I'll never forget the first time that I saw the Grand Canyon a
couple years back. Buddy and I were spending some
time out in Arizona, decided to drive up to Grand Canyon
National Park for the day. I was excited about this because
I'd never seen the Grand Canyon before.
Now my friend, he had been a couple times.
And so as we're in the car, we're making our final ascent up
to the park. He says to me.
He says, OK, Brian, what I want you to do when you get out of
the car, I want you immediately to put your hand over your eyes.
Don't look. I don't want you getting any
glimpses of the Canyon on your way up.
I want to see your face when you take it all in at that first
glance. I'm going to walk you up there
step by step. Now, I was thinking in the
moment. Sure, that's a little a little
scary. I guess I'll trust you.
I did trust him. I'm glad that I did.
So we get out of the car and we're walking up step by step
and I can I can hear people around me gasping and awning.
They're probably like, what is this guy doing?
You know, blinders over his face.
And, you know, people are like, oh, look at that, Look at that.
There's so much anticipation. And we finally get up close and
he says, OK, Brian, take your hands off your eyes and you can
look. And if you've been to the Grand
Canyon, I'm sure you have this image coming back to your mind
now. What I saw in that moment was
something so vast, so incomprehensible, so beautiful,
that the first thing I did is I looked up to heaven and I said,
God, how beautiful and powerful must you be to make something
like this and to make it no problem.
I was captivated in that moment by what I was looking at.
I couldn't look away. Humans are captivated by beauty.
I've yet to meet someone else that doesn't enjoy watching the
sunset or staring out at a vast mountain range.
I've yet to enjoy someone that doesn't like watching an athlete
or a musician perfect and perform their craft.
Why is this? Well, I think it's because these
are experiences that captivate us.
They serve as little moments of satisfaction and delight.
They serve as an escape from the pains and the fears of everyday
life. So we hunt these experiences of
beauty. We long for them with our soul.
If you're here this morning and you wouldn't consider yourself a
Christian, I know you have longings that can't ultimately
be satisfied by anything in this world.
What are those things for you? What are those experiences of
beauty that you're chasing after?
And if you're honest, how does it feel when those things keep
ending time after time, back to the pains of the real world?
What do you do with that? And I challenge you this morning
to ask yourself, don't you want true and lasting satisfaction?
Well, for you this morning, my prayer is that as we walk
through our passage, you will be introduced to the glorious
beauty of the one true God and the satisfaction you can have in
him through His Son Jesus Christ and Christians, Brothers and
sisters of TBC, I've been praying for you this week that
you to be reintroduced to the beauty of our God and the
satisfaction that you do have in him and you'll enjoy one day
forever. Brothers and sisters, our
passage this morning is Psalm chapter 27.
If you have a Bible, go ahead and please turn there now.
Psalm 27, it's about halfway point of the Bible, maybe a
little before. And if you don't have a Bible at
all, if you forgot to bring one, maybe you don't have one.
Feel free to put your hand up in the air.
Don't be embarrassed. We do this every single week.
We pass out our Bibles. Anyone All right, Micah's ready.
You're good, brother. Come sit back down.
You'll want to follow along as I look through, as I walk through
our passage verse by verse. So look at your Bibles.
The Psalms are where God's people go to praise him, to
confess their sins to Him, to renew their delight in Him, to
lament to Him. And Psalm 27 is about a man who,
when he looks all around him, all he sees are enemies.
He's confronted by fear, but when he looks up to God, he is
satisfied with a passionate renewal that revitalizes his
soul. He's filled with confidence.
So follow along as I read Psalm 27 of David.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid when
evil doers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and
foes, it is they who stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me, My heart shall not fear.
Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.
One thing have I asked of the Lord that will I seek after,
that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my
life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His
temple, For He will hide me in his shelter.
In the day of trouble He will conceal me under the cover of
his tent. He will lift me high upon a
rock, and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all
around me, and I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts
of joy. I will sing and make melody to
the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me. You have said, Seek my face.
My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek.
Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in
anger. O you who have been my help,
cast me not off Forsake me not, O God, of my salvation, for my
father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will
take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and
lead me on a level path. Because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses
have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Wait for the Lord.
Be strong, let your heart take courage.
Wait for the Lord. The superscription before verse
one tells us this is a Psalm of David.
David wrote about half the Psalms.
He served as the king of Israel in the 10th century BC.
David was a mighty warrior, and it's said that he was a man
after God's own heart. Now Psalm 27.
