Africa, thanks for praying. It has been cold.
It has been really cold. And we're all just trying
to survive. We're all just trying to make it.
We have been doing a series called In the Wilderness.
And I am encouraged to know that scripture is
replete with stories of humans who have both
literally and figuratively found themselves traveling
the wilderness seemingly in limbo and caught
in the in -between. I'm glad to know that scripture
does not sanitize those stories. They are difficult.
They are often long years and decades of wilderness
journeys. And so today we find ourselves in David's
story. as it comes to us through 1 Samuel 23
and 24. It's a lot. I'm not going to read all
of that, so I'm going to do a little bit of summary
to start out with. So David, if you remember,
David from David and Goliath, or later on, King
David, whichever part of the story you're familiar
with in his life. There's this thing, this cat
and mouse thing, that he and the current king
of Israel at his time, have been doing for years.
And so David has been really making King Saul,
who was Israel's first king, mad. And it simply
comes down to people seem to like David better.
And so David started out actually as one of Saul's
favorites. He really liked him. He gave him gifts.
He offered daughters as wives. But over time...
As people started singing comparative songs about
the two and David was getting rapt public attention,
Saul grew more and more sour on him. And so Saul
started a little bit more in the background of
things. He was a little bit more subtle, maybe
like sending David out for a battle. You know,
David was a leader of warriors, and so he'd send
him out to a battle. hoping that perhaps David
would fall, that it would get him killed. And
it did not. David kept coming back with victories.
And that was what was making Saul mad. And so
Saul eventually made it very clear, like he started
saying the quiet part out loud, that he wanted
David gone no matter what. And he became obsessed
with this and barely attempting to hide it anymore.
And we read in 1 Samuel 23, 8. And Saul called
up his forces for battle to go down to Calah.
And this is where David was defending the city
against the Philistines. And guys, it's always
the Philistines. It's like constantly the Philistines.
In order to besiege David and his men, Saul basically
was like, it's a walled city. We're going to
get him this time. He's going to be stuck in
there. And so David and his men, about 600 of
them, left Calah and kept moving from place to
place. And when Saul was told that David had
escaped from there, he decided not to go there.
It was about getting David. It was about retribution.
And so David stayed in the wilderness strongholds
and in the hills of the desert of Ziph. And so
this is right on what's known as the wilderness
of Judah, which will be important. Day after
day, Saul searched for him. But God did not give
David into his hands. Verse 15 says, While David
was at Horesh in the desert of Ziph, he learned
that Saul had come out to take his life. Worth
noting, David wasn't just hiding out from Saul
at this point. This had been going on long enough.
Enough tension and word getting out had built
at this point. But he was hiding out so as not
to be seen by anyone, or at least trying to stay
off. large radars. Anyone who saw him or knew
about where he was going was going to give him
up. And did. Intel was passed along when someone
had it. And where do you go when spies are everywhere?
And it gets so bad, David has to keep moving
all over the wilderness to keep away from Saul
and really everybody else. David is desperate,
not just to save his own life, but now he's responsible
for... These hundreds of people. David was not
alone in this. He had these people traveling
with him, and most of them were warriors, but
also some of them were enemies of his enemy,
you know? So they were all under threat, largely
because David had the ire of the king. So imagine
trying to stay out of the king's eye, and it
makes me think of Sauron, the eye of Sauron.
Thank you. You were right there for me. Good.
By the way, happy 25th anniversary for Fellowship
of the Rings to all those that observe and celebrate.
That is this year, this month. So David and his
600 companions were not easy to find shelter
for without passing by someone's watchful eye.
And this is where the wilderness of Judah is
really important because it is craggy, it is
difficult, it is rocky, it is in fact a wilderness.
People did not just go there to build communities.
I imagine David's time in the wilderness must
have felt like he was very much going in the
opposite direction of the plan. So let's pray
right now before we go forward. Because I think
that idea right there is probably going to be
the one that hits most of us the strongest. So
Lord, we give you our time, we give you our attention.
We ask for your wisdom to be among us. and in
us. Open our eyes. Make things clear and settle
your word deep in our hearts today. I pray this
in your name. Amen. So I was 24 when I moved
to the Quad Cities 25 years ago. I believe this
very week. If not this week, it's next week.
