1 Samuel 23 Grace on the Run

If you have a hard time kind of listening or hearing, you can move forward.

There's plenty of seats down here and I would recommend that. That would actually help my voice a little bit, but, you know, don't feel like you have to, but if at any point you can't.

Can you guys hear me back there? Are you guys able to hear? You guys are able to hear back there? Okay, perfect. Then, let's go ahead and move forward and I want you to have your

Bibles open to 1 Samuel 23 and just kind of, so that you can reference that and see it.

Hopefully you're able to read it. We've got a little bit of lighting in here and that's helpful. So our text this morning is going to revolve around three events in the life of King David, but the events themselves are not the main point and so I'm going to actually use a different thing to structure the message this morning.

There are three graces that God gives to David and I alluded to that in my introduction. Three graces that God gives to David while he's in this process of playing hide and seek with King Saul.

The three graces are simply this. We're going to see in verses 1 through 15, if you're taking notes, God's communication. That's a grace to us that God is a

God who communicates. How many of you are grateful that he is a God who talks, who speaks to his creation and interacts with us?

The second thing is going to be God's encouragement. We see that in verses 16 through 18. He does that through Jonathan in this text, but how many of you would recognize that at times in your life,

God has sent someone to you to be encouragement to you and you've noticed that you've identified that and you've given thanks to God for the encouragement of another individual.

The third thing is that it's God's sovereign timing. We're going to see that in verses 19 through 29, that that's a grace that God gives to David during this wilderness time, this dark time of wandering around.

And so we're going to start by looking at the first grace, which is God's communication to David and ultimately how that interfaces with his communication with us.

You see, David was chilling out in the forest of Hereth near the fortified city of Calah, probably hanging out in the wilderness just outside of that village when word came to David that the

Philistines were making raids against the agriculture of that city. It says in the text that they were coming down to the threshing floor of Calah and stealing the grain.

Now, that could seem like a pretty simplistic thing, like, oh, no, they're stealing some grain from a from a little village or whatever.

And is that really a big deal? Well, the agriculture of that day and age was hard, backbreaking labor.

It was their livelihood. Remember, they didn't have Walmart or Meijer or Wagner's to go to. They didn't go to the grocery store.

All their food was grown there. And so this is a pretty big deal. I don't know if you've thought about how much backbreaking work farming is today, but it's multiplied exponentially how hard it was to farm in those days.

Breaking up the soil without a tractor, walking behind a team of oxen to drag a plow would have been backbreaking work, work that many of us would not want to sign up for, let alone caring for those animals that were pulling your plow.

That's a lot of hard work and a lot of food that they consume. Harvesting, of course, was backbreaking endeavor with handheld farm implements.

How much how much wheat do you have to cut down in order to feed a village? I don't have a clue how much that is, but I'm guessing that it's a lot of walking and a lot of work to shoulder aching kind of work to swing aside to bring in the harvest.

And then not only that, they had to actually bring, transport all that grain from the field to the threshing floor where it was beaten out and the grain was separated from all of the husk and all of that.

And so all again, backbreaking work, difficult. And it's not until this last spot in this last movement in the agricultural process for grain that now the

Philistines are coming in and stealing it. Do you get that? They're not coming out and harvesting it for them. They're not coming out.

They're coming and stealing it at the last possible moment. And they're waltzing in and taking that grain by force.

So in verse two, David inquired of the Lord, it said, this is where we're going to get into the communication, this first grace. David inquired to the

Lord as to whether or not to attack the Philistines and save Caleb. The question here is interesting and helpful.

The very first question that we have from David to the almighty God and the way that it's worded, the way that it's phrased, what he asks for is very fundamental to our understanding of what we ought to be asking from God.

You see, the question isn't exactly the kinds of questions that we tend to ask for ourselves to God. David is asking

God to tell him what to do. He doesn't ask what he should do for his own benefit.

He's not saying, God, will you bless me if I go down to Caleb? Will you give me some of the goods? Will you supply me with good stuff?

Will you save my skin? He isn't even asking God if he will be successful. He's simply coming to God and saying, should

I do this? What do you want? Do you hear how that's a blank check kind of question to God? What do you want me to do,

God? Not what will you, what do you want me to do that I will succeed at? How many of you know the difference between those two questions?

Are you going to bless me as often the fundamental nature of the majority of our questions to God?

Are you on my side on this? You're going to make sure that this turns out okay for numero uno?

