2 Samuel 12:26-31 The Day After Tragedy

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series, The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in.

Father's Day, Community, and the Call to Simple Spiritual Growth

I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and we're gonna go ahead and get started by giving an introduction to the message this morning. First, I wanna just remind you that it is Father's Day. I hope none of you forgot that, but maybe you're due for a phone call to your dad, maybe it's a trip, maybe it's a meal out, but seek to honor God by honoring your earthly father today as he has told us to.

It's really awesome that here in America, we at least have these cultural milestones and these dates and these cadences throughout the year that remind us to obey God in terms of honoring our parents, and so I encourage you to do that.

And a special welcome to those of you who are just kind of here kicking the tires, figuring out if this church is a good place for you, recognize that that can be an intimidating thing, and so I'm glad that you've taken the chance to come here and worship together with us this morning.

We're all on a journey together with God, and that's really what Recast is all about. He's brought us on this journey, and we love to journey together, and so we welcome you here and would love for this to be a great fit for you.

When we set out 13 years ago to start a new church here in Mattawan, I realized that the core value of simplicity was a bit risky. I say it's risky because there's so many things we could put on the page when you ask, what does a person need to grow spiritually?

When we ask that question, what does a person really need in order to be good with God, we recognize that our lives and the pages of our lives can get flooded with all kinds of good things, right? How many of you know you could be busy every night of the week and multiple times on Sunday growing spiritually, right?

We just know that that's a reality. But we set out to strive hard after three primary things here. Really, not necessarily removing everything else off the plate, but saying here's what simplicity is.

Simplicity is focusing on these three things, and 13 years later, I am not disappointed that we haven't added to that list. We believe that everybody needs to be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

We believe that that's what you need, and so coming together on Sunday morning is that growing in faith, engaging and getting involved in a community group is growing in community, and using the gift that God has given you to serve the body is the third component.

This morning, our text is gonna be a growing in community kind of message, growing in relationships. One of our core values here as a church is authenticity. What we mean by that is we don't like to wear masks.

If you've had a rough week, somebody here should know about it. If you've had a great week, somebody here should know about it, and a lot of times it's in that community group. We recognize that you come into a setting like this and it's not really easy to have a super deep conversation here in this context.

That's why you need community groups for that, but our text at face value this morning looks like a relatively insignificant few verses that closes out the accounting of a battle in the Old Testament that began back in chapter 10 in the life of David.

The army of Israel has been out to battle under Joab the commander, under David, and they've been setting siege to a city named Rabbah. It's the capital of the Ammonite Empire. There's all kinds of personal sin and personal strife that's been going on with David for the last couple of chapters back in Jerusalem.

The king is in personal turmoil. The king has sunk himself in darkness and in sin and in grief. Meanwhile, his army is out to war. David is really at the point where we get to our text this morning. David has been sidetracked into a spiral of personal concerns, and I think many of us have been there.

Maybe, to be quite honest, some of us are coming off of two years of that. It's quite possible. And he's been spiraling due to personal concerns while his kingdom continues to go on without his attention.

He is a personally compromised ruler who has sinned. And not only has he sinned, but then he embarked on a failed cover-up attempt where God called him out on it. He has confessed, and last week we saw him grieving over the consequences of his own sin, dire and dark and deep consequences like the death of his son.

But there is still a kingdom to rule. There is still a military out on the battlefield. There is still something to be done the day after personal tragedy. Did you guys know that? There's still something to be done the next day.

I'm entitling this message, The Day After Tragedy, really kind of more as a figure of speech than anything because there's no, the word day sounds like, oh, just the very next day after something bad strikes.

You have to pick yourself up, but I think you can bear with the figure of speech. There is nothing in our text that is concerned for the timeframe of how long it takes for all of this to wrap up. We don't know if the final overthrow of the Ammonite capital that we're talking about in our text, that city of Rabbah, we don't know if that happened a day, a month, or a year after the infant son of David and Bathsheba died.

We don't know how many days there was. What we do know is that David needs to be shaken back to his calling and his responsibility, and it is his commander, Joab, the commander of his army, that God uses to shake David back awake to his responsibility.

