From Flea to Fury | Life of David Part 5 | Nathan Lawson

Music.

Your next step. We're in a series where we're looking at the life of David,

and it's going to be one of those stories today where David is going to face

off against another enemy.

Now, we've got these over here, these panels that kind of help us,

because David is one of the longest,

stories that we have in the Old Testament, or really the Bible outside of Jesus,

that we know more details about what happens in David's life,

the ups, the downs, the successes, and the failures.

But as you're looking through it, we'll remember that, of course,

the story of David doesn't begin with David. Who does it begin with?

Saul. See, we're going to get Bible scholars here by the end of the summer.

Like, we're getting it. And that's important. That's not just an arbitrary choice.

That's because in each person, as God is blessing them and empowering them,

there is the potential that that blessing, that empowerment actually becomes

a problem. And we see that in Saul's life, where Saul becomes increasingly prideful.

And at first he starts out humble. He's a nice guy, but pretty soon he's building

monuments to himself, which is never a good sign.

Then he's trying to kill David for having the audacity of being alive,

which isn't good, even all to the point of almost killing his own son.

Like this is how much Saul's pride starts to corrupt his own thinking.

And that's a pattern we see repeated throughout the Bible.

When we were being more honest, we see repeated globally.

That power or, you know, the influence that we have, if you're strong enough

to make a difference, there is always the potential that that same strength

could be used in a way that was harmful.

And that's why when David opens up, it doesn't start with Goliath,

but describes him as a man after God's own heart.

It opens up with a story of worship and how critical that will be to keep David

anchored, not that David's perfect, as we'll see today.

But then David has these great victories.

We saw that victory over David versus Goliath, the small shepherd boy versus

the giant Philistine, The over 120 pound spear being lobbed at David and David

gawking away unscathed, walking onto the battlefield.

You come at me with sword and javelin, but I come at you in the name of the

God of Israel, whom you have defied.

And David is victorious against a seemingly impossible external threat.

God gives David victory.

And then in chapters 18 through 24, that leads us up to today,

David increasingly faces a threat, not from Philistines, not from Amalekites,

no Egyptian pharaohs in the Red Sea here.

No, this time the danger is Saul, who should have been David's ally and mentor.

But instead, there's now going to be a threat that comes from,

in a sense, within his family or within the people of God.

The King Saul tries to kill David, and David is now on the run as a fugitive.

Not because David has done anything wrong, but the second threat he faces isn't

an external one like Goliath, but it's this internal threat from Saul who is afraid to lose power.

But today, we're going to see David face off against his most dangerous threat,

the one that has the potential to ruin his kingship and potentially derail what

God wants to do in his life.

So we're going to look at that story in 1 Samuel chapter 25.

1 Samuel 25 · chapter mention

If you want to turn there and follow along, it's a long passage.

So we're just going to look at highlights from it.

But here's, in general, what happens.

David is out with his men. He's made peace with Saul, at least for the time being.

We'll see later that it's not really that long lived. It only lasted a chapter.

But David is out there in the wilderness still, and he is fighting against these

raiding parties that are coming from other countries to help kind of stop Israelites,

and David has helped defending it.

So it's a time of prosperity in Israel.

Suddenly flocks don't have sheep going missing and crops are going to be there.

And there's this stability. And with that stability comes prosperity.

And so David sends out his men now that it's harvest time to go.

And as would be traditional in that area.

Wasn't unique to David, that during a harvest time, you would go and the landowners,

the people who are wealthy would go and use some of what they have gotten in

all this prosperity and share it with their neighbors, people who would help them along the way.

Because part of what makes success possible is this people helping one another out.

And so that's what David does. He sends his men to this guy who has the name Nabal.

This is Nabal who is married to Abigail, but Nabal is introduced as somebody

who is ridiculously wealthy.

Thousands of sheep. And this is the ancient way of saying they did not have currency back then.

And so really wealth is when your cattle or your livestock and in defense of

people in Africa who still think of wealth being in terms of cattle,

I have never one time put $2 bills in a bedside table and have it multiply into three on its own.

So you could see why cattle is a more popular investment strategy than perhaps

other types of investments.

So Nabal is super wealthy. He has thousands and thousands.

He is just massively well-to-do in the ancient world and married to a lady named Abigail.

But when Nabal gets this request, some of David's men would like some assistance.

They've been out here fighting.

They're men of integrity and they need our help. And here's his response.

