Why God’s Love is Better than Life (Psalm 63:3)
This sermon was preached on 10/3/2013
According to the heading David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judean desert, and it is obvious from the contents that he made use of his physical surroundings to describe what he was feeling in his heart. He does not say why he is in the desert, although verses 9-11 reveal he is concerned about his enemies – so he may have been pursuing them or fleeing from them (as when he fled from Absalom). It was written after he had become king, so it does not refer to earlier in his life when he was in the desert and pursued by Saul.
In the psalm, David mentions the desert (v. 1), the tabernacle (v.2) and his bed (v. 6) as places where he thought about God. The dry desert illustrates what he feels in his heart when he cannot sense the presence of God. David clearly found this to be a trying experience. His experience was not caused by lack of assurance – he stresses his awareness of his relationship with God in verse 1. What he was aware of was the absence of God’s comforting presence. In response, David did two things: he prayed earnestly (v. 1) and he used his memory (vv. 2ff.)
We can see him using his memory in verse 2 as he thinks about what he has seen previously in the tabernacle, the location where the people Israel gathered together on special occasions to worship their God. There he had seen God’s provision of a sacrificial system to meet David’s needs as a sinner. David, as he thought of how God had redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt and arranged for them to meet with him through worship, realised that such a provision was a great display of divine power and glory and reminded him of God’s faithful love to his people (v. 3). Thinking about such aspects of God caused David to dedicate himself to praise God continually in the future (v. 4). If this was David’s response to worship marked by rituals and ceremonies, how much more should it be ours when we see the gospel fullness that God has given to us!
According to Chrysostom, the Church Father, it was customary for the early Christians to recite this psalm every day, with one reason being that it is a psalm for a whole day, assuming that ‘early’ in verse 1 refers to early in the morning and ‘bed’ refers to the evening. It used to be common for Sunday School pupils in Scotland to memorise this psalm and there may be a connection between the two practices. Whether there is or not, we can see the value of thinking about this psalm and I am grateful that I learned it and many others when I was young.
David makes a very startling claim in verse 3 when he says that God’s love is better than life. I am sure that if we were to ask people what was the most valuable possession they had, they would reply by saying it was life. There is a story told of Elizabeth I of England when she was dying and which reports her as saying, ‘All my possessions for a moment of time.’ She realised the priority of life and did not want to lose it. Yet could she say about God, ‘Your love is better than life’?
In contrast to what that great monarch said, we can imagine how this verse would have been on the minds of many martyrs for the Christian faith. In their willingness to die rather than deny Jesus, we see thousands of examples of individuals who said that his love was better than life.
Who said this?
The author of the psalm is David, the king of Israel. In order to appreciate somewhat his words, we need to discover what his life was like. After all, if he had a boring life, marked by nothing but disappointment, then we might not be surprised at such a person saying that God’s love was better than life.
David had lived an exciting life by any assessment. Born in a humble home, he had risen to become king of his people. He had achieved great things and he could look back on his life with a measure of satisfaction. The teenager who had taken a step on to the first rung when he slew Goliath eventually found himself at the top rung. As he stood there, the king of his nation, he testified about his God and to him, ‘Your love is better than life.’
David had lived a pleasing life. During his exciting climb to the top, David had discovered some things of real value. For example, there was his friendship with Jonathan, and there was the love of his loyal supporters. Moreover he utilised his natural gifts as a leader or men and his poetic gifts were used by the Lord to compose most of the praise items offered to him in Israel. Today, all over the world, his songs are still being sung. David had a pleasant life, yet as he surveyed it all he could say to the Lord, ‘Your love is better than life.’
David had lived a pardoned life. David was not a perfect man. Instead he was a sinner who needed a new heart; he was a sinner who also needed pardon for occasional outrageous sins. He turned to God in repentance and was forgiven. He knew the recovering help of God, and this was one reason why he could say that God’s love was better than life. David had known the awful distress that personal sin could cause but he had also discovered the amazing pardon of the God of love.
David was now a man in his latter years. He had become king when he was forty and he reigned for another forty. He was now probably in his sixties and he knew that one day he would leave this world. He needed to have something that he could regard as a sure anchor, able to hold him steady as all the uncertainties of life came near him, each one reminding him that sooner or later he would be gone. As he faced the future, he wanted something that would not evaporate, and he found it in the love of God for him.
At the time he composed the psalm David was in trouble. His son Absalom was trying to overthrow his father and many had rallied to his cause. Yet from one point of view this rebellion was merely one of many sad problems that David had experienced. He had known disappointments from others and disappointments with himself. So it is not surprising that he would say that God’s love is better than life.
