My Soul Thirsteth for Thee

Thy right hand upholdeth me. But those that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword. They shall be a portion for foxes. But the king shall rejoice in God. Everyone that sweareth by him shall glory. But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. Would you pray with me tonight? Our Lord, we come to you now in the name of the Lord Jesus.

We ask for your guidance and help as we meditate upon this psalm, the truths in it. Lord, help us and encourage us, lift us up, edify us. Lord, you know our needs, and Lord, you know, Lord, the satisfaction that we need. Lord, every day of our life, every moment, even when we’re asleep, Lord, we need you. And so Lord, help us to recognize how much we need you.

And to find our satisfaction in you. And so Lord, bless our time now in your word, in Jesus’ name, amen. Now you’ll notice in verse number one, the Bible says, oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. Now, you know, the idea of seeking God is something that we say a lot. It’s something we talk about a lot. But I wanna ask you the question, what does it mean to seek God?

Obviously seek means to look for something. So what is it, but how do you look for God? How do you seek God? Again, it’s something we talk about a lot. And, but it’s something that’s kind of a little bit more difficult to define. So if it’s hard to define, how do we know, if it’s hard to define, how do we know if we’re actually doing it or not?

And sometimes I think what we do is we take this idea of seeking God and we substitute a ritual maybe, or a practice or a habit in place of actually seeking God. I think you’ll understand what I mean in just a minute. But from a scriptural perspective, I just did a quick search for seeking the Lord, the word seek and Lord in the same verse. And just there’s something, close to 90 instances of scripture where those two words occur together.

And just doing a quick survey of them, here’s kind of what I found just as a small Bible study, maybe it’s a study you could look up later when you have an opportunity. To seek God means to ask him for his direction. In scripture you find sometimes where the Bible describes or God rebukes Israel because they sought wizards or they sought enchantments or they sought false gods.

And a lot of that, what that has to do is they were looking for guidance. They were looking for somebody to tell them what to do. And of course, one way to seek God is that we go to God and ask for his direction. That’s one biblical way we seek God. Of course, the primary way we do that is not just in prayer. Now be careful when you’re seeking for direction.

Is it not true that often when we seek direction from God, here’s what we do. We go to God in prayer and that’s right and that’s good. We go to God in prayer and then we wait for some overwhelming feeling to kind of overwhelm us so that we have this peace that guides us into the way that we should walk. And really if you wanna just be straight with it and be direct, it’s based upon what is really a misunderstanding of the verse that says let the peace of God rule in your hearts.

A lot of people have taken that and they’re waiting for that feeling of peace. But I just wanna tell you, that can be a little bit deceptive, you know, of course you don’t wanna do anything if the spirit of God is grieved and that’s certainly a biblical truth. But really the peace of God ruling in your heart has more to do, actually is targeting our relationship to each other, living in peace, more than our own personal feeling of tranquility in a decision.

So one way we seek God is we ask him for his direction. So we acknowledge him in our paths. When we have a decision or a question, or even if we don’t, we go to God and we say, Lord, Lord, I want you to direct me. And then we trust God to direct us. But the primary way we find his direction is by the truths and principles of his word.

That’s why I say, praying for direction and stepping back and waiting on a feeling is not really a biblical way to deal with direction. If you want direction, you gotta know what God says in his word and then in faith act upon that principle. Now, how you apply that can be a little bit difficult sometimes, knowing exactly what verses apply in certain times, but really it’s about the word of God, which should be the primary way we apply the scripture.

I know in my life there have been several major decisions, major decisions. The most recent one I can think of that comes to mind very quickly was when our family resigned from being missionaries to Cambodia. And as you can imagine, that was among the most important decisions of my life. That’s a major decision, not just in a spiritual sense, but also in a very practical sense, because of course we were supported as missionaries, so it affected our income and it affected our livelihood, it affected our ministry and all our family, it affected our children.

