2 Samuel 23:1-7 Good Authority

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,

The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. I'm Don Filsak.

I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome. Glad that we're all able to gather together this morning. It is a privilege to be in the house of the

Lord. This morning, we're going to hear from God's Word, and we're going to pray together. We're going to sing some songs to our great

God together. We are going to take and participate in communion together by the end of this message as a way of remembering the central unity that we have is

God the Father sending His Son to die for the forgiveness of our sins. And so, everything in the service is always meant to bring us toward the cross, meant to bring us closer to Christ, and closer to an understanding of who

He is and what He's done for us. We're in good company. Look around you this morning. We're in good company, church, because we are together with other busted -up people.

That's one thing that we know about one another is that we are all broken, and what holds us together is not our own righteousness, but rather the knowledge that we have no righteousness of our own and have been dependent on the righteousness of another.

We are not gathered together to be with other good people this morning. We are gathered to remember that we are being saved out of our own messes by our merciful

Messiah, King Jesus Christ, who is our Savior. This morning we're looking at a shorter text, much shorter than the 51 verses that we looked at last week, and yet this short passage is going to,

I suggest you pack a punch when we consider the opening phrase. The opening phrase is going to grab our attention more than what probably should in the text, and that is, now these are the last words of David.

And how many of you would just raise your hand and say, when it says last words, that sounds significant to me. Like, last words?

Okay, get my attention when you share what's the very last thing that somebody said on the planet. Well, what you need to understand is how in the world do these last words come to us?

Well, royal kings during the Bronze Era, where David ruled and reigned, had recorders.

There was an office. It's actually told us in the Bible that David had a recorder. He was an individual who had a very focused role of recording the deeds and words of the king, always spinning them positive, but always writing and recording the majestic deeds of the king.

They walked around like an ancient iPhone, documenting the life of the king.

The camera was always on, the microphone was always picking up, and they tried to faithfully capture the life of the king, as I said, with only positive.

But last words are poignant words, are they not? Last words are final. We take last words as significant because we hope, we hope, we don't know, but we hope that the dying possibly have more wisdom and more clarity about what truly matters, and maybe, just maybe, in their final moments they may give us some words of wisdom.

It's interesting to me that David's final words reflect on the topic of leadership and authority, a hot -button issue in our culture today.

He talks about rule and reign. Well, why would he do so? Well, he has been a king.

It's been the most fundamental thing to God's call on his life. And God has used him up.

God has spent David's life in the rule and reign of his people. And God has made a promise to David further about his royal line.

The most fundamental promise that God made to David was back in chapter 7.

David will go to rest expressing a deep and abiding trust in God to fulfill his promise from chapter 7, way back in 2

Samuel 7, that one from David's royal line would sit on the throne of an eternal, never -ending kingdom.

Now, how many of you know that we live in a culture that increasingly hates authority? Is that true or not true?

It's true, right? We assume that all leaders are corrupt. We assume that all politicians are liars.

So let's open our Bibles, because this is going to speak to us. Let's open our Bibles or your apps or your scripture journals to 2

Samuel 23, verses 1 -7. Again, 2 Samuel 23, 1 -7, and see if we need any adjustments regarding our understanding of authority.

And really, ultimately, to ask the question, is authority ever good? 2

Samuel 23, God's holy and precious word. Now, these are the last words of David.

The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the

God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.

His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, He dawns on them like the morning sun, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes the grass to sprout from the earth.

For does not my house so stand with God? For He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.

For will He not cause to prosper all my help and my desire?

But worthless men, worthless men are all like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand.

But the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire.

Let's pray. Father, it's a privilege to gather together in your name.

We rejoice in the opportunity we have to hear from your word in the gathering of your people. We rejoice in the opportunity that we have to sing songs before you.

We're thankful, Father, that you see fit to speak to so many areas of our lives. We're about to vote.