David is a king in our text who has forsaken his calling. He has endured real and true and deep tragedy. And how many of you would just raise your hand just as a manner of confession and say, I have in my life experienced at least an event of deep tragedy, at least something that has moved my heart to sorrow, to grief, to weeping.

I think all of us know that experience. In his context, he was caught in sin and confronted by the Almighty. He has now lost a son. He has a grieving wife, and he has to live with the incessant knowledge, and I believe deep conviction, of how he obtained that beautiful, grieving wife.

And so what we see is an intentional text this morning, not just a passing connective tissue, kind of like let's wrap up the story, move on to the next account kind of thing. It's not just merely a text showing us how the battle of Rabba ended.

We see David victorious in our text. We see the show going on in the text, even the day after tragedy. So let's open our Bibles, or your devices, or your scripture journals, or if you have downloaded the app, you can click the faith tab at the bottom, and you'll see sermon notes there.

Click that, and it takes you right to the text. There's a little space for you to take digital notes there if you're into that kind of thing. I know that taking notes helps just to solidify it. How many of you take notes and then never read them again?

That's me, but there's a benefit to it, to me, while I'm taking notes, so I'm kind of like that. But again, it's 2 Samuel 12, verses 26 through 31. Let's read this together, church. God's holy and precious word to us on this Father's Day.

By the way, a message to fathers, and mothers, and children, and all of us. Now, Joab fought against Rabba of the Ammonites and took the royal city. And Joab sent messengers to David and said, I have fought against Rabba.

Moreover, I have taken the city of waters. Now then, gather the rest of the people together and then camp against the city and take it, lest I take the city and it be called by my name. So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabba and fought against it and took it.

And he took the crown of their king from his head. The weight of it was a talent of gold, and in it was a precious stone, and it was placed on David's head. And he brought out the spoil of the city a very great amount.

And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws, and iron picks, and iron axes, and made them toil at the brick kilns. And thus he did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your gracious word. I thank you that you are a God who seeks to call us out and call us back in, that you have gifted us, you have blessed us in community with others around us.

I pray that you would make us through this text the kind of people who speak truth into one another's lives. I think that probably to a person here, there are times when we have ceased to share ourselves with the world, and we have ceased to believe that we have much to offer.

And it is in those seasons that we need community more than ever. It's in those seasons when we're most likely and most prone to isolate ourselves that we need others' voices around us. And so Father, I thank you that in your wisdom you have created church.

You have created gathering. You have created togetherness. You have created even this gathering here this morning with intention, that we would look around us and see that we are not alone in our faith, nor are we free to just spend our days, our months, our weeks, our years licking our wounds.

You have a ministry. You have a responsibility you have called each one of us to. You have service for us to render. You have community that each one of us has to offer to one another. So Father, I pray that this word this morning would have its way in our hearts to reengage us.

Father, if there's anybody here who is disengaged, and I know that this has been a season, a long season of disengagement, and even though we are in attendance, we may very well be very disengaged. So Father, I pray that you would draw us closer to you and in that, closer in community together with your people.

I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, yeah, you can go to be seated. But if any time during the message you need to get back up and get more coffee juice or donuts, donut holes back there while supplies last, you're not gonna distract me if you need to get up during the message.

If you need to use the restrooms, those are out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side. Take advantage of that, too. And then I do ask that you please keep your Bibles open, your device, your scripture journal, whatever it is, to 2 Samuel chapter 12, verses 26 through 31.

That's gonna be our text this morning. I wanna start with a question this morning. What happens the day after tragedy? What happens the day after tragedy? In context, this is the way that the author of 2 Samuel chooses to wrap up the account of David's moral fall into deep sin and the consequences that will become a painful sequence moving forward throughout the remainder of the entire book of 2 Samuel.

The rest of this book is gonna plunge into spirals of difficulty and darkness in the life of David due to his moral failings with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. What does that day look like? In this sense, what we're looking at in this text this morning is the indication that the show must go on, the show must go on.

And within this text itself, the content shows Joab, David's military commander, intentionally trying to get David to reengage in his responsibilities to get back to kinging well, get back to recognizing you're king, get back to recognizing that you have responsibilities, you have a military out on the battlefield that you need to take care of.

