The Power of Listening in a God-Centered Life

I hope you're enjoying this nice balmy morning in Arkansas.

I'm used to it. This feels feels good. I'm feeling alive this morning. Maine. I'm from Maine. I feel like I'm cheating when winter is 50 degrees. Okay, so I just feel like I'm cheating at life. So right now things feel normal for me, but maybe not for you. That's okay. Union with Christ unites us whatever our weather preference is. We are continuing our series in the God-centered life from a practical vantage point. Last week we talked about the Christian and the gospel. This week we're talking about the Christian and listening.

Listening. Now, that's not normally what you would expect if you were hearing somebody lay out a three-part series.

You might expect a bigger topic than that, but actually I think that listening is a very underrated skill and discipline in the Christian life. It's one of those disciplines that is easy to say. I listen. Oh, yeah, of course I listen. You hear a message preached about listening or hearing counsel or hearing wisdom or hearing conviction. You go. Oh, yeah, always always all the time. That's me. And then you step back and you think is that me? Do I listen perfectly? Do I need to listen better? In a sense is Christian discipleship at its core? Listening? Is practical godliness at its root?

Hearing? Our text this morning invites all of these kind of questions and more. It is 1 Samuel 25. 1 Samuel 25. Not a place necessarily we would expect to be on this fine January morning, but this is a corker of a passage about listening. We get several different examples of people who hear wisdom who are confronted with it and they respond in different ways. 1 Samuel 25. I'm going to start out reading the passages here. I'm going to see how far I get. I may have to summarize as I go and not read as much.

Now, Samuel died for Samuel 25. 1 and all Israel assembled and mourned for him and they buried him in his house at Ramah. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Peron and there was a man in Mayon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had 3000 sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. He was a Calibite. David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent 10 young men and David said to the young men, go up to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name and thus you shall greet him. Peace be to you and peace be to your house and peace be to all that you have. I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us and we did them no harm and they miss nothing all the time. They were in Carmel. Ask your young men and they will tell you therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes for we come on a feast day.

Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son. David, let's pray. Father help us to hear your word afresh this morning. Work in our hearts through your Holy Spirit even as we will see in this passage you worked in David's heart in Jesus name. Amen. In this first section, I'm just going to go section by section throughout this chapter for Samuel 25 and then I'm going to give you some brief applications at the end. In this first section of 1 Samuel 25 verses 1 to 8, we meet in Nabal a type found throughout scripture what I call the angry man. This is an angry man. Nabal is married to a lovely woman, a woman who we will study soon named Abigail, but Nabal is not a lovely man. Nabal is angry.

1 Samuel 25:1–8

The Hebrew describes him in visceral, unmistakable language. Verse 3, he was harsh. It's a harsh man. Firstly, a harsh man has little to no grace in his worldview.

That's the first problem if you're a harsh man or a harsh woman by extension as well, but for our purposes a harsh man has little to no grace operating in his worldview and thus in your day-to-day life you have little to know grace in it. Nabal happened to be very rich. The text tells us verse 2, but men of this type are found all throughout our world. This man was not marked by love. He was not characterized in any way by gentleness.

He was certainly not drenched in humility. At his core, Nabal was a proud man. His pride blinded him to the defects of his character and this is a danger for all of us. This is what in fact man or woman, boy or girl, this is what pride does. It blinds us and it hardens us.

People can be talking to us. People can be saying vital and valuable and really important things. They can repeat those things over and over. We can hear warnings from pulpits and teachers. We can have friends come up to us and give us wise counsel, kind of an early intervention, all sorts of things or you can hear it in a more strenuous fashion. This is true of all of us in some form. This is all of us. This isn't just this wicked man. This is all of us. We all have a lifelong battle with pride, not some people in here, not some people. Every person in here in their own form and two different degrees, yes, has their own battle with pride. So Nabal, in confronting Nabal, we're practicing what I sometimes call a reflective hermeneutic, a reflective hermeneutic. The text is not being studied alone. Your eyes are not going only to the text. The text is a mirror and the text is bouncing back at us. It's jumping back up at us and it's causing us to go, "Nepal, what an idiot. He was so proud. I'm not like that. I'm a Christian." No, the text is going, is causing us to go, "Whoa, pride and harshness looks really ugly on this man. This is an extreme case. Don't misunderstand.

Where do I have pride? Where do I have harshness? Where am I not listening? That's what a reflective hermeneutic means. It reflects back on you. So you're not commenting on biblical characters from the bleachers. "Oh, look at that pass. That was so stupid. Look at what they did. They sinned. They messed up. They broke the law. That's so bad.

