This hymn that we have just sung would actually fit the theme of the sermon today. So today we want to look at Psalm 63. So please turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 63. I’ll read. I suppose this is one of the more familiar psalms, or at least you are familiar with the first verse. So let me read through the psalm.

Psalm 63. “A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.

When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me. But those who seek my life, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword; They shall be a portion for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God; Everyone who swears by Him shall glory; But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.” Now let us pray.

“Our Father in heaven, we gather again this morning as Your people, both here as well as those following online. We want to praise You and thank You that You have gathered us. And we pray that even as we draw near to You that You might be pleased to draw near to us, that we may know of Your presence. And we pray again for this time as we look at Your Word. We pray that You might open up our eyes to see Your wondrous truth and challenge our hearts to be true and faithful disciples of Yours. So bless our time together. Forgive us of all our sins, for we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

When I saw the slide sent by Kara alright, I got a bit of a shock when I saw the title. I kind of love the graphic there. I thought: Oh, that’s wonderful. It just fits the psalm- the dry and arid land. But then I saw the title as the “Passion Of Christ”. So I wrote back, and it was quickly changed. The topic for today is actually a passion for Christ, not passion of Christ. There’s a world of difference with the change of the preposition. Now passion of Christ, now many people have heard of. Many people talk about it. And maybe many have watched alright the film called “The Passion of Christ”.

But I say today that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the passion for Christ. Now you see, the passion of Christ speaks of Christ’s passion for us or His love for us. And for that, you must agree that it is a very moving thing. For us to think about the passion of Christ, it is moving when we see how or what He went through physically and as we understand what He went through spiritually. Now it is moving. Now listen to what the Bible says in Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2 and beginning in verse 6.

Philippians chapter 2 and beginning in verse 6, and Paul wrote this about Jesus Christ. “Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Now that is the passion of Christ- He being God Himself, being the perfect Son of God did not consider that be anything but gave them all up to come and be like one of us, to suffer even the death on the cross.

Now that is the passion of Christ that is captured in many hymns such as this one that penned these words about His passion. “Can it be? Who would believe? Our promised Prince lacked majesty: Stricken hard, grotesquely scarred—no face was so cruelly marred.” Now that is the passion of Jesus Christ. I can go on. We can sing about it, we can talk about it, we can meditate upon it, and it is really a moving thing. Now passion for Christ is a different thing alright. Passion for Christ is about our passion for Jesus Christ. It’s about our love for Him, not about His love for us. And that is what we are talking about this morning.

I believe that is what this psalm is about. It’s about our love or our passion for Christ. And I want to ask at the very outset here: What is it like when we talk about our passion for Christ? We know what it is like when we talk about the passion of Christ. Now I say it’s very touching. It’s very moving. But when we talk about the passion of Christians for the Lord Jesus Christ, now we want to ask ourselves: What is it like? Can people talk about my love and my passion for Christ? If someone were to produce a movie depicting your passion for Jesus Christ, what would that movie be like?

Now it is a sad reality that many professing Christians do not know what it is to love Jesus Christ. It’s a sad thing that Christians do not know what it is to love Christ with favour and passion. And it is a sad thing to see that so many Christians have so little to show that in their lives. Yes, there might be people who showed a lot of enthusiasm. But sadly much of this enthusiasm is nothing more than excessive emotionalism and very superficial. Yes, they may get into a frenzy from time to time in the mass gathering, but this soon kind of fizzles out. Yes, people may sing excitedly in a camp, in a conference, and maybe even talk piously. But they cannot be said to have passion for Christ.

They cannot be said to truly love God with all their heart, with all their soul, and all their mind, and all their strength. How many Christians can say of themselves that this is my passion for Jesus Christ? So sadly as I say there are much talks about the passion of Christ, but so little about passion for Christ. So I want to speak to this subject this morning as we look at this psalm. And I believe the best way to try to explain what passion for Christ means is to show you some examples of it. So what is passion for Christ? What does it look like?