I know. I was like writing this down and I was
like, oh my gosh. Also, a happy 25th anniversary
to Jen Moves to the Quad Cities for anybody who
observes and celebrates. It was the end of January
2001, and I had been living back home in Rochester,
New York for the previous eight months, and I
was working on raising support to move to England.
I had secured a position in a church in a little
town a little bit west of London. I was pretty
stoked. It had been sort of like England was
like one of these places that from childhood
I was like, if I could get there. my life is
going to be, like, that's the apex, is that.
Because it felt so unreachable, you know, these
places that feel unreachable. And so that felt
really, really exciting to see that, like, something
that I had been really passionate about or even
something that had been, like, put as a goal
in front of me was really close. But I was making
no progress in fundraising, and if you know me,
this is still a difficult area. But I was making
no progress, and I needed a change. I was living
at home, and that was not a long -term solution.
A few years ago, we did a series called Summer
Playlist, and a few of us that were preaching
that summer chose a couple songs, two or three
songs, to use as sort of a home base for lessons
that God taught us. And U2's Stuck in a Moment
was mine for that summer of 2000, heading into
2001. It described my life in every way. And
I had thought, leaving college, my future felt
very clear. And then I watched it just get farther
and farther away. And I was asked to consider,
in that time frame, moving out here to join a
team of, to join a young adult ministry team,
which I met Greg and Cindy and Robin. I literally
met them on the day I drove into town. That was
like Greg and Robin were sitting in the church
I was coming to work at. And I was feeling very
lost about my future at that point. I was like,
well, I'll come do this because I need to change.
Like I need to move. I need to make a move. And
I imagine David had those moments too. Like this,
I can't be here. I need to make a move. You know,
he couldn't stay in one place because Saul was
going to find him. And so I was like, well, I'll
move to the next place, but that's also temporary.
And when you just feel like you're in this place
of just making temporary moves, you don't feel
like you can think long -term. You're just surviving.
Feeling very lost about my future, I told my
parents. I had been asked two months before,
but one week before I moved, I said, I'm moving
to Illinois next week. And my parents were like,
does she know somebody in Illinois? We are not
from the Midwest. I packed up my Camry and I
directed myself westward, which, if you're directionally
challenged, let me let you know, is not the direction
of London from New York State. If you're going
to be cranky about it, sure, you can go west
and eventually get there. The earth is round.
But I remember pulling off the exit towards Moline
off a 280 and thinking, what? Have I done? I
just moved to the ends of the earth. Because
I, well, I had gone to college in the Midwest,
but that was not a long -term plan. Obviously,
England was. That felt like, this is cool and
amazing. And I was like, I moved back to the
Midwest. What is happening? So, comparatively,
was I being hunted down by a jealous and vengeful
king? I was not. Was my life in threat? Also
no. But the unknown, the moving in the opposite
direction of what you imagined the path of a
promised trajectory to be can sure be terribly
disorienting. And then to find yourself making
temporary moves constantly, the long term gets
lost. The sense that God has something for you
gets lost. And humans don't tend to react well
in this position. Now, finding oneself in a wilderness,
in these places, I mean, it can be surprising.
You don't choose to be there. And there are various
reasons you find yourself there. Sometimes something
just pushes you into it. In the case of David,
he didn't ask for the calling of the Lord to
put the future kingship on him. He didn't ask
for the king to turn on him. That was Saul's
heart turning sour. And he found that Saul's
homicidal intentions were kind of a lot to deal
with. And so he decided to get lost, literally.
But sometimes you also just take an unintentional
wrong turn. You're on the wrong road, but you
don't know it until 10 miles in, and then there's
no turnaround for another 30 miles. Anyone? Yes.
And sometimes you do get there yourself by making
poor decisions. It is a mix of these things.
And when you're there, you often don't realize
that until you're in these patterns of temporary,
short -term plans, moving around, feeling stuck.
Like, oh, when did this happen? How did I? We
don't walk into wildernesses thinking we're going
to stay there. And so our most basic instinct
when things are unfamiliar and feel unsafe is
to simply survive. And when we do go into survival
mode, we think only about practicalities. We
think about efficiency. We do not manage more
abstract ideas well. It's tactical. And so you
might find yourself in survival mode. You yourselves
right now may find yourself in survival mode,
making the most of basic decisions because you
have spent all your energy on merely surviving.
