SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we have some extra copies.
SPEAKER_00: If uh you didn't bring one with you and you would like one, just raise your hand up real high.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody will drop one off at your aisle.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've got a few over there, a few back on that side as well.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much to those who are serving in that capacity and passing those around.
SPEAKER_00: We are studying 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story of unlikely redemption when we read these stories.
SPEAKER_00: When we consider the honest truth about our own stories, how unlikely that God would choose, would call, would save sinners such as we are.
SPEAKER_00: And this is truly amazing grace we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We sing a song often around here that expresses our astonishment quite well.
SPEAKER_00: Written by a guy named Charles Hutchison Gabriel, first published in 1905.
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel is credited with somewhere between seven and eight thousand hymns, so he's quite prolific.
SPEAKER_00: But uh one of the ones that uh we remember and sing around here is I stand amazed in the presence, you know the words, of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean.
SPEAKER_00: The chorus you know goes, How that's it, yes, how and my song shall ever be, how is my Savior's love for me?
SPEAKER_00: He's just sitting there going, and that's where we all find ourselves so often.
SPEAKER_00: Even studying, yes, the Old Testament, even studying books like 2 Samuel's story of unlikely redemption.
SPEAKER_00: But this God of the Bible is in the business of choosing those no one else would choose, and using those no one else would use.
SPEAKER_00: This God of the Bible is uh very well and commonly interested in doing the unlikely, the improbable, and often even what we would consider to be the impossible.
SPEAKER_00: So no matter where you are this day, uh in your spiritual journey, in your season of life, whatever it might be, no matter how messed up, how rebellious you have been, no matter how fearful, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how angry or abused you may have been, I want you to know this God of the Bible is going to speak to us today through his word.
SPEAKER_00: And we invite the Holy Spirit to use our study of it to renew our hearts and minds and to welcome us once again to consider this great salvation that God has put on offer to us by grace through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're reaching back 3,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to get David to fit into our story.
SPEAKER_00: That would be so narcissistic of us.
SPEAKER_00: But we're trying to reach back 3,000 years and understand his story, and the context includes jumping a lot of hurdles for us, cultural hurdles, religious hurdles, um, uh, sociological hurdles.
SPEAKER_00: There's tons of hurdles we have to jump to be able to understand what we're gonna read in a text like this that is historical narrative describing a certain period of time.
SPEAKER_00: And I put up on the screen the map for you just to remind you what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: The the green area on the lower left there is the Philistine territory.
SPEAKER_00: They are the perennial enemies of the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They are marauding terrorists that that break into Israel all the time and uh cause all kinds of havoc and pain.
SPEAKER_00: And um there they worship a false idol, a false god called Dagon.
SPEAKER_00: And um they have uh done battle recently, as we enter the story here anyway, with King Saul of the Israelites and Jonathan his son and a couple of his other sons and bunches of the armies of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistines uh have done that battle at Mount Gilboa, which is up toward the northern part there where it actually says Israel on the map, and they defeated the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Saul has turned away from God.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I have the people of God who are following Saul, and it's a difficult day, but at the same time that has happened, down in the green territory, there is where David and 600 of his men that follow him, they've been hiding out in a Philistine city called Zikblag, pretending to be Philistines, pretending that they could live there safely among Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been on the run from Saul, who's wanted to kill David.
SPEAKER_00: He's tried eleven times to kill David.
SPEAKER_00: David, on the other hand, has had two opportunities to kill Saul, but he has not done it because he sees Saul as God's anointed, and he so respects God's will, God's timing, and God's ways that David won't strike out against Saul.
SPEAKER_00: But now Saul has been put to death.
SPEAKER_00: He's been killed in battle, as has Jonathan, who happens to be Saul's son, but also David's very, very best friend.
SPEAKER_00: And so David is in Ziklag, he's mourning all of that.
SPEAKER_00: We studied that Song of Lament last week, and we're going to pick up right now in Ziklag, where David begins to ask the question what next, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: And you may have asked that question before in your own life, in your own set of confusing circumstances, or in your own transition time, whatever that may be.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great question to ask.
SPEAKER_00: And our this God of the Bible is approachable with that question.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see that as we go along, and responds to grant uh some information to David in a very unusual way, but yet at a uh a way in which I think we can learn some things as well.
