Backward is Sometimes the Way Forward

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Don Filcek; 2 Samuel 17:15-29 Backward is Sometimes the Way Forward

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,
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The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. Most of you know that our name is an acronym for our core values, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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If you know that for no other reason than that, you go get donuts, and it's written on the wall right above them.
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And no, the S is not for snacks. The S is for simplicity, despite the fact that Dave Bunt always likes to tell us that it's for snacks.
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When you combine two of those core values together, you get a certain way of looking at the
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Bible that begins to make more sense of the types of passages that we're looking at this morning. When we are authentic and honest about how broken we are, when we refuse to put on masks and play act being perfect people like so many have a tendency to do in church, we want to be a place where we can be honest and say, man, this has been a tough week, and ask others to pray for us.
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Or, man, this has been an awesome week. Would you celebrate with me? But when we come to life with an authenticity, we come to realize that it's a wonder that God could love someone as sinful and broken as us.
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When we're honest, when we really take a moment of self -reflection, we go, I guess I'm really not that great. I'm really not that worthy.
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And when you couple that authenticity of relationship to God and relationship to others going, I'm not all that and a bag of chips, when you couple that with a conviction that the
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Bible is the faithful and true guide, it is the capital T truth of who God is and how he rolls in the midst of a deeply broken humanity,
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Scripture begins to make more sense. It makes more sense. What I mean is that people often ask how in the world could
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God put up with the sins of King David? How could he put up with a guy like that?
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But authenticity says, I'm a lot like David, and he's put up with a lot from me.
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Or you might ask, how can God use a person like David to lead his people? How come he allows him to continue in leadership?
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How come he allows him to continue to be king? And authenticity recognizes that God has only ever used sinful people to accomplish anything.
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He's only ever used sinful people because that's the only brand that there are. The Bible contains a history of what we would expect given authenticity and truth.
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If it is true in what it conveys about the brokenness of humanity, then it makes sense.
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When we look at God continuing to use sinful people, when we look at him continuing to show grace to sinful people, we are all recipients of that grace.
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We're still alive. He hasn't put us down. Our lives, I would suggest to you, in the midst of all of that, when we're reading
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Scripture, we are left at times with ambiguity. How many of you would raise your hand and say, my life has seasons and times of ambiguity where I don't know which way is up,
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I don't know which way is down, I don't know what is good and what is bad, and things are confusing? David's was that way, too.
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Our life is a mixed -up blend of trusting and distrusting God, and that can happen within, say, five minutes, right?
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Having a deep faith and trust that God's going to work things out, and then you grab that problem again and hold it close and coddle it, and it has its way in your heart, right?
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And you're all of a sudden anxious again. Well, David's life was that way, too. And many of us have faced the reality that God doesn't take us the most direct way to where we think he's taking us, to where we think we're going.
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We all know, and I think we could all state, that the shortest pathway between two points is a straight line.
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But our lives are not full of straight -line propositions. And in David's life, it's obvious that God is not interested in shortest pathways or quickest routes.
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We see that in the lives of these people in the Old Testament. We see that in the lives of people in the New Testament, throughout the
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Bible, that God does not take people on direct routes from point A to point B. I've entitled this message,
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Backwards is Sometimes the Way Forward, because that is what we are seeing in our text.
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Our text comes out on the heels of three large sections of the book of 2 Samuel that show
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David progressively moving further away from Jerusalem, moving further away from Israel, moving further away from the throne that God has unquestionably given to him.
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It's his throne, it's his kingdom, and he is marching out in exile. He is moving further and further away from that kingdom that God has promised to him.
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And yet we will see that every footfall of David heading east is a step that God is guiding to bring the arc of his life back west to the throne of Israel.
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David is fleeing in our text, and he has been for a while now. He's fleeing his son Absalom. Absalom, David's son, has declared himself to be king, and he's seeking to kill his father.
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He's seeking to take the life of his own father. But we saw at the end of last week that the sovereign
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God is working behind the scenes to reinstate David and to bring to nothing the insurrection of the usurper
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Absalom, and even to bring Absalom to destruction. Well, we know that the
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New Testament says it this way, God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.
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God has a sovereign plan. He has many tools in his belt. Some of them are surprising tools that he uses to bring about his purposes in our lives and to bend our arcs towards glory.
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We can breathe a sigh of relief in the text that we're going to read here in a moment because we know how it ends for David. God has told us his plan in verse 14.
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But David, I want to remind you, when we read this, David has no such clarity.
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David doesn't know where this goes. David doesn't know how it ends. And that's real for us. We have some semblance of understanding, some generic understanding of glory and where it's all going, but we don't have clarity in the day -to -day, do we?
