SPEAKER_00: So we've been walking through the book of 1st and 2nd Samuel through this winter and spring.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the nation of Israel ask for a king.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the rise and then the fall of King Saul.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the rise and then the stumbling of David, a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we come to the end of these two books, or kind of one book in two parts, we see that because of David's sin in part, both his sins of omission and his sins of commission, his son Absalom staged a coup, and a civil war broke out in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: David's side eventually won, put down the rebellion, and his son Absalom was killed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these next two chapters that we're looking at this morning mark the return of David to the throne.
SPEAKER_00: And also it's really the end of David's story.
SPEAKER_00: As we move into 1 Kings, it's really about kind of David's death and the transition of power after David.
SPEAKER_00: And so today we look at the end of David's story.
SPEAKER_00: What we're going to find here is that hope never lies within ourselves or the people around us, but our whole hope is ultimately and always in the God who is faithful to his people and to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we pick up our story here.
SPEAKER_00: And 2 Samuel chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: Says, It was told of uh told to Joab, Behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people.
SPEAKER_00: For the people heard that day that the king is grieving for his son.
SPEAKER_00: The people stole into the city that day as people who steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle.
SPEAKER_00: The king covered his face, and the king cried out in a loud voice, O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son.
SPEAKER_00: So David obviously is overcome by the death of his rebellious son.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, he's unable to honor or to celebrate, to commend his soldiers who had won the victory, who put their lives on the line for him and for the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than returning to cheers of victory, they return ashamed, as if they had lost.
SPEAKER_00: And so Joab, the leader of David's armies, comes and rebukes him.
SPEAKER_00: We continue.
SPEAKER_00: For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you.
SPEAKER_00: For today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead, then you would be pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore arise and go and speak kindly to your servants.
SPEAKER_00: Point one.
SPEAKER_00: Now he was overcome with grief at the death of his son, but it's very likely that he was also overcome with shame because of his own failings as a king and as a father, which really led to Absalom's rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And this weight was so heavy upon him that he couldn't do anything else except cover his face and wail.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem was he wasn't just a father, he was a king.
SPEAKER_00: And this shame that he felt began to spread outward from himself and began to infect not only his household, but the nation as a whole.
SPEAKER_00: And as Joab puts it, it was going to do even more damage than the Civil War ever could.
SPEAKER_00: And so an unlikely friend comes to his aid.
SPEAKER_00: Problematic Joab comes and says these hard words of truth and calls him back to his duties as king.
SPEAKER_00: But it raises this question: we too face guilt and shame.
SPEAKER_00: We face the weight of our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: We face the weight of the sin done against us.
SPEAKER_00: And so how do we face it?
SPEAKER_00: How do we overcome it more than simply pushing it down and going along with life as normal?
SPEAKER_00: As I thought about it, uh, this movie, The King's Speech, came to mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is my favorite movie.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that may tell you something about me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's kind of just a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's about a king who can't give a speech, and and the victory, the victory at the end is that the king gives his speech.
SPEAKER_00: So uh it's kind of a heady, heady movie.
SPEAKER_00: It's about Prince Albert.
SPEAKER_00: This is a true story, based on a true story.
SPEAKER_00: Prince Albert, played by Colin Firth, is thrust into public service.
SPEAKER_00: He never thought he would be king.
SPEAKER_00: His father was King George V, and he was the younger of two sons.
SPEAKER_00: Well, his father, King the Fifth, uh, King George V, dies, and his brother abdicates the throne.
SPEAKER_00: And so he finds himself in a place that he never thought he would as King of Britain.
SPEAKER_00: But he has a problem.
SPEAKER_00: He has a terrible stutter that he's had since being a very small child, and it's a huge embarrassment for him, for the family, and in turn, the nation.
SPEAKER_00: And so the royal family goes and hires uh speech therapist after speech therapist, the best and the brightest in their field.
SPEAKER_00: None of them are able to help until they stumble across Lionel Logue, played by Jeffrey Rush.
SPEAKER_00: And it's his unorthodox methods that break through, begin to break through these speech impediments.
SPEAKER_00: And the secret of his success, uh, we can see it in this short clip.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just watch for about a minute.
