Final Charge | Psalm 27:4 (May 15) Mike Armstrong

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

God, what we just sang is the reason that we exist, Lord, is to bring you glory, is to hail you, the King of all kings, the King that is above every king, the King that is above all.

And so, Lord, as we sing these words and as the music plays, and as we get into your word and all of the things that we are doing today, Lord, I pray that that would be accomplished.

Lord, we pray that you would be praised, you would be glorified, you would be honored, you would be lifted up, you would be made much of, Lord.

I pray that it would not just be with our words, it would be with our hearts, it would be with our very lives.

And so, God, as we talk about these things this morning, as we think about what is, what we are to make our lives chief priority about, I pray that you would get into our hearts and in our minds, into our motivations, uh, into all of it, Lord, and and transform it, Lord, that we would desire you, that we would desire to be near you, Lord.

And so, God, as we talk about these things, as we continue in worship, uh, through the unpacking, the pr the preaching of your word, Lord, that we would be not just growing in our heads and in our in our knowledge, Lord, but uh that our our lives would be more like Jesus Christ.

And so, Father, we give all of these things to you, uh, asking that today would be about you, every day would be about you.

We pray this in the mattress name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, good morning, redemption.

Go ahead and grab a seat.

I think my voice might be fried already.

Uh, just from singing along with you, it's great to hear uh your words as we sing and we make much of Jesus Christ.

Now uh we're about to get into Psalm 27 here uh in just a second.

I know we saw the video announcement here and everything, um, but uh I want to make uh another uh desperate plea, uh fullbore guilt tripping.

I don't even care at this point.

We're talking about the connection cards uh on the back of each chair.

If you would go and grab your phone.

Remember last week I laid it on pretty thick.

I'm just gonna keep ramping that up um until uh my my dying breath, I think.

And uh and and just really we want to be able to pray for you.

Um I see a lot of people not at all responding once again.

Uh please move, grab your phone, fill it out or not.

But I mean, honestly, last week we had five prayer requests.

Okay?

I want to tell you right now, that's five more than we've had like any Sunday recently.

I was so excited to have five, I was like thrilled to be able to pray for you.

And then I was like, wait a second, there were more than five people there on Sunday.

And so I see nervous laughter and still not moving at this point, it's just between you and the Lord, you know, in terms of obedience in that way.

Um but yes, again, laying it on thick.

But honestly, fill it out.

Give us a prayer request.

We want to be praying for you.

There's an opportunity missed if you're not doing that, and of course, there's all kinds of other ways that you can get uh connected to the life of our church uh through all of that right there.

All right?

Uh guilt trip over.

Let's move into Psalm 27 now.

Get your Bibles open uh to it.

I should also do likewise, I think.

Uh Psalm 27, just looking at one verse today.

Um, but as you're finding it, uh, do you ever feel like life just kind of gets complicated?

I've heard the term overcomplicated.

I don't know if that's just redundant and unnecessary to say that, but but life gets that way, doesn't it?

It gets complicated or overcomplicated.

And uh maybe you're feeling that uh even now, even again, as as life kind of normalizes somewhat, uh coming out of COVID and pandemic and all of that, you know, where we're we're back to the office, you know, and maybe from it was working from home before, or you know, kids' sports are back, we're into that again, and it's like every night, or or social activities have picked up and ramped up, or it's vacation plans, you know, it's one thing after another.

Now I don't think any of us are complaining about that, right?

We've had two years of not being able to do a lot of those things.

Uh, but but does it leave you maybe kind of feeling like, man, that the pandemic, the shutdowns, all of that kind of gave me this opportunity to reprioritize my life a little bit, kind of refocus and simplify things.

But now it's like I've kind of easily slid back into the way things were uh before, the pandemonium, the busyness, the all of that.

And and so here I am very quickly, very easily, sort of scattered again in my mind and in my actions, and I'm overwhelmed.

And maybe, maybe you don't feel that right now, right this moment.

You haven't gotten there, but maybe you sense yourself kind of starting to head there.

You know, where we've gone from you know having way too much going on in life to you know, nothing going on in life back into too much going on again.

And and here we are starting to feel a little bit uh stretched thin, maybe, you know, trying to just figure out desperately, like how do I, how do I simplify?

Like, what should my main focus be in life?

I've got all these things clamoring for my attention and my my energy and my time and my money and my all of that kind of thing, this collection of uh of demands, like what do I need to focus on?

What do I need to prioritize?

How can I cut through all the noise of life?

You know, again, those the demands on us, the responsibilities on us, the the opportunities that lay in front of us for all kinds of things, and how do I actually accomplish what I've been put on earth to do?

How do I get to that?

How do we allow that cream to rise to the top of all the other things going on in life?

Okay, I think we wonder that sometimes, and and and I think sometimes even our relationship with Christ can start to feel that way.

Do you ever feel like that with him?

Like, I don't know, things have gotten complicated and and and I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed by it.

Like there's so many things.

Like I was thinking about this as I've been thinking through seven years of preaching, right?

All the different topics and all of the, you know, all of the ideas and all the things you gotta focus on, and no, this is the most important.

