Psalm 17:15: Are You Satisfied with Jesus?

INTRODUCTION

Are you satisfied with Jesus?

In the family my mother grew up in—six girls and one boy—faith was important to her father and mother. They gave thanks before eating every meal and had Bible reading and prayer together after supper every night except Sunday. On Sunday the Bible reading was before church in the morning. Also on Sunday morning, their father quizzed the children to make sure they knew their Bible verses.

The family went to a church Sunday morning for worship and Sunday school, and on Sunday evening they went back for a “gospel meeting.” The way of salvation was proclaimed at every meeting, along with stories of dramatic conversions. The preachers urged their hearers to “believe in Jesus” for salvation. The preachers also made sure that their hearers knew the fate of those who refused salvation.

But it didn’t take with my mother—or with many of the children of the church. The preachers would approach these young people and say, “Are you saved?”

My mother didn’t know how to answer the question, “Are you saved?” because she had never had an experience that she could call “being saved” or “being born again.”

Mother got into high school, a good girl, following the rules, and faithful in her church attendance, but still waiting and wondering if she would ever “get saved.”

But one week, a visiting preacher named Alexander Marshall came to Kansas City and conducted a week of gospel meetings in the church.

After one of these meetings, Mother was sitting with two of her sisters when Mr. Marshall came to them and sat down beside them and asked her: “Are you satisfied with what God has done for you in Jesus Christ?”

Mother said, “That was all it took for the light to go on!”

Mother marveled that Mr. Marshall hadn’t even used the word “believe.” But she knew the story of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and she realized that she was satisfied with that, and that was all it took for her to know that she was a child of God.

The next day she told her family about her new-found assurance of salvation.

Today I want to talk about a scripture that speaks about satisfaction with God. It is at the end of Psalm 17.

In Psalm 17, the writer cries out to God for deliverance from his adversaries. Whether these are actual people who are tormenting him, or whether they are spiritual enemies that are afflicting his mind, they are real to him, and he begs God for relief. He asks God to hide him under the shadow of his wings.

Then at the end of his psalm, the psalmist lies down at night on his bed to sleep, and tells God—

“As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;

when I awake I shall be satisfied with beholding your likeness.”

It is those words I want to talk about today.

I. The psalmist had had a troubled day. Problems had mounted up and he had become anxious. He was glad to lie down on his bed and think things over.

A. In those days—long before light bulbs—people went to bed when the sun went down. The got up when the sun came up. They spent many more hours in bed than we do.

Bedtime was not only a time for sleeping but also a time for prayer and thinking things through. We read a lot in the Psalms about praying and meditating in bed.

The poet who wrote Psalm 4 gives this advice:

When you are disturbed, do not sin,

ponder it on your beds, and be silent.

The psalmist who wrote Psalm 63 has gone to bed rejoicing in the Lord. His soul is overflowing. He says to the Lord,

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,

and my mouth praises you with joyful lips

when I think of you on my bed

and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

for you have been my help,

and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

The psalmist who wrote Psalm 6 has gone to bed greatly troubled. He pours out his heart to God. He laments:

I am weary with my moaning;

every night I flood my bed with tears;

I drench my couch with my weeping.

So our psalmist was following a pattern of meditation and prayer as he drifted off to sleep.

B. Sometimes I go to bed troubled.

I bring my troubles to God. I confess my sins.

I talk to myself. I call myself to account. I preach little sermons to myself.

I bring to mind the blessings in my past. I remind myself of God’s promises.

I think about the worst thing that could happen. I compare my troubles to the troubles of other people.

I think about how wonderful Heaven will be.

I go to sleep, and when I wake up, things usually look different.

C. Our psalmist went to bed troubled. But he looked forward to a new day, a day of blessing, so he told the Lord—

“As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;

when I awake I shall be satisfied with beholding your likeness.”

Maybe our psalmist was thinking of going to the Temple in the morning. In the beauty of the Temple worship he was expecting an encounter with God that would fill him with wonder.

