Set Your Sights on Satisfaction
I grew up snowboarding in Minnesota’s version of mountains: Afton Alps, Trollhaugen, Lutsen, all that. And at some point along the way I’d learned that if you wanted to the real experience of snowboarding, the real thrill, you had to head west. It was in college that I got the opportunity to do it with a trip out to Vail, Colorado.
The first morning I was there I woke up early, got my lift ticket, and headed over to the mountain. I’d already studied the map of the mountain and knew well which chair lift I’d need to get on in order to get to the very top-most peak. Exiting the chair lift at the top, having moved over to the very edge of the peak where nearly flat land meets a near 90 degree angle downward-land, I found myself absolutely swallowed up by my surroundings – sky, just gigantic blue sky, stretching all around behind me, the lines of trees and boulders down below that appeared almost toy-like in size from where I was standing. Mesmerized by what appeared to be miles of steep, cavernous, snow-covered space in between. There may have been other people around me, if there were I didn’t notice them. There may have been sounds from people talking, snowmobiles driving, chair lifts running, if there were I didn’t hear them.
I was entirely engulfed by the situation. In awe of the awesome. In that moment the sense of wonder, fear, excitement, joy, and all of it in overwhelming amounts came flooding in. And though I felt totally inadequate for the situation, even more I felt fully invited into it all. And I had no words. I just stood there. I just stood there, mouth open, no words, just silence, and awe, and joy.
“Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion.”
To some it’s a word that falls flat and feels stale. To some, praise is a word fit for mere preamble, a word soon to be drowned out by others more significant than it. Because of how often we see it in Scripture, even we can tend to skip over it like it’s a mere formality. “Psalm 65:1, ‘Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion.’ Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s move on and get to the point here.”
Tread carefully brothers and sisters, praise has an object. Praise always has an object. And there is nothing ordinary about the word “praise” when it comes to its ultimate object, God himself. God turns praise into quite an intrusive word. With God as its object, praise cuts loose from all its civility and domestication. It’s as if when God walks into the room, the word praise awakens from its slumber and reaches out to seize anyone and everyone around it, saying, “Look here, look at God, look at him, and be amazed! ‘Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion.’” It’s a phrase fit for bowed heads and bended knees.
And along with this word praise in the original is a word that connotes silence. Paired with praise it puts a sense of anticipation into the air – Praise is due to you, like praise is marked out for you, praise awaits you – praise is coming, we wait for it in silence. Even the silence itself, in a very real way, is the praise. The silence allows the awe and wonder of God to just hang there. It allows the reader to say, “slow down, slow down, slow down – I am a human being beholding my maker and I am in need of more time to take it all in.” Swallowed up by the reality of God, engulfed by all that he is, there’s really no words fit for such a moment, at least not at first. Just silence, and awe, and joy. I got just a hint of that while atop a mountain in Colorado, we get it even fuller force here in psalm 65, and indeed it is the tone of this entire Psalm from beginning to end – “praise to God.”
It’s in that tone that the Psalmist moves through the rest of the Psalm testifying to God’s working on behalf of his people, and it seems he does so according to three main categories: God supplies his people with life, he saves them from death, and he satisfies them with himself. That’ll be our 3-part structure for the rest of this sermon, with the tone of “Praise to God” Lord willing, continuing to ring in our ears. God supplies his people with life, he saves them from death, and he satisfies them with himself.
1) Supplies
God supplies his people with life – it’s our first major point within this Psalm and it’s one that’s relatively easy for us to spot, especially as we turn to the latter half of this psalm. In fact, verse 11 says it all,
“You crown the year with your bounty.”
From verses 9 to 13 that’s really what we see – a year-long, God-supplied growing season from beginning to end.
It begins with watering, verse 9,
“You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it.”
And there’s this interesting phrase,
“The river of God is full of water.”
