Trusting in the Cave | Life of David Part 4 | Nathan Lawson

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The life of David, and there's a lot of lessons that as David is living them out,

they're honestly not just for this one information about this one guy,

but David is kind of a stand in for the kinds of people that are trusting God,

a man who follows after God's own heart, as we said in our second sermon in this series.

And so you might think that after, you know, things are starting to go well

for David, that this is, he defeats Goliath in 1 Samuel chapter 17.

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

It was a bit of a slow start.

He had to be a shepherd for a long time, but now things are looking up,

except for not quite yet.

It reminds me of my kids after in 2018, we were going to Zimbabwe after I had

finished my seminary degree and we were heading back and the smaller ones were

so excited to fly on a plane because they don't know any better.

And so they're going in there and they think that like, oh my gosh,

there's a tiny bag of peanuts for three hours.

How great is that? It's not great. But they don't know that yet.

So they're super excited to be there and everything's great.

And the fact that they give you cans of Coke that are literally smaller than

any other place on the entire planet, like why wouldn't you want three ounces

of Coke? That's a full serving.

And like they're doing this on the plane and they go from Charlotte to Washington,

D.C., Dulles International Airport, where we're going to really board the flight

to go to Addis Ababa and then on to Zimbabwe.

So when they land at D.C., they get off the plane and they're like,

have we arrived in Zimbabwe now?

The joy is just starting. We got 20 hours of flight time left.

And if you don't hate flying yet, you will by the end of it.

You watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy and still have a good eight hours

to spare of what you're going to do with all that extra time.

And so the thing about it is, is sometimes, and I think most of the time in

life, whether you're talking about a career, whether you're talking about education

or starting a business, it's going to be harder than you imagine.

It's going to take longer and there's going to be more detours and more ways

in which it doesn't go as smoothly as you thought it would.

And whether you're dating someone and you're starting to consider whether this

person is the one you want to marry, that whole process is usually a lot more

complicated and difficult than at least a lot of us initially sign up for.

When we imagine, well, how hard could this possibly be when you're signing up for another degree?

And I don't know if it's the first month or the second year,

but somewhere in there, you're like, wow, this is a lot more difficult.

It reminds me of that scene in Stephen Ambrose's book, which he's talking about

in Undaunted Courage and doing Lewis and Clark.

They're kind of traveling across the United States, trying to find that waterway

that will go all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

And in one scene, Meriwether Lewis gets to the top of the continental divide.

They finally figured out they're going to be at the highest point.

And so what they're expecting is once they get to this high point,

they're going to cross this continental divide.

And so he's rushing up to get to the peak of the mountain to look.

And he's convinced that on the other side will be a slow and smooth valley all

the way to the Pacific Ocean.

And so when he gets up and the morning fog clears and you look and you see mountain

after mountain after mountain in the Rocky Mountains going, this is going to

be a lot more difficult than we signed up for.

And when you think about what David has gone through, because after David and

Goliath, now he's going to move into Saul's courtroom where he is going to be

a musician slash one of the warriors in Saul's household.

And he is going to have to have some amazing loyalty for Saul.

And that's what we're going to talk about, this unprecedented loyalty that David

is going to fight on behalf of the nation of Israel because Saul is going to

send him out on all kinds of missions.

But Saul is growing in his resentment toward David.

That from the beginning, Saul cannot stand that David's getting the spotlight.

And so he starts sending him out on increasingly difficult missions.

Saul secretly hoping that David is going to die on one of these missions.

Well, you need to go and kill a thousand, you know, go kill a hundred Philistines.

And then I'll let you marry my daughter thinking to himself,

no one can kill a hundred Philistines.

And sure enough, David comes back. He's done 200 and brings it back.

And he's like, Oh, all the people are like, I can't believe David did it.

Yeah. And Saul's like, yay.

And he's like, oh man. And now he tries to come up with another way to get rid

of David. Cause he sees David as his opposition.

