Transcript: Finding Refreshing Peace in God's Presence

The Thank you for joining us today. I wonder how many of us ever stop to ponder the state or the condition of our souls. One of the greatest questions we all could ask ourselves to know if our soul is in a good state or right standing with biblical precepts is, does my soul long after the things of God? Do I hunger and thirst for God's standards in my life? Am I hungry for God? It is my desire to provoke you in this thought today. And on the other side of this question I just posed are, is my soul's longing for the things of the world, the cares of the world? Is my soul's desire after my own pursuits and personal happiness? In Psalms 42, verse 1, King David gives us the example of a thirsty soul which longs after and yearns for the living God. In Psalms 42, in the Amplified Version, it reads, As the heart pants for and longs after the water brooks, so I pant and long for you, O God. My inner self thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food all day and night While men say to me all day long Where is your God? These things I earnestly remember And pour myself out within me How I went slowly before the throng And led them in the procession to the house of God Like the bandmaster before his band Timing the steps to the sound of the music And the chant of the song with the voice of shouting and praise and a throng-keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope for God and wait expectantly for him. I shall yet praise him, my help and my God. O my God, my life is cast down upon me and I find the burden more than I can bear. Therefore, I will earnestly remember you from the land of the Jordan, the river, and the summits of Mount Hermon, from the little mountain Missar. Verse 7. Roaring deep calls to roaring deep at the thunder of your water spouts. All of your breakers and your rolling waves have gone over me. And yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night his song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Dear church, David was definitely not mourning or grieving or lamenting over the trouble in his kingdom which he ruled in his day. And his passion was not over his rebellious son Absalom's coup of trying to usurp his father's throne. David had deeper yearnings than any of these physical or external problems that came with the territory or the office of his kingship. This deeper need and longing David cried out to the Lord for could not be supplied by any external satisfaction at all. What David did long for was God himself. This great king and his example for us today shows that David knew that God was the strength of his heart and the only portion which would and could satisfy him forever. Our scripture in Psalms 42 verse 1, as the heart pants for and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for you, O God. My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God? Well, this same longing that David had then is the same longing that many of the dear saints of God have today. And if we who claim to be God's children don't have this longing within, we ought to know that we are missing the essence and the substance of our Christianity. You see, this deep internal longing and passion is called spiritual hunger. This is God hunger. And Jesus promised in the Gospel of John 7.37, that this spiritual longing to be satisfied would be met, and it would be ongoing, and it would be contagious innermost spring and river of living waters. In John 7, 37, in the Amplified, the scripture reads, Now on the final and most important day of the feast, Jesus stood and he cried out in a loud voice, If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on me, as the scripture has said, from his innermost beings shall flow continuous springs of rivers of living water. But he was speaking here of the Spirit, whom those who believed, trusted, and had faith in him were afterwards to receive. For the Holy Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not glorified, raised to honor. Well, a great part of our nature is made for feeling, just as David expressed for us in our opening psalm. And this feeling is different from our emotions, which the Spirit of God, whom Jesus sent to live within us, is busy renewing our feelings into right order, so that these true and renewed feelings are now filled with God's love, with his hope and reverent fear of all which now longs after Christ, who has claimed us and is ever drawing us upward and inward into himself. Well, Apostle Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5, 2, the same longing and inward passion for this God hunger that King David yearned for, only he says it in another way. In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 1, he says, For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have from God a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Verse 2, here is indeed in this present abode, this body, we sigh and groan inwardly because we yearn to be clothed over. We learn to put on our celestial body like a garment to be fitted out with our heavenly dwelling. Well, these renewed feelings and deep desires for God that we have been seeing in the Word today mark out this longing after God as the healthy state of the soul and are to be exampled by every generation for true Christian believers in Jesus Christ. Jesus made this possible, and he has given us his spirit as earnest or down payment to complete this precious process. God's Holy Spirit is himself, dear church, and he himself