Worshiping Your Way Through The Wilderness - Grant Partrick

0:22 I kind of want to come around this idea that what we are desperate for, we give our attention to. And you know that to be true, especially anybody that has kids. We got a seven, a five, and a three-year-old now. And this past summer, when we were going to the beach, we pull out of Marietta, Georgia. and before we leave Cobb County, we already had several. Are we there yet? Are we close? How far are we? Give us an example. Like, is it about the same distance from our house to church? We're like, no kids, just hang tight, take a nap, do something. Or if a kid wants a snack, that's all they can think about is, can I have a snack now? How about now? Can I have a snack now? Can I have a snack now? It's been a while since I asked for a snack. Can I have a snack now? What we are desperate for, we can't shake thinking about. There's two groups of people when you grow up, you get put into two camps.

1:19 And it's most clearly seen by your risk tolerance with the amount of gasoline in your automobile. There are people who like to test the limits. Anybody in this room, 515? You want to see how far you can go. These are most of the time the same people that drink milk that's just a little bit expired. It's not really that bad.

1:44 We'll pray for you at the end of the gathering. Come down front. Then there's another group of people. I follow in this camp. I drive a 2014 Toyota 4Runner. Until last year, I've never seen the gas light come on. I didn't know I had a gas light. I went to a Braves game at the invitation of a friend who's probably at Cumberland. That was an awesome invitation, so please invite me back next year. They were awesome tickets. My wife and I got to go, and as we're going, there is a ticket apparently at the Braves game. You pull in through this thing, and you get out, and they will valet your car, which I didn't know existed. I'm not a big valet guy, mostly because I live in Atlanta, and anytime someone valets your car, You pay them to drive your car from here to there. And I'm like, well, just let me park it there. You know, it's so close.

2:37 But we get out and it's awesome. The game wasn't that awesome. The experience was great. Tough year for the Braves. And at the end, I get back to my car and the gas light is on. This is when I learned that there is a gas light in a 2014 Toyota 4Runner. And I'm pretty sure that I had about a fourth of a tank when I dropped it off. I don't know what happened in the valet. I don't know if they just left my car running the whole time, but we get in and I am, my blood pressure is through the roof. I'm so nervous, you know, because we're leaving the Braves game. There's traffic everywhere. We can't go anywhere. And I'm trying everything. Like I'm just thinking of crazy stuff. You know, I got the car in neutral anytime we're not moving forward. At one point I leaned over and turned the radio off and my wife was like, is it a gas powered radio? You know, I'm not sure how that works. And I mean, I'm just, all I can think about is I need to, I got to get to a gas station. Where is the gas? I don't care how much it costs. I don't care where it is. I need to get to the closest gas station. Preferably, I would like one that's downhill from here so that we can just coast there. That's all I could think about. What we are desperate for, we can't stop thinking about. You know this to be true. And as it relates to being desperate for God, I think one of the clearest pictures of what that looks like in the scripture is found in Psalm 63.

3:56 It's a short psalm. It's only 11 verses. We're going to spend our entire time in that psalm today. Psalm 63 is often called the soul of the psalms, which is pretty awesome. And at first, when you read it, and we'll read it in just a second, when you read verse one and verse two, you would kind of put it in the category probably of a psalm of lament. David's writing it. He's in a tough spot. It seems like a psalm of lament. but when you keep reading it, even though his circumstances seem catastrophic, it's actually a psalm of confidence in God. And that's what I've been praying for for you today, that if you find yourself in the wilderness like David did, and many of us are there today, life can seemingly throw us into the wilderness just about at every turn. And there are many people today online, there are many people today in all of our locations, you feel stuck in the desert.

4:52 And my prayer coming into today is as we kind of excavate under these 11 verses in this psalm, that you will sense your soul's confidence in God deepening. John Chrysostom, who was a fourth century preacher, he was widely kind of known as one of the greatest preachers in the ancient world. He says of Psalm 63, he says, among the primitive or the early Christians, it was decreed and ordained that no day should pass without the public singing of Psalm 63. Isn't that awesome? In the early church, the people of God, it was ordained that we're not going to go 24 hours without collectively singing this song. Why? Because we so easily can be thrown into the wilderness and in the desert night of the soul.