Picking it up in verse nine. When David's men arrived, they gave Nabal that

message asking for help and support based on the fact that they are men of integrity.

And then they waited and Nabal answered David's servants.

Who is David? Who's this David? Who's a son of Jesse?

You know, that's the problem with young people. So many masters are breaking

away from their servants these days, running around like roaming bandits.

Like, why should I, it says, take my bread, my water and the meat that I slaughtered for my shearers.

How many more times can you say my in the same sentence?

And give it to men who are coming from who knows where.

There's multiple ways in which

the way that Nabal is phrasing his response is meant to be insulting.

Who's David? Who's the son of Jesse? Now he knows who David is.

This is a long time into David. This is over a decade into David serving Saul.

This is a while down the road.

So like the stories of him defeating Goliath, there's just no way that Nabal

has really never heard of David. But when he says, who is he?

He means, who is he politically?

He doesn't have any position. He doesn't have any office in the court.

He's not somebody who's important. Who is this guy after all?

And when he makes that comment, you know, so many servants are breaking away

from their masters these days.

He's kind of accusing David of being a highwayman, a bandit,

or a robber, just coming to take advantage of the situation.

Notice in his listing out, why should I give my bread, my meat, and my water to David?

Now Nabal has even gotten control of the water. It's mine, after all.

I own it. It fell from the sky, and so I said it was mine.

Now it's mine. You've got a little bit of a toddler mentality going on here.

He's grabbing everything and saying, it's all me.

Now, we're going to see some ways in which this is going to explode into a serious conflict.

But Nabal is set up as the ultimate fool in this situation.

He is quite literally the village idiot.

He's set up as somebody whose perspective is so fundamentally warped that it's

only a matter of time before disaster strikes.

And Nabal's first error, his first instance of folly, is the myth of solo success.

And that's the first thing if you're following along or taking notes.

And again, always show up to church ready to take notes.

Not necessarily something I'm saying, but if God lays something on your heart,

write it down, make a note to yourself. You do not want to walk through life

saying, I bet you I'm never going to hear anything life-changing today,

because if you have that attitude, you'll have that fulfillment.

Always walk around knowing that God could use any moment to speak to you.

Well, Nabal is this living embodiment of foolishness, and his foolishness is

believing that his success is entirely and only attributed to himself.

And therefore, he doesn't owe anything to anybody else.

Now, if he took even a moment to stop and say, how lucky I am,

he might say, that the Philistine stopped raiding all my cattle.

How lucky is that? and we haven't had any giants roaming around in years. How lucky is that?

He has all these things that are clearly because David and his men are out there

holding back armies that would otherwise gladly and freely raid Israel.

So his success is in part in response to the fact that David has been supporting him.

But not only that, as David's men are going around, one or two sheep would not have gone missing.

I mean, he could have got away with it. He could have grabbed while he was passing

through, but he chose not to, and instead to allow Nabal to respond in generosity.

But Nabal sees none of it. He believes that his success is all his and all his

alone, and therefore he owes nothing to no one and certainly nobody who would have to make a request.

Nabal is set up as a fool Because all of us, if you stopped a moment and you

would say, I am successful, but I'm successful because of the environment that I'm in.

I'm in a country where it's possible to be successful, where my education mattered.

I was in a family and had health where it was possible.

You cannot live without acknowledging that life has always been saturated with

grace, God's gift, both the skills and talents that you have,

but also people around you have.

And some of us can, you know, we're looking around and it's easy to adopt a

mindset, which would be like showing up at a wedding reception and you're enjoying nice food.

It's got a little name with your little placard on the table and you're getting

to eat and enjoy a DJ and the nice decorations. And someone taps you on the

shoulder and say, hey, would you mind helping to stack the chairs?

And you said, hey, now, I didn't sit in all these chairs.

I only sat in one. So I'm not going to be going lifting around other people's chairs.

It's not my business. I need the world to be fair. And fair means starting from

right now, I'm only taking care of my seat.

Ignoring the fact that other people paid and planned and you are experiencing

the blessing that comes from other people.

You know, kids who walk around school and they're upset about this teacher attitude or that,

but it's easy to miss the fact that there is a school here that people sacrificed

to make possible that my friends in Zimbabwe, one of the tragedies is how many

of them, they would kill for the opportunity to live in a country with this

kind of economic possibility.

They would absolutely take advantage of every moment. And we have people here

who look around and all they see is the way that they're getting shortchanged.

