Psalms: Praying Our Thirst

Psalms: Praying Our Thirst

Scripture Text: Psalm 63

Series: Praying the Psalms

Overview

Well we have been in the Psalms now for a couple months, with just a few more messages to go on the Psalms after this morning. 

Three Categories of Psalms

And I think I mentioned this in the introductory message on the psalms, but I’ll say it again, that the 150 Psalms can generally be placed into one of three categories:

1. Lamentation
2. Thanksgiving
3. Praise

Psalms of Lamentation are by far the biggest category and we have been spending most of our time up until now on this particular category of Psalm as we’ve been taking a different emotion each week, looking at lamentation psalms that deal with doubt and others that deal with sorrow and loss, others that deal with fear and anxiety, others that deal with anger and injustice, etc. 

Upcoming Schedule

Well we are moving on from the lamentation psalms now, next week we will be looking at the Thanksgiving Psalms – on… Thanksgiving weekend.  Get it?   Psalms of Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving weekend.  Pretty clever, huh?

And then, the following week, we will look at the Psalms of praise and worship and adoration and look at what we can learn about how to worship from these particular psalms.

So those are the three major categories:  Lamentation, Thanksgiving and Praise.

But then there are also various sub categories, some of which may fall under one of these three major categories and some which might not.  One such sub-category are those psalms that contain prophesies regarding the coming Messiah, the coming King.  We’ll look at those Psalms as our last message in this series and use it as a Segway into Christmas time with our Christmas Program happening the following week.

This Mornings Theme

Well, another sub-category, that is hard to classify directly as one of these three major categories, are psalms that express thirst for God, hunger for God, a passionate seeking after God.

And so it’s to these types of psalms that we turn our focus this morning.

And actually we already saw this theme introduced for us in part last week.  Last week we looked at Psalm 42, but we focused then on the parts of the psalm that dealt with our theme of depression last week, but the psalm begins this way

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.   (Ps 42:1-2)

Other Psalms that would fall into this category of expressing thirst for God, a passionate seeking after God are… Psalm 84:2:

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

And Psalm 143:6:

I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

And then there is Psalm 63 which is our text for today; begins this way:

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

This is actually a psalm of David when he was in the wilderness.  It was during the time that he was fleeing from his son Absalom who had started a coup against him.  And that whole incident, though sad at parts, was perhaps one of the best things that could have happened to David, because it I think it brought him back full circle to his earlier days, when it was just him and his sheep, all alone in the wilderness, just him and God, worshipping his God.  Before he had power, before he had a family, before he had a palace – those things proved to be a distraction for David at times in his life, so now, with all those things suddenly stripped away from him, I think this time in the wilderness on the run, became a time of renewal for David, renewal of his faith.  With everything stripped away he says what really matters most.

And it is in that place, when he doesn’t know if he’s going to live or he’s going to die, he says this:

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.  3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.  4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

He’s no longer in the temple worshipping, but he remembers it.  And he’s no longer in his palace eating the richest of foods, but it doesn’t matter.  His soul is feasting on God.  And like Job who said, though you slay me, yet will I praise you, David acknowledges that with everything stripped away, and even death a real possibility, he says, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.  You are all I need.  All I want is you.

Personal Reflection

As I was reflecting on David’s life experiences and his attitude in this Psalm, I began to ask myself the question, could I sincerely say that – your love God is better than life?

Paul said that, To Me To Live is Christ and to Die is Gain.  I think I used to say that too, with greater conviction than maybe I say it now.  Used to have this plaque on my wall, confirmation gift I think, even wrote a song with these words:  “Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last, to me to live is Christ, to die is gain…” 

And so this last week, reflecting on this Psalm of David, I decided to give myself a little exercise of imagining myself back in that place of my youth, when I like David in his earlier days, was just me and my guitar, praising him, wanting to just live for him, enjoying his presence, thirsting for him, thirst being quenched by him.

