Thirst Psalm 143 (Sep 4 2016)Mike Armstrong

Lord God, we come before you now.

And God, that is what our hearts desire for you to be glorified because you are glorious, Lord.

You are all glorious.

And so, God, we again cry out from hearts of need, Lord, that you would show up here in this place in a powerful way and change us.

Lord, would you make us more like your son?

Lord, would you encourage us along the way, Lord?

Would you get us out of those ruts that we are stuck in, Lord?

I pray that we would desire you, Lord, as we're going to talk about what it means to thirst, Lord, would you get our desire back off of things that don't really matter and on to you, Lord?

Would you capture our hearts here today?

Lord, as we dive into your word, Lord, we want a word from you.

Lord, it's not that complicated.

We want you.

And so, God, would you move?

Would you work?

Would you build your church, Lord?

Would you change us?

We pray all of this in the powerful and mighty name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, thanks so much.

You can take your seat.

And uh and as you are doing that, if you would grab your Bibles, I trust that you brought one with you.

Um Bible is our middle name, our Bible Chapel.

If you would grab those, if you would bring those with you every single weekend, uh, that would be awesome because we're gonna turn in that right now, you can to uh Psalm 143.

Psalm 143.

You will know if you've been uh here for any length of time, if you've been coming through the summer.

Uh, we've been working our way uh through not all, but some uh of the Psalms.

And so uh today is us uh wrapping up uh this series on the Psalms.

We're gonna be going through uh Psalm 143.

Um Love It.

So get turned there in your Bible or in your phone, uh your tablet, whatever it is that you um have.

All right.

Well, we have had, if you haven't noticed, um one of the hottest summers um, I don't know, ever, right, on record.

And how many of you are like, yeah, love it, bring on the heat, bring on the humidity, you love like just the perma sweat that happens with all of that?

Gross, gross.

How many of you are like, I'm kind of ready for fall?

Yeah, my hand is included in that.

I got hurt a couple of woos.

Um yeah, for sure.

It has been super hot.

It's been really hot.

Now, if you are into like growing the veggie garden or lawn care, uh it's probably been a bit of a struggle this summer, and you found yourself watering it like multi, multiple times uh a day, um, and maybe not loving it so much.

Um, if you are into the cottage life and kind of living the dream that way, um you were loving it.

It was uh it was incredible.

A great summer uh to be uh out there on the water at the beach, whatever it might be.

Now, hey, one of my favorite things whenever it is crazy hot out there, um, and I am, you know, sweaty and uh thirsty is you know that feeling when you just get a huge glass of water, you've got your water bottle, it's full, is just tipping that thing back, right?

Just chugging it, and you don't even care, you're so thirsty, it's like kind of pouring down your face.

You know, it doesn't matter to you at all.

It's just but it's amazing that feeling.

I think it's one of those kind of simple pleasures that the Lord gave us.

When we're when we're ultra-thirsty, uh that that feeling of having our thirst quenched, our thirst uh satisfied.

Now, I don't know if you notice this, but but the Bible talks about thirst.

The Bible talks about uh thirsting for God.

Now, in our Psalm in Psalm 143, verse 6, if you just take a look at that right here, kind of the key verse in this, he says there, uh, I stretch out my hands to you, my soul, what does it say?

Psalms 143:6

Thirsts for you.

Right?

Thirsts for you like a parched land.

Right?

What an amazing picture of just desperation for the Lord.

Right?

Reaching out to him, Lord, I need you to quench this.

I am, I am parched, I am like a desert, and I need your presence in my life.

Okay, great verse, phenomenal verse.

Okay, but here's the thing.

I'm not so sure that this verse describes today's church much at all.

Now, I I'm not trying to be harsh here, but I mean it doesn't take a whole lot of insight to notice that we actually suffer as the church in general from an enormous lack of thirst.

You sense that?

You you've seen that before?

I mean, people come into churches all across North America and they kind of shuffle in and they're bored.

They come in, they they don't worship.

We think about having hands raised, and we're like, we do the opposite.

We sit there under a message by someone who is maybe not all that prepared.

You know, and and and we're and and again, we're we're bored of it, and and we we tune out and we're thinking about the rest of the week.

Our youth, they don't want to be there, they don't really care.

We see church attendance dwindling, we see churches closing their doors all the time.

We don't we don't hunger, we don't thirst for the Lord.

We suffer from that.

And I think if you were to be honest here today, and if we were as Harvest Bible chapel, most of us could probably read this verse, read verse 6, and think, think, man, I don't think I really thirst for God much like that verse is talking about at all.

Right?

Maybe you sense that you're struggling here today.

Maybe you've had kind of a blah summer.

Like, yeah, your Facebook pictures, all your Instagram photos would show that it's been the greatest summer ever, but between you and the Lord, not so much.

There's been some distance there, and and you are parched, but maybe not so thirsty.

Now here's something I really want to be clear on.

Okay, let's understand this.

Okay, we all thirst.

Do you know that?

We all thirst for something.

We all thirst for something.

The problem is that it's usually other things that we that we thirst for and uh and not the Lord.