You see, David was not discharging his responsibilities since back in chapter 11, verse one. We've heard nothing about him being king and everything about him failing and faltering. We saw him stay at home in chapter 11, verse one, while his soldiers marched out to conquer the Ammonites and lay siege to their capital city of Rabbah, and that's where we're still at here at the end of chapter 12.

David has been mired in personal pain, personal suffering, inflicted by his personal choices to commit three things that he says in Psalm 51 about this context. He says, I committed transgression, I committed iniquity, and I committed sin.

Words that mean he has actively rebelled against God's command, that word transgression. Words like iniquity that means he has twisted and disfigured the way that God wants an image bearer to look, and he has missed the mark.

Sin, he has missed the mark of the holiness that God has called him to, and that's the context of our passage here. And the consequences of his sin has already begun. The child born of the sinful union between him and Bathsheba has died, and there are more consequences on the way, more consequences coming.

So take this passage on as the calm before the storm in the life of David. The Lord is still with David, that's clear in the text, and it's gonna be clear throughout the book, but there's also gonna be consequences to his sin.

Well, we're gonna see David achieve victory here. He's gonna be graciously called back to ruling by a close friend and confidant in our text. And we will see that rather than merely a pitiful, weak, compromised leader who's now gonna slouch his way through the rest of his life, David still has, by God's grace, David still has the shoulders to carry a kingdom.

And not only that, but we see in this text he has the neck to carry a crown that weighs 73 pounds. The outline is super simple this morning, and it divides the text exactly in half, so if you're a note taker, this is just straightforward.

Joab's Concern and the Call to Reengage in Responsibility

Verses 26, 27, and 28, the first three verses are Joab's concerns, Joab's concern, rather, Joab's concern, and then verses 29, 30, and 31 is David's conquest, so Joab's concern, David's conquest, that's the outline.

So first we take on Joab's concern in these first three verses.

We're back where we left off.

Right after chapter 11, verse one. All that came between 11 .1 and 12 .26 has been a major point in the life of David. It's set in the action of the context of a war between Ammon and Israel. And so we might need a quick refresher.

Why in the world is there battle in the Middle East? Well, just because it's the Middle East, I don't know. But there's war going on in our text in the Middle East. Surprise, surprise. But David found out that the king of Ammon, Nahash, has died.

Okay, so this happened back in chapter 10. Nahash was a kind and faithful individual to David. We don't know what the context was in which the king of Ammon showed kindness to David, but he did. And so David sought to return the favor by sending his formal condolences to his son, Hanun, who's the new king in the absence of the dad who was kind to David.

Is that making sense? And so Hanun took counsel. The delegation from David arrives to the imminent capital of Rabbah and is welcomed into the city, and they come before the new king, Hanun, the young new king, Hanun, who takes counsel from his princes.

What should I do in this context? And the young princes and his young counselors gather around him and whisper, whisper, whisper, and they say, these guys are here to spy out your kingdom. This is David seeking to conquer you.

Poor advice, poor counsel. David sent a delegation to offer his condolences, and instead he's being accused of spying. Well, Hanun took and shamed the delegation, cutting off half their beards, cutting off the backside of their robes and sending them away back home in shame like poor hazing at a college campus.

David didn't like it. Can you imagine? Would you like that, if that's the way your delegation was responded to? You sent some friends to some place and they're treated poorly and shamed and sent back to you.

So he sent his army to deal with Ammon, but they hired Ammon, goes, oh no. Hanun goes, oh no, we're gonna get crushed. The Israelites are stronger than us. So they hire mercenaries from Syria and Zobah to northern kingdoms to surround David's army outside of the gates of Rabbah.

But then they see that the mercenaries hired for pay actually see the strength of David as well, and they fled. Israel saves Rabbah, saves Ammon for another day, and instead goes back to Jerusalem,.

Regroups all of their troops,.

And goes and attacks Syria and Zobah, the two nations that were the mercenaries. And they remove them, they obliterate them. They counterattacked all the way to the degree that Israel is now able to set up garrisons in Syria, able to set up garrisons in Zobah way up north.