And so at one point, Saul is going

to take a spear and throw it and try to impale David against the wall.

And if you are wondering, those of you who have wondered, like,

I can't quite tell if my teacher doesn't like me or my boss doesn't like me.

As a rule of thumb, if they try to throw a spear and impale you to the wall,

it's not a good sign. That's really not a good moment.

And so David now kind of realizes that Saul is trying to kill him.

And even though David keeps trying to plead with Saul that, look,

even if God gives me the kingdom one day. It'll be in God's timing,

not mine. I'm not your enemy.

You know, a win for Israel is a win for Israel. My victories reflect well on you.

And lots of people are explaining this to Saul. None of it is landing.

And so David eventually has to go on the run. And he's going to be at this moment,

this critical juncture in his life, where he's going to face the shortcut syndrome.

He's going to be tempted in this moment to rush what God is doing.

And we're going to look at this first scene. We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter

1 Samuel 24 · chapter mention

24. We'll reference what has kind of taken place a little bit between chapter

17. That's what we did last week with David and Goliath, and now we're moving to 24.

So there's a lot more material here than we could cover on a Sunday morning.

If you want some follow-up, there's a great series of teachings by Michael DeFazio.

He, for those of you who went to CIY, he was one of the speakers there,

and he's got a series on 1 and 2 Samuel on Next Level at Ozark Christian College.

If you have specific scenes that you have questions on, it is a great way to follow up.

Well, we're going to pick it up in 1 Samuel 24, verses 1 to 4.

1 Samuel 24:1–4

Let's open up and follow along where it says this.

After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told,

David is in the desert of En-Gedi.

And so Saul took 3,000 able young men from Israel and set out to look for David

and his men near the crags of the wild goats.

By the way, if you needed a name for a restaurant, I feel like the crags of

the wild goat is a real winner of a name if you want to underline that and use it for later.

But then he came to the sheep pens along the way and a cave was there.

And Saul went in to relieve himself. And David and his men were farther back in the cave.

And so the scene is that Saul has went into this cave because it's hot out in

order to relieve himself. In Hebrew or your translation, it might say he went

to cover his feet, which is a nice Hebrew idiom for doing a number two.

And I'm not gonna make any cheesy preacher jokes that really are kind of shouting

to be made at this point, like in the cave was a royal flush.

We're not gonna say that. we're just going to move on because it's

a serious text and it deserves our reverence and so

sure enough Saul is in there but David and his men were

deeper back in the cave as those of you've been in a place that's hot I don't

know like this past week on the peninsula you could see why hiding in a cave

has a lot of appeal to it it's cooler you're out of the sun no one can see you

going by and take reports back to Saul they're hiding out and then right on their lap falls Saul,

who's there and he's got his.

And so the men respond when they see Saul and they're like, oh my gosh,

they're whispering, I guess, because on the back of the cave,

this is the day that the Lord spoke up when he said, I will give your enemies

into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.

And David crept up unnoticed and cut off the corner of Saul's.

So David's men are like quoting a passage from the psalm. And maybe you would think of Psalm 23.

He's prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Didn't say anything

about number two, but it's definitely implied. You know, your enemies aren't in a good position.

And there is David. With Saul in perhaps the most vulnerable position a guy

can be in, reading his ancient newspaper, sitting there doing what it is he's doing.

And David has a choice to make.

Because there's a moment here where he could, for a lot of reasons,

decide that maybe this is God moving in such a way that, you know,

God promised the kingdom to David.

And maybe this is what God wanted him to do.

It's like falling right in his lap.

You see, when we're faced with this temptation to do a shortcut,

we're never without reasons to explain why it actually is justified.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12 puts it this way. There is a way that seems right

Proverbs 14:12

to a man, but leads to death.

You see, there's a way that when we're talking to our friends and we're talking,

like, if you consider all the circumstances, it's not that wrong, really.

Let me just explain it to you.

