In the Grip of Revenge

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Don Filcek; 2 Samuel 3:26-39 In the Grip of Revenge

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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, a study of 2 Samuel. Let's listen in. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I am the lead pastor here, and most of you that have been around here for a while now probably know that our name,
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Recast, is an acronym for our core values. It's got kind of a double meaning to it. It's got the notion of recasting the nets.
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The disciples in Luke chapter 4 had been fishing all night, caught nothing. Jesus came to them in the morning and said,
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Recast the nets to the other side, and if you do things my way and do what I tell you, then you're gonna catch more, and they do.
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And so it's partly that, but then the secondary thing is that it's a acronym of our core values, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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You see that above the doughnuts back there. So it's not, I mean, we strategically place that right by the doughnuts so that everybody can see the core values there.
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You might want to add, maybe it should be decast with doughnuts being one of those core values.
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I don't know, but recasted. How about that? Okay. Well, he could do all kinds of things with that, but I want to zero in on the core value of authenticity.
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What do we mean when we talk about authenticity? I want to highlight that we value an honesty about ourselves that flows from the pages of Scripture.
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So we take what the Scriptures say to be true of us versus the things that the culture and the world around us say are true of us, and that means that we want to lean into a humility in relationship with one another.
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An authenticity that says that we don't have to pretend that we had a great week. We can come together and say this week was terrible, and encourage and ask other people to pray for us and let them know that in humility we need their encouragement.
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Now those who read the Bible to honestly see what it conveys, and not trying to bring your own opinions to it, but if you read it to see what it's saying to us, you're going to quickly come to the conclusion that it has no interest in painting a rosy picture of humanity.
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It does not have an interest in showing humanity to be the heroes. It doesn't have an interest in demonstrating us to be super awesome, and how great it is that God gets to work with people like us.
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Not at all. We see a flow that begins right from the beginning.
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Adam and Eve eat from the tree that God expressly told them not to do. They obey God right away.
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How many of you knew that that's in the Bible? Right out of the gate. And then it moves from eating fruit you're not supposed to, to murder pretty quickly.
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Did you notice that? It goes like, okay, wait, you're not supposed to eat this fruit. It's kind of like taking cookies out of the cookie jar.
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Mom said, no, you do it anyways, and then you get in trouble, and then the next thing you know you murder your brother. How many of you as parents have talked through that slippery slope with your kids, right?
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You're going to be in prison if you keep stealing cookies out of the cookie jar. None of this is in my notes, but this might be a long sermon,
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I don't know. Cain kills Abel. Noah gets drunk right after being rescued in the ark.
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We don't tell the kids that story, by the way. Have you noticed that? We have all the little kids' books with the ark, and the animals, and the cute fluffy things, but we don't get to the drunken part.
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I wonder why. Because the Bible goes there. The Bible does go there, and we obviously are betraying an agenda when we tell our kids that story without saying, no,
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Noah was a bad person who needed a savior. We have an agenda behind that. We want to make Noah the hero.
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But he's not the hero. He shows fallenness after God makes a covenant with him, after God saves him.
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This is the kind of stuff that is in the Bible. Abraham lies. Abraham chosen by God. Promised and made a covenant by God.
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Unilateral covenant. I'm going to bless you. Lies about his wife being his sister to save his own skin.
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Jacob is a swindler. That's the name. The name means swindler. His name's going to be changed to Israel, like Israel, like the whole tribe, all the people.
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Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery out of jealousy. Moses murders two Egyptians, and he's on the lam when he encounters
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God in the burning bush. How in the world could we walk away from this start of this book and ever get the notion that the
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Bible is giving us a list of really good role models? But how many of you at times have thought that?
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At stages of your life, at stages of your history, been like, how in the world could David do that? Because I thought this was the
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Bible. The Bible's telling us what's true of us. It's revealing in these historical accounts what real life looks like.
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How many of you say that? That kind of sounds like my last week. Like the kinds of things that we encounter in the
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Bible are the kinds of things that are speaking into our real day in and day out. No, it's not giving us role models.
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To the contrary, the Bible is giving us freedom to be honest. It's giving us freedom to be honest.
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It is driving us toward admitting that we are busted and broken sinners in need of a Savior. Amen? And our text this morning is going to give us another authentic view of David and his military commander.
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And we're going to see both of them do wrong in this passage. Again, we talked last week about the four kinds of sinners that God uses in that text.
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We're going to see a couple more sins highlighted today. Our text is about revenge.
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We will read together an accounting of a historical situation that reminds us that there really is nothing new under the sun.
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Cycles of revenge are very real. And I think all of us, to a person, have experienced them to some level, whether we are the giver or the receiver of revenge.
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So let's open our Bibles or your devices or scripture journal to 2 Samuel 3, verses 26 through 39.
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So again, 2 Samuel 3, 26 through 39. And recast, this is
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God's holy word. We have the privilege of hearing it together. So let's listen in and follow along in your chosen way of following in the scriptures.