We're not really sure exactly at what point in David's life he
wrote this Psalm. As you heard just a moment ago
when I read clearly, this is a time when David has many
enemies. He's being pursued.
He's being slandered. But this was common throughout
most of David's life, so we're not really sure when it was
written. Couple of things are helpful for
us to know before we dive in. If you glance back down over
Psalm 27 with me, David makes 9 direct references to his
enemies. 9 But he makes 14 references to Yahweh, the
covenant Lord. Picture David surrounded by
enemies. An army is outside the gate and
yet he's confidently fixed on God.
Over and over again in our Psalm, he says I will, I shall,
I believe God will. This is a man who has a
confident and passionate pursuit of God in this life because he
knows his ultimate reward lies in the next life.
We might even say that David has his heart set on the right
beauty. He's pursuing God now by faith,
and this increases his longings to behold God by sight.
That's essentially our main idea this morning if you're taking
notes. Until faith becomes sight,
cultivate A passionate pursuit of God.
Until faith becomes sight, cultivate A passionate pursuit
of God. How do we do that exactly?
As we walk through our passage, we'll see four ways, four ways,
4 points. Point #1 be confident in God.
Be confident in God. This will cover verses one to
three. Look down at verse one with me.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
David begins his prayer with what he knows to be true about
his covenant God. He's going to use this covenant
name, Yahweh, throughout the whole Psalm.
Anytime in your Bible you see capital Lord, that's Yahweh,
God's covenant name, God's true name.
What's David doing in these first few verses?
He's going to preach truth to himself.
He's going to pack truth into his heart.
He's going to call to mind God's character when he's afraid.
He revives his confidence in God and so he calls him his light,
his salvation and his stronghold.
Now saying God is light is a massive truth the Bible unpacks
in so many different ways. God is light means he's the
source of all truth. God is light means he's totally
pure. Light represents God's self
revelation. His light exposes our sin and
points us to the salvation we have in Christ.
Jesus Christ came into the world and said I am the light of the
world. God's light also exposes
darkness for what it really is, nothing to actually be afraid
of. And I think that last one is
what's particularly in view here with David.
Picture a child scare of the dark, yet mom and dad come to
the room, flick on the lights and the monsters have to
scatter. God is David's light and
salvation. God's light exposes the problem
for David, and God's salvation offers the solution.
What's the result? Well, David has nothing to fear.
He's nothing to be afraid of. God's character makes him feel
safe. Verse one again.
God is also David's stronghold. Now David is a mighty warrior.
He's the king of Israel. The dude ripped a lion's jaw
apart with his bare hands, killed a lion when he was a boy.
If anyone could say I have confidence and strength from
myself, it would certainly be David.
But David recognizes that his strength does not come from how
sufficient he is, but how strong his God is.
Brothers and sisters, don't believe the lies of our world
that tell you strength comes from within yourself.
Oh, just do it yourself. Pull it up.
Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Get it done on your own. The world is going to tempt you
to think that your problems are all outside of you and the
solution is right in here. And that is a lie, Church.
When you feel afraid or weak, run to God's strength.
Rely on God. When you're overwhelmed with
fear, call God's character to your mind and watch your fears
slowly shrink. And that's what happens to David
in verses 2 and 3. He's going to illustrate his
confidence in God with two extreme examples.
Look back at verse 2 with me. When evil doers assail me to eat
up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and
fall. Though an army encamp against
me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me yet
I will be confident. Evil doers, adversaries, foes,
an enemy army. War right outside the gates.
If there's ever a reason to be afraid, I'd be terrified here.
This would be the moment. But these enemies are no match
for David because they're no match for David's God.
Still, they're definitely doing their worst.
David says these people are trying to eat me.
They're trying to eat up my flesh.
What's going on here? Well, there, there may have been
some sort of wartime practice during the day of cannibalism.
It's possible. I don't think it's likely.
There's not much historical record to demonstrate that.
But if you remember what Goliath says to David, he says, hey,
boy, come over here, I'm going to feed your flesh to the birds.
So whether it's a real literal thing that David is picturing
here or just a figure of speech, it's clearly something really
bad that David's enemies are wanting to do to him.
They're not just trying to stop David's heart from pumping blood
and kill him. They're trying to totally
destroy this man. But David says they're the ones
who stumble and fall. The evil that they're trying to
do to me, it's going to fall back on their own head.
I'm confident in God. My heart doesn't fear.
So notice here how fear is a unique struggle of the heart.
Now fear certainly has many outward manifestations, but
David locates fear in our hearts.
Brothers, sisters, fear comes from within.