No, David says here in the text, do you want me to do it? Do you want me? If you want me to go down to save these people from the

Philistines, I will go do it without knowledge about how that's going to result.

If we're honest, most of our questions are not blank check questions to God. They're more like God, will

I be successful if I quit my job and start my own business? Will I be successful if I do this?

Will I be in a state of joyful wedded bliss for all of my life if I marry fill in the blank?

Will it go well for me and will I succeed in college if I attend fill in the blank?

But David's first question to the Lord is simply, do you want me to attack? Not will

I be successful if I attack? And that's nuanced. I recognize that we're kind of nuancing the question a little bit and kind of getting down to the actual words that he uses, but but it's telling in the heart of David.

Now, that's not to say that you can't ask God if it's going to succeed for you or not. I mean, I'm any of us. That's our heart. But at the end of the day,

I would suggest to you that God is much less interested in whether or not you're going to succeed at any given endeavor and growing you.

Have you seen that in the life of David? So far, much more concerned with growing you. And so many times it's a yeah,

I do want you to do this. And it's not going to be super comfortable for you. It's because it's not all about you. It's all about my glory and what

I can what I how I can be glorified in in the the things that you do.

And here we find in these first 15 verses that God is gracious to communicate to his people. I'm so grateful for his communication because he got answered more than David asked.

David said, should I do it? And he let him know about the success as well. God's God said, sure, go and attack and save Kayla.

He gave him the result in his answer. Go and attack and you're going to save Kayla. But David's men were scared here in the text.

It's kind of interesting. God is even demonstrating his grace and his patience with the people and basically allowing a second question.

You see, many of us think, OK, you better not cross God. Right. Like, I mean, he tells you to do something. You do it right away without any questions.

Well, you know, that's a lot of times we want our kids to do that, don't we? You're like, obey the first time. Don't make me say it a second time, whatever.

And God here tells them to go attack Kayla. The men get scared. They were hiding out.

They basically say we're hiding out in Judah, trying not to draw attention to ourselves from King Saul. Nothing's going to reveal our location quite like going up and attacking the

Philistines. OK, so all of a sudden, Saul's going to know where we're at. So we'd kind of just prefer to sit back and and just see how things play out.

So David went back and asked the Lord for a second opinion. And he commanded

David again and doesn't doesn't chide him, doesn't doesn't get angry at him for asking again.

Now, God's already given him clear communication. Go attack Kayla and save them. And now he's coming back a second time and God doesn't even bring it up.

He's not. God understands the the weaknesses of our own hearts.

He understands that we are driven by fear. He understands fallen humanity. And so he just says, yeah, repeats himself.

Sure. I'll answer again. Arise, go down to Kayla and you will be victorious.

And he even states more explicitly. Look at the end of verse four, if you can. Verse four.

Then David inquired of the Lord again and the Lord answered him, Arise, go down to Kayla for I will give the Philistines into your hand or I will do this.

I'm going to tell you at my pledge of your success. Go do this thing. So David was faithful to respond to the command of God.

They attacked the Philistines, delivered Kayla from the oppressive force of the Philistines. Verse 16 or verse six is very important to our understanding of this communication because many of us have these nebulous, fuzzy notions about what it means to communicate with God, what it's like for him to communicate to us.

We know that we ought to be praying. We know we ought to be talking to him. But in what way and what method does God communicate with us?

How many of you ever asked that question before? That's a fundamental question to what it means to be a follower of Christ is how does God talk to me?

How does he communicate with me? I mean, I know that I'm supposed to talk to him. So verse six is fundamental to our understanding about that.

And it seems like it's just kind of all of a sudden like breaks on kind of like a, like a parenthetical statement in the middle.

Oh, by the way, the priest came and brought the ephod. Now on with the narrative, on with the story. But that's very important that Abiathar the priest had brought with him the ephod when he came down.

Now the ephod is important and fundamental for us to understand because it's been used multiple times in the, in the book of first Samuel and it's all throughout the

Old Testament. This idea of the ephod, basically a, a kind of almost sandwich board plate that the priest would wear with different gems that would represent the different tribes of Israel and a pocket behind them that would hold two tiles, two ceramic tiles or two stones.

And those stones were used to determine the will of the Lord, which is kind of like, whoa, wait a minute. How does this work? You heard, how many of you ever heard of casting lots, casting lots?