No, this one actually is, and no, don't forget about this over here.

And you start to feel it all kind of piling on a bit, and you're like, man, how do I, again, how do I prioritize?

What's the main thing that I need to do?

And you start thinking, like, I gotta read the Bible, and I gotta be a church, and then I can't just be a church, I've probably got to serve in church, and then I've got to grow personally as a disciple, but then it's not just about me, it's about my family, and I should probably have like a Timothy in my life that I'm pouring into, and all of that.

Okay, and again, I think we would agree that that all of these things are important.

All of these things are good, and and and but maybe you've also just kind of wondered how do I work this all out?

Right?

How do I re-fork refocus, get my main priority, the main thing, so that everything else, all even the good things I gotta do, can just kind of fall into line, fall into place, kind of underneath or behind what that main focus and priority should be.

Well, in Psalm 27, verse 4, okay, David expresses that in the mayhem and the complications, as you can imagine, of being a king, the king over this entire nation of Israel, all the complexities and the and the challenges that go along with that, the number one thing he's committing or committed to prioritizing in his life is what?

Psalms 27:4

It's being near God.

It's being near God.

I mean, that is it.

He simplifies things for himself and for us as much as humanly possible, because when you strip everything else away, okay, that's ultimately what our walk with Christ is about, right?

It's drawing as near to him as we can get.

Experiencing that richness, the, you know, the the that heart satisfaction.

Remember, we talked about satisfaction a bit last week, or that, or that intimacy that just comes from being close to our Maker.

Okay, so so before my time with you is up at the end of the month, I want to leave you with a final charge, which of course, which is these uh what these four messages are about.

And today it's about really zeroing in on what our main priority or our focus is to be as Christ followers, living in a, I mean, let's be honest, it's a busy and complex world.

Right?

It is.

We're not trying to say life isn't busy or complex, it actually is.

Right?

And for us, it's to consider where necessary, when necessary, you know, how to reset things a bit.

Like how to recalibrate and and and really emphasize, I think, what matters uh most for us.

And so I'm gonna just read the verse here.

I'm sure you've read it already as I'm talking, but here's what uh David says, Psalm 27, verse 4.

Psalms 27:4

One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after.

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire uh in his temple.

Okay, and so with that, we're gonna unpack it.

Uh, we got three things for you this morning.

Here's the first one.

The number one priority of my life is to be near God.

Okay, that's it.

That's what it is.

So, so I will therefore do this.

I will resolve to go hard after this one thing.

There needs to be some resolve in this.

Have you noticed that?

How it's easy to kind of like, ah, I'm gonna make a commitment, but there's maybe not a lot of resolve, and then like six minutes later you're it gets it's forgotten.

Right?

But there's some resolve here that's that's necessary uh on our part, and even that we need God's help for.

Okay, now Psalm 27, okay, it was it was written by David during a time of obvious turmoil.

I mean, you read the entire Psalm, you pick that up uh pretty quickly.

There's there's enemies, he's got adversaries and foes, they're you know, they're constantly posing a threat to uh the Israelite nation, and you know, I'm sure he had a million prayer requests about those very topics alone.

In fact, if you read through the Psalms, a lot of those prayer requests uh definitely come out.

But verse 4 is, I think, so powerful because it expresses this acute moment of clarity and razor-sharp focus in the heart and in the mind of King David.

Okay, where he's just like, you know, in the complications and and in the challenges of my life and all the things I'd like to see happen, right?

All the things I'd like to see fit get fixed and improve and all of that.

The bottom line is that what's best for me, no matter what else is going on in my life, is that I get as close as I possibly can to my creator.

Okay, and go as as hard as I can after that one thing.

Okay, and it's really what he says there in the very first part of that verse.

We're pulling this verse apart in three different sections this morning, but verse 4a, if you want to call it that, look what he says.

It says, one thing I have asked of the Lord, and that, that one thing I will seek after.

Okay, so so what is he doing?

He's expressing that that when you boil down his life purpose, you know, amongst all the tasks, right, all the commitments and the responsibilities and the and the busyness that come, you know, with being a king, all the things that compete for his attention and his energy and his time and all of that, he's gonna seek after this one thing.

Right?

Uh one.

Okay, and now because we've read the you know the rest of the verse, I think we you know we kind of know already what it is, that one thing there is to dwell in the house of the Lord.

Okay, we're gonna get to that part in the second thing here, but what what that's really saying is to be near God.

Right?

Dwell in the house of the Lord.

He wants to be near the Lord.

Okay, and so what David is saying here, he's he kind of gives us the key to simplifying our lives.

You know, when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel busy, when we feel burnt out in the in the chaos, all of it, it's it's to seek him.

I mean, it's not it's not too difficult of a concept to just kind of see and understand at face value, right?

It's to seek the Lord, seek after him.

That that terms that term really means that the term seek after means to search for.

To search for him, to to investigate carefully.

Okay, literally that's what it means.

So there you see right there, built into it, there's nothing passive about this approach.

Right?

He's not like, well, I'll just sit there and allow it to just kind of all happen by osmosis or something.

