We’re going to be in the Book of First Samuel; if you have a Bible you can turn there, and we’ll get there at some point. I think that, when you’re talking about hope; the biggest problem with hope is, when we are going thru trouble, we don’t know how to kind of deal with it right? So, check it out: Before Christ, we just handled stuff ourselves; before Christ, we’re just in control, or we think we are; before Christ, we just, when trouble happens or a problem happens, we somehow think we will figure out a way to get out of it.
When you come to Christ, it’s a whole different plan; you begin to live with a whole different set of Kingdom principles. We’re going to look at one of my all time favorite heroes in the Bible, David; and David got something that I think we miss. If we can re-learn, because when you come to Christ there’s this whole thing of re-learning about life and the way things work, because the way things work in life are different than what they were like, right?
Now, to start off, I just want to illustrate by saying that I, as a Pastor, am not all that mechanical. That might come as a shock for some of you, but I’m just not. You know, I’m the type of guy that when I open the hood of a car? I stand there and look at it in awe. I’m just amazed at everything, every single thing about it. And sometimes the car will break down, and Michelle and I will be out, and I’ll get out to act like I’m going to fix it and look under the hood and she’s like, "Why? Why would you even do that? What would be the point exactly, because you’re not going to be able to do anything;" and I’ll just start grabbing things; and isn’t this the way it is, we just kind of start grabbing on to things but it doesn’t make the car start.
See, I think it’s like that in our lives as Christ followers; we just start kind of grabbing on to things and thinking we can change it and it’s like, "That doesn’t really work that way." And I’m a Pastor, I understand that I’m mechanically challenged. I understand it, I get it, I admit it, I own it. The fact is and the truth is, there are things that we probably should be careful about trying to fix on our own; troubles and trials, and problems; and the fact is, when you look at David’s life, he ended up in a place that he never counted on being.
So here’s David in First Samuel sixteen, he is anointed King of Israel, the next King. He would succeed Saul; he’s not even in the blood-line. It should have gone Saul and then Jonathan; instead it went Saul and then David. He’s like, "What? That’s the promise God? I’m going to be a King?" "Yeah, you’re going to be the King; you’re going to be the next King of this country."
In First Samuel seventeen, he slays Goliath; then in First Samuel eighteen, he becomes best friends with Jonathan, Saul’s son. They were ’close knit’, the Bible uses the word picture, "God knit their hearts together," Jonathan and David’s hearts. Jonathan had every right to be mad at David; but he chose to follow what God would want in his life, and he chose to accept what God was doing in David’s life, and he chose to support David; and as a symbol, gave him his sword and his armor. There were two swords in the whole army -- Saul’s and Jonathan’s. Jonathan gave him his sword to say, "You’re the guy."
In First Samuel nineteen, things turn ugly because Saul all of a sudden, is jealous; and the Bible says that "Saul turned a jealous eye toward David." [1Samuel 18:9] And from that point on friends, it became the hunt of David’s life. It caused David to run; David ends up in a place some of you are in right now. David ends up in a cave. David ends up running, first of all to Gath where Goliath was from. He ends up running, and everywhere he went, Saul found out and starts chasing him. Can you imagine, God promises you a throne; God promises you a palace; God promises you you’ll be married; God promises you that you will have kids that will follow God; God promises you that you will have this job, or this business. You hear from God, God promises, and then you end up saying, "Whatever;" and you’re on the run and you go in to a season of loss.
David lost everything he knew. He lost his country; he lost the respect of the people; he lost his position, evidently; he lost his best friend; he lost his job, militarily speaking he was ’the guy’; he lost everything. He ends up running from Saul, and ends up in a cave. The Bible talks about, and we don’t know exactly, but scholars believe that the period of David in the wilderness and in the caves; from First Samuel chapter twenty-two, all the way to chapter thirty; that time frame is about ten or twelve years. In this ten or twelve years, a few things happened that I think will help us navigate thru times that I call ’cave times’. We’re going to be in a cave, we’re going to end up in a place that we never planned on being; you’re going to feel like God promised you a palace, God promised you a throne, God promised you this; and you’re going to end up saying, "Where’s the promise?" And my fear for us is that we’ll quit before God’s done.
See, the cave is the place you don’t want to go; but the cave is the place where I think God does His best stuff. The cave is this place where you’re by yourself, and you can’t interpret and you don’t know what’s going on. But what you know in the cave is that you have to trust God with your life. And I’ll just tell you, because I’ve seen it too many times; people come to Christ; get baptized; get excited and everything’s awesome -- until it’s not awesome. Everything’s good, until the first trouble comes; everything’s great until someone betrays you; everything’s good and then all of a sudden this honeymoon with God is over and then you enter the marriage; when you thought what you got promised isn’t happening. What do you do when you end up in a cave? What do you do when you thought God spoke to your heart, and you thought everything was going to be so awesome; and what happens when it’s not? Because as we end a series about hope, I think that the key to staying strong in God is to learn what David did.