We're going to have a political season. We've been having a political season. It seems like it's always political season, but we have been going through this season and this time focused on authority, focusing on those who will rule and reign over us in some semblance, in some sense of creating laws.

Father, I pray that you would be with each one of us as we carefully contemplate and consider what you desire for us in this season.

It's our desire to see justice. It's our desire to see what is good. It is our desire to see our culture moving towards the fear of you, an acknowledgment of who you are, an acknowledgment of you as our creator, the one who has the right to call the shots in our lives.

But, Father, I pray that rather than depersonalize it to out there and to a vote coming up,

I pray you would deal with every one of our hearts in terms of our justice and our fear of you.

Because only as your church is your church, sharing the gospel and proclaiming the justice, the one who is just, and the one who brings righteousness, only as we proclaim him will we have an impact on this culture around us.

Help us to focus on right things while participating in the great things that you have given to us in terms of our government and voting and all of that.

Father, I pray that you would inhabit our worship right now with gladness and with joy, that we would lift our voices as a redeemed people, as a people who have been lifted up from the mire and the muck of our own messes to have the eternal hope of life with you and forgiveness of our sins.

I pray that you would be with our worship now and receive it in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, yeah, you can go to be seated, but make yourself comfortable and keep your

Bibles open to 2 Samuel 23 verses 1 -7. And if at any time, just like I normally say, if you need to get up and get more coffee or donut holes while supplies last back there, you're not going to distract me if you need to get up for any reason in the middle of the service.

Restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need those. We're looking at famous last words, famous last words this morning.

I find it interesting that we who have never been told, or rather never been to the end of life, assume that those who are at death's door have something unique to offer.

Right? Don't we? We assume that, but we don't know. What I assume about those who are already ahead of me always surprises me when

I arrive where they were at. What I mean by that is like when I was in high school or when

I was in middle school, I looked up to college students and thought, man, what would it be like to graduate from college?

And I thought I would be more confident than I was after four years of study. When I turned 40,

I thought it would feel more monumental, and I would be much more competent than I was when

I turned 40. And now that I'm pushing 50, I realize that the only advantage that age is affording me is an increased humility about the things that I don't know, and increasingly the things

I can no longer do. But the author doesn't seem satisfied to leave the gravity of these words as David's last words, as if that's the only introduction that this needs to be sufficient for us or to be important to us.

Last words, of course, don't always have gravity. Like Elvis' last words, I think I'm going to go to the bathroom. Most last words recorded in human history are not deep and pithy statements about philosophy and religion or even lessons learned.

To be quite frank and honest, most are very personal expressions of love for a spouse or a child or some beloved one.

We don't listen to these words of David and take them to heart merely due to their being credited as his last words.

We take them seriously because of the rest of the setup in verses 1 and 2. These are the words of God's chosen king.

These words are an oracle, the text says, which means they are prophetic.

And these words are revealed according to the text. The text tells us these are revealed by the

Spirit of the Almighty God. These are divine words, not merely David's last words.

They are David's last words, but they're not merely that. Don't listen in just because they're merely somebody's last words.

Listen in because they are divine words. Look with me at verse 1.

The last words of David. The prophetic words, that's oracle of David. The son of Jesse, just in case there might be some doubt about which

David we're talking about. The author wants to be clear. The prophetic words of the man who was raised on high, the text tells us.

And this might be a good place to camp for just a moment. As far as introductions to final words, this one is over the top in clarifying who in the world it is that we're talking about.

Whose last words are we looking at? This David, this one, royal David, the one who was lifted up.

And as far as royal introductions, this one might be a bit underwhelming to be quite honest.

He's not introduced to us as the self -made man who clawed his way to power.

No mention of Goliath. He is not even referenced here in the end of his life as a giant slayer.

He is not referenced as a mighty warrior, as a mighty strategist in battle. He's not even introduced for our attention for expanding the territory of Israel and his mighty kingdom that he expanded.

He's rather introduced for something that happened to him. Something that happened to him.

