Psalm 63:1-11 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 9 They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth. 10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. 11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
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Introduction
Over the past few years, and especially the past 12 months, my walk with the Lord has been revolutionized. All my life, for example, prayer has been very hard for me – the hardest part of the Christian walk. My hour of prayer in the morning is the most enjoyable time of my day (and it often bleeds into two hours). I have joy in my life every day that is beyond any joy I have experienced in the past. There are besetting sins that I have struggled with all my life – that I thought I would never be able to gain victory over; and I am now enjoying a measure of victory in those areas beyond anything I thought possible in this life. Beyond that, my worship has deepened. Throughout most of my life, the really profound moments of worship, in which I had a powerful sense of the literal presence of God as I worshipped, happened to me once every few years. Now that happens most every day – a deep, fulfilling sensation of the literal presence of God.
And looking back over this year of transformation, I realized that most of the truths the Lord used to do all this came right out of Ps.63. That is why we’re studying this psalm.
Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
If we had a choice at this moment between sitting on the most beautiful beach in the world sipping our favorite drink, or experiencing Your favorable presence, we would choose Your presence. If we could choose between being on our favorite sky slope or doing our favorite pastime, if we could not simultaneously experience Your favorable presence, we would much prefer to be in the worst dungeon on earth – if Your presence were there. Our one desire is to be close to You.
You said that those who experience Your presence are blessed, because they will rejoice in Your name all day long. Our great desire is to have Your presence shine upon us and for You to turn Your face toward us. Only one thing we ask of You dear Lord – one thing we seek; to dwell in Your presence all the days of our lives, and to seek You in Your dwelling place. And so of all the things we could ask for tonight, Father we ask that You would be present in this room.
We know that You are everywhere present, but You are not everywhere present to bless. You do not reveal Your favorable presence in every place. You do not turn Your face toward every place, nor make Your face shine upon every place. Our urgent plea is that You would do all that for us tonight. That You would be with us and make Your face shine upon us and let us experience the peace and joy and satisfaction and encouragement and strengthening that comes from being in Your presence.
Father, I could so easily botch this opportunity to teach Your Word. I could leave out something important, or get out of balance on some point, or misinterpret Your Word, or misrepresent You through unclear communication; and those listening could misunderstand, or become distracted and miss a crucial point, or have hearts that are not receptive to certain truths; Father, this hour is fraught with dangers – serious dangers. We need so much special grace at this time.
Please, dear Father, give us grace. Teach us. Incline our hearts to warmly and joyfully embrace Your truth. Give us discernment. Cause any error I speak to be rejected. Guide us. Speak to us through Your Word by Your Spirit. Feed us. Come to us. Smile upon us, for that is our very life. Give us to drink from Your river of delights. Draw up living water from Your eternal spring and satisfy our souls in You.
We can ask such bold things only because we are in Your Son, the glorious Lord Jesus Christ who bore our sins and who is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Amen.
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Psalm 63 is full of joy, even though David is in the midst of terrible circumstances. Notice all the joyful language:
3 my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
7 I sing in the shadow of your wings.
11 the king will rejoice in God
We tend not to take words like that very seriously – maybe because we do not really believe them. We almost dismiss them as some kind of poetic license, because it is hard to imagine that someone could really be that happy. I used to read passages like this and think, It would be nice to feel that joyful, but feelings of happiness should not be a major goal in life. It is much more important that I obey and serve God. And if He grants me feelings of happiness, that is a bonus. If you asked me if it is a good thing to rejoice in the Lord I would have said, “Of course!” But it never really hit me as anything that was especially foundational to my walk with the Lord.
I was wrong – horribly wrong. I failed to see the importance of joy in the Lord because I failed to understand the connection between joy in the Lord and loving Him.
