-good morning everyone and welcome to NewSong.
-for the last couple of months we have been doing all sorts of sermon series, but for the past two weeks we’ve been kind of in between. Next week we will be starting a new one based on board games, it’ll be fun.
-but this week there was no “plan” per se but as I was thinking about this and praying about this I kept remembering one night we had with the students in which they went through crazy stories of the Bible because most people don’t know these stories anymore. Even a few weeks ago Luke was telling his mom about the stories he learned at Awana.
-so I thought maybe for today we’d have another story time in which I have a story and we can hear it and look at it a little.
-now, if you heard me last week I mentioned how sometimes there are very important things learned by looking at when something first appears in the Bible. I totally think that, but there can also be value to the last time something is mentioned in the Bible.
-so for this week I want us to look at the last chapter of II Samuel, the last full story we have of King David. After this they basically mention his death and him passing on the throne, but this is the last story of him really acting as king.
-and like I’ve done before I’m going to basically just tell the story and important verses to back up what I’m saying will appear on the screens.
-let me set this up for you:
THE STORY
-in the precious chapters, if you’ve read any of David’s story, his time as king is full of problems and turmoil, they had just finished with both a war and three years of famine. Then, for the first time in a long time, there’s peace. There are chapters of David’s song of praise and his last words, a list of his mighty warriors, things are going good.
-and in the midst of this good time, David decides to do something, it says the Lord’s anger burned against David and the Lord caused David to do something stupid. Take a census. [SHOW II SAM 24:1, NLT]
-now, I know we have all sorts of problems here and now with a census, but we have to be clear here. David wasn’t counting people so he could build better schools. David was counting his warriors. He wanted to know how many fighting men he had, and he had a lot. Over a million. [SHOW II SAM. 24:8-9, NLT].
-after the census and after David knows the number of fighting men, he realizes his sin and prays to God to forgive him. The next day God sends a prophet named Gad with a message. David has to choose one of three punishments for his sin, three years of famine, three months of being chased by his enemies, or three days of severe plague on the land.
-now I like David’s answer, kind of. [SHOW II SAM. 24:14] He says, “I am in a desperate situation, but let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great.” He opts to go with three days of plague at the God’s hands.
-for three days, people are dying from a plague. 70,000 people. The death angel starts moving toward Jerusalem and God tells him to stop. David sees the angel and admits he’s the one who has sinned, the people are innocent, he should pay for this.
-so the prophet Gad visits King David again and tells him to go build an altar to the Lord where the angel stopped, on the threshing floor of a man named Araunah the Jebusite.
-David goes to Araunah’s place, fills him in and says he wants to build the altar. Araunah, a nice man, tells the king, “here it is, take it. Do what you want with it.”
-but David says no. He insists on buying it. [SHOW II SAM. 24:14] King David says he will not give a sacrifice to God that cost him nothing. So he pays fifty pieces of silver, or a little over a pound of silver, for the floor and the oxen. David builds the altar and gives God the appropriate burnt and peace offerings. Immediately God answers David’s prayer and the plague on Israel is stopped.
-and that is how the legacy of David ends according to II Samuel. The next time we hear from David he is a dying old man and the next king is determined. This is how David’s story ends. It’s a long way from Goliath, isn’t it?
-but I think there’s a reason this story is in the Bible, there are things we can learn from it.
-and it’s interesting, this story is very much divided into three acts. The first one is based on:
1. TRUST
-the whole story starts with David wanting to count and find out how many fighting men he had.
-the problem is, David had no reason to know how many fighting men he had. Two reason. One, he was at peace. It’s almost like he was bored and wanted something to do, I don’t know. But for the first time in a long time, Israel is at peace. The Philistines are not all over them, other nations are leaving them alone, Israel is at peace.
-and the warriors would have returned home. They probably were happy to finally see their families again, but now they’re being counted. What kind of message would that send?
-but the other problem, warriors don’t win battles. At least not for Israel. God wins battles. The fact that David counted his men means he was not trusting in God like he should have. He was looking to his own strength.
-and Joab gets this. If you read through the David stories Joab is one of David’s fighting men, his commander, his second in battle. When David wants this count done he summons his commanders to do the census, and Joab is the only one to speak up.
**II Sam. 24:3 -> 3But Joab replied, “God grant that you will live to see the day when there will be a hundred times as many people in your kingdom as there are now! But you have no right to rejoice in their strength.” (LB)
-in some other versions it has Joab actually asking, “Why would you want to do this?”
-Joab sees it. He understands what the king is thinking and being the guy in battle who has relied on God’s provision and miracles, he knows. The men didn’t win all the battles, God did.
-David was not thinking about trusting God because he wasn't constantly in the situation where he had to trust God. Previously, back in chapter 21, David had been with his men fighting the Philistines and David grew so tired he was almost killed. Luckily, Abishai, a warrior in David’s army saved him:
**II Sam. 21:17 -> 17But Abishai son of Zeruiah killed the Philistine and saved David’s life. Then David’s men made a promise to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle. If you were killed, Israel would lose its greatest leader.” (NCV)
-David’s men had told him he was not allowed to go to battle, we will handle it.
-and as wonderful as that was, that means that by the time of this census, however long it had been, David had never been to battle and had to trust God like his commanders. And we know from the story of Bathsheba there were other times David did not go to war when he should have [SHOW II SAM. 11:1, NLT]
-the whole reason for this story boils down to one thing, trust. David was not trusting that God would take care of him or his land. He was looking at his warriors, at his army, at his fighting skills, at whatever else it was that caused him to think “I need to count my warriors.”
