Show Notes
1 Samuel 24
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Our Heavenly Father, we know that we are kept from all harm. We are kept secure. Our going in, our coming out, now and forever is all kept.
[00:00:11] We are kept by you because we belong to the eternally begotten Son, God of God, Light of light, very God of very God.
[00:00:24] You anointed him and chose him for the work that you would have him do. Indeed, Lord, this was accord to your perfect in accord with your perfect triune will.
[00:00:38] Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
[00:00:41] All is one substance, one essence willing the salvation of your people.
[00:00:50] Lord, we thank you that you have done this great and mighty work and that before even the world was made, we were elected in Christ, chosen to be saved by him and protected in him forever.
[00:01:07] Lord, we are assured by these things and comforted by the great and awesome power by which you have saved indeed your own power and your own will.
[00:01:23] We ask that as you would help, as we hear about your anointed King David, you would help us to hear the backstory and the prelude to the Lord Jesus, the Son that you promised to him and to those who came before him, even Abraham and even Israel.
[00:01:46] We ask, Lord, that you would help us to see in David the beginnings of a kingship that have been brought to completion in Jesus, and that as we think about him, our confidence would grow, our zeal for you would grow, our trust in you would grow.
[00:02:05] For all the difficult times where we most certainly need your help, Lord, provide all the help that we need and all the things of this life in Jesus name in. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.
[00:02:26] Well, let's sit and turn our attention to First Samuel, chapter 24.
[00:03:01] So in our passage this morning, Saul, who has, remember, he stopped hunting David for a moment.
[00:03:07] I went to go deal with a Philistine problem. He goes back to hunting David and he needs to go to the bathroom. So he goes into a cave, and in that cave is David. Now, Saul doesn't know it, right? Saul doesn't know that David is in that cave. He thinks he's all by himself. He thinks he has this moment of privacy. But he's just walked into this cave where David and his men are, and his men, David's men are telling him. You might guess it.
[00:03:38] Here's your chance.
[00:03:40] It's time to kill Saul.
[00:03:44] So let's hear what happens in what happens in the cave in 1st Samuel, chapter 24.
[00:03:54] When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was. He was told, behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.
[00:04:01] Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of all of Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the wild goats rocks.
[00:04:11] And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave. And Saul went in to relieve himself.
[00:04:18] Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.
[00:04:23] And the men said to David, here is the day of which the Lord said to you, behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.
[00:04:36] Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
[00:04:41] And afterward David's heart struck him because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord. The Lord's anointed to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.
[00:04:59] So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul.
[00:05:05] And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.
[00:05:10] Afterward David also arose and went out of the cave and called after Saul, my lord the king.
[00:05:18] And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed his face to the earth and paid homage. And David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say, behold, David seeks you harm?
[00:05:31] Behold this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you. But I spared you. I said, I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.
[00:05:49] See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it.
[00:06:10] May the Lord judge between me and you. May the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. As the proverb of the ancients say, out of the wickedness, or out of the wicked comes wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you.
[00:06:28] After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog, after a flea?
[00:06:36] May the Lord therefore judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.
[00:06:47] As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, is this your voice, my son David?
[00:06:56] And Saul lifted up his voice and wept.
[00:07:00] And he said to David, you are more righteous than I.
[00:07:05] You have repaid me good where I have repaid you evil. And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me and that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands.
[00:07:17] For if a man finds his enemy, will he not? Will he let him go away safe?
[00:07:23] So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. And now behold, I know you shall surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.
[00:07:37] Swear to me therefore, by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me and that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house.
[00:07:46] And David swore this to Saul.
[00:07:50] Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.
[00:07:56] Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. And they buried him in his house at Ramah.
[00:08:05] This ends the reading of God's word. May he bless it to us.
[00:08:17] So you know that it's difficult to wait and to suffer when you're waiting for the things that you want, when you're waiting for the things you need. And David's experiencing that right.
[00:08:30] The Lord has promised to him that he would be king.
[00:08:33] The Lord has given him opportunities to serve. The Lord has given him victories. The Lord has given him men, followers. The Lord has given him all kinds of gifts and blessings.
[00:08:51] But the Lord has not yet given David the throne that the Lord himself had promised him.
[00:08:57] Remember, this is not David didn't wake up one morning and have a prayer request and say, lord, I'd really like to replace Saul one day.
