When we read the Bible, we immediately recognize that the people God uses the most are the people who are willing to climb trees like Zaccheus or get out of boats in the middle of the lake like Peter or follow stars like the Wise Men. They followed God in a way that was ridiculous and foolish. Nothing has changed 20 millennia later—God still uses those who are willing to look foolish for His work. I can probably rattle off a dozen or more instances of how God stretched the limitations of these ordinary people while they were doing what seemed so foolish, but I think maybe the impact would be lost on you.
If there is very little else that you remember from church on any given week, I want you to remember this always: what I preach on Sundays, it’s not my wisdom. It’s not from my mind. Not at all. All of it, it’s in the Bible, a book that all of you own. I want to encourage you to read it for yourself. Don’t take my word for it, don’t take anybody else’s word for it. But read it and ask God to illuminate what He is saying to you through it. That’s why we have it. So I want to start this morning, right off the bat and look at a passage from 2 Samuel 6.
12 And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal.14 And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
16 As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. 17 And they brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. 18 And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts 19 and distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed, each to his house.
20 And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!” 21 And David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will celebrate before the Lord.22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” 23 And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death. (2 Samuel 6:12-23)
Today’s message is titled, “Celebrating.” I want you to think about how you “celebrate.” Just think about it. We don’t need to share it with anybody. Is it a low grunt? Is it a highly animated fist pump? Is it high pitched glee and yelling? I mean, just think about it. The more you think about it, you may be able to come up with answer, but I bet you that a lot of you don’t even know how you celebrate. You don’t know how to celebrate because you don’t celebrate often. You may otherwise say that you have no reason to celebrate because there isn’t anything worth celebrating. Your life may even seem humdrum.
I know for me, I don’t celebrate often. I’m not a big celebrator. I’m more of a corrector. I see my success and try to make it more successful. I criticize myself for what I could have done better, that is my celebration. I know it’s neurotic and it needs to change because it is crazy that I would do something like that. However, I am preaching this message because celebrating is part of being stretched by God.
When we go to the story we just read about David and look at just the first paragraph, you will see David celebrate three different ways. Look at verse 12. David brought up the ark of God with rejoicing. A better translation of that word would be “glee.” You see, David was celebrating before he even had a reason to celebrate. He was just going to somebody’s house to pick up the Ark of God, but he was already celebrating. He was already giddy. If you want to be stretched by God, you have to be excited to be living for God.
We need to be excited about where we are in life. Yes, we may not be where we thought we would be or have what we think we deserve to have, but we’re here. We’re breathing. We’re alive and moving. And if you’re not where you thought you should be or think you would be, that’s the best part. You’re going to start living this moment forth to go get the reason you’re breathing and moving. This is why David was excited, it was why he was celebrating with glee. David believed that God was going to bless him on his journey to get the ark and so should you. Yes, I understand that there is no ark for you to retrieve. But you do have a vision and goal for your life, I’m not talking about small, low hanging goals and bucket lists. I’m talking about vision and bigger than life opportunities to seize. I believe you were created to seize it. Yeah, it may not be a million dollars, but I’m talking about having a purpose in your life that changes the lives around you more than a million dollars ever could. David was excited. You and I need to be excited as well.
Here’s the second thing you should notice in this first paragraph in the story. David went and got the Ark, and then he walked six steps. The Bible makes it clear, he went six steps and then made an offering to God. He thanked God for doing something so small in his life. We need to thank God for all the things in our lives. I want you to know that Samuel makes it a point to highlight that there were six steps taken before David gives thanks to God for the progress (albeit, very little progress) and then begins to celebrate like it’s already where it needs to go. I think this is a lost art on people these days. We’re so goal oriented and result driven, that we forget that we need to celebrate the journey we’re on to get to the results. David doesn’t forget that. We can’t forget that either. The amount of grace we receive to even go six steps, the length of this room that we’re occupying, is a blessing from God. We need to remember to thank God for that. Not only that, but we need to rejoice to God for our ability to do that.
I know you’re thinking now that I’ve been speaking about 15 minutes and I’ve only gotten two verses in and reiterated the same point multiple times, but I wouldn’t have to reiterate it multiple times if we were all being stretched by God through our celebrations. Yes, and that is the point. We don’t celebrate enough, number one. But number two, we have so many reasons and opportunities to celebrate, but we don’t. We don’t enjoy God and His presence. Moreover, we’re not willing to look foolish for what God is doing in our lives because it doesn’t seem much like an accomplishment. But I’m here to tell you that we need to start celebrating the small successes in our lives so that we can encounter bigger ones. I’m here to tell you this morning that we need to give thanks to God for allowing us to take the steps that we’ve taken so far and give thanks to him for them. But moreover, you need to celebrate that we’ve just started the journey of faith to the place God wants us to go.