And when we're tempted to take a shortcut, I want to look at just a couple of

the rationales that would certainly appeal to David in this moment,

but at least for all of us.

When you find yourself, your life is not on the track that you want it.

David is here in the cave. He's been working for Saul for years.

He's been frustrated and maligned, people talking bad about him.

He's had Saul try to kill him, despite the fact that he didn't do anything to deserve it.

And so in this moment, he could then begin to explain why, you know,

killing Saul is really a good thing, a godly thing when you get right down to it.

All of us, when your career seems to be stuck, or you got one of those emails

that said your job is now either on the chopping block or you've already been

told that your job's coming to an end.

And many of us have that, at least have friends who've had that frustrating

experience when it comes to the economy, the way it's at right now.

Or there are some who graduated college and it's not their career was stopped.

Their career never got off the ground.

Like I got this degree and I've applied lots of places and no place wants me.

It was nothing like what they said when I was getting this degree.

There's so many jobs in this field. And now you're like, I don't know where

they are because no one's returning my phone calls.

Or you were hoping to get married at some point and it just doesn't seem to

be happening. And so in this moment of the cave, this desire to take a shortcut.

Because one of the first things we could begin to do if we are in this moment is justified payback.

That's the first rationale we could begin to say that it's, you know,

revenge. I mean, it's, yeah, sure, revenge is normally wrong.

But in this circumstance, it's more than justified.

When we begin to explain, you know, they had it coming. I mean,

of all things being equal, this is not being petty, this is being fair.

This is leveling the playing field. They had it coming after all.

Because David's in the cave.

And Saul has tried to not only kill David, but in the previous chapter,

chapter 22 of 1 Samuel, while Saul is pursuing David, he comes up at the city

of Nob where there are priests there.

These are the same priests that had gave David and his men the leftover consecrated

bread that had been for the temple but wasn't currently in use.

And David's men eat it. And when Saul finds out that these priests helped David, he's furious.

He goes down and starts yelling at these priests, how could you possibly help

someone who's my enemy? And they respond, look, we didn't know he was an enemy.

Last we heard, he works in your courtroom. He's a warrior for your king.

We thought he was on your side. I don't know anything about courtrooms.

And again, Saul doesn't hear any of it. He orders one of his men to kill 83

priests. This is how much that he is enraged.

Anyone who helps David, he said, is going to be killed.

And so if David looks around and begins to say, you know, this guy is a bad

person and he's done evil things.

And so in a sense, me killing him is, is, is the least of what he deserves.

You could rationalize the payback.

You could say to someone that you work with, you know, she gossiped about me.

So all I'm trying to do is let people know what kind of person they are.

Well, my boss didn't appreciate me when I stayed late last time.

So I'm just going to coast the rest of this afternoon on the clock,

because that's the least that they owe me considering all that I've put in here.

You could say to this assignment that a teacher does, she's never going to read

it anyway. So what's the difference if I use chat GTP or not?

We could have all kinds of ways to justify that we want to get back at somebody.

And yes, it might be wrong for most people, but surely in our situation, it's okay.

But David doesn't do that. He decides not to get revenge, even though everything

about the situation would make us hear David's story and say, that just makes sense.

But David said, it is not my place.

The other thing that we can do when we're looking for that shortcut is not only

do a narrative that says justified payback.

We can say, well, you know, given that situation I've been going through the

last few years, a little harmless indulgent is not the best.

All granted, you know, this wasn't necessarily the best move ever,

but everything that I've been through, I just think I'm owed a little something.

This is the one that slips when we're feeling lonely or we're feeling tired

or our finances have been difficult.

And so here he is, David's out in the desert. He's broken and he heard it and

he could have thought, let's just make my life a little easier right now.

And there's a lot of people that would begin to say, I so want to be married

that even though this person that I'm thinking of dating is not a good fit,

they went to church last under the Bush administration.

It's a long time ago, but I'm sure it'll all work out in the end.

