July 28 Sermon: Strength for the Battle
Join us as we explore Psalm 18 and discover how God guards, rewards, and strengthens His people. Through life's challenges, God shapes us into instruments for His purpose, just as a blacksmith forges a sword. Dive into the powerful imagery of refuge and deliverance, and find strength in the Almighty's faithful promises.
Contemplate these questions as you listen to this week’s message on Psalm 18:
How have you experienced God as a guardian and deliverer in your own life?
In what ways can you strive for righteousness, knowing that God sees and rewards faithfulness?
How can you rely on God's strength in the face of current challenges or trials?
Transcript:
Not too long ago, I was having a conversation that I think almost all of us have after a certain age. One of those conversations where you talk about how people who are younger, they would see things from what was normal to us, and they would be completely incomprehensible to them. They wouldn't understand what we were talking about. And of course, you know the usual references that come up in this conversation. Having a television that had knobs on it that you had to actually get up and turn. Of course, landlubbers. Headline telephones attached to the wall. That's a big one. There are a few other ones, like the fact that there didn't used to be ATM machines. If you wanted cash, you had to go in the bank and fill out a piece of paper. My contribution to the conversation, and this came up to me as I was talking about it, was that I'm old enough to remember there being a blacksmith in our town. Just saying that out loud makes me feel old.
I'm guessing the younger generation might maybe even need to have a blacksmith defined to them. And maybe it's something they've only ever seen in a movie. They would have to have a complete description of them to even begin to understand what was once a very necessary trade. A foundational trade in any town. Now, there are still those who, do the work of a blacksmith, you know, that type of work. But it's not that foundational part of a community that it used to be. You know, I can remember walking downtown in Worthing, South Dakota, and hearing the pounding of the metal coming from outside the building. And when you walked in, you'd find those hot coals heating up different pieces of metal that were eventually going to be making that sound of being pounded by the forge hammer. Of the blacksmith. Well, I was reflecting on this conversation and thinking about that memory. And really, it brought out for me how our consumerist society has changed. The way we view different things. Nearly everything now is disposable. Instead of taking something to be fixed by a blacksmith, we might just throw it away. Nearly everything is disposable. And we also find, forget where things come from. We don't go pick something up from somebody who made it. It is shipped to us. We go to the store and get food. We very rarely do we see the whole process through ourselves. We also click something and we can purchase something that was very, we can click on a website and purchase something that was very complicated to make and we have it delivered right to our door. If the delivery guy puts it close enough, we might not even have to step outside, right? Everything is so easy. Well, a blacksmith used to forge something like a sword over time from a lump of steel, right? He would heat and then hammer, heat and hammer over and over and over again to craft this sharp two-edged instrument used in battle. It took time. It took hard labor to make that weapon. And even now, useful instruments, they do take time to be made, but we're so separated from that process. It seems as though everything is simple. Walk in and buy or click and have delivered. And because of this ease of life, I think we often expect quick and easy solutions in most areas of our lives, including our spiritual lives. You know, we want to save our lives. We want to save our lives. We want to save our lives. We want to have a simple solution to deeper faith. We want an easy way to go about becoming more holy. But that's not how it works. Our shaping comes through the fires of life and the forge hammer of God's Word and the Holy Spirit at work in us. Now, we'd rather go online, find a book, click to pay $14.99, have it delivered to our home, and hope that it gives us that one tip we've been missing. To be a better Christian. But again, that's not how it works. And as we've journeyed through several chapters of the Psalter together this summer, we have seen the fires that has forged the psalmist. These psalms that we've looked at have been filled with difficulties and with challenges, but in the midst of them, what have we seen? We've seen the hammer of God doing its work. And today, as we land in Psalm 18, we're reminded that God uses these experiences to strengthen His people, to shape His people. He is our protector, and He is our source of strength. He guides us through the fire, and through that, He molds us into instruments for His purpose and His glory. So let's delve into how God fortifies us for the battles that we encounter in this life, and how He transforms us by His divine power and wisdom. And we'll do that after we look at our three points for today. So the first idea that we're going to consider is that God is our guardian and our deliverer. It is Yahweh who is the protector of His people. When faced with the challenges of the world around them, their strength is not within themselves, but instead in God. And secondly, we see another theme that we see in the Psalter on a regular basis. Yahweh rewards the righteous. Holding fast to the commands of God in times of adversity is hard, but God sees and rewards the faithfulness of His people. And lastly, we will dive into this idea of God strengthening His people. When the people of God endure struggles, they can know that God is shaping them in the fires of the trials, and He will give them strength to endure. Now before I start, I should probably calm your fears a little bit. Don't worry, I'm not going to go through every verse in great detail here. I'm not going to keep you here till supper. I know that disappoints the nappers among you, because you were hoping you'd have your whole afternoon without an afternoon nap, but I'm hoping the sermon is short enough that you'll still need your afternoon snooze. I hope so. But anyway, as