to serving Christ.
And that's what they're doing.
Our whole goal for youth group is to train for godliness.
And that's what they're doing.
I'm seeing them become stronger and stronger in their faith.
And I pray that you see that too.
And it's a beautiful, beautiful blessing.
Because teens matter.
And teens make an impact.
And teens change the world.
So it's important that we invest in our teens
and we can see God using them.
Well, if you will, turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 24.
1 Samuel 24.
And we're in our David series.
And one of the big points that we get from David
is that David is, well, more so,
that God is concerned with the heart of David.
And even bigger than that,
that God is concerned with the heart of man.
And David is a man after God's own heart.
We've seen that he's trusted God.
That he defeated the giant.
That he trusted God during the highs and highs of life.
And he trusted God during the lowest lows of life.
He's making a choice to trust God.
And I really wanna focus on that key element,
that idea of making a choice to trust God,
making a choice to surrender to God.
You know, we make choices every day, every day.
And that's not a new thing.
We make a lot of minor choices of what clothes
I'm gonna wear, what dinner I'm gonna eat,
am I gonna brush my teeth,
or I'm gonna hope no one notices.
Where am I gonna sit when I get to church?
We make big decisions of whom I'm gonna marry.
I got a good one, I love it, love her.
And we have make decisions for our job, right?
We make decisions for school.
What school we're gonna go to?
We make decisions for what we're gonna do
with our finances, those are bigger ones.
And what I've seen about the choices I make,
especially those big choices, those monumental choices,
those character trait choices,
is choices reveal the inside of who we are
and what we're prioritizing.
And I wanna illustrate this with a story.
Hit me with that next slide, Logan.
So we got a jungle gym, right?
How many have been on a jungle gym before?
Okay, all right.
So they look really innocent.
I try to get the most innocent picture I could.
Look how happy these kids are.
But in reality, a jungle gym is absolutely a death trap,
especially the jungle gym that I grew up with.
It was probably about, I don't know, 10 feet tall.
It was huge, but it was made out of metal
and you could get tetanus just by looking at it.
It wasn't great.
And I remember we would all, through recess, would go
and we would play on the jungle gym
and we would try to impress each other.
And there was one day I had my best friend with me
and we were about in third grade and we went to the top.
The cool people went to the top of the jungle gym.
So naturally, I wanted to be one of the cool guys.
So I got to the top of the jungle gym
and we're hanging out there
and then there were like these two girls that came
and I was like, hey, hey, we should impress the two girls.
So they came up and we talked to them,
I guess as third graders do, but I was like,
okay, I got to do something really cool and really manly
and I'm going to impress the girls.
I was like, what can I do?
Well, I was feeling a little parched, so I said,
well, I'm going to get some water from the water fountain.
But what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump off
from the very top and show them how manly, how strong I am.
I might even do a back flip in the air
and they're just going to be amazed
and fall in love with me automatically, right?
Okay, and that's how my third grade mind thought.
And I did it.
I was like, I got ready, I got to the top.
I got my stance and I jumped off
and it was glorious for a few seconds.
I was in midair, it was great.
But I remember my leg did something weird.
I don't know what it did, but it started to pop a little bit
and it all was in slow motion.
So I feel my leg popping out and I said,
that's probably not going to be a good thing.
And then I hit the ground and as soon as I hit the ground,
my leg just snaps.
And it's just, now I didn't think I'm off or anything,
but it was pretty badly broken, right?
It did not feel great.
And I remember I was lying there and I was like,
I'm sure I impressed the two girls
that were just above their watch and they're like,
what is he doing?
I remember I was trying to not cry,
but I had all this emotion built up.
So I was like, what am I supposed to do?
I remember I was just trolling around in circles for a while
and the girls were like, what is that guy doing?
Like, why is he down there?
And my mom was a teacher there.
And I remember she came and she was looking.
She's like, what is my son doing?
He's just laying there on the ground going in circles.
I was like, mom, I really, really think my leg is broken.
And it was, it was very badly broken.
And I eventually got a, I was in,
I think I was in a wheelchair for six months
because I was really, really, really small.
And it just took forever to heal.
So they kept me in a wheelchair that did not fit me.
And I had like a glow in the dark cast.
That was pretty cool.
But I remember that and it's so vividly attached to my mind.