And we begin to tell ourselves stories that say, well, I mean,

it's harmless, all things considered. I mean, we're going to move in together

because it's good for our finances, even if we're not married just yet.

And we explain it and we explain it and we explain it.

And so we start to make these shortcuts. And we say it about,

well, like God understands because we're only human.

But as we've seen in this story, those small choices can lead to all kinds of

heartache and brokenness because you're not just human, you are also holy.

And while God can forgive any setback, It doesn't change the fact that these

moments can derail our story, as Mark said.

It can end up hijacking your future because things can often be more difficult when they get off track.

So I was canoeing this past week. We were out doing a wilderness adventure with

high school kids, which is perfect for me and Tess to lead due to our total

lack of experience doing it and no familiarity with the area,

so we were well qualified.

And we're leading a canoe trip on Wednesday. And we're going to take off down

the James River, and we've got all our stuff ready, and I'm listening to the

safety briefing sort of.

And we're going in this moment to go down the river, and we're explaining to

them, look, Tess and I are going to take the lunch because unlike you teenagers,

We're not going to horse around.

We're going to do this right. We're going to be careful. So we take the cooler

with the lunch, which really, really came back to bite us when I was the first one to sink a canoe.

And we just, we just, we got going sideways and boom, right under, right under we go.

And then at that point, I'd realized some things that I maybe had not paid enough

attention to in the safety briefing.

One of them is that, you know, a life jacket is hot. It's filled with foam.

And although it might save you in the water, outside of the water,

it feels like wearing a sweater vest in the desert is what it feels like.

And so I may have left it a little loose, like really loose.

And I may have not zipped it up entirely, Case.

And so when I sank, it wanted to go away, apparently.

So I'm clutching it to try to keep it from flying off my body,

but it is not well balanced for me at this point.

So I am now sinking off and on in the river, hitting the river bottom rocks,

which is just great because it's like getting smacked again and again and the

river's saying, told you so, told you so, told you so, told you so.

I got bruises and cuts all on the back of my legs right here from this wonderful experience.

And then you go to try to push the canoe to the side.

And although a canoe doesn't seem heavy when you're rowing it,

when the entire river is pushing against you, it is more challenging than you might think.

We get to the shore, we rescued the cooler and turn it up and all that.

Fortunately, the James River is super clean. So all that nice,

clear, brown, organic water coming out of our cooler bag.

You know, sometimes when we ignore those instructions that God gave us,

wear your life vest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I know you should.

But I mean, what are the chances you're going to sink?

Honestly, you know, we make these compromises and then we go through these huge

difficulties that break God's heart and our relationships are broken.

And we said things we can't take back now.

And we did things that ended up making the situation so much worse.

And when you look at the story of David, it is a reminder that one of the things

that sets David apart, even though he's going to make huge mistakes later in

his life. And we'll look at those even starting next week.

But at this point in his life, his unquestionable loyalty to both God and to

Saul, even though Saul doesn't deserve it, is what helps keep David anchored

from making choices that have derailed so many other leaders.

He chooses to trust.

It's just a hard thing to do in the midst of all of it.

The other thing that we can look at is not only justified payback,

we run a narrative in our head that said this friend deserved it,

or this person deserved it, or we say to ourself a little harmless indulgence,

all that I've been through, I kind of owed a little some good stuff for myself.

It's really self-care more than it is anything else.

But the last one is that strategic compromise.

When Abraham was promised that he would have descendants like the stars,

and he's looking around, and he's old, and Sarah's old, and then he begins to

think, you know, Hagar is my wife's servant.

And technically, and by the way, my kids would tell you, anytime you're using

the word technically to explain your actions, you're really,

really not in a good place.

Technically speaking, it would still be my child. And technically,

I mean, it's really my wife's okay with it.

And so if she's okay with it, it's not really a violation of our marriage actually.

And he goes ahead and instead of having the child of promise that God had wanted

to orchestrate in Isaac.