No, he's, you know, that there's there's nothing aloof about David in his his attack angle here.

He's like, no, I'm I'm going hard.

Right?

I'm I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do this, I'm going hard after it.

And so there's that resolve in him.

He's made up his mind about the matter.

Okay, this one thing I'm gonna do.

Now, why should you and I, in the busyness and the you know, the constant demands and the various intricacies of our of our life circumstance, why should we focus on this one thing?

Right?

Why why why this?

Like, because maybe you come at it from another angle and you're more thinking, like, you know, shouldn't we shouldn't we kind of actually put more energy and more focus into our problems?

Right?

Shouldn't we put more energy into our issues, into the things that seem to be, you know, getting in the way, and and more time and and more mental power and money and energy, whatever it is, into kind of fixing those, handling those situations that life throws at us.

Maybe you're wondering about that.

Like whenever we have something difficult go on in our lives, those are the things that just overwhelm us, aren't they?

Like they take up all of our attention.

Those are the things that keep us up at night.

Those are the things that that make us kind of ignore the family a little bit because we're we're thinking and stewing and trying to problem solve and trying to fix it.

And so maybe, you know, in instinctively I think what we do, and maybe you're you're even consciously thinking this, shouldn't I just try and fix those things?

Shouldn't I do that?

Shouldn't that's where the shouldn't that be where my energy goes into?

Like in some ways, doesn't it seem sort of like irresponsible of David to just put his, you know, push his kingly responsibilities into the s uh off to the side and uh to focus on the Lord more?

Like, doesn't that sound kind of reckless even?

Selfish, short-sighted, maybe?

You know, if he takes all you know his eyes off of all the dumpster fires that are going on in his life, won't those fires just get worse?

Well, first of all, uh no one's advocating here for abandoning our responsibilities.

Okay, we're we're not.

David's not either.

This isn't to suggest that David should should stop going to work, right?

That you should stop doing that, or he just needs to live in this constant state of alone time with the Lord and maybe a journal and a harp and a lyre, you know, just get in a cold, you know, a dark room with some incense burning, and that should be the entirety of his days.

No, no, that's that's not what we're saying.

It's not about letting Israel burn to the ground all the all around him, okay?

No, what this is this is really getting at is that when you and I prioritize, that's the key word, when we prioritize being near God and resolve in our hearts and minds and our volition to go after that one thing, what does it do?

Well, it it reframes all of life for us.

Right?

It really does.

It puts our problems and our responsibilities, all of that, into you know, into kind of the proper perspective.

It gives us perspective.

David didn't ignore his problems and the very real challenges that he was up against.

I mean, he acknowledged them openly.

Again, I love that about the Psalms.

Right?

He speaks very clearly.

He's not trying to hide that, to be this tough king guy who I don't have real problems.

No, he's like pouring his guts out constantly.

That's what I love about the Psalms.

He acknowledges them.

But because he was pursuing and enjoying a closeness to God, his problems were reframed.

His problems were right-sized.

Okay, they no longer consumed him and led him to that place of, that dark place of anxiety and even despair.

And when he started to go that way, and we do too, right?

He goes to the Lord.

That's what the Psalms model for us over and over again.

When we go hard after the Lord, our problems and our challenges, they don't disappear.

I wish I could say that they did.

Okay, but a sense of calm and a sense of peace can begin to flood our hearts when we're near him, which allows us to tackle life's problems from the position of trusting God with it all.

That's really what we're trying to get at here today.

We're not trying to say that our problems all go away.

We're certainly not saying that it's right to abandon our God-given responsibilities.

We have many of them.

But at least we can have a strong sense that the Lord is with us, right, and and that he loves us and he's strengthening uh strengthening us in the midst of these things.

So wait, listen, as you kind of take stock of your life and where you're at in terms of being near God these days, would you say that you're close to him?

How would you answer that question?

Are you close to the Lord right now?

Or can you say that there's a there's a growing intimacy with him?

Can you say that?

Is that the number one priority of your life, like it is for David, as he wrestles with these things?

You know, or or have you kind of gotten sidetracked and distracted from those things lately?

Or maybe for a long time?

Maybe you've been pushing the Lord and closeness to him and all of that.

That's that's on the back burner, that's like fallen off the back end of the stove, and it's in the crack now between the stove and the wall.

Is that kind of how it feels a bit?

Okay, so if that's the case, what are the different areas then of your life that you need to kind of take a peek at here, that you need to address, you need to shore up so that you can draw near to the Lord again.

Okay, we've gonna have this on uh the screen actually.

I'm gonna give you actually eight different things, eight different areas that you can kind of take a look at here, and we're gonna go through them one by one.

But here's what I want to say.

Already some of you are thinking, eight things?

Oh my word, like how am I gonna have time for this?

And you already said my priority's gotta be the Lord, and so what about these other priorities?

And can you like just focus here a little bit, Pastor?

Well, here's what I want to say to you uh about this.

I was talking with uh a friend of mine a couple of years ago, and it was one of those conversations, I'll never forget.

It was, I think we were hanging out at New Year's, and uh, you know what it's like, New Year's resolutions and all of that.

