The Biggest Part of Life

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

2 Samuel 22

February 16, 2014 • Portage First UMC

[22:1-7]

He is larger than life—17 feet tall, carved out of a single block of Tuscan marble. That block of marble passed through the hands of several different artists and even sat idle for twenty-five years before a twenty-six-year-old artist convinced the authorities to place the project in his hands. He was awarded the project over other more well-known artists like Leonardo da Vinci. And so without a model to rely on, Michelangelo carved the statue free hand. Often he would work in a frenzy, going for days without sleep. For two years, he chiseled away at this block of marble, and when he was done, he had produced one of the most enduring and well-known statues in history: David. The statue was originally intended to stand on the roof of the Cathedral in Florence, Italy, but most likely for political reasons, it was placed outside the Florence governmental palace, with its eyes glaring in the direction of Rome. Eventually, due to concerns about its preservation, David was moved into the Accademia Gallery in Florence, where Christopher and I were privileged to see it in 2010. David is huge, clearly larger than life. The statue depicts David preparing to fight Goliath, but the sculpture is larger than Goliath even would have been in reality.

And yet, one of the things that struck me about the placement of David was the hallway that leads to the grand exhibit. All along the hallway are some examples of what is called Michelangelo’s unfinished work. Together, these sculptures are called “The Prisoners,” because each of them depicts a human form that seems to be struggling to break free from the stone. As travel writer Rick Steves puts it, “Michelangelo believed the sculptor was a tool of God, not creating but simply revealing the powerful and beautiful figures [God] put in the marble. Michelangelo’s job was to chip away the excess, to reveal. He needed to be in tune with God’s will.” The Prisoners show us some of that struggle to find God’s direction. And so, these unfinished statues which flank the hall that leads to the perfect David in many ways represent you and me. Unfinished sculptures, all of us, in many ways, prisoners of our mortal nature struggling to break free to all that God intends us to become. And then, there’s David.

David, in later times, was understood to be the perfect king. But we know, as we’ve been looking at his life, that he was far from perfect in character, yet he becomes the standard by which every other king is judged. Why is that? What was it about David that allowed the people to see him that way? What was it about David that caused a young sculptor, centuries later, to picture him as the essence of human perfection? As we near the end of David’s life, we’re going to focus in a slightly different way today on David’s relationship with God, and in particular how he himself remembered it through the writing of a song of praise, preserved in 2 Samuel 22, which we will read through this morning.

In the first part of this psalm, which is also preserved with a few differences in Psalm 18, David uses all sorts of images to describe God. A good song of praise focuses on God alone. The longer David walked with God, the more he was able to see God working in his life, and the more he was able to notice God’s presence in the things around him. David grew throughout his life as a “God-noticer.” All the things he had been through—Goliath, Bathsheba, Mephibosheth, Absalom—all those things taught him, slowly but surely, that God was active and present in every moment of every day. And so he saw God as a refuge, as a stronghold, as one who would always hear his voice, as the biggest part of his life. David saw God as a rock. Now, we hear that and it doesn’t really surprise us. We’re used to God being called a rock. Maybe we grew up singing “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.” Maybe we’re familiar with Brenton Brown’s praise song, “God My Rock.” But it’s rather strange, some scholars point out, for David to compare the living God to a lifeless rock. Rocks may be one of the lowest things on the scale of creation. Rocks may be the furthest thing possible from God (cf. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, pg. 207).

And yet, when you’re in Israel, where David lived, you can’t help but notice that there are lots and lots of rocks. You might hear on the news of people (children, even!) throwing rocks at soldier or tanks, and that’s because that's all they have. There are plenty of rocks! And far be it for me to second guess David, but I think that’s part of the point. The rocks are everywhere, just as David had discovered how God was everywhere. But there is, of course, more to the imagery, because ultimately David sees God as his protector and the firm foundation he could stand upon. There have been many times when I’ve stood on the edge of a mountain and looked down (making my wife very nervous!), and you realize that the difference between life and death at that moment is where you’re standing. Standing on the rock provides security, groundedness. One step the wrong way would result in death. God is a rock we can stand upon.

David's descendent, Jesus, once told a story about two men, one foolish and one wise (Luke 6:46-49). Maybe you, like me, grew up singing the song in Sunday School: “The foolish man built his house upon the sand…” When the storms came, the house fell because it had no foundation. The wise man, we’re told, built his house on bedrock, solid bedrock, and when the storms came, his house stood. David says God is like that. God is his rock, and the psalm invites us to make God our rock as well. God is the biggest part of David’s life, even when he’s not aware of it, because God provides him a firm place to stand. What about you? Is God your rock?