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
SPEAKER_01: Get up! You can't sit there.
SPEAKER_01: Get up! Why not?
SPEAKER_01: It's a chair.
SPEAKER_01: No, that is not a chair.
SPEAKER_01: That is that is St.
SPEAKER_01: Edward's chair.
SPEAKER_01: People have carved their names on it.
SPEAKER_01: Chair is the seat on which every king is.
SPEAKER_01: He's killing quees by a large rock.
SPEAKER_01: That is the stone of schoon.
SPEAKER_01: You are a trivializing.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me! Listen to you by what right?
SPEAKER_01: My divine right, if you must.
SPEAKER_01: I'm your king.
SPEAKER_01: No, you're not.
SPEAKER_01: You told me so yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You said you didn't want it.
SPEAKER_01: Why should I waste my time listening?
SPEAKER_01: Because I have a right to be and I have a voice.
SPEAKER_02: You have such a perseverance birth, you're the bravest man I know.
SPEAKER_02: And like a bloody good king.
SPEAKER_00: I love that scene.
SPEAKER_00: Can you see how he got through?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't through special verbal techniques or exercising the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Lionel Log got through to Prince Albert or Bertie, as he was known by his family, by becoming his friend.
SPEAKER_00: And by loving him for who he was, a simple human being.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than continuing to thrust upon him the pressure of his role as king of England.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've watched this movie again and again over the years, it has become just a beautiful picture of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: One of the best pictures of the gospel, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is the message of the gospel that God comes to us being crushed under the weight of our own sin and our guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't just wipe it away, he doesn't ignore it, but he takes it from us and he takes it onto the cross and he dies in our place.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does he die for us, but he is also resurrected for us, so that in him we receive forgiveness and eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of us who put our faith in that sacrifice, that death and that resurrection, the Father in heaven, Jesus Father, says to us, You are my beloved daughter.
SPEAKER_00: You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: And so not only does he take away our sin, our guilt, and our shame, but he fills that hole inside of us with divine love that can never be quenched.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we are faced with our own failures, failures as individuals, as parents, or in our roles that we play, we can come back to the God who judges justly, who has poured out all of our sin and all of our shame onto Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Lift up your head.
SPEAKER_00: I have work for you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And we can go and return to that work in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, we need the truth of the gospel and we need friends.
SPEAKER_00: Friends who will come and speak the truth to us when we have forgotten it or don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's continue.
SPEAKER_00: David says, Say to Amasa, Are you not bone my bone in my flesh?
SPEAKER_00: God so do to me, and more also if you are not commander of my army from now on in the place of Joab.
SPEAKER_00: And he swayed the heart of all the people of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, return both you and all your servants.
SPEAKER_00: Point two, reconciliation and relational healing require forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You see, David, he has been hiding outside of Israel, and now he is physically on his march back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But on the way, he is hard at work to restore a broken nation.
SPEAKER_00: So first he seeks to reconcile with his own tribe, the tribe of Judah, the southern tribe of Judah, specifically because this is the faction that uh backed his son Absalom and betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: One of his first acts is to forgive Amasa.
SPEAKER_00: Amasa was David's nephew, but he was also Absalom's general, the leader of his armies.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was directly in conflict with David and his men.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by forgiving Amasa, David signals to the rest of the tribes of Judah that he is not after retribution, but reconciliation and healing of this wounded nation.
SPEAKER_00: And then as the story goes on, he forgives three other men who had betrayed him in the rebellion: a man named Ziba, a man named Shemmai and Mephibosheth.
SPEAKER_00: Now here David shows the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he is called a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: He reflects God's heart, which is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: And as David has experienced God's mercy, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's been overcome by his own failures, both in this instance and in plenty that has preceded it.
SPEAKER_00: As he has received God's mercy, he is now able to extend that mercy to his enemies and betrayers.
SPEAKER_00: To turn a phrase, forgiven people, forgive people.
SPEAKER_00: And beloved, there is a message here for us that no matter what is happening around us, no matter how much the wicked prevail, no matter how much our culture tells us that we should seek retribution and revenge, he calls us to be a different people.