In the cave, you know what you learn? You learn that God is enough; in the cave you learn, you were created by Him, and you’re His son or daughter and He loves you. You interpret it as ’God’s not there’; you interpret it as ’God’s out to get me’. But I’ve got to recalibrate if I want to live the way the Kingdom wants me to live; if I want to live the way God wants me to live, I’ve got to recalibrate the way I think about everything. See, it’s all about renewing my mind, transforming my thinking, changing the way I act; and then you’ll know what God’s will is for your life.
David lost everything; and he had every right, every single right to say, "I’m done with You God!" But David had a few cave secrets that we ought to learn; and it’s all going to hinge on just one verse. If you look all the way over in chapter thirty, First Samuel chapter thirty; you’re going to see this happen. First of all, you see him getting to the bottom of the barrel. You see here in First Samuel thirty, verse four; "So David and his men wept," check this out, "Wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep." [1 Samuel 30:4] Have you ever felt like that? Well it’s literally like you have no strength to even cry. Where you, you don’t, you have no energy; nothing left to give. Some of you are in that place I think, even right now.
When David ends up in the cave, he thinks he’s by himself; when actually had like four hundred people with him. And the Bible says in First Samuel twenty-two verse two that, "They were men that gathered with him to follow him..." This is, look, this is the qualifications of people that hung out with David after he was in the cave: "Men that were distressed; men that were in debt; and men that were discontented."[1 Samuel 22:2] Isn’t that the makings of a good church? Let’s gather together and please, everyone’s welcome. If you’re in debt, or distressed, or discontent; just show up!
All of a sudden you have this thing going on where David’s got all these people; and out of that, out of those four hundred, became the mighty warriors that served with David, they’re called ’David’s Mighty Men’. The people that God brought to stand with David were not the best and the brightest of his generation; God is not looking for talent. Somehow we think, "Well God, I have so much to offer you! And if I do this, and You’ll do this, and..." God is not looking for men and women that are talented. God is looking for men and women, and students, and young people; that are just willing to give their one and only life to Him. God wants to take some one; He’s not interested in what you can offer Him. He just wants your heart; and He wants to show you what only He can do in your life when you fully are surrendered to Him. And then my friends, dreams happen; and then stuff happens in your life that you can only imagine.
God took four hundred people and rebuilt an entire nation on those four hundred leaders. So often we think, "Well you know, I don’t really have much to give." No, you just have your own life to give. Your one life is the only life you have; and I don’t want to get to heaven and say, "You know, I just didn’t do everything I could do for God because of something someone thought, or someone said." We’ve got to be willing to lock arms and say, "We will do whatever we can do to see people that are lost, facing a Christ-less eternity, come home to God’s arms."
So here’s David, he was at ’the bottom’ where he had no strength even to cry. And the people, the four hundred that followed him? They had set up a little village; and while they were away, their enemies came, took their wives and children, and destroyed their village. Now, with their families gone and their village destroyed, the men that originally followed him, wanted to kill him. It says in verse six, "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him." [1 Samuel 30:6] What do you do when you have nobody left in your corner?
This is the next verse, and I believe can hang your life on this next verse. Outside of faith in Christ, if we learn this one principle, we would learn what it means to endure. I think sometimes that God’s Kingdom is full of a bunch of cowards; I’m just telling you; we’re just not willing to gut it out for God. We’ve got to be men and women that are willing to do whatever it takes for God’s Kingdom, because it’s in Him we rest. David says this in the King James, and the King James says it the best. They’re all distressed, they have no strength left even to cry and the old King James says, "But David encouraged himself in the LORD his God," [1 Samuel 30:6]
If you look at this, "David encouraged himself in the LORD." Whenever you see L-O-R-D, LORD, and you know this; when you see that all capitalized, that’s God’s personal name ’Yahweh’. God has, again, many names that are functional. So, "He encouraged himself in Yahweh, his God;" and God there is translated ’Elohim’, and ’Elohim’ means strength. So "He encouraged himself in Yahweh his strength." He had no more strength to give, so what did he do? He didn’t run; he had guts. David was marked by failure; David was marked by problems; but David was also marked as a man after God’s own heart because he didn’t quit.
