Psalm 132 • The God Who Covenants

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 Let me ask that you would look in your bibles, then, at Psalm 132, Psalm 132.
We don't know who wrote the hundred and thirty-second Psalm, maybe Solomon.
He uses the words of Psalm 132 when he dedicates the temple that he builds, but maybe he's quoting; maybe he's written it and is reciting it.
We don't know.
Maybe more important than who wrote Psalm 132 is remembering who was topos--, who was supposed to sing it.
We're now in the fifth book of the Psalms, the Psalms divided into five different books, the fifth book collected during the time of Israel's exile.
They are slaves.
They're not singing at the temple anymore.
They are imaging days long ago when the festivals allowed them to ascend the Temple Mount and they would sing of the glories of God from whom they turned.
And in idolatry now they are in Babylon remembering Israel.
But when they remember, they remember a God who is binding Himself to them not on the basis of what they did but on the basis of the mercy in His own heart, a covenant-keeping God who would not turn because they did not meet the conditions.
No.
The conditions of the covenant were the grace of God.
And for that reason, they could still sing.
Let's stand and consider these words of Psalm 132, a Psalm for a distressed people who would remember a divine promise.
"Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, 'I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.'"
We'll stop there for now.
I'll refer to more as we go.
Let's pray to God.
>>> Heavenly Father, even as these people would remember the Mighty One of Jacob, they are remembering promises to forefathers that You had said that You would extend to us, Your grace, not on the basis of what we do but on the basis of a promise to forefathers long ago.
Even as Jacob's ladder was extended from heaven down to him, rather than him somehow building a path to You, You are promising a grace that was resolute, a God who would not turn from His people even when they turned from You.
And, so, they had hope, as do we.
On this day, Father, give us a hope that not only fills us but fountains from us, that we might be a people speaking of the mercy of God because we've known it and because we know others need it too.
Grant the covenant-keeping God's favor upon us this day we pray.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
So, if you're a parent or a grandparent, you know the chant of the child:  "Tell me the story again."
"But you already know it."
"But tell me the story again."
[Laughter]
That chant had different meaning as it was told recently by Juliet Liu Waite, who spoke of her and other children talking to their grandmother in a borrowed attic apartment where seven people lived.
"Tell me the story again."
But said the grandmother in her Vietnamese accent, "You already know it."
"We know, grandmother, but tell us the story again."
And so she did.
"Our family had just finished dinner when a loud explosion blew out the windows of our home.
Explosions were shaking the street.
Our family scrambled outside the house.
Bombs were exploding, taking down shops and houses and people.
We ducked low, making our way from ditch to ditch, trying to get to the airport.
It took all night.
There, a guard met us at the gate.
'Your name is not on the list,' he said.
'Please,' my grandmother begged.
'I worked for you Americans.
They will kill us all here.
Please, take this and let us in.'
And she shoved into the guard's hand a small package of gold jewelry."
He took it all and let them in.
They waited with thousands of other Vietnamese on that April night in 1975 that we here still call the Fall of Saigon.
As they stood waiting empty-handed because they were printed--, permitted to take nothing, they had no idea of what was to come.
They had nothing to show for their lives, no awareness of what the future might be.
In the chaos and panic of the airport, the family was divided by guards who wanted to fill the departing helicopters to capacity.
The father of the family said to his children and to his parents, "Get on that helicopter."
And then in the crush of the crowd, they were separated, and the family remaining did not know what had happened.
They presumed that a helicopter that immediately left and lurched into the darkness held their family.
And for that, they were thankful, until the sky exploded in light and the helicopter was struck by a missile.
The father who had just put his parents, he thought, and his children on that helicopter looked at the ground and said, "That should have been me."
If you can just capture a sense of the horror and the desperation of that moment, then perhaps you can sense why we have Psalm 132 in the Bible.
Not just for that time in 1975:  for today, too.
Most of us will not recognize it in our comfort and given the nature of our country and our politics that this is International Refugee Sunday.
On this day in our world, there are 65 million refugees:  people displaced from their home by war, by conflict, by militancy, by civil war, by famine.
It is the largest number of displaced people that we know of in the history of the world.
And it's happening right now in our time.
And if there is ever a heart of people who should yearn to say, "How can we help?
How can we be a part?