And I remember that it was just that one choice
where I was like, I can impress them.
I'm gonna make the choice.
I'm gonna follow through with this.
I'm gonna do it.
This is a great idea.
It was not a great idea by any means.
But I remember that I think about that.
I know that choices matter
and that choices yield results,
whether good or bad.
And I remember when you make choices
that are so me centered focused on me,
they often, I don't know if you've noticed this,
but they lead you down a hard path
because when we're me centered,
things don't usually go well.
And as a Christian, we should have this desire
to surrender fully to God's will.
And our choices truly reflect our desire
to be surrendered to him.
If, if, if, with the choices we make should be about
what he desires and what he has planned for us.
That brings us to our main point for tonight.
We can possess a heart surrendered to God's will
to what God wants by carefully making four choices.
Now, this isn't mutually exclusive.
This isn't like the only four choices
you could ever make to have a surrendered heart
to God's will.
But we see these from the story of David.
And David makes four choices.
And they're actually choices that I believe
each one of us will have to make.
And we have to make the right choice
with a surrendered heart.
And who agrees it's much better
to follow God's way than our own.
So let's start with our first point.
David's first choice.
His first choice is, I'm gonna follow the crowd.
Or am I gonna follow my conscience?
Follow the crowd or follow your conscience?
Let's make sure we know the context.
So we're hopping into a story here.
And what we've learned from the pastor
and from Pastor Cory's amazing sermon
is that we see that Saul is out to kill David
and he's still out to kill David.
And in chapter three, we see that it's the story
of where David's on one side of a mountain
and Saul's on another side
and they're trying to find each other
and they're getting so close to meeting each other.
And Saul gets news that the Philistines are attacking.
He says, okay, David, I'll be back,
but I'm gonna leave, but I am coming back for you.
And that's what chapter 24 is all about.
So look at me at verse one in chapter 24.
And it came to pass when Saul was returned
from following the Philistines,
that it was told him saying,
behold, David is in the wilderness of Ingeti.
Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of Israel
and went to seek David and his men
upon the rocks of the wild goats.
And he came to the sheep goats, by the way,
where was a cave and Saul went into cover's feet
and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave.
All right, let's set this picture here.
Saul is coming back and he's searching for David.
He doesn't know where David's at, but he's know he's near.
He knows he's close.
And that leads us to the valley of Ingeti.
And go ahead and hit me with that picture up there.
This is what the valley of Ingeti
would have looked like a lot back then.
It was a noasis, it was beautiful.
And David was hiding, we don't know exactly
where he was hiding, but he was hiding in a cave.
It could have been the cave right behind this waterfall
here, it could have been somewhere close by.
But he's in Ingeti and he's looking for somewhere peaceful,
a beautiful oasis, but David is looking to hide.
He doesn't want to be found.
But Saul, what has crazed me that I noticed reading this
is that Saul took 3,000 men.
And we see in chapter 23 that David only has 600.
So that's a lot.
He's overcompensating.
And what we see is that Saul is actually
very, very, very paranoid.
And he's thinking that David is this great
and malicious threat and there's all these thoughts
going through his head.
And he's after David and he wants to kill David
at no matter the cost.
And he thinks David wants to kill him as well.
But we see in verse 3 that Saul goes and covers his feet.
There's some debate about what that means.
And what I think it means, it could either mean
that he's going to sleep or that he's going to the bathroom.
When I was looking through further study,
it makes more sense to me that he would be
going to the bathroom, that's why he was alone.
He would have never left a king alone when he was asleep.
But Saul, so that's funny to me, if you think about it.
Saul is literally going to the bathroom.
He finds a cave and he goes to relieve himself.
And what's interesting is even kings go to the bathroom.
It's kind of humbling.
Like Saul was this great guy,
yeah but he still had to go to the bathroom.
And David was hiding back there.
And it must have been a huge cave
because David would have fit 600 men
in the very back of the cave.
But picture this, the men are watching,
David's men are watching, David's watching.
And Saul comes in, he doesn't know what Saul first,
he's like, there's a guy coming into our cave.
Now the guy's using the restroom.
Now the guy's Saul and now everything just changes.
It's like a plot twist.
And look with me at verse four.
And the men of David said unto him,
behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee,
behold, I would deliver thine enemy into thine hand,
that thou mayest do to him, as it shall seem good unto thee.