SPEAKER_00: So set your eyes on the page.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at these uh first 11 verses of chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: It came about afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: David inquired of the Lord, and if you would underline that phrase, inquired of the Lord, that would be good.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very important phrase in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you have one of the Pew Bibles, go ahead and underline it.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next person behind you who may not have a pen will see that it was important.
SPEAKER_00: He inquires of the Lord, and he says, Shall I go up to one of the cities of Judah?
SPEAKER_00: And of course, he would be from Ziglag, which is down in the Philistine territory.
SPEAKER_00: He would be going up into the region that's called Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so he's curious.
SPEAKER_00: Does God want him to go back now, since Saul is dead?
SPEAKER_00: Does God want him to go back into the uh Israelite territory?
SPEAKER_00: And God says, or the Lord said to him, go up.
SPEAKER_00: So David said, Where shall I go up?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, specifically, where would you like me to go?
SPEAKER_00: And God says to him, To Hebron.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I would have preferred Caesarea by the sea myself.
SPEAKER_00: I I have, I don't know if any of you watch those uh House Hunter International type shows or whatever, you get a you get a view in the in, you know, and you can find these places where it's just ridiculously inexpensive to be able to watch the ocean 24-7.
SPEAKER_00: I love that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the waves rolling in?
SPEAKER_00: That's my that's my idea of a calling, if you know what I'm saying, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the calling I would prefer.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, uh the Lord says to David, and this is fascinating to me too, this exchange of communication between David and God.
SPEAKER_00: I think most of us can relate to asking the questions that David asks, but probably most of us can't relate to the way God answers him.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that is, it seems so explicit, it seems so clear.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I asked Kim's parents for her hand in marriage, and three times Sid, uh, the captain, uh, three times Sid said no.
SPEAKER_00: And finally Kim says to him, What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: A three by five card from God?
SPEAKER_00: And Dad said, Yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what he wanted.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get three by five cards from God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my father-in-law didn't either, and uh uh you probably don't either.
SPEAKER_00: So um the the the fact that God answers David here in verse one and says, go up, or essentially, yes, I do want you to go up to Judah, that's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we process all of that ourselves as we seek uh God's direction and God's counsel?
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll get to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: David said, where?
SPEAKER_00: He wants more specifics, where?
SPEAKER_00: And then it's to Hebron.
SPEAKER_00: Hebron was a range or um uh a region, I'll call it that, because there are many, there are multiple cities or towns in Hebron.
SPEAKER_00: And um and you'll see that in just a minute as well.
SPEAKER_00: David did go up, and uh his two wives also, Ahenoim, the Jezreelitis, and Abigail, the widow of Nabal, the Carmelite.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and some of you are going, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Does the Bible endorse polygamy here?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you to just put a placeholder right there on that question at that verse.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna answer this question when we get to the other three wives that David has as well, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I can just answer it all at one felt swoop.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you'll stay awake and keep keep uh keep digging in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may even dig in and find the answers to your question yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But when we get there, we'll get there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is what's happening right now.
SPEAKER_00: David brought up his men who were with him, so there's at least 600 of these men that are following him, each of his household as well.
SPEAKER_00: And they lived in the cities, plural, of Hebron.
SPEAKER_00: So it's an area, it's a region.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly famous for the fact that uh Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried there.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly famous in Jewish history because of that.
SPEAKER_00: Um Jerusalem is not yet the center of religious activity or the capital, if you will, for the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: It's still uh Jebusite territory, but it will become the great city.
SPEAKER_00: It will become wonderful and all that, but it's not there yet.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in process.
SPEAKER_00: We're going back 3,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, don't interpret everything with your current postmodern mindset and eyes.
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand there are gonna be hurdles to jump for us.
SPEAKER_00: And the men of Judah, verse 4, came and there anointed David king over the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, because Samuel had already anointed David to be the next king after Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And how come this is happening?
SPEAKER_00: And some of you might be asking that question.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Um but this is not a united nation, so to speak, right now.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be about seven and a half years where this whole thing of David becoming king is unfolding.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just flip the switch and he's now king because Saul is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and sometimes God's will for us and God's pathway for us unfolds over time.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but for me, sometimes I I don't get that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm too impatient.
SPEAKER_00: I want it all now, I want it to happen right now.
