Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning, church.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: What a joy to be together today.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Amen.
I got. I'm. I'm really excited to be back with you guys.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I got the amazing privilege this week of taking a few days to go lead a pastor's retreat and get to pour into some local pastors and ministry leaders in our area.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: And I got to tell you guys,
[00:00:22] Speaker B: one of my favorite things about our church family is that you guys empower me and release me to get to do things like that, to go love and serve pastors who are pouring out their hearts and lives and whose families are sacrificing for the sake of the kingdom all around our city.
What a joy to be in that.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: But I am glad to be back today. I've been out of the pulpit a couple weeks, and I'm stoked to get back into this. Today we are continuing our exiled series out of First Samuel. Today we're going to be in First Samuel 22. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles, if you don't have a Bible with you today,
[00:00:54] Speaker B: we have house Bibles around the room.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Just look under the chairs.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: They'll be there. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. So if you don't own a Bible,
[00:01:04] Speaker A: please take one of the pew Bibles
[00:01:06] Speaker B: or talk to one of the pastors. We'll get you a nicer one.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: But we're. We're in this series. We're looking at this season of David's life, this chunk of first and Second Samuel where David, he seemed to have, like, his meteoric rise to fame, right? Like, he. He stepped. Stepped into the king's palace. He was one of the princes. He's serving. He's gaining popularity and all these things, and then it all falls apart and he ends up exiled, cast away from the king, living as an outlaw on the run. And he will remain like that, an exile, an outlaw until he takes the throne.
This is years of David's life where he goes through trial and difficulty, where he has all his seeming successes stripped away from him, and he's forced to walk this difficult path, trying to rebuild his life and walk toward the calling God has for him. But I think the thing we're gonna see and the reason we're zoning in on this for kind of its own series within One Samuel is I think the theme we'll see in this over and over and over is just this truth that no matter how difficult, no matter how painful things get for David,
[00:02:15] Speaker B: God is constantly making a path for
[00:02:19] Speaker A: him, even in the badlands of his life, even in his exile, even in his solitude, God is making a way for him. And I need you to hear this. The same is true for you, beloved.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: God is making a path for you in this life.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: I think if there's any truth we settle our hearts in out of these few chapters of First Samuel, like, let it be this.
There is no space you will ever step in your life, no place you will go, no circumstance. You will find yourself where God has
[00:02:53] Speaker B: not been there first ahead of you
[00:02:54] Speaker A: and scouted the path and thought through how he might send you through it
[00:02:59] Speaker B: to his good future for you.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: You never go into uncharted territory when
[00:03:05] Speaker B: you have Yahweh on your team.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Amen.
Amen. Today, 1st Samuel 22. And we're just gonna kind of continue on in this wild story that we on with David. And I think the big thing we're going to kind of see today is, you know, things are just kind of falling apart around him, right?
He just seems like he's stuck in this place with no resources, with nowhere to go, with things seemingly getting worse and worse and worse. He just seems surrounded by evil. And what I mean by that is everything happening to David in this section of the book just feels so unjust.
He has done right by his people, right by his king, right by his God. He's just seeking to faithfully serve and glorify his king and worship God and do the things that are expected of him, and nothing works. He just experiences injustice after injustice, his life falling apart. And I think that will highlight a really important truth for us today. My main point today is simply this. God leads us even in the midst of evil.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: God leads us in the midst of the evils of this life, of this world.
And here's the thing, guys.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: I'm so serious when I say this. Like, I'm not naive enough to not realize that's a tough pill to swallow,
[00:04:33] Speaker B: especially when you're the one in the midst of the evil, right?
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Like, that almost feels like a platitude
[00:04:40] Speaker B: to someone who's actually actively suffering when
[00:04:43] Speaker A: you're the one hurting, when you're the
[00:04:45] Speaker B: one seeing terrible things happen to you, you just want relief, right?
I think that's what some of you, I would hazard to guess, are thinking right now while I'm talking.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: You're thinking of your own life, your own circumstances, going, that's nice. That's dandy cool. God's gone ahead of me. But what I'd really like is for this to Just be easier.
I'd like for this hard thing, this evil thing that I didn't cause, this fear, this broken relationship, this addiction to just go away.
I'd like to get a win.
I'd like to take a break.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Let's catch my breath and listen. I understand that.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: I do.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: I do.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: But unfortunately, beloved, this is one of
[00:05:30] Speaker B: the most fundamental truths of life in this sinful and broken world.
And it's not a pleasant truth, but it is a truth.
There will always be another evil around the corner.
Always.
Always.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: That's. That's like the one guarantee of life in the cursed and broken world.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: You may catch your breath right now, but there will always be another hard around the corner, another evil, another injustice, another fearful thing. You will never escape it and it will burden you.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: It will wear you out, because that
[00:06:12] Speaker B: doesn't go away in this life.
But I think the beauty of this, the beauty of this truth, the reason I say this, even though I know that strikes as a platitude to some of us in the room, God leads us in the midst of evil is because the reality is our Jesus is the one who invites those who are weary and those who are burdened to come to him.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Not because he magically makes those things
[00:06:37] Speaker B: disappear from our life and makes our life easier, but because he leads us
[00:06:42] Speaker A: through this life and because he ultimately buys our entrance into the life we were actually made for. The true life, where the weary do rest, where the burden are released, where all tears are gone and all evil is washed away in Christ, that day is guaranteed and that day is coming. But you still have today to walk through.
