Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What a joy to be together today.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Those of you who braved the building
[00:00:05] Speaker A: and are hanging out with us in person, we are grateful for you guys.
You are allowed as many itches as you need self consciously today.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: You know, I was thinking, I was thinking, I remember, you know, I got
[00:00:23] Speaker A: to pastor a church previous to this called Red Tree Church and we spent most of my time ministering. There is a mobile church we packed in and packed out of a trailer every weekend. And I remember having conversations with our team about just how desperately we wanted to have a space that was our space that we could land in and just how draining it was, you know, to pack in and pack out. And I remember specifically sitting one time with the elders and Pastor Jesse looks at me and just says, having a permanent space will not solve our problems. It will swap out our problems for other ones.
And it.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: And I remember saying, I don't remember the exact sentence, but I said something
[00:01:01] Speaker A: to the effect of, that's fine, I want the other problems.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Well, now here we are with the
[00:01:08] Speaker A: other problems, ladies and gentlemen, and God is still good.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I'm so excited for us to be together today, seriously.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Even if you're watching at home today, man, we are so grateful that you are choosing to worship the Lord with us.
It is just such a privilege to gather with brothers and sisters to be in the Word, to seek after the Lord together. I am eager for our time today.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: It's been a hot minute, but we're jumping back into first Samuel today.
So you can grab your Bibles. You can Turn over to 1 Samuel, chapter 24. We don't have a Bible with you today. There are house Bibles around the room.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Look under the rows, you can grab one. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel Fellowship. If you don't have a Bible, please, please, please tell one of the pastors, we'll get you one. Or you can take one of The Pew Bibles.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: 1st Samuel 24. The astute reader will notice that we're
[00:02:00] Speaker A: near the end of 1 Samuel and you may be thinking to yourself, wow, what are we doing after first Samuel? We've been in this book a long time. Here's the answer. Second Samuel.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Because the story's not done, we're going to play this story out to the end. But we're in 1st Samuel 25 today, or 24 today, and we've been going through this kind of micro series within First Samuel that we're calling Exiled and we're talking about this season of David's life, this really specific moment in his story when on the one hand, David has been anointed King of Israel, like he knows exactly what God has called him to in this life. He's going to lead and unify Israel in some beautiful, amazing ways. And. And yet the previous king Saul is still the guy with the crown and the army, right? He's still in charge. And he's come to this place where he just hates David and he quite literally exiles him. He strips everything away from him, his family, his wealth, his title. And David the anointed righteous, like God put him in this place, King of Israel is living as an outlaw.
And we're in this season where it's just. Man, it's painful to watch what David is going through because he just goes into trial after trial, defeat after defeat, stress after stress. And I really think the continual theme of these texts, the thing we've come back to over and over, is this idea that as believers, we can trust in the sovereign love and the provision of God even when our circumstances make no sense.
I feel that's kind of the continued story of this exiled time in David's life, is that God shows up even when things are falling apart, even when we experience injustice and evil. We're invited to find security and hope in the sovereignty in the love of our God, because God is on his throne even when the curse rages.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Our text today is going to continue with this theme, but it's going to make what I think is a really important and difficult twist for us. You see, we've spent a lot of time up to this point in this section of First Samuel talking about what does it mean to trust God when
[00:04:19] Speaker A: things fall apart in our life, when nothing is going as you planned.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: But today we're going to talk about
[00:04:24] Speaker A: trusting God in the midst of those seeming opportunities that pop up in our life.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: And so my main point today is going to be this wait upon the Lord.
That's going to be the phrase for us today, wait upon the Lord. And there is a parenthesis here because
[00:04:41] Speaker A: there's a very specific context.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: We're talking about this wait upon the Lord, not your desires or your circumstances.
I think we're hardwired, hardwired to struggle to see past our own internal desires,
[00:04:56] Speaker A: to see past our immediate circumstances, and
[00:04:58] Speaker B: to have larger vision for our life. It's difficult for us to do, especially when the pressure's on, right.
When life gets difficult, when life gets painful, really hard to see past. Right now, the encouragement of this text
[00:05:12] Speaker A: for Us is that no matter where you find yourself in life, beloved, wait upon the Lord.
And guys, I think this is such an important distinction.
Not, not just to trust God when things are going awful, but when these little opportunities in life pop up.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Because even though not as extreme as what we're gonna see in David's story, I think we've all had similar experiences
[00:05:38] Speaker A: to what we'll see David wrestle through today.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: We have these moments where we're stuck in our own personal exiles and life is not turning out the way we want. And we find opportunities where our circumstances and our desires come together with an option that appears to alleviate our immediate
[00:05:56] Speaker A: pressure, but violates our conscience, violates our conviction.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: And I would say most often these
[00:06:04] Speaker A: little opportunities are small and seemingly insignificant.
But I'll just tell you guys, and this is confessionally, in my own experience,
[00:06:12] Speaker B: when life is painful and I have an out, I almost always choose the out.
Right.
When you're hurting, any out can feel like God's provision.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: I've sat with folk who have told me that this exact lie.
My marriage is struggling. So you know what? I really think my infidelity is probably kind of justified because my marriage is kind of miserable. My job is incredibly stressful.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: So you know what?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: I take every shortcut I can take.
I've been deeply wounded spiritually in the church. So you know what? Ceasing my spiritual pursuit, that's good and right for me.