Why are people asking so much of me? That's the problem with these things,

failing to see the blessing that they have in community and other places.

We are always standing on the shoulder of giants.

It's appropriate this sermon is done after 4th of July, because I am so grateful

to be in a country like this one that is not perfect by any means.

But if you are going to pick anywhere in the country to raise your family,

to where your kids would have the best shot at the future that allows them to

use their gifts, I'm telling you, there is nowhere else that is better suited

than this place to allow blessing to thrive.

And so our response has to be gratitude.

Growing up, I had the opportunity to travel with my dad a lot to different CIYs,

the same place that our youth went to go and hear youth speakers.

And back when my dad was young and cool, many, many years ago,

if he's watching online, many, many, many years ago, he would go around and I got to see him.

I mean, just, just speaking in a way where he could hold these huge audience,

thousand youth and in the palm of his hand and great speakers.

And the reason I speak even halfway well today is not because I went to a closet

up on a mountaintop and, you know, meditated for like 65 hours on how to speak on a stage.

It's because I saw other people explain the gospel to me.

People like Chris Duncan, people like my dad, people like Mark Moore,

who explained it to me in a way that I was humbled and brought to tears.

And that has allowed me to develop my own gifts, but Nabal doesn't see it.

I guess it would make us pause for a moment and ask, who have you failed to honor?

Because you've been focused on your own success, maybe there has been a lack

of gratitude that it is possible because the environment you find yourself in.

Gratitude protects what pride would poison, right?

Gratitude helps us to go through life realizing as difficult as the things we

might be facing and as hard as things are, we have been given so much to be

grateful for, but Nabal doesn't have it. He just can't see it.

Now, David's response is going to tell us a lot, because David is going to respond

not with the humility we've seen earlier in his life.

David has been leading men for a while, starting to feel a bit like a commander,

starting to, he's not king yet, but he's starting to get a taste for the idea,

and here is David's response.

David's men turned around and went back, and when they arrived,

they reported every word. And David said to his men,

each one of you strap on your sword. So they did. And David strapped on his sword.

About 400 men went with David. Well, 200 stayed with the supplies.

David goes on to complain. And just a few verses later in 21,

David says this, David said to his men, sorry, it's been useless.

David says, all my watching over this fellow's property in the wilderness so

that nothing of his went missing.

He has paid me back evil for the good that I have done to him.

May God deal with David. This is David talking about himself in the third person,

starting to sound a little more like a king.

May God deal with David, that's himself, ever so severely if by morning I leave

one male alive who belongs to him.

Now, if you want to realize one of the reasons it is good to update the translation

of the Bible, check out verse 22 in the King James Version of this chapter,

and you will see an interesting way to translate the original Hebrew idiom here,

which is a little more earthy, and I'm not going to say from the stage.

But he says, I'm going to wipe out every male in this village.

And by this time tomorrow, let God punish me. He can punch me in the face if

I don't keep my word. He's that angry.

He's not just going to kill Nabal.

He's going to kill everyone. He's going to kill servants that they don't like

their master any more than anyone else.

He's going to kill nearby people, anyone caught in the crossfire.

David is out for revenge.

What happened? Because in chapter 24, when David was being pursued by Saul,

do you remember what he said?

He said to Saul, why would the king of Israel in chapter 24,

verse 14, why would the king of Israel look at me, a dead dog,

a lowly flea? Why are you bothering with me?

What happened to the flea mentality?

Because now David has started to feel a little bit more like a king.

His offense is the kind of offense that makes sense. If you start to believe

that I'm God's anointed, how dare he?

How dare Nabal not respect you? Where's the respect? Where's the appreciation?

Where's the bowing to power? You know what? We're not going to tolerate this.

Good kings would never let somebody give them this kind of respect.

And David is starting to look a little more like who from the early chapters of this book?

Starting to look more like Saul, doesn't he? He sounds like Saul and every other,

thank you so much for answering, and every other leader that we see.

Because you see, to a little bit riff on a Forrest Gump quote, ego is as ego does.

That egoism and pride are such a dangerous thing because they don't come at

the door and knock on it and say, hi, I'm pride. I'd like to ruin your job.

Hi, I'm pride. Wait till I get in your marriage. It's going to make it wild.

This is going to break. They don't say that. When pride shows up, it's quiet.

It's a whisper in your ear that says.

You deserve more than this. You're going to take that from them?