You still have that.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: And Christ is our loving and our present guide and companion in the midst of a dark and painful world.
Beloved, I believe God has a word of comfort for you today.
I also believe God has a word of endurance for you today.
So pray with me. Let's jump into this. Jesus, we need you to be our discipler today.
We need you to be the one who grabs ahold of us, who speaks into our hearts, who challenges us, who picks through the spaghetti mess emotion of our hearts, of our thoughts, of our experiences, and helps ground us in the truth of your reality.
We need you to do this, Father.
We're incapable of it. We get so caught up in all the minutiae and so tangled up in our own hearts and our own thoughts and our own desires that we just can't get to that clarity. We need you, spirit.
So we pray this in your name. Jesus, please do this for us today. Please Comfort us, please challenge us. Please take us out of here.
Refreshed in you and full of you.
Pray this in your name, Jesus.
Amen.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: So 1st Samuel 22 to recap the story really quick. You know, David raised up. He becomes Saul's son in law. He becomes this national hero, he becomes this military figure. Everything's coming up David. And then things go awry.
Saul begins to grow in jealousy and envy of David. And it culminates in this moment where Saul kicks him out, where Saul begins trying to murder him, trying to keep, like, trying to kill him. And even though David has some really awesome friends who come around him, who try and rally him, who try and reconcile their relationship, it just falls apart. And David is forced to flee for his life in the middle of the night. And he goes from being the prince, being the warrior, being the hero, being the celebrity, to being a guy with nothing but the clothes on his back, running through the night, trying not to die.
And when we got to this scene where he comes to this priest and he basically tricks him and sets up a scenario to get some basic provisions, some food, a sword. And then he flees Israel. He goes to one of their enemies, one of the foreign nations, and is trying to hide out. But even there, his fame catches up with him and he's in danger and he has to pretend to be crazy to escape.
And so we're picking up the story in this very low moment for David.
This moment where he has nothing, where he has access to no resources, he's not safe in his own home, he's not safe in his own country, he has no support around him. He has no resources but a couple loaves of stale bread and a sword. He has nowhere to go.
And that's where we pick up.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: In verse one, it reads this.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: So David left Gath and and took refuge in the cave of Adam.
When David's brothers and his father's whole family heard, they went down and joined him there. In addition, every man who was desperate, in debt or discontented rallied around him and he became their leader. About 400 men were with him.
From there, David went to Mizpah of Moab, where he said to the king of Moab, please let my father and mother stay with you until I know what God will do for me.
So he left them in the care of the king of Moab, and they
[00:10:36] Speaker B: stayed with him the whole time David was in the stronghold.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Then the prophet Gad came to David and said, don't stay in the stronghold. Leave and return to the land of Judah. So David left and went to the forest of Harith.
Okay, so we're jumping right back into this. David has traveled outside of Israel into the territory of the Philistines to hide. But it didn't work. It didn't work for him. There's no safe place for him to turn. He's unsafe in Israel, he's unsafe with the Philistines. So what does he do?
He hides in a cave.
I've got a map here that we're going to reference several times over the coming weeks. It kind of maps out David's journey over the course of his exile. I know it's kind of small to see, but it's helpful here because what you see in those green lines is that he spends a whole lot of time running around, a whole lot of time zigzagging, a whole lot of time leaving the purple area.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: That's the Israel area. Right.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: And what you'll notice if you have really good eyes and you can read the tiny print, is that David spends time in this cave. And this cave is in what's called disputed territory. So this is the kind of thing we can easily miss. But you have to remember, these ancient nations, they didn't operate the way we think of modern Western nations with really well defined borders.
They kind of operated out of spheres of influence.
So wherever the strong guy with the big army and the big sword set up his castle, wherever he set up his fortress, you could just imagine a circle radiating out of that building. And the closer you were to that building, the more secure your identity in that nation was.
And that's really how it worked. And so it created this environment where. Where when we see kind of these borders on these ancient maps, there's massive amounts of territory that's really just kind of not controlled by anyone.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: It's disputed territory.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: People of both nations would live in these villages, oftentimes interacting with each other really well. But what happened is the kings would go back and forth, conquering, taking these chunks back. It was just kind of this, no man's land. Is it Israel's land?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Is it the Philistines land?
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Who knows?
But there's some good caves.
And so David goes and he hides out. It's where he flees. He's living in no man's land. And the text tells us.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: I think this is so interesting. The text tells us that people find him.
People find him hiding out first.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: His family finds him. And honestly, this is probably how it happened, because David would have realized that every single member of his family had
[00:13:20] Speaker B: a target on their back the minute he left Saul's castle.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: And so he's probably doing everything he
[00:13:26] Speaker B: can to send for his family to protect them.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: But David's family finds where he is, his parents, his brothers. That would also mean, like, his nieces
[00:13:34] Speaker B: and nephews and this kind of his extended family clan comes to him.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: But with them, all of a sudden,
[00:13:40] Speaker B: other people start showing up.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: And notice how the text describes the other people, the malcontents, those who were in debt, those who were discouraged. These are the people who have been negatively affected by Saul's rule. They don't like how things are. Guys, these are the bad guys.
These are the rebels.
These are the ones who are going, it looks like David might overthrow Saul. That sounds sick. I want to be a part of that.