How can we think about sharing the Lord with people?"
It ought to be us, because hundreds of thousands of those who are refugees now, particularly in the Middle East or from the Middle East, are our own brothers and sisters in Christ.
Does the Word of God have anything for those people, for we people, on such a day?
Psalm 132 is the Word.
This is a psalm written for the people of God as they were refugees, exiles, slaves, in Babylon, removed from their country, moved from their possessions.
And now just remembering what it was like to go to those festivals in Jerusalem so long ago where they would sing these songs of ascent, marching up the mountain of Zion ready to go to the temple of God and sing the wonderful praises.
They would sing these songs of ascent as pilgrims marching up the road together.
But now they are slaves, remembering.
And all that they have left to give them hope, to give them breath for another day moving forward, is a passion for God.
They have nothing else.
All they have is a passion for God, and what feeds that passion is a deep reminder of His covenant, which is His passion for them.
God's passion for His people becomes hope.
It becomes life's very breath.
And it's all echoed here.
What would that passion for God look like?
What would it sound like?
It would first simply be a faithful memory.
The opening words of the psalm, "Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured."
Such an interesting place to start.
That the people are actually asking God to remember His own work.
God, remember David?
Remember his hardships?
He was the king that You anointed.
But in his anointing, he had to be removed from his own family.
And the king became his foster father.
But, ultimately, that foster father abused him and sought his own life.
And David goes into the desert fleeing from Saul, fleeing the Philistines.
He knows hardship and heartache.
God, remember David.
But not just his hardship:  Remember his heart.
For when he became king, verse 2, "He swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, 'I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.'"
Do you remember what happened?
David ultimately became the king and then had this storm of conscience:  I'm living in a palace, but my God who has delivered me is still living in a tent."
The tabernacle is the only thing that the people of God had to worship Him.
It was glorious.
It was wonderful.
But it was not reflective of the glory that God Himself should have had.
And, so, David vowed a vow:  "I'm not even going to sleep; I'm not going to rest until God has a resting place."
But then God said to David, "David, you have made your way by war, but My house is the place where people will find peace between themselves and their God.
You shall not build My temple but your son, because we need a man of peace to build a place of peace."
And, yet, and, yet, David, knowing that he would not be the primary beneficiary of the building of that temple, gave himself to it.
We read there in Chronicles how he began to devote what would in today's terms be millions and millions of dollars to collect iron for nails; stones were hewn and shaped for the building of the future temple.
He collected richers--.
He bought property so that the temple could have a place on the Temple Mount, all so that he was preparing for what he himself would not enjoy for the sake of the glory of God and the goodness of future people.
It's what some of you have done.
The very place that we worship is itself a mark of those who are giving of themselves, some of you, still, by estate planning, by giving for the sake of others, are providing, you know, for what you yourself will not experience many more years but for generations to come:  for your children and grandchildren and for the people of God we don't even know, that they would be here, is a mark of great heart that God's people would prepare for future peoples.
But even as these people are singing and saying, "God, remember the hardships of David; remember the heart of David," it is a statement of remarkable humility, because even as they are singing to God and imagining what they will say when they return to the land and sing the psalm of ascent, they're not saying, "God, remember me; God, remember my hardship; remember my toil; remember my righteousness; remember, we were slaves for You."
No, God, remember Your covenant with David.
Remember You made a way for us.
Remember Your promise was to David, and David failed terribly, but You swore an oath to him.
God, remember Your own work.
It's the gospel again in the scriptures if we learn how to look for it.
That never do God's people approach Him saying, "Look at me; look at my good works; look at my accomplishments; look at all that I've done for You," but rather, "God, remember Your covenant.
You are the one who swore by Yourself that You would be merciful.
You swore it to David.
You said he had to be the one who would provide a place of peace, even though he himself could not provide it."
Always there is the message of grace echoing if we will see it.
God makes a way for those who cannot for themselves and the hearts of those who would be singing the psalm is reminding them of their humility before God.
But as they go, theirs is not only a faithful memory:  It's a faithful walk.
That walk is recorded in verses 6 and 7.
And it will be hard for this to make sense to you, until you remember th--, remember the family vacation a year or two years ago when you were just going down the highway and you saw that historical marker.
And you said, "What's that about?"