I'm so glad I'm not like them." That's not how we read the Bible. It's not how we preach the Bible. It's not how we teach the Bible. We read it reflectively. I don't mean some weird liberal idea there. It might sound a little squishy. I don't mean anything squishy. I mean when we're reading it, it reflects back on us and that's good. That's God's grace to us. We need this. "Nebal's harshness of heart, his utter lack of humility and kindness has rendered him," verse 3, "a badly behaved man. You look at his life and a string of pain and sadness and conflict follows." That's what follows in his wake. Pain, sadness, conflict, suffering. And that's exactly what we see in this next passage, verses 9 through 13. "When David's young men came, they said all this to Nebal in the name of David, and then they waited, and Nebal answered David's servants." Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. "Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I've killed for my shears and give it to men who come from I do not know where?" "So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. David said to his men,'Every man strap on his sword, and every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword, and about 400 men went up after David, while 200 remained with the baggage.'" As I said in Nebal's heart is in conflict with God, and so his life is filled with conflict. And that's how it works. There's usually, at least in normal terms, not somebody who has a great working relationship with God, saved by grace through faith alone, who then their life is just a battlefield everywhere you turn, usually where God saves somebody and puts a heart at peace and rest. Their life has peace and rest, at least with loved ones and believers. I don't mean your life gets easy when you follow Christ. Nebal is a picture of somebody who is in conflict with God. He's proud. That's the fundamental sword we thrust at God into the sky, fried. And so again, his life is conflictual, approached by David's men in honor and respect. How does Nebal respond? Verse 10, he's distrusting. Who is David?

Also, verse 10, he's insulting. He refers to David as a mere servant when David is going to be the king of Israel. He's a wronged king and waiting.

Nebal, thirdly, is selfish. He doesn't part with his food or provisions. He wants life on his own terms. He doesn't want anything rearranged. He doesn't want to be inconvenienced. He wants it how?

He wants it, and he's not going to have anybody tell him otherwise. He's selfish. He's a bitter, angry man, and his household is a miserable.

Household, but he's in control of it. So he's got that going for him. David is no wilting flower himself in response to this evil, genuinely evil words from Nebal. David, verse 13, readies his men for what David does best and what God, in fact, has equipped David for when appropriate. Bloodshed.

War. This is not going to be pretty. David is blessed and favored of God, and he leads a pack of fearsome warriors. They put the world to flight by the grace of God in the reign of David. When David comes your way, you should tremble. He doesn't look like much, but he is a fearsome warrior blessed by God and Nebal and everybody in Nebal's house is about to die. Those are the stakes. That's certainly what is going to happen. This is the law of that jungle.

But then another character reenters the story. Verse 14, but one of the young men told Nebal's wife, excuse me, behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master and he railed at them. Yet the men were very good to us and we suffered no harm and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields as long as we went with them.

They, David's men, his warriors, they were a wall to us both by night and by day. All the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know this and consider what you should do for harm is determined against our master and against all his house and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him. Pause there. This is actually along with Abigail, one of the heroes of the story.

We don't know the name of this young man, but this young man acts in profound wisdom. He intervenes.

He goes to Abigail who is reasonable and thoughtful and wise and gracious. In contrast to Nebal who is verse 17, such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him. What an indictment of character. Here is pride and full flower. You can't even say anything to him. You can say nothing to Nebal. He will not hear you. He is stoned. He cannot be won. This is the worst place you and I can be in this life.

Worst place is not under persecution or suffering in a prison or threat of martyrdom or not having enough money or something like this. The worst place to be is where Nebal is. He can't hear anything.

He is as stone. His name Nebal means fool and the Hebrew. That's what a fool is. A fool is somebody who won't listen. They won't listen to wisdom.

I need to synthesize what happens in 18 through 31. In this passage, we see that Abigail pays attention to what this young man unnamed says to her. She pays attention and in so doing she verses 18 and 19 gets a whole bunch of food ready and she prepares it for these warriors headed her way and she then she does not tell Nebal anything as David and his men verse 20 of 1 Samuel 25 came down toward her. She meets them and David has sworn verses 21 and 22 tell us to cut down his enemies without interruption verse 23 pick up there when Abigail saw David she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. She fell at his feet and said on me alone my lord be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant let not let not my lord regard this worthless fellow Nebal for as his name is fool. So is he Nebal is his name and folly is with him but I your servant did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent now then my lord has the Lord lives and as your soul lives because the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nebal and now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house because my lord David is fighting the battles of the Lord and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live if men this is quite a pronouncement verse 29. This is amazing if men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God and the lives of your enemies. He shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling and when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you Prince over Israel my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself and when the Lord has dealt well with my lord then remember your servant. This is one of the most stunning scenes in the Bible. It's incredible.