Instead, he has Ishmael with the servant Hagar.

He just took a shortcut. But it didn't feel like sin.

I mean, it just felt like strategy. I mean, it was just a little bit of fudging

of a few things, all things considered.

I don't think it's not cheating on your taxes. I mean, the government mismanages your money anyway.

And so cheating on your taxes a little bit to get some of that money back is

honestly completely justified if you think about it.

I mean, if you think about it, I mean, yes, you might have to kind of bend a

few things at work to make the numbers come out, but it's going to help sales

and help the company forward.

And it's, you know, if you look at it, I mean, I wouldn't say it's wrong. Exactly.

There's so many games we play in our minds because there is a way that seems

right to a person, but it leads to death.

David is sitting there with a knife in his hand and all of his problems are right there in Saul.

And without Saul around, all of his problems go away.

And how tempting it would be in that moment to say, it's just one thing in the midst of it.

And so David comes to this realization that all of us need to realize when we

follow, and that is you cannot achieve the purposes of God if you're breaking

the commandments of God.

That there's no way in which you're going to find the blessings and the empowerment

of God if the root to it is violating the commandments of God.

And here, David's integrity shocks both us as the readers and all that David

has been through, and David's men who cannot believe that this is what David

is saying in response to this.

And it reminds me, I was at a preaching conference back when I was much younger.

Bob Russell was there. He was the preacher at Southeast, a huge,

our biggest church out in Louisville.

And he gets this talk about ministry students.

And one of the lines that he said that really punched me in the stomach is to

be the example and not the exception.

And it sounds like a trite thing, but it hit me at the time as someone who may

have grown up around Bible college and so kind of knew my way around things,

how to swipe at chapel without actually attending,

how to get things taken care of without actually doing it, which professors

you could talk bad about because their assignments were ridiculously overkill,

honestly, and they're not going to read it anyway.

And I find myself with all kinds of explanations and his talk to be an example,

to be the kind of person that if your life was listed out, you wouldn't need

to give the extenuating circumstances because it's a good example.

It's not where things went wrong

and need other stories and background to make it sound right and good.

Don't be the exception, be the example. It's a hard thing when you're in the cave.

We have to, like David in our next movement here, we have to find courage in

the cave and we have to choose God over easy.

Here's what David says in the next verse. We're in chapter 24,

verse five. This is the next verse from what we read.

After that David had cut this piece off of Saul's road, David was conscious

stricken because he had cut a piece off.

And he said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my

master, the Lord's anointed or lay my hand on him for he is the anointed of the Lord.

And even though Saul isn't a good person, God has put him in charge and God's

gonna have to be the one to remove him. With these words, David sharply rebuked

his men and did not allow them to attack Saul.

And Saul left the cave and went on his way.

He not only sets the right example, but he tells his men, this is not what it means to be a warrior.

There are times when David's incredible strength on the outside would say,

oh, David was going soft.

But for any of you that have had the opportunity for revenge,

but have chosen forgiveness and said, you know that that is not a soft response.

That is perhaps one of the hardest responses and a sign of great strength.

David says, no, we should not do such a thing. This is not a battle.

This is not, we're not sent by God to do this. Samuel didn't tell us to do this.

No prophet told us to do this. There's no commandment here.

This isn't like in a war where there's two sides fighting. This is cold-blooded murder, and it's wrong.

And in fact, when it goes on, it's going to say, David will cite in verse 13,

he'll say this phrase, that out of the wickedness, out of the wicked come wickedness,

or your translation might have, evildoers do evil.

And he's citing this proverb, which essentially means that your sin does not

justify my sin as a response.

That your sin does not justify my sin as a response.

That even that just because you did something evil or somebody did something

evil to you, that does not give you license to respond in kind.

That even though David could say, he's murdered 85 priests, I'm at zero.

So if I do one, that's really not that bad.

David said, if I commit murder, even for one, even for this other person who's bad, I am a murderer.

