What To Expect When You Are Expecting

 “What To Expect When You are Expecting”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Aug 10, 2014

Text: I Samuel 24 & 26 // Series: Games & Thrones: I Samuel

The barren wasteland at the edge of Dead Sea is filled with hills and caves; wild animals and wild people.  The wilderness of En Gedi would be a perfect place to be if you need to stay off of the radar.  And so David and his 600 fighting men had fled to this desolate place to get away from the seething anger of King Saul.  But Saul could not be distracted from his central obsession and pursuit: wiping the future king of Israel OFF the map entirely.  So during a lull in the constant war between the Philistines and the armies of Israel, when the army really should be home on leave, Saul commandeered an elite squadron of 3,000 men to descend upon the wilderness of En Gedi with a clear mission: find and to kill David.  To put an end to the insurrection and the rumours that swirled around and around. Embers of jealously that were stoked into flames by that infuriating but true little song “Saul has slain his thousands, David tens of thousands”  

Oh sure, the people loved David – military hero that he was for slaying the giant Goliath.  He was son in law to the king and best friend of the royal crown Prince, Jonathan.  But the crown was still firmly on the brow of Israel’s first king, King Saul.  And Saul moved pre-emptively to strike, not once but twice venturing into the dessert to find and kill the young man David whom that pesky prophet Samuel had secretly anointed to be the next king of Israel.  “Over my dead body will that upstart be king” thought Saul to himself, not realizing how true that would eventually turn out to be.

On this day in En gedi, it appears that Saul has the upper hand.  Strength of numbers: David is out-matched 6 to 1.  The king has spies who are informing him of David’s whereabouts and so Saul thinks he possess the element of surprise.  But things can change suddenly on the field of battle, or, as we shall see at the back of a cave where fugitives and kings collide. 

You see in this part of the world, it is not uncommon for the opening of caves to be large enough to shelter whole herds of sheep or cattle from the blazing heat of the sun or a sudden dust storm.  And as caves are prone to do, they can branch out in all directions from the entrance….  You never know who or what is hiding around the next bend as you go deeper.

When we take teams to Guatemala, we have sometimes stopped at a local cave to go spelunking.  And if you can make it past your own Closter phobia and the oppressive darkness if your lamp goes out during your time the underground labyrinth, it’s really quite something to experience. 

But on this particular day, King Saul is not thinking about spelunking… He simply needs a place to go to the bathroom.  And, as the story in I Samuel 24 unfolds, we see that he chooses the very cave in which David and his men are hiding out! 

Turn with me in your Bible to I Samuel 24.  If you have the brown Bibles, that is on page 285 and we’ll pick up the story in verse 3.  Kids, there are busy bags and brown bible and also sheets at the back with all of the similarities between these two chapters – on the back, see if you can spot the differences as I read I Samuel 24:3-7

Having followed the Games & Thrones in our study of I Samuel to this point, it should not surprise us that Saul will pursue David with this level of desperate intentionality and spite.  In fact, the consuming purpose of Saul’s life becomes the elimination of David.  But think of how the tables have turned between this week and last.  When we left these two last week, Saul is in the position of power.  He is strong, aggressive.  David, on the other hand, is in a position of vulnerability and weakness.  He is on the run for his very life.  But here, in the caves of En Gedi, the tables turn and the picture is very different.  In the cave, Saul is the one who is vulnerable. 

How many of you have been or are going camping this summer?  How many of you when you camp go really, really rustic?  Like no running water, no outhouses kind of rustic?  You’ll have to forgive the mental picture that this brings to mind, but can I suggest to you that you never feel more vulnerable in your entire life than when you are going to the bathroom outdoors – am I right?  You feel very exposed.  So here in the cave, Saul is going #1? #2?  Thankfully, though the Bible is a wonderfully graphic book, it doesn’t really get specific about these kinds of things!  But the writer does want us to know that David is the one who is in a position of strength with the possibility to attack and kill the very person who as he says in chapter 26:19 has driven him from his home, from his friends and his community and has forced him to live and possibly die on foreign soil.  Here in the cave, the circumstances are perfect for David to take his revenge on Saul.  To violently topple Saul’s throne and to set up his own. 

And look at what David’s men suggest this to him in 24:4 – they say (or I should say, they whisper) “Look David! God is telling you to kill Saul!  Why else would he be right here in this very cave?”  In 26:8 David’s friend Abishai whispers to David “God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!”  The logic is a bit hard to argue with, isn’t it?  I mean God did say the kingdom would belong to David.  And Saul is right here and he really isn’t a good king…  Could God be telling David to take Saul out?

