The year is so long ago we won’t mention it. But I was a freshmen in High School, I was playing soccer for my churches club team. We’re playing this team and they’re better than we are. They’re beating us, not bad, but they’re winning. Then it happens, it’s that type of play that can change a game. One of our guys just blindly kicks the ball out of our end towards their goal. I’m playing forward as the ball is flying, I start running under it. They guy who is supposed to guard me starts running too, but I’m faster than he is so I leave him behind. It’s just me and the ball, there’s only one player between the ball the goalie and me. And he’s running towards me instead of the ball.
It’s one of those moments that you see in your head. I see the ball is going to bounce between us. But I have time to jump up and head the ball past him and if I do that then I’ll be all alone, me the ball and the goal I’m about to score. It happens almost exactly as I saw it in my head. The ball bounces, I jump. I see the guy I see the ball, I see the look shock and horror in his eye when I head it exactly where I want. And I know I’m going to score. Unfortunately that’s the last thing I remember.
See visualized that play, I knew a lot about soccer, I knew about my ability, I knew his position. But I didn’t know him. See the guy was also a linebacker for his high school football team. When he saw me in the air. He just went into a diving shoulder tackle and took me out a the ankle. I landed on my head and shoulder, the result was a concussion and a separated shoulder. Worse to a very competitive teenage male, we lost the game.
But the good thing about games is that there is always another one. Fast forward a couple of months. We’re in the state tournament. We’ve been playing great, and breeze into the county semi-finals. Guess who we play. That’s right same team. Except this time we score first and then we’re playing defense like crazy. Cause they’re really good. The game gets into the second half and we know that if we can just score one more time, we’re going to win the game and go to the finals. They were better then us, but maybe not on that day. I’m playing a little harder then normal because let’s face it, I remembered what happened and I was a little angry about it. Then it happens. It’s another fast break. We’re running down the field, the ball ends up with me. Bam lower right corner, past the goalie. 2-0 we’re going to the finals. Now you have to understand what happened next. My dad taught me that we you score in a sport act like you’ve been there before. I usually did. Except I’d never scored a goal like that before. I’d never been there before. And I didn’t act like it. The arms when up, a yell went out. My team was screaming, it was awesome. We have a word for a moment like that, celebration.
Celebrations are great aren’t they? Here’s the question, when’s the last time that you celebrated something? What was it. I bet you remember. If it’s been too long then that’s a problem. Our lives should be marked by celebrations. Is your life marked by an attitude of celebration? Think of all that you have to celebrate. The God of the universe loves you, and paid the price so that you can live life empowered by Him. That’s the best thing in the world. If He’s in your life there are going to be things that you can celebrate. Today our key passage is going to look at a celebration that David had.
2 Samuel 6:12-23, “Now King David was told, ‘The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.’ So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets. As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when se saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart. They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes. When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, ‘How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!’ David said to Michal, ‘It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel-I will celebrate before the LORD> I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.’ And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
Today we’re concluding our series on the heart of God. We’ve been looking at how the things that are in the heart of God get reflected into our lives and transform us to become more like Him. The theme verse has been 2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” God isn’t looking for our perfection but our commitment and if our hearts are committed to Him then our hearts will be full of faith, we will forgive others, we will have a heart that wants to minister to others out of love, we will also love the truth because God is truth and He is the source of truth. Last week we looked at evanglism, because the number one mission that God gave as His disciples is to help others to find Him and become disciples.
We’re talking today about celebration and we’re looking at one of the greatest times of celebration in the life of David. He has become the king of Israel, he has united the kingdom and made the borders secure. He has been able to take control of Jerusalem and establish his capital there. Life is good. He is thankful for all that God has done, so he decides that he wants to honor God and to do this he wants to bring the Ark of the Lord home, he wants to bring it back to Jerusalem. He wants to do this to honor all that God has done and show that it is God who has done it.
This is a great idea and a great picture for us. We God does great things we need to celebrate not just what happened but who did it. When great things happen in our lives we need to recognize the hand of God in our lives as well. He is not some distant judge who is waiting for us to mess up. He is ever present with us and He wants to bless us. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” By the way, understand the context of this verse. When you delight in the Lord then he gives you the desires of your heart. A lot of times we focus on the end, God give me what I want rather than the beginning. When you find our delight in God, then our desires are going to be consistent with what He desires and He will give us those things. Then our desires are not just from Him but of Him.