Because out of the wicked come wickedness. And what David says is even one action is wrong.

And I guess that means for us, when we have that teacher, that boss,

that friend who does not deserve kindness,

who doesn't deserve a positive response, but if we choose to respond the way

that we have been treated to them, what he is saying is our own hearts begin

to be damaged by the process.

And David here says, no.

Now, Saul at this moment in the story has gone down a serious spiral.

I mean, when you start killing priests who aren't even your enemies,

we have to start asking, how did this happen?

How did Saul go from being this noble leader who was fighting battles for God

to maybe bending a couple rules and it just went farther and farther because

we see a digression in Saul's life because of pride.

And not the good kind of pride like you made a meal and you say,

I'm proud of what I did or I'm helping to feed the homeless or I'm doing good

grade at school that was very difficult.

There's a certain kind of pride which is perfectly in line with the way God

made us. When God looked at the world, he said it was good.

And there are things when we do good because of the way God designed us,

we can look at that and find joy because we have done something that we know honors our creator.

But there's a different kind of pride that when it takes the driver's seat,

leads to all kinds of destruction.

And even though Saul doesn't start as a villain, it may be helpful to consider

now that he has gone much deeper in the story than when we started, how did it get so bad?

And maybe for some of us, it'll kind of be like lights on the dash on a car

that are warning flags that if

some of these symptoms start to be in your life, then maybe, just maybe.

They might apply to you. Like that Jeff Foxworthy joke, if such and such and

such and such, then you might be a redneck.

Well, if certain things start happening, it's possible that pride is taking

too strong of a role in the driver's seat of your life.

The first we're going to notice about Saul way back in chapter 18 is when offense

becomes obsession, that he's got his radar up and he is ready to find out who

is for him and who's against him. And he listens to all of it.

He listens to all of it through the lens of who is against me.

And so right there in chapter 18, verses seven and eight, it says that Saul

killed his thousands and David killed his tens of thousands.

Now that is just normal Hebrew poetry, honestly.

Hebrew poetry often has two phrases stacked on top of each other that basically

the second statement echoes the first one, but a little bit louder.

Like the heavens declare the glory of God, meaning they speak,

right but the skies proclaim which is a word that

means to shout they so the skies proclaim his

handiwork so declare in the first sentence proclaim in

the second it's a little bit loud then a little louder you have ones

about not walking with the wicked or not not sitting down and fellowshipping

with scoffers in psalm chapter one this is a normal part of hebrew poetry and

the women who are writing it are probably just saying you know saul's had military

victories and look the next generation is going even further a win for israel's

a win for saul no one's thinking anything about it, but that's not how Saul hears it.

Not about the music. It's about the math.

And he says, how come he got the 10,000? How come they said his name with 10,000 and not my name?

And then he says another line, which I love right after it there in verse eight.

He says, might as well take my whole kingdom. Then you're going to sing a song

like that. You might as well steal the whole kingdom.

You know how when people get offended, everything gets escalated to louder and louder.

It's that person who's always on the lookout for, for who said something.

And they're easily, they're ready to jump on the first sign that somebody may

be offering me a criticism.

And so Saul sees criticism where there is none and where there's actually praise.

Instead, all he sees is competition instead of celebration.

He looks up at this song being sung. And instead of saying, wow,

we did just defeat the Philistines.

Yes, that's right. My army defeated the Goliath's army. That was great.

Instead, he says, like, if this is going to be the case, then clearly everyone is out to get me.

There's a part of us that when pride begins to take the seat,

it just finds a fence and you can always find it when you're on the lookout.

Your friend gets the promotion and you respond in kind by saying,

well, it must be nice. You don't have kids.

It must be nice to have all that free time. Not like what I'm going through.

Friend gets that promotion at work or they're doing, they look like they just

bought something new and say, yeah, well, they're not going to church anywhere.

You know, if we didn't tithe, we could. And you fill in the blank with that.

