When Life Knocks You Down-What’s Left
1 Samuel 30:1-31 Philippians’ 3:7-14
Today we complete our series, “When Life Knocks You Down.” Pastor Toby preached on “I Failed, Now What.” Pastor Kellie preached on “God Specializes in Plan B.” I’ve been given the assignment of preaching on “What’s Left.” Sometimes we can miss out on something because of a failure to search and to see what it is we have left.
Do any of you remember as a kid wanting to buy some cookies or some ice cream but not having any money to do it? I can remember we would look in every nook and cranny of the sofa to find us a coin or two. We’d look in the closet on the floor, and we’d check every old pocketbook we could find. We rejoiced just as much in putting together a ten cents as someone who had won the lottery. We found out there was often more left than we had first thought.
There are going to be times in our lives when we are going to want things, and we are going to come up short. Sometimes it is okay to come up short. Pastor Kellie preached on how our plans for life don’t always go the way we planned them to go.
We didn’t set our lives planning to get a felony conviction. We didn’t plan to become a teen mother. We didn’t plan to lose our job. We didn’t plan to fail in school. We didn’t plan to get cut from the team. We didn’t plan to have the person we love die. We didn’t plan for our spouse to leave us. We didn’t plan for the divorce. We didn’t plan for the crisis and the crime that happened to us. We didn’t plan to be betrayed.
We didn’t plan to lose our health. We didn’t plan to have to take care of our kids now that they are adults. We didn’t plan to lose our business or our jobs. We didn’t plan on our family turning out the way that it did. We didn’t plan to look the way we now do. We didn’t plan that addictions would hit us or someone we love. There are just a lot of bad things that happen to us and around us that we did not plan.
Somebody told us that if we just come to Jesus and give our lives to God, everything will be fine and the problems will be gone. Some even told us that God wants us all to be continuously healthy and wealthy, and if you have enough faith, you can name it and claim it and have it. Unfortunately some of us believed that and have discovered that it’s not true. Some have lost faith in God over this.
When Jesus called us to come and follow him, Jesus never said, his goal was to make us rich and to give us everything we wanted as a sign of his appreciation for us joining his team. What Jesus promised us was an opportunity to know God the Father as Jesus knew Him.
Jesus told us up front that following him was not going to be an easy task. As a matter of fact he told us our peace is going to have to be found in Him, because in this world we will experience trials, troubles, and tribulations. Nobody gets an exemption. If you live long enough, you will suffer either because of the sins of others or because of your own sin.
We make plans in our attempt to create a safe space for us. There’s nothing wrong with planning for the future as long as you know that plan is subject to change with our without your approval. If I save enough money, I will have a safe space for retirement. If I get that job with that income, I’ll have a safe space for me and my family’s level of comfort. If I marry that person I will have a safe space from loneliness.
If I have kids, I’ll have a safe space for someone to help look after me when I’m old. If I make that team, I’ll have a safe space of acceptance at school. If I can get in with that group, I’ll have a safe space of friends. We’re all looking for some kind of safe space to live our lives.
David had a safe space called Ziklag. David was a young man who had faithfully served the king. The king was so impressed with David’s ability and anointing, that he placed David over his entire army. But the king became jealous of David, because the people boasted of what David had done in battle as compared to the king.
They said, “King Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.” The king determined to kill David, and he pursued him ruthlessly throughout the country. David knew the only way he would find safety for him and his family was to leave the country and go into the land of the Philistines. The king had branded him as a terrorist. He knew the king would not cross the borders into enemy territory. So David struck up a deal with one of the Philistine rulers, and the ruler gave David the city of Ziklag. David had finally found him a safe space in which to live. No doubt some people referred to him as David of Ziklag.
The problem with safe spaces is that we can put our identity in them and if we lose them, then we think we have lost everything. Where you live is nowhere near as important as the fact that you are alive. As a Christian, we are to hold lightly to everything that we claim to be our own. Everything that we have, we will either lose or leave it behind, except for our relationship to God. You have to know that first and foremost, you have been called to be a child of God. That is your identity and that you cannot lose.