Have you ever had somebody look at a circumstance and tell you “this is totally God setting this up for you!”  or “It’s a God thing!” but you’re not sure?  Or perhaps you’ve looked at a circumstance in your own life and wondered “God are you trying to tell me something through this set of circumstances?”  How do you know what is God at work and what is just coincidence or circumstance?  It’s a tough question to answer because God can and does speak through circumstances but in this instance there is one important distinction.  That is the component or the addition of violence.  You see we know from the story that the first and second king of Israel are on a collision course that will eventually end up with Davie being crowned and Saul being dead.  So the real question is not that this will happen but when and how it will happen.  And here David is presented with an option to make it happen.  But the option is to wrest the throne from Saul by violence.  David’s men see this as God putting Saul into a position of weakness so David can get the outcome that will be his.  But David is unwilling to claim through violence what is his unavoidable destiny.  Others see this as a God given opportunity, David sees it as murder.

So to the question of How do you know what is God putting something in front of you that you should act on and what is circumstances, I might humbly suggest that the answer is We can’t always know (but there is something we can know and we can do).  but we can act in ways that are consistent with what we do know.  And in this case, we knowthat taking Saul’s life to get what he wants would be wrong for David.  You and are I not likely to be placed into a circumstance like Saul and David but the principle applies to how we act when presented with opportunities.  Lying on your resume to get the ideal job that God has placed in your path would be wrong.  Going into debt with no plan or intention to pay it back by putting a huge holiday on your credit card because it just felt right and we really needed it would be off-side because the Scripture reminds us to pay what we own and to live within our means.  Stealing a set of Pokémon cards from a locker just because it was open a crack is still stealing & it’s wrong.  Will this help you decide if God wants you to sell your house and move or what school you should attend this fall or who you should date or marry? Likely not.  Where this does help is in questions that involve morality in actions.  In 24:13 David quotes an old proverb “from evil people come evil deeds”.  In other words getting something good by doing something bad is wrong. We can’t always know if the opportunity in front of us is God at work or not but we can choose to act in ways that are true and right and honourable and fair and just and wise and consistent with what we do know of God and His desire and intentions for us.  it’s not the opportunity that is most important it’s how we respond to them that counts. 

 But there is also something else going on here.  And before we look into it, kids, I want to ask you a question.  It’s a question your parent or an adult may have asked you before.  And that is “How patient do you think you can be?”  Psychologists use a variety of highly sophisticated diagnostic assessments to prove this theory but they usually boil down to something like this.  Kids, if I tell you “you can have 1 jujube now OR if you wait, you can have 11 jujubes, which are you likely to take?” 

Now here’s the tricky part where you learn about something called the fine print… You see I didn’t attach any conditions to that statement.  I didn’t say when you had to wait until 11:50 – I could have meant you needed to wait for you 11 jujubes until December!).  I didn’t say how you were to behave or IF there were any behavoural conditions that could jeopardize your jujubes.  I just said wait and you can have the jujubes.  So my question for you is how are you to know what to expect between now and the time you are expecting that you’ll get your jujubes?  I didn’t give you those details J 

This kind of situation is what David was facing.  Back in I Samuel 16 he has been anointed as the rightful king over Israel by the prophet Samuel.  But for David, that’s all the info he has.  Samuel doesn’t say to him “wait until Saul retires at age 55.” or “Saul’s going to be killed in battle in 10 years: just wait it out.”  Samuel simply says “God has taken the throne away from Saul and has given it to you.  That’s all David knows.  David has no idea what to expect while he is expecting & waiting to be king.  

If I put myself in David’s shoes and try to identify with what he is feeling and experiencing, this would be a very difficult thing for me.  Because for me and perhaps for you, I find it difficult to be patient if I don’t know the timeframe.  How Can I be patient if I don’t know the timeframe?!

