Kingship - My Delieverer
The Psalms • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewThe Lord is King and is faithful to deliver His children from affliction through His strength alone. He is our rock, upon whom we build our lives.
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The Lord is King and is faithful to deliver His children from affliction through His strength alone. He is our rock, upon whom we build our lives.
1 David spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the grasp of Saul.
A king in the ancient Near east was obligated to acknowledge dependence on his god for victory over enemies. This often took the form of a memorial inscription in which the king would boast of his personal success sometimes giving some credit to his gods. What we usualyl get is a lot of personal boasting with little reference if any to a personal diety.
The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a stele that dates to approximately 2254–2218 BC, in the time of the Akkadian Empire, and is now at the Louvre in Paris. The relief measures 200cm in height (6' 7") and was carved in pinkish sandstone, with cuneiform writings in Akkadian and Elamite. It depicts the King Naram-Sin of Akkad leading the Akkadian army to victory over the Lullubi, a mountain people from the Zagros Mountains. The stele shows a narrative scene of the king crossing the steep slopes into enemy territory; on the left are the ordered imperial forces keeping in rank while marching over the disordered defenders that lie broken and defeated. Naram-Sin is shown as by far the most important figure, towering over his enemy and troops and all eyes gaze up toward him. The weak and chaotic opposing forces are shown being thrown from atop the mountainside, impaled by spears, fleeing and begging Naram-Sin for mercy as well as being trampled underfoot by Naram-Sin himself. This is supposed to convey their uncivilized and barbaric nature making the conquest justified.[1] Though currently about two meters in height estimates of its original height range up to three meters.
In comparison we have something similar from King David, the ruler of the land at the time when he was finally delivered from His enemies wrote a victory poem. But instead of giving himself all of the credit He gave the credit to God, who took Him through it all. Dealing with the spiritual role of the King and what went on His life, the royal Psalms point us to God as he king over all Kings and to the future messiah who would rule over all.
Each of these Psalms that we go through has a common theme, and it is a good reminder. We are pointed again to God as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This has an effect on our lives, direct bearing on what we do as children of God. Do we trust God as king over our life? Do we build our lives on Him, the solid rock? Do we seek vengeance for those that come against us or do we leave that in God’s hands. Do we trust that the Lord will rescue and redeem us?
My Rock and Salvation
My Rock and Salvation
Due to the length of the Psalm and the way that this is written, we are going to jump around a bit. Grammatically, in the original language this Psalm is split into groups. It all points to the one passage in the middle. So again I am going to be grouping them according to the verse they go with.
1 I love you, Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies.
Yahweh is our rock and salvation is what the first group of verses tells us. Complete devotion to God is what is required of us for He is our king over all Kings. He is faithful to deliver us from affliction, maybe not when we would always like to, but He is faithful still and our response is to give complete trust to Him.
I love you - The words sometimes get lost on us these days it seems like. Platitudes to show affection that may or may not be there. We are told to Love God because He is our deliverer, our rock, our shield. But what does this look like exactly? Because of God being our deliverer our response is to love Him. But with all different meanings for love what is this one?
It is a love based on experience, from seeing God’s judgement on David’s sinful actions and God’s deliverance from the enemies of Israel. Both judgement and deliverance and through all the experience David said I love you God. The definition for love here is more like compassion and mercy towards someone. Generally it is a way that God would share His love with those that follow Him. A commentary described it as “an intimacy of his relationship based on experience” Based on what God has done, on our experiences and going through it all we can become closer to Him and our love for Him grows.
My strength. It is only through the strength of God did David endure all that He went through an through Yahweh our strength do we love Him more and more. What we see, what I ask and desire for you guys as well is this relationship of love based on experience of going through this life on the strength of God alone.
God is our rock and our refuge
An isolated high place where we are protected. These military metaphors describe a relationship with the Lord God where we trust Him to be all sufficient for our lives. We trust in Him, we lean on Him, we seek refuge in Him, when the times are tough we flee to Yahweh our refuge to find shelter and strength. Sometimes discipline, but that is what a loving father does to those children who need correction but we can rest assured, like David did that God will Protect and give us strength to endure.
Because of this the Lord is worthy of our praise. Verse 46-50 are the pairs of this first passage. You may notice the same theme.
46 The Lord lives—blessed be my rock! The God of my salvation is exalted. 47 God—he grants me vengeance and subdues peoples under me.
48 He frees me from my enemies. You exalt me above my adversaries; you rescue me from violent men. 49 Therefore I will give thanks to you among the nations, Lord; I will sing praises about your name.
50 He gives great victories to his king; he shows loyalty to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.
The beginning and the end, David returns back to His confidence in the Lord God our rock and redeemer.