And David arose and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe,
prively.
So these are David's men, his allies, his soldiers,
and probably his close friends,
these are people he's living with.
And they're asking him saying, all right, David,
he's very vulnerable, what are you gonna do?
What are you waiting for?
Go go kill him.
This is your bitter enemy, this is your time,
jump on this chance, he's making your life miserable.
And you can kill him, it's not gonna be hard.
They're his soldiers away off in the distance,
you can get this done and we can be safe.
And his friends declare that God said
he would deliver Saul over,
and then Saul's gonna be delivered over, David,
so you do whatever you want to do,
and it won't matter if you kill Saul.
And what's interesting, verse four,
is it seems like they're quoting something in the past,
but there's no record of what they would be quoting.
It seems like these men have just taken some pious language
and have tried to twist it, it may have happened,
and God truly made a promise that David would be anointed,
but what his friends are doing is they're taking this
and they're twisting it and saying,
David, you can go do this, it'll be okay.
God won't mind, choose to do it your way.
And they partially convinced David,
because look what it says at the end of the verse,
it says, then David arose
and caught off the skirt of Saul's robe, prively.
David liked this idea, he's like, yeah,
I could get up to him, and I can get up to him close,
and I think about it, I was like,
you have to get up really close to cut it off.
I think I have a picture up here,
it's a small recreation of it,
but I don't know how it was,
like how he was able to get to Saul without anyone noticing,
but he does, and what he does is very interesting.
He doesn't go immediately for the killer blow,
the fatal blow, but he goes and he gets the part of the robe,
the hem of the robe, and cuts it off,
and that's incredibly symbolic,
that's not just for any reason.
What that robe did is it identified a royal king
that had authority.
If you were a king, you had this robe,
and it was to show that you have this authority
above everyone else.
And what David's saying right here is that Saul,
I got your little robe, your little symbol of authority,
and I'm coming for your kingdom next.
That's what would have been thought through.
And think about what's happening, David,
because it's very similar to what happens with us.
He was tempted.
He had people tempting him, but also his own sinful flesh,
thinking it won't hurt just a little bit.
You deserve it, David, you went through all this pain.
I'm sure God won't mind this, like,
one time you do your own thing.
I mean, who's gonna know?
We'll just know, David, but we'll keep it a secret.
And that's like the human condition,
because that's just like us.
When we are led astray to follow after sin,
and we have this thought in our head
that one small taste of a secret's not gonna matter.
Well, what's so interesting is his friends
weren't influencing him.
And this is a perfect message for a youth service, right?
Because it's important that you have the right friends.
And a large, if we really think about it,
a large majority of the people in this world
are doing the wrong thing.
That's not a happy thought, but it is.
It's true.
And we have to be careful about who we're associating with.
Not that we don't want to spread the gospel,
by no means is that what we're saying, to just reclude,
but we have to make sure we know
that we can be easily influenced.
I mean, it can be teens, like, it could be going to,
it's just a party, it's just a taste,
it's just a little click of something
I know I shouldn't watch.
But adults, let's not act like it's just a teen thing
that they need to watch out for their friends.
It's us too.
That one friend that you know is a little too risque
and they go right over the line,
but you still stay with them because they're funny.
Right, it's that coworker that makes you
just feel a little bit different.
You can kind of take a break
from being a Christian for a little while.
It's that family member that you just act differently with.
I don't know what it is, but I know that adults
are also very easily influenced.
Case right here with David, he's influenced.
He actually went and did the wrong thing.
Sometimes I think about a story
and I just assumed David was perfect through it all.
That's not true at all.
We see that he did the wrong thing.
He succumbed to the temptation,
but what made all the difference is the next verse, verse five.
It says, it came to pass afterward
that David's heart smote him
because he had cut off Saul's skirt.
Well, that's saying his heart smote him.
That means his conscience pricked him.
And a conscience isn't just like the little cricket
from Pinocchio, right?
It's the sense of right and wrong.
It's even bigger than that when we are Christians.
Our conscience is not on just a moral sense,
but as Christians it's the Holy Spirit
and dwelling with us.
What we see going back to the David's context
is that his heart was truly,
in the verbiage that Hebrew was saying,
that it was struck down that his heart sank
because he knew he was in the wrong.