How do we stay encouraged in the Lord? I mean, is there a way that I can know to stay encouraged in just God? Because I think, if you look at David’s life, you’d see a few things. And I really believe that these are important, and here’s the first one; and if you want to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 142. Number one, I have to learn to complain. How many people think that they have a gift of complaining? How many people have someone in your house that has a gift of complaining? No, don’t raise your hand on that. We have to learn... I know... we all complain; we just do. You’re wired to complain, God made you with something in you to complain. Part of it’s sin nature, part of it’s a connection with God.
What I think we do wrong is that we complain to each other; and when I complain to you about someone else, I’m sinning. I’m effectively engaging in flesh that is not honoring to God; at that second I’m basically saying, "Satan, I’m going to honor you right now. I’m going to gossip about someone that God made in His image, but I’m going to trash them;" so we complain to each other. I’m telling you, not all, but I would venture to say that some of us have been a little bit callous, caustic, with our words. You’ve got to learn, and I’ve got to learn; if you want to leave, to live in a Kingdom reality? The number one secret is to complain to only God.
When I first became a Christian, it was not even cool to tell God anything that you had a problem with. Then I went to Seminary, and I learned that there were different kinds of psalms. There are enthronement psalms; there are thanksgiving psalms; these psalms are like the hymn book for the nation of Israel. Do you know the number one kind of psalm is a psalm of lament? The Book of Lamentations is all about complaining; the word ’lament’ means to complain. So I just want to suggest that some of you have a spiritual gift of complaining; we’ve just got to learn to complain to the right person. We’ve got to affectively stop complaining about things to people; and I’m not saying not ask and bear burdens and all that, that’s all cool. What I’ve got to learn, and you’ve got to learn to do the best we can, is to complain to only God. Because when you do that, you re-engage a commitment and a connection with Him; and you basically say, "You’re in control."
So David, in Psalm 142; you’ll notice a little subscription above the psalm that says ’A Psalm of David Regarding His Experience In the Cave’, it’s a prayer. Listen to his heart, this is David while he’s in the cave; reflecting back on that experience. "I cry out to the LORD; I plead for the LORD’s mercy. I pour out my complaints before Him and I tell Him all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed, and You alone know where I should turn. Wherever I go, my enemies have set a trap for me. I look for someone to come and help me," now check this out; "But no one gives me a passing thought. No one will help me," he’s kind of got a little bit of a party favor, pity party going on at this point. "No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me;"[Psalm 142:1-4]
I’m learning what it means to tell God stuff. So when my Grandpa died, he died on a Friday morning. I got off an airplane on a Thursday night, ten o’clock; went and spent a few hours with him. Left to go home, had every intention of being back early in the morning; was completely jet-lagged, couldn’t quite get out of bed in the morning. So I’m on my way there and at 11:05, I get this phone call, "Grandpa’s gone." I was so frustrated that I was ten minutes from seeing him. I was so mad; I was mad at myself, I was mad at the situation; but mostly, I was mad at God. God could have kept him breathing for ten more minutes -- I was mad and I told God all about it.
My fourteen year old daughter Hannah was in the car and I’m crying a little bit, a little bit louder than usual and I said, "I am so mad at God; I am so mad at You!" And I’m just kind of having my time with God, and my daughter happened to be next to me; and she’s sort of looking at me like (jaw dropped) She said, "Dad, I’m not sure you’re supposed to be mad at God." I said, "I am mad at God; I’m mad at You! You could have stopped it! You could have..." and I’m just in this space and then Hannah kind of looks at me; and the look, she didn’t say this but the look was like, "Dad, would you mind letting me out at the next corner? I’ll call Mom for a ride."
The fact is, we’re not comfortable complaining to God. Somehow we think we have to ’over Christianize’ things, but it’s okay to be mad at God; it’s okay to tell Him that you’re not happy; it’s okay to say, "Why did You let this happen?" You have to learn this friends. I grew up learning to Christianize things like, "It’s all good," and sort of a Mary Poppins© existence; and it’s so stupid! Because you’ve got to learn to tell God, "I’m not cool with this!" We’ve got to learn to do it better.
When you do that, when you do what David did; and look what David says, "Why did you allow this to happen, I’m overwhelmed;" and I love it, he kind of turns the corner in verse five; he turns a corner from crying and complaining to, "Then You, oh Yahweh. I say "You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life." [Psalm 142:5] When was the last time you had that conversation with God? "You’re all I want. You know, I want a wife or a husband; but You’re all I want. Man, I want the business to be good; but You’re all I want. And I want, I want to be accepted to this college; but You’re all I want. I want it to work out with this person; but You’re all I want."