we started reading this psalm today, you likely were reminded of the week's past and the recurring theme of God's work for us. And so, I'm going to start with this psalm. God as the fortress for His people. There's this familiar imagery here, and it's helpful for us because, like I've said before, we understand this imagery so well, and it's been repeated so much as we've been through from through Psalm 9 through Psalm 17 so far. It's this idea of refuge, and we have all sought refuge. We get it. Several times you've heard me say, when a storm is coming, it doesn't matter how severe the storm is going to be, you are going to choose a great shelter instead of a pup. That's just the way things work. That is the shelter you seek. And this past week, I did something I hadn't done in a really, really long time. I don't know how long it was, but I did something. The something that I did was I went to a movie in an actual movie theater. Yeah, crazy, huh? Well, as I was there, I was reminded of what I've been talking about. We went to see this movie, Twisters, and I thought about this theme as I was there. I was watching. You know, the primary tension in that movie isn't really the storm itself. I mean, that's the underlying tension that is, or the underlying thing that is used to create the tension. But the tension is the way that they keep you on the edge of your seat by wondering if the shelter that these people have is enough. They put them in positions where, all right, they found shelter from the storm. But then you see the weaknesses in these places. The weaknesses that they are finding sanctuary in. Even though you know these are the main characters, they're not going to kill them off, you find yourself on the edge of your seat wondering if their grip is going to be able to stand strong or whether what they are holding on to is going to be taken away with the storm. Will they find a refuge, or will this refuge stand until the storm passes? That was the tension. That was the real way they jumped. They drew us into the movie. But the Psalms make it clear that this is not the case with our refuge and our fortress. Because God is not only a fortress and a stronghold and a rock for us, but we know that he is the one who holds on to us. The safety of the people of God is not dependent on them. Our safety comes from the sovereign hand of Almighty God. And there is tension in the lives of the people of God because of the storm. There are storms that come. We have tension in our lives. But there is no wondering whether or not we are safe. Because in Christ, we not only know that he is a fortress, but we know that he is the one who holds on to us. He is our Savior, our salvation, our stronghold. And we see here in this passage that this is why the psalmist loves Yahweh. And I've said before that often the Psalms, the Psalms feel reversed to us. You and I, writing this, would probably lament our problem to a great extent, to build tension. We would lament our situation, make people feel bad for us for as long as possible, and then finally at the end say, but God is the one who saved me. I trusted in him and I praise him. But like so many other psalms, the solution to the problem, we're going to see is presented at the beginning. David tells us that he loves the Lord. And then he tells us why. He loves the Lord because he saves him. He took refuge in him and he was his salvation. And this is the source of the praise of the psalmist. God assuredly, or David assuredly, worships God because of his power and because of his majesty. But we see that he specifically loves, loves God and worships God because the Lord is his God. Yahweh has revealed himself to him. He has kept the covenant promises to his people. And the psalmist knows that he has a God that he can trust in the face of the most difficult experiences that come to him in this life. And this is why we see that he calls upon him. And I've pointed this out so many times, but it's important that we see this again. David is not crying out to any old deity. He is not hoping for one God in a pantheon of pagan gods to do right by him because he asked real nice. David is calling out to Yahweh, the God who has revealed himself to his covenant people. And we are not rescued by simply trusting in a higher power or having a heightened sense of spirituality. We call upon the one who has spoken, the one who has revealed himself to us. We call upon the one who has revealed himself and he is the one who saves his people from their enemies. He is the only one who can save. And we have to remember that the enemies of David were substantial. We see this in the way he speaks about what has happened to him. This language here is powerful and vivid imagery. It's fantastic. We see that death isn't a far off problem for David. It isn't just inappropriate. It's an approaching problem on the horizon. From this language, we see that it's right there. It's in his face. Death is there. And we get this idea with the use of repetition in these two verses here. Chords encompassing, cords of the grave entangling him, the snares of death confronting him. You see, David is facing more here than just mean words from those who don't like him. And it's more than someone considering and conspiring against him to take something from him. The conspiring that we see here that is taking place is his enemies trying to use our greatest enemy, death, against David to bring an end to him. Which would also bring a death to the promises of God because he is the anointed one. And we see that David calls out to his refuge and his fortress and his stronghold and the Godhead. The God who is his salvation and his stronghold answers. The God who spoke and revealed himself to his people is the God who hears the cries of his people. The cries reach the ears of God and what does he do? He springs into action. The earth reeled and it rocked and the mountains trembled. And the idea here is that God is a warrior for his people. He is a warrior. And his wrath is such that it causes nothing but nature to convulse and to respond to his power. So the refuge that the psalmist finds in God is more than just a safe hiding place. He hasn't found an impenetrable cave somewhere and he's burrowed himself down in it and nothing can get to him. He's just safe from attack. That's not the way David is describing his refuge here. God is more than just a safe hiding place.
