Made For A Mission—Stay On Course
2/3/2007 2 Samuel 7:8-7:22 2 Timothy 2:1-15
Today the New York Giants and The New England Patriots are on a mission to win the NFL’s greatest prize which is the Superbowl. This is the game all the NFL teams try so hard to reach. In the last game of the season, several of the teams who had already made the playoffs, took some of their best players out of the game to rest them up for the playoffs. Interesting enough, the teams that took that strategy loss in the early rounds of the playoffs.
Instead of giving all their best to the very end of the regular season, they lost their momentum of that desiring to win, They thought a loss was not going to matter since they were already in the playoffs. But in taking some time off, they lost something. They got off course and paid a penalty for it. New England is coming into the SuperBowl with an undefeated season and no team has ever won 18 straight games as they have in a single season. New York would like nothing more than to spoil New England’s perfect record.
God has you on a mission for a perfect winning season in 2008. Satan would like nothing better than to turn your season into a disaster and humiliating experience with a stinging defeat. Let me introduce you to someone who was a little known nobody whom God uplifted and moved him to the top of his game. If he had been a rapper it would have been like going from singing in the fellowship hall, to having platinum selling cd’s in a few short months.
If he had been a basketball player, it would have been like going from the bench in high school straight to MVP of the NBA in the first year, and if he had of been an businessman it would have been like opening his business one month and having made a profit of ½ million dollars in just two years.
This guy had been a shepherd boy on the backside of a hill, and nobody expected too much out of him. But God saw something in his heart that God could use. Even before he knew what was going on, God had Samuel anoint this young boy as the future king. God set him on a mission. His name was David.
David started as a young boy who offered to fight a giant. Nobody believed he could succeed but him and God. David quickly rose through the military ranks and became a General and leader of the entire army. God gave him victory after victory after victory. Later with the death of King Saul, David became the king.
Once again he had a string of military victories. None of his enemies could stand against him. David knew his strength came from God. David had wanted to build a temple for God, but God told the prophet to tell David, “no, you are not the one to do it, but your son will build it.”
David was so overwhelmed with the goodness of God, that he said “ Samuel 7:18-19 (NIV) "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD?
After this prayer, David understood he had been made for a mission, which was to bring glory and honor to this awesome God who was at work in his life. In chapter 8 of the book of 2 Samuel, we find more victories the Lord gives to David against some overwhelming forces. In chapter 9 we find David on a mission of showing kindness and forgiveness. In chapter 10 we find David on a mission once again in battle against armies that are far larger than his own. But because of the hand of his God, his enemies are defeated and totally destroyed. As a ruler and as a leader, David is at the top of his game. There is no one on the horizon who seems to be able to take him down.
One of the greatest mistakes we can make, is to think, “I got it altogether, nobody can take me down.” That feeling and that thought never comes from God. It is always a lie from Satan. God tells us to be watchful and to pray. Why, because we find in 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV) 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
In tonight’s Superbowl game, neither team has the sole strategy of’ we’re just going to go out there and keep hitting them until they fall out or we fall out. No there will be people in booths looking over the opposing team trying to find a weakness they can exploit. They will both have plans for deception to make you think, they’re doing one thing, when in reality they are doing something else, but you won’t recognize it, until it’s too late.
When I played Defensive End, the coach would tell me to stay at home. What he meant was when the other team rather the ball in the opposite direction, resist the urge to head across the field and follow them. I was to stay at home. Why. Because the other team had a play, that was based on me not listening to the coach. It was called a reverse. If I got off track trying to make a play over ther, when the team needed me the most I would be on the wrong side of the field, and no one would be there to stop the play.
Satan has some great reverse plays. He knows that many of us can be taken off track, if nothing happens when we stay where we are suppose to be. The fun looks like it is over there. So we go after it, only to discover a reverse play has been set up. We now want to get back to where we use to be and are suppose to be, but the enemy has cut us down and the whole team has to pay a price for our disobedience. It doesn’t matter that before that play we had been on the top of our game. We allowed ourselves to forget the mission and get off course.
Chapters 8,9, and 10, David is defeating all kinds of enemies. Chapter 11 and David has to take on the greatest enemy of all. Do you know who your greatest enemy is in your mission. Satan is there to set all kinds of booby traps for you, but your greatest enemy looks back at you each time you look in a mirror. It’s the desire to please yourself. I have no problem with sin as long as I am earnestly doing what pleases Christ.
When what pleases me, is of greater importance to me than what please Jesus, I am choosing to live a life of rebellion against God. That’s a battle I cannot win. All sin is our open defiance of rebellion against God. It can happen to any of us and all of us and it does.. Just because God is using us, does not mean we are safe from destroying what God wants to do through us.