Now I want to draw your attention to two examples alright, and one is here in our psalm in Psalm 63. So back to Psalm 63, and I want to draw your attention to the example of David. The example of David because this psalm is a psalm of David. It is a description of his passion for God or for Christ. And if you look at the superscription or the title of this psalm, it says: “A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.”. So here is David in the wilderness, in the dry and arid place, in that lonely place.

He cries out: “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You as in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”. Now that is the backdrop- in the dry and thirsty land, in the wilderness, in that desert, in that place where he was lonely and in danger, he cries out to God. You are my God, and I seek after You. Now I want to first point out here. The first thing to take note of here is the fact that David was hiding in the desert. He was in the wilderness. Now, most people believed that the context of this psalm is when David was dethroned by his son as it were, and he was running for his life. It was this revolt in his kingdom, rebellions in his family.

Now, these are you know difficult times in his life- the kingdom taken, family strife, and he’s being chased away into this dry and thirsty land. So that is the setting. In other words, he was in trouble. He was in a trying time in his life. Now there were many such periods in David’s life. The time when he was pursued by Saul. And many people believed that this is probably even worse than the time when he was pursued by Saul because now he’s pursued by his own son. Now family strife and family problems are very trying periods in a person’s life. So the question is this: What do you do? What do you do or what do you seek when you are in trouble?

Now perhaps now a lot of people are in trouble. We are in the pandemic. We go through very trying times. Some more, perhaps some are less, but this in some ways a trying time for everyone. It’s no ordinary time. So this is no ordinary time for David. So what did he do and what did he seek? What was he obsessed with? Now so often we are obsessed with the cares of this world. You might remember the story of Martha and Mary. And when Jesus went to them and Jesus saw Mary coming to Him and with that eagerness to listen to Him, and then He saw Martha on the other side, busy with the cares of this life. And Jesus rebuked her and said: “Martha, Martha, you’re just too distracted by many things.”. The cares of this life. That is her obsession.

So I want to ask: What is our obsessions during this period of time? Yes, this is in a sense our wilderness experience. But what is our pre-occupation, our obsessions? Now here we are told of David’s obsessions or his passion at a time like this, and I want us to draw our attention to two things about David’s passion here. What was he passionate about alright, his passion here as he tells us when he was in the wilderness of Judah alright? Two things about his passion. Firstly, we see that David’s passion is seen in what he truly desires. His passion is seen in what he truly desires. In other words, what is he passionate about? What he truly desires?

You see, David seeks and longs for what? Remember again I said the state that he was in. Remember where he was- a dry and thirsty place where there is no water, but he does not long for water. See, the context helps us see that his great need. He was thirsty. He was in a dry land, but his first cry in this experience is not “God, give me water.”. No. You see, when he was surrounded by his enemies, his son, and the troops were pursuing him seeking his life, he did not cry out to God and said: God, give me safety.

He has been dethroned. The kingdom, as it were, was being snatched from him, but he was not aching to have his kingdom back. He said: God, I want to be back on my throne again. Now we don’t read this in this psalm now although the context is this. The context is loneliness. The context is thirst. The context is his power being taken away from him, but we don’t see him turning to God and cry. So often that is the way we react in times of trouble. I’m in trouble. I am in need. I have no water. God, give me my water. God, give me my throne. Give me power, give me prestige, give me this and give me that because so often that is what we think is our great need.

But not with David here. Not a sign of that in this psalm and though that it seems to all people is the logical thing for him to ask, logical thing for him you know to plead with God for. But he did not because these are not his passions. These are not his passions. See, what you pray for most of the time every day reveals something about is in your heart. Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s power. Maybe it’s possession. And when these things are taken away from you, you cry out to God and say: I want this thing back. I want this thing back. He did not ask for these things. He did not say: I want this thing back. No.

So what then is his passion if these are not? What then are his obsessions? What does he care about mostly, above all things? What was his passion? It is this. And so you come back to the psalm again, he says: “O God, You are my God”. You are my God, and I want you to notice that this pronoun “You” is repeated all through the psalm. “You are my God”; “I seek You”; “I thirst for You”; “I long for You”. Verse 2: “I look for You”. Verse 3: “because of Your lovingkindness my lips shall praise You”; “My hands lift up in Your name”. Verse 5: “My mouth shall praise You”. Verse 6: “I remember You”; “I meditate on You”. Verse 7: “Because of You”. Verse 8: “My soul shall follow close behind You”.