In passive voice, the text tells us, he is the man who was raised on high.

The man who was raised on high. And when a passive voice is used with a verb, it leaves an intentional question.

It's a rhetorical device to get us to ask a question. Who's doing the action?

Who raised David on high? Who is being credited here with the action in this text?

And I hope it's as obvious to you as it is to me, it is God who has raised him on high.

We're talking about this in a church after all, are we not? So, I am guilty of stating the obvious in this text.

But so much of what we need to hear is found in the obvious, is it not? David is the lifted up man.

That's what the text wants us to know. David, the lifted up man. Consider this perspective in light of your own life.

Are you a self -made person who has arrived at your blessings by your own wisdom? Arrived at your position by your own strength, by your own hard work, by your own ambition?

Every self -help leadership manual is going to suggest to you that good things come to those who help themselves.

But the Bible shamelessly, unquestioningly, gives God the credit for the successes of humans and their various callings.

Maybe we should just pause in our own hearts right now and take a moment to give

God some credit for the good things that we have in our lives. Would that be a good practice at the start of our days?

To pause and thank God for the good. That we are only where we are in terms of any blessings or goodness on the basis of God's gracious lifting us up.

His hand sustaining us. His hand lifting us up. Further, David is identified, and we're still in verse 1, as the anointed of the

God of Jacob. This word anointed is the word Messiah. It means selected or chosen one.

This was shown by the anointing with oil in the Old Testament. Samuel, the book is called 2

Samuel, it's the prophet who anointed David to become the king over Israel. And this was shown by that anointing oil that was placed on the head of David.

But the concept carried on throughout the Old Testament begins to solidify for us the idea that there's an ultimate

Messiah that is coming. It was all developed in Judaism through the study of the covenants, through the study of the scriptures, the

Old Testament prophets, that all point to a future, ultimate, chosen, anointed one.

The chosen Messiah who would come in the future to save God's people. And so the Jews, even to this day, look for a

Messiah who will save them, not identifying that he has already come. But the things that they're looking for are the things that we see in Jesus.

Things from the Old Testament. He would crush the head of the serpent. He would be a blessing to all nations. He would be born in Bethlehem, the

Old Testament text tells us. He would be crushed for our iniquity, says

Isaiah. His sacrifice under the wrath of God would bring healing, says Isaiah. And he would be from the royal line of David, says 2

Samuel. And he will sit on a royal throne as king forever, says Samuel as well.

This is just a sampling of some of the Old Testament predictions about that future Messiah. David and the kings were called out and anointed to serve as precursors to the one, ultimate

Messiah that was predicted. And by identifying David with Jacob here in the text, we see that here in the text, do we not?

I think I lost my spot there for just a second. Oh yeah, further, it identifies him with Jacob, yes, in verse 1 still.

He identifies David with Jacob and he's shown to be in the line with all the Jewish history that preceded him.

So that's why Jacob is mentioned there. It's identifying him as the one that's consistent, coming in the seeds of all of those promises, fulfilled and bearing fruit in Jesus Christ, our

Messiah. And lastly, the last introduction for David here is that he's called, in the English Standard Version, the sweet psalmist of Israel.

Like, sweet, right? David was a Renaissance man of sorts. He was a warrior, poet, king.

Like all the best, like the guy who could play football and the violin, right? Gifted with a sword, gifted with a harp, gifted with words, and kind of just like a stud, right?

This reference to his psalms is meant to draw us back though into the heart, his heart for God.

Read the psalms of David to see the internal life of this man, who lived a real life full of real twists and turns, and of course filled with sin because he was a man just like us.

And you will see that he lived his life in relationship to God all the way through. What about all that sin stuff?

Well, here's what you need to understand about David in relationship to God. When he was fearful, he turned to God. When he was guilty, he turned to God.

When he was glad, he praised God. When he was melancholy, he lamented to God. Always taking his circumstances and turning them back to God.