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Will that wayward child return to the faith? Will that addiction that has plagued our life finally, will the chains be broken?
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Will that loved one pull through the illness they're suffering from? Our lives rarely take straight lines, and I believe it's wise for us to consider here at the start of this text that our
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God is the God of the process. He has an end, but he also equally is growing us in the process.
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He is the sovereign that sometimes takes us east to get us back west. He is a
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God of the journey, and he is faithful to get us to his ends, even if it sometimes feels along the journey like we are heading backwards.
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So let's open your Bibles, your devices, your scripture journal to 2 Samuel, chapter 17.
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We're gonna start reading in chapter 15, I mean, verse 15, 2 Samuel 17, verse 15, through the end of the chapter.
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Recast, this is God's holy and precious word, so I would love it if you would just give it your attention and follow along and be mindful of it.
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Our hope and prayer, my hope and prayer is that this word has an impact on our hearts and souls to transform us, not just to fill our head with information.
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2 Samuel, chapter 17, verse 15. Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar the priest,
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Thus and so did Ahithovel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel, and thus and so have I counseled.
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Now therefore send quickly and tell David, Do not stay tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over, lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.
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Now Jonathan and Amaz were waiting at En -Rogel. A female servant was to go and tell them, and they were to go and tell
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King David, for they were not to be seen entering the city. But a young man saw them and told
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Absalom. So both of them went away quickly and came to the house of a man at Behurim, who had a well in his courtyard, and they went down into it.
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And the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth and scattered grain on it, and nothing was known of it.
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When Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house, they said, Where is Amaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them,
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They have gone over the brook of water. And when they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
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After they had gone, the men came up out of the well and went and told King David. They said to David, Arise and go quickly over the water, for thus and so has
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Ahithovel counseled against you. Then David arose and all the people who were with him, and they crossed the
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Jordan. By daybreak not one was left who had not crossed the Jordan. When Ahithovel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his home city and set his house in order and hanged himself.
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And he died and was buried in the tomb of his father. Then David came to Mahanaim, and Absalom crossed the
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Jordan with all the men of Israel. Now Absalom had set Amasa over the army instead of Joab.
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Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra, the Ishmaelite, who had married Abagal, the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zariah, Joab's mother.
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And Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead. When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabba of the
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Ammonites, and Makar the son of Amiel from Lodabar, and Barzali the Gileadite from Rogolim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd for David and the people with him to eat.
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For they said, the people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.
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Seems like a history lesson. Seems a bit like routine life.
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Just some details about a guy marching out east to get away from his son who's trying to take his kingdom. It can be kind of tricky for us when we read these passages to know exactly what your spirit desires to communicate to us.
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And yet, it's just as equally difficult for us to know in the day -to -day, we're gonna have days this week, we're gonna have moments this coming week where it's kind of fuzzy and ambiguous and unclear what you wanna communicate to us.
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This is real life we're looking at here. We thank you that you are the God of real life. You're the
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God who is present and working in your sovereign actions over all of the things that we're experiencing and doing here.
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It's a mystery to us. It's difficult to wrap our minds around, but we do know this one thing. You have, by your grace, chosen to show us where this story ends,
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King David restored to his kingdom, and you have chosen to show us where history ends,
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King Jesus restored to an eternal kingdom and bringing forth a place of no more sin, of no more hardship, of no more suffering, of no more death.
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And we're privileged by faith and trust in you that that is our destiny.
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Everything else in the middle is process. Everything else in the middle is for our growth. Everything else in the middle is for your glory.
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It can be hard to see that at times, but we know that you can use all circumstances to bring about, you can take the biggest pile of ash and press it down into diamonds.
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Seen that in my life, and I'm sure that we could testify that that's real. And so, Father, I pray that from that place of hope and a restoration that is to come, you would, in the present, ignite our hearts with joy and gladness.
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Help us to live out all of our days with gladness before you, including this day, including this moment that we have to sing your praises in the gathering of your people today.
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We praise you that you are the sovereign God who is bringing everything to the right and good end.
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We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Yeah, you can go to be seated, and I would ask that you reopen your
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Bibles or your devices to 2 Samuel 17, starting in verse 15. We're going to walk through that text, so I want you to see that the things that I'm saying are coming from there and not just stuff
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I'm making up as I go. So we're going to talk through that text, which, as I read it earlier, kind of seems like a little bit of a strange text, but we'll get there.
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I'm going to break it down this morning into four movements, four primary movements of this text. I'm going to call these four surprising tools that God uses to move us along in our journey.
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Four surprising tools that God uses to move us along in our journey. The first one is that God employs suspense.