Okay so David has a good starting point. He wants to celebrate, and he wants to honor God in this celebration. But there’s some underlying stuff that’s going on here. Some of it is good and some not so good. But in this I think we see part of why David’s life was so blessed even though he messed up, A LOT. The first thing that we need to see is that David and his men liked to celebrate. It’s something that you see through out the life of David, they win, they party. It the way things are supposed to go. When something major happens we should react with excitement. Can you imagine if when I scored that goal, if I’d just put my head down and jogged back to our side of the field. I would have been tackled by the guys who passed me the ball, my coach would have wondered what was wrong. See that wasn’t just my moment, that was a team moment.
The same thing applies to God. He brings blessings into our lives and sometimes we just go on like nothing big happened. I think that when God gives us a blessing He’s like to see a Hallelujah. He’d like to see us get a little bit excited, show some joy. Think about it, at Christmas time you ever spend a lot of time thinking of the perfect gift for someone. Then you go and get it, it’s something that took some effort. But you’re so excited because you know they’ll love it and they go. “Oh that’s nice” and just move to the next thing like it’s no big deal. I mean we hate that. We’re thinking, “man see what you get next year. How’s a tie sound?” But then we treat God the same way. God moves and we’re just like, “oh that’s nice.” What? When the creator of the universe moves in our lives we should get a little excited about it, I mean think about who He is. When we get to come and worship we should come excited about it, why? Because the praise band is so good? No! Because we like whoever is speaking? No! Because we’re having lunch after? No! We should get excited because God is going to be here. And when the people of God come to worship, to celebrate all that He is, it doesn’t matter if the praise band can find a rhythm or if the sermon is so boring that everyone is sleeping through it, when we come excited to see and worship God, He will show up.
Through the good and the bad, God shows up in the life of David. Part of the key to that is in verse five. “David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD with songs with all kinds of instruments made of pine, and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sisturms and symbals.” Couple of things to see in that verse, the first is how the celebrated, it was with all their might. They didn’t hold anything back they put everything into this. The second is that they did it with all kinds of instruments. One of the greatest controversies in the church has been and probably always will be style of music that we use for that part of our celebration, it doesn’t matter, they used them all. If it can be played to the Lord then use it to celebrate.
In the beginning of chapter 6 they were doing that. If you read the first half of chapter 6 they were doing that. More than that, publicly they put the focus in the proper place. It sounds simple right? When you’re celebrating what God does, you include Him in the celebration right? They did that, they went above and beyond. They went and got the Ark of the Covenant, from where it had been sitting, and they were bringing it back to Jerusalem. It was a way of saying look at what God has done. It sounds great. But it all went horribly wrong. We read that a man named Uzzah touched the ark to keep it from falling and God killed him for it. What happened there. It just seems so wrong. I remember reading this passage as a young man thinking, man God that was harsh. I mean I know they weren’t supposed to touch the Ark but he was trying to save it. What is the deal with that? Where’s the love and the grace there?
But here is what we have to understand, God doesn’t want to be a part of the celebration, He wants to be the focus of the celebration. David and his men liked to celebrate, publicly they put the focus on God, but the underlying attitude wasn’t right. See God had marked the Ark as representing his presence. Now understand this is different from an idol, God was not the ark, the ark was a symbol of him. Fifty years earlier the Philistines had captured the ark, without going into too many details God sent such hardship on them that they gave it back. They realized they couldn’t even stand to have it in their land.
God had given Israel instructions on how to treat the ark, it was supposed to be treated holy and with an attitude of reverence. But instead they just sent a cart down to pick it up. The celebration that David was throwing wasn’t really about God, they were just celebrating. So God got there attention just like sometimes He has to get our attention. He got David’s attention. We read that David was mad at first, but then he was also afraid. He wouldn’t take the Ark all the way to Jerusalem instead he left it in the household of Obed-Edom. I think David wanted to see what the Lord would do and God did what He always does when He dwells with His people. He blessed them. When David saw it he decided to try and bring the ark to Jerusalem again. But this time he did it right. He made sure that they showed the proper respect for God.
How does a proper celebration look. Well first of all it was public. This time David included all of the people. Great lesson here. We like to get alone and thank God. Listen there is a time for that. But when a celebration is called for we do it in front of people and we do it with people. Easter is coming it’s a formal celebration time. That’s why we have so many different services lined up, to celebrate what God has done for us. But we need to do it with people, so we need to be inviting people.