SPEAKER_00: But it's good to be able to look and see this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the men of Judah have come and anointed David King again, and that's at least curious.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something important there that we all need the reassurance of God's people from time to time.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that you probably know that just as well as I do.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I need someone who out of the blue just comes along and says a kind word or a word of encouragement, or even a simple I love you brother, you know, or or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: And we all need that, don't we, from time to time.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be more proactive about encouraging one another, and that means to pour courage into one another.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that more often.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be verbal with our encouragement or with our writing notes.
SPEAKER_00: Occasionally I get a little note from somebody and they'll send me a note, and they and they're not telling me how they have a better idea how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: They're actually just writing to say, thank you for just teaching through the Bible or something.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not I'm not begging for more of this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply saying it's such an encouragement to me when there's sort of a sense of which this thing that God has us doing here is reaffirmed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing, I think, for David right there, because it's probably been a while since he had a sense of that that God's blessing was really going to be on him, and God's anointing on him to be the next king.
SPEAKER_00: So they reannoined him king over the house of Judah, which is one of the tribes, not all of them, but one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they told David, these men of Judah, they said to him, It was the men of Jabesh Gilead who buried Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Saul's body had been decapitated.
SPEAKER_00: He and Jonathan's body both been desecrated terribly.
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistines loved to do public display of their power and their success, and they literally posted the bodies of Saul and Jonathan on the walls in the main promenade of Bet-Shan, which is a little village just south and west, a little bit of the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have been there as we travel over to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: We actually have been there, actually been on that promenade, that main street of Betshan, and that would have been the wall where they would have posted these bodies, so that the anyone who comes by, anybody visiting from another part of the country or another part of the world would see that indeed the Philistines and their God Dagon had been powerful and victorious over Saul and Jonathan his son, and over the God, the Yahweh, the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happened there is the men of Jabesh Gilead under cover had uh had come in and taken the bodies down of Saul and of Jonathan and given them a proper burial back in their territory.
SPEAKER_00: And at their great risk, they went and did this to honor their memory and to uh to take their bodies away from those who think they have been victorious over Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: David sent messengers, verse 5 says, to the men of Jabesh Gilead and said to them, May you be blessed of the Lord, because you have shown this kindness to Saul your Lord, and have buried him.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Saul's the one who's tried to kill David eleven times.
SPEAKER_00: He's now sending emissaries, envoys, if you will, messengers all the way to uh Jabesh Gilead to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just post it on Facebook, he didn't just send an email, he didn't just post a little stamp and stick it in the mail.
SPEAKER_00: He sent a team to say thank you for honoring the guy that was trying to kill me, who really was his father-in-law, who really was in David's eyes, God's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: And God's anointing on Saul was so important to David that it was God's will, ways, timing, all of that, that he could see past the guy who had tried to kill him, past his own enemy, if you will, and see that this is worthy to be honored.
SPEAKER_00: And these folks need to be thanked for that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he sends these messengers to do that, and he even goes further, verse six, he says, Now may the Lord show loving-kindness and truth to you, and I also, this newly, freshly reanointed king of Judah, David, I also will show this goodness to you because you have done this thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, let your hands be strong and be valiant, for Saul your Lord, is dead, and also the house of Judah has anointed me king over them.
SPEAKER_00: So he's announcing, he's letting them know that he, David, has indeed become the king of Judah now.
SPEAKER_00: And if there were wondering about what's going to happen in Israel, at least there's a hint of some of what might happen.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been loyal, the Jabesh Gileadites have been to Saul, but now Saul is dead.
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: What's our future?
SPEAKER_00: What's the next chapter?
SPEAKER_00: We have a fallen leader, what's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: And David sends this word of encouragement and thanks, and then also this promise of his loyalty and steadfast love toward them.
SPEAKER_00: Let therefore your hands be strong and be valiant.
SPEAKER_00: He's pouring courage into them, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 8 is a transition.
SPEAKER_00: But Abner, the son of Nur, commander of Saul's army, had taken Ishbosheth, the son of Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another one of Saul's son.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Ish Bosheth, or some of your translations may have it a little bit differently, Ishbaal.
SPEAKER_00: But his name means essentially son of shame.
SPEAKER_00: In some of your margins, you'll see that.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Abner, this military man, and the military is wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: My dad was in the military when he died.
SPEAKER_00: My father-in-law was a 26-year Navy man when he died just a month or two ago.
SPEAKER_00: But this man, Abner, is a commander of Saul's army, which means, don't miss this, which means he was likely involved in some of the pursuit of David, to take David's life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss that.