5:46 And yet there is a Psalm that brings confidence in God even to the worst circumstances of life. And that's what Psalm 63 is about, that you can worship even in the wilderness. So let's read it together. Psalm 63, the superscription says, a Psalm of David when he was in the desert of Judah. Verse one, do you have it? You have your Bible open? three of us let's try one more time cumberland do you have your scripture open to psalm 63 515 okay great if you're watching online and driving just let me read it to you okay verse one you god are my god earnestly i seek you i thirst for you my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

6:53 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods. My singing lips, my mouth, with singing lips, my mouth will praise you. On my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you, verse 8. Your right hand upholds me. Those who want to kill me will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in God, and all who swear by God will glory in him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

7:50 Amen. So let me set the scene for you a little bit. What's going on? Where David is? It says, again, in the superscription, it tells us who the author is, and it tells us kind of the scene. It tells us what's going on. It says this is a Psalm of David, the great King David, and this is happening when he's in the Judean wilderness. He's in the desert of Judah. Now, David had two times, two experiences where he was in the wilderness, and before really digging into this text over the last week, I assumed when reading this Psalm, and maybe you would as well, that this has to be when David is in the wilderness on the run from King Saul. This is recorded 1 Samuel chapters 19 through 31. You know the story. God chose David over King Saul, which made Saul very insecure and very jealous. Ultimately, then he moved into action and tried to kill his son's best friend, David.

8:49 And David fled into the wilderness. But I think what's more likely here is that David wrote this psalm during his second stint in the wilderness, one that is a little bit less popular, that a lot of people know a little bit less about, and in a lot of ways, I would suggest is way more complex and way more heartbreaking. The most obvious reason is that in verse 11, David refers to himself as the king. Do you see it in your Bible? This is why reading the Bible closely and carefully and slowly is important. In verse 11, David says, the king, me, will rejoice in you. Well, when David was on the run from King Saul, he was not yet king. There's only one wilderness experience where David was fleeing into the wilderness after he had already taken the throne in Israel. And it's recorded in 2 Samuel chapters 14 through 18. And some crazy stuff is happening in David's family. In response to an evil act of one of his sons, Amnon, against one of his daughters, Tamar, his other son, Absalom, is rightfully furious and starts plotting to kill Amnon, his brother. And then Absalom does kill Amnon, and David is heartbroken, and then Absalom grows mad at his dad because of, you know, he thought, well, you didn't really move into action here. This should have been you doing this and not me. And from that moment on, Absalom, David's son, begins to plot to steal the throne from his dad.

10:34 This is pretty wild. This is happening in the scripture. The scripture says, this is pretty crazy, that Absalom would get up early in the morning and he would go down to the city gate. and in an attempt to win over credibility with the people who were under David's rule, he would stand outside the city gate early in the morning. And when people would go in to make their case or plead their case with the king, as they were leaving the courts, there would be Absalom just hanging on the corner. And he would say to them, oh, your request is so valid. I understand why you're here to file this grievance. I understand what you're doing. And I don't know how they're treating it, but I'd tell you how I would treat it because you're justified in what you're saying and you're justified in your complaint. And day by day, he did this to try to win over the hearts of the people of Israel. And it says in chapter 15, verse six, he stole the hearts of the people of Israel.

11:27 Absalom's following continued to grow. The hearts of the people, the scripture says, are with Absalom, David's son. And finally, he gets enough men, he goes to Hebron and he claims Absalom is now the king. And he begins to plot an attack against Jerusalem, the city of David. And David obviously was unprepared for this. This is a very unexpected opponent in his life. And to get out quickly from the incoming attack, David flees to the wilderness. This is the setting that Psalm 63 was written in. And I think it's important because it's one thing to be in the wilderness when you got a crazy king chasing you. But boy, it's way more complex and complicated and heartbreaking when the one chasing you as your own son. And you don't want to hurt him, but you also want to do what God's called you to do. And the heartbreak and the darkness of this desert experience is where David penned this psalm.

