2 Samuel 12:16-23
When Your World Falls Apart
Woodlawn Baptist Church
September 10, 2006
Introduction
Read 2 Samuel 12:16-23.
Today I want to finish a message I began last week. We are dealing with how we ought to respond to God when the tragedies of life strike. Our text tells us the story of when King David had been told that his newborn son would die. How much lower could he get? His life in recent months has been caught up in adultery, murder, deceit, guilt and shame. Now, because of his sin his son will die.
About three years ago I conducted a funeral for a young girl whose baby had died. The baby was less than a month old. I still remember that vacant, hollow look in her eyes as we held the services. Her world had absolutely fallen apart. It doesn’t have to be a death though.
None can deny that tragedies come – and when they do they can be devastating to our families and to our personal faith. They come in all shapes and sizes, and what may rock your world may not affect the next person at all. Someone has appropriately said that life can make us bitter or better, but it is up to us to determine which of the two takes place. If we respond to God appropriately then even in the most difficult of times God can take those troubles and work out something very beautiful in our lives – but the choice is yours.
Last week I gave you the first four parts of what a right response to God ought to be.
1. Remember – when your world falls apart that it is not your world, nor is your life your own
2. Pray – plead with the Lord about your situation, not simply for it to go away, but that you would meet Him in that situation
3. Fast – both as an expression of your deep sorrow and as an expression of the gravity of what you’re going through
4. Examine – Is your relationship with God right? Is there sin in your life that needs to be handled? Is God trying to teach you something, and what are others learning about God from your testimony?
We have seen how David did each of these four things when his world was turned upside down. I want to remind you before we go any further that while we have elevated David to enormous status as a friend of God and saint; he was just a man, no different from you or me. He felt the same sorrows we feel, the same frustrations we experience, the same worries and anxieties that we face on a daily basis. I know, just as you do that David’s responses were not always what they ought to have been, but here we find a great example of what a proper response ought to look like.
I say all that to make this point – life can be hell sometimes, and until we’re in the middle of it we really don’t know how we’ll respond to God. I don’t know what I would do if one of my children were to be taken from me, but I can hope that as my relationship with Christ becomes the focal point of my life that all of my responses to Him are going to be appropriate. Don’t say you’ll do this or that – just purpose in your heart today to live in His presence so that when the time comes that your world falls apart…and it will come…you’ll respond in such a way as to bring glory to His great name.
I told you I was going to give you seven parts, so today let’s finish with the last three:
Trust
We talk about trust in church all the time, but do we really understand what it means to trust God? Webster’s defines trust as assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. So if we are talking about trusting God, then we have an assured reliance on God’s character, on God’s ability, on God’s strength, and on His truth.
What is the character of God? Is it good or bad? Is He holy or wicked? We all say that He is good and holy – but do we trust Him when things go bad in our lives? Do our words and actions and attitudes suggest that what we say on Sunday mornings… “God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good,”…is how we really feel outside of church? When the going gets tough? When you or someone you love gets sick? Terminally sick? Is He still good when you go broke or your marriage falls apart? Regardless of what happens in our lives the character of God never changes – we must cling to that unchanging character of God and trust that He is not only good, but that He is good to us.
We could discuss God’s abilities, or His strength – we revel in His power and might – the God who parted the sea and calmed the raging storm and raised the dead from the grave. But when it comes to our situations, I wonder if too often we don’t falter. And here is why: we have believed a lie. We have twisted the Scriptures. Jesus came that we might have abundant life. God is the giver of good gifts. Our studies through the Old Testament lead us to believe that if we are obedient to Him that He will prosper us. Where does our misunderstanding of all that lead? It has already led a people to believe that good health, money in the bank, a nice home, car and clothes, a good job with a livable income and a trouble-free life are the signs of abundant life. Those are the good gifts God gives. That is the prosperity God has promised.
It is easy to say you trust God when you have all that – but what about when part of it or all of it is stripped away? Job said in Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Too often we are guilty of trusting in God’s deliverance. We say things like this, “I trust that God will give me a job.” Or “I believe that God is going to heal me.” “I have faith that God will deliver me from this thing.” I agree with Oswald Chambers. He says that faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Instead of saying, “I trust that God will give me a job,” why can’t we just say, “I trust God?” They are two completely different things, and only when we abandon ourselves to absolute trust in Him will we understand the blessings of that trust.
How could David trust God? How can you trust Him? You can trust Him through faith in His character, His ability, His strength, and His truth. You can trust Him because He is good. You can trust Him because He knows what He’s doing. You can trust Him because His love never fails.
If my faith in God wavers in times of trouble, it is most often because I have made God my servant. But I want to remind you that we live in His world. It’s not about us. God is working His plan – and whether we like it or not He’s not obligated to tell us why He does what He does. When God becomes my servant then my agenda takes priority over His.
Trust means that regardless of how life works out, good or bad, our faith in God is steadfast and sure. This week as I was reading I was reminded of a great spiritual principle we all ought to learn as we talk about what to do when our world falls apart. You ready for this great spiritual truth? “Life’s not fair. Get used to it.” And in the words of Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
Worship
2 Samuel 12:20 says that once David found out the child was dead he “arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped…” Now I want you to notice something about this. David did just the opposite of what we are naturally inclined to do. After he received word that his son was dead he worshiped. While his life was falling apart he worshiped. David has just received some of the worst news a parent could ever receive and he gets up, cleans up and spends some time in worship.
