DAVID ENCOURAGED HIMSELF IN THE LORD
1 Sam. 30:1-8
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: ACTUAL ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGES
1. Most people are content to let the prerecorded voicemail lady ask their callers to leave a message, but many people like to make up their own. Here are a few actual voicemail messages:
2. “Hello. Now you say something.”
3. “Hello, I don’t need siding, windows, a hot tub, or my carpets cleaned. I give to charity at the office and I’m not voting in the next election. If you still want to leave a message, do it now.”
4. “Hi. I’m probably home. I’m just avoiding people I don’t want to talk to. Leave a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.”
5. “You’re growing tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You feel very sleepy now. You are gradually losing your willpower and your ability to resist. When you hear the tone you will feel compelled to leave your name, number, and a message.”
6. “Please leave a message. However, you have the right to remain silent. Everything you say will be recorded and will be used by us.”
B. TEXT
1 David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, 2 and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. 3 When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4 So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. 6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David encouraged himself in the Lord. 7 Then David said to Abiathar the priest…"Bring me the ephod." 8 …and David inquired of the LORD, "Shall I pursue this raiding party? "Pursue them," [God] answered. "You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue."
C. THESIS
1. The unthinkable happened:
a. God’s Chosen Servant, God’s man,
b. Anointed by Samuel,
c. The Future King,
d. Forefather of Christ…
2….Was stricken by Calamity! Why? How would David recover his faith after this devastating blow?
3. Title: “David Encouraged Himself in the Lord.”
I. BAD SITUATIONS BREED DISCOURAGEMENT
A. DAVID’S SITUATION/ DESPERATION
1. After a close call with King Saul (army got close), David weakened in his faith in God's protecting power. He decided to move to the Philistine territory. It's one thing to flee King Saul but another to move into the enemy’s territory.
2. The church today, thinking we have to get along with the world, is trying to do the same thing. [Keep our mouths shut, accept their morality, etc. But I’d rather have the whole world against me than God against me!]
3. “But David thought to himself, "One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines” (1Sam. 27:1).
4. That’s a lie of Satan. You don’t use the devil’s tactics to get God’s results. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind” 2 Tim. 1:7. Compromise takes you out of God’s protection.
5. JOKE. David was kind of like the lady who got her house robbed and called the police.
a. The nearest police unit was the K-9 Unit. The policeman got out of the car with a dog on a leash.
b. The lady looked at him and exclaimed, “For Pete’s sake! First I’m robbed and now they send me a blind policeman!”
c. It’s easy to sometimes make the wrong assumptions.
B. RESULTS FROM THE BAD DECISION
1. David and his men returned to find their city burnt to the ground. Their wives and children abducted and at the mercy of pillaging raiders. Their cattle and all other possessions had been stolen.
2. Satan is in the business of stealing things that don’t belong to him! Jesus said in JOHN 10:10 “The thief comes, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
3. Satan is always trying to rob God’s people – of their FAITH, of their VICTORY, of their COURAGE, of their TRUST in God. Ultimately, he wants to steal everyone’s soul and take them with him to hell.
4. But here the enemy was trying to stop God’s key witness before he could liberate the entire nation. So he found a way to turn David’s own men against him. They were talking about stoning him. It was very dangerous for David.
5. David was suffering with grief – losing his own family. His men were out of control and looking for someone to blame. That’s what terrible trials do to us – get us looking the wrong direction! THEN DAVID LOOKED UP TO GOD. The Bible says that David “encouraged himself in the Lord!” What does that mean?
II. “DAVID ENCOURAGED HIMSELF IN THE LORD”
A. DAVID RECOGNIZED THE SIGNS OF DEPRESSION
1. DAVID WOKE UP TO HIS OWN DEPRESSED CONDITION.
Often, in a crisis, we don’t realize the doubts, the despair, the sadness that we’re trapped in. The first thing that happened was that David realized the terrible state of his mind and heart. He realized he was leaving God out of his equation.
2. Then David began to talk to himself. Some of the best talks in the world are those which a man has with himself. David said, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I will yet praise Him!”