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[22:8-20]

[8:30]

One of my favorite stories is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. In this first book of the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis introduces us to four children who go through a wardrobe and end up in the enchanted land of Narnia. There, they learn about Aslan, who is the Christ figure in the story. They begin to ask questions about Aslan of some Beavers they’ve met. Is Aslan a man? “Certainly not,” Mr. Beaver says. “Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.” “Then he isn't safe?” Lucy asks. “Safe?” says Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He’s the King, I tell you" (Lewis 64).

[10:00 & 11:30]

VIDEO: “He’s Not Safe, But He’s Good” (Narnia)

[All Services]

That’s the image I get when I read this portion of David’s song of praise, because there’s lots of scary stuff going on in these verses. What is it like when the King acts? David asks (cf. Goldingay, 1 & 2 Samuel for Everyone, pg. 168). The earth trembles (22:8), there is smoke and fire (22:9), storms erupt (22:10-13), his voice is like thunder (22:14), lightning scatters his enemies (22:15) and “the foundations of the earth [are] laid bare” (22:16). It’s a dark picture. He’s not safe, David says. The Lord of creation can do whatever he wants with creation and in creation. David’s words caution us against treating God like a buddy. God is not our next-door neighbor. God is all-powerful and can do with us as he wants.

But that’s the other part of David’s song: he’s not safe, but he’s good. David remembers that, even in the midst of the storms of his life—and if we’ve learned nothing else over these last few weeks, we’ve seen how David often encountered storms, just like we do—but in the midst of them, God reaches down (22:17) and grabs ahold of David. As he’s experienced, God doesn’t remove him from the storms. He supports (22:19) and protects David in the midst of the storm. David might get wet, and his enemies will still come after him, but God is with him, the God who is not safe, but good. The God who, when all is said and done, will bring David (and us) into a “spacious place” (22:20) because he delights in us.

David’s focus here is on the ways he learned to trust, the ways he has learned to call out to God in good times and in bad and trust that God will be there because he’s good, because he has promised to be there. What we miss in the English translation is the way David images his life changing because he’s been protected and rescued by God. In verse 7, what is translated as “distress” literally means “a tight place” (Baldwin, 1 & 2 Samuel, pg. 287) in contrast to verse 20, where David says God rescued him and put him down in “a spacious place.” Have you been in a “tight” place? I mean, literally, a tight place? When we were as Sepphoris in Israel in 2012, for some reason I can’t quite recall, we climbed down into the water system they had developed for the city. It’s dry now, but there are these tunnels where the water would be collected and would flow into the city. And we wanted to walk the length of those tunnels—again, not sure why, because it never occurred to me that water doesn’t need much room to flow. It certainly doesn’t need the kind of room that a (at that time) 43-year-old American male might need! So there were places where it was tight, where we had to squeeze through. (Rachel didn’t have to, of course, but I did!) And when we got to the end, there was the place for the wide pool, out of which the city would get their water. We went from some very tight places into a spacious place, and there is a great relief that comes with that change.

But I’d bet you’ve been in some metaphorical tight places in your life. Too much month at the end of the money. An argument that seems to spell the end of a relationship or a marriage. A child who has gotten in trouble one too many times with the authorities. An employer who seems intent on finding something wrong with what you’re doing in order to fire you. Maybe the enemies have looked like bill collectors or unemployment notices or even a person you once loved, and as David describes the enemies gathering around him, you know what that feels like. And in every tight spot, David’s call to us is the same: cry out to God. Now, I’m not saying that in every situation God will miraculously give you more money or bring the spouse back or help you keep the job. Not every situation worked out the way David hoped it would, the ways he prayed it would happen. After his affair with Bathsheba became public knowledge, and the baby that was born became sick, David begged God to spare the child’s life, but the child died anyway. God doesn't promise to pull us out of the situation, but God does promise to walk through it with us. He’s not safe, but he’s good, and he will ultimately bring us to a spacious place. My experience is that rarely do the tight spaces widen the way I think they should, but when I look back, I can see that God has widened them just the way they needed to be, and that had things worked out the way I thought they ought to, I would have missed the blessing he had for me. If God is the biggest part of our lives, as he is in David’s life, then can we trust him to rescue us and bring us a spacious place? Can we trust the God who is good even when he’s not safe?

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[22:21-28]

Have you ever caught your child or grandchild with their “hand” in the proverbial cookie jar? Or you’ve found something you know they did but they wouldn’t admit it? “Who did this?” you might ask, and then comes the answer: “I don’t know.” Even when they’re holding the cookie and sitting on the counter, the answer is still, “I don’t know.” That’s the way I sort of feel about this part of David’s song. He’s gone from celebrating God's character to announcing God’s protection to reflecting on God’s power. But when you hear him say things like, “I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin” (22:24), you have to wonder if maybe David has gone senile in his old age, or if he’s forgotten things and events like Bathsheba and the times he was told not to count the people and he did anyway, or you wonder if he’s in denial, or maybe some publicist actually wrote this part of the song. But I think what’s actually happening here is that David is seeing his life the way God sees it.

