What To Do With Our Desires
- David Fairchild
- Aug 30, 2009
- Series: Psalms
Psalms 63:1-11: “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. 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. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, 6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 9 But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; 10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals. 11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.”
There is much talk about the idea of choice in our culture. Freedom of choice, in many ways, is how we’ve come to describe what it means to be human. In fact, the psychologizing of marketing in our culture regularly taps into this vein as it promises us unlimited choices for our ultimate happiness.
But for the Christian, the idea of freedom of choice is not that simple. At Krispy Kreme, we can choose between a dozen glazed or assorted donuts. We can choose rocky road and chocolate chip mint at Baskin and Robbins. But this is not really what it means to choose, is it? In fact, when we look at freedom of choice we see that we’re not as free as we might think.
We know that ultimately we are slaves to our desires. We are controlled by whatever has captured our hearts. We do whatever our strongest desire moves us to do. Even in our sin, in the moment we sin, what we’re demonstrating is what our heart desires most in the moment.
And the truth is that we think that desire is what will ultimately make us happy. So we seek happiness and joy, and whatever we believe will bring us happiness, we pursue. Blaise Pascal put it this way:
"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."
His point is simple: we do what we want. Even when someone commits suicide what they want is peace, which they believe will make them ultimately happy. So they end their life because that desire is stronger than living.
Whatever captures our hearts, captures our choice, our will.
This truth is both devastating and liberating. Devastating because we see that if we do what we want, by continually pursuing sin, what we really think will make us happy is that sin instead of the stunning beauty of Jesus. We are saying that we treasure, enjoy, delight and have our hearts set on that sin instead of Jesus. We are saying Jesus is not enough and we need that sin to make us truly happy. This is what James is saying in chapter 1.
James 1:13-15: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
He’s saying that our desires lure us, entice us, and tempt us. It falls on no one else’s shoulders but our own. It’s not our upbringing, our genetic predisposition, our physiological and chemical makeup, our social or economic status, or any other excuse. Our choice to do what is wrong is driven by what we believe will make us happy, what we find desirable.
But this truth is also liberating because in it we find that we have a way out. You see, if our pursuit of sin is never our fault or responsibility, it’s easy to give way to hopelessness and despair that things will never change. If you’re always the victim and never responsible, then change will never happen because you can’t control what your oppressors do.
This is the beauty of liberating grace. Instead of only desiring those things which glorify ourselves, Jesus comes and gives us a new desire to glorify Him, love Him, treasure Him and see Him as the truly beautiful one. He gives us a desire to know God.
We still do what we want, but Jesus’ freedom causes us to want God when before we only wanted to make ourselves god. Now we have a real choice. Now Christians can choose. In one sense, Jesus wins our freedom by winning our choice. Once we did not have a choice, now we truly do.
The old desires still linger but the Spirit places new desires in our hearts. Each day we are faced with a choice between two desires: the desire between the deceitful desire for sin and the Spirit-inspired desire for God.
Elyse Fitzpatrick says:
“When a person becomes a Christian, he has liberty. Unlike his old self, where his choice was always for sin, he is now able to choose to sin or not sin. Both of those choices are a possibility. When his heart is so inclined, when he’s convinced of the goodness of it and when he longs for the Lord and the joy of bringing Him pleasure, he chooses to obey Him. Before he was saved there was only one possible outcome in every choice, he was going to sin. But now that he has a new heart, there are two possibilities. He can sin or not sin, freely choosing according to his desires.”
This is why the Bible describes this as a war. And if you find that your own desires are oppressing you, enslaving you, controlling you, then you can begin to fight those desires and fight to treasure Jesus over them.
So the war is a war of desires. And the battlefield is our hearts. And as we all know, victory yesterday does not ensure that we will feel victorious today. We are to guard are hearts by watching our desires. This is what Peter was urging believers to understand:
1 Peter 2:11: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”
So let’s engage in some warfare as we see how the David the Psalmist battled his heart and fought to grow his desires for God. He didn’t light the fire, but he did kindle that fire by the power of the Spirit so that it grew into an all-consuming flame.
What do we normally do with our desires? Do we give in to them? Do we ignore them? Do we fight them? Do desire to see them transformed? Do we feel helpless against their power?
How is the war on your desires going? Do you feel encouraged as you see change taking place? Do you feel discouraged because you feel like our sinful desires keep winning?
What do we do with them? What do we do when our circumstances seem to fight against godly desires? This is what we’re trying to work through in this message.
Let’s look at the Psalm and make some comments on David’s situation.
The first thing we should notice about this Psalm is that it was written during an extremely difficult time in David’s life.
