Psalm 27
Good morning, Shepherd Bible. I’m delighted to be here to fellowship with you all. Thank you for having me.
Please turn with me now to Psalm 27. And I’m going to do something a bit more unique this morning and that is I’m going to focus primarily on v 4 and then draw out some applications after that. But to do that we must first set the verse in its context. We need to know what psalm 27 is about first before we can examine v 4, or any verse for that matter.
This is a psalm written by king David in which he expresses his confidence in God particularly amid battle. He also expresses his desire for God’s presence while also praying for God’s protection and guidance.
Now the occasion of this psalm is difficult to pin down. Where is David when he wrote this? Was he on the run from Saul, hiding in a cave somewhere? Or was he writing this later in his life while he was king, where he would still go out to battle?
The answer is we don’t really know. Commentators take different positions, but really this psalm can fit in almost any major occasion in David’s life, whether he was running from Saul or reigning as king in Jerusalem.
Let’s now look a little more closely into each section. The first section is vv 1-3. Here, David begins with a jubilant declaration that God is his light and salvation and stronghold.
And because of that he has no fear whatsoever even if an entire army surrounds him to eat up his flesh as he says. He will be confident because God is with him. David was a man who had many enemies, whether it was surrounding nations, those who betrayed him, or those who tattle-tailed on him when he was on the run.
Now, it certainly wasn’t his desire to have enemies, but he did. That was his life. He was a man who had many enemies. That was also the life of the prophets and Christ and the apostles and early church. It’s the life of anyone who desires to obey God rather than men.
Then we come to vv 4-6. Here David shows us that the secret to his victories in battle and really in anything else in life is the worship of Yahweh in his holy temple. In v 4, he declares what his one desire in life is, and that is to dwell in God’s house and to behold and inquire of him.
And in vv 5-6, he shows what the outcome of that worship is. He says (vv 5-6). Now, just to be clear, David does not seek God in v 4 only so that God can protect and give him victory over his enemies. That would be a transactional and self-centered reason to seek God’s face—only so that he can give me what I want.
That’s not what David is saying. But what he is doing is showing us that as he puts God first and draws near to him because of his love for God, to worship him, the outcome can only be that God will bless him with victory.
David even tells us in v 4, “One thing have I asked.” One thing. Now we know that David prayed for many things, even in this psalm. But compared to this one desire and request, all those other things paled in comparison. It was as if this was his only desire, to fellowship with and worship God in his temple.
“I want to be in your house, Lord, because I want to know and see and worship you. Not merely to win my battles, but just to be with you.” What David is doing here in v 4 is he’s showing us the secret, as it were, of how he obtained favor from God and victory in warfare.
It was not by merely seeking God for those things, but for God himself. You can seek God with no other motive but just to know and worship him while also knowing that he will grant your other requests. There’s no contradiction there.
It’s like a wife who loves her husband with no other motive than just because of who he is, while also knowing that because she loves him purely, their marriage will have many other benefits. That’s just the reality; there’s no contradiction or hypocrisy there. And that’s what we see with David here in vv 4-6.
Then in vv 7-12, we see David turning to earnest petition. He asks God not to hide his face from him or forsake him. In vv 11-12 he asks for wisdom to walk in the right path because he has enemies who would like nothing more than to see his downfall.
Our enemy, Satan, who is far more lethal than any earthly army, would love to see our spiritual downfall and works night and day to accomplish it. So, we must also pray that God would teach us his way and lead us on a level path so that our victory over him will be ensured.
And then lastly, in vv 13-14, David ends where he begins. He believes that his requests will be granted. He will enjoy the goodness and fellowship of God in the land of the living. God will preserve his life on earth.
And then in v 14, he instructs us with something that none of us like doing— “Wait, wait.” Twice he says it. “Wait for the Lord, and don’t faint and lose heart as you wait. Don’t give up or cower in fear. Be strong and let your heart take courage as you wait, just as I did, and the Lord delivered me.
So, that’s Psalm 27. And in this second part, I’d like us to focus in on v 4. Let’s read it again. This verse gives us a picture of someone who is given entirely to the worship of God, whose whole-hearted pursuit is fellowship and friendship with God. That’s what we see here.