[00:09:05] The Lord chose David, right? The Lord went and elected, selected, chose David out of all his brothers and said, this one is going to be the king. This one is going to be my anointed one. And he was anointed by Samuel, who dies here at the end of this. At the end of this chapter, Samuel goes. He anoints David. He says that there is going to be this transition because of Saul's lack of faith, because of Saul's unwilling to wait.
[00:09:40] And now David has to wait.
[00:09:42] Now he's waiting for a good thing. He's waiting for a thing that God has called him to. He was wanting to be obedient. And we hear that in many ways in his heart.
[00:09:52] But that doesn't mean it's not hard.
[00:09:57] It is hard.
[00:09:59] And David is being hunted, literally.
[00:10:04] He met Saul with 3,000 men, are after his life.
[00:10:11] How long do you think you could, you know, let's wander out into the wilderness. We don't have it Far from us, right? How long could you last with 3,000 people hunting you?
[00:10:23] God is preserving his life.
[00:10:26] Even with David's men, he is preserving his life. And we see that especially in this chapter, because David's men in our chapter are pressuring him to do something God does not want him to do.
[00:10:41] So now, in a way, even David's men are against him.
[00:10:45] This is a tough thing.
[00:10:47] On top of that, he has this moment where the Lord in his Providence has put Saul into David's hands, right? He has created this moment. The Lord in His Providence has created this moment where Saul is right there, Easy pickings, fish in a barrel, right? He's right there in David's hands. That's how David puts it. He says, the Lord delivered you to my hands. That's how Saul puts it. The Lord delivered me into your hands. And then Saul, with wonderment, says, and you didn't kill me, right? He had an opportunity to kill Saul and he didn't take it.
[00:11:38] It's just a very good reminder and a whole other lesson, but it's a good point that just because things happen according.
[00:11:46] Things happen according to God's providence does. Doesn't mean that he has commanded us to do something, Right? We take the words, or sorry, rather, the commands of God, and we operate based on those in the context of his Providence. We don't read his Providence as commands of themselves.
[00:12:08] And David does very well with that. Here I want you to imagine for a moment the rationale, the art. Let's say they weren't just whispering in the cave and trying to, you know, let's say they had a big discussion. Or let's say David in his own heart had a discussion, right?
[00:12:27] Imagine how that might have gone. Imagine the reasons that could be given for taking Saul.
[00:12:33] First of all, he's a bad guy. He's doing bad things to me. He's trying to kill me. The sixth commandment. Am I not supposed to preserve my own life?
[00:12:46] You can think also about the lives of others that David is called to protect. You can think about how Saul is doing these bad things in Israel, how he's not, how he's being a bad king. You can think about the Lord's promise to David that he would be the Anointed One. And now here's this moment, what seems to be an open door to take his life.
[00:13:08] There's every reason, it would seem, to take Saul's life, to kill him, except for this one really big thing, and that's that the Lord has commanded to not take the life of his king to not take the life of his anointed one. We'll get to that in a minute.
[00:13:27] David understands that this is. That God is to do this. And unless God commands him and tells him to do this in some way, it's not his job.
[00:13:39] It's not his job. And he's not to read into this moment, even though the Lord has put him in his hands, he's not to read that as a command to take Saul's life.
[00:13:51] Amazingly, I don't know how he did this. God's grace, we'll say he persuades his men and keeps these. I think it's 600 now.
[00:14:03] This army, this small, this small army, this large group of men, he persuades these men who are hiding, who are in danger, who are also being hunted by 3,000 chosen people from all over Israel who are in this weak spot, right in the cave.
[00:14:24] And somehow David is able to persuade them and keep them. He does not permit them, it says, to take Saul's life.
[00:14:34] What a leader.
[00:14:37] What an anointed man of God. God has blessed him so much with the ability to be the kind of king that God has called him to be.
[00:14:51] Now, this is all very dramatic, right? Kings and wars and armies, but these same kinds of things operate on a daily basis and in our own hearts, which, if you remember, are actually part of a very large story.
[00:15:08] They're part of something very big.
[00:15:11] Do you remember what the Apostle Paul says? He says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this world.
[00:15:23] We are at war with this present darkness, with this evil age. And so this little thing over here and this little thing over here, in some ways are not that little.
[00:15:36] A lot of times it's all the small little choices that add up to the big ones and the big choices that add up to the bigger ones. And frequently we find ourselves in a very similar place where we want to alleviate suffering by sinning.