And so how can David say that his heart doesn't fear when
there's likely thousands of people outside that want to
annihilate him? David can say it because he has
a right fear of God. Brothers and sisters, how do you
fight your fears, no matter what they may be?
You replace sinful fear with a healthy fear of Almighty God.
True knowledge, true knowledge of the one true God, always
drives out worldly fear. Now you might be thinking, I
don't have a little army surrounding me.
I don't have any sworn enemies. I don't think I have anyone
that's trying to eat me. How does this apply to me?
Well, that's true, but you do have a spiritual enemy warring
against you, and he wants to do far worse than these people want
to do to David. Pastor Michael Priest on this
last week from First Thessalonians, Satan warring
against Paul and the church in Thessalonica.
And you and I certainly have plenty of fears in this world.
All of us, no matter who you are, there's things you're
afraid of. So what are you most afraid of
in your life? What's your greatest fear as a
Christian? Maybe it's an evangelistic
conversation with that one family member or friend you know
you need to have, but every time in the moment, your heart is
just pumping and you can't get yourself to do it.
Maybe it's a part of your life being exposed to what it really
is. If, if church members knew this
about my life, if they saw this, then they'd think I'm being
unfaithful. They'd they'd think I'd look
like a failure. Are you fearful that God isn't
going to provide for you in the future?
Are you afraid of persecution? As a Christian, I don't know
your exact fear, but I know the way you fight it.
It's knowing God's character. That's where our confidence
lies. Church.
And just generally speaking, how do you get to know someone's
character? You spend time with them, you
share your life with them. They prove that they have a
track record of trust. You can rely on friends.
This is what we do with God. Share your life with God.
Bring your heart before the Lord.
Go to the Lord and see his faithfulness over the
generations in the thousands of years, and you can trust your
God and rely on him. So practically, when you're
afraid, when you go out here this week and you're confronted
with something, you should consider which of God's
attributes, what part of God's character shines light onto your
fear? And then you just cling to God,
grab hold of him there, wrestle with him in prayer over that.
Renew your confidence in God because of who He is.
And the more you know your God and has proven faithfulness to
you, the more you just want to spend time with him, the more
you want to run after him hard and pursue Him.
Which brings us to our second point.
Pursue God. Point #2 Pursue God.
So cover verses verses 4 to 6. So look down to verse 4 and
imagine for a second that you got to ask God one thing.
What would you ask? What is your greatest desire in
the entire world? Here's David's verse 4.
One thing have I asked of the Lord that will I seek after,
that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my
life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His
temple. The one thing David wants the
most in the world is to be in God's presence, so that he can
see his beauty and inquire or or meditate on God.
That word means now if you've read ahead in our passage,
particularly verses 7 to 12, David's about to ask God for
many more things. So what does he mean here by I'm
going to only ask God for one thing and yet then he's going to
go on to ask God like 10 more things.
Well, I think this one thing is David's ultimate request, his
greatest desire, his highest need, the thing that most
satisfies his soul. David is, is passionate and
confident to pursue God. So remember the context here.
David's being pursued by his enemies, but in the midst of
that, David is going to pursue his God.
So he's going to ask the Lord, verse 4.
And he's going to seek the Lord where he may be found.
So David's hope is not in a change of circumstances.
David's hope is not in a worldly solution.
David's hope is in God himself. And notice David says he wants
to be there all the days of his life.
Second-half of verse 4. This isn't just a one time
spiritual high for David. This is a settled, regular
desire to pursue God with passion.
Now certainly David could have met with God anywhere.
God's presence is not contained by any physical space within the
entire universe. But there were certain places
under the old covenant where God was more specially encountered,
like the Tabernacle or like the temple.
In David's day, this would be the Tabernacle.
The temple wasn't yet built. This would be be started and
finished by David's son Solomon years later.
So this is the Tabernacle for David.
And in verses 4 to 6, David, he's basically using any word he
can think of. He's like scouring the Hebrew
language for any word he can think of that denotes God's
dwelling place. Look down to the passage again.
Four to six house temple, shelter, tent rock.
These are the places where God uniquely dwelt with His people
on earth. Really, this is the place where
God is corporately worshipped with His people.
We'll return to that idea in a moment, how this relates to
corporate worship. First, let's look at why David
wants to dwell in God's house. second-half of verse 4.
He wants to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in
His temple. Now, if you're like me, you read
that and you think, well, that sounds incredible.
And also what in the world does that mean to to gaze upon God's
beauty? Are we actually going to see
God? You might be thinking, I thought
no one can see God and live. I thought God is invisible.
