Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

How Are You Doing?Have you ever noticed how hard it is to answer that common question we get so often, “Hey, how are you doing?”

It always feels like trying to fit a gallon of experience into a little sippy cup worth of time.

How do I even put what I have experienced and how I feel about it into a few words?How much more is this true for David in this psalm?! We may pass David and politely ask, “How are you doing, David?”

What he says will stop us in our tracks.

The introduction tells us briefly about what he has been through and the rest of the psalm represents his response.

This is only one of 14 psalms that have a historical setting identified within the life of David.

“OF DAVID, WHEN HE CHANGED HIS BEHAVIOR BEFORE ABIMELECH, SO THAT HE DROVE HIM OUT, AND HE WENT AWAY.”

It comes from .

Just when you think David’s situation can’t get any worse, it does.

It seems to go perpetually from bad to worse.

David was anointed as king in .

In , he kills the Philistine giant, Goliath.

In , Saul (whom God had rejected as king) tried to pin David to the wall with his spear.

David is on the run and he came to the priest in chapter 21, and the priest gave him the only bread he had (the bread of the presence) and the only sword he had (the sword of Goliath, whom David had killed back in chapter 17).

In the next verse (), he fled to Gath, which was a major city of the Philistines.

To make matters worse, this was the hometown of Goliath, the giant David had killed earlier.

David had publicly executed Goliath with his own sword (cut off his head).

One commentator said rightly, it was ultimate humiliation for a warrior to be executed in public with his own weapon.

They obviously recognized him right away and brought him to the king of the Philistines.

Do you see the picture?

David was on the run from Israel’s false king and ended up seeking refuge with an enemy king—the king of the Philistines.

He’s between a rock and a hard place.

David pretended to be insane.

He scratched the doorpost and let his saliva run down his beard.

Abimelech (which means “my father is king”—probably a title for the king among the Philistines, like “Pharaoh” is for the Egyptians), named Aschich, fell for it.

“Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence?”

().

So instead of being killed, he was kicked out of the city.

If I had asked somebody how they were doing and then I heard that story, I would just sit there staring with my mouth hanging open—you know—like the cartoons where the character’s mouth drops to the floor.

I am sure if I asked you how you are doing today, you may not have a story quite to that degree, but I am sure there are many here who can relate to certain aspects of it—betrayal, feeling vulnerable, feeling like everyone is against you, feeling like you have no where to turn.

You may not be in physical danger from two sworn enemies and have to pretend that you are crazy just to stay alive so that you can hide in the wilderness, but you feel overwhelmed and unsupported all the same.

This psalm has something for everyone that lives in a fallen world.

This is a fallen world, so there is ugliness; but this is also my Father’s world, so there is beauty.

“In the rustling grass, I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere” (Babcock).

In particular, there is poetic beauty.

David penned a poem here that is an acrostic—22 lines in the poem, each line starting with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet in an orderly, structured way.

There is a deeper pattern here in the Psalms that we have seen—a creation psalm followed by an acrostic psalm.

We saw it with (creation), then (acrostic poem).

We saw it again with (creation), then (acrostic poem).

Now we see it again with (creation), then .

David creates poetic structures that will allow the emotional depths of his experience to flow straight and true as praise.

He will bless the Lord at all times.

God delivered David and now David wants you to praise God with him and trust God when you are in similar circumstances for a similar deliverance.

He asks us to look, taste, see, enjoy, fear, and trust God for ourselves.

Main Point: Taste the goodness of taking refuge in God.

Outline

The Testimony (vv.

1–10)

The Teaching (vv.

11–22)

Many commentators break the psalm into either two or three sections.

In the end, I agree with those who say that the two-fold structure of the psalm best captures the flow of the psalm because verses 1–3 fit so closely with verses 4–10.

The testimony in verses 4–7 begins (vv.

1–3) and ends (vv.

8–10) with an invitation to join in.

David is inviting others to boast in the Lord with him and his testimony is designed to back up his boasting and bolster the invitation further in order to push the hearers to become tasters.

1.

The Testimony (vv.

1–10)

I will bless the LORD at all times;

     his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the LORD;

     let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, magnify the LORD with me,

     and let us exalt his name together!—

The terms David uses here are all so powerful and descriptive: “bless” (v.

1), “praise” (v.

1), “boast” (v. 2), “magnify” (v.

3), “exalt” (v.

3).

We could devote a sermon to each word!

I will try to cover these five words in five minutes.

First, the word “praise” is perhaps the most familiar to us.

In one sense, to praise God means to proclaim what is praiseworthy about God.

Your heart is gripped with awe and it sings with delight in what is praiseworthy about God.

Thus the lips declare what the heart delights in.

All praise will have the savor of enjoyment and delight.

Second, the last term, “exalt,” is also familiar to us.

It means to “lift something” or “elevate something.”

We want God’s name to be lifted up.

We want it to be so high, so elevated that it soars high above every other name.

It is the same as praying, “Hallowed be your name”—may it be regarded as high, holy, transcendent, separated supremely above all others.

Third, we all know the word “boast” as well.

To boast is to take pride in something, to brag about it.

We take pride in God.

This is the humblest, most fitting thing we can do.

Pride is pre-occupation with self (and it is empty), and thus humility looks away from self so that faith can come into full flower, which is preoccupation with God in Christ.

Therefore, it takes humility to make a boast in the Lord because it means you are preoccupied not with yourself but with God and his greatness.

Thus, it also takes humility to hear and receive and join a boast in the Lord.

We all know what it means to brag.

We tend to look down on people who brag about themselves.

It is a little more socially acceptable to brag on other people, especially sports teams.

When our team wins, we wear our jerseys or we brag to others—“How many championships has your team won?

We can boast in a big number of victories or championships.”

It is a little harder to do with the Vikings, but maybe we can say to other fans, “Our stadium is bigger than your stadium.”

Fourth, the first term in verse 1 is actually the hardest for many people.

We know that God can give us a blessing, but can we “bless” God? Can humans really add blessing to the God who is already blessed forever?

We don’t add blessing to God because he lacks blessing or needs us to give it, but because he is worthy of it and we need to give it in order to enjoy Him fully.

Fifth, the last term to talk about is “magnify.”

Magnify means to bring who God is into focus so that he is rightly seen and savored.

Pastor John has often explained “magnify” in terms of the difference between a microscope and a telescope.

I don’t think I can improve on that distinction.

We don’t make God appear bigger (like a microscope), we bring God into focus so that he looks more like he really is (like a telescope).

We don’t take something small and make it deceptively bigger to study it more; we take something that appears deceptively small and bring it into focus so it looks more like it really is (“I Will Magnify God with Thanksgiving!” preached November 23, 1980).

These three verses picture God as the center of the psalmist’s unbroken praise.