The priest would cast lots. He would take those two and each and one, one would represent yes, one would represent no.

He had put him in the, put him in a jar, swirl the jar around and whichever one came out of the entrance of the, whichever one swirled out first was the answer.

So a fundamental trust in the Lord to provide the answer by sovereignly determining which one was going to come out first.

And so when you hear about, about casting lots, sometimes more than one would be put in there.

There'd be 12 thrown in there and whichever one flew out first would be for the 12 tribes of Israel or something like that.

But this was a method that God had determined. Now that doesn't mean that you get to go roll the dice to determine God's will for you.

This was a Old Testament, old covenant means that was given by God to his priest to communicate.

Now I'm not even confident that if David had had taken the cup from the priest and swirled it, that he could have had any confidence that that was the

Lord's because Lord's will because the priest was supposed to do this action. This was up to him.

So David is actually, the method of David's communication was to use the spiritually given method of communication between God and mankind during this era.

You see, I, David wasn't on his knees in a prayer closet somewhere hoping that God would speak to him in an audible voice.

I want you to get this fundamentally because often what we do is misguided. He was doing what

God had given to his people to do in this ancient time for guidance. Now I bring this up because many of us think incorrectly about the way that God spoke during ancient times and the way that he spoke even to David.

And then we want that kind of relationship with God for ourselves. That's misguided. It's not accurate.

And then we even get upset for God with God for not treating us like he treated David or presupposing wrong about how he treated

David. Do you get what I'm saying in that? We expect a relationship like God and David without really even understanding the relationship that God had with David.

And so it's fundamental that we understand what was happening here when David is seeking the Lord. He's seeking him through the priest, through the right means, through the right methods.

Now how many of you would like to have an ephod? I mean, just be honest. How many of you would like to have an ephod? Like it would be really cool to be able to like see, how many of you would like to have your own personal priest?

Like a Biathar is following David around. It's like, oh, that would be super cool, wouldn't it? Like a guy who could just come and tell you who will have gotten a, certainly

I'm open to for you to come and counsel. I'm no priest and I'm not a Biathar and I don't have an ephod back there in my office.

You can come to me and I'll give you the best biblical counsel I can give. But I'm telling you what, I'm also fallen and I'm a broken person and I'll just do the best that I can from God's word.

And we're going to get there here in a second. Why do I say from God's word? That's how God communicates with us. Just stole my own thunder.

But that's, that's the thing. That's what it really comes down to. So let me make three points of application regarding the first grace of communication that was given to David on the run.

Really when I say points of application, I say points of interest, points that, that maybe we'll draw the spirit we'll use to draw out some of your misunderstandings and some of your misguided hopes for God's communication in your life or some ways that you just need to fundamentally alter your thinking in terms of what your expectation is for God's communication.

You see, David was flat out. Hear me carefully. This is a, this is a harsh statement, but it's true.

And I think that if you really think it through, you're going to come to the same conclusion. I might bristle you at first, but David was flat out more important in salvation history than you and me.

David was more important. Here, hear me carefully and go ahead and write that down and then mull it over and think about it over lunch today.

David was more important in salvation history than you are. And that's just a reality in the way that some of these accounts in scripture occur for us.

Well, when we expect God to directly speak to us like he did to Moses, or when we expect him to expect to have

God appear to us like he did to Joshua or Jacob, or to give us clear instructions like he did to David, sometimes we're just seeking to misapply

God's miraculous works in salvation history to our own lives. We're appropriating that which

God was doing as a unique and special thing for a specific time or a specific era, and we're expecting that to be normative for our lives.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? We're kind of pretending that we're just as vital in the big picture of what

God is doing on the planet, and therefore he should speak to me and tell me where to go to college.

He should tell me who I should marry. He should tell me whether or not to quit this job and go here, whether to sell my house and move to that neighborhood or whatever.

And it's a misunderstanding and a misappropriation of Scripture and the way that God works in the lives of people.

You see, in preserving David, God is bringing forth a kingly line that will bring forth who?

Jesus Christ, our King, our Lord, our Master, our Messiah, God in flesh, and that's a big deal.

How many of you think that's a big deal? Like, it's a big deal what God is doing, that God is preserving David's life here is fundamental to our faith, that David's line goes on to produce a king, a king, even our king.

So I have no problem saying that he is doing, God is doing something bigger there with David than he is doing here with me in Matawan, Michigan.

