Desiring God in a World that Doesn't

See y 'all this morning. And actually, it's good to be here this morning. So every morning that way. But anyway, Mike is preaching at the high and lifted up pulpit today. And so he asked me if I'd fill in today.

Surely I would. So anyway, let's go ahead and start out with a word of prayer. Mike Smith, would you leave? Yes, sir.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that we come together to your people, to your house, to study your word, to hear it preached, sing hymns, songs, spiritual songs. We pray Lord that you would bless us this day, you would receive our worship.

We pray that now as Brother Burke opens up your word, that you would, by your Holy Spirit, teach us through him. Use this time to strengthen us in our faith, and to conform us more to the image of your son.

In Christ's name we pray.

Psalm 5 and David’s Desire for God

Amen. Okay. Well, we're in Psalm five today, Psalm five. I don't usually I don't intrude usually on other people's Mike has Philippians, Mike Collier has revelation, I normally don't like to tread into their stairwell too much.

So I am a fan of the Psalms have been for 50 years, at least. It seems like in the Psalms, every heartache, every joy, every situation, you're going to find it there. And you're usually going to find it in the life of one individual, and that's David.

David wrote most of the Psalms as most of us will agree to. And Psalm five actually is one of them. So let's look at Psalm five, we'll read through it first. And then we will come back. And we will make some comments and hopefully some spiritual analogies that will encourage us today and lift us up.

Psalm five, give ear to my words, oh Lord. Consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my king and my God. For to you, I will pray. My voice you shall hear in the morning, oh Lord. In the morning, I will direct it to you.

And I will look up. But you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood.

The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. In the fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple. Lead me oh Lord in your righteousness.

Because of mine enemies, make your way straight before my face. There is no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is destruction, their throats an open tomb, they flatter with their tongue, pronounce them guilty, oh God, let them fall by their own counsel.

Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions for they have rebelled against you. But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let also let those also who love your name, excuse me, be joyful in you.

For you, oh Lord will bless the righteous. With favor, you will surround him as with a shield. Now, most of us are familiar, excuse me, most of us are familiar with a lot of the Psalms 2322 Psalm 142 119 139.

I mean, we could go most of these we are familiar with maybe not so much the earlier ones. And some of those Psalms that we've just had familiarity with. I tried preaching through the Psalms one time I got to like 47 I believe it was on a Sunday night.

And that's about as far as I could get. Psalms, of course, are not really designed necessarily to send out a lot of preaching, but there is a lot of teaching. And we don't know exactly the time. Excuse me, we don't know exactly the time.

I shouldn't be living in Florida, right? You know, we don't know the time of this song. We know this stuff. David was wanting to worship God. But he was having a lot of trouble doing it. Because of enemies around him.

Warrior enemies, I don't think so. I don't think this is that he was surrounded like an Absalom and other places. Because any of the Absalom Psalms, they are addressed before the Psalm comes. It would say David when he fled from Absalom.

So I don't think it was a time of Absalom. I think it was a time that he is great worship for God now. David was not a perfect man. Understand me here. David was not a perfect man. But I can tell you this.

He was a passionate man about God. He was passionate. He loved God. He loved God enough that when Nathan pointed that finger at him, after his Bathsheba incident, when Nathan pointed that finger at him, he said, I have sinned.

And he realized the consequences of that sin. And as a spiritual man, he wrote out the consequences of that sin. What were some of those consequences of that sin? His family was in upheaval from that day forth.

He never had a moment's peace or rest after that. The only satisfaction he found was, he was able to prepare for his son Solomon to build the temple. And he did a pretty good job. He raised about $300 million.

So I would say he was quite, if you wanted a promoter, you needed to get David. He would promote your cause for you. But the title of psalm today, desiring God in a world that does. Now, if we feel the auditorium today, which would be fine with me if we did, wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Desiring God in a World That Does Not

But I can tell you this. There's enough people out there. There's, there's enough people out in the world that have no desire to come to this building, to come anywhere around here, or much less deal with anything such as this.

And we do know that don't wait their enemies, their enemies. And so we see them, it comes down to our desire. David desired God, this is something we know of him, you couldn't write the Psalms he wrote, if you didn't have a desire for God, and you weren't saturated with God and his law.

But do we desire God? Naturally, do we desire God naturally? Well, that's kind of it. That's where we kind of take a physical trip, as well as as well as a spiritual trip. First of all, we're born. And according to the Bible, we may be born pretty, we may be born handsome, I missed that mark.

We may be born and any rich, we may be born poor, but I can tell you how we are born. We're born totally depraved. We, when we exit the womb, and we come into this world, we are already in a battle against God, we don't we don't want to do what's right.

And it doesn't change too much as you get. And that's why we have parents. That's why we have discipline. That's why we should have consequences. To teach people that there is a way you should be living that you don't have the instinct to do so.

This is very difficult, even in a Christian high school or Christian school. Because if you really think that everyone that comes through that door is Christian, kind of got news for you. They're not.