But guys, I'm just going to say this, this thing that we know, but we miss in the moment, this just
[00:06:54] Speaker B: isn't the best way forward.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: It isn't the best way forward. It isn't.
Sometimes the exile itself, sometimes the suffering, the hardship, the trial itself is where God's sovereignty is actually showing up.
It's where he's actually sanctifying us. And when that is the case, the way forward isn't to take the first escape hatch. It's to wait upon the Lord.
Waiting upon the Lord means choosing the Lord's way, even when it's the hard way.
And look, guys, I know we've all been there in those moments before of large and small compromise. Some of you guys are wrestling through facets of that today in this very space.
I'm just gonna hear to tell you God has encouragement for us today.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Pray with me.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: We'll jump into this text. Jesus,
[00:07:42] Speaker B: we need you to be our
[00:07:43] Speaker A: teacher, our disciple today.
Holy Spirit, I pray that you would jump into this story with us, this long story chunk of text, this, this narrative that's so culturally removed from us. And that you would help us to calm, to be present, to experience what you have for us. I pray, Lord, that you would cut through the. The difference of all the years, the difference of the culture, and that you would speak these truths of your kingdom that were true for David and are true for us. That you would speak them boldly to our hearts. That we would leave here today challenged and encouraged in the way our hearts actually need. That we would leave all of you, Lord, able to engage the life, the calling you've put in front of us. God, we love you, we trust you. We pray these things in your name because we need you for it with you.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Amen.
Okay, so to. To remember, just really quick, the narrative.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: What's going on here?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: David, the anointed king. Saul, still alive. Saul has literally exiled David, right? He's stripped away his title, taken away his wife, taken away his wealth. David had to flee in the middle of the night for his life. He is living as an outlaw. And yet somehow in this season of life, it's not just like David slinking around, hiding in back rooms. Like, he's actually built this massive following around him. And now he's kind of slowly, unintentionally become this independent warlord operating within Israel. He has his own private army of 5, 600 guys. He's traveling around, by the way, actually doing the work of a king. Like, God is using this season of life to train David up as a king because he's learning how to lead soldiers. He's learning how to build relationship and make agreements with foreign powers. He's still protecting the borders of Israel. And in the whole time this is happening, the actual king of Israel, Saul, is using Israel's resources and military to hunt him down.
And we keep seeing these escalating stories of just near misses and violence. And if you remember, it's been a little bit. But the last time we were in 1st Samuel, all this came to a head. David and his army had been running for days and days and months and months. And there's this moment where Saul's army is so close to them, they're literally on the same hill. Like, Saul's army is coming up this side. David's army's running down this side. You know, they're about to be caught. David is outnumbered 10 to 1 by the size of Saul's army at this point, like, it's over. And at the last second, Israelite scouts show up and say, saul, you have to call this off. The Philistines are raiding right now, and Saul can, like, See David escaping, pauses
[00:10:16] Speaker A: his army, turns around and goes to fight the Philistine.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: David keeps having these super intense moments. He keeps escaping by the skin of his teeth. Nothing is working well for him.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Nothing is working well for him. I have a.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: You won't be able to see it super well, but I have a picture
[00:10:34] Speaker A: of a map here. I really think maps are helpful when you're doing these Old Testament studies.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: If you have these in the back
[00:10:39] Speaker A: of your Bible, look at them.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: But what you see here, this purple section, this is Israel at this time. And these green lines, these show all of David's back and forth and running around.
He spends months, years of his life running around, hiding, going from place to place to place. And we're going to see today this little bit that's. That's important to this. There's these areas in different chunks of Israel that the Bible calls the strongholds or the wild strongholds. And what it's referring to is these areas where oasis in the midst of the desert creates some water, some plant life, like a place to actually have,
[00:11:17] Speaker A: like, a little bit of safety and food.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: But also natural cave formations create these
[00:11:23] Speaker A: environments where soldiers can actually post up and make and fortify themselves. There's a lot of these around Israel.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: And David uses these natural formations, these
[00:11:33] Speaker A: wild strongholds, as his home bases throughout
[00:11:36] Speaker B: this season of exile. And what's happened in our text is
[00:11:39] Speaker A: we're going to pick up in verse 24 here, chapter 24 here is that
[00:11:44] Speaker B: David has camped out and really established
[00:11:47] Speaker A: himself in one of these specific wild strongholds.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: So read with me chapter 24.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: We're going to see what God has for us today. This is starting in the first verse of the 24th chapter of First Sam. We read this.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, David is in the wilderness near En Gedi. So Saul took 3,000 of Israel's fit young men and went out to look for David and his men in front of the rocks of the wild goats.
When Saul came to the sheep pens along the road, a cave was there, and he went in to relieve himself.
David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave. So they said to him, look, this is the day the Lord has told you about. I will hand your enemy over to you so that you can do to him whatever you desire.
So our text jumps straight into it.
Whatever happened with Saul and the Philistines in that last chapter is overlooked. It's skipped over. As soon as Saul can get away from actually defending Israel, he Takes an army of 3,000 and jumps immediately back into the hunt for David. You have to remember David's force is small talking 5, 600 guys. And the people greatly fear Saul.
If you remember, just a few chapters ago, Saul wiped out an entire village of consecrated priests and their families to get at David.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: He will do anything to get at David.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: And so the people of Israel, no matter how sympathetic they may be of David, they're not going to protect him. And so he gets outed to Saul. Nobody's going to show up to help or hide him. Saul finds out where he is and he comes a hunting.
