And I'm just going to read the
first eight verses. Psalm 63, verse one. Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul
thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee. In
a dry and thirsty land where no water is. Where is that dry and thirsty
land? Well, on the outside is the United States of America. But on the inside, it's this
cold, hard, stubborn, rebellious heart. A dry and thirsty land
where no water is. And He's crying to see Thy power
and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary. Because
Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise
Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while
I live. I will lift up my hands in Thy name. My soul shall be
satisfied as with Myra and Thadnes. and my mouth shall praise thee
with joyful lips. When I remember thee upon my
bed and meditate on thee in the night watches, because thou hast
been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after
thee, my right hand upholdeth thee." We'll stop our reading
right there. And I just want to more or less
talk to us this morning on a serious note concerning the first business
of life. The first business of life. This Psalm was written at a time
when David was hard pressed by enemies, by those who sought
to kill him. He mentions in the latter verses, verses 9 and 10
about that, those that seek my soul to destroy. But the mention of them and concern
over them does not take precedence over his relationship and fellowship
with the Lord. He talks about himself and about
the Lord for eight verses before he mentioned his enemies. He does not cease to worship and commune with his
God in this time. And though he is fleeing and
hiding out in the wilderness, he keeps up his communion with
the Lord. Spurgeon said about this, let
me just read it to you. He says right here, David did
not leave off singing because he was in the wilderness. I'll tell you, we pretty much
clam up and leave off the singing. We get in a bad place, don't
we? But he did not leave off singing because he was in the
wilderness. Neither did he in slovenly idleness. go on repeating Psalms intended
for other occasions, but he carefully made his worship suitable to
his circumstances and presented to his God a wilderness hymn
when he was in the wilderness. There was no desert in his heart,
though there was a desert all around him. We too may expect
to be cast into rough places ere we go hence. In such seasons
May the eternal comforter abide with us and cause us to bless
the Lord at all times, making even the solitary place to become
a temple for Jehovah. Words well said. Now the psalm begins with these
words, O God, thou art my God. The atheist says, I'll have no
God. The heathen say, and this is
mostly what America is, we'll have lots of gods. But the true
believer says, thou art my God. Lord, thou art my God. Then he
says, early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water
is. There is a notable connection
in Scripture between conditions of drought and hungry hearts
seeking the Lord. Back in the 42nd Psalm, he said,
as the heart, which is a deer, H-A-R-T, As the heart panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God." The
water brooks back there in that psalm would remind us of the
shepherd's faithfulness and the shepherd's diligence to provide
in order to quench the thirst of his sheep. In that 23rd, remember,
he said, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He quenches
my thirst knowing that great need. Well, the thirst David
refers to here is a spiritual thirst. And he says in verse
2, here's what I'm thirsty for, to see thy power and thy glory
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. He's not in the sanctuary
now. He's out in the wilderness. He's
on the run for his life. But he said, O Lord, that I may
see Thy power and Thy glory again. So I want to talk to us this
morning about this first business of life. What is it? the first business of life. It's
really twofold. It is to live seeking the Lord
and at the same time to live satisfied in the Lord. That's
it. Notice he says here, early will
I seek thee. There is nothing you can do this
day or any day that's more important or of more value than seeking
the Lord. Early will I seek thee. What
is meant by the word early? Early will I seek thee. Well,
for you younger folks, children, young adults, this definitely
means early in life. Early in life. For the most part,
your generation does not realize the value of seeking the Lord,
period, let alone early in life. But oh, how valuable. Oh, how
this needs to be the first business with all of us. It's the lie
of the devil that tells you, younger folks, that you have
plenty of time to seek the Lord later. You may or may not. But
that's not the issue. The issue is this, your life
is vain without Him now. Every day you live, it's vain
without Him. You don't need to live any of
it without Him. Apart from His presence and His power in your
life, your living is vain. And when you're gone, This world
will forget overnight that you ever existed. You want to know the people I
remember? And I remember a lot. And I may have told you all this
in recent days. Like I said, I don't remember what I do or
say. That's why I got to be truthful because you get caught in a lie
if you don't tell it right the first time. Sometimes I lay awake at night
and I think about People I've known in this life, 65 years,
childhood, school days, in the community, people I've worked
on jobs with, people I've went to church with, school, all these
things, and how many have already left this life and gone out into
eternity. I can lay awake and count into
the hundreds of people I've known. by name, and many of them known
well. And I don't think so quickly
of those that knew not the Lord or had no real seeming, I don't
think, influence in my life, but it's those that truly followed
God to their dying breath that really made an impact and that
lives on in me. You see, this life you're living,
it's not just you. It's who God has caused to impact
you and to influence you that makes you what you are. See,
this is one big thing God's working, generation after generation.
