Grateful Biped

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,

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The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. Good morning and welcome to Recast Church.

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I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I am so glad for ministries like Wings of God and for God raising up people like Karina to do that kind of thing here in our community.

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And so I would like to just offer a prayer real quick. Father, we lift up Wings of God, we thank you for the ministry that has happened, and we look forward to the ministry that's going to happen in the future.

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Father, you are so gracious to us, and we recognize that we would be right there were it not for your grace, and so Father, I pray that you would be with those pearls who are currently being ministered to, and for those that are graduating, we thank you for this transition house, that they're able to bring their families along and have another step of transitioning back into the community.

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Father, we pray that your gospel would continue to go forward. We praise you for the lives that have been transformed by the gospel through the ministries of Wings of God.

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We thank you for Recast's opportunity to be a part of that over the past several years.

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In Jesus' name, amen. How many of you are glad to be here at Recast Church this morning?

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Are you glad? Glad that we have the opportunity to be together? We are designed to worship God together in community.

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We are brought together because we shine His love best by loving one another.

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And so His love shines through us as we do a good job caring for one another in unity. And further, we practiced together this morning what it means to praise

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Him. We're going to sing some songs to Him this morning, but I hope that you've been praising Him before you arrived here this morning, that you consider your life a life of worship, not just during an hour and a half on a

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Sunday morning and that's it, but that you actually are worshiping Him throughout the week. But God, through His Son Jesus Christ, is redeeming a people for His eternal glory.

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Amen? And our gathering is an outflowing of that salvation that He has given to us.

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He has rescued us, and not us alone, but He has brought us together. He is not merely redeeming isolated individuals as if He wants you and just your personal quiet time.

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God is saving a people for Himself. Look around the room. Look, you're not alone here.

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He's doing a project that's bigger than us. That excites me. That ignites me.

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That is exciting to me. I love Sunday mornings. I wake up on Sunday morning and I say, this is the day we gather together.

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We're going to be together with God's people. The endgame church is that we're going to worship Him and bring glory to His name forever and ever and ever.

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And that doesn't mean we're going to get together and merely sing for eternity either. I know that some of you enjoy singing and some of you don't, and there's kind of a mix between that, but that's why it's so awesome that God has given us many ways in which we can worship

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Him. But we will worship Him in relationship to one another forever. Without sin, without suffering, without disunity, in a place of peace and glory and rest, where He will be worshiped in the center of our praise forever and ever.

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Our text this morning is all about worship, as you might have gathered by the way that I was introducing this. It's actually a song written by David and it's recorded here at the end of his life, at the end of the recording of his life rather, as a part of a complex bookend that seeks to highlight what it was that made the sinner

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David also a man after God's own heart.

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How can a man who was so imperfect, as we've been seeing through this study of 2 Samuel, a man so imperfect, how can he be held up as a model of faith?

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Now, some of you have been around this series for a while, and go ahead and raise your hand if you're like, man, David was messed up. I mean, has that been a theme?

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That's been thematic throughout this book. He is jacked up. So, how can he be held up as a model of faith?

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How can any human be held up as a model of faith? What we see in his praise this morning is an effusive emphasis on Yahweh, on God's strength,

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Yahweh as his Deliverer, Yahweh as his merciful Savior, Yahweh as his majestic Avenger, Yahweh as David's God.

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My hope is that the reading of this passage will do exactly what it was intended, what it was written to accomplish. I hope it prepares all of us to worship our mighty

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Deliverer, to lift up the glory of our merciful Savior, and to acknowledge him as our majestic Avenger.

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So, let's open our Bibles, your apps, your scripture journals, to 2 Samuel chapter 22.

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It's a longer passage we're going to read, a fairly long song, but I think there's something that's imminently beneficial for us to take in God's Word.

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Matter of fact, if you don't listen to anything else but you hear his Word this morning, that's half the battle, right?

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More than half the battle. So, this is worth our time, worth our focus. 2 Samuel chapter 22, its entirety.

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My God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my

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Savior, you save me from violence. I call upon the

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Lord who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. For the waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me, the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.

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In my distress I called upon the Lord, to my God I called. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears.

