Psalm 63 - A Heart of Yearning

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

Do you remember the early days of spring this year? Usually spring is a time of optimism and renewed joy. Such was not the case this year. Instead, most of us quickly started suffering from the COVID blues. The COVID cases were rapidly increasing in our area. The hospitals were in danger of being overrun. Our state was under severe stay-at-home orders and the streets were virtually empty if you did venture out. And amid all the unknowns, we started suffering the COVID blues; the name I’m giving to the discouraged feeling that many of us had during the springtime this year.

We had the COVID blues because we yearned for many things that we did not have. We yearned for the freedom to come and go as we pleased. We yearned for the sense of security that had been stripped away. We yearned for social interaction with other people. We yearned for the chance to come to church and worship. We yearned for safety for our family. Most of us had, as I have entitled this psalm, a heart of yearning when COVID struck.

I would also guess that some of you still have a heart of yearning this morning. Your yearning may still be the result of COVID and its ongoing impacts on our lives and our society. Your yearning may be from something completely different. I don’t know what your situation might be this morning, but I am pretty sure that if the Lord tarries we will experience yearning hearts again.

Involvement:

As you can probably guess from the sermon title, though, having a yearning heart is not a new experience for believers; believers face experiences in every generation that results in such. Our psalm this morning reveals that truth. What our psalm also reveals, though, is what benefit can come from such experiences.

Context:

We are looking at psalm 63 this morning, a psalm attributed to David. Based on the historical tradition that has been reserved with the psalm, David was likely motivated to write these words based on his experience of fleeing into the wilderness from his own son, Absalom. While technically still the king, David was forced to live as a fugitive at this point in his life. He had sent the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem, but David could not go with it. His son was out to kill him.

Preview:

It is in the context of this time in his life, surely a very discouraging time, that David shares a couple different things that his heart yearned for. Yet, it is not just the yearning of his heart that David records through this psalm, it is also what he learned from his yearning. What David learned is something important for every believer to understand: God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise.

God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise. This morning, I am going to follow a very simple outline that I found in one of the commentaries that I looked at this week to work our way through the psalm. We will break it into 2 sections. Each section will show us what David yearned for, the reason he had that particular yearning, and the results that were produced in his life. We will then ask ourselves how we can apply what David has experienced to our lives.

Transition from introduction to body:

God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise. The first section of the psalm is found in verse 1–5. In this section we can learn that…

BODY:

I. Yearning for worship should produce praise.

Illustration

I remember how much I disliked Sunday, March 22, this year. That was the first Sunday that I was looking at camera a few feet in front of me. Instead of all of you sitting in the pews, there were cables strung over them so that we could be able to livestream our service that day. Now, don’t get me wrong; I am grateful that we were able to livestream the service. At the same time, though, I hated it because it was not worship. Worship, as I have reminded us several times this year, is so much more than listening to a sermon. Worship is a shared experience. We sing together. We pray together. We partake of the Lord’s table together. And we hear the word of God together. Our livestream service was only a shadow of full worship. The day left me yearning for worship.

Well, in the first 5 verses of our psalm, David too is missing worship. Let’s read these verses…<read Ps 63:1–5>.

Breaking down what we just read, in verses 1 and 2 we have…

A. Verses 1–2: A yearning for worship

“O God, You are my God.” This is an expression of absolute confidence in God. As one commentator expressed it, “for the true believer, there is no other God.” There is only the personal God that David knows as the true God.

The problem for David is that the true God had declared how He wanted the people of Israel to worship Him. He had led them under Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant as the centerpiece of a central system of worship. God had led David to move the Ark to the Jerusalem as the center location of worship. Now that David was cut off from Jerusalem, he was also cut off from worship. He could remember the power and glory of God that he had seen in the sanctuary, but he was unable to experience it at the moment. Such a situation left David yearning for worship. In fact, David yearned so much that he felt exhausted, empty. He uses the expression of thirsting as he would for water in “a dry and weary land.”

Application

Folks, this is not the main point of this section but I will take a moment to remind us from these first two verses that worship must only be done as God has revealed He desires us to worship Him. This is what we call the Regulative Principle of Worship. We insist that God’s revelation regulate our worship. Adding to or adjusting how worship is done beyond what God has revealed is most likely to lead to idolatry of various kinds because we are adding our creaturely thoughts to God’s revealed will.