3. David might have drawn encouragement from a group of valiant men who’d joined him from Manasseh. 1 Chron. 12:19-20 says, “….Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael, and Jozabad, and Elihu, and Zilthai, (7) captains of the thousands.” These newcomers hadn’t lost their wives and children, for they hadn’t been in Ziklag.
4. But David didn’t look to any man – but “to the Lord.” No, he encouraged himself in the Lord, his God! David casts himself away from all earthly trusts and went straight to his God!
B. HOW DAVID ENCOURAGED HIMSELF IN THE LORD
1. Standing among those ruins, he repeated a truth he knew earlier in his life; “I know the Lord still loves me and I love Him. Though I may have faltered, yet He’s not forgotten to be gracious; I know He loves me still.”
2. He looked back on the happy days when he kept his father’s sheep and sang songs to God out on the hills of Bethlehem.
3. “My experiencing God’s love wasn’t a dream. I’ve known the Lord and I have had precious fellowship with Him. And I know that He never changes and, therefore, He will help me. His mercy endures forever.”
4. “Didn’t he forgive my sins (Ps. 32:2)? Didn’t He heal my body (Ps. 6:2)? Didn’t He answer my prayers over and over? Didn’t I feel His presence when I worshipped Him and rejoiced in Him (Ps. 16:11)?”
5. David undoubtedly remembered his victories.
a. He remembered the lion and the bear falling by his hand. God delivered him then and won’t He deliver Him now?
b. He pictured himself going out to meet the giant Goliath, with nothing but a sling and a stone— and coming back with the monster’s head in his hand—and he argued, “Will He not rescue me now?”
c. He saw himself in the courts of Saul when the mad king sought to pin him to the wall with a javelin, but God spared him. “If the Lord had meant to destroy me, Saul would have done it!”
C. HOW SHALL WE ENCOURAGE OURSELVES?
1. TALK TO YOURSELF. Call your thinking into account. When bad times come, don’t let your mind run on with bad, doubt-filled thoughts. Stop fears and promote faith.
2. REMIND YOURSELF OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS DONE FOR YOU. Remember all the times God has touched you, how He’s answered your prayers. How others around you have experienced miracles. Recite all the tangible evidences of God’s reality in your life and those around you.
3. REMEMBER GOD’S CHARACTER. You should be saying, “The Lord called me by His grace; He brought me out from the world, and made me His child. Will He leave me now? Is not the oil of His Spirit still upon me? Will He leave me to the enemy, so that he can rejoice over me? NO!”
4. Child of God, take down your diaries and refer to the days when the Lord helped you again and again! How many times has He blessed you? You could not count them.
5. “Yes,” you say, “but I’ve done wrong; I am so sinful.” Yes, but since God loved you when you were at your worst; won’t he love you more, now that you’re trying to please him? God knew just what you were when He saved you; He knew what He was getting. Our failures don’t surprise Him. He loves us anyway.
6. When you pray, don’t approach God as if He won’t help you. Would you like it if your children were so afraid of you they wouldn’t even tell you their desperate needs!
7. What if they were suspicious you even loved them or doubted your willingness to help? David went back to his former knowledge of God, before the trouble came.
III. DAVID’S ENCOURAGEMENT WAS “IN THE LORD”
David reminded himself about all the wonderful things he had learned about God. Let me give you 7 things:
A. GOD NEVER CHANGES HIS MIND, PURPOSE, NATURE; “For I am the LORD, I change not” Mal. 3:6.
1. A lot of people change their mind about like they change their clothes; all the time! Husbands and wives change their minds. Referees change their minds about a call. The Courts change their minds about a decision. And -- glory be -- even the government changes its mind (usually for the worse)!
2. But God doesn’t change His mind. He’s one person we can always count on, that will never let us down. We can trust in Him, no matter what else. He’s the same, yesterday, today, and forever!
3. “Your Word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” Ps. 119:89. “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” Mt. 5:18. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” Mk. 13:31.
4. What confidence we can have about the future and our status with God! We stand on the unshakable promises of God!
B. GOD IS IN CONTROL OF ALL OUR NEEDS
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” Phip 4:19.
1. It seems like our needs are so great; we need everything -- money for house, phone, food and clothing, gas, electricity, and a 100 other things. We wonder how we will pay them.