David's been hiding out in this area called En Gedi. Again, an oasis with caves like just
[00:13:28] Speaker A: kind of we talked about, which by
[00:13:29] Speaker B: the way is still there.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: I think this part is amazing and hilarious and so strange.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: You can Google this. It's a park.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: The En Gedi wilderness reserve is there.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: There are hiking trails and the actual cave that our story centers around. Archaeologists are pretty confident they actually know the exact one. And there's reasons we can get into
[00:13:50] Speaker A: on that, which is interesting.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: It's on a hiking trail. Like you can go look at it right now.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: It's really, really interesting.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: But anyway, this place is there. David's been using these caves, this oasis, as a place to post up, as a place to fortify. But at the end of the day, this is a large area.
Think of a chunk of land as
[00:14:08] Speaker A: big as like say castle would say park, right?
[00:14:10] Speaker B: This is a big area and there's no technology. It's just people with their eyes and their own noses. And so Saul is out looking for David in this area. He knows he's fortified somewhere, but he doesn't know exactly.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: It's a really wild setup, I think.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: And I think the story goes in,
[00:14:29] Speaker A: in just a very human way that I'm going to be honest with you, I'm just immature enough that it's just hilarious. But, but we're going to get into this here.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Saul comes up to the area where David's men have set up sheep pen.
So he knows this is. This is an area that is actually populated right now.
And upon seeing the sheep pens and seeing a cave behind them, Saul decides to take a break, go in the
[00:14:52] Speaker A: cave and go to the bathroom.
Which man.
It's just funny.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: This is a picture of what the
[00:14:58] Speaker A: cave looks like, by the way.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: It's real.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Pretty. Real pretty. Got this big old cistern right in front of it. It's called the cave of the Cistern. It's got a Hiking trail that walks right up to it. You can go inside the cave. It's the only one large enough in this whole system that you could have two groups of people in the cave at the same time and then not be able to hear each other.
And they have a lot of evidence of human habitation from the time of King David inside this cave, which is interesting anyway, it's right there.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Saul, of all the caves in the entire area of everywhere in this entire hunt, picks the one cave that just happens to have David and his soldiers hiding in it.
And he goes in here by himself in privacy to go to the bathroom. The king, who would be surrounded by bodyguards all day long, the king, who was out to war with his entire army, says, I need a minute just to myself. I need to go to the bathroom. I need some private time. And wanders into the room where his enemy and his soldiers are waiting, armed and ready.
And David's soldiers say, look what God has provided.
Right?
You can. I mean, the scene is funny because you imagine them hiding in the back
[00:16:12] Speaker A: of the cave and Saul's like up front doing his business.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: But these soldiers say, look what God has provided us. Saul has been handed to you, David, on a silver platter. You can do whatever you want to him. And the implication is obvious.
This guy has been hunting us to kill you for months. This guy is evil, he's sinful. He's right here. He has no idea that we know where he take him out.
And by the way, there's all the
[00:16:43] Speaker A: justification in the world for that decision, right?
[00:16:48] Speaker B: I mean, think about it. David is the true anointed king of Israel.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: He's been given that title, that role by God himself.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Saul has been rejected as king publicly. God has stripped that away from him,
[00:17:00] Speaker A: and yet he still maintains the office.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: God is blessing David's leadership.
Saul's an apostate who's rejected the Lord. Saul has unjustly taken everything from David. His wife, his family, his job, his wealth, his status. Saul has attempted to murder David multiple times. Saul is actively hunting David and his friends and family. Saul has murdered tons of other people in his rage and jealousy against David. No court of law in the world would convict David. This isn't even revenge. This is self defense. This guy is here with an army to kill David.
It's not an exaggeration to say here that killing Saul would solve most of David's problems in life, right?
Not a single soul in the world would blame him for walking out there
[00:17:51] Speaker A: and killing this dude.
I mean, God put Saul On a platter for David. Yeah.
And his circumstances, his desires.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: For once in this story, they actually come together at the same time.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Let's read on and see what happened, starting at verse four.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Then David got up and secretly cut
[00:18:14] Speaker A: off the corner of Saul's robe.
Afterward, David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the corner of Saul's robe. He said to his men, as the Lord is my witness, I would never do such a thing to my Lord. The Lord's anointed. I will never lift my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed. With these words, David persuaded his men he did not let them rise up against Saul. Then Saul left the cave and went on his way.
Now, I think we need to paint the picture here for a moment.
Saul's in the cave taking care of business.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: And let's be honest, if it's a
[00:18:48] Speaker A: guy taking care of number two, it's a safe bet it's going to take a while.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Where are my married ladies?
[00:18:54] Speaker A: In the room.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Right. If he has his phone with him, you're talking 20 minutes minimum.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: And that's on a good day.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: But in all seriousness, all the wives
[00:19:06] Speaker A: in the room went, yes, and amen.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: In all seriousness, whatever Saul is doing takes long enough that David and his guys are able to have a full conversation about it.
And then David is able to sneak up beside Saul.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: I just want to give you a second to imagine that part.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Yep. Okay.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: You're there.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: You're there with me.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: You're imagining it.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Okay. David sneaks up beside Saul. He's got his knife with him.