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We see that in verses 15 through 22. God employs suspense. The second is that God reveals to us glimpses of despair, verse 23.
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We also see that God uses pressure. Another way of saying that is stress, but God uses pressure, verses 24 through 26.
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And then lastly, we get a little bit of a breather with the reality that God uses kindness in verses 27 through 29.
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So in the twists and turns of life, suspense, examples of despair, external pressures, and kindness all crop up in what
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I would suggest to you appear to be in random order in each person's life. All of us have experienced those things in various measure and in various times and in various order in our lives, but I would suggest to you that these are not random.
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They're not random at all. These are tools that God uses to move us down a pathway. He is planning to move us in a direction, and if we are attentive to it, that's the main thing.
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And let me spoil the whole thing with hope, if you could call it spoiling it with hope, because the biggest spoiler alert of all is one we all need to listen to and remind ourselves regularly, and that is that God is bending the arc of everyone who is connected to him by faith in his son,
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Jesus Christ. He's bending the arc of our lives toward glory. He's bending the arc of your life.
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If you have connected your life by faith to Jesus Christ, he's bending it towards goodness, toward wholeness, toward sinlessness.
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He is bending the arc of your life toward life together with him and his people in sinlessness without death for eternity.
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That is where everything is going in your life. Anybody encouraged by that?
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I hope that gets into your soul, and I hope that's the good starting point, because we know that it doesn't feel that way in the journey.
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The seasons of our lives where there is despair, seasons of our lives where we encounter the pressures and the stresses, seasons of our life where we are held in suspense, sometimes for years, right?
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So it's good to know where he's taking us before we consider reading a text and thinking about a text and diving into a text where we're gonna see the twists and turns of real life.
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Well, in our text, David is heading back to the throne, but it doesn't look like it. We know that in advance because God has seen fit to reveal it to us back in verse 14 of chapter 17.
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God is taking us back to a glorious kingdom as well, and we know that in advance also.
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But in this journey of life where God is sharpening us, using us, and forming us more and more into the image of his son, in this life,
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God utilizes some really strange and surprising tools to bend the arc of our life back towards him.
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So let's look at the first one. God employs suspense. We see that in the text in verses 15 through 22.
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And I want you to consider what is imminently true of our text in these verses, 15 to 22, and is equally true of every single situation, every single circumstance in which you and I have ever lived.
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This is true of every circumstance, and that is that God knows already the outcome.
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God knows the ends. God knows every end of every loose end in our lives that appears to be full of suspense.
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He knows where it's going. And what I want to point out is that God could have spared us eight verses in the
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Bible right here. He could spare us the details of how he gets there, and he could have just said this.
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Jonathan and Amaz went and told David about the counsel of Ahithophel, the very dangerous counsel that Ahithophel had given that basically said, hey, let's go attack
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David in the night while he's tired. We'll put him to death. And it was good counsel, but it was thwarted. And so you could just say
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Jonathan and Amaz went and told David the counsel of Ahithophel, and that would have been true, and that would have been sufficient for our interest.
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But instead, we get kind of a borderline spy thriller here. We get risk involved in the story.
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We get Hushai, a spy for David in the city of Jerusalem, reporting to two other spies about the battle over sound counsel that just occurred in the text last week.
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They send a young lady outside of the city pretending to go get waters. Where she goes in En Rogel, the only main feature there is a well that was just outside of the city gates to the south and east of Jerusalem, where people that lived on that side of town would go out regularly in the morning to get water.
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So they send this young lady out there to report to two couriers who are set to meet her there at the well,
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Jonathan and Amaz. They're also on Team David. They've got young legs in their couriers, and they're getting ready to run the 20 miles.
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Yeah, 20 miles. They're getting ready to run the 20 miles to report to David whatever news they can.
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They are discovered by a random young man by the well and reported to Absalom, who wants them dead.
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Absalom then sends out some soldiers to try to cut off the report so that it doesn't get to David, so David's left in the dark.
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But Jonathan and Amaz are discovered somewhere around Behrim, about a mile and a half north of there. They're not very far into their run, and a farmer and his wife hide
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David's couriers in a well. They cover it with a cloth. They pour grain on it to make it look like they've been drying grain there all day long.
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They lie about the whereabouts of David's men. We're not gonna get into a lot of that. We can talk about that if you got questions.
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But then the men come up out of the well, and only after Absalom's soldiers depart, they are able to complete the trek to David, where they go and they give a full report to David, and David is alerted to the danger of Ahithophel's counsel and the need to get up and add more distance between him and Absalom in the night.
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So there you go. That takes us through the first point. That's kind of the intrigue. That's the spy thriller.
