The Cave of Adullam | Psalm 57

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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:01

So,

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

It's gonna be here with you all on this Family Sunday. Let me just break the ice for us. The reality is we've got a lot of kids in the room. And so in the first service, I had one child sitting right here, my own, that acted as if this was the first time she's ever stepped into civilization. And I thought I was gonna have to call security. So, Hey, if you feel like your kid is being a distraction, you're in very good company this morning. We have a family room outside and a great foyer, but I will tell you that I'm gonna keep preaching regardless. You're not gonna distract me from what I'm saying, so you are in a very good and safe place this morning. So we're coming off of the heels of cross-training. And so all across this campus, This past week, we had 535 participants in cross-training, and we also had over 300 volunteers. The Lord did amazing work in our children's ministry, just crushed it and coordinating all of it. I asked them if there was any way that I could volunteer to help with a skill and they had determined that your kids would actually be better off if I didn't teach them a skill, but jokes on them. I did sneak in and help out with fishing just a little bit, but just so thankful to get to participate in a lifeblood of this great congregation. Ladies and gentlemen, If you had attended cross-training in any way, whether that was in volunteering or as a participant, I'm gonna need your help with something, okay? A little bit later on, so you be ready and I'll cue you in for that moment. And I hope the rest of you also came ready because this morning we're gonna do a little bit of cave diving. I hope you're prepared for that. Before you hit the eject button, I don't mean literally, I mean metaphorically. There are a couple of different ways to view caves metaphorically. The first way is that we view caves as something that represents limited perception of reality. A narrow mindset and perspective. We see this in Plato's cave allegory where there are people chained up on the inside wall of a cave and all they can see is the shadows on the wall from the fire that was outside of the cave. And they had a limited perspective. Cavemen get a bad rap for being uncultured. carry around a big club and hit women over the head with it. That's their version of being romantic. Need some marriage counseling there. A man cave. Wow. What a beautiful place. A place that men can escape reality and to retreat back into adolescence, devoid of responsibility and kids. Limited, limited perspective. Or we could view caves metaphorically the way that St. Francis of Assisi viewed them. The 12th century Italian monk who had devoted his life to living in poverty. He sold all of his possessions and he lived so simply that he actually used caves to escape the perils of his life. To go and to pray in order to gain perspective about life. There was a writer that once wrote after St. Francis of Assisi, he said, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. And I don't know what cave you may be in this morning. It may be relationally. It may be physically. It may be emotionally. It could be professionally or perhaps even financially. You feel the darkness creeping in over you and the walls are starting to close in. But there is beauty. There is a treasure to be found in that cave. And my hope is that we will walk away with an enlightened perspective on where we are currently at. We're gonna be in 1 Samuel 22, and then we're gonna use 1 Samuel 22 to leverage our perspective on Psalm 57. King David is in the cave of Adullam, which is 13 miles west of his hometown of Bethlehem. And to set up 1 Samuel 22 for us just briefly, King David is on the run from Saul. Saul has about 3,000 of his men chasing after and hunting this one person in David. And David is on the run. He ends up at the kingdom of Gath, and he realizes that his life is in peril there in Gath. And he strikes up this plan. I'm gonna act like an idiot. I'm gonna act like a crazy person. And the king of Gath says, listen, I have way too many village idiots in my kingdom right now. I don't need another one. So you need to hightail it on out of here, pal. And he's sent on his way. And that's where we're dumped into 1 Samuel 22, starting in verse one. David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. So we'll pause right there. The political landscape of their day was a little bit more brutal than ours. It wasn't just petty things that we would say to our political opponents. If you had political opponents back in that day, you would go after their family. So their family, David's family had a big target on their back just as much as David's too. And so Saul was after to eliminate anyone who would be a rival to his throne and he is chasing after them. And so they hear about David finding shelter in the cave of Adullam and they go and they meet him there. In verse two, it says, and everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there was with him about 400 men gathered. And they all gather to David. All of these outcasts of society all gather in this beautiful community that is being born in the dark place. And there are three categories of people there that are mentioned. It says, and all those who are in distress. That word literally translates to straightness. Not like a straight line, but as straight as in a narrow opening. The walls felt like they were closing in on these people. They were in a stressful situation. It might be a suffocating marriage or perhaps for you, it could be a suffocating job. You are under stress and so you are escaping. You are trying to get out. You are on the run. Or secondly, all of those that are in debt. The word is also the same word for deception