If that decision had not been made, then I wonder if Josh would be married to Martha and if there’d be a baby on the way, or Martha’s pouting lip right now because she’s just thinking about the potential of never meeting Joshua. Same thing with Sam and Anna, and probably the same thing is true with Abby and Louie, who are now enjoying their time in Paris. And so you think about all the fallout from a decision, right?

And I remember when I was making that decision, there were a number of things that were going into that decision, different aspects to look at, and what was the ultimate kind of factor. The one factor is the Lord led me, the Lord led me to a verse of scripture. It wasn’t like, be very wary of this, okay? Be very wary. And she coming in that instant gave things like that.

Be wary, that’s not the right way to use the Bible. It’s not the right way to use the Bible. That’s sensational and superstitious. The right way to use the Bible is to learn the scripture, seek counsel from people that can give you advice, and then you apply that to your situation. Well, I remember in this particular decision, I remember the Lord led me to a verse of scripture, and I remember the Lord led me to just a couple of very clear scriptural principles, and I didn’t really have any kind of special feeling, right, you know, the one where you, you know, I feel warm and fuzzy, like I feel like this is the right, no, I didn’t have that, but I did have a truth.

And so it was on me then, knowing that truth, to in faith act upon that truth and step, right, where I wasn’t exactly sure there would be solid ground. And I know now in retrospect, I know I made the right decision, but at the time it seemed a little bit ambiguous and difficult and a little bit scary, but I had firm scriptural ground truth, and it wasn’t a verse that says, Adam, this is what, you know, it wasn’t like that at all, but it was the scripture truth, the scriptural principle applied in this situation, and it guided me.

And that’s the way the Lord wants to guide us. So when we seek the Lord, we seek his direction, and the primary way we get that is from his word. And then we also, to seek God also means to ask him for his help. The Bible says, seek his strength. That means you’re weak, that means you need help. To seek God also means to ask him for his protection.

You think of the model prayer in Matthew chapter seven, where the Bible says, and lead us not into temptation. That’s a way you seek God. To seek God also in scripture means to pursue God’s approval. To pursue God’s approval. The scripture describes it like this, seek his face continually. The idea of God’s face is that God is looking at you because he is pleased with you, right?

And when he’s not looking at you, he is displeased. That’s the picture there. And so to seek God’s face is to seek that smile of the Lord because you’re trying to do what he wants you to do. And you know, that’s a good guide, right? Is it not? A good way to seek God. God, I want to please you. To seek God in scripture is also to prepare to do his will.

There’s a scripture that says, seek righteousness, seek meekness. The Bible says that Ezra prepared his heart, he prepared his heart to seek the word of God and to do it. To seek the law of the Lord and to do it. So, you know, one way we see God is by preparing ourselves to do what he says. You know, one of the best things that we can do as believers is to prepare ourselves to obey.

And not let our Christian life be haphazard. A Christian life where we’re constantly stumbling and kind of reeling from one thing to another, never really preparing ourselves, never really preparing ourselves to obey, never really planning to do what the Lord wants us to do. You understand what I’m saying? What I mean by that is making an intentional effort and a plan to do the thing that you know God wants you to do.

Whatever that is, big or small, you have to plan to obey. That’s what it means to prepare your heart. You plan to obey. And then of course, to seek God in scripture means to put away that which God disapproves of. Of course, you know this in Isaiah 55, “’Let the wicked forsake his way “’and the unrighteous man his thoughts.’” That comes right after where the Bible says, “’Seek the Lord while he may be found.’” And it goes on to say, “’Let the wicked forsake his way.’” So it’s one way we seek the Lord.

Now, many of the things I’ve just mentioned where David says in the Psalm, “’Early will I seek thee.’” Many of the things I just mentioned include prayer, but seeking the Lord is not just prayer. And I think this is what I was talking about a minute ago where sometimes we get a little bit off, just we miss the mark a little, because seeking God is something broader and bigger than just simply reading your Bible and praying, or doing your devotions.