A wilderness can take everything from you. mentally,
emotionally. Part of what's hard about a wilderness
is that you're not prepared to be in them. You
didn't pack a bag for it. Or at least not for
an extended amount of time. Like I said, you
make a lot of temporary moves. The landscape,
the weather, the wildlife, the food, the terrain.
You're not long -term planned for it. So the
instinct, as I said, is to survive. To try to
shift things to your advantage. It's counterintuitive
then. to work less or to fight less or to try
less. We here on earth are very attached to results.
We are very attached to progress. We want tangible
things that prove we are making some kind of
calculable progress towards something and not
away from it or slowing down. And David's life
trajectory was headed for kingship. And it looked
like he was on that path. When he was a teenager,
there had been a promise, there had been a calling,
there was an anointing, and now, and now. So
I imagine David wondered many times over if it
was possible he misunderstood or, oh, not king
of Israel. No, you're right, I did mishear it.
Like if there were those moments for him, if
he was like, what? I'm confused. What was that?
Times in the wilderness, though, are often opportunities
to slow the roll on the progress train, at least
in our own minds, to shift focus, to remember
something that was there before the calling and
the purpose and the progress and the results
were, and to remember the relationship with the
one from whom those things come. Because if we
are not tied in and caring for that relationship,
If we are getting preoccupied with progress and
forsaking the one who called us in the first
place, we really will end up going nowhere, even
if it looks like we've arrived. And so David,
a one -time shepherd, cannot become the true
king of Israel without being deep in the heart
of God who created and called out the nation
in the first place. David cannot shepherd a people
of God's calling while forgetting God. which
was what got the Israelites a king in the first
place. One of the very cool things about scripture
and how the Bible is assembled is that we know
that David was thinking and how he was communicating
with God during this time of survival. We have
it. David's time on the run and in the wilderness
produced some psalms rich with imagery of the
landscape he was mobilizing through, expressions
of joy and fear. feelings, emotions, and thoughts
that were in direct correlation with the landscape,
with the moment, with where he was. A man on
the run for his life, knowing he must keep hold
of God. So I'm going to read through some of
the psalms that he wrote while he was in the
wilderness. I won't read through all of them,
but you may want to write them down just to go
back through and read the complete ones. Psalm
59 is for the director of music to the tune of
Do Not Destroy, of David, a mictum, when Saul
had sent men to watch David's house in order
to kill him. That's what this psalm is introduced
as. And he writes, deliver me from my enemies,
O God. Be my fortress against those who are attacking
me. Deliver me from evildoers and save me from
those who are after my blood. That is not metaphorical.
That is real. Psalm 57 has a header of, for the
director of music, to the tune of Do Not Destroy
of David a mictum, when he had fled from Saul
into the cave. Have mercy on me, O God, or have
mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in
you I take refuge. He's in a cave as a place
of refuge, realizing it's God in whom he needs
to take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow
of your wings until the disaster has passed.
Psalm 142, a mascal of David when he was in the
cave, a prayer. I cry aloud to the Lord. I lift
up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out
before him my complaint. Before him I tell my
trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me,
it is you who watch over my way. In the path
where I walk, people have hidden a snare for
me. Look and see, there is no one at my right
hand. No one is concerned for me. I have no refuge.
No one cares for my life. When David is writing,
it is you who watch over my way. He knows what
it's like to have eyes on him and not know where
they are or who it is. But he reminds him that
it is God who watches over his way. Psalm 54,
for the director of music with stringed instruments,
a mascal of David, when the Ziphites had gone
to Saul and said, is not David hiding among us?
They turned him over. It says, save me, O God,
by your name. Vindicate me by your might. Hear
my prayer, O God. Listen to the words of my mouth.
Arrogant foes are attacking me. Ruthless people
are trying to kill me. People without regard
for God. Surely God is my help. The Lord is the
one who sustains me. He is in the desert. We
do not know how easy it is to get food or supplies.
