Show Notes
1 Samuel 26
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the mercy that you have given to us and that you have filled our hearts with song.
[00:00:14] Lord, we thank you that because of the work of Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation for us.
[00:00:22] The terrors of the law and of your wrath are set aside and that we rest in the righteousness of Christ, cleansed by his blood.
[00:00:35] Lord, we ask that the work that you have begun you would bring to completion.
[00:00:40] We recognize that we are secure now in your grace and that you are ruling us in your great might.
[00:00:50] We recognize that none of this comes from us, but is according to your perfect good plan and purpose. And so we give you all glory and honor and praise now and forever.
[00:01:03] We also ask, Lord, that as we come to the reading and preaching of your word, you would help us to hear it and to understand it and to share it.
[00:01:10] We ask, Lord, that you would give us, you would build our confidence in Christ and in his mighty works for us, the great king that he is over us, his people.
[00:01:21] Lord, we also pray for our sister churches and our missionaries throughout the world.
[00:01:28] We ask that you would continue to shine this light very brightly in many places, from Ukraine to Japan to Uganda and Haiti. Our mission works here at home in Arizona, throughout our presbytery and across the country.
[00:01:47] Lord, how amazing your works are, how vast you have scattered your seed and you are causing it to grow and and bring harvest.
[00:01:56] Lord, we pray all these things with confidence in you again asking for your help in hearing your word. And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:02:07] Please be seated and let's turn our attention to First Samuel, Chapter 26.
[00:02:41] So if you've been following along in First Samuel as we've been working through this book, hearing God's word through the founding of the Davidic kingdom, a foreshadowing of Christ's kingdom, you will recognize this story. You'll say, didn't we read this already?
[00:03:05] If you're not paying too much, only a little bit of attention. But if you're paying a lot of attention, you will start to see some differences. So I want you to pay attention to, to both those things as we read this morning. How does this sound similar to the other time that David spared Saul's life? And what differences do you notice as well in all of this? Let's remember and hear the work of the Lord on behalf of his people.
[00:03:32] All right, let's give attention to God's word now. First Samuel 26.
[00:03:37] Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, is not David hiding himself in the hill of Hakalah, which is on the east of Jeshamon.
[00:03:46] So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with 3000 chosen men of Israel to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph.
[00:03:54] And Saul encamped on the hill of Hakalah, which is beside the road on the east of Jeshimon.
[00:04:01] But David remained in the wilderness.
[00:04:03] When he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness, David sent out spies and and learned that Saul had indeed come.
[00:04:11] Then David rose and came to the place where Saul had encamped. And David saw the place where Saul lay with Abner, the son of ner, the commander of his army.
[00:04:22] Saul was lying within the encampment while the army was encamped around him.
[00:04:28] Then David said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Joab's brother Abishai the son of Zeruiah, will you go down with me into the camp of Saul or. Or to Saul?
[00:04:39] And Abishai said, I will go down with you.
[00:04:42] I'm sorry, I read this wrong. Let me start again. Verse 6. David said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Joab's brother Abishai the son of Zeruiah, who will go down with me into the camp to Saul. And Abishai said, I will go down with you.
[00:04:56] So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there lay Saul, sleeping within the encampment with his spear stuck in the ground at his head. And Abner and the army lay around him.
[00:05:10] Then Abishai said to David, God has given your enemy into your hand this day. Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear. I will not strike him twice.
[00:05:21] But David said to Abishai, do not destroy him. For who can put out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?
[00:05:30] And David said, as the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.
[00:05:48] So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul's head, and they went away.
[00:05:53] 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.
[00:06:04] Then David went over to the other side and stood far off on the top of the hill with a great space between them. And David called to the army and to Abner the son of ner, saying, will you not answer, Abner?
[00:06:16] Then Abner answered, who are you who calls to the king?
[00:06:20] And David said to Abner, are you not a man who is like you in Israel? Why have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy the king, your lord. This thing that you have done is not good.