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Then the earth reeled and rocked. The foundations of the heaven trembled and quaked because he was angry.

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Smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down.

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Thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew. He was seen on the wings of the wind.

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He made darkness around him as canopy, thick clouds a gathering of water. Out of the brightness before him coals of fire flamed forth.

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The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows and scattered them, lightning enrouted them.

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Then the channels of the sea were seen. The foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the

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Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. He sent from on high. He took me, and he drew me out of many waters.

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He rescued me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.

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They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place.

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He rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

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For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes

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I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.

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With the merciful you show yourself merciful. With the blameless you show yourself blameless. With the purified you deal purely.

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And with the crooked you make yourself seem torturous. You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.

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For you are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. For by you

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I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God, his way is perfect.

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The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all of those who take refuge in him. For who is

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God but the Lord? And who is a rock except our God? This God is my strong refuge, and he has made my way blameless.

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He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me securely on the heights. He trains my hands for war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

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You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your gentleness made me great. You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.

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I pursued my enemies and destroyed them, and did not turn back until they were consumed. I consumed them,

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I thrust them through, so that they did not rise. They fell under my feet. For you equipped me with strength for the battle.

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You made those who rise against me sink under me. You made my enemies turn their backs to me, those who hated me, and I destroyed them.

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They looked, but there was none to save them. They cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them. I beat them, fine as the dust of the earth.

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I crushed them and stamped them down like the mire of the streets. You delivered me from strife with my people.

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You kept me as the head of the nations. People whom I had not known served me.

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Foreigners came cringing to me. As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses.

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The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation.

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The God who gave me vengeance and brought down peoples under me. Who brought me out from my enemies.

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You exalted me above those who rose against me. You delivered me from men of violence. For this I will praise you,

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O Lord, among the nations and sing praises to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king.

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To show steadfast love to his anointed. To David and his offspring forever.

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Let's pray. Father, we are the recipients of such a great grace.

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There's no words that I can utter right now that accurately reflect the dire circumstances we found ourselves in in our sin and rebellion against you.

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But you have loosed us and set us free from that consequence. And I pray that now our voices would rise up together to your throne in gladness and in joy for the great deliverance that you have provided.

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The great salvation you have given. And the great hope that we have that all enemies will one day be put under your son's feet and we will live for eternity in your presence to rejoice in gladness.

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Father, would you help us to see rightly today? I know there are some here who have come from tough circumstances.

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They've had rough weeks, rough months, maybe even a rough couple of years here. And it just seems like they've been hit and they've been hit and they've been hit.

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I pray that you would help for those people here in our midst to lift up their eyes to see you this morning.

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That we would rejoice as a people who know that the grave was empty. And that that spells a glorious future for us.

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And then there are some here who would be prone to not think rightly of you because things have been going so good that their hope is placed in this life.

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I pray that you would allow us to turn those thoughts to a foretaste of the things that you have reserved for those who love you.

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That we would be able to take the joys and the gladness and reflect back on you in thankfulness this morning.

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Father, I pray that you would help us to lift our voices again in this gathering with delight and joy in the salvation provided through your son,

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Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that I ask this. Amen. Yep, you can go to be seated and get comfortable.

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Keep your Bibles open to 2 Samuel chapter 22. If you lost your spot there, you can grab that and we'll follow along through the text.

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If at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or donut holes, while supplies last back there, you're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or whatever.

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I want to start with dueling quotes to set the tone for what proves to be a pretty long passage of praise this morning.

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The first is a quote from the Christian Russian novelist from the late 1800s.

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His name was Fyodor Dostoevsky. And he said this. He said,

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I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

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Now, biped is not a word that we use very often. It just means it walks on two feet. So he says it's almost definitional for what it means to be human to be ungrateful.

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Apes aren't ungrateful. Monkeys aren't ungrateful. Birds hop around on two feet and they're not ungrateful.

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But humans, humans walk on two feet and we are.

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And we are ungrateful. The second quote clarifies how we can come out from underneath that heavy darkness of ingratitude that is nearly definitional for the human race.

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I kind of take Dostoevsky's definition and I kind of agree with it.