I have no problem with that. We must look at the way that God works in Scripture as unique and always have in mind the bigger purposes, big picture purposes of what

God is trying to do on the planet. You see, miracles were not common in that era. You hear that and you go, wait a minute,

Don, isn't the Bible full of miracles? How many thousands of people lived on the planet during David's life?

We have a recording of God working in the life of David. How many other people were there that never heard the voice of God, that never had a priest, never had an ephod, never had the opportunity to seek the

Lord in the same way that David did? Even further, in this book, earlier in this very book in 1

Samuel, we were told that prophecy from the Lord was rare in those days. It says it, word for word, in those days, prophecy from the

Lord was rare, a word from the Lord was rare. In the era of Eli, in the era of Samuel, who we picture to just always hear from God every day, it wouldn't surprise me if every single time that God spoke to a person in any audible sense or any special sense is here for us.

I wouldn't surprise me if every single time it's actually recorded, it's here, that's possible.

And I wonder if every time that he's just definitively shown himself to someone, we have a record of it.

It's quite possible. I'm not, I'm not, I'm, don't take that one to the bank, I just, I'm speculating, but I wonder.

I think it's quite likely, especially with phrases like, in that day, a word from the Lord was rare.

So to normalize what was uncommon in biblical times is to misunderstand the very nature of God's communication.

We will not expect, ought not to expect, should not expect, routine auditory interactions with the

Almighty. We should not expect to hear from him regularly in our ears, speaking to us with a voice.

We certainly should not have the expectation that he will reveal every detail of our lives in advance, and that we deserve that, we should not have that mindset.

And so that's the first and fundamental thing to applying this, but the second is that David sought the counsel of prophets and priests according to the old covenant.

David sought out the word, the word of God from Samuel, the prophet, and then he went to Abiathar, the priest with the ephod for direction.

And in this, I just want to state that David knew where he was supposed to turn for revelation from God. Do you see that in the text?

He knew where to go. He went to Samuel. He went to Abiathar. He asked for the ephod to be brought to him.

He knew where to go. He didn't, you know, when he's running through the wilderness and he's running for his life and he's desperate and he's seeking

God's will, he didn't go to the hilltop shrines. He didn't go to the Oracle at Delphi.

He didn't go to shamans or pagan priests. He went to the way that God had provided for him and the way that God had spoke to him, had given for his people to seek him.

We likewise ought to know where to go for revelation from God. Do you know, do you know where to go for revelation from God?

Do you know where to go to find what he wants for your life? Do you know that? In our new covenant, the repository of the revelation of God, what he desires for you and I to know is found in a written book called the

Bible. It is the written word of God. Second Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says this, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

Where do you need to go to be made complete? Where do you need to go to be, to be, to find, to know every good work that God desires of you?

Where is it church? The Bible, the word of God, that is the means and the new covenant by which

God has communicated with his people. He hasn't given us ephods, he hasn't given us lots and the umim and the thumim, the two stones to cast out of a, the mouth of a, of a drinking vessel.

He's given us his word and that is where we should turn. God's written word is the place you need to go to draw close to God so that you know fundamentally to go there, not only to know how you should roll, but to know how

God rolls so that you can pattern your life after him. That's what it's all about. To know your

God, to get to know him and to study him and to see what he desires of humanity and the way that, what the things that he loves and the things that he hates and then to roll accordingly.

I found that routine decisions and I, I'm not boasting, I'm just saying what's been reality in my life is

I've been a student, a lifelong student of the word of God. I remember in high school highlighting and underlining and taking it serious and for whatever reason, probably because God had this for me, that's probably part of it.

But, but I've been a lifelong student of the word and I found that routine decisions are easier.

They're easier the more that I know and trust the God that's revealed his own character to us in his word.

The more that I've studied the word, the easier decisions come to me. Now some of it's personality, Linda can attest that I make decisions pretty quick.

I don't have a problem, I'm not hyper deliberate, I don't second guess myself very often, I'm a pretty definitive kind of guy and so some of that I recognize as personality.

Some of us second guess which flavor ice cream we had last week and then others are like, never, never thought twice about a decision that I've ever made.

I don't know that I've ever made a bad decision, right? That's not good either. Okay. And then another thing altogether, but I do tend to make bold and confident decisions, but I would suggest to you that primarily that flows from the knowledge of God who gives me much grace and latitude.

