Thirsting for God: Finding Lasting Satisfaction in Christ

Jul 13, 2026

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips

84s
#ThirstForGod
“And so often we can take for granted words like that in the scriptures because the idea of it is this, if you're thirsty, what do you do? You get a drink. If you're hungry, what do you do? You seek food. We we know that. It drives us. Right? There's something in us that says, I need to I need to satisfy this. I I need this. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get this. I will find water in the middle of the desert. I will seek it out. I will satiate that need because I'm thirsty. What David is saying in the midst of his circumstances, in the midst of of hiding from from his accusers, from his from his enemy, God, I I thirst for you. I need your presence. I feel isolated or alone. I feel fearful. Whatever it is that he is feeling, it's rooted in a a desire to be in the presence of god. We're created with an inherent longing to be in union with our creator, and prayer is a step through the door to coming home to our heavenly father. David pens these words, recognizing whatever it is that's going on in his life, the first thing he needs is his connection with God, his connection with his heavenly father.”
61s
#WorshipTogether
“The beauty of Jesus is that he invites us into this relationship with him, that our hearts come alive, that our souls long for, and we begin to experience the satisfaction of the thirst, the hunger that we have, that inward emptiness that nothing else seems to touch. That's why we do these things, and that's why we do this thing every Sunday because God's created us to have this rhythm of turning to him and crying out to him and doing that with other people to remind one another. When we sing, it's not just for us. It's also for others. It's it's testimony of god doing something in our lives to someone near us even if we're a little off key We're a lot off key. That's why I sit up the front. Just prayed in this to hear me. It's an opportunity for us to remind one another that God is real, that he is at work, and whatever our circumstances, we bring them to him, but we trust him in the midst of them.”
78s
#GodThroughSeasons
“But even more powerful than that is being able to look back. And now from my vantage point in life, seeing in those seasons where there's been real challenges, real uncertainties, real convictions, real problems. Wow. God has been so faithful. God is good even in the midst of the reality of real life. God will be faithful again because I can look back, I can have confidence in my presence. With confidence in my presence, I can be hopeful for the future. This is the the beauty that journaling has has shown me is I get to see not just the moment how I'm feeling in a day, but the plan that God is working out over a season. And I can be reminded of how I felt that day and how I felt the next day and how I felt a few months later. That's what David is describing. Hey, I've lived long enough to see God pull me through some amazing things and some terrible things, and I know that whatever my circumstances are, God is the one that I thirst for. God is the one that I seek. God is the one that I need.”
53s
#SeekGodFirst
“So David is doing in his prayer. First and foremost, God, I come to you because I am seeking you and you above all things, Not a change in my circumstances, not a relationship I wish I had. You. God, I need you. I thirst for you. My soul longs for you. How did he get there? How did David learn to experience that? Reality is that we all should be like that. See, we are created with an inherent longing to be in union with our creator, and prayer is a step through the door to coming home to our heavenly father. David gives us an example of a couple of ways that we could pray. The first is this, verses two through four. Follow along as I read.”
55s
#PraiseInEverySeason
“He was reminded of the God that he worships, the God that formed him, the God that put him on the throne, and the God that continued to bless him even in the midst of his circumstances at the time of writing this, in the peril and the pain and the suffering he was experiencing, and he longed to do it again. This is a gracious gift that God gives us, to be able to gather together and to sing songs declaring his glory, to lift up our hands in praise, to point our posture towards him, to cry out to him when we are experiencing immense joy in our lives, successes, and triumphs, and and declaring to god thank you and and our gratitude, and in our pain, in our suffering, in our loss, in our failure, and saying, god, help me. God, only you are the god who's created me, who can rescue me. God, I need you.”
60s
#SatisfactionInSavior
“We dream and plan and prepare and save and and think about the next adventure that we're going to take, and we finally get there. And then we get to the last day and we wish, gosh. I think I could use, like, one or two more days. We get home, and and we're almost worse off because we're depressed that we're not on vacation anymore. There's a lot of people that are gonna be depressed next week because they're not here today. See, the reality is is that so often we we think we know what's gonna bring us this sense of peace, this sense of wholeness, completion, satisfaction. But the point and the big idea for today is that lasting satisfaction is not found in our circumstances but in our savior. Lasting satisfaction is not found in our circumstances but in our savior. Psalm 63 is written by David.”