How dare they talk to you like that? What kind of person do they think?

Do they realize who they're messing with here?

Your pride is that whisper, that drip that begins to say, you know,

you deserve a little better than that. You deserve a little more.

How, you know, somebody would appreciate how intelligent you are for once instead

of every comment implying you don't know what you're doing. You know,

that's the problem with this place.

Pride has a way of setting us up to be on the lookout for conflict and it succeeds

over and over again because we listen to the voice that starts to whisper in

the ear that is saying true things.

David is the future king, but he's starting to twist it around and saying,

because of it, I'm a lot allowing a world where anybody would ever disrespect me.

What you got next here in your notes is this movement from flee to fury.

This this movement from David's humility to David is now on a path that has

the potential to send him down the road that every other leader goes on.

You see, ego will change its shape as it begins to distort how we see the world.

It will not look like you're sabotaging or grabbing what you shouldn't.

It'll look like dignity.

You're just trying to get a little respect in this place. I've been providing

everything for these kids. And you see the way they talk to me?

I mean, And honestly, you heard, listen, listen, listen. Did you hear what he just said?

It disguised itself as justice.

David would say, I'm just getting

even. I mean, I'm not, I'm not doing anything that wasn't provoked.

He, everything he gets is exactly what he deserves.

It'll even use your pain to justify the hurt that you cause other.

Because if you know how much I have been hurt, I'm giving back only a little

bit of what they did to me.

Pride has a way of making us run into conflicts that we could otherwise avoid.

It has us grab things that we're not meant to hold. And the worst thing about

it is we never see it coming because it doesn't feel that way in the moment.

It just feels like no one's listening or people aren't doing the right thing.

Because, as to quote the one song lyric, we have a way in our lives of saying

the phrase, you know, I could get used to this.

When we first step into luxury or the lifestyle you have now,

even though I bet that for those of you who have at least been around for a few decades as adults,

you are probably living in a lifestyle of enjoyment that is better than what

you imagined when you were 18, or at least better than the actual lifestyle you had at 18.

But at this point, we start to say, not only do we have it, but if we were to

lose it, it would be the end of our world as we know it.

One time I was asked to do this wedding at a place called The Castle,

and it was as fancy as it sounds.

They'd had art everywhere and huge stone pillars and fireplaces in every room,

but that wasn't even the fanciest part. They had a huge amount of waitstaff.

And so there outside your room, at the minute you requested,

to the minute, you would get a tray of hand-ground coffee in a French press

that was exactly there the minute you wanted at 612. It's there at 612.

You want the milk heated or would you prefer it cold? Do you like butter with

your toast and what kind?

And it's all there for you. You're going down, not to a buffet,

but to a private dining room where a waiter is just there to say,

what do you want put out? You want tropical fruits chopped up?

I'd hate for you to get your hands sticky. Let me make sure the mangoes are

peeled for you. All of it is done. The omelets the way you want.

And most of us, if you walk into an environment that is a lot nicer than you're

used to, your first response is, oh my goodness, I don't want to trouble you. You're awkward.

You don't even know what to do with the waiter. He's standing in the corner

and you're like, morning, morning.

So you don't even know what to do. I'm so humbled by that. I don't need all this.

You know, just point me to the kitchen. I'd rather just fry my own egg.

I don't even know what to do with this on day one. But on day two...

This toast is a little soggy. And now that you mention it, I would prefer,

and you start giving a few more requests, a few more embellish.

I mean, if you're going to be here, they might as well do their job right.

And you start enjoying it a little bit. By the couple days into that wedding,

I say, I could get used to this.

You give me a month there, and I would go back to the Holiday Inn,

which for my family is often a treat if we stop there and say,

who's slumming it now? You've got to walk all the way to the lobby.

That's hundreds of feet. like, geesh, that's crossing the Sahara Desert just

for coffee, if you can believe it.

I could get used to this. We start to imagine the comfort, the entertainment,

the free time that we have is not just a blessing to enjoy in that moment,

but it's something we are owed.

And if anybody even pretends that they might infringe on our time,

and when we're watching or doing this or this entertainment, we've come to expect it.

And David responds the way most of us respond, if we had the kind of power that he has.

I don't imagine that you have ever got swords on your hips and gone out to raid

your neighborhood in a rage, but you don't have 400 men at your disposal.