And you just stopped and you read, "Lewis and Clark were here."
"Daniel Boone was here."
Whatever it was, you said, "Oh, I remember that."
And that historical marker triggers something in your memory of those past faithful ones.
Verses 6 and 7 are about something very similar.
The pilgrims on this psalm of ascents.
And then they begin to say this, verse 6:  "Behold, we heard of it," that is the dwelling place that God was making for Himself.
"We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.
'Let us go to his bledd--, dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!'"
Now, the words don't mean much to us anymore.
The pilgrims are on their way, and they say, "You know, we remember something happened here at Ephrathah.
Do you remember?"
Do you remember when there was that prophesy, "Blessed are you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, for out of you shall come the Lord's anointed"?
We read it at Christmastime that God had promised to David a seed that would become the Savior of the world.
And David's hometown was Bethlehem in the region of Ephrathah.
And, now, these people in Babylon, just in their minds' eye, are imaging it.
They're walking again on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
And they pass by Ephrathah.
"Hey, we remember that God was going to make a dwelling place for Himself out of Ephrathah."
Bethlehem was God's promise.
And not only Bethlehem, but as we're going on our journey, we found it, the promise of God, in the fields of Jaar.
It doesn't mean much to us, but there was a time.
Do you remember?
That in idolatry the people of Israel thought that they were going to use the Ark of the Covenant as just kind of a big rabbit's foot and go into war with good luck.
And the consequence was they, in their new idolatry, were defeated and the Ark of the Covenant was taken away from the people of God for a generation, residing in the house of Obed-Edom in the area of Kiriath Jearim until David reclaimed it.
Now, you may remember the story of David going back.
As he goes back, he begins to dance and sing with joy.
He lifted his skirts before the Lord, he was so happy.
Dancing and singing because he was saying, "The Ark of the Covenant is coming back.
God is coming back to our resting place."
And he danced and sang for 11 miles.
And in every sixth step, they stopped and offered sacrifices, as if to say, "Something truly wondrous is happening."
What was it?
Remember what was in that Ark?
Oh, you've all seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark," so you know.
[Laughter]
No, do you really remember what was in the Ark?
There were the tablets of the Law, that statement of God that "I will make a safe and good path for My people through life if they will follow this Law."
And indicative of the fact that it was the path, the Ark led the people of God through the wilderness into the Promised Land.
There was a path being provided by the Ark.
And not only a path but provision:  Within the Ark was the golden pot of manna.
When the people of God were in the desert and they could not provide for themselves, God said, "I will give you bread; I'll give you path and I'll give you provision, even though you cannot provide for yourselves."
There also was Aaron's rod that budded, that mark of deliverance that said, "This is not just for you but for the flowering and flourishing of the nations that will be touched by you.
I will deliver Israel.
But my ultimate father Israel, Abraham, will be a father of many nations."
There is a flourishing that is intended.
Not just shall there be path and provision but multiplication that God intends for His people.
But they're not worthy of that.
They don't qualify for that.
And so these marks of God's provision were put into the Ark of the Covenant.
Guarding it were the cherubim, the angels with the fiery wings.
But upon that seat of the covenant, blood was shed every year to say, "God must provide atonement that all of this will be fulfilled.
There will be sacrifice, because without the sacrifice the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin."
And God ultimately called that place upon which the blood was shed the mercy seat.
Why did David dance when the Ark came back?
Because he said, "We have been a sinful people, but God is not done.
His path, His provision, His mercy are still here."
That the multiplication for the nations would still occur through the promise of God.
David danced for joy to say, "My God is not done."
This is not just the story of the past.
And these people now in exile:  They think about going back to Jerusalem, going to ascend the temple of praise.
And they who are in Is--, who are in exile in slavery say, "But God's not done.
This is not the final chapter.
This is not the end of the story.
God is still working, because He has made a covenant promise."
And when God's people profoundly believe that God is not done, His power yet works through them.
A faithful walk, believing that God was not done, was taught to Juliet Liu Waite's family in the unfolding months.
After Saigon fell, the family that survived was taken to Guam to await resettlement somewhere.
And there, through miraculous steps, they found out that they helicopter that had been blown out of the sky did not have any of their family members.
The family was reunited.
But in Guam, little provided:  a bowl of rice and a carton of milk for a whole family each day.