That’s part of it. And just like this prayer is involved in these things, obviously, but it is more than just doing your devotions. To seek God, in other words, if we reduce seeking God to just doing your devotions, reading your Bible and praying, and that’s the bottom line, we’ve reduced it down into such simplicity that we’ve missed the whole purpose. Seeking God is not just doing the check boxes.

It is when the heart is inclined to God in all of these various ways. You think, pastor, I can’t remember all these things. I’m supposed to, no, no, no, it’s not that. When a heart is seeking God, these are kind of the things that happen, right? These are how you know you’re seeking God. Now, you and I both know that it is absolutely possible to read our Bible and pray and not be seeking God.

I mean, right? As a matter of experience, it is absolutely possible to happen. So that’s the distinction I’m trying to get you to see. David said, early will I seek thee. Early will I seek thee. Now, notice he said early. I skipped that and covered the seek part, but notice what it says, early. Now, you can look at this idea of early in a number of different ways.

And again, although this is valid and good, sometimes when you talk about seeking God early, obviously the most frequent way that’s applied is by saying, you need to get up, you need to read your Bible, you need to pray in the morning, right? Seek God early. And is that good, is that right? Absolutely, absolutely. And there’s something to be said about doing it in the morning, not just for your mind and all of those things, but also because in the morning, it expresses the idea of priority, right?

Because you’re doing it first. And I know some of you are probably thinking, there’s probably a few of you thinking, I am not a morning person. My brain doesn’t even turn on until 10.30.

That is if I get up at my normal time. So here’s the purpose, what I wanted to show you about early. You can look at early in the way we seek God. Early can mean early in the day, but early can also mean early in priority, right? In other words, you do it first, right? You do it, in other words, you set all the things in your life.

And this is not just your, and again, this is where you should not reduce down the idea of seeking God in verse one to just reading your Bible and praying. That’s not all we’re talking about. That applies, but that’s not the entirety of it. To seek God early can mean the order. Do you prioritize seeking the Lord in the order of how you respond to things? Is it first?

So seeking God early can refer not only to the time of day, but also to priority. And let me go back a little bit, and let me backtrack and say this. Seeking God in the real sense, in prayer, in the word, seeking his face, seeking his will, all the things that we might do in our devotions, there is something to be said about doing it first, because here’s what happens naturally.

If you don’t do that early, all the tasks and duties of the day will chase you through the whole day, and you’ll get to the end of the day, and you’ve not sought God at all. And then you find yourself tired and weary in body and mind, and now you find yourself, you find it difficult to seek God. So it’s not just like, oh, well, early has nothing to do with time.

No, it has something to do with time of day. There is something to be said about that. But early can also refer to speed. If you do something early, that means you do it quickly. You do it soon. You know, whenever you’re faced with a dilemma or trouble or a decision, the Lord ought to be the first person you go to as a priority, but also in speed.

Also in speed. I will seek God early. Early will I seek thee. But also we could also say that seeking God early can mean early in life. Is as Ecclesiastes tells us that. Don’t wait till you’re older. Seek God now. That is Ecclesiastes chapter 12. I’m talking to you young people. I’m talking to you teenagers. Listen to me. Seek the Lord early. Seek the Lord early. Not just pray and read your Bible, although do that.

Definitely do that. But with your heart, seek God. Cry out to him. Have a relationship with God. Do it now. Because just like I said a minute ago, your day will get away from you. Your life will get away from you. Those of you that have some age on you, can you give me an amen on that? Absolutely. Your life will get away from you just like your day gets away from you.

Actually, your life is gonna get away from you whether you seek God or not. It presses the accelerator. The older you get, the harder it presses. That’s why you have to seek the Lord early, soon. Develop a relationship with God now.

And then it says in verse number one, we’re still in verse one, he says, my soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. Now, I don’t know if you remember this, but quite a few weeks ago when we were in Psalm 42, it also mentioned thirst. And here’s just, I just wanna do a quick review of the things we saw there.