See, when you have that conversation; you tell God how you feel, and then your heart begins to turn to a direction to say, "You’re all I want, You’re my place of refuge. You’re all I want in life;" and then he says, "God, hear my cry, for I am very low. Rescue me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of prison so I can thank You. The godly will crowd around me, for You treat me kindly." [Psalm 142:6-7] You treat me kindly? Do you see the relational connection here? See, David had a heart for God, because he had a relationship with God.
So often, this is the way it goes. You come to Christ, "Yea, I’m all excited," and then the cave happens; and I want the blessing on the other side of the cave. The ten year thing, or the ten month thing, or the ten day thing, or the ten minute thing in the cave? I don’t’ want the problem of the cave; I want the promise of God. I don’t want the pain of divorce, or the pain of a loss; but I want the promise of God. Do you know that the path to a blessing, and the path to God’s promises; are very often marked thru problems, and it’s to the extent that you can hang thru it friends. It’s to the extent that you say, "Okay, I don’t like it and I’m kind of frustrated with You; but You’re my rescuer and You’re all I want in life.
See, it’s fair to tell God; and then the second thing is you learn that your words matter; learn that you’ll be accountable, and so will I. "Every idle word," Jesus says in Matthew twelve, "You will stand accountable for every idle word spoken." [Matthew 12:36] You learn to be accountable, and you learn to connect with God and you tell Him. And then the second thing is you trust only God; you trust Him.
See, to trust only God says, "I can’t just complain and never change; because that’s just one giant pity party, my whole life. I’ve got to tell God, and then I’ve got to move from telling him to trusting Him" This is what trust looks like: You just do the one thing you know to do right. You just ask someone to forgive you; or just be patient; or you just be kind; or just write the one e-mail; you just do the one thing you know to do.
Sometimes in doing the right thing, the only right thing we know to do, is just to breathe. Really, it’s like, "I have nothing to give." So just cry, and breathe if you can. You’ve got to learn, and so do I, to trust. The Bible says in Proverbs three, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, don’t lean on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will make your paths straight." [Proverbs 3:5-6] When I complain to God, when I trust God; it results in the thing I see in David’s life that’s so critical for all of us, and I’m just going to take you there, it’s in chapter twenty of First Samuel. It’s choose only God, it’s choose for only God. Friends, I think that when you’re in a cave time, the temptations are going to be harder and more unique in your life than ever before.
You’re going thru a time of loss; you’re going thru a season that you can’t understand? Your temptation will be to take matters in to your own hands. You’re temptation will be to say, "God, thank You so much and I’ll be in here handling stuff, okay? Love You, but I can’t take it anymore." What you’ve got to learn to do is choose; make a choice. Joshua said to the entire nation of Israel, "Choose this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." [Joshua 24:15] You make a choice friends; this is where gutsy grace comes in, you make a choice.
Look at what David does. Saul’s been pursuing him for years, trying to kill David; and look what David does. Saul ends up in a cave and the Bible says, "Saul went in to a cave to relieve himself." Doesn’t that fascinate you? No, hold on! And I’m speaking and some of the people probably right now are relieving themselves. Saul went into a cave and -- took a pee! And he’s just there, and think about this; he’s in a cave, it’s like, in essence the place to relieve himself; and it says, "David and his men were hiding in that very cave!" [1 Samuel 24:3] So the very place that he thought was like the equivalent of a toilet, is where David was living.
Verse four, ""Now’s your opportunity!" David’s men whispered to him. "Today is the day the LORD was talking about; to put Saul into your power, to do with as you wish." David crept forward, cut a piece of robe, a piece off of Saul’s robe. But then his conscience started to bother him." [1 Samuel 24:4-5] Let me just ask you a really, really simple question: Could David have killed Saul? He could have obviously killed Saul. In a human thinking, would anyone have faulted him for that? Self defense; you’re the victim David!
What David chose was what I very rarely see people choose; he chose the way of God. Jesus said words like this, "Pray for those that persecute you. Do good to those that hurt you." [Luke 6:27-28] How awkward are those words, but what if we lived them? What if in choosing God, choosing for God; somehow, someway, God’s reflected more in our lives? What happens then is, you go from the cave where God’s preparing you for something that’s better than you could ever imagine. But if we’re not careful, we’re going to miss it friends. See, we’ve got to be willing to choose to do the one thing we need to do; and I think the biggest thing is just to choose to not quit. Some of you in this audience, I just know enough about you, and know enough about I’m wired; that we get so tired that our strength can’t take it anymore, and you just want to quit.
