Video Transcript: Sample Sermon From Psalm 18 (Rev. Kurt Parker)

Video Transcript: Sample Sermon From Psalm 18 (Rev. Kurt Parker)

David, as in David in the Bible, had a 20 year problem. Wasn't a 20 minute problem, wasn't a 20 week problem, it was a 20 year problem. Now, I think we can relate to this. I think everybody in the room has problems and probably 20 years worth of problems. And most likely, in some areas, it's the same problem for 20 years. Some of you let's, let's be honest, you wake up every morning anxious. for 20 years, you've woken up with an hance and you go to bed with anxiety. Some of you for 20 years, you've not slept through the night for 20 years, you've not slept seven or eight sound hours through the entire night. Some of you are filled with insecurity. And you spend most of your time thinking about what other people have, not what you have what other people are doing. And maybe you're even image management. Some of you longed to have a child of your own a baby of your own. And for whatever reason, infertility is kicked in, and for whatever, we don't know. But but but for years, you've been struggling with this. Perhaps it's a marriage, perhaps 20 years, you've really not been happy 20 years, it's not gone well. Or 20 years, you've had a child that's resistant or rebellious. Not really sure why or how, but it's just not going the right direction. Or you've got aging parents, one spouse dies and the other spouse is healthy, and you got a good, possibly 20 years to help mom or dad walk through this. You really don't like your job. 

You really don't. You wish you'd have chosen another path you wish for some reason, but but you didn't. And you don't and you're there. And for 20 years, maybe maybe you've wrestled with finances for 20 years. You've got a 20 year problem. David has a 20 year problem. The King Saul has been chasing him for 20 years. When he gets anointed by Samuel as a young man. It's gonna be over 20 years before David becomes the king. And for 20 years, the king is trying to kill him. Now this is a problem when the king is trying to kill you. Because the king has money. The king has power. The king has resources. The king has spies, the king can just have unlimited, unleashing of resources. And David is running and gunning for 20 years. Some of you in this room have had a problem for well over 20 years insecurity, anxiety, alcohol, pornography, drug addiction. You struggled with your own self esteem, mental health, emotional health, breast cancer on and off prostate cancer remission. Now it's back. Some of you in this room have struggled for 20 years. David's got a 20 year problem that I think, we can all relate to. And what's so interesting about David is I mean, folks, you got to realize he's living in caves. He's hiding under rocks. He is poor. He is just trying to survive and make it for 20 years. And what's so interesting about David though, is he doesn't whine he worships. Now, when I say wine I need to explain this to this congregation.

I don't mean wine. Okay. Some of you I need to explain that too. This is whine I just want to make that clear for the record. All right. And so most people whine David worships. Most people whine and complain and tell everybody their problems and their faults and woes me. David is a worshiper and David learns to worship and he sings a different song. And what I want to talk about today is what song will you sing? What song will you write? What song will you be known for? Because you're gonna sing a song.

And David, learn to tap in to the power of God and listen to him and Psalm 18. This is what Psalm 18 is all about. Say song of deliverance, the Psalms, or songs. David wrote 74 of them. And 74 of these songs, psalms, he writes, he sings he plays, and Psalm 18. It is his song of deliverance. God delivered him from the hand of Saul. It's an amazing Psalm. And so he says, I love you, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliver my god is my rock and who might take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise. Now, you got to catch this early. Because everybody in the room does one or two things. You wine Are you worship, but I am convinced your victory, your breakthrough, your chance of growth is only one song away. You are one song from deliverance. And what happens in David's life is David basically, he loses everything. And in spite of losing his youth, his safety, his family, even his ability to worship with because he wasn't in the land of Israel, and all of a sacrificial system. David lost it all. He lost everything. But David learned to sing a song that very few people ever learned. He became a worshiper and you will whine, are you will worship your way through your problems. 

