David's other side

I work for the largest truck manufacturer in the in North America. The department I work for processes all of the incoming orders uh truck orders. We uh do things like make sure that they meet all the regulatory requirements uh that they'll be able to support the work that the customer wants to do with the truck and that we can actually build the truck. That's what we do. A sign significant part of what uh my group does is um field questions from our dealer body that's in the dealerships all across uh the United States and Canada. Um questions like, "Hey, uh my customer has a truck that now that came from one of your competitors. They have this option. They really like it. Is that something we can do?" or uh this snow plow we're trying to build um is a municipal bid. Cost is really important. Is there any suggestions you have uh to pull some cost out of those specs? So, those are the kinds of questions that we might answer um from time to time from the dealer body. When I started at this company about 11 years ago, um I started to notice some patterns and that there were some questions that were recurring from time to time from the dealer body. In fact, it felt like there were times when I was answering the same question three or four times a week and uh it felt like we needed a FAQ, a frequently asked question tool. So, I went to my boss. I said, 'Hey, I know I'm new, but I feel like I'm answering this question all the time. Do we have an FAQ? Is this And my boss kind of looked at me in the way he does and said, "U, why don't you work on that?" Um, so I gathered a team and over about a year we developed a list of about 30 questions that we all felt like were recurring. We worked on the answers. We presented it, got it approved, and then ended up publishing this to one of our websites sites that the dealers come to for information and so forth. And then um proceeded to follow that up with moving it. So because it was just sort of a PDF document that was posted there. So we loaded it into another bit of software which made it a little more user friendly um and and then kept it up and made adjustments to it over time. Uh, it was a fair bit of work. Um, but I felt like it was worth it and we were able to refer dealers to it or actually we could go to it ourselves and copy an answer and put it in an email and send it right back to the dealer or whatever. One of the other things that happened is we realized that the 40 of us that do this work, we're not necessarily answering the question the same way all the time. And so part of what this helped us do was to sort of set up some best practices um and do some training and so on and so forth. Um about a year after that, a couple of my colleagues from my department were traveling to our annual awards ceremony at our headquarters in Portland, Oregon, where different departments uh would nominate themselves for different for awards based on different projects and things that had been going on through the year. I didn't think much of it until we were all sitting in our giant conference room watching the live feed of the award ceremony and these two guys walk across the stage and receive from our CEO the award for dealer FAQ and I am like but they didn't do anything like I felt like I should have I should have received some kind of recognition for this seemed a little unfair. The room cheered, you know, from from the Portland perspective here in Fort Mill were sort of the end of the earth. So, we don't necessarily always get a lot of recognition. So, this was kind of exciting. Fort Mill was receiving a recognition. So, was cheering in the room. But again, I'm sitting there thinking, "These guys didn't have anything to do with this. Why in the world are they there?" where I was really struggling internally. I felt overlooked and underappreciated. I had never actually done the work to receive an award. That wasn't why I did it. Frankly, I did it because I was tired of answering the same question over and over again. But still, it just it felt unfair and it felt like it was my idea and I'd done most of the work and I should have gotten some something out of that. It's been years now since that happened. I'm completely over it. But it's still it does sting when you do some work and you don't feel like you get the appropriate recognition that you deserve. In our text what a difference a week can make. We will see this week where David responds very angrily to a relatively benign slight sort of like me. Well, what we saw last week was a David who spared Saul's life. Saul had been the one pursuing David and would have killed him at the first opportunity. And last week, they crossed paths, cross paths in a cave. Saul didn't even know he was there. David's men are going, "David, now's the time." They even were sort of couching it in spiritual language like God's made this opportunity for you. You need to you need to take this and end this. But it was David that responded in chapter 24:6. He said this. He said, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord." See, the little Lord is talking about Saul. The big Lord is talking about God. Just so we're clear here. So this this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed to put my hand against him and seeing he is the Lord's anointed. Pastor Steven talked to us last week about the reality that if David were to do that, he would have become just like Saul. That Saul was serving himself by trying to kill David, his rival. at least so far as he saw it rather than the Lord um serving the Lord and ultimately David's ascendancy to the throne was in God's hands in God's timing. So David clearly understood what the appropriate response was and did not take that chance to kill Saul. At this week, we're going to see the opposite reaction from David where he is disrespected and dismissed by one who would be his subject at the point he becomes king. David gets angry and wants what is just and right and is willing to take his own hands, take it into his own hands. This time, David is the one being sort of talked down off the ledge. rather than the other way around like it was last week. So before we pray and jump in, I want to make one quick observation out of on verse one here. It's it it's a transition verse. It's kind of stuck in here. Um but it's not completely unimportant. So I didn't want to jump over it. Chapter 25:1 says this as now Samuel died and all Israel assembled and mourned for him and they buried him at the house of Rama and then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Pon. Samuel was the final judge and while far from perfect his leadership record was largely positive. It marks a finality, the permanent transition then from the judges who would be the administrators of God's kingdom under his royal authority, God's royal authority, under God's sovereign leadership. But if you remember, the people of Israel wanted a king. They said, "We want to be just like all the other nations. We need a king ourselves." And God kind of relents and says, "Okay, I'll give you a king." With a few exceptions, David being one of those, the kings of Israel were a record of abysmal failures. And this verse is stuck in here as this kind of quick transition. Oh, by the way, just so you know, Samuel died. So we are now into the royal kingship period of Israel's leadership formally. So pray with me and then we'll get started with chapter 25:2. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning as your people who desire ultimately to hear from you. The book we read is called we often call your word. It is it is what you have provided. It is how you have revealed yourself to us. It is how you provide to us insight to you and your plans and your direction for us. And so it is my prayer that ultimately we would hear from you and that we would be careful to do just that and nothing else. That we would not bring our own stuff here. this morning our own distractions, the things that may have our minds elsewhere and that we would hear from you. I pray the same for myself and that ultimately the words I speak would honor you, make much of you, make much of Jesus and not of me in Jesus name. Amen. Uh so again we'll pick up here in verse two read through verse 8. I'm calling this David's conduct. And there was a man in Mayon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nibal and the name of his wife was Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. He was a Calebite. David heard in the wilderness that Nibal was shearing 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 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 shears. So now your shepherds have been with us and we did them no harm and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. Ask your young uh your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes for we have come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at your hand to your servants and to your son David. So David and his men, there's about 600 of them, remain on the run from Saul, and they stumble on this group of shepherds. Um, they belong to this man named Nabal. Nabal is this wealthy but harsh and badly behaved. That's we actually, it's interesting. The commentators note that they actually tell us he's rich and badly behaved before they even tell us his name, which is I think says again something about him. It also describes him as a Calebite. Caleb, if you remember, was one of the 12 uh spies who went into the promised land. They were sent in by Moses um after they, you know, come through the Red Sea, wander for 40 years, and now they're ready to go into the promised land. He swins 12 spies in. Um, and 10 of them come back and say, "Oh, we shouldn't go. People in there are big and strong. We're probably going to lose." But Joshua and Caleb say, "No, we should go. God has given us this land. It was his promise and we should move forward." And ultimately they did go into the land and they conquer the land. And it's at some point they begin to settle and they begin to hand out the parcels of the land to the 12 tribes and a little piece of um the Judah's land was set aside and given to Caleb and his family. Caleb was actually a Kennesite which was was not Jewish. He was he was um um in again not Jewish but he um was a gentile and but was a faithful follower of Yahweh. And so we presume then the descendants of Nibal or the descendants of Caleb that ended up with Nabal um were likely of mixed heritage with ances their ancestors intermaring with the Israelites and they would have been fully integrated into the life of Israel. And David befriends Nibal's servants that were shearing a sheep. Shearing happens at a particular time of year of a great celebration, not unlike the one we're going to do this week where we celebrate God's provision and give thanks. And David is and his men um had been there. They' done no harm. They'd taken none of the sheep. Um but they were in need of food. If you remember, we talked about this in the past. that at the at the time the soldiers were were generally responsible for feeding themselves. Even as they were uh in the army serving the king, they were responsible for feeding themselves. If you remember, we even back to all the way back to David and Goliath. That's part of why David was even at um the front lines was he was sent there by his father to take his older brother's food as they were there on the front lines. So here they are, 600 men of David. Um, and they are hungry. We can only imagine what 600 tired, hungry, underresourced men would actually need for provisions. If you can I had to feed four teenage boys. I can only imagine what 600 men would need as they were um wandering around the desert. David recognizes that Nibbal and his shepherds were to be his subjects. At some point when he ultimately assumes the throne and he behaves well as we read in the story, it seems like they kind of hang out actually with the shepherds and that they provide them maybe with some protection while the shepherds are shearing the sheep. Later in verse 15, they actually say, "David and his men were good to us." One commentator wrote, "David not only restrained the violence of his army, but made the presence a source of help to those nearby." So, here's David doing all the right things for these men. I think there's an example here of maybe how we're to conduct ourselves in the world. We are designed and intended to live beyond ourselves. 1 Corinthians 12:7. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good, not for the individual good, but that we might serve one another. And there's been much recently for us to step into to be the hands and feet of Jesus to ensure our neighbors have food that they're safe. So I commend to you here the example of David. He did not go looking for this opportunity necessarily, but as the opportunity presented itself, he stepped into the lives of other people and cared for them despite his own needs. Picking up in verse 9, David's impulse. When David uh when David's young men came, uh they said all this to Nibal in the name of David and they and they waited and Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their master. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shears and give it to men who come from I don't even know where. So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. And David said to the men, "Every man strap on his sword." And every man strapped on his sword. And David also strapped on his sword. and about 400 men went up after David while 200 remained with their stuff with the baggage. Nibbal not only declines to help which would have been contrary to how Jews were to respond to anyone traveling through their land and even more during this time of shearing when sheep were counted and the provision of God was celebrated. But Nibal denies even knowing who David was. And I my first thought was maybe Nibal is like some in some remote area and hasn't heard some didn't get the news. Hadn't checked Facebook lately or something. I don't know. Didn't get the word that David was the king or going to be the king. Um, but soon we'll see that his wife Abigail knew. So it seems uh which which I I I guess makes me feel like Nibal was just sort of consumed with his own stuff, wasn't just wasn't paying attention, which seems consistent. um that he was this man who was harsh and badly behaved as we've learned about Nibal. And we see David's response. Every man get your sword. How different this is from a week ago when David's men were wanting David to take the sword and David said, "No, God's got this. It's not appropriate for me to take the life of this person. And here he is, ready to take out in a bowl. There's something in the circumstance that triggers a very different response from David. And I can truly only speculate about what that might be. But just out of my own heart, maybe what was most irritating was the disrespect that David was being perceived as some sort of run-of-the-mill stranger who was there begging for food from the rich guy and not the apparent to the throne of Israel, Nabal's future king, one who was under no obligation to Nabal and his servants and could likely have commandeered what he needed, but chose instead to care for them. And then Nabal dismisses him out of hand as a run-of-the-mill stranger or beggar. Uh Brian Stevenson is a nationally known attorney who's done a lot of work pursuing the exoneration of improperly convicted innocent men particularly on death row has argued many cases in front of the US Supreme Court founded the international justice mission and he tells uh a story that apparently has actually happened to him a number of times where he would be at court sitting at the defendant's table and it was some sort of pre-trial hearing and the judge comes in and says, "Uh, I'm going to need you to go because this is only for attorneys. The defendants aren't supposed to be here." And Brian would have to stand up and explain, "No, you see, honor, your honor, I'm the attorney. See, he's black." And the judges would just assume. I mean, it's this disrespect. It's this presumption. I think all of us have these chinks in our armor. For me, one of the things that I have come to understand about myself in the last several years, my hair trigger, if you will, is when I feel like I am being either accused of or perceived of as being stupid. And just this last week, a dealer sends me this spec was an old spec, a truck we built for him several years before. The customer was wanting to order the same trucks again. He says, "I need it updated. I needed updated pricing." So, I did exactly what he asked me to do, updated it for changes that had happened in the interim and sent it back to him. And he sends it back with this note. You clearly didn't refer to the previous specs like I asked you to. I wanted to throw pumps a guy. Just retelling the story makes me angry. I've spent a fair bit of my life with people um not understanding my outsized reactions to certain things. And they will often say to me things like, "Well, you just need to calm down." which doesn't help by the way. Settle down. I just I I tell you this just because it seemed like there was something sort of outsized in David's response and that his reaction was inappropriate and even sinful. Yet somehow I get it. Sometime somehow I understand it and I'm somehow sympathetic. All right, we're going to move on then to Abigail's plea. In the interest of time, I've skipped a few few verses here. Nibbal's servants actually go and tell Abigail the same story. Again, Abigail's his wife. She's the beautiful and discerning one. Okay? And they tell Abigail the same story and and how Nabal had treated them and that he declined to help. And Abigail loads up some supplies, as much as she felt like she could get away with where Nabal wouldn't notice. Bread, wine, prepared sheep, grain, raisins, and figs. And while it was significant, it was not nearly enough for 600 hungry men. And she heads down to David trying to avoid notice by Nabal. And we pick up in verse 23 when Abigail arrives says this. When Abigail saw David, she hurried down. 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 servants speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant. Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow Nibbal for for as his his name actually means foolish. Um so for his name is so is he. Nibal 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 as 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 let your enemies and those who speak to do evil to my Lord be as Nibal. And now let this present that your servant has brought you uh to my lord 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 is fighting the battles of the Lord and the evil should not be found in you so long as you live. If men rise up to pursue you and 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 far 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 e Israel, my lord shall you shall have no cause of grief of pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself. When the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant. Abigail reminds David of the same things that David reminded his men of last week in the cave. That the Nibal's life is not his to take and to take it makes him guilty. And that despite his current circumstances, God knows his plight and has not forgotten him and his plan. She says this phrase, and I love this phrase, the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living and the care of the Lord your God. I see a few things here. I don't think Abigail ultimately told David some anything he really didn't already know. We see in the Psalms that David is a thoughtful and reflective guy, one acquainted with God and is reasonably self-aware. Yet, in these moments of crisis, when things are difficult, our theology can be challenged. It's easy to say that God is good when all is well, but harder when things are hard. That still small voice of God becomes more difficult to hear when the cares of the world begin ringing in our