Juliet writes of her mother she began to share her portion of rice with her ill sister until her mother dropped to 90 pounds in weight.
Still waiting, still waiting, what would happen?
They wanted to go to the United States.
Some of you will recognize these words.
"But antiwar and anti-Vietnam sentiment were so strong, nobody wanted the refugees at that time."
But she writes, "Far away at a small Baptist church in Lafayette, Indiana, some Christians were convinced that God's heart was for those that nobody wanted.
And that little church committed to sponsoring a refugee family.
They opened their hearts and their homes to this strange family from a strange land that everybody wanted to forget."
And in doing so, that church was also on their own faith walk.
We believe that God is not done.
We believe that He can use us.
We believe that God's power and presence are yet at work.
He will restore His purposes, because He is a covenant-keeping God.
What He has promised He will fulfill.
And because we believe that, we have a passion for God who has a passion for His people.
And it is that passion that moved that church to provide for people that they did not know, did not deserve the provision, did not in any way qualify for it.
That church, that little church in Lafayette, Indiana, believed that Adam's st--, Aaron's staff had budded for a reason and that it was still intended to bud for the flourishing to the nations of the mercy of God.
What does faithful memory and a faithful walk lead to?
It leads to faithful prayer.
That's what that passion for God ultimately becomes.
It's reflected in verse 8.
These people in exile pray, "Arise, O Lord, go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might."
We think about that being settled down in some way:  Go to your resting place.
But if God, represented in the Ark, would actually rest among the people of God, what would that mean?
It would mean the power and the presence of God were yet again in Israel.
We pray that, too.
God, bring Your power and Your presence here; rest among us, because we know when You rest among us we are animated for You.
We recognize Your power, Your presence.
And when we do, we have a passion for Your purposes.
It's verse 9:  "Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, let your saints shout for joy."
Lord, we want You not just to rest, to be present and powerful among us:  Make known Your salvation.
The priests' robes white, showing the purity that the blood would accomplish.
God would sanctify and purify a sinful people.
Lord, be present among us, powerful among us, and show Your righteousness to the nations, so that, verse 10, "For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed."
God, don't let Your anointed, Your anointed people or Your anointed king, be put to shame.
Don't let their faces be turned away.
Lord, provide Your rest among Your people, Your righteousness, but ultimately Your rule.
God, don't let us be put to shame.
Let us believe that You are still working, You still have a purpose for Your people.
And the reason those people long ago in slavery or even we this day would pray for the restoration of the power and purposes of God among us is that we are willing to ask great things of God because we believe He will accomplish great things for His own name's sake.
My passion is for His passion.
And His passion is His salvation for His people.
And, so, we say, "God, if this is really what You're doing, if You're not done, if Aaron's staff is intended to bud even yet again, make us a part of it.
Come rest here.
Come be a part of us.
Come, God.
Make power and presence and salvation known in this place, that we might be a part of Your great purposes as You intend."
And when that passion fills God's people, other people know that passion, too.
Juliet Liu Waite wrote this about her family:  "My mother's family knew nothing of Jesus or the church when they lived in Vietnam.
But as they were welcomed by this community in Indiana, they were encountering the generosity of God that they had never before witnessed.
My mother would say, 'My country was full of hardness, but in Lafayette, Indiana, we experienced kindness such as we had never known.'
Despite the fact that my grandfather could not understand the language, he longed to be in church every Sunday.
And my aunts and uncles, who were welcomed into the youth group, wanted to come again and again to learn about the Jesus that was in that place."
Amazing.
That what God is saying to a people again who are in slavery, who are destitute:  "Remember My covenant?
I remember it.
And as you pray to Me, I will be powerful and present in your place, and I will bring the budding of the nations to your very doors.
You are not out of the game."
It's not just for the people in Lafayette, Indiana:  It's for the church of Jesus Christ in Peoria, Illinois to remember.
Our God is a covenant-keeping God.
He has planned for His power and presence to be known among the nations.
And He is using those who have a passion for Him to spread His passion far and wide.
He's not done.
That's what we do when we read through the Scriptures.
They are the historical markers that we see in our own life's journey, to be reminding:  God did wonderful things in that place.
Why did He do them?