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That's what's going on is just narrow escapes and hiding in wells and that kind of stuff.
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But note that the way that God works here in this story is consistent with the way he works in ours.
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Is it not? Despite millennia of human history and all of the examples of suspense recorded for us in Scripture, as well as recorded for us in our very own lives, personal experience we can go back to, we still have this thing that we cling to in our minds.
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We still expect God to act differently for us. We think this time he's going to act differently.
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We want him to cut out the suspense and just move straight to the results for us.
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Are we guilty of thinking that way sometimes? Why don't you just tell us the end and all the means in between?
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Why don't you just reveal it? But have you ever considered that you are living a story with a plot, a plot that doesn't give us all of the ends right away?
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We might be tempted to ask God questions like, is she going to be healed? Could you tell us now in advance if this pregnancy is going to go well?
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Could you tell us now if this child is going to come back to you? Could you tell us maybe a little bit about everything while you're at it,
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God? Could you tell us how you're going to use everything in our lives? And could you do it now, please?
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You're living a story. You are living a life with a plot.
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And every good author employs suspense. Every good author employs suspense.
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Why does a good author use suspense? Because we are intentionally designed as time -bound creatures who gain and grow in the struggle, who gain and grow without the knowledge of where things are going.
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God doesn't spoon -feed us endings because he knows we grow in faith in him in the ambiguities of suspense as we face an unknown future.
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Even when he tells us the ends, which he does occasionally, he rarely gives us the specifics of how he plans to get us there, right?
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So that in this life, we must have faith in him.
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Personally, I'm in a season of increased prayer. And I think you've probably gone through seasons like that where whatever circumstances you're facing,
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I'm facing some personal struggles. And so because of that, my prayer life is ramped up.
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Prayers I wouldn't offer otherwise if I knew where everything was going. Trust I wouldn't have to express if I knew the outcomes.
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So that the first application in this text is that we adjust our expectations that God owes us answers, and he owes them now.
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Consider that the moments of tension and suspense in your life are the rich parts of a bigger story, a story that God is bending back toward glory for him and even more glory for you.
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As dark as suspense can be in our lives, the not knowing, and I think that's some of the hardest living, isn't it?
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Those are the hardest seasons. Where's it gonna go? How's this gonna end? How's this gonna turn out?
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Occasionally, God will shake us awake in those moments, occasionally with glimpses of despair.
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That's the second tool we see God use in this text. It's a terrible text. Verse 23,
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God reveals glimpses of despair along this journey, and we have to face them. It might seem like a strange place to put the death of Ahithophel right here in the middle of this text.
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It doesn't seem to flow. It doesn't seem to make sense. Why in the world does this crash in right here in the middle and then just drop us and we move on with David's story?
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And yet, let me just ask you another question. Where should it be? Where would you add it in the story?
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Where do you put this best advisor for David who betrays him and goes over to his son and then gives counsel to slaughter the king, and then that counsel's not followed, and then he goes out and he takes his own life.
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Where would you put that? Where's a good place for that? Where do you want that to show up in the story?
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How are we going to communicate that? And yet, it's here in the middle of the text where I believe it should be.
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Don't examples of tragedy and despair break into our lives just like verse 23 breaks into the middle of a narrative?
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Nobody expects the phone call. Nobody expects tragedy. Nobody expects the effects of despair.
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But Ahithophel, you can't psychoanalyze suicide.
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It's not really possible, but what we have here is Ahithophel, the best counselor in all of Israel.
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When he spoke, it was like everybody took his counsel like as if God himself was speaking.
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I said last week, when he said buy, you bought. When he said sell, you sold. When he said move, you moved.
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It was just dumb to not follow his counsel, and Absalom has scorned his counsel. But I don't think he was just kind of like soft and like, oh, well, he didn't follow my counsel, so I'm going to go end it.
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Ahithophel likely saw the writing on the wall. It was deeper than that for him. His counsel had not been followed, yes, but I believe he saw this as the death knell of a rebellion that he had tied his life to.
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He knows that the coup is now going to fail. He has put all of his eggs in the wrong basket.
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He is indeed in despair of life itself. His future is tied to a sinking ship, and he now knows it.
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And so he heads home to his home city. It doesn't say in the text, but his home city, just a little research, it's Gilo. He set his house in order, and then, much like another prominent betrayer in Scripture, it says very directly he hanged himself.
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I believe that it's fair to say that Ahithophel was eaten up on the inside by his betrayal. It's more clear that this is the reality for Judas, who even threw the money back into the temple and said,
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I don't even want the money anymore. It was too late, but he realized what he had done, and it was plaguing him.