Or maybe he was just looking forward to communion with God as he began the new day with prayer.

The ancient believers began each day with prayer and ended each day with prayer—just as we should.

It is good to go to sleep saying your prayers. It is good to wake up and thank God for the new day, to commit yourself to God and ask for help to live well in the day ahead.

You can do that in bed. You can do it first thing after you get up. You can do it both times.

D. The psalmist says, “I shall be satisfied with beholding your likeness.” He doesn’t say how he expects to “see God.”

In the book of Exodus, God told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).

But often the Old Testament believers speak of beholding the face of God. They are not speaking of seeing God with their physical eyes.

They are speaking figuratively of such a sense of God’s presence that they call it “seeing God.”

In the high priest’s prayer in Numbers 6—that we use often as a benediction—the pastor says,

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

To see the Lord’s face is a metaphorical way of describing the feeling of being in the presence of God—to seeing God with the eyes of our heart and knowing that God is real.

II. But there is another way Christians have prayed this psalm since Jesus has come into our world.

A. Did you know that there is very little in the Old Testament about Heaven as our eternal home?

There are really only two texts in the Old Testament that assure us of a resurrection, although there are several others that can be read in the light of that New Testament truth.

For example, when we say at the end of the 23rd Psalm, “…and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever,” that is a Christian take on the psalm, and that is what it means to us.

But the original Hebrew reads, “…and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord to the length of days.”

The poet who wrote Psalm 23 was thinking in terms of his whole life long, but he spoke more truth than he realized, because, in the light of the revelation of Jesus, he will dwell in the House of the Lord for ever.

B. And since Jesus came to our earth and died and rose again, the words at the end of Psalm 17 have been read in the light of the promise of Resurrection.

What the holy poet wrote in that ancient psalm was far more wonderful than he even suspected—or maybe in the moment of inspiration, as he penned those words—he was groping toward the wonderful truth that Jesus would teach us—that God would be always with him—for ever and ever.

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;

when I awake I shall be satisfied,

beholding your likeness.

So we take these words to mean, “When we wake up from the sleep of death into another life, there, we will see Jesus face to face and we will be satisfied.”

The New Testament reminds us that in this life we walk by faith and not by sight, but the time is coming when faith will give way to seeing.

St. John writes, “Dear friends, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

In the last chapter of the last book in the Bible, John tells us of his vision of the New Jerusalem where God will have his throne, “and his servants will worship him; they will see his face…and they will reign for ever and ever.”

Someday we will have such a view of Christ in his glory, that we will be filled with such love and such joy as we cannot imagine here on earth.

CONCLUSION

Are you satisfied with what God has done for you in Jesus?

Are you rejoicing in the promise of resurrection?

Can you believe that when this life has ended and you find yourself in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, the Paradise of God—that you will actually see the Lord? And you will dwell with him for ever and ever.

Can you imagine the deep-down heart satisfaction you will experience that day in that Land of Eternal Delights?

It won’t be long now for any of us. Let’s turn our minds now and again to what’s ahead and live in faith and expectation. Let’s get ourselves in the mood for that great day.

No one knows what it will be like to see the Lord in his glory—we only know that it will be more wonderful than we can imagine.

People talk about Heaven in terms of a reunion with their loved ones from earth, and that’s okay. We will be there with all God’s children—not only our loved ones but multitudes more.

Heaven will be a community in which we will be united with all whom God loves and all who love God. We will be woven together in perfect love—love for God and love for one another.

Don’t pay much attention to the books by people who say they’ve been to heaven and want to tell you what they saw. Perhaps they saw something wonderful, but what you and I will see on Resurrection Day will be unimaginably better than anything we can imagine or anything we have read in a book. It will be something we could never describe in the language of earth.

We know that our highest hopes and deepest longings will be more than fulfilled.

There will be nothing to disappoint. We will behold our Lord’s face in righteousness. We will be satisfied. We will dwell with him, and we will enter into the joy of the Lord.