And you'd be right partly. In Exodus 3320, God tells Moses.
Moses asked to see God's glory. God says you cannot see my face,
for man shall not see me and live.
First Timothy 6 says no one has ever seen God or can see God,
and yet there are tons, tons of Bible verses that say redeemed
sinners will see God face to face one day.
Here's just a few. I had a hard time picking out
just three because they're all so good.
First John 3 verse 2 says we shall see him as he is in Job
19. Job says, Yet in my flesh I
shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, my eyes whom I shall
see for myself, and my eyes shall behold the passage Carissa
read earlier from Revelation 22. Four.
This is where we're all headed. Church, the heavenly city.
They will see his face. So how do we put these two
truths together? In some sense it's a paradox,
but I think they do. We can't make sense of them.
You can't see God, but you can see God.
Let's start with this. You cannot see God.
No one can see God with their physical eyes because God is not
a, he's not a material being. He's not made-up of physical
stuff. God is not made-up of anything
in the created world. He's invisible.
He's spirit. John 424 So we can't see God in
the same sense as I'm looking at like that basketball goal,
there's the goal, the back board's a rectangle.
I can see the rim kind of. I can see the net.
It's made-up of physical stuff. I could go up there and I could
touch it. But you can't see God because
he's invisible. He's not a material being like
us, but he is the most absolute being in the universe.
So there's nothing to see with your physical, literal eyes.
So in verse 4, when David wants to gaze upon God's beauty, he's
not going in there to look at something with his physical
eyes. He's seeing God on earth by
faith. And that is no less glorious
right now at least. So that's kind of Part 1.
You can't see God Part 2 of that.
Morally speaking, you and I can't see God because we still
have indwelling sin in this life.
If you and I were to see God right now, we would be totally
destroyed, incinerated. We can't see God because we
still have indwelling sin and He is totally pure.
Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord.
OK, so that's you can't see God. Now what do we make of all these
glorious passages that promised believers are going to see God?
Well, theologians call this the beatific vision, the beatific
vision BEATIFIC if you want to look it up later, beatific
vision. This is you and I seeing God
face to face in heaven. It's really the fulfillment of
Jesus promise in Matthew 5 when he says blessed are the pure in
heart for they shall see God. We actually sang about this
earlier. We sang about this in in
multiple songs, but particularly Jerusalem, my happy home, thy
Saints are crowned with glory. Great.
They see God face to face. How glorious.
Friends, if you didn't know, this is the whole point of
heaven. This is the ultimate goal of
every single Christian. This is the moment when like I'm
walking up to see the Grand Canyon and my friend says you
can take your hands off your eyes and look.
This is the moment when you step into glory and God says I'm
removing the veil. Brother or sister, see my glory?
Look at me face to face and you will immediately be filled with
the maximum amount of joy and satisfaction that is possible
for a creature to possess. And it'll never run out.
God will keep giving more and more of himself.
The joys of heaven will continue to increase as you behold your
God. It's impossible to over
exaggerate the joys of heaven. Brothers and sisters, this is
the happiness that you were made for.
OK, but what is it? What are we actually going to
see in heaven? Well, this has been debated for
thousands of years, I'm sure. As you can imagine, most agree
it's not a physical sight with your literal resurrected eyes.
Again, God is. God's not going to suddenly take
on a physical form in heaven, but I think we can say, based on
the Bible's teachings, that redeemed sinners will have
direct apprehension of the very being of God.
In that sense, we will see God's essence.
We will see God's being now. We're not going to see him
comprehensively. We're still going to remain
finite creatures in heaven. God will always remain
incomprehensible, but we will see him truly.
This will be a perfect spiritual vision with the eyes of your
heart. How can this happen?
Because if we've seen Christ, we've seen the Father.
In John 14, Philip asked Jesus a great question.
He says, Jesus, I want to see the Father.
And Jesus says, have I been with you so long and you still do not
know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has
seen the Father. Brothers and sisters, we know
like Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 3 and four, that
through Christ we will see the glory of God with an unveiled
face. So what does all this have to do
with you today, this beatific vision?
Because if you're honest, I've thought this before as well.
You may be thinking, OK, so is heaven just going to be staring
at God all day? You may be so bold to say, isn't
that going to get a little boring or old for billions of
years, but let me ask you this and kind of flip it back to you.
How beautiful must God be if all you're going to want to do is
stare at Him and praise Him forever and ever and ever?