And so he recognizes that it is God who sustains
him. And I will read the complete Psalm 63 because
this takes place when he was in the wilderness
of Judah. Psalm 63, a Psalm of David when he
was in the desert of Judah. You, God, are my
God. Earnestly I seek you. I thirst for you.
Knowing he's in the desert is important. I thirst
for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry
and parched land where there is no water. You
can imagine David hiding out in the rocks, looking
over this arid land, knowing what this feels
like for both himself and the land to be. in
need of water. He is also parched and dry. I
have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your
power and your glory. Because your love is better
than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise
you as long as I live, and in your name I will
lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied,
as with the richest of foods, with singing lips
in my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember
you. I think of you through the watches of the
night. When you are being run down, you are watchful.
The watches of the night are familiar. Because
you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your
wings. I cling to you. Your right hand upholds
me. Those who want to kill me will be destroyed.
They will go down to the depths of the earth.
They will be given over to the sword and become
food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in
God, and all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced. There
were stories being told. Saul was telling stories
about David. He wants to kill me. That's why
I'm after him. Because it's not a good look when
you're like, I just don't like him because people
like him better. So you have to tell lies. You
have to tell lies to get the people to sympathize
with you. And so all who swear by God will glory
in him while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
That is a reminder of what God's promises are.
David connects with God in the wilderness because
it's the wilderness. And he uses the landscape
and the geography and the feeling of the wilderness
to express his own His own experience. David
looks to God for his survival. And I said that
the instinct to survive is often what mobilizes
us when we're in this unfamiliar territory. This
territory that takes so much from us. But David
does something quite surprising here. And I believe
his deep connection to God, how we get to actually
see it. How he reached out to the Lord. how he
was honest with God, his expressions, his reflections.
It altered his basic rules of survival. So I'm
going to have us read 1 Samuel 24. And we're
doing this part late in the message, but when
we read passages like this, we do invite people
to stand or take a posture of reverence. And
so I will invite you to join me as I read 1 Samuel
24. 1 through 20. There are Bibles at your table,
and you can also use your Bible apps on your
phone. After Saul returned from pursuing the
Philistines, he was told, David is in the desert
of En Gedi. So Saul took 3 ,000 able young men
from all Israel and set out to look for David
and his men near the crags of the wild goats.
How many people does David have with him? 600.
How many people does Saul have? 3 ,000. He came
to the sheep pens along the way, and a cave was
there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. It
is what you think that is. He is going to the
bathroom. David and his men were far back in
the cave. Like, oh my gosh. The men said, this
is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to
you, I will give your enemy into your hands for
you to deal with as you wish. Small pause. You
can almost imagine. I mean, this is David's crew
being like, this is it. He is being delivered
to you. It can all end now. You can put an end
to this. You are supposed to be king. We all
know it. Let's hurry this along. David had the
chance to potentially speed up this holy plan
by taking things into his own hands when the
opportunity arose. The opportunity was there.
Back to verse 4. Then David crept up unnoticed
and cut off a corner of Saul's robe. How quiet
do you have to be to do that? Afterward, David
was conscious stricken for having cut off a corner
of his robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid
that I should do such a thing to my master, the
Lord's anointed, or lay my hand on him, for he
is the anointed of the Lord. He is the king right
now. With these words, David sharply rebuked
his men and did not allow them to attack Saul.
And Saul left the cave and went his way. I should
also say he's his father -in -law, too. Saul
was none the wiser. Then David went out to the
cave and called out to Saul. So Saul leaves,
and David sort of comes out behind him. My lord,
the king! And Saul looked behind him. Oh, imagine
what he thought. David bowed down and prostrated
himself. He made himself vulnerable. with his
face to the ground. He said to Saul, why do you
listen when men say David is bent on harming
you? This day you have seen with your own eyes
how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the
cave. Some even urged me to kill you, but I spared
you. I said, I will not lay a hand on my Lord
because he is the Lord's anointed. See, my father,
look at this piece of your robe in my hand. I
cut off the corner of your robe, but did not
kill you. See that there is nothing in my hand
to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or
rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are
hunting me down to take my life. May the Lord
judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge
the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will
not touch you. As the old saying goes, from evildoers
come evil deeds, so my hand will not touch you.
And when David finished saying this, Saul asked,
Is that your voice, David, my son? And he wept
aloud. You are more righteous than I, he said.