We thirst for things like wealth, right?

I just want to have a little bit more money, and then when we get that, we want just a little bit more money, right?

We we uh we always want more.

We want the better vacation.

We thirst for entertainment, we want pleasure.

How many of us live for the vacation this summer?

I can't wait to get away and just put up my feet.

We we want we want comfort.

Some of us thirst for friends.

That's like our highest aim.

I'm lonely.

And if God would just bring me a friend, some of us thirst for the perfect spouse.

The perfect spouse.

I just want somebody in my life who's gonna satisfy my deepest desires.

You've got a spouse and you're like, they're not perfect.

I I want someone who's better.

I wish that person was better.

Some of us thirst for like the perfect body, and we're going after that, and we're already thinking, you know, summer, summer 2017, that's when I'm gonna get in shape, right?

That's when that's happening.

We thirst for people's approval.

If only these people liked me and I was in that crowd, we we thirst for meaning.

Okay, and our desire for these types of things can be so strong.

You ever notice that?

So strong, so powerful, that it actually what these things end up doing is they they snuff out our thirst for the Lord.

They encroach in on that territory and uh and crush it.

There's such little thirst left over in my soul for Christ because other things have captured my heart.

My deepest desire and my hunger and my thirst.

Okay, it's all there.

It's all there.

It's just it's just pointed in the wrong direction.

It's not pointed where it should go.

Okay, so as we read this now, we're gonna go through these verses here, Psalm 143.

I want you to honestly consider yourself.

Where are you at?

Where are you at?

Do you thirst for the Lord the way the psalmist, the way David here prays for this, the way he longs for it?

Or are there other things kind of getting in the way?

This is what we're gonna be going for here as we read and as we unpack this.

So let's read it.

Um, Psalm 143, verse 1.

Psalms 143:1

This is what he says.

He says, Hear my prayer, O Lord.

Give ear to my pleas for mercy.

In your faithfulness, answer me in your righteousness.

Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.

For the enemy has pursued my soul, he has crushed my life to the ground, he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.

Therefore my spirit faints within me, my heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old.

I meditate on all that you have done, I ponder the work of your hands, I I I stretch out my hands to you, my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails, hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit.

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.

Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord.

I have fled to you for refuge.

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.

Let your good spirit lead me on level ground.

For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life.

In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble, and in your steadfast love, you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.

For I am your servant.

I think it's probably safe for us to say here that, again, most of us, I think somewhere within us, we long to have this kind of thirst, don't we?

We at least want to.

Maybe we would recognize here that I'm not very thirsty, but there's somewhere in us that desires to be thirsty like that, to have that kind of craving for the Lord, to love him, to want him like that.

And I think we we often struggle with the fact that we're not.

You know, why am I not like this?

And you know, we can feel we can feel guilty about it, and we feel, we feel discouraged, we, you know, we feel kind of stuck and unsure.

How do I move forward?

How do I how do I get out of this rut that I'm in?

And you kind of combine that with the fact that we're just so way too easily content with earthly things, right?

We're so easily contented with things that don't really matter as much.

And and all of it can can kind of combine, can add up to this sense where we kind of realize we know that in our hearts we're not really satisfied with any of it.

There's no satisfaction.

We keep longing after these things and it doesn't fill the void.

And we're kind of left thinking, you know, man, there's gotta be more to life in Jesus than this.

There's gotta be more.

So again, maybe you're not very thirsty these days.

You know, not the way that you know you should be, but but you wanna be, right?

And you wanna grow in this, and you want to become thirsty, and you want the Lord to satisfy that thirst, and you want him to give you even more thirst that comes out of a result of all of that.

Well, here's the first thing.

We're gonna be going through six things today, so strap in.

Uh, we're gonna move pretty quick.

Um, but here it is.

I will never, okay, listen, I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God.

Okay, that's kind of the big idea.

That's what we're talking about here.

I will never have that until, here's the first thing, I've been truly humbled.

I've been truly humbled.

Okay, humility is just so, so crucial.

Take a look at verse one.

Verse one says this David says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my pleas for mercy.

In your faithfulness, answer me.

In your righteousness.

Okay, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living, okay, that's all of us, is righteous before you.

No one living is righteous before you.

Okay, what David has here is a is a crystal clear understanding that most people, okay, moral or all people, morally speaking, are not good.

Okay, we're not good.

You strip it right down to the bare bones in who we are, down to the frame.

Okay, we are not uh righteously good.

We are not morally good.

Okay, now our world though, our world has it all backwards, doesn't it?

Our world has it all backwards.

You were you were to talk to somebody, you were to ask a person a question, you know, do you think you're a good person?

What are they gonna say?

So, yeah, yeah, I think I am.

You know, what do they always do?

They always compare themselves to like Hitler, right?

They always go to like worst case scenario, and all they do.

They're like, well, I'm not like them, I'm not you know, in prison, and you know, I haven't killed people, and you know, they they compare to worst case scenario, and so they think, therefore, uh that they're pretty good.

What what's the mistake that they make?

