Stop Wallowing! 3 Steps To Strengthen Yourself In Your God - 1 Samuel 30:6-31 Series

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Introduction

The world handles distress in a million different ways. Tranquilizers. Alcohol. Physical exercise. Psychotherapy. Television. Comfort food. Venting. Indulging in temporal pleasures. Or - for the more religious types - using God to get what they want. But do any of those actually make you strong? What about physical exercise? Not many people today (if any) are physically stronger than David and his mighty men were, and yet here they are so weak they do not even have the strength to weep anymore. Drugs can dull some of the pain, TV can distract you for a while, but do any of those remedies actually make you strong? What about venting? Some say, “Just let it all out and express all your feelings and you will feel better.” David and his men cried until they had no more strength to cry and they did not feel any better. Weeping is appropriate, but it does not strengthen you in the Lord. What should you do when you are in great distress?

We left off last time in chapter 30. If you read everything before verse six in that chapter you see the blackness of night. And if you read everything after verse six you see nothing but sunshine and roses. Verse six is a pivot point where David does something that reverses his situation 180 degrees. Before verse six we read about disappointment, loss and agony upon agony. It gets so black that David ends up being described with the exact same phrase that described Saul at the pit of his horror. They were both in great distress.

Being a man after God’s own heart does not exempt you from great distress. Being a man or woman who is pleasing to God and an example of godliness for all people of all time does not exempt you from walking through the valley of the shadow of death. The contrast between David and Saul in these chapters is not that one had it easy and the other had it hard. The contrast is how they each responded when they had it hard. Saul cared more about getting the guidance he wanted than he cared about the glory of God and the result was abject weakness. God cut him off from strength and courage.

But David responded by doing what he did in verse six, which is why verse six is such a pivot point in the chapter. What David did in verse six resulted in so many amazing blessings from God I did not even have time in one sermon to list them all last week. What was it that David did in verse six that brought about all this blessing?

6 David was greatly distressed … but David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

David Strengthened Himself

What kind of strength?

What sort of strength is this? Is it an emotional, inner strength? Or does it refer more to physical strength? Or is it a social idea – being strong in your dealings with other people, or in a strong political position or strong position in relationship to circumstances? What sort of strength is this?

The Hebrew word is a very general term for strength and it is routinely used in all those ways. And it seems to me that in this particular context all those ideas are present. This strength is the remedy for David being in great distress – so there is the encouragement part. It enabled David to deal with the mutiny and chase down and attack the huge Amalekite army – that is the courage part.

It put him in a strong standing among his men (they go from mutiny to following him into battle) – that is the social part. And it enabled him to have great success physically in battle. It is just an all around strengthening.

More Rewards

David strengthened himself in the LORD his God; Saul did not. Saul turned to another source for strength and God punished him by removing what little strength he had. But David strengthened Himself in the Lord and God rewarded him. God not only gave him strength but also guidance to know what to do, and hope (knowing ahead of time that he would succeed) and favor with men, and obedience to God’s Word, and a heart of kindness (even in the midst of the worst kind of suffering David is able to avoid becoming self-focused and shows kindness to a stranger) and success (things just fall into place for him), and on top of all that – full restoration of everything he had lost plus a whole lot more. Not a bad reward for just simply seeking strength from God. But that is not all. You can add justice to the list.