You have treated me well, but I have treated
you badly. You have just now told me about the
good you did to me. The Lord delivered me into
your hands, but you did not kill me. When a man
finds his enemy, does he not let him get away
unharmed? May the Lord reward you well for the
way you treated me. I know that you will surely
be king. and that the kingdom of Israel will
be established in your hands. You may be seated.
That's a really haunting encounter. David's instinct
to survive was overtaken by his heart to be merciful.
And I... I have to think that what we see expressed
by him throughout his time in the wilderness
was that heart change. Because again, human instinct
is different than that. It would have made the
most sense for that story to go exactly the way
you thought it should. For David to be like,
I've been anointed king and you're a terrible
person. Let's just, I'm going to take this as
an opportunity and bring you down. And we're
just done with this. And so Saul was still king
until he wasn't, until he died. David still had
to wait. So if you're finding your trajectory
feels off, if you're heading west but the promises
you were given were eastward, if you feel like
the waiting has gone on longer than you think
it should, please know that you are not being
ignored. You are not being overlooked. Your trajectory
has not changed. God will fulfill his promises.
When I sensed, In college. That God was. Calling
me to serve in a global capacity. The work I
currently do now. Was not a job. It didn't exist.
So the calling was there. Before the path was.
There was a path. That existed. But it was not.
It was the path I had to get on. To find the
other path. Further down the road. And it was
because I was here. While I was waiting for there,
that I got there through other pathways, but
also longer timelines. And not only did I get
there, but it was far beyond what I could have
conceived in the years before. Rushing it would
have been exactly what I wanted to do. But what
the long -term... how things have gone long term
has been far better than I could have possibly
understood. And I'm so grateful. While our instinct
is to survive and preserve our resources and
to think tactically and practically when feeling
off course and in the wild places, remember that
God has already been caring for you and will
continue to care for you through these places.
God is taking care of you. God is protecting
you. God is leading you. We can let up a little
bit and we can trust him for the unseen path
and plan ahead of us. We can take the time to
worship him and to express our feelings about
the waiting to him. We can take the time to rest
in him. We can let down some of that. I just
need to figure this out. I need to shift things
to my advantage. I need to come up with a plan.
I need to, like that survival mode, not just
thinking, but like physical thing that happens
in you, we can let up on that and just be with
God. If God has promised you something, it is
still there. That promise exists. God has not
forgotten it. God has not forgotten you. So use
that time to hold on tightly to that relationship
that is the groundwork for the calling in the
first place. You don't have the vision and the
calling and the thing and the purpose and the
progress and the results. You don't have that
without caring for what's at the core of it before
any of that existed. So the Psalms are a great
way to get a sense of what that looks like for
a human to ease back into God's presence when
the need to survive feels like the most important
thing. In our fear and in our discouragement,
we can thank him and recognize that he is still
good and his mercies do, in fact, endure forever.
And that is a good promise. That is a good promise
for us. So if you are finding yourself in a wilderness,
or that you could be in one, maybe you're for
sure, you're like, yeah, I've been here a minute.
I am so tired. We got to get moving on this.
There may still be years ahead. That's true.
That's a real thing. But while you're in the
wilderness, you are not abandoned. You are not
abandoned. And perhaps that's the most important
message of all, because when you are in a wilderness,
you can feel lonely. But if you trust that God
is there and just attempt to believe, he will
meet you. There will be fruit there. Let's pray.
God, as we... live this very human life. We have
no other life to live but a human one. It can
sometimes feel very marked by long periods of
these wandering survival mode wildernesses. That
can be really hard. It's exhausting. It's a lot
of things. I pray that you would help us remember
that we can unclench our hands a little bit,
which just feels really counterintuitive, but
we can unclench our hands a little bit. We can
even jettison off some of those worries and rest
in you. We can... look to you, we can thank you,
we can worship you, we can acknowledge you, we
can express our concerns, we can express our
fears, we can express our joys. We can recall
promises that you've given either specifically
to us or to us through your word. But there is
more than just the wandering and the moving from
place to place. Because whatever it is that you've
called us to, it is nothing without you in it
anyway. So while we are here, help us remember
that you are the most important thing. We pray
this in your name. Amen.