Now, that probably doesn’t clear things up. Am I saying that God doesn't see our sin? No, not at all. But we are told that when we come to God with a sincere heart of repentance, when we come to God and ask for forgiveness, he remembers our sin no more. One of my favorite images for this comes from the prophet Micah. He writes this: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18-19). And I heard one person once say that he puts up a “No Fishing” sign. When we come to God with a repentant heart, he chooses not to remember our sins. So David's exactly right. He can honestly say that he stands now in God’s presence without a blemish because he has been forgiven.

That’s hard for us to comprehend, because we don’t forget like that. We don’t seem able to throw the sins that were committed against us into the deepest sea, and if we’re really honest, we’re not even able to forget our own sins. At least I don’t; maybe you’re better at it than I am, but I can remember things way back that I wish I had never done. And that makes it hard for us “feel” forgiven. I would imagine that was hard for David, too, which is one reason he sings about it here. He needs that constant reminder that God doesn’t remember. God chooses to forget his sins.

So, for David, it’s all about God’s action in his life, all about God taking the broken pieces of his life and putting them back together, making his life better and stronger than it was before. In fact, I like the way Eugene Peterson translates verse 25: “God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.” I work with words every day, whether it’s writing a letter or a blog entry or a sermon. Words are my stock in trade, and there are times when I find myself struggling to find just the right word. I can write a section or a paragraph and then find myself going back to delete the whole thing and start over. My hope is always that, when I’m done, it’s a better story or a better sermon than what I began with. That's not always the case, as you all well know! But David’s talking about God rewriting our story, taking out the paragraphs that are bad, the blemished sections, our sins, and putting in their place righteousness. As God rewrites our story, he develops our character into Christlikeness. In fact, for the Christian, we’re told that when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we ask for forgiveness from our sins, his righteousness is “imputed” to us (cf. Romans 4-5). That’s an old word that basically means what he did, we get credit for. When God looks at us, he sees Christ and his righteousness because he chooses to. He rewrites our story. And when God rewrites your story, he becomes the biggest part of your life. In all things, from that moment on, your life is meant to reflect the grace and mercy and forgiveness of Jesus Christ toward everyone. No exceptions. Everyone—because that’s who Jesus died for. And that’s a hard calling, a hard assignment.

No one knew that more than Corrie ten Boom, who as a young girl was arrested with her family for harboring Jews during World War II. She was one of the few who lived through the experience in Ravensbruck, released due to a “clerical error.” Out of that experience, ten Boom had the chance to speak all around the world. But it was after an event in Munich that she faced her greatest challenge. One of the guards she knew from the concentration camp approached her, thanking her for her message and the word of hope that our sins are at the bottom of the sea. “You mentioned Ravensbruck,” he said. “I was a guard there, but since then, I’ve become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well…Will you forgive me?” he asked, sticking out his hand. And ten Boom struggled. She knew the truth of what she had said, but she also remembered the horror this man had put she and her sister through. “Help!” she prayed, and then told God, “I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

So, woodenly, she began to lift her hand to shake this ex-guard’s, and at that moment, she said, an incredible thing took place. Here is how she described it: “The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’ For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then.” That’s what can happen when God rewrites your story and becomes the biggest part of your life. Have you let God rewrite your story?

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[22:29-46]

This next-to-last part of David’s song causes some folks to struggle a bit because it’s mostly about how God enabled David to kill people. It’s about the wars he fought, and he says, “I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle” (22:38-40). David gives God, the rock, direct credit for defeating his enemies. And of course, as we’ve read the David story, we’ve become used to battles and wars and fighting and killing. It is, truly, an integral part of David’s story. And it’s great that David recognizes he could not have done what he has done without God, but why this focus on bloodshed?

We have to consider the context. My Biblical studies professors used to say that a text without a context is a pretext for bad interpretation. It’s vital to understand the context and the situation in which these words were written, and for David, it’s a brutal, bloody time. It’s a time of war. He lives in the midst of Philistine culture and Canaanite morality, or as we would put it today, violence and sex (cf. Peterson 215). When archaeologists have dug up various cities, they find beer mugs that represent Philistine culture (we still use the word “philistine” to describe a vulgar or crass person) and they find fertility goddesses in the Canaanite cities. That’s David’s setting. And, if you think about it, his setting isn’t all that different from ours.