74s
#PraiseRevivesUs
“David actually gives us two examples, one of public praise, and in a moment, we'll talk through private praise. And in these verses I just read, he's recounting his experience in the gathering of God's people, worshiping, singing praises, declaring God's faithfulness, recounting testimonies of what God has done. He's remembering the things that he has experienced in the path past. David had a road to the king, road to the throne of of becoming a king where he was being a military leader successful conquesting, where as a king, he led the the kingdom into prosperity. He he continued to conquest more. He was successful in a lot of ways. He had terrible circumstances where sin led him down the path to make egregious mistakes, and there, he found God's mercy and grace and forgiveness. David is remembering these things. And so when he would gather to worship with God's people, the testimonies that were were born, the things that people would declare, the scriptures that were read, the stories that were told, the songs that were singed were deeply rooted in his heart. His soul came alive in those moments.”
76s
#GatherToWorship
“That's why we do this. That's why we have our kids worshiping in in their classes and hearing the gospel being proclaimed by their volunteers. That's why we have, Espanol service so that they could do that in the in their, like, mother tongue. Right? The language that it might be most close to their heart. That's why we continue to to raise up other volunteers who serve and like, on this team, it's incredible how many people serve just out of out of the gifts that God has given them and a desire to lead us in gathering and worshiping and singing. And we are called to do this in a regular rhythm. The old testament word for it is Sabbath, which means like to stop, to rest. It's an opportunity for us to each week reflect and say, am not God, but there is a God and he is good. And to do that together with others, to remind one another in the midst of whatever our circumstances, whether we are celebrating or mourning, that God is at work, that he is alive, that he is living and active, and we are doing this together right now. There's a public praise and there's purpose in that for changing us, convicting us, challenging us, encouraging us, equipping us, and leading us to deeper and richer faith together. It's God's purpose and plan.”
45s
#ChasingMore
“See, the reality is that so much of our our lives are dedicated to to setting some kind of goal, setting some kind of a marker of what success is gonna be, what's gonna be fulfilling and satisfying and bring us joy and happiness and peace, and we work toward that day in and day out. And maybe it's in our careers. It's it's a title or a position or a a level of responsibility or maybe it's just a a paycheck, an amount that we think that's gonna be what we what we need. That's gonna to get me to the point where I feel fulfilled. And then we get there, and there's another role to play. There's another client to get. There's another customer to find. There's more. It's not enough.”
42s
#SuccessDoesntSatisfy
“See, the reality is is that so often we we seek to try to satisfy our souls with things that are not meant to last forever. That's the temptation in this world. That's the temptation for us, for you, and me, and and we look to it in in sources of success. So we try to to have a career path that we wanna that we want to project ourselves onto. There's a a promotion, a a role, a title. Maybe, honestly, it's just a paycheck. The amount that we think is gonna give us joy. And when we get to that point, then we've made it. We've arrived. We'll be happy. We'll be satisfied. We'll we'll feel fulfilled.”
53s
#TrustAmidBetrayal
“See what David is describing and we're reminded that he's not just like a a king on the throne who's praising God in his glory because of all the success he's experienced. He's had those moments in his life, but in this time, he's in the depths of Sheol. Right? Like, this is, like, hard. Life is challenging. He is a real enemy who is seeking to take his life, and it's his son. Can you imagine the confusion and frustration he must be experiencing? Right? Another enemy, he might fight back. Another enemy, he might just just run away and and leave it forever, but but what he's seeing here is his very own son become the aggressor to take his life. What's he supposed to do? He doesn't know, but he knows that God does in real life circumstances.”
36s
#PraiseDespiteCircumstances
“When we sing, we get to declare God's glory. We sing praises to him, bear witness to one another, and that's despite our circumstances. Every single one of us is facing challenges. Every single one of us is is struggling through some type of decision that we have to make or the regret of a decision we already made. Every single one of us has suffered loss and grief and mourning. And maybe this season seems better than the last season, but we all know what it feels like to have pain. Let's just be honest, and let's sing like we know those things.”
34s
#WorshipEvenInPain
“But we as as leaders, like as pastors, directors, we meet every week. We pray for our church, and our church is experiencing you are experiencing some amazing things in your lives and some really, really hard and challenging things in your lives. And everybody volunteering is experiencing that. People on stage, we don't all just, like, have it together so we get to be up here. Like, some of the people on our stage are gonna be experiencing the worst things in their lives, and yet they praise God because they also feel compelled to love him and to lead others to love him in the midst of that.”