David is referred to as a man after God’s own heart, and he did not get a free pass to be above falling in a big way. Chapter 11 opens 2 Samuel 11:1 (NIV) 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
Now if it was the spring time, and kings lead their troops into battle in the spring time, and the troops had gone off to war, and were engaged in battle then why is David the king still in the city. David was made for a mission. Sitting in Jerusalem while his troops were in battle were not part of the mission. For some reason he is getting off course. Do you think anyone had the courage to say, “king David aren’t you suppose to be with the men?” David had all winter to have gotten rested, so it could not have been that he was too tired to go.
One thing we do know here is that David is somewhere where he ought not to be given the circumstances. How many of you know what it’s like to be somewhere you ought not to be? You don’t have any plans of changing your mission, but you are venturing just a little bit off course.
You’ve told yourself, well maybe I ought not to be here, but I’m going to leave real soon. After all you love the Lord, and God will see to it that nothing happens. We never go into a place resting in God will see to it that nothing happens. We remember the word of God which says, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. Is Jesus really calling you into that place you ought not be in?
There are many places for us to be in. It can be in that stolen car. It can be on the computer. It can be in our neighbor’s home. It can be in the restaurant. It can be in our client’s bank account. It can be in a scheme to rip of others. It can be in a bad negative attitude. It can be in a relationship. It can be in living a double lifestyle. It can be in our plan to get even with somebody. Is it the place where you’re going to find Jesus? Living for Christ is not a one time decision we make in the front of the church.
Living for Christ is a day to day, moment by moment decision we have to make to say yes to the will of God. Again it boils down to, who do I really want to please in this world, myself or my Lord Jesus Christ. That’s always the choice we are making.
It’s not a choice between my friends and Jesus, my money and Jesus, my boyfriend or girlfriend and Jesus, or my parents and Jesus. The mission is to live for Christ. Every time we choose to please ourselves over Christ, the more we get off course. Our goal is to desire our choices to be the choices Christ would have us make, because we trust God to know what’s best for our lives.
We cannot say that David has sinned because he stayed in Jerusalem, we just know that’s not where he should have been. The area of Jerusalem has a lot of hills. Back then you could tell who the most important people were by how high up on the hills their homes were. From the roof of one’s house, you could look down into other people’s homes that were lower than yours through their windows. If you wanted to see what was happening, you could go out on your roof and catch a lot of what was going on in the neighborhood.
In chapter 11, we find that one evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of his palace. This would be like you not being able to get to sleep so you get up and turn on the tv and start channel surfing. You know whenever I go to a hotel and I am in the room by myself alone at night, I avoid channel surfing. Anybody know why? Because I am going to come across something I have no business being tempted to look at.
Satan is great at having you come across the right picture at just the right moment. Well since I know he’s out there roaming the halls of that hotel, looking for someone to devour, I do my best to keep him on the other side of the door. Remember this, it is always easier to say no to sin and keep on saying no to sin, than it is to give in to sin and then try saying no to it. Sin is like a hook, that gets into us. It gets very painful to pull that thing back out, especially the deeper we allow it to go in us.
Well as David was up on the roof channel surfing, his eye caught the view of a woman who was bathing. He looked long enough to see that it was a very beautiful woman that was bathing. He looked even harder to figure out what the address was of the house where this beautiful woman was bathing. David knew before he went out on that roof, that he would be able to see into the houses of others. We can put ourselves into situations and then try to claim, “I just don’t even know how it happen.” It happened because we got distracted from our mission. We chose to ignore the warning lights God placed in our paths.
Now it was possible for David to have said, “lord I confess, my lust for this woman. I ask your forgiveness for spying on her. Restore me back to you.” If David had of prayed that simple prayer at that time, he would have continued to be on the top of his game.
Some of you are right where David was at that moment. You’ve got thought in your head, but you have not acted upon it. But David didn’t stop at the thought, and from here on his life and his kingdom is going to start sliding downhill. David called one of his servant and said, “Go find out who that woman is.”
The person comes back and says, “That’s Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” This servant wants David to know exactly who this woman is. You see not only is she married but she’s married to Uriah the Hittite. Uriah is not only of the soldiers that has gone into battle, but he is identified as one of the 30 of David’s mighty men.
This means this guy has placed his life on the line for David. He has done something historic in battle that brought praise to the king. David knows him personally and has probably placed some kind of metal on his chest for bravery in battle. This is Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, that he has been looking at.
Can you see all the reasons, why this man of God should let go of the sinful desires that have risen up inside of him? But remember I told you that sin is like a hook. The longer we hold it in our hearts, the more difficult it is to release it. David has already started that fantasy journey of how wonderful everything was going to be. It did not matter that he had a number of wives and probably a few concubines that he could have gone to, he wanted this woman who was someone else’s wife.
There is something about sin that pushes to the verse of insanity and we forget all the dreadful consequences of what might happen as we lose sight of our mission. David is thinking it will only be this one time, and after all he deserves at least one night of not living for the Lord. He is certain that he can keep this whole thing a secret and nobody will know about it.