SPEAKER_00: Because Saul had that as his primary mission for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And now Abner decides he's the guy that's going to have the last word on who's going to be king in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mechanem.
SPEAKER_00: And he made him king over Gilead, over the Asherites, over Jezreel, over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, even over all of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Ishbosheth, Saul's son, was 40 years old when he became king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: His name means son of Shem, like I said.
SPEAKER_00: He's forty years old.
SPEAKER_00: And Abner, this powerful military man, who was close to the heartbeat of Saul, has decided to say, I'm gonna put you up as king.
SPEAKER_00: And he was king for two years, and the house of Judah, however, followed David.
SPEAKER_00: And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll stop there for today in terms of our text, but there's plenty for us to focus our attention on and plenty for us to learn here.
SPEAKER_00: As I merited on this text, here's what captured my eye.
SPEAKER_00: First, that first verse, I love that phrase.
SPEAKER_00: I had you underline it, inquiring of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He inquired of the Lord multiple times throughout the books of 1st and 2 Samuel, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_00: I won't put it on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at it yourself if you would like to.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Samuel 23, verse 2, it says, David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and attack these Philistines?
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to David, Go and attack the Philistines and deliver Kilah.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just about mayhem, chaos, and murder.
SPEAKER_00: It was about deliverance, rescue.
SPEAKER_00: And so David inquires of the Lord before he goes to battle.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 4 of that same chapter, David inquired of the Lord again.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord answered him and said, Arise, go down to Kylah, for I will give the Philistines into your hands.
SPEAKER_00: So David wants not only God's direction, he wants God to be the one to choose whether that's right or wrong to do, whether he should do it at all.
SPEAKER_00: Will God be with him?
SPEAKER_00: Will God give him victory?
SPEAKER_00: He's looking for reassurance.
SPEAKER_00: All of that, very much a part of David's inquiring of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Also, David the psalmist writes, and many of us know this psalm, Psalm 34.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably some of your favorite, for some of you, your favorite psalm of all.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember back in the 70s and 80s, we used to sing this song.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who were alive back then, we used to sing this song.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless the Lord at all times.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody remember this?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, three of you.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So some of us were alive back then, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless the Lord at all times.
SPEAKER_00: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: My soul shall make her boast in thee, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The humble shall hear thereof and be glad.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is.
SPEAKER_00: I sought the Lord, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.
SPEAKER_00: I disagree with Roosevelt.
SPEAKER_00: There's more to fear in this world than fear itself.
SPEAKER_00: This is a dangerous place.
SPEAKER_00: And there's plenty out there.
SPEAKER_00: I need the comfort and the presence of God and the courage in God to not be afraid of finite things.
SPEAKER_00: I need to sing about it.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be reminded myself of it.
SPEAKER_00: I need to hear you sing about it.
SPEAKER_00: I need all of us to do that so that we're constantly reminded that no matter what is going on, no matter how the storm rages around us, no matter how big the giants are that we face, we can put our hope and trust and confidence in God.
SPEAKER_00: So we seek Him, we inquire of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He hears us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just an impersonal battery that the universe runs on.
SPEAKER_00: Batteries that the universe runs on cannot hear us, cry for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Batteries that the universe runs on cannot come to our rescue.
SPEAKER_00: And they certainly won't lead us to go to Hebron or Judah or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: We need a personal, real God to whom we can appeal, to whom we can run, to whom we can count on and trust and hope in.
SPEAKER_00: It sometimes is true, and I don't know if you have experienced this or not, but inquiring of the Lord, seeking the Lord, communing with the Lord, having a trusting comp trust and confidence in God.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, to be honest with you, I undulate in that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it goes a long time, and all of a sudden I wake up and go, Oh, I forgot to ask.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like when you're on a long, long journey driving, and all of a sudden you look up and one of the mile marker signs or whatever, and it's 15 miles have gone by and you weren't even paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that happens to me all the time.
SPEAKER_00: It happened in Israel as well.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah lamented it in chapter 10, 21.
SPEAKER_00: The shepherds have become stupid.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, may that not happen.
SPEAKER_00: They have not sought the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered in our own time.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is what happens when a church turns away from seeking the Lord, from inquiring of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then the church as an institution just becomes another social or political organization.