is the source that Jesus spoke of in John 7, 38, when he said, he who believes in me, who cleaves to, trusts in, and relies on me, as the scripture has said, from his innermost being shall flow continuous springs of rivers of living water. Where there is a thirsty and a dry land, the Spirit of God himself will overflow the banks and find the channel into the land of your heart, dear one. And he will pour in the life-giving streams of love and peace and will bless you beyond measure and will add no sorrow to it. only he knows how to give and to bless you and me enough to satisfy us. But we must be thirsty or have a mourning or a hungry heart for him just as our Lord Jesus Christ himself expressed in John 7, 38. He who believes in me, who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on me as the scripture has said, from his innermost being shall flow continuous springs of rivers of living water. Do not doubt his ability or his timing to satisfy your hunger for him. Jesus has given us promise after promise, and he will not disappoint us. In Matthew 5, 6, Jesus declares, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. and if our desire is truly after God, Jesus said that he would satisfy the hunger which David articulated with such passion You see this passion is divine in its source And this desire is the very pulse of the soul. David had no rest in his soul struggle and his climb upward until God answered him. His passion and his feeling, again, was not an emotional outburst of demanding his own way or rights according to what he knew. Verse 2 of Psalms 42 says, my inner self thirst or paraphrasing we could say David said oh God my appetite for you is an an unquenchable craving a deep yearning and a devotion where I cannot sleep or rest until you hear or you answer me and this was his cry in Psalms 42 verse 1 as we have read as the deer the heart pants for and longs for the water brook. So I pant and long for you, O God. My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night. You see, nothing can compare to the tender touch of God himself. And this thirst for God that David expresses here is intense in its highest degree. And nothing can satisfy this thirst for you or for me, but our Lord Jesus Christ through his precious Holy Spirit. You see, no amount of church going, Bible verses memorized, or knowledge about God can or ever will satisfy this thirst. These are good and wholesome and right, and they are the avenues of relationship with God. But they alone will not satisfy the deep fellowship and the union with God that David was desperately seeking in him. This is called divine union. Listen to this. This is what David was literally crying out for. This kind of thirst is the strongest feeling that we could know or experience. This love for God that will never be satisfied comes level after level. This God love creates love in us. And God love then is poured out to those who receive it, and it is shown forth in acts of human kindness. How dear, God Almighty, creator of all things, stoop so low to show love and kindness to the created beings that he has made. Sacred conversation between heaven and earth is an exchange of a holy affection precious church. Spirit to spirit is divine union which God, our Heavenly Father, longs for with such an intense and burning desire of holiness to purify and make us clean so that we can revere and worship him in the way that he demands. And this is why we were created. The pure affection of God Almighty towards an earthly object, mere creatures of clay, is God in man, exalting himself in the soul which he dwells by expressing divine love and joy, spirit to spirit. Let me say that again. It is spirit to spirit. No religious ideals or paradigms or half-hearted attempts to ever know God in this way will ever touch the heart of God or cause him to incline his ear to hear your cries or to see your tears of desperation for him, then we do it the way that he demands. In our opening scripture of Psalms, chapter 4, verse 1, David said, As the heart pants for and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for you, O God. You see, the soul is compared to a deer or a hard hair. Some translations say a hind. And these are all speaking of the soul, which I pointed out earlier, that the soul is the seat of the emotions and desires. And in these scriptures we have been discussing today, described in Psalms 42, David's expression of his inner self, thirsting for God and his tears being his food day and night. In verse 5, his soul is cast down and is disquieted and he finds the burden more than he can bear. He says, oh, why are you cast down, oh, my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for him, for yet I shall praise him, my help and my God. Oh, my God, my life is cast down upon me, and I find the burden more than I can bear. Well, let us be reminded here that this true longings object in David's heart is God. And it must always be God, dear ones. It must be for God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The communion that David is seeking is the Spirit and the soul's deep and roaring passion to be filled and satisfied with the very presence and love of God. In Psalms 42, verse 7, David says, Roaring deep calls to roaring deep at the thunder of your water spouts. All of your breakers and all of your rolling waves have gone over me. Well, everything within David is crying out for this fulfillment to be met. And for you and me today, our hearts throbbing in satisfaction can rest in only