THE WAY: PART V
Two months ago we began a sermon series based upon the first part of the sixth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the gospel according to John. There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that one simple verse theologian Eugene Peterson devised the following theory: The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. While church schisms – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way. That is precisely what we are attempting to do in this sermon series. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way, and how do we go about following it?”
As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived. When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a unique way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom. And finally, when we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time and we have a responsibility to continue to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place. Are you with me so far?
Today we come to Part V in our sermon series on The Way. In our journey through the Old Testament, we have examined the lives of Abraham and Moses. Today we’re going to be examining the life of King David. Thus, if I were to come up with a subtitle for this sermon, it might be called The Way of David, or…The Way of Imperfection. In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern the Jesus Way.
If I were to tell you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 151, many of you would open your Bibles in the middle, turn left, and look for it near the end of the book of Psalms. I also suspect some of you would realize that there are only 150 Psalms in the Bible. There is no 151st Psalm. Yet when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, a 151st Psalm was found. This is what it says:
Smaller was I than my brothers,
And younger than the sons of my father.
Yet he appointed me shepherd for his sheep,
And ruler over his kids.
My hands have made a flute,
And my fingers a lyre,
And I have given glory to Yahweh.
I said in my soul,
O that the mountains would bear witness for me,
And O that the hills would tell.
(Yet) the trees have taken away my words
And the sheep my works.
For who can tell,
And who can speak,
And who can recount my works?
The Lord of all saw,
God of all – he heard.
And he has heeded.
He sent His prophet to anoint me;
Samuel to make me great.
My brothers went out to meet him;
Handsome of form,
And handsome of appearance.
Tall in their height;
Handsome with their hair.
Them God did not choose.
But he sent and took me from behind the sheep,
And anointed me with holy oil.
And he appointed me leader for His people,
And ruler over the sons of His covenant.
Does that sound like anyone you know? It is now widely believed that the 151st Psalm was written by none other than David himself. The words depict a humble boy who performed his appointed tasks in relative anonymity. No one noticed; no one knew what he did. Yet God knew. And because of his faithfulness to God and to his father, God would send the prophet Samuel to anoint him king over all of Israel. David’s career began in utter humility and gratitude to God.
As a boy, David was summoned to the court of King Saul. King Saul was deeply troubled in spirit and David was brought in to play soothing music for him. It brought peace to the king and he loved David very much – so much so that he made David his armor-bearer. Then came the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines. A giant named Goliath taunted the armies of Israel and insulted the name of God. David was the only person brave enough to face him. You know the story. David slew Goliath with a stone from his sling.
This turned David into quite a celebrity. As he grew to adulthood, he had more success on the battlefield. David’s success brought forth a deep-seated resentment in Saul. Saul made it his life’s mission to kill David. David was on the run with a few loyal warriors of his own. It was reported to Saul that David was in the wilderness at a place called En-gedi, just west of the Dead Sea. Saul took three thousand of his best warriors and went to En-gedi in search of David.
David and his men were hidden in a cave in the wilderness. The day was hot and the cave was cool. They were deep inside the cave, resting. Suddenly a shadow formed across the front of the cave. David and his men were astonished to discover that it was none other than King Saul himself. They were probably also surprised to find that he was that close in his pursuit of them. Saul entered the cave, but he did not see them lurking in the shadows. Saul was there to answer a call from nature. He had to go to the bathroom! So he threw aside his royal robe and turned his back on the men in the cave. David’s warriors wanted to kill him right there, but David stopped them. Instead, he snuck up and cut off a small piece of King Saul’s robe.
When King Saul finished his business, he put on his robe, strapped on his sword, and walked down the mountain. Once he was a safe distance away, David appeared at the mouth of the cave and cried out, “My lord, the king!” Saul looked back in astonishment. David bowed down, reverently honoring the king. Then he said, “Why do you listen to those who tell you that I am your enemy? See what I have in my hand? It is the skirt of your robe. Just now, instead of cutting your robe, I could have cut you. But I will not do that because you are God’s anointed.”
David was known for killing Philistines. In fact, David was known for killing just about anyone who opposed God’s people, Israel. It was a part of the bloody barbarism of what we call the Iron Age. People then did not think and act the way we think and act today. Life was not nearly so precious. Yet here David reveals his integrity, his compassion and his faith in Almighty God. Why, at this point in time, one might even say that he was noble. That, however, was all about to change.
David soon became king over Israel. As it says in verse 1 of chapter 11 in the second book of Samuel, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers, and all Israel with him…but David remained at Jerusalem.” It was there, when David was walking on the roof of his palace, that he spied a woman bathing. Her name was Bathsheba, and David wanted her for himself. He committed adultery, and when Bathsheba turned up pregnant he concocted a plan to put her husband at the forefront of a battle where, of course, he died. Ah, sin begets sin, does it not? Not only was David guilty of adultery, now he was also guilty of murder.