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So a tough question, but what do we do when we see glimpses of terrible despair in the world around us or really close to home?
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Well, let me ask it another way. How in the world do we apply to our own lives here, looking at the text of Scripture, how do we apply the suicide of Ahithophel to our own lives?
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And more to the point, how could we ever apply the suicide of one close to us or one that we love to our own lives?
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And let me humbly suggest a couple of possible applications here. The first is straightforward.
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Pray that God keeps you. Pray that God keeps you. Lean on him and trust in him to keep you close and ask him to keep holding you firmly in his arms.
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And I believe he will. If you have the heart to ask, I believe he will. Pray for him to keep you.
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The second is probably more to the social side of this is love others.
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Despair is increasing and will increase in our culture and in our lives as people attach their hopes to false saviors.
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Are you seeing it in the world around you? Are you seeing an increase in despair? What's that made out of?
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It's made out of people attaching their lives to things that cannot save. Attaching their lives to false hopes.
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Just like Ahithophel tied himself to a sinking ship, tied himself to a false king, tied himself to a savior that couldn't save, that was not selected by God, by which people can be rescued.
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So are so many around us doing the same thing, attaching their lives to falsehood and false saviors and things that cannot rescue.
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And so love people, church. Love people enough to point them to the only true savior.
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The most loving thing you can do is share the gospel with those in despair around you. That's the most loving thing you can do is to share the truth.
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Share the truth. Love people enough. You hear the motivation? What's the motivation for that sharing?
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Love them enough to give them something to live for. Love them enough to lift up the purpose, the only purpose that is worthy of the heart of man, to be saved, to be set free, to serve and to love
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God and to love others. And that's us, church. If you love them, you'll be telling them.
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Love people enough to point them to the only true savior, the only one who is worthy of our life and worship, the only one with power over despair.
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It's Jesus. He's the only one. And a quick note on this. I'm not at all suggesting here that you can save people from suicide and despair just by sharing the gospel.
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It's not a silver bullet. It's not a rescue pill to give to somebody who is contemplating ending it all.
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But let me just suggest this to you, and I have personal experience with this. You can save yourself from despair by sharing the gospel with others around you.
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What do I mean? I've had, and I think probably some others in the room have had the same, similar circumstance.
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I've had a friend take his own life several years ago. I asked him to keep me on speed dial.
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I said, call me if you have any thoughts or ideations in this direction. Man, I'm praying for you. I'm there for you.
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I met with him. I was there in his life. I thought he was making strides spiritually. I was sharing the gospel with him.
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I let him know that I loved him and I'd be there for him. I shared the gospel and shared the gospel and shared the gospel, and I couldn't save his life.
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Some of you had the same experience. But I can take comfort standing here and knowing that I had clearly, unquestionably proclaimed
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Jesus Christ to that man. It's the only reason I'm not a basket case.
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It's the only reason I'm able to breathe and I'm able to sleep and I'm able to get up in the morning and I'm able to live and face another day.
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If I thought it was on my shoulders to save him, I'd be over. You get what I'm saying?
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So lean in, church. Lean into those around you. I don't doubt for a second that there's not a single one of you that wouldn't spend the night up with a friend and talking with them on the phone if you thought that you could save them physically from ending their life.
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Raise your hand if you would do that. You would be there. How about their soul? How about their soul?
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Would you take five minutes to share the gospel with them? Even at the risk of ending that relationship, what if they're going to make fun of you?
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What if they're going to believe? What if you're the one?
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What if this message is the one that launches you out into speaking into somebody else's life that's going to save their soul?
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I pray for that. I pray that that's a reality. God will give us glimpses of despair along our journey.
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It's a reality. It's a truth. It's not something we're in control of. It's something we don't enjoy.
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It's not something that we delight in. But those moments remind us of what we have in our
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Savior. And they remind us of what we have to offer to a broken and fracturing world.
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And if it isn't enough that God will use suspense and glimpses of despair along our journey like he did David's, God also uses pressure.
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We see a lot of pressure in this text. You might not see it right away, but verses 24 through 26, he will use pressure to move us along.
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David has been informed that Ahithophel had counseled Absalom to attack swiftly in the night. He doesn't know whose advice he's going to follow.
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That's not in the report. Hushai says, here's what I said, is wait, muster the whole troops.
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Here's what Ahithophel said. It only makes sense to Hushai that he's going to follow Ahithophel's advice. He apparently wasn't in the know, and he gives both.
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And so David moved all of the people to the other side of the Jordan River back in verse 22. It says that to us. But he didn't stop there.
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Exhausted with little sleep and the emotional toll of so many betrayals, including the betrayal of his very own son,
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David apparently force marches his entire entourage across the stretch of wilderness about 50 miles.
