1 I love you, O Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. (Psalm 18:1-3)
This morning, we will consider the concept David mentions at the outset of this psalm of God as rock. My reasons for doing so are straightforward. First, this psalm is an exact replica of 2 Samuel 22, which we covered a few years ago during a long study of the life of David. I thought about plagiarizing myself and repurposing that study for this one but decided in favor of a deeper dive into David's opening salvo of praise.
Second, this is the longest psalm we've encountered up to this point in our study of the Psalms, and fifty verses is an unwieldy amount of text to cover on a Sunday morning. I mean, we could cover them. I know this because we have covered them during that previous study of 2 Samuel 22. And if you'd like that—I love that desire, by the way—you can listen or watch that archived message this week. But I pray you would give me the grace to slow down and marinate on just a few sentences this morning. The word works its wonders when we consume it in large chunks but also when we savor it in concentrated portions. The word is good in bulk, like Costco, but also in smaller portions, like fine dining.
Third, there is a concept in these opening verses that is foundational to the entire song—and it shows up throughout the entire song. If you take the four sentences David mentions God as a rock in this psalm, you come away with this little prayer:
The Lord is my rock. My God, my rock. Who is a rock except our God? Blessed be my rock! (Psalm 18:2, 31, 46)
David considered God to be his rock, and that theme threaded itself throughout everything else David prayed here. What I mean is that David sang or prayed this entire psalm because God was his rock.
And all the things David praised God for throughout this psalm are extensions of God's rock-like nature. Even at the outset of the psalm, David fires off a full clip of statements about God. God is his fortress, deliverer, refuge, shield, horn of salvation, and stronghold (2). All these facets of God's nature are rooted in God as David's rock.
And this concept is beautiful, especially when we consider the background of this psalm. David was the young and second king of Israel. For many years, before receiving the crown, he was pursued by the sitting king, his father-in-law, King Saul. He spent well over a decade on the run, often in the wilderness, waiting for God's deliverance. And once he was delivered completely from the hand of Saul, this servant of the Lord suffered much at the hands of enemies, including sabotage from his own son.
And, after God's deliverance in each instance, it seems David used this song as a way to celebrate God's help. He sang it after Saul. He sang it after the Philistines. He sang it after Absalom. He sang it at the end of a long and victorious reign. When God won on his behalf, this was the first song on David's post-game victory playlist. It was his ultimate Jock Jam anthem of victory, his Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye to his opponents. I encourage you to read it in its entirety this coming week—it is the record of a man looking back over his life in recognition that God had been his rock.
But God wants to be your rock as well, and I hope to show you how in our text this morning. But before I go there, I should say there are many senses in which God is unlike a rock. He is spiritual in substance, not material and dense. He is invisible. He is alive. He is a person. In other words, God is not silent and unmoving—those aren't the elements a rock conveys about God.
But there are many other ways in which a rock can be a good metaphor for what God is like. He is immense, has always been and always will be, and is unchanging. For an ancient near east person like David, all those elements are what massive rocks seemed to be. Without modern cranes and machinery, massive rocks were immense and immovable. Without explosives, massive rocks seemed to exist on and on forever. And to the naked eye, massive rocks never changed, even if the landscape around them did. All this hints at what David and other biblical authors meant when they said things like, "There is no rock like our God" (1 Sam. 2:2). God is immense, eternal, and immutable (unchanging).
But here, in this psalm, what did David mean?
He Is Our Resting Place
First, God as rock means he is our resting place. Remember, David was familiar with life in the barren desert wilderness of Israel. He'd spent years on the open range as a shepherd from Bethlehem and more years on the run because of the insane jealousy of King Saul. And out under that scorching sun, David learned to appreciate the presence of a rock.
Not only could it provide shade, but it might provide water or vegetation. When the spring rains poured down, the heat would quickly kill off anything that grew in the desert regions. But sometimes, on the shady side of a large rock, a bit of water could collect, and grass might even grow, making it a perfect place to rest, recover, drink, and feed the animals. Just the sight of a large rock in a harsh desert environment would encourage travelers in that era. Isaiah alluded to this facet of the rock when he talked about God's workers being "like the shade of a great rock in a weary land" (Is. 32:32).