2. But God is in control. He may use a little widow-woman who only has a handful of flour and a spoon full of oil. We may share some little boy’s lunch.
3. We may be fed by a Birds (like Elijah) or dine on a fish caught in a miraculous manner, but God will supply our needs! God is able to make something out of nothing!
C. GOD CAUSES EVERY TRIAL TO HAVE MEANING
1. Many times it seems impossible to imagine that our trials have any purpose. What significance can there be in our dish washer going out/ losing our job? Or us running out of money before the month is over? In the nagging pain of arthritis? How can there be a purpose in such things?
2. But IF God is omnipotent (as the Bible says), and is in all places at all times, then anything is possible. He orders everything in the universe: from the tiniest sub-atomic particles to the movements of galaxies.
3. If He can do all that, can’t he orchestrate all the little details of your life? Why does He allow us to suffer?
4. “My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me. I cannot choose the colors He worketh steadily. Oft times he weaves sorrow, and I in foolish pride, forget He sees the upper and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttle ceases to fly shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.” [Lady to Minister - “You’re Looking at the Wrong Side!”]
D. JESUS C. IS INTERCEDING FOR US
1. I appreciate all your prayers for me. I appreciate my mother's prayers for me. But most of all, I appreciate the prayers of the Lord Jesus.
2. How are His prayers different? His prayers are ALWAYS ANSWERED! The Father always gives Him what He asks for.
3. Jesus is the sole and ONLY MEDIATOR between God and man. There’s not another. Not Krishna, not Mohammed, not Buddha, not Moses -- there is no other, but Jesus! “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” 1 Tim. 2:5.
4. What an encouragement; “Wherefore He is able also to save to the uttermost them who come to God by Him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them” Heb. 7:25.
E. GOD’S GRACE ABOUNDS MORE THAN OUR SIN
1. Paul said, "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” Rom. 5:20. HOWEVER BIG YOUR SIN IS, HIS GRACE IS BIGGER!
2. If you’re WEAK – He’ll strengthen you. If you FALL, He’ll pick you up. If you feel like a FAILURE, God will wash away all your mistakes and make you a success!
F. GOD’S LOVE WILL NEVER LET US GO
1. It is a strange thing – the love that mothers have for their children. Though their sons become hardened criminals, mothers still love them.
2. That’s the type of love of God has for us; that though we resist His will, though we go against it -- He still loves us and will not let us go!
3. GREATER LOVE! “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” Jn. 15:13. Be encouraged; Nothing you could do could stop Him from loving you
4. God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” Jer. 31:3.
G. LASTLY, GOD HAS A GREAT FUTURE FOR YOU!
H. SUMMARY: DAVID DREW ON GOD’S RESOURCES
1. "DAVID ENCOURAGED HIMSELF IN THE LORD" Vs. 6 He remembered God's call upon his life: he thought back to how God helped him kill the bear and the lion, defeat Goliath, and
defeat the Philistine armies – the many victories of God in his life!
2. He remembered God's promises. Faith was rekindled in his heart as he remembered God's delivering power! He was buoyed by these revelations.
3. “Buoyancy” is the tendency to float or rise when submerged; like a cork. It’s a characteristic of true children of God. You can't keep them down. "The righteous may fall seven times but seven times will get back up again."
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: DISCOURAGED ABOUT SPIRITUAL FAILURES
1. Watchman Nee had a new convert who came in deep distress to see him. "No matter how much I pray, no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot seem to be faithful to my Lord. I think I'm losing my salvation."
2. Nee said, "Do you see this dog here? He is my dog. He is house-trained; he never makes a mess; he is obedient; he is a pure delight to me…”
3. “Out in the kitchen I have a son, a baby son. He makes a mess, he throws his food around, he fouls his clothes, he’s a total mess…”
4. “But who is going to inherit my kingdom? Not my dog; my SON is my heir. You are Jesus Christ's heir because it is for you that He died." We are Christ's heirs, not through our perfection but by means of His grace.
B. THE CALL
1. How many of you have been fighting discouragement? How many of you feel like you need encouragement?
2. Why don’t all those who need God, to stand up and come forward. We’re going to pray for you.
3. How many of you aren’t sure of your salvation but you want to make sure tonight? Prayer.