God steps into action. He comes in judgment against the enemies of David. And the language that we read here is very familiar judgment language from the Bible. Smoke and fire coming on the wings of the wind. He bows the heavens and comes down. It all sounds like a storm but we're not meant to think that God came and then there was a lot of rain, thunder and lightning. So the people that were going to kill David ran away. And suddenly David is safe. Because of their distaste for bad weather. This prophetic and poetic language here is to help us understand that God did amazing things that only he can do to rescue his anointed one. And before we move on from this point I want to once again remind us of the timelessness of the Psalms. And that Christ is the key to unlocking this for us. See, this song is about more than just a specific moment in time. This song, this psalm, transcends time because David was not merely protected because he asked for help. He was protected because he was in the line to the Messiah. God made a promise and God kept it. He promised that one would come who would crush the head of the serpent and God was not going to let that promise fail. And remember that theme that we saw so many times when we worked through the book of Genesis together. How many times did it seem as though the promise of God was going to fail? But God... God keeps his promise. Why? Because of his steadfast love and covenant faithfulness to his people. The protection of David reminds us of that steadfast love and that God didn't just protect David for David's sake and he didn't even do it just because he had a group of people in a particular tract of land in the Middle East. He did it because through David all the nations of the earth would one day be blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who came from heaven who bowed the heavens and came down and bore the wrath of God for our sin that we might forever have a refuge and strength against our greatest enemies. Sin, death, and hell. That's why this psalm is timeless for us. And with this protection in mind we move to our second point that God rewards and we see it spelled out for us starting in verse 20 here. So if you were with us for the last... time... or the last week when we were in Psalm 17 this is very similar language to what we found there. That God rewards the righteousness of his people. And remember David is not claiming here to be perfectly without sin as he makes statements like this in the Psalter. Because that would contradict the places where David acknowledges his sin, right? The point here is that in this situation that he is facing he has kept himself from wronging the ones who are oppressed. And this is in comparison to his enemies. So in comparison to those who are the oppressors he is without fault. While they have plotted against the anointed of God and they have done David wrong to the point of making him feel as though he is about to be overcome by death David instead has considered the law of God and he is remaining faithful to God's commands. And the point that I want us to see in this section of this psalm is this idea that God sees his faithfulness and rewards it. Where our sinful hearts usually go when we are wrong. When we are wronged what do we do? We justify our responses. We say hey, at least my sin isn't as bad as those people over there. But that wasn't the approach of David, was it? His desire became to more faithfully hold to the law of God. He didn't see his integrity as a sliding scale based upon how people were treating him and figuring that God would grade him on a curve against those who were really bad because they were going against the anointed of God. In this circumstance David didn't return evil for evil instead he pressed into holiness. And he is confident in this truth that God sees and rewards his actions. And when we face the situations in life where we are clearly wronged and we are sinned against we need to avoid that natural human temptation to justify our sin of the bad reactions we have to our being wronged. Instead, like the psalmist we need to take that opportunity to pursue godliness even more. Not to make ourselves look better because we realize the temptation that is so prevalent when we are experiencing difficulty. Instead, like David we need to realize the situation that we are facing and keep ourselves from guilt knowing that God sees and rewards righteousness. Not a reward of earthly prosperity or happiness but a reward of faithfulness and freedom from sin. David has not turned aside but instead he is blameless in remaining faithful to his God. And we see this idea in the verses that follow here. A part of David's reward is that God acts mercifully towards him. And he reveals himself to the one that is faithful. He knows God in his mercy and in his purity. But in contrast those who turn away from God what do they do? They find God to be torturous. They learned that God is not mocked and rejecting him has definitiveness. They have definitive consequences. While we look ultimately to the reward of heaven and the glory of eternity as we think about these verses when we think about being in covenant with God we know that we have that assurance regardless of what we face but we must not forget that there is a reward in this life as well. There is a reward for knowing God and being faithful to him in this life. Regardless of how things work out for us we are saved from the misery of our sin. And this is why we must strive to be sanctified. This means a continual war with our flesh but we must remember there is great gain for having our aim be in godliness. To seek mercy and purity bears out benefits in this life that giving in to our flesh will not. There is a reward for godliness. And as we dwell on the statements in this psalm may we