We don't talk more about this where Nabil respected disrespected David excuse me where Nabil disrespected David Abigail shows him profound respect you can get deep into the psychological world that it could get unhelpful pretty quickly but I can tell you this men want respect women want to be listened to and affection and tenderness and men want respect. It is an iron law. It is coded into a man to want to be respected. Nabil has has broken code. Nabil has disrespected David in extremity and Abigail who is not merely acting wise not merely acting shrewdly but is genuinely godly. I think Abigail shows David profound respect it. Listen if there are bad dynamics in a marriage between a husband and a wife one of the things that needs to be increased in that marriage is respect for the man wherever it can be given. Maybe there's not much respect you can give but wherever there is respect that you can give that is going to very much help a man where Nabil antagonizes David and his men Abigail acts in humility and grace where Nabil acted entitled Abigail expresses lowness.

She takes on the trespass of Nabil. She hasn't done anything wrong. She hasn't sinned as he has sinned and yet in verse 28 forgive the trespass of your servant. This is how humble Abigail is. She is so humble. You understand she will take on another's sin. She can't bear it on a cross. I don't mean that but she will take the consequences for it.

The responsibility for it. She basically says hold me accountable. That is incredible humility.

Who would want to do that? Who would want to do that before a pack of 400 warriors one woman. This is one woman in front of 400 men who can cut her down without a second thought and she stops them on a time. This is the power of humility. Humility is an even stronger power than pride.

Where Nabil fails to engage with reason he just spits back words. Abigail actually makes some careful arguments. What a thoughtful woman. Several things she does here. Five quick things she does.

She takes responsibility for the balls evil as I've said on me alone my lord be the guilt verse 24.

She secondly makes a connection with David in his frustration. She identifies in the ball as worthless verse 25. Who does she know of what she speaks. She has been in this marriage covenant with this man for who knows how long probably brought to Nabil as his wife probably not her choice. She's had to endure and it chokes you up just thinking about this. She's had to endure this evil angry badly behaved man for a year after year suffering. So there's a lot behind what she says.

Thirdly she honors David in serious measure. Verse 28 as I've already said the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house because my Lord is fighting the battles of the Lord. She's speaking rightly. She honors David. She speaks the language honestly of submission and respect. It's a beautiful language. It is very very powerful. It doesn't always feel powerful and I don't always mean that when a woman is submissive and respectful it will magically make everything right. I'm not trying to say that. Would that that were the case. That's not always the case but that is the right way to be according to the scripture in most cases at least.

And here she is honoring David in serious measure and that has the effect. Listen to me. That has the effect of calming David way down. You can almost see him relax in the text. She honors him genuinely not manipulatively genuinely honors him respects him appeals to how God is working in him rightly and that you can almost see David's grip on his sword. Relax. She also appeals to David's sense of restraint. Verse 26 because the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt. She's she's calling to David. Isn't that what Proverbs says wisdom calls. This is wisdom calling David. She's saying calmly and carefully. David hasn't the Lord restrained you from blood guilt and that is exactly what is true of David in the previous chapter.

David had an opportunity to kill Saul to take vengeance when Saul is repeatedly trying to kill David. You know this from first Samuel member this in the narrative. David is not acting like wicked Saul is acting but here after all these great temptations that David has faced and passed by the power of God's grace here he's been caught in a low moment. He's not been watchful in this moment with Nabal. He's been watchful with Saul. I cannot touch the Lord's anointed. I want to kill him. This man is making my life miserable. This man has sent me into the wilderness. My family is uprooted.

I've lost my friendships. I'm scrabbling around for food. That's what has caused the entire context of this passage. David doesn't even have a regular food supply. Saul has made David's life awful and yet David does not lift up his hand for vengeance.

He entrusts it to God. He's not perfect in that respect but that's his general pattern isn't it?

But here he's been caught out unawares. Here his guard was low. Something about Nabal's slap in the face of David's men got to David and he's do it here. What he didn't do with Saul and he's come for blood and Abigail says the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt. She doesn't get in his face.

She doesn't yell at him. She doesn't slap him.