They fail to compare themselves to God, don't they?

They fail to compare themselves to Him.

And so they think that deep down they're we're you know we're good people, and maybe sometimes we do bad things.

Okay, granted, we do bad things, but it's not a reflection of the core of who we are.

Okay, what does the Bible say though?

Okay, the Bible, I love it.

The Bible just gives it to us straight.

Okay, no, no beating around the bush, doesn't pull any punches.

It tells us on Romans 3, I love this, no one is righteous.

No, not one.

No one is righteous.

You know, at our core, you know, in our human nature, we've been thoroughly corrupted from our sin.

Okay, which means that sin originated with Adam and Eve in the garden, and and we are all natural descendants of Adam and Eve, and so what they have passed down to us, our inheritance, thank you very much, has been a corrupted nature.

Right?

We have a corrupted nature, we're we're flawed.

Okay, we are we are messed up.

I love Isaiah 6 uh 64, verse 5.

This is a key verse.

I love it.

It says it says this even our righteous acts are like filthy rags.

Even our righteous acts, even the good things that we do, filthy, filthy, okay.

Meaning that even our even our best intentions, it's all tainted by sin.

Best intentions tainted.

It means that we never do anything from truly pure motives.

Never.

We never have, never will.

There's always gonna be some kind of selfish motive in there somewhere.

Now you might be like, you know, you might be like dating somebody brand new right now, and you've got like, you know, that emoji with the heart eyes.

Like that's your life.

Right?

And you're like, I will do anything for this person, and my motives are so unselfish right now.

Yeah, well, just wait for this thing to progress.

Right?

Wait till you get married.

Right?

Wait till you have kids.

Right?

That that stuff will reveal how selfish you really are, right?

You you'll see it.

You'll see it.

We're deeply self-centered individuals.

Uh-uh.

Okay, and what does David do?

He just admits this.

He admits this about himself.

And he says, he says here in verse 2, he says, he says, no one living is righteous before you.

Right?

So he agrees with the rest of scripture.

No one living is righteous.

And then back in verse verse one, what does he do?

He contrasts that with the Lord, the Lord's righteousness.

You should underline that if you've got that.

Underline those two, the contrast there in your Bible.

Okay, only God is truly good.

Only God is pure, only God is completely unstained and holy and without sin and unblemished.

Okay, so David, in this moment of clarity, he just gets it.

Or he gets it.

And he truly understands that that God is good and and he is not.

And what it does is it allows him to operate now in his life from a position of humility.

From a position of humility.

And and what does this humility cause him to do?

Verse 1.

I mean, just take a look at that there, the very first words.

What does it cause him to do?

Causes him to pray, doesn't it?

Cause him to pray.

Look at that.

It says, Hear my prayer, O Lord.

Give ear to my pleas for mercy.

Okay, know this.

Proud people do not pray.

Proud people don't pray.

At least not with passion.

Okay, at least not with desperation and anything that can resemble some some genuine thirst and and hunger for the Lord.

Okay, pride people thinking I don't need the Lord, so I'm not gonna pray.

And maybe, maybe that's you.

And maybe you try to kind of cover that, you try to put a band-aid on it by tossing out prayers once in a while to kind of ease your conscience or make yourself feel better, but there's no desperation there.

There's no hunger and thirst like we see here in David's example.

Hey, if you're struggling with a certain lack of thirst for the Lord here, the reason is always, always, always because of pride.

Always, that's at the core.

Means that pride is choking out your thirst in some way.

So if you find yourself in that position and you're here this morning and you realize, man, I just don't I don't thirst.

I'm not hungry for the Lord.

I'm not I'm not stretching out my hands to Him.

There's none of that been happening.

I'm not I'm not leading my family very well or whatever it might be.

What do you do?

How do you begin to change this?

So you don't just go through another fall and then another spring and then another summer and the and the months start to turn into years and you're just this little this person who just lacks thirst constantly, and there's never any change.

What do you do?

Well, you gotta find the source of that pride.

And you've got to kill it.

You've got to kill it.

Now I love one of the things there's been uh verses that's been so helpful to me, even just in the last uh several weeks, months, whatever it may be, is uh Psalm 139, 23, and 24.

For some of you, it's just gonna be like a flip back or the or on the page previous, uh, whatever it might be.

I love this.

I've been praying this uh for my own heart and just seeing the Lord do such a work in me, kind of revealing things to me that I was blind to, because understand that that sin blinds you, but beyond just blinding you, it blinds you to your blindness.

That's what sin does.

And then this verse is so great.

And and uh this is what I've been praying.

He says, Search me, oh God, and know my heart.

Search me and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there will be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

What a phenomenal verse.

I would encourage you to pray that verse, memorize that verse, honestly seek that Lord.

Start to stir up in me some areas that maybe I'm not even seeing.

And show me what the root cause of this thirstlessness uh really is.

What's in the way of your thirst?

God wants to show you.

Okay, because know this.

Okay, refusing to humble yourself, which this all this is.