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I think that's a fairly reasonable definition. Dale Davis in his commentary on the passage that we're studying this morning says,

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The one who has been delivered from much, that's quote, quote, The one who has been delivered from much praises much, end quote.

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Our passage is a psalm written by King David. You probably already knew that. It's recorded here in 2

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Samuel chapter 22, but it's also recorded elsewhere in your Bibles. It's also the 18th psalm.

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It's a song written by David and here is exemplary at the end of his life. And the text is going to focus on God as praise always should.

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It should always have Him at the center if it is praise. And we have three primary movements in the text if you're into taking notes.

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The first is Yahweh, our mighty deliverer, verses 1 through 20. The second is Yahweh, our merciful savior, verses 21 through 33.

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And then Yahweh, our majestic avenger, verses 34 through 51. Well, we'll start off by setting a little bit of the stage because verse 1 does.

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Verse 1 sets the writing of this song in a context of a time of relative peace during David's reign.

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Sometime during David's reign, there was a little bit of reprieve, a little bit of a breather from wars and battles.

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And he wrote it after he had been delivered from running from King Saul for his life. We know that a big chunk of David's life was taken up running from the previous king who wanted to kill him.

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And all the enemies of Israel are subdued for a season. And so David launches out into a staccato song of praise.

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These 50 verses are like drinking from a fire hose this morning, a fire hose of praise to our great

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God. He's worthy of it. The first movement focuses on God as David's mighty deliverer, verses 2 through 20.

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And it's worth noting that everything written about David would lead us to believe that he's pretty gifted. And he's pretty skilled at one particular thing, battle.

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He is a skilled warrior. He's a good strategist, not just merely good with a sharp edge, but he's also a good strategist.

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And in his youth, he was brave at least, we know that. It is said of David, of course, that Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands.

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At least that's what the young maidens of Israel like to sing. He knew his way around warfare. He could use a sword.

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He could use a bow. He could use a shield. And, of course, we know also he could use a sling.

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And so it's worth pointing out how unique this really is, what we're seeing here. At the end of David's life, a song that he wrote that's going to be exemplary about his life, that's going to try to teach us some kind of summary of who

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David is. And I say it's unique because what we're looking at here in 2 Samuel is a theological biography of a dude.

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Not just any dude, but a king, a royal warrior. And how do most kings want to be remembered?

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What would this song look like if you were the king of a modern country or if you were a medieval king?

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How do kings summarize their own life? What is sung of them, especially while they're alive at least?

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Most kings want to be remembered for their prowess. They want to be remembered for their strength, their rule.

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They want people to sing the praises of who? Themselves.

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But David is to be remembered for one thing according to the end of his life, according to this theological biography.

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What is he going to be remembered for? His God. King David is going to be remembered for who he worshipped, who he praised.

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Yahweh is his name and it's used multiple times in the Hebrew language here. It's a name that means

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I am. God revealed that name, that his personal name, not just Elohim, the generic

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Hebrew word for God, but Yahweh, the great I am. The self -existent one.

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He revealed that name at the burning bush to Moses, a name that was used by the Israelites as God's revealed name.

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The self -existent one. The I am. You don't really talk about him in past tense and you don't talk about him in future tense.

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You just say he always is. Always is. In verse 2,

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David identifies Yahweh as relating to him. He says Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my

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God, my rock again, my shield, the strength or horn of my salvation.

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Horn means strength in their ancient understanding. The horn of my strength. Or the horn of my salvation, rather.

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My stronghold, my refuge, my savior, the one who saves me from violence.

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Note the personal possessive pronouns, my, in this verse. David is not writing to educate us about the

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God that's out there. Not at all. He is drawing us into his own personal experience.

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He is testifying to God in his life. He's saying, you want a summary of my life?

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Look at the way that the Lord has dealt with me. Look at God. Look to him if you want to understand who

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I am and what my rule and reign has meant. Note exactly,

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David wants to be sure we know that he gives God credit for bringing him through many dark waters.

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Many bloody battles. Many hardships. And in verse four, David makes sure we know that he is not a distant observer of this amazing

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God. No, David talks to him. He calls upon him. He leans upon him.