SPEAKER_00: A people who reflect the heart and actions of our God.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus meant when he said, Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we fail.
SPEAKER_00: We fail every day, and that's why we return to the Lord and we have our friends who speak the gospel over us.
SPEAKER_00: We repent, we believe, we are forgiven, we are cleansed in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then we go out and we continue to represent our God and Father as lights in the world.
SPEAKER_00: It is his light, not ours, that shines through us by his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now the story continues.
SPEAKER_00: David has finally made it to the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: This is the river that marks the edge of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he will cross into the land, as he will is about to cross into the land, a little squabble breaks out.
SPEAKER_00: Then all the men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, Why have our brothers, the men of Judah, stolen you and brought you, the king, and his household over the Jordan, and all David's men with him?
SPEAKER_00: All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, because the king is our close relative.
SPEAKER_00: Why then are you angry over this matter?
SPEAKER_00: Have we eaten all at the king's expense?
SPEAKER_00: Or has he given us a gift?
SPEAKER_00: And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: We have ten shares in the king, and in David also we have more than you.
SPEAKER_00: Why then do you despise us?
SPEAKER_00: Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king?
SPEAKER_00: But the word the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Point three, unforgiveness and retribution in our hearts lead only to violence, destruction, and heartache.
SPEAKER_00: You could tell in how I was reading it, but these men of Israel are squabbling like children, right?
SPEAKER_00: We were here first.
SPEAKER_00: He's my cousin.
SPEAKER_00: We get special privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: unfortunately, no matter how shrewd or forgiving David is, he can't overcome the tribal and fractious nature of a fallen human heart.
SPEAKER_00: The nation of Israel as a whole was made up of 12 tribes, as you may know.
SPEAKER_00: Ten are the northern tribes called Israel, and two are the southern tribes called Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And here we see the seeds of the future civil war where the nation will indeed fracture in two.
SPEAKER_00: But because of this uh petty squabble, a new uprising breaks out and under a man named Sheba.
SPEAKER_00: And I can only imagine David's frustration.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm doing the best I can.
SPEAKER_00: I'm forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm making deals.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, that's not all.
SPEAKER_00: David's, uh as David attempts to deal with this fresh rebellion, Joab, right?
SPEAKER_00: That friend from earlier, he's actually been a problem the whole of David's life.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's been the leader of David's army because he's effective.
SPEAKER_00: He is loyal to David, but again and again, he is more loyal to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, David actually replaces Joab with Amasa, the man we saw earlier.
SPEAKER_00: David's trying to subtly push Joab to the side, but Joab's pride is way too big and too strong for that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he approaches Amasa under the guise of friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And as he approaches Amasa, he kills him in cold blood, completely undercutting David's earlier diplomacy in order to serve his own bitter ends.
SPEAKER_00: And as I read through this passage again and again this week, and as I tried to place myself in it, I was overwhelmed with a sense of discouragement and disappointment.
SPEAKER_00: The underlying message of this story seems to be that we just can't get out of our own way.
SPEAKER_00: Humanity is fallen and broken.
SPEAKER_00: And as I thought about that in my own heart, I was taken back.
SPEAKER_00: Where do we see this?
SPEAKER_00: We see it all over the place, but most pointedly in my own life, it was on October 7th, 2023.
SPEAKER_00: The militant group Hamas, the governing body of Palestine, together with other other militant groups, attacked a music festival happening in northern Israel, along with a couple other civilian neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_00: That day, 1,200 people were killed, and 200 hostages were taken.
SPEAKER_00: Terrible, terrible atrocities happened that day.
SPEAKER_00: Things that brought tears to my eyes as I heard about them and I read about them.
SPEAKER_00: Now I have heard, as you have probably heard, of you know, the need for peace in the Middle East, the the conflict between Israel and Palestine my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: But it was on this, because of this event that was just stark and in my face, I decided to take a deep dive and try to understand this conflict that has been going on over a century.
SPEAKER_00: What I had hoped to find and what I kind of endeavored to find was a clean narrative with a good guy and a bad guy.