And instead of killing him, rather than harming Saul in any way, David reaches
[00:19:41] Speaker A: out and he cuts off the corner of his robe and then crawls back.
You have to imagine how his men felt in that moment.
Remember, these guys are on the run as well. Their association with David has made them outlaws. They want to be freed from this exile, and David chooses simply not to do it.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Like this was the moment he could have ended the whole thing for them and no one would have blamed him.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: And he doesn't.
Instead, he cuts off part of Saul's robe, which is so strange, I think
[00:20:16] Speaker B: it's made stranger by the fact. Do you notice the text says that David is immediately full of regret that
[00:20:22] Speaker A: his conscience bothers him.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: I think this is one of those
[00:20:26] Speaker A: moments where, as modern Western readers, we kind of have that intuition of, I've got to be missing something in the story. Right.
He didn't kill him. Why does he feel bad about this?
First off, why didn't David kill Saul?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: And then why does he feel bad
[00:20:40] Speaker A: that all he did was cut off his robe?
[00:20:43] Speaker B: There's a couple things here that we
[00:20:44] Speaker A: miss culturally, historically, that I think is helpful.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: The first is the cultural importance of
[00:20:49] Speaker A: the hem of a robe. In the ancient near east, wealthy and important people would use elaborately designed hems on their robe to symbolize their identity and their authority.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: This is well attested in these ancient Near Eastern cultures. So much so, we actually have archeological evidence of this.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Leaders in cities, governmental leaders, when they
[00:21:11] Speaker B: needed to seal an agreement and didn't
[00:21:13] Speaker A: have their signet ring with them, they
[00:21:15] Speaker B: could take the corner of their robe
[00:21:17] Speaker A: and press it into whatever agreement. If it was a wet clay tablet or something like that.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: A robe was such a commonly understood
[00:21:25] Speaker A: symbol of identity and authority that it could be substituted for someone's signet ring if they were a political leader.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: This is a real thing here. And by the way, it's actually more intense for Jewish folk. If you go back and read in number, verse 15, God commanded Moses to tell the people that all the men of Israel were to actually act as royalty, that they were to be intentional
[00:21:47] Speaker A: about the hems of their robes because
[00:21:50] Speaker B: they were all priests, a nation of priests, and they were actually commanded to weave blue string into the corners, the hems of their robes. Orthodox Jewish men still do this to this day.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: They do it on their prayer shawls, they do it in their clothes.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: This was part of how they understood not just their cultural identity, but their theological and religious identity was to have
[00:22:10] Speaker A: these tassels woven into the hem of their robe. It's a symbol of their identity, a symbol of their position, a symbol of
[00:22:18] Speaker B: their covenant connection to God as a Jewish king, even a lapsed Jewish king. Saul's robe's hem would have been elaborate,
[00:22:28] Speaker A: deeply symbolic and important.
I think what we actually see in this text is, yes, David having mercy and sparing Saul.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: But we also actually see David giving
[00:22:40] Speaker A: into peer pressure here.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: He won't harm Saul.
He's going to talk in the next
[00:22:45] Speaker A: section of text about why that is. Remember all the justifications for harming him.
He's an evil enemy who's done David lots of wrong.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: So he wants to do something.
Wants to do something. He's not going to harm him, but he wants to do something. And in cutting Saul's robe, what David
[00:23:01] Speaker A: is actually doing is disgracing him and
[00:23:05] Speaker B: challenging his kingly authority.
Because there's evidence that in this era,
[00:23:10] Speaker A: wealthy men, when they were ready to divorce their wife, the Part of the final act of divorcing their wife was formally and publicly cutting the hem off of her robe to show her separation in the marriage and the family.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: And if you back up just a
[00:23:25] Speaker A: few chapters ago, in 1st Samuel 15, there's this powerful scene where God has, through the prophet Samuel, told Saul, you're done.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: You're done.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: You're no longer my king. I'm handing the king to someone else. And Saul's on his knees before Samuel saying, don't do this in front of everyone. Don't humiliate me in front of the elders.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: And Samuel says, no. And as he turns to walk away,
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Saul reaches out and grabs the hem of his robe, and it rips off of the robe. And Samuel turns around and says, that's a problem. Prophecy, that hem ripping, that's exactly what God has done to you.
He has ripped you away from the kingdom. You are divorced from this kingdom that God put under you. You're separate from it.
There's tons of imagery in this.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: It's very unlikely that David knew that happened.
But I think the author here wants
[00:24:15] Speaker A: us to see the connection.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: He's.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: He's getting a little bit of revenge in this action against Saul. He's playing into what his soldiers told him without actually physically harming him. But then his conscience is pricked.
David knows that no matter what he says to himself, what he just did is an act of rebellion. He knows it dishonors Saul. And so I love this piece. He immediately confesses to his men, I should not have done this.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Saul is God's anointed.
I will never raise a hand against him. We will never raise a hand against him. I think it's a beautiful picture of
[00:24:57] Speaker A: David's leadership and the trust he's built up with his men, that they hear this and they accept it.
Right?
David is the kind of man that even this sinned pricks his heart.
Right? He didn't harm Saul, but he did dishonor him.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: He did.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: He did challenge his authority. He did humiliate him as God's anointed king. And he can't abide that. And even that, he confesses and says, this is not how it should have been.