Was he a sinner? Yes. Are you a sinner? Yes. What do you do when you sin? That makes all the difference.

Do you run to God in your sin? Or do you run away from God in your sin? You only have two options because I know you sin.

He does too. So the question is, what do you do with that? David was a man who took all of the spectrum of human emotion and all the spectrum of human experience and showed us in his psalms and through his life that we've had recorded for us in 2

Samuel what it means to turn to God in all of this real life going on around us and in us.

Including our failures and our sins, right? Sweet psalmist indeed.

Verse 2 and the first half of 3 gives us a fourfold indication that David spoke these words as revelation from God.

Again, going over the top to emphasize to us these are God's words. Very few words of God come with this much setup.

Extreme clarity about who said it. Extreme clarity that God was behind the statement. David starts his final words identifying that the

Spirit is speaking through him. God's word is on his tongue, he says. The God of Israel has spoken through him.

The stable, unmoving rock of Israel has said this. And then he goes on to declare.

His statement here about leadership and authority and hierarchy is going to be significant and it's interesting that it comes with so much setup about this being

God's word in part, I think, because God knows that humans by their very nature are going to reject authority.

It's in our hearts to reject all authority. And so there's two presuppositions to this setup for what

David is about to say about hierarchy, authority, and rulers. The first is simply this.

Human authority is a given at the start. Human governance and human authority is given at the start.

It is a given among mankind that we must have authority. Some will rule over others.

That's a presupposition to the things that David says here. The second is that human authorities are accountable to God.

That softens it a bit, doesn't it? There is a legitimate, genuine authority and they will give an account to who?

To the Almighty. Some will rule well and others will not.

Some will use their authority for the blessing of those under them and some will use their authority for the blessing of themselves.

Is that accurate? How many of you have seen that? How many of you know what I'm talking about? I feel the need to state this at the beginning because hierarchy and human authority is under attack in our current culture.

David, as a king here in his final words, revealed by the Spirit of God, says that when one rules in a certain way, and he gives two caveats to that type of ruler, when one rules justly over men, when one rules in the fear of God, it is of deep blessing and benefit and delight to those under his authority.

Authority is given for good. It is given for blessing. Authority in government is given for benefit.

There is such a thing as a leadership that is a blessing within the church and we need to hear this.

Church, we need to hear it here because I believe that both our culture and our theology might work together in a way that leads us to wrong conclusions on this front.

Man, oh man, especially in our current cultural climate, especially in our current political climate, especially within the way that our culture is going regarding the understanding of authority.

Our culture says that right now what's popular in our culture and the way that it's all going is that all of life is seen and perceived as a battle between powerful bad actors and weak good actors.

To be weak is better is the idea. We are told that we need to speak truth to power.

Any of you hear that phrase? Speak your truth to power? Really? Not many of you?

Go ahead and raise your hand if you've heard that phrase. Speak truth to power. And what's meant by that when we hear it is that authority is by nature wrong and those underneath the hand of authority are always right.

That's what our culture is saying. How many of you know that it's possible to be the one under authority and still be wrong?

Did you know that? And that not everybody in authority is therefore wrong either.

Though it feels that way sometimes. Our culture is now in a classic case of circular reasoning.

How do you know the person in power is abusive? How can you tell? You can tell it because they're in authority.

You ever hear that kind of logic? You can tell that they're abusive. How do you know they're abusive? Because they're in power.

Because they exercise authority. And then our biblical theology comes in and teaches us that nobody is righteous, not even one.

Is that true? That is true. So therefore we know already as a given that every human leader we've ever experienced is indeed a sinner.

And so we might just take that as injunction to scrap leadership altogether.

All leaders are indeed sinners. But the conclusion that we should then scrap leadership is what this passage calls into question.

God is taking up a pretty significant section of His Word in a pretty significant point in the life of His leader

David here at the conclusion of a powerful, lifted up man's life to clarify the blessings of good leadership.