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When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner and they brought him back from the cistern of Sarai.
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But David did not know about it. And when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the midst of the gate to speak with him privately.
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And there he struck him in the stomach so that he died for the blood of Asahelah's brother. Afterward, when
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David heard of it, he said, I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner, the son of Ner.
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May it fall upon the head of Joab and upon all of his father's house. And may the house of Joab never be without one who has discharge or who is leprous or who holds a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread.
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So Joab and Abishai, his brother, killed Abner because he had put their brother Asahel to death in the battle of Gibeon.
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Then David said to Joab and to all the people who were with him, tear your clothes and put on sackcloth and mourn before Abner.
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And King David followed the buyer. They buried Abner at Hebron and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner.
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And all the people wept and the king lamented for Abner saying, should Abner die as a fool dies? Your hands were not bound, your feet were not fettered, as one falls before the wicked you have fallen.
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And all the people wept again over him. Then all the people came to persuade David to eat bread while it was yet day.
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But David swore saying, God do so to me and more also if I taste bread or anything else till the sun goes down.
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And all the people took notice of it and it pleased them and everything that the king did pleased all the people.
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So all the people and all Israel understood that day it had not been the king's will to put to death Abner, the son of Ner.
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And the king said to his servants, do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?
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And I was gentle to they though anointed king. These men, the sons of Zariah, are more severe than I.
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The Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness.
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Let's pray before the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father it seems appropriate for us to take a posture of confession as we read accounts of sin and we can easily look into these historical accounts and see the bad things done and they really stand out when it's things like murder and killing somebody and betraying them.
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And yet we reflect on the type of vengeance that we seek in our own lives and the type of retribution we exact of others who have hurt us.
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And we recognize that there is within all of us a brokenness and a variety of different sins that assail us.
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So father I pray that you would lead us all into confession this morning. We are to a person broken, to a person sinful, to a person deserving condemnation before you a righteous and holy
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God. So father we confess before you today our sin.
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We confess to you today our self -centeredness. We confess to you today our narcissistic tendencies to make ourselves the center of every conversation, ourselves the center of every plot in our lives.
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And then father I thank you that you are faithful to forgive us, to set us free so that our voices can now be raised in joy, not in sorrow, not in darkness, not in moping, not even in fear, but in joy because Christ has died for us.
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And so father I pray that as your redeemed people now we would lift our voices in thankfulness and gratitude and reflection on the great gift given to us through the cross of Jesus Christ.
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We praise you for our Lord and Savior and I pray that you would help us to walk with him more and more each day and even now as we lift our voices together in Jesus name.
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Amen. Amen. So yeah you can go to be seated but if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or water, take advantage of that back there.
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You're not going to distract me if you need to get up at any time. And then the bathrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left hand side if you need those at all as well.
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And then I ask one more thing of you and that's just to keep your Bibles open to 2 Samuel 3 verses 26 through 39.
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That passage that we read earlier, your scripture journal, your device, whatever, so that you can follow along and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.
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They're not just stuff that I'm making up or things that I just wanted to share with you this morning, but things that God wanted to share with you through his word.
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In a God orchestrated twist of events we need to like catch up on the history of the events each week in part because in these historical things they all connect.
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So we kind of left with a mild cliffhanger but what happened last week is that there's a twist of events and David's enemy
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Abner changed sides and vowed to do all that he could could do to turn over the entire kingdom of Israel to David.
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Now Abner is kind of in charge of 11 twelfths of Israel. Now think about the 12 tribes. 11 of the tribes are following Abner and his puppet king that he set up,
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Ish -bosheth. And then one of the tribes, Judah, is following King David. Now in David's youth he was anointed by the prophet
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Samuel and told you are God's chosen king to follow King Saul. Abner had other plans but through all of that twist of events that we saw last week, and you could go back and listen to the message last week if you missed it, but God worked to turn
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David's enemy into an advocate. I discourage you from trying to listen to it now by the way. Don't tune in. I encourage you to listen to this one and then go back and listen to that one later if you need to.
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But when we come to verse 26 this morning we pick up just shortly after David and Abner had met together and made a covenant together.
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Now at the start of 2 Samuel they're enemies. By the end of the text last week they have met together and covenanted together and Abner has said
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I will bring the rest of Israel over to you David. So how many of you think that sounds like a good trajectory for David to become king over all
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Israel? Like he's on track. This is like God working through his enemy to make him an advocate to actually bring him along and give
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David the kingdom. And that's what we would kind of expect is coming up. And then we get to verse 26 this morning and we pick up just shortly after they've met and here are some bullet points that hopefully help you to catch up to speed because sometimes
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I think, I wonder if you get lost in the names a little bit. So Abner was loyal to Saul. Abner was actually
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Saul's uncle and he was his military commander and he has now switched sides to David.