I think we would be foolish to move past the story without considering this facet of it.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: I mean, David could have killed Saul
[00:25:36] Speaker A: and he would have been justified.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: No one would have questioned it.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: But David spares Saul and then only dishonors him.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: But even that is too much for him.
He knows that at the end of
[00:25:48] Speaker A: the day, that isn't honoring to God. So he confesses it and he backs his men up from the precipice. They will not be starting a rebellion today. Right.
I think what we see in this moment is that David is choosing to wait upon the Lord.
David has, as clear as you could possibly describe, an escape hatch from his pain and from his trial.
But he knows it's not honoring to
[00:26:14] Speaker B: God, and so he refuses to take it. He won't take the throne of Israel before God places him there.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Beloved, think of these moments in your own life.
Right?
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Like, I doubt any of us have
[00:26:28] Speaker A: had this scenario where we're debating whether or not to kill someone randomly, right?
Maybe if you're parenting, I don't know.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: But we all have these moments in our own life when the pressure is
[00:26:40] Speaker A: on, when life is painful, when you've
[00:26:45] Speaker B: justified all your own little escapes, you
[00:26:48] Speaker A: justified all your little sins that help alleviate the pressure.
David wasn't willing to abide his own dishonor of God's king. He was committed to waiting on the Lord. He knew that God had promised him the kingdom.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: He knew what the call was on his life. He knew that God was keeping him, that God was preparing him. And even though he was miserable and even though his circumstances and his desires came together and he had an escape hatch, he knew in his heart that it wasn't what God wanted for him. And so he said no to it.
In his commentary on this text, JD Greer says this.
It is impossible to achieve the purpose
[00:27:27] Speaker A: of God by breaking the commands of God.
Can we sit in that for a second?
[00:27:36] Speaker B: If you are breaking the Lord's commands
[00:27:38] Speaker A: in your life, you are not pursuing his calling in your life, period.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: No matter how easy it is to justify it, no matter how right or good it seems in the moment, no matter how much it may alleviate your stress and your pain in the moment, in this moment, David's men said, look
[00:27:57] Speaker A: what God has provided us. This is God's provision. Our life has been so hard. All you have to do is this and the pressure will be off and we'll be on easy street.
But David knew to murder Saul to take his life, to dishonor the king, the king that God had anointed to end his kingship before God ended it.
That was sin.
And there's no way for David to actually pursue what God has called him to in this life by breaking the commandments of God.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: It's true for us as well, beloved.
If it takes sin, even relatively small sin, to get the pressure of life off of your back, you just have to Know that's not God's will for you.
You're never moving in the direction of God's purpose for your life if you are breaking God's commandments for your life.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: I remember sitting with a young man once who was choosing to destroy his marriage.
His marriage had not turned out as he thought it would. He and his wife were not aligned on their vision, on their goals for their family. They were fighting constantly. They were growing in bitterness and distance. And in the midst of that, in the midst of being really disappointed and miserable in his marriage, he reconnected with an old friend. And she seemed just so much more in line with what he wanted in life.
So he blew up his marriage.
He abandoned his wife for a new girlfriend. And I remember sitting with him telling him that his marriage was a. Or he was telling me that his marriage was a pressure cooker and that God had put his old friend in his path, that God had set it up for him.
Remember him sitting with me and telling me, like, no, no, no. I think this is God's grace for me that I messed up before.
And so he's put this path in front of me so that I can step into what I actually want.
And you know what?
He did feel a ton less pressure in his life, and he used that to confirm it. He stepped into it and said, oh, my gosh, we never fight. Oh, my gosh, we're so aligned. Everything is so much easier. Surely this is God's will for my life.
And here's the deal, guys.
I know that's an extreme example, right?
David didn't kill Saul.
That's an extreme example. This guy blew up his marriage. That's an extreme example. I know most of us aren't considering things to that level of extremity, although you may be.
But I think these extremes help us actually sit back and think of the small example.
I mean, here's the thing. It's easy for us in this space to step back and think about this guy and go, no way, dude. God's vision for your life is not for you to blow up your marriage. That's not. That's not God's vision for your life. That's sin, man. What about all the small, common ways the same idea plays out in our life?
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Think about all the little sins that we easily, easily justify when what we
[00:30:55] Speaker A: really mean is that our circumstances just so happen to align with our desires in our flesh, right?
[00:31:00] Speaker B: You know what? Work's been really stressful, and nobody really cares.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: So I just cut these corners. And who doesn't mean anything.
Parenting is killing me right now. I'm so spent. So really I think I'm justified in just kind of zoning out my phone for hours and not engaging.
I could work through tons of examples. I could sit and talk about how you deal your taxes, how you handle parenting, what your spiritual practices are like, what your relationship is with alcohol or drugs. But I think the reality is, no matter what example I give, you know what I'm talking about?
You know what I'm talking about.
When the pressure is on, when life is painful, when life is difficult, it's easy to justify the easy but sinful way forward, right?
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Easy to justify it. And it's easy to even put God's name on it and say, God knows how beat up and exhausted I am,
[00:31:52] Speaker A: so he's allowing me that.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: I need this. I deserve this.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: This is important for me.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: I need some self care in the
[00:31:58] Speaker A: form of this thing that I know is sinful and destructive.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Can we all, like, can we be
[00:32:03] Speaker A: honest enough to just admit that that's true of us?
This is not me accusing you. This is me confessing to you.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: This is all of us.
I don't like suffering.