one, in the all-sufficient person of Jesus Christ, who made possible, as we read in Matthew 5, 6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. You see, nothing external can satisfy this deep God hunger, which, let me say, is created by God himself. In the man or the woman who has God, the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ, as the apple of their eye, that is, as their supreme focus. And the psalmist says, Roaring deep calls to roaring deep at the thunder of your water spouts. All of your breakers and your rolling waves have gone over me. Well, this man, David, had experienced the wonderful satisfaction of the mighty waves in the outpouring of the presence and the love of God like a Niagara Falls. And all that was in David that was crying out to be satisfied with God's presence again and again. Well, the difference between a truly godly man or woman versus a nominal Christian is only one can honestly say and mean, My soul pants and thirsts after thee, O living God. Only you can satisfy my hunger and my thirsty soul. Well, this deep and inward call is true communion with God Almighty. This is the panting heart, dear church. No one can know their true and miserable state until they find and have this close and deep and abiding intercourse with God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. This intercourse is not of a human kind. God ordained the marriage between man and woman to be the type and example of a precious union between Jesus Christ and his bride. And there is nothing sexual or essential in this intercourse with God in his creation. This is spiritual. And it is heavenly. It's holy and divine and pure communion and close fellowship with the God of all creation. Well, at this point, I exhort you, dear one, I provoke you to thought once again as I pose the question at the beginning of this message. To question your own soul's condition and state by asking, do I have this kind of God hunger for my soul that I should have? Is my walk with Jesus Christ thus far producing and bringing about this deep inward cry within me to say, Oh my God, as the deer pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for you. My inner self thirsts for you, God, and when shall I come and behold your face? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, where is your God? This as I just stated is the panting heart And I say again you cannot know your true and miserable state until you find and have this deep and abiding intercourse with the Lord Jesus Christ through His Spirit given you called Precious Holy Spirit. intercourse means communion or connection or intimacy and when you begin to show interest in precious Holy Spirit you start turning from your worldly ways and your self-seeking interest and he'll begin to cause within your internal kingdom the calling of deep to deep and he begins to satisfy your hungry heart by the outflowing of his spirit upon you and in you like the roaring and the pouring out of the mighty Niagara Falls. As verse 7 declares, Roaring deep calls to roaring deep at the thunder of your water spouts. All of your breakers and your rolling waves have gone over me. David could have cared less about his royalties, his wealth, his palaces, or even his children, but only and first and foremost did he long for his God and for his God only. We can see here that David, above all, is most respectful to God in his pursuit. But he is also very direct in his desire to have God's fellowship and presence. And just as characteristically as the deer will head for the water when thirsty, David went right to the point when he cried out to God. He knew what he needed. His spirit and his soul was in need of being satisfied with God's love, saturated and deluged with his presence. And we too must learn to be direct with God in stating our needs. But also, we must be very respectful. You see, there is a difference, big difference, in fact, in being direct and being demanding. One will touch the heart of God, and the other will drive him far from you. I tell you this by experience, dear church. Sometimes we learn these lessons in a hard way. But I share that with you because it might save you the agonizing trouble I put myself through in making my rude demands on God in my early years. To be without the presence of God was more than I could bear. I knew then, in that moment, how Adam and Eve felt when they stood naked in the garden after they sinned. It was an awful feeling and experience to know right there in the moment your sin grieved the spirit of God and he withdrew himself. I could not live without the one Jesus gave to me as my comforter and my helper and the one who would lead me into all truth. I could not bear the fact that I had grieved the one that I loved. I fell on my face right there and I wept bitterly, tears of repentance. And as our beloved King David cried out to his God in Psalms 51 verse 11, were the same words through my tears that I cried out, My God, my God, do not take your Holy Spirit from me. In Psalms 51.6, David said, Behold, you desire truth in the inner being. Make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. Purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be in reality be whiter than snow. O God, make me to hear the joy and the gladness and be satisfied and let the bones which you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my guilt and iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right in preserving and steadfast spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. then