So in his choice between pleasing himself or pleasing God, he chooses to please himself and he sends messengers to get her. Well his secret is already spreading to others. There is the guy who first went to find out who she was. There are now the messengers, who go to get her. There’s the person who answers the door at Bathsheba’s home. There are the people who are also out channel surfing on their roofs who sees her leave with the king’s servants. There is Bathsheba. There are the people who see her enter the king’s palace.
This secret is out before anything even happens. Tell your neighbor, somebody is watching you. You are on somebody’s video camera, somebody’s cell phone, somebody’s computer, and we found out this week, somebody’s text message. A lady resigned a $146,000 per year job, because someone got the text messages which showed she was having an affair with a mayor. What are you putting in your text messages, that may come back to destroy you? Satan knows how to use electronic gizmos to plan for our downfall.
Bathsheba comes in to the king. I don’t know what her role was in all of this. She had to have known that somebody higher up the hill could see a woman bathing if she did not take precautions to keep herself from being seen. I don’t know what they told her to get her to go see the king in the middle of the night. I don’t know what the king told her. This wasn’t her first time seeing the king. She may have been there when her husband was honored by the king. She had a choice when the king made clear his intentions was for them to have sex.
So we have two people here who claim to love the Lord who have chosen together to defy God They participate in what they think is going to be a sheer hour of delight and pleasure. They have no idea of what devastation and destruction this one time get together is going to cost them and the entire kingdom.
After sex is over they are both somewhat shamed and repentant. That’s how it is the first time. So she goes through the ritual process of taking a bath to cleanse herself ritually from having sex. They are under the impression God is going to simply forgive them and this is over. She leaves with the thought of never returning again. That’s just fine with David because he knows what he’s done is wrong. All goes well until she sends back the message, I am pregnant.
David knows for sure now that his mission has become a little more difficult, and that he needs to somehow get back on track. We’ll discover what he does and how he does it in our next message.
You may be today where David was. You’re off track on your mission. As a disciple of Christ, part of your mission is to be a soldier, part of it is to be an athlete, and part of it is to be a farmer. But maybe you’ve given in to the battle, you’ve stopped running the race, or you haven’t kept planting and waiting for the crops to appear.
The good news is that God knows about it. The better news is that God does not want you to stay where you are. The best news is that God has made a way for you to get back on track if you’re willing to admit your guilt and repent. Jesus still has a plan for your life. Don’t give up on him, because He has not given up on you.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick
Made For A Mission—Stay On Course
2/23/2008
2 Samuel 7:8-22 2 Timothy 2:1-15
A. Made For A Mission
1. Giants vs Patriots Super Bowl
2. Saving Until The Playoffs
3. Trying To Destroy A Perfect Record
4. God’s Desire For You
B. How A Nobody Becomes Somebody
1. The Rapper, Athlete, Businessman
2. The Backside Of The Hill
3. From Fighter To General To King
4. Military Victories
5. A Humble Spirit
2 Samuel 7:18-19 (NIV)
18 Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD?
C. Made For A Mission For God
1. More Victories Under His Belt
2. At The Top Of His Game
3. I Got It Altogether Look Out
1 Peter 5:8 (NIV) 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
4. Teams Use Force & Deception
5. Stay At Home—The Reverse
D. The Great Opponent
1. Victories 8,9, 10
2. The Enemy Appears In 11
3. Whom Do You Desire To Please
4. All Sin Is Open Defiance
E. A King Forgets His Mission
1. The King Does Not Go To War
2. Somewhere I Should Not Be
3. Fix Our Eyes On Jesus
4. What’s The Place We Are In
5. Discipleship—Day To Day Decision
6. Choice Please Me-Or Please Christ
F. The First Century Channel Surfers
1. A King Who Couldn’t Sleep
2. What’s Happening In The Hood
3. Satan Always Has The Right Channel
4. The Treacherous Hook
5. Easier To Say No Now, Than Later
6. Wow, What A Sight
7. Deceiving Ourselves
G. The Road To Destruction
1. The Lack Of Repentance From
Thoughts
2. The Move To Take Action
3. Information That Should Stop It
4. Bathsheba, Wife Of Uriah The Hittite
5. The Betrayal Of A Friend
6. When Sin Pushes To Insanity
H. We Can Never Plan For Everything
1. The Myth Of It Only Being Once
2. The Secret Is Not A Secret Anymore
3. Somebody Is Watching You
4. Cell Phones, Camera, Text Messages
5. Bathsheba-Innocent Or Co Conspirator
I. Just Being A Christian Is Not Enough
1. Have Plans To Stay On Track
2. Repentance Does Not Remove
Consequences
3. Parting Intending To End It
4. Your Mission-Soldier, Athlete, Farmer
5. God Has Not Thrown In The Towel
6. Good News
7. Better News
8. Best News
