Worship in the Wilderness
Worship in the Wilderness
Psalm 63
A psalm of David. When he was in the Wilderness of Judah.
1 God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.
2 So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory.
3 My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name, I will lift up my hands.
5 You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.
6 When I think of you as I lie on my bed, I meditate on you during the night watches
7 because you are my helper; I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.
8 I follow close to you; your right hand holds on to me.
9 But those who intend to destroy my life will go into the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the power of the sword; they will become a meal for jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by him will boast, for the mouths of liars will be shut.
Let's take a look at Psalm 63 one line at a time:
A psalm of David. When he was in the Wilderness of Judah.
The first thing to notice is the heading. A psalm of David. This is King David, the Goliath killer, the shepherd turned king, and notice when he’s writing? When he was in the Wilderness of Judah. The wilderness is a dry and lonely place. It’s a place where basic needs aren’t accessible, a place where in the back of your mind, you always know there is a possibility that this doesn’t work out well for me.
When I was 13 years old, my parents took us on a trip that included a stop near Kalispell Montana, where we went horseback riding into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We rode 11 or 12 miles up into the mountains, where our camp was located. In the mountains, 11 miles from the nearest road or light source, you learn the real definition of the word “dark”. You hear every single sound at night. You don’t know what they all are, either. You have to carry all of your food and supplies with you, and if you run out, there’s nowhere to buy more. Not only that, you know that there are bears and mountain lions probably watching you, and even though you take every precaution you can, there is a real possibility that you will not make it out.
Now it wasn’t the same kind of wilderness David is writing from here in the middle east, but neither is the one you’re going through right now. I don’t even know if your wilderness is being shut up in your house for a couple weeks. That might be minor compared to what is going on.
Maybe your marriage or family feels like a wilderness because it used to work based on the fact that you stayed busy. That way you didn’t have to think about certain things, or talk through wounds –– as long as one of you was at work, or at the kids’ ball game, you were surviving. But now, one week into being at home with each other, the fangs have come out a time or two. Or seven.
Maybe your job feels like a wilderness. I don’t know how many of you are able to work from home, or how many had your jobs close or drastically changed, and you don’t have a choice. And again, while you want to trust the Lord, you’re toying with the real possibility that this doesn't work itself out in the end.
We are in a season of LAMENT. We don’t use that word much, but it just means to mourn, or grieve. We’re lamenting the loss of jobs, income, the loss of gathering together as a body, of life as we knew it, the loss of physical contact with friends – hugs, high fives, handshakes with a neighbor – and for some, lament for the wounds that seem to surface when we are shut up with the same people for an extended period of time.
As it pertains to our Story of God series, this is a good time to lament the brokenness of our world. We lament that things are not the way we’d like them to be. There is disease and pain and sorrow in the world. David is in a wilderness, and he’s got some trouble. But look at where he goes for relief:
1 God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.
You can see his description of the wilderness here – Dry. Desolate. Without toilet paper on the shelf at Walmart. :) And you can see this language of wanting something, longing for something: I eagerly seek you; I thirst for you; my body faints for you.
We are in a season of lament, but also in a season of LONGING. Longing for things to get back to normal, longing to be with friends again, longing to go out to eat and enjoy a conversation over coffee again, longing to not have to worry anymore. But read verse 1: What would you say David’s greatest concern is right now in this wilderness?
GOD! His physical thirst is translated to a spiritual thirst. His physical longings, his loneliness is translated to a spiritual longing for God. I eagerly seek you.
When you are thirsty, where do you go? You go to the kitchen, right? To the fridge or the tap, where you know there is something to drink that will ease the thirst. David goes back to the place where he knows God will meet his thirst:
2 So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory.
The sanctuary refers to the place of worship - the Temple, where God lives. He begins to recall who God is.
3 My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life.
David speaks out loud, or sings of the goodness and faithful love of God. The word translated there, “Faithful love” is the word we call mercy, or grace. We may think life is really messed up right now, but God’s grace is where true life begins. Your faithful love is better than life, therefore my lips will glorify you, instead of complaining. My lips will bless you as long as I live, instead of whining about the desert I’m in.