As someone once said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Learning Channel recently ran a special called “Sex, Lies & Power.” With a single tweet, U.S. Congress-man Anthony Weiner set off a series of events that smeared his reputation and toppled his once promising career. Just weeks earlier, Maria Shriver left her longtime husband Arnold Schwarzenegger, after it was revealed the former governor had fathered a child with the household help. And then, perhaps most blatant of all, there was presidential candidate John Edwards’ covert extramarital affair. The list goes on and on.
The question was asked, “Why do these men cheat, and what makes them think they can get away with it?” The answer is really quite simple. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They come to believe they are above the rules and regulations that guide the rest of us. Perhaps we could say that the same was true of David. But he did not fool God, did he? God knew what David had done, and he sent the prophet Nathan to confront him about it.
Yet perhaps an even more blatant example of David’s disregard for the rules that govern the rest of us occurred in a little-know story in the 3rd chapter of the second book of Samuel. While battles raged between the house of Saul and the house of David, Saul’s military commander, Abner, decided to defect to David’s army. Yet David would only accept Abner if he would bring David’s former wife, Michal, back to him. By this point in time, she was married to another man – a man named Paltiel.
Abner did as he was told. Michal was forcibly removed from her husband and her home and taken to David. Paltiel followed her, weeping and wailing all the way. It’s really quite a heart-breaking scene – Paltiel and Michal, husband and wife – ripped apart by a self-serving political stratagem. There is no evidence that David felt any emotion or regret about what he had done. He was oblivious to both Michal and Paltiel. David was not about to let personal feelings interfere with his political maneuvering. If the scene at En-gedi showed David at his best, then in the matter of Michal and Paltiel, he is at his worst. He has become a man willing to sacrifice his humanity at the altar of power.
There can be no confusion as to what is revealed in the stories of David. The life of David is a paragon of good and bad, perhaps not so much unlike our own lives. What we admire in David does not cancel out what we despise in David, and what we despise in David does not cancel out what we admire. The life of David is not a model for imitation, nor is he himself a candidate for a pedestal. The story of David is simply an immersion in humanity – an immersion in humanity conditioned by its culture and flawed by its sin. Perhaps we could even go so far as to say that the story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be, rather, the story of David is a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us. Write that down. The story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be, rather, the story of David is a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us. In other words, God still loves us – and God can still work with us – in spite of any mistakes we may have made along the way. Ladies and gentlemen, the God we love – the God we worship – is always willing to give us a second chance.
About ten years ago, I wrote a poem called The God of Second Chances. I actually wrote it for a woman in my church in Salem, Ohio who was getting married for the second – or maybe it was the third – time. Yet I think it’s applicable to other mistakes we may have made as well. In any case, listen now to a poem entitled, The God of Second Chances.
To come of age in this wide world,
One finds life’s full of dances.
One knows there is, yet turns not to,
The God of second chances.
We want to spread our mighty wings
To soar far as we can.
A conquest here, a conquest there:
Who thought it’d be this grand?
We have success and all is good
In this terrestrial life.
To top it off, we then seek out
A husband or a wife.
We fall in love and happiness
Is all we think and feel.
And then along come one, two, three
Children with which to deal.
But that’s all right. It gives our life
A sense of true delight.
We always have more love to share.
It simply feels so right.
We live our lives by our own rules
‘bout each and every day.
We have success, but then come woes
To boot, along the way.
A child in whom we took such pride
Turns out not like we’d planned.
He takes a wrong turn here and there
In spite of our demands.
And then that husband or that wife
No longer feels the same.
So they want out. And we want out.
It’s such a hurtful game.
Then there’s that job for which we strove
Our hardest every day.
Turns out it’s simply a dead end.
We only work for pay.
Or what if everything’s still grand?
In life we find no “whys?”
But then that one we loved so much
Gets sick and then he dies?
We find that life is not all fun
And games along the way.
We have our good days and our bad.
So then we learn to pray.
As long as we maintain our faith
Across life’s wide expanses,
We’ll find that we are blessed by Him:
The God of second chances.
To get a second chance at life
And love; a chance to cope.
We want it and we find that this
Is all for which we hope.
Perhaps the second time around
We won’t take it for granted.
The seed of love now in our hearts
Will be securely planted.
We learn life has its ups and downs,
But still, we do find love.
We find a sense of happiness:
It comes from up above.
Oh, there are those who’ll think we’ve failed
And made a few mistakes.
But until life takes twists and turns,
You don’t know what it takes.
No longer are we fooled by all
Life’s trials, hoops and trances.
We’ve found we now owe all to Him:
The God of second chances.
David got a second chance. We might say David got a third and a fourth and a fifth chance, as well. Yet David always managed to confess his sin and to throw himself upon the mercy of God. Truth be told, that’s what the Psalms are all about. We would do well to do the same… because the fact of the matter is, living a Godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus Way. Amen.
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