[00:15:55] Here's maybe a silly example, a silly, simple thing. But you're hungry, right?
[00:16:07] Kids, I'll talk to you, but this applies to me, too. Kids, you're hungry. It's dinner time. And your mom has told you, don't eat.
[00:16:19] Don't eat the snacks. Don't eat the food on the counter. I'm making food. It'll be ready soon. And you're really hungry, right?
[00:16:27] And then you sneak some food and you take some food and you disobey.
[00:16:35] Well, it alleviates your hunger, right? But it causes other problems. Right now, you've sinned against your mom. And then when she puts that big, delicious food in front of you and you're all full on potato chips or something like that, you have to shovel down what would have been enjoyable, right? But now it's. You can hardly eat it.
[00:16:58] The thing that was so good and so good for you has become a displeasure because of sin.
[00:17:06] Similar thing has happened when couples are dating before marriage and they start being intimate before marriage. They say, we really want this great thing.
[00:17:16] But they sin.
[00:17:19] They sin in trying to alleviate their suffering and trying to get things early, and it ruins things.
[00:17:30] There's so many examples of this. In fact, the more I thought about this, the more I realized in my own life, wow, I'm a really impatient person.
[00:17:38] There's so many ways in which I don't let the glue fully dry right before I try it out. Or there's ways in which I know, get frustrated with something or act too quickly or too rashly. And because I don't want to have to deal with whatever it is anymore.
[00:17:57] We're really impatient people and we take shortcuts all the time, sinful shortcuts, because we want to alleviate suffering.
[00:18:07] But by saying no to God to get our own way, it only increases suffering in the long term.
[00:18:15] It only increases our problems and the things in our hearts and David's facing in that kind of similar moment. Here he was suffering. He had all kinds of excuses, we'll call them, to take Saul's life. But he chooses not so not to do that. And David does very well.
[00:18:35] It's an inspiring example, to be sure.
[00:18:41] His followers, though, didn't do so well, right? David's followers here are egging him on to sin and get the trouble over with.
[00:18:52] What happened when Saul took sinful shortcuts?
[00:18:56] He lost his kingdom.
[00:18:59] What consequences would these soldiers have had if David had listened to them?
[00:19:06] The same.
[00:19:07] They would have lost the kingdom.
[00:19:11] So it's good news, right? We can say it's good news for the soldiers that David didn't listen.
[00:19:18] It was good news to them that he said no.
[00:19:22] It preserved their life. And it's also good news that Jesus, our king, at various times did not listen to his disciples who wanted that, wanted him to do similar things.
[00:19:35] Let's go get him. Let's attack him. Even as Jesus was being taken in the garden of Gethsemane, being taken to the cross, Peter takes out his sword, cuts off the ear of a servant, and Jesus. Stop.
[00:19:48] Stop.
[00:19:50] This is not how this works. This is not being obedient to the will of God.
[00:19:57] And that's one of the things that David's story does here. It not only gives us this inspiring example to follow, but it shows to us, it foreshadows for us the kind of righteousness that Jesus had, who stayed obedient in really hard moments all the way to death every single time.
[00:20:20] There's times as we go throughout David's story where you're going to see David not act so well.
[00:20:26] In fact, he's going to do exactly the opposite of what he does here, in which he gives over to his lusts, he gives over to his desires, he acts rashly and with impatience. Jesus, though, the final anointed king, the son that he promised David to establish a Kingdom Forever perfect, 100% perfect in every way. David's story in these small ways, points to what Jesus overcomes.
[00:20:53] It points to the kind of king Jesus is.
[00:20:56] And it's because of Jesus obedience that we have a savior, that we belong to a kingdom.
[00:21:06] I want to think for a moment about the restraint that David had just a little bit deeper. Let's think about that together and think about that in light of Jesus, hear David's mindset. If you have your Bibles, look at verses 6 and 7, verses 6 and 7.
[00:21:30] Listen to what he says to his men, and listen to how many times he uses Yahweh capitalized as Lord in your Bible.
[00:21:39] Listen to how many times the name of the Lord appears here. He said to his men, yahweh forbid it that I should do this thing to my Lord. You see, that's lowercase there, because he's talking about Saul.
[00:21:55] So Yahweh forbid it that I should do this thing to my Lord.
[00:21:59] Yahweh's anointed to put out my hand against him, seeing he is Yahweh's anointed, right? One sentence, three times.