I get beat up and exhausted and burnt out, and when I see a relief valve, I want out.
I don't think that's just me in this space.
I think that's all of us.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: And yet we read this text and David here chooses to wait on the Lord instead of taking the easy way out.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: And by the way, that's not like a passive choice.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: It's not like he just muscled through and said, I just won't do anything.
No, no, no.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: This still involved forethought and planning and action and being proactive on his part. It cost him a ton to make this choice.
And I think what's nuts is it
[00:32:51] Speaker A: required him to be incredibly proactive in
[00:32:54] Speaker B: thinking about his future, even while all his life's pressures remained in place.
And then that chunk of text ends
[00:33:02] Speaker A: with Saul, finishes up his business and leaves the cave like nothing happened.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Like this entire drama unfolds for David and for Saul. It's just like, man, I am not eating that stew again. Back to work like that. He has no clue any of this even happened.
Read on with me and we'll see
[00:33:19] Speaker A: how this text lands out. Verse 8.
I'm going to read the bigger chunk now.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: After that, David got up and went out of the cave and called to Saul, my lord, the King.
When Saul looked behind him, David knelt
[00:33:32] Speaker A: low with his face on the ground and Paid homage.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of people who say, look, David intends to harm you.
You can see with your own eyes that the Lord handed you to me today in that cave.
Someone even advised me to kill you. But I took pity on you. And I said, I won't lift my hand against my Lord, since he is the Lord's anointed. Look, my father. Look at the corner of your robe in my hand, for I cut it off, but I didn't kill you.
Recognize that I've committed no crime, no rebellion. I haven't sinned against you, even though you are hunting me down to take my life.
May the Lord judge between me and you. May the Lord take vengeance on you for me. But my hand will never be against you.
As the old proverb says, wickedness comes from wicked people, so my hand will never be against you.
Who is the king of Israel come after? What are you chasing after? A dead dog? A single flea? May the Lord be judge and decide between you and me. May he take notice and place my case and deliver me from you.
When David finished saying these things to him, Saul replied, is that your voice, David, my son?
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Then Saul wept aloud and said to David, you are more righteous than I,
[00:34:45] Speaker B: for you have done what is good to me, though I have done what is evil to you. You yourself have told me today what good you did for me when the Lord handed me over to you and you didn't kill me. When a man finds his enemy, does he let him go unharmed?
May the Lord repay you with good
[00:34:59] Speaker A: for what you've done for me today.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Now I know for certain you will be king and the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand. Therefore, swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father's family.
So David swore to Saul. Then Saul went back home, and David and his men went up to the stronghold.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Samuel died, and all Israel assembled to mourn for him. And they buried him by his home in Ramah. And David went down to the wilderness of paranoia as David goes through this whole struggle with his desires, with his heart, all while Saul obliviously does his business and leaves the cave like nothing happened.
But David can't leave it there.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: He's decided to wait upon the Lord's timing, but he's still proactive. So once Saul leaves the cave, David comes out and confesses what he's done. But rather than making it, this act of rebellion and humiliation towards Saul. Look what I did to you, fool. Ha ha ha. He makes it a confession.
He calls Saul his father.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: He is his father in law, and
[00:36:01] Speaker B: he bows down to him as his rightful king. He pays homage to him. But he's also incredibly blunt with him.
I could have killed you today and I didn't.
Could have humiliated you in front of your whole army and started a civil war, but I didn't.
Instead, he hands Saul his honor back, but also very plainly challenges him.
I've done nothing wrong. When your pursuit of me has sinned. Stop it.
Right?
He's very blunt with him. And I love how David connects this moment to his conviction.
He says, I'm not going to hurt you because you're the king, but God will judge you for this.
I won't raise a hand against you, but God is just.
So stop.
Stop wasting Israel's resources and your time. I am not a threat to your kingdom.
What's beautiful here is that David can
[00:36:54] Speaker A: say this with a clear conscience, right?
[00:36:56] Speaker B: He had a direct opportunity to be
[00:36:59] Speaker A: a danger to Saul's kingdom. He chose a different path.
If God wants him to be king, God will make him king. But David is not going to mess with Saul.
And Saul, for his part, has a moment of lucidity here, right? Like he's kind of back and forth between like crazy jealous rage and like sober self reflection a lot in these stories. But he actually has a moment where he kind of sees what's going on here, sees how David actually is going to be king. And he even goes so far to ask David to promise not to wipe out his descendants. A really normal thing when there's a dynasty change.
And look at this. I think this is crazy how the story ends. They have this moment of lucidity, of
[00:37:37] Speaker B: candor, and David goes, yeah, I'll swear that.
And then they go part their ways.
Saul takes his army and goes home. David goes back into the caves and they just kind of go on.
They're not reconciled, right? David doesn't come home and work in the palace again, that that era is over. There's no going back on that.
But I think it's striking because I
[00:38:02] Speaker A: think the thing that gets me most about this passage is that David, a
[00:38:08] Speaker B: better man than most of us, makes this insanely difficult decision.
He stands on holiness, he stands on righteousness. He trusts in the Lord. He makes this bold move and it works.
The king has a moment of clarity, the whole thing. Everyone sees it. There's this moment of understanding. But then Saul takes his army and goes home, and David takes his army and goes back into the cave.
I think what's crazy about this story is that David gets a short reprieve from being actively hunted.
But even though he did the right thing, it doesn't fix his circumstances.