No man lives to himself, no man dies to himself. This is God,
so it's important. And I was saying to you young
folk, this world, Without God, without God in your life and
heart, this world, when you're gone, they'll forget overnight
that you ever existed. It won't matter. It won't matter. But to be used of God, to be the instrument
of God as we walk in this world day by day, how important it
is. And for the rest of us, those
of us that are well past the halfway mark, in this life, this
word early surely means immediate. Early in relation to what's left. None of us know what's left. Today's the starting time. And
even though we're plagued with all the disappointments of yesterday
and the doubts and the defeats and all the downside of yesterday,
yesterday is gone. It's a brand new day. We can
seek the Lord today and every day. Isaiah 55, 6, seek the Lord
while he may be found. Call upon him while he's near. He's near today. Oh God, thou
art my God. Early will I seek thee. So this first business in life
is first, live seeking the Lord. And second, live satisfied in
the Lord and with the Lord. Note here in these verses, David
is not obsessed with his own greatness, like a lot of people
are, but he is taken up with the greatness of the Lord. He
confesses his faith in God. Thou art my God. He expresses
his thirst for God. My soul thirsteth for Thee. He confesses his longing for
God. My flesh longeth for Thee. He expresses the goodness of
God. Thy lovingkindness is better
than life. He declares his satisfaction
in God. Verse 5, my soul shall be satisfied
as with Mara and Fatness. He says to the Lord, you're the
praise on my lips. Verse 5, my mouth shall praise
thee with joyful lips. He says, you're the meditation
of my heart. Verse 6, when I remember thee
upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches. He says
you're the deliverer of my life, verse 7, because thou hast been
my help. He says you're the rejoicing
of my heart, verse 7, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will
I rejoice. He said you're the pursuit of
my soul, verse 8, my soul followeth hard after thee." And then he
said, you're really the sustainer of my very being. Thy right hand
upholdeth me. So the first business of life,
to live seeking the Lord and at the same time finding satisfaction
in the Lord. God told Israel Beautiful verse
of scripture back in Deuteronomy 4 verse 29 He said but if from
thence That is starting right now from now on Don't talk about
yesterday you blew that but from thence If thou shalt seek the Lord thy
God Thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and
with all thy soul." Basically the same thing, Jeremiah 29,
verse 13, the Lord says, and ye shall seek me and find me
when ye search for me with all your heart. You say, well, I've
been seeking the Lord for years and I don't know that I've really
found him. No, but if you're seeking him,
it's because he's found you. So I want to look at two or three
things here just on my mind and heart this morning in relation
to seeking the Lord and the true value of it. And for those of you that do
not seek the Lord, you won't know anything about these things.
