2 Samuel 22:30/Psalm 18:29: Jesus, the Great Wall-Jumper

". . .by my God I can leap over a wall." 2 Samuel 22:30b/Psalm 18:29b

Today we're going to talk about one thing: walls. Walls can cause only two things: immense good or immense trouble. For us, walls usually do the first thing. The walls of my house are currently keeping me from the outside environment, thus protecting me from the freezing Wisconsin May temperatures (speaking of which, is it summer yet?) and thus doing great good in protecting me. However, in the Bible, we see walls cause a lot more trouble than good. Although the walls around Jerusalem and the cities of Israel were immensely good, many times the Israelites had to overcome great walls in order to conquer their enemies. Remember the story of Jericho, and how they had to walk around the city so that the walls would fall down? Yeah. Talk about a "wall problem."

Yet this morning, we find a great word from David on how to overcome our "wall problems." In the context of 2 Samuel 22 (which is repeated as Psalm 18), we find David speaking of the great deliverance that the Lord had brought to him. Throughout his life, David had been threatened by many enemies. These enemies made his life miserable and threatened to end David's life. These enemies were so bad that David knew he couldn't defeat him on his own (18). It was almost as if his enemies had a wall around them that David just couldn't climb over. His enemies were safe and secure, though he was not. He needed to get some help from an outside source in order that he might gain victory over his "wall problem."

Well, that's where God comes in. David had seen throughout his life how God had caused him to win battles as he relied upon the Lord. Thus, he exclaims in this Psalm that "by my God I can leap over a wall." Think about this image for a moment. Imagine yourself in your greatest Ancient Near Eastern armor coming up to a city that you wish to overtake. You're leading all of your troops into battle, but there's only one problem: there's a wall in the way. What do you do? Well, David's answer here is pretty simple, as he tells us that if God is on our side, we can simply jump over it.

Now obviously David's words here are metaphorical, but they paint a picture. David's point here is that with God, even impossible battles are winnable. Think again of the story of Jericho. There was no way that Israel was getting over those walls and overcoming the city on their own, but with God there was a way. Although this way was unconventional, unordinary, and, in one sense, downright foolish, with God, they won the war. Likewise, that is what David is saying here. When our lives are in dismay and there is no obvious way out, God can win the war on our behalf. He can give us the strength to leap over the wall that we need to get over in order to gain our victory. It may sound cheesy, but it's the truth: God empowers us to win our battles.

Think of this, real quick, in relationship to our battle with sin. Although the "enemies" that David talks about in the Psalms often seem distant to us, I would argue that we can easily compare David's "enemies" to our "enemies" of sin and temptation (go read Eph. 6:12). Let us notice: sin and temptation are often overwhelming, we all know this. But with our God's power, we can in fact leap over the wall of temptation. With the Holy Spirit inside of us, we have all that we need to overcome our war against sin. We can win the battle--not because of us, but because of God's power in us.

In conclusion, is "jumping over a wall" not what Jesus did for us on our behalf? There was a great wall that we could not climb on our own, the wall of condemnation that we deserved because of our sin. Yet on the cross, Jesus found a way to jump over that wall for us. We could not do it on our own, but Jesus could. Thus, we stand redeemed, all because our great wall-jumper has solved our greatest "wall problem" on our behalf. Amen!