-it’s funny how David’s son wrote this in Proverbs:
**Prov. 3:5 -> 5Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. (NLT)
-it’s almost a separation there. Trust in God with all you have, don’t depend on what you think or what you understand.
-sometimes God does things that defies understanding, and sometimes we need to give Him the benefit of the doubt even when it doesn’t make sense. That’s what trust is. If it all made sense and we could see how it turns out, there’s not much trust to that.
-we need to place our trust in God, and if we do we will be blessed. We will be happy!
**Jer. 17:7-8 -> 7“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. 8They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.” (NLT)
-if you want a life that is not bother by drought, one that others can see your green leaves of life, one that produces fruit, it’s got to be a life of trust in God.
-but that’s just act one of our story. Then David realizes he did something wrong.
2. JUDGEMENT
-after David realizes he has done wrong, he wants to make it right, and God gives him three choices: three years of famine, three months of running from his enemies, or three days of plague.
-now in David’s defense, I can kind of see why he chose what he did. The country had just finished coming out of three years of famine. Another three years would be harsh and would put the people financially tied to another land who was not having a famine. The other, fleeing from enemies, David had spent most of his kingship running from enemies. I’m sure he was tired of it.
-plus, both of those options would put David’s fate into the hands of other people. And as David said, it’s better to fall into the hands of God than to have his fate be decided by people.
-and too often we look at a story like this and we think how God is mean, how God is unfair, how could God do this to people He loves?
-but the fact is God does love us. The unfortunate part is when we sin, when we have some sort of act of rebellion against God, it puts this wall up between Him and us, and all he wants to do is get rid of that wall and restore our relationship to where it was.
-and back then, there was no Jesus Christ who died for David’s sins, he had to offer a sacrifice. Notice when David realized he did something wrong, that was it. “I did something wrong” and then he did nothing. God had to send the prophet to him because David wasn’t acting to clear up that sin and repair that relationship.
-even when the death angel was killing, it was God who finally said “stop” waiting for David to build the altar.
-God is not one who likes punishing. It’s like a parent with a child. Most parents do not enjoy disciplining children, but they know it’s necessary for growth and to repair the relationship.
**Mic. 7:18-20 -> 18Where is another God like You, who pardons the sins of the survivors among His people? You cannot stay angry with Your people, for You love to be merciful. 19Once again You will have compassion on us. You will tread our sins beneath Your feet; You will throw them into the depths of the ocean! 20You will bless us as You promised Jacob long ago. You will set your love upon us, as You promised our father Abraham! (LB)
-God doesn’t want to be upset with us, God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us. He allows it to happen to restore us to the place we should be. And that brings us to the third act in this story.
3. SACRIFICE
-now for us, our offering to God, the sacrificial offering has been paid. That’s what Jesus did. But this was before Jesus.
-David has to provide an offering to God to atone for the sin. It’s not really a choice, it’s what he needs to do to stop this death angel.
-he goes to where the death angel is, this poor guy Araunah’s house, and is about to make an offering. David asks Araunah for his property where the angel is and for some oxen to give the offering.
-but here’s where it gets interesting. Araunha, being a good servant and realizing the king is here on his doorstep, offers the stuff for free to David. A nice gesture, to which David says “no”. David will not allow anything to be given to God in his name that cost him nothing.
-that is the idea of sacrifice. And I wonder how much of that has been lost in the modern church.
-we’re still supposed to offer God a sacrifice, it’s just not a sin offering anymore. We give God the sacrifice of living for Him.
-a famous verse:
**Ro. 12:1 -> 1So then, my brothers and sisters, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. (GNT)
-we talked about this last week in the traditional services, how true worship is not about what you manage to give God during the 60 minute slot on Sunday morning. Worship is about living a life that please God all the time.
-and that’s the ultimate sacrifice. That’s one of the hardest things to do, I know. And I’m not perfect at it either. But I find we so seldom think of living for God as a sacrifice. We think of it as something extra, something beside, something in addition to.
-we want living for God to be easy. And when it gets hard many people stop and think, “whoa, that’s not what I signed up for”.
-David would not take the “easy” way. It was offered to him. Here, make a sacrifice with something that cost you nothing. And David would not do it. He would not give to God any type of offering that did not have a cost.
-when we look at our lives and what we can give to God, time, money, how we treat people, service, sometimes it needs to cost.
-I’m not a big present person, but I know one thing, a present that you made or you spent something on means a lot more to me than a present someone gave you that you didn’t want. If you’ve ever been re-gifted you know what I mean.
-on one hand it hurts that it costs to live a life for God. On the other hand, I want to be like David, I don’t want to give God something that cost me nothing. And even though it hurts, it’s a sacrifice, I’d rather pay that price and give God something better than if I put in no effort at all.
-I don’t know where you are with God, but I know this, at any time we can stop and say to God, “here’s my life, take it.” At any time we can make that sacrifice. And really, it’s not a one time thing. It’s a sacrifice we have to make day-by-day, minute-by-minute. It’s a sacrifice that will continually come up and something we have to think about and live out throughout our entire lives.
-all we need to do is tell God we want to do this, ask Him for a fresh start so we have a fresh life, not a regifted life to give Him. And I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes I have to ask more than once to be forgiven and be made pure. I tend to mess up.
-but we can all give our lives to God. We can all live out lives that show how we trust God, take responsibility for our actions, than make that sacrifice to start new again.