And God was often a resting place for David. In his early years, it seems he was forgotten and possibly despised by his father. Given the destiny of sheep care, David found rest in God time and time again while out under the sun and stars. He wrote prayers and sang songs to Yahweh. Neglected by his family, David found solace with his Father in heaven.
But the comfort and rest God provided in those early days proved to be foundational for David. He handled the scorching heat of Goliath's taunts, Saul's madness, and Absalom's rebellion by finding rest in God. There, in God, David found everything he needed to endure. God filled him up. God strengthened him. God energized him. And after being recharged, David would trudge out into whatever life threw at him.
Perhaps an image will help. Imagine walking down a long street in Phoenix in the middle of summer. One side of the street is in full sun, while the other is in full shade. Which side would you choose to walk on? That is God for us. We can journey along in the intensity of life without him, or we can allow him to take the edge off by walking with him in his shade.
As the psalmist said:
"The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night" (Ps. 121:5-6).
A couple of months ago, I was scheduled to do some teaching and attend a conference in Southern California. Christina came along with me, and we rented a car for our trip. About halfway there, after dinner at a Chipotle on a barren stretch of the Five, our car refused to start. Since the problem was electronic, the trunk, which held all our luggage, would not release either. We tried everything we could, but after three hour-long calls to our rental company, the promises of many tow trucks, and an entire night of waiting in a gas station parking lot, they brought us a new car—just in time for breakfast. We had spent the entire night in that lovely Chevy Malibu. And the first thing we did with our new rental car and freshly liberated luggage was drive across the street to a Motel 6 for a long nap. I have to tell you, given the state we were in, it was the finest hotel I have ever stayed in.
The restoration that hotel provided us at that moment is part of the idea of God as rock. Life is hard, but we have God, and he is there to restore us on our journey.
I believe God's rock-like nature is meant to flow to us as individuals, but should then continue on to make our churches places of rest for those who are weary. So many are hurt and downtrodden by ruthlessness in our world. And I believe churches like ours—those who love people so much they are willing to clearly articulate the moral truths of Scripture without fudging them for popular approval—are well positioned to "become places of refuge for victims" of our world system "who have been hurt by its lies."[^1] But, to do so, we must tap into God's desire to be a refuge.
So God is a rock of rest. Each one of us must go to him. Find his shade. As Isaiah said to God,
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." (Isaiah 26:3-4)
He Is Our Hiding Place
Second, God as rock means he is our hiding place. Remember, David had used desert rocks for much more than shade. He would often go to the rocks and the caves rocks provided in Israel's wilderness to hide from his pursuers.
- There was the cave of Adullum where David camped out, and everyone who was in distress, indebted, or bitter in soul gathered to him, and he became their captain (1 Sam. 22:1-2). Many mighty warriors were produced as a result of spending time with the original giant killer in that cave.
- There was also the rock in the wilderness of Maon that David ran to when Saul's forces began closing in on him. Like a scene from an old cartoon, Saul's forces crept forward on one side of the mountain while David's retreated on the other side of the mountain. But just as Saul and his men were about to enclose David, word came to Saul that the Philistines were attacking the land. Saul had to go, and David narrowly escaped, so he called that rock "The Rock of Escape" thereafter (1 Samuel 23:15-29).
- And one of the most famous rocks David used was the cave in the wilderness of the Wildgoats' Rocks in En-gedi's desert. It was there that David hid from Saul and his three thousand troops. When Saul went into David's very cave to rest and relieve himself, David's men whispered their opinion that God had provided a chance for David to avenge himself. David crept out to Saul but only cut the corner of his robe so that when Saul exited the cave, David could show him that piece of cloth as evidence that David did not want to kill him (1 Samuel 24).
And like all those rocks, God is a hiding place for his people. As David prayed elsewhere, "You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance" (Ps. 32:7). He knew God had—over and over again—been his hiding place.
Just think of it: the more David fled to the rocks in the wilderness, the more he got to know every cranny and crack and hiding place in that terrain. The rocks became home. In a similar way, the more we are forced run to God because of worries, threats, and enemies, the more the vastness of God becomes familiar to us. The more he becomes home. We get to know God the more we run to him amid trials and attacks.