To remind us He can do wonderful things now as we would yet believe that He is calling to a people, to this people, to us, to yet be His power and presence today for the world around us.
Ultimately, we have that passion when we begin to understand His passion for us.
That's the way the gospel works.
I don't somehow earn His love.
I more and more begin to receive the amazing magnitude of His grace.
And when that magnitude of His grace has captured my heart, I begin to respond in love and affection, because love is far more powerful than greed or guilt.
It's my heart responding to the passion of God with passion for God.
It's right here.
It's the way it's being expressed to us.
The passion for God is verse 11.
"The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back:  'One of the sons of your body I will set on the throne.'"
You recognize what that is.
That's God's promise to David of a Messiah, a King that would come from his lineage who would have a universal and an eternal kingdom.
Who is that being promised?
That is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's that passion of God to say, "I know My people are going to fail.
I know David's going to fail.
I know there's going to be a messed up and sinful people, but I have a passion for those people."
And the expression of that passion is the promise of a son through David.
Max Lucado talks about God's passion for His people this way:  "If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it."
[Laughter]
"If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring, a sunrise in the morning.
Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen.
He could live anywhere in the universe, but God chose your heart as the place He wants to live.
Face it friend:  He's crazy about you."
God has a passion for His people.
And when I know that, when I experience that, I begin passionate about His purposes.
I want others to know and I want others to feel it and experience Him.
That promise is that buoyant aspect of verse 11.
God said He would not turn back.
Do you capture that?
We so often think of the gospel as some kind of a contract, right?
You keep up your end; God will keep up His end.
It's transactional.
But God has just said, no the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, that God has said, "This is not based the gospel upon what you do."
It's based upon His mercy, His heart, not your actions.
And for that reason, when God says to His people, "I will bless My people; I will call My people; I will use My people," that calling is irrevocable.
And because it is irrevocable, it gives us a willingness to stand even when the night looks dark.
It gives us a willingness to move forward even when we don't see the purpose.
It gives us the willingness to start over again when it seems like what we've done has failed and wasn't making progress fast enough.
Why would we keep moving forward?
Because God has a passion for His people.
And He who will accomplish His purposes is calling us to that very purpose.
What is it?
Verse 13, "The Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place."
It's just the reminder that God has chosen to make His people His residence, that God inhabits the praise of His people.
I love being here when Kevin and the choir is here.
I love Summer Sing when people from all over the congregation involve themselves back in the choir.
And I think:  Is it just sentiment?
No, it's the truth of Scripture.
God inhabits the praise of His people.
That when we are praising from the heart, we all feel it.
Here's God here in this place.
And He knows all our sin, our weakness, and the fact that we yawn in the song sometimes.
[Laughter]
He knows all the messiness and the worst about us and still says, "I want to be with you; I want to be in you; I want to put my residence here."
And that knowledge of His residence is giving us such a passion for Him, that we in all of our weakness and sin want other people to hear the words.
What does a God who wants His residence in you say?
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will go into him and dine with him."
Why?
Because He wants to be in our residence.
He wants to be in our place.
That's His passion for His people.
And when I see it and know it, I want to express what He Himself has told me, not just about His residence but about the rule that He intends for His people.
I'm going to look at the last verses of this Psalm very quickly, but I just want you to think in your own heart and mind:  What do these words mean to you?
For the moment, not for other people:  What do these words mean for you?
Verse 15, God says, "'I will abundantly bless her,'" that is, Israel, My people, "'I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread.'"
I know there's just a physical response, but do you see what God is saying?
I will provide for people who cannot provide for themselves.
He's making a promise of provision to those who were in slavery and saying, "Even for the poorest, the most destitute, I'll provide."
What if you think there's no right for you to be in God's house?
What if you think there's no way you can make up what you have done or has been done to you?
God says, "I'll make provision for those who cannot provide for themselves.
It's My nature."
What else does He say as part of this residence that He's establishing among His people?
Verse 16, "'Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy.'"
"I will provide salvation to slaves.
I'm going to provide for the priests again to have ministry to My people, and they will shout for joy."
Now, at the time that God is making this known to them, remember, they are enslaved for their own idolatry.
We can be enslaved to idolatry, to pornography, to gaming, to careerism, to all kinds of things that enslave us in the moment.
And God is saying, "I can provide salvation for slaves.
