Confession time. I enjoy winning, and I don’t enjoy losing. I’ve never subscribed to the saying “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game,” because to me, it does matter. I play to win.

I suspect my reasons for this are drawn from my sin and insecurities. There’s personal affirmation in winning. To know I’ve overpowered, outwitted or overcome someone or something gives me a sense of control and power. A win serves my ego. I like to be able to claim victories as my own. It makes me feel important, validated, worthy.

Thankfully, David didn’t have such a self-agrandising attitude towards victory. Of course, success in war carries much greater significance than some sport, and winning in that context actually does make a difference. But even so, David was most concerned to attibute his victories to God’s strength.

Psalm 21 is an extended monument to God’s power in securing victory for his king and his people. In a world where leaders like to boast of their personal strength, David’s humility before God is refreshing. He knows that without God, he would have nothing.

This key theological point is one that holds enormous pastoral signficance. The doctrine of justification by faith rests on the fact that God alone holds the power to save. It depends on nothing of man’s strength. Works-based salvation lays a burden on people that they simply cannot carry. Any such system of religion will either corrode a person’s confidence in time, leaving them languisihng in a state of spiritual uncertainty, or it will lead them to boast in themselves in increasing measure at the expense of God’s glory.

David emphatically reminds us of God’s power to bring success to his people and in so doing models to us the beauty of attributing all things to God in faith. 

Ultimatley, though, nothing demonstrates this more than Christ’s death and resurrection.  Christ alone had the strength to live a life free of sin.  In him we live vicariously.  Christ alone had the strength to endure the scorn of the cross.  In him we die to sin.  Christ alone has the power to grant life and secure forgiveness.  In him we are victorious.