Your money, your possessions, your friends, your career, your children, your position, your spouse, your family, and everything else you think is yours can be lost or taken away. Sometimes that which you hold closest to your heart, you will lose, and it will hurt. It will hurt badly. But you are still a child of God with access to God’s hope, God’s strength and God’s power.
Why do you think God wants you to be in the kingdom of God? It’s because God wants to be in a relationship with you, and God wants you to want to be in a relationship with Him. Sometimes it is not enough to just have somebody with you. You want the person “to want” to be with you. Otherwise you will say,” if you really don’t want to be here you can leave.” We come to God, to get to know God. God wants to show Himself through all the circumstance of our lives, and not just in the five minute prayer time that we call devotions.
God wants to reveal Himself to us right where we are everyday of the week. That means even when we are in a crisis. Even when we’re having an attitude problem. Even when what we love is taken away. Even when we don’t get what we really wanted to get. God is going to be there with us and God wants us to know He is with us.
The issue is not so much what I’m going through right now, but rather are we open to being aware of the presence of God with us in it. If we are, we are going to want to be pleasing to God even in this circumstance. We know that our lives are not simply about us, but about what God is doing in and through us.
Our problem comes in wanting God to remodel our lives, but God is saying no. God is going to rebuild our lives, and that may mean going all the way back down to the foundation and making sure it is laid properly. That means demolishing a whole lot of stuff. Are you open to being rebuilt today with what you have left?
David and his men had been called by the Philistine leader who had given him the city of Ziklag, to join in the battle against King Saul and David’s own people. David responded of course he would go to fight, but he had to have been praying, “Lord what on earth am I going to do in the battle. I can’t fight against my own people.”
The other Philistine leaders didn’t want David and his men to go to war with them, because they felt David and his men might jump ship, and help King Saul in order to get back in on his good side. They told David to go back to Ziklag.
No doubt David and his men were thrilled to have avoided this conflict. I can see them offering praise and worship to God for this huge answer to prayer. They can’t wait to get back to their wives and families in order to celebrate. It was three day journey back to Ziklag.
All was normal until they got close enough to the city to sense something was not right. There were no scouts from the city to welcome them in. No sound of animals baaing and mooing. There was a smell of burned wood in the atmosphere. The closer they got, the more blackened structures they ran into. When they finally reached the city, probably in a run and a panic by now, there is not a sound of voice or a living person anywhere in site.
Ziklag, the safe haven of their identity had been attacked and burned. It seems that the Amelikites knew that the nations of Israel & Philistine would be fighting, and the men would be off in battle. It was the perfect time for them to attack the outer cities and carry off their wealth and to make the people their slaves.
Everyone’s family members were gone, as well as all their possessions. What started out as regular day has become a day of disaster. All the men weep and cry out in pain over the loss of seemingly everything. When we lose that which is dear to us, we want to put the blame on somebody or something? We want to make somebody pay for this?
Some of the men decided to blame David. “If you had not of made us go be with the Philistines, we would have been here to protect our families and this would not have happened to us.”
So often in our pain, we think, “if only I had of been there I could have stopped this.” Have you ever said that? We may say, “God why didn’t you warn me, so that I could have done such and such.” I remember when my brother committed suicide, “I had a hard time with God not letting me know what my brother was thinking so that I could have called him to talk him out of it.”
Our bad experiences are going to leave us very bitter if we do not seek to be aware of the presence of God in our situation. I could never love my brother nearly as much as God did, and yet God did not intervene in his action that time from my perspective.” I say from my perspective, because I don’t know what God did in those final moments for my brother and what their conversation was like as he was passing from this life to the next.
Some of David’s men became so despondent that they wanted to organize a stoning party to put David to death. They couldn’t see that David was hurting just like they were hurting, because his family was also gone. It’s sad when our desire for revenge or to get even in our crisis, blinds us from seeing the pain and the hurt our own actions may be causing to others.