ears. So we think this calls us to rehearsing these truths during the good times so that they are hopefully more present for us when things turn. Second, this is uh much more a statement ultimately about God and his faithfulness than it is about David. It may be appropriate, it may not be appropriate to take every promise given to David and claim it for ourselves. For example, it is unlikely that there are many of us in here who have a throne waiting for us. Right? So, so not every promise given to David we can assume ourselves. But I do think that we ultimately serve the same God who knows our heart, knows our future and is accomplishing purposes in us and our life like David's will be bound up in the bundle of of the living care of the Lord our God. Third thing I see is that David ultimately needed his community in that moment. He was unable on his own to think clearly and correctly. We talk a fair bit about the importance of community and I think this is an example of the type of role we can play in each other's lives. We talked on Wednesday about this verse from first Peter chapter 2. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a nation, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. It's not quite as easy to see in English as it is in Greek, but the U here is plural. This is a collective responsibility that comes with being one of his people. a chosen race, a holy nation, a people of God's own possession, that we proclaim the excellencies to the world, but to one another of him who called us out of darkness into the marvelous light. Abigail steps faithfully under her role. Her concern, it seems, is more with David than it is with protecting her worthless fellow husband. Her words, not mine. that whose behavior she does never does not defend. As David was last week in the cave, Abigail is here the voice of reason. There are likely a number of points in the life of any follower of Christ where we become aware of the crisis in the life of another. And while it may be challenging to be part of living in the kingdom, we accept that we are a people of God and not just a collection of individuals. And there is a mutual responsibility that we share for one another. It requires us to be connected enough to one another that we're actually aware, but also to be courageous enough to step into the life of another. In the last section here, I'm calling David's repentance. 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 from this day from blood guilt and from avenging myself with my own hand. For surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried to come to meet me. Truly by mourning there would uh had not been left to Nibal so much as one male. Then David received from her hand what she had brought him and he said to her, "Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition." Think of how differently this story would have ended had Abigail not stepped in. She had so many reasons not to. She was not directly involved. She was not responsible for Nibal's poor behavior. She was putting herself in a difficult position with her own husband, a harsh and badly behaved man. She was a woman. David was the king. Yet, she did and joins a long line of biblical women who were important players in the biblical story. I'm also impressed with David's response and how quickly he responds. He does not attempt to justify his behavior, but just repents. As much as there was pride that seemed to respond negatively to the dismissal by Nibal, there is a true humility that responds to Abigail's gentle correction. So we see in David then a warning here to both watch and to guard against that ungodly response that looks to defend ourselves to take events into our own hands but also to seek to respond to correction in that same sort of humble way. Story ends with Nabal falling ill. Verse 37 says Nabal's heart dies within him. don't know exactly what that means. And he lives for a few more days after that and then dies. And David ends up actually taking the beautiful and discerning Abigail as his wife. Somehow the greater fulfillment of Abigail's promise, the life of the Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living and the care of the Lord your God. David got out of this response something maybe even bigger and greater than just food. in a way that was unexpected and above what David could even have imagined. So many of us, and I'm the first on the list, will often try to justify our own responses. See, that's just how I am. We might say it's part of the package. And while that's true, it doesn't need to stay that way. Our redemption through Jesus provided for us his living presence in us in the person of the Holy Spirit to transform us from one degree of glory to another. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, this inddwelling Holy Spirit is a resource that David did not even have to himself. And while these are legitimate truths to glean from the story, I think there's a larger message here that we don't want to miss. David's story throughout scripture, a man after God's own heart, as the one chosen of God, as an unexpected savior and king, is to point us to Christ. And at the same time, the story is checkered, his story is checkered with human failings. In the Psalms, he is complaining to God about God's failure to do the things that he wants. In this story, we see his pride and impulsiveness and his even larger failures are yet to come in the story. So, despite everything that David had going for him, he was human and sinful. And while he was able to bring a measure of peace to his people by defeating en enemies and establishing a kingdom, it was temporary and incomplete. By the time of Jesus advent, Israel was on its fifth or sixth enemy occupation. Still longing for that lasting peace that David could not bring, David is included in the biblical story because at his best, like last week, he points us to the things that Jesus would be. At his worst, he points us to the things that Jesus would not be. While fully human, Jesus was also sinless and did not carry those same human failings. And therefore, unlike David, is worthy of our hope, our full and unrestrained hope, our one hope. His promise is that he can now provide us a full and eternal peace with God. And in that there is a future promise of peace from conflict with men. A peace from strug struggle from sickness from pain and sin. The story reminds us to refuse to settle for the hope that we can provide this in ourselves that our hope or or any hope that someone else might promise to provide. I'll close with a verse from Philippians. Paul says this, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Pray with me. Heavenly Father,