I don't worry about it that much because I know he's a God of grace. I've experienced his love and his forgiveness and so I don't have to second guess whether or not we made a mistake buying a new house three years ago.

I don't have to worry about whether or not we made a mistake buying a new car a couple of months ago. I don't stress about that stuff and primarily because I've drawn close to the

God who I know is so much more concerned with my character than what I drive. He's so much more concerned with, and certainly some of those things, you know,

I mean, there's overlap, right? You know that. But I mean, have some sense to think. I mean, the more that you draw close to God in his word, the more that you're going to understand and feel his revelation to you.

Once again, I need to say that God is much more concerned for how we live than where we live.

He's much more concerned for how we work and not so worried about where we work. So concerned about our character and the things that he wants to produce in us and the people he wants to impact through us.

The third thing about this first grace of communication. By the way, this is the lion's share of the application.

We are going to talk about the other two points, but we'll breeze through those. But this is this is fundamental to this text is God, something unique and different that God is doing here in this text for David, communicating that grace of communication.

But God has given you access to his prophets. Many of us want to raise our hand and said, we'd love to have an

Abiathar. Well, you have the prophets available to you and you have his priest, his great high priest, greater, according to the book of Hebrews, than any priest that ever walked this planet than ever.

Any priest that ever entered the holy of holies. You have the one who made a once and for all sacrifice and he is your priest.

And not only that, but you have something so awesome. You have the Holy Spirit that indwells you through the new covenant by grace, something that these people in the

Old Testament would only hope for and wish for. In the word, we have access to the very self -disclosure of the almighty in the

Bible. We have his recording of what he wants us to know of himself. And if this is not, if the

Bible is not his disclosure and revelation, then it's a worthless pile of pages and you shouldn't read it.

I mean, none of that have none of this. It's good literature, nonsense. It's terrible literature.

If it's not the revelation of God, it's a waste of time and go read the newspaper.

My goodness. Read those, read clickbait on online or something, but I mean, don't, don't waste your time with this.

If it's not genuinely God telling us who he is and what he, what he does and the way he works.

You see, I believe in this book, we have access to the true knowledge of the Holy One. And we also have things much better than David had.

I think David, if he could see what we have today, he would long for our day, not vice versa. We were like, oh man,

I wish I had an ephod. He'd be like, oh man, I wish I had the indwelling Holy Spirit who was with me and sealed me and was with me forever and ever.

And I had that promise and pledged through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. See David had a

Biathar and an ephod, but we have the written word. We have the incarnate word, and we have the one who impresses the word in our hearts, the

Holy Spirit himself. We also have, we have, we have things so much better than him, but I don't, don't hear me say, did

Don just discourage us from asking God for guidance in the specifics of my life? No, I'd encourage you to go ahead and go ahead and ask him, go ahead and talk to him, bring to him those decisions, bring to him which car to buy, bring to him which, but how do you expect him to answer?

He's going to answer you. I believe primarily through the principles that you're going to be able to apply through the word.

And that takes work for us. So we'd rather just have an ephod. It takes, it takes work for us to, you guys are chuckling, but you get it.

It takes work for us to determine the principles from scripture because guess what? We have to read it. You're not going to get there without reading it.

And my little one hour messages up here up front are not going to be enough for you to get the full embrace of what

God has for you. Even this week, you need to be in the word on your own. You need to study it, not just to check it off.

My goodness, I missed this for years. I thought, Oh, every time I heard a pastor say, read the Bible, I'd be like,

Oh, I don't do it enough. You know, it's like, hang your head and go out and kind of sculpt your car and like, Oh boy,

I should read the Bible more. No, it's, it's only in as much as you know, that you, you need it.

You need to draw close to God for those decisions and those difficult things. God has,

God has been faithful to give us so much. I don't discourage you from reaching out to him about the little things, but recognize he has given us a rich and amazing disclosure himself.

So do not disconnect from his speech to you. Do not disconnect from this and then ask him, why won't you answer me?

That's just not fair. That's not fair at all. That's like having a, that's like having a husband who writes you a love note every day and you, you don't even open the envelope and just say, why don't you ever tell me you love me?

Do you see how foolish that is? How silly that is? That's like having your boss hand you, hand you the manual to the new piece of equipment you need to run, never reading it, never touching it and going, how come you never, how come you didn't tell me how to run this?

Like, I gave you the, I gave you the manual. Now, this is certainly not just merely a manual and it's not merely a love note, but it's kind of a combination of the two.