Before Psalm 63 can be understood it is imperative that we understand the critical importance of joy in the Lord, and the role joy plays in love. For that reason, before I begin with verse one of the psalm, it is important to have an opening chapter to demonstrate that rejoicing in the Lord could not be more foundational and central to the Christian life, because joy is at the core of loving God. Only when that is understood and embraced will have the proper eagerness to learn what it means to rejoice in God and how to do it. And that is exactly what this psalm is about. Ps.63 is a spring of the most wonderfully refreshing and life-giving water you can imagine. But before drinking we need to get ourselves as thirsty as possible, so we will drink in huge gulps of it, because that is how God designed it to be taken in.
Love is Central
Mark 12:28-34 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." 32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
Not everything Jesus said was crystal clear, but this is. The most important thing for us to do is to love God with all our hearts.
Jn.8:42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me
1 Jn.5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God
1 Cor.16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord-- a curse be on him
After the horrible, sickening, devastating public failure of Peter when he repeatedly and vehemently denied Christ, when it came time to restore Peter, Jesus only had one question for Peter. He did not ask him about his devotional life, or his obedience, or his service, or his reading or prayer life or the nature of his repentance. He just asked one thing. And He asked that same question three times in a row: “Peter, do you love me?”
Jesus only asked one question because there is only one thing that matters. And I mean that in the most literal, precise sense – there is only one thing that matters with regard to how we are to live, and that is to love God. Richard Rolle was right when he said (700 years ago) “All love which is not God-directed is in fact wickedness.”
Jesus commanded that we love Him with every part of our being. So anything you or I do that is not part of loving Him is sin, because in that area we are disobeying that command. So in this life only one thing matters.
Ps 27:4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: 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 seek him in his temple.
He did not say “The most important thing I ask for is to dwell with, gaze upon and seek You,” he said that is the only thing I ask for.
Ps 73:26 earth has nothing I desire besides you.
The psalmist did not say, “I desire You more than I desire food or friends or family.” He said “Earth has nothing I desire besides You.”
Please do not just write that off as poetic hyperbole. If you try to do that in those psalms you will find that they end up meaning nothing. It will tear the heart out of what they are saying. Those psalmists, when they say that only one thing matters, were not saying anything different from what Jesus Himself said. In fact Jesus used that exact phrase: “Only one thing is necessary.” When Martha was worried about a whole bunch of different things and Mary was focused completely on fellowship with Jesus (enjoying His company and listening to Him), here is what Jesus said:
Luke 10:41-42 "Martha, Martha," … "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better
Fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that matters in life.
So how does that square with the obvious fact that there are other good desires? The psalmist who said he only desired God and nothing at all on earth, goes on in that same psalm to speak of numerous other things he desired. So how do we fit those things together? How can you desire and enjoy God’s gifts in such a way as not to violate the principle of desiring only Him? And how can You love your wife and friends and church and food and sleep and the hundred other things for which you have affection (many of which Scripture commands you to love); and yet love only God?
Those questions will be answered in detail in later chapters. The short answer is if Scripture calls us to only have one desire, and if Scripture says that the only thing that matters is loving God, then if we are going to desire and love something else that desire and love had better be an expression of our desire and love for God. If I am going to love my wife, that better be an act of fellowship with Christ. If I am going to eat a banana, that had better be an act of fellowship with Christ. If I am going to desire a new pair of shoes, that had better be a part of my desire for God. If not, I am violating what Jesus said, and I am guilty of having more than one desire and more than one love.
It is hard to overstate the importance of loving God in the Christian life. If you want to have success in gaining victory over a certain sin, that will come through loving God. If you are failing in some area of the Christian life, that failure is due to some deficiency in the way you love God. If you want spiritual power; that will come through loving God. If you want patience, joy, encouragement, zeal, contentment, happiness, endurance, or any other virtue; they will come as byproducts of loving God or they will be phony. Do you need to read your Bible more? You will read your Bible more when you love your Bible more, and you will love it more when you love God more. You will pray more when you love God more. Your worship will be more pleasing to God only when it springs from a deeper love for Him.
What is Love?
So love for God is central and foundational. But now the harder question – What is love? What does it mean, exactly, to love God?