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And God has responded to David's call for help with salvation, according to the text.

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When we think in general about God being David's deliverer, we're likely missing something.

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Because we're probably not really putting ourselves in the context and really understanding exactly what David means by that.

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Because we didn't walk in his shoes. So we need statements like verses five and six to help us to understand what

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David is going on about here. What does he mean when he talks about God being his mighty deliverer?

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David had been close. You need to understand this. David had been so close to death so many times as an ancient warrior.

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I can't imagine the mental turmoil that an ancient warrior would face. I remember what battle is like in those days.

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It's guys with sharp edges trying to cut each other. It's guys with blunt weapons trying to crush each other.

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I see nothing in the text that indicates that David ever had a therapist. He didn't have anybody there to diagnose him with PTSD.

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But he certainly has seen and faced many, many, many very gruesome things over the course of his life.

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Countless close calls in ancient warfare. We just don't see how many times the sword bounced off of his helmet.

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We don't see that. We don't know how many times. We know that there were times when he was hard -pressed. We saw in a text a couple of weeks ago about a giant trying to slay him and stuff like that.

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And another guy needed to step in because he was too tired and all of that stuff. He faced the clutches of death many times.

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And hear me carefully, church. David credits God with rescue. David credits not his military prowess, not his ability on the battlefield, not his practice and his strength, not his conditioning.

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But he says, God is the one who preserved my life. God is the one, as I faced death so many times, as I was entangled and the vines of the grave were pulling me down.

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God is the one who delivered me. In moments of distress and foxhole -type moments,

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David called out to God. He says, God, by the way, who is worthy to be praised. He says,

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I called out to him and he showed up. And he didn't just show up. Now, everything in verses 8 through 16 is metaphorical.

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It almost kind of sounds like a volcanic explosion. Some people say, well, there's storm metaphor here.

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There's all kinds of metaphor in verses 8 through 16. But David wants us to see the earth -shattering power of God on the move to save and rescue his people.

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The Lord bears his mighty arm in the sight of the nation, says the prophet Isaiah. He flexes, he rolls up his sleeve and flexes, and people are saved.

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It's not a small thing that God is doing in rescuing his chosen king here in this context.

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He is preserving his people for the bringing forth of a Messiah who will give his life on a cross high on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

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It is the mighty God flexing that results in your salvation. He rolls up his sleeve and flexes his muscle in the sight of the nations.

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It is cosmic in scope, his salvation. When God moves to save, it is

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God acting in radical power in the realms of humanity. And it is movement to strike down the enemies of his people.

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It is to enact vengeance and wrath until death and sin, which causes death, will be no more.

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To strike down our final two enemies, sin and death. To strike down our final enemies, sin and death.

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Does that settle on you this morning? That sin and death are dealt with by the saving work of our

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God. I'd like to joke a little bit. I don't think it's funny, but it's kind of a little bit.

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Like the threefold ministry of God in verse 9. Look at verse 9. Do you see his threefold ministry?

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Smoke, devouring fire, and glowing hot coals. The threefold ministry of our God. We sing a song, at least

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I hear it on the radio. I don't think we sing it here. God is on the move. On the move, hallelujah.

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God is on the move in many mighty ways. How many of you have heard that song before? And how many of you had images of smoke and fire and cataclysm in that?

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Is that what you think of when you hear that? That's what David is saying. When God moves, the earth shakes and people run in fear.

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When God moves, fire and smoke. It sounds strange to our ears here in this text.

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How in the world, in the midst of this song, why is fire showing up in the midst of our song of praise to God?

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It sounds strange to our ears because we've grown so familiar. And I think it's good for us to be very familiar with his grace and mercy.

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But we've often forsaken the reality of his righteous judgment and wrath.

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And holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Our God church is a consuming fire.

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He is holy. He is just. David says,

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God showed up. God showed up alright. And you didn't want to be on the other side. God showed up to deliver

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David. And that didn't go well for those who set themselves against God and his people. It's with that same attitude that we see in this song at the end of David's life.

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It's with that attitude and heart that Jonathan Edwards, who is probably the greatest theologian that America has ever produced.