[00:06:37] As the Lord lives, you deserve to die because you have not kept watch over your lord. The Lord's anointed. And now see where the king's spear is and the jar of water that was at his head.
[00:06:50] Saul recognized David's voice and said, is this your voice, my son David? And David said, it is my voice, my lord, O king. And he said, why does my lord pursue after his servant?
[00:07:02] For what have I done?
[00:07:04] What evil is on my hands now? Therefore let the Lord the king, hear the words of his servant.
[00:07:10] If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering.
[00:07:16] But if it is men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, go, serve other gods.
[00:07:28] Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.
[00:07:42] Then Saul said, I have sinned.
[00:07:46] Return my son David, for I will do for no more, for I will no more do you harm because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly and have made a great mistake.
[00:08:00] And David answered and said, here is the spear, O king.
[00:08:05] Let one of the young men come over and take it.
[00:08:08] 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 tribulation.
[00:08:30] Then Saul said to David, blessed be you, my son, David.
[00:08:34] You will do many things, and you will succeed in them. So David went his way and Saul returned to his place.
[00:08:41] May God bless his word to us.
[00:08:52] Well, there's many, many things to focus on in this chapter, and we will not try to focus on them all.
[00:09:00] But I hope as you hear little hints of various things, you'll write them down and bring them into your discussions later.
[00:09:10] Our Main theme for today is thinking about these mighty men that are introduced in a greater, a stronger and a more specific way in this chapter than we've seen before and will continue to become an important presence of in the life of this kingdom and in First Samuel and then Second Samuel as we move to that mighty men, who do I have in mind? Well, Abishai on David's side and Abner on the side of Saul, these great warriors, second to David and to Saul, who themselves are great warriors on these mighty men on which these kings rely.
[00:09:57] And I want to think about that from the perspective of relying on people, be it others or ourselves.
[00:10:07] Because sometimes, even though we need others, as Sam, I mean as David and Saul need their lieutenants and commanders, sometimes we can come to rely on people too much.
[00:10:21] And when somebody says that to me anyway, be careful about relying on people too much, I find my own heart kind of wildly swinging the other direction. Okay, well, I'll be self sufficient, right?
[00:10:35] But that's not what God wants us to do. Relying on yourself is just as much of a problem as relying on yourself as a God is just as much of a problem as relying on other people to solve all your problems.
[00:10:49] In some ways they're the same problem, the problem of trusting men rather than trusting God.
[00:10:57] And I want to think about this problem today in order to highlight the solution that God provides for us in Christ.
[00:11:06] So let's think about these mighty men in particular. Here we're introduced to this theme. It began before you remember there was the. The men in David's cave. They've been growing and now we're starting to hear these names and their power and their strength and their epic deeds will become more and more prominent. And as we go through these books, I really want to encourage you to pay attention to these names.
[00:11:34] If you don't pay attention, they all kind of sound similar and you get confused.
[00:11:39] If you start taking little notes or in going back and reminding yourself from time to time who's who and what's going on, what you'll find is eventually it will be like walking into a hall of fame when you hear these names.
[00:11:55] For those of you who know Lord of the Rings and you hear Legolas and Boromir and these great names, right? These faces and these images and these deeds come immediately to your mind. You know, you're not confused. It's not a big mass of people, right? It's like, oh, yeah, remember that? And oh, he did that thing, that kind of thing. The same thing. If you go into a Hall of Fame for musicians or baseball players or something like this, you go, and if you know what's going on, there's this great appreciation for all that has happened. And there's a lot of details around these heroes, these mighty men that appear throughout first and second Samuel. These are epic level warriors.
[00:12:41] These are the kinds of people that you would put into your video games and create board games for and write novels about and remember for all time, as we have, except they're not fictional. They are mighty men, mighty warriors who did very mighty things. And in fact, in two places in Scripture we have a catalog of them, a kind of hall of Fame. Let's look at one of them at the end of second Samuel.