We don’t necessarily go to war with every society that threatens us, though we have become seemingly more warlike in the last couple of decades. But we do face enemies that threaten us, a context and a situation that seek to undo our faith in God. And I’m not talking about so-called governmental pressures or taking prayer out of school or threats to religious liberty, as real as those enemies might be. The enemies we face each and every day are more subtle and therefore more dangerous. The internet has made sin much more accessible to this generation than any other, and our kids face temptations every day to give into “what everyone else is doing.” For instance, there used to be a social stigma on someone who got involved with pornography; today, men and women alike find it online and easily become addicted. It breaks up marriages and destroys lives. Greed dominates our culture; we’re always being told we want and need more and more and more. When exactly is enough, “enough”? We had a involved discussion last week at Disciple about technology, and how it has come to invade and even at times control our lives. We have this battle at our home, that when it comes time for dinner, the phones get put away. And then it buzzes, and I try to tell the kids they don’t have to answer right away. But I’m guilty, too. Technology, which connects us in wonderful ways, also can become an enemy, destroying intimacy and connections. How many times have you been in a restaurant and watched a table of four all on their phones, not speaking to one another? Maybe the better question is this: how often has that been you? There are enemies that seek to destroy our lives; I’m sure you can name that ones that threaten you daily: pride, gluttony, lust envy, unrestrained anger…we could go on and on.

David’s point is this: without God’s help, we cannot hope to defeat the enemies that come against us, whatever the Philistines in our life look like. We do not have the strength to live this Christian life, the faithful life, on our own. We can’t do it—but God can. David puts it this way: “The Lord turns my darkness into light” (22:29). Where have we heard that before? Of course, the beginning of John’s Gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Maybe a better way to say what David wrote is this: the Lord removes our darkness and replaces it with light. “By my God,” David writes, “I can leap over a wall” (22:30, NRSV). Will you let God fight your battles for you, defeat your enemies for you, each and every day? I know every day, even before I get out of bed, I find myself praying, “God, give me strength for whatever comes this day. Help me do what you want me to do this day.” And bit by bit, as the enemies are defeated, God becomes more and more the biggest part of my life.

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[22:47-50]

David’s main concern throughout this song, as in the other songs he wrote, is not bringing attention to himself or to his exploits. David’s main goal is to bring attention to God and what God can do, because, as I’ve been saying, God is the biggest part of his life. And so, in this last section, he lets loose in exuberant praise: “The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior!” (22:46). And then he sings more than he knows in verse 50: “I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing the praises of your name.” I wonder if David ever imagined that his words would be translated and, in nations around the world, people would still, millennia later, be using his words to worship God (cf. Baldwin 290).

Either way, there is little of life that goes unexplored by David, and in everything he realizes how small his life would be if it weren’t for God. You see, “ignoring or denying God doesn’t first of all make us make us bad; it makes us small” (Peterson 216). My daughter has the most interesting conversations at school, and since she’s not here this morning, I’m going to take a moment to brag on her. She came home one day this week and, as we were talking, she said, “I got in an argument with an atheist today.” I was intrigued and said, “How did that happen?” “I don’t know,” she said, “but this kid and I were arguing about believing in God. He asked me if I believe in God because I have to or because I want to, and I told him I want to, because it’s true.” She went on to recount the conversation, especially the part when the atheist boy claimed to know more about the Bible than she did. She wasn’t impressed. “Just because you know about the Bible doesn’t mean you know everything,” she told him, and I was rather proud of her for not giving up ground in the discussion. Then we talked for a while that afternoon about how a life without God is so small. She saw that in this boy, even. Not having any sort of belief leaves him empty, without hope. A life without God leaves us small. In contrast, Jesus said he came to give us life “abundantly” (cf. John 10:10). He came to bring us uncommon life, life that exceeds the boundaries, big life. And when you think about it, what could be bigger than a life built on a solid foundation that will not shake, trusting in the God who is good and who forgives our sins (even remembering them no more), and who fights our enemies for us? That’s a big life, when we allow God and invite God to be the biggest part of our life.

So, here’s what I want you to do this week. On our sermon study guide this morning in your bulletin, there is a circle on the back page. Just a blank circle. I want to invite you to an examined life this week, a David sort of “paying attention” life. Pay attention to what part God plays in your life. Now, I’m not just talking about how much time you spend reading the Bible or praying or going to worship. What part does God play in the decisions you make, in the way you interact with others, in the way you forgive those who have hurt you, in the ways you raise your children or your grandchildren? What part does God play in your thinking, in your entertainment choices, in the ways you fight against the enemies that threaten? And then use the circle to make a pie chart, to demonstrate, to the best of your ability, what part of your life is shaped by God. Then, I invite you to bring those back next week—you don’t have to put your name on it—and we’ll have a place to tack those up as a witness to how we’re seeking to live more and more the David life, a life where God is becoming the biggest part. Let’s pray.