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And it was in this vein that he preached his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A message that I commend to you.

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I think you should listen to it. It is actually a very powerful message. Delivered with fear and trembling by the weak man,

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Jonathan Edwards. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It's gotten some negative press because he was a

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Puritan. But it is indeed, he preaches accurately, it is indeed a terrifying thing to find oneself in the opposing army when

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God is lined up on the other side. But after a lot of figurative cosmic language used for God showing up to deliver

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David in verses 8 -17, we find clarity about what David is emphasizing in verse 18.

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You can look at it in the text there, verse 18. He could have just skipped everything he's already said and gone straight to this.

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Quote, God rescued me from my strong enemies. Oh, that's a good summary sentence.

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And he could have skipped a lot of words and a lot of ink and saved a lot of parchment. So why so many words in 2

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Samuel 22? Ask yourself, why so many words? Why so many words in all of the Psalms?

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Why so much time and so much emphasis? Why so many metaphors that have to be understood? Well, I have a distant relative that lives in Tennessee and also happens to be, of course, a

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Tennessee fan, as you can imagine. He didn't seem satisfied this past week to post once or twice or three times.

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No, on his fourth post on Facebook, he even made mention of how much he was posting.

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What was he posting about? Anybody know? They won. They beat

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Alabama, didn't they? Anybody a Tennessee fan all of a sudden, at least for a week? You're just like, yes, all right, let's do this.

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Why? Why four posts on Facebook? Why so much time and energy and mental going into it?

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He was excited. He was exuberant. He was effusive because of the unexpected victory.

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Are you effusive? Are you excited? Are you celebrating a surprising victory in your life?

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God's deliverance. David is spilling out praise, because as Dale Davis said it in the quote at the beginning, the one who has been delivered from much, praises much.

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How much have you been delivered from, Recast? I would even suggest to you that if you show me a person who can't praise, a person who can't open their mouth and sing songs to God and can't delight,

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I'm not sure you're understanding how much you've been rescued from, what your destiny was in comparison to where you're going now.

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That should just light us up. We should be like, I can celebrate a

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Michigan touchdown, and I can get really emphatic about that. And guess what?

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What Jesus has done for me, are you ready? Is better than that.

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Understatement much? Is what Jesus has done for you better than anything else in your life?

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Then let your face know it. Let your heart know it. Let your vocal cords know it.

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And let others know it. See, God drew David up out of the chaos of many waters, according to verse 17.

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These are the things that he attributes to God. Drew me up out of the chaos of many waters. He rescued David from his strong enemies, verse 18.

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The Lord was his support, verse 19. And just when David felt closed in, about, and constricted, and surrounded, and ambushed,

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God brought him out into broad open spaces. He rescued David, and he delivered David, because God, it says in the text, delighted in his servant.

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Why is a person ever delivered? David would tell us here in the text that it's because of God's delight.

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Rescue and salvation come from the gracious, glad will of God, according to verse 20. Now, it's good for us to recognize that many ways, the very many ways that God has been our deliverer, right?

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He has brought us through tragedy. He has brought us through physical threats of illness, accidents, surgeries, viruses.

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We could just stand up and testify probably all day of various things that God has brought us through. Probably very few of us would testify right in line with David, with his focus on physical violence.

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Maybe some in the room have been protected from physical violence, I don't know. That was David's primary thing.

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But if David, with muscles all in knots from the gruesome work of swinging a sword to defend his people, if he in those circumstances can give credit to God for his deliverance in the field of battle, then how much more ought we to give praise for the ways he has brought us through many dangers, toils, and snares, all the way to the point where we're sitting here together today.

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To some, honestly, this first one, God our mighty deliverer, might sound like a chintzy motivation of praise.

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But David doesn't shy away from talking about the specifics, talking about the way that God delivered him directly from battle.

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But David doesn't stop there with physical deliverance, as if the primary thing that we thank God for is that one day when

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I was 17 years old and I was driving down the country road, and it was a dirt road, and I was maybe going a little too fast, and a deer jumped out in front of me, and Jesus just took the wheel, next thing

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I knew, deer's gone, and I'm just sitting along the side of the road like, whoo! And if you have that kind of experience, and you're like, thank you,

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Jesus. Is that it? Is that what we've got to thank God for? Now, how many of you would just say, thanks?