[00:13:13] So if you flip a few pages to 2 Samuel 23, we're not going to read this whole chapter. We're going to just read a little bit of the beginning and then a little bit about abishai who appears.
[00:13:25] 1 Samuel 26.
[00:13:32] So in 2 Samuel 23:8, as this history is being brought to a close, at the end of 2 Samuel, we read this. These are the names of the mighty men whom David had.
[00:13:48] Joshub, Baashabeth, a Tacoma. He was the chief of the three.
[00:13:55] He wielded his spear against 800 whom he killed at one time.
[00:14:00] And next to him among the three mighty men was Eleazar, the son of Dodo, son of Ahohi. He was with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle. And the men of Israel withdrew. He rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary and and his hand clung to the sword. And the Lord brought about a great victory that day. And the men returned after him, only to strip the slain.
[00:14:28] These images, right, These are epic, epic battles. These are great moments in history as these men fight these mighty battles on behalf of the Lord.
[00:14:40] Now next it lists the third of the of the three. And then we're going to go skip down to verse 18 about Abishai. Now, Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the 30. And he wielded his sword against 300 men and killed them and won a name beside the three. He was the most renowned of the 30 and became their commander, but he did not attain to the three.
[00:15:07] It's already, I mean, even these descriptions, right, of that there's these great and mighty men. And even within these men there are, you know, really, really special ones, really great and mighty ones. And Abishai is no slouch Even though he did not obtain to the level of the three that are first mentioned. It says he was a commander, the commander of the 30.
[00:15:33] His brother Joab was the commander over all of the armies of Israel. And they had a third brother, Asahel, these three brothers, nephews of David, most likely Asahel, who was as swift as a gazelle. Can you imagine someone that fast? He was as swift as a gazelle.
[00:15:53] And he ended up dying. And, well, we'll get into that later. But here we have this man, Abishai, and he's a young man. Right now, David is probably 28, 29, maybe 30.
[00:16:06] Abishai, his nephew. So maybe a little older, maybe a peer, maybe a little younger, kind of depending on how the birth order and times of birth for David and his sister.
[00:16:19] But we have young men, most likely here, young men going out and seeing an opportunity.
[00:16:29] Seeing an opportunity.
[00:16:32] What do they see?
[00:16:34] This is one of the differences between the story. Last time in first Samuel 24, I think it was.
[00:16:42] And then here in one Samuel 26, the last time David spared Saul's life. Do you remember how it all happened?
[00:16:49] Saul came into the cave where David was, and then David reacted to it.
[00:16:56] That's not quite what happens this time, is it? What happens this time? David hears that Saul is pursuing him. David hears where he is. David goes to Saul and finds him in his camp. Then David asks, who's going to go with me? And then David decides to go into that camp.
[00:17:15] Now, there's no indication here that David intended to kill him or to take his life.
[00:17:21] In fact, every indication is the opposite. Abishai wants to do it. Give me the spear. Let me take care of it. One shot. I got it. And David says, no. It's very important that you pay attention to his reasons for why he says no.
[00:17:35] So why does David do this?
[00:17:37] I think the best answer is David is continuing to seek a way back into Israel. He's trying to convince Saul. He's trying to find open opportunities to convince Saul to. To go home, to stop trying to take his life.
[00:17:55] And why does David want that? It's so important to hear what he says.
[00:18:00] Because he tells us in 1st Samuel, this is 26, he says, he talks about the heritage of the Lord.
[00:18:13] He speaks to Saul and he's doing this very artful diplomatic thing where he's sort of allowing Saul the opportunity to kind of pass the blame for this. He says, okay, if God is the one who's causing you this, may God accept an offering. And if it's men, other Men who are causing you to do this may be cursed before the Lord. And then he describes what they've done. He gives us a theological way to understand what is happening to him. This is how he understands it. He says, for they have driven me out this day, that I should have no share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods.
[00:18:54] Isn't that interesting?
[00:18:57] Later he talks about being in the presence of the Lord. He talks about doing things in the. In the sight of God.