I bring this up because there are battles going on throughout our country right now regarding who should be able to determine how churches worship. A couple of the most notable are those of John MacArthur’s church in California and Mark Dever’s church in Washington DC, but there are many others as well. Churches are engaged in legal battles right now with local authorities over the question of who is allowed to dictate the forms of worship: Does it have to be as one group or can it be through various campuses? Is virtual worship worship? Can the government deny the church the right to assemble? Can they deny that right for a short time when there is a public health crisis? How long? What is a crisis? And so on. There are many complicated questions involved in the various cases, but too many believers are missing the fundamental point that we must worship as God in the manner that God alone has revealed. And frankly, only the church has been given the authority by God to interpret what He has revealed; governments do not have that authority.

Coming back to our psalm, we see in the first two verses a yearning for worship. Any time a believer is denied the ability to worship there a yearning should develop. Verse 3 shows us why,…

B. Verse 3: Because of our covenant relationship

The reason that David wants to be able to worship God again is because he has a covenantal relationship with God. Here once again we have that Hebrew word hesed—the word that means that God loves because He has committed Himself to a covenantal relationship. To David, the love that he receives from God because God has formed a covenantal relationship with David is more precious that life itself. He wants to be with God, to gather before Him in the fullest experience of this relationship that he can have.

Illustration

I am sure that many of you have experiences similar to ours this year. We have not seen our son, Daniel and his wife, since last Thanksgiving. COVID has interrupted several planned trips as first our COVID cases were high and then theirs were high and then we were all back to work and school. And since we haven’t seen them, we certainly miss them. Talking on the phone or through video calls is not the same as being together.

The same is true with an absence of worship. Nothing can take its place when we have a covenant relationship with Him.

Moving on, verses 4 and 5 show us the result of David’s yearning for worship because of his covenant relationship. His experience…

C. Verses 4–5: Results in steadfast praise

This is the result of David’s yearning, the result of his covenant relationship; he will praise God for the rest of his life. Notice, David does not say that he will praise God when he is able to return to Jerusalem and worship God again. It doesn’t matter if David has to endure adversity for the rest of his life, he will still direct ongoing praise to God because he has experienced the sweetness of a real relationship with God, real worship.

The expression “satisfied with marrow and fatness” is a poetic way of expressing that to David God’s presence is like the richest of foods, the most pleasant dining experience possible. It really isn’t surprising that someone hiding in the wilderness would think of a bountiful banquet. What is surprising is that David is as satisfied now as if he were sitting at such a banquet, satisfied because he knows God. Nothing can shake his relationship so nothing will ever undercut his steadfast praise of God.

Application

For David yearning for worship has produced praise in his life. Do you have the same yearning? We should. If we know Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior, we are in a covenant relationship with God. Jesus came to earth to die so that a new covenant with God could be established through His blood. That is the core truth we remember every time we take the cup at the Lord’s Supper. When we place our faith in Jesus, trusting that He died for our sins, that God established a covenant relationship with us, we are in Jesus.

Now, let me just mention, if you do not understand what I am talking about just now…if the whole new covenant and faith in Jesus are strange words to you, please contact me after the service. Send me an email or talk to me. Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand. These are rather shorthand expressions to sum up rather large ideas. It is ok if you don’t understand them now, but you do need to understand them. The ideas that I am referring to are the most important ideas you can ever encounter. Understanding them really is a matter of life and death, your eternal life or your eternal death. God has revealed that fact along with the ideas I am referring to in His Word. You need to understand them so that you can find salvation in Jesus Christ.

In Jesus, we have a covenant relationship with God. This should be the sweetest truth in our lives. We should praise God that He allowed us to live through a spring and summer in which we could not worship together for a period of time so that we would yearn for it. Such yearning should produce praise. We should praise Him when we are able to return to worship. We should praise Him when we are forced to remain home for various reasons in the future. And we should praise Him even if every day for the rest of our lives do not go the way that we wish. We praise God because we are in relationship with Him, our yearning reminds us of that truth.

Transition:

God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise. The first section of this psalm shows us that yearning for worship should produce praise. In the second section, in a similar fashion we find that…

II. Yearning for safety should produce praise.

Illustration

None of us like to feel unsafe. One of the most unsettling things about the Pandemic back in March is we had no idea how deadly this new thing might prove to be. It felt as if our safety was suddenly stripped away as every person that we passed in the grocery store could be a potential death-carrier.

Well, David knows what it is like to have safety stripped away and to suddenly be in fear for his life. Let’s read the second section of our psalm together…<read Ps 63:6–11>.

In this section, the yearning portion is found in verses 6–8 where we have…

A. Verses 6–8: A yearning for safety

It seems like the times when David’s insecurities are most pronounced are in the middle of the night. During the day I assume that he stays busy. During the day he can see if an enemy is approaching. During the day he has a sense of control over the situation. During the night, though, all that is stripped away and he realizes that danger could jump our of the shadows at any moment.