[00:22:08] He is understanding this event and this context in light of not the Lord Saul, but the Lord God, the Lord of lords, the King of kings.
[00:22:23] And David, by God's grace, persuaded his men with these words even while David is being hunted. He sees God's role behind this king.
[00:22:36] He sees what God is doing and trusts in him and not in the power of Saul.
[00:22:45] We even see that in the way that Saul talks, or sorry, rather, David talks about Saul, my Lord.
[00:22:52] It'd be a lot easier. I'm sure there are a lot of other words that you might want to use for Saul if you were in David's position. And David, David is strong on this.
[00:23:03] He gives Saul honor and respect in front of his men by calling him my Lord. And then later, do you remember what he says, what he calls Saul my father.
[00:23:19] Now, David is not Saul's son.
[00:23:24] Not technically, right, not officially. But he talks about him with this intimate, personal language.
[00:23:33] My father.
[00:23:35] And Saul, weeping, responds by calling David his son.
[00:23:44] This is an amazing way to speak. And it comes from a heart that is attuned and aligned with what God is doing.
[00:23:54] Notice the other thing David does. David reveres God's will over his wants, over his suffering.
[00:24:01] Exodus 22:28. You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people.
[00:24:09] You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people.
[00:24:13] Not only does David know by the actions of Samuel that Saul is God's anointed One, but he's been commanded in the word of God not to curse.
[00:24:24] Not to curse the ruler of God, the ruler of God's people.
[00:24:28] Because by doing so would what revile God?
[00:24:32] He is to honor the one whom God has set over him, even while that one is persecuting him.
[00:24:41] A very hard thing to do. If you don't. If your heart is not seeking after the Lord.
[00:24:48] If all you can see is the troubles of this life and the. The pressures of this life, pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling.
[00:24:59] Our perspective gets very limited, very closed. But if we learn to see the Lord who is above it all and working all according to his goodwill, we can relax.
[00:25:10] We can give honor where honor is due. We can trust. We can wait, we can hope. We can be patient. And we can. And we can.
[00:25:19] And not sin.
[00:25:22] Not sin as we put our faith in the Lord and His strength over us. I don't need that thing. I don't need to be impatient. I can wait and trust in the Lord. He will alleviate my suffering in due time. And that kind of language is all through the Psalms, right? The Lord will be my stronghold. The Lord will be my rescuer. The Lord is the upholder of my life.
[00:25:45] That's the perspective that David has. He reveres the will of God more than he fears and is frustrated over his own troubles and trials.
[00:25:59] The last thing I'll mention about David, revering the Lord and following God's will is with regard to revenge. In particular, Jesus's apostle Paul says this in Romans 12:19.
[00:26:14] Behold. And through 21, behold. He says, Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
[00:26:30] To the contrary. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.
[00:26:38] Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
[00:26:44] Listen to the perspective at the beginning of that verse. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. That's a God centered perspective, right? It's, it's God, of course, speaking, but it's us communicating that back to him, confessing that back. Recognizing this is not my job.
[00:27:04] It's not my job to take Saul's life. It's not my job to take matters into my own hands and sin where the Lord has said not sin. The Lord will solve the problems.
[00:27:16] The Lord will solve the problems and do so righteously.
[00:27:21] Now that doesn't mean God doesn't call us to act.
[00:27:25] I'm just saying God says don't sin, right?
[00:27:31] David does all kinds of things. He takes all kinds of actions. He persuades his men, he talks. I'm no doubt he's praying. In the midst of all of this, he does cut that robe, the corner of Saul's robe, probably, by the way, one possible scenario sort of laying aside, right? Saul takes it off, lays it aside, and then when he picks it up, walks out and David shows him the corner of the robe, the whole speech. David could have waited in the cave.
[00:28:00] That was a choice. He could have waited in the cave. He could have stayed there for a few hours. Coast is clear, then they go out. He decides, I think with some amount of risk to confront Paul or Saul, right? Saul can. He's within hearing distance.
[00:28:17] Don't know exactly how far. I mean, I suppose with valleys and things, you could get kind of far and still hear each other, but he's within hearing's distance. He's exposing himself and his troops to Saul.
[00:28:29] That's a choice he makes.
[00:28:31] He says the things that he says. He responds the way he responds. And notice as Saul goes back to his house, what does David do? Back to the stronghold. He doesn't say, okay, we're all good now, we can go back home.
