1 and 2 Samuel: Our Consistency or God's Faithfulness?

Well, we are finishing the book of 1 Samuel today.

Last week we saw how the shepherd boy David was gaining success and popularity in Israel, specifically through military victories, and he's depending on God throughout that.

Today we're gonna see how our hope is not in our own consistency.

Our hope is in God's faithfulness to us.

Now, and in the book and in the movie The Lord of the Rings, the story is about the boy Frodo, this little guy that to save the world, he has to take a ring to the top of a mountain and destroy the ring.

But the closer he gets, the heavier the mission becomes, the heavier the ring comes on him.

It's more than he can bear himself.

So at the end of that movie, he's crawling up Mount Doom and he has nothing left.

He has no strength, he has no ability, he has no consistency.

And then his friend Sam shows up.

Outside help shows up.

Let's watch about a minute and a half of this clip.

See, our faith is experienced as something we have, something we carry, but the greater truth is that God is carrying you while you're doing that very thing.

And today we're gonna see that in David, what we see with David is that our hope is not in our consistency.

Our hope is in God's faithfulness to us.

As Sam carries Frodo, God carries us.

Now, back in 1 Samuel, we're nearing the end of David's wilderness years.

He's had about seven to ten years of running from King Saul.

Saul pursuing him, trying to kill him, and David running.

Seven to ten years of this.

And at times David shines, and at times David really does stumble.

But the story, again, is not about David's consistency, that's about God's faithfulness.

After Samuel the prophet dies, David's in the wilderness.

He sends to get provisions from a wealthy guy named Nabal.

Nabal says no.

Nabal responds in hatred, and David gets angry about this.

I mean, how dare you not give provision to me and my guys?

So David is going to seek out revenge on this wealthy guy.

But Nabal's wife Abigail gets to David first.

And she reminds David of God's purposes for David.

She reminds David, urges him, don't stain the future of your kingship out of anger and out of this murder.

Don't murder my husband.

David relents, and that's where we get our scripture reading for today, 1 Samuel 25, jump in at verse 32.

And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me.

Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand.

For surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you.

Unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left in a ball so much as one male.

Then David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, Go in peace to your house.

See, I have obeyed your voice and have granted your petition.

Point number one is this God's grace to us is often experienced through other people.

God's grace to us is often experienced through other people.

David is ready to destroy everything in his life to get revenge.

This isn't measured justice.

This is abreactive anger.

But Abigail steps in.

The Lord used Abigail in David's life.

God's grace to us is often through other people.

Last week my Uncle Jack was in town.

He was here at church with us.

Here's a picture of my Uncle Jack and I.

This is up in Seattle where he lives a few months ago.

Great picture, horrible hat, great picture.

He wears the hat just to annoy me.

I mean, look, he's even wearing the colors, and he does that just to annoy me.

He's just really poking at me every time he's gonna have that Georgia Tech hat on.

Horrible hat.

Jack's about 82 years old, he's 82 years old, decent health.

Might have been his last trip through the South to see his brother in Mississippi, to see us here in Georgia.

Now, when I was 13 years old, my parents divorced.

And when my parents divorced, my Uncle Jack stepped in.

He stepped in as a fatherly figure.

He came to my parents' weekend at college.

He spoke at my rehearsal dinner at our wedding.

When Christy and I were young and we were married with no kids in Atlanta, he would come through Atlanta about once a month on business and he would say, Hey, I'm gonna be here on Saturday night.

You make the reservation.

Any restaurant you want in Atlanta, I'll pay for it.

And we did that for years.

No kids in Atlanta.

Once a month, we got eating the best restaurants in all of Atlanta, all on Uncle Jack.

It was amazing.

Uncle Jack stepped in.

Jack gave me someone to look up to, to ask questions to, to have my back.

Jack was an Abigail in my life.

God's grace is often experienced through other people.

Some of the greatest evidences of God's care for you will be other people showing up at certain times and seasons of your life.

So there's a couple questions I would like to ask.

Are we listening when God sends an abigail into our lives?

And are we grateful to God for the abigails that have cared for us?

Even to take time this week, slow down, reflect back on the different seasons of your life, God's grace to you through these abigails that have been sent to you.