Let us never be like those Isaiah rebuked:
You have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge... (Isaiah 17:10)
God is our Rock of refuge. This rock is—as David said—a fortress and shield. God is a high and defensible space in which we can hide. When even our own sin assails us, we can flee to God. He is our cave of refuge—adopted as the Son, identified with the Son, and subsumed by the Son before Father God. Our Rock is Christ, and he is our perfect hiding place. We are dwelling in him! Remember, if you've trusted in Christ, the Bible says that you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).
And when the cords of death encompassed David, and the torrents of destruction assailed him, he called upon the Lord (Ps. 18:4-6). And God heard his voice. He was David's refuge. In like manner, let us run to God. Let us say with the psalmist, "You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word" (Ps. 119:114). Like a pigeon hiding from a hawk in the cleft of a rock, let us hide ourselves daily in our God.
He Is Our Building Place
Third, God as rock means he is our building place. We still consider rock as a strong foundation for a building. Just as David looked to the rock Jerusalem was set on and envisioned it becoming his fortress and city, God is the rock on which we must build our lives. When standing on him, we stand on secure ground and can say, "God drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure" (Ps. 40:2).
This might be the most important facet of God as rock. The New Testament certainly declares Christ as our place of rest and refuge, but it resoundingly promotes him as the rock on which to build our lives.
- He is called the chief cornerstone (Ps. 118:22, 1 Peter 2:7).
- He is said to be the only name by which we are saved (Acts 4:8-12).
- His identity as the Son of God is the rock upon which the church is built (Matt. 16:13-19).
- And, as Paul said, "No one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3:11).
And from Jesus' own lips is the exhortation:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock" (Matthew 7:24–25).
Perhaps you have been. Perhaps you're thinking about it. Perhaps you have stopped. But build your life—and keep on building your life—upon the rock that is Christ. Not the church. Not Christian morality. Not a ministry. Not family. Not career. Christ. Like a tree searching the earth for a large boulder to claw onto for support, reach for the rock. Let him provide the stability and strength needed for life. Build on Jesus.
"With the rootlet of little-faith hold to him. Let that tiny feeler grow; and, meanwhile, send out another to take a new grasp of the same Rock. Lay hold on Jesus, and keep hold on Jesus. Grow up into him. Twist the roots of your nature, the fibres of your heart, about him. He is as free to you as the rocks are to the fir-tree: be you as firmly lashed to him as the pine is to the mountain’s side." (Charles H Spurgeon, Around the Wicket Gate)[^2]
When you do, his rock-like nature becomes yours. Soon, when the rain and floods and winds of life bring their worst, you will find yourself standing like a tall lighthouse amid the crashing waves.
This should not be hard for people on the Monterey Peninsula to envision. Our shores are littered with large rocks. And even though the ocean is relentless, those rocks stand for generations. Though the sands shift and cliffs erode, those rocks remain.
David had built his life on the strong foundation that is God. Because he did, his life didn't always make sense to the people watching him. But rather than defend himself against Saul, he trusted God to keep his promise to make him king. Rather than shrink in terror at Goliath's threats, the boy shepherd believed God would use him to deliver God's people. Rather than cut corners to take the throne, David cut the corner of Saul's robe to prove he would wait for God's timing. Rather than listen to circumstances designed to convince him that walking with God did not work, he pressed in and found his strength in God time and time again. And God put a foundation under him, promising him that one of his descendants would sit on the throne over the whole world forever—Jesus!
Our connection to God as rock means much for our flourishing in this life. Annie Dillard once wrote of a beautiful marital romance that was beautiful because "we cared wildly, then deeply, for one person out of billions. We bound ourselves to the fickle, changing, and dying as if they were rock."[^3] But the wonder of our love for God is that he is a rock. We have loved him, and he is everlasting!
If we want to sing this song—Spurgeon called it "The Grateful Retrospect"—at the end of our lives, we must treat God as our rock today. Let the glorious gospel of his presence, promises, power, love, and grace provide you with the stability you need for life.
[^1]: Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality [^2]: Charles H Spurgeon, Around the Wicket Gate [^3]: Annie Dillard, The Maytrees