They obliterate these people. A year later, now it's time to deal with Ammon again. Let's go again. And so with Syria and Zobah out of the picture, David sent Joab and his best military units into Ammon to conquer the whole thing.

And finally, they set a siege to the capital city of Rabbah, and it's nearing the end of this battle sequence. While the siege is underway is when David took the wife of one of his military officers and then had him put to death, and that's the context in which we've seen the sin of David in the last couple of chapters.

Now we're not given a timeline.

On how long this siege of Rabbah took, but we have some fairly decent indication that it was a long period of time. It wasn't just like a six-week affair or something like that. What you need to understand is that in ancient military sieges and warfare and that kind of thing, when a river runs through the city, you have your work cut out for you in siege, okay?

Because how many of you know what's the number one thing that you need to survive?

Well, you gotta get water.

You're not gonna last more than three or four days without water. Now you can go a while without food, but you can't go along without water. Well, the Jabbok River flows right through the city of Rabbah so that would increase the length of any kind of siege, and so it's likely that it was lengthy.

It seems reasonable from the flow of the text throughout 2 Samuel, if you're trying to piece things together, that the siege must have lasted somewhere upwards, beyond a year, probably a little longer than a year, simply because the child from David and Bathsheba has been born, he has been afflicted with illness, and he has died all during the course of the time that the siege is going on in Rabbah.

So all of those events transpire while the siege is going on. And so with that context, we come to verse 26. With the clear statement that Israel, under the leadership of Joab, the commander of David, has all but declared final victory over the royal city of Rabbah.

The city is about to fall into the hands of the Israelite military. So at this moment of final victory, Joab, David's highest military man, sent a message to David. He has taken the battle to Rabbah. He now has control of the city of waters, the waters that flow into the city.

The word that's used there.

Is kind of like their utilities, okay? How he came to control the water supply for the city is not specifically clear in this text, but in ancient warfare, there were extensive and amazing, amazing feats, really, when you think about it in the ancient culture, to divert rivers, to divert waters, to dam up entire rivers in order to siege a city and keep them from getting water.

And it's likely that one of these methods was used by Joab to stop the flow of water through the city, and he's accomplished that. Now the city, it's just a matter of days, not weeks. He says, David, get up here.

This battle is going to end. Once the utilities are under the control of an invading force, the end is near. To put this in modern terms, once they cut off the fiber optic cables so we can't stream videos anymore, we're as good as done, right?

Some of you know it shouldn't be that way, but unlikely, it's probably close. But in verse 28, we see something very noble in Joab, even if it doesn't come in the nicest of terms. Joab is concerned for his king to get the credit for the victory.

In verse 28, Joab is concerned for David's absence from this warfare. Now I want to point out, like I did in an earlier sermon, that it is not common for a king to be absent from war like this, especially during this era.

Kings led their troops, physically led their troops, wearing armor, carrying shields with a sword, out into battle. They engaged during this time, and David has been sitting in Jerusalem licking his wounds all this time.

And apparently the concern is increased in Joab by a common cultural phenomenon that we don't really relate to. He brings it up in the text to clarify it for us. You see, what you need to understand is Jerusalem was called the city of David.

Why was Jerusalem known colloquially? A word on the street, name on the street, was the city of David.

Why?

Because David conquered it. David took it out of the hands of the Jebusites. He conquered it, so people called it the city of David. The people would call it by the conqueror, regardless of any attempts to formally name it.

That's why we know it as Jerusalem. We call it Jerusalem, but that's not what they called it. That's not what the common folk called it. He tried to name it Jerusalem, the city of peace, and they weren't having any of it.

They called it the city of David.

Joab appeals to this to get David up out of his personal tragedies and back to taking on royal responsibilities. I don't think I'm reading too much into the text to say this. David has been far removed in body and heart from leading his people well during this foray into darkness and rebellion and sin.

So what do we need most when we go through self-inflicted seasons of difficulty and darkness? When our sin catches up with us and we feel terrible and we feel rotten to the core? Or when circumstances around us drive us inside ourselves, like for a couple of years of pandemic, how do we come out of that?

What do we need to hear and what do we need to do the day after tragedy? Now I wanna point out what Joab is doing in these first three verses and make sure that we realize when I talk about it, I wanna make sure you know that this isn't just some ancient story.