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Some bullet points. David's military commander Joab hates Abner. The two of them fighting together and warring against one another consistently and he would never have wanted
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David to covenant together with Abner. That's because Abner earlier in 2
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Samuel has killed Joab's little brother in battle, Asahel, that was at the Battle of Gibeon.
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So the last thing that happened in our text last week is that Joab found out that David has met with Abner, his enemy, and sent him away in peace and made a covenant with him.
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So Joab, David's military man, thinks David is a fool for trusting Abner and letting him go in peace.
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And that catches us up to where our text begins. Joab comes out of David's presence angry and incensed that David would make a covenant with Abner and he sent some messengers, without David's knowledge, he sent some messengers to catch up with Abner, reel him back in.
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And we'll see and I've already read it so you kind of know what's going to happen here. Joab, it makes a point in the text to make sure that you understand,
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David did not have any knowledge that Joab is bringing Abner back into Hebron.
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Abner having just made a covenant with David is feeling pretty secure. Now why would he go back to his enemy's military commander while he's just made a covenant with David?
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So he's feeling secure, so he's like, oh maybe I forgot something and maybe David just wants to communicate something to me or maybe he threw his military commander, he's got something for me to do or whatever.
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So he does indeed return with the messengers to speak with Joab but Abner pulled
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Joab off, Joab pulled Abner off to the side for a private discussion, likely within an interior room inside the city gate.
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So how many of you have been in an office, I know all of us have been in an office space or a department store where you walk through a set of double doors and then you're in an entryway but there's another set of double doors to get into the lobby, do you know what
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I'm talking about? So in that little area in there, picture that being a city gate, that's what it was like to have city gates and so you went into one set of gates, now you're in a little smaller area, maybe the size of this room or maybe a little bit larger, then there's another set of gates to actually get into the city.
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So it's a protective extra layer but off of that city gates there's rooms and that's what you need to picture where this whole thing is going down, he pulls him off to a side for a private discussion within the side rooms of the city gates at Hebron and there he betrayed
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Abner with a thrust of a dagger into his gut and there the great and mighty
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Abner was betrayed and murdered. The story here doesn't lend itself to three points with clean transitions, the text has one primary focus throughout, we see in this act of revenge from Joab to Abner, one more potential hurdle to David ever ruling over a united Israel.
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Sinfulness is everywhere in this story of David's rise to the kingdom that God has promised to him, he is not the ideal king himself and his rise to the throne is not without struggle and turmoil, the way that he gets there is not a straight line.
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The death of Abner who has just pledged to David to help him unite all of Israel is a major setback in David's movement towards the crown and Joab has responded foolishly, you need to understand that what's going on here in the text,
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Joab has responded foolishly, sinfully and selfishly, he has responded out of revenge not for concern for his king
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David but out of concern for himself and his revenge. So we need not guess what motivated
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Joab to slay Abner in cold blood and murder him there within the city gates, it says right in the text he did so according to verse 27, for the blood of Asahel his brother, it was revenge for the death of his little bro that he puts
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Abner to death. The rest of the text shows David distancing himself from the murder of Abner, he doesn't want everybody to think that he's just conveniently killed and put to death his political rival.
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Many may assume of course within the kingdom that it David's command that Joab kill Abner and that's not the case at all, far from it,
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David had joined with Abner in alliance, we know that as readers, not everybody in that context, not everybody in history would have known that, not everybody in David's kingdom would have known that so he needs to make it explicit,
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I didn't kill Abner, Joab did. So in verse 28 David makes it clear that his kingdom is guiltless before the
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Lord for the blood of Abner and he declares that he says it and I want to pause for a moment of application here so that we kind of dig in because I've given you a lot of history already but David gets something right here in the text and I want to,
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I want to pause on it for just a moment because he's about to get something really wrong. So I want to, I want to at least commend what he does right here before we identify what he does wrong and take the good before we take the bad and in case what
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I'm saying is confusing, how many of you know that you can do some things at times that are really good moments away from doing something really bad and I think we can all relate to that,
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David's going to do that here in the text, he's going to do something that's that's good, that's wholesome, that is helpful and understanding his heart just before he does something that is really really bad.
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We're a mixed up battle of spirit and flesh inside and David is no different, God's spirit convicts,
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God's spirit empowers and brings truth to the mind of believers while we in our weakness still are tempted and enticed to sin right, we all know that battle within so first David acknowledges that the most important, this is what he gets right, he acknowledges that the most important judge in his life is
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God, he gets, he says I have this fundamental belief that it's before God, before the
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Lord that it matters most whether I've sinned or not and how many of you think that's that's valuable like that's a good starting point to acknowledge that God is the one that we're responsible to,
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I mean it's you know civility and kindness to people can only take us so far right, but understanding that God is the one that we're beholden to, he is the right judge, he is the one that we need to be thinking about and considering in our daily actions and behaviors.