remember the reward that God blesses his people with and may the word and the spirit be at work in us convicting us of our sin and convicting us of areas of unbelief and may this cause us to turn toward our refuge and our savior. And as we transition to our final point of God's strength in his people we are reminded by what we see in the psalms that the reward of those who are faithful is not a life that is free from conflict and doesn't have any hardship. Over and over we have seen the psalmist expressing the difficult circumstances that he's facing. And you'd think that his attitude might be if this is what faithfulness gets me why am I even bothering? You know that would be the natural human response but instead it pushes David towards God and in this psalm we see several expressions of how God is the one who strengthens him for these battles. The battles that he is facing in his life. So in the midst of the darkness God is the psalmist's light. In the face of adversity we see that he can run against an entire troop and he can leap over a wall. Now this past week I stumbled across a couple of video clips from assorted action movies on how they do particular special effects. And so one was from a superhero movie and this actor was being pulled by cables that were taken out in post production to make it seem like he could do superhuman things. Right? And then another video I saw had a stuntman driving a motorcycle off of a cliff and cables were attached to him to get him to be able to go further than he probably ever could to get to some safe place on the other side. All of this defying the laws of physics.
That isn't what's being talked about here. These words are not implying that somehow because David is faithful to God God is faithful to him. He is now a superhero or an action hero of some kind. The idea is that because God is on his side the impossible task of withstanding the assaults of his enemies are now possible. God in his strength gives his strength to his people. And we get this expressed to us later on in this psalm as well. And so as we move down into the passage we get the idea that all of this is from the hand of God expressed to us in a very clear way that God is the one who grants this strength. In fact, the blamelessness that David has in his faithfulness to God that was expressed earlier is from God too. All of it is a gift from God. A gift from his mighty hand. And more imagery here is expressed to let us know that all of this is from God. Because we read that his feet are like a deer and in training his hands for war he is now able to bend a bow of bronze, right? And again, the psalmist isn't being given super speed or able to leap a building in a single bound or being so strong physically that he can bend a bow of bronze. The psalmist is expressing with poetic language how he is able to be protected from his enemies because it is God who gives him strength. And this is at the root of the prayer that David brings to the Lord. He has strengthened him. He has saved him. He testifies to all of this among the nations. He sings praises for this great salvation. And as the people of God in Christ Jesus, we know that God strengthens us as well. We are his covenant people and he shows this steadfast love to us. David faced great hardships. Experiences we can't even begin to understand. But God stood strong in his promise. And God sustained David by his strength and he was transformed. In the Psalms we find that God guards, God rewards, and God strengthens. In the challenges that we face, we have the full confidence that God is at work. Through his word and spirit, he is sanctifying you. He is at work in us, his people. The challenge for us then is to face the difficulties that with full confidence in the gospel. Knowing that God is our salvation, we strive for faithfulness and we hear the word, believing that the Holy Spirit is at work through that proclamation. And we desire now to go after obedience when the temptations come our way. We trust in the strength of God instead of our own strength, knowing that he is the one who is faithful. We know that because we have been given the gift of faith in Jesus, the one who would come from David to bless all the nations of the earth with salvation, we know that these words that we read in this psalm are not just David's words. The truths that we see here in this psalm are true for us as well. David's song is our song. David's prayer is our prayer. So as we conclude today, let's remember that just as the blacks smith's hammer shapes the metal into a strong and useful tool, so too does God shape and mold his people through the trials and challenges of life. Psalm 18 reminds us that God is our steadfast guardian, protecting us with his mighty hand. And in every battle we face, let us find our refuge and strength in him, knowing that he is faithful to his promises. So may we walk in confidence, knowing his love and grace, seeking to live a life that reflects his holiness and is lived to honor his great name. So depart from here today, trusting in his strength and striving for that righteousness that he rewards, knowing that in every circumstance, God is with us, shaping us for his good, for our good, and for his purposes and his glory. Amen. Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, we praise you for the gift of your word. That we would know that we have you as our guardian. We pray, O Lord, that this good news of our salvation and our protection would move us towards holy lives, that we might be righteous. Help us to press into holiness when it is particularly hard to do so. And may the gospel of your salvation be what drives us to do so. Grant us that great trust in your word and spirit that we might be witnesses to the ends of the earth. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