It's only one or two things. If we learn from David, we learn that we are about one good song away from deliverance. What song will you write? and what song will you sing. And so for, for David, his song sheet is going to be a little different. The notes go up and down and all around, and that's a mess like everybody's life. But David could see the salvation of the Lord. David could see his hope wasn't in his friends. His hope wasn't getting an alliance of people who would agree with him. His hope wasn't putting this on social media. So everybody would say poor pitiful me, this wasn't his hope. David could see, David could see as a little shepherd boy, that God gave him the skills to be able to throw the slingshot and kill the lion on the bear. David could see that God have given him the skills of being able to be an incredible warrior. He takes Goliath down. But what you got to understand about David is he's not singing the song about how great I am. His song is how great the Lord is. And that was his breakthrough. And I'm convinced, you will stay exactly where you are, for the rest of your life. If you whine. And I know, personally and professionally, a front row seat for 38 years, the people who learn to worship, get the breakthroughs. 

The people who learn to worship, get the power of God, the people who learn to worship, they have the transforming power and the strength of God Almighty in their lives. And so David could see it. David knew his strength wasn't in his smarts, his money, his ability, his talents, David knew where his power was. Now, I'm talking to very successful people this morning. I'm talking to very smart people in this room. This is not a poor congregation. This is not an uneducated congregation. This is not a group of people who who can't figure out how to logistics and logic and strategy. And this is a smart group of people. But where you are, you will stay where you are the rest of your life. If you're a wiener, and where you want to be and where you want to go. If you learn to become a worshiper, there are no limits. There's no height, or God can take you. You take your problems and your challenges and your issues and you begin to worship. There's fire that comes down from the Heavenly Father, there's fire that comes down from God. It's not about you. And the song that you sing when it's about you. You top out you level off. That's it. David 20 years is running in Ganon. I praise you Lord, my strength. David could see David could see where his strength was. 

He knew who the rock was. He knew the refuge the shield, a stronghold, the heart of his salvation horn just means like a ram's horn. It's so strong, kind of weird. We don't use the term horn of our salvation. You're at work and somebody says, hey, how's your horn of salvation? Don't Don't even answer him. Just keep going, ok. The cards of death and Tangled me, Saul's out to get me. The torrents of destruction there. I got, I got big problems, I got taxes, I got politics, I got issues, I got the king trying to kill me. I got big issues, the chords of the grave coil around me the snares of death confronted me. But I didn't whine. And I didn't throw a pity party. I didn't tell everybody how I called out to the Lord. That was his success. That's everybody success in this room. And from his temple, he heard my voice and my cry came before him into his ears. I love this. Because everybody in the room has floods, sorrows, snares, distress, we could add hurricanes to that list couldn't we. We all have them, everybody in the room has it. And I guarantee you that you are either coming out of a flood, you're in a flood, or you're going into a flood, everybody in this room is going into a problem coming out of a problem or about to go into a major problem, every single body. And it's the journey. And this is the song you learn to sing. The song that you learn to sing is what God can do. The song that you learn to sing is what God can can do in your life. 

The song that you learn to sing is, here's what God here's what God did in my problems. Now, look, that's a song that's worth singing. That's a song that's worth writing. That's a song that everybody, nobody really wants to hear your song. But everybody wants to hear that God was able to do something in your life, because it's the promises of God that sustain us. The promises of God in your life and how God dealt with you and how God worked with you gives me hope for my life. And it's always the promises of God. And so what David does, David declares the greatness of God. David declares the marvelous deeds of God. David is telling everybody about the mighty acts of God, you're smart, you're gifted, you don't tap into this, you will never tap into your potential. But you learned a worship, game changer. all bets are off. You have no idea the great things that God has in store for you. Now, this next verses, eight verses of scripture, I need you to stand up because I don't want you to go sleep on this, because this is confusing. Stand up. Stay with me. Stay with me. Are you with me? All right. This is poetry. The next eight verses are poetry. Now, I'm not a poet, major, a minor real poet major. There's three of you that would understand this. Okay, so don't this is where I could lose you. Stay with me. 

What I want you to see now is how quickly God comes to your aid. When you cry out in the middle of your problems. This is how God views you and is willing to help you. Here's what he says. The earth trembling quakes and the foundations the mountains shook. They tremble because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils. Why is he angry? Because you got problems. Somebody has come against you. Somebody's been a traitor to you, somebody who's hurt you. Somebody's pushing against you. somebody's trying to squelch you. God's angry because he has great things in store for you. Smoke rose from his nostrils. This is poetry. consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and he came down. Dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubin and flew, he saw on the wings the wind, he may darkness has covered, his canopy around him, the dark rain clouds of the sky, and how the brightness of His presence, out of a brightness of His presence. 