[00:19:05] Notice what David. You could think about it this way. What does David not say? He says it say, they have driven me out and they seek my life. Which would be true.
[00:19:14] But he doesn't just want to live.
[00:19:17] Otherwise he'd go live with the Philistines or something.
[00:19:22] He wants the heritage of the Lord.
[00:19:26] He belongs in Israel.
[00:19:28] He is one of God's children, one of his chosen ones. This is his place. He wants to belong to the Lord. He wants to be in communion with the Lord, with his people in his place.
[00:19:41] And when they say, get out of here, it means to go serve other gods, to reject this people, reject this place. And I can imagine that might have been tempting to just let it all go.
[00:19:54] Why do I need to be there? Why do I need to fight for this? Why do I need to run around in the wilderness when I could go live in this place or that place and be respected and people will trust me? And there will be times even where he is tempted and is offered the opportunities to fight against Israel.
[00:20:11] Why not do that?
[00:20:13] Because that's not who he is.
[00:20:15] It's not his family. It's not where he belongs. It's not with the Lord.
[00:20:21] He does not desire to serve other gods. He doesn't desire to be with other gods. He wants to belong to Yahweh.
[00:20:29] And he's seeing everything in that perspective.
[00:20:35] And so this is why he goes to Saul.
[00:20:37] And this is why he takes his spear and his jug of water. And then once he's safely on the other side of the valley, he says, wake up, Abner.
[00:20:46] Look at the spear. Look at the jug.
[00:20:49] You've failed to protect your king.
[00:20:53] Now, in all of this, we see David's actions and his motivations. But as I said before, there are these other people that play an important role of this story. These mighty men, these mighty men who are going to be the ones who will establish the kingdom. But they are also the ones who frequently destroy it, create problems, and seek to lose it. In 2nd Samuel 3:39, after Joab kills someone, well, Abner after he kills Abner, David says, these sons of Zeruiah are too strong for me.
[00:21:35] David gave him a direct order not to do this, and Joab did it anyway.
[00:21:40] And he kind of gets away with it for a while.
[00:21:43] There's a number of things that happen throughout these stories, and we see that happening here.
[00:21:49] So think about it from Saul's perspective. There he is in the middle of this encampment, surrounded by Abner and Abner's guards and the whole army, right? Saul is protected, except for the fact that David and Abishai walk right in, take his spear in his jug. How does that happen?
[00:22:08] Because Saul is not in control.
[00:22:10] The Lord's in control.
[00:22:12] And the narrator tells us this specifically.
[00:22:16] Why is it that they were able to do it? Because the Lord had put a deep sleep on them all.
[00:22:22] You think you're all tough until you have to go to sleep, right? We think we're strong, but then every single night we lay there for hours, totally helpless.
[00:22:33] It's an amazing picture of the reliance that we have on the Lord. And that's just regular sleep. Here is a special ordained sleep that the Lord can as he chooses to put on these people.
[00:22:46] Abner, as mighty as he is and as strong as he is, as great of a mighty warrior as he is to protect, Saul, can't do anything.
[00:22:55] Nothing.
[00:22:56] Saul, as mighty as he is, can't do anything. Nothing.
[00:22:59] Totally, totally vulnerable despite this great army.
[00:23:05] Now flip over to the other side. David. Here's David with Abishai, who will come to do these mighty deeds, who is instantly ready to walk into an enemy camp, not knowing that God had put them all to sleep. By the way, who will go with me into the army of Saul? Oh, me. Abishai says, this is either a very stupid or a very brave man. And we're going to go with brave.
[00:23:29] He says. He says he's going to do this. He's going to be by David's side. And then when he gets in, he turns out he's also not helpful. In the same way Abner wasn't helpful to Saul, Abishai isn't helpful to David. How?