I don't know if you've ever been there, but I felt that.
Like I've said something really, really fast
to someone that it didn't process in my head
and I said something really mean to someone
or maybe it did process in my head
and I still said it, right?
And I said it and as soon as I said it, I'm like,
oh, that was a jerk thing to say.
Are you going, I do this action that I know was wrong
and then as soon as I do it, I don't get the sweet,
oh, that felt good, I get, oh, that was wrong.
And that's some ways a good place to be
because it means the Holy Spirit's working in you, right?
That this man, David, had a relationship with God.
That's what changed, that was what pricked his conscience.
But he does the hardest thing that for any of us to do
is say, I was wrong.
And how could he admit it?
This is David, like he is the hero of the faith.
He has a deep relationship with his Lord
and that's how he knew, man, I'm not perfect.
But my Lord is and I need to straighten up,
I need to do what I'm supposed to do.
And we see in verse six, he even says to the men,
he says, the Lord has anointed Saul.
God will take Saul down when it's time.
It's not my responsibility to put things in my hands.
It's in God's hands.
And then verse seven, look at it with me.
So David stayed his servants with these words
and suffered them not to rise against Saul.
But Saul rose up out of the cave and went on his way.
That word stayed there is when you look it up,
it's divided or split.
And it's another way of like, he persuaded his men
with a really stern tone.
He said, he went up to his men and said,
I am not doing this temptation.
I am not falling into this.
This is wrong and I'm telling you it's wrong
and we're not changing.
He had resolve.
He had resolve because he said,
I'm not following the crowds, I'm following God.
There are crowds in our life.
And if it's not for God, we would be so led astray.
But when we say, I'm with God and I will not go this way.
That was the first choice he made.
He said, I'm going with my conscience.
Then we continue reading and we get to the second choice.
The second choice is that, should I leave this problem alone
or should I deal with the problem?
We see at the end of verse seven,
is that Saul leaves the cave, that brings us to verse eight.
Continuing the story, it kind of shifts.
David also rose afterward and went out of the cave
and cried after Saul saying, my Lord, the king.
And when Saul looked behind him,
David stooped with his face to the earth
and bowed himself.
David confronts him.
This seems like totally illogical
because first he didn't kill him.
It's like you could have killed him, David.
Now you're going out to meet him.
But David made a choice.
He says, I'm not going to leave the problem alone.
I'm actually going to go and confront it.
I want to face up and deal with a difficult situation.
Not, not hostily, but I'm going to be bold.
I'm going to be careful, but I need to deal with the problem.
Let's get to what this problem is that he's addressing.
We see that as we continue reading.
He says in verse eight,
and David also rose after, went out of the cave
and cried after Saul saying, my Lord, the king.
Interesting.
He still has respect.
Keep that with you.
That's going to lead into our third point.
But he continues and says,
and when Saul looked behind him,
David stooped with his face to the earth
and bowed himself.
Saul was vulnerable.
Now David's making himself vulnerable.
He's showing, hey, Saul,
you're getting a little crazy right now,
but I still have respect for you.
And we continue in verse nine.
David said to Saul,
wherefore hearest thou men's words saying,
behold, David seeketh thy hurt?
What was happening is that there were false rumors spreading
about David wants to kill you, Saul,
so you need to take him out as fast as possible.
Now this could have been just like other rumors,
people around Saul's counsel, his friends, his crowd.
It could have been Saul's paranoia that he thought this.
But whatever it is, there was this false rumor going around
and David says, I need to address this
and not just let it go.
You know, there are two types of people in the world.
And it can be a bad thing, it can be a good thing.
There's people who really love confronting people.
And in confronting me just for that,
it's going up to someone to deal with the problem.
And it can be done in a good way or a bad way.
Or there's people who really don't like confrontation.
Like they just really don't want to be near confrontation
because it makes them feel awkward.
Right?
There's a lot of, I would say there's more people
who really just don't like confrontation.
And they're timid and they find themselves in a problem
in a hurting relationship and they think this,
I think this because I tend to fall this way as well,
is that a problem happens and I say, it'll blow over.
Like it'll be fine, just let it go.
It'll work out.
But what I found is that if you don't deal with the problem,
it usually just doesn't work out.
Like just magically, like everything's just better.
What often happens is instead of actually
the problem working out and me just ignoring
and living on with my life,
I actually start complaining to others about it.
