Dealing With Difficult People Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• Have you ever had a person in your life that was difficult to impossible to deal with?

• WE have heard of the diva athletes and entertainers who are almost impossible to deal with. WE have seen some athletes who have figuratively blown up locker rooms.

• In your life, I bet there are or have been people who are difficult to deal with. Maybe in your life it was or IS a boss, co-worker, or someone in your family.

• How frustrating does it feel to deal with that person? Not everyone is easy to deal with or get along with.

• I want you to just take a moment to think of someone in your life that is a “difficult” person. Now imagine that the person has total power over you to the point that they even have the power of life and death over you.

• How scary would that be! What would you do, how would you deal with that person?

• Today as we continue to examine the pressure points in the life of David, we are going to examine a person in David’s life who was very difficult to deal with.

• This person happened to be the King of the nation of Israel, King Saul.

• This was not the ideal person to have problems with.

• As we look at David’s problems with Saul, we will make some observations about King Saul that will help us to better understand some things concerning dealing with difficult people.

• Our observations this morning will come from 1 Samuel 18,19 and 24. We will not be reading the whole text so when you have the opportunity; take the time to read the chapters.

SERMON

• The first observation we will make concerning difficult people is…

• SLIDE #2

I. Difficult people are not your fault.

• This is important for us to understand because if we fail to understand this concept, we will spend time trying to fix a person who is difficult instead of trying to learn how to deal with them.

• As we look at the issue between David and Saul, it become very evident this was all on Saul.

• Saul was the King, God had anointed Saul as such, but over time Saul became disobedient to the Lord and God removed His Spirit from Saul and in 1 Samuel 16, David is anointed as the next king of Israel by God through the prophet Samuel.

• David had done nothing wrong, earlier in his life he took out Goliath. He fought battles for Saul in the name of Go. He did all that was asked of him, so why then was Saul such a difficult person when it came to David?

• As a matter of fact, why are some people difficult people?

• There are a variety of reasons for this happening.

• Specific to Saul, is that Saul first of all was JEALOUS!

• We will not dig in deep on this one since we will cover jealousy in our Prodigal Perspectives series in a few weeks.

• SLIDE #3

• 1 Samuel 18:6-9(ESV) 6As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments.£ 7And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 8And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” 9And Saul eyed David from that day on.

• Notice that Saul is jealous of David, he was alright with David as David is out winning battles for Saul, but once David got some good press, Saul was very jealous.

• This was the root from which this started, but the deeper root of the problems of Saul came from his continual disobedience to the Lord and the subsequent removal of God’s Spirit from Saul. (1 Samuel 16:14)

• Now Saul’s jealousy led to Saul questioning EVERYTHING David would do from this point on.

• In verse 9 we are told that Saul EYED David from that day on.

• Difficult people will do that to people; they will be suspicious of anything another person does. They will question even the best of things you do.

• Saul also knew that his son Jonathan was very close to David further adding to the paranoia and jealousy.

• This led ultimately to fear. Saul was afraid of losing it all to David.

• Notice in verse 8 that Saul asks rhetorically, WHAT MORE CAN HE HAVE BUT THE KINGDOM?