In chapter 26, Saul again pursues David in the wilderness.

David sneaks into Saul's camp while Saul's asleep.

Saul's vulnerable, but David again refuses to kill this guy who's trying to kill him.

David won't kill the Lord's anointed.

Instead, he takes Saul's spear and a jug of water to prove his restraint, trying to get mercy from Saul.

1 Samuel 26, verse 12, jump to 23 and 24.

1 Samuel 26:12

So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul's head, and they went away.

No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them.

Now here's David speaking, verse 23.

The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness.

For the Lord gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the Lord's anointed.

Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may He deliver me out of all this tribulation.

So David spares Saul's life again.

Saw it last week, again this week.

David has a heart of mercy.

And that's coming out of the mercy shown to him from God.

And a contrast is showing up.

The lack of character in Saul out of jealousy to try to kill David, and then contrasted with David, a merciful heart, that even in moments when he could take care of this problem, he won't murder Saul.

But the story goes on and David begins to doubt.

David is in fact not perfect.

1 Samuel 27, 1.

Then David said in his heart, Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.

So the despair, the doubt is creeping in.

He says, There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines.

Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.

So David is in despair.

Saul will never stop.

This will never change.

You ever said that?

You're in a season.

This will never change.

This will never get any better.

I have no hope.

So David breaks.

His fear takes over.

He ends up going to the very place of his enemies, the Philistines.

If you had told him years before that he would take refuge with the Philistines, remember that was Goliath's people.

David fought against them, and now David is taking refuge with his enemies.

Point number two is this out of fear, we can seek refuge in the wrong places.

Out of fear, we can seek refuge in the wrong places.

Do you notice that phrase in verse 1?

Then David said in his heart, that phrase should slow us down.

Instead of running to the Lord, David listens to his fear.

And he ends up going to his enemy.

The very place he should not be seeking safety and refuge, he goes to.

And the point is that none of us are above deceiving ourselves or finding refuge in destructive places.

David teaches us that when we're afraid, we can do some crazy things with all of us.

We need godly people around us.

Just a few years before this, this season where he runs to the Philistines.

A few years earlier, he wrote this, Psalm 56, 3 and 4.

Same guy, same guy wrote this.

In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

So the guy who wrote that fails to trust.

Because fear blinds us.

And in our sin we don't want to trust.

We want to take control.

I'll find my own refuge.

I'll find my own relief.

But good news.

Good news.

The good news is that our fear and our sin does not change God's faithfulness to us.

Our hope is not in our own consistency, even in our lack of consistency, God is still at work.

Now, how should we process our fear?

How should we think about our fear when it does begin to overwhelm us?

Well, Peter Scazaro's book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, great book of the intersection of emotional health and gospel, it helps us really process fear.

Here's the process to summarize the teaching.

Here's the process to go through.

Number one, become aware.

What am I feeling right now?

Okay, I'm feeling afraid.

What am I feeling?

What is my fear?

See if we can name it.

What is my what am I afraid of?

And then go beneath the surface.

What is this fear really about?

What am I afraid might happen?

Third, notice what's driving us.

What am I trying to control?

Or what am I avoiding?

Fourth, bring it to God.

Can I sit with God in this feeling?

So rather moving into ab reaction and more sin, can I sit with this for a second with God?

Can I allow myself to be honest before Him?

Fifth, release the outcomes.

What do I need to let go of?

What do I need to surrender?

Can I surrender this to God?

And then sixth, receive and respond.

What is God inviting me to do next?

What is the next step of love and trust?

The goal is to slow down, to let the fear take us to a deeper issue rather than letting the fear just send us into abreaction and destructive path.

David just abreacted.

I'll run the Philistines, I'll take refuge there.

But we have to move through our fear to surrender to God.

Chapter 28, Saul's desperate.

He hears a message of judgment from God.

Saul hears that through that disobedience, the kingdom's going to be given to David.

Also he hears that he and his sons are going to die in a battle.

Chapter 29.

David almost goes to battle with the Philistines against his own people.

That's how far this has gone.

But before the battle, the Philistines start to get concerned.

This is still David.