This applies to us here in Matawan in 2022. The way that he responds here matters in that this is God's wholly revealed word that ought to change and shape the way that we do things, the way that we recognize our calling and our need and the things that we need to listen to as well as the things we need to say.

David has a friend, a coworker, a confidant named Joab and he is calling David back to his responsibilities to his kingdom. In a church that believes that we are all created for community and that we must be growing in community, we need to lean into these three verses and really take on what they're saying.

David has someone in his life who can grab him by the figurative lapels and give him a good shake and say, you're the king for crying out loud. Get out there and act like it. Being a good friend is seeking to strike a balance between sitting with a friend in their misery and suffering but it also must recognize that there is a time to say, all right, sad time's over, time to get back to work.

That's not very popular. I don't even see a face in here that's smiling at me right now. I don't know that anybody goes, oh yeah, let's get to that. We were a culture and I suggest to you that we are seasoned church by our culture substantially.

We're a culture that increasingly does well at empathy and empathy I would define as sitting with people in their suffering or experiencing, maybe even better yet would be experiencing the suffering that others are going through but I suggest that we often do so at the exclusion of ever calling someone back to the work of service, the work of faith, the work of community, a genuine God-given responsibility that he has given to us as his image bearers.

I like the way that Douglas Wilson draws a distinction between empathy and sympathy. He has a kind of a documentary series called Man Rampant and in one of those series, he really tackles the idea and the distinction between empathy and sympathy.

Two words that you probably don't have a lot of distinction between but the two words matter and they're very substantially different. We use them both almost interchangeably now and probably empathy is a little more popular but empathy is a relatively new word.

Like think invented in the 1800s by psychologists. Like it wasn't a word before the 1800s. Psychologists invented this word to describe the entering into the pain of others and feeling what they feel.

The most important thing you need to understand about the concept of empathy is that you feel, the goal is to feel exactly what the other person feels. If they feel despair, you feel despair. If they feel hopeless, you feel hopeless.

If they feel godless, you feel godless.

End of story.

While sympathy is a more ancient word and sympathy comes from the Greek and it means to suffer, literally means suffer alongside of. The Latin equivalent by the way of this word is found many times in the Bible, it's compassion.

We find sympathy in scripture but never empathy. Empathy means not suffering alongside of but in the suffering with. So what's the big deal? Are we gonna sit here and argue this morning about words? Is that the purpose, is that the point?

I don't think so but I think it matters significantly in our understanding of what people need from us and what we need from people. In seasons, in times of tragedy, seasons of suffering, of mourning, of grief.

As Douglas Wilson explains, sympathy keeps a grip. This is fundamental difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy keeps a grip on objectivity while grieving with the person. It keeps a handle on God.

It keeps a handle on responsibility. It keeps a grip on the word and a grip on the truth. Do you get me? It brings to the suffering person a perspective like Joab uses here. You're still king. There are people depending on you, dude.

It's time to get up off the sofa and get back to being king. For Joab to express empathy in this is for him to become immobilized in the suffering with David. Nothing to do, just feelings to feel. For Joab to express empathy is for him to become immobilized in suffering with David.

The best illustration of this keeping an objective grip comes again from Douglas Wilson. He says, imagine you and a friend are wandering through the jungle and your friend falls into quicksand. I'm gonna say imagine that you're wandering through the fire swamp and you fall into the lightning sand.

Imagine that that happens. What does your friend need from you?

Do they need empathy?

Empathy is this, Geronimo, as you dive in after them so that you can feel the sand pressing against your mouth so that you can feel that desperation of their hopelessness and their helplessness. You can feel all the feelings with you as you suffocate with them.

Empathy. Get in there with them and make sure whatever you do, make sure you got no way out. Make sure you feel as desperate as they do. Make sure you have no objectivity to bring. Make sure you wouldn't bring any harmful solutions to them.

Like the word of God,.

No harmful solutions like an attempt to fix it, no attempts to help. That's empathy. The only standard in empathy is to be sure, sure, sure that you feel the same thing as them. Does that resonate with our culture?

Is that where we live? Is it healthy? Empathy, sympathy in that context is what Wesley does.