It was written when he was in the wilderness of
The wilderness, for David, was the place he fled when he was being pursued by his enemies. David knew the wilderness very well because he ran from Saul for a long time. King Saul’s men pursued him because the king was jealous of David and worried that David would ascend to the throne one day.
In several Psalms, David writes songs to God to praise Him in the midst of being pursued and to cry out to Him when he’s feeling weak and alone. However, when we look at the last verse, we see David assuring his heart that the king will rejoice in God. This leads us to believe this Psalm was written many years after David took the throne as King of Israel. However this time, instead of it being mad King Saul who’s pursuing his life, it is his own son Absalom, drunk with power and pride who threatens David.
David’s own son whom he loves so much declares himself king and David has to flee for fear that Absalom will slaughter his family. So David runs.
And unlike most kings that would either stand their ground and fight it out to the death or retreat only for a short time until they could devise a military strategy, David does neither.
In the midst of his heartbreak, when the desire to be respected and feared would be so great and when his pride would rise up and try and control him, David has a closeness with God that allows him to stop and pour out his heart before his true love.
In the midst of a physical war, David realizes that the true war is not being fought with spears and swords, but with truth and faith. And it is being waged in his heart.
Unlike last week when the circumstances triggered a depression in the restless soul of the Psalmist, this week we see that the circumstances didn’t dictate David’s heart.
In fact, the last sentence shows us the confidence that David has:
Verse 11: “But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.”
But how is this possible? How is it that in the midst of perhaps the greatest disappointment, the greatest emotional suffering David could experience, he was able to say that He’ll rejoice in God?
Let’s look at how David fights to keep his desires stronger for God than his circumstances. In other words, let’s see how he fights in the midst of competing desires.
I think this passage shows us three things.
I. He Remembers What He Has
II. He Remembers What He Wants
III. He Remembers His Future
Let’s start with the first one.
I. He Remembers What He Has
Verse 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.”
The first thing David does to fight is to remember what he already has. He doesn’t say, “You’re not my God, so I’d like you to be.” He says, “you are my God,” and the awareness of what he already has makes him want God even more.
He seeks God because he’s already found him. He thirsts for God because he’s already drank deeply of Him.
This is crucial to understand. We have an appetite for God because God has allowed us to taste and see that He is good. Even in the midst of feeling a distance from God, that distance shows us that we know what it’s like to be close and we want it back.
Only people who remember and say, “you are my God,” can earnestly seek him. Does that make sense? If we want more of something, we seek it. This is how it works with sinful desires, isn’t it? That sinful desire feels good for a moment and our knowledge of it, our experience of it, makes us crave it. It is our memory of that desire that makes us desire it when it’s absent.
So it is with our desires for God. Because we’ve sensed Him and experienced Him, our memory makes us long for Him when we feel distant.
I say this to encourage your hearts. The difficulty we face when we are in the midst of fighting temptation, a loss of desire, or a distance from him is that we become historical revisionists.
Revisionist historians attempt to reinterpret history and correct how we understand it. And I believe one of the ways Satan and our lying flesh wage war against us is by attempting to revise our history with God. Instead of remembering times when we’ve felt His presence and closeness, we begin to reinterpret those times and question whether or not they were real or legitimate. We begin to forget the times we praised Him, rejoiced in Him, and sensed His love towards us.
We do this in all our relationships. When we feel distance or when we feel separation we begin to question all the other person’s motives and their true feelings for us, don’t we?
If you’re troubled after hearing that you do what you want and you pursue what you desire most, let us praise God that any prick of the heart, any conviction that it brings is a gift of the Spirit.
If you hear this message about desiring God and you find yourself feeling discouraged because you don’t desire Him as much as you ought, rejoice! The fact that you desire to desire Him more is a desire placed by the Spirit who is doing a work in your heart. The evidence of the Spirit’s work in your heart is that you desire more desire for Him. Conviction is proof of God at work. My fear would be total indifference. Then you should be concerned. In fact, being aware of His absence means that He is at work and present, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
But David fights to make sure than even though he’s in the wilderness, even though he’s far from Him, he’s knows that God is his God. And I love how he makes it personal. “You are MY God and I know you and you know me. You’re mine and I’m yours and nothing will change that.”
Why should our experience be any different than his? Every single one of us that has trust in what Jesus has done for us instead of what we can do for God is able to say this same thing. O God, you are MY God.
And what kind of God is this that He has? He is a God of…
V. 2-Power and Glory
V. 3-Steadfast love
Why is this so important to remember? Because idols promise us power which they do not have, glory and significance which they rob from us, and steadfast love which they can not give us.