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David's kingdom is guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner he says in the text and I just want to question each one of us here to plant this question in your mind, do you, do we think of our most fundamental issue of guilt as before the
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Lord? Is that the way you think, is that the way that your heart moves or if we're honest with ourselves are we more concerned with the eyes of others, more concerned for our reputation, more concerned about what others think of us and considering that is the fundamental motivation for why we don't murder or why we don't have an affair or why we don't fill in the blank, is it just merely social convention that keeps you on the straight and narrow or is it that you recognize that there is a
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God who sees your behavior in the quiet moments where nobody else is around, sees your thoughts that nobody else can see?
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He is the judge, not others. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? What God thinks of us should be our greatest concern and let me, before the weight gets too heavy on your shoulders, let's let the gospel break into our discussion as we consider that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and that God is working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes.
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The life of one who has been born again by a living hope in the cross of Christ, trusting in his sacrifice for us, bears no more guilt before the
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Father. Amen? We are forever guiltless before the
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Lord. That is the strength of our life, that is our hope for the future, and that is the power that's the engine of our obedience in the present, a forgiveness and a love granted that we do not deserve.
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But David descends from the lofty pronouncement that God's judgment is what matters most and it should matter in your life as well.
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What he judges of you is the most important and he says, you're my child, you're forgiven, no more condemnation.
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Now go walk and live in that freedom to love me and obey me.
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David descends from that great understanding to verse 29 where he begins to curse
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Joab, his military commander, and in this he sins. You say,
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Don, how do you know? Well, let me walk you through it because it may not be apparent to everyone throughout this passage that David sins in regard to his treatment of Joab, but I'm convinced that he does.
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You see, the standard that David is held to is the old covenant, it's the old law, and so there are things that David is supposed to do right now that he's not doing.
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And there are things that David does that are just not found anywhere. No instructions on this. You see,
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David curses Joab and he curses his father's house. He calls down on Joab's descendants, disease, leprosy, poverty, war, and hunger, and there's a little phrase in there that's kind of a little strange, it was kind of interesting to study.
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May there always be a man, these are all masculine in the construction, so may there always be a man who holds the spindle.
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In other words, may there always be a man who does household work in your family.
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He's basically bringing down curses on him saying, may there always be a man who has to do the women's work in the household.
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May there always be a man who died in battle. May there always be a man who is injured. May there always be a man who has disease.
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How many of you think that sounds like a pretty stern curse? He's leveling this at Joab. Is he upset at what
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Joab has done? Do you see it in the text? He's very upset. And I want to explain something that's helpful because we might misunderstand, like in the
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Old Testament, wasn't there revenge killing? Have you guys noticed that as you read the Old Testament? Anybody here that's a student of the
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Old Testament would know that there is indeed revenge killing that happens. It seems like it's kind of sanctious.
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That's okay, right? But David acknowledges in 1 Kings chapter 2 verse 5, talking about this exact same event, he says,
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Joab has sinned and that he avenged blood shed during war by shedding blood during peace.
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That's what David says in 1 Kings 2 verse 5. What is Joab's sin here? He has basically tried retribution for matters of war.
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He has sought a revenge killing for a matter of war. In other words, killing in war is different than murder and that might melt our minds a little bit and you might have a follow -up question for me on that regarding ethics or something like that.
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But if Abner had not killed Asahel on that battlefield, guess what Asahel was going to do? Anybody?
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He was going to kill Abner. And if every death, think this through logically, if every death that occurs during war is open to revenge, will there ever be peace?
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Can there ever be treaties? Can there ever be two nations coming together and saying, now we're okay, we're going to chill for a minute?
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Ever. There would always be wars and wars and wars multiplied. But I contend that David's sin here is not, hear me carefully, it's not in the harshness of his curse, not at all, but rather in a glaring favoritism toward Joab that keeps
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David from doing the harsher judgment, doing what God requires of him. Did you see it? If you know the
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Old Testament law, then you know what Joab deserves here. He doesn't get it. David is showing favoritism toward Joab and he is not following the law of God and putting
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Joab on trial for murder. David understood that the death penalty, he understood that well and he understood that from the old covenant as a requirement on him as king.
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He is supposed to try him and put him to death. As a matter of fact, David understood this so well that just a couple of chapters ago he put to death an
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Amalekite right then and there, judged him on the spot on the testimony of his own words. The Amalekite comes rushing in and says,
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Saul's dead. David says, how do you know? The Amalekite says, I killed him. David says to one of his young men, kill him at his own words.
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He has just testified that he murdered the Lord's anointed. Done. He understood this.
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He is showing favoritism to the Amalekite, put him to death. To Joab, may your father have problems and your family.
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Do you see the difference? Do you see the favoritism in the text that David is showing? I think
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I could even go so far as to say the injustice that David is showing as the king, the new up -and -coming king over Israel.
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He gives lip service to a murder committed by his closest military advisor while putting to death an
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Amalekite who is not a friend and therefore appears to be disposable.