And then I start developing this bitterness
and resentment as well.
And what we see here is that David says,
I'm going to the source and I'm dealing with this problem.
And he's not doing disrespectfully.
If anything, he's being very respectful.
He's bound himself saying my Lord the King,
he's not putting him as God, of course.
He's just saying that disrespect.
And he's saying Saul, I'm not trying to kill you.
Like Saul was not feeling threatened at this point.
David could have come out very threatened and say,
hey, I got you a little, little hemorrhobe,
I got a sword here, I got 600 men,
I could kill you very fast, you better run.
And he says, my Lord the King, I'm not trying to kill you.
People are telling you that, but that's wrong.
So what we see is that David is choosing,
continually the right path.
And he's choosing to promote truth
as he goes down the right path.
He's not following the crowd.
He's following his conscience.
And as he follows his conscience,
he's seeking to promote the truth.
That leads us to our third point.
David had to choose, disobey God's command
or surrender to God's plan.
This is alluded to through the whole chapter,
verse six very much hits on this,
that David had a right perspective, first of God,
who God was, and that God's above everything,
but he also had a right perspective of Saul.
Look at me at verse 10.
Behold this day thine eyes have seen that the Lord
had delivered thee today into my hand in the cave.
And son bade me kill thee, but my eyes spare thee.
And I said, I will not put forth my hand against my Lord,
for he is the Lord's anointed.
Over my father, see ye, see the skirt of thy robe
in my hand, for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe
and killed thee not, know thou, and see that there is
neither evil nor transgression in my hand.
And I have not sinned against thee, yet thou huntest
my soul to take thee.
We see that David is saying in verse 10,
I could have killed you, I did not kill you.
And this question is, well, why didn't you do that, David?
Well, he says in verse 10, he said,
and I said, I will not put forth my hand against my Lord,
for he is the Lord's anointed.
And you go all the way back to 1 Samuel 10,
it says that Saul was anointed, rightfully so.
David also was, but that doesn't mean that Saul right now
had stopped being king.
And there's commands in Exodus 20 to 28, it talks about this,
that you're supposed to surrender to people
who are in charge of you, you're supposed to honor them.
And he says in verse 11, I have this hymn,
I could have killed you.
I show, he shows the possibility of what could have been.
And he also confesses the action, hey, I messed up,
I could have done this, I was very close to doing this.
But I didn't, and he's not doing that to say,
look how amazing I am, I didn't kill you.
He's saying, no, no, I'm treating you like,
you're actually an authority.
And this is Saul who's like absolutely crazy right now.
But it's very interesting, if we look in verse eight,
David says to Saul, my Lord, he says in awesome verse eight,
my king, and he says in verse 11, my father.
Those each are very meaningful.
The first one is showing respect.
I actually am honoring who this guy is,
I'm not insulting him, I'm not belittling him.
And then he submits to him with the king,
he's saying, you're still king, not me.
And that'd be really hard, he's like, I should be king
and I could be better than you Saul, but he submits.
And then he says, father, there's this care and affection.
It is technically his father-in-law, right?
There is this relationship that was there.
What he doesn't say is God, you were wrong,
I'm not honoring this man.
No, he surrenders.
He surrenders, says, God, this is your man,
this is your country, your plan, I'm here to serve you.
You know, I was thinking about this,
and I got really convicted, to be honest,
because I was thinking about how I treat those
in authority above me.
I think about how I treat people in the government
and my gut reaction is to insult and belittle,
if I'm gonna be honest, right?
And part of that, you're like, well,
those are just harmless jokes.
What it shows is that we're not respecting, right?
And in no way get like, myles next to the government
is going perfect, no, I don't, at all, right?
There are so many problems, there's sin in the world,
but what we are shown in scripture
is that maybe we could argue,
the people in our government are not necessarily,
the Lord's anointed, they were anointed king,
and it was poured over them, right?
But they are who the Lord allowed.
In Romans 13, we're told to honor the government.
And I think about how Jesus would have responded
to his government, he actually did,
and said, running under Caesar's, what is Caesar's?
In a much worse time than we were.
And I think about that, and I don't do that.
And that's for all areas, that's for if you have a boss,
if you have a teacher, if you have a leader somewhere,
and you really don't like what they're doing,
but you're not gonna let it to their face.
