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I. One Thing Now, don’t let the title of this morning’s sermon fool you. I haven’t changed my mind; and I haven’t changed the sermon series. We’re still asking the question, “What do you want?” What do you most deeply desire in life? Not what do you say you want, but what do you really want? What hungers drive you, what desires shape you? We’re still listening to the witness of the men and women of God thru the ages. Asking men like Solomon and Moses, women like Naomi and Sarah, What did you want? What did you ask God for? How did God respond to your desires? This week the question is what did David want? That singer of songs and slayer of giants, that man after God’s own heart, what did he want? The question, it turns out, is easier to ask than to answer because David wanted a lot of things. David had a rich emotional life and he was full of desires. Many of those desires are recorded for us in the poems he left behind. The Psalms. In the Psalms, someone once said, we find every sigh of the human soul, every deep and defining desire. That’s one of the reasons why we are so drawn to the Psalms, why we love to read them and sing them, why we turn to them in every circumstance of life, when the sun is shining and all is right with the world and when the storms are raging and everything is going wrong. It’s all here, every desire of the human heart. So what does David want according to the Psalms? Well, he wants protection from his enemies. He wants to live; and not just live, but to live with his head held high. Ps 3 You O Lord, are a shield about me; you’re my glory and the lifter of my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. David wants protection from his enemies and help in times of trouble and David wants healing when he is sick. Psalm 6 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. David wants justice for his people and justice for those who sin. Psalm 5 Declare them guilty, O God! Let them fall by their own plans. Cast them out because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you. But let those who take refuge in you rejoice, Let them ever sing for joy. David wants God’s kingdom to come and God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. David also wants to be forgiven. Psalms 51 Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me. David is a lot like us. He wants and needs so much. But now, for the title of the sermon, it, too, comes from the Psalms. Psalm 27. In that Psalm David says there is ‘One thing,” one thing in my life that rises above the rest. One thing I desire more than anything else. One thing I have asked from the Lord over and over and over again. But before I share what that one thing was, could we stop and think about those two little words? One thing. What’s your ‘one thing’? It’s not an easy question. We’re so used to wanting many things and having many things that we never really have to think about having and wanting only one. Asking ‘What is your One Thing?’ is like asking, if you were banished to a deserted island for the rest of your life what is the one thing you would take with you? Or, it’s like asking, if you could keep only one of your senses, the sense of taste or touch or sight or sound, which would you choose? If you have to pick one thing in this life that you desire above all else, one thing to hold onto if you have to give up everything else, one thing to center your life around, it better be good. It better be strong enough to support you, beautiful enough to inspire you, good enough to satisfy you, and enduring enough to last all the days of your life. It better be the one thing you cannot live without. So, what is David’s one thing? II. David’s ‘One Thing’ Psalm 27, verse 1: the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Then in verses 2 & 3 David speaks of his enemies, evil men who seek to devour his flesh. But with God as his light and the strength of his life, David will not fear though an army besiege him, though a war break out against him. But then, in verse 4, the Psalm takes a surprising turn. Instead of praying for protection from those enemies, he prays for something else, His One Thing. It is almost as if David, while he is singing, his mind’s eye goes from his enemies to the One who protects him, and he is dazzled. What David sees when he lifts his eyes is so captivating, so blindingly beautiful that the enemies all but disappear. David sings, verse 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. This is David’s One Thing, the one thing he wants above all others. David wants to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of His life. David uses other words for the House of the Lord in the Psalm. In verse 4, he calls it God’s Temple. In verse 5, it is God’s ‘Tabernacle’. But whether tabernacle, temple or house, David has in mind the place where God dwells. Does that make sense to you? What is David saying here? The greatest desire of his heart is to dwell in the sanctuary of His God. Is David wishing his life were different than it is? That instead of being a King, a king who would have to go to battle or attend to the affairs of state, instead of being a King what David really wanted, what he wished for all this life, was to be a priest. Or if not a priest, maybe what he said in another psalm, just a doorkeeper in the house of his God. Do you think that’s what David meant? I think that is rather unlikely. David knew quite well the blessings that were his. He knew the incredible privileges God had given him and especially the promise that the Kingdom would not depart from his house. That from his own loins would come a King that would reign over the house of David and over the whole earth forever and ever and ever. No, David would not want to trade places with another. So, there must be another explanation of what David wanted. And there is. In fact, David himself explains what he means a few short verses later. Verse 7 and 8. Hear my voice when I call, O Lord, be merciful and answer me. My heart says of you “Seek his face!” Your face, O Lord, I will seek. That’s it. That’s what David wants. That’s the one thing he seeks above all else. The one thing he would take with him on the desert Island. The one thing he would sacrifice all his physical sense for or use all of them to find. David wants the face of God. That’s why he wants to be in the house of God. Because the house of God, the temple of the Lord, is the place where what David most deeply desires can be most completely experienced. III. The Face of God Now the Face of God is a Metaphor. It’s a poetic word picture but let’s not miss what it is meant to picture. Take a moment and look at these faces. The first ones are the faces of the children at Aurora Primary School in South Africa. Aren’t they amazing? The next ones are the faces of my two adorable grandchildren. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. What do you see when you look at these faces? It is hard to describe, isn’t it? You see ‘life,’ is that mysterious reality that is at the heart of each of us. You see everything that makes life good…joy, love, curiosity…If you look closely, you can even see in those faces their thoughts, & feelings. In a human face we see the soul made visible. If we could, for a moment, step into those pictures and behold these children face to face. If we weren’t just looking at them, the faces would come to life. There would be giggles and sighs and intelligible words. It is through the face that a person connects, soul to soul, with another. That is what David is seeking. He is seeking the soul, if I may speak in these terms, the inner life of God. That’s what he said earlier in verse 4. He wants to dwell in the house of God for two reasons: He wants gaze at the beauty of His Lord. He wants to look into his face, to see his smile, to touch the tears in his eyes, to behold the glory of whom God is. Secondly, David wants to seek him in his temple. Or as you may have it in your translation, to inquire of him, to talk to him and to listen to him, to learn from him. To enter into communion with him body, mind and soul. That’s what David wants, more than he wants anything or anyone else. May I point something out? May I point out what David did not say he wanted? May I point out what David did not seek above all else? He did not seek God’s hand or his mighty outstretched arm. Now, there are times when that is exactly what David needed and wanted. In Psalm 104, for example, David says that God opens his hand and satisfies all creation with good things. God is the giver of all good things; and we need and want those things. God is our savior and protector and it was by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm that He rescued the children of Israel from Egypt. Often, David would sing of that salvation. But that was not the one thing, the one thing that David desired above all else. He desired not the gifts, But the giver. Not his hand, but his heart. If God withheld his hand, David could accept it but if God withheld his heart, revealed in his face, then David would die. It is worth asking ourselves: What do we really want from God? His hand or his heart? His gifts or his face? What do I most earnestly seek? What fills my prayer life? What moves me? IV. But How? Solomon once said, in Ecclesiastes, There is nothing new under the sun. Perhaps you have noticed that there is nothing new in this sermon. Isn’t this what Paul said in the passage we studied last week? When He wrote, I want to know Christ, not just be forgiven by him, saved from my sin; I want to know him even if I have to suffer with him. Isn’t this what Moses wanted when he cried out to God, show me your glory!? I want to see who you are in all your beauty. I want to hear you speak. I want to see you face to face. Wasn’t that the message Jesus spoke to me up on that mountain in Colorado? I have this against you, Phil; you have left your first love. You have not wanted to be with me and to know me and love me like you once did. Isn’t this what Gregory of Nyssa was getting at when he said, To regard friendship with God…this is the one thing we were made for above all else. To know God and to enjoy him forever and thereby give Him Glory. It’s what eternal life consists in; it’s what Jesus came to give us. It’s why we were created in God’s image. But here is the question: How? How do we experience this relationship of union and communion with almighty God? How do we experience it in such a way that it becomes that which we want above everything else? Well, there is not enough time in this service for me to answer that question but I do want to point us in some directions. Because this is probably where David can be most helpful to us, in showing us “how.” Six Brief Pointers… 1. Point to the Wilderness…The wilderness is where David’s life with God began, and it is where he so often returned. David was the singer of psalms because he was a boy who lived in the beauty and the solitude of the Judean wilderness, watching his father’s sheep and there he heard the voice of God. David’s songs are filled with the imagery of the wilderness. . . The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after you. Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, Our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth…When I consider your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have set in place, What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Do you want to know God? To gaze on his beauty? To seek his face? Then seek it in the wilderness, in the wildness and quietness of creation. 2. Point to the Word…Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Or stand in the path of sinner or sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. David was in love with the word of God. It was the lamp for his feet and the light for his path. It made him wiser than all his teachers but most important of all, it was the voice of God to his soul. The word of God is the voice of God spoke by his very mouth to the children he loves. Do you want to know God? To gaze on his beauty? To seek his face? Then seek Him in His Word. 3. Point to the Harp…What happened to you when you looked at the pictures of the children’s faces? It opened your heart, didn’t it? May I suggest that a similar thing happens when we sing? Music is the language of the soul, and it has a way of opening our hearts that is unique to it. We need to learn to be like David and to sing to God. Be filled with Spirit, Paul says in Ephesians, singing to one another in psalms and hymns & spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to God. Men, this is a word especially to you. I don’t know when we learned to separate manliness from music, but it was a sad, sad day. We need to get back to the day of David, where a man could bend a bow of bronze, and ride a horse in battle, and then sing a love song to our God. Real men sing, at least men who want to connect with God in their heart of hearts. Men, when we don’t sing, we teach our sons not to sing and we perpetuate the distance and coldness of heart that keeps us from the face of God. Do you want to know God? To gaze on his beauty? To seek his face? Then sing his praises in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord. 4. Point to the Temple… Did you know that the greatest unfulfilled desire in David’s heart was to build a temple for God? He spent most of life planning for it. He gave most of his personal wealth preparing for it. He designed the building; he created the music for it; he organized the singers. But he was not allowed by God to build it. Why would David put so much energy into planning for the construction of a temple he was not allowed to build? Because that temple was the greatest expression of the deepest desire of his heart. It was the sign & symbol of what he wanted his people to keep foremost in their minds. The worship of God, seeking Him face to face with all their heart, soul & mind. It is not enough to worship God in the wilderness. It is not enough to meditate on his word. It is not enough to sing new songs to Him. We must worship in His Holy Temple. For God has attached a special promise to the gathering of his people on the days He has designated. God is everywhere. Yes! But God is present in a special way when His people gather in His name to sing his praises, teach his word and celebrate his sacraments. Do you want to know God? To gaze on His beauty? To seek His face? Then gather with His people to worship in His house. 5. Finally, let me point all of it to Jesus. For we have something today that David did not have in his day. The heart of God fully and finally revealed in the face of Christ. We have the promise that wherever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus there He is in our midst. We have the seal of His Holy Spirit in our hearts, the one that moves us to sing those psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the one who fills our hearts with the melody of God’s love. I must stop. I am not done. I will never be done. For to seek the heart of God in the face of Christ is an eternal journey of joy. But my words must cease, and we must seek Him in His table. |
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 April 2011 09:35 |