This serves a dual message for both the areas where we lead, which I think convinces there's substantial areas of leadership within this church where you have an arena of leadership out there and then there are arenas in which we follow.

And it has a message for both sides. All of us have arenas of life in which we lead and at some point in your life you will be lifted up in the eyes of somebody by God.

Maybe it's as a parent and you're lifted up in authority over your children. Maybe it's as a manager of people in your work.

Maybe it's as a teacher, a youth leader, a subject expert, or even a friend who is sought out for advice by others.

Now it's not my intention at all to water down David's rule as king and make it on par to giving good advice.

Obviously his rule was pretty substantial. Would you agree with me on that? As a king over a nation, pretty substantial leadership.

But as far as applications, I think it's fair to say that our sovereign God has expectations that we take on His words and apply it to our interactions with others here and now.

And God's word here through David holds out two standards for good leadership in verse three. Do you see the standards?

What are we looking for? What are you looking for when you vote? You're not looking for perfection, I hope.

You're not gonna find it. But what are you looking for in your leadership? Consider at least these two things.

Verse three, be just and fear God. Be just and fear

God. That's what I want in a leader. One who is just and one who recognizes and discharges their responsibility and authority, recognizing that they are going to give an accounting before the almighty creator of the universe.

How many of you want a leader like that? Like that's what we're looking for. A leader that is a blessing to others, says

David, here in his final breaths, a leader that is a blessing to others will act in righteousness and will act in the fear of God.

And those two are wrapped around one another and cannot be separated. To act in righteousness or justice, those are interchangeable words, by the way.

Just and righteous are the same root word in both

Hebrew and Greek. But that's wrapped up with the fear of God. To act in righteousness is fueled by respect and awe and reverent fear of God.

I would define, by the way, a reasonable definition of fear of God is a posture toward God that believes that he is our sovereign creator and equally our judge.

And that all of our lives are lived before him in the holy standard that he has given. To fear

God is to act and to have a posture towards life that recognizes that every action, every deed, every word spoken, everything that I do is going to be before the almighty.

So when we're called to lead in justice, we are called to impartiality.

We are called to honesty. We are called to purity and integrity. There will be leadership, there will be authority, there will be hierarchy, and it is

God -ordained, even within the family, as a husband is called to be the head of his household. Even in the church, as elders are called to exercise a just and God -fearing authority.

Even as God places government over us for the blessing of the people. There is a way of leading that involves the fear of God.

And don't grow cynical, church. I think that's kind of one of the main points of this message. We can easily grow cynical in our current political climate, right?

Or even just over years. Don't give up on God's work in and through others in leadership.

I will confess to you openly that I've danced with cynicism and jadedness my entire life.

I'm a pretty practical person who looks at things pretty kind of straightforwardly, and I can draw patterns and distinctions pretty quickly and therefore dismiss things.

So from an early age I developed within myself a radical independence. My father passed away when I was young. My mother worked all the time.

My summers were that single mom summers when I was growing up where I did whatever I wanted. I wasn't a super bad kid.

The most trouble I got in was playing around the loading docks of the factory with my friends on BMX bikes and stuff like that.

And getting shooed out of there and stuff like that. But not a ton of trouble, but a lot of independence as a kid.

And so this expressed itself in a scenario that I can draw for you that kind of speaks into this about understanding about how you view authority and how you look at it.

It was a circumstance that happened in my speech class my junior year in high school. I've mentioned before to most of you,

I think from up front even here, that I struggle with intense stage fright. Yep, even right now. And so God just has blessed me in that.

He just helps me every week, every single week. Man, do I have to get up and do this again?

God says, yep, do it again. So here I am. And some of you can relate to that, and probably what you feel when you think that is not far off from what

I feel and think when that happens. And so when I say stage fright, I mean legitimately. I don't look for speaking opportunities, by the way.

You ask me to speak at something, and I'm like, no, you know, if I don't have to. And then

God usually says, yeah, you do. So my name was called.

