Psalm 33

Intro

Well it’s been a few months since I’ve been up here, and a number of pretty cool things have happened to our family. Two cool things in particular, the birth of our twins, Jubilee and Jethro, has been beautiful chaos for our family. Many of you have asked us the same questions, so I’m just going to try to answer a few of those in mass for everyone:

- No they’re not identical. Turns out they can’t be if they’re different genders.

- Yes, they’re healthy, and we thank God for that.

- “Sleep” is relative and best defined in context, especially for Neva.

It is chaos, but we’re probably doing better than you’d imagine. Thank you for praying for us.

So we’ve had our hands full there. Ministry has been super vibrant, and we see the Lord blessing that work in a number of ways. I will get to share a little bit about that in the service next week.

Far down the list of cool things, but nevertheless significant for me, is I’ve started kickboxing again. You may remember in a previous sermon that I mentioned an ill-fated amateur kickboxing career that ended due to numerous injuries and surgeries. Now, I’m not doing anything serious, in fact I’ve just been using a great app called FightCamp to wail on a heavy bag in my basement.

During these workouts I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the last fight of my short fighting career; a story I’m now going to tell you and invite you into one of my most laughable and vulnerable moments of my adult life.

So this was about 11 or 12 years ago, I think in 2011. I had decided about a year prior that I was going to try to drop a weight class or two. I had previously fought at the bottom of one weight class, which wasn’t great, so if I wanted to improve I really had two options: get smaller or get bigger. I chose to get smaller. So over about 9 months I dropped about 30 lbs, really just got in great shape, thinking I’m now prepared to fight at the top of a new class with the skills and strength I gained in a heavier class. I was feeling pretty good about my chances.

Well, I worked hard to enter a particular competition, but when I signed up it turned out that they didn’t have a fighter left to match me with at my weight class. However, they said they had a fighter that was about 20 lbs heavier than me who was newer to the sport, and that my experience and skill would make up for the weight difference. I thought, sure, I weighed more than he did just a few months ago, this will be a good fight.

Well, in the weeks leading up to the fight, the weight gap between us kept getting bigger and bigger. He’s actually 25 lbs more than you. No, 30. No, 35. I showed up to be weighed the night before the match. I weighed in at an even buck ninety; my opponent weight in at 238 lbs. The manager looked at me and said, “You go down once, I’m ending the fight.” I said, nearly word for word, “Look, I’ve been fighting for years, he’s been fighting for a few months. Do you see the shape I’m in? I’ll be fine.”

Beloved, I was not fine. It turns out that no matter how hard you kick someone who is 50lbs heavier than you, it is going to make little impact. For all of my skill, and ability to move around the room, and try and hit him with technical moves; All he had to do was walk forward and throw a few punches. I left that night humiliated in front of my friends, and with a torn MCL that do this day has limited my physical abilities.

I learned an important lesson that night as well. Here it is: Never pick a fight with someone who has 50lbs on you. Just don’t do it. Actually, this was the second time I entered the ring against someone 50 lbs bigger than me, I just didn’t learn my lesson the first time. But that’s an illustration for another time.

More seriously now, this night was a turning point for me in my young faith where the Lord was beginning to teach me some deeper truths about a life of faith and trust. For all of my skills, for all of my knowledge, for all my physical strength, there will be challenges that I simply cannot overcome on my own. There will be trials I cannot face in my own strength. There are enemies I cannot defeat; sins which hold me down no matter how hard I try; dark nights of the soul which my knowledge would not pull me out of.

What then?

Psalm 33 is a hymn celebrating the Lord’s victory. The call in verse 3 to sing a new song is repeated just a few times in the Scriptures. It is a call for the people of God to sing a new song celebrating the victory God brings; his power to make all things new by his defeat of the forces of evil.