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When I say wilderness, it's not the upper peninsula. Think wilderness like Arizona, like desert, like cacti and no water, like that kind of wilderness.
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About 50 miles force march north and east to a fortified city called Mahanaim. Why does he go there?
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This is an area that David had recently conquered. It's the Ammonite territory. It's an area that's loyal now to David.
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Mahanaim is a fortified city, and David has been pressured into marching further than he wanted to go, faster than he wanted to go there.
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Identify this broken -up section as a text of pressure because of the distance and the risk it covers.
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David has insufficient provisions. He had hoped to rest that night at the forts. He's exhausted.
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His men are exhausted. Their families are with him. They're exhausted. But instead of spending the night there, he moves the people across the river in the night, says by morning there was nobody left on the western banks of the
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Jordan, and then they take off and head through the desert to get to Mahanaim. We see that he is indeed being pursued.
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He arrives at Mahanaim at the time when the fully -mustard army of Israel arrives at the forts. David has just vacated.
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So you see that in verse 24. So in the amount of time that it took him to get to Mahanaim, all the troops of mustard for Israel joined with Absalom, and now they are out in pursuit of David.
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He got out of there in good time. It's fortunate that he got out of there when he did.
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And I think we can all identify that there are times in our journey, our journey with God, our journey through life, when it feels like pressure is the best word to use.
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Stress is the best word we could use to describe how we feel. We sometimes feel squeezed, like David being pursued in this wilderness march, going through dry and desert places, but just putting one foot in front of the other, lest whatever it is behind us catches up with us.
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We feel like there's very little choice, but to keep stepping forward, we know there's an enemy in pursuit.
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So pause for a second and ask, is God in that kind of pressure? Is he in that kind of stress?
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Is he sovereign in those seasons where you feel like your direction is being chosen for you? David is heading north and east because that's the way the pressure is pushing him.
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That's the pathway of least resistance as things are moving him along. I believe that he has a general plan to head toward more loyal territory, but he is certainly moving through the wilderness under pressure.
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This is not a casual Sunday afternoon stroll through the desert. Is there such a thing?
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There's another type of pressure that's going on here that might not be apparent, but believe me, it's there.
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There is the pressure, or can I call it stress, of increasing betrayals. This is piling on in verse 25 and a little understanding of the relationships that I don't expect you guys to have.
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That's why I do the study, that's why I do the research, that's why I'm up here. What in the world are all these relationships? And I may read a bunch of names in verse 25 and what's that all about, but here's what you need to understand.
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Absalom, you see that? Look at verse 25. Absalom, Amasa, and Joab are all cousins, like first cousins.
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How many of you have some first cousins? You know their names? You know who they are? You ever hang out?
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Some, especially depending on how close they are to your age, some are very close with their cousins.
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These guys all know each other. And you might say, well and good, okay, so they're cousins, what's that got to do with anything?
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But listen, this means that the two sides that are getting ready to slice each other open with swords, they're going to be shield on battle, this is physical battle, this is not standing away at a distance, lobbing missiles at each other, this is going to be hand -to -hand combat, this is going to be gruesome.
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They're going to line up against one another here in a moment. And here's the sides. David and his nephew
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Joab, who is his military commander, against Absalom, David's son, and Absalom's cousin,
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Amasa, who is Absalom's military commander. They are keeping this fight in the family.
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That's bleeding out to the whole nation. Three cousins and an uncle -slash -dad.
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That's not an uncle -dad, that's weird. He's one person's dad, the other three's uncle.
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But anyways, they're going to war over a crown. Would you guys agree with me that there's a unique kind of pressure involved in family conflict?
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A unique kind of pressure that can sap your work life, it can sap your hobbies and your fun and your joy.
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If things are not going well in your family, those are unique times of pressure and stress.
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This pressure is not outside of the scope of the type of thing, or the type of things that God will use to sharpen
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His journey, to sharpen His children on the journey to eternity.
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Look at the Scriptures. I encourage you, I challenge you to study the Scriptures and look at them, read them, read especially the historical and narrative accounts of the family of Abraham and the family of Joseph and the family and the family and the family, and go through the families and look at Scripture and explain to me why you would expect your family to be perfect.
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Read it. This is real life with God. Read it. You expect it to go well?
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Really? Are you looking at the same Bible I'm reading? These are not heroic families where everything went well.
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These are broken, busted up family where son is trying to kill dad and the cousins are involved. What do we expect from our lives?
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Authenticity and truth, it's on the wall back there. If you believe that the Bible is the capital T truth and you are authentic about your history as a broken human, then we should be surprised when our family, we should not rather be surprised when our families experience fracture and discontent.