The Scriptures says, “ David was greatly distressed because of this talk of stoning him, but David found strength in the Lord his God. The difference is that David chose to become aware of the presence of God. At this point he did not have anything more materially than the rest of the men. He had lost his status as the great leader, because they questioned his leadership and wanted him dead. They claimed to have nothing left.
Often times we think we cannot do the will of God because we have nothing left. Moses was trying to get out of doing God’s will for his life, and God asked him, “what do you have in your hand.” Moses said, “are you talking about this staff, this stick that I picked up to climb up here.”
God was basically asking Moses “what do you have left.” Moses saw a stick. That same stick was going to cause plagues to come on Egypt and bring it to its knees. That same stick was going to split open the Red Sea.
So often coming out of a crisis we underestimate what we still have left. You may have to start all over again. You may have to lose your home. You may have to let go of something or someone. But if you still have the presence of God, you are no poorer than you were before.
David cried out to the Lord for his situation and he found some strength in the Lord. Next he found some other people who knew the Lord and sought advice from them in discovering God’s will. How often do we go to the wrong people for advice when we find ourselves in a crisis? Don’t go to people who will tell you what you want to hear, go to people who will tell you what God wants you to hear.
David got a plan together and he presented to Abiathar to see if it was within God’s will. Abiathar told him yes it is God’s will, and yes you will succeed. David took 600 men to go and find the people who had destroyed Ziklag. But the plan did not go as expected. After a while 200 men said, they just could not go any further. They were too exhausted to continue the journey.
I want us to see that even when we are the plan God has given approval to, there are still going to be some setbacks and moments of discouragement. But we continue to journey. You didn’t get in debt all at once, you won’t get out in a week or two. You didn’t let your marriage deteriorate all at once, you won’t get it back altogether in a week or two. Stay with the plan God has given you, and let the Lord provide you the next step. Expect God to show up.
Once the 400 continued on, God led them to a man dying in the field. They gave him some water and food, and the man was able to tell them everything they needed to know about regaining their families and their possessions. David and his men came upon a much larger army. God allowed them to arrive at the same time this larger army was partying and getting drunk, completely unprepared for battle. God gave them a victory and they recovered all of their family members and more possessions than they had ever had before.
Having experienced God’s grace and generosity, made David a more gracious and generous person. Being aware of God’s presence, makes us more like God. When the army started home, the issue of the 200 men who did not make it into battle came up. Some said, “the only thing we should do for them is to let them take their wives and children and that’s it.”
But David said, “No. They stayed back and guarded our bags. They shall get the same reward from the spoils of war as all the rest of us. David also sent plunder back to some of the other elders in his home country and won their support for the day when he was to become king. David was willing to forget the things in the past, and look forward to a day that was coming.
That crisis, that disappointment, that loss that you suffered does not mean that God dropped the ball on you. What you may need to see is that God has been there all along, but you did not welcome his presence because it did not fit your plan? God wants to work something in you through this knock down of a blow you have been given.
Being knocked down is not the same as being knocked out? Having a plan fail, is not the same as being a failure in life. Losing a lot does not mean, there’s nothing left. God loves you just as much on this side of your trial as God did on the other side. Jesus prays to the Father on our behalf everyday. The Holy Spirit is the comforter who will lead and guide is into truth.
Are you willing to let go of the past, with all its hurts and disappointments and bitterness and acknowledge your role in the harm that was done? Are you willing to open your hands and let go of that which you call you own so that your identity will be in God and God alone? Are you willing to press on toward the prize of the high calling of getting to know Jesus Christ?
Let us not pray just for a successful life in terms of everything going our way, because we will surely be disappointed. Let us pray for a life in which we are aware of the presence of God no matter what it is we are going through. Let us bring God out of the prayer closet and into the everyday realm of our lives.
Our goal each day should be to love God as much as possible, through the many ways in which we go about our daily schedule. If we go an hour without thinking about God, ask for forgiveness and get back on the journey. No matter how much you think you have lost, if you still have Jesus left, then you have enough to make it in this life and in the life to come.