• And I remembered then how as a young 25 year old, leaving California to go to seminary in Minnesota.  It was just me and my Honda Civic – everything I owned crammed into that Honda Civic – most of it being these two big Yamaha speakers which I still have!
• And then I remember four years later moving back to California, but now I have a U-Haul, towing a car and with a wife in the passenger seat.
• And then I remember that 7 years after that, traveling back to Minnesota again, with an even more full U-Haul and a wife and kids in the passenger seat.
• And then I remember 8 years after that moving to here from Minnesota, an even bigger U-Haul and with Gregg May in the passenger seat!

Now I love everything and everyone God has placed in my life, wouldn’t change it for the world.  And in fact, I draw strength from the people God has placed in my life, from Sandy, from my kids, from you.

But one day, whether I like it or not, every relationship will be stripped away and the moment will come again, when it will again just be me and God, on my last day, the day I breathe my last, my death day, and will I be able to say on that day, in that moment, your love Oh Lord, is better than life?  Your love is ultimately all I need.  [Larry – As We Seek]

And that’s what Psalm 63 does for us.  It confronts each of us with that picture, of yearning for God and God alone, when everything else is stripped away. 

What Thirsting for God ‘Looks Like’?

But that’s our last day.  What about right now?  Began then to ask myself the question, what does it mean to thirst for God now, in the day to day of life?  What does it mean to hunger for God?  What does that look like?  And as I thought about that question, I kept coming back to the example of Jesus, who said to the devil, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  And another time he tells his disciples, I have food you don’t know about.  My food is to do the will of him who sent me.  And Jesus also speaks of the blessing upon those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  And so, I think at the core of what it means to be thirsty and hungry for God, right now, in the day to day of life, is to hunger for His Word, and obey Him, seeking to do His will, desiring to be like Him and that as we do so, we find life.   And then this passage came to my mind in 1 John 2:

15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.   (1 John 2:15-17)

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  In other words, there are two loves you can choose to drink from, the love of the Father and love of the world.  It’s not that the Father is withholding his love from you if you drink from the world, if you love the world; it’s just that you can’t drink from two cups at the same time.  Ever try?  Can’t be done.  And so you need to choose which cup to drink from to quench your thirst, from God or from the world.  And one drink gives life, the other ultimately of death. 

So to truly thirst for God, is to trust in Him alone, and to trust His love of you, which means to trust what He has commanded, which is all based on his love for you.  And so it really does ultimately mean to obey Him, as John says – the one who does the will of God lives forever.

The Central Theme of the Bible

And then I got to thinking of how this whole theme of our souls thirsting for God, is not just the theme of Psalm 63, nor just of the Psalms in general.  It’s the central theme of the entire Bible. 

Garden of Eden and the Fall

It goes all the way back to the Garden.  Humanity had perfect relationship with God there, knew His will, obeyed His will, communed with God in perfect trust.  And ate from the Tree of Life.  And the Tree of Life was Christ, before the incarnation, with us there in the Garden, our source of life. 

But we sinned, rebelled, fellowship was broken, kicked out of the Garden, our sins have separated us from our God so that He will not hear us (that’s from the passage in Isaiah we touched on last week).

So we lost the very thing that we needed as humans to function as humans are supposed to function.  We became like flashlights without the batteries, or like a car running on fumes, or like…  a deer panting for water in a dry and parched land.

Old Testament Images

And then the rest of the Old Testament shows two things.  It shows humanity seeking for the fuel it needs to function as human beings, and turning to all kinds of things that cannot give life. 

But then also in the Old Testament there is this picture of God as the true source that we need, revealing Himself to us as the water of life.  We hear it in the words of Isaiah the Prophet, 700 years before Jesus came said this - Isa 55:1-3:

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”

That text, and others, was preparing humanity for the solution.  We were cut off from the Tree of Life, from the Water of Life, from our source… so the Tree of Life from the Garden came to us.  The Water of Life came to us.

Woman at the Well

It happened so suddenly, without fanfare.  A Samaritan woman came to a well to draw water from Jacob’s well at noon in Samaria.  She didn’t go in the morning with the other women, for she would not be welcome, for she had a reputation.  She had this thirst, and all her life she had tried meet this thirst through various failed relationships.  Married five times, living with a guy now not her husband, she would seem the least likely person that Jesus would reveal himself to as the water of life.  But she was actually the best candidate, for she was thirsty – thirsty for the water of life. 