You begin to comment with saying you see a post online about something that

somebody is doing and your response is you take it personal and become angry and see it as an enemy.

When offense becomes your lens, you'll start fighting people who are never actually against you.

But the next thing we see in Saul's life is that his empathy evaporates.

A sign that pride is beginning to take a strong voice is not only do you seem

to find more offense than most people, but your empathy, that is to begin to

imagine a situation through the eyes of the other person,

to temper how you're responding, starts to go away.

And instead, every situation is interpreted only in terms of how it affects you.

So in chapter 20, Jonathan comes to Saul and says, you know,

David's not going to make this upcoming banquet, I gave him permission to go

back and do this religious sacrifice, this ceremony with his family.

Now, that was the story that Jonathan told Saul.

And when Saul hears about it, he explodes in fury.

How dare he? This is my event. I'm the victory. I get to decide who comes and

goes, not you. And he's just so angry at Jonathan.

He's so angry at David. He's so mad. And not one time does he say,

wait a minute, is everything okay in David's household?

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Why is he going back and doing

this? Is everything all right there? Is somebody sick?

What's things like back home? I know he comes from a poor family,

so making sure they're taken care of. He doesn't care about what's going on

in David's life because he's lost the ability to see the world that way.

And I know some of my friends who are teachers that they have parents who are

exploding in anger from like the second week of school.

There's not even any time by because they showed up ready to go for a fight.

And one of the great gifts you could give your kids and especially you guys

who are in school or going into college or high school is to know that your

teachers are people, which means that sometimes when they're having a difficult time,

it's because there are things going on in their life that aren't about you.

When pride takes the seat, everything that happens, the assignments,

the grades, the comments, they didn't wave to me in the hallway.

They did wave to me in the hallway. They tried to talk to me.

They wouldn't talk to me.

All of it gets interpreted as an attack and a possible sign that they're against me.

One of the things you can begin to develop is that empathy, which says,

you know, sometimes people end up doing things that as we think about it, we have also done.

So my wife and I may have been the first people to sink the canoe.

That is absolutely true. We were the first ones.

And I could have in a few moments, we get it all up and like,

good, show you guys how to bail out the water and push it to the side.

And all these bruises are just to show you the dangers of the river and tighten

those life jackets, people.

And then we get back to it. And sure enough, a few minutes later,

a couple of the high school kids, they sink their canoe and I could explode

into anger and say, you know what? That's the problem with young people. So irresponsible.

Like, oh my goodness, how could you think something like that?

Not paying attention to the rap. You know, you're not listening to the instructions

at all. I didn't say that because I'd have been too embarrassed to say it.

But if you give me two days, two days between my wreck and theirs,

and suddenly it's perfectly fine to say, what's wrong with those young people?

Because when we lose empathy, remembering that we have had days where we showed

up late and we weren't as prepared.

We've had tragedy in our life and still had to go back to work and our head wasn't totally in it.

But we forget very quickly that what we have gone through, others have also

gone through because pride evaporates empathy.

The last one you're going to notice is that proximity turns to paranoia,

that it starts off with five times between chapter 18 and 25,

Saul tries to kill David.

And in the midst of one of them, he gets so angry at Jonathan that he throws

a spear and tries to kill Jonathan as well,

which doesn't make any sense because earlier Saul had said to Jonathan,

the reason we have to get rid of David is so that you can have a kingdom,

Jonathan, because if David's alive, you'll never get to be king.

So the very person that he's fighting for, he also tried to kill because one

of the greatest tragedies of pride is that it doesn't just affect people out there.

And even if it started because of work and your anger is at the unfairness at

work and education and your home family growing up and all that,

it will be those who are closest to you.

It will be your spouse and your kids and your friends who are going to take

the brunt of the anger and the outrage and the short fuse.

You become so wrapped up in your point at work that you're just crusading for

it, that you actually step on the people who are on your side originally.

You yell at your mom your spouse or your best friend, because they're telling

you that they don't think what you're about to do is a good idea and you can't

stand the idea that they would question it.