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Like, you see God's hand in that, right? But is there more? David goes on. Yahweh, our merciful savior, verses 21 through 33.

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Not just that he's delivered us from the physical battles. Now, I want to point out, this is a tough passage.

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I wrestled with it, I struggled with it, and you'll see why here in a second. We've been studying 2 Samuel for a while, and if you've been here, and you've listened to some of these messages, then you're probably just as puzzled when

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I read it as I was. And so most of us know about David taking another man's wife named

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Bathsheba. We know about his attempted cover -up and murder of her husband, Uriah. We get to the end of some of these accounts of David's life, and we go, that guy's a bum.

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I know a bum when I see one, and that guy is not a good man, right? We know David cannot claim any moral high ground by the end of this book.

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And so when he says in verse 21, just think about the things that he says from 21 on. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness.

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According to the cleanness of my hands, he's rewarded me. David, are you kidding? We ought to be shocked by these words.

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And further he goes on to say, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. I've kept his rules.

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I was blameless before him. At least it's past tense. I kept myself from guilt.

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Again, past tense. But does anybody need a little explanation on how in the world

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David the adulterer, maybe even rapist and murderer can say these things? We need some explanation, don't we?

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Well the text turns in verse 26 to God and his actions.

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The way that God works. He is merciful to the merciful. He responds kindly to the blameless.

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He is a God who deals purely with the pure or the purified, but with the crooked he shows himself to be the scary, righteous judge.

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And in verse 28 we see that David is not at all boasting in himself. He's not saying

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I got God's attention. He's not saying I've been amazing and so God has been kind to me. No, what

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David has done, what is credited to him as righteousness is faith in God.

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Full stop. David has humbled himself. Matter of fact, I would go so far as to say David's sin has humbled him.

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And he has come with contrition. We saw that back in Psalm 51 when we talked about that. David writing in contrition and sorrow and grief over his own sin, coming in humility.

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It was written on the heels of his sin with Bathsheba. David shows us how a sinner can be declared blameless and righteous in this text throughout his life.

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He rushes to God and in humility confesses his sin before the holy

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God. And in humility he repents, turns from his sin and in humility he throws himself on God's mercy.

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Is there any other option? Is the other option that you think of David as righteous? Is the other option that he did everything right and everything is commendable to God?

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Not at all. He had to have mercy. He had to have forgiveness from God himself.

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But that leads to a question. Why run to God in humility when we sin? Why not go like Adam and Eve and run the other way and hide ourselves from the presence of God?

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Look at verse 29. God is the lamp that will lighten our darkness.

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He is the one who can bring light into the darkest corners of our sin -darkened hearts. That is the hope.

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God was not merely the strength and shield of David, not merely the deliverer from the enemy out there, but the one who delivered

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David from himself. Dear church, listen. We have two enemies.

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We have more than that maybe, but two primary ones. We have the enemy outside of us who would seek to tear us down and bring us to the grave.

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We also have an enemy within that in pride and arrogance, we ourselves would drag us to hell.

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That's our heart. That's your heart. That's the nature in which you were born.

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Our own sin -cursed hearts war against the good that God has designed us for. And in God, David is made powerful, he says, against all his enemies.

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Verse 30 serves as a radical statement of dependence upon God. A man scaling a wall is an image of routine strength, is it not?

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You can practice that and get that down. You can go to the military trains for that and go to boot camp to climb the wall and all that stuff.

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Like the warp wall at the end of every American Ninja Warrior, right? How many of you watch that show? You know what I'm talking about.

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The rest of you hang in there for just a second. A man or a woman practices and practices until they get to the point where they're fit enough, strong enough, fast enough, can leap enough that they get a running start.

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They leap up, they grasp that ledge, pull themselves up. And David says, in my life, that's

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God. What? Like there can't be anything that's much more human than a feat of athletic ability like that, right?

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I just watched you back up for a running start. I just watched you leap up and grasp the ledge.