And so they go and they show up, and David ends up in this cave with a band, a war band.
That's something he recognizes. He's a captain. He's been a warlord. He's been a raiding captain.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: He knows this world.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: And now he's got a band of 400 soldiers.
I think what's interesting about this is once David has this band of soldiers,
[00:14:33] Speaker B: he kind of realizes two things around the same time.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: A, like, he realizes, I'm not actually hidden anymore, right? Everyone obviously knows I'm here. I now have an army, right?
And B, no matter how well the next few months may go, the best scenarios are going to involve a lot
[00:14:52] Speaker B: of violence and death, and I need to get my parents out of here.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: So he takes his elderly parents, and
[00:14:58] Speaker B: this part is really interesting.
He takes his elderly parents to the king of Moab, one of Israel's oldest enemies, takes his parents to the king of Moab, and basically sets up something really strange, a protection agreement.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: He convinces this king to give his parents not only safe passage, but protection in their land, to stay there. This is wild for a couple of reasons. The first one is obvious. Like, Moab is a foreign power, and David is just a random guy with a mob, right? Like, why is a king making a formal agreement with some random guy?
And why Moab?
Moab is an ancient enemy of Israel. In fact, Moses himself said that Moabites are not allowed in.
They're not allowed to convert. We hate them so much. If a Moabite comes to you and says, I renounce my people, my God, I want to be a under the law of God, I want to be part of the people, the answer is no, leave.
You're not allowed in.
This is a wild take, but there's a couple reasons that come together that
[00:16:14] Speaker B: probably make it make sense.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: The first one is really purely political, right? David is an obvious power within Israel, and Moab hates Israel. And so the king of Moab helping a young and upcoming warlord, operating independently within the territory of his enemies, that probably works out pretty well for him, Right? Like, anything to hurt Saul is probably good for this guy. And the flip side to it is now he's got this guy's parents. So even if that guy somehow wins, it's pretty likely that the arrangement between
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Israel and Moab will be better than it currently is.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: And so we say, okay, there's some political wins here, but there's also something going on here that we can easily forget.
You see, David, I mean, he's an Israelites.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Israelite, right?
[00:17:04] Speaker A: But his dad, Jesse, his dad, Jesse's grandma was a woman we know of
[00:17:11] Speaker B: in scripture named Ruth.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: She has a whole book named after her, and she's called Ruth. The Moabitess.
Right, the Moabitess who had the audacity to say, I don't care if Moabites are kicked out, I'm going to follow Yahweh. And it worked that Ruth, the one who got her own book, right?
And so there is some level of familial connection here. And the text doesn't tell us how this played out, but it's unlikely that
[00:17:40] Speaker B: that didn't come into play in some way that David leveraged the familial connection to provide some form of connection, some form of relationship.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: But it all comes together. And this is the part that I think is actually important for us to see.
David is making a treaty with a neighboring king.
That's the part of this story that's
[00:18:01] Speaker B: actually important to see.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: He may be in exile, but day by day he's looking more and more
[00:18:09] Speaker B: like the actual king of Israel.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: And that's what we're really going to
[00:18:14] Speaker B: see begin to play out over these coming passages in First Samuel, where David
[00:18:19] Speaker A: just doesn't have the title, but he keeps doing the things that kings do. And slowly, even though Saul has the title, it just becomes really evident that
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Israel's actual God honoring king is David, even though he doesn't have a crown yet.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Because I think this part is actually
[00:18:38] Speaker B: really important for us.
This shows us something about David's character, shows us something about this narrative, and I think shows us something about our own pursuit of faith.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: What we see here is that at
[00:18:49] Speaker B: the end of the day, God is building David's kingdom, not David.
God is the one building David's kingdom.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: There's something truly unique and, I think,
[00:19:02] Speaker B: beautiful happening in the story right now that is just so easy to miss on a first read.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: You have to understand the cultural narrative
[00:19:11] Speaker B: of this day, the expectations of the people living in this world in this
[00:19:16] Speaker A: day, and just how wildly different that
[00:19:19] Speaker B: is to what David is doing.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: You have to remember in the ancient near east, there's one way you got to be king.
You were the strongest, meanest guy who
[00:19:29] Speaker B: killed the most people.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: That's how you became king. It wasn't even kingship the way we think of it in, like, medieval England, where it's like, oh, these are my children. The oldest one inherits the kingdom. No, no, no, no.
The strongest person got the kingdom.
And so when a king had all their kids from childhood on, it was a competition.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Are you strong enough to take the crown from me? It wasn't guaranteed to the firstborn. The king gave the kingdom to the son he thought could do was normal.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: And you know how it worked.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: If the son wasn't good at it,
[00:20:03] Speaker A: he got killed, and some strong person took the crown. And if you want to see that played out, like, fast forward a couple generations to when Israel divides into two kingdoms and just follow the history of the northern kingdom that was apostate and far from God. It was constant power struggles.
Constant. The dynasty change every two or three generations because someone would have a kid who just wasn't strong enough, and they got killed and a stronger person came in. That's how kingdoms were built, and that's how kingdoms survived. In this day, in this culture, Saul
[00:20:37] Speaker B: is failing, is flagging.
David is strong.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Everyone living in this area at this time who knew what was going on,
[00:20:47] Speaker B: their assumption was David shooting his shot.