there in the Hebrew language. Anyone who feels as if they owe a debt, either maybe financially or maybe even an emotional debt because they caused harm to a loved one and they cannot forgive themselves. These are people that have harmed other people and have decided to escape and to run away. And finally, the last category there are all of those who are bitter in soul. Some translations say discontent. These folks have been rejected by society. They are jaded. They have been the people that have been hurt themselves and they have a bone to pick. And so they are fleeing and they all gather in this one place together. And David becomes their commander. Recently, I watched a documentary on ESPN called The Cave of Adullam. If many of you, if you've seen it or haven't seen it, you know this is just such a beautiful place. picture of redemption and reconciliation. Jason Smith, who grew up in inner city streets of Detroit, by his own admission should probably be dead or in jail, but he turned his life around and he ends up starting this martial arts studio for inner city boys in Detroit. And these boys who are in distressing situations come to this place to learn the skill and the discipline of martial arts. And all throughout this documentary, there are these slivers, these moments where these little boys, say they're 10 or 11 years old, they are testing to see where they are at in their skill of martial arts. It's a very stressful situation for them. And they begin crying. They just break down. They become a puddle of tears. And Jason doesn't tell them, hey, suck it up. He doesn't tell them, hey, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. Now, granted, there are times in life that we all need a good swift kick in the pants. But Jason has determined that this is not this moment for these little boys. And he gets down on their level. And he asks them, why are you crying? What is going on in your heart? And these boys just spill out this Terrible story about how they couldn't sleep the night before. Maybe they're being picked on at school or whatever it was. And he meets them right there in that place. And he is determined that these boys don't need more discipline. They need more love. And one of Jason's mentors gives him the nickname of Wounded Healer. Jason at one point was wounded, but then he is turning his wounds into healing for other people. And that's what's going on here in this passage. David is on the run just like everyone else and they are coming to David in hopefulness that he will turn everything around for them. And what's important for us and what is so much more significant than David changing these guys' lives around is what David represents. David represents the Christ figure in this story, that one day there will be a king that will come that will sit on David's everlasting throne who would be a wounded healer and would bring healing to everyone who needs it. And we know that as Jesus, Jesus says this to people who are under oppression, not only by their culture, but also just the religious atmosphere of the day. Listen to this. This is what he says in Matthew 11, 28 through 30."'Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus wants us to recognize that he is there in the cave with us as our wounded healer who was wounded and pierced for our transgressions. And he longs to heal us. It is in our woundedness that that the healer begins to piece us back together in the cave. And so I don't know where you're at, whether you would consider yourself to be a Christ follower or maybe you're just checking things out. Maybe you're invited by a friend here and you would not consider yourself to be a Christ follower. There is healing in the cave because Jesus is there and he's been wounded for you. Would you run to your wounded healer? Run to him. The reality is, is that even if we are following Jesus, and many of us that have been walking with Jesus for a long time recognize that actually following Jesus in this world, it may mean things that actually get a lot harder for us in this world. And sometimes life can feel like we are just sprinting from one cave to the next in hopes of escaping the harsh elements of our world and its inhabitants. And so what do we do when we find ourselves in that cave again, no matter what it may be for you, in that dark and scary, mysterious, dangerous place? What do we do? Well, we have the benefit of looking at what was going on in the background of Psalm 57 by looking at 1 Samuel 22. And so we're gonna look at Psalm 57 and David instructs us on what we do when we find ourselves in that place again. I'm gonna read Psalm 57 in its entirety and then we're gonna go back through and make some observations on it. Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me for in you my soul takes refuge and the shadow of your wings I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. Let's read it. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. Verse 2. Verse 3. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. David writes that in the cave. Many people would characterize Psalm 57 as a psalm of lament, but no. I see a lot of praise going on here in Psalm 57. We see here in verse 1. David calls God his refuge. And mind you, consider where David is. At least temporarily, he is out of the sun. He is out of the stress. He is out of people trying to hunt him down. He has sought shelter in this physical cave, maybe a place where it may be somewhat restful. I don't know. But here, he says, God is. is my refuge. No one else, nothing else. It is not a betterment of my circumstances. It transcends all of that. His hope and his faith is not in that things would improve in his life. His hope and his faith is being under the wings of his heavenly father. That God alone is David's refuge here. In verse two, it's important for us to make note of how the psalmists see God. And are there any particular