Satisfy Your Soul in God ~ 20231231 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
23/12/31 Satisfy your Soul in God (Psalm 19); Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20231231_bible.mp3
It’s new year’s eve. Tomorrow begins a new year. The turning of the calendar provides opportunity for introspection, for resolution. What was good about the passing year? What would I like to be different? What changes can I make for a better year ahead? I cannot control most of my circumstances, but I do have something to do with my response to those circumstances, with my attitude. I can’t control many things that happen around me or to me, but I can determine to make some things happen. I can determine to do things. When I aim for nothing, I’ll hit it every time. What are you resolved to do? To be?
Seek to Satisfy your Soul in God
Let me commend to you that you make this the great aim of your life: Every day to get your soul happy in God. Pursue your soul’s satisfaction in God.
Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Psalm 90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Isaiah 55:1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live... 6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
Seek your soul’s satisfaction in God. How? ‘Taste and see that YHWH is good.’ How? Get to know him. How? ‘Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.’ How do we listen to God?
The only sure way to get to know God is through his word.
The Proclamation of Creation (Psalm 19:1-6)
Let’s look at Psalm 19 together.
Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The heavens, the sky, day and night, the sun, all together declare the glory of God, proclaim his handiwork, reveal knowledge; all creation proclaims the glory of the Creator. Creation is glorious, and is made to glorify its Creator.
Leaves Us Without Excuse (Romans 1:18-21)
All creation that is, except us. We are in rebellion against our Creator. We selfishly put ourselves at the center of the universe, and refuse even to thank him for the good gifts he continues to shower down. We refuse him the worship that is his due. And so, Romans 1 tells us;
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
God’s eternal power, his divine nature, on display through his creation, but we refuse to honor him as God or give him thanks. We take his good gifts, and turn our back on the Giver.
The silent speech of creation condemns, leaves us without excuse, because we suppress the truth.
God’s Self-Revelation (Psalm 19:7-10)
But Psalm 19 turns to God’s self-revelation, in his word.
Psalm 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
The law, or torah, God’s instruction, where he tells us about himself, the story of his interaction with people. God’s testimony, his own witness to what is true. His precepts and commandments, precise, clear and authoritative. His rules or judicial decisions. God’s revelation of who he is and how we relate to him evokes fear. If we don’t have a healthy fear of God, we don’t understand him. There ought to be a holy terror for sinners who begin to understand what God is like and what he requires. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps.111:10).
God communicates himself to us in his word.
And his communication is perfect - whole, without flaw; sure - proven trustworthy and reliable; morally right and just; pure - clear, untainted; clean - bright, innocent, holy; true - certain, stable. His word is a unified whole.
Does your shriveled soul need to be revived? Does your foolishness need his wisdom? Does your empty heart need to experience true joy? Do your blind eyes need to be illumined? Do you need something that will last to the end? Do you long for something of infinite value? Does your tongue long to savor sweetness again? This is what God’s word is and does.
The Lord’s instruction is more to be desired than the greatest wealth; do you desire it like that? Can you just not get enough? His word is sweeter than the sweetest thing; is it sweet to you? Have you tasted its sweetness?
Our Response (Psalm 19:11-14)
God’s revelation gives life, wisdom, joy, light, it lasts. But when the Lord revealed himself to Isaiah, high and lifted up on his throne, his glory filling the whole earth, Isaiah responded;
Isaiah 6:5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
There is nothing hidden from the heat of the sun and nothing hidden from the eyes of the Lord to whom we must give account. And that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Here is how the Psalmist responds:
Psalm 19:11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. 12 Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. 14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
He doesn’t shrug and walk away, nor is he paralyzed by terror. He doesn’t run away, rather he runs into the arms of the redeemer! He embraces God’s warnings, and acknowledges the great reward for listening to the Lord. But he admits that he doesn’t even fully know his own heart, and he is easily led astray. So he asks for God to wipe his slate clean; declare him innocent. He asks for the Lord to keep him from becoming enslaved to sin. He asks for God’s help to obey God’s word. And he asks that his words and his thoughts and heart attitude in response to God’s words be pleasing to God. He addresses YHWH as his own place of refuge and the one who purchased him out of his slavery. In meditating on God’s instruction, he has come to know a bit more of God’s character. He has entered in.
George Mueller and the Satisfied Soul
I started by encouraging you to resolve to seek your soul’s satisfaction in God. I didn’t say you should read your Bible more, although that may be a means to that end. I want to avoid reading the Bible like a Pharisee, and missing Jesus.
I want to read to you something I think you will find helpful from the experience of George Mueller of Bristol, best known for his care for orphans, and his dependence on God in prayer:
“While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now…more than forty years have since passed away.
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day, to have MY SOUL HAPPY IN THE LORD. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.
Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart may be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.
The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessings out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.
When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.
The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind of the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.
I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word. ...
As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God: and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.
I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one!”
Psalm 90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Seek to satisfy your soul in God. Seek God in his word.
2023.12.31 Sermon Notes
Seek to Satisfy Your Soul in God (Psalm 19)
Seek to satisfy your soul in God
Psalm 34:8; 90:14; Isaiah 55:1-6
The proclamation of creation
Psalm 19:1-6
...leaves us without excuse
Romans 1:18-21
God’s self-revelation
Psalm 19:7-10
law-------------------perfect---------reviving the soul
testimony------------sure------------making wise
precepts--------------right-----------rejoicing the heart
commandment------pure-----------enlightening the eyes
fear-------------------clean----------enduring forever
rules------------------true------------righteous altogether
Psalm 19:10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Our response
Psalm 19:11-14
“the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day, to have MY SOUL HAPPY IN THE LORD” ~George Mueller
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org