So, what does he do? He says that he meditates on God. He forces his mind to think about His God. He clings to God, according to verse 8; using the same word as is used to describe the way that a husband is to cling to his wife in Gen 2:24. David remembers the way that God has helped him before. He pictures God as having His wings over David, protecting him from disaster in verse 7. He reminds himself that his protection is in God whose “right hand upholds him.”

If you think about all of these expressions, you can hear the yearning that David has at night for safety. He has experienced God’s security before, and he longs for it again. He wants security, but he also recognizes that only God can really provide it for him.

Why does David have this yearning, this yearning for safety?

B. Verses 9–10: Because of encountered hostility

Why does David yearn for safety? Quite simply because there are people trying to kill him. There is a strong contrast in verse 9 between the safety that David has experienced in God and those who are out to end him. God has upheld him, but they are out to destroy him.

Of course, David knows that those who are out to get him are evil. For that reason, he is confident that they will ultimately be destroyed. They will die by the sword and their bodies will not even be buried. Rather, they will be food for scavengers.

By the way, it is probably best to translate the animal in verse 10 as “jackals” rather than “foxes” like the NASB and KJV both do. Hebrew uses the same word for both animals, but the verse is clearly referring to scavengers.

David knows that the people out to get him will die, God will judge them. But he does not have any guarantee that that will happen in time to save him.

Yet, in verse 11 we see the results of David’s yearning and the encountered hostility. Both…

C. Verse 11: Results in steadfast praise

The psalm ends on a note of joyful confidence, “But the king will rejoice in God.” David commits himself to praising God. He is God’s appointed king and as God’s appointed, his circumstances are not going to change his commitment; he will praise God.

In fact, David is confident that he will be joined in his rejoicing by “everyone who swears” by God’s name. In other words, David is confident that other genuine believers will also join him in praising God. He will not be alone in his praise of God, others who know God will praise God right along side of him.

This experience in which his feelings of safety have been stripped away have simply resulted in David learning to praise God more. He is confident that in the end, those who are opposed to him, and since he is God’s anointed, are also opposed to God, will be stopped. Their lies will end.

Nothing, though, can stop his praise. Steadfast praise is what David is going to do because praising God is what believers do. His experience has helped him learn this lesson more fully.

Application

How about you? Are you learning to praise God regardless of the circumstances that surround your life? Have you had the experience of God stripping safety away from your life so that you learn to praise Him without it?

Illustration

I remember several years ago talking with one of our missionaries. His wife had gone through a long and painful medical situation. She had suffered greatly during the course of her recovery, but God had brought her through finally and her health was restored. Of course, they were praising God for her restored health. At almost the exact same time, though, our missionary was diagnosed with a serious health issue. He was in the early stages of his treatments when we spoke and his response that was the most unexpected. He said that he and his wife were praising God for his health challenge. They both recognized how much they had learned about God’s faithfulness and comfort and support during her illness that they couldn’t wait to see how much more God might teach them during his. He had no idea whether his treatments would be successful, but he did know that that praising God was what he was going to continue to do.

I believe for many of us, God stripped away a lot of our security this spring. We live in a country that does face a lot of the uncontrolled health situations that many parts of the world face. We have safe water. We have regulated and inspected food. We have access to modern medical care. We feel safe. But then the pandemic arrived and none of those things that allow us to feel safe seemed to matter. We were told that the only way to stop this thing was to stop its spread by staying away from other people. Now, of course several months later we can look back in hindsight and see that the initial models overstated the danger. But at the time we did not know, our safety was removed.

Did our yearning for safety result in steadfast praise? Were you praising God for being your help, the One whose wings provided the shadow for your security, the One you could cling to? Were you praising God in March and April?

Are you praising God now? We have to remember that there is no real security in this life. In fact, as Christians, we can expect to face increasing hostility in this life. Lies will be told. We will be attacked. Our lives may even be threatened. Yet our steadfast praise should be unshaken. That is the lesson that David has for us this morning.

Transition from body to conclusion:

Yearning for safety should produce praise. God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise.

CONCLUSION

That is the core idea that we can take away from Psalm 63. God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise.

In our psalm we have seen two examples of this truth. Yearning for worship should produce praise and yearning for safety should produce praise.

Application

Is God creating a yearning in your life at this time? It might be for worship, especially if you are still finding it necessary to watch the service over the livestream. It might be for safety, especially if you are going through a health trial. It might be for some other element that God has allowed to be stripped from your life. What every yearning you might have, allow it to teach you to praise God. Remember past experiences. Remember God’s faithfulness. Remember God’s promises. And praise God today.

God allows us to yearn so that we will learn to praise.