She doesn't match him in vengeance and anger.

She she calms him down. Hasn't God kept you from violence? And then lastly she straightforwardly asks David for mercy. Verse 31. My Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my Lord working salvation himself and when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord. Then remember your servant. She's in the humble place isn't she? She doesn't go out and grab it. She appeals today. She's she's calling to the good in David. David is a good and God blessed me. She's calling to that in him. David this isn't you. This isn't you. Remember me in your mercy. She's saying this again as she looks at four. How would you like to be faced with 400 men warriors like the Navy's what if 400 Navy SEALs showed up in your yard tonight. But how how reasoned and thoughtful would you be on this plot.

Many of us would do super well. Abigail does incredibly well because God is speaking through her. God is using this remarkable woman. Abigail's intervention saves the day. David David responds in wonderment at this incredible display of godly feminine wisdom. 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 as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives who has restrained me from hurting you. It's going to kill her too wasn't he. Unless you had hurried and come to meet me truly by morning there had not been left to Nepal so much as one male. Now it appears that the primary target of the vengeance would be the men. And yet he says God restrained me from hurting you. This is what God does in a godly man's life. God takes men who are violent who are angry who are out of control and he makes them protectors of women. And no man does this perfectly as he should as Jesus Christ does with his bride the church. And yet God works in men Christian men to change us. Praise God for his grace. Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. Verse 35 and he said to her go up in peace to your house. See I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition.

David rightly recognizes that a woman of discretion is a tremendous blessing. The woman in Genesis 2 before the fall is called the helper of the man. And that doesn't just mean that the woman in a marriage quietly does her tasks and there's some aggregate help reaped as she does that and the guy does his thing and he doesn't need her input. It didn't need to talk to her.

It doesn't need to hear from her. He doesn't need her help spiritually. It's not what helper means.

It means comprehensive help. It means that this woman wise godly discerning gracious tender submissive smart gifted in many ways is a comprehensive blessing to her husband. That's what helper me. It doesn't mean in any way that a woman in the Bible in biblical terms in terms of the term helper is a lesser status than the man or helpers a demeaning term or all these things that are feminist age tells us our pagan age says to us. No it means the opposite. It means the woman is all kinds of gifts strengths and skills that she brings to the marriage not just the quiet stuff in the corner that she wordlessly does know what she comes to the man and offers.

He's the head. He's the one who is responsible before God for leading the family. So he's not taking a poll. Honey what do you want me to do?

Oh you want that. Oh okay. That's not that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about a godly man who has enough God security that he can hear from his wife and get counsel from his wife and talk through things and go you know that's a really good idea. Thank you so much for that.

Let's I'm going to we're going to do that. And then there are times of course where the guy says yeah thank you so much for that. I think we should do this. I think this is the course. I think this is the way God would have us go. I want to I want to talk this through ongoing Lee. This may be challenging. I love your counsel. We're going to have to go this way but let's stay together on this. Listen there's an array of situations. I can't cover all the ups and downs of all those kind of situations. I'm simply here to say that this chapter in first Samuel 25 shows us the glory and blessing of a godly woman. A true helper. They're not married yet in the passage.

They're going to be married. There's some complications of course with polygamy to be sorted out and I don't have time for that. But the leg of me is never God's design. The design of God is always one man one woman in marriage right. That's what happens in Genesis to one man one woman brought together by God. So that's always God's design polygamy is God accommodating sin for a time in his infinite wisdom but it is never his design. It is not what Jesus in Matthew 19 3 to 6 points to as the design of God. It is not what an elder is to be a man of many wives. No a one woman man if he is indeed married and so on and so forth. So don't young young people in here teens and college students and 20-somethings don't be drawn off by those who attack the Christian faith and say see the Bible advocates polygamy.

It does no such thing. God does allow his people some accommodations when they are sinful. Yes.

But that is not at all the same thing as God endorsing and loving polygamy. There is never a word in the Bible that shows that nonetheless there is some tension. There is some tension in this matter and that is something we can talk about at greater length. I'll hand that over to Jimmy when he teach him. Okay. We need to we need to go on. What happens next off. So so I'm at the I'm almost at the end of my time here.

What happens is that Abigail goes to Nabal in the morning tells him what has occurred. He has either commentators differ a stroke or a heart attack and 10 days later he dies at the news of what Abigail has transacted with David. David then blesses the Lord for striking down Nabal. He proclaims that the Lord verse 39 kept back his servant from wrongdoing. This is a marvelous display of what you call concurrence and theological terms. Humans are working at their level but above them God is working. Human agency and divine sovereignty are concurring they're working together to accomplish the one plan of God. I have to leave some meat on the bone. Unfortunately I need to give you some quick takeaways. Okay. Some quick takeaways here from this passage. First first wisdom is powerful.