He still has all the same pressures.
Saul is still king, David is still exiled and outlaw. And to top it off, the text tells us then Samuel died. The last judge of Israel is gone, and God's anointed king is living as an outlaw in the wilderness.
Like, I don't know about you, but I want a happy ending here, right? He did a really stinking hard thing. That should mean something.
And yet at the end of the text, nothing's really better.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: I think this is such a difficult teaching for us. David waits upon the Lord. He stands on righteousness.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: He doesn't give in to the easy
[00:39:26] Speaker A: and sinful path, and nothing gets better in his life.
Can we sit with that for a second?
What the heck kind of message is that on a Sunday morning?
[00:39:36] Speaker B: Go in peace, have a go in the peace of the Lord. Like, that's rough.
What are we supposed to do with that?
Be like David. Be strong and pure and holy. When life is beating you down day after day, don't take the easy way out. Don't settle for sin in small reliefs. When you can put your heels in and wait upon the Lord's. Better for you and it won't make anything better.
That's really hard.
Here's the thing, though, beloved.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: Today isn't about me just telling you to be better and stronger. This isn't about me saying, just white knuckle and be a more holy, righteous person. That would be such a hopeless and legalistic sermon.
But there is an important truth for us to swallow here. And it may not be. It may be a little jagged.
The reality is this. When you choose God's best for your life, it often won't make your circumstances easier.
When you choose God's best for your life, it often won't make your circumstances easier.
The heresy that is the prosperity gospel will tell you otherwise.
It'll tell you that when you're chasing God, you get all the comforts and all the pressures will be off.
I remember once before I was married, I ended up by accident inside a prosperity gospel church. And the preacher, I used that term loosely, said up front, you know, if
[00:40:53] Speaker B: you're a Christian, you'll be the one who's getting raises at work.
If you're a Christian, you'll be the one who has nicer things in your home. If you're a Christian, you'll be the one with the happiest marriage and the most amazing family. If you're a Christian, you'll be the one with all the mental and emotional stability and all your friends will come to you to stabilize themselves. And if you don't have any of those things, then there's something lacking in your faith.
That's crazy.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Nuts.
But what I think is interesting is this.
I think as actual Christians, we can look at half the prosperity gospel and we can easily reject it. Oh yeah, Following God doesn't mean you'll get a nice house and a fancy car and all that stuff. That's crazy. Following God doesn't mean you'll be rich.
But how many of us do subtly believe that if we give God our yeah, he'll make us happy and he'll make us mentally and emotionally stable and all those things will come along to us? How many of us have subtly bought this lie of the prosperity gospel that to give God your yes means getting the stuff you want.
It's just intangible things, not tangible things.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: We do that we fall into this. We convince ourselves that if we're doing
[00:42:08] Speaker A: the hard work of honoring God with our life, then we should be earning the easy life.
We don't maybe expect the money, but we certainly expect the emotional stability, happiness,
[00:42:22] Speaker B: the great marriage, the kids who are all well behaved,
[00:42:27] Speaker A: beloved of Jesus, the life in the pit of hell.
There's nothing of the Gospel in that statement. There's nothing of Christ in that statement.
When we wait upon the Lord, we endure in the midst of suffering.
When we wait upon the Lord, we keep the course in the midst of exile.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Not because we'll get good stuff and not because we're so strong and great at being Christians. We do it because we love Christ and we want to honor Him.
Because Jesus is the fuel that empowers believers to actually wait upon the Lord.
Because Christ himself modeled this for us. I mean, consider the story of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness in the Gospels. You remember this one. At the very beginning of Jesus's ministry, Satan comes to him and begins to tempt him. And what does Satan tempt Jesus with?
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Think about it for a moment.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: He offers Jesus exactly what he came to earth for.
He says, bow down to me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth. I will give you everything they have. What does he mean by that? You came here to rescue these lost, sinful, cursed souls? Well, bow down and worship me and
[00:43:32] Speaker A: I'll just give them to you.
No difficulty, no Pharisees, no Cross no betrayal.
Bow down to worship me and I'll give them to you. That's what you came here for anyway, right?
You can just have them.
But Jesus knew God's plan was the cross.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Jesus knew that short circuiting the gospel was to dismiss the gospel, that you can't accomplish God's purposes by breaking God's commands. So Jesus says no to the easy way out and says yes to the cross.
Beloved, Christ did this for you.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: And look what it did to his circumstances. Right?
[00:44:14] Speaker B: They're pretty rough.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: And yet what does the text tell us for the joy set before him? He endured the cross.
Jesus knew what it meant to wait on the Father's timing. He knew that life is found in actually living out God's plan. Pain, beloved, is not the enemy in a cursed and broken world.
Ask a physical therapist. Emily, sometimes pain means you have an injury and you need to stop what you're doing and heal.
Sometimes it means that.
But for many folk, there comes a point in their healing where pain is the road you must walk in order to heal.
Where pain is what must be endured in order for the healing to actually happen. And to shy away from the pain means ignoring the healing.
That's.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: That's how it is sometimes.
Because pain in this cursed and broken
[00:45:05] Speaker A: world is a wonderful tool of growth and sharpening. And your God hear this. Beloved loves you too much to short circuit his holy purposes for you.