You see, that is David’s obsession. That is his passion. Oh God, I know I’m in need. I have many needs in this world. I know I’m in trouble, but what I care about most of all is to lose You. It’s okay to lose everything in this world, but not You. You see in this time, at this time in his life, his thought is all about God, and that’s what we see. In other words, to David, this is the best. You see, what you yearn in your prayer and cried out for in your prayers reveals what is really in your heart. What do you think is the best? David said: You are the best. If I have You, it’s okay.

Now he said the similar thing in another psalm in Psalm 16 alright- Psalm 16:2. We’ve seen this consistent in David’s life. Psalm 16 (1 6) and verse 2, and here David says: “O my soul, you have said to the LORD, “You are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from You.”. Now, why does David cry out in this way in Psalm 63 when everything has been taking away from him? Why didn’t he cry out to God and ask God to give all these things back to him? Give me back my kingdom. Give me back my peace. Give me back my life and my security. Why didn’t he? Because as he tells us in Psalm 16 even if I had all these things, they’re all nothing without God.

He says my goodness is nothing. The kingdom is nothing. My security is nothing. All these are nothing apart from God. He understands that, and that’s the reason why to him, God, God, God is what I want. Is that your cry this morning? Yes, we are going through difficult times. What is preoccupying your mind? What are you thinking about every day? Just your own safety? Your own health? Your own life? And because of that you know, you see that determines and affects the way people behave today cause everything is about their security. But what about God? What about God?

Well for David, I’ll go for God alright. I’ll rather go for God. Or in Psalm 27. Psalm 27 alright, again we see him saying the same thing and verse 4: “One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD”. That I will not miss because I’d rather have that. I’ll be in the house of God and I want to behold the beauty of God, thinking about Him, meditating upon Him, seeing Him, hearing about Him. That gives me joy. That gives me true satisfaction. That’s why David says in Psalm 63 again and verse 2: “For I looked for You in the sanctuary (in the house of God), to see Your power and Your glory”.

That gives us great thrill to come and hear about God. We have enough of bad news everywhere. We hear about this or we hear about that. We need to come and hear about God. About what? It’s about His power, about His glory. And verse 3: “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life”. Have you heard about the lovingkindness of God? Have you heard about His loving kindness? You know the word ‘lovingkindness’ like I’ve explained before in other psalms is a very special word. In the Hebrew, it’s called ‘hesed’. It’s a word about God’s covenant love for us, His faithfulness as Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations. It’s the same word. It’s about the faithfulness.

Do you realise that God is utterly, completely faithful to us as we sang in the first hymn “The God Of Abraham Praise”? God has taken an oath that He will guard us. He will protect us. He will love us to the end. He will never forsake us. Aren’t these amazing truths that we want to hear again and again? Don’t we want to come into God’s sanctuary to look and behold His beauty and to meditate on His glory and on His majesty and on His attributes and on His love for us? Don’t we want to come here, again and again, to hear of the gospel? The gospel of the grace of God that we are saved not because of anything in ourselves but because God loves us and He chooses to love us and to give His son for us.

That’s the reason why we are commanded to keep the Lord’s supper regularly because every time we come to the Lord’s supper, who would want to miss the Lord’s supper when we have the opportunity to come in a graphic way, displaying this great and amazing truth of God? For David, I would not want to miss that. I will not want to miss that because I want to come and I want to hear about my God. It’s okay if you don’t tell me about some of the great men in the world. It’s okay if I do not know them, but I want to know God. I want to know God above all else, and that is David’s passion. You, my God, You are my God. I seek You. I thirst for You. I long for You, and that is David’s passion.