And that makes you feel better,
because like we didn't say it to the face,
but I said this really passing bitter remark
to my friend over there, and we kind of laughed about it
and joked, or had this silent bitterness like,
man, I'm just really mad about them.
They'll never know, but I'll know,
and I'll make sure I am bitter towards them.
But I think about it, I'm like,
when do I ever pray for people in charge of me?
It's actually commanded in scripture to do that.
We have leaders, and we are commanded to honor
and respect them, and we don't honor them
because they're perfect, no one deserves honor,
but no one's perfect.
But we go because God says they are put in charge of you,
and because of that, I want you to honor them.
It's not because of who they are,
but it's because of the position they hold.
And he continues, and says,
No thou, and see that there is neither evil
nor transgression in my hand,
I have not sinned against thee,
yet thou huntest my soul to take it.
David very much understands that the person in charge
is a really horrible man.
Like he's not good, and he should probably get
what he deserves, but just because there is wrong leadership,
which I do not condone, doesn't mean we get an excuse
to stoop down to the level
and still treat them the same way.
God is the true leader,
and that's the person I put my trust in.
And then everyone else I pray for.
I don't belittle, I don't tear down,
it's just scriptural, it's not natural.
It's very much not natural,
because that gives me a little bit of authority.
If I insult someone that's in charge of me,
I'm like, yeah, I showed them,
didn't do anything, they have no idea I did it.
But it makes me feel better,
because yeah, like I can do better than them.
That's not at all what Jesus would have done.
It's actually not what Jesus did at all.
We pray for those.
We can't solve everything when that's opposed to.
We are to choose and surrender and obey
and not go our own way.
And that leads us to our final point.
To, David had this decision,
was he gonna seek vengeance,
or was he going to show mercy?
What was he gonna do?
There's this very subtle temptation
that we all have to get even.
And I wanna illustrate this,
because we all have different reactions
to when things happen to us.
So, I got who my three volunteers are.
I got Madison, I got Anna, and I got Luke.
Come on up.
All right, guys remember what your thing was?
Got it?
All right, so here's what we're gonna do.
Okay, make sure you don't show it yet,
and make sure you get in your positions, you got this, okay?
I want us to see the different responses we have
to when people wrong us, okay?
So go ahead and think into your mind, okay?
We're thinking about us.
Someone's just wronged you,
someone's just gone up to you, insulted you,
thrown you down, said something bad about you, anything.
You can fill it in.
It's not hard to try and think of examples, okay?
The very first thing we have, Miss Anna, go ahead and show us.
Okay, is attack.
We're like, okay, they said something mean to me,
I'm going right at them,
and they're gonna feel the punch, the power,
and I'm gonna bring them down with me.
And you're like, okay, chill, all right?
No, it's like, that's really what we do,
is that we say, you insulted me, I mean,
I'm about to bring you down with me,
we're going down together, right?
And we're just so hop onto it, I'm like, man, I'm ready.
I'm ready for a fight, let's do it, right?
And that's some of us, okay?
Some of us fall into this category, go ahead Luke,
is we're just super passive aggressive,
like we're just like, I'm not gonna say it to their face,
but I'm gonna go over here and give them a sign of treatment,
and they'll know that I'm at it then, all right?
I'm not gonna talk to them,
and I'm gonna say little sneaky insults,
and they're gonna be like, hey, everything okay?
Yeah, everything's fine.
I really don't like that guy, right?
It's just really passive, aggressive,
and it's just manipulating behind the scenes
to try to make someone just feel bad
and to feel the revenge, and like, you wronged me,
and now I'm gonna make you know it for a really long time,
and you're gonna always be upset and wondering,
like, is this ever gonna pass over?
It's not.
So we have these two reactions we fall into,
and if you're truly honest with yourself,
and I'm truly honest with myself,
is I fall into both of these,
depending on the situation, sometimes I do both,
and I get mad at someone who wronged me,
and I say, I gotta fix this,
and I gotta yell at them, make them feel bad,
and then I'm gonna keep it with me for a really long time.
But we see what David does, let's go ahead, Madison,
is merciful.
David comes up and has mercy.
Mercy is, you weren't given what you deserved.
What does Saul deserve?
He'll be killed, 100%.
Well, David says, no, no, that's not what we're about.