12:28 Three things I want you to see in this psalm that describe David's desperation in the desert. The first thing is that desperate faith thirsts for God. Desperate faith thirsts for God. Look at verses one and two. It says, you, God, are my God. Earnestly, I seek you. I thirst for you. My whole being, my entire existence longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Now, the first few words here, the first five words can seem to you to kind of be a throwaway entry to this prayer song of David. But I would argue this is foundational to the Psalm. David says, oh God, you are my God. It's not just an acknowledgement of God. He is declaring his allegiance to God. He's not just saying there is a God. He's saying that God is my God. I have a personal relationship with God. Not just I know about him, I know him. And there are lots of people on planet earth today that know a lot about God, but don't love him as he is their God.

13:47 Even Jesus warns us about this. It's one of the scariest passages in all of scripture to me, Matthew chapter seven. He says, not everybody who cries out to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ones who does the will of my father who's in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, come on, didn't we prophesy in your name? And didn't we drive out demons in your name? And didn't we perform all kinds of miracles in your name? And his response is going to be, I will tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me, you evildoers. And David says, he knew God. He says, God, my God. He's holding on to this covenant relationship that he has with God, drawing all the way back to God's promises throughout scripture, like in Genesis chapter 17 in the Abrahamic covenant. He said, God speaking, makes a covenant to Abraham and his descendants. He says, I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be what your God and the God of your descendants after you. So David grabbing hold of scripture says, I know that the promise making and promise-keeping God has promised to be my God. Therefore, I am in the pitch-black desert of Judah, but I can call out to God not as a distant, far-off cosmic being, but as a close relationship king of creation. I love what John Piper says here as he comments on this verse. He says, the rock beneath the quicksand of David's emotions was his covenant relationship with God. When the circumstances fogged David's vision, he went back to the previous promises of God and remembered, God sees me, God cares for me, God will protect me, oh God, my God. And then he says, okay, we got to speed up. We made it through five words of the first verse. Then he says, okay, in light of that, in light of you being my God, earnestly, I seek you. If anybody has older translations, it says early I seek you because it comes from a

16:00 translation of this Hebrew word that comes with this idea of before dawn, but before the sun rises, I'm seeking after you. That's why Psalm 63 is often called a morning psalm. And what's being communicated here, what David's saying here when he says earnestly I seek you in the morning I seek you is that seeking you is a priority to me. So before my feet hit the ground, before I begin with the events of the day, my highest priority is to seek after God. I wonder if that's true for you. I wonder if that's true of our house today, that our priority is to seek after God. God is not a backup plan. God is not here to bail me out if somehow my plan doesn't work. God is my highest prize. God is my first priority and not my last resort. David says, oh God, my God, earnestly, early in the morning, before I do anything else in the day, I seek after you. Desperate people prioritize seeking God. And what we are desperate for, we give our attention to, and our affections follow soon after. So then he says, okay, I'm thinking about you all the time because I desire you, I'm thinking about you, and now my heart grows and burns for you.

17:17 That's what he says. My whole being longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. He's going, I'm on the run, I'm running for my life, from my own son in the Judean desert. And yet what I'm thirsty for, David says, is God. I'm in a land where there's no water. I'm in the middle of the desert, but what I'm parched for, what I'm thirsty for, What I'm thinking about is not a cool glass of water. It's my king. It's God. You're the one I want. It's interesting that in the 11 verses that begin with David in the wilderness, in what seems to be an impossible scenario, David doesn't ask God for anything. nothing. There's not one request in the whole Psalm. There's not one, can you please, you know, make my son chill out. Can you please bring him back into his right mind? Could you please somehow get me a glass of water here? Could you please make a stream in the wasteland? Could you please do something? No, there's none of that. All David wants is I'm thirsty and I'm hungry. And what I'm thirsty for is you. All he asked God for is more of God. That's what it looks like to be desperate.