Now it is so different for many professing Christians today. They may seek the gifts of God, but they do not seek the Giver. They come. Maybe they would love to come to church and see what God has to give to them. They want His gifts, but they do not want Him really alright- they do not want Him really. David, he wants God. Now the second thing about David’s passion is this. I said David’s passion is seen first of all in what he truly desires. He truly desires God and God alone, above all else. And secondly, David’s passion is also seen in how he pursues what he desires. How he pursues what he desires.

Now two things at least we see in this regard concerning how David pursues what he desires. How he pursues his passions? Now the first is this, and again in the first verse he said: “Oh God, You are my God”. And it says here early. In this translation: “Early will I seek you”. Now other translations may be kind of different. Maybe the word ‘eager’. I think they are all equally valid. But the more literal one is actually early because the actual word means dawn. At the dawn, that is what it means. And so this translation puts dawn as okay, very early in the morning he seeks God.

But that idea of early and in the dawn, the first thing in the morning he seeks after God is the idea of being eager. And so some translations translate this word as ‘earnest’, ‘eager’. But that is what it is about. That is what it is about. David was eager, so his passion is seen in his eagerness, his diligence. There we can also think of diligence, rise up early in the morning to pursue God. First thing in the morning, his thoughts is about God. It’s about God. In other words, early means that that is his priority. That is his priority. Now we see that that is true of the men of God, both in the Bible and in the history of the church, that is there is this eagerness and kind of diligence, earnestness in seeking after God.

Now you (I) draw your attention to Mark 1:35. Mark 1:35. Verse 35, Mark chapter 1, and it says this about our Lord Jesus Christ: “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.”. Now I think that is what it means here in Psalm 63, early or the dawn. And here we see in a very literal way you know how the Lord Jesus Christ was eager to meet with His Father. And so we are told, and we know that this verse 35 is in the context of what? In the context of Jesus’ busy life because the verses earlier is talking about His business.

In the context of his business He rose up early in the morning (we are told way before the sunlight or the daylight), and then He went to a solitary place and seek after God. Now that is the picture here in Psalm 63, and that is what David is about. In the wilderness he was early and he rises up and pursues God first thing in his mind. And that’s what we are told to do. Jesus tells us in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 that we are to seek first the kingdom of God. And that’s why we begin the week this way. Sunday is the first day of the week. I think it is only right and proper for Christians who profess to love God to come and seek after Him.

Do you? Or on the first day of the week, your mind is already being preoccupied with so many other things other than God Himself? I believe that the first thing of the day you know we should do in a day as we rise up is to pray. Not brush teeth, not breakfast. Why would the Lord Jesus saw the need for that and we don’t? Why are we rushing off to work or to do other things and not pause and seek after God and let that be the pattern through the day? Now that is what passion for God is about. It’s that eagerness, that diligence, that sincerity, and earnestness, giving it the priority that it deserves. David’s passion alright is seen in how he pursues what he desires, and we see in the first place he pursued it with diligence, with eagerness.

But the second thing we see about David, how he pursued his passion alright. So David’s passion, how he pursued his passion is this. First with diligence, with eagerness. And secondly, with wholeheartedness. With wholeheartedness. And that’s how we should understand verse 1. Early or eagerness, with eagerness I seek You. And then he says: “My soul thirsts; My flesh faints or longs for You as in the dry and thirsty land”. Just like a man, a person in the dry land longs for water, that is how I long for God. Can you really say that about your relationship with God? Do you know what it means to thirst or do you know what it means to be hungry?

And sadly maybe in our society, now we don’t really experience that. Now really we don’t really experience that. But I believe and I’ve read and I understand that thirst is a terrible experience. When you are really thirsty, you will really long for water. And I believe that if you’re really hungry, you will really long for food. That longing, that thirst, and David is now saying that as he comes to his pursuit of God, that is his experience. That is his experience- longing and thirsting. In other words, he is pursuing God with his whole being. And that’s what the command is all about that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our mind, with all our soul and strength.