That's not, more importantly, that's not what God is about.
He's about mercy.
More so, let me give everything to God's authority.
He'll take care of it, send His hands, I surrender,
I'm showing mercy.
All right, good job, teens,
you can put that on the seat for me, great job.
All right, so let's keep going with this idea of revenge.
Okay, we see in verse 12, let's look at it together.
The Lord judge between me and thee,
and the Lord avenge me of thee,
but my hands shall not be upon thee.
And he's basically saying,
Saul, you messed up and you deserve punishment,
but it's not my job to give it.
And he says in verse 13, he quotes this proverb,
he says, if I was really as wicked as they say,
man, I'd kill you right now.
But verse 14, I don't have the authority to do that.
I'm like a dead dog or a small fleet.
The authority is God's.
You know, we tend to think that we have more authority
than we actually have.
We think that I'm in charge of my life, my family,
everything, and in some ways, yes,
we are in charge of things,
but we think that we're the greatest authority.
That's not true at all.
That we're no king, there's a greater king,
and he has all the authority.
It's God, he's in charge.
We are not the judge during executioner,
God is in charge.
And David says, I'm fully surrendering to God.
In verse 15, he says, I'm gonna show mercy
and trust in the Lord's deliverance.
And real quickly, we'll summarize what happens
when Saul responds.
We see that in verse 16, he's weeping.
And then verse 17, and he said to David,
thou art more righteous than I,
for thou hast rewarded me good,
whereas I have rewarded the evil.
He says, you repaid me good.
And I looked at you and I repaid you evil.
And it's this idea of payback that Saul had,
the wrong idea of payback, and was like,
I'm gonna bring David down,
but David says my response is different from that.
In verses 18 through 19, we see that Saul
is just utterly amazed by David's mercy.
And he says, I hope the Lord will reward you.
And it was this, there's still,
if you read it very carefully, the sense of selfishness,
because what Saul's really caring about is that he's safe.
He's grateful for David that he didn't kill him,
but he's also saying, I'm really glad it didn't die.
He doesn't care too much about David,
running away for months and months at a time,
and David escapes, and David almost being killed.
He doesn't apologize for that.
He just says, thank you for not killing me.
And then verse 20, he actually admits,
which is amazing and interesting,
is that David, I know you're gonna be king,
but when you become king, verse 21,
when you are, just don't cut off my offspring.
Just don't kill them.
That was very typical.
A new king comes in, old king's gone,
and by gone, they're dead.
They killed, they're executed.
But he says, don't do this.
And David agrees.
You know, we read that, I was like, man,
that really worked out well.
But I don't think it did.
Actually, I know it didn't,
because we continue on the story of David,
and Saul just comes right back.
And we see that in verse 22, it's alluded to.
So David swears unto Saul, he says, I will do this,
I won't kill your offspring,
but look about where they go.
And Saul went home, and David and his men
got them up into the hold.
It's a fancy way of saying it.
They went to the stronghold in Getty.
They didn't go home with Saul.
It was like, oh, lock arms, we're going together.
We can go back home.
Everything's back to normal.
That's not at all what happens.
He says, Saul, I'm glad.
And I promise I won't kill your offspring,
but I'm not going back with you.
I'm going back to my stronghold,
because you're not in your right mind.
And I know that you're still a wicked man.
And I'm still having these standards.
He doesn't just blindly trust.
And we see Saul does shift later again.
But David doesn't let his enemy, whom he loved, control him.
You know, there's this question I was thinking.
I was like, what if David did kill Saul?
What would have happened?
Because the temptation is like, oh, well, nothing.
It would all been fine.
He would have been king and everybody would have been happy.
The thing about that would have changed his kingship.
He about starting off a kingship disobeying God.
It doesn't usually go well.
He about his reputation.
You don't think that would spread?
600 men wouldn't go telling, yeah,
David killed him in his helpless, vulnerable state.
Some of you would be like, yeah, he deserved it.
And other people would be like, David,
that's not what you're supposed to do.
And also think about David's guilt
and how he would feel, oh, I did this.
And it stuck with him for the rest of life.
There's no going back.
We see that David made a choice.
I can say without a doubt, we have all gone hurt by others.
In fact, Jesus says this will happen to Christians
and there's this so subtle of a temptation to get them back.