When I first read that I thought, what river is he referencing? The Jordan, the Gihon spring? On the map is it here, or here, or here? But many suggest, the “river of God”, may be better understood as the “fountain of God.” Not here, but up there. It’s His heavenly storehouse in which water is always at a surplus. So the idea would be “You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it,” and the reason you can not only do that, but also (verse 10) soak the ground until its soft, pour forth rain upon the ridges until they give way, is because your river, your storehouse of water never runs dry. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and he also owns the water in a trillion clouds. Does he not possess enough to flood the whole world? So, part 1 of the growing season, God waters the earth.
As the year progresses, and the months of planting and watering turn into the months of first growth, the Psalmist says of God (back to verse 9),
“You provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.”
But you say, what grain?
Look to the wilderness (v 12),
“The pastures of the wilderness overflow.”
Look to the hills (v. 12)
“the hills gird themselves with joy!”
Look to the valleys (v. 13),
“the valleys deck themselves with grain,”
Look to the flocks gathered upon the meadows (v. 13), see the sea of sheep and goats as they gather to feed in so great a number that their sheer mass seems to cloth the land in white wool. And listen (v. 12, 13) as the harvest and flock shout together and sing for joy! Listen as praise to God and delight in his work bursts forth from every leaf and every lamb in the land.
Lastly, past the days of water, past the days of first growth, now to harvest at the end of the year – here come the workmen to gather. (Verse 11), they gather so much that their wagon tracks overflow with abundance. Just picture a harvest piled up so high upon the wagons that it just keeps falling off the top all down the line leaving a kind of breadcrumb trail of harvest stretching all the way from field to barn.
This is the abundant supply of God. This is his happy harvest in the world. And to a people living in a largely agrarian society, it meant life. God supplies his people, with life!
So, imagine a timeline, we’ll call it a timeline of God’s working on behalf of his people. Spanning the entire timeline, a thick, consistent line stretching from beginning to end, is, point 1, God’s consistent, year-to-year supplying of life for his people with life. Dotting that line then, at intermittent points throughout is, point 2, God’s saving of his people from death. Don’t think the more common causes of death per se – old age, more common illness, etc. – but large-scale, epoch-making, chapter in a history-book type causes of death. Think armies, plagues, natural disasters. Dotting the timeline at intermittent points is God saving his people from these kinds of threats of death.
2) God Saves
Where do we get that in this Psalm?
Look at verses 5-8. The language is different here, is it not? The tame, picturesque view of grain fields and meadows is preceded, verse 5,
“By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness”
Some translations have it “By terrible deeds.” There’s a sense of holy fear bound up here. We could say it this way: if God is the gardener who supplies in verses 9-13, then he is the warrior who saves in verses 5-8.
We see this strength, this awesome power, exercised in God’s creation of the world. Verse 6, It was “By his strength (God) established the mountains being girded with might.” The mountains – can your mind comprehend the sheer mass of even one mountain? Here we’re talking all the mountains – The Andes, Rockies, Himalayas, all of them – to these billions of tons after billions of tons of rock God says, “Rise up, stand up straight, and don’t move until I tell you otherwise!”
We see his awesome strength in his continued rule over creation (verse 7). God is the one who stills the roaring of the seas, (God is the one who stills) the roaring of the waves. Why did the flood of Noah dissipate? Like what caused the water to recede? Why do flash floods, or tsunami’s, or hurricanes ever give way to calm? Because to all those gallons of raging waters God says, “Peace, be still.”
In his creation of the world, the Psalmist says, we see God’s strength. In his continued rule over the world we see God’s power. And - perhaps especially - we see his awesome deeds worked out through his sovereign rule over the kings and nations of the world. Don’t miss this - Still verse 7,
“Who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of the waves, the tumult of the peoples.”
The tumult, the raging, of the nations. All throughout history kings have arisen, produced weapons, amassed armies, drawn up battle plans, taken over empires. And God has, and continues to, still every one of them.
And here’s where things get really cool. When God saves his people from death, particularly when it’s the threat of death from enemy forces (Assyria, Babylon, Rome, whoever), he not only succeeds in saving them, but along with them, he wins the nations. He not only succeeds in saving his people from death, but in the train of these victories, he wins the nations.
Back up to verse 5,
“By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and the farthest of the seas.”
Hold up.
“By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and the farthest of the seas.”
How does this work? He answers us, he is the source of hope for them. How?