Out of the brightness of His presence, clouds advanced hail storms and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven, the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and he scatter the enemy. See, your enemy might be your addiction. Your enemy might be somebody in your family that you struggled with for 20 years. Your enemy might be your own insecurity. Your enemy might be your pride. Your enemy might be your greed. You've got something for 20 years you've struggled with. This is how he delights in you. He will come to you the valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundation of the earth like bury your rebuke, Lord at the blast of your breath from your nostrils.

Okay, thank you. I just didn't want you to go to sleep at that point. Okay, that's a cool section of Scripture. It is. So David writes about the majestic deliverance that God brought to him. Why don't you write about that? That's your story. Well, I got betrayed, and I lost my business. Here's the story. I went through a terrible divorce. Here's the story. I was incredibly successful getting there, I could get any more successful. And God opened up these 17 doors. What's your story? What's your song? It's a song of deliverance. It's a majestic song of deliverance that David has. He reached down from on high and he took hold of me and he drew me out of deep waters. Some of you in this room right now are in incredibly deep waters. And you're about to drown. And the way that you get out of this is you worship. He rescued me from my powerful enemy from my foes who are too strong for me. They confronted me the day of my disaster. See, some of your issues are too strong for you. Some of the things in your life right now are too big for you. You can't manage them. You can't control them. You can't overcome them. But you learn to worship or I don't know what to do, but I'm going to worship or I don't know where to go. But I'm going to worship. 

I also think it's the positive things. The great things David became the greatest king in all of Israel, because he was a worshiper. He brought me out into a spacious place, he rescued me because he delighted in me, and God delights in you. And some of you in the room, don't think God delights in you. Because you've sinned. we've all sinned. That's why Roman says we've all sinned and fallen short of God's incredible glory. That's why the blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness. That's why Jesus in His forgiveness, buries our sins in the deepest sea, and he remembers them no more. He separates them as far as the east is from the west, because he delights in us. That's one of your 20 year challenges is to wake up and realize God delights in me, God delights in your business. God delights in your family. God, God delights in your school and your opportunities. God delights in your stuff, God delights in your deal. God can't wait to get in and be a part of your deal. He delights in you. He does. He always has always will. The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness. This is a weird section. This took me a while to kind of understand because it sounds like David's getting a little self righteous here. He says the Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness, according the cleanliness of my hands, he has rewarded me. 

For I've kept the ways the Lord I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me I have not turned away from his decrees. And he says this, he says, I have been blameless before me. I've kept myself from sin. And wait a minute, David, wait just a minute here. Let's not get carried away, right? Because we all know that David was a first class center. So what is he talking about? David is saying, I did not take a shortcut to the throne. Under my 20 year affliction with Soul, I had ample opportunity to take Saul out to kill him, but I never did. I would not take a shortcut to the throne. And so God has rewarded me because I did not take the Lord's anointed life I did not take Saul's life. And that's what David is trying to express here. And then he says this, the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanliness of my hands and his sight. And God delivered David because of his righteousness and only the righteousness here means he didn't kill Saul when he had multiple opportunities to do so. So what do we do? Well, we remember that our faithfulness really does matter. He says to the faithful you show yourself faithful to the blameless you show yourself blameless. So how you live really does matter. into the pure you show yourself pure but to the devious. You show yourself shrewd you save the humble but you bring low those whose eyes are hottie, Hmm. You Lord, keep my lamp burning in my God turns my darkness into light. Now, after 20 years, would you say that your lamp is burning? After 20 years, the next verse with your help I can advance against the truth with my God, I can scale a wall with your 20 year problem. Are you encouraged? Are you discouraged?

What's so amazing about this to me is, with this 20 year problem. No, it's not all over with but I got faith. I got courage. I know where my source comes from. I love this, that in the midst of a 20 year storm, David is saying, my lamp is still burning. I can advance, I can go for I can go forward. I just said incredible faith, and God certainly rewarded it in me. As for God, His way is perfect. The Lord's word is flawless. He shields all who take refuge in Him. So what do we do? What do we do? Well, if you've got your harbourside app, and you want to fill in the blanks, great, if you're new this morning, we welcome you. You can quickly download the harbor side app, and you can fill these in.