[00:23:44] Abishai wants to take Saul's life. And now all of a sudden, David's in this position of trying to restrain this mighty man, trying to restrain again his people from doing the thing that must not be done right. Abishai is not helping David when he says, let's take his life, and convincing him about how quickly he'll do it and how skillfully he'll do it. And how they'll get out of there really fast and whatever else he said, right, that is not helping.
[00:24:11] That would do what David says, bring guilt on them.
[00:24:16] It's really interesting, I think, that this story where these mighty men are growing in their might in a way, and the previous one that we had in chapter four, right in the middle of them, we have Abigail, right, Abigail, who is in many ways defenseless and weak and yet speaks this wise word that we considered last time and saves David's life and saves the kingdom and all of these sort of things.
[00:24:43] I think one of the things the narrator is doing is he's helping us to see this thing. Mighty men are not always mighty.
[00:24:51] Sometimes they're very weak, asleep, and sometimes they'll cause you to lose everything.
[00:24:59] And it's not just mighty men, it's men, it's people, it's us.
[00:25:05] David will fall into similar problems. Saul's doing the same thing. We're all doing these kind of things.
[00:25:13] And the point is this. We cannot rely. We cannot rely and trust simply on people. Even the strongest of us, the wisest of us, the bravest of us, we cannot trust on people to save us.
[00:25:30] Notice how David thinks about this when he asks.
[00:25:35] When he says to Saul in verse 24, he says, Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord.
[00:25:46] Do you see how he's always fine tuning his perspective, allowing his heart to be in line with the truth that he knows about God, that God has made a promise to him, that God has made a covenant to him, and that all his life is to be lived out in him and with Him.
[00:26:09] No person is so strong that they can rely only on themselves.
[00:26:14] When the Bible says it is not good for man to be alone, back in Genesis, we're taught that God did not just make a man, but he made mankind.
[00:26:25] He didn't just make a human, he made humanity. Beginning with two people, Adam and Eve, and growing from there.
[00:26:35] But if absolute self reliance is a problem, so is absolute reliance on other people.
[00:26:42] As we look at these mighty men, as mighty as they are, and still see the ways in which they fail, in which they cause trouble for David and others, we realize quickly that no one is a God unto himself and we must be careful to put others in that place as well.
[00:27:02] Now you might say, well, I never do that to anybody. But do you?
[00:27:06] Is there any among us who are depending on our spouse or our friend or our co worker or our government to really take care of things and make sure everything gets done.
[00:27:20] There are times when we take people that are very close to us and we move them from being our spouses and our helpers and our friends and our colleagues, and we turn them into gods. And then when they fail, we get really mad, we get really upset, and all kinds of other things happen.
[00:27:40] What is the proper relationship we are to have?
[00:27:44] The proper relationship is for men, mankind, to dwell together and with God as our head.
[00:27:54] This is what we had in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, humanity walking together, living in the presence of God. And it's what Christ obtains for us in his coming.
[00:28:07] And that's also what we lost in the garden. It's why the Lord Jesus comes.
[00:28:12] And David knows this. He's reasoning in this way. He's thinking about things, these things. He wants to go home, not just because he wants his life to be spared, but because he wants to dwell at peace with. With God's people in the presence of God, to share that heritage as has been promised in the covenant of grace.
[00:28:33] But how can David have that when you've got people like Saul and Abner and Abishai and even David himself in charge, and these are the best of the best.
[00:28:45] How can we have that?
[00:28:47] How can we have that kind of life when humanity is so broken, always imploding, filled with lying and murder and all kinds of desires that tear us apart from one another?
[00:29:01] How can we have that when our relationships with each other are so broken and our relationship with God is broken and marred with sin and corruption and rebellion?
[00:29:15] Well, there's one thing I know, and it's this.
[00:29:18] The only solution for that can come from God. It must come from Him. This is not something we can produce out of ourselves. It's not like if Abishai gets a little more training, he'll do better.
[00:29:32] Or if Abner worked just a little bit harder, he wouldn't have fallen asleep.