[00:28:46] Interesting to think about.
[00:28:48] David is not, or let me put it positively, David is making choices.
[00:28:53] David's not sitting around saying, well, I don't know, God's going to do something. He's making choices, he's just not making sinful ones.
[00:29:01] He's using his wisdom. He's according to the providence of God and the commands of God to make the best decisions that he can. And of course, that's all by God's grace.
[00:29:12] And that's what we're called to do as well.
[00:29:16] And that's what Jesus did perfectly.
[00:29:19] There are so many places where Jesus shows restraint out of reverence for the will of his Father.
[00:29:28] So many places, it's almost constant throughout the Gospels in which Jesus refuses to take shortcuts to the kingdom of heaven.
[00:29:39] Places where power would seem to be so easily attainable and. And he doesn't take it.
[00:29:47] Now, I'm not going to go through all the Gospels right now, but I will give you three really important moments. There are many others just that we might meditate for a moment on our Lord, your Lord's faithfulness, and why you can trust him as your King.
[00:30:09] One of the first big ones is of course, the temptation in the wilderness.
[00:30:13] Right at the beginning of his ministry, the Holy Spirit drives David, sorry, Jesus out, David's son, Jesus, out into the wilderness. And there he is fasting. He is hungry, and Satan attacks him.
[00:30:30] Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to kingship, authority over all the kingdoms of the world.
[00:30:38] Without the cross, all he has to do is bow down to Satan and praise God, right?
[00:30:49] Jesus refuses.
[00:30:51] He not only resists the devil, but he counters and argues against the devil in really helpful ways, which we won't get into right now, but. But in really helpful ways multiple times. Using the scriptures.
[00:31:07] Using the Scriptures to remind us that his divine power is not to be used for his own protection.
[00:31:19] Jesus is not here to save himself.
[00:31:23] He's here to save us.
[00:31:24] And he uses and he restrains himself, like David did in the kingdom, in the cave.
[00:31:32] Jesus could have claimed the throne without suffering. But what did he do instead?
[00:31:37] He honored the Father's plan.
[00:31:40] He chose obedience first.
[00:31:44] That's the beginning.
[00:31:46] Then we have toward the end. We could go to the end and the Garden of Gethsemane.
[00:31:52] Here in that garden, Jesus faces overwhelming pressure in his soul.
[00:32:00] The fear of what he's about to go through in obedience to the Father is so intense that he's sweating blood, he's praying.
[00:32:14] We even hear him asking the Father if there's another way that he could have it.
[00:32:24] The agony that would have caused most of us to sin or flee or somehow avoid all of this is unimaginable.
[00:32:38] And remember all the time, Jesus is God.
[00:32:44] Jesus is able to command 100 million angels to do whatever he wants.
[00:32:53] And he doesn't.
[00:32:56] Jesus famous words, not as I will, but you will. Not my will, but thine.
[00:33:06] As at the cave.
[00:33:07] The Garden of Gethsemane is a dark place.
[00:33:11] Jesus is vulnerable. He's open to attack. He will be attacked.
[00:33:16] But he chooses another path.
[00:33:19] Jesus endures the pressures in his own heart, the abandonment of the disciples, the betrayals that are going on, the sweat, the stress that is creating this bloody sweat. But he keeps going faithfully, not sinning, not shortcutting. Why? Because he reveres his Father's will.
[00:33:46] This is your king.
[00:33:48] And one more.
[00:33:50] When Jesus then comes before Pilate at the crucifixion, Pilate says to him, don't you realize I have the power to free you or crucify you?
[00:34:04] Pilate, a king, in a way, a governor, ruler over this land on behalf of the Romans, says, I have the power to change your life, Jesus.
[00:34:14] I can free you right now or I can crucify you.
[00:34:20] All the while, people are hurling lies, he's being beaten.
[00:34:29] All of these things are happening. And how does Jesus respond to it?
[00:34:33] Well, we remember, of course, Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back. And with Pilate, he says, you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.
[00:34:45] Doesn't that sound like what David's saying? Right? The perspective of seeing God, the covenant keeping, Lord, ruler of the universe. He is the one who is supreme. Pilate is not the Lord of lords.
[00:35:00] He's an underlord. He's an under shepherd, a lesser king.
[00:35:06] And Jesus stays the course.
[00:35:09] He stays the course.
[00:35:12] As Isaiah says, like a sheep before his shearers, is silent. Jesus went to the cross.