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David was not above favoritism. There are some deep -seated sins at work in this text. Sins that we maybe can relate to in lesser degrees that don't really swirl around murder but swirl around our own brands of sins and a little bit more passive -aggressive in our lives but sins nonetheless.
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On Joab's part, we see a revenge that foments into murder. On David's side, we see a favoritism that leads to disobedience of God's law, both sins.
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By the way, it's God's law. A law that clearly states that if a man murders a man, then his blood must be shed.
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And ultimately, what David is doing here, again I say, is injustice. David is still under this old covenant law and he doesn't fulfill his just responsibility toward God and his law.
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Instead, he takes upon himself the freedom to determine what God has already clearly prescribed and I think we can be guilty of this as well.
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But nowhere in Scripture does the old covenant prescribe curses as a judgment for murder.
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You get what I'm saying? It never says, hey, if somebody murders somebody, go ahead and call down curses on them. That'd be good.
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It's a good just punishment for it. So in what ways do we do the same things? Anytime we refuse the harder judgment and excuse the sins of others or kid -glove our friends while maligning or even judging those who do the same things that we and our friends do, we are following in line with David here.
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When we're willingly and knowingly let our closest confidence off the hook for doing the same things that we would harshly judge our critics or our enemies for doing.
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Does that make any sense? I think we could do that. If we're not careful, favoritism will seep even into the church.
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Now hear me carefully. I hope and I believe that we all should have friends within the church. We all should be growing together in community and that doesn't mean that when we gather together as 150 or 200 people here on a
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Sunday morning, that everybody here is, you look around and everybody is equally your friend. I mean, the goal of community groups is that we break into smaller groups and you connect more at a relational level with people.
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So I hope that everybody here, and I just encourage you to look around for just a second, maybe not the newest people here, but I hope that you can look around the room and find somebody you trust.
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Look around. Is there anybody here that you trust? Anybody here that you trust with sharing some of the real things that are going on in your heart, the real things that are going on in your life?
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I hope you can look around and see somebody you trust. But the Proverbs make an interesting comment when they declare that faithful are the wounds of a friend.
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Faithful are the wounds of a friend. A good friend is faithful to punch us in the soul when we sin.
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They're faithful to punch us right in the soul. A true friend will take God's way over our way and will call us out on it.
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Amen? That's a good friend. A good friend will lean into us in our sin and our brokenness and say, is that really the way you want to live?
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Is this really the way you really want to go down this road? It would be understandably difficult for David to apply capital punishment to his own military commander.
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How many of you know that that would be a super tough call? You get it? But he's a murderer.
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In cold blood, he has wickedly slain another man. And I honestly believe that David knows what
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God's law requires of him in this moment and he does not have the guts to do it. David required
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Joab, so what he does do is he curses Joab, curses his family. And then he requires
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Joab and the military in shame to march in mourning before the coffin of Abner.
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While David followed immediately behind the buyer in torn clothes and sackcloth at the procession, while weeping,
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David weeping for the death of one who was just so recently his enemy, now turned friend, now turned advocate, now dead.
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I want to ask you a question. Do you think this is a show from David? Is he putting on a show? Are the tears fake?
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Is he actually thinking about back when he was a kid and the ice cream fell off in the middle of the summer and fell off his cone and was there melting?
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What's he thinking about in his head as he mourns and cries and weeps as he walks down the road behind the buyer of the man who set up an opponent over his kingdom?
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What's he thinking? How can he be mourning? Is he secretly glad that Abner is dead and just a really good actor?
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While it's possible that David is faking sorrow, I don't see everything in his heart. I really don't think so from studying and reading this text, nor from history.
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Nor from history do I think that that he's faking tears. I think
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David has genuine cause for lament and sorrow and part of this is history, part of this is understanding. And again, understanding all the flow from 1
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Samuel all the way through 2 Samuel. There is a much deeper history between Abner and David than what we've seen in these opening couple of chapters of 2
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Samuel. There's all of 1 Samuel 2 and David has known Abner since a very particular event in his life.
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He was a youth with a sling and a giant sword in his hand and the giant's head in the other when he met
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Abner. That's where David was when we first see Abner and David together.
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It's the first first event in his life where the two of them met and what was Abner's role? Abner, the commander of Saul's army, took this young man who had just been victorious in battle and took him with the head of the giant and the sword and the sling, it was in a pocket or wherever, took him into the presence of King Saul to introduce them.
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That's the first context. So there's history here. The young man David had known Abner almost his entire life.
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There is relationship here. Abner, as the commander of Saul's armies, was there on that fateful day, the killing of Goliath, and he was the very one who ushered him into the presence of King Saul.
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And then for years after that, David and Abner fought together. It said David, it was said, was a commander over a thousand of the troops under Abner, under Saul.
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David and Abner fought side by side against the Philistines for years, maybe a decade or more.
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The history between these two was not always sour. They had been brothers in arms. How many think that that might create some bond there?
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They had fought together on the same side. Abner just chose to remain loyal to the household of Saul, and that's where the division happened.