I’m reading a book by Charles Stanley(c), it’s called ’How To Let God Solve Your Problems’(c), and he tells a story in here about Winston Churchill. "When Winston Churchill, one of England’s most famous prime minister’s was a young boy, he attended a private school in England. You probably would think he was one of the smartest boys in school, but actually he was not; in fact, he was in the bottom third of his class. It seemed that he had very little potential, even though he was the grandson of Randolph Churchill, a British statesman. Instead of giving up, he kept going forward. He graduated from his private school; he entered the University; and then he went to military school. Then he served in the British army in India and Africa before becoming Prime Minister; and was one of the masterminds behind the Allied victory in Europe during World War II.
"Years later, he accepted a speaking engagement at his old school. The day before he arrived, the Head Master called them all together and told them, "Tomorrow the Prime Minister is coming to speak; he is the most eloquent man in our country. Therefore, I want you to take really good notes. I don’t want you to miss one single word he has to say, because this is going to be one of those once in a lifetime opportunities." Everyone was excited," it says, "In full anticipation."
"When the five-foot-five-inch Prime Minister walked in to the hushed auditorium, every single eye was focused on him. Finally, after the Principle gave a tremendous and beautiful oration about all of Churchill’s accomplishments, the Prime Minister stood up, walked to the podium, and he said these words, "Gentlemen, never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never, never, never." and turned around and walked away."
Can you imagine you’re like, "You got to be kidding me? Let me do the speech!" But here’s a man that lived and learned the value of not quitting; and isn’t true that we always quit too soon? Isn’t it true, because we just can’t interpret what God is doing, we get frustrated and we start blaming other people; and we give in, and we give up. I would say that these words would be from God to us, "Don’t give up. Never, ever, ever, ever. You just do the one thing you know to do," and you trust God.
Now, I was speaking at some churches in Australia in October and one of the churches I spoke at, I was trying to be... I mean, I had my ’thing’ that I was going to talk about -- ’my thing’. I was, "I’m going to talk about this." And right before the last service, the Pastor comes up and talks to me, he says, "You know, this next service, would you mind changing your message because you’ve got like, eighteen minutes." I’m like, "Eighteen minutes? Are you kidding? I can barely do an introduction in eighteen minutes." And it was just one of those, I was like, "Okay..."
So I completely said, "God, what do you want to say because I can’t say much in eighteen minutes. But God, it’s your message and there’s got to be somebody that’s going to be here to hear it. And I just spoke, and I did a message I had not done. I talked about Elijah; because Elijah was in a cave. See, God does His best stuff in caves. Hope was born in a cave; Jesus was raised to life in a cave; Gideon found his best ministry outside of the cave. God does his best stuff in caves; it’s just that we don’t like them.
So I’m talking about Elijah and how he was in this cave, and he prays this prayer; "I want you to take my life this very day," cries out to God. I basically just summarized the message down to these one or two thoughts. I said, "You know, some of you here today, there’s one person who’s really considering taking their life. And God brought you here long enough to get your attention to say, "Choose life in God."" And so I did a Gospel thing and prayed, and pretty much was done and walked off the stage.
I found out later, there was a man from Kenya that kind of bee-lined down the front and over where I was walking, over to the side. He was coming like toward me so fast that security was right there; I mean, it was that kind of the intensity. He grabs me, and his name was Peter; and I’ll never forget it as long as I live. He says, "I was coming to church as a last hope, and I was going home to take my life today. I’m a pilot in Africa, and I’m done. And I thought, if there’s any hope; I’m just going to give God one more chance, and today I asked Jesus Christ into my life."
And there’s times where you don’t want to change a message; you don’t want to go on a mission trip; you don’t want to get on a plane; you don’t want to go somewhere; you don’t want to do something? And when you get to the point to realize it’s just not about you, it’s not about you; and it’s certainly not about what other people think is for you -- it’s what God wants. When you get to that place, like David did; and you learn the value of encouraging yourself in the LORD your God? You’ll never be the same again my friends. You learn not to quit; you learn to trust; you learn to listen to the voice that formed you in your mother’s womb; that gave you life; and that will meet you when you die. His voice has got to matter more than every other voice combined. When you get that? Stay strong.
PRAYER: Father, thank You for these moments. I thank You for all that You do in our hearts; and I pray God, that there would be for some of us, just a sense of new bounce in our step. A sense where God, we just know that we know that we know, that You’re in absolute control; a sense that we could begin to pray with each other and rejoice together. God, I thank You that You never leave us; I pray for every person and I love this church so much. I pray for all the hearts, and we pray in the name of the One that gave His life for us, in Jesus’ name, amen...