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I just watched your muscles pull you up over that lip and hit that plunger.

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I didn't see God in that. And David teaches us something significant about his entire life here in this statement.

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He says, God has been the strength of my life. God has been my merciful

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Savior. And God, whose way is perfect, has made a way for a scandalous sinner like David, a scandalous sinner like you, a scandalous sinner like me, to be rescued.

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God is the shield for all who run to him for refuge, even the worst of sinners.

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David is so close to stating the New Testament gospel that the only thing that he misses is the name of Jesus. It's the only thing that he's lacking in this passage.

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He's missing the name of the one who took the punishment for our sins on himself, but he recognizes that it is you come with humility or you're not going to be in good standing with God.

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You come to him with honesty about your sin. You come to him with confession and repentance, and he will show mercy.

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David expresses the rationale for his confidence that he was okay with God. He says, here's three things.

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In verse 31, David trusted the pathway God chose. He says his way is perfect. David trusted

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God's written word, which told him to run to God in repentance. And third, David trusted God to be the one who would defend him.

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He says, it's got to be a movement of God to result in my salvation. There was no one else, church, that we can trust in to rescue us.

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Where else could we go for salvation? And look at verse 33 where David ends this section.

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If you're tempted to check out right now, check in at least for this. Verse 33, where David ends this section,

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God is his strong refuge and God has made my way blameless.

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Where does David get his blamelessness? God. God has made his way blameless.

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Why does David mention his blamelessness? How can he who committed adultery, maybe rape and murder speak of his righteousness and his obedience?

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Because he has run to the merciful Savior for refuge. And the merciful Savior has made his way blameless.

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Does anybody find hope in that? I do. Because it's the same for me. And it's the same for you if you will be saved in the end.

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That you, in all of your sin, in all of your crud, in all of the messes and the wake of sin that you have left in your wake your entire life, if you are turning that over to God, running to him in mercy and saying, forgive me.

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That's where the hope is found. David praises God as his mighty deliverer, as his merciful

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Savior, and lastly he praises Yahweh, our majestic Avenger. Verses 34 -51.

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This section begins with staccato verses that show God preparing David for war. He gives

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David sure footing. He trains David's hand for war. Strong enough to pull back. I don't know how many pounds is a bronze bow.

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I don't know. It probably doesn't, I mean it's a recurve. It doesn't have what's the other one? Compound.

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It's not compound. It doesn't have gears on it. So that's going to be tough. He trains

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David's hands for war. He gives David a shield of salvation. He gives David sure footing. I want to point out that this language of battle is taken up in the

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New Testament as we consider our lives in relationship to sin, temptation, and spiritual battle. Paul in Ephesians 6 speaks metaphorically about Christians putting on the whole armor of God.

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Every distinct piece of armor is in some sense recalling our salvation. How do we battle against evil in the spiritual realm?

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It is through the recollection of God's great salvation, church. David is doing here in his praise what we are doing when we put on that armor.

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You want to launch out into a day with joy, with gladness, with enthusiasm and peace? Recall the way that God has prepared you for everything that you will face through his cross today.

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Look at the end of verse 36 for a summary of this. The end of verse 36 is powerful. Your gentleness speaking to God, your gentleness has made me great.

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Your gentleness has made me great. I want you to just testify that God would be just to be harsh with me.

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He would be just to be harsh with me. But David, would he be just to be harsh with David?

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I'm tempted to be harsh with David. I can tell you that. But David has experienced the great divine mercy and grace of the

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Holy One. And the gentleness of God has given David strength. And that strength is available for all of us in our praise.

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And God has set David up for victory over his enemies. Verses 38 through 49 can be summarized as a verbal accounting of the vengeance and victory that God gave to David.

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God has been the majestic avenger of his people and he has used his servant David to bring forth victory.

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And it's interesting to note that it's not merely victory over enemies from outside of Israel that David has in mind, but look at the start of verse 44.

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It's kind of interesting to me. I kind of chuckled when I studied it and worked through it this week. You deliver me from strife with my people.

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Not just foreign armies. Strife with my people. Sometimes protection from our own people is more amazing than victory against our enemies.