Like this is the guy who took Goliath out.

He's not one of us.

And so they get concerned.

Maybe he's going to turn on us.

So they say send David and the men away back to the town they were living in.

But when they get back to the town they were living in, that town has been destroyed.

And then David's own people turn on him.

They've had enough.

1 Samuel 30, verse 6.

1 Samuel 30:6

And David was greatly distressed, for the people, his own people, spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters.

But David strengthened himself in the Lord is God.

And David said to Abiathar, the priest and the son of Ahamelech, bring me the ephod.

So Abiathar brought the ephod to David.

And David inquired of the Lord, Shall I pursue after this band?

Shall I overtake them?

He answered him, Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.

Point number three is this our strength is found in the Lord's faithfulness, not our consistency.

That's what I've been saying.

That's the point, that's the story that's being played out here.

We have faith in God's faithfulness, not faith in our own faith.

Our faith is actually in God's faithfulness to us.

For David, everything's lost.

Even his own people are turning on him.

But we read the most hopeful line of the narrative.

Verse 6.

But David strengthened himself, and the Lord is God.

See, we're all Frodo on the mountain.

And we can't make it any further.

If you felt like that, you probably feel like that in some area of your life, if not all of life.

It is mayhem.

Some of you feel like you can't make it to another awards banquet.

I can't make it up the mountain any further, right?

But there's some area of life, some area of your heart.

It's like, I just can't make it any further.

You're Frodo, you need sand to show up.

You're you're humanity, and you need God's grace to show up.

Because it's not about our perfect consistency.

It's about God's faithfulness.

Listen to what David wrote in this Psalm, Psalm 18, 1 through 6.

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me, the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress, I called upon the Lord.

To my God, I cried for help.

From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.

See, David returns to God's faithfulness.

Fear and failure are never the end of our stories.

David has fear and failure, so do we.

But there's a deeper story.

God is a faithful artist weaving a story even through all of David's mess, even through all of our mess.

There's a thread that holds it all together.

There's a thread that holds our lives all together, even in the mess.

A few months ago, a tapestry, a piece of art sold for$750,000.

This tapestry right here, 1903, Frida Hansen, she made this tapestry.

$750,000, a billionaire buys this.

It's the most a tapestry's ever been sold for.

On the front of it, it's lovely.

I don't know if you're into tapestries or not.

You could buy this, maybe it's appreciated.

Maybe you can give a million dollars and have this tapestry hanging in your house.

It'd be lovely.

Now, on the front of it, it looks nice, but on the back of a tapestry, it's an absolute mess.

Here's actually a front and back of a different tapestry, just to get the idea of a front and a back of a tapestry.

When you look at the back of a tapestry, it looks like chaos.

See, often all we see is the back.

Right?

That's what David saw right before he runs to the Philistines.

He just sees a mess.

He can't see the thread that God is weaving.

He doesn't see a beautiful story.

He sees no end here.

But the artist is creating something.

You just can't see it right now.

And what holds it together is one single continuous thread.

That's how tapestry works.

And what holds our lives together is one single continuous thread.

And that thread is not your strength, and it is not your consistency.

That thread is God's faithfulness to us, known to you in Jesus.

Listen to 2 Corinthians 1.20.

For all the promises of God find their yes in him.

Speaking of Jesus.

All the promises of God find their yes in Jesus.

That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory.

1 Timothy 2.13.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful.

The invitation is to trust all the more, not in our own consistency, strength, ability, or our faith, but to trust in God's faithfulness to us.

When David falters, Jesus does not.

When we falter, Jesus does not.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that you know us and love us.

That you know we're like David at times.

We really shine in front of difficulties and battles, and at times we're a mess and we run to some pretty destructive places.

Lord, we're so thankful that your faithfulness to us continues.

That you do not love us.

You are not with us because of our own righteousness resume, but because of the righteousness of Jesus.

We're not forgiven because of our merit, we're forgiven because of Jesus.

Help us to trust all the more and all the yeses we have in Jesus.

Forgive us for all the ways we try to take salvation in our own hands, justification, even our own worth.

And help us to trust in you to slow down, to say we take our refuge, we take our strength in you alone.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.