This is how, verse 7 into 8,
“Who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the people, so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe of your signs. You make the going out of the morning [That’s the east, the sun first rises in the east] and the evening [That’s the west, the sun sets in the evening] to shout for joy.”
See what’s happening here? The land shouts for joy (verse 12), the flocks shout for joy (verse 13), and yes, the nations, even the nations, the result of their beholding of the awesome deeds of God, is that they, too, shout for joy! God’s working on behalf of his people catches the eyes of the nations around them. Causes them to look and say, “The one who did that could only have done that if he were the God over this whole world. He must be the king of all. He must be the great sovereign. And I find my heart saying, “Behold, behold the one you’ve longed for. Behold the one you’ve been made for. Behold your God and I respond, ‘I must have him. I must be found amongst his people.’”
You believe that? You think that could ever happen?
The Jews had been slaves in Egypt – the powerhouse of the world at that time. God answered his people by awesome deeds, sending Moses, sending plagues, splitting a sea in half and then smashing it down upon Pharaoh and his army. A deed so awesome, that the inhabitants of Canaan - many miles away from Egypt - heard of it.
As one of its own residents would come to say,
“I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”
God saves his people and wins the nations in his wake.
Breathtaking, right?
And yet, there is still something here, a supplying of life that surpasses the grains and flocks, a saving from death that overshadows the glories of stilled seas and quieted nations.
The Psalmist says, verse 3, “When iniquities prevail against me.” When they prove too strong for me, when they rise up above me, when they like a dark, menacing, merciless ocean wave grow far above my head and threaten to pulverize me into the ground. And now I want to ask that we not move on from here just yet, because its my fear that many of us rarely feel the threat of death that attends our sin, and we should.
For many of us, sin is just a normal part of life. It’s not our enemy, it’s not our foe, it’s akin to that extra slice of cake in the fridge that we probably shouldn’t eat, and definitely have no plans to make a regular part of our regular diet, but every couple days or so, a slice here, a slice there, after all its only human to indulge every once and a while. To many, sin is the thing that knocks at our door and we look and say, “Oh You don’t look that menacing to me, come on in, but you can only stay for a short while.” In our mind, the verse would go, “When sin gets a bit too attached, yet I still prevail over it.”
Brothers and sisters, do you know that your sin could end up prevailing over you? On your own, if left to your own devices, just you in one corner, your sin in the opposite corner, the bell rings and you come out fighting – your sin would destroy you. Your sin would knock you to the ground with no intention of letting you up again. Your sin, if you were left to fight it all on your own, your sin would prevail over you.
Do you think I’m exaggerating? Just look outside and see how many millions of men and women are being absolutely ruled by their sin. Go to any church and ask for the list of souls who have destroyed their relationships, destroyed their marriages, destroyed their souls by allowing their sin to prevail over them. “When iniquities prevail against me” – he’s not exaggerating. He’s not playing games. He’s telling the truth – iniquities prevail against people. Picture that sin in your life right now that you think you’ve got a handle on. Picture that sin in your life that you think you’ve established a boundary with and will go no further. Brothers and sisters there have been plenty of others before you who felt similar and today have their sin standing over them with its foot upon their neck. Make no mistake, your sin aims, it always aims, to prevail over you.
Now, having pressed all the way down on this spring, all the way to the floor, now is the time to hit the switch and let the spring launch and send us heavenward for, as David says, “When sin prevails against me, when sin thinks it’s defeated me, when sin thinks it’s got me down for the count, God says, “No More!” When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions!” God saves his people from death! God says to us, down on the ground, with sin upon our necks, “Rise up! Sin will not have the final say over you!” Rise up, for in my presence, death must flee! God atones for your sins, my brothers and sisters, God atones for your sins! He saves his people from death. And that’s not all.
God supplies his people, God saves his people, and God satisfies his people.
3) God Satisfies
Look at that word atone, verse 3 – you atone for our transgressions. Atone is an old word that combines the concepts of “at” and “one.” Like, “Where are you at with God?” “Where do you stand with him?” Atone says, “Well, I’m “at” “one” with him.” Reconciled with him. He’s my Father, I’m his child.