Refusing to humble yourself and and deal with the various areas of pride that that grip your heart and vie for your affections, is to ensure that your lack of thirst for God will remain.

It's not gonna get any better.

If you're the type of person who's like, well, maybe tomorrow it'll work out and the Lord will just kind of punch through and whatever, it doesn't work that way.

You gotta humble yourself.

You gotta humble yourself.

And here's the thing.

I think sometimes for us, if we're honest, and I I know this because I know my my heart, is sometimes we kind of get into this mode where like I'm not really thirsty for the Lord, but I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with that.

I'm I'm comfortable with where I'm at here.

This is okay, and and if I can just kind of manage this position where I'm at, and I'm, you know, I I sort of want the Lord, but I also want other things.

And I'm kind of, I like how this is going.

If you're that person, know this.

It's never gonna stay that way.

It's never gonna stay that way.

Your lack of thirst will just get worse.

It's gonna drift.

It's gonna get again, it's gonna get worse.

And know this, no, know that it's that it's impossible to be proud and also want God.

You you can't have it both ways.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

It's it's one way or the other.

Either you're you're you're proud or you will be thirsty for the Lord.

Okay, only those who have been humbled will thirst for Him.

There is no other way.

Are you gonna allow the Lord to humble you here this morning?

Are you gonna allow the Lord to do what it takes in your heart to bring back that thirst and start to fulfill you and start to satisfy you and start to do a work in your life and in your family?

Are you gonna let him do it?

Here's the second thing.

Second thing, I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God until I've received some of life's beatdowns.

Sounds like fun, right?

Sounds like fun.

Okay, well, hey, listen, the the the thirstiest people uh that I know, that I have seen, you ever seen someone you're like, man, that that person's just clicking.

That person loves God so much, and where does that come from?

And and how did they get to that place?

And I just want to emulate them.

Listen, those are the types of people who have just kind of flat out, been dealt some serious blows.

Right?

They've gone through the fiery trials, they've they've they've been taken to the mat and submitted to the Lord.

They've they've gone through all of that and been able to come out the other end of it with greater humility and greater thirst.

They've had that that arrogance, that that pride we've been talking about, that self-assurance and self-sufficiency wrung out of them by the Lord who who knows how to expertly orchestrate these types of beat downs without killing us.

Okay, that's key.

That's really key.

Do we understand?

Do do we believe?

Do we do we know that the Lord loves us and he knows how to do this in us?

Do we do we trust him to to Just let him have his way.

Yeah, it might be hard.

In fact, it probably will be hard at times.

But the Lord, in his goodness, in his sovereignty, in his love and his grace towards you, will put you to the mat because he's trying to stir up your affections for him and get them kind of away from other things.

Take a look at verse 3 here.

He says, David says, For the enemy has pursued my soul.

He has crushed my life to the ground.

He has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.

Okay, this is this is dark.

Therefore, my spirit faints within me.

My heart within me is appalled.

It sounds like David's just having a great time.

Right?

He's loving his life right now.

Listen again, do you understand that the Lord is doing this in you for a purpose?

You know, some of you might be in that position right now.

You're going through some kind of a trial, you're going through some kind of a difficulty.

And maybe for you, you haven't even clued in that the Lord's the one doing it.

He's doing it in you to get your desires away from all of those things and back to him.

All of it, all of it is his way of getting your attention.

Excuse me.

He uses things like the lost job.

He uses things like the bad news from the doctor.

He uses things like the failed marriage or the failed relationship or the heart-wrenching funeral, the the life-sucking addiction.

Okay, he uses all of it to show us that he is the one thing that our hearts truly want most.

We might be blind to it at the time.

That's why he puts us through these things, so we can take the scales off, so he can open up our blind eyes spiritually speaking and show us that he alone is strength.

He alone is what satisfies our soul, he alone is the thing that can stand under the weight of our thirst and not crumble.

Right?

That's who he is, and that's what he does.

Again, understand that if you're sitting here right now and you're going through something like this, and it is dark, and you can relate to what David's saying here, again, he's using your trials, he's using your difficulties.

For the rest of us who aren't in that place, he's gonna use the the future ones.

Right?

Again, they're gonna come, you're gonna have more of it.

He's using those things to sanctify you, to grow you, to stir up your affections for his son Jesus.

So instead of fighting against him, which always ends up what?

Good or bad?

Bad.

It always ends up way worse when we fight against the Lord.

Instead of fighting against him, give in.

Yield.

Submit to his process, submit to his plan.

Get on board with it.

Because what he's gonna do is he's gonna cause you to love him more.

And that's awesome.

Third thing.

Third thing.

I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God until I'm awestruck by what he's done.

I'm awestruck by what he's done.

Have you ever spent some time just really thinking about all the ways that the Lord has blessed you?

Kind of gone back over the months or the years or however long it has been and seeing how the Lord has grabbed your heart and how he has worked in your family, and maybe it's how he's brought you to this church and how he's been working in you since you've been here and all the amazing things that the God has done.

Maybe you've read scripture and you're like, wow, God's had his hand on God on his people from the very beginning, and how he's worked in the life of Israel and all through the New Testament, and how he got the church started, and he's grown them, and and and he will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against that.

