Our Strength & Our Song
[Read Psalm 118:14-21]
You hear me talk regularly about the importance of reading your Bibles regularly because it’s such an important part of living the Christian life. It is such a practical step in faithfully fulfilling our calling as Christians AND being guided by our God through the good times and the bad. When we regularly read our Bibles, God’s Word becomes part of our lives. We begin to talk differently. Think differently.
This became very relevant to me as I sat in the ER, waiting to be intubated, wondering how things would turn out. I was fully aware that those being intubated had a 50/50 chance of survival. So, what goes through your mind in a moment like that? In those moments, scripture immediately came to mind and I meditated on it until I was put to sleep.
This is the passage that the Lord put on my mind: “For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.” (Philippians 1:19–26, ESV).
Now, I don’t typically like to share things like this because I don’t want to come across as bragging about my faith or anything like that. That’s not what I’m trying to do. The Lord’s the one who put this passage in my mind and caused me to meditate upon it. The Lord is also the one who gave me this unbelievable sense of peace going into this situation. Although I accepted the fact that I might not make it through this, I also had an overwhelming sense that I would “remain and continue with you all” because the Lord still had work for me to do.
Here’s why I’m bringing this up. Our passage this morning is filled with two things: Praise and Salvation. Repeatedly the Psalmist is talking about the ways God has saved him, then crying out in praise to God about that salvation. In connection with this theme, John Calvin says, “God does not prolong the lives of his people that they may pamper themselves with meat and drink, sleep as much as they please, and enjoy every temporal blessing, but to magnify him for his benefits which he is heaping upon them” (385). God doesn’t save his people so that we could sit back living comfy cozy comfortable lives. God saves his people so that they would continue to fulfill the work he has given them. God saves his people so that they would live righteous lives and continually proclaim his praises to the world around them.
Here’s what they cry: “The right hand of the LORD does valiantly, the right hand of the LORD exalts, the right hand of the LORD does valiantly!” (Psalm 118:15–16, ESV). You see, the right hand of the Lord is the hand of power that protects His people. It’s the hand that delivers his people from trials. It’s the hand that gives them strength in weakness. It’s the hand that holds them and gives them peace. But, it’s a powerful hand. It’s valiant. And because the hand is valiant—is powerful to save—it brings exultation to God. When the right hand of the Lord acts to save his people, they know that it was God’s hand that did the saving—nothing else could have done it—so they exult God for his power and his strength. It was the valiant right hand of God that delivered us from sin and death so that we could live the life he has called us to live. It was the valiant right hand of God that has delivered you from every trial and temptation. So we continually open our mouths in praise to God AND to the people around us.
And this doesn’t happen every once and a while. This praise must be a regular part of our life. Listen to the way this passage starts: “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” (Psalm 118:14, ESV). The Lord IS my strength. The Lord IS my song. The Lord IS my salvation. To make this easier to understand, we can insert a tiny phrase. We could say the Lord is the source of my strength, the source of my song, the source of my salvation. And these things continue to flow from the source like an overflowing fountain. Strength and salvation continue to flow from God to us, which should result in righteous living and songs flowing from our lips.
Look at the next passage: “Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous…” (Psalm 118:15, ESV). Notice the connection between songs of joy and righteous living. We could contemporize this to say, “Glad songs of salvation are in the homes of his people who are seeking to live righteous lives.” This means that righteous living isn’t marked by a dour, sour face, but is actually marked by a joyful song on our lips. It says our homes should be filled with righteousness and glad songs of God’s salvation—joy overflowing from our lips.
Remember, this is why God saved us in the first place. Not that we would sit around quietly and comfortably in our homes. He saved us so that we would live righteous lives and shout his praises to the world around us. And why wouldn’t we? We have this amazing and powerful and loving God who continually saves us from our stupidity. Why wouldn’t we seek to live righteously? Why wouldn’t we take every opportunity to praise him? Why wouldn’t we continually have songs upon our lips and joy in our hearts as we seek to follow him? Why wouldn’t we regularly tell stories about how the Lord has delivered us from trial and temptation—how he’s helped us live a righteous life?