When I go to walk in clinic and they say “it’s a 2 hour wait” I can usually pack my patience and wait.  But if I go to the emergency room and they say “we can’t give you a wait time, Mr. Sumner” – THAT is a tough one for me.  Tell me I have a flight layover that is going to last 6 hours, I’m fine.  Tell me my plane has been delayed and that you’re not sure when we will be in the air again and watch me start to pace and get cagey.  I have difficulty being patient if I don’t know how long I am going to have to wait.  Can any of you identify with this?  I can remember as a teen raising money to go on a mission trip.  So we had the dates, we had the deadlines and I began to work at things – sending my support letters out, calling people up, sharing the heart for the trip at my church… and nothing happened.  Very, very little support money trickled in.  So I began to work harder and harder at it but still nothing.  Now I really began to get nervous – I had a sense that God had put this opportunity in front of me, I was working as hard as I knew how to at making it happen and nothing was happening.  And I can remember praying about this and expressing some of my frustrations to God. And I can remember reading 2 Peter 3:9 which says “the Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake.”  Which didn’t’ really make me feel any better because God may have all the patience in the world but I don’t!  So I reminded God about the deadlines for fundraising and all the work that I had been doing to help Him out.  And it was as if God gently whispered to me “Do you trust Me that I put it in your heart to go on this mission trip?”  Well yes, God.  Do you trust me that I can speak to people as necessary?  Well I guess so.  “Well Brad, Trust in me involves trust in my timing.” 

If you and I say that we trust God, but we demand that God work things out in the way that we envision on the timetable that we establish, that’s not faith – that’s forcing God’s hand.  Trust in God includes trust in His timing.  This is a hard one for me because sometimes it seems easier to ‘help” God make things happen than to trust in His timetable.  But David’s example here is helpful… though he has the chance to choose his own timing to ascend to the throne by killing Saul, he chooses instead to trust that God’s timing for him to become king is the right timing.  Trust in God includes trust in His timing.  I like this quote by Joyce Meier “Patience is not the ability to wait, but how you act while you are waiting” 

What are you having trouble waiting for today?  What are you having trouble trusting God for?  For some of us, it might be the timing of God’s provision.  We say that we trust God to provide for us, but when He doesn’t do it on our timetable, we rush out and do it ourselves.  For some, it might be trusting God for the return of a prodigal child or the restoration of a difficult relationship.  For some, it’s waiting for that pregnancy test to come back positive or for the medical results that you so desperately want to hear.  And you’ve been waiting for a very, very long time.  And the longer you wait, the thinner your patience becomes.  I don’t want to minimize this in any way because it is a very real challenge to wait on God when we don’t have the answer that we want in the timeframe that we want.  But if we say that that we trust in God, but we don’t trust His timing, our actions give us away.  Trust in God includes trust in His timing.      

This is where we see David’s true character come out.  In the speech that he makes to Saul.  He lets Saul get far enough away from the cave and then he calls out to him and says “Saul… I had the chance to kill you but I didn’t do it!”  And here’s where I would have added “this proves that I am the good guy and you are the bad guy, Saul.  Let everyone see that I am the one who has exercised restraint and good judgment – a round of applause for me, please.  Yup, I’m the hero of my own story”.  David is convinced of his own innocence and also of Saul’s guilt, BUT he demonstrates his trust in God by being willing to let God decide the merits of his case and let God be the one who exercises justice and judgment.  Listen to what he says in I Sam 24: 15 “May the Lord therefore judge which of us is right and punish the guilty one. He is my advocate, and he will rescue me from your power!”

“The Lord gives his own reward for doing good and for being loyal, and I refused to kill you even when the Lord placed you in my power, for you are the Lord’s anointed one. 24 Now may the Lord value my life, even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles.”

The ability to trust God is one of the defining characteristics of David’s life.  Sometimes it seems easier to ‘help’ God make things happen rather than trust in God’s timetable Sometimes it is easier to try to engage in acts of self-justification and help everyone around us see that we are right and that others have wronged us.  But David demonstrates again and again not only by his words but also in his actions that ultimately, his trust and confidence is found in one place: In God and in God alone.  So what’s the take home lessons for us from this story?  How should we live

Be DISCERNING…

God’s ways don’t always align with our circumstances

          Be PATIENT…

God’s timing doesn't always align with our expectations

                   Be FAITHFUL…

God is our ultimate advocate, rescuer and our judge

My prayer for myself and for you is that God would grant you not only patience, but also a renewed sense of confidence and trust in Him as your source, your provider, your advocate and judge… As the one who is worthy of placing your confidence and trust in today.  (Call for salvation).  Prayer team is available [Curtis Cottrell & Laura Havercroft – two of our elders] Meg and I will be at this side – doesn’t have to be something HUGE.  Perhaps you are waiting for something and you simply come for prayer and say “I’ve have trouble packing my patience”. Could be a moment of celebration - as the worship in song team comes, let me pray for you and we’ll sing two songs of response that invite us to place our hope and trust and confidence in God and in His timing and His ways again.