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But David had serious personal history with the mighty Abner, and in mourning in verses 33 through 34,
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David lifts up a lament over Abner. He died in an undignified way. He says, Joab used treachery and deceit to murder this man of high nobility.
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He has fallen as one falls before the wicked, implying and clarifying for us that David fully understood the wickedness of this deed of Joab, his own commander.
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He knew what Joab has done is wicked and says so. And all the people wept again at David's emotional lament there on that day of funeral.
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David fasted that same day, and all the people wanted him to eat, but he swore an oath before God that he would not eat before sundown, a way of showing his mourning and sorrow.
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And we see that even this potential hurdle here in the text is used by God to endear David to all of Israel.
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They're falling in love with him again. Look at verse 36. The people noticed David's kind -hearted leadership in the mourning after the death of Abner, and it pleased the people to see the humility and kindness of the up -and -coming king.
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And even to the extent that the text declares, everything that the king did was pleasing to all the people.
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Well, David is growing in nobility in the eyes of those he will lead, and what could have been a very divisive situation,
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God has used to bring even increased favor. God can use the most strange of circumstances to increase our favor in the eyes of others.
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David, by the way, in this text, and hopefully you're hearing it through my voice, you're hearing it through the things I'm saying, he is nowhere near perfect, and yet he is often kind in his grief in a way that is exemplary.
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I heard it said in a book that I'm reading right now, I'm reading a book called The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson, and going through that, it's interesting, he points out,
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Peterson points out that the Psalms show us the inner life of David, King David, and the books of 1st and 2nd
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Samuel, 1st Kings, Chronicles, show us the outer life of David, to the degree that David is maybe one of the characters we know best from Scripture.
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One of the ones that we see the most, at least the Old Testament, one of the ones that we see the most fully orbed view of his inner and outer life.
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How many of you think that's kind of cool? Like we see the kinds of things he thought about in his songs, in his singing, and in the things that he wrote in his poetry, like we see the outward behavior of David in these other historical books.
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And the point that I would like to show you is that there is not complete congruence.
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That's not that they get it wrong. Oh, the psalm must not have been recorded right, because it shows
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David really loving God, and it's not always shown in his life. No, I think the incongruence comes in the realism.
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How many of you have prayed stronger prayers than you've lived out during the day? Any of you?
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Any of you uttered words to God that were not fulfilled? I think all of us have, and I believe that he is demonstrating what human life looks like.
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We see in the Psalms what David valued, and the things that he says, and the things that he loves, and the things that he sings about.
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He talks about his love for God, a dependence upon God, a turning to God in tragedy, a turning to God in sorrow, and in fear.
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And we see him confessing to God in the Psalms as well. And I believe that his inner life of love for God was helpful, and helped him in these moments where he did right, and grew in favor.
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He had genuine love, he had genuine kindness in his heart that propelled him forward with increasing favor in the eyes of the people in this text.
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But the point to this then is not how to make friends and influence people, like as if we should write the book, how to make friends and influence people the
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David way. The point is to say that an inner love for God often will put us in a position of loving others well.
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Starting with the love of God will have an impact on the way that we treat others. And some people, some people, are you ready for it?
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Some people like to be loved well. Some people like to be loved well. And I say some people, because there are haters of goodness.
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Have you encountered them? Have you encountered people that when you love them, they say, oh you're just a goody two -shoes, you think you're better than everybody else.
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Anybody? Am I the only one? Have you met people who don't like to be loved well? Go ahead and raise your hand. Okay, wow, some of you don't get around very often.
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I encounter, I encounter both. There are haters of goodness, but I actually think most people still,
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I think most people appreciate and notice kindness. And it just might make some ask, why do you have so much hope?
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What gives you the ability to be kind in circumstances like this? And that's part of the point.
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According to verse 37, David was exonerated by the people and they understood there in that verse that David did not sanction the murder of Abner.
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And so he is now exonerated of that. They're, they're basically saying there's, this guy didn't do it. So in closing out this passage about the passing of Abner, David calls him a prince.
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He calls him a great man, a noble, mighty man. He was a fellow Israelite. And once again, just like at the death of Saul and Jonathan, he laments and he says
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Israel is weaker because of the passing of Jonathan and Saul. Some of the beauty of Israel had been removed at the passing of those two.
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And I believe he implies the same here in his lament of Abner as well. David comes close to a confession in our closing verse, in verse 39, but instead
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I believe he diverts into a bit of self -justification for what he's done wrong in the text. He admits to being gentle.
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He admits to being gentle. Now, now that's a good thing, except when God doesn't want it.
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Think about that. Being gentle is a good thing, right? Except when God doesn't call for it.
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He has let a murderer go free in Israel. It's one of his closest friends. And by the statement that he was gentle, he acknowledges directly that Joab should have been judged more harshly.