My friend is like really like hyper entrepreneurial and all about goals and all about you know, you know, achieving and all of that stuff.

And so he was just asking me the question, you know, what are some goals that you have for this year?

And of course, I was like, uh, I better make some up on the spot.

You know, that's kind of where I was at at the time.

Uh but no, I very quickly I came up with probably five or six goals, things that I would have liked to see kind of improve in my life, things that I wanted.

And and before I even got into them, he stopped me and he said, you know what, man?

He's like, pick one.

Like pick one or two.

One or two things that you would like to kind of address or or or look at uh this year.

Because you know what it's like.

If you've got five or six or eight, as we're gonna look at here, things to address, what does it feel like?

It's overwhelming.

You feel like you're spinning all these plates and you're trying to keep them going, and I don't want one to crash down, and before you know it, you're exhausted and and it's not good.

Okay, so again, pick one or two areas and and resolve to kind of look at these as a means or a vehicle to help you go hard after the Lord.

Okay?

Okay, these are areas where when we neglect them, they they cause us to function at suboptimal levels, right?

They really do, and they really limit our ability to go hard after the Lord.

Okay, so the first one is just the word.

Okay, the word of God.

Okay, is this an area that that you have to address?

This is low-lying fruit here, right?

Like if we never read our Bibles, you know, we're there there's probably a sense of of distance that we're gonna feel between us and the Lord in terms of our intimacy with Him.

Is this an area that you need to address, or you would need to address as as a family, maybe?

And and it's it's something where that you can, you know, bite off something that you can chew on.

Right?

Don't be like, well, I'm gonna read the the through the entire Bible three times this year.

Like that might be a little aggressive, okay?

Yeah, maybe for you it's like spend five minutes in the morning.

Start there.

Read a psalm or something as you're eating your cereal in the morning.

Start there.

I'm gonna resolve, I'm gonna, I'm gonna draw close to the Lord uh through this.

There's been an area that I know it has not been great.

I I have to look at this, okay?

And so it's the word of God.

And let me give you just really quickly here before we move on, the soap method.

You heard of the soap method?

We've talked about this uh a few times over the days.

I know that um I know that Miles, who's coming here, he's really big on this, so you can hear much more about this uh with him, I'm sure.

Uh but the soap method is scripture, observation, application, prayer.

Okay, soap.

So scripture meaning you just read it.

Okay, you're reading the scriptures.

This is what your quiet times can look like.

I'm gonna read it and then I'm gonna observe.

What are the interesting things that I notice about this?

What are the the questions that I don't have an answer to that I need to maybe do a little further research on?

What is the context?

How does this fit in with what's going on around it?

That's the observe part.

The application part is what does this mean for me?

Not necessarily how do I feel about it, because in some ways, who cares how we feel about it?

It's God's word.

Regardless of how we feel about it, it's to it's to work in us and have an impact.

So, not what does it mean, you know, what does it mean to me as though it might mean something different to somebody else, but how am I gonna apply this?

Okay, what I'm reading today, how am I how am I gonna work this into my life today?

That's the application, and then prayer.

Just closing your time down with a pr with a prayer between you.

In the Lord.

You know, Lord, help me to apply these things.

Help me to see how great you are.

Okay, so scripture observation application prayer, the soap method, okay?

Maybe that's helpful for you.

The second one here is prayer.

Okay, prayer is another kind of low-lying fruit thing in terms of an area that we might need to address.

I know that we all feel very guilty about our prayer lives.

None of us feel like we're killing it in the prayer area.

We've said that a million times around here.

It's very easy to feel kind of terrible about our prayer life, but maybe this is something that you can commit to as a couple or with your kids.

You know what?

We've kind of gotten away from praying before meals.

Let's like pray and just thank the Lord for our day when it's dinner time.

And thank the Lord for what he's done.

It's praying with the kids before they go to bed.

It's praying for a few minutes with your with your spouse.

Husbands, lead the charge on this, okay?

Pray with your wives before your heads or as your heads are hitting the pillow, that you would commit your time to him.

Okay, prayer is one.

How about worship?

Okay, worship is one as well.

And I'm not just talking about the singing component of worship.

That's an important part.

That's a good part, a big part.

But maybe just your entire posture of worship.

Would I be considered a worshipful person?

That's a good question to ask.

Now we all are worshipers.

We're all worshiping something.

The question is, is it the Lord or is it an idol?

Right?

So are we where am I at?

Am I thankful to the Lord?

Am I filled with gratitude?

Do I praise him?

Do I think do I bring things to him?

Am I worshipful?

Maybe it's something like preparing yourself better for Sundays.

Okay, we know how easy it is to get, you know, Saturday's a busy day as a as families, and there's a lot to accomplish and a lot to do, and then we stay up late, and then we come in here and we're not prepared properly for gathering to worship.

It's maybe studying the passage in advance.

Every Thursday evening, afternoon evening around 4 o'clock, you get an email that kind of talks about here's the passage we're gonna be studying on Sunday.

Gives you a couple of days to at least read it over and have a sense of where uh we are going.