18:27 That is desperate faith. We come to him in prayer, not with our long list of requests as though he's some form of ATM machine to get us through tomorrow. We come to him in prayer because he is worthy of our worship and where else would we go? He is our highest priority. And then he says, look in verse 2, I've seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Now David's not in the sanctuary. Where's David? anybody with me still okay david's not in the sanctuary david's where he's in the wilderness he's in the desert but he says i have seen you in the sanctuary he he has a previous experience in the sanctuary that's strengthening him now in the wilderness and that's why what we're doing right now is so important that that's why being in church among the people of god singing the praises of god sitting under the word of god pursuing god with brothers and sisters is so important. Why? You are loading yourself up with fuel that will keep your flame burning when the desert season comes. You don't want to be learning the song when the winds pick up. You want to already know it and just let it start coming out. And this is what's happening here. This is desperate faith. He's on the run in the desert, and it was the memory of experiences at the temple with the people of God that gave him strength to endure. All throughout the scripture, Old Testament, New Testament. You can worship God from anywhere. You can sing a song from anywhere, but there is something powerful of being together with the people of God. Desperate faith thirsts for God.

20:02 Number two, we see in this psalm, desperate faith treasures God. Desperate faith treasures God. Desperate faith delights in God. Desperate faith is happy in God. Look what he says, verse three, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I'm going to praise you for my whole life, he says. And I will lift up my hands in your name. I will be fully satisfied as with the riches of food. With singing lips, my mouth will praise you, right? He's going back to remembering being in the sanctuary. He's thinking about God's glory and his power and his beauty. And as his mind dwells on those previous experiences, his soul begins to feast on God.

20:44 That's a beautiful reality. Spurgeon, in his commentary on the Psalms called Treasury of David writes, there was no desert in his heart, although there was desert all around him. Isn't that beautiful? You could be surrounded by desert on all sides, and yet inside of you, you're living with a stream of living water. That's what was happening for David. David says, your love is better than life. Now, remember, who's writing this is the king of Israel. the greatest king in Israel's history. This guy had a good life. This guy lived in a palace made of cedar. This guy had all the riches of the world. This guy had feasts at every meal. And yet he claims when he's in the wilderness of all the experiences in life, of everything life has to offer, your love is better.

21:39 What would happen if we really, truly believed that? that. The wilderness, I think, has a way of doing that in us, of revealing that in us, of reminding us how much greater God's love is than anything the world has to offer. Desperate faith treasures God above everything else. It's like the parable that Jesus gives in Matthew 13. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure. It's hidden in a field. And a man comes upon it, he finds it, and hid it again. And then in his joy, he went and sold everything he had and bought the field. That it's possible for you to treasure Christ. Now, I just want to encourage us around this as a church. As we think about reaching the world, as we think about being desperate for God, the greatest thing we could do to be on the offense as reconcilers, ministries of reconciliation and co-workers with Christ on planet earth, the greatest tool we have is to be happy in God, to be filled with joy, to be overflowing with joy.

22:41 And when people look at us and they see our circumstances like, man, that guy's in the desert. Look, she's in the wilderness. They didn't get the promotion. The thing's not going good with their family, this, that, and the other. But man, look at the joy that's coming out of them. They'll go, where did you get that? Joy can flow even in the desert. Worship can come even in the wilderness. but why would the world want what we have if we walk around all day looking like we don't want what we have? If we walk around with a bag of bricks on our back lugging around the difficulty of living as a Christian in 2025, why would anybody think that's appealing?