Let’s walk through this verse line by line and see what we can learn from David’s single-hearted passion. He begins by saying “one thing.” As we saw earlier, David asked God for many things, even in this prayer, but to have eternal fellowship with God, to taste the goodness and love of God in Christ, what else can compare with that?
David lists three things that make up this desire. The first is that he would dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life. This word “dwell” can also be translated to “live”. “That I may dwell, that I may practically live in the house of the Lord.” The house of God in his day was the tabernacle.
And just to note here, if you look at vv 4-6, the words house, temple, shelter, tent, these all refer to the same place, the tabernacle of God, which was the special dwelling place of God. The actual temple had not been built yet, but it was still sometimes called the temple.
David desired to visit and practically live in God’s tabernacle, because that’s where God’s presence dwelt in a special way in his day. David wanted to be there and to just sit with the Lord and dwell with him and be with God and enjoy his presence.
Whether it was to offer sacrifices, to hear the Scriptures read and expounded, to offer thanksgiving and sing praises with the musicians and singers or to bow and worship the Lord in silence. Whatever it was, David wanted to be at the center of worship.
Psalm 65:4 echoes many of the same themes here. There David says: “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.”
“Your courts, your house, your temple”. There is no greater privilege in life than for the living God to draw us near as his beloved children to his very dwelling place.
And in Psalm 84:1-2 we see the sons of Korah sharing the same joy when they say: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh cry out to the living God.”
And then in v 4: “Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise.”
It’s this longing, this love for the house of God, his tabernacle, to sit or stand or bow before the majesty of God and worship him and learn his ways. That was the ultimate driving passion of David’s life.
Here’s what Spurgeon said about this:
“For the sake of communion with the King, David longed to dwell always in the palace; so far from being wearied with the services of the Tabernacle, he longed to be constantly engaged in them, as his life long pleasure. He desired above all things to be one of the household of God, a home born child, living at home with his Father.”
Now for those who have spent time in the NT, it’s hard to miss what is said about the Church, that we are called the temple of God, his house, his dwelling place. In fact, in Eph. 2:19-22 Paul uses these very words. He says:
“19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
In Christ, God has erected his eternal spiritual temple. Jesus even said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it”. He was speaking of the temple of his body. And before that in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt (literally tabernacled) among us.”
We go from dwelling in the temple of God in the OT, to God making us that very temple in the NT so that we might become his eternal dwelling place in Christ. As the church, God’s house, God’s temple, we co-dwell with him. We live together in the same house, because he is our Father and we are his children in Christ.
Now this is true objectively. But do we practically and experientially know this? Are we conscious of the fact that God is with us? Do we echo the longing of these words of David?
Is having sweet fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit a mere afterthought, something we treat as a mere add on only after we’ve offered our personal petitions, or have completed some other spiritual duty, as good as these things are?
Do we truly enjoy dwelling with God just to be with him, to delight in him, to thank him for all his countless blessings? Or do we only approach him with our needs and complaints? When we come to him, is it always with a heavy heart and a constant sense of neediness, never feeling satisfied, but always with this nagging restlessness, and constantly questioning his ways?
Or is our heart full of joy and thanksgiving knowing that we can enter his throne of grace at any moment, knowing that he has accepted us in the beloved, ready to pour his love afresh into our hearts?
The next thing David says is, “To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” For David, the Lord was beautiful, he was delightful, he was pleasant (these are different ways to translate the word). That which is beautiful is attractive, it’s compelling, it’s captivating, it arrests your attention, and in some cases it’s almost irresistible.
David wanted to gaze upon, to behold, to look upon the beauty of God. God is the source of beauty. Beauty exists because he exists. And David’s heart was completely enamored with the glory and beauty of God. In contrast, I think we all know how our eyes and hearts can be so dazzled and enamored with earthly things, to the point where we no longer see the attractiveness of God.
Other things have crowded him out. He’s not the center of our affections. The thought of knowing him as our friend does not urge us to set aside other things for a time in order to cultivate and deepen that friendship. It would be good for us to learn from David to know the attractiveness of God and to then behold, to gaze upon his beauty.
Now, it is true that we can’t see God with our physical eyes in this age, and we know that our fellowship with him in the future will be far better and sweeter than it is now because we will see him face to face and experience the fullness of his presence. But we don’t have to wait for that to happen in order to have fellowship with him now.