But we have certainly sabotaged plenty of relationships, messages that were

sent that shouldn't have been, things that were said that can't be taken back,

family gatherings that have to be ignored for longer periods of time because

of the hurt at the last one.

And at the root of it was this offense or that offense or these were said or

that. and the hurt is real, but the background that made it sting so much is

the pride that made it possible.

David has gone down a road that every king goes down, but something else happens.

God, in his grace, gives him another voice, a person who is God's messenger

in this story to both save the kingship of David and his chosen line.

Into the story comes Abigail, our hero of 1 Samuel chapter 25,

1 Samuel 25 · chapter mention

the one who is going to take two men, Nabal, who is an idiot,

and David, who is power hungry and looking for a fight, And she's going to come

and somehow, even though she has no power, she has no political position.

She has no official influence in this room except for she is the wife of a very, very dumb person.

And I'm not saying that applies to anyone in here, but even that position can still be a powerful one.

No matter if you are the student in the household or you feel like,

what could I possibly do?

Abigail looks around and realized something must be done.

Wisdom is going to flip the script.

And so we've got our symbol right here for this week.

And I've waited until now to flip it around because David and Nabal are not

the thing we want to remember in this story.

They are the problem that needs an Abigail to be a person who makes peace.

A person who makes peace possible when it seemed impossible,

where two egos are bumping up against each other, where a lot of people are

going to suffer. Here's what it said.

When Abigail, Abigail hears what her husband has done and she says,

oh no. So she acted quickly.

She took 200 loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep.

And no, that does not mean you can dress your pets up according to the Bible.

It means they were ready to grill. That's what it means.

Five sheaves of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins, and 200 cakes of

pressed figs that loaded them on donkeys.

And she said to her servants, you go on ahead. You meet David on the road.

You don't let him get here without giving these gifts. I'll follow.

And she did not tell her husband Nabal.

Now, of course, when she does this, she knows enough to know that Nabal does not need to be involved.

He is going to mess it up. There's some wisdom there. But what she does is she

brings a to plead for peace in a world that's ready for battle.

Now, what she could have done, you can tell in the story that she does not really

like her husband, probably an arranged marriage.

He's probably, he seems like he's a drunkard and just a foolish person that

she's constantly having to look out for. what she could have done is say,

you know, this is a solution to some of my problems.

Let me get the people that I like. We flee up to the hills.

We hide out. And then suddenly Nabal's no longer on the scene.

Oh, sad, sad, sad. Now we can get somebody else in here who knows what they're doing.

And like, who would have blamed her to say, look, I didn't cause it.

I didn't say to kill him. I just let him experience the consequences of his own actions.

But even though he doesn't deserve it, she fights for peace.

Because the truth is, even when we're intending to hurt one person,

as wrongheaded as that is, they will not be the only ones to suffer.

There will be relatives and family and neighbors. There will be others who are

caught up in the mix of it.

And she is wise enough to know that this conflict will not bring about the righteous.

The anger of man does not bring about the righteousness of God.

You see, in a world bracing for battle, Abigail changed the conversation.

That's an important enough phrase.

I'm just going to put it up here on the screen. that phrase, right?

In a world that is braced for battle, Abigail is the one who changed the conversation.

And if you got nothing else this morning about what she is able to accomplish

is that she is able to change the way David thinks about it in a way that will

have lasting consequences, both for David and how we approach conflict that we're facing.

You see, Abigail's name means her father, my father is joy. And that's exactly what we're going to see.

Here's what, here's what she says next. Let's go ahead and read it together.

We're going to pick it up in verse 23.

When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down with her face on the ground.

An act of absolute humility, all the way to the dirt. When you get up,

you'll have to get the dust off your forehead.

She fell at his feet and said, pardon your servant, my Lord,

and let me speak to you. Hear what your servant has to say to you.

Pay no attention to my Lord, to that wicked man, Nabal. You know, he's just like his name.

I mean, his name means fool and folly is just goes with him wherever he goes.

But as for me, your servant, I didn't even see the men you sent.

So please, now my Lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live,

since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and avenging yourself with your own

hand, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming you,

my Lord, be like Nabal and let this gift, which your servant has brought,

my Lord, be given to the men who follow you.

She gives him a nice gift, brings him some meat for barbecue,

some dates that are ready to go.

She bakes the cupcakes, the ancient version of it.

She is sending cookies to the neighbor to make peace. She is pursuing peace.

But I want you to notice carefully what she does.