So don't expect, if you're not here, to get down on your knees and ask him and he's just going to tell you what to do in your next step.

I mean, he's going to say, are you applying the principles that I put down for you? So David seeks the Lord two more times in the text asking, again, grace upon grace,

God communicating with him. He asks if Saul's going to try to trap him in Calah. He's kind of in a fortified city, fortified cities have two, have, it's kind of a two edge sword being in a city with, with walls.

It's hard to get in, but you can't get out. You run out of food. That's how sieges happen. And so he's like, am

I going to get trapped in here? Is Saul indeed going to come and attack this city? He certainly has concern for the people of Calah and God confirms that Saul is indeed on the way and that the ungrateful people of Calah who

David has just delivered from the Philistines are going to indeed turn him over to Saul if he stays there.

So David escaped and Saul returned home empty handed. I think probably embarrassed about this whole scenario and situation. He musters all of Israel to go out and obtain

David to kill David and David escapes. So Saul has egg on his face in this.

And each one of these graces given to David is a contrast to Saul. David receives communication from the almighty and Saul only takes counsel from others around him.

And you see that throughout this text, woven two different threads woven through this text. David seeking the Lord, Saul seeking his counselors and advice from others and Saul.

David seeks out divine guidance while Saul is the one guilty of killing the majority of those who can provide divine guidance.

He kills the entire city of priests and Biothar is the only one left. The second grace God gives to David is the grace of encouragement.

In verses 16 through 18, we see the last meeting between Jonathan and David. There's an intentional irony.

It's meant to be humorous. You ought to read it funny that in verse 14, we're told that daily

Saul was going out seeking David, but God won't give David over to Saul.

And then Jonathan just kind of saunters out and meets with David. You see the irony there?

And Jonathan finds him no problem. But it's like as if God has put a fog across Saul's eyes and thwarted every attempt that he has to go out and meet with David because,

I mean, Saul would definitely like to introduce David to his sword, but he's not having any success in that.

So I'm sure that David was at a low point, by the way. Just think about what, I mean, it's very easy to just brush over the top and not really dig deeper into understanding like what the emotions would be here.

David had just observed the entire nation of Israel mustered to try to kill him. Like, how many of you think that might be a low point, like that might be discouraging a little bit at least.

Like, I think he's a little discouraged at this point. And Jonathan came to strengthen, the text says, David's hand in God.

In other words, to take the picture, the word picture here is Jonathan taking David's hand and putting it in God's hands.

That's the word picture that the Hebrew is trying to communicate. And that's what you do when you provide encouragement to a brother and sister in Christ.

That's what you're doing. You're taking, and that ought to be the goal, not to take their hand and leave it in yours.

That's what our culture is telling us encouragement is today. Oh, just be a listening ear. Just be there and be a good friend.

Well, yes, that's great, but that has its limitations, doesn't it? How many of you ever let somebody down and you know you've let them down?

You are not the ultimate source of encouragement. Stop pretending that you can be. You're not enough.

You're not enough to provide encouragement to somebody whose wife is about to leave them or is going through thoughts of divorce or is going through all different kinds of things and messes in their lives or their boss just fired them.

You're not enough to encourage them. You need to be there and to sit with them, but at the end of the day, you need to take their hand and be faithful to put it in God's hand.

Do you hear the difference versus just holding their hand? Wow, that's great for a season, but there's nothing lasting in that.

Real true deep encouragement has a lasting power. That phrase, that Jonathan came to strengthen

David's hand in God. True deep and lasting encouragement cannot come about purely from personal closeness or emotional support.

And the truth that Jonathan shares with David is the reminder that from God's voice, again, going back to the revelation of God, didn't

God tell you? I want to remind you what God said. That's the putting his hand in God's hand is to say, remember what

God said about you? God said you're going to be the next king. I know this to be true. According to the word of God, he declared this over you.

And Jonathan says, I'm not going to take the throne. I'm not going to be a king. I'm going to be second to you. And Jonathan even encourages

David by saying, and by the way, my father also knows this. The one who seeks your life knows deep down in his heart that you're going to be the next king.

He knows it. You see, God's grace in our dark times often takes the form of an encouraging friend at just the right time.

But let's be sure that we allow room for the word of God to come back into our encouragement. More and more,

I've heard that many in the church and many church based counseling programs that actually discourage the use of the

Bible. Have any of you or anybody? Am I the only one who encounters this actually is discouraging it as trite or uncaring or as if as if it's to be one of Job's friends to to just bring the bring the word of God too soon.