SPEAKER_00: They stop seeking God, they stop crying out to him, they stop submitting to him and inquiring of the Lord, they stop hearing from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Zephaniah's time, verse one, or chapter one, verse six.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have turned back from following the Lord and those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.
SPEAKER_00: These lamentations are over those persons who some in leadership, others just persons who belong to God or claim to have belonged to God, they either no longer believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: Or they may believe in God but just don't believe God matters anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I really hope that doesn't describe you.
SPEAKER_00: I know it describes some of your friends and some of my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have all seen that happen.
SPEAKER_00: I certainly hope that it doesn't describe any of us in this room.
SPEAKER_00: But if it does, may God awaken us to seek him once again.
SPEAKER_00: It is the way of wisdom because we were designed to be in relationship with God, to inquire of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I love it that that's what we see with David.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a perfect man, he's not the hero of the story at all.
SPEAKER_00: Christ will ultimately be the only hero of this entire narrative of redemption history.
SPEAKER_00: But I love it that we see that this, especially here, right here in the first verse of chapter 2, that he did inquire of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's very important for us.
SPEAKER_00: He will hand that wisdom down to his son Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He will say essentially, and Solomon will have so learned it that he will write it himself, Solomon who wrote so many of the Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: And Solomon will say to his, the passing along his heritage, my son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.
SPEAKER_00: Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.
SPEAKER_00: Read this next slide aloud with me.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord, and do not lean on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
SPEAKER_00: Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
SPEAKER_00: It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much there we could spend a month.
SPEAKER_00: Just in those verses on that one slide right there.
SPEAKER_00: What if everybody that you know, what if just each of us decided to not be wise in our own eyes anymore?
SPEAKER_00: What if everybody on Twitter decided not to be wise in their own eyes?
SPEAKER_00: Or everybody on Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: What if we acknowledged in all of our ways and didn't lean on our own understanding?
SPEAKER_00: What if we actually rediscovered what it means to fear the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about that much anymore.
SPEAKER_00: One of my seminary professors actually wrote an article on it.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was so helpful.
SPEAKER_00: He said, we've gotten away from fearing the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We're just a little lopsided here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we get a little too casual with God.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, God becomes the genie in the magic lamp, or all of a sudden he's the cosmic concierge, get me what I need, get me what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my agenda, you fulfill it, you fit into my agenda.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of he's the living, holy, almighty, righteous God.
SPEAKER_00: How do I get in on what he's doing?
SPEAKER_00: How do I become a part of his mission?
SPEAKER_00: How do I become his man?
SPEAKER_00: I belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: I belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: It's very lopsided that we get the way we get in the world in which we live.
SPEAKER_00: But what we were designed for, and we really find healing for our flesh and refreshment for our bones when we're in right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: When we have this healthy fear of the Lord, we don't need to have an unhealthy fear of anything else.
SPEAKER_00: Chewed up by fear and distress and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the only thing we fear is the Lord Himself.
SPEAKER_00: We belong to Him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not even an afraid kind of fear, that's an awe and respect kind of fear.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we already know that He already knows us fully and loves us completely in spite of what He knows about us.
SPEAKER_00: That'll set you free when you start getting into that kind of relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: What else do we see here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we also see here that inquiring, Lord, means the answers may come in stages.
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you ever wrestled or struggled with discerning God's will for your life?
SPEAKER_00: Let's come on, confession is good for the soul.
SPEAKER_00: Put your hands up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's me too.
SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely a lot of us.
SPEAKER_00: Disning God's will in ways isn't always just what we think it is.
SPEAKER_00: TVC's own Mike Donahue goes over to the East Nashville campus, just has a put out a clever little book.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Seeking God's Life for My Will.
SPEAKER_00: His presence is the plan.
SPEAKER_00: Mike makes a point there that perhaps God isn't giving me the plan because he wants to be the plan.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: He is really what we're longing for and what we really want to know him, to be in right relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Inquiring of the Lord means seeking God himself and first, seeking God first.
SPEAKER_00: But it also means that we're ready to give up control because we're going to him, not to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, this world that we live in just continues to pummel us with the message: look inside yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and you should do some evaluation once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, it's true, you ought to look in the mirror, take a little look in the mirror.
SPEAKER_00: But the best mirror I've ever found is this book right here, these 66 books in this library called the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: It not only reveals to us who God is, if you want to look into it, but it also reveals to us who we are and how much we need God's redeeming grace in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And it also reveals to us how he's put it on offer.