There is a sense in which we can gaze upon God’s beauty now with the eyes of our hearts.
As we draw near to him and worship him and set our minds and affections upon him and his Word, he then draws near to us and reveals his love and beauty and majesty,
And we’re overwhelmed with his glory and presence, sometimes to the point of tears, sometimes leading us to sing praises, sometimes to literally falling down before him and crying out “Holy, holy, holy are you”, as if you found yourself caught up into heaven itself.
His beauty, the beauty of his Gospel, the beauty of his ways, captivates our hearts, causing all other delights and enchantments to lose their grip on us. “To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.”
And then lastly, David inquired of God. David wanted to dwell with God, to gaze upon him, and now to inquire of him. Inquire means to seek after, to contemplate, to probe into, to meditate on.
David is engaged in deep thought here, most likely on God’s word, or mediating on his creation. He’s filling his mind and heart with the truth of God and his work in creation and redemption.
He’s also seeking to know God’s will. Before he engages in making a big decision, he inquires after God. He doesn’t rush to try to resolve things in his own wisdom and strength.
We know David wasn’t that kind of man. When he had a problem, he went to God. When he needed wisdom, he sought the face of God. He inquired of him. “What does God want in this moment?” And if he was faced with trials and terrors, as he so often was, he inquired after God, as we see in this very psalm where he is pressed hard by his enemies.
It’s not hard to imagine, though we don’t know for certain that it was probably in this kind of setting where David received inspiration for some his psalms and prophecies, where he came to understand not just what God wanted for him in his temporary sojourning, but God’s eternal purpose that would unfold in history.
We know how the psalms of David are filled with such rich theology. Think of psalm 2, 8, 22, 110. More than any other book in the OT are the Psalms the quoted in the New. David was a man who inquired after God’s eternal purposes and ways.
So, in summary of this verse, David wanted to dwell with God, that is to be with God, to behold God, and to know God; to be with, to behold, and to know God all the days of his life. This is the friendship that David longed for supremely.
And if you are here today and have not tasted the goodness of God in the Gospel, you have not experienced what the Bible calls the new birth, you cannot at all relate to David’s experience here, God is offering you eternal life in his Son Jesus Christ.
He calls you to turn form your sin, to flee from the coming judgment, and to embrace by faith his Son Jesus, who alone can save you and bring you into his eternal kingdom. So, come to Jesus if you have not.
Now in the remainder of our time here, I want to move toward deeper application of this passage, and in doing so we will draw from other Scriptures as well. We’ve read and unpacked the meaning of this great verse. We’ve seen what drove David more than anything in this world. He poured out the secrets of his heart and showed us what made him the kind of man he was. He was a man after God’s own heart.
But we also know that though this was the experience of David, it’s not always our experience—to want more than anything to dwell with God, to behold him and inquire of him. There are hindrances, obstacles, and distractions that make it difficult to cultivating what we see in this verse.
And so in light of that, I want to address three of those hindrances. There are more but I’d like to focus on these which I think are the significant ones.
The first hindrance is the obvious fact that we cannot see God with our physical eyes, we don’t see God in person. Jesus is not present with us here in his physical form.
So, how can you fellowship with someone you can’t see or touch? You can’t physically embrace him or take a walk with him, or anything that involves your earthly embodiment? That’s just a barrier we must face. So then, what do we do about it? Well, Jesus addresses this very difficulty with his disciples.
In John 16:7, he comforts them because they are grieved that he told them that he was leaving them, and here’s what he says: “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
Did you catch that? He tells the men who spent countless hours in his earthly presence that it was to their “advantage” that he goes away, that it was even better for them, even though they ate and drank and laughed and traveled with him.
And why is that? Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit, who would take up residence in them. Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can fellowship with and know Christ even better than if he was with us in person, but we didn’t have his indwelling presence.
Instead of going to the temple in Jerusalem, we ourselves are a temple, both as the church and individually, and the infinite, eternal and majestic God has chosen to live inside you by his Spirit.
Peter writes this to the believers in 1 Pet. 1:8:
“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”
“Joy inexpressible and full of glory”. That can only happen because of the indwelling presence of God. I think David knew something of this inexpressible joy when with the eyes of his heart he gazed upon the beauty of the Lord.