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He admits it. I've been gentle to Joab. Did he have the freedom to be gentle to Joab? Or should he have put him on trial and seen him put to death for his murder?
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He is the king, but he has gone easy on Joab. And yet he justifies it with a pitiful statement at the end of verse 39, the sons of Zeruiah are more severe than I.
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Indeed, they have been. And some commentators that I read this week imply that David is potentially mildly fearful of the entire family of Joab and his remaining brother
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Abishai. If he carries out the law for the murder of Abner against Joab, now he's got
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Abishai to deal with too. One other way to look at this is to realize that in the complex inner motivations of David, he does want to be known as gentle.
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He does want to leave it to the Lord to repay and to bring to justice. He states something that is reiterated in the
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New Testament that is beneficial to us. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Said in both the
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Old Testament and the New Testament. And if taken too far, as I think David is here in the text, we would empty all prisons, abolish all judges, no more courtrooms, no more lawyers, retire all the police, and just leave it to God to judge.
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And how many of you think that's going to work? Nobody wants to sign up for that society, do you?
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David doesn't mean what he's saying here. There's no way he means what he's saying here. This is a silly, crazy thing for a,
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I was going to say politician, for a king to say. He is so clearly hypocritical and self -serving at this point that it's dripping with irony.
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Whether you saw it when we first read it or not, it is crazy that the king would stand up and say, I'm just going to leave this one to God.
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He's in the position. God gives the government for the purpose of justice.
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This is stated in Romans 13 for our benefit. The power of enforcement of the law is in the hands of the state.
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David is the state. David is the king. He is the one most beholden to uphold the law of God in this text.
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Do you see it? He said, I'm going to let this one go. I'm going to let this one go, and he does so spiritually.
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I'm going to let this one go because I'm just going to let God take care of this one. Let him deal with it.
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Why did he do that with the Amalekite? Why did he do that with him? No, he says to one of his young men, slay him now.
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His own mouth testified that he's killed Saul. Kill him. Put him to death. But now when it's his own military commander, nah, just going to say some bad words about his family.
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Hope that some bad things come of this, and then walk. Here in chapter 3, he conveniently decided to leave up to God to judge when it was his friend that is proven to be a murderer.
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So what do we do with this tangle of human sin here in this text? Let me first point out the extreme dangers of both of these sins that we see in the text.
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The sin of revenge and the sin of favoritism. Revenge is the desire to make others hurt who have made us hurt.
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Anyone? Have you ever heard the phrase, hurt people?
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Hurt people. People who are hurt, hurt others.
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And this is very true. But the psychological revenge turns us into the very thing that we at first despise, does it not?
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We who have been victimized are turned into victimizers through revenge. We certainly don't routinely do this through daggers within the city walls, but we do so in more subtle ways, do we not?
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We withhold forgiveness from one who has said they're sorry because we want them to pay, and they can't really be sorry.
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They didn't really. Look, they're not even crying. We seek to drag others through the mud for what they've done to us.
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We want to be sure that everyone else knows exactly how terrible they really are. And in marriages, this can look like shouting at our spouse or withholding communication through the silent treatment.
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And the reason I point out those two extremes is just to say we can be very creative in our vengeance, can we not?
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We can be pretty creative. Whatever fits the moment. We are creative in our unkindness and propagating and continuing the cycle of revenge.
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But let me be clear that in this passage, David had some obligation to the law that does not translate to us today.
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So there might be a little bit of a something stuck in the back of your mind, a hook there that's like, I can't quite get that out.
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I don't understand why, but I don't feel like I'm supposed to like murder my friend if they murdered somebody else. We are not kings in charge of a people under the
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Old Testament law. Praise God for that, right? Any of you glad for that? My hands would be bloody right now.
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We'd have like sheep and they'd be like smoking. We'd be like having a having a altar barbecue up here.
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But we're not doing that. I'm glad for that. I don't really like the idea of killing sheep with a knife at all.
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Like that doesn't sound good to me. So I'm glad that we don't live under the old covenant, amen? But secondly, we now live under a covenant of grace.
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A covenant of grace. Obedience to David looks like putting Joab on trial there in the moment, but we are not in a position of authoritative justice.
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So what God desires of us is quite different from David's obligation to see that Joab is judged justly.
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Joab exhibited revenge and it culminated in murder, but David was guilty of favoritism.
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And I'm convinced that one of the greatest problems facing the church in this generation, hopefully I've got your ears, one of the greatest problems
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I think facing the church in this generation, right now where we live, is a lack of genuine involvement in each other's lives.
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I think that's a problem. It is a significant and serious problem.
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We are private. We're private people, which means that nobody needs to know anything about us that we don't want them to know.
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We are self -centered or too busy, both I think resulting in the same thing. Few of us actually even truly care what is going on in other people's lives or households.
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We think that loving others is to be disconnected and detached. Don't lean in too hard.
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Don't press, don't push. They don't want you to know about it, don't ask. And we are timid, meaning that we lack the fortitude to deal with the planks in our own eyes on the way to helping a brother with his pesky speck.