Our minds can't even fathom the joy and delight that we will
have beholding our God in heaven one day and remember back to our
passages. This is David's greatest desire
in life. This is his one great ask, His
one great thing. It most satisfies his soul.
And if you're sitting in the seats today, this is the one
thing that most satisfies your soul.
So practically, when you go out from here the next few weeks,
the next few months, think of all the experience of beauty
that you enjoy in this life. Maybe it's something like
hiking, enjoying a nice meal, just delighting in your children
and playing with them, a nice cup of coffee.
All those experiences like staring at the Grand Canyon
should lead you. They find their ultimate
fulfilment in God himself, your desires, your good desires in
this life. They're on a track somewhere,
they're marching along and they have their ultimate fulfilment
point in that day when you behold God face to face.
So make those experiences Worshipful.
When you stare out at that vast mountain range, when you delight
in your children, when you come to corporate worship, praise God
for who He is. Allow those desires to drive you
closer to Him. As Richard Baxter put it, help
me desire until I may possess it.
And friends, the beatific vision is good news for sufferers, too.
This is what David meditates on when he's afraid.
This is where David goes when he's suffering.
Brothers and sisters, if you're suffering here, seeing God's
face is the moment when you realize all my suffering is
over. And more importantly, I think
you realize that all your suffering was worth it.
It was worth every bit of it. Seeing God is the moment when
you realize all sin and death and pain and tears are gone and
banished. The former things have passed
away. So cling to God in this great
vision of seeing Him. If you're suffering, brothers
and sisters, look down to verses 5 and 6.
David tells us the outcome of this passionate pursuit, pursuit
of God. David will be hidden in God's
shelter. He'll be concealed in his tent.
He'll be lifted up upon a rock. His head shall be lifted up
above his enemies. David feels safe now because he
knows he's going to be safe in the arms of God forever.
Church, we have no reason to fear those who can kill the body
but cannot kill the soul. And because of this, in verse 6,
David is fired up. He's filled with so much
confidence that he says, I want to shout for joy.
I want to worship God some more. I'm going to go sacrifice my God
and I'm going to sing his praises again.
This should make us think of corporate worship.
What is the place on earth? Moreover, what is the gathering
of people on earth that God has most uniquely tied His presence
to? It's the Lord's Day worship here
this morning. We behold God's beauty most
intimately in our gathering today.
When we sing, we behold God's beauty.
When we read His word, we behold God's beauty.
When we praise Him for his attributes, we see God's beauty.
Brothers and sisters, this should be our greatest desire at
TBC. When you come into this room,
examine your desires. Have I come in to be seen by
others? Have I come in to check a box?
Have I come in just to hear my favorite preacher?
No, we come in to behold our great God.
We come in to pursue God's presence and see His beauty in
the face of Jesus Christ. Well, how about you
individually? Could you say that pursuing God
is your 1 great desire in life? If not, what's getting in the
way of that? What's at the end of the road of
your desires? If you're honest, which of your
desires, if they were fully grown, may lead you to abandon
your God? That's what Paul laments about
his dear friend Demas and Second Timothy 4 for Demas in love with
this present world has deserted me.
Friends, are you pursuing the world or are you pursuing God?
We have to admit, no matter where we're at and our walk with
the Lord, that this is a struggle.
It's a struggle to passionately pursue God in this life.
How do we, how do we maintain this passionate pursuit in this
life? We need a desperate prayer life.
We got to wrestle with God face to face in prayer.
That's point #3 wrestle with God in prayer.
Wrestle with God in prayer. This will cover verses 7 to 12.
So here, here's kind of the logic of our passage so far.
In verses one to three, David declares that goddess his light
and his salvation. So where does David want to be?
Well, he wants to be in the presence of his God.
And now in verses 7 to 12, as he is pursuing God's presence, he
wants to remain there, and he wants to see God's face.
Look down at verses 7 to 12. Real quickly glance over them
with me. David petitions the Lord 10
times in these verses 10 asks of the Lord.
And friends, this is what we do in prayer.
We wrestle with God face to face.
Look down at verse 7. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me. This is David's intro to his
prayer petition. If you're not a follower of
Jesus, you may ask God for a lot of things in a moment of need,
but you don't actually want God for God.
You just want God for what he can give you.
Once God answers your request, you don't want his ear anymore.
You don't want to seek his answer.
But believers, followers of Jesus, want to be heard by their
God. They demand their God answer
them. And God does answer David in
verse 8. You have said seek my face.
My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek.
In verse 4, David asks one thing of the Lord.
Now in verse 8, God commands one thing of David, seek my face.