Okay, it's about coming, maybe it's coming rested on Sunday so that you can be, you can, you can worship properly.

And you're not just exhausted, it's making sure you have enough time to grab a coffee and that you're here on time, starting on time.

And in my mind, being on time means being here early.

It's having your Sunday morning tasks done the night before.

But not done the night before.

It's like picking out clothes for the kids, picking out your own clothes, whatever it might be, some of those things that kind of make it so that you get out of the out the door late.

Get those things done on Saturday.

But it's it's about getting our hearts ready.

Right?

Bring in a Bible.

I don't care if it's a paper Bible or a phone Bible, bring a full desktop computer for all I care.

Just bring a Bible, right?

Come and be ready to study and to open up God's word and look at it for ourselves.

All right, how about this one?

The fourth one is community.

Is this an area that you need to address?

Maybe we've been fueling this more uh you know powerfully and heavily uh through the pandemic.

We're like, man, you know what, my my social time with people's been limited, and I've just been kind of doing things on my own, and and I'm kind of this lone ranger, and I my relationships have sort of distanced, and and I need to put some energy into that because that's gonna help me be close to the Lord.

Right?

It's you know maybe it's jumping into a small group or or recommitting back into your small group so that you can be encouraged.

That'll help you get closer to the Lord.

You need the support, you need the accountability, you need the fun too.

Right?

We we we need that very thing.

I'm golfing with a couple of guys, a bunch of guys after church uh today.

I'm really looking forward to that.

It's gonna be pure fun.

Okay, we need that kind of community.

We need all kinds of it.

How about this one?

This one hurts.

Nutrition.

This one just punches me in the face right now.

Right?

And then this is an area, though, that we need to address.

It's funny how this sometimes area makes people the most mad.

How dare you talk about nutrition?

Like, crush me with how I don't read the Bible.

But don't talk about my diet, right?

It's fun weird.

We're weird, right?

The way we are.

But that is huge.

Right?

And if we're if we're eating filth, right, if we're eating a ton of processed stuff and we're eating way too much of it, or we're not eating enough, or wherever you end up falling on the spectrum, notice how you're just too sluggish to care about the Lord.

I'm I'm I'm I'm too tired, I don't feel good, I'm sick, I'm I'm breaking down all the time, I'm I I'm tired because I eat terribly.

I you know, it's stress eating, it's comfort eating, it's just undisciplined eating.

Okay, this is this might be something that is worthy to be addressed in your life.

Sixth one is fitness, very much hand in hand, another punch to my face.

Right?

It's so easy to live the sedentary lifestyle and just you know eat chips and lay and watch terrible leaf games, right?

It's very easy to do that.

Okay, it's maybe for us just getting out and going for a walk.

Just go on a walk, man.

Ma'am, that's such a 90-year-old thing to do.

Yeah, well, you look like you're 90, dude.

Get out there.

I'm talking to myself, okay?

Okay, it's run, it's lift.

Do something like that.

Get the energy going again.

That'll help that'll spark a lot of things, I think, in terms of having the energy it takes to get, you know, go close and run hard and go after the Lord.

Sleep is another one.

I'm the worst person to talk about sleep.

I'm gonna move on.

Okay, bad habits with sleep are very easy.

About finances, another one that ticks people off.

Don't talk to me about finances, you have no right.

Your finances are the Lord's.

Right?

Your money is the Lord's, is what I'm trying to say.

So maybe what's stressing you and your family out is you have no budget.

You know, you don't stick to it, and it's a bunch of foolish expenses, and or or maybe it's the other opposite end.

You're you're kind of slothful and lazy and you don't work hard enough, and so that's causing stress, and it takes up so much of your energy, sucking so much of the oxygen out of your life that it makes it hard to go after the Lord because you're always stressed and always caught up in all of this.

This is just eight kind of simple, obvious areas that I think are really helpful for us to address so that we can make sure the main priority stays the main priority.

Let's not allow this spring, right?

We're midway through May now.

Let's not allow this spring or this summer to slip away from us here.

I recognize this message kind of sounds very New Year's Sunday message, right?

Let's let's make some resolutions and let's go hard.

But we know all of our resolutions were done by like January 7th, right?

We we quit and gave up on all of them.

So it's time for us, right, to address this again because the summer, let's be honest, as Christians, at summertime, I've seen this over the years, sometimes in my own life, and certainly in the lives of many people, we tend to just get lax in our walk with the Lord.

We don't care, it's vacation time, I'm going camping, I'm going uh you know, wherever I'm going, it's the cottage, it's all of this.

And and what happens to go hand in hand with that?

Being lazy about our relationship with the Lord.

We want to go hard at these things.

We don't want to continue with all the same bad habits that got us into this place where we're kind of far from the Lord.

So let's make getting near him again, let's make that the priority and really get after it.

Let's go.

This is good.

God will help us in this.

Not just some flash in the pan commitment that flames out while we're on the golf course, gents, this afternoon or later this week, but literally each and every day until the very end.

Okay, that's actually the second point here today.

Look at verse 27 with me again.

Okay, one thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after.

Okay, we covered that part.

And then this, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.

Okay, that I may, that I may dwell.

