Celebrate the Lord when he delivers you.
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Sermon Transcript
INTRODUCTION
During the month of July our family was away from Philadelphia enjoying a one-month sabbatical. The sabbatical was such an undeserved privilege, and so is being back to serve you as one of your pastors! During our trip we did a fair bit of hiking in and around Grand Teton National Park.
There are a lot of Grizzly Bears in Grand Teton, and in neighboring Yellowstone National Park. So, we took precautions. I carried bear spray in my hand, we made a lot of noise, and we prayed fervently for safety. Upon reflection, I’ve realized that we didn’t celebrate God’s protection with the same intensity that we prayed for it. We prayed for God’s protection, God protected us, but we didn’t really celebrate his deliverance. I’ve realized just how normal that can be for me. I want to be the kind of person who looks back and joyfully celebrates when God delivers me and comes through for us, but by and large, I often forfeit the privilege, joy, and sheer psychological benefits of biblical celebration. Supplication is more natural for me than celebration. Can you identify with that? You pray fervently for wisdom for a tricky situation, strength to study enough to get a passing grade (or get when even when study was cut short), favor to land a new job or earn a promotion, you pray for a spouse, for a child, or for some kind of God-glorifying break through, then you have the wisdom you need, you get the passing grade, you land a job, conceive a child, experience a God-glorifying breakthrough and you just move on to life’s next thing. Nothing to see here, nothing amazing, no celebration. Bears just keep themselves at bay. We want to be the kind of people who celebrate when God delivers us, but more often than we’d like to admit, we forfeit the privilege, joy, and sheer psychological benefits of biblical celebration. Evangelism: celebration is our witness.
Friends, our psalm this morning invites us to a far more God-glorifying and soul-satisfying experience. The Lord is inviting us to celebrate Him when he delivers us. Psalm 18:1-3 – I love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. In Psalm 17, King David provided us with a Holy Spirit inspired guide for praying when enemies and troubles surround us, but here in Psalm 18 David provides a guide for how to celebrate when God comes through, protects, and delivers. That brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning: Celebrate the Lord when he delivers you. Celebrate the Lord when he delivers you. Now, supplication is more natural for us than celebration. How do we celebrate when the Lord delivers us? Three ways: 1. Celebrate His personal power 2. Celebrate His ordinary means 3. Celebrate His future promise.
CELEBRATE HIS PERSONAL POWER
The first way to celebrate the Lord when he delivers you is to celebrate his personal power. I want you to notice how many times David repeats the word “my.” Psalm 18:1-3 – I love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. Celebrating when the Lord delivers you begins with discovering what my colleague at Grimke Seminary, Professor Brian Key, calls the “my-ness” of God. When God comes through for us, protects us, or delivers us, we celebrate the “my-ness” of God. We celebrate how personal he is and we take his deliverance personally. He isn’t just the strength or a rock. He isn’t even only his people’s shield and stronghold. No, he is my shield, my salvation, and my stronghold. If you’ve embraced Jesus Christ as Lord then God is your Father and you can celebrate the my-ness of God when he comes through for you. He is personal to you and he’s powerful. David prayed for the Lord to deliver him from his powerful enemies and now he celebrates God’s personal power. Psalm 18:13-19 – The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. 14 And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings and routed them. 15 Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 17 He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support. 19 He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. The Lord is powerful and he employs his power personally to deliver his people from temptation and trouble because he delights in us.
How do we celebrate God’s personal power? Take God’s deliverance personally. Discover the my-ness of God. Since I began studying to preach Psalm 18, I’ve tried to add a brief time of thanksgiving to God, during my morning time with him, for at least one way he has come through, protected, or delivered me. It can be simple. For example, last weekend I was feeling insecure about the sermon and was afraid that it wouldn’t be helpful to you. I prayed for God to come through and preach through me a better sermon than I prepared. By God’s grace, I preached and a few people told me specific ways that the Lord used the preached word to encourage and help them honor Christ. So, on Monday morning I took a little time to celebrate God’s personal power in delivering me what I was afraid of. Psalm 18:3 can provide you with language to start celebrating God’s personal power. Psalm 18:3 says, “I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. To celebrate God’s personal power, to celebrate the “my-ness” of God, take a few moments each morning during your time of prayer and Bible reading to fill in the blank in Psalm 18:3: I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from_________. Then fill in the blank with some way in the last 24 hours that the Lord came through, protected, or delivered you. You can do this together as a family over the dinner table, with roommates, or alone with God. Celebrate his personal power.