He didn’t worship because the child was healed. He didn’t worship because the child was delivered. He didn’t worship because he would see the child again. He worshiped because God is good and is worthy of our worship!
There is something deeply disturbing about faith in this land. In his book Desiring God, John Piper asks this question,
“How many times do we hear Christian testimonies to the effect that becoming a Christian has made life easier? I once heard the quarterback of a professional football team say that after he prayed to receive Christ, he felt good about the game again and was proud of their eight-and-eight record because he was able to go out every Sunday and give it his best.”
The problem is that we talk about Christianity with all its benefits, but Scripture describes our lives of faith and following Christ as lives that will be characterized by suffering and trials and much trouble. When our world falls apart we fall apart, acting as though we never saw it coming when the truth of the matter is that we of all people ought to know what it is to live with hardship. The Christian life is never described in the Bible as a life of prosperity and ease. In fact, it is filled with the lives of men and women who willingly chose to suffer. In other words, they were signing up for trouble. When we experience trouble, whether it is because of our faith or just part of life, we wonder where God went.
Abel was faithful to God and was murdered. Noah followed the Lord and was humiliated by everyone he knew. Manoah and his wife were God-fearing parents who raised their son to love God and live for Him, but that son Samson was a deep disappointment to them as he lived a life of sin and shame. Paul loved God intensely and not only did he suffer persecution for his faith, he was plagued with bad health as well. Job lost his family. Daniel’s world fell apart when his family was murdered. If that wasn’t bad enough he was castrated and made a slave.
David gives us a great example of what to do or how to respond to God when things in life go bad. He got up, put off the outward expressions of sorrow, went to the house of God and worshiped. As I read this I couldn’t help but ask myself how a man who has just lost his son could worship, because if he could worship at a terrible time like this then there is hope for us in our times of despair and trouble. The more I thought about it, I came to some conclusions.
We Must Adjust Our Views Of Worship
What we’re doing here right now may or may not be worship. The word worship in this text means to prostrate oneself before God and humbly acknowledge His superiority and importance. Listen, that’s exactly what we need to do when our worlds fall apart! I need and you need to get on our knees before the King of kings and Lord of lords and humbly acknowledge that He is in control. “Not my will but yours be done.” Why? Because He is the superior one! Because His will and His wants and His plans are more important than mine.
I Cannot Worship A God I Do Not Trust
I’ll not spend any more time on trust. You absolutely must settle in your heart whether you trust God or not with every detail of your life.
Worship Will Come Naturally When I Meet God In My Trials
I gave you some important things to do last week. When your world falls apart, seek God in prayer. Demonstrate your deep sorrow and desire to meet with the Lord through fasting. Examine yourself. Is your relationship with Christ right? Is there sin in your life? Is God trying to teach you something? How is your testimony to others in your trials?
It is much easier to complain and bellyache and moan and groan when life knocks you down. But while you kick against the goads the Lord will wait. Sometimes the only way for us to come to Christ is not for Him to shield us from assault, nor by protecting us from burdensome and frustrating circumstances, but rather by exposing us to all these things, so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely.
This is one of the reasons, from our standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another -- it is to ensure that we meet with Him when in most circumstances we live as though we don’t need Him at all, and if we really meet with Him the end result for those who are Spirit-filled and Spirit-led is going to be genuine worship.
Testify
I will not belabor this point, but I do want to point out to you verse 21. The servants wanted to know how in the world David could behave like he did. David could have shrugged them off. They were servants after all. He didn’t have to tell them anything, but he did. He testified to the grace and mercy of God. “Who knows if God will change His mind?” He testified to the certainty and finality of death and the promise of eternal life.
If we’re living in daily communion with Christ I promise you people are going to have questions for you. And better than that – when your world falls apart and you respond to God the way David responded to God…the way we are taught in this passage, then you can be assured people are going to want to know what’s different about you. Everybody has to live through hell from time to time, but too few live through it with spiritual integrity grown out of a deep faith in and commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you be one of those few? And if you will be, will you be faithful to tell the story of God’s great love and grace for us? Will you be faithful to give glory to the One to whom glory is due?
Conclusion
I have given you seven parts of a proper response to God when your world falls apart. Not one of them is optional. Do you recognize that God is the owner and sustainer of all of life? We live in His world. But we don’t just live in it, one day we’ll give an account to God for this one thing: what did you do with His Son Jesus Christ?
Responding to God in times of trouble begins with remembering that God is in control. Pray. Beg God for His mercy and grace. Fast. (Show me the money!) Prove your hunger for God. Examine yourself and be honest with God about your life. Trust Him. Worship Him and Testify of Him.
Will doing all of this make you feel better when your world falls apart? In the end it certainly will. As I close let me give you these words, again from John Piper.
“The chief end of man is to glorify God. And it is truer in suffering than anywhere else that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
My prayer today is that through these things you will find satisfaction for your soul in nothing and no one else save the Lord Jesus Christ.