What does he do?

Grabs a vine, something outside of himself to grip and dives in the lightning sand and rescues Princess Buttercup.

How does he rescue her? Because of empathy?

No, he rescues her by holding on to something outside of himself. He has nothing else to bring. Two suffering people are not better than one suffering person. I gotta maintain some kind of objectivity.

Sympathy grabs the vine and jumps in. Joab doesn't run back to Jerusalem to sit with David in mourning and fasting in grief. Joab sends a message and says get up off the sofa and get out here and start kinging.

There is a kingdom to run, there is a city to conquer and unless you want Robba to be named Joabville, you better muster the rest of the troops and hurry up in here. We need you. Your people need you.

Your kingdom needs you. Your soldiers need to see you, David. Get out here and be king. Now, I don't believe that Joab's concern is merely about the naming of a city.

I think he uses that.

But I believe that Joab's concern is for the absence of the king. He will do this again later at the death of another son. Another deep scar in David's soul is coming up again in the book and we're gonna see scar after scar in his family.

But he's gonna lose a son named Absalom. I mentioned him last week. Joab is again gonna have to cuff David upside the head verbally with a wake up call then too. Do you not know that your grieving over the death of your rebel son is making those who defended your very life from that rebel son feel worthless?

Do you not recognize what you're doing to your people? They need to see their king. Let me ask you a question, church. Honest question and answer it.

I hope you have a name.

I hope you have an answer. Who is your Joab?

Who's your Joab?

Who can speak into your life enough to literally say to you enough wallowing in your pity, it's time to get up and get back to the things that God has called you to? Who's in your life that can say that to you or will say that to you?

Who can remind you that life is short and you're not here to lick your wounds and if you think you're here to lick your wounds, that's all you will ever do? How many of you know that?

How many of you live long enough to know.

That if you just keep licking wounds and never end, there are plenty of wounds?

You are here to serve.

To a person in this room, you are here to serve the Almighty God. If there's nobody in your life that can speak like that, it might be time to reevaluate and seek out genuine community. And I suggest to you humbly that the church is where these types of relationships must be forming.

It's here in this context.

Now I see it.

I see it. I feel like to some degree at times I'm preaching to the choir. I see people engaged and involved in each other's lives. But I just want to point out that I think we've gone through a darkness.

We've gone through a season, a time of primarily thinking fundamentally of ourselves. And I don't think we've shaken it yet, church. I think we might have shaken the idea and the notion that we talk about COVID every day.

How many of you would just say, yeah, probably been a few days since I mentioned COVID. Like it's not in my mouth all the time anymore. It's not always there, but we need to lean into community. This fall at the end of the summer, it's gonna be here before you know it, warning.

We're in summer, boom, gonna be fall. This fall we're gonna be making a big push out into community groups, church. This is a little bit of a PSA plus an application from the message. We are seeking to offer a variety of groups and our goal is to get enough groups that everyone that calls Recast Church their home can get involved in a community group, connect to one.

That means that if you're willing to host or you're willing to lead a group, this fall is when we need you to step up. If you would be willing to open up your home to a community group meeting there, let us know.

If you'd be willing to lead one, let us know. And by the way, when we talk about leading a community group we don't pretend that it's community veiled as a Bible study. Lynn and I have led community groups.

We led one that we called Prayers and Players. We got together, we played board games and passed around three by five cards,.

Write out your prayer,.

And then pray for each other during the week.

That was it.

If you think you could host a group and have them play board games at your table and get to know one another and share some life together, maybe have dessert, maybe not, there's no pressure there.

And if you think you can do that,.

Man, we need you to step up and get some pockets of people who are rubbing shoulders with one another, those relationships. Relationships like this with David and Joab are forged over a lifetime together.

They're forged over connection. Sometimes they're forged over board games. Sometimes they're forged over watching a football game together. And maybe that might be the start of something. I encourage you all to be thinking now about community groups coming up in the fall, and we're gonna be announcing that, we're gonna be getting those out.

But contact Linda, contact the office if you're interested in hosting or leading a group. But it's not enough to ask who is your Joab. It's not enough to ask who speaks into you that way, because you know what's coming.