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We should be surprised when things are going well. That should be the surprise. Anything short of my own children trying to take my life sounds like living above Biblical expectations.
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Right? I'm not trying to take a jaded and cynical view.
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I'm trying to take a Biblical view. And let me land this pressure here, this type of stress on application.
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A shift in our expectations might very well inform our life of prayer.
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Might very well inform our life of prayer. Maybe we don't pray enough because we don't realize as much what's at stake, what's real, what's true.
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God uses pressures in our lives to form us more and more into the image of his son. Whether it's the figurative sense of running through a desert for our lives or the more narrow source of common pressure that many of us face, family tensions, let these seasons of pressure become for you seasons of prayer.
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Let's take them as seasons to trust God more. To acknowledge that these things are brought into our life by a loving
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God who is, is indeed, is moving all things toward a good ending for his children.
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Lean on him. Talk to him more. As a student of the word, how could
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I ever expect everything to go rosy for me? Instead, without despair, hear me carefully church, these are important caveats, without despair and without fear, without despair and without fear, anticipate times of pressure by praying for strength to stick with God during those seasons where it feels like all you can do, it's all you can muster to merely put one foot in front of the other.
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Where it feels like all you can muster under the pressure and the strain and the suspense of life is like when the alarm goes off, it's a challenge to not hit snooze for the fifth time because you just feel like staying in bed.
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All of us, all of us are gonna go through seasons like that. Pray now for the strength to endure those seasons of life.
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And this would be a very dark passage indeed. If the only things that God used in our lives were suspense, glimpses of despair and pressure.
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Does that sound like a downer? Yeah, not so good. But we also know this fourth point.
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We see it in verses 27 through 29 through the end of the chapter. God also uses, praise God, he uses kindness.
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Raise your hand if you've been the recipient of kindness. It's all of us. In this world, in this sin -cursed, broken world, a friend
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I would say is basically a miracle. I define a miracle as that which
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God uses to kind of bring more glory to him and goes against generally the laws of nature.
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A friend goes against the laws of broken human nature.
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It is a miracle that anybody has ever shown you kindness. It is a work of God in them.
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Cherish anyone who has ever shown you goodwill. I don't know if you realize this, but the sinful, broken, self -centered human heart is not naturally bent towards kindness.
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Did you know that? Kindness is listed among the things that the Holy Spirit works into a heart that's been saved by Jesus.
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It's one of those fruit of the Spirit. And I would never suggest that an unbeliever is unable to express kindness in any given point.
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But I would certainly say that there is no hope of consistent, selfless kindness apart from a work of God in a human heart.
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Episodes of kindness are one thing, but a God -given, kind, changed, transformed heart is another.
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That's what he's giving to us. Well, I'm not sure that that's exactly the case of what's going on with these three guys who demonstrate kindness.
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I think there's mixed motives, but accept the kindness wherever it comes. There's common grace. Common grace is that by which
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God does good, kind things. I mean, like somebody can be a real jerk and a mean, angry man, abusive, and the rain still falls on his crops, right?
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That's common grace. There are still good things that happen to people who are not good people. We know that. There are still people able to express kindness despite the fact that they do not have a new heart.
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Well, Shelby is the king of Ammon. There's a little bit of probably self -preservation and motive in his kindness here.
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David conquered Shelby's brother, Hanun, who is king of the Ammonites, and he's now placed
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Shelby as a vassal king over the region of Ammon. So David is in charge of this region that we're talking about here.
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He likely has made a pledge of loyalty. Shelby has made a pledge of loyalty, and kindness is probably a covenant to David or something like that.
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And also likely he has a significant trade agreement with Israel that will fail if there's regime change.
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So if Absalom is in charge, now he's gotta renegotiate all of that, and Absalom might just come in and slaughter the
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Ammonites again, and he doesn't want that. In other words, it's not certain that Shelby is merely being altruistic and kind, but his act is indeed still kindness.
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Not much is known about Makar of Lodabar, but he is from this region near Mahanaim and also comes out to help
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David. And then there's this guy, Barzillai. He's gonna come up a couple of times. He's from the Israelite territory of Gilead, just a little south of where we're at right now.
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And it's a region where this battle is about to take place. Also, he comes out to support
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David. We find out a little bit more about Barzillai later. One of the things that we find out that's a little bit shocking is the dude is 80 years old.
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So he's 80 years old during these events, and he's still out there kicking it with the big boys. Like, I wanna be like that, right?