When that commandment is given, when Jesus said that is the first and the great command, it means that that is uppermost. That is most important for us as Christian. Do you realise that? What do you think is most important for you? It is to love God. It is to pursue God with your whole being, every ounce of your energy. Everything in you, every thought in your brain as it were, is all thinking about God, is all pursuing about God. And yet we find that that is not true of so many Christians. So little of God in our brain or in our mind, and so little of God in our heart. So little of God in our strength, in our energy, exerted. So little of it.

David, that’s what he means. Every ounce of my being as well as my energy I’m in pursuit of God, longing for Him. In other words, for David God is an addiction. God is an addiction. He’s addicted to God as it were, and I believe that God should be an addiction of our life, not an addition to our life. But for many people, it’s just an addition added to the many other things. No, we should be all out for God. Now I want to now quickly point to another example. I say one really good way to understand passion is look at somebody.

We’ve seen the example of David alright, but I thought it really served us well to look at another example and that in the New Testament which we see the same thing. Alright, we see in this person’s life the same passion, eagerness for God. And that person is Paul. Now every time you read Paul’s life, I think you see something of what David is talking about. Paul, now just two things about him alright. And first, I draw your attention to Acts 20:24. Acts 20:24, and we want to ask: In what sense is Paul a man with a passion for Christ? In what sense is Paul also a man like David with the passion for Christ?

If you look at these two men’s example, and we pray this morning God, I want to be like them. I want to be like them. I want to understand what it means to have passion for Christ. And here in Acts 20:24, Paul wrote: “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”. Now listen to what he says here. None of these things move me. Nothing in the world. Not fame, not possession, not anything. None of these things move me. He says: “Nor do I count my life dear to myself”.

What is life? What’s my life? People are always guarding their own lives, protecting their life. Paul says, no. Passion for Paul means this. He is very focused. He’s a single-minded man. He’s all for Christ. You see, he’s a man who is all for Christ. All for Christ. His life, his interests, it’s just one thing- pleasing God. That’s why he wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:9 my aim in life, he says, is to be pleasing to God. It is God that is the focus of his life. It is God that is the pursuit of his life. That’s why he said none of these things move me. Nothing can distract me. Nothing can distract me, not the allurements of the world, not the sufferings of the world. Not anything in this world can distract me from my pursuit of Christ.

And that’s why he wrote: “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”. Now that is passion for Christ. Nothing moves me. One thing only: Christ. For me to live is Christ. It’s Christ. So he has a mission. He has a goal. He has a pursuit in life. We see the same as with David as we see here in the example of Paul. Now then another passage in Second Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 5:13. Actually, you can go to many places in the New Testament and you can detect or you can see very clearly this passion that Paul has for the Lord Jesus Christ. But just one more here, and 2 Corinthians 5:13. And verse 13, now again listen here to what he says: “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God”.

Now, what does it mean to be beside yourself? It means that you are out of your mind. It means that you are a crazy, mad person. That is what it means. And Paul says when you look at us and you think that we are crazy, we are out of our mind, we are beside ourselves, well you’re right. You are right that we are crazy people, but it is for God. It is for God that we appear to be crazy. Now we know that we see a lot of what we called “religious fanatics”. Now, these are also crazy people alright, we call them these religion extremists alright or fanatics. And I want to ask: How is it? How is it that a man with a passion for Christ is also a crazy man?

Now we all can agree all these religious fanatics, they are crazy people. So how is it that we who have a passion for Christ are also crazy or considered as crazy people? Now how do we in a sense react to fanaticism? How do we react to that? Now very often people react to that by being nominal. Now I do not believe that that’s the right way to react to religious fanaticism. It’s not to be nominal, it’s not to be lukewarm. We see them with fire, we see them with zeal, we see them with enthusiasm, we say oh, we do not want to be like them. And so we have no zeal, no enthusiasm, no nothing. No.

Yes, we must not be fanatical alright or like fanatics, but we must have a passion. But we must have a passion. So the difference is not that they have passion and we don’t have passion. No, that’s not the difference. So what is passion? Well, passion is to be mad about something. That’s why Paul says you look at us and we look like mad people, and you are in a sense right. We’re mad. We’re mad about something. We are crazy about something, but about what? Now there’s a difference.