That’s the first hindrance. The second hindrance is one that is pervasive in our culture today, and it’s the inability to sit quietly alone. The idea of sitting by yourself, alone with God, no cellphone, no computer, no one to distract you, nothing. Just you and the Lord, for an extended period—that is not something our current environment encourages us to do.
Sadly, many people do everything they can to escape being alone, because being alone is equivalent to loneliness, which is a different thing. And we all know how much of a problem loneliness is today, all the dark thoughts and consuming angst and insecurities that people experience when they’re sitting alone.
And so many people view being alone as a curse, something that they do everything in their power to escape. But that is not to be the case with us. We shouldn’t see alone time as a curse, but in fact as a blessing. This doesn’t mean we live like hermits away in the desert somewhere, and yes, we should seek out relationships, but not for the mere sake of escaping alone time.
Think about king David, how he spent countless hours of time alone with God, as a shepherd boy and in the other occasions. Jesus also would take time away from ministry and go out to the desert or mountains and spend time with his Father in prayer, sometimes an entire night.
And then, immediately before his arrest in the garden, Jesus tells his disciples that they’re all going to abandon him. Here’s what he says in John 16:32:
32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.
His response was not a pity party but knowing that the Father was with him. Remember, this was the darkest hour of Jesus’ life. If there was anyone who knew what it was like to be alone, to be abandoned and denied and betrayed and misunderstood, it was the Lord Jesus.
If there was anyone who could’ve felt the stinging experience of loneliness, it was Jesus. And “yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” Do you know that truth also applies to you? It’s not just for Jesus. You never have to feel lonely again. You can know and sense and feel that the Father is with you, because you have a deep, abiding friendship with him.
Jesus told his disciples in John 15:15: 15 I no longer call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Think about it: friends know each other’s secrets and desires. And the deeper the friendship, the more they reveal to each other. And through time, their love for one another grows and deepens and they love being around each other. They love one another for who they are, not for what they can get from them. This is the wonderful privilege Christ is calling us to—friendship with God.
Our approach should be something this: “I get to spend time with my best friend, the living God, the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, who created me, loves me and knows me better than anyone else, who created me for fellowship and friendship with him, to love him, to walk with him, to learn his ways, and to just enjoy being with him.”
That should be our attitude and approach to our alone time instead of dread and angst and pity parties.
There is much more we could say on that point, but let’s now go to the third hindrance.
The third hindrance to spending time with the Lord is the fact that our hearts are just not in it. It is simply too difficult to sit and meditate and dwell with God. We just don’t feel like it.
So, how do you get to the point where your heart longs for the Lord, to dwell in his presence as David did? And for this point, I’m going to borrow largely from an article written by David Matthis on Desiring God titled “Start the Day Happy in God: The Lost Art of Bible Mediation.” And I would encourage you to read this entire article, which is on the Desiring God website.
David Matthis hits the bullseye as he addresses this issue. Using John Owen as an example he says:
“Owen would at least challenge whether our initial feelings determined anything significant at all. He surely wouldn’t say to skip God’s word (or prayer or church) to cater to whatever unspiritual inclination you woke up feeling. Rather, he might say, as Keller summarizes, “Meditate to the point of delight.” Don’t give in to your heart’s first inclinations. Rather, take hold of them, and direct them. Open the Bible, and turn your attention to the one who is supremely worthy, and keep your nose in the Book, and your mind on Jesus, until your sluggish heart begins to respond like it should.”
He goes on: “Your desires and delights are not hardwired. They are pliable. You can reshape and recondition them. You can retrain them. You may be unable to simply turn them with full effect in the moment to make yourself feel something, but you can reshape your heart over time. Oh, can you. Your desires, good and bad, are not simple givens. Stretched out over time, as the composite of countless decisions, they are wonderfully (and hauntingly) chosens.”
We don’t have to be victims of our feelings and desires, wherever our heart is in the moment, but by the help of God’s Spirit and daily exercise in the Scriptures our hearts can and will over time come to the point where like David, we can sit before the Lord as he did in the temple, and we can gaze upon him without distractions, and we can fix our hearts to inquire and meditate on him, because that is our one great desire.
Whether its these three hindrances which we briefly covered or any others that may try to threaten our delight in God, we need not be victims of any as we seek the face of the Lord.
Let’s pray.