We saw that thirsting, when the soul thirsts after God, that is a strong evidence of the work of the grace of God in somebody’s life. And the reason for that is that we don’t naturally thirst after God. We’re averse to God, right?

And then we talked about how that thirsting after God is thirsting after God himself, not thirsting after the things of God. And you say, well, what’s the same, right? No, no, it’s not the same. Thirsting after God himself is something between you and God, God the person, right? His person. Whereas a lot of times people, they have a desire and a longing for things that are adjacent to God.

But God himself, eh, not so much. And this includes also people who are religious but lost. Thirsting, Christians, another thing we looked at in Psalm 42 is that Christians can often not have a thirst for God. Let me ask you to be honest, you don’t have to raise your hand, but let me ask you to be honest with yourself. Are there times that you don’t thirst after God?

That’s a hard question. That’s a hard question. Is that a time now where you don’t really have a great desire for the Lord at all? You’re still kind of going through the motions, you’re trying, because you’re trying to do what’s right. And that’s right, you should, you should do that. Because you know what’s right. But how’s the thirst? Is there an inward desire for the Lord?

And then we saw how the evidence for thirst for God is a desire for the things of God. And we also saw, which we’ll see in a minute, is that God himself is the satisfaction for our thirst. So we already have seen what it means to thirst after God, but when you read verse number one, it says this, my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land.

You might, you and I might ask the question, we can see that David thirsts after God, but why is it that I don’t? Right? David did, he said, I thirst after you, Lord. Why is it that our thirst seems to be lacking? We don’t have it. And you know, listen, just to be, to shoot straight, the evidence of our thirst for God is in what we do.

Is it not? Is it not? If we thirst for God, then we seek God. And the fact that we have such a hard time doing that shows our thirst is not there. So when a person is thirsty after the Lord, it affects what they do. If I’m thirsty, if you’re parched, if your mouth is dry, what do you do? You’re gonna be drinking water, right? It’s evident.

So the question I want to, this is a kind of a different question from what we looked at in Psalm 42. The question is this, what do I do if I don’t thirst for God? Why don’t I thirst for God? What happened to it? Because all of us in this room, wherever you’re at right now, can you be honest and say, there is absolutely a time in my life when I had a true hunger and thirst for God in my life.

Can anybody bear witness to that and say, yes, that has happened with me. All right, here’s the question we all must, and I’m including myself, must ask ourselves, why is it not now?

Why is it not now? Maybe it is. What things stop us from having a thirst for God? And here’s, I want to submit one cause. Now there’s probably others, but I want to submit one cause. One thing that will absolutely destroy your thirst for God is sin. Unchallenged, coddled sin in your life and my life.

It will destroy your thirst for God. I thought about an example because of course, I have a family member who’s been in this and I’ve seen this family member, I’ll keep it generic, I’ve seen this family member who’s strong, tall, muscular as a result of this thing become thin, sunken, gaunt, pale.

And I compare it, I know this is kind of a crass comparison, but I compare sin to thirst to meth. Now what do you mean meth? Did you know people that are addicted to meth are often very skinny and malnourished?

For the GM, you deal with people that, on the street especially, that are like that. You look at somebody who’s on meth and you can tell it because their cheeks are sunken in, their eyes are dark, their skin is drawn in, and even though they might have been at one time healthy and beautiful, that’s all gone. And you know what happened? Meth. Now listen to this, I just did a little bit of research, of course, to get some background.

Meth addicts are often skinny and malnourished and often they’re dehydrated. That’s why their skin is sunken in and their eyes are dark. It’s not just they haven’t eaten, although that’s true, it’s they haven’t drank either. And the reason that’s the case is because they spend all their money on the drugs and they have none left over for physical necessities. And meth also destroys natural appetite. So they’re literally starving.