23:23 What they will love is when the people of God go, man, come what may, anything the world has to offer, money, fame, sex, it doesn't matter. Above any and all of that, my treasure is in Christ and it cannot be taken from me. David said, above everything, above everything in life, your love is better. And then he says, I will praise you as long as I live and in your name, I will lift up my hands. This is a beautiful reality. We can worship in the wilderness. We can delight in the desert because our God, our God, who we have a personal relationship with, rules over the wilderness and joins us in the desert. Pastor Louie has said this here a thousand times. Worship is a weapon. It's a weapon for the dark and it's a weapon for the desert. So load up your playlist now and sing your way through the desert.

24:20 Praising God in seasons of pain does something to our faith that few other things can. I really believe this to be true, that singing through suffering is the purest form of praise. And you can sing from anywhere. You can sing from anywhere if you have a memory of the power and glory of God and experience with how he's pulled you through. David's going, he pulled me out of the desert before, he pulled me out of the wilderness before, and he's gonna do it again so he can worship his way through even the darkest of nights. And in verse five, he says, I'll be fully satisfied as with the richest of food. With singing lips, my mouth will praise you. Now, think about this. In verse one, he says he was thirsty and there's no water. Now in verse five, he says he's satisfied as with the richest of foods. What changed?

25:15 No servant came to David with a platter of food. There's no mention of drinking water here. So how do you go from starving of thirst to being satisfied as with the richest of foods? You feast on God. You realize that God will be enough for you. You understand that in the human soul, nothing can satisfy the longing of a human soul outside of the person of Jesus Christ. And we all know that to be true. How do we know it to be true? Because we've run to a thousand other things to do it. career or status or money or being in the right neighborhood or you name it whatever the world has to offer but all of those things leave you hungrier after than before you took your first bite and David says, in the middle of the wilderness, with none of life's advantages on my side, I am satisfied as with the richest of foods.

26:15 It's what Isaiah says. Why labor for what does not satisfy? Or John in John four, when he's telling the story of the woman at the well, he says, man, you've had five husbands. The dude you're with now is not even your husband. Why are you doing that? You can have living water, water that if you drink of it, you'll never thirst again. Or in John 6, he calls himself the bread of life. I'm the bread of life. If you eat of me, you'll never hunger again. Jesus is the only person who can satisfy the longing in your soul. And for somebody in this room today, you have tried too many fragile options that have left you hungrier and emptier after you took a bite. And Jesus is available in this church today. And he's saying, I'm here. I'm the bread of heaven. I'm the bread of life. I am the living water. And even in the darkest desert, there can be a wellspring up in you. He'll satisfy you. He'll satisfy the longing of the human heart. The third thing I want you to see is that desperate faith trusts God.

27:11 Desperate faith thirsts for God. Desperate faith treasures God. And desperate faith trusts God. Look at verse six. On my bed, he says, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you and your right hand upholds me. He's going on my bed, not just in the desert, but in the darkest part of the desert, in the middle of the night in the desert. I remember you. I'm thinking back of all the ways you've come through for me. I think about you through the watches of the night. This is persistent faith. This is persistent prayer. This is what we talked about last week. This is day after day, night after night, showing up again, knocking on the door of heaven, going, God, I want more of you. I want more of you. Please come through for me. I want more of you. In the darkest of nights, David said, I remember you. And remembering what he has done gives you confidence in what he will do. Just look at the verse here in verse seven, verses six and seven. He said, I'm on my bed, I'm in the darkness of night, and I remember you. That is a present activity of a past event.

28:20 I am currently remembering something you've done before. Do you see it? Okay, not a lot of English students here. I am currently, I remember you on my bed, and in order to remember, it's of a past event. But then look at the next verse. He says, because you are, present tense. I'm in this moment. I think about what you have done. Now I'm back to this moment, and you are my help now. This is how it works. Remembering God's faithfulness. Some of you need to buy a journal and just put down on there all the ways God's come through for you. And that way, when you get to the next intersection of life where you think you're wallowing in the wilderness, you can worship instead because you know the same God that got you through the last one is available and will get you through the current one. This is the opportunity of faith. I remember you in the night and you are my help. Our ability, you see, I want you to get this, your ability to worship in the wilderness in large part is determined by your knowledge of the word of God. Look what he says. Like when we study the word, when we load these things into our brains and into our hearts, when we meditate on scripture, you are fueling your tank for unexpected seasons ahead so that all of a sudden the truth of God's word will come out. When your vision is foggy, your heart will remain confident because it's got food to eat from the word of God.