Now the Hebrew word here for seek, it's actually plural.
So this is God addressing all readers, all listeners, folks at
TBC here this morning. God's one command of you here is
to seek his face. And David responds on behalf of
God's people and says, My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do
I seek? Now, what does God mean by this
here, seek my face? Well, look at what David says in
verse 8. My heart says to you.
So again, this is not a physical site here, but cultivating an
intimate relationship with your God from the heart, knowing his
character more fully, pursuing him in prayer, passionately,
being vulnerable with God. God mentions this in other
places as well. In Second Chronicles 7, God says
that if only his people would humble themselves and pray and
seek my face. In Psalm 24, a few chapters
earlier, Davis says that those who seek the face of the God of
Jacob receive blessing. One of the things Michelle and
I, my wife, tell our kids when we're instructing them or giving
them correction, we tell them, we say, sweetie, son, look at my
face, look me in the eyes. Now why do we do that?
Well, we're trying to have an intimate and vulnerable moment
with them. We're trying to communicate
affection with them. We're trying to ultimately have
a sense of accountability with them and think about how how
accountable it must be when you look in the face of another
human being, there's nowhere you can hide, for instance.
That's what God longs for with us.
He wants a face to face, vulnerable, intimate
relationship with us. This is David's one thing in
verse 4, and it's the one thing that should drive our lives here
as well in verse 8. Knowing our God deeply.
A passionate pursuit of knowing who God is.
Charles Spurgeon in his first published sermon at 20 years
old, 20 years old, he preached on the duty of a Christian to
know their God. Spurgeon said the highest
science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest
philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God
is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings and
the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.
In other words, TBCA passionate pursuit of God's face.
And kids in the congregation, this is for you too.
You are in a phase where you're learning so much.
You're having different unique desires, different seasons of
life. You're into a lot of things.
For example, my daughter, she is very into right now, magnet
tiles, helping her mommy cook and the many adventures of
Winnie the Pooh and the 100 Acre Wood.
And she's passionate about this. She won't let me skip a page
that I'm reading. And this is great, but kids, as
you're into so many cool things, remember that your God commands
you to seek his face. So talk to your parents for what
that means. On the drive home, ask your mom
and dad, what does that look like?
Mom and dad, what does your vulnerable relationship with God
look like? How do you seek God's face
through Jesus Christ and children in here, You can seek
him today through Christ. You can have that relationship
with your God with confidence. Look down at verse 9.
God commands David to seek his face.
But now David is asking God not to hide his face from him.
He just told him to seek him. Now David's praying that God
wouldn't hide what's going on here.
He says don't turn your face away in anger.
Don't cast me off. Don't forsake me.
I think this is David recognizing that in his flesh
he's still a Sinner in this life, so he needs to wrestle
with God by prayer. David knows the covenant
commandments and promises to Israel that if the covenant gets
broken, God's going to turn his face away from them.
And yet so David is begging that that would not happen.
He knows in his flesh he can't keep himself in the presence and
the love of God. David knows that God, because of
his sin, would have every right to be angry with him and forsake
him. If you're not a follower of
Jesus here this morning, I wonder what you think when you
hear that? That God has a right to be angry
with you because of your sin. Well, friend, as you've heard,
God lovingly invites you to himself this morning.
Do you want that? Do you have any interest of
that? I hope that you do, but there is
a problem. First, because of your sin, you
don't want to seek God. Because of your sin, you remain
an enemy of God. In Psalm 53, God says he looks
down from heaven to see if there is anyone who seeks him, anyone
at all. Is there anyone that does good?
And God says I haven't found a single one.
No one does good. No one seeks me.
No, not one. Friends, we've all rebelled
against law, God's law. We've rebelled against him, and
because of this, God has a right to turn his face away from you
and to pour out his wrath on you in hell.
And friend, God is just. God is righteous.
He will do it. What a terrible threat.
I mean there, if you're here this morning, there could be
nothing worse, no worse news that you could hear in the
universe than that your God will turn his face away from you and
in His justice pour out his wrath upon you.
What is our hope? What is any of your hope?
To dwell with God and be him, be with him forever?
Well, God has to make himself known and thank God that he has.
God has sent true light and true salvation into the world.
God has sent his one and only perfect Son, Jesus Christ, into
the world. He lived a perfect life.
He died a death on the cross in the place of sinners.
And what David is praying here would not happen to him, happen
to Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus cried out, My Father, my
Father, why have you forsaken me?