That's what David's doing.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: The king realized how tough he was. King realized how successful he was, and so he kicked him out.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: But David, he's strong.
He's about to see if he can get this thing.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Of course he's gonna build up a war band. Of course he's gonna build up allegiances and build up an army. He's gonna go. He's gonna make a run for this
[00:21:11] Speaker B: thing, because that's what everyone assumed of him.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: That's what was normal in that day.
But I think the thing we see
[00:21:18] Speaker B: that's so beautiful is the text keeps telling us over and over and over and over and over, that's not David.
That's not how David lives.
He doesn't aspire to overpower this king and take this throne by force.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: He's a man who has been given a clear calling from God. He's been anointed as king. He knows what God is calling him
[00:21:42] Speaker B: to in life and he feels no need to seize it. Of his own strength in his integrity, he chooses to live his life honoring his king and glorifying God and taking the steps forward that further those things.
How do I honor my king? How do I glorify God?
[00:22:01] Speaker A: It's the defining characteristic of David. So much so that God has to intervene and say, David, you do actually need an army.
So I'm going to send one to you.
You actually do have to be able to, like, this is actually what I'm doing with you.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: David doesn't go out and recruit his army.
God sends it to him.
David doesn't go out looking to make all these different alliances. God makes connections for him.
David doesn't try and secure his power. And yet God sends him a prophet, speaks to him, ministers to him.
God is building David's kingdom, He's working on his behalf, while David is just faithfully seeking his daily integrity.
And can we just stop for a minute and admit that some of us need that reminder today that you can seek to glorify God today, that you
[00:23:01] Speaker A: can worry about what faithfulness looks like
[00:23:03] Speaker B: right now and you can let God worry about what the success of your five year plan looks like.
And don't mishear me when I say that right, like making plans is smart and wise.
Like you, you should do that.
David's not. David's not ignoring the idea of plans. But we see over and over and over and over that his primary drive is today's integrity.
He knows God has called him to be king and so he knows he will be.
He has a plan for his life. But for today, Saul is king.
So today he's honoring Saul and not seeking the crown.
And yet in the midst of that, God goes ahead of him and God moves him toward his calling. Beloved, you need to know this.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: The same is true for you.
Like, like you can choose knowing full well. Like when you have clarity on what God's calling you to in life, when
[00:23:54] Speaker B: you have plans that you're wisely trying to seek out, you can trust God
[00:23:58] Speaker A: with those things and just choose to be faithful.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Today you could do that.
And I would say you should do that.
Should live your life trusting God with your future, seeking him today. Don't miss today's integrity because you're so caught up in your 10 year plan.
Choose to glorify God in your life. Your actions today let him move you toward Your good future.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Read on with me.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Let's see how this plays out for David. Verse 6.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. At that time, Saul was in Gibeah, sitting under the tamarisk tree at the high place. His spear was in his hand and all his servants were standing around him. Saul said to his servants, listen, men of Benjamin, is Jesse's son going to give you your fields and vineyards? Do you think he'll make you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds? That's why all of you have conspired against me. No one tells me when my own son makes a covenant with Jesse's son. None of you cares about me or tells me that my son has stirred up my own servant to wait an ambush for me, as is the case today.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Then Doag, the Edomite who was in charge of Saul's servants answered, I saw Jesse's son come to him, the son of Adahub. At nobility Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for him and gave him provisions. He also gave him the sword of Goliath, the Philistine.
The scene turns from David back to Saul. This contrasting back and forth that we get throughout this part of the book. David is an exile acting like the
[00:25:28] Speaker A: king, but the author wants to make sure to remind us there is still a king named Saul.
This phrase about the tree and the spear, like, that's the way of letting us know Saul is holding court Right now. He's doing official business right now. David is drawn enough attention that Saul hears where he is. Here's what he's doing, and he's furious.
He berates his officers for by basically reminding them, you know, David's from a different tribe, right? He's basically saying, look, right now the Benjamin are in charge. You think if he wins, you think you guys will be the captains, the boss? You think that's how it's going down?
[00:26:05] Speaker B: This is a way of mocking them, right?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Berating them.
He says, you guys are complicit in this.
No one's telling me anything. No one's giving me information.
And now this guy's plotting against me, waiting in ambush for me. He's raving angry. This whole thing, why aren't these guys working harder? Why aren't you weaseling out David so
[00:26:26] Speaker B: we can kill him?
The implication of what's going on here is that Saul's only heard about this war band through other reasons, like his guys aren't doing his scouting for him.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: He wants David dead before he becomes more of a threat. But that's getting out of hand. David has a war ban now. Now it's not just killing one guy. Now it's a military action to go take out an opposing army within our own territory. Right?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: It's this whole thing.
But then we're introduced again to this character Doeg.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: We saw Doeg last week.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: If you didn't hear Craig preach on this text, you should go back and listen to it.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Doeg is an Edomite.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: He's one of Saul's chief servants and
[00:27:06] Speaker A: he's a dude who knows how to
[00:27:08] Speaker B: get ahead in life.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: So when he sees Saul's fury at his captains and his officers, he sees
[00:27:16] Speaker B: an opportunity and he jumps on it.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Remember when David went to the priest
[00:27:21] Speaker B: in the middle of the night to seek provisions? Doeg just happened to be there. He was in trouble for something and was being detained there for a season. And he saw the interaction go down.