SPEAKER_00: And the offer is for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond is the question.
SPEAKER_00: How will you respond to God's offer?
SPEAKER_00: It's funny how in this passage, anyway, inquiring of the Lord means answers may come in stages.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you go back and read 1 Samuel, you see that David consults with a priest named Mabiathar.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do that again in 2 Samuel as well.
SPEAKER_00: We just haven't gotten there yet.
SPEAKER_00: But he's looking for wise spiritual counsel.
SPEAKER_00: Is that where you turn for wise counsel?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just going to your friends who are always going to be yes people?
SPEAKER_00: They're always going to tell you what you want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: My best friends are the people that will tell me the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they love me enough to tell me the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Not just to reaffirm my prejudices, not to just reaffirm my preferences, but actually the faithful friend is the friend that will tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And that's helpful, very helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Abiathar.
SPEAKER_00: The ephod was their means of communication back then.
SPEAKER_00: It was a vest the priest would wear.
SPEAKER_00: It had the Urim and the Thumim on it.
SPEAKER_00: That's another mystery.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to get into all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad to talk about it or to point you to the direction of some folks.
SPEAKER_00: But this is one of the ways they heard from God.
SPEAKER_00: One of the means that they employed.
SPEAKER_00: And so David, yes, is doing that in 1st and 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: He hears a yes from God in this chapter, go up, essentially.
SPEAKER_00: But he's got the courage to obey.
SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes God says, go up, like he did to David here, and we don't go up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I've gotten used to Ziklag.
SPEAKER_00: I just finished convincing these Philistines that I'm trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: I fooled them.
SPEAKER_00: But he's and he's living a lie there.
SPEAKER_00: He's not, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we just sit in that and we don't, and we're not sure how they're going to receive us in Hebron.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, Saul's been after us, and if they like Saul, they're not going to like me.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're so nervous about all that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have the courage to obey God when God does speak to us, you know?
SPEAKER_00: The leaving the Philistine territory.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us sometimes need to set aside some places, some people, some props that lead us away from Christ, lead us away from our life with God.
SPEAKER_00: And to be in Philistine territory, to act like, live like a Philistine for David, that's not where he belonged.
SPEAKER_00: And same with us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to not look just like the world around us, but we need to be set apart wholly as unto the Lord, God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoicing, even in times of sorrow, trusting and hoping with great confidence.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we're lamenting, we're offering our praise and our worship to this living God who is there.
SPEAKER_00: He's reanointed, which is great.
SPEAKER_00: We need the reassurance of God's people, that's true.
SPEAKER_00: Seven and a half years though.
SPEAKER_00: Patience while we wait on God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have that?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you wish God would move right now, or that he would change things, or that he would stop something from happening, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been there too.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, God's in charge of the clock.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't always move at my the same speed I want him to move at, but God is always on time.
SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that he's never in a hurry, in a panicky kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's God, and that's why we trust him to be God, to be sovereign, to be Lord, to be the wisest who knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: And much more than we can see right now, right in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: Here are some tools.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard of this before.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you, our lives, are an unfolding tapestry of God's glory and God's will on display, woven with the beautiful threads of wisdom and grace and glory.
SPEAKER_00: Or of the tools that we use to discern God's will, God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If it runs contrary to God's word, then it runs contrary to God.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer becomes a little more subjective.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in my prayers, I don't know about you, I'm just going to confess.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I pray and then I begin to prescribe.
SPEAKER_00: Do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: It's probably better if we pray and listen.
SPEAKER_00: But I prescribe.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be cool, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I see the way forward on this one.
SPEAKER_00: If you will just do this and make this happen and get this person to change their mind and then make this circumstance fall into play.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome, and I'll praise you for it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I always put that big, we think that's the big, you know, carrot that's gonna.
SPEAKER_00: I was a chief manipulator of my mom.
SPEAKER_00: She's watching right now.
SPEAKER_00: Mom, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was, I was, I was the chief manipulator.
SPEAKER_00: If if if I didn't get what I want by being sweet and nice and all like that, I'd find a way to arch my back and scream and holler until she finally caved in.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't do that with God.
SPEAKER_00: He can't manipulate, he already knows exactly what needs to be done in the right time, and we can trust him.
SPEAKER_00: We also need wise and godly counsel, just like David did.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you don't have somebody that can speak into your life that way, you need to get somebody that'll speak into your life that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: And then common sense, which is in this world, in our day and time, the most uncommon sense.