The Father turns his face away from Jesus and pours out his
righteous wrath onto the perfect Son of God in the place of
sinners. When it should have been poured
out on me and you, Sinner, it was poured out on Jesus Christ.
Jesus was swallowed up in death by our greatest enemy.
He actually died, but God did not abandon his Son.
Jesus rose victoriously 3 days later.
He reigns from heaven now, having paid the price for sin,
and he looks out and he commands everyone everywhere.
From our pastors this morning. If you don't know him, repent
and take Jesus by faith today. The only way you can see God,
the only way you can be made right with him, the only way you
can have an intimate relationship with your Creator
is that if you repent of your sin and put your faith in Jesus.
So respond to the call, Respond to God's loving command.
Come to him today and seek His face.
Make Christ your one great desire for him and church.
Consider the gift of God, even allowing us to commune with Him
in prayer. Because of Christ, we can cry to
God. ABBA Father David's prayer in
verses 7 to 12 is a model. When we pray to God, we can be
confident in His promises. We do hold fast to His
character, but we know we're still sinners.
We know our God is still holy. So we desperately ask to remain
in God's presence. Friends, one of the markers of a
growing Christian is a desperate and passionate prayer life.
Would that describe your prayer life?
Is your prayer life too comfortable, or are you
passionately pursuing God? Are you wrestling with Him?
Are you desperate for Him like David?
It may feel like God is going to cast us away sometime like it
says in verse 9, but because of Christ, we know that He never,
He never will cast us away. Even if those in life who are
supposed to be most loyal to us, who are supposed to love us the
most, if they forsake us, God never will.
That's what David says in verse 10.
Look back down to verse 10 for my father and my mother have
forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.
Now, there's no evidence of this happening to David in First and
Second Samuel. There's no evidence that his
parents forsook him and sided with his enemies.
It may have happened, We're not sure.
A lot of translators render this as even if my father and my
mother forsake me. I think that's more of the
point. It was going on here.
Even if the people who you would never imagine turning their back
on you do. God will take you in.
God will be there for you. And I know that this has
happened to some of you in this room today, whether it be your
family actually disowning you for your faith or maybe it's
just a slow relationship being severed over time because of
your commitment to follow Jesus. Friend, if that's you, take
heart. Your brothers and sisters of
TBC, we've got your back. We will take you in.
But most ultimately, most importantly, God has taken you
in. God will never leave you or
forsake you. In verses 11 and 12, David
concludes his petitions by asking God for guidance.
In order for David to pursue God, he's got to be careful to
walk in God's ways. Look at verse 11.
He's desperate to be taught and to be LED on a level path.
David needs this because if he gets off the path, his enemies
are waiting there to devour him. His enemies are waiting there to
kill him. False witnesses are slandering
his character and breathing out. Violence brings us a reminder to
us to never assume we have nothing left to learn.
Every single one of us, no matter where you're at and your
maturity with the Lord, we all need to continue to have a
teachable spirit. We all need to be relying on
brothers and sisters in the body that we can learn from.
You never should think you've arrived.
So would that describe you? Would you say this morning you
have a teachable spirit? Friends, we cultivate A
passionate pursuit of God by wrestling with Him in prayer.
But once we've wrestled with him, brought our request to him
in this life, sometimes all that we're left to do is wait.
Is wait. That's our last point point #4
wait for God, wait for God. Verses 13 and 14.
David's passionate pursuit of God leads him to this final
triumphant statement in verse 13.
Look down at verse 13. I believe that I shall look upon
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
What preserves David's life through his trials, through his
fears in the midst of his enemies, is this one great
vision that he's going to see God's goodness in the land of
the living. Now maybe where David's at,
right here on earth, he might be first referring to the fact that
God's going to deliver him. He's going to see God's goodness
in the land of the living and that God is going to prove his
goodness to him. David's going to make it out of
this situation that he's in, and he's going to actually be alive.
He's going to live through this. And I think that's partly true,
but I think ultimately David here is hungering and longing
for heaven. David starts the Psalm in verses
one to three by clinging to God's character in this life,
and he finishes the Psalm here by banking on God's character in
the next life. Again, this is language of the
beatific vision. In verse 4 David wants to gaze
upon God's beauty. In verse 8 David wants to see
God's face, and now he wants to look upon God's goodness. 3
images that I think are all saying the same thing.
One great and passionate desire to see God again.
What does David mean here by I'm going to see God's goodness.
You can't see goodness like you see, like you see that
basketball goal or like you see a building.
You can't see goodness pass by you like you see a rabbit
hopping through your backyard. So what does he mean by this?