I would say out of my 29 high school students. And again, I got to be careful about the but but I do know this much. I know about two of them that attend church regularly. They bring their Bible, they read it in the morning together, and stuff like that.

So I've got a pretty good indicator. They know the Lord, why everybody else is carrying on and everybody else is doing their thing in the fellowship hall and things such as that. Okay, we do not desire God naturally.

The New Birth and Becoming a New Creation

Now there is only one way that we're going to desire God at all. And Nicodemus was told how it had to be done, right? Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Right? He came to him by night. And he says, Master, I know, you're a teacher from God.

I know all these things. And Jesus didn't even get into the schedule. Thank you. I appreciate you telling me that I'm a great teacher. He said, you must be born again. And that just halted Nicodemus in his tracks.

By the way, there's one thing I found out about salvation. Maybe you found it out to the one thing I found out about salvation is this, you're going to have a confrontation with God if you're saved. And he's going to confront you.

That's why I try to tell people, oh, you're going to be confronted one day. And that may be the only confrontation you're ever going to get. So we see that we do not naturally do that we have to get the new birth.

And when we do get the new birth, all of a sudden, we are a new creation. Behold, all things are passed away. All things have become new, right? And they are new. Now how new they are, it, it varies. Some people progress quickly.

Some people progress very slowly. Some people just have a very steady and I like those just have a very steady climb toward God. I kind of like I might put up there one day about his spiritual life. That's mine.

That's yours. Probably. We're at a height, we're at a low, we find that middle point. But sometimes that middle point just preparing us for whether we're going to go this way, or we're going to go that way.

All right, so it's all part of the experience. So we see that we're not consuming God, necessarily, from our birth, or to the new birth. Now. So how are we consuming God? Are we consuming? Are we consuming him naturally, or spiritually?

Are we consuming him naturally? Or are we consuming him spiritually? The woman at the well was consuming God naturally, but not spiritually. What happened? She said, Oh, yes, we know about worship, sir.

We know all about worship. We worship up there on Mount Verism. You know, see that nice, shiny marble area up there. That's where we worship. But you all say you must worship in Jerusalem. And Jesus said, you know, there's coming a time when this place or that place doesn't mean nothing.

God is a spirit, and they that worship him must what worship him in spirit, and in truth. And by the way, there won't be no truth if you're not worshiping in spirit. So we see then that we could consume God naturally, and not even realize, you know, and it may be something like this now, consuming God naturally.

Worshiping God in Spirit and Truth

This is a only analogy I can think of. My wife and I, we like to show blue bloods. You know, I think she likes Tom selling, but but I just leave that there. All right. But anyway, we like to show and we like it, especially when they gather around the table.

And then they say their little prayer and then just go on about their way. Careful. That's natural. Oh, we want to make a recognition. We want to do this. We want it. We don't want to be bad people. I had a student just a couple of students have asked me before.

What do you mean that I'm just not a good person? I said, Well, it just means that you're a sinner. And that you have no desire for God. And you're not as bad as you really could be yet. So we see the David here is trying to desire God, but he's desiring God when his enemies would not let him.

He's desiring God in a world that just doesn't want them to do so. And you say, Well, where's that come in? How's that come in with us? Well, David faced his enemies and hit that challenge and hindered him.

And he faced them. Well, now I want us to go over for a minute. What can we as as David is trying to desire God, and I'm trying to get a flow here, but somehow the mind and the heart and doing this is not flowing the way I want it to but anyway, what we what we have is David has enemies that are preventing him from worshiping God that is hindering him from from worshiping God.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

And do you know that we have enemies to that prevent and hinder us from worshiping God. Let's go over to first john. See, I'm getting pretty close to Mike's book. First john, chapter two, I believe it is.

And let's see, let's begin with verse 15. First john two, verse 15. It says, Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, here we got the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. So here we see some enemies. We usually refer to it this way. And there was a great book written on it years ago.

And it was entitled the world, the flesh and the devil. Those three things hinder us and attack us in many times from our desire for God, the world, my goodness, how many distractions are out there for us.

But we have to live in it. We have to function in it. We have to provide in it, we have to work in it, we have to be around it. Don't we? So the world though, does not look upon what we're doing here today, as amounting to anything at all.

In fact, it's the weekend, brother Bert, it's a beautiful weekend. I'm going to the beach. I remember at one church where I was at, there was a member there. And the wife, I just become pastor there. And I was a little young and naive.

And when you hear what I'm going to say, you'll say, and you were not very bright either. But I was young and naive, and the church was still willing to call me and I was trying to learn I was trying to develop as a young man.

And so I went to visit, there had been some, his mother had been sick. So I went to visit and he was there. I said, Well, I didn't. I saw your wife at church, but I didn't see you. He says, Well, he says, Well, Sundays, I worship God in my boat.

I go, Okay, boat. What kind of church is your boat? I mean, first boat church? I mean, what is it? He says, Well, I go out. I anchor and I look at the sky and I look at all this. And I'm sitting there.