The celebration wasn’t just public it was unbridled. When you want to control a horse you put a bridle on it, when it’s unbridled, it’s free it’s uncontrolled. That’s how David was. Look at verse 14, “David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LROD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sounds of trumpets.” David was out dancing, leading the parade. At some point we’re going to find out that the amount of clothing he had on became questionable. Now understand something this wasn’t because he was showing off, it’s probably because he was getting hot. Whichever now he is leading the people in celebrating with everything that he has.
That is a picture of celebration. What makes it a picture of proper celebration is that it was focused on God. We’re going to look at this closed in just a moment, but David’s wife Michael challenges David about his celebration and David replies, “I will celebrate before the LORD.” Let me ask you this question, “What do you have to celebrate before the LORD today?” By that I mean, I want you to stand up and tell me what you have to celebrate. (SHARING TIME)
We love to celebrate, so why don’t we? Well there’s a few reasons. One is that we are focused on what other people think. David is celebrating about God before all of the people and with most of the people. Now this is a hazard of leadership, not everyone is going to like everything that you do. David’s wife Michael is watching him. Now I won’t go into all of the back story but let’s just say they don’t have the happiest marriage in the world. When she sees him dancing, she’s not thinking “Praise the Lord” she thinking, “What a jerk” and she decides to tell him so. She says, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” She was bi-lingual she spoke Hebrew and sarcasm.
But how many of us hold back from celebrating because of something like this? I think one of the reasons why we don’t celebrate more is because rather than being focused on the Lord, we are focused on what other people think. Well they just won’t understand why I’m thanking and unseen God. You know one of the most common ways God reveals Himself? Through His people talking about Him and telling others what He as done. When we celebrate God we testify about Him and people see God through us.
But then even in church sometimes we don’t celebrate because we get focused on the methods. Well we can’t sing that song because this person won’t like it. That song is too loud, that one is too slow, the drums are too loud, we don’t have rhythm, whatever. So we stop because we are thinking about the method rather than the target. How we celebrate isn’t as important as who we celebrate. We need to celebrate our God and our King and all that He has done and all that He will do.
Michael, didn’t approve of Davids dance, she didn’t approve of his dress, frankly she didn’t approve of him. But do you see what she was focused on during the celebration, David and what she thought of him. And she was so busy looking at him that she missed the very object and focus of worship. How many of us have been there? We do something for God and someone comes and tells us how it wasn’t good enough, or appropriate enough, or how we should have done it. And when it happens we’re tempted to pull back and feel like we’ve done something wrong, but if God is leading you to do something as we’ve already said He’s not looking for your perfection He’s looking for you commitment. That’s why I love David’s answer he looks at Michael and says, “It was before the LORD< who chose me rather than your father or anyone from HIs house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel-I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.” Wow what an attitude. “Yeah Michael you’re right if you’re just looking through earthly eyes, I was humiliated, everything I did was wrong, but I was dancing before the LORD I was celebrating all that He has done, and because I know that it brought Him pleasure I will do it again, and even more and you know those servant girls that you look down on, even they get that it’s before the LORD and they will honor it, not because of me but because of God. That is a great theme for our lives. Not us, but Him and it should cause us to celebrate.
But we don’t because we are worried about what other people think, we are focused on the methods, and finally we are focused on the external. Too many times we want to give ourselves the credit, or someone else the credit, or think that something happening is just coincidence. Listen to me, when coincidence keeps happening in your favor, it’s not a coincidence. When you ask God for help and it comes, it’s not a coincidence. When you ask God to give you something, to bless you in some way it’s not a coincidence. When you trust Him and He comes through, that’s not a coincidence that is the result of faith. You can believe in God, He will come through and when He does come through guess what you need to do. That right we need to let go of all of those distractions and celebrate.
Message Notes – Sunday March 25th, 2012
“A Time for Celebration”
2 Samuel 6:12-23
“David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD with songs with all kinds of instruments made of pine, and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.” 2 Samuel 6:5
Is your life marked by an attitude of celebration?
The Importance of Attitude:
David and his men liked to celebrate.
Publicly they put the focus in the proper place.
But the underlying attitude wasn’t right.
A Proper Celebration:
David’s celebration was public.
It was unbridled.
It was focused on God.
Why We Don’t Celebrate:
We are focused on what other people think.
We get focused on the methods.
We are focused on the external.
We need to let go and celebrate!