The Psalmist goes on to say: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD. The LORD has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.” (Psalm 118:17–18, ESV). This almost seems like it comes out of nowhere. One moment he’s talking about the Lord saving him, the next he’s talking about the Lord disciplining him. Not just disciplining him a little bit, but severely disciplining him to the point he wondered whether he would die. Yet, he also knew the Lord wouldn’t give him over to death in his discipline—the discipline wouldn’t kill him. He would live and continue to praise the deeds of the Lord. As counter-cultural as this may seem, the Psalmist is praising God for severely disciplining him.
Now, if that doesn’t make sense, we need to remember why the Lord disciplines his children. We read this in Hebrews, “God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:7–11, ESV). So, why does God discipline us? He disciplines us for our good so that we would share in his holiness and righteousness. God’s discipline is designed to yield righteous lives. And to connect that to the rest of the passage, righteous lives are lives of joy, overflowing with praise to God. That’s why the Psalmist praises God for severely disciplining him. He knows the discipline is for his own good. He knows the discipline is designed to bring him joy through righteous living. He knows the discipline is designed to lead him to praise his God, so he praises God.
Not only does he praise God, but he runs to the temple and praises God. We read, “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.” (Psalm 118:19, ESV). This is a command. He’s at the temple and tells them to open the gates so he can enter into God’s presence to give him thanks for everything he’s done—the salvation by his mighty hand AND the severe discipline. He wants to thank God in person. That’s what the temple represented—the presence of God. When you entered the temple—especially the holy of holies—you were entering the presence of God. So, the Psalmist wants to praise God, in his presence, for everything he’s done.
Yet, there’s more at the temple than just “me & God.” At the temple, God’s people gathered together in the presence of God. It was corporate worship. So, when the Psalmist runs to the temple to praise God, he not only wants to praise God face to face, but he also wants to do that with God’s people. He wants to praise God for his goodness and mercy—for the deeds he has done—right along with everyone else who is praising God for what he has done. There’s a community aspect to his praise.
This is something we need to be reminded of regularly. We don’t live in a society or culture that values community. We’ve become very individualistic. As a result, our faith and our worship has become very individualistic. Many people don’t feel the need to worship God with his people—to gather together on Sunday mornings. I hear numerous people say, “I can worship God just as well by myself in the woods as I can in church on a Sunday morning. I may be able to worship God better by myself, without all those other people around.” That’s such an unbiblical way of thinking. Our faith was never meant to be about “just me and Jesus.” There’s a community aspect to it. We’re called to worship God as the Body of Christ—to proclaim his praises as the Body of Christ. It’s not enough for you to worship Jesus by yourself in the woods. You need to join with the praises of God’s people. You need to hear how God is working in the lives of His people and praise God for the work he is doing in other people’s lives.
And besides that, something detrimental happens when we begin to neglect public worship with God’s people. Charles Spurgeon says it best: “Those who neglect public worship generally neglect all worship; those who praise God within their own gates are among the readiest to praise him within his temple gates” (109). That’s a powerful statement that I’ve watched repeatedly throughout my life. Those who say, “I can worship God just as well in the woods by myself” don’t actually end up worshiping God in the woods by themselves. But those who are actually worshiping God by themselves in the woods are the ones who are most excited to gather with God’s people on Sunday morning and worship God as a community. The moment we begin to neglect gathering with God’s people on Sunday morning is the moment we begin neglecting all worship.
And, as we continue in this season of Advent, we’re reminded that there is no worship apart from Jesus Christ. If Jesus hadn’t been born, hadn’t taken on flesh and dwelt among us, there could be no worship of God because we would still be living in sin, separated from God. Yet, because of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, we can be made right with God by faith. When we look to Jesus Christ in faith, our sins are forgiven and we are counted as righteous. That’s why we can enter into the presence of God as a people. That’s why we can enter into God’s presence, thanking Him and praising him for everything he has done—for saving us from our sins and delivering us from trials and temptations.
But don’t forget WHY God delivers us from our sin and disciplines us. He saved us so that we would joyfully live righteous and holy lives. He disciplines us so that we would joyfully live righteous and holy lives. He does all of this for our joy. And he does all of this so that he would be our song—that our lips would continually overflow with thanks and praise for who God is and what he has done.