The wall between spiritual success and failure is made of paper.

Psalm 18

July 18, 2010

A personal testimony

The Guatemala mission trip is filled with answers to prayer and reasons for praise.  It was, by every measure, a success.  It represents broader success at Corinth.

By God’s grace, my 17 years here have been successful in many ways. Corinth is by no means a megachurch, but it is the second largest church in the UCC’s Southern Conference by membership and attendance, and has the largest Sunday School and the highest annual budget, according to the most recent UCC yearbook.  Most churches in our conference have declined dramatically during the same time ours has grown. But we’ve done well, and God has been my helper.

We have handled conflict well, and weathered storms from without.  God has given me wisdom to lead in these perilous times. I feel humbled by the consistently good feedback on my ministry.  I’m certainly a good organizer, and people do appreciate my pastoral care.  My staff is loyal and hard-working.  I have even had some really nice compliments on my preaching recently from people whose opinions I respect.  I’ve been faithful to the Lord and to my family, and God has been faithful to me. 

In a nutshell, God has blessed you because God has blessed me.  God has blessed me because I’ve been good.  I love the Lord for giving me a great life and ministry.

I hope what I just said was uncomfortable to hear.  It was uncomfortable to say (and I didn’t mean it!).  But doesn’t it sound a lot like Psalm 18?

I love you, God

This summer, we’ve been looking at the life of Israel’s greatest king, David, who lived about 1000 years before Christ.  Rather than looking at his story from the history section of the Bible, however, we have been reading David’s poetry – particularly those Psalms that include an inscription (title) that can connect the Psalm to a specific event or time period in David’s life.

The title of Psalm 18 says that David “sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.”  It is a Psalm of Thanksgiving for God’s blessing – for David’s success in battle.

“I love you, O LORD, my strength,” David begins in verse 1.  “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge” (2).  David had been the Osama Bin Laden of his day – a marked man, able to avoid capture only because his shelter was in mountains and caves.  This concept of God as rock and refuge was very personal and real for David.

Psalm 18 is a long psalm, and it ends (vv. 50-51),    

Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD;

I will sing praise to your name. 

He gives his king great victories;

he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed,

to David and his descendants forever.

This is an astounding, resounding, abounding poem of thankfulness and worship.

But something about Psalm 18 troubles me.  From my perspective, it would be easy to preach on the beginning or the end of the psalm, making the sermon about giving credit to the Lord for all his blessings.  I chose instead to read and preach on the part of the text that raises some questions for me.

Pastor Paul Cummings said this week this is an odd Psalm to follow Psalm 51.  Last week we talked about David’s sins of adultery and murder (plus other related sins) – and his confession.  Here in vv. 23-24 David says, “I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.  The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.”  Really, David? 

Then there’s the section we didn’t read (vv. 37-42) where David glories in the triumphs over his enemies.  “They cried for help, but nobody helped.  I beat them into dust and poured them out like mud” (vv. 41-42, paraphrase).  Does God approve of this macho gloating just because the psalm begins, “I love you, Lord” and ends, “I praise you for your kindness?”

When the pen

There are two main possibilities of when David wrote Psalm 18.  Let’s review David’s life, in six chapters (each probably 10-15 years, for a total of 70-75 years) –

·         Chapter 1: Shepherd Boy

·         Chapter 2: Court Musician and Army Warrior

·         Chapter 3: On the Run

·         Chapter 4: The Kingdom At Last

·         Chapter 5: Expansion

·         Chapter 6: Succession Planning

David may have written Psalm 18 during Chapter 6, toward the end of his life.  In support of this theory is that this same Psalm, with very minor differences, is recorded in 2 Samuel 22, which is at the very end of David’s story.  If David wrote the psalm at the end of his life, it was after his great sin, and after the great rift in his family. 

In that case, maybe David had come to grasp grace.  Maybe he had truly internalized what he wrote in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”  Perhaps David was so convinced that God had forgiven and forgotten his sins that he himself no longer considered them part of his record.  Still, we kind of wish he had said something more along the lines of, “You have forgiven all my sins” instead of “I have kept myself from sin.”

I prefer another theory about this psalm.  The end of 2 Samuel reads like an appendix to David’s life – not necessarily in chronological order.  It seems to me the writer of 2 Samuel thought this psalm was such a complete summary of David’s life, he included it at the end as a poetic conclusion to the biography.

But since the title says David wrote it “when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul,” (emphasis added) I think David wrote this psalm during Chapter 4 or maybe Chapter 5 of his life.  It reads to me like a song you would write when you’re at the height of your success.  To me, Psalm 18 reads like a psalm a king might write just before he commits adultery with a woman who takes baths in front of the palace balcony, before he tries to cover up through murder and denial.

That’s not to say I question David’s sincerity in writing the psalm.  It is an amazing expression of heart-felt thanks to God for his blessing during David’s rise to power – a rise that could not have happened without God’s help.  David was not just a lucky survivor.  God orchestrated the circumstances that gave rise to David’s reign.  He had many a harrowing escape on the fields of battle.  His conflicts could have gone either way.  But God chose him, God rescued him, God blessed him.