David remembers the power of His God in the midst of losing his own. David remembers the glory of his God when all his glory was shattered. And David remembers the steadfast love of His God when his son exchanged his love for power.
David doesn’t simply know this God; he knows what kind of God He is.
And by remembering what we have we’re able to remember what we truly want.
II. He Remembers What He Wants
And what is it that David wants? Is it to be home? Sure, probably. Is it safety? I’m sure he would like that. Is it to have his kingship restored? Of course. Is it to have his relationship with his son reconciled? Yes, he loves his son.
But what David wants more than anything is God. He wants Him for himself. This is why he seeks Him, why he thirsts for Him, why he faints for Him. Above every other thing that David desires, what he desires most is God.
You see, God is enough for him. To David, God is better than anything else. God is more satisfying than anything else, so he doesn’t have to look elsewhere.
But you say, “My desires for other things are too strong, that’s the problem, that’s why I’m so distant from God.” I couldn’t disagree more. CS Lewis says this:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, we are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
When we forget what we already have, we forget what it is that we truly want. Our desires have a memory. The more we remind ourselves that what we really want is God for Himself, not for what He gives us, not for what He does for us, but Him, the more we’ll actually want Him.
We have to fight to remind ourselves of what our hearts really long for or we’ll try to be satisfied with lesser things. John Piper says this:
"If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great."
Have you nibbled so long on the scraps of the world that your soul has become stuffed with small things? Are you satisfied yet? CS Lewis says:
“What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.”
In other words, if you’ve been feasting on the banquet the world offers and are still hungry, then maybe it isn’t what you truly desire.
Listen to how David describes how God satisfies him:
Verses 3-8: “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, 6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”
David is feasting in the midst of fainting. He’s pressed on every side, yet he’s free. He’s lost all the things that he drank from to bring him joy, and yet his thirst is satisfied. He’s lost all the treasures of his life, and yet he says that God’s steadfast love is better than life.
Have you lost something that you desire to have back? Have you lost a love, a feeling, a security, a comfort, or a pleasure that has been taken away?
Do you think that your satisfaction, your joy will return when it returns?
Are you angry at God because you don’t have it or he hasn’t given it to you yet? Do you think that your suffering and pain will go away if He gives it to you?
Suffering is the loss of something you crave deeply. If that’s true, then what it is that you’re suffering the loss of that has become so important to you that without it you’re willing to walk away from God?
Is there anything that if God takes it away you’d want to walk away from Him? Your kids, your spouse, your loved one, your job, your things, your health, your looks, or any other thing?
Is God as satisfying to you when that thing is taken away?
When someone says, “But you still have God!” do you roll your eyes?
If so, then perhaps you’ve forgotten what you have already. Perhaps you’ve been nibbling too long on these things and you think they have power and glory and love.
God is our only permanent joy. He is the only one that has true power, true glory and beauty, and a steadfast love that will love you through your entire existence. Not just when things are going well.
Jesus is better than anything else, so we don’t have to look elsewhere!
This is how Jesus, at the last day of the great feast, an eight-day feast in Jerusalem, could say:
John 7:37-38: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”
He’s saying that after all of your drinking, after all of your eating, if you’re still hungry, come to me and feast, come to me and drink and you’ll be satisfied!
III. He Remembers What’s Coming
For those of you who struggle with believing that this joy, this delight and this victory over lesser desires will ever be won, listen to how David sees his future and is confident in the victory of God.
Verses 9-11: “But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; 10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals. 11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.”
Those desires that seek to destroy your life will one day be cast in hell. They will have no power but instead they will be overpowered by the sword that comes from the mouth of Jesus Himself. And you will rejoice in God as your greatest good, your true delight, for eternity. And all the mouths of the liars will be stopped!
The lies of your heart, the lies from Satan, the lies from the world and all its deceit will be stopped.
This is how David can say that God has been his help and that he rests in the shadow of his wings where he sings for joy.
Do you believe that you can rest in the shadow of this God’s wings and sing for joy? Do you believe that in the midst of the fire you can rest?
Verse 7: “for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.”
There is a place in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus is weeping over
And this same Savior calls us to Himself, to come and rest under his wings.
Luke 13:34: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
Do you know what it means for a hen to gather her brood under her wings? It means that when a fire would break out and the chicks were unable to escape the pen they were locked in, the mother hen would gather her chicks under her wings and allow the flames destroy her as she saved her chicks.
This is what Jesus has done for us, and this is how we can look at the cross, the place where the fire of God’s judgment has come down and we can hide in that shadow and rejoice! We can sing for joy because the judgment that all our idolatry and sinful desires deserved fell upon Him as He tucked us under His wing and was our shield in our greatest moment of need.
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