SPEAKER_00: Common sense and circumstances also come into play.
SPEAKER_00: All of this, though, is checked by God's word, which is unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, transforming in its power.
SPEAKER_00: I think we see in this passage as well the challenge and winsomeness of honor.
SPEAKER_00: In view of the honor showed to Saul and Jonathan's bodies by the men of Jabesh Gilead, David in turn shows honor to them.
SPEAKER_00: It was risky to do that, but it also built a bridge to them for the turbulent days ahead, as the kingdom of Israel was going through this really big transition time.
SPEAKER_00: It's always good to show respect and honor, but it isn't always easy, especially when you don't know how the other person or party might react.
SPEAKER_00: But courage must be taken, effort must be made if we are to get along with others in this broken culture, covered as it is in the kudzu of acrimony and outrage.
SPEAKER_00: And in our personal relationships too.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because peace must be made.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to actually be a peacemaker.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to be the guy that swallows his pride.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you love swallowing your pride?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, nobody should be raising their hand right now, if we're being honest.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to swallow my pride.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes that's what it takes to be a peacemaker.
SPEAKER_00: Can you think of a relationship right now that you need peace made in?
SPEAKER_00: Now, reconciliation is difficult with other people, especially if they don't want to reconcile.
SPEAKER_00: But forgiving someone else, you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a unilateral move you can make.
SPEAKER_00: Reconciliation takes two, but you can make the move to not allow the poison of unforgiveness to lie in your heart and take up residence in your soul and begin like a cancer to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: Unforgiveness is that, just that.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, as so many have said, it's like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.
SPEAKER_00: But you drank the poison, see, so it's just not ever going to be that way.
SPEAKER_00: The challenge of honor in this particular case, yeah, it was pretty risky, actually.
SPEAKER_00: Very risky for him to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Send those men all the way to Jabesh Gilead, costly, risky.
SPEAKER_00: They could have, they could have lost their lives.
SPEAKER_00: They could have said, he's with David.
SPEAKER_00: We are loyal to Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And they could have killed them, but they didn't.
SPEAKER_00: And so he sends out of this motive that I believe was he was honoring God because that's the way he viewed Saul, that he was God's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: And these men have um honored Saul's body and Jonathan's body, and so David wants to say, Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And I will extend the same kindness to you that it's apparent the Lord has been extending to you.
SPEAKER_00: Um are they perfect people?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Does stuff go wrong in their storyline as well?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But I think we can see here that there is a challenge and a winsomeness to honoring people and to honoring people for their kindness and for their offering dignity to the bodies and the memory of Saul and the memory of Jonathan.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis talks about this a little bit about what happens in our culture when we dis were dismissive of honor.
SPEAKER_00: We make men without chess and expect from them virtue and enterprise.
SPEAKER_00: We laugh at honor and we're shocked to find traitors in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: Such a great, succinct statement.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture that has races to flippancy.
SPEAKER_00: We want good humor, but we race to flippancy.
SPEAKER_00: And we're dismissive of people.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember myself, just in my own sort of watching the culture and watching the messages that flow off the television or off the movies or in the songs or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And how we just, like chapter 11 of Screwtape Letters is all about flippancy, how we trade in good humor for flippancy and we cheapen ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying here is that honor itself is debased because we just simply don't care about it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden we're shocked that there are consequences to that, that we find traitors in our mist.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's no, we're not honoring or respecting honor itself.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a valuable point to look at when you look here at chapter 2 of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: He reaches out to the men of Jabesh Gilead and he builds a bridge to them.
SPEAKER_00: And later on, this is gonna be something that actually makes a difference that he does that.
SPEAKER_00: But right now, we're still in that time period where there are kingdoms in conflict.
SPEAKER_00: And that's indeed the last bit of the verses that we just read here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, earthly kings and kingdoms, Abner decides to proactively, apart from God, put Ishbashith in as the king of the northern part of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas we already know, because we've read 1 Samuel as well, that God had told Samuel the prophet to anoint David as the next king.
SPEAKER_00: And that actually, that news of that had actually permeated, I would suggest, I would speculate, that that's already permeated much of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Because as people saw the outrage in Saul's heart and the anger and the acrimony in Saul's heart toward David, they wondered why.