And so he says, I saw him with the priests. And you know what?
That priest helped him out. He gave him a bunch of provisions and gave him a sword. He set him up for what he's currently doing right now.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Doeg narcs on David and on the priests, right?
And this is the setup for kind of the climax of this section of the story. But honestly, guys, this shows us just how complete Saul's fall spiritually, emotionally really is.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: He's consumed at this point with his hatred of David, which if we're honest, is really just a root of envy.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Saul is envious of David. He sees God's favor in David. He knows he has lost God's favor. He's desperate to keep his power, to save face, to get back to where he used to be. And it points us to this fundamental truth and I think beloved fundamental warning, which is simply this. You don't want to be like Saul.
Like Saul is a cautionary tale for us.
David has been living with a daily, moment by moment, focus on integrity. Saul is ruled by envy.
And you need to know, beloved, envy rots you out.
It's what it does, rots you out. It leaves you a husk. It stews within you. It consumes you and burns out of you.
Beloved, envy is a sin to be repented of.
It's danger. It's a cancer to be cut out of yourself.
When you find yourself coming back to envy over and over and over, you
[00:29:20] Speaker B: need to hear this.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: You are in danger.
When you find envy coming back to
[00:29:26] Speaker B: your mind and your heart over and
[00:29:27] Speaker A: over, that should give you pause.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Why can't my life be like their life?
Look at their job.
Look at their house.
Look at their wealth.
Look what pants size they are.
Look at their marriage.
Look at their gains.
Look at their family. Look how calm and happy they are. Look how popular they are. Look how spiritually mature they are.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: It doesn't matter.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: By the way, what specific thing brings about your envy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're envious of good things or worldly things or fleshly things.
Beloved, envy is a coiled viper sitting in your hand, ready to strike.
When that's the case, you don't pet it.
You don't snuggle it.
You get away from it.
You chuck it.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: You get away as quickly as possible.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: If you find yourself closer to the
[00:30:26] Speaker A: envy of Saul than the integrity of
[00:30:28] Speaker B: David, I urge you, beloved, to find a way to bring this into the light.
Bring your brothers and sisters into the struggle.
It is only. Hear this. Hear this. It is only the contentment of the goodness of Christ that will kill your enemy.
There is nothing else.
There is nothing else. If you get that thing that stirred your envy, it will not satiate your envy.
It won't turn it to something else.
It is only contentment in the goodness of Christ that will kill your envy. Nothing else will get you there.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: If you think, oh, man, well, if only I just had that marriage. If only I could just get that job. If only I could wear clothes like that. If only I had a face like that. That won't get you there.
It won't. It's a lie.
It's a coiled viper in your hand. Toss it away.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: It is only contentment in the goodness of Christ that will kill your envy. And you need to know your brothers and sisters like.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Like, that's one of the tools that
[00:31:41] Speaker B: God uses to help you experience that contentment.
Because when you're with brothers and sisters in Christ, you're not alone. Even when your life isn't turning out how you hoped it would, you have connection. You have love. You have safety. You have in Christ a path forward.
Read on with me and we'll see how this text plays out.
Verse 11.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: The king sent messengers to summon the priests.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Ahimelech, son of Ahitub, and his father's
[00:32:07] Speaker A: whole family who were priests in Nob, all of them came to the king. Then Saul said, listen, son of Ahitub,
[00:32:14] Speaker B: I'm at your service, my lord, he said.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Saul asked him, why did you and
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Jesse's son conspire against me?
[00:32:21] Speaker A: You gave him bread and a sword and inquired of God for him so he could Rise up against me and wait an ambush, as is the case today.
Ahimelech replied to the king, who among all your servants is as faithful as David. He's the king's son in law, the captain of your bodyguard and honored in your house.
Was today the first time I inquired of God for him? Of course not. But please don't let the king make an accusation against your servant or any of my father's family. For your servant didn't have any idea about all this.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: But the king said, you will die, Ahimelech.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: You and your father's whole family.
Then the king ordered the guards standing by him turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because they have sided with David, for they knew he was
[00:33:06] Speaker B: fleeing, but they didn't tell me.
But the king's servants would not lift a hand to execute the priests of the Lord.
So the king said to Doeg, go and execute the priests.
So Doeg the Edomite went and executed the priests himself.
On that day he killed 85 men who wore linen ephods.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: He also struck down Nob, the city of the priests, with the sword. Both men and women and infants and
[00:33:31] Speaker B: nursing babes, oxen, donkeys and sheep.
However, one of the sons of Halimelech, the son of Ahadab, escaped. His name was Abiathar, and he fled to David.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Abiathar told David that Saul had killed
[00:33:43] Speaker B: the priest of the Lord.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: And David said to Abiathar, I knew
[00:33:46] Speaker B: that Doeg the Edomite was there that day and that he would surely report to Saul.
I myself am responsible for the lives of everyone in your father's family.
Stay with me. Don't be afraid for the one who wants to take my life. Wants to take your life. You will be safe with me.
This is the word of the Lord for us today.
What a heavy scene. What a horrible scene, right when it plays out like something in a movie. And you're kind of like, oh my gosh.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: But these are real people.
Real people caught up in something terrible. Saul is whipped up into this frenzy of his envy and he calls for Ahimelech and his family to appear before him. And he doesn't do any investigation. He simply launches into an accusation. You betrayed me. You sided with David. You aided his rebellion.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: And you can see Ahimelech, not just his fear, but his confusion here.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: I don't know what you're talking about.