Brothers and sisters, here’s where things come together. To the one who’d say, “Great, I’m just going to go back to my normal with sin since God’s just going to forgive me for it anyways.” To the one who’d say, “Thanks God, walk out of the courtroom with your stamp of not-guilty and go on with your life.” Brothers and sisters, don’t make the mistake of thinking your salvation consists of you merely being saved. Like merely being saved from death, merely declared not guilty before God, merely not having to go to Hell when you die. Yes – to be saved from death, declared not guilty, and rescued from Hell – these are some of the greatest enjoyments of the Christian life, but not thee greatest. See God doesn’t settle for merely saving his people. He atones for them. He makes them “at one” with him.
See The greatest thing in all of life – the very point of it all – is to be brought near to God – At One with him. Not only being pulled up out of the grave of death but sat up to the feast of his very table. To enjoy God. To be “at one” with God. To be satisfied by God. That, and nothing short of it, is Christian salvation. Brothers, sisters, don’t think yourself merely saved. Don’t aim to be merely saved.
I mean, don’t you find your soul calling out for more than that? A gospel where freedom from death is the highest aim is a hollowed out gospel. Brothers and sisters, if nearness to God is absent from your picture of salvation, if at-one-ment with God is not at the very center. Oh don’t you hear your hearts crying out for more? Don’t you hear your hearts shouting, “that’s not enough.” “I’ve been made to be filled with so much more than that!” I mean, if intimacy with God is not in the plans, if nearness to him is not in our future, if fellowship with Him, if satisfaction in Him is not at the end of all things – Oh how our souls would starve!
What you need is not to be merely saved by God, but satisfied in God.
What your spouse needs is not to be merely saved by God, but satisfied in him.
What your children need is not to be merely saved by God, but satisfied in him.
What your neighbors, and your co-workers, and all the people you pass by on the street need is not to be merely saved by God, but satisfied in him.
Pastor Kenny and Malaina, we’ll have more to say at the commission, but for now, do you know what Orlando needs? Orlando needs a church planting couple who are not merely saved by God, but satisfied in him.
So I say thank you God, thank you Jesus, for Psalm 65:4,
“Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your Temple.”
That, my brothers and sisters, is what we set our sights upon. That, my brothers and sisters, is where we will finally find satisfaction.
Now, and this is where I’ll close, getting to preach this part of the Psalm, having just gone through both Leviticus and Hebrews as a church is just too cool. You put your Leviticus/Hebrews lens on this and it just gets so cool.
The Table
“Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!” – David, who wrote this Psalm, was most assuredly referring not to the common Israelite, when he wrote those words, but to the Levitical priests at the Temple. As we saw in Leviticus, it was the priests who were chosen by God, due to their bloodline through Levi and Aaron, it was the priests who were brought near to dwell in the Temple courts. But note the change in grammar in the second part of verse 4: Blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts (the Priests), we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!”
What’s he talking about? The priests go near, they’re blessed, And we (out here) shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house. Of the five major sacrifices prescribed in Leviticus carried out at the temple, the peace offering was the one that came at the very end. It came at the end because it depicted what the offerings before had accomplished – peace between God and man. That peace having been brought about through sacrifice, the priests take a portion of the sacrifice back to the people, and together they all eat it in the presence. The priests go near, offer the sacrifices, and then we sit up to the table of fellowship with God – satisfied with the goodness of his house, the holiness of his temple.
And that is what brings us to the table. Here is where we, an assembly of the Royal Priesthood, celebrate that God has atoned for our sins, not by the blood of bulls and goats but by the blood of his very own son. And he has not merely saved us from death, but has brought us near, raised us up with him, where we will be ever-satisfied by the goodness of his house, where we sit down to the marriage supper of the lamb and feast for ages to come. We eat from this table in anticipation of that greater table. So if you’re here today and you’ve trusted in Jesus, then we invite you to take and eat. If you’ve not put your trust in Jesus, we ask that you’d let the elements pass, you not partake, but we pray you would, in this moment, draw near, for the very first time, to him by faith.