I can provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.
I can provide salvation for slaves."
What else?
Verse 17, "'I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.'"
Boy, that doesn't make sense to us.
Listen, if you were in ancient Israel, an animal that had great dignity had the largest horn.
Right?
Whether it's rhinoceros or antelope in the desert.
If God says, "I will make a horn sprout," it's borrowing from the language of the prophets.
"I will make again a branch sprout from the root of Jesse."
Here's the promise of one who comes, but I'm going to give that root, that sprout, that horn, to My people.
"I will give dignity to the despised.
I will give once again significance to those who have lost hope in themselves."
Dignity for the destitute:  Who is that?
My marriage has failed; my family has failed; they kicked me out of the company.
Who is it?
I have no pride left.
God says, "I will provide your pride.
You will be in My house and I will be in your heart.
I will give you dignity again, regardless of what has happened, regardless of what has been done."
And verse 18, "'His enemies,'" that is of the anointed, "'I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.'"
What's finally being promised?
A crown for the Savior:  that the one who comes to rescue will rule.
He'll dominate over all the other things:  the enemies, the naysayers, the opponents, the people who look down on your, the parents who make fun of you, the child you no longer respe--.
Listen, somehow, God is saying, "I will provide dignity and I will ultimately defeat all God's and your enemies by the work of the Savior who will come."
It's hard for us to recognize that the one who wears the crown is being declared in the midst of warfare language.
He will defeat His enemies and your enemies for your sake.
He will provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.
He will provide dignity for the destitute.
He will provide salvation for slaves.
But, ultimately, what we're being told is He will fight for you.
He is the King.
He is the King who knows it all.
He knows what's happened and what now needs to happen.
And we as a people call upon Him.
The reason we look at a July where we are talking about a Sunday after a Sunday after a Sunday of evangelism is not just because we want to think about a technique:  It's because we want to pray, "God, be powerful and presence among us."
We don't want our past to define us.
We want to believe in a God who defines us.
It's His covenant keeping.
It's not our contract.
It's His mercy that we want to move forward.
And when we know that He's saying, "Not only will I provide:  I'll fight for you and I'll fight for those that you love; I'll fight for those who've lost hope in themselves; I am yours; I am your Deliverer; I am your Savior, and I will fight for you," what difference does it make?
I want to go forward now.
I want others to know, and I want them to know deep down of the God who knows the worst about them and still says, "I will fight for you."
It makes difference in their lives, and we must know that.
Two weeks ago, I spent time with a friend in another state that I've known for a few years.
And I'm not going to tell you his real name.
He spends most of his life now in his nonworking hours working with those who are addicted to drugs of various sorts.
And the reason he's so good at it is that he was an addict for a long time.
If you met him now, you'd see somebody who still has disease in his body, who's emaciated, doesn't have many teeth left.
You wouldn't want to sit next to him on a bus.
But he radiates the love of Christ.
And I asked him just this last time, I said to him, "Nicky," not his name, "Nicky, what's finally got you out of that life?
I mean, so many rehab clinics, so many 12-step pro--.
What finally happened?"
He said, "Bryan, I finally met somebody who would fight for me.
I met a man who in the name of Jesus said, 'You call me anytime of day or night.
You, whatever you need, you call me.
I will come and I will fight for you.'
And he did.
He didn't just fight my dealers:  He fought my personal demons.
He fought past my own betrayal.
He just kept fighting for me.
And it was knowing that there was someone who would fight for me that made me ultimately live for Jesus."
What kind of a church do we want to be?
I hope we're the church that says, "God doesn't love me because we've gotten good enough or you've gotten good enough:  God loves me because of His mercy."
He is a covenant-keeping God.
And when I know that, I want His passion for me to become my passion for His purposes.
And I want His people to know:  Listen, you're destitute; He can give you dignity again.
You're a slave to whatever; He can give you salvation.
But, most of all, I want you to know:  He'll fight for you.
This God will fight heaven and earth, the demons and all that must be fought, that God might rule and reign in your heart and you would know His peace, because He is the God of the covenant.
And in your worst moments, you need to remember Him, not you, Him.
He is the God of mercy, and He has sworn an oath by Himself, because He can swear by none higher:  He would keep His covenant with His people, and He does.