Two quick tips so that you get the joy and God gets the glory from celebrating God’s personal power. First, the more you ask him to deliver you, the more you’ll see his deliverance. As Jesus says, “ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” Second, if you can’t think of something to fill in the blank with, you can always celebrate God’s personal power in your conversion. Ephesians 2:1-5 – And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— God has shown his personal power to you most evidently in that when you were dead in your sins, He made you alive in Christ. The first way to celebrate when God delivers you is to celebrate his personal power. The second…
CELEBRATE HIS ORDINARY MEANS
If we were to stop at Psalm 18:1-19, we might think that God’s personal power in David’s deliverance came in the form of God literally coming down from heaven and pouring out fire on David’s enemies. But that’s not how it happened. God delivered David from his enemies by working through ordinary means. Ordinary means. For example, God delivered David from his enemies because David was the one in the right who walked with God in integrity. Psalm 18:20-21 – The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. David is not claiming that the Lord delivered him from his enemies because he was sinless or deserving. Rather, he’s saying that the Lord delivered him from his enemies because unlike his enemies, David confessed his sins and maintained his integrity. David celebrates God for delivering him from his enemies through the ordinary means of faith and integrity. Similarly, the Lord delivered David from his enemies through the ordinary means fighting against his enemies. Psalm 18:34 – He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. Psalm 18:39 – For you equipped me with strength for the battle; you made those who rise against me sink under me. Let me make it plain: God ordains the means and the end our deliverance. David maintained his integrity, David exercised faith, and David trained hard to be a skilled warrior. But it was God who was working through those means to deliver David. David knows that so he celebrates God’s personal power and God’s ordinary means.
Let’s begin to take this personally. We often miss celebration because we don’t see God in the ordinary means. When you set aside space to celebrate when God delivers you during your regular time with God, don’t forget to celebrate God’s ordinary means. For example, if you study hard for an exam, pray for God’s help, and get the grade you were shooting for, celebrate the studying because God was at work through the ordinary means of studying to deliver you from a failing grade. Similarly, if you’re praying for increasing freedom from the sin of lust and you put some serious boundaries around what you let your eyes look at, and you experience increasing freedom from lust. Don’t forget to celebrate the boundaries you put up. God is the one who was working in you to fast from or give up entertainment that leads to temptation. Recently, I sensed the Holy Spirit convicting me regarding James 1:19, which says, “Know this my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” So, during my morning time with the Lord one of the things I have been doing is meditating on what the Old Testament Proverbs say about anger and words. If the Lord delivers me from selfish anger, restrains me from speaking too much, and helps me be an attentive listener, then I want to celebrate God’s personal power and I don’t want to forget to celebrate the ordinary means of meditating on Scripture that he’s using to make me more like Jesus. Use God’s ordinary means and celebrate them because God ordains the means and the end of our deliverance. In the means and the ends, as Psalm 18:31 says – “For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? God is at work in the ordinary means. So, don’t despise the small things. Celebrate them because God is working in them. As Philippians 2:12-13 says – Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
CELEBRATE HIS FUTURE PROMISE
The final way that David celebrates when God delivers him is by celebrating God’s future promise for an even greater deliverance to come. Psalm 18:46-50 – The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation— 47 the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, 48 who rescued me from my enemies; yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me; you delivered me from the man of violence. For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name. 50 Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever. David is looking forward to a day when the king will be delivered from all the enemy nations that surround him and the nations join him in singing of God’s great salvation. There is just one problem. David never saw that day. Psalm 18 is looking forward to a king from David’s line who is even greater than he is. David is looking forward to a day when the gentile nations join the king greater than David in praise of the one true God. David is celebrating God’s future promise and that promise has been fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God and king greater than David, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the king from David’s line and God so loved the world that he gave His only Son to live the sinless life we’ve all failed to live, to die an atoning death in our place to take away the forever judgment we deserve, and rose so that anyone from any nation who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (Romans 15:8, 10). And if you trust in him, then you can celebrate now the future promise that one day you will praise God among the nations. Revelation 5:9-10 – And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Celebrate God when he delivers you, and if you really can’t think of anything to celebrate, celebrate your promised future. Some of you feel like you have nothing to celebrate; your future! Note of comfort.
CONCLUSION
Being delivered from bears was joyful, but with God as our Father we aren’t meant to live onh alf-joy. Be delivered and celebrate.