But I think that we learn to passionately pursue God. As far as we know, David never worshiped an idol. As far as we know, he did a lot of bad things. But David was so passionate about the God of Abraham, and Isaac. And as far as we know, David never worshipped an idol. And he pursued God, just passionately. Now, I understand, you know, those of you in the room that aren't, aren't musical. I'm not musical. My whole family is, my girls play and sing, and when Ethan couldn't even walk, we were at a campfire at a retreat and a little boy, maybe 10 or 11 months, and the music started and he started, he was barely able to walk, he couldn't walk, he could barely able to hold himself up. And he was just moving to the beat. And Anita said, have always got a game. And we know so my whole my whole family's musical, I'm not. But when you think about musical scores, and you look at a sheet of music, and you go, I don't really know what that says, I really can't play those notes. I know some go up and some go down. That's life. I think this piece of sheet music is life. Good times, bad times, success, failure, progress. Step backwards, going forward, not going backwards. It seems to be kind of, we look at this and we go, how can God take all my notes and make some kind of beautiful music out of it? Well, here's the song that goes with this sheet music.

3.So what is that? Handel's Messiah. Could you tell that by looking at the sheet music? Three of you could that's great. Okay. I can't. That's our life. God took the life of George Frederick Handel is up soon as down his craziness. It made something beautiful out of it. So we we we learned then to put all of our faith in God. When it doesn't make sense. What made sense was I got salt in the cave going to the bathroom about 50 yards away from me. True story, the Bible's PG 13. They could have killed him. That makes sense. Kill off my enemy. David didn't do it. He didn't take a shortcut to the throne. Can you put all your faith and trust in your heavenly Father, even when it doesn't make sense? You can if you learn to worship, you can if you become a worshiper. My third suggestion is to repent quickly and often. David was a first class center we all agree on that. Committed adultery with Bathsheba. Kills Bathsheba's husband, killed his friend Uriah was one of the 30 mighty men. He took. He took Shariah out, there was a first class sinner. But David was a first class repenter, I love about David is is he repented? he repented quickly. He repented often. He knew and he'd made a mistake. And he could not step outside of God's will. He had to get right in the center of the fairway. And David quickly will get back in he would step out but he would come back. I think one of the smartest things you can ever learn to do is I'm sorry. 

I messed up. One of the things I really liked about Tom Goodlet sermon last week was Tom talked about how he did his sermon. If you were here, he did a sermon. And we usually only get one or two suggestions. He said Tom, go write the whole thing over again. I mean, we just we crucified the poor boy anyway. And he left that event. And he knew the first thing he had to do was what? Get right with God. And he said, so he went out by a place all by himself, and they got right with God. And then God spoke to him. And he wrote, and he, he produced last week, an amazing message. I would repent quickly. I'm sorry, I wasn't your will. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. I'm not I'm not doing what you want me to do. I got a 20 year problem with this. I'm not over it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I come to you. And I want to sing, I want to worship and I want to praise because my hope and my salvation is in you. But here's the last one. This is the game changer. And that is to become a worshiper.

There is nothing in your life that will transform you and catapult you forward faster and bigger and greater. There's nothing in your life that will give you the victories and the breakthroughs. There's nothing in your life that will expand your capacity. Expand your territory more than becoming a worshiper. Just look at the life of David, little shepherd boy, protecting a group of sheep. He's out there with the harp and the strings. And he's writing songs. He's writing songs, and he's worshipping God, he's worshiping God. You can picture 1000s and 1000s of stars. Moonlight coming up, and David's worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm not musical. I'm learning that becoming a worshiper is what gives me my strength. I've been watching. I'm 58. I've been watching my colleagues. And as they get older, almost all of them are exhausted running on fumes in the ministry, senior pastors. And I watched them just their tongues are out. And I'm wondering why in the world, these guys retiring at 62 and 65. 