Okay, I just got I'm sorry, I just got a little distracted. But there's a note back there saying we're going to lose the emergency lights in 10 minutes and then it's going to be fun.

So let's do this because I got light on my iPad so I guess I can preach I can preach right through it. You guys are going to be fine.

That's right. That's right. Just just yeah, everybody put your hand in God's hand right now.

It's going to be it's going to be good if you're afraid of the dark just he is he is the light of the world.

Okay. So we use scripture right there. But no, you know, many people think that using the word of God to encourage is trite or it's like at the wrong time and how many of you know that there is the wrong time to say the wrong thing even when it comes to scripture.

What we don't want to be a walking concordance spouting off verses for every single situation like a vending machine of verses.

Right. I mean, we need to be sensitive. We need to be careful. We need to be feeling and real people with real people.

But we always want to make sure that we're not shy of sharing the truth that comes from God himself that can provide encouragement.

You see, David receives encouragement. And in contrast, Saul receives none. He's paranoid.

Saul living his life, paranoid, fearful, and increasing in his frenzy to destroy the one that he fears will steal his throne.

There's no peace in this text for the hunter. And there is peace and encouragement for the hunted.

God is close to the broken, big biblical principle and hopefully encouragement. Hopefully I can put your hand in God today and strengthen your hand in God today by saying this statement.

God is close to the broken and he gives grace to the humble. But don't ever forget the flip side of that.

God tears down the haughty and the arrogant. The last grace we see in the text is the grace of God's sovereign timing.

David had fled from Cala to the wilderness of Ziph in the text. Great names. Cala, Ziph, Mahon, all these funny names,

Jeshimon. It's not a pretty place. Okay. When we get in our mind the wilderness, when you hear wilderness, sometimes you might think

Upper Peninsula. How many of you think that's a wilderness? Not this wilderness. Okay.

This is somewhere between the climate halfway between Jakku and Tatooine. Six of you are going to get that.

Okay. It's a desert. It's deserted. It's rocky. It's inhospitable. Not many people living there.

Only wandering bands of Bedouins. Even obtaining water would be a challenge. Probably a daily task for David and his men during this era.

In verses 19 through 29, we find that the people of Ziph sought to actually get on some of Dassaul's good side by turning in David.

So this is an ugly time. David actually wrote a psalm during this time. And if you're taking notes, jot it down and please,

I just encourage you to read it this week. Maybe even read it this afternoon. Psalm 54. It's a prayer of response to the situation.

The subheading of that psalm is during the time when the people of Ziph turned in David to Dassaul and said, isn't he living among us?

That's this very time. And consider how lonely, when you read that psalm, consider the loneliness of heart that David was experiencing at this time.

Sure, certainly, he has 600 men surrounding him, but no place to consistently lay his head.

And how many of you know, you can be surrounded by friends, but if you're on the run and you have no place to land, that's a tough place. No place to land.

That's where he's at. And so David's lonely. He's really welcomed nowhere. He delivered

Kayla and they dissed him. Now he flees to Ziph and they turn him into King Saul and say, he's here.

Come and get it. And we, our part will be to turn him into your hand. So Saul wants to make sure he gets

David this time after the embarrassment of coming back empty handed from Kayla. So he tells the men of Ziph, go do some

Intel, track David's movements, come back to me. And then we have an abbreviated account because it's implied that they actually did this.

We don't, it's not recorded for us. Not everything that happened is recorded for us in scripture, but Saul does indeed come down to Ziph eventually and seeks out

David and he knows where he's at. So Saul comes out once again and he's down there and so David flees

South and East towards the wilderness of Mahon and the drama in verses 26 through 27 is almost comical.

Have you ever had somebody chasing you, maybe when you were a child, but, or you're playing with a kid and they're chasing you and you kind of, you kind of get something in between you and them, a tree, a car, a couch or something, and then you run this way and they run that way.

And then when they stop on the other side, then you kind of run the other way. Anybody know what I'm talking about? We kind of have a little picture of that here.

Saul on one side of a mountain, David on the other. And I wonder if they had some spies up on the hillside going, Oh no, go left.

Oh no, go right. No, no. Okay. He's coming around this side. But the implication is that the noose is tightening on David and it's getting closer and closer.