And so she came to this well, and Jesus was sitting there and he asked her for a drink.  She was surprised that Jesus, a Jewish man would even speak to her.  And then Jesus said this to her:  (John 4:10ff)

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water… whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."   16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."  17 "I have no husband," she replied.  Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

In other words, Jesus says, I know you’re thirsty.  But it’s me you’ve been really needing all this time. 

Then after some further conversation, these two verses:

25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."  26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

And so she, a Samaritan woman, became the very first person to whom Jesus revealed that he is the Messiah, that he is the water of life, the Tree of Life come to us.  Happened BEFORE Peter confessed he was the Christ, before his disciples knew.  And before he would reveal this to Jerusalem, the Holy City and to the Temple, the place of God’s presence.

Feast of Tabernacles

And you know… it really should have been the temple.  There had been a prophetic picture of water flowing from the temple in Ezekiel.  That was a symbolic picture that the water of life would once again flow from the temple.  But in the days of Ezekiel there was no temple, it had been destroyed.  But then the temple was rebuilt. 

And then the water came. 

It happened one day in October, nearly 2000 years ago, not long after Jesus had spoken to this Samaritan woman.

There was a feast, called the feast of tabernacles, an 8 day feast.  And in the middle of the courtyard in the temple area there was this fountain.  And every day the priests would allow the fountain to flow, a symbol of God’s presence as the water of life.  But then, on the 8^th day, they would not let the water flow, a symbol that the true Water was yet to come, but one day would. 

And so… on that day… this happened:

John 7:37-38:   On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

And then John gives this explanation: 

By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

But then Jesus was glorified, meaning he was lifted up on a cross, crucified for our sins, our sins laid upon him at the cross, the very things that kept us from the Garden died that day on the cross with Jesus. 

And then this happened – John 19:33-34:

33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

Pentecost

And so Jesus was taken down from the cross, laid in the grave, descended into hell.  But three days later… he rose.  And after spending some days with his disciples, explaining to them the Scriptures about Himself, explaining the Psalms to them that point to Him, he ascended into heaven so that he could pour out the Holy Spirit he promised that October day in the temple in Jerusalem about the living water, the water of life, meaning the Holy Spirit.

But the Spirit didn’t come right away.  10 days passed.  And so the disciples waited.  Having had a tangible experience of the water of life for three years, now the water is once again taken away and so they waited, and they prayed, and they worshipped and they thirsted.

And then… the thirst was quenched.  The Holy Spirit came and the church was birthed.

The Church and Her Mission

And from that point on the water of life has spread.  With each person for the last 2000 years, baptized in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, the water has spread, like leaven working its way through the dough, or like the water in Ezekiel’s vision, flowing from the temple, becoming a river and then flowing into the sea, and the sea becoming fresh water, his vision went on to say – a picture of the gospel spreading throughout the earth.

And our task, as the church, is to drink deep of the love of the Father through Jesus Christ, to drink from him alone.  You can’t drink from two cups at the same time. 

If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him.

You can’t drink from the world and from the Father at the same time.  Or as Jesus said, you can’t serve two masters.  

And Jesus also said, you are the salt of the earth.  Salt makes people thirsty.  We are to make people thirsty for God through our lives.

It is the central theme of all of human existence, from Genesis chapter 1 all the way to end of the book, Revelation 21 and 22.

And listen to how it all ends:

Rev 21:6-7:  6 He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Rev 22:1-5:  22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, you said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me.  And you also said as the Father has sent me, I am sending you, meaning us.  Jesus, our food, our drink, is to do your will.  And to hunger for your Word.  And to make those around us thirsty for you, by being the salt of the earth, by letting our light shine, which we do by obeying, and being the human beings you designed us to be.  And so we pray, as individuals, and as a church, would you increase passion in us for you, which Is not emotionalism, it is obedience, the obedience of faith, flowing out of a trusting experience of the Father’s love in us.  If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in Him.  But opposite of that verse, is if the love of the Father is in us, it drives love of the world out of us.  We can’t drink both cups of water at the same time.  We choose to drink you Father, to drink deep of your love.  And to be obedient to your Son Jesus, and to hunger for you Word.  Amen.

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