And he's gonna do that here at our church, and he's gonna do that in my life and in the life of my family.

You look back on that, have you been grateful to the Lord for that?

Do you well up with thanksgiving?

Are you awestruck by this?

Verse 5, look at this, look what David does.

And again, he's in a difficult time.

But what does he do?

He says, He says, I remember the days of old.

I remember the days of old, I meditate on all that you have done.

I ponder the work of your hands.

Does that mean he takes 30 seconds and just kind of robotically goes over a list of things that God's done?

No, the word ponder means I'm like, I'm digging into this.

I'm gonna spend some serious time going back over what the Lord has done with me.

He's gonna be thinking about how how remember when I went up against this huge dude named Goliath?

He's gonna think about that and God's faithfulness.

I use this lame piece of leather and and a stone to to to kill that guy.

God's strength did that in me.

It wasn't me.

God used me and he's working in our people, Israel.

He's gonna meditate on those things.

He's gonna, it's gonna it's gonna stir up affection in his heart for that.

He's filled with awe.

Again, this might sound overly simplified, but I'm gonna say it anyways.

You will never be passionate about the Lord unless you think he's great.

Do you think he's great?

Do you do you really strip it away?

Do you really think that does your heart beat in such a way we're like, the Lord's awesome?

He's incredible.

And again, that might seem like a pretty like captain-obvious thing to say today.

But I think sometimes or even often, what we try to do is we try to muster up passion for passion's sake.

I need to get fired up.

I need to get excited about Jesus.

And we kind of we come in it the wrong way.

We we do it uh apart from a deep understanding of who he is and what he's done.

Let me kind of give you an example of this.

Maybe you found that you kind of work this way.

I think sometimes when what happens is we'll we'll come to a church service, or maybe you've attended a church, maybe it's been here, where you've kind of come away afterwards and be like, man, why am I not that fired up?

You know, why am I not passionate in worship?

And why is my desire to just kind of stand there and go through the motions and you know, this guy's going through the Bible and he's losing his voice because he's kind of yelling and stuff, and and I don't even care, right?

And and and why is that?

I think sometimes we can even get to the point where we're like, well, I'm gonna blame the worship.

And the worship wasn't as you know, XYZ, or I'm gonna blame the pastor, right?

Classic move.

Or I'm gonna blame the pastor, and maybe it's because there's some ministry that that didn't meet my needs, and it's because it's the church's fault.

And that that's kind of the mentality we start to get into when the reality is that we've done next to nothing to foster awe in our hearts towards God throughout the week.

You know, we haven't done anything.

You know, we haven't thought about his incredible grace to us.

We've been flippant in our prayers.

We haven't really been in the scriptures, or or maybe it hasn't been in a way that's that's nourishing.

We're kind of just checking off the box.

It's like, you know, you you read your Bible the way that you go to the grocery store and buy avocados.

It's like done, did that.

You don't think about it afterwards.

Right?

And so it's this awe thing is is at bay.

You know, we haven't we haven't come to him in earnest prayer throughout the week.

Again, it's been checking off a box.

We haven't enjoyed true, authentic Christian community.

Again, we're dry and there's there's no thirst in our souls.

And so all we're left when we're in that kind of a position and we show up to church, all we're left to do is kind of conjure, manufacture this weak and flimsy appearance of passion where we're like, wow, the guy beside me's got his hands raised.

I guess I guess I should do that too.

And and and I'm gonna close my eyes, but not just close my eyes, watch, I'm gonna I'm gonna scrunch my eyes, because that shows even more passion.

Right?

And and and and this thing, it's it's so forced.

And it's fake.

None of it brings us any real satisfaction.

Right?

None of it brings any true, real, substantive glory to God.

But hey, listen, when we know, okay, and I mean captivated is a better word there.

When we are captivated by the fact that God is incredible and we are awestruck by the fact that he would save me, I was an idiot.

Right?

Why would he do this?

It's because of his love, it's it's because of his grace.

You start thinking deeply about the gospel and meditate on all that God has done, as David says here in our Psalm.

And you express heartfelt gratitude for your salvation.

Remind yourself that, man, I was dead in my sin.

I was headed towards eternity in hell.

You thank him for forgiveness, and that is that's real, and it's flowing out of you, and you thank him for your growth and how he is sanctifying you.

And you know, as slow as that process might be, or as stalled out as that process may feel, you thank him, God, thank you that you are doing this in me.

When you do that, the awe will grow.

Awestruck Christ followers are thirsty for him.

Are you filled with awe?

Are you praying for this?

Are you, God, stir this up, Lord, do this, work in my heart, please, Lord.

I'm desperate for it.

Maybe not on the surface, maybe it's hard to even pray that right now, and I'm not feeling it, but Lord, I need you to get me there by your grace.

Would you do that?

Fourth thing.

Fourth thing.

I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God until I want Him and not just my problem solved.

I want Him and not just my problem solved.

Verse 6, look at this.

Notice what David says here.