And they’re literally dehydrated. They’re destroying their body because all they’re pursuing is this drug. And it’s destroying them and they don’t even know it. They’re not hungry. They’re not thirsty. The only thing on their mind is this sin. I know this is kind of a crass comparison, but it is apt. In what way is sin not as bad as meth?

No, sin is worse. Of course, meth is sin itself, but it is an apt illustration. It’s one we kind of see and can run into. Sin and the life of a believer is in no way better than this because what it does is it destroys the believer’s natural thirst for God. I don’t mean natural in the fleshly sense, but I mean natural as in the thirst that God has put in us for himself by his spirit.

When we quench the spirit, we allow sin in our lives and we yield to it. And it rules us because whosoever committed sin is a servant of sin, right? We become its servant and it rules us. It absolutely destroys our thirst for God. And then when that’s destroyed, what happens? Just like the person who’s addicted to meth, we get spiritually gaunt and spiritually emaciated and spiritually skinny and thin.

And we have no, we are in the pursuit of sin. We don’t even know what we’re doing to ourselves spiritually. We’re destroying ourselves because we’re high on sin. And one thing we don’t have is we do not have the thirst for God and the hunger for God.

This is, I’m just telling you, I know in my life this is one thing. This is one cause. And so the solution, you know what the solution is? It’s confess and repent. And I promise you, God’s already, listen, every believer, every person that has the spirit of God in them, every single person that has the spirit of God in him, knows the sin he or she is involved in.

It’s not like a secret. We all know. We all know. We do it immediately, the Lord’s honest about it, reminding us of it. So it’s not like, well, I don’t really know it. No, if our thirst is gone, we need to start searching our heart, to be honest. Say, Lord, help me get this thing right. Because I promise you, whenever we confess and forsake it and we get right with the Lord, what we will find is that thirst will return.

That healthy longing for God that God put there, that has been suppressed, will return. It’ll come back. Sometimes even the Lord brings things into our life to make us thirsty, right? To make us feel a need when we didn’t otherwise.

This world though does not have this thirst that I’m referring to because God put it in us. Look, if you would, at verse number one, he says, Early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. He’s describing where he lives, right? In this case, he’s in the wilderness of Judah. So he’s looking at the desert and he sees it and he thinks, man, what a good illustration.

And he writes a song about it. And the illustration is this, he’s looking at the parched ground and the sand and the rocks and it has no water and he sees it and he says, that reminds me of me.

And this is, listen, the dry and thirsty land is an apt description of this world. And because it’s where David is right now, he’s in the wilderness and that’s the world in which we live. This world is a dry and thirsty land. There’s no water in it. There’s no water in it. And we’re surrounded by this dry and thirsty land just like David was. And in this world around us, there’s nothing but dry dust.

It is dry, it is parched and there is nothing, nothing, nothing in this world. Let me speak to the younger people again. There is nothing at all in this world that will satisfy the thirst of a child of God.

There’s no pleasure, there’s no money. There’s nothing that will satisfy it except God himself. But yet what are Christians doing? Are we not constantly seeking some satisfaction from it? We’re trying to seek satisfaction for our thirsty soul in some way outside of God, but we try in vain. And I wanna tell you something. This is one of the reasons why so many, I believe this is one of the reasons so many Christians live a defeated, unhappy, joyless and frustrated Christian life is because they are thirsty.

You ever had a dream? You ever had a dream where you were thirsty? Like maybe you went to bed thirsty and you had a dream and you were thirsty and you were looking for water? Have y’all ever had, I mean, everybody’s had the toilet dream, okay? But the dream, has anybody ever had a dream where you were looking for water and could never find it? And so you were thirsty and you would drink it and never sat it, you would drink and it wouldn’t feel any better and you would drink?

I’ve had dreams like that. Maybe, okay, I’m the only one. That’s fine. But see, that’s frustrating. And that’s the way a Christian is in this world. It’s dry and parts, you’re not gonna find it. I’m not gonna find it. There is no satisfaction.