Oh, boy, you know, all right. So anyway, I said, Okay. And so I said, Well, come on to church Sunday, you know, we don't start to 11 fish aren't biting. Come on. Well, I didn't see him for a couple of days.

And then one day I saw him at the grocery store. And I said, Okay, what do I want you to do? You know, good to see you. Why don't you come to church? He says, Well, I'm still, you know, I told you preacher what I do.

I said, Okay. Well, I got one of my deacons. I said, I want to do something. They said, What do you want to do? I said, Well, I want to go fishing Sunday morning. Mike Smith, you're not that wouldn't be that would be quite a challenge, wouldn't it?

I mean, you know, as deacons, you know, I want to Andy, and when you think I'd be quite a challenge asking him, you know, I'd like to go fishing Sunday morning. And I told him why I hadn't. So I had somebody could fill in.

And so and so I went. And I got there a little bit before him. And because I want to make sure I could find the place. It was in 10. But two. And he was backing his boat up and looked in his rearview mirror.

And he saw me standing. He stopped and he got out. He said, preacher, what are you doing? I said, I'm going on you. He says, Well, why is it to worship? I wasn't very bright was, you know, so anyway, I said, Okay, to worship.

He says, All right. He says, Okay. He said, preacher, I get your point. Let's go. Hold the boat. He was there that Sunday morning. Now, was that something miraculous idea? No. But it was to make see, we want to sometimes say we desire God, we want to be with who we want to do it naturally.

We don't want to do it spiritually, where there may be some demands of us. Alright, so we see that, that the world, the flesh and the devil fight against us come up against us each and every time now.

God Uses Those Who Desire Him

Who is a person who desires God? If a person desires God, I can tell you this, God will use that individual. So who is a person that God uses if they desire God? First of all, it's one who lives a supremely God saturated life.

One who is fully devoted to God. DL Moody said this, the great evangelist, give me 100 men. I care not whether they be clergy or laity, who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God. And I will shape this entire world for Christ.

Every day again, give me 100 men, I care not whether they be clergy or laity, who fear nothing but sin, desire nothing but God, and I will shake this world for Christ. Agree? He could. By the way, he did.

He did. Alright, so we see that how's God use this? God uses this person who desires God, who has a high view of God, because if you're desiring God, you're going to have a high view of God. Now, that means it's elevated above you.

Anyone I've known that's had a high view of God has also recognized the Holy God. And we'll get there in just a few minutes. Now. So let's go and look in verses one through three. Now, by the way, the psalm is entitled to the chief musician with flutes, a psalm of David.

So this was this was sung in public. This was sung in public worship. And we see in verses one through three, we see David's contrition. He says, Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my king and my God.

For to you, I will pray. My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning, I will direct it to you. And I will look. So, in verses one through three, we have David's contrition. And there are three things that we consider here.

First of all, he says, I want you to consider my sign. Second of all, he wants you to listen to my crying. And then the third thing is, I want you to hear my speaking. Let's talk about these things for a few minutes.

Contrition as Brokenness Before God

First of all, that's David's contrition. What is contrition? It's a very interesting word. And I did a little work on it, a little research on it. And it basically is several things. And I want us to look at those several things.

It is actually that we have a low view of ourselves, contrition, and a high view of God. And I want us to look at a couple of scriptures. I want us to look at, first of all, Psalm 51. We're right here in the Psalms.

So, let's hit them first. Psalm 51. Now, we should be familiar with Psalm 51. This is when David had come in. I mean, Nathan had come in to David, pointed his finger at him and said, thou art the man.

And David wrote this Psalm. But in Psalm 51 .17, David says this, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Notice David is saying, look, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

And don't you think for a minute, David did not have a broken spirit. It had all caught up with him. It had been nearly a year since this incident with Bathsheba. And he kind of figured, well, it's kind of past now.

Things are moving on. I guess everything's going to be all right. Of course, Nathan, the prophet shows up one day, about a year later. And they announced Nathan, the prophet. And of course, David welcomes Nathan, the prophet.

He is the prophet. Him and Nathan were close. And he come in and told him a little story. And then he says, I've sinned. And then after that, basically, he writes this Psalm. And he realizes that the whole, that the whole mountain had collapsed on him.

And he realized that the sacrifices of God, he had to have that broken spirit and a contrite heart. Look at 34, Psalm 34, 17, 34, 17, 34, 18, excuse me. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit.

Isaiah, chapter 66, Isaiah 66, turn it over there. And Isaiah 66, verse two, for all those things, my hand is made. And all those things exist, says the Lord. But on this one, will I look on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.

Contrition, it's a brokenness. It's a brokenness before there's openness. And many times we've got to be broken before we can be open. And God knows that. And once David was broken, he was quite open.

If you read Psalm 51, all the way through, he was quite open with God. Desiring God means you're open with God. And so we see the contrition is brokenness before openness in the sight of God. One more little passage that Jesus uses in Luke 18.

Let's go over there. Luke 18.