Well, I think if we circle back to Exodus 33 for a minute, I
think this will help us flesh this out more.
And I think that David may have this passage in mind here.
He's reflecting on in Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him his
glory. What's God's response?
He says I will make all my goodness pass before you and
will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.
But God says you can't see my face and live, so I'm going to
protect you. I'm going to put you in the
clutch of the rock, and I'm going to put my protective hand
over you, and you're going to see the backside of my glory.
You're not going to see it in full, friends, but I think what
David longs to see here, or excuse me, what Moses saw in
part, David longs to see here in full.
He knows he's going to see the fullness of the glory of God.
He's going to see God's goodness because it is who God is.
God does not have goodness outside of himself that he
latches onto, or justice or mercy or love.
No, God is in himself good. You can see God's goodness
because it is the very being of God.
Well, how do you prepare for that day?
You remind yourself of God's goodness now.
Cultivate a grateful spirit, Cling to God's character.
Passionately pursue God today. It's not like when you're
preparing for a big meal at night or something.
You may not eat as much during the day.
I did this once years ago. I was prepping my stomach to eat
the Tomahawk steak at the Angus Barn.
It's 44 oz. I tried it once and I failed and
I told Michelle I'm I'm going back and I'm finishing that
thing. I had too many appetizers before
and so I prepped all day. I didn't eat that much and I
finished the whole thing 44 oz. I got to take home the big bone.
It's massive. And yeah, pursuing heaven,
pursuing God is the opposite of that.
You fill up on God now as much as you possibly can and let God
let that whet your appetite in this life because you know
that'll increase your longing to feast on him in heaven.
Well, here's an overview of our pastors.
David has renewed his confidence in God.
He's pursued God, he's wrestled with God's face.
And now in verse 14, he turns towards Israel and he gives them
one command. Wait, wait, look at verse 14.
Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart
take courage. Wait for the Lord.
Friends, most of the Christian life is waiting, but it's it's a
joyful waiting. It's an expectant waiting.
It'd be like if today you got tickets to the Super Bowl, but
there's no date on it. You'd be so excited.
You'd be longer for that day. You'd be joyfully waiting.
And notice how active this waiting is in verse 14.
Wait, be strong. Let your heart take courage.
Sometimes I think we can be tempted to think that waiting
for the Christian is just like, well, there's not much else I
can do. I'll just kick my feet up on the
couch and I'll just, I'll just wait.
That's not what the Bible ever means by wait on the Lord.
You wait by filling up on God's promises.
You wait by pursuing God now with passion.
You wait by reminding yourself of God's character.
You wait with your church family.
Remember that David is addressing all worshippers here.
He turns towards the crowd. Anyone that's going to read or
hear this Psalm, he turns towards you, TBC, and he says,
wait on the Lord. I think by God's grace, we've
been doing a great job of this. We're discipling one another.
We're prioritizing the Lord's Day gathering.
We're helping to bear each other's burdens.
We're singing a lot of songs about heaven or marching
together towards the King's city.
In the early church there was a man going through something
similar. As David was here, he was living
for Christ. He was preaching the gospel and
his enemies hated him. His name was Stephen.
In Acts 7, Stephen preaches a bold sermon to the Jewish
leaders. His passion for the gospel of
Jesus Christ was too much for them, it says.
They were enraged and they ground their teeth at him as
they were picking up stones to stone him.
It says that Stephen gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
And he said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man
standing at the right hand of God.
Even in his darkest moment, Stephen knew he would see God's
glory. Even as he's being murdered,
Stephen is captivated by heaven. Brothers and sisters, you may
never be surrounded by a literal army.
You may never have people prepared to stone you for your
faith like Stephen, but you will face opposition for following
Jesus. The burdens of life will
overwhelm you. At times it may feel like you're
walking around blindfold just looking for the Grand Canyon.
And yet one day soon, God, when you see Him in glory, is going
to remove the veil from your face, and you're going to see
Him in His fullness, and you will be satisfied.
All your suffering will be worth it.
All your longings and desires will be fulfilled.
So pursue Him today by faith. And one day soon God will turn
your faith into sight. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we cling to your promises that we will see
your goodness in the land of the living.
Comfort us with that truth. Help us to pursue you hard by
faith. Renew our longings to see Christ
face to face. Father, what a glorious and
great God you are. We know you will answer these
prayers in Jesus name, Amen. Friends, our last hymn is Behold
our God on the last page of your bulletin.
We're going to behold Him now by faith, as we sing.
Would you please stand?