That must mean they were against you the whole time.

You're offended when somebody sees you slip instead of being grateful that you

had someone around to catch you and help you put it back right.

Pride poisons your perspective.

And so right here in the middle of it, we see David's, this contrast between

the way that David responds in the cave with where how Saul and the descent that Saul is making.

First Samuel will end with the death of Saul at the end of the book.

And his descent into the midst of all of us is a warning for us on how pride

can distort things because pride doesn't explode all at once like murder. It just leaks.

It just changes the way we see things just a little bit, like a window at your

house that gets a little dirtier and a little dirtier and you don't even notice

it, but it's harder and harder to see the good things outside.

And so he's still wearing a crown, but he's just obsessed with getting rid of any perceived enemies.

He's surrounded by blessings. There are so many victories that take place in

Israel between chapter 18 and 25, but Saul can't see any of it anymore because

he's only looking at it through the lens of David.

He's standing tall in the spotlight. He is the center of power and attention,

but his kingdom is already lost because his heart is so far removed from reality.

Pride doesn't explode at once, it leaks. And so when we look at this last moment,

here's one where we're gonna see that David has this conversation with Saul. Here's what it says.

This is David talking. He said, this day, you have seen with your own eyes how

the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave.

And some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, I will not lay my hand

on my Lord because he is the Lord's anointed.

See, my father, that is, he's talking to Saul. It's a term of respect.

See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand. I cut off the corner

of your robe, but did not kill you.

You see, there is nothing in my hand to indicate that I'm guilty of wrongdoing

or rebellion or anything like that.

I've not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life.

And Saul hears this and Saul breaks into tears and he's weeping and he's like,

I'm so sorry, David. I make a covenant now. I'm never going to hurt you. This was wrong.

And they reconcile right there and they're going to go back.

But verse 22 is going to say that they're going to each give each other an oath

that says, Saul says, I'm not going to pursue you anymore.

And David says, I'm going to keep doing what I was doing, which I will be loyal

and faithful, even if you're not.

And Saul returned home and David went back to his stronghold.

And I think that's an important side note to mention here, that even though

Saul appears sorry and he's appeared repentant, that doesn't mean David went

back into the courtroom right away.

You see, there are times when, and Saul does honor his promise not to kill David

for about half a chapter.

Then he's like, no more, I think about it, he needs to die still.

He's gonna go back on what he just promised.

And the thing about David is David wants to reconcile with Saul,

but that doesn't mean he's an idiot.

And I only point this out because some Christians, because of our ideas about

forgiveness, can forget that even though David is clearly forgiving and honoring

to Saul, that doesn't mean he rushes back to put things just as they were before.

There are people who are in an abusive relationship who you can still desire

to reconcile and the other person can be sorry and be crying and you're repentant

and you can say that's good, but we're going to need some more time to see some

more repentance on whether or not the situation is safe. And that's exactly

what David does in the world.

But David chooses to honor the position even when the person is not honorable.

There are a few things about the Christian life that are more important to get

behind than this idea that the people we serve, we serve because God is good,

not because they're deserving.

That the people we forgive, we forgive because God has forgiven us,

not because they're worthy of it.

That the people that we are working, we work as for the Lord,

even if they are selfish and not deserving.

That even if our teacher is a little bit against us and even if they are difficult

to get along with, that we choose to say, here's the kind of character we want

to be because that's the kind of person God made us to be.

And even when the person or the boss or the person you're in,

and you're not going to have a shortage of them in your life,

some of you, if you told me about your boss, well, they may not have tried to impale you recently.

They came dang close several times. You have bosses that are not unlike Saul.

And the message coming back from David is that those who wait on the Lord will

be raised up on wings like evil.

Thanks for listening if you're near yorktown we'd love to see you in person

services are sundays at 9 and 10 45 a.m and wherever you are keep leaning into

hope because it really does change everything.