[00:29:38] With this passage and many others here. Throughout these accounts of God's establishment of this foreshadowing kingdom, what this is teaching us is that God is the king and that he will rule through his Messiah, through his anointed One. And it's teaching us not to lean on the strength of man or ourselves, but on the Lord, who is the foundation of our salvation.
[00:30:10] Just as this kingdom here foreshadows the power of God demonstrated in the sleep of Abner and Saul demonstrated in David's restraint over Abishai, so the final kingdom of God will be a kingdom of peace.
[00:30:25] A kingdom where he and his people will dwell forever.
[00:30:30] Now, that kingdom, when the Lord Jesus come, will come in power and in judgment.
[00:30:38] And it will come so that men can be saved and so that the kingdom of God can be established and the whole world will know that God is God alone.
[00:30:50] But when God comes into the world through Jesus, in His first coming, he very importantly manifests his power and his wisdom and his strength. Not by conquering people and cities and the nations, but by, get this, allowing Himself to be conquered.
[00:31:14] That's how he conquers.
[00:31:18] Now, if God's desire were to just keep us from dying a little bit longer, right, maybe he would have overthrown the Romans or the Jewish government or established some kingdom, right, in Jerusalem or Bethlehem or somewhere.
[00:31:38] And they would have reigned for a while until Jesus died and, you know, and then history would just go on as it always did. But God did not come to sustain our lives for a little bit longer or to make a kingdom that was really nice for a few decades.
[00:31:54] God came to establish his rule over death itself and to establish a kingdom that is perfect and forever.
[00:32:08] And so to do that, he comes into this world and demonstrates his power by even dying and then conquering that death from the moment of the birth of Christ all the way through his death and even now in the ways that God uses His people, what do we see?
[00:32:27] We see God choosing over and over and over again to use not what is wise and mighty in the world to establish his kingdom, but to use what the world considers foolish and weak. Why?
[00:32:42] Several reasons. I'll give you three, and we'll end quickly.
[00:32:47] Number one reason is to demonstrate his power, right? He executes the most awesome vision, creates the impossible thing that we all want and can't make for ourselves through the simplest and weakest things, including the death of the Son of God.
[00:33:08] Watch me do it, God says, and he does. The Lord says, I will be die, I will be crucified, I will be buried. I will raise from the dead. And indeed, he raises from the dead. God proves his power as just as he does in 1st Samuel 26. He does it in greater and greater ways in David's greater Son in Christ.
[00:33:31] A second reason God does this is it gives us an amazing advantage, an amazing blessing as a result of God coming in weakness and proving to all the world that he is God and he alone.
[00:33:51] By delaying the conquering judgment of all of the people of the world, first by putting it in the cross and then delaying it for the second coming of Christ, we are saved.
[00:34:05] If Jesus came into this world when he first came and said, that's it. I'm establishing the Kingdom of God. All the rebels will be killed. Guess who would be dead?
[00:34:16] Us.
[00:34:18] We are the rebellious ones. The reason we belong to the Kingdom of God is not because we were so awesome and loyal. Better than Abishai, better than Abner, better than Saul, better than David.
[00:34:31] No, God saved us while we were still in our sin.
[00:34:35] God died for us.
[00:34:37] And he says he dies for the ungodly.
[00:34:40] If Jesus came and established his kingdom purely through might when he first came, there would be no people in it except for Him.
[00:34:51] But instead he comes and he uses the power that he does. Not to leverage power in Israel and in Rome, but but to bring in the weak, the poor, the disenfranchised, the sinners, the confused, the struggling.
[00:35:12] And he goes to them over and over and over again.
[00:35:17] The Pharisees despised Jesus for this and were threatened by him touching lepers, talking with women, paralyzing, healing paralyzed people on the Sabbath, casting out demons, right? Freeing people, healing broken hearts.
[00:35:39] They hated him for this. But that's what he did. And that's how his mission came.
[00:35:44] And he was criticized and eventually killed.
[00:35:50] But thanks be to God, because in this we who count ourselves among the unrighteous, among the sinners, among the weak, among the needy and the sick, we're saved.