He says, I stretch out my hands to you, my whole, my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O Lord.

My spirit fails, hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit.

Now jump down to verse 9.

He says, Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord.

I have fled to you for refuge.

Here's what I love about all of this.

Okay, you can tell here that David, he just wants God himself.

He just wants the Lord.

Not just God's problem-solving abilities.

You ever get into that place?

You ever get into that place where you're kind of your kind of the attitude of your heart is, Lord, would you would you help me?

You're like, Pastor, I'm trying to pray and stuff, but all your prayers are like, Lord, Lord, fix my life.

Lord, straighten out my kid, Lord, fix this financial disaster, Lord, Lord, do this thing in me or do this thing in my life, and then, and then, Lord, leave me alone.

I think that's what our hearts are sometimes.

We want things from him, but not just him.

Right?

He prays, Lord, Lord, my health, my soul.

What does he say in verse 6?

I stretch out my hands to you.

Right?

He's reaching for the Lord.

That's what we do here when we worship the Lord.

You see people where their hands up here, it's it's a picture of Lord, Lord, I want you.

I'm trying to reach as close to you as possible.

Lord, would you come?

Would you would you intersect yourself into my life?

Lord, would you do this?

My soul thirsts for you, Lord, like a parched land.

What does he say in verse 7?

He says, Hide not your face from me.

The worst thing for David was that the that the Lord would turn his back.

He's like, Lord, I can't afford that.

I need you to be here, to be focused on me, to be giving me yourself.

That's what he wants.

So he says that, most of all, that's what he wants.

And then and then he says things like, Lord, answer me quickly.

Verse 9, deliver me from my enemies.

Okay, this is so crucial for us again, because I think far too often we just want blessings from the Lord.

Lord just bless me, bless me, bless me, blast me.

We're just tapping that button, tapping that bl that button.

Lord, blessing, blessing, blessing, but leave me alone.

Blessing, blessing, right?

Do we feel that?

Do you do that?

I know that I can do that.

I've been convicted of that big time.

Do you just want Him?

Okay, if you notice that this has been you, and you know, your approach to Christian life has become a little bit too horizontal.

You know, I want my life sorted out in a certain way.

I want my life ordered a certain way and all of that, and and and and you know, give me things, make my life better, you know, that's all horizontal instead of vertical, right?

Vertical, Lord, I just want you.

Lord, would you come?

Would you come, would you bless me with your presence, regardless of what happens?

Lord, if that's you and you need to get more vertical in all this, I would say this.

Invite the Lord into the mess that is your life.

I heard someone say that recently.

I read it in a book actually.

Just invite the Lord into your mess.

You don't have it all figured out.

The Lord knows that.

The Lord doesn't expect you to figure it all out.

He's there to help you.

And sometimes he needs to reorder our priorities of our heart and our mind and our lives before he's gonna do some of that stuff.

Invite the Lord into whatever's going on.

Ask him to meet you where you're at, even if it's an ugly place.

God, I can't figure out this addiction.

I can't figure out this problem.

I don't know why I'm so angry all the time.

Whatever the issue might be, Lord, just help me.

Help me.

Ask him to make you thirsty for him more than anything else.

Okay, I want him and not just my problem solved.

That's the fourth thing.

Fifth thing.

Okay, I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God until I trust that he knows what's best for me.

I trust that he knows what's best for me.

This is a hard one.

It's a hard one because all of us can say, Lord, you're the best, Lord, you are wise, you know what's best, but on kind of a heart level, we don't get it.

Right?

We think that we know.

And we want to, you know, we try to jerk the wheel back from the Lord, and it shows a lack of trust.

Take a look at verse 8 here.

He says, uh, let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I, what's the word?

Pardon?

Trust.

Okay, good.

You're following along.

Make me know the way that I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Now skip down to verse 10.

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.

Let your good spirit lead me on level ground.

Okay, again, this might sound kind of simple, one of those overly simple statements.

Okay, but you will never have this passionate, all-consuming thirst for the Lord if you don't trust him.

If you don't trust him, if if you lack thirst, it shows that you lack trust.

You need to trust the Lord.

Do you really truly believe that the Lord knows what's best for your life?

Do you trust him with that issue at work?

You know, maybe your marriage is hitting the skids.

Do you trust him?

Do you trust him?

Maybe you see your kids' hearts drifting away.

Do you trust him?

Do you really believe that he knows what's best for you and for your life?

Do you trust that he will lead you, as it says here, as David says, in the way that you should go?

The way that you should go.

Do you want God's good spirit to lead you on level ground?

It mentions there.

If your thirst is non-existent these days, you have to question you know, do I really trust the Lord?

Do I really trust the Lord?

Do you trust that he's gonna lead you?

Do you trust that he's gonna provide you with the wisdom that you need when you need it to navigate life?

If you've been sitting here this morning and and you wonder where your zeal for the Lord is gone, and you know, maybe it's been uh, you know, a relatively short time that your zeal's been gone, or maybe it's been decades, and you're trying to figure this all out, and maybe the Lord's like pressing on you right now.