We've we've made all these mistakes, we should be really good at 62 is I can't wait to turn 62 to 65 only I'm gonna be really good. You're hoping I get really good too. I know you are. And so I I've, I've watched and I've realized that's the joy of the Lord is our strength. I'm not burned out. I'm not burned up. I'm I'm fired up and excited about what we're doing. This is this is so much fun. But I've done a couple of things the last two years that of men game changers. One of them came. I need to know how old Emerson is, is she three or four? She just turned five. She was four when this story took place. All right. So several months ago, this little girl, I learned that she can sing the doxology. And so out in the lobby now, quite often almost every Sunday or every other Sunday. I get down on her level. She's about this tall. And she and I sing the doxology together in the lobby. I think all of heaven gets excited. Not because my singing. But because a little girl is learning to praise him. I've watched in third service. This is just packed full of teenagers the first three rows. And in third service. I'm sitting right over there where you are usually. And I'm looking down over here. 

And I'm watching these teenagers worship with all their heart and all their might. I thought I would never have done that in high school. I was too cool for that. I'm watching them just just worship the Lord. Many of the millennials on stage on the production team over a year ago gave me a subscription to another church and I could watch their sermons and I could listen to their music. And so for the last year, I work out every morning six 6:15 6:30 in my living room, I cannot go any more out in public to YMCA or any place because my 30 minute workout turns into a two hour counseling session to somebody and I just I can't work out. And and so I'm serious. It's this. I'm trying to work. I need help. They need help. But I need help baby come on. And so I did at home. And I've always walked always for years and years and years started off watching the news. So I could get informed to know what's going on and be semi educated and intelligent. Last year, I'm not turning on the news, once I've just turned on my computer and just worship.

There, there I am worshiping in the morning, and my whole day starts off, I'm learning that worship is the game changer. I'm learning that if I want to get past plateaus, and I want to be healthy, and I want to be strong, and I want to be in rich, and I want to be encouraged and I want to, and I want to I want more, I want so much more. And it'll never come because of my work ethic or how smart I think it doesn't come that way. God takes those things. But when you learn to be a worshiper, he takes the lid off. And I just, I'm so excited about our church and our students. And you see Kailyn and Andrew up here, this summer, again, we had 30 some interns and I'm just so excited teaching pastors are all getting so good and so gifted and so smart. And we're these guys are writing songs that are going to impact the world. And about a month from now I'm going to I'm going to show you pictures of a gorgeous worship center that we're going to build right out here. And it's going to be absolutely drop dead gorgeous. And God's going to use that worship center to reach about 10,000 people locally with all the services in a day, and over a million people every single week as we get those services out all over the world. 

A million people, a million people, watch. I love that. That's funny. That's cool. Do that again, do that one more time. That's good, that's good. But here's what happened just two weeks ago, we've been trying to just really impact safety Harbor, and just have a presence and impact them in such a great way. And so we've asked for several years if we could not have 17,000 Christmas Eve services here on our campus. But if we can actually just go there to Marina Park, Waterford Park, and have a huge, huge candlelight service, you know, five or six o'clock for the whole community, I'd have one service. And every year they said no. We said no. So we thought we'd ask again.

And two weeks ago, the commissioners voted 5 - 0, that we got it. We got it. So we're going to host Harbourside is going to host a community Christmas Eve worship service for everybody around here. And it's just we're gonna try get 20,000 I don't know if we can have 20,000 people here and I don't know if we can do candle or not. But we can download the app, the candlelight on our phones. We can do the candle thing going on there downtown. I'm not sure that let's have an open flame downtown. But we're going to have a party. And we're going to we're going to take the church outside the walls and show the show the community. And we got music we'll do we'll do a big stage big screens. We'll tell you more about it. But but it just seems like the more we worship. Well, let me rephrase that, doesn't seem like it. The more we worship, the more favor he gives us. The more humble we are and the more hungry we are, the more favor he will put upon your life. stay humble and stay hungry. Stay hungry and stay humble. And just love what God is doing, through you and through me. But see, that's your song. That's a song worth writing. That's a song with singing. 

That's the song I want to hear. I want to hear what God did in your life. I want to hear the greatness and the power and the majesty of God and your I want to hear how God gave you victory and broke through a 20 year problem. That is what Psalm 18 is all about. It is a song of deliverance of the goodness and the greatness of God and my friends, let's grow and let's go and let's get bigger and stronger and healthier and have more influence and more impact in your community in your family in your business and have greater capacity for the King of kings and the Lord of lords.