That word dwell means to live, right?

To to stay, to inhabit, okay, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, which is which is what the Levitical priests did.

Right?

They they they they did that very thing.

They were in the house of the Lord, they were in the tent of meeting or the tabernacle all the time, right?

Constantly.

Now, now remember, it's it's David, the king, writing this, right?

This is his desire.

Now, it's not to say that he literally wanted to become a priest.

That's not what he's saying, to run away from his other responsibilities.

What he's really getting at here is what Derek Kidner says.

Let's get this uh up on the screen here.

Okay, he says this.

He says that David wanted to enjoy the constant presence of God, typified by the priest's calling.

He's like, what the priests had, that sweetness, he's like, that's what I want.

Right?

I want that drive, I want that ability to be near the Lord, and and he just longs for the richness of that close, you know, personal intimacy with God, just like the priests were able to enjoy.

Now, I I love this next part of the verse.

How long did David want this intimacy for?

How long did he want that?

Was it until his promise problems were solved or God gave him what he wanted, and then he'd go back to just addressing all those other priorities and forgetting about the Lord?

No.

He says very obviously, I'm sure you just read it, right?

All the days of my life.

All the days, each and every one.

David wasn't using God to get something that he wanted.

You ever do that?

I recognize that sometimes in myself, right?

That motive that's there.

I'm praying this because I'm trying, I'm actually, I want some, I'm using him.

I'm you, I'm using him to get something from him.

But that's not what David is doing here.

No, he he understood what Asaph said in another Psalm, in Psalm 73, verse 28, where he said, But for me, it is good to be near God.

Psalms 73:28

I love that verse.

That's actually been my, I guess, my life verse, if you want to call it that, for the last at least 10 years.

But for me, it is good to be near God.

Another translation, the NAS says, the nearness of God is my good.

I absolutely love that.

If being near God is what is truly best for you and I, then why would we ever want to push him away or exchange that pure goodness for something less good?

Right?

David tasted, he's tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

That's Psalm 34, 8, right?

He's tasted, he's seen that, and he's developed an appetite for the Lord now.

He's got this hunger and this desire.

He wants the Lord's presence continually.

He's got a taste of that, and he's like, I'm gonna keep coming back for more of this.

This is what I want.

This is the best.

All the days of his life.

That's what he's crying out for.

You can tell that he just wants consistency here.

He wants longevity in this as he makes God's nearness his ultimate priority.

So as we think about this in our context today, 2022, again, we all know how easy it is to be pretty hit and miss in terms of consistency with the Lord and you know, and being steady in those daily habits, right, that lead to intimacy with the Lord, and how we tend to make other things, even good things, a priority uh over God.

And we know that we're like that.

Okay, so what are those things for you?

Okay, what are the things that that you prioritize over the Lord?

What kind of adjustments do you think you need to make here today and going forward that you need to consider very carefully and perhaps make a commitment to change, right, in order to achieve a healthier approach or balance even or proper order of priorities, where being near God is number one?

Like for you, is it um, I mean, these are easy ones to pick on, but for you is it maybe your career?

You know, or or your your job, whatever your vocation is, or are you so wrapped up in that that it's it kind of it's squeezing out Jesus in your life?

Is that something that you wrestle with?

Perhaps for you it's it's entertainment, you know, it's pleasure, it's fun, it's all that stuff.

It's the social media, Netflix, the hobbies, it's the house projects, we're in the thick of that right now.

It's maybe the cottage or vacation home, it's maybe something like friends.

I mean, these are these are good things, right?

The job, it's a good thing.

Entertainment, it's a good thing.

I'm not saying no to that.

We shouldn't ever do it.

We're saying these things can easily become idolatrous things and take over.

Another good thing that can become a God thing is family.

Family.

I mean, we're you know, we're big on family.

We want our families to be strong, we want to disciple our kids to know and love Jesus Christ all the days of their life.

We absolutely want to do that, but maybe for you, your family has kind of squeezed out Jesus.

Sounds so sad to say that that can be the case.

And maybe for you it's like the focus is like we're a child-centered home.

You know, and everything we do is all about the kids constantly.

And they might be kind of young to not know how to articulate it, but maybe as they grow up, maybe what they're thinking the most important thing is to mom and dad is them.

We're not trying to say like kick the kids off to the curb and don't give them any attention, don't feed them.

Obviously not.

Okay, but but but but but sometimes it's like it's all like sports every single night.

It's you know, only the best things for my kids, and it's just on them all the time.

We're actually doing them a disservice because we're showing them unintentionally, I think, what life is all about.

And it's about them.

And I think that that's wrong according to the scriptures, right?

And and I think we're just we're setting them up to repeat our errors uh over and over again.

So you see how though these are good things, right?

That can that can become the priority, and and they need to find their place in behind what the best priority is.

Again, I love this phrase, and we've got it on the screen for you here.

It's don't let what's good become enemy of what's best.

Okay, I don't even know who said that, who wrote it.

Um you can give me the credit, you know, just write my name beside it.

No, don't do that.

But I I think this is fantastic, right?

I think that's really helpful to us as we talk priority here.