Wisdom is powerful. Again Proverbs 1 all throughout the book of Proverbs. What does wisdom do? Wisdom calls. Wisdom is calling to you right now. Wisdom is powerful. If you will listen to it it will change you it will work in you by the grace of God by trust in Christ.

Wisdom will work throughout your life more and more and more and more and you will leave behind folly more and more and more. Remember the power of wisdom and the wisdom of God gloriously is contained in this book. All the wisdom God could ever give you and you could ever need is right here. It's right here. Second remember that we can't force people to do what is right. We can't force people to do what is right. God must work in their heart. Isn't Abigail a wonderful demonstration of that? Does Abigail come to David and seize him and say do this David? No.

Can Abigail stop 400 warriors in her own strength?

No. No she can't. All Abigail does is appeal.

That's what you and I tell parents we don't force our kids to get saved. We can't do it. We can't force anyone around us any unbeliever to get saved.

We can't force our husband or wife to change.

We can't force people around us to hear wisdom.

We can't do this. If you're if you're falling into that trap as we all do we all want to make it happen in someone's life sometimes for good motives. Remember the example of Abigail pull back.

Keep keep appealing. Keep giving wisdom. But remember that God this is hard. This is one of the hardest things in this life. Remember that God has to work in a person's heart for them to change. Third in witnessing Nabal's demise literally his death give thanks to God for his mercy. Give thanks to God for his mercy. Maybe not to the same degree in earthly terms but hey friends, Nabal is you and me. It's us. God is so kind to us. God regularly holds back the full consequences of our sin. Let this be a spur to us. Let this be an encouragement to battle sin before it goes public and atomic. Right now if there's something in your life that that you can attack with the power of God and you can talk with your spouse about her friend about her whatever it may be a church member about now is the time to go. Wait a minute. I'm about to do something I really shouldn't do. This is really unwise. I'm in a pattern of sin. I've got to wake up. Let this be an encouragement to that end. Fourth along those lines open your ears to wisdom open your ears to wisdom. Wisdom is calling. It's so easy in marriage isn't it. I can say this from my own sinful vantage point to have somebody repeatedly say something to you my godly wife counsel often wise counsel and not hear it. You know parking the two cars in the garage. I resisted that for a while because I from Maine and I thought no I'll just park my car in the driveway. This is not a huge example. Okay. I'm trying to take it down a notch for us just. It's okay. Everything's okay.

And finally I've started parking my car in the garage as well. It's way more pleasant. I like it way better. My car is not Arctic in the morning when I drive it. By the time I get to work I have like one minute of heat. Anybody out there. It used to be now. Now I just glide. I just glide to the seminary like on air. That is an example of something that my wife recommended to me for a while. Why did I not honestly why did I not hear that. It's a way better idea than parking it in the driveway. It's a difference of 10 feet. But friends here's the thing husband and wife alike.

It's easy for us not to hear the other. Very easy. Parents and children children. It's very easy for you not to hear your dad or mom and the relationships proliferate friends speaking into one another's lives. It's very easy for you to hear it over and over and over again. Let's pray to God to open all our ears to wisdom. All of us wish all needed. Fifth if you're a godly man and you have a godly wife give thanks to God. Give thanks to God if you have an Abigail. You have an incredible blessing. She's not perfect. You're not perfect. Maybe she's not perfect in her submission and you're not perfect in your leadership. Okay.

But if you have a godly wife give thanks if you have an Abigail. What a blessing. Sixth be vigilant about pride. Be vigilant about pride. Be vigilant about pride. Seventh and finally remember that through Christ growth and humility is possible through Christ growth and humility is possible.

This is what Jesus has done. Jesus has come to us when we were on the warpath when we hated God and Jesus has intervened and Jesus has held up his arms and said go no further wait wait. But Jesus has not simply stopped an army. Jesus has turned around and walked to the cross for you and me and Jesus has died so that we can be forgiven of our folly and our hard heartedness and our harshness and are not listening and our anger and Jesus has now given all of us who are in Christ the power to grow and change and be transformed day by day. So give thanks today for Jesus because he has overcome the world the flesh and the devil. He has overcome NABAL. Let's pray. Father help us to walk in wisdom today. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

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