Conventional Wisdom: Six Misconceptions
There is a flawed conception of love that I have held throughout most of my life - a misconception that eventually led to the hollowing out of my relationship with God, increasing spiritual weakness and vulnerability to sin, the crippling of my prayer life and the reduction of my worship to something that barely moved my heart.
The misconception is summarized in the title of the old Steve Camp song, “Love’s not a Feeling.” I used to teach this, “Love’s not a feeling – it is an action. It is a commitment. It is a decision of the will. It is self-sacrificial service.” And to prove that I would say things like, “Look at Jn.3:16. It doesn’t say, ‘For God so loved the world that He felt some feeling. It says God so loved the world that He gave…” And I was not alone in teaching that kind of thing. If you search for that exact phrase in Google you get over 25,000 results. A lot of people are saying that. It is the conventional wisdom of Christianity in our day.
There are six major misconceptions that are part of the conventional wisdom about love.
1. Affections are not an essential element of love.
The Christian life can be successfully lived regardless of what takes place within the emotions. Here is a quotation from a Campus Crusade tract:
When it comes to salvation, decisions and choices are more important than feelings. ... This train diagram illustrates the relationship among fact, faith, and feeling (the result of our faith and obedience)
The train will run with or without a caboose. However, it would be useless to attempt to pull the train by the caboose.
2. There is no real power for sanctification in emotions. (“It would be useless to try to pull the train by the caboose.”)
3. Since we do not have immediate, direct control over our emotions, then that which is commanded by God cannot involve the emotions.
I can not flip a switch and just decide to have an emotion, therefore emotions must not be part of what God commanded when He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord you God with all your heart.”
4. The lack of emotional love for God should not necessarily be cause for alarm.
From The Secret of Guidance, by F. B. Meyer.
The lack of feeling does not always indicate we are wrong. … It may be that Christ would teach us to distinguish between love and the emotion of love, between joy and the rapture of joy, between peace and the sense of peace. … Seek feeling, and you will miss it; be content to live without it, and you will have all you require. ... Be indifferent to emotion. If it is there, be thankful; if it is absent, go on doing the will of God.”
5. Emotional love for God should not be sought. (“Seek feeling, and you will miss it; be content to live without it, and you will have all you require. … Be indifferent to emotion.”)
6. The emotional aspect of love will follow automatically if the volitional element is faithfully followed. (“Be indifferent to emotion … Then joy will overtake you as a flood.”)
This is the caboose idea. Just wait long enough and pretty soon the end of the train will come along and there will be the emotions.
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I am a very non-emotional person, and all my many attempts to change that were abysmal failures. So when I was in Jr. High, and I began to study all that Scripture said about loving God, I became very concerned about the authenticity of my faith. I began to question whether I was truly saved, since I felt no love for God at all. I wanted to serve Him with all my life, I would have died for Him, and I was as devoted to Him as I knew how to be; but I felt nothing in my heart that seemed to me to be love.
It was at that time that I began to hear some of this teaching about love not being an emotion. And, as you can imagine, I really latched on to that. When I heard things like what Meyer said – that there is a difference between love and the feeling of love, and joy and the feeling of joy, and that you could have love and joy without actually feeling it; I built the entire superstructure of my spiritual life around that. I loved that, because if loving God is simply a matter of devotion and decision and commitment and discipline – I can do all that (or so it seemed). But generating emotions seemed impossible to me. And so I bought in to most of that conventional wisdom.
Critique of the Conventional Wisdom
All 6 of those points are dead wrong. And I need to begin this study by talking about them because they stand like 6 giant walls blocking us from the glorious truths of Ps.63. Believing those 6 things will so distort our vision that we will never be able to understand the truths of this psalm.
1. Emotions are Essential
At the core of this teaching is a good motive. We live in a culture that tries to determine truth and right and wrong by their feelings. That is a terribly destructive error, and it is appropriate that the Church should fight against that. You should never use the way you feel to determine right and wrong.
