Introduction:
A. How many of you like to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles?
1. One day a man went to the DMV and stood in line for what seemed like eons.
2. When it was finally his turn, the clerk typed his name into the computer and said, “That’s odd.”
3. “What’s wrong?” the man asked.
4. She replied, “My computer says you’re deceased.”
5. The man looked around and muttered to himself, “Great. I died and went to hell.”
B. I wonder if king David didn’t feel that way at times, with all that he went through.
1. We’ve spent the better part of this year studying the life of David that we might learn how to cultivate a heart for God like David had.
2. David’s example shows us that it is possible to live out our spirituality here in the real world.
3. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always pretty.
4. Like David, we stumble and fall along the way.
5. We sin and fall short of God’s purposes for our lives, but in spite of that, the grace of God allows us to pick up the pieces and move forward, toward God.
C. The long shadows of age are beginning to fall across David’s life.
1. He has lived a full life and experienced both the heights and the depths.
2. The twilight years are descending upon him rather quickly.
3. David has often trusted God in impossible and heart-breaking circumstances.
D. Long before David was king, he was a singer of songs.
1. As we have been studying David’s life, we have tried to place a number of his Psalms in their historical context.
2. As we near the end of 2 Samuel and the end of David’s life, we notice that the author of 2 Samuel inserts a psalm of David that spans the entire 22nd chapter.
3. What we are looking at here is perhaps one of his last Psalms.
E. As you recall, David has suffered a lot of grief and anguish during his life.
1. Most recently, in his older years things have been especially difficult.
2. His own son, Absalom conspired to take the kingdom from his father, but it led to his premature death.
3. There has been three years of famine.
3. And added to all that, David also finds himself back at war with his age-old enemy – the Philistines.
4. 2 Samuel 21:15 tells us, “Once again there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, and he became exhausted.”
5. In verse 17, David’s men vow to never let David go with them into battle ever again.
F. David is old and weary! After all he had been through, who wouldn’t feel exhausted?
1. A person can only take so much! Right?
2. Thus, the weary David lifts his hands to God and declares his feelings in a song which covers no less than 51 verses.
3. But the tone is not what you might expect, given his weariness.
4. In this song, David testifies to the Lord, and summarizes the major lessons of his own life.
5. Let’s take a look at these lessons that David learned and see how they might be helpful to us.
I. Lesson 1: When Times are Tough, God is Our only Security.
A. David wrote: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior – from violent men you save me.” (2 Sam. 22:2-3)
1. In each of these poetic expressions, David is describing the Lord as his secure heavenly Father.
2. As I’ve said, David was certainly going through a lot, but in the midst of all his trouble, he looked to and clung to the Lord.
B. David wrote: “In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.” (2 Sam. 22:7)
1. In David’s mind, God was no distant Deity, too preoccupied with other galaxies or other stuff to pay attention to His people.
2. David believed that God heard his voice.
3. David’s pain-filled, guttural cries came into God’s ears.
C. Notice God’s involvement and response to David’s cry.
1. David wrote: “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.” (2 Sam. 22:17-20)
2. Isn’t that magnificent? Isn’t that amazing?
3. We have no trouble believing the business about calamity and strong enemies and distress and destruction and death, but at those times is it to difficult to believe that the Lord delights in us and that He can do something about these things and about our needs?
D. When times are tough and the days of trouble are upon us, the Lord really is our only security.
1. The Lord is our support and refuge.
2. In troubled times we must turn to Him, not away from Him.
3. God’s rescue and help comes not when we think it the time is right, but when God thinks the time is right – God’s always on time! Right?
4. And God’s rescue and help comes not in the way that we think is best, but in the way the God thinks is best.
E. David learned the lesson that God is our only security and so can we.
II. Lesson 2 – When Our Days are Dark, the Lord is our Only Light.
A. David wrote: “You are my lamp, O Lord; the Lord turns my darkness into light.” (2 Sam. 22:29)
1. Have you ever walked through the woods with a lamp or a lantern?
a. Does it provide enough light to make it seem like daytime?
b. No, it only provides enough light for us to see what is just ahead; just enough to see where to take our next step.
2. The same is true of the light we receive from God.
a. At times we stumble along, trying to peer into the darkness ahead, but God only gives us enough light so we can see to take the next step.
3. That’s all the light that God gives, because in reality that’s all we need.
B. Listen to these uplifting words from a man named Charles Allen: “When a person is suddenly alone, often panic and fear come. I distinctly remember my mother saying to me after my father’s death, ‘I cannot go on without him. I depended upon him for everything.’ My mother believed that, but she did go on without him. In fact, she lived twenty-five wonderful years after my father died. I remember that one of the things that bothered my mother was that she could not drive a car. She learned that she could live without driving a car. I feel that the most creative years of my mother’s life were the years when she was forced to depend up herself and God alone. She had her anxious moments, but somewhere along the way she learned the old expression, ‘Life by the yard is hard, but life by the inch is a cinch.’”