I mean, let's let's be really willing here to just lay these things before the Lord.

Some of you, I talk about family, I talk about sports, and you want to come up here and scissor kick this pulpit.

Like it's amazing.

You talk hockey in the country of Canada, like like you're wondering if I'm like even Canadian.

You're like questioning my salvation because I'm dare to talk about hockey or about whatever sport or whatever education we we thrust on our kids and we do over and over again.

But listen, listen, listen.

Let's be willing to lay these things before the Lord.

Right?

I want to encourage you, but I want to push you a little bit too.

Let's lay, let's be open-handed about this stuff.

Okay?

Like this, this is important stuff that is impacting our our lives and other people's lives around us, including our own family.

Let's really ask the question are any of these things distracting me from being near God each and every day?

Is there something that needs to go, frankly?

Or needs to be seriously readjusted so that I can be nearer to Christ.

I know families that have said, you know what, no more triple A hockey.

We're done with that.

Not only is it stressful, but it's just like it's like nine days a week we're out playing hockey.

Okay?

Some of you are doing the math and you're realizing they're what I just did.

Right?

But but the some people are like, well, hockey's still great and it's good and it's important for us.

But you know what, we'll get into like single A hockey or even, dare I say it, house league.

You know, and and let's we'll have our kids do that, you know, once or twice a week.

And that way they can still do it, but like we can actually, you know, still resemble Christians, right?

In in life and in our in our attitudes and in our desires.

I know I'm pushing that button.

Some of you need that button pushed, okay?

I get it though, it's hard.

It's hard to surrender these things.

Um, but the reason for that is because they've overtaken our hearts.

They've overtaken our hearts.

And let me tell you this: as we grow closer to the Lord and we surrender these things and we ask him to re-prioritize our lives, listen, you will never regret it.

You will never, ever, ever, ever regret it.

Alright, the number one priority in my life is to be near God.

Okay, so I'm gonna resolve to go hard after this one thing each and every day until the very end, as I revel in the beauty of the Lord.

That's the final thing.

As I revel in the beauty of the Lord, look at the third part there, the last part of verse four.

Okay, it says to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Okay, there's just no question, as you read this here, that David was enamored, right?

He was enamored with God.

Like, oh, that we would have that same desire, right?

That same passion there.

He was completely taken by God's splendor, by God's magnificence, his awesomeness.

To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord is to gaze at his at his goodness, right?

To take that in, to analyze that, to be enamored by that, his power, his holiness, his glory, all of these things.

To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in his temple.

Shows that David couldn't wait to be near the Lord.

Right?

He was fired up.

All right, Sunday's coming, let's go, let's get with the Lord, this is good.

Right?

He was drawn to the Lord, he's compelled by his essence, by his character, by his deeds, what he has done.

A bottom line here is that David made the nearness of God his pursuit.

That's his pursuit, that's his number one priority.

Why?

Because he really wanted to.

Right?

It was his desire, and and desire, I think, is the thing that's been sort of brewing under the surface of everything that we've been talking about this morning already.

You can see that David just sincerely wants to be near God.

He wants to be close to him, and he knew that it was vice versa, right?

He knew that the Lord wanted to be close to him as well.

Listen, when was the last time, if I could ask it this way, when was the last time you really wanted to be near the Lord?

I asked because I think so much of what makes up for North American Christianity these days is duty rather than delight.

Right?

This we have the sense of duty.

Well, I did tell that guy I would serve in that ministry, so I guess I gotta go.

You know, or I have this Bible, I've spent some money on it, it's sitting there.

I better blow the dust off and I better read it.

You know, it's also it's Saturday night, and so I want to feel a little bit better about myself going into Sunday mornings.

Right?

It's this it's this duty.

I I guess I should do this because, you know, it's that that's so much of what Christianity tends to be, uh, I think for us.

And so my fear for each of us today is that many of us are just gonna merely make this sort of cerebral, kind of rational commitment to prioritize God.

And we're gonna do that because that's the latest challenge thrown at me.

Right?

I think our church is very teachable.

I think it's one of the sweet things about you.

But my fear maybe in this is that what happens sort of sort of unintentionally is you're like, well, pastors challenged me with this.

I'm gonna take that on.

And and and maybe that's uh that's more of a mind thing.

It's again, it's becomes cerebral.

Um, but instead of it coming from the angle of like, wow, the Lord is awesome.

Of course I want to be near.

Right?

He's he's incredible.

Look at his look at his beauty, look how look look how good he is, his holiness, look what he's done for me on the cross.

Look at look who my savior is, what he is like.

Like, what is what is he what do his actions tell us about who he is?

Right?

And allow that to drive us towards him, and you know, marvel at who he is, reveling in him.

That's the that's the word, right?

Our number one priority, you know, uh to be near God is not just because that makes sense to our you know our rational analytical minds, but because he is the only thing worthy of occupying that place in our hearts.

He really is.

Now you gotta wonder how David was able to have this type of ravenous desire and fire for the Lord as he reveled in his beauty.

You gotta wonder how that how he had that.

Well, I mean, it certainly had something to do with the presence of trials in his life.