The first thing she does is she describes Nabal in a way that we might say she

is reframing the conversation.

I mean, you obviously, she's saying to David, Oh, Nabal. Oh,

everyone knows he's an idiot. You're not letting that person up.

You're not getting upset because of that.

He's an idiot anywhere he goes, right? I mean, you're not going to be too bothered by that.

You ever notice how when you rephrase, reframe a conflict, it sometimes makes

the solution more obvious, or at least makes it easier to tolerate?

The parent who's exasperated, they have a toddler at Walmart who's just grabbing

every conceivable bit of candy to try to get to stealing early in life.

And the parent is outraged at it.

And you're like, oh, but you just stopped doing that. And they're shouting at their child.

And you want to say, so if they were in a place where they could listen,

and that's a difficult one, but if they could, if somebody said like,

look, let me just get this straight.

You're upset that a toddler who is hungry wants to grab candy that is right

within arm's reach because it's delicious. You're upset that a toddler gets

hungry? Is that what's going on here?

I mean, at least in my household, and I know this has never happened to you,

but I remember being outraged that one of my teenage sons had dropped his phone and broken it.

And I give a nice little self-righteous speech about, you never take care of your stuff.

And I can imagine a person taking a step back and saying, let me just get this straight.

You're upset that clumsy teenagers are clumsy.

Is that what you're offended by? I just want to make sure I understand the situation

that in your world, being respectful means teens aren't clumsy anymore.

Is that what I'm understanding that you want out of this situation?

Oh, you say it like that. It sounds stupid. Like when you reframe it in a certain

way, when you have the person who comes to the married couple who's fighting

and you'd be like, just so we're clear, this is because of towels on the bathroom

floor. Like we're about to go nuclear.

I just want to make sure like he hasn't embezzled like a hundred thousand dollars

of your money. This is, this is towels, right? We're just so we're on the same page.

Well, when you say it like that, it makes it sound really small.

You know, sometimes when you reframe things correctly, it, it suddenly makes

the whole conflict look different.

You're not upset because of Nabal, are you? I mean, he's, I mean,

he's always getting in fights, but she goes on to say and says, thank the Lord.

She says that he's kept you from bloodshed and that you're not going to avenge yourself.

Now you need to picture the seen because what she is describing is not what actually is happening.

David is wearing a sword followed by 400 men also wearing swords,

marching to Nabal to get revenge.

And she's saying, I'm so glad you're not marching to Nabal to get revenge on

your own because we know that that wouldn't honor God.

You can see the awkwardness here. Yeah, because wouldn't do that,

obviously. You see, the way she's saying it.

She's seeing what he could be, not what he is right now.

She's seeing who he is, his real identity. She's helping him to reframe his

identity in a way that you are the kind of person that trusts God,

so you wouldn't need to get personal revenge. I mean, we both know that, right?

That phrase alone starts to change and soften David's heart.

I had a wise person once as a minister give this exact same illustration about

how in marriage it's easy to try to use the negative to get what you want out

of the other person, like a spouse, you know, saying to their husband,

you know, you never take the trash out. How long are you going to let it sit there?

You don't want to stink up the whole kitchen. Have you done anything today?

How long are you going to watch that football game? I mean, honestly,

how many hours has that even been on? And on and on it goes.

And a different way, if you were to take Abigail's advice seriously,

would be something closer to saying, you know, husband, I just think you are so, you are so strong.

I bet you could carry that garbage out with one hand.

I know she's manipulating me, but I could probably do it with one hand.

I mean, I probably could though. I mean, I'll show you, I can, I'll show you, watch.

Like, I know I'm being manipulated, but I also know that somebody is choosing to see the best.

And you were meant to be the Abigail in your kid's life.

Not the one who says, remember all those times you screwed it up and don't do that again.

You watch it, because I know how you have messed this up before.

You've broken things like that before.

You were meant to be the one who said, I can see what God's doing in your life

and you are so much better than this.

I can see what God has for you And we both know you're not the kind of person

that's going to let that get distracted by something this small.

You were meant to be the one who saw it differently.

There are people in your life who step in and say something at just the right time.

I had an uncle that, my wife's uncle that came to work as a consultant for the mission.

And I was 26 when I had sent an email to someone in the mission.

Then it was full of self-righteous zeal and anger, as you can be at 26.

I was out of college for four years. So I was pretty much as experienced as

anyone could ever be on the planet.