1. That’s what David is saying in these verses, “You are my lamp, Lord and You give me just enough inches to let me see the next step, and that’s all You give me, but that’s enough.”
2. You give me enough light to help take away my fear of the darkness – you are my lamp – my only light.
III. Lesson 3 – When Our Walk is Weak, the Lord is our Only Strength.
A. What is your strength? What is it that gets you going and keeps you going?
1. For many people it is caffeine.
2. Here’s a cute questionnaire I came across on how to know if you drink too much coffee. Many other things were listed, but these were the best.
a. You drink too much coffee if you can type 60 words a minute…with your feet.
b. You drink too much coffee if you chew on…other people’s fingernails.
c. You know you are wired if you can pick up FM radio through your teeth.
d. You drink too much coffee if you have a picture of your favorite coffee mug on your coffee mug.
3. David says that he has a much better way to get going and keep going – a strength beyond anything else – that strength comes from God.
B. David wrote: “For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.” (2 Sam. 22:32-33)
1. David is clearly not describing himself as strong and perfect, but is describing what God can and does do through him.
2. David continued: “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory; you stoop down to make me great.” (2 Sam. 22:34-36)
C. So many times we think that we have to be strong, but the truth of the matter is that God is the one who is strong, and when we are weak, He can make us strong.
1. This is what the Apostle Paul discovered in his experience with the Lord.
2. Paul wrote: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ There I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:7-10)
D. So that’s the secret: “God’s power is perfected in our weakness.”
1. God says, in essence, “My power is best displayed when you are weak.”
2. As I said, we want to be strong, but we are never stronger than when God is working through our weakness.
IV. Lesson 4 – When Our Future is Uncertain, the Lord is Our Only Hope.
A. David wrote: “The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior! He is the God who avenges me, who puts the nations under me, who sets me free from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes; from violent men you rescued me. Therefore I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing praises to your name. He gives his king great victories; he show unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendents forever.” (2 Sam. 22:47-51)
1. David knew what the Lord had done in the past, and so he had hope about what the Lord would do in the future.
2. He trusted that God would show unfailing kindness and that God would take care of his descendents forever.
3. That’s real hope – Our hope is in the God of forever!
4. Our future hope is not in ourselves or in our descendents, but in our Lord.
B. We are certainly living in days of uncertainty.
1. The economy has been so bad: down stock market, high unemployment, lower wages, fewer benefits.
2. And what about the bailouts – where’s all this money coming from? Then there’s the proposed universal healthcare, and same sex marriage – all kinds of turbulent issues that threaten our country as we have known it.
3. Then there’s unrest in the world: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is in upheaval, and North Korea is flexing its nuclear muscles.
4. What do we do with all this stuff?
5. We can let all this uncertainty and insecurity get to us, or we can put our trust in God. He’s our only hope.
6. As the song says, “We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we do know who holds tomorrow!”
Conclusion:
A. Why is it that we have such trouble believing that God is our only hope, security, light and strength?
1. Why are we so prone to try and trust in everything else but God?
2. Maybe because these other things seem so present and tangible.
B. Yet God waits for us. He patiently waits for us to finally learn that He is the One.
1. He is the One who is our light and our salvation.
2. He is the One who hears our cry.
3. He is the One who lifts us up from the pit.
4. He is the One who places our feet upon the rock,
5. He is the One who proves Himself strong in our weakness.
6. He is the One who sheds light in our darkness.
7. He is the One who is our hope in uncertainty.
C. God must be allowed to be the Centerpiece of our lives – our Rock and Anchor.
1. Thank you, David, for reminding us of these important lessons that you learned over the course of your life.
2. Thank you, God, for being there for us, throughout our lives.
D. Let me end with the words of an old poem:
1. “Whom have we, Lord, but Thee, Soul-thirst to satisfy?
Exhaustless spring, The water is free, All other streams are dry.”
2. So, Whom have we, Lord, but Thee?
3. Whom do we need, Lord, but Thee?
Resources:
David – A Man of Passion and Destiny, by Charles R. Swindoll, Word Publishing, 1997.
David II, by W. Phillip Keller, Word Books, 1986.
I and II Samuel, David F. Payne, The Daily Study Bible Series, Westminster Press, 1982
First and Second Samuel, J. Carl Laney, Everyman’s Bible Commentary, Moody Bible Institute, 1982.
First and Second Samuel, Eugene Peterson, Westminster Bible Companion, Westminster John Knox Press, 1999.
First and Second Samuel, Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation, John Knox Press, 1990.