There are footballers who are crazy about football or teenagers crazy about k-pops. You can see some you know those crazy people and you know what they do and so on. They will flying alright during the better time (pre-pandemic) and to fly all the way to Korea just to watch the concert. You say crazy. Go all the way to Korea just to attend one concert and then come back the next day or two days later? Crazy alright madness. So what is the difference between passion you know that Paul talked about or the Bible talks about on that?

Well, fanatics are extremists. Well, I say that in a sense a man with a passion will go to the extreme. The difference is that, but not to the point of lawlessness. You see, fanatics are zeal without knowledge. And so Paul will in the sense say that sometimes it looks alike the Christians. The sad thing is that very often we are not alike. They are crazy about something but we are crazy for nothing. We are not passionate. We have no zeal, no enthusiasm in the church. We’re not like them alright. And so I say in many ways we are similar in the sense that we both go I say to the extreme alright in a sense.

But let me tell you what extreme or what passion means. What madness alright when Paul says if you think that we are mad, now let me tell you what madness means. I’m not sure whether you understand or you know what madness means in your Christian life. What do you see in Paul? What do you see in the people in the Bible? Now look first of all in Romans alright- Romans chapter 5. Romans 5:6-8, and this is what madness means. Crazy. It’s crazy. He’s beside Himself. Romans 5:6- “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”. It’s madness.

Verse 7: “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinner”. While we were still rebelling against God, when we were still hating Him, while we were still His enemies, He died for us. He didn’t die for us when we love Him or when we were good. No. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is crazy. He must be beside Himself. That is what passion means in the Bible. It looks like craziness, the kind of things that people do.

Or in Matthew 19:27. Matthew 19:27, and here we hear Peter on behalf of the disciples said to the Lord Jesus: “Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “See, we have left all and followed You.”. That is crazy. That is crazy, leaving everything behind- your fishing net, your fishing boat, and follow Jesus. You know what? We heard last week. Jesus said the same thing to people. If you are not prepared to forsake all, you cannot be My disciples because I only want crazy people. If you’re not crazy, you cannot be My disciples. Now that is passion in the Scripture. It is that madness as it were.

Hudson Taylor was beside himself when he left his medical profession and everything behind and went to China, and there lost his wife and children. That is madness. Madness for William Carey to leave England for India, and there lost his wife and children. Madness for Adoniram Judson, leave behind America, went to Burma, and there had to bury his wife and bury his children. Madness for Jim Elliot to go to South America and lost his head. Madness. Where are crazy people today in the church? How many crazy people are there in our midst? And that is what the psalm is saying to us. And that’s what we see here in the example of David and in the example of Paul.

Paul was a passionate man. He was a passionate man. He was passionate about lost souls. He said: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel”. He was passionate about discipleship. That’s why he said: “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ”. Paul was passionate about the church, for he said: “for you remember brethren our labour and toil for you every day”. He was passionate about mission. He said: “And so I’ve made it my aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named.”. I’ll go anywhere where Christ was not named. He was mad about the gospel, and because of the gospel, he was beaten in prison, shipwrecked, left, or dead. That is crazy. That is crazy.

David was a man with passion, Paul was a man with passion. They were taught to be crazy people, but we need more of such men and women of God today. More of people who would cry out like David: “O God, You are my God; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You as in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”. God, You, You, You, You. Every day is about You. Just one last verse to conclude. First John. 1 John 3:16. The First Epistle of John chapter 3 and verse 16.

Most of us are perhaps familiar with John 3:16. I believe you also need to know 1 John 3:16, which says: “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”. You see by coming and dying on the cross, Jesus has shown His passion for us. That is the passion of Christ. Now it is for us to show our passion for Him. We love only because He first loves us. Let us pray.

“Our dear Father in heaven, we do pray that You’ll help us understand something of what You are showing to us this morning from the life and the cry of David while he was in a dry and thirsty land, and how in spite of his circumstances his one thought, his one passion, his one quest is God, for he sees that he has nothing good apart from You. And Lord we pray that the same might be true of all of us here this morning, both here as well as those who joined us on live stream, for these, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.