If you have ever tried to build something on soft ground you might understand. Take the Chapel at the camp for example. pretty soft ground there if you haven't noticed. Now maybe I am wrong, about why it did this, but after settling over the years it feels like you are running down hill when you walk from the kitchen to the front door. Sand washes away and what is left is hard rock.
It is God who avenges those who have come against the people of the Lord. Instead of giving himself the glory, we know as David did that what salvation and strength and good that comes from our life is of God. The king at the time gave praise to God as the one true king for his victories over his enemies.
This points to Jesus who was form the line of David as the substance of this promise of salvation, of deliverance of refuge. And what we ask for, what The promises asks for is an intimate relationship based on our experience of putting God number one in our lives.
In the midst of affliction
In the midst of affliction
In the midst of affliction even we can see this. Deliverance from affliction in the midst of a life committed to Jesus.
4 The ropes of death were wrapped around me; the torrents of destruction terrified me. 5 The ropes of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
6 I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
This still stems from the intimate relationship we create from trusting and living for Jesus as King of our lives. The Lord our king is faithful to deliver.
We went through this last week as well. The poetry behind the intensity of the anguish of David is astounding. It felt as if ropes where dragging Him down into the grave. A state of depression is what this seems like to me. To the point where you just do not want to get out of bed , you feel as if you are being pulled down and nothing is there to help you up.
What are we told to do? we are told to bring it to God. This is not a prayer that is only given up to God in times of Great need but rather in every situation.
3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you and watch expectantly.
Prayer is to be a spiritual response to every situation that we are in, whether good or bad. From the depths of Sheol our prayers are heard in the heights of heaven.
43 You have freed me from the feuds among the people; you have appointed me the head of nations; a people I had not known serve me.
44 Foreigners submit to me cringing; as soon as they hear they obey me. 45 Foreigners lose heart and come trembling from their fortifications.
This echoes the same thing. Through the afflictions we face the Lord will deliver us. Freed from the fights of His people. head of the nations, people submitting to the King. The imagery is people are set to fight against David and His kingdom. Fortifications and feuds. Afflictions w face, and the Lord as our deliverer will deliver us.
We must remember though that deliverance is only through the Lord Jesus. True deliverance must start with givig our lives to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. When we do that, it is promised that we will be delivered from the afflictions of this life, we will be healed from our pain. But sometimes this happens when we get to heaven to be with Jesus again, not in this life.
The Lord God is our rock and deliverer, only through Him will we find deliverance from sin and anything else we face, but we must make Him king of our lives.
The Lord is coming in Victory
The Lord is coming in Victory
Why must we do this, why is it important for us to give our lives to the king of Kings? One of the main reasons is because the Lord is coming in Victory. The odds seem impossible but it is going to happen. This is when the ultimate victory is going t happen. Verses 7-15 and verses 37-42 say this but we are only going to read a few of them to get the point.
13 The Lord thundered from heaven; the Most High made his voice heard. 14 He shot his arrows and scattered them; he hurled lightning bolts and routed them.
15 The depths of the sea became visible, the foundations of the world were exposed, at your rebuke, Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
39 You have clothed me with strength for battle; you subdue my adversaries beneath me. 40 You have made my enemies retreat before me; I annihilate those who hate me.
You see, the Lord is going to win. It may not seem fair that God will destroy anything. But this looks forward to the time God is going to hold us into account for what we have done if we are not His children. Those that refuses to follow Jesus will one day see the wrath of God for refusing the message of deliverance when they had the chance.
We find hope, we stand firm, we have peace with the fact that the Lord is coming and will be victorious in all He has planned.
God is faithful
God is faithful
I am going to end with the middle, seems odd but It is the main theme running through the whole thing. The middle passage goes from verse 20-29Knowing the Lord is King and we place ourselves under the mighty hand of the Lord, we leave with this idea.
25 With the faithful you prove yourself faithful, with the blameless you prove yourself blameless, 26 with the pure you prove yourself pure, but with the crooked you prove yourself shrewd. 27 For you rescue an oppressed people, but you humble those with haughty eyes.
With those who are faithful to the Lord, He is faithful to them. God’s goodness and justice are our grounds for hope. The Lord rescues, the Lord is our shield, the Lord is our help and our deliverer.
He is faithful to the faithful - God is faithful to deliver all those who put their lives in the hands of the Lord. Deliverance from sin in this life and deliverance from afflictions and the enemies of the Lord who come against us when He comes back again. But it relies on starting that intamite relationship with Him. We cant go through life going through the motions while nothing changes within our hearts. We must give our hearts to Him. The bible promises to deliver those who trust in Him. Are you one of the faithful?
Is He your King - Do you trust in the Lord Jesus as your deliverer and King. Is he in charge of your life? God promises that He will reach down and save us from despair. When all seems lost, even when all is going well we need to trust in the Lord, the king of kings to deliver us. He is our source of Joy and peace. We need to know Him and trust in Him