I mean, David went through numerous difficulties.

He he recorded so many of them for us uh in the Psalms.

We read about them in elsewhere in the Old Testament as well.

You know, we went from as a boy fighting off wild animals as a shepherd and you know to fleeing Saul and and you know dodging spears and all that kind of stuff to to defending Israel's borders from enemies.

I mean, that's just to name a few.

Okay, but here's the thing about trials and difficulties and and and and and pain, right?

They they they reveal what's most important to us.

Trials have a way of cutting through and stripping away all those intense desires of our hearts for earthly things that compete for our one true deepest desire, which is our desire for God.

Right?

Deep down we're wired to want Him.

It's just that that desire tends to get all kinds of other desires and distractions and things of life and hurts and pains and difficulties, all of that tends to kind of land on top of it and kind of push it down a little bit.

But trials expose the kind of the desires that have taken over and also draws out our desire for uh for him.

You know, and one of the things, one of the great things, I was thinking about it this week, uh about being your pastor over the last seven years has been getting to see uh the Lord at work in your lives.

Right?

I heard someone say the phrase one once uh once the one of the best things about being a pastor is getting a front row seat to God at work in people's lives.

I know that has been amazing, and I'll certainly miss that a great deal.

But one of the things that's so great is seeing what happens is the Lord sovereignly works his way into your hearts by way of trials.

Right, and that's not to say that like I'm pumped every time someone has a prayer request about a trial.

Right?

I'm not saying I'm pumped to read five prayer requests you know last week because they're about Trials.

I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is it's what's cool, is what the Lord does, what's great, is what the Lord does through those trials.

And how many times when they first enter your life, there's this sense of, oh no, I need prayer, I need this thing to go away.

That's generally speaking how we how we respond to that.

And you'll notice that the Lord doesn't just remove those things from us very quickly or sometimes very easily.

Sometimes he does, but oftentimes he allows those things to just land on us and the burden and the weight of all that to teach us, to instruct us, to refine us, to draw out the desire for him.

Because so many times we're like, Lord, just get rid of this.

Lord, be my protector.

You know, pull this thing away from me.

And then over time, as he doesn't do that, and we work through the disappointment of that, and maybe the anger of that and the fine then, and I'm gonna draw, you know, withdraw from the Lord.

We work through those things over months and years and years.

What I have been able to see happen in so many of you is to see you change, right?

And to see the softness of heart that the Lord is developing in you, how he's drawing you towards him.

And I've heard people say in this church, okay, and this is crazy, I don't even know if I want the trial to go anymore.

Because I'm near the Lord, and I don't want it to go back to the way it was before.

Where, yeah, my life was a little bit simpler and easier and less painful, but I was also further away from the Lord.

Now I've got the pain, but I've also got the Lord in greater abundance.

That is sweet.

That's been a really awesome thing that I've been able to witness in so many of you.

Don't lose that.

Continue to go after that.

You prioritize being near the Lord, you're gonna get more of that.

You experience the challenges, the difficulties, the problems, the whole gamut that will no doubt surface in your life going forward.

Pray that the Lord would use those things to show you his beauty.

That's what David, that's the word David uses, right?

His beauty, so you can you can revel in it.

So that you can you can love him for it.

Pray that the Lord will awaken that desire for you deep within, that you would pull that up to the surface, that you would know him more intimately, that you would be near him and desire to be near him.

Let's pray.

Lord, we do thank you for your greatness.

Lord, we thank you for your kindness, we thank you for your love towards us.

Lord, you are truly awesome.

And Lord, in the same breath, we want to confess how how few and far between that thought crosses our mind.

Lord, I pray that you would use whatever the difficulties and challenges are in our life to draw us towards you, to wanting to be near you more than we want even the trial itself to disappear.

God, would you do this work in us?

We thank you that through what Christ has done on the cross, rising again, we have this reality in front of us, where we can be near the God of the universe.

The veil's been torn in two.

We can be in your presence.

Lord, I pray that we would delight in this, marvel in this.

Lord, get through our thick skulls, Lord, and our and our crusty hearts.

Lord, be gracious, be as dare I say it, as as violent as you need to be in that in our lives.

Because in that is actually your kindness, your willingness to not let idols run the show.

But that you will not give your glory to those things, to nothing else.

You want you want us to give you glory.

And so, God, do this, Lord.

Lord, I pray that being near you would be our priority.

I pray that this would be the thing our church is known for.

Not so that we can pat ourselves on the back and think of how great we are, but Lord, that we would just be able to tell about how awesome you are.

So, Lord, we know that for a message like this, it starts to stir up a lot of stuff that we think needs to be addressed and worked on and confessed and changed and all of that, Lord.

I pray that you would give us peace in those things, that you would give us hope in this, Lord, that we know we can't fix everything overnight.

But Lord, would you meet us in this and continue to work these things out for us, Lord?

Lord, we thank you that you were so good to do this.

Lord, we pray again, like we've said, in all of this you would be glorified and honored.

We pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

We'll love you, church.

Have a great uh Sunday, great afternoon.

We'll see you next weekend.

You were loved.