But for those who do, you will agree with me. Seeking the Lord
makes for a peaceful life. Not that we don't have an adversary. Not that the devil don't know
our address. He does. And it's not that your heart
is not torn many times and that the tears are many. They are. It's a life of turmoil in many
ways, but it's a peaceful life in that we who are blessed to
truly seek the Lord are taught in that seeking that He is absolutely
sovereign in all and over all. In John chapter 8, when Jesus
told some folks that the devil is
a liar, Who is he talking to? He was talking to unbelievers
who claimed Abraham was their father. And he just got through saying,
no, he's not your father. And he said to him, he's a liar,
the devil's a liar. And the father of what's he lying
about? He was lying about who Jesus
was and who Jesus is. They couldn't believe, didn't
believe. What does he lie about today?
Same thing. About who God is. About who the
Son of God is. About what God does for his people.
About how God cares for his people. And the devil lies to you about
all that. He says, God don't care anything about you. Now
he might care about other people better than you. And you will
agree with me, Mr. Devil says, you will agree with
me that there's people better than you. Oh yeah. He might care
about other people, but the Lord don't care about you. And he
said it in one of the Psalms, there is no hope for you in God.
God wouldn't have anything to do with such a wretch as you
are. When you listen to a lie long
enough, you kind of start to believe
it. That's what the lowdown news media is about in this country.
You listen to a lie long enough and people start to believe it. Well, the devil's lying today
is about who God is, who we are, what God thinks of us, how God
cares about us. He's a liar. The devil's big lie today is
that Christ never really settled anything while he was here. But the issue is settled. It's
settled. He did settle it. He finished the work for his
people. He suffered the just for the unjust that he might
bring us to God. He got it done. He got it done. Don't let the devil leave you
hanging. Cast your all on the mercy of God. And if there's no such thing
as the mercy of God for the likes of us, there's no hope for us
anyhow. Cast your all on the mercy of
God and the cross of Christ and his blood shed in your behalf. But thou seek in the Lord, it
makes for a peaceful life. in the sense that knowing in
His sovereignty, He is at the controls of everything. It will
kind of let you take your hands off and leave it with Him. That old song you all know, take
your burden to the Lord and leave it there. It could also say,
take all your business to the Lord. and leave it there. Take all your battles to the
Lord and leave them there. With that word battles, I thought
of something. You remember when David faced
Goliath? You go read this in 1 Samuel 17. It's a long chapter. And if you'll read it carefully,
David made a little statement in there somewhere to Goliath.
And here's what he said to him. Here's what you don't know, Mr.
Goliath. The battle is the Lord's. It would be mighty good for some
of us to get a hold of that, wouldn't it? Learn that. That we don't need to live in
a strain, in a struggle, to try to stay afloat and fight our
own battles. No, the battle is the Lord's. And to get a hold of that will
give you peace. Seeking the Lord day by day will
give strength that you never knew you had and you didn't have
and don't have until he gives it to you. Resting in the wisdom of his
providence and the assurance of his love, I tell you what,
you can wade through some pretty deep and dark and dangerous waters. Some of you have been there.
Some of you are there now. The waters can get pretty muddy
and pretty bloody and very ugly. You can keep on walking. Keep
on going. Paul says, I can journey on.
Why, Paul? Because you don't have any problems?
You don't have any enemies and everybody loves you? No. He said,
I can journey on troubled on every side, every way I look.
