Looking Back

How we view our past will largely determine how we view the present. If you look back on your past with a angst, anger, bitterness or disgust then in all likelihood that is how you will view your present and future. The Psalms teach us how to view the pain of our past through the lens of God’s redemptive plan, His goodness, grace and love. In the Psalms we see how David learned that finding refuge in the Lord isn’t the absence of pain but the presence of purpose. When we have a biblical perspective of our past we stop asking “God why did you put me through that?” and start saying “God thank you for bringing me through that.” Psalm 18 represents David looking back on the difficulties of His life and recognizes that the only appropriate response is to praise the Lord who brought Him through it.

Praising a Personal God

Context

The Superscription: TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID, THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, WHO ADDRESSED THE WORDS OF THIS SONG TO THE LORD ON THE DAY WHEN THE LORD DELIVERED HIM FROM THE HAND OF ALL HIS ENEMIES, AND FROM THE HAND OF SAUL. HE SAID:

It would seem that David wrote this Psalm when his reign over Israel was stable, but probably before his sin with Bathsheba and the betrayal of his son.

It is also recorded in 2 Samuel 22.

Overview

This Psalm is bracketed with expressions of praise.

v. 1-3 Praising a personal God

v. 49-50 Praising a global God

Everything in between answers the question, why? Why does David both personally and universally praise God?

Reflecting on the Intercession of God (The ways that God has interceded in David’s life.)

Strength

Rock

Fortress

Deliverer

Refuge

Shield

Horn of my Salvation

Stronghold

Reflecting on the Personal Nature of God

Notice what David does not say. He doesn’t say that God is strong, that God is a rock and a fortress. He doesn’t say that God is a shield or a stronghold.

David declares that the Lord is “my strength” and “my fortress” etc.

Reflecting on a Proper Response to God

Love

Call

Praise

The point of these verses is that God is worthy to be praised because He is a personal God.

Praising an Attentive God

What did David do in the moment of his greatest distress? - He prayed

Do not underestimate what the Psalms can teach you about prayer.

Much of what we sing in worship should also be the content of our prayers.

Not only did David pray but he was also confident that those prayers were heard. Psalm 18:6 “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

There comes a point in nearly everyone’s life when they ask, “Does God really hear my prayers?”

First, we must remind ourselves of God’s perfect attributes.

Is it to hard for Him to hear your prayers? Are there too many people praying? No He all knowing, and everywhere present at all times. God doesn’t just check on you from time to time. He is always with you.

Does God want to hear your prayers? All of us have certain people in our lives that when we see their name on our phones we sigh a little bit. God doesn’t sigh when He hears your voice calling out to Him. He is perfectly loving.

Second, we must remind ourselves what the Bible actually says about prayer.

God hears our prayers. Psalm 139:1–4 “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”

Prayer must be offered in faith. James 1:6 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”

Prayer must be offered through Christ. John 16:23 “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”

The point of our text is that God is worthy of praise because He hears our prayers.

Praising a Powerful God

v. 7-15 serve as a poetic metaphor about the power of God.

No matter how angry you have ever become I guarantee that you didn’t cause any earthquakes. While this is just a metaphor David is using, when God get angry and earthquake is a possibility.

We might also say that David is praising a wrathful God.

God’s wrath is not a popular subject today. We would rather talk about God’s love, mercy and grace. We should be talking about those things but not at the expense of His other characteristics.

We often talk about people getting saved. But there is also often an unanswered question, saved from what?

Saved from sin? In a sense, yes.

But it is more accurate to say that we are being saved from God’s wrath against our sin.

God’s wrath is found throughout the Scriptures: Zephaniah 1:14–18 “The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.”

The scariest part of His wrath is that He has the power to back it up. This is no toddler throwing a tantrum.

We have been saved from God’s wrath through Christ. We have been justified by grace through faith in Christ. One of the great truths of Scripture is the doctrine of propitiation. Which is just a fancy way of saying that Christ satisfied the wrath of God.

We should certainly be praising God for His power, and we should be praising God for saving us from His wrath.

Praising a Interceding God

David reflects on the times when God interceded in his life and rescued him.

It is foolish to believe that we are the captain of our fate. There are two ways to look back on your life. For example, David could have said when he slayed Goliath, it sure was a good thing that I showed up! Did you see me make that shot? What David said leading up to the battle with Goliath is telling, 1 Samuel 17:37 “And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!””

David knows he is neither that luck nor that good. He knows that there are certain events in his life that can only be explained through divine intercession.

We should be praising God for the ways He has interceded in our lives. The chief of which is the sending of His Son.

Praising an Enabling God

Sometimes we talk about enabling in a negative way. In that sense we are talking about when we enable bad behaviors in those around us. That is clearly not what we are talking about here.

When God asks something of you He also enables you to do it.

Moses is one of the great examples of God enabling and insufficient servant.

Moses: I am not qualified

God: I will be with you

Moses: Who should I say has sent me?

God: Tell them I AM has sent you.

Moses: What if they don’t believe me?

God: Do this miracle

Moses: I stutter

God: Who made man’s mouth?

Excuses don’t work with God.

It not about what we can do, but what God can do through us. If God wants you to move a mountain or part a sea it will happen. In reality most of the time we don’t find ourselves in sea parting circumstances. The truth is we need to trust God’s enabling work in the daily grind. So that when we see a clear opportunity to do the will of God we seize it and trust Him to enable it.

Praising a Universal God

One thing that religious leaders in Israel forgot was that God always intended to reveal Himself to all peoples. Israel was and is the chosen people of God in order to facilitate that.

This is good news for you and me!

In fact Paul in Romans quotes this verse to prove exactly this point. Romans 15:8–9 “For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.””

Acts 17:26–27 “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”