But when we seek to fill that thirst and to satisfy it with something, anything other than God, even church, church is not God. God himself. Church is important, of course. It’s the church of the living God. But again, this is, it can’t be anything but God, not something right beside God, but God himself.

But if we try to satisfy that thirst with something other than God, what we find is we’re frustrated because it never feels satisfied. And sometimes it’s because the person doesn’t know that God is the water that they desire. And sometimes it’s because they refuse to seek God to quench their thirst. And so they continue in their Christian life discontent and unfulfilled, even though God as a spring of living water is there ready to completely and fully satisfy every one of his children and to quench that thirst at all times.

Satisfaction is always available in the Lord. Notice what he says in verse two. He says, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is to see thy power and thy glory. So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. And you know, I thought about this, maybe it’s just my own way of thinking, but what he’s asking God is he’s saying, Lord, I have seen your power and your glory in the sanctuary, but I want to see it outside of the sanctuary.

I’ve seen you do, I thought about, you know, I thought obviously I thought about the church and I think about the people of God. And you think about other people and you’ve seen and you’ve heard of testimonies and you’ve seen, you’ve seen the power of God in people’s lives and the glory of God in people’s lives. And you’ve seen God work in people’s lives and work in your life even.

But Lord, let us see your power, not just in here, but also where I live, in my family, in my life, in my school, in my job. Let me see your power in my everyday life, in my regular life, not just once a week, twice a week when we’re at church. That’s what he wants. God, show me your power and your glory, like I’ve seen it in the sanctuary, but outside of the sanctuary.

Listen, the Christian life can never just be church life. The Christian life needs God’s power and glory every day, everywhere, and at all times. Right? Not just on Sunday. Every day, everywhere, and at all times.

The last thing I want to show you is the power of God in people’s lives. The last thing I want to show you, and we’ll be finished, is this, verse eight. Because in all of this talk about seeking God and thirsting for God, he comes kind of back around to it in verse number eight, and he says this, my soul followeth hard after thee. Following hard, used in scripture several places, First Samuel, Second Samuel, but it’s used in the context of a pursuit.

And the idea of following hard on someone means you’re right on their heels. You’re close behind. And he says, my soul followeth hard after thee. So he’s following the Lord, which is good, but he’s not just following the Lord in a sort of static, distant kind of way. Because following the Lord is not a kind of one and done type thing. Just like seeking the Lord is not a one and done kind of thing.

Following the Lord hard means that you’re seeking the Lord continually. You’re staying close. That’s what it means. You know, Galatians 5, 7 says this in the idea of a race or a chase. He said, Paul said, ye did run well. Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? The idea is at one point we were following close behind the Lord. What happened?

The race started well, but over time we started to wane and slow. And now we’re no longer following hard after God. We’re following God, right, in a loose sense, but we’re no longer pursuing Him with ardor. We’re no longer close to Him, if you compared it to an actual race, actual pursuit. We’re still following Him, but we’re following Him at a distance. Listen to Luke 22, 54.

Then they took Him, Jesus, and led Him, and brought Him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed, what does it say? A far off. You’ve heard that verse before, haven’t you? Now Peter’s following Jesus, but at this point in Peter’s life, is he following hard? No, he’s backed off. He’s backed off.

And so let me, I just wanna encourage you to get back to that place where we’re seeking the Lord our whole heart. We’re thirsty for Him, and we’re following hard after Him. We’re close behind Him, and we haven’t allowed, and not allowed that distance where we wear out, and we get weary, and all of a sudden the Lord is way ahead, and we’re not close to Him anymore.

We’re following, but we’re kind of weakened. Let me encourage you to get back up close to the Lord, to seek Him afresh and anew, and to see if there’s anything that has zapped and suppressed that natural thirst for God that the Holy Spirit has put in you, and make war with that thing, so that that thirst will come back, so that that desire for God will come back, so that you can seek Him and follow hard after Him.

Again, let’s pray.