So that is five ways in which David could affirm the superiority of God’s love. Yet what about us? We sang this psalm during the service, and what did we think as we used these words? They may not mean the same for us as they did for David because we know more about God’s love that he did. After all, he lived in the period before the Saviour came. David knew that the Messiah was coming, but he did not have the same amount of information that we have.
The Contents of God’s Love
Probably the best known verse in the Bible is John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ Here we have a general description of God’s love. It included him sending his Son to perform a task, and it includes people being given the opportunity of hearing about what he did. This divine love also includes the divine desire that people will not perish, which is a reference to divine punishment in hell.
That famous verse describes God’s love for sinners in general terms. A verse that provides a more particular emphasis is Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20: ‘...the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ John 3:16 stressed the love of the Father for sinners and Galatians 2:20 stresses the love of the Son for a sinner, in this case Saul of Tarsus, a notorious opponent of the Christian gospel. This love of the Son was voluntary and sacrificial because he gave himself to pay the penalty of Saul’s sins on the cross.
A third reference to the love of God that we can consider is found in Ephesians 2:4-7: ‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.’ In these verses, the love of God for sinners is stressed, but Paul also says that it provides great blessings for sinners who believe in Jesus, with these immense blessings lasting for ever.
What each of these verses stress is that the love of God is better than sinful life. They remind us that we are sinners, that we belong to the human race which God loved to such an extent that he sent his Son to die on the cross for sinners and pay the penalty of their sins. Furthermore, God’s love is so great that it guarantees eternal blessings for everyone who believes the gospel message. If we put on a suitable set of scales the evidence of the love of God on one side and the sinful life of sinners on the other we will easily see that God’s love is greater.
The Comforts of God’s Love
One of the reasons why people get married is for mutual comfort. In a higher sense, the relationship between God and his people produces a wide range spiritual comfort. It is impossible to mention all the aspects of this comfort in a sermon. But I will highlight a few of them. Before I do so, it is important to note that comfort is an experience and that brings into consideration the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and as we know one of his titles is the Comforter. He comes to enable us to feel comforted by showing to us the deep reality of the divine promises.
The first comfort we have as Christians is the assurance that our sins have been forgiven. Full pardon is promised to us in the gospel, no matter how sinful we have been. The Spirit convicts us of our sins, leads us to repentance and faith in Jesus, and then gives us the spiritual ability to grasp that it is all true. The pardoning love of God is greater than anything life can give us.
A second comfort produced in the heart of a Christian is awareness that God is our heavenly Father. When a sinner believes in Jesus, he is not only forgiven, he is also made a member of God’s family and begins to enjoy the reality of being a child of God. This is an aspect of his work which delights the Holy Spirit and he rejoices to lead us to call God, ‘Father.’ The Spirit gives us permanent access to the Father’s presence, and in this privilege the love of God is greater than anything life can give us.
Then a third comfort given to believers is security regarding the future. Paul reminds believers in Romans 8:37-39, and note his emphasis on God’s love: ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ In the middle of the storms of life, when dark clouds fill the sky, the Holy Spirit produces in the hearts of believers this confidence that all will be well. This expression of the love of God is greater than anything life can give us.
A fourth comfort of the Spirit is that he gives to believers while in this life foretastes or samples of the life of the perfect world yet to come. It seems to me that is what is described as the fruit of the Spirit, the list of which Paul gives in Galatians 5:22-23. Love, joy and peace in their fullness will be experience in the eternal world, but samples of them can and should be experienced now by God’s people. They are not found by searching for them; instead the Spirit gives them to his people as he leads them to think of what God has done for them. This love is better than life.
The Challenge of God’s Love
In each of the verses we have read or referred to in this sermon, the challenge given to us is whether or not we will believe what they say about God’s love. Faith in Jesus is a warm act of the soul. It is not like the kind of confidence we may have in a lawyer who takes up our case. He may be very competent, and we may be sure he will achieve his aims, but there is no love between us and him. Jesus does function as our advocate, but he is far more than that. He performs many roles, but in all of them he loves us and he wants us to love him in return.
In addition to exercising faith, God’s love also calls us to take responsibility for our sins. We show we are doing so by repenting of them. Repentance is not like an appearance before a judge in which we hope he will be lenient. Jesus is our judge, but he is much more. We repent in the presence of the God of love. That is a wonderful location to be, and once again shows us that God’s love is greater than life.
There is a third challenge that comes to us from the God of love and that is connected to obedience to his commandments. These commandments are not given by him in order to frustrate us. Instead they are given to us in order to find real freedom. Isaiah assures us that great peace comes to those who love God’s law. Indeed if we will listen to his commandments our peace will be like a flowing river. This experience also reminds that God’s love is better than life.