So the last 10 minutes of every class in my junior year speech class, you see the problem.

Stage fright, speech class. The last 10 minutes were two people. She had a fishbowl on her desk, a bunch of scraps of paper in there with topics on it.

She was going to pull one of those, grab the next person down the list, attendance list. I knew my name had to be coming, and you could see it coming.

Grab the next person on the list, pull out a topic. You spent five minutes talking about that topic.

Impromptu speech. Any of you ever give an impromptu speech? Those are the best, right? Ooh -wee!

So she's there. I know my number's got to be coming up pretty soon. Reaches in the fishbowl, goes down the list.

Don, you're up, and you're telling me who your hero is. Five minutes on your hero.

Go! I didn't go. Now, there's a couple of things there.

There's the stage fright, terrified to get up and speak. But the subject matter to me, honestly,

I tell you the truth, it was empty to me. I told the teacher, in no uncertain terms,

I have no heroes. I don't even believe in them.

There is no one worthy of that. And I don't want to be let down anyways.

And I took an F, and the teacher moved on to her next victim. And I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I had done enough to get a

C in the class, and was going to be alright. Lowest grade I got in high school, by the way.

It was in speech class. I was already jaded and cynical by the time I was 16. But what

I didn't yet understand is that God is not looking for perfection. He is looking for connection with Him.

He is looking for a person who will trust Him enough to seek, to honor Him by the way that they interact with others.

He is looking for someone who will run to Him for mercy when He sins. He is looking for an imperfect sinner who keeps close relationship with God, short accounts, and is easily convicted of sin.

I ask you guys, who can be trusted? Who is just?

Who truly lives and leads in the fear of God? Well, I've come full circle to having heroes.

I have some heroes. There you go. I have heroes like Bill Smith.

I don't even know if he's here. Is he here? Bill Smith, faithfully serving for nearly 30 years, bringing the gospel to troubled youth in Kalamazoo.

I didn't say he's perfect and therefore worthy of our accolades. No, it's not in him, but it's in God through him.

I see in him something of justice. I see in him something of the fear of the

Lord in the way he ministers. I have another hero. He was here this morning. Day Bunt.

He has faithfully bucked every stereotype. Ha ha, there he is. You're welcome. You're welcome.

He has bucked every stereotype of his generation. I don't like stereotypes anyways. I think it's unfair to talk about millennials the way that many do, and I really, honestly, legitimately don't harbor those feelings, in part because I've met millennials who just serve faithfully.

This guy shows up faithfully every Sunday with his family to lead us in praising God through corporate worship.

According to the cultural standard, he's supposed to be unreliable. He's supposed to be all about himself. And he has been all about loving us and God through his gifts.

And I'm extremely confident that he is not doing that every week for his paycheck. He's just serving us and loving us.

Can we see leaders? Have you seen leaders who have used their authority to shine on us like the first rays of the sun coming up over the horizon after a dark night?

Can you think of people like that? Have you experienced leaders who are like the rain that falls and causes growth?

Yeah. That's real. A good leader who rules in justice, who rules in the fear of God, will be a blessing to their people.

The passage here is not here, by the way, to address the other side of the question that's on your mind.

It is not here, and so therefore I won't go there, to address the common question, what about when a leader doesn't rule in justice?

What about when they reject God and do not fear him? Well, it doesn't go there.

Instead, let's allow God, through his text, to bring us what he wants to say.

Let's let him set the agenda. Let's let him decide what we need to be talking about here, as it just happens to be the week before an election that I'm standing up here talking to you about these things.

I keep saying a week before the election. Is it this week? Thank you.

A week before the election, that's what I said. He sets the agenda, and he wants to tell us about good leadership.

Good leadership is just leadership. Good leadership is discharged in the fear of God.

Good leadership brings light and growth to those who are under them. David saw this, and I don't even believe that David experienced it perfectly.

None of us do. We will one day, but we don't experience it yet. David's leadership was not perfect, but he here expresses what he knows to be the standard our hearts are longing for.