“David danced with all his might.” This is a stretch of faith that we need learn and practice: dancing, because I know most of us are rhythmically challenged. Just a joke. But we need to learn to celebrate with God with all our might. We don’t do things with God or for God with all of our might. If we did, our lives would be stretched further in faith. Come on, just look at David. In three verses, David celebrated more times for taking a few steps than we did for any of our accomplishments combined.
I know why we don’t celebrate with God. I know why we don’t celebrate with God and how that is affecting our faith from being stretched. It’s because we can’t handle the criticism. The criticism of how foolish we supposedly look. The criticism of how improper or unnecessary it is. David’s wife Michal was a criticizer. She didn’t approve of how foolish David made himself look for celebrating his walk with God. I kind of feel like we’re the same way. We’re afraid that there is a Michal in our lives that tell us to stop embarrassing ourselves because God can in no way take the few small steps we took as glory. We need to stop listening to those haters. I want to stop right here for a second because Michal brings up a good point that we shouldn’t overlook.
Do you ever become discouraged and disheartened when your life suffer because of personal sin or failure? Let’s not even say it’s a personal sin, because that sounds like we intentionally chose poorly; lets say it was just a mistake. When that happens, we tend to think we’re worthless—and left to ourselves, that would be true! But worthless nobodies are just the kind of people God uses. If you think about it, that’s all He has to work with!
Look at David’s reply to her in verse 21 and 22: “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will celebrate before the Lord.22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” (2 Samuel 6:21-22)
God chose David and his willingness to be foolish by celebrating all the small victories and steps because God uses the humble, the lowly, the meek, and the weak so that there’s never any question about the source of power when their lives change the world. It’s not the man, it’s the truth of God and the power of God in the man.
When David finally got to the place he was supposed to go. He thanked God again. He celebrated again and he blessed his country and his family. I need you to know that. Yes, celebrating our journey may seem premature, but celebrating on our journey is how we practice for celebrating God at the end. Yes, I know it looks foolish and dumb. But you need to celebrate it so that God can stretch you through it.
Somehow you may not feel like I’m talking about celebrating, but about remembering and thanking God for the small milestones and achievements we’ve notched. That’s absolutely right. Yes, it may look foolish, but you need to do it. You need to celebrate shamelessly. There is nothing more glorifying to God than when his people celebrate the journey they are on for His name and glory.
That is why we have church on Sundays. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again. We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection because we’re not there yet, beside him in the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are there, on our journey towards it. It’s why we sing songs on Sunday mornings. It’s why we pray and thank God for our meals. Every single act and our might in celebrating God in our lives is a place for God to stretch who we are in Him. Think about how crazy it is for us to celebrate the fact that God had to send His son, Jesus, to die for our pathetic lives. When we think about that, we think about how foolish it is for us to even be at church, so unworthy, yet we’re here. Since we’re here on this journey, it’s time for us to celebrate our salvation in Christ, who gives us life.
I want to look at 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
1 Corinthians 1:27 reveals God’s modus operandi: God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. This is to say, we have a lot of celebrating to do because we weren’t supposed to be able to celebrate like this, but we are celebrating with God and in God because that is where we have our existence. Faith is the willingness to look foolish. And the results speak for themselves. Noah was saved from the flood. David defeated Goliath. Peter walked on water. We boast in the Lord. Celebrate God in your life.
I want to go back to verse 17. David brought the ark in the tent that he had set up for it. Then He thanks God through offering. This is a grand celebration by the way. If you haven’t noticed. Offering is not sacrifice, but it is a way of celebrating what God gives us. That’s why we do the offering. But now I want you to see this in verse 19 because I found that this to be particularly interesting because this is how God stretches our faith through celebrating with God in our lives.
David, “distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one” (v19). He gave them each three gifts. I don’t know how many people were there that day, but regardless of the number, each of them received three things as a result of David’s celebration with God that each of them were able to bring home. I can’t tell you the symbolic significance of the three gifts. I just don’t know what that is. I can tell you that the importance is that when we celebrate with God, we are able to dole out the fruits of our celebration with God with the people around us. This is why we need to celebrate. I’m serious about this. We need to share our celebrations in life with each other. I know I don’t do that particularly well, but I’m telling you that this is why it’s in the Bible for us to do with each other—to share our life celebrations with each other. Next time you’re reading through the Bible, take a few minutes to consider the work of God in the characters along the way: they were slow to believe, slow to understand, and had horrendous memories!
Are there things in your life you need to celebrate with God? Are there milestones? Are there goals and accomplishments? When we share our celebrations with God to the people around us, we will be stretched. We will be able to boast for everything that is going on in our lives. God chose us, who are weak to be something. We need to celebrate in that. Let’s pray.
No responses yet