names that they use for God? Because there is a hint there because they want us, they want the readers to see God in this way as well. And David in verse two uses this. Elyon, which means God most high. That God is the God that is most high. And consider his context here. He is around a bunch of people that have polytheistic faiths in their culture. There's a God for this town. There's a God for fertility. There's a God for people that have left hands. There's a God for everything. A bunch of little G gods around. And David says right here, Yahweh is God most high. He is supreme over all other gods. This is my God. God most high. And because he is God most high, in verse three, David says, hey, my help comes from heaven. It says, he will send from heaven and save me. God is not bound by our earthly limitations. He is able to make the rules and uniquely is able to break those rules. I love in the gospels when the picture of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee being in the boat with the disciples in the middle of the storm. He's right there with them in the cave, yet he controls the wind and the waves. He sends from heaven. He is not bound by our circumstances. And that is such good news for so many of us today. He supersedes all of them. He is sovereign over every single bump and bruise that we face. He is king over them. And in the flow of the psalm, Next, David faces the issue at hand here in verse four. He says, my soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts. So he points out the fierceness of what he is facing. And you may feel like you have a toxic work environment, but imagine your boss probably on a Monday saying, throwing a spear at you and narrowly missing you, and you decide, well, I think it's time to clock out. And so David flees King Saul's presence, and then Saul sends out 3,000 bloodthirsty men that are out to destroy the life of one person, David. I mean, can you imagine, like, this literally happened. And I know that sometimes we can just kind of mark it off, like, okay, yeah, that's in a galaxy far, far away. Like, I don't experience that. But this literally happened. A man was on the run, and there were 3,000 other men chasing after him, seeking to destroy him. And that's the perilous situation that David has found himself in. Or it might not have been Saul and his men. We find out in 2 Samuel 23 as it chronicles the end of David's life. And I love that, that at the end of David's life, these 400 men that meet in the cave of Adullam actually become his mighty men of valor. But as they are talking about the stories of the mighty men of valor, there were three of them that broke through the stronghold of David of the Philistines in nearby Bethlehem in order to get David some water, it says in 2 Samuel 23. And so even if it's not Saul and his crew, it's the Philistines probably needing or desiring revenge on David for taking out their champion, Goliath. Everywhere he turns, he is facing death. This unbelievably stressful situation for this one man. And it is in that backdrop that he writes the beauty of verse five. Let's read it. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. It is in the middle of that cave that he says, be exalted, O God. I love what biblical commentator Derek Kidner, he says about verse five. He says, David wonderfully looks up from his own urgent interest to his overriding concern that God should be exalted. That was David's overriding concern. David determined that the fact that God was worthy of worship was a far greater reality than any circumstance that he faced. And he chose to worship God. He said, these are two separate things here. Regardless of what my experiences are here on the earth, I am deciding and choosing to believe that my God is worthy of worship in any cave that I find myself in. I love that David says here, be exalted, O God, above the heavens and let your glory be over all the earth. David didn't know this, but modern day astronomers can look through a Hubble telescope and count how many galaxies there are in these heavens. And they can... look at the scope and count how many galaxies there are and then extrapolate that number across the rest of the known universe. And they have decided on this relatively arbitrary number, but I mean, let's just say it's a lot, a lot, okay? 200 billion galaxies. 200 billion, just for reference, we live in one galaxy, the Milky Way. We live on... One planet in this one galaxy, earth. The creator's glory is far too great for this earth. And may it penetrate the darkness of the caves that we are in right now. May we experience his glory in that dark place. He is maker and creator of them all. In the flow of the Psalm, four really parallels verse six. Number five is really what David is getting at. But here in verse six, he goes back to talking about his issues with these enemies. They set a net for my steps. My soul was bowed down. So he admits right there, like, My soul is bowed down. I'm discouraged. I feel defeated in this moment because of these enemies coming after me. But take heart because in Psalm 145, 14, it says, the Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. It's such a good message for us. Is that in God's economy, the way to up is down. Is us feeling and sensing our smallness that we can sense God's bigness and God is exalted and he exalts us too. The way to down is, or way to up is down. The way to down is up. because God opposes the proud. It is in our humility that we can experience the true joy of knowing who God is in the cave. And because of this, because God is lifting David up, he is lifting his spirits up here in verse seven. He says that my heart is steadfast. My heart is steadfast. God prepares David's heart for his action after that. This act of worship. David teaches us about what it looks like to practice the spiritual discipline of worship. We've talked about that. Destin has