[00:35:20] This wasn't Jesus being lazy. This wasn't Jesus just giving up.
[00:35:25] This was Jesus being obedient, self control, perseverance, enduring suffering.
[00:35:33] And this pattern continues, as I said, from the beginning to the end, his ministry.
[00:35:41] So Peter says this, summing up all this in 1st Peter 2:22, he says he committed no sin.
[00:35:48] Neither was there deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
[00:36:04] Are you hearing the doctrine here? The teaching of the Scriptures, entrusting ourselves to God, to our Father and His will.
[00:36:15] That's what Jesus did over and over and over again.
[00:36:21] How do we respond then?
[00:36:24] Jesus did this not just to give us an example of resilience and strength.
[00:36:32] Jesus did this to actually save us from our weakness.
[00:36:37] Jesus did to save us from the consequences of our sin and our rebellion. Jesus did this to save us out of his love for us, so that we could be his people, his followers.
[00:36:51] And so here's the application.
[00:36:53] Hebrews 12:2, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We, from Hebrews 1, throw aside every sin that clings so closely.
[00:37:18] When we have moments where we are tempted to take these sinful shortcuts instead of being obedient to God, what do we do?
[00:37:27] We look to Jesus, the author and founder, or sorry, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who endured the cross, scorned the shame, and as a result of those things, sat down at the right hand on the throne of God.
[00:37:45] Jesus suffering led to exaltation because Jesus was the righteous one and was so perfectly he is the anointed king forever. And nothing can undo his power. Nothing can undo his kingdom or his throne.
[00:38:05] Because Jesus didn't listen to Satan, because Jesus at times didn't listen to his followers, because sometimes Jesus says no to you.
[00:38:14] His kingdom is strong, it's secure. Because he only does one thing.
[00:38:21] He is obedient to the will of God. That's how he is our mediator as the Son of Man.
[00:38:29] He is obedient to the will of God. And out of that obedience, he was a perfect sacrifice. It's that obedience that's imputed to us so that we can be justified. And it's that same obedience that he is working in us, growing us and strengthening us by his own power.
[00:38:46] So that in moments of temptation and trial, we can say no to sin as well. Because we know who he is.
[00:38:53] Because we know who our king is, because we know who we're looking to.
[00:39:00] David's men weren't saved because they were such great followers of David in this moment.
[00:39:06] They were saved because David followed the Lord. And it's the same thing for us in Christ.
[00:39:13] We are saved because he followed the Lord. And so any moment that you are struggling in this life, either from external or internal pressures, look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of your faith, the perfect righteous one whose kingdom has been established forever. He will save you.
[00:39:32] Let's pray.
[00:39:34] Our Heavenly Father, thank you for growing our love and faith for your righteous servant, Jesus Christ.
[00:39:41] Thank you, Lord, for the work that you have done. In him you have grown, our love for you, our confidence in you, our thankfulness for you. We ask, Lord, that you would increase our faith in you so that when we are faced with sinful shortcuts, we would have the strength and the power to say no.
[00:40:05] To say, not my will, but yours, O God.
[00:40:09] Because we know, and our trust is in you.
[00:40:12] We know that we have all that we need in you through Christ our Savior.
[00:40:19] We ask that as we look to him, we would find a strength for obedience and we would find comfort in forgiveness.
[00:40:30] Lord, we thank you that you did not establish the kingdom of heaven through the strength of man, that we might forever know it is God and God alone who rules.
[00:40:45] We pray particularly, Lord, for people who suffer under intense persecution for your saints who desire to follow you and yet are pressured in various ways to give up that faith.
[00:41:01] We ask that you would help them to remain strong and steadfast, that you would help them to keep looking to the cross where Jesus established his kingdom and undid all of the all of the who broke the chains of the evil one and the slavery that we had to him.
[00:41:23] Lord, let us look to Jesus. Help them to look to Jesus and to remember that he gives eternal life.
[00:41:32] Let our eyes not be overly enraptured by the things of this world, but remember what we have in you for at your right hand, Lord, your scriptures say are pleasures forevermore. There's a coming day when you say you will remove all sin and suffering and wipe every tear from our eye.
[00:41:54] Teach us not to take some sort of pseudo version of your kingdom, a counterfeit gospel or a counterfeit king.
[00:42:05] Let us learn to love and enjoy and serve Jesus now and forever. It's in his name we pray. Amen.