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And I think that passage has been abused a lot. Jesus said, make sure you remove the log out of your own eye, that two by four, that four by four plank, get that thing out of your eye before you help a brother remove his speck.
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And you know what, that's been translated, how I've heard that used in recent years, as if it means don't go help your brother with the speck in his eye.
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Because you got a log in your own, so you don't go help somebody else. Take care of your own log. Is that what
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Jesus said? Have any of you ever had a speck in your eye? Raise your hand if you've ever had a speck in your eye.
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One of my earliest memories, and this came back to me as I was studying this, one of my earliest memories, and it has to be like somewhere around four years old because we moved around four and I know the house that it happened at.
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But I got sand in my eyes, a little four -year -old, and I couldn't get it out and I was scratching, I was trying to rub it out and there was a doctor that lived in the house behind us and we went over there because he had one of those, have you ever seen those cups that you can put water in and you tip it back and try to wash out your eyes?
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It took three or four times to do that. I didn't like that as a little boy. But that speck, that strikes me as something
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I wanted out. I wanted it gone. Do you think of it that way, church?
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Do you think about leaning into others' lives and yes, certainly confessing the big things that you recognize?
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You're not going as the expert, you're going as a person who sins as well saying, do you want to work on this together?
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Can I give you a hand with that? Would you be open to that? Are you getting what I'm saying?
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An accountability relationship where we're actually leaning in with one another. What I'm getting at is that we often lack enough true and honest, authentic relationships with others to really help each other grow in Christ at all.
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We're all doing it alone. We're not involved. We're not leaning in at the point where we need to be.
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Have you ever noticed that the roots of the two words, discipleship and discipline, are the same? Look at that.
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They start the same and different. They start the same. Both are words of guidance to help steer a person in the right direction.
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Some discipleship feels like discipline. You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes somebody has to say,
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're a jerk. You need some help.
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Can I help you with that? Can I help you walk through that? Have any of you ever had anybody do that to you?
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It doesn't feel good at the moment. How many of you have a defensive wall that goes up? If God's spirit is in it and we've got the grace to hear, then we're going to be responsive to that.
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Maybe don't go and tell somebody they're a jerk. Maybe there's different ways to communicate that, but I think you get the point. Let me cut to the chase as we prepare for communion this morning.
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I can imagine some of us have our heads spinning over this one. Are we supposed to judge? Are we not supposed to judge? If we favor some people and not favor some people, where does all of this go?
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Where does it land? Let's consider verse 39 in the light of Jesus. I think that's a good place for us to land. How many of you think
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Jesus is a safe place to land, a good place to land a sermon? We now live under a new covenant church.
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That new covenant is a covenant of salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross so that he can rightly be gentle to us as the perfect king.
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He is right to be gentle to us and only just in his gentleness to us because he took our sin.
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He took the punishment that our sin deserved so that he can be gentle to us.
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All other men are more severe than him toward his subjects. Those he brings into his kingdom are now adopted into his family as beloved children.
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But King Jesus is also the judge overall. I think we know that. Whether David knew it or not, his words point to the greater king who comes after him, one who will be just in his gentleness toward repentant sinners and equally who will repay the unrepentant evildoer for their wickedness.
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The difference repentance or unrepentance. So let's come to the table of communion this morning to remember the body of Christ broken to take the punishment that we deserved and take a cup from the table to remember his blood that was shed for us and by his power and strength ask him to help you to reconcile with those who have sinned against you.
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Not seeking revenge but seeking to de -escalate the feuding that is going on in all of our lives and let's be increasingly more faithful in each other's lives.
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A faithful friend is not a friend who lets sin go unchecked. A faithful friend will call it out and enter the battle with us to help us overcome.
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Let's pray. Father I in my lifetime have seen plenty of cycles of revenge.
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Some that have not yet ended and don't know where they're going to end. But father I pray that you would help each and every one of us to contemplate and consider what you call us to in your word.
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To a love for others. A love that doesn't show favoritism but a love that will take your word over all.
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A word and a faithfulness as a friend that will lean in when others around us are faltering and failing and enduring a speck in their eye.
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Father I pray that you would also make us people that are receptive to others leaning in. I fear that many of us have been so off -putting that we act as though we don't want anybody.
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We're stiff -arming everybody around us to make sure that nobody gets in. I pray that this message would work in each one of our hearts regardless of which side of the spectrum that we're on.
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Whether we're stiff -arming or we're refusing to lean in. I pray that you would allow us as a church to be stronger because you call us to really engage in authentic community together.
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I know that this this pandemic has been hard on all of us and it has caused most of us to some degree or another to withdraw into ourselves.
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Father I pray that by your spirit you would reopen us again. You would open our hearts to connection, to love, to friendship, to relationship.
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You have made us to need one another. You have made us to lean in and to be gracious but also to correct and to rebuke and to to help one another.