Delievered Because of Delight!
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 18 viewsNotes
Transcript
Point: God delievers those who delight in Him.
He reached down from heaven and took hold of me; He pulled me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my distress, but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out to a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; He repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not turned from my God to wickedness. Indeed, I have kept all His ordinances in mind and have not disregarded His statutes.
I was blameless toward Him and kept myself from sinning. So the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.
With the faithful You prove Yourself faithful; with the blameless man You prove Yourself blameless; with the pure You prove Yourself pure, but with the crooked You prove Yourself shrewd.
For You rescue an afflicted people, but You humble those with haughty eyes. Lord, You light my lamp; my God illuminates my darkness.
With You I can attack a barrier, and with my God I can leap over a wall. God—His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is pure. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
For who is God besides Yahweh? And who is a rock? Only our God. God—He clothes me with strength and makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and sets me securely on the heights. He trains my hands for war; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand upholds me, and Your humility exalts me. You widen a place beneath me for my steps, and my ankles do not give way.
I pursue my enemies and overtake them; I do not turn back until they are wiped out. I crush them, and they cannot get up; they fall beneath my feet.
You have clothed me with strength for battle; You subdue my adversaries beneath me. You have made my enemies retreat before me; I annihilate those who hate me.
They cry for help, but there is no one to save them — they cry to the Lord, but He does not answer them. I pulverize them like dust before the wind; I trample them like mud in the streets.
You have freed me from the feuds among the people; You have appointed me the head of nations; a people I had not known serve me. Foreigners submit to me grudgingly; as soon as they hear, they obey me.
Foreigners lose heart and come trembling from their fortifications. The Lord lives—may my rock be praised! The God of my salvation is exalted.
God—He gives me vengeance and subdues peoples under me. He frees me from my enemies. You exalt me above my adversaries; You rescue me from violent men.
Therefore I will praise You, Yahweh, among the nations; I will sing about Your name. He gives great victories to His king; He shows loyalty to His anointed, to David and his descendants forever.
The LORD rescues those He is delighted in. According to one’s righteousness, the LORD rewards; repayment is according to cleanliness of one’s hands. The LORD deals with humanity according to the cleanness of one’s hands.
The Apostle Paul states, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). None of us are without sin, none of us are clean, all of us deserve death, and God’s wrath. Except…there is an exception…those who believe upon and follow Jesus Christ as LORD.
Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,
because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering,
in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The cleanness of one’s hands depends upon one’s status with Christ: are we follower of foe, believer or just a fan, dedicated or just interested. God’s grace is available for everyone, but only applicable to those who apply. One does not receive the benefits without receiving the Benefactor.
But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name,
who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.
So then, how can David declare perfection? How can he declare blamelessness? How can he declare no guilt? The proof is in the pudding; God rescued him from his enemies.
He brought me out to a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.
Why does David love the LORD his God? Why do we love the LORD our God? Because He is our strength? Because He stands like a rock upon whom we can stand upon, sure and secure? Because He is unassailable and a refuge in all circumstances? Because when David called upon His LORD, He answered and saved him from ALL his enemies.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
because He is delighted in me and I in Him! Do I delight in Christ? Do I keep His ways? Do I follow His commands, His precepts, His love? This is what it means to have clean hands in God’s sight, to be blameless, to be pure. Christ is “a shield for all those who take refuge in Him” (v.30).
Christ had not yet died when David sings this song. Christ had not yet sacrificed Himself to make David clean. How is David blameless? David was not without sin, but he was blameless in his motives (v.23). He attempted to obey and keep all the LORD’s ways, commands, and statutes (v.22). He did not depart from God (v.21). He honored the covenant made with God.
I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am Yahweh your God, who delivered you from the forced labor of the Egyptians.
Provision living in covenant with God is His protection. David calls upon the LORD for protection and expects fulfillment because He loves the LORD shown by what He does and how He does life. All David’s motivation, in His heart, is to walk with God, to love God, to honor God. He delights in God. Do I delight myself in God? Do I delight in Christ?
As a result of David’s love of God, and His ways, he is extended God’s mercy…God rescue’s David from his enemies. David expects God’s mercy because his life is lived with the motivation to follow God and keep his ways, even if he may fail at times. He knows that “God is a God of mercy” (Deut. 4:31).
The definition of mercy is an act of kindness, compassion, and/or favor. It is the word “recham”. The Hebrew idea of “recham” is “a woman’s womb”. Ps. 22:10
I was given over to You at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
“Listen to Me, house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth. I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you.
God sustains Israel, David, you and me, by the favor of a “divine womb”. When God dispenses His mercy, we are protected as a baby is protected in a mother’s womb. We are carried along in God’s mercy, received through belief and following Christ.
Moses and the Exodus -Exodus 34:8-10; 33:19-23
When Moses asks to see God’s glory, God does not deny Moses, but protects Him and extends to Him His mercy. He puts Moses into the cleft of a rock, covers Him with His hand, and then passes by allowing Moses to see his back (Ex 33:20-23). God shields Moses from His glory, bestowing His mercy upon Him, a protective womb - the cleft of the rock. Even though no man can survive seeing the glory of God, face to face, Moses is protected and allowed to see the back of God.
Following God’s instruction to lead the people to the promised land, Moses asks God to go with them personally. He does so because the people have a habit of wanting to go their own way, do their own thing. Amen. We would not know anything about that right?
Moses conqures with God that the Israelites are a stiff-necked people, so I need you to go with us, personally. Moses is saying essentially, “I cannot do this nor lead these people without you” (Ex. 33:3, 5; 34:9). Moses asks the LORD to have mercy upon them and extend His favor upon them, His protective womb. The LORD agrees to Moses’ relief.
Then he said, “My Lord, if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, my Lord, please go with us. Even though this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wrongdoing and sin, and accept us as Your own possession.”
And the Lord responded: “Look, I am making a covenant. I will perform wonders in the presence of all your people that have never been done in all the earth or in any nation. All the people you live among will see the Lord’s work, for what I am doing with you is awe-inspiring.
Just as God provided Himself as Israel’s protective womb, and still does today, Christ is our protective womb, Jesus extends to us His mercy. He promises to sustain us by His mercy. Mt 9:36
When He saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd.
The word compassion in the NT is same idea as recham “mercy” in the OT. When Jesus loves us He extends his grace and mercy to us. When we are living a life of obedience to Christ, we can expect His mercy in our circumstances.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
Paul affirms this truth of God, being Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
For He tells Moses: I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth,
Are we living so as to be protected by God’s protective womb in Christ? When we choose to intentionally live our own way, abandoning Christ’s way, we leave that protective womb. But just as when Israel turned back to God, when we repent, confess our sin, our wrong, and come back to following Christ, we once again come under the protection of God’s mercy, His protective womb.
The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
God delievers when we delight in Him. God delievers when we repent and confess our sin to Him. God will protect you as you walk through difficult times, to become who He wants you to become. God uses difficulty to prepare His servants for His work. Joseph 13 years, Moses 40 yrs, Joshua 40 yrs, David 10 yrs.
Do you delight in Christ? God will deliver you because He delights in you, delighting in Christ. Amen.