We long for good authority that is just and pure. And David here in the text places trust in God for that leadership in verse 5.

He knows that God has set forth a plan and promised to bring forth leadership like that. Just leadership.

Righteous leadership. And it will come through his offspring. David's house will stand because God made an everlasting covenant with him, he says in verse 5.

God secured the promise. God made all the plans and arrangements. In verse 5 you see the phrase ordered in all things in the

English Standard Version. It's like saying God notarized it. He has made all the legal arrangements to secure the promises that one would come who will rule over mankind in justice and in righteousness and in truth and in beauty.

David here at the end of his life is expressing a rock solid faith that God will keep his promises to bring forth his ultimate anointed king through David's royal house.

And verse 5 ends with a rhetorical question demonstrating an almost sarcastic trust. Who would doubt that God would do what he promised?

Who in the world would even doubt him? I don't know about you but I want to die with that kind of faith.

I want my last words to be trust that God will finish what he promised.

And yet David speaks two more verses that create an edge to his final words that give it a little bit of a cut and it really ultimately it gives an edge to our acceptance of authority as well.

A conviction that ought to prick our hearts. You see there are some he says who will not receive authority.

There are some who can't be handled. Will not be bent to the will of those over them.

The phrase translated worthless men by the way in verse 6 has a nuance and I don't love the word worthless simply because it implies that any human can be without worth.

I don't love that translation of this phrase. It really is godlessness coupled with destructiveness.

So a godless destructiveness would be a good way to a man of godlessness who is destructive would be a good translation of that.

In the Old Testament to be godless is equated with a dangerous destructiveness and the correlation makes sense to me.

Because a man that will not sit under authority is a man unchained from any moral accountability.

A man who rejects the authority of god and the authority of others. Think about it another way. Scripture indicates this through the old covenant law and through various passages.

But a man who will punch his father in the face. A man who will confront a police officer. A man who refuses to answer a judge in the court of law like we saw this past week for the guy who drove through a crowd in a parade.

A man who will refuse to acknowledge the god who has created him. That man is a man of destruction because he has rejected authority and thinks he is a law unto himself.

So David uses a powerful illustration. An illustration that spoke to my heart because I've dealt with it many times.

Some of you here maybe can relate to this. Seven years ago we moved into our current home.

We love our location. It's a nice little private shared driveway dirt road just north of Matawan. A little wooded lot.

Just a little over an acre but most of it's woods. There's just a little bit of grass to keep the woods at bay. Not a ton of lawn maintenance.

That's kind of ideal since I don't have a zero turn mower yet.

I like that. Keep the hope alive. We're seven years into a battle with blackberry bushes.

It's been a knock down drag. I still don't know who's going to win. I'm convinced that if nobody lived in my house for a year that the blackberries would already have most of the yard.

They will just take over. Any of you know what I'm talking about? A handful of you know what I'm talking about?

There is a type of person he says here that's like that. Who rejects leadership and will not be steered or guided by a gentle hand.

So when I deal with the blackberry bushes, I have to deal with them in a particular kind of way. He says there's a type of person who won't respond to a gentle hand.

Instead will prick a gentle hand because they reject any authority. They need to be dealt with harsher.

When I'm feeding the fire in my backyard I frequently encounter the blackberry shoots that we've cut down and I approach them gingerly at first but once I have a good grip where there are no thorns

I whip those bad boys without any gentleness into the fire. I don't want to handle them more than once.

You know what I'm talking about? You don't handle them more than once. God sees fit to emphasize not merely the good of authority but the necessity of authority in the blessing and even salvation of humanity.

Authority is central to the gospel. God sent forth

His Messiah King Jesus Christ so that all who bow the knee under His authority and accept

His loving sacrifice will be saved. We don't just come for His kindness.

We also recognize His right to rule. To be saved hear me carefully church to be saved is to be a person under authority.