Saul's forces one side, David and his 600 on the other. And according to verse 26, Saul was making up ground in the phrase, closing in on capturing

David. And God uses all kinds of things to preserve his people. But here, ironically, he uses the Philistines.

God had used David at the start of this text to deliver Kayla from the Philistines. Now he's going to use the Philistines to deliver

David from Saul. God is capable of doing all different kinds of things and it kind of boggles our minds.

Just as the noose is tightening and David is about to be captured, the drama in verse 26 and 27, the messenger comes and reports to Saul.

Israel is under attack by the Philistines. You better get back or you're going to have no kingdom at all.

So Saul went to the defense of his kingdom and David lived to see another day. And David went up, it says, to settle for a short time in the strongholds of Engedi.

We're going to, that's where we're going to find him next week when we, when we pick up where we left off. And as far as applying this last one, this idea of God's sovereign timing in our lives, it really comes down to trust in the sovereign hand of God to work out what we need in our lives, doesn't it?

That's a challenge, especially when we're going through those dark times when we're going through difficulty, when the diagnosis isn't good or the job's not going well and we fear it's going to be lost.

But there's a way of looking at this account and walking away thinking, wow, what a coincidence that Saul's messenger just showed up with the message of the

Philistines attack just as David was about to be captured. What a lucky guy. David was saved by chance again.

There's no question in my mind that David, or rather that God is working in the life of David to preserve him and to guide him.

And that leads to a question about the way that God is leading in David's life. Why so many close calls?

We're going to see a lot of close calls. Why so many close calls? Is God not capable of saving him and preserving him before Saul gets that close?

Couldn't he, if he's sovereignly going to intervene, couldn't he make it a little more comfortable for David? Why can't

David find a quiet out of the way place to hide until Saul's kingdom ends? Or even more to the point, why can't

Saul just be removed and David set up on the throne? He's already been promised. What are the waiting times for in our lives?

What are the dark times for in our lives? What are the close calls for in our lives?

And I think this is where the grace of the sovereign timing of God comes in and stretches our faith.

Do you see whose timing in your life is grace? I think all of us, to a person in the room, has at times wanted

God to speed up his plan for your life. We've been there. Would you like him to make your path only ever smooth, easy?

Would you like to have a life with fewer close calls? See, God is gracious to bring us through the wilderness days, the darkness.

Yeah, that's not even in my notes. But he is. He brings us through the darkness to grow our faith and our dependence in him.

And David is learning to trust God and to trust in his plan. And so let me encourage all of you to trust in his work in your life as his grace is growing your faith.

Here at Recast, we want to see everybody growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

And David in our text is given three graces that help him grow. The first is the grace of communication.

The second is the grace of encouragement. The third is the grace of God's sovereign timing, that we could see his hand doing things.

And I've often said this, the sovereign grace of God often is only best seen in the rear view mirror. We see it when it's gone past.

We can look back in the past and trace his hand and see how he guided and directed us in the simple things to bring about his will, his perfect will in our lives.

So if you're all in with Christ, then you have access to these three things as well, his communication, his encouragement, his sovereign timing, and you will have eyes to see it if you are in his son, if you've given yourself to him by faith.

So let me encourage you all as we wrap things up here in the darkness to come to communion this morning. Be extra gracious to each other as we try to filter back there and don't trip anybody or anything.

But we do this each week to remember. It's fundamentally about remembering that the

Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ himself, came here to die on the cross for our sins.

The cracker reminds us of his body broken for us, the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

So let me encourage you to come to the table this morning to remember this ultimate grace that's been given to us and then go out in this next week remembering that you've been forgiven and that he loves you and he loves you enough to communicate with you.

He loves you enough to bring about others in your lives to encourage you and he loves you enough to sovereignly work in your day to day to make you stronger and your trust in him.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace and it is so powerful and beautiful.

I see it in my life. I see it in the lives of others around us. Father, even just the grace to have a different kind of service this morning.

We know that this is, again, your sovereign timing, that this is what you had for us this morning. And so I just thank you for us to be able to roll with it.

And Father, your word can still go out and that it's not thwarted in any way. Father, I pray that you would go with us through this week and gratitude and thankfulness that you are indeed a

God who communicates with us. You indeed provide grace upon grace for our lives in the simple things in your timing and the encouragement that you give to us.

And Father, I pray that you would help us to come to these tables reflecting and remembering in Jesus name.