And so I sent off this message full of rage and anger about someone who had

been irresponsible with their ministry posts.

And I remember him telling me that you will go much further in your life and

in your ministry if you give your wife a chance to look at the messages first.

I don't need you telling me that. I'm a minister and I'm a gospel and I'm ordained.

But since that time, I did take his advice.

And think about how many marriages and careers would be saved if you gave your

wife veto power on the message before you sent it and before you said it.

You said, I want to, but before I do, I need another set of eyes on it.

And wives, how many relationships would be saved before you respond to the neighbor,

before you send the anger response, because someone had the audacity to imply

that your child was not as perfect as inerrant, as we all know they are.

And they're going to, you're about to tell that neighbor exactly what's wrong with them.

What if you gave your husband the veto power on those messages?

You need an Abigail in your life, Abigail looks at David and says,

you're going to be a king one day.

You're going to be the king. What story do you want told about you?

You zoomed out of the situation. You want to take that throne and have a village

full of widows and orphans that you caused because you got angry at some arrogant

guy's statement? Is that what you want said about you?

She zooms forward to his legacy and suddenly as he thinks about his future,

he says, this is not who I am.

The remarkable part of this story is not that Abigail spoke. That is remarkable.

But what makes David's story so different than Saul's story is what happens next.

David says to Abigail, verse 32, praise be to the God of Israel who has sent you to me today.

May he be blessed for your good judgment in keeping me from bloodshed this day

and from avenging myself with my own hands, because otherwise,

honestly, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, who has kept me from harming you.

If you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would

be left alive by daybreak.

And David accepted the gift from her hand and he brought with him and said, go in peace.

I have heard your words and granted your request.

The last movement of this message is just this phrase, because he listened.

Because he listened, lives were saved.

Because he allowed himself to be interrupted. A tragedy was avoided.

And you just have to be in the kind of community with the kinds of friendships

that if push came to shove and you were about to change careers and change jobs

or do something foolish, you need to have the kind of people that you are living

in a community group with who have the right to speak,

to interrupt and change what otherwise could be a tragic ending.

He listened to her. And so the story has a different ending.

In fact, it gets even better when Nabal finds out the next morning.

She doesn't tell him when she gets home because he is drunk,

which the text implies, as usual.

But when he's sober the next morning and finds out, we don't know what happens.

But when he hears about it, he has some kind of medical stroke or disaster,

we don't know, and passes away.

And David ends up asking if Abigail would like to be his wife.

And she says yes. And it ends in an adorable love story where everyone says, aw.

There we go. And he wants Abigail around.

He invited someone to be his wife who told him that he was wrong.

Some of us have struggled because you don't like that your wife corrects you,

but heaven forbid you would want anything else.

You need people who at times tell you that you are wrong.

Some of the best disasters in my life didn't happen because I listened to somebody else.

When cryptocurrency was in its early days, I decided to invest.

I did not talk to my wife about these things. She doesn't know about technical

stuff. I mean, she's not on the computers. I know about these things.

So I invested in it. And have you guys heard of one called polka dot.

No one else has either. It did not do well. So there went my $750.

It was gone very quickly. An awkward conversation with my wife later.

I did not run it by her and I did lose that money. And here's the thing.

That was an embarrassing small amount of money lost, but there are so many other

stories that are so much more tragic.

That if you would stop for a moment and you'd been in community and you talked

with other people and you talked with people close to you and you'd been able

to listen and the kinds of people who didn't just tell you everything wrong,

but said, I see more in you than that.

I see a story that God is working in you that that is not a story you have to live out.

There are tragedies that can be avoided for those of us who are willing to fight for peace.

Abigail creates peace where everyone thought it was impossible.

There's no way there can be brought peace here. You've got Nabal who's wealthy

and arrogant and not going to listen to anybody.

And David is a king with soldiers. Who could possibly stop him?

And yet Abigail comes in and she helps sway the situation.

Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are those who go into family conflicts and make peace possible where

no one else thought it was possible, where they began to speak not just harsh

words of judgment and rebuke and correction, but began to speak words that said,

God is doing more in your life than this.

God intends more for you than this. I see things going on in you and I'd hate

for you to shipwreck it on something so foolish.

Blessed are those in this room that are peacemakers.

Thanks for listening. If you're near Yorktown, we'd love to see you in person.

Services are Sundays at 9 and 1045 a.m. and wherever you are keep leaning in.

Music.