Glory A God of Dignity and Victory Psalm 3:1-3

Transcription

1 Glory A God of Dignity and Victory Psalm 3:1-3 Everyone hold up your Bible s this morning: o I am a believer in Jesus Christ. o I believe in his written word. o I am what it says I am o I can do what it says I can do o I believe that it speaks life to me o And makes me more than a conqueror o It is the truth that changes me o It is the truth that encourages me o It is the truth that leads me o It is a truth that reminds me o That I belong to God o And he is my God o Therefore, I will never be the same o In Jesus name, Amen This morning I want to continue with our study of the word Glory. We have so far seen that God s wants nothing less than for people to see who he is they see it through how he works in our lives, they see it by how he changes us from the inside out, they see God s glory through his divine interaction with our lives. God will be glorified with or without us. We can either be examples or demonstrations of what God can do, or we can continue to live our lives on our own strength finding no sense of hope or expectation of tomorrow. This m:-orning I want to look at another portion of scripture with the word glory and see how it continues to point to our great and loving God. We find this text written by the pen of David in Psalm 3:1-3. David finds himself fleeing for his life, in fact from his son Absalom who undermined his ruler-ship and ended up ruling in Jerusalem for three years. 1

2 Fleeing for his life is nothing new for David because we know that as he was getting ready to become King, Saul was chasing him trying to kill him. It is one thing to have someone come after you, but when it becomes a family member, nothing can be more excruciating or disappointing than you own blood. It is in this context that David writes this song in Psalm 3:1-3. Will you read it with me: 1 O Lord, I have so many enemies; so many are against me. 2 So many are saying, God will never rescue him! (Interlude) 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high. As we look around this world today we can find ourselves facing so many opposing voices or viewpoints. The world preaches a message to promise something that it can t deliver, the world claims to have the answers yet still remains a mess and hopeless. There is no doubt that there are enemies of our soul that would like nothing less than our destruction to keep us under their control. We have the media, the humanistic ideas, man s intellectualism, many things that come against God s original design, and continued will for our lives. Jesus warned us in his word that we would be persecuted, questioned, under attack just like was when he walked the face of the earth, and therefore it should come a no surprise that today we have enemies. David knew the words of his enemies and records them in other Psalms. Look at what it tells us in Psalm 42:3, 10: 3 Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, Where is this God of yours? 10 Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, Where is this God of yours? 2

3 7 Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, 8 Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him! Psalm 22:7-8 And like David, we all know what the words of our enemies are like. They get us to question and doubt, they get us to buy into their ideas and systems, in hopes that one day we will give up on our God. Anyone here know what I am talking about? But let me also present to you this morning that we have an enemy of our soul who wants to steal, kill and destroy us, taking us down with himself. Satan is alive and well, and though we may not see him in physical form, we smell the foul stench of his lies and hear the empty promises of his deception. Many times Satan uses unsuspecting people who may mean well or who speak out of ignorance, and he speaks through them. Remember what Jesus told Peter refused to accept Jesus prediction about his death? Look at Matthew 16:23: 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God s. Was Peter Satan? No, but there are times when Satan has a way of speaking through people. What does he do? He gets us to question God, and keep a human point of view. Any of us know of anyone like this in our own lives? And if we aren t careful we can end up be the deliverer of a bad message. We live in a time, especially in our area where intellectualism, spiritism, and the pursuit of pleasure is taking our eyes off of God and back on to self-sufficient man. I don t know about you, but I want God s plans for my life, not someone else s ideas of what they should be. I am tired of man s plans that always leave you 3

4 empty, needing more, and beaten up. I want God s plan with God s view point with God s promises. (Amen) After verse two there is a unusual word there in most of our Bibles it either says Selah, or interlude, or break (does everyone see what I am talking about?) You see it through out the book of Psalms and many times is overlooked. The intention of this interlude is for a pause of reflection. We can all agree that verse one and two ring true in our lives (Amen). Now let s stop and think about it. It happens all the time. Some many events and things are said that cause us to believe that our God is abandoned us. So many times we are taunted and ridiculed. It is about time for us to stop feeling victimized, and start believing that God will prove himself and have the final say. Despite what anyone may be telling us today, there will be a day when God will silence their ridicules, it may be today, tomorrow, or it may be at the end of time. The Bible tells us that there will be a day when every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. There will be a time when our God will no longer be ignored but his glory will be seen by all. Thank God David didn t stop at verse two but after a brief pause, that term Selah also can mean a change in volume, a change in temperament, a mezzo forte of a song. It is like verse 1 and 2 are spoken in a normal tone of voice, and then verse three is a voicestrous proclamation But You, O Lord, are a shield around me. You are my glory, and the one who holds my head up high. In the midst of David s circumstances I am sure he felt despair, he was frustrated, confused, yet with a prophetic utterance, he snaps out of his situation and remembers how God has always been there for him in the past. I am sure he recalled the past times when God had delivered him, when God showed himself faithful and powerful enough to get him through every 4

5 circumstance. He remembered God s kept promises and that changed his situation from being a victim to a victor. David states that God was his shield. Two other times in the Old Testament God is described as a shield. God promises Abram in Genesis 15:1: 1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." (NKJ) These words stated right before God affirms to Abram that I will be your God, and you will be my people. Second in Deuteronomy 33:29 God states: 29 How blessed you are, O Israel! Who else is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your protecting shield and your triumphant sword! Let me say this morning and as believers in Jesus Christ, as those who are the recipients of God s agreement through the blood of Christ, we are different from any other religion or people on the face of the earth we belong to God, we are his children, we are blessed because we have a God who is watching over us, making sure that his purposes come about to build a future and hope. No other group of people has that assurance. We have God s protection today. As a shield we are not talking about just a flat piece of metal that only protects on side, but one that encompasses every part of us and covers us up. While the world is telling us to give up on our God, God is telling us to find refuge in him. While the world is calling us crazy for believing in a so called fairy tale, God is calling us to allow him to prove himself in our lives so that others will see, and so that we can find dignity (glory) in our faith. The term glory is a Greek word that means dignity, abundance, and riches. 5

6 While the world is putting us down, God is raising us up and making a distinction between those who believe and those who don t. Those who believe can hold their head up high with dignity, not fearing that they will be proved wrong, but celebrating that God will be proved right. God is our great wealth and therefore we have nothing to put our heads down about when it comes to our faith. We have nothing to apologize for when it comes to our God. That is why Paul writes in Romans 1:16: 16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes the Jew first and also the Gentile. It is time for us to allow God to lift up our heads, to no longer apologize for the gospel, or question God, or think he has forgotten about us, but instead to allow our lifted heads to give us a new perspective hope, confidence, dignity and faith. Church we are going to have our times when we allow the opinions of the world, or the values of the world creep into our lives and get us to buy into a perspective of life that merely reacts and is motivated by what we can see with our own human eyes. But just because we can t see anything, or hear anything, doesn t mean that God has given up his promises, or that he is not working somewhere right now. God owns and protects his will, nothing will stop him from keeping his promises. We need to be people who will feed ourselves God s promises and not the worlds excuses. We need a vision outside of our circumstances. We need to be led by the light of the world. Isaiah 60:19 tells us: 19 No longer will you need the sun to shine by day, nor the moon to give its light by night, for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. 6

7 Feed your faith with the truth of God s word and his promises instead of the empty words of this world. Be guided by your everlasting light and let God s glory his dignity, and wealth of his great grace, keep bringing you back to your God calling out for his defense and covering. No matter when I hear God, you want to speak to me. Amen! 7