5 You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.
When David thinks of God's faithful love, his grace, his mercy, and speaks out loud God’s goodness, God meets him in that moment. God hears him, and responds to him. David recalls God’s faithfulness and his strength. (That word means stubbornness – often negative, but here it is positive: God’s refusal to abandon us, his refusal to forget us. God is stubbornly working his plan for all of human history, no matter how much opposition he might face. Even though the wilderness has stripped away the comforts of life, the more David considers God, the more satisfied he is because God is meeting him in the wilderness.
But we are human, and remembering God doesn’t make the desert any less hot. It doesn’t necessarily make the wilderness any less troublesome. In fact, David seems to admit some anxiety.
6 When I think of you as I lie on my bed, I meditate on you during the night watches 7 because you are my helper;
I will confess some sleepless nights this week. Lying awake in my bed at night, my mind racing on how we’re going to gather this morning in a meaningful way. How are we going to keep in touch with everyone? How are we going to make sure people who need help get it? David is lying awake at night, presumably anxious about things. But he’s not trying to distract himself with Netflix or scrolling Facebook.
I meditate on you, that word in Hebrew means “growling”. It’s when you think about something for a while until it clicks in your mind or heart, and you start talking to yourself and go “mmmm”, “aaahhh” – it sounds a little like growling, muttering. That’s what David is doing while he’s up late on the night watch.
And while he’s considering God’s goodness and faithfulness, he pictures a hen with her chicks, and imagines that the reason it's dark is because God has spread his wings over him! I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings. He imagines God as his protection, and he’s muttering to himself, meditating, hmmm, God is like a mother hen right now!
Here’s another one where I want you to write in the chat: 8 I follow close to you; your right hand holds on to me.
What image does that bring to mind for you? I follow close to you; your right hand holds on to me. What picture do you think of?
Look how close God is! In verse 1, David is thirsty, eagerly seeking God. And just a short time of remembering later, he imagines God is close enough to hold his hand. His situation hasn’t changed, but the more he worships God, the closer he feels. What is the value of David thinking about God the way he has? Because it helps David look at the trouble in his life, the wilderness, from the perspective of who God is.
I’ll tell you what comes to mind for me right there is a dad teaching his kid to ride a bike. I remember teaching the kids, walking quickly beside them, my hand on the back of the seat or on their shoulder, keeping them steady.
Listen: We can take the next 2 weeks and lay in front of the TV because we don’t know what else to do. You’re not going to experience God holding your hand if you’re holding a remote. Take the time that you now have to remember, to read, to pray, journal. Reach out to one person and tell them you’re thinking of them.
What's important about remembering God in the wilderness?
9 But those who intend to destroy my life will go into the depths of the earth. 10 They will be given over to the power of the sword; they will become a meal for jackals.
He remembers that one day, all the things he’s afraid of now, the things that keep him up at night, will be gone for good. He remembers that one day, all the wrongs will be made right, that viruses will be no more, cancer will be no more, that sorrow and suffering will no longer be current concerns.
11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by him will boast, for the mouths of liars will be shut.
The king (speaking himself, and all the kings who will come after him) will boast of God’s strength, and mouths of the liars, the voices that come against us day in and day out, speaking fear into our ears, will be shut.
One day, we will be at perfect peace because God will be near enough to hold all of us by the hand at once, and all the things we’re lamenting and longing for today will not even be thoughts in our mind, because of the blazing glory and presence of Jesus.
Jesus was the better David, who endured the wilderness for us; he was tempted in every way we are, yet without sin. He took our sins and our sorrows, our longings, and he lamented with us. He cried at the loss of his friends. He was angered by the sorrow that sin brought humanity. Jesus is the one who wept over Jerusalem knowing how they would treat him, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” And even though we have seasons of hardship and trials, seeking God, thirsty for him, Jesus is the one who cried out from the cross, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?!” So that we would have the confidence that whether we’re cooped up in our homes, or sick with the virus, or out of work, or wondering how we’re going to make ends meet, the one confidence we have that can never be taken from us, is that God walks with us, and in our wilderness is closer than ever.
And finally this: whatever wilderness you’re in right now, if it’s the virus or something else, we think we’re longing for things to get back to normal, but consciously or unconsciously, what we’re longing for is heaven. It’s built in. We’re longing to live in a place where there is no disease, no fear, no sorrow, no frustration. We’re longing for relationships, and perfection. And while we’re never promised that here on earth, God raised Jesus from the dead to prove that death isn’t the end of the Story, and one day, our deepest longings will be met, not by life getting “back to normal," but our deepest longings will be met in him.