Of course I helped David. He's your son in law. He's like the cool guy, everyone likes him. I've helped him Plenty of times. Like, why wouldn't I have helped him? I didn't. I didn't know about any of this.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Saul won't hear it.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: And here's the thing.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: I actually think David very likely did this on purpose.
His deception to the priests created an environment where they didn't know they were betraying the king complete innocence.
But it didn't actually help them in the moment because Saul is so rotted out by his envy, it does these poor priests no good. So Saul orders them killed. And this moment is striking.
Saul gives this order, and even his own guards look at him and go, you want us to kill the priests?
I'm not doing that.
Right.
So Saul turns to Doeg. Doeg, a good opportunist, who knows when he can rise up the social ladder and says, you do it.
And he has no such hesitations. He's an Edomite, after all.
So he slaughters Ahimelech and his family right there. He doesn't stop there.
Apparently he got what he wanted. He went from servant to raiding party captain, because he goes to the city of Nob, where the priests reside, and wipes out their entire clan, the entire city, their families, their spouses, their kids, their livestock.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: It's this weird, ironic scene, like just
[00:36:14] Speaker B: a few chapters ago, when Saul was actually commanded by God to wipe out one of God's enemies. He refused.
And here he. He fulfills that command, but against God's own priests.
He's so far from the Lord. So far from the Lord.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: It's not to be overly dramatic, but like, this is what the apostle John
[00:36:33] Speaker B: was referring to in 2 John when he said there would be many antichrists.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Like, I think we don't like to
[00:36:40] Speaker B: use the word Antichrist because most of us associate it either with just Revelation or the Left behind books and whatever president we currently don't like. Right? Like, that's kind of where we keep that word mentally.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: But the Bible uses this term as
[00:36:53] Speaker B: a description for the kind of heart,
[00:36:55] Speaker A: the kind of life that is given totally to the opposite of the gospel.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Antichrist.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: Christ brings the gospel.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: He brings good news.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: He brings redemption. Christ kills the curse and redeems those
[00:37:09] Speaker B: in desperate need of health.
But a heart given to furthering the curse, furthering death and evil and chaos, that is truly antichrist.
And John says that happens in this world.
That heart raises up and it goes and does its work. And in this moment, this is soul.
He's an antichrist.
Here's the thing. The only good thing I would say about Antichrists Is no matter how strong they may be and no matter how much chaos they may throw out into
[00:37:45] Speaker A: the world, they can't actually win.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: And my kids are getting to the age where we start to watch, like, bigger movies, you know, like Lord of the Rings and things like that.
And you know this, if you've had kids, when we start to watch these kind of movies, like, it's scared, like when there's the big fight scenes, right? And so in our house, we have this moment where we go, hey, hey. Remember, in movies, the good guys always win.
Oh, yeah. That, like, helps them get through it, right?
There's a truth to this, guys.
Antichrists are really strong. They do a lot of horrific things in the world, but they can't actually win.
It's one of their defining characteristics, is that they lose.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: They may unleash their evil in a cursed and broken world, they may often
[00:38:28] Speaker B: look like the winners. They look like the ones in power, but they're not.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Because no matter how much destruction, the pharaohs of the world, the Sauls of the world, the Herods of the world, the Neros of the world, may reap on this earth.
They can't actually defeat God.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: They can rage and rail against God and his people, but there will always be a remnant.
It will never wipe out the kingdom of God. They will never destroy the kingdom of God. The darkness of the curse may rage, but it will never overcome God.
Because God, beloved, is always preserving his remnant.
Even in this moment of Saul's Antichrist, evil God preserves Abiathar, who escapes and makes his way to David.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: He's drawn in with David and he'll
[00:39:17] Speaker B: actually serve him basically the rest of his reign.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Even in this darkness and this evil, God preserves a remnant. Because God can work a pebble of hope out of an avalanche of evil.
Because nothing can actually destroy the kingdom of God. Because ultimately, beloved, hear this. It is God who is victorious.
Like this is the message of the gospel. When the curse is loud, when evil feels like the winner, when Jesus is betrayed and arrested and publicly crucified and his disciples abandoned him, when it seems like Satan and evil, it's actually won. When it seems like they're strongest, they're not.
And in Christ's death on the cross, he's victorious. Amen.
In the moment when the curse seems like it's winning, it isn't.
The slaughter at Nob looked like an
[00:40:10] Speaker B: evil victory, but it led the priest to David, connected the next king to the Levitical ministry.
Beloved, I'm so serious when I say this. It may look like the Antichrist is winning in your life, but God reigns and Christ is victorious.
Which is really cool to say in church when we're sitting here and we sang beautiful songs and we're in the moment. But that is brutally hard to live, isn't it?
Isn't it?
[00:40:45] Speaker A: It's beautiful to talk about how God wins even when evil looks like it
[00:40:49] Speaker B: has all the power. That's a great message.
But how does that actually help you face your suffering?
[00:40:55] Speaker A: How does that help you endure the
[00:40:57] Speaker B: injustices, the pains, the evils that work
[00:41:00] Speaker A: themselves out in your own life?
[00:41:03] Speaker B: And I think that's really where we actually have to land today.
Beloved, the gospel is real.