29:45 And then he says in verse eight, I cling to you. I love this verse. I cling to you and your right hand upholds me. So he's going, I'm holding on to you and you're holding on to me. Who's doing the holding here? Who's holding who? Yes is the answer. but here's the beautiful reality. It's like when we go anywhere to a grocery store and we make our kids hold our hands when we cross over a busy street. I'll say to my girls, everybody got to hold somebody's hand and we're holding hands and we're walking across the street. Now they are holding on to me and I'm holding on to them, but their security doesn't come from their ability to hold my hand. their security comes from my strength holding on to them and the way I know that is because sometimes they don't want to hold my hand so I did grab my arm now you're coming with me anyways right we listen we hold on to God we cling to God out of obedience to him it is our obedience that clings to him it is his omnipotence that holds on to us it is his all-powerful nature that goes, I'm holding on to my children and nothing's gonna shake them.

31:03 We hold on to him and he holds on to us. Somebody needs to hear that today. You're not gonna break free from his grip and you white knuckling onto him is a good work of obedience. But don't lay your head on that pillow at night. It'll keep you up. You hold on to him out of a genuine heart posture of obedience, but you rest your head and go to sleep knowing that the God of heaven has got his grip on you and he will not let you go. Not in the desert, not in the wilderness, not in the valley, he's got you. And that promises all throughout scripture. Deuteronomy 31.6, he'll never leave or forsake you. Isaiah 41.10, so do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I'm your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Psalm 23.4, even though I walk through the valley, through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. you can rest in his strength, even in the wilderness.

32:03 somebody just needs to hear that today you you can rest you can go to sleep knowing that the god of heaven is holding on to you and he's not going to let you go he's not going to let you go we cling to him he clings to us desperate faith trust in god and in the last few verses which are you know kind of wild to read uh he's you know his enemies are going to be destroyed they're going to become food for jackals. What's all that about? It's about trusting God. It's about, I don't have to avenge myself. I don't have to protect myself. I don't have to figure my way out of this. I trust in God. He will bring about justice. He will set all things right. So I will sleep and let him work. I will stay with him and let him lead. I'm not going to get in front of him. I trust that the God of heaven, the righteous judge will make all things right in time. Desperate faith thirsts for God. Desperate faith treasures God. And desperate faith trusts in God.

33:09 As we close, I wanted to give you this picture. And when we're in a collection like this, or even as we've had some of these prayer gatherings, it's easy if you haven't been to some of those before. To be honest, the first one I went to, I showed up and I'm kind of like, what do we do now? You know, like, who's going to tell us what to do? I have a heart that wants to do this, but I don't know what to do. So how do I know if I'm truly desperate for God? And I think Psalm 63 is the most beautiful picture of how to practically put this in play in our lives. I want to put the whole Psalm up. It's 11 verses. Circle all the verbs. It's 11 verses. There's 15 verbs in NIV. 11 verses, 15 verbs. That's pretty crazy. We'll make it easier for you to see. Let's take away everything that's not a verb in terms of the action of David. Okay, you see him here? All right, let's make it even easier here. Let's just put them all, there we go.

34:06 11 verses, and look at David's actions. You go, how do I know if I have a life that is desperate for God? Well, look what David does. He says, I seek you. Early in the morning, I seek you. Is that you? Are you prioritizing seeking after God in your own life? He says, I thirst for you. You are my heart's desire. Do you desire a lot of other things more than God, or is he genuinely your heart's deepest desire? My whole being longs for you. What does that mean? It means not part of me longs for you and another part doesn't. It means I don't give you Sunday, but I'm going to keep Thursday. It means everything I have and everything I am longs for God. I have seen you in the sanctuary? Are you storing up memories of God's faithfulness from being among the people of God? I have beheld your power and glory. I've had my mind focused on your power and your glory. I have it in view in my life. My lips will glorify you. Do yours? My lips will glorify you. That's how you know if you're desperate. I will praise you. I will lift up my hands in praise. He says, I will be fully satisfied? Are you satisfied in God? Are you happy in him? Do you take delight in him?