You know, you need to you need to get this, you need to get this going, you need to let me in.

And you're like, well, you know, why don't I why don't I thirst for him the way that I used to?

Why does my walk just seem just seem flat and stale, and I can't seem to get anything going?

Okay, well, if that's you, you have to begin to explore.

Right?

You do this, you explore kind of where your your trust in Christ has weakened.

You explore that?

It's kind of like when you come home from you know a vacation.

You've been gone from the house for a while.

I actually did this last night.

We came back from Chicago um yesterday around uh dinner time.

One of the first things I did is I went into the basement.

Why?

Looking for the flood.

Right?

You ever come home before?

And your basement's flooded, and uh you know, what do you do?

Well, you don't just go, that's okay, you walk away.

You don't do that.

No, you you realize that there's there's something that caused this.

Right?

There's there's been some kind of crack in the in the foundation, and maybe it's rained really hard and that started to seep in, and there's there's a flood, or maybe for you it's like your hot water tank or something exploded, and and and now you're like swimming in two feet of water down there.

Right?

There's there's always a reason.

Something got weak in your home, something did and and crumbled, which led to the flood.

Okay, in the same way here in our lives, broken trust leads to problems with thirst.

Broken trust leads to problems with thirst.

So find out, be a detective, look for this, find out what is the thing in my life, in my heart, that I've started to gain control of or try to grab control of in my life.

You know, my passion was going strong, but now that trust has weakened.

What's that area or multiple areas in my life where I have started to take the reins?

And I used to let God do his thing, and I've become comfortable just kind of squeezing that.

For some of you, you're not sure what that is.

Explore that with the Lord.

Others, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Your trust is weakened.

You think you know what's best.

Well, hey, do you actually know what's best in your life?

No, no, we know this.

The Lord knows what's best, He's got infinite wisdom.

So trust him.

Learn to trust him again.

He knows what's best for you always.

And as you begin to resurrender, I believe that the Christian life is just multiple moments all throughout where we're learning to resurrender control to the Lord.

Right?

And these recommitments over and over again.

As you begin to do that, you place your trust in his wisdom and in his love and in his care.

That thirst is gonna start to return.

You realize, wow, he is strong enough to handle this thing that I was trying to handle.

Awesome.

Last thing.

Last thing.

I will never have an all-consuming thirst for God until I realize that I exist for his glory.

I exist for his glory.

Do you have that?

Do you have that locked?

Verse 11.

Look at this, look what he says.

For my name's sake, oh oh wait, what does it say?

For your name's sake, O Lord.

For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life.

I love how he wants the problems in his life figured out, but it's not for David's glory, it's for the Lord's.

This is what he wants.

In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble.

In your steadfast love, you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant, he says.

I am your servant, I'm here to please you.

Okay, do you realize that the entire reason you walk God's green earth is to bring him glory?

That's the reason.

It's not here to create these self-made, man-made mini little kingdoms on earth for you to dominate and enjoy and exercise control over.

That's not it.

If you do that, you're always going to be dissatisfied.

You really are.

The purpose of your life is to bring him glory in all things.

In all things.

It's not our glory.

It's not his glory with a little bit of our glory sprinkled in.

Okay, that's not it either.

It's his glory alone.

It's his glory alone.

Okay, everything, everything from eating and drinking to sleeping and working and playing, all of it's to be done with him as the focus.

Lord, I want to glorify you through all of this.

Would you help me to have the right attitude and right approach in all of these things?

Lord, would I always be thinking of you and taking opportunities to glorify you and praise you through all of this?

Or would you get glory through my life, every bit of it?

Our world and then our flesh, which we're constantly warring against here, thinks that to get the most joy out of life is to turn the focus inwards.

You notice this?

We need to focus inwards, and I need to do what makes me happy, and the Bible and the Lord, he's telling us the opposite of all this.

Hey, true joy, true satisfaction, true peace.

Okay, comes when our life's goal, our life's mission is to bring God glory.

That's what we want for our lives.

That's what we want for our church.

It's not about me as the pastor, it's not about Pastor Paul, it's not about the elders, it's about God's glory.

That's what we want each and every time we show up here.

Lord, would you show up in power?

Your manifest presence is what we want to encounter here.

Lord, help us to experience that and do that throughout the week as well.

Change us, God.

It is about your glory.

Okay, if you would notice here today as you're thinking about this and you sense the Holy Spirit again, just like pressing on you, just convicting you that your life aim has become about something less than Him.

It's about, you know, making money, it's about finding a spouse, whatever it might be, some other ex some other thing.

Right?

If you found that that's what it is, the response is always repentance.

It is always repentance.

It was it's always repentance, it means coming to the Lord and and leaving it behind.

Lord, I don't want to go after that stuff anymore.

I want to confess this to you.

It's sin.

It's got pride at its roots.

Lord, would you forgive me?

Lord, thank you for my salvation in Jesus Christ.

Lord, can we move forward?

Can we turn a new page here?

It's repentance.

Would you do that today?

Would you take some time, even as I'm talking here, to do that?