Jesus's death was his victory. It made a way for you to be forgiven from your sins, redeemed to the eternal life. God made for you.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: That is true, that eternal victory is secured.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: But you still have to live here for a while.
You still have to figure it out here.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: And you need to be able to
[00:41:27] Speaker B: trust that God is actually leading you when it looks like evil is winning.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: You need to be able to step into the pain of tomorrow, knowing that even in the midst of darkness, your God has gone ahead of you and
[00:41:40] Speaker B: he plans your steps.
You need that to survive life in this world.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Later in his life, David reflected on this same idea and he penned the
[00:41:51] Speaker B: most famous psalm in the scripture, Psalm 23. This is the one that all of us can quote, like a little bit of, right? Because they say it at every funeral.
It's made up of two contrasting images. If you actually go and look at it, it's two images and they just stick some together. The first one is of a shepherd with his sheep, and the second one is of a king putting on a feast for his people.
You think about, over the course of David's life, one of the few people who actually had first hand knowledge of both those things, right?
And he connects them together and says, the Lord is like my shepherd, like I'm the sheep, and he's guiding me in a dangerous, scary world.
But you know, he's also like a king, and he's drawing me into his feast and giving me his hospitality.
But here's the thing, here's the thing.
Even though this whole psalm reinforces the idea that David is walking in the blessing of the Lord, it's why it's so beautiful, it's why it's so famous.
That protection, that blessing, doesn't mean just skirting past evil and getting a blessed life.
It actually means walking through the midst of difficulty and suffering and not even knowing why.
I mean, think about the very center of that psalm where he connects the two images. He says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
The two connecting phrases for these two different images are about living in the midst of evil.
The sheep walking through the dark valley, not knowing, scared, needing the shepherd to push them through.
The person being invited to the feast and then looking around and going, all the other guests want me dead. Why am I here?
These are the two images that come together.
He still walks through the valley.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: He's still surrounded by enemies. Those don't go away simply because God is blessing you.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Instead, the text says, God is simply with David. While they're happening, you guys need to know something. That's real life.
That is the life of faith.
Means evil and suffering will still be very present in your life.
It means sometimes, by the way, sometimes you will do your absolute best. You will do your absolute best and still have evil things happen to you and happen to those around you.
I mean, sometimes that's just how it works, you know? When Kim and I went our first year of marriage, I was a youth pastor at a church, and we were still very young, very young in our relationship, very young in our understanding of ministry, trying to figure out healthy rhythms, how to pour into our and protect our family, how to be faithful in ministry. And one of the things we decided on in that first year of marriage is we said, you know what?
I work a lot of nights because I'm a youth pastor. And so on Wednesdays when I got to be at church till like, 9 or 10, I'm not going to go until noon. And we'll take that morning and we'll have some us time. We'll invest in our marriage. We'll have breakfast. And so maybe like 10 months into our marriage, one Wednesday morning, we're sitting eating breakfast. I got a phone call from one of my students.
My phone's sitting there buzzing. We have that moment where we kind of look at each other and then go, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're going to invest in us.
We're going to hold this boundary, right?
And so we do that, and we eat our meal. And around noon, I go into church and I get busy setting up youth group. And a couple hours later, I go, oh, shoot, that kid called me. I should check the voicemail.
And so I checked the voicemail, and he says, hey, Sam, I just wanted to tell you bye because I'm going to kill myself right now.
And then he hung up.
It's why I call his parents.
They've gone to work. They're not close, they're not near.
His mom says, please go to our house and check on him. He's not at school, so go to the house to get the car. Kim says, I'm gonna go with you. We drive there as fast as we can, kick open the door, go inside and find him, having already killed himself, already cold in the living room.
And that's. Oh, that's awful. It's awful. Awful.
Sat there waiting for the paramedics to show up. Sat there when his parents got home.
Whole thing.
Now, I'm sorry if that's, like, that's a heavy story.
If that was triggering for you, I apologize.
But here's the thing about that.
That story is just an evil story.
It's just a lot of sorrow.
That's such a clear picture of the curse, right?
Such a terrible thing.
And you have to imagine that when you experience something like that, you unavoidably ask yourself, what if I had done different?
What if I had. What if I. What if I. Right.
How could you not?
But here's the problem with that.
I didn't do anything wrong in that story, right?
I didn't do anything wrong in that.
Of course, I could have made a million different decisions, because we can all make a million different decisions. But the reality is, in that moment, I did my best and something horrific happened.
And that's just life.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Now, I know that's not like the happy, like, hey, welcome to church, kind
[00:47:33] Speaker B: of sermon, but, beloved, you have to know something.
Sometimes you do your best and horrible evils still happen because we don't get to avoid evil in this life.
I know that's not a pleasant truth, but that is truth.
That is life.
And what's worse, not only do we not get to avoid evil, we don't even always get a why.
We don't even always get to understand purpose behind it.
I mean, think of this for a moment. Think of this.
David's moab connection helped him protect his parents. That's an absolutely vital moment in his life, right? It's a beautiful part of the story.
I mean, look how God showed up for them, right? Like, what a beautiful thing, Just. Just at the right time, just in a needed way.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: But that's a small comfort to Naomi and Ruth, right?
Go back and Read their story.
Their life was hard.
They suffered. They almost starved to death. They were in danger. They suffered. They lost people close to them.