will I teach transgressors away and sinners that shall be converted and returned to you. Oh my God, my Abba Father heard my desperate cries and saw my bitter tears as the scripture declares in Psalms 40 verse 2. He drew me up out of the horrible pit that I had dug for myself and set my feet back upon the rocks and restored me again to his salvation. Well, there's a few key points to remember in this deep inward journey that we must know the difference between being direct with God and making demands of God. For King David, he knew no other way in describing his directness to God than just stating what he needed and giving the likeness or the characteristic of a deer or a heart, which when thirsty, panted after the water. And in this way, it is saying that nothing would stand in the way of that deer pursuing and quenching that driving need within. And this can be likened to a little child who has lost his way or has been separated from his mother. he cries out through his tears, Mother, my mother, where are you? Well, you can give that little child all the consolation you could possibly give. You could give him candy to quiet him, but he will not be satisfied until he is back in the arms and the comfort of his loving mother or father. Let me tell you, precious ones, This is how it is with those who are not in the comfort and the nourishing arms of the Holy Spirit. One of the Holy Spirit's names is El Shaddai, which means the all-breasty one, the one who nourishes, who comforts us, who teaches us and leads us in the way of all truth. So not only must we learn to state our need to him by being direct, But you must know also that this is vital for your spiritual life. Vital means all-important. It means imperative, necessary, needed, and required. Vital means it is mandatory and obligatory, basic and fundamental. It's key and it's urgent. And this is where our example of David in our scripture today stated his need in terms of the very life springs of living water being actual life for you and me. You see, water is necessary for life. And this is representative of Holy Spirit being needed in our lives as vitality himself. And this deep calling to deep is the inward groan of your spirit and your soul in desperate need of these living waters, which only God's spirit can satisfy in all the abundance you could ever need or want or desire. And this deep and sometimes inarticulate moaning within your spirit, which cannot be uttered or spoken in word, will be surfaced by the Spirit of God which bursts forth in its expression in some way or another, making known the vital need of your deep and unquenchable thirst. In Corinthians 2.10, the word declares in the Amplified Bible, Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through his Spirit, for the Holy Spirit searches diligently. exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God, the divine counsels and things hidden beyond man's scrutiny. For what person perceives, knows, and understands what passes through a man's thoughts except the man's own spirit within him, just so no one discerns, comes to know and comprehend the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Verse 12. Now, we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world, but the Holy Spirit who is from God, given to us that we might realize, comprehend and appreciate the gifts, the divine favors and blessings so freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God. Verse 13. And we are setting these truths forth in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Holy Spirit, combining, interpreting spiritual truths with spiritual language to those who possess the Holy Spirit. If you are truly thirsty and hungry for the things of God, the Holy Spirit will always aid or help you in making your requests or your desires known to God. His vitality, called life of His Spirit, will overflow your spirit and your soul without measure. And as long as you are thirsty and hungry for Him you see this is God desire for you That is to be thirsty for him dear ones And just as David experienced seasons in pursuits of God so will you and I experience these changing seasons in our Christian experience. What you experience in one season causes the increase and the hunger and thirst for the next season. Well, bear with me one more time. David declares in Psalms 42.3, My tears have been my food all day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God? These things I earnestly remember and pour myself out within me. I went slowly before the throng and led them in the procession to the house of God like a bandmaster before his band, timing the steps to the sound of the music and the chant of the song with the voice of shouting and praise in a throng-keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God, wait expectantly for him, and yet shall I praise him, my help and my God. You see, David is expressing the seasonal change in his soul's hunger and thirst for God. Verse 4 expresses what he remembered. These things, he says, I earnestly remember, poured myself out within me, how I went slowly before the throng and led them in the procession to the house of God, like a bandmaster before his band, timing the steps to the sound of the music and the chant of the song with the voice of shouting and praise and a throng-keeping festival. We must remember these delightful seasons of time with the experience that comes in that time. But verse 5 shows us that we must look ahead and have hope and wait expectantly