explained what spiritual disciplines are. It is that we are creating an arena for the Holy Spirit who is the undefeated champion to step in the ring with Satan and the flesh to do battle against them. Whether it's through prayer or through fasting, scripture reading, whatever that looks like. Or last week we looked at silence and solitude. And this week we're looking at the spiritual discipline of worship and praise. And we have an enemy of worship and praise. And he was kicked out of heaven to begin with because he wanted worship and praise. And so when we gather, especially corporately, when we gather together, if all of us are in tune and focused on the Lord and singing his praises, it hits the enemy right where he is most vulnerable. When you are in your time in the car or at home or wherever you are and you are exalting the Lord, you are doing battle. I love, someone stopped me after the first service. I love what she said. She said, worship is our warship. W-A-R-S-H-I-P. Worship is our warship. Providing that space for the Holy Spirit to do battle with the flesh in our lives. Worship is our warship. And so David continues to teach us about worship here. He says, I will sing and make melody into an artist. His natural response is to make music or to paint or whatever it is that expresses his delight in the Lord. And he says, awake my glory in verse eight. And some translations may say, awake my soul. And for those of us who have been walking with Jesus for a while, maybe the gospel message hits a little bit differently. Maybe our hearts have become stale. We need a spiritual alarm clock. David is basically looking at himself in the mirror or grabbing his face with his hands and he is saying, you need to wake up and smell the beauty of God's roses again. For me, this week, it was a song that I've been looped into my playlist, a song circa 2004 from Third Day's offering CD called May Your Wonders Never Cease. And every time I hear that, it transports me back to a time where life was much simpler and my devotion to the Lord was so strong. And he just reminds me of his beauty that he is the same God now as he was back then. And maybe for some of you, you need to stop and admire a beautiful sunset. Or write down all of the things that went right that day instead of focusing on the things that went wrong. Or maybe you need to make a commitment to be here at these worship services more often. Whatever it is, worship is really delighting in the Lord. Whatever really is a window into your soul and an opportunity for God to be exalted in your life, think about what that alarm clock could be and would you set it today? He goes on, he says, awake my soul. So he's doing some self-talk. And now he says, awake the dawn. Awake, oh harp and lyre. He's going to inanimate objects, the dawn or perhaps these instruments. And he's saying, you wake up too. And I love this because David is doing what God has created humans to do. He's going to God's creation. And he is saying, you worship your creator. That's what all of us have been designed to do as his crown jewel of creation is to lead the rest of creation back in worship to its creator instead of worshiping creation itself, which so many of us are prone to do. Last night, my family and I went next door to our neighbor's house because they're just moving in and they were just throwing this housewarming party. And it's just these people that were just beautiful and so sweet, just had so many people over and just so kind. And they're Hindu. And so there were all of these streamers everywhere. And in the middle of their living room was this altar built to this God. And we walked in and I immediately started praying and also praising Jesus for who he is. Because they were worshiping something that they made, which is oftentimes what we end up doing. But when we go to the Lord and worship him, we have an opportunity to do exactly what we have been designed to do in worshiping the creator himself. And from there, we're seeing verse nine, it kind of parallels verse two, going along the lines of most high God. It says, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations. David is saying, Yahweh, you are not just some local leader God, a God that is just over fertility. I will sing your praises to all people, to all nations, that God is just as much God in a church in Flower Mound, Texas, as he is in a Hindu temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. He rules and reigns over it all. And David is saying, I will express that to all nations and to all people. And now my friends who participated at cross training, this is your shining moment. Please don't let me fall on my face here. At the end of cross training, Every night, there was something that was shouted out by everyone on stage. There was a phrase that we all said together. Sherman Hopes and the rest of the crew up here, they all yelled out, God, and then, wait for it, in just a little bit, I'm gonna say God, and do you remember what was said after that? I'm gonna count to three and I'm gonna say God and then you repeat that word really loud for everyone to hear. One, two, three, God. I don't know what that one was but. God rules. was the battle cry that our friends at Cross Training learned this week. God rules. And when we say that God rules, when we exclaim that with our lives or say it with our words, we are stepping into a song that will be sung for thousands and thousands of generations. And the beauty is, is we don't have to wait for eternity to start singing it. Well, we declare it now. When we declare it now, God rules. David continues to teach us about what worship looks like by looking at God's attributes here in verse 10. It says, for your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. He starts ascribing worth to God's attributes. That's what worship essentially is. It's ascribing worth either by the lives that we live