There's people ready to cut my throat. Troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast out, but not destroyed. Wow. That's that peace that passeth
understanding he's talking about. I don't know how on earth. We
say this sometimes. I don't know how on earth so
and so keeps it going. Well, guess what? So and so don't
know how on earth they keep it going either. But it's God. It's God. It's this peaceful
life. And so I'm saying to us this
morning, it's important. It's that table
He prepares. even in the presence of your
enemies. And then it's that assurance
that surely, without any doubt, goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life. God's going to be here no matter
how rough it gets. I will tell you that's the way
to live and die. But this morning to find that secret place for
you as an individual and focus on God alone. and wait for Him. It's not always an easy thing,
but it is very profitable. It will take you beyond the ordinary. It will enable you to grasp the providential care and wisdom
of God And you can live in victory whatever happened or don't happen
and be content with it. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians
and he said this, 1 Thessalonians 1, he said to the church of the
Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now that's where it is, to have
the confidence, to have a measure of confidence that your life
is in God and in Christ. would do something for you. Paul
wrote to the Colossians and he said it like this, your life
is here with Christ in God. Can't get any better than that,
can it? Oh no. Oh no. See, everything's so messed
up now. I was in a restaurant one morning
early this week and And just a few feet in front of me was
a bigger round table and there was a fellow sitting there. I
wasn't paying attention, I was reading something. But I did
notice that two other men come in and sat down with him. And
I heard one of the three say to one of the others, are you
ready to take hold of the plow handles and go at it? Now, you younger folk wouldn't
know what's meant by that expression. The other fellow answered with
something like this. He said, I only wish it were that simple. And I've thought about that all
week. What was he saying? Well, there was a time in this
country, and especially in this part of the country, when farming
was about the only way most people survived. Not so long ago, just
a generation or two ago, a good man would go to bed at dark,
dusk dark, be up at three or four in the morning with a full
eight hours of sleep, and he'd kindle a fire if it
was a little chilly, and then he'd read a little bit. He was
a godly man. He'd pray. Then he'd have some
breakfast. And then right at daylight, just
light enough to see, he'd go out to the barn, hitch up the
mule or horse, walk to the field and hook it to a plow. And then
he'd take a hold of those plow handles, tell that mule or horse
to get up and start down the row. It was simple work. It was very
hard work, but it was simple work. It took some know-how. I never could plow a straight
row, and I've tried it. But it's simple work, but it's
hard work. But it's so simple, the man who
knew what he was doing, he could do it all day with no thought.
He could almost do it with his eyes shut. And he had time, and his mind
was clear, to meditate on what he had read, meditate on the
Lord, talk to the Lord, and work that way all the time. Not worry too much about anything,
and make just enough crop to live on and survive another year. But it was an extremely blessed
and profitable life. Now the other side of that picture
we get up late because we stayed up too late and then we've got
to hurry we're going to be late and reading the Bible and praying
is absolutely the last thing we'd have time for. I've got
to get going And you grab a piece of toast or a sip of coffee or
run through a fast food and get something you didn't order and
then head on. Run, run, run. Driving through
traffic. Got to make calls. Got to take
calls. Got to check the emails. Got
to go over the list of things that must get done today. Do you see what God's done in
a society that said, we don't believe God, we don't need God,
we don't want God? He has given us all kinds of
complications and problems to occupy and trouble our minds
and hearts and lives since we don't want nothing to do with
Him. That's where we're at. We're so busy. We think that
time spent seeking the Lord is time wasted. One believer said, it might have been Martin Luther,
I'm not sure, but one said, I have so much to do every day if I
don't spend the first three hours with the Lord. I'll never get
it all done. He understood that time spent
seeking the Lord is not lost time. It's very profitable. Fannie Crosby, the hymn writer,
wrote, Oh, the pure delight of a single hour that before thy
throne I spend. That was reality to her. And the profit in this is not
something we can always see or should see. See, we don't serve
God and we don't seek God for profit, for reward. But no, it's
out of love that He loved me and died for me. We need but be obedient and be
faithful and seek the Lord for His will in our lives. And the
profit margin is His business. Leave it with Him. Leave it with
Him. We look back on our lives, many
of us, and think, oh, what a mess I've made. How very little I've
accomplished. How this is so different from what I'd thought
it would be or hoped it would be. Listen. Leave it with the
Lord. Some years ago, there was a story
in the news A lady had worked for the Home Depot for a lot
of years. And way back when they were first getting started, there
wasn't much to it when she started. And of course, through the years,
she'd grown older. Her health wasn't what it used
to be. Her husband had passed away.
