You Will Dance Again
Notes
Transcript
Subject: Personal Deliverance
Topic: How God delivers His Children
Title: You Will Dance Again
Theme:
OFFERING A NEW VIEW OF THE WORLD
Christo and Jeanne-Claude hung 142,000 square feet of orange nylon fabric between the mountains on either side of Rifle Gap in Colorado in the early 1970s. Ten years later they surrounded two islands off the Florida coast in bright pink fabric. Later they “wrapped” the German Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in France.
Since the early 1960s, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been creating unique art installations for a public often skeptical, sometimes welcoming, and usually completely unprepared for what they are about to experience. The artists call their work “environmental art,” because they use large pieces of fabric to highlight and set apart natural environments—urban or rural—for a short period of time. Each project typically requires years of logistical planning and negotiations with local governments. The artwork demands sophisticated feats of engineering and hundreds of crew members, not to mention lots of money.
What would possess anyone to create such massive (and temporary) works of art? What purpose could they possibly serve? According to Robert Storr, professor of modern art at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, “They see it in terms of making what is already in the world more visible … and visible to us in different ways.” The installations are only a part of the artwork. The other part is the world that is already there, “which we often pass by without paying any attention to it,” Storr says. The artists highlight one part of the environment. “In doing so, we see and perceive the whole environment with new eyes and a new consciousness,” Christo and Jeanne-Claude say on their website.
Adam Cieselski and Jok Church, who were crew members on the artists’ California coastline project titled Running Fence, said that the artwork served as “a landscape with an obstructive membrane in place to block and alter the view, which transforms the way people perceive it.” Decades later Cieselski and Church can drive through Western Marin and Sonoma counties and still find Running Fence. The landscape is untouched, unaltered, and unchanged. “The thing that has been changed is us,” they say.
Note: Images of the artworks can be viewed at www.christojeanneclaude.net.
—“Central Park’s Bright New Clothes,” npr.org (February 10, 2005)
Many of you have suffered much to come to this country. You have been through hell and high water. You have lost loved ones. You may have witnessed horrors that human eyes should never see. Life is better here, but you are still facing stiff challenges. Some of you may be confronting difficulties with your health, or your employment prospects don’t look very good, and life may be waying you down. Whatever your challenge, I invite you to explore David’s Psalm with me. By perusing Psa 40:1-5, we will see how God renews and restores his children.
Wait Patiently on the Lord
Wait Patiently on the Lord
God told Samuel the prophet that he was taking the crown away from Saul and giving it to another.
10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, 11 “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions.” So Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night.
God directs Samuel to Jesse’s family in his search for the new king. When Samuel arrives at Jesse’s home, he is introduced to tall, handsome, strapping young men and approaches the eldest Eliab saying to himself
1 Samuel 16:6 (CSB)
6 . . . , “Certainly the Lord’s anointed one is here before him.”
But as he is about to pull out the anointing oil, God says, “Not that one.”
1 Samuel 16:7 (CSB)
7 . . . , “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”
Samuel chooses the next in line, and God says, “No, not him either.” As Samuel goes down the line, he continually hears God say, “No, nope, keep looking, Samuel.” Finally, there are no more sons to choose from, or so Samuel thinks. So Samuel asks Jesse if he has any more sons, and yes, he does, the youngest boy who is tending the sheep at the time. Samuel sends for him, and as young David is approaching, the Lord says,
1 Samuel 16:12 (CSB)
12 . . . , “Anoint him, for he is the one.”
Over time David is chosen to serve as a musician and armour bearer in King Saul’s court. Whenever an evil spirit came upon Saul, David would play his harp and ward the demonic presence away from Saul.
We all know the story of David and Goliath, right? David becomes Israel’s champion, defeating the giant menace threatening God’s chosen people.
After the defeat of Goliath, Saul’s troops routed the Philistines. As Saul and his army are coming back from their victory, women and dancing in the street and singing,
1 Samuel 18:7 (CSB)
7 "Saul has killed his thousands,
but David his tens of thousands.”
Saul’s love for David comes to a screeching halt. From that point forward, Saul tries to kill David, his dutiful armour bearer, on many occasions.
Saul even permits David to marry his daughter in hopes that the dowry that Saul demanded of him, “a hundred Philistine foreskins”! He hoped that David would be killed in his attempt to meet Saul’s bride price for his daughter. But to his chagrin, David comes back alive and well and with two hundred Philistine’s foreskins!
After numerous attempts on his life, David gets the message and flees from Saul, becoming a fugitive. David cries out to the Lord on many, many occasions for deliverance.
Saul desperately pursues David, risking the safety of the people he was anointed to protect from the Philistines.
On one occasion, while Saul took a break to relieve himself, the Bible says,
3 When Saul came to the sheep pens along the road, a cave was there, and he went in to relieve himself. David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave, 4 so they said to him, “Look, this is the day the Lord told you about: ‘I will hand your enemy over to you so you can do to him whatever you desire.’ ” Then David got up and secretly cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.
David was displeased with himself for this minor deed, but he spared Saul’s life and let him know it, hoping he would stop pursuing him. But did Saul let up? Only for a time.