It's so subtle that we don't think, oh, that's not a big deal.
I don't do that.
And we tend to think that it's counterintuitive.
It's counterintuitive to the world
to be when someone wrongs you, they show them kindness back.
That's very counterintuitive.
That was revolutionary when Jesus said to love your enemies.
What people did is you hurt me.
I'm not showing you kindness and mercy.
I'm gonna bring you down.
You put me in the hospital.
I'm gonna put you into the morgue.
Like we're gonna make this even worse.
And I'm gonna make this person regret crossing me.
But maybe I'm the only one, but I don't believe I am
because we struggle so much with wanting to avenge ourselves.
And I know this happens because Paul addresses it
very clearly in scripture.
Very clearly saying, hey, church, you're struggling with this.
Humans more so struggle with this.
Romans 12, 19 says, dearly beloved,
avenge not yourself, but rather give place under wrath.
For it is in vengeance's mind, our repay, saith the Lord.
That beloved there is interesting
because it seems like he's referring to Christians.
He's talking to Christians.
Don't avenge and say, I'll take care of it.
No, give it to God.
And I think about that and I say,
well, why does God get to be the judge?
Because he's perfect and just.
He's the best judge.
He's the only one we would truly want as judge.
No, revenge is a detrimental disease.
And it says that I am worth more than you.
And rather than you experiencing the same grace
of Christ I experienced, me giving that to you,
I want you to face wrath and pain.
And it's so selfish.
And it's like revenge is as if we're any better, right?
Because I get mad at someone,
but I conveniently forgot just an hour ago
the awful and selfish thing I committed and I did.
I mean, this person's way worse than me.
And I forget the two sins I just committed
even three seconds ago.
The reality is we're all deserving of judgment.
Romans 6.23 says that, for the wages of sin is death.
We all deserve it.
We all have wronged God.
Us, our enemies, our friends,
we must be punished.
We can't leave out the verse, right?
You can't stop there because it gets too good.
But the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
We have grace.
God showed us grace.
We deserve punishment.
But what happened is that God showed mercy.
And by showing mercy, he didn't throw out the justice.
The justice had been satisfied.
His wrath had to be satisfied.
That's why Jesus came and took that punishment.
And we get to experience God's mercy.
Jesus took the wrath for us.
How dare we seek revenge for our small problems
and forget the grace that saved us from God's wrath
and eternal destruction.
Revenge has no place in a Christian's life.
It doesn't work with Christianity.
It falls apart.
David had had some choices to make.
He had a choice whether he was gonna follow the crowd,
or he was gonna follow our conscience.
You have that same choice.
You follow what the crowd is doing,
or what God tells you to do.
You gotta make the choice of am I going to leave it alone
and just stay in the falsehood?
Am I gonna deal with it and promote the truth?
Am I going to disobey God?
What he, I know he's telling me.
He's been very clear what he's told me to do.
Or am I gonna surrender to what he said?
Am I going to take matters into my own hands?
Am I gonna give it over to God?
The choices you make indicate whether you are
following God's will.
See at the core of all of these choices
is that David was truly, truly surrendered
over to God's will.
He said it is God's way, God's truth, God's plan,
God's timing, and we so often think about our own way
and that I go the way I want to do,
ignore the problems, ignore God's plan.
It doesn't matter who I heard in the path
as long as it's about me.
And what we see through this example of David
is that he had a surrendered heart.
I hope you have a desire as well
to have this surrendered heart where you say,
I'm making this choice in my life
through these temptations that will come up.
It's not if, it's a win,
but when these temptations come up,
I'm gonna surrender.
You know, the choice is simple.
It's gonna be your way on your timetable.
And that's often how we think, right?
That we're, it's my way or the highway,
and it's my timing and things have to happen
the way I want them to go.
That's not biblical, that's not scriptural,
that's not godly.
It's the next part that really just like,
oh, it's awesome.
God's plan for God's glory.
Because what that says, it's no longer about me,
but it's about his plan that leads way better
than I could ever go.
And then I give him the glory for it.
Because this is our God, who's better than him, no one.
So may I just trust him and surrender,
because his plan, his timing, is better.
It's God's plan for God's glory.
You know what dictated his choices,
is that David knew he needed God alone.
And we need to surrender to God alone.
If you will, bow your head and close your eyes with me.