And all those years, she'd worked and struggled to survive, just
to survive, and was contemplating the idea of trying to retire and how much she could draw and
if she could survive. She had forgotten that way back
when she started in the paperwork, she had allotted just a small
percentage of her wages to be withheld every week and invested
in the company stock. There wasn't much of a company
when she did that. And so when they started the
process and started filling out the forms to retire, she was
notified that she had stock in the company that was now worth
over a million dollars. And here she was, struggling
to make ends meet every week, See, she couldn't see the profitableness
of all those years and what it was all worth. She couldn't see
it in her own little checkbook, in her own accounting where she
counted every penny. But the company had another story
to tell. We need to understand this. Our
God keeps his own books. The profitableness of our lives
and the value of where God's put us and what we do day by
day. He didn't leave all that to our
foolish assumptions to decide what it's worth and whether it's
successful or not. No, the Lord is running things. He keeps his own books. And then
seeking the Lord. I know y'all like days like this.
when I just ramble and ramble and ramble and ramble and your
belly just growls and growls and growls. No, I'll be through
in a minute. This thing of seeking the Lord,
following hard after Him, as David said, it makes for a purposeful
life. We don't always see it. We seldom
see it. We spend too much time asking,
why Lord? And too little time saying, Yes,
Lord. The circumstances, He arranges
things. He has purpose in things. He
creates situations and circumstances and associations in which we
influence the people of His choosing with the influence of His choosing. A few days ago I was asked if
I could drive a man to Asheville the next day to catch a bus. Normally I would have said, why
should I do it? Why do I have to do it? Don't
they know somebody else? But on that particular day, I'd been with the Lord and He'd
touched my heart. And I was resting every moment,
every move, every work. And with no hesitation, I said,
yes, I'll do it. I'll do it. Well, over the next
few hours, I talked with several people about several things concerning
schedule, concerning the next day. I related to several people
that I won't be available in the morning, I've got to drive
a man to Asheville. And two or three people said
to me these words, why do you have to do it? That really sunk in. Normally, those would have been
my words. But the Lord used it. And I sensed
my selfish attitude. And I started thinking the other
direction. Lord, why do I get to do it? You can let anybody do this.
And you've given me this opportunity. You've given me the privilege
to meet a man I've never met, may never see again, And in the
short time he'll be riding in the seat beside me to Asheville,
I've been given the privilege to influence his life either
positively or negatively. Now, I may never know which one
it was. You say, well, I guess it wouldn't
make much difference if you said no. Well, something makes a difference. None of us are the same person
we were before. God has worked change in us through
things, through people, through experience in life. So what right
do I have to shun, to make light of, let alone reject the Lord's
appointments? You talk about depravity, now
this is it. This is really it. We have created
for ourselves a mental picture of a midget god. We know all
about what he can do and can't do, how he'll do it, with whom
he'll do it, or if he'll do it. We've got all that figured out,
see? That's how smart we are. But our god is not a midget.
He is a giant. And we don't have him figured
out. We don't know what he's going to do. We do know this. He's running right on schedule. And I promise you this morning,
your life is not so messed up that he can't make the most of
what's left. Don't care who you are, how old you are. You're
not so messed up that he can't make the most out of what's left.
He can. Now your mind might be so messed
up that you don't believe He can. But He can. He can. Don't live, don't die like that. Trust God. Seek God. Let something go and get along
with the Lord. He is the one big enough. He's the only one big enough.
To take all your faults and failures and foolish steps in life and
roll it all into one big ball and roll it across the finish
line in success. That's who God is. Oh God, Thou
art my God. Early will I seek Thee. That's the first business of
life. Most of us have a list of things a mile long, things
we may or may not need, most of which we'll never have, but
it don't really matter. Jesus said, seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you. What things? He just got through
talking about it. Things your Heavenly Father already
knows you have need of before you ask Him. He's our father. He's a good father. He's a good
provider. We don't have to seek things.
He freely gives things. But oh, the blessedness of seeking
Him. It's the first business of life.
Forever believer. Thank you. Stand together.