David was right to give credit where credit was due.  But David also illustrated the paradox of success.  By success in this case I mean spiritual success – answered prayer, effective ministry, transformed lives, results for the kingdom.

The paradoxes

David’s psalm has led me to reflect this week on more than one paradox of success.

First, success requires doing some things right…but not everything (20-24).

In my line of work, what I do is often compared to the most “successful” churches.  Some of you know those churches’ names: Willow Creek, Saddleback, North Pointe.  Their preachers are dynamic, their web sites are creative, their numbers are mind-boggling.  They are the Google, the New York Yankees, the Wal Mart, of churches.  You may be doing good things, but you’re not playing in their league.

What do we say about successful people or ventures?  “They must be doing something right.”  That’s true.  But I’ve noticed over time that those “successful” churches will often come back years into their growth and say, “We made some mistakes.  Ummmm….sorry if we led you astray while we were growing.”

When David says of himself, “The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness” (20) on one level, he is right.  He has risen to the kingdom because of “the cleanness of (his) hands” (20).  He has not “done evil by turning away from (his) God” (21) as Saul had done. 

He’s not saying he is perfect.  When he says in verse 22 that he has kept God’s laws and decrees – some of those are about offerings you make when you sin.

When he says in verse 23 that he has been “blameless,” he’s saying what 1 John 3:6 is talking about – that you don’t keep on sinning when you know the Lord.  But that doesn’t negate 1 John 1:8 – that no one is without sin.

David sees his success as a result of his “righteousness” (24).  But here is the paradox.  At the very moment you are most successful, you are most vulnerable to failure.  David apparently wrote this shortly before a huge moral failure.

Second, Success is never a solo achievement, but sometimes it feels like it (25-29). 

I love vv. 25-26.  “To the faithful you show yourself faithful…but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.”  The word “shrewd” literally means “twisted” – as in the body contortions of a wrestler.  If your heart is good, God will be good to you.  If you want to be conniving, manipulative – well, God can do that too. 

I understand the push back.  Then why do bad things happen to good people?  Why do good things happen to bad people?  The Bible deals with that struggle elsewhere.  What David is stating here is that you reap what you sow, and God is behind it.

The purpose of that statement, from where David sits, is humility.  And that’s where he goes in verse 27 – “You save the humble.”  I don’t want to jump on David and pronounce him arrogant – ready for the fall that we know came soon for him.

At this point in his life he’s trying to be humble by saying that God has done this for him.  He didn’t do it for himself.  But as C. S. Lewis pointed out in the Screwtape Letters, even humility can become pride if you’re proud of your humility.

So the paradox of spiritual success is illustrated by verse 29.  We start out, “God, I can’t do anything.”  Then it’s “with my God I can scale a wall.”  Then it’s “I can scale a wall (with God’s help).  Not long after it’s just “I am a wall-scaler.” 

That’s the paradox of success.  The more God helps us the less we think we need him.  The more he answers prayer the less we feel the need to pray.  The wall between spiritual success and failure is made of paper.

Your Private World

Only God’s way is perfect, David concludes in this section – only his word is flawless (30).  He desperately wants his life’s epitaph to be one of taking refuge in the Lord.

But David’s life was about to take a nasty turn.  The same thing happened about 25 years ago to a man named Gordon MacDonald.

When I was in college and seminary, Gordon MacDonald was a high-profile pastor of a large congregation in Lexington, Massachusetts.  He was a widely read author of several articles and books, including one called Magnificent Marriage.  His breakthrough book, however – the one I bought and read – was a book called Ordering Your Private World, published in 1985.

The book starts out talking about sinkholes – those hidden underground caverns like the one Hickory became famous for in 2005 when it swallowed a Corvette in front of a popular and attractive restaurant on Highway 70.

Gordon MacDonald said many people are like that. They have public worlds they manage well to keep up appearances.  But their private worlds are empty and neglected, full of disorderliness and weakness. It’s a terrific book.  MacDonald, in fact, updated and republished it in 2007. 

But if you know his story, you know that in 1987 MacDonald resigned his church and admitted to an extramarital affair.  Apparently his private world was in chaos while he was writing a book about keep your private world in order. 

In the two-decades-plus since, Gordon MacDonald (and his wife) have shown remarkable resilience in marriage and ministry – though not without critics.  He is once again successful – widely respected and read – and I do not wish to disparage him.  I have to confess I have not been picked up his books or read his writings a lot since his fall.  Others have been able to give him a lot more grace than I have.  Perhaps it was because that time of my life was so impressionable, and he was such a disappointment.

What I do want to say is that he illustrates well the paradox of success.  When you think you most have it together, you might not.  Gordon MacDonald didn’t.  And neither did David.

So what do we take home today?

(1)   It’s not for me to judge another’s handling of success.  Give the benefit of the doubt to those who share their triumphs and let God deal with their hearts.

(2)   My own success is always perilous.  It’s like raising your hands to praise God at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

(3)   The right response to success is still to turn it into worship.  That is David’s legacy from this psalm.

Amen.