4 So David sent out spies and knew for certain that Saul had come. 5 Immediately, David went to the place where Saul had camped. He saw the place where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army, were lying down. Saul was lying inside the inner circle of the camp with the troops camped around him. 6 Then David asked Ahimelech the Hethite and Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, “Who will go with me into the camp to Saul?”
“I’ll go with you,” answered Abishai.
7 That night, David and Abishai came to the troops, and Saul was lying there asleep in the inner circle of the camp with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the troops were lying around him. 8 Then Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy to you. Let me thrust the spear through him into the ground just once. I won’t have to strike him twice!”
9 But David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him, for who can lift a hand against the Lord’s anointed and be innocent?” 10 David added, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. 11 However, as the Lord, is my witness, I will never lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed. Instead, take the spear and the water jug by his head, and let’s go.”
David could have taken matters into his own hands and done away with his mortal enemy, but he trusted God and penned,
Psalm 40:1 (CSB)
1 I waited patiently for the Lord,
and he turned to me and heard my cry for help.
David did not go looking for trouble, but trouble came looking for him. Can you identify with David? Are you a dutiful spouse, doing whatever you can to faithfully care for your family, and trouble has come looking for you? A hardworking employee and trouble is hunting you, or doing the best you can with your teenage children, and danger is stalking the peace in your home. Are you struggling to make it from day to day? Whatever you are facing, wait PATIENTLY for the Lord, for he will turn to you and hear your cry for deliverance.
God Will Place You on Stable Ground
God Will Place You on Stable Ground
Just as David declared in 1 Samuel 26.10
1 Samuel 26:10 (CSB)
10 . . . , “As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.
After Saul is badly wounded in battle, he falls on his own weapon, killing himself and ending the threat on David’s life. David is soon recognized as king, even with some hiccups, as Saul’s son claims the crown that was vacated by his father’s death. God makes good on his promise to David and makes him king over Judah. He grants him victory over his enemies and establishes his reign; thus, he could write,
”Saul was pursuing me even though I was innocent; he tried to turn my best friend, his son Jonathan against me, he even killed the high priest and all the women and children of the village for purportedly aligning themselves with me against him, but God has...”
2 He brought me up from a desolate pit,
out of the muddy clay,
and set my feet on a rock,
making my steps secure.
You may feel like you are in a pit, sinking deeper and deeper, but wait on the Lord, PATIENTLY, and he will deliver you. He will lift you out of the sinking sand, out of the the miry clay and place your feet on solid ground. He will free up your feet; he will set you free.
God Will Give You a New Song
God Will Give You a New Song
After a civil war that pitted the house of David vs. the house of Saul, the Bible tells us that Saul’s house became weaker and weaker, and David’s house became stronger and stronger. After some shrewd diplomacy, the tribes of Israel are united, and David is recognized as king over all of Isreal. God gives David victory over the Philistines and blesses him with many sons and daughters. The years of being pursued are forgotten; God has made good on his promise to David.
The Philistines captured the ark of the covenant but it brought curses and suffering to them rather than blessings. The Philistines send the ark away on cattle, and perhaps angels guide the ark to the city of David. After an initial attempt to bring the ark to David ends in tradgedy because of the presumptious sin of Uzzah as recorded in 2 Sam 6, David calls for the ark to be brought to the city again. It’s reported that the presence of the ark has blessed the household of Obed-edom where it stayed temporarily; thus, the ark is carefully brought to the city. As the priests are escorting the ark, 2 Sam 6:16 says,
16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the city of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down from the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.
Can you imagine how David was feeling? Perhaps he reflected on being pursued by Saul, having to live in a cave for fear of being murdered by Saul, his father-in-law! The numberless times God had protected him from certain death, God’s incredible goodness to him. From a humble shepherd boy, the runt of the litter, to the king of Israel!
Though the Bible says that the ram’s horn was blown and perhaps music was playing as the ark was entering the city, David was seen as overdoing it. In fact, his wife, Michal, “despised him in her heart.” “He’s making a fool of himself, out of rhythm; what’s wrong with David!” Oh, but she could not hear the song that was ringing in David’s heart, for God had given him a new song, a new experience, an experience that she could never understand because she had not been through what David had been through. Thus David could declare,
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and they will trust in the Lord.
If David had been able to read his wife’s thoughts, he might have responded. “You may think I’m a fool, dancing and leaping like an idiot, but God has given me a new song. In my heart, there rings a melody, rings a melody of heaven’s harmony. In my heart, there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love.”
Yes, my friend, like David, you will dance again. God will deliver you, and you will tell of his extraordinary love for you. Your story will lead many to trust and fear the Lord. Just hold on, and wait patiently on the Lord.
People will see you tapping your feet when no music is playing and wonder what’s wrong with you. But there is a smile on your face and joy in your heart, for God has given you a new song, and the music is playing in your heart. Like David, you will declare,
5 Lord my God, you have done many things—
your wondrous works and your plans for us;
none can compare with you.
If I were to report and speak of them,
they are more than can be told.
Yes, my friend, God will set you free, he will free up you feet so that you can dance again. Yes, my friend, you will dance again.