Another thing we should fight against is when religious leaders use emotionalism to manipulate people.
Furthermore, it is true that Jesus and Paul pointed mostly to decisions and actions rather than mere emotion in their discussions of love.
Jn.14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.
Without question Jesus places a premium on the will, actions, and obedience in talking about love. Where there is no action or volition there is no love. Those who would claim to have love apart from commitment and self-sacrificial service are deceived. Genuine godly love always issues forth in action or it does not exist.
What Jesus did not do, however, was suggest that obedience or self-sacrifice alone was the same thing as love. And neither did Paul. In fact, just the opposite. Paul said in 1 Cor.13 that it is possible to lay down your life as a martyr and still not have true love. Action without emotion is not love.
The descriptions of proper love for God in the Bible are lavishly adorned with descriptions of emotion – especially the emotions of joy (or rejoicing), delight and desire. The concepts are inextricably entwined with one another. Where there is no joy or delight, there is no love. To say “I love ice cream, but I do not enjoy it” is nonsense. If I tell you, “I would love to see that movie” and then I say, “I have absolutely no desire to see that movie” – that would be a contradiction. If I bring my wife flowers and give her a card that says, “I just want you to know that I had absolutely no desire to give you these, nor do I want to be around you. But don’t worry – I am committed to keep giving you things and being near you until the day I die” she is not going to feel very honored. Neither is God.
Love cannot be separated from desire and enjoyment.
Mt.12:18 "Here is my servant whom … I love, in whom I delight
Love is married to delight. If there is no delight there is no love. Several times love and delight are used as synonyms.
Pr.1:22 "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery
Ps.119:47 for I delight in your commands which I love.
Zeph.3:17 The LORD your God … will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Enjoyment, joy, rejoicing, delight – they are all integral parts of love.
All through Ps.63 when David talks about his joy and delight and rejoicing – he is not merely talking about being in a good mood. The point is not that he had joy; the point is he had joy in God, which is the same thing as love for God. And if you miss that you will not have the urgency that is necessary to learn what this psalm teaches.
When I realized the emotional aspect of love was a missing component in my life, I tried to add it on. But I found that what I needed as not to simply add something on; what I needed was a full-blown revolution of my life. God just took the whole superstructure of my faith and razed it to the ground, and rebuilt the entire thing around joy in the Lord. I had to re-learn everything in terms of what it means to do that thing as an act of fellowship with Christ.
Loving God is the core of the Christian life, and emotional affection for God – desire for Him and enjoyment of Him – is at the core of love.
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2. No Power in the Affections?
If godliness comes through loving God, and the affections are at the core of what it means to love God, then affections are the foundation for all sanctification and spiritual growth.
Desire is extremely powerful. We make all our decisions, at one level or another, based on our desires. Change your desires and you change everything. There is massive power for godliness in godly affections.
3. Would God command us to have an emotion?
God directly commands all kinds of emotions. He commands us to experience delight (Ps.37:4), peace (Jn.14:1), joy (Php.4:4), rest (Php.4:6, Heb.4:11), compassion (Col.3:12), patience (Col.3:12), awe (Heb.12:28), fear (Ecc.12:13), tender-heartedness (Eph.4:32), brotherly affection (1 Pe.3:8), sympathy (1 Pe.3:8), heart-felt love (1 Pe.1:22), hope (Ps.131:3), desire (1 Cor.12:31), contentment (Heb.13:5), confidence (2 Tim.1:8), and zeal (Ro.12:11).
And God promised harsh punishment on those who failed to have the emotions of joy and gladness.
Dt.28:47-48 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
That is what God does to people who fail to find joy and gladness in Him. The priests in Mal.1 followed the conventional wisdom of just continuing in obedience even when they had no real desire to do so. They did exactly what God told them to do, but while they were doing it they said “what a burden” and God harshly rebuked them. (Mal.1:10-13)
It is true that we do not have full, immediate control over our emotions, but we do have the ability to place ourselves in a context in which emotions will change.