SPEAKER_00: David had been so good as a slaying Goliath, slaying so many of the Philistines, winning those battles on behalf of the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Why was he doing that?
SPEAKER_00: And they would have heard that Samuel had anointed David to be the next king.
SPEAKER_00: So here we have basically two kingdoms that are in conflict, just like we do in our own day and time.
SPEAKER_00: One in our own day and time that is all about humanity and us taking the reins and us setting up our own sort of king.
SPEAKER_00: And the other option for us is where God has made a choice.
SPEAKER_00: And he has come on his own.
SPEAKER_00: He, Jesus, the greater son of David, greater than King David, greater than King Saul, greater than Solomon, greater than all the kings.
SPEAKER_00: Here comes the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, offering to us the way of salvation as a free gift.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we're in conflict.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because all day long our hearts are drawn, our affections are drawn to the kingdom of this world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's telling us we must have it.
SPEAKER_00: It's telling us we've, it's like a drug, just grabbing a hold of our affections and drawing us in and holding us fast in its vice grip.
SPEAKER_00: And here comes the king, and he, the king of kings, the king of glory, Jesus Himself who wants to set us free.
SPEAKER_00: If you have not chosen the kingdom of God, William Law says first, it will be the, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
SPEAKER_00: You were designed with it, you were, God designed each and every one of us with eternity in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing finite will ever satisfy us.
SPEAKER_00: So now you're invited, you're called to the kingdom of God, to keep God on the throne in your life and in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Choose the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's on offer to you, it's on offer to me.
SPEAKER_00: Which way will you choose?
SPEAKER_00: James K.A.
SPEAKER_00: Smith has an interesting book called You Are What You Love.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Jesus' command to follow him is a command to align our loves and our longings with his, to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all.
SPEAKER_00: A vision encapsulated by the shorthand.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is indeed the heart of the Bible's story.
SPEAKER_00: God creates a good world.
SPEAKER_00: Sin enters the world, and human beings are distracted from the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: They fall, as it's called.
SPEAKER_00: But God has set in motion a redemption story where He is made a way for us to come back to Him, to be reconciled to Him, and He puts that offer out to you and to me.
SPEAKER_00: And the consummation is just that event that the Bible talks about where Jesus comes back and sets all things right, when justice will roll down like a mighty river, when there will be no more tears of sorrow, no more disease, no more death.
SPEAKER_00: And King Jesus will bring God's kingdom in its truest and fullest sense, the consummation of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know exactly when that will happen.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the furniture in heaven will look like, but I do know this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready and longing for a world where Jesus is honored.
SPEAKER_00: And he's the true King, where we can walk the streets of gold someday, whatever that may end up meaning and look like, where we can stand upon the glassy sea, where we can sit at the feet of Jesus and listen and learn.
SPEAKER_00: I love that thing that Jesus said in that most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, where he said what we know in Matthew 6.33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are old enough to remember the song that goes along with that.
SPEAKER_00: If you were around in the 70s or the 80s during the Jesus movement, we used to sing that song.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get real brave right now.
SPEAKER_00: Ready?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Shall be.
SPEAKER_00: A little more gusto.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't know, that's such a thrill to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Did you did you listen?
SPEAKER_00: Were you listening?
SPEAKER_00: I know you were singing.
SPEAKER_00: Were you listening?
SPEAKER_00: This is God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Welcoming God's reign.
SPEAKER_00: Into their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're still here.
SPEAKER_00: That's at the heart of God's design and purpose for your life and for my life, for us in our walk with God together as a church community.
SPEAKER_00: That we would seek Him first.
SPEAKER_00: That we would seek His glory in all things, large and small in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, Lord, thank you for the beautiful simplicity in that song and in that passage and in this passage we've studied today.
SPEAKER_00: Give us hearts that inquire of you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that that, just the thought of that, would permeate our entire week in decisions large and small, in interactions with people.
SPEAKER_00: Where we've become lazy and gone on automatic pilot with some people because we've been hurt or we've been angry or we've been, we felt like we weren't respected.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to repent from that pride.
SPEAKER_00: And like you, Jesus, help us to surrender to God's mission in this world, which is that we would bring healing and salvation and wholeness and glory to God in each and every one of our relationships, in our work, in our art, in our music, in our in our play, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, may you be seen and glorified in all.
SPEAKER_00: That the watching world around us may be drawn to Jesus, our adorable Redeemer, in whose name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen and amen.