SPEAKER_00: But what I found was over a century of grievance after grievance and wound after wound until there was no room for good guys or bad guys anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Like the proverbial Hatfields and McCoys, each side was able to recite the wrongs done to them by the other.
SPEAKER_00: And my conclusion is that there is little to no hope in the Middle East for the Middle East, humanly speaking.
SPEAKER_00: But before I go pointing my finger around to conflicts around the world or around me, as I reflect on myself, I see that it is all too easy to find the same discouraging signs in myself.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have I, how many times have you nurtured a grievance, held on to a wrong, acted for retribution, or canceled someone in my heart?
SPEAKER_00: And this is pretty much the end of David's story.
SPEAKER_00: After Joab kills Amasa, he kind of takes control over David's army again.
SPEAKER_00: He he pursues that guy, the rebellion of Sheba.
SPEAKER_00: He gets that guy's head cut off and he returns home to David in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And David never addresses Joab's injustices and murders.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like you watch one of these, you know, four seasons, you know, dramatic shows on HBO or Apple TV Plus, and you get to the end and nothing is resolved.
SPEAKER_00: How unsatisfying.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I felt at the end of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: So what are we supposed to do with this story, beloved?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it brings us to point four.
SPEAKER_00: The evil and brokenness of this world will not overcome the goodness of our God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I know we're going, we're going low, we're going dark, but we're coming up here.
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote from Eugene Peterson, the way he summarizes this section of the book.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in reflecting on what we have just read, we realize this is not the kind of narrative we're used to reading in a religious book.
SPEAKER_00: We're used to wanting moral lessons and a theological truth.
SPEAKER_00: But this story, while it is both moral and theological, cannot be boxed into either of those categories.
SPEAKER_00: This is a story of God's ways with men and women the way they are, not the way they are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: God, as the story is told, is not separate from the story in such a way as to be generalized into a truth.
SPEAKER_00: The way God works, patiently and behind the scenes, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, establishes divine sovereignty by using flawed, rebellious, and out-of-the-way men and women to do it.
SPEAKER_00: This narrative trains us in perceiving and responding to God as God is, not as we would wish or fear is the case.
SPEAKER_00: Unforced, attentive to details ever present but mostly hidden, sure and sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: As this narrative Is reread and reheard generation after generation.
SPEAKER_00: It continues to release subtleties and intricacies of presence that continue to shape and reshape our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, as we reflect on this passage, it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard for me.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect it's not hard for you to find similarities in our own world.
SPEAKER_00: It can be just as discouraging to look at our leaders today, or at our communities today, or at our own lives, our own decisions, our own failures.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, this is the world into which Jesus came, a descendant of King David, as a fulfillment of God's own promises to save and to overcome this broken world.
SPEAKER_00: What Peterson is trying to say is as we read this story in the Bible, we learn how to see God at work in our world.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there continues to be sin and injustice and failure all around us and in us.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we are not to put our faith in ourselves, just as we're not to put our faith in David.
SPEAKER_00: We're not to put our faith in our leaders, just as we were not supposed to put our faith in Joab.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope, beloved, is in King Jesus, who sits this very moment at the right hand of the Father, sovereignly reigning over heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: And we, as his people, in this place, sitting under his lordship, are called to live as lights in the world, refusing to give in to the weight of our shame and guilt, but running again and again and reminding one another again and again of what King Jesus has done and is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, when we put our hope in ourselves and in the world around us, that hope fades.
SPEAKER_00: But when we remember our God, his faithfulness, his power to bring about his promises, then our hope returns and it is rightly placed.
SPEAKER_00: And then we can live as his people in this place, shining that light in a dark world, trusting in our divine king.
SPEAKER_00: And as we trust him and as we follow him, seeking in our imperfect obedience, he brings his kingdom one day at a time.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about the sermon, or if you'd like prayer, I'll be down front after the service.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to talk with you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father and our God, Lord, it is easy to be discouraged in this world, and yet you remind us that you have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: Show us your goodness and your faithfulness, just as you did to your disciples that first Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, and fill us with your spirit so that we can imperfectly follow you, obey you, love you, and love and forgive our enemies.
SPEAKER_00: We ask it for our good and your glory in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.