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Like coming out and helping people and doing all this stuff when I'm 80, Lord willing. But these three, it says, it's just a list of things that they bring out to bless the troops of David and David's people as they've just marched through the desert.
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They bring out beds and basins and eating vessels that cover the three main things.
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Sleep and a shower and a square meal would be something I'd be looking for after a couple of days of marching through the desert.
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Anybody with that? Like, yes, please. Bed, I don't know what order. I don't know what order.
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I mean, most people, kind of like a shower first, then bed, maybe food. I don't even know. Like, all of them at the same time.
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Eating in bed while you take a shower, I don't know. That's not in my notes, you guys.
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That's where my mind goes, and it's just like, look at all the food.
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Look at all the food in the text. These foods go beyond staples even to some delicacies, delicacies in that day and age, obviously, like cheese.
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Cheese was not easy to come by. Not a lot of refrigeration. Honey and curds, plus sheep for mutton, you know, like when the mutton is nice and lean.
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Ryman got it. It's a Princess Bride reference for those of you that, you know, know. There you go.
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Shelby, Mocker, and Barzillai come out in kindness to David and his army, saying that people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness, and we've got the means to help them.
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Church, are you glad? Are you grateful? Are you thankful? I am so glad for any and all kindness expressed toward me on this journey of life.
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I don't deserve it, but I love it when I see it. Even in the times of suspense, even in the times when despair rears its ugly head, even in the times when the pressures mount and the stress is there and it seems to be driving the agenda,
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I can follow the sound advice of Fred Rogers. When things are bad, when you see tragedy, when you see difficulty, what did
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Fred Rogers encourage the kids to look for in tragedies? Look for the helpers.
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Good words for life, Mr. Rogers, really good words. Look for the helpers. There are seasons of our life where the only thing we can do and the only thing we have to cling to is those who would come around us and lift us up, those who would come around us and help.
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Look for the kindness, Church. Look for opportunities to be glad. How many of you know there's enough stress in your life, there's enough suspense in your life, that if you put your focus there, it's gonna eat you up?
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Look for the helpers. Look with gratitude for the kindnesses that have been expressed to you.
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Thank the God. First of all, express thanks to those people. Give thanks to those who are willing to help.
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Give thanks to the showbies and the mockers and the barzalais who come out and just say, you know what, we're gonna bring you a meal while you're going through this.
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I mean, the Church didn't start that with bringing meals to people who are going through hard times. It was back here. They're doing that back in the desert.
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Just get a meal. One of the first things to go out the window when you're going through desperate, hard times is eating well.
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Give thanks, but don't let the thanks stop there. But thank the God who is working in every single human heart that has ever shown you kindness.
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The human condition, by the way, just to clarify what I mean by that, the real human condition is to find our brother alone in a field and hit him in the head with a rock and take what's his.
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The human condition is to betray Dad and take his throne. The human condition is to war and fight over resources and claw at each other to get our own way, to get ahead.
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When you find a friend, you have found a gift from God. Thank him for any and all kindness you have received on this twisting and turning journey of life.
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God will use suspense. Expect it. God will use glimpses of despair.
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Let it move you to pray and to share the truth with others. God uses pressure. Trust God in the stress.
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And God uses kindness. Express gratitude whenever you are the recipient of kindness. Gratitude to the person offering it and gratitude to God.
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We are indeed recipients of the greatest and best kindness ever expressed. Jesus offered himself up on the cross and he took upon himself our sins so that we can be set free from the consequences of guilt and punishment.
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So if you've asked Jesus Christ to save you, I encourage you to come to the tables for communion during this next song.
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But consider the way that God saved us through the darkness. Think about this for a minute. Don't tune out.
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He did so by entering the darkness on our behalf. He faced down suspense through his death and burial.
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He faced down despair by rising again to the promise of resurrection and newness of life.
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He faced down pressure by taking on his shoulders the weight of the sins of his people.
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And he has given us the most astounding measure of kindness by securing our eternal hope.
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So this week there's going to be some twists and turns. This month, this year, we know that.
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But Scripture prepares us to expect nothing less. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you that you are the God of the process, not just the ends. You didn't wind it all up at the beginning, tell us how it's all going to wind down in the end, and then just walk away.
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But you are here in the process. You are here working things out to your good ends.
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I pray that you would help us to cling to you, to keep trusting in you, that you would keep us in these seasons.
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I pray that you would help us to trust you more. I thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the one upon whom our entire hope is based.
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Thank you for his body broken for us. I thank you for his blood shed in our place.
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I pray that right now as we get up and we go to these tables, those who belong to you and have accepted the work that you did on our behalf, that you would move us to humility, to thankfulness for the great and awesome kindness expressed to us in Jesus Christ.