Don't Let Your Haters Get You Down

6 And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick.

7 And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.

8 And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?

9 And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.

Introduction

There is a very popular phrase or slang that is being used these days by the young people in our schools across the nation, which to the chagrin of English teachers everywhere is, “haters gonna hate” it means that people who don't like you will always find a reason to dislike you, no matter what the reason may be. And this particular phrase does have a ring of truth to it, because there will always someone around who just doesn’t like.

It’s not anything that you have done—they just don’t like you. Maybe they don’t like the way you wear your hair or because you walk like this or talk like that, they have appointed themselves to be one of your haters. What is a hater? A hater is a person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw or two in that person. Hating on someone is the direct result of being a hater; it is not exactly jealousy although it could be in some cases. But usually the hater doesn’t really want to be the person or to be like the person he or she hates, rather the hater wants to knock the person they hate down a notch. And they will keep an eye on their object of hate to make sure they can keep them down and inferior. But what makes this an extremely terrible behavior is when this type of behavior makes its way into God’s church. Why? Because in John 13: 34 - 35 Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It is a great mystery to me; I truly cannot understand how people with Jesus in their hearts can be so hateful and hurtful towards one another? How can they be so impatient and angry at each other? And so intolerant with someone that they themselves have characterized as being a person just not good enough to be called a friend and quite often for no viable reason? I’ve lived long enough to witness people in the church go out of their way to utterly destroy another one of God’s children.

I’ve seen Christians hurt, criticize, gossip, and judge each other even while sitting in the sanctuary or worst yet, standing behind a pulpit. Imagine this if you will, Isaiah said, “…I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” Here is the Lord, the Creator of the universe sitting on His upon His throne in His temple, high and lifted up—and here we are in His temple (His Church) putting down one of His children, looking down on them. Snubbing them in God’s church no less! They are doing so in the very presence of God Almighty! Why do we insist on hating each other for no good reason when we are essentially on the same team? We already have the devil that utterly hates each and every one of us—and sometimes I think some of us want to inadvertently switch and join up with him in order to feel free to hate their neighbor.

In the text, we join in on the celebration of David’s victory in defeating the Philistine giant Goliath. God used David to defeat the Philistines and if you were an Israelite regardless of your position or stature you should have been a part of this celebration because what happened was surely worth celebrating, what happened was an act of God through a shepherd boy. But in the mind of King Saul the women went a little overboard and threw him under the bus, because they composed and sung a song that didn’t sit well with him. He just did not care for the title they gave this particular song which went “…Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”

In other words, this song that they sung made Saul look bad and from that day forward he kept his eye on David, an evil eye I might add—in essence he started hating on David. And want to remind you this morning to not let your haters get you down.