From Rev. Dr. Garner Scott Odell
First Congregational Church
2 Samuel 6:1–19
Today our key passage is looking at a celebration that King David had. He was told, ‘The Lord has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.’ So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing.
David, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
Celebrations are great aren’t they? Here’s the question, when’s the last time that you celebrated something? What was it? I bet you remember. Our lives should be marked by celebrations. Is your life marked by an attitude of celebration? Think of all that you have to celebrate. The God of the universe loves you, and paid the price so that you can live life empowered by Him. That’s the best thing in the world. If He’s in your life there are going to be things that you can celebrate.
We’re thinking today about celebration and we’re looking at one of the greatest times of celebration in the life of David. He has become the king of Israel, he has united the kingdom and made the borders secure. He has been able to take control of Jerusalem and establish his capital there. Life is good. He is thankful for all that God has done, so he decides that he wants to honor God and to do this he wants to bring the Ark of the Lord home, he wants to bring it back to Jerusalem. He wants to do this to honor all that God has done and show that it is God who has done it.
Think about it, at Christmas time have you ever spent a lot of time thinking of the perfect gift for someone. Then you go and get it, it’s something that took some effort. But you’re so excited because you know they’ll love it and they go. “Oh, that’s nice.” and just move to the next thing like it’s no big deal. I mean we hate that. We’re thinking, “Man see what you get next year. How’s a tie sound?” But then we treat God the same way. God moves and we’re just like, “Oh, that’s nice.” What? When the creator of the universe moves in our lives we should get a little excited about it, think about who God is. When we get to come and worship we should come excited about it. Why? Because the choir is good? No! Because we like whoever is preaching? No! Because we’re having lunch after? No! We should get excited because God is going to be here. And when the people of God come to worship, to celebrate all that God is, it doesn’t matter if the choir isn’t very good or if the sermon is so boring that everyone is sleeping through it, when we come excited to worship God, He will show up at our celebration, whether it is in our church, or around our Christmas tree in the living room.