4. Lack of emotional love for God should not be cause for alarm?
If the greatest commandment is to love God, and emotions are at the core of love, lack of emotions is cause for great alarm! Nothing could be greater cause for alarm. If God says I am to delight in Him and will be severely punished if I fail to serve Him joyfully and gladly, and I do not have joy and gladness and delight – that is cause for alarm.
5. Emotions should not be sought after?
If God commands us to have something, should we not seek after it?
6. Emotions will come automatically if you just focus on your actions?
I waited 30 years for that to prove true and it never happened. The caboose never arrived. I have heard people promise this many times, but I have never seen it in Scripture.
If emotional love for God were automatic why are there so many Christians who are so lacking in their affection for God? Why is there so little joy? Ask yourself – when was the last time you were so happy in God that you were compelled to shout out loud and start dancing? The Bible does not say it is automatic and neither does experience.
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So this study is really going to be a study on how to find joy in God – how to truly, genuinely delight in Him - a delight that does not just stop in you mind or in your will but that saturates your whole being and moves your heart and touches your emotions.
This is a kind of joy that most people have never known in any real depth. Most people never experience any joy beyond the kind of joy that comes from temporal things - recreation, food, fun, physical pleasures, jokes, sports, hobbies, friends. The kind of joy that comes from those things is the deepest kind of joy most people ever experience, which is sad, because it is a very weak joy. It lasts a short time, but then when it is gone it usually leaves you feeling worse than before it came. And it isn’t anywhere near enough joy to carry you through terrible suffering. If your child or wife died, or you got in a disfiguring car accident, and became crippled and blind – thinking about your last trip to Mexico will do zero to help you find joy.
In this study we are going to learn about a kind of joy that is so powerful, it actually makes you feel good – really, really good no matter what is happening (David wrote Psalm 63 in the midst of unbelievably horrible circumstances). It is the kind of joy that the martyrs had when they were being tortured and burned alive and had tears of joy. It is that same kind of joy that made Paul and Silas sing for joy while in prison with their feet in stocks (Acts 16:25). We read about that kind of joy all over the pages of the Bible. Jesus had it, Paul had it, the Apostles had it, the psalmists had it, David really had it. In 2 Sam.6 something happened that meant David would be nearer to God’s presence, and when that thing happened,
14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
16 … Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
David loved God so much, and he enjoyed being in God’s presence so much that it would get him to singing and shouting and dancing – even when his wife thought he was making a complete fool out of himself.
Now here is the important question: Was that because David was a hyper-emotional person? Or does God expect that kind of thing from all believers?
Ps 149:1-5 Sing to the LORD a new song, …let the people of Zion be glad in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. 4 For the LORD takes delight in his people… 5 Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.
Ps 150:4 praise him with tambourine and dancing
Ps 66:1 Shout with joy to God, all the earth!
God requires his people to experience a degree of enjoyment of him that is so intense and profound that it issues forth in song, shouts and even dance. All my life I have just written those kinds of passages off as exaggerations or hyperbole. But they are not. God meant what He said. And the kind of joy we will learn about in Psalm 63 is powerful enough to bring about those kinds of responses. This joy is powerful beyond anything the world can conceive.
The writer of Psalm 71 was having a terrible struggle – probably a more painful, horrible year than anyone of us has had in a long time if ever. It says he was going through many troubles, and that they were extremely bitter and painful (v.20). He felt like his life was ruined, and that he had practically sunk down into hell. (v.20b) He had lost all his honor and comfort. And in that condition he describes how he felt:
22 I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you
He was not singing and shouting out of discipline and resolve. It was out of joy! (The psalmists were honest about their emotions. When they were down and depressed, they let you know.) That is some incredibly powerful joy! And it is a joy you can have all the time.
Psalm 89:15-16 Blessed are those who have learned the joyful shout, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD. 16 They rejoice in your name all day long