This is why James says we count it pure joy when we face trials and temptations of any kind, because we know they are God's tool for our sanctification.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: You live in a world.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: You live in a culture that says the goal of life is bliss.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Everything we live in today, every advertisement we take in, every cultural narrative it
[00:45:34] Speaker A: spits out in our secular world of death, says the point of your life is to be as blissful and comfortable as possible for as long as possible.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: And any hardship, any discomfort, any pain, those should be hidden away behind as much technology, pharmacology and psychology, and any other ology we can find to make life as easy and painless as possible.
We're bathed in an ideology of comfort and ease. Of course we want the out.
That is the air we breathe. That is the story preached to us from childhood on. Who wants to be sharpened through suffering? That sounds terrible.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: But beloved, it's exactly what Christ did for you.
He saw past the trials of today into forever. And he chose God's way. And you need to know something. This is open for you and for me.
Band if you want to come Back up.
First and foremost, I would say the for those of us in the room today who are not in Christ, there's an invitation here for you to receive the benefits of Jesus's faithful ministry.
Because he did say no to the easy way and he did say yes to the cross. And because of that, you can have life and forgiveness today. You can come to him in confession and repentance, and you can find life.
If you're someone in this room who's been considering that, I would urge you to consider it a pressure, please come talk to me or one of the pastors. We would love to be in that journey with thee.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: But for those of us who are
[00:47:05] Speaker A: in the room who are already in Christ, the invitation for us today is simply this.
Wait upon the Lord.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Wait upon the Lord.
That means to trust him in your life with your difficult circumstances, even when you don't want to.
You know what I think is really cool?
We actually get a really clear window
[00:47:29] Speaker A: into David's heart during this exact season of his life.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: During this time when he's hiding in
[00:47:35] Speaker A: these caves, he penned two Psalms that made their way into the Bible. Psalm 57 and Psalm 142. You can read them both. They're very similar.
And as you read them, you can imagine him sitting in the cave, musky and dirty, not. Not living the life he had dreamt for himself, plucking at his harp, testing out lyrics while his soldiers cook and
[00:47:57] Speaker B: sharpen spears in the background.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: I'm going to read Psalm 57 to you, and I want you to imagine that scene. As I read this to you, I want you to think of David in
[00:48:07] Speaker B: his dirt and mire and suffering and
[00:48:09] Speaker A: disappointment, penning these words to the Lord.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: He says this Be gracious to me, God.
Be gracious to me. For I take refuge in you.
I will seek refuge in the shadow of your wings until this danger passes.
I call to God most high, to God who fulfills his purposes for me. He reaches down from heaven and he saves me, challenging the one who seeks to trample me. God sends his faithful love and truth. I am surrounded by lions. I lie down among devouring lions, People whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
God, be exalted above the heavens. Let your glory be over the whole earth. They prepared a net for my steps. I was despondent. They dug a pit ahead of me, but they fell into it.
My heart is confident, God. My heart is confident.
So I will sing. I will sing praises. Wake up my soul, wake up. Harp and lyre. I will wake up the dawn. I will praise you, Lord, among your peoples.
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: If your faithful love is as high as the heavens, your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: God be exalted above the heavens. Let your glory be over the whole earth.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: What a song to sing in a cake.
There's a wordplay here that I absolutely love.
The Hebrew word for a man's robe and the Hebrew word for wings are very similar.
And so because of that, in Hebrew poetry, they use the words interchangeably. That comes up a couple times in Scripture. And this is one of them, man's wings, referring to the hem of his robe, the symbol of his identity and his authority.
We've talked about that a little bit today.
In this song, David says, you know, God. I'm hiding in this cave.
But this cave isn't my sanctuary.
No, Lord, I hide under the hem of your robe.
That's where I am you, Lord, your identity, your person.
You are my sanctuary.
And so I will endure my terrible circumstances because I have you, because I
[00:50:32] Speaker B: trust you, because I'm confident in. In you.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: David's confident in the Lord's heart for him and his goodness.
The very heart of God, the very presence of God, the very love of God that fuels David to make the hard choice we see today.
Come on, Church.
I want to invite you to take just a minute in reflection.
And for those of you in the room who are in Christ, we're going to do what we always do. And I'm going to invite you to come forward and take communion.
Here's the deal, beloved.
I know your life is hard.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: All of you. I know it is.
I know you battle with the pressures and the anxieties and the difficulties of a painful and cursed life.
I know at times you long for
[00:51:17] Speaker A: the escape hatch, no matter what it is.
But take heart, beloved,
[00:51:24] Speaker B: because there is
[00:51:25] Speaker A: a sanctuary for your heart.
There is a space for you in the midst of the turmoil of life.
It's in the wings of the Lord, the sanctuary of his heart.
As we serve a God who doesn't always take away the pain, but he does endure it with us.
Church, Take a few moments to consider what Christ might be telling you today.
When those of you who are in Christ already, I'd encourage you to come forward and take the elements.
Scripture tells us that when we take communion, that we are proclaiming Christ's death until his return.
We're saying, his body broken in the bread, his blood poured out in the juice, that those things are sufficient to meet the real needs of our heart today. Beloved, regardless of your circumstances, Christ is sufficient to meet the needs of your heart.
And if you want to preach that to your own heart, if you want to preach that to those in this room, if you want to say that to the Lord in your prayer, I'd encourage you to come when you're ready and take a knee.
Consider the sanctuary of the Lord hath me, beloved, do the work you need to do with the Lord today.