for God in his time and the way that he demands, and he will fulfill our desperate, internal, inward craving of our spirit and soul to be satisfied. Verse 5 says, Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for him and yet praise him, my help and my God. Well, the key for you here is to learn to wait on God. And in that wait, you will have expectancy and hope and praise God because the fulfillment of your desire is on the way. Be encouraged for those of you who have had this longing. Be encouraged because this longing for God will be satisfied. Be comforted to know that God loves you and he hears your requests. He hears the cries of your hearts and your call to be fulfilled in your God hunger. You see, there's no thirst like the thirst of a man or a woman who has once known and experienced the tender sweetness and the rare phenomenal wine of heaven. Dear Church, we must admit that we are poor and are in need of the King of Kings' unquenchable gift of living waters. King David was a king, and he was a type and an example for us that we too should desire our King Jesus Christ, who made possible this wonderful gift of divine union with God himself. I remind you of the scripture once again, where Jesus cried out in a loud voice, inviting all who would come to answer this invitation. John 7, 37, Jesus cried out, If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, who cleaves to and trusts in me and relies on me, as the scripture has said, from his innermost being shall flow continuous springs of rivers of living water. Verse 39 says that he was speaking here of the spirit to whom those who believe and trust and have faith in were afterwards to receive. for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified or raised to honor. Well, Jesus declares that we must be vitally connected to him by believing in him in order to enjoy these living waters. You see, many a hypocrite can talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk, nor evidence the proof of the abiding in this place. Their fruit does not evidence the attachment to the tree of life, but only to another tree. In this scripture, Jesus has given us the invitation to come unto him and to live in this water. And this strong and deep inward desire is for our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And those of you hearing this message today, if you have never experienced this inward thirst or hunger for God because of wandering from him or because of present sin in your life or because of denominational paradigms or beliefs which have limited you in this experience, repent today of these offenses. God is willing to forgive you and bring you into this wonderful experience that we have been discussing today. In the fulfillment of this God hunger that all of God's children should be experiencing consistently in their Christian walk to some degree or measure. You see, it will not take our Lord Jesus Christ long to make your dry and your cold and winter season into a summertime delight with fresh rains and warm sunshine to fill your deep and inward desires to know him more. Because after all, dear ones, this is what you were created for. You will certainly begin to thirst after him and crave him on a daily basis. And it won't be like a rabbit's dart and zigzagging here and there. But you will grow in wisdom. And you'll grow in revelation and knowledge of the one who created you to be filled with himself, to be filled with his righteousness and his love. And you'll begin to experience and be aware of and sense his favor in your life. And you will enjoy experiencing his tangible presence and glory in your life as well. that you'll find the enjoyment of his presence abiding with you. You'll find his strength is now your desire and experience, the true reality that he is satisfying the yearning of your spirit and soul thirst. You won't be content anymore just to have a little drop here or there. But you will find yourself in hot pursuit after him all the days of your life. as a deer once finds the source of water it does not just tiptoe up to it but as it is running to the streams of water it plunges itself into the water and drinks deeply and eagerly of it and so it must be with our souls as we drink of the wonderful and beautiful water of life which springs up from one fountain and that is our Lord Jesus Christ through the overflowing abundance of his Holy Spirit. This blessed water is more cherished and relished and desired more than life itself, precious ones. This is true communion with God. And this is what God desires of each one of us. Panting after him, craving him, is this most precious place to be. and this will be our great desire for all of eternity, to know the one and only King who made all things possible. Do not miss your opportunity while you have breath on this earth. While today is called today, let this become your preference. And if you do not know this agony of thirst, ask God for it and he shall satisfy you. This is a promise from the King of Kings. Jesus declares the promise in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, verse 13, when he said to the woman at the well, All who drink of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever takes a drink of the water that I will give to him shall never, no, never be thirsty anymore. But the water that I will give him shall become a spring of water welling up and flowing and bubbling continually within him unto eternal life. Learn to dwell in these waters and you'll never be thirsty again. you