[00:36:02] The Pharisees weren't going to save us.
[00:36:05] Herod wasn't going to save us. Rome isn't going to save us. America is not going to save us.
[00:36:11] Jesus saves us.
[00:36:13] And perfectly and forever and out of the perfect plan of his good purpose.
[00:36:21] Amazing things.
[00:36:23] So if people want to criticize us for belonging to him, let them criticize. If they want to persecute us, let them persecute. If they want to put us to death, let them put us to death.
[00:36:37] Because we live in him and always will.
[00:36:42] So because of the way Jesus came, because of the way God, from the beginning, from the very beginning, through First Samuel, all the way through the Gospels, and even today, because God is the one who establishes the kingdom and not the strength and the power of man, you and I are saved.
[00:36:58] Praise be to God.
[00:37:01] This is to our advantage. This is to our blessing. And finally, I'll say this gives to us our mission.
[00:37:09] Although we are weak in many ways, never very few of us ever attain to the status of mighty in this world. And every single child of God is given the power of the Holy Spirit of God to do impossible things like love your enemies or bless those who persecute you, or disciple people with the word of Christ and watch it be the power of salvation to all who believe.
[00:37:54] The Lord gives us this great blessing. He brings us into his kingdom, and then he gives. He establishes this mission for us. And he says, spread my word, teach my word, make disciples and baptize them.
[00:38:13] So instead of putting our lives in the hands of mighty men, be that our spouses, friends, co workers, governments, whatever it is, and sort of looking to them to give us all that we need, where should we put our lives?
[00:38:30] We put our lives in the hand of Yahweh of the Lord, the covenant keeper, the steadfast one, the faithful one, the mighty king, who will not only save us by his power, keep us in his hands, but use us as his tools and his instruments to continue to work this mighty salvation all over the world until he comes again and establishes his kingdom finally in glory.
[00:39:02] So let us look to him and let us pray and ask that God would strengthen our confidence and our faith in him and in our Messiah. Let's pray.
[00:39:13] Our Heavenly Father, we pray to you in the name of Jesus, our King, who came for us and became not like angels, but became like men, to save us from our sin and to bring us into the kingdom of heaven.
[00:39:28] Lord, as citizens of that kingdom, we are bold and strong in your strength.
[00:39:34] Though our tongues get tied and our bodies get weak and we have to go to sleep every night and we have to wear clothes and we get tired and hungry.
[00:39:43] You are the preserver of our lives, the preserver of our souls.
[00:39:49] You keep us in the palm of your hand. We are the apple of your eye.
[00:39:55] And we know that nothing can separate us from the love that we have received in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
[00:40:03] Lord, we thank you for the ways in which you teach us about this great kingdom.
[00:40:10] By demonstrating to us and showing to us the way the earlier kingdoms were established.
[00:40:17] We ask, Lord, that you would help us to have the heart that David has, even though he himself is mighty and has many mighty men surrounding him.
[00:40:28] He does not depend on these things. Let us do the same.
[00:40:32] Let us not depend on weapons or on power, on fame or advantage or strategy.
[00:40:39] Let us look only and always to you.
[00:40:43] We ask for wisdom and that you would help us to use the gifts that we have been given and to use them well to be good stewards of the callings that you have called us to help us to know when to act and when to stop, when to pause and rest and when to go.
[00:41:01] Help us, Lord, to know when to speak and when to be silent as we seek to exercise this wisdom as we seek to exercise good stewardship, let us look always to you, knowing that in the midst of our confusion and our weakness, you are there.
[00:41:19] Lord, finally we ask that you would help us to keep our hearts fixed on heaven on the return of Christ and the great establishment of your kingdom in glory.
[00:41:30] Let us not grow discouraged and disheartened by the things of this world which pummel us all the time.
[00:41:36] And let us not put our faith in them either, but in you alone, in Jesus, who came and died on a cross so that we might be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life. The founder and perfecter of our faith, to him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