To be saved is to get it. I'm under someone else. I am not the ruler.

I am not the master. I am not the lord. I am not the king. But He is.

A saved life is a life willingly subjected to the one who is both good shepherd and majestic king.

But I want you to hear me carefully for just a second. Do you realize how close some of our cultural values in America come to the fires of hell?

We can adopt it because we were born here. We can adopt it because it's something that we've just taken as a given.

And by the way I want to point out to you I can say a hearty Merica with the best of them. Okay? I love this place.

I still believe that America is a fabulous blessing to all of us. Whether you see it or not you are gifted to be in this country.

But our radical independence our trend towards freedom at all costs and our can do spirit coupled with an increasing rejection of authority well these values all run counter to the gospel.

They run counter to a gospel that starts with the authority of God and must go down the avenue of I can't save myself.

Our salvation comes from a gracious call outside of ourselves. Not from within. Not from a can do spirit but from a

I can't spirit. And once we are saved we are saved into a master slave relationship with a loving

God. Now you say well wow that's harsh words. Master slave? What?

If you doubt it see almost every introduction of the New Testament epistles where the authors all identify themselves as slaves of God bought by His blood through His extravagant love for them.

If you have come under the authority of Jesus Christ the prophesied Messiah as your savior king then I'm going to encourage you during this next song to come to the tables.

We come every Sunday to remember His body broken in our place. And we take the cup of juice to remember the cost

He expended to buy us back from slavery to sin. And maybe this message is served to help some of us shed a layer of aversion to authority.

And we are moved to just pray and tell God we want to obey Him closer and to lead and live more in the fear of Him.

Maybe some here need to make a decision to come under the authority of Jesus Christ for salvation for the very first time once and for all.

And maybe this message for many of us will result in praise and delight. Because many of us have experienced the rule and reign of our

Messiah and we have experienced His grace and His mercy and His love and His rule and His authority like the dawn of the sun in a blue sky after a dark night.

Or like the rain on the grass that produces growth. How many of you would just testify right now by the raising of your hands that you are glad you have a

King? You are glad you have a King. You are glad to be under His authority.

You are glad that the final call isn't with you. Amen? It's Him.

So if you'd like to pray with somebody this morning, we have prayer partners. We're doing something different. We've been asking people to come forward and we think that that might be stopping some people.

So there's double doors back by the cafe back there and we're going to have a prayer room set aside moving forward where people can come back there, talk with somebody, pray with somebody.

We recognize that you can sit in your chair and pray on your own but there are some times when God grabs ahold of you in a way that you need to just talk with somebody else or pray with somebody else.

Every Sunday we're going to have a couple of people back there. You can go back there and pray and talk with them.

But recast and with these words, authority is

God's idea. And to come under His authority is a prerequisite for our salvation.

Go out from this place thinking about that this week. Let's pray. Father, I thank You. I thank

You that You have done what we could not do. If we were put in charge, we would make a mess of it all quite quickly.

We would not be able to bring about any shred of salvation in the least. And so You have seen fit to exercise

Your authority in the bringing forth of salvation for many. Father, I pray that if there's anybody in the room right now that's rustling in the balance between their own authority and the authority of Jesus Christ, I pray that You would let

Jesus win. Let Jesus win in the hearts and lives of Your people. I pray that as temptation hits us on the drive home, or on Monday or Tuesday or throughout this week, that as temptation strikes us, that we would turn our hearts to the authority as the blood -bought people.

We thank You for the many ways that You have lifted us up. We thank You for the many ways that You have raised us up.

And we give You the credit. We give You the glory. We give You the praise. We give You the honor. And I pray that that would be a reality as we go out from this place.

That we'd be a delighted people. I pray that as we come to the tables of communion, that You would remind us that we are a purchased people.

What a glory that You have seen fit to bring us into Your family through the sacrifice of Your Son.

And so, Father, I pray that You would go with us, convicting us and drawing us all into application from this message this morning.