soul was involved in the effort. This was serious business with the brother. He was so close to the Lord that at this point in this life, NOTHING could come between himself and his GOD! Nothing!
By the way, do you give much thought to your soul? David did. In fact, he alluded to his soul three times in Psalm 63.
The Bible tells of those who followed afar off; who followed Him and yet who did not follow hard after Him.
- Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.
- John 6:66 (New Living Translation), “At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.”
- Others remained silent in their commitment to the Savior. They liked, they didn’t love. They were cool in their affection, not hot.
David could not relate to such a lukewarm commitment to God. As we would say today; David was sold out, on fire, and radical for the Lord!
David’s advice to us would be, “In every wilderness situation, stay close to God. He knows the way through the wilderness. He knows know to bring you out on top. Cling to Him!”
Do you remember Billy Bray? I told you about him earlier in this sermon. I want to tell you about the time when Billy was dying. A friend asked him if he had any fear of death and of missing heaven. He responded, “What? Me fear death? Me, lost? Why, my Savior conquered death. If I were to go down to hell, I would shout glory, glory, to my blessed Jesus, until I made the bottomless pit ring again, and then miserable old Satan would have to say, ‘Billy, Billy, this is no place for you: go on back.’ Then up to heaven I should go, shouting glory, glory, praise the Lord!” A little later he passed into eternity. The last word to come from his lips on this earth was simply, “Glory!”
Billy, like David, was a clinging believer. Even in the wilderness of death, he could be seen clinging to the Lord! If you remember the rest of David’s life, you will remember he eventually prevailed! He won. His faith brought him though!
So in closing…
- Are you earnestly seeking after God?
- Does your soul thirst for the Lord?
- Is your body longing after the Savior?
Are you clinging?
