David's One Desire

Pastor Ortiz preached from Psalm 27 and framed the message around one searching question: do we truly want God? David wrote as a man surrounded by trouble. Psalm 27 speaks of enemies, fear, war rising against him, false witnesses, cruelty, and the kind of pressure that could have made him faint. Yet David did not begin with a list of comforts he wanted God to provide. In Psalm 27:4, he said, one thing had become his desire: to dwell in the house of the Lord, behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his temple.

Pastor Ortiz contrasted that with the way many people approach prayer. They come to God with a shopping list: needs, wants, burdens to remove, situations to fix, and problems to solve. Those requests have a place, but that is not the whole biblical picture of prayer. Philippians 4 teaches believers not to live in anxiety, but to bring everything to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Pastor Ortiz emphasized that this kind of prayer is relational. The believer comes to God as Father and friend, not as a spiritual machine that dispenses answers.

The opening burden of the sermon was that David's desire came in the middle of real pressure. He was not ignoring enemies, fear, or weakness. He was showing what he wanted most while those burdens remained. Pastor Ortiz asked what would come to mind if each person could receive one thing immediately. A home, better health, financial freedom, relief at work, or release from difficult circumstances may come to mind quickly. Those things are not automatically wrong, but they reveal how easily pressure can make temporal relief feel more desirable than God himself.

Pressure Reveals What We Want

Pastor Ortiz stayed close to Psalm 27 by showing how David describes danger. The wicked came upon him to consume him. Enemies were round about him. In verse 7 he cried for mercy, and in verse 13 he said he would have fainted unless he had believed to see the goodness of the Lord. Pastor Ortiz applied that honestly to the Christian life. Some people feel as if they are barely keeping their head above water. The weight may be finances, health, work, family strain, discouragement, or spiritual depression.

In that pressure, the heart often looks for escape before it looks for God. Pastor Ortiz described the common pattern of coming home overwhelmed and then sleeping, scrolling, watching videos, or zoning out because something is missing, but the soul does not want to go anywhere meaningful. He also warned that believers sometimes blame Satan or the world while overlooking the nearer battle with the flesh. Some problems stack up because of choices, habits, and desires that have been allowed to grow. David's cry for mercy shows an awareness that he needed God not only to handle outside enemies, but also to deal honestly with him.

Prayer From Desire

Prayer is not just a duty, it needs to come from desire. Pastor Ortiz made this the first stated point from Psalm 27:4. David said, one thing have I desired. Pastor Ortiz explained desire as something consuming, like a fire in the heart. People understand desire because they make room for what they want. If someone wants a snack late at night, entertainment, sleep, or a personal goal, they usually find a way to pursue it. The same truth exposes the weakness of a prayer life that lives only in the language of have to. A Christian who only thinks, I have to pray, has not yet learned to say, I want to be with God.

To show the intensity of that desire, Pastor Ortiz turned to Psalm 42. The psalmist says that as the hart pants after the water brooks, so the soul pants after God. This is not casual interest. It is the language of thirst and necessity. A thirsty animal needs water to live. In the same way, the believer needs God. Pastor Ortiz connected this to the struggles Christians have with prayer and Scripture. Often they struggle because the desire is weak. They know the duty, but they have not cultivated the heart.

The sermon treated awkward prayer with patience. Pastor Ortiz acknowledged that when someone begins praying seriously, it may feel strange, forced, or uncertain. The person may not know what to say. He encouraged the church that this can be a good place to begin, because the believer can come honestly and ask God to teach them to pray. The Holy Spirit can bring needs, sins, people, and burdens to mind. Over time, prayer can move from awkward to normal.

Pastor Ortiz also warned that normal can become dangerous if it turns into something taken for granted. When prayer becomes familiar, the believer should take it deeper. He suggested singing to God, bringing hymns into prayer, and letting worship shape the heart. The point was not performance, but communion. Desire grows through communication. Just as a human relationship cannot deepen without conversation, a relationship with God will not deepen if the believer refuses to speak with him.

The Heart Jesus Taught

Pastor Ortiz then turned to Matthew 6 to show that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he taught the heart behind prayer. Our Father which art in heaven begins with God's glory. Thy kingdom come and thy will be done teaches surrender to God's rule instead of trying to seize control. Give us this day our daily bread includes real needs, but Pastor Ortiz connected the request back to Christ, the Bread of Life, because the deepest need of the soul is Jesus Christ.

The Lord's Prayer continues with forgiveness, leading, deliverance, and glory. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors reminds believers that Christ has forgiven their sins, so they cannot live in grudges and resentment. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil recognizes the need to be led by the Spirit rather than by the flesh. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever returns the whole prayer to the glory of God. Pastor Ortiz showed that prayer is not centered on using God. It begins with God, depends on God, and returns glory to God.

Prayer As Pursuit

Prayer and wanting God is not an event, it is a pursuit. This was Pastor Ortiz's second stated point from the words that will I seek after in Psalm 27:4. Wanting God is not a moment where the Christian arrives and never needs to grow again. The believer is always moving. Pastor Ortiz said a Christian is either closer to God or farther from him, better or worse, growing or backsliding. There is no neutral place where the soul simply stays the same.

He connected that pursuit to Philippians 3:10, where Paul says that he wants to know Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings. That pursuit is more than ministry title, past service, or visible religious activity. A person can hold a place, serve in a ministry, or point to past faithfulness and still lack present closeness with God. Pastor Ortiz pressed the church to keep moving toward Christ.

This pursuit includes the ordinary means God uses to shape his people: the Word of God, prayer, and the church. Pastor Ortiz described them as part of a tightening process that conforms believers more closely to the Savior. The closer a believer gets to Christ, the more difficulties may come, but those difficulties become places where God works and forms Christlikeness. Wanting God means continuing to seek him, not claiming to have arrived.

Beholding Before Receiving

Prayer aims at beholding, not just receiving. This was Pastor Ortiz's final stated point. Psalm 27:4 says David wanted to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple. Pastor Ortiz emphasized that prayer is not simply asking and getting. Asking belongs in prayer, but the heart of prayer is being with God. The Christian life is not centered on what can I get out of this, but on the desire to be in God's presence.

Pastor Ortiz illustrated this with children who come near a parent not because they need something done, but because they want the comfort of presence. That picture helped explain David's desire. He did not merely want God's hands. He wanted God's face. Believers must learn to stop looking only for what God can give and begin wanting God himself.

That changes the way the whole Christian life is seen. Scripture is not merely a book to read, but God's Word speaking to the believer. Prayer is not merely a list, but coming boldly to the throne of grace and crying, Abba Father. Worship is not mechanical singing. Giving is not only obligation. Serving is not just a job to fill. When the heart wants God, these things become ways of drawing near to him and responding to him.

The sermon closed where it began, with the question of desire. Pastor Ortiz asked the church what they truly want. Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God, but Pastor Ortiz reminded the church that they cannot seek the kingdom if they do not know the King. The call of the message was for believers to move beyond bare duty and ask God to give them a sincere, growing desire for him: to want his presence, seek his face, and live with hearts that say, I just want to be with you.