Just like you and the Lord.

I want to get this stuff sorted out.

I want to talk to somebody and get some help.

I want to lean into my small group more.

I want to get plugged into the life of this church.

I want to do all of this.

Because I want God to get glory through my life.

Maybe you're here today and you're new and you're trying to figure out this whole Christianity and someone's brought you and you don't really know what's up from what's down.

But maybe you sense here today that the Lord is pressing in on you, and you're like, man, my life is all about me.

And I want all these things, and I've spent my life's pursuit after these things, and you're seeing it's empty.

It doesn't hold water.

It's leaky.

And I'm left with kind of this dead feeling inside and this emptiness.

Would you understand that the Lord wants to fill that space?

He wants to be Lord of your life.

He wants to start to give you true hope and true meaning.

He wants to take your heart and do amazing things with it.

Would you understand this?

It starts with trusting Jesus as your Savior.

You're like, well, what's that all about?

It's about Him being your God.

Well, how do I do that?

Well, it's understanding a little bit about what we've been talking about here this morning.

It's understanding that you are broken because of your sin.

Do you realize that?

Your sin means that you are broken.

And the Bible tells us, and we talk about this every week when we come to church here, we talk about how our sin has separated us from God, which means that we are our relationship with God, once intended to be perfect and life-giving and amazing.

Think Adam and Eve in the garden before sin ever happened.

That was destroyed because of sin.

It was destroyed.

And now all of mankind is looking for fulfillment and looking for meaning in all kinds of things where God is saying, I am the one who is here to fulfill you.

But you have sinned against me, and we need to deal with that.

Would you confess that you have sin in your life?

Would you confess that and understand that Jesus went to the cross to pay the price for your sins?

Right?

You've heard of that before.

You've heard of the cross, you've heard of the gospel.

Know that that was for you, man.

That was for you.

It's because Jesus loves you.

Because he loves you and he wants to invite you into a relationship with him, but sins in the way, you've got to deal with that.

And understand this Christ went to the cross so that your sins can be wiped out and forgiven forever.

You don't have to pay for that anymore.

You don't have to pay for it.

It's a gift that you can receive.

If you would just say, Lord, I admit that I'm a sinner, would you be Lord of my life?

That's how you become what we call a Christian.

And then look out because the Lord's gonna do incredible things in your life.

He really is.

He's gonna change you, he's gonna give you new desires that we've been talking about here.

He's gonna show you the immeasurable worth of knowing him.

And it's gonna be awesome.

If you have any questions about this and what it means to know God personally, please come talk to me after the service.

I love talking to people who have questions.

Please do that.

I want to just remind you, I want to remind us here.

All of this, what we're talking about here.

All of this.

Thirsting after the Lord, glorifying him, all of it is worth it.

It's worth it.

You know, you might be in this place where you're like, I don't know if it's worth it letting go of this thing.

It is.

The Lord's gonna show you that he's way greater, he's gonna change your heart.

Give in to him, let him do it.

Let him do it.

It's gonna be awesome.

And I I just love to think about this.

And as I've been in Chicago over the last week and just thinking about the life of our church and where we're at and you know, where we hope to go, I've just been thinking, imagine, imagine a church where we get it.

You know, where each one of us here are just like, I am here to bring glory to Jesus, and I'm come, I'm coming here every weekend to, you know, ready to worship his name.

And I I can't wait to hear a word from the Lord here today.

And I want to I want to pour my life's work into the people here.

And I and I want to I want to share the gospel with others.

I want to see my life and the lives of others transformed.

Can you imagine that what this church would look like?

Make no mistake, that's what we're going for.

It's what we're going for here.

We're not here to just sit here.

Right?

I'm not just talking because I like the sound of my voice.

We're here because we there's something special we're going for here.

It's something special that the Lord has called us to.

Would you get on board?

Submit to the Lord whatever it is, whatever he's asking you to do.

Whatever it might be, humble yourself.

I want to go back to that first thing.

Humble yourself.

That's that's what it is.

Would you humble yourself here today?

Don't leave here with issues undealt with.

We do that.

The Lord is gonna blow our minds.

The vision that I have, that maybe some of you have for this church, that's that's small compared with what the Lord's vision is for this.

Let's pray.

God, we do thank you for being a God who is so gracious to us that when we lack thirst, you desire to fill us with thirst.

Lord, what an awesome thing.

Lord, we know that we deserve to just kind of spin out, fizzle out, flame out, and be nothing.

But because of your grace alone, you desire to prod us along, to continue to pull us in the right direction.

Lord, to fill us with a desire for you and then satisfy that desire, Lord.

I pray that you would give us a vision for that here today, Lord, in our own lives, each individually, and then as a church.

God, I pray that we would hunger and thirst for righteousness for your name's sake, God, for your glory always.

I pray that you would do this.

Lord, would you?

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ, where you went to the cross for broken people like me, broken people like each one of us sitting here this morning.

God, thank you that you didn't just end there and you desire to change us and heal us and make us new.

Lord, continue to do it.

Would you do it, Lord?

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.