or through the words of our mouth or the praises of our songs here when we gather corporately. Ascribing worth, saying, God, you are worthy. You are worthy. I took a seminary class and the professor said that the central attribute of God is his holiness. And I initially kind of started arguing in my mind. I wasn't gonna argue out loud with him because I know that he was much smarter than me. I wasn't gonna get very far. But the way he framed it is he says, God is other. Everything about God is his otherness, his separateness, his onlyness, his holiness. That who can love like our God? who would take upon sin on himself of his creation, who would pay the ultimate price with his life, who can love like our God, who set the plumb line and shaped and formed the world. There is no one like our God who is as powerful as him. And who is as beautiful as our God? Absolutely no one or nothing. And we would start ascribing that worth to the Lord. And finally, David closes with verse 11. He says, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. Does anybody remember where that's from? It says it prior in verse five. And when we see phrases repeated, especially in wisdom literature, David is trying to get our attention. He is saying, listen, if you were to take away this message, you need to focus on these two things right here. The most central part of my thought here, my argument, is that David, Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth, regardless of our circumstances, especially, especially in adverse circumstances. We are called to exalt God. When life's circumstances make us low, we are called to lift God up on high. And the beauty of the cave, the beauty of the cave is that in our smallness, in that sense of smallness that we get from being in a cave and suffering, we are able to see God's bigness. It creates space in our mind and our heart for God to show us who he really is. And so if you feel as if the darkness is starting to close around you, would you remember John 1, 5? It says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And that light is Jesus Christ being with us in the cave and absolutely no darkness can overcome him.

UNKNOWN: 41:54

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 41:55

And he is right there with us in the cave. Will you go to your wounded healer for healing? Will you acknowledge that God is worthy of exaltation no matter what? And praise him in the cave that you're in. At one point in my life, I found myself in a cave. I had just finished with my undergraduate degree. I knew that I was heading into ministry. And I got out, I think it was May of 2009 when I graduated. Not really the best time to start looking for a job, as many of you can probably remember. And I couldn't find a role in ministry. And it was a really tough time and took a couple of years off, decided, hey, let me go back for my master's degree. So I went back for a master's degree in ministry. I met my wife, Chelsea, there and things are starting to shape up in my life. You know, I got the girl, we're ready to roll, graduate and then no job. My days were filled by myself. in our apartment in downtown Dallas. And I was sulking, I was sending out tailored resumes, I was doing applications, I was doing occasionally some interviews, but really I was brain rotting. Because when I wasn't doing those things, I was just sitting there binge watching TV shows, filling my mind with junk. I was in a cave, I was in darkness, I felt purposeless. My wife was going off to work and I was staying at home by myself, all alone, sulking. And it was in that period over several months that I started to develop unhealthy habits. It seemed like it started taking me further and further away from the Lord. But it was in that time one day that the Lord allowed me to remember that he is worthy of worship regardless of what I was going through. And I remember one day, it was starkly, I was sitting by our bed in our apartment and I just start like, okay, I don't know what else to do right now. There's literally nothing else for me to do but to start praising God. And I just started exclaiming God's glories. And for what's Seemed like probably an hour. I mean, the Lord and the Holy Spirit met me in that place. And I was on a roll for like an hour of just worshiping God. And I finally figured out what peace and joy really was. Separated from my circumstances. They had nothing to do, the peace and joy had nothing to do with my circumstances, but I was experiencing it. In that moment, because I was doing what I had been designed to do all along, our greatest purpose in life is worshiping God, worshiping our creator. Dallas Willard talks about the dynamic of when we worship God. It is really a battle of idolatry. Essentially what happens when we go to God and we just start exclaiming his attributes and we start saying that he is worthy of worship, we take ourselves off of the throne of our life and God has put in his rightful place. And when we step off the throne, the mantle of this false sense of control that all of us have over our life is alleviated from our shoulders and we experience freedom. And that is exactly what God wants us to experience is to exalt him so that we can discover a peace that surpasses all understanding. Let's praise him in the cave. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you that you stepped into the darkest of all places so that we could have life. That your body was broken so that we could be mended back. For anyone that feels like the walls are closing in on them, Lord, that they are in debt, that maybe there's bitterness in their soul, Lord, would you please remind them that their wounded healer is nearby and he longs to bless them with his presence. Remind us that you are worthy of worship and may we determine to worship you regardless, Lord. We pray all of these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.