And the, and, and, and, and the why in that?
[00:48:39] Speaker B: Well, listen, there's going to come a point like a hundred years from now when your grandkid is going to be in danger.
And this, this right here will help him.
Is that a comfort to Ruth and Naomi in the moment?
[00:48:52] Speaker A: I mean, even if you told it
[00:48:54] Speaker B: to him, would it be a comfort? I mean, maybe. I don't know.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: But they didn't even get to know.
They just lived and went through the evils they went through and did their best to trust God and died and had no clue.
No clue. No clue.
Sometimes you don't get any sort of
[00:49:12] Speaker B: why, any sort of why, any sort of answer, man.
But here's the thing, and this is where I'll land if the band wants to come back up.
David says, when we walk through evil, we do so with no fear.
No fear.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: Why?
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Because God is with us.
Not because we got to avoid the evil.
Not because we get a really good Disney ending where we're told the evil was worth it and it meant something.
Not because we're able to make the right choices and avoid it happening. Not any of those things.
We walk through evil with no fear because God is with us.
He is our comfort.
He's not separate.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: He doesn't look down on us from high and say, you got it.
Keep it up.
Atta boy, you're strong. You can do this. No. He climbs down from his throne and he joins us.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: The muck and the mire and the sorrow.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: He trudges through it.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Not even just with us, ahead of us, clearing the path, making a way, guiding us where we need to go.
Beloved, I will tell you this.
I believe in my heart of hearts.
One of the most important things we consider in the truth of a text like this is that most of us simply don't want to be led by the hand of God.
We just don't want to.
We want some other solution.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: We look at the evils of this
[00:51:02] Speaker B: life, the injustices of this world, the
[00:51:04] Speaker A: sorrows we experience, the pains, the anxieties,
[00:51:07] Speaker B: the destructive, the cursed things.
[00:51:10] Speaker A: And we just go, I just want to fix that. I don't want to feel that.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: So we look for comforts.
We look for ways to control and escape.
We turn to dopamine hits, we turn to addictions. We turn to numbing. We turn to control. We turn to anything and everything we can to figure this out and get Rid of this pain on our own. And that is not the solution.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: You can't doom scroll your way out of it.
Can't binge eat your way out of it.
You can't sexually gratify yourself out of it.
You can't work out your way out of it. You can't earn money your way out of it.
There's no way
[00:51:52] Speaker B: you can't do that.
You have to take God's hand.
Let him guide you.
Let him walk ahead of you. Let him be your comfort.
My kids are at the age where this is stopping.
It's very sad. I'll cry about it. If I think about it.
If you had parents, if your parents in the room, if you had little kids, you know this.
There's this prime age for little kids, like 2, 3, 4, where they're old enough to be kind of independent.
But the world is big and scary.
And you know this.
You have those moments where you let your kid down and they go cool and they run off and then something spooks them.
Loud noise, strangers in the room, whatever. And what do they do?
They run back and grab your hand, right?
And they want you to walk next to them. They want you to guide them through. And at some point they become preteens who join youth group and they stop doing that.
But when it happens, it's beautiful, Right? It's beautiful.
It's wonderful to be dad, to be mom in that moment and to hold your kid's hand and to create the kind of security that guides them into a space that is scaring them. Right?
Beloved, that is what your God does for you.
You don't need to escape the pain of this life.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: You don't need to numb yourself out from the anxieties of this life. You don't need to try and control the evils around you. To take every inch of your life and hold it captive with your own strength and your own will. You don't need to is the father is with you.
He's guiding you. He's gone ahead of you.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: His hand is there to take you through it, beloved.
So I want to invite you to do this as we land out today.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: I want to invite you to take
[00:53:50] Speaker B: a moment and to consider your own life.
Consider the way the curse is beating you up right now. Because I guarantee you, no matter who you are, there is a reality of the curse in your life right now.
Something painful, something holding on to you. Some injustice, some suffering.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Something
[00:54:12] Speaker B: that is giving you the urge to take your own hand and forge your own path.
I want you to consider what it would take today. What would it take? What would have to change in your life for you to let go of that and take God's hand and let him guide you into the next steps of today, to let him walk you through the reality of this world.
I gotta tell you guys, he's taking you somewhere good.
He really is.
He can. He can bring hope out of despair.
He can bring redemption out of trauma.
He can bring healing out of addiction.
He can bring joy out of sorrow.
He can redeem you. That's the kind of thing he does.
Take a few minutes to be with Christ, to meet with him as your heart needs. And for those of you who are in the room, who are in Christ, I would invite you to complete that response by taking communion.
We do this every week at Emmanuel. It's one of my favorite things when we take communion.
It's this acted out parable.
Eat bread, we drink some juice. And Christ says that when we do that, we're remembering his work for us. His body broken in the bread, his blood poured out in the juice. It's this way of drawing ourselves back to the truth that Christ did in fact step off his throne and come into the mess and give Himself for us. And the work he did is actually sufficient to fulfill, free us from the bonds of the curse.
When we take communion, we're proclaiming that to ourselves and we're proclaiming it to those around us.
That's a good thing to proclaim today. Amen.
So for those of you in Christ, and you've had a minute to meet with Jesus, I'd encourage you to come up and celebrate the sufficiency of the cross.
And then we'll sing a few songs. Beloved, do the work you need to do with Christ.