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How pleasant is it when brothers and sisters dwell together in peace and unity. And I would say, how rare is it?

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I will continue to praise God for such an amazing unity here at Recast over these years.

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It's been unprecedented. Unexpected. And even a delight.

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And David has made my job easy this morning because I always seek to land my sermons at the foot of the cross.

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We take communion every Sunday because I'm convinced that we need that reminder as often as possible.

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I think there's a centering component to that. When we take communion together, in the gathering of God's people, there's value and benefit.

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I know we run the risk of it becoming routine, but that's a risk I'm willing to take in light of the significance of the cross and the place it's supposed to hold in our gathering and in our lives.

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But David ends the text with praise to the mighty Deliverer, His merciful Savior and His majestic Avenger with some interesting words in verse 51.

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In the Hebrew language it really pops. In English it's like, God has shown

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His steadfast covenant love to His anointed, it says in English, to David and his offspring forever.

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Ah, that's kind of cool. Whatever. But David writes words that certainly were significant to him, but are even more significant to us where we live today.

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He says, God's chesed, God's covenant faithfulness, His covenant committed, never ending, unbreakable, faithful love is to His anointed, that word in Hebrew is

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Messiah. It is to His Messiah. To David and His offspring, singular, forever.

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David here is mentioning, and I don't doubt at all that by the Spirit, He is intentionally mentioning

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Jesus in His song of praise. He doesn't do so by name, but He was given a promise back in 2

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Samuel chapter 7, that one of His offspring would be the Messiah and would sit on the eternal throne of God forever and ever and ever.

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And here He refers to God's steadfast love to this one, the

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Messiah, the offspring of David. So let's apply this passage in the one primary way in which it was written.

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There's one primary thing that we are to go out and do as a result of listening to this message, of encountering

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God's word. Two words. Praise God.

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Praise God. Simple application? You can remember that, can't you? Can you do it?

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By the power of the Spirit you can. Praise Him as our mighty Deliverer. Praise Him as our merciful

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Savior. Praise Him as our majestic Avenger. Praise Him as our

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Eternal Messiah. If you've asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior and King, then come to the tables in praise and thanks during this next song.

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Take the cracker to remember His body that was broken as a substitute for us. And take the cup of juice to remember

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His blood that was shed for us. And then let's go out to live our lives giving

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Him the glory and the praise for all the good things in our lives. I would encourage you to make lists. Make lists of the blessing.

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Make lists of the good things. Let's follow the example of David who was eager in the end to point to his

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God who delivered Him and who gave so much undeserved mercy to Him.

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Your hearts are going to be tempted on the way out of here to take the credit. Your hearts are going to be tempted on Monday morning to take the credit.

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They're going to be tempted, especially on Friday, to take the credit. Your hearts are going to be tempted every day of your life to accept and soak up the accolades of others.

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Who deserves it? Who deserves it? God deserves it.

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To be human is to be an ungrateful biped walking around on two feet with ingratitude.

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To be saved is to be transformed into a grateful biped walking around on two feet with gladness, with thanks.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much. I could stand here for hours just rehearsing

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Your goodness in my life. Blessing upon blessing. But I think in terms of the way that You have preserved me down through many twisting paths to standing here in front of these people today, and I'm sure everybody could just share story after story about Your delivering hand in their lives.

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We've endured a pandemic. We've come down through a lot in even just these past couple of years, and we sit here together with thankfulness and with gratitude.

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But not just merely for physical preservation, but Father, spiritually You have done the thing that was most needful for each of us.

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You have sent Your Son, Jesus Christ to win our hearts, to defeat sin, and the consequences and the guilt, and to bring us up out of dark places, to shed the light in the darkness of our hearts, and to bring about wholeness and healing.

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And we look forward to one day when Your vengeance is complete, when all of Your enemies are put down, and Your people dwell together in unity forever and ever and ever, with no threat, with no death, with no more sin, with no more sorrow, and no more tears, but with gladness and rest forever and ever and ever.

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That is our hope, and it's all wrapped up in You. So I pray that You would ignite us to praise You this week in Jesus' name.