66s
#LastingSatisfaction
“``The big idea for today is this, lasting satisfaction is not found in our circumstances but in our savior. Lasting satisfaction is not found in our circumstances but our savior. Psalm 63 is a psalm from the king of of Israel, David. It's a psalm written not in his successes and his glories and his military conquests and the prosperity that he's brought to this nation. It's a psalm written in despair. He's literally fleeing for his life because his own son wants the throne. He's running away in order to hide and try to preserve himself so that his son doesn't take him out and take his power. What do we do in a circumstance when everything around us feels like it's falling apart? What do we do in a circumstance when everything is going well and it's still not enough? Psalm 63 has an answer. Follow along as I read.”
63s
#GodIsFaithful
“Look, I don't know your boss. I don't know what mistakes you made last night or last year that you're still carrying the shame or weight of. I don't know, if your doctor doesn't know what to do with the diagnosis you just received. I don't know. But I know that God is faithful. I know that our souls are made with an emptiness that is only satisfied by his fullness because he is eternal and he has invited us into a relationship through his son, our savior Jesus, that we can continue to pour out and cry out and seek him above all things. And in the midst of our circumstances, we can find peace. In the midst of our challenges, we can find joy. In the midst of our lowest points, we can find hope because there is a god who sees us and knows us and loves us and is working all things for good. Maybe not always in this life. Let's be honest because that's true. But God is eternal and he gives us an eternal hope.”
38s
#SeekGodNotCircumstances
“See, David has this circumstance where he is literally fleeing for his life, and that psalm is this written prayer, this poem, a song to be sung, and it starts not with, God, change my circumstances. God, rescue me out of what I'm experiencing. God, look at what I have I have and and, look at what I'm experiencing now and and make it different. Transform it. Rescue me. Help me. Save me. So often, think we miss the point of prayer. We miss the purpose behind it. The passion in his words is not rooted in God changing his circumstances. It's rooted in who God is.”
79s
#MadeToWorship
“This this is the thing. He gives us two examples. Our second point, there is purpose in praise. There's purpose in our praise. And the first way that we praise is publicly. We don't do this just for, like, fun. Like, we have a staff at our church not just to, like, keep a few people busy throughout the week, but we do this because we are created for it. We are made for this and our souls long to come together. Right? There is a reason that music stirs us. There is a reason that the words that we sing, these are declarations to God first and foremost of who he is, And then as others are joining in, we begin to hear them also bearing that testimony. One of my favorite things is sitting in the very front because I get to hear everybody singing along. Alright? And whether you're on key or off key, I'm not gonna tell you, but, like, just the participation of it, the congregation, the gathering of God's people, the ecclesia, the church coming together and singing his glory, singing praises to him. We are made for this. To experience his presence, to experience the spirit working among us, and there's something unique and special when we come together in a group of believers that we get to experience that together as one.”
42s
#PrayerPointsToGod
“What is the point of prayer? What's the purpose? What do we point our prayers to? Why would we pray? David has the opportunity to write these words to to poetically declare to god something that he's experiencing and he doesn't start with God, rescue me. He doesn't start with God, change my circumstances. God, please, I ask you to just make this different. Help me. He starts with declaring to God who he is. He starts with describing his thirst for God, a connection that he longs for.”
53s
#SoulLonging
“That's when things are going well. That's when they're going according to plan. What about the times in our lives, the seasons that we experience, and so many of us do, day in and day out where there's challenges, there's struggles, there's failures, there's mourning and grief. There's there's success, but there's also failure. Then what do we do in those seasons? What do we do when we try and strive and work and we don't get the client? We don't finish the job. We don't accomplish the task. What do we do then? We're still left with this inner longing, this gaping hole, this this thing in us that we want to satisfy, that drives us, and yet in success and failure, so often we still feel empty. What do we do with that?”
82s
#FaithInPeril
“But it's not written in the midst of any of those successes. It's written while he is being, chased down, literally fleeing for his life from his own son who wants the throne. And so he aims to take his father's life so that then he can take his power, take his authority, and be king himself. It's a circumstance of peril, of tragedy, of grief, confusion, and frustration. See, the reality is is when we succeed, we live and experience the things that we hoped for and longed for and worked for, and those don't satisfy us. That's disappointing. But the truth is, so often we we also struggle with the reality of real life. We're also struggling with failures, with guilt and shame, with the things that don't work out, with the hard work and the efforts and the things not paying off the way that we wanted them to, with people attacking us, literally, figuratively, with business partners cheating us, with people betraying us? What do we do then? How do we find satisfaction?”
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