35:23 Is coming to church a duty for you or a delight? Do you come to church because good people are supposed to come to church? My mom always told me I had to come to church when I grew up. Or do you come to church because you're like, man, we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to open Jesus's word. We're going to sing songs about Jesus. He's the one I want. He's the one I love. Are you satisfied in him?

35:44 John Piper once said, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Do you bring glory to him by being satisfied in him? My mouth will praise you. It's a lot of praise. If we wanna be desperate people, our lives have to be filled with praise. I remember you. Are you constantly thinking back to God's faithfulness in your life? I think about you. That's what I love. We had 681 people at a core class the other night showing up to love Jesus with their mind, which is one of the greatest commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. Do you love Jesus with your mind? Are you thinking about him? I sing in the shadow of your wings. I'm surrendering underneath your authority. I cling to you. Out of obedience, are you holding onto him knowing that ultimately he's holding onto you? And then lastly, I rejoice in God.

36:36 joy overflows in my life. This is what it looks like to be a desperate people. And maybe you're here and you're in a season that feels like you're way out in the wilderness. You're out in the wasteland somewhere. You're out in the middle of the darkest desert you could imagine in your life. then I pray and hope this Psalm today, as you think about David, as you put these things in play in your life, as you wake up tomorrow morning and don't put Sunday is church day and every other day is my day. You go, no, everything I have is for Jesus. So I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and I'm gonna seek him early in the morning. And as you do, even in the weariness of the wilderness, your soul will begin to strengthen and grow roots in God. You'll begin to see where you used to wallow, now you'll worship.

37:32 Where you used to doubt, now you'll praise. This is possible for us. And so all throughout the week this week, maybe you can just take those verbs and go, are these at play in my life? Am I displaying this in my day-to-day walk? Am I actually, truly, genuinely desperate for God?

37:52 That's what I want for our house. That's what I want for you. I want to be desperate for him and when we are he will answer our prayers and we day by day moment by moment even in the furthest reaching places spiritually will sense his nearness and he'll carry us through I want to close and as we do all those verbs are amazing all those activities are amazing but all those activities are a response to the goodness of God that in order to seek after God and thirst after God and have my soul long for God, you have to first be in a relationship with God. That's why the first verse says, you God are my God. I've humbled myself before you. I've surrendered underneath you. I found all other things to be unsatisfying and I'm positioning myself under the shadow of your wing.

38:47 You now are my God. And somebody in this room today, you are out in the pitch black desert of life. And you've tried a zillion things to find satisfaction in. And all of them have left you empty. All of them have left you hopeless. All of them have left you with more doubts and more hunger than where you began.

39:10 And Jesus is here today. He's available today. And the scripture says, if you call on him, that this king, this great king who left heaven, came to earth on a rescue mission. Think about that. Out of his mouth, he breathed everything into existence. He thought you up. He thought me up. Everything that's been created has been created by him. And then he became paint on his own canvas. He stepped onto his creation on a rescue mission for you and me. Because we made foolish decisions that we thought we knew better than God. All of us have done that. And we're separated from a holy God. So Jesus came on this rescue mission to get us. He lived the life you couldn't live, a perfect life. He died the death that you deserved, even though he was perfect. He took on the sins of the world, your sins and my sins. He hung on a cross and willingly gave up his last breath for you and for me.

40:03 He was put into a borrowed tomb, but three days later, the scripture says, by the power of the glory of the father, he was raised to life, conquering and triumphing over sin, hell, death, and the grave. and he offers light and he offers life to any who call on him. And I don't care how far in the wilderness you think you are.