Forgiveness And Grace 
A Sermon by Elise Beatrice

Yes, we're reading 2 Samuel 2 from 1 to 7. 
Lord, thank You for Your grace. And thank You for Your mercy. Thank You for Your inspiration. Thank You for Your teaching. 
My Lord, please let Your Holy Spirit guide me and help everyone here present, Lord Jesus. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit. 
Please, help us to understand this passage as You want us to understand.
Thank You for helping us, Lord, and for teaching us. In Your holy name, Lord. Amen. 


After this, David asked the Lord, “Should I move back to one of the towns of Judah?” “Yes,” The Lord replied. 
And David asked, “Which town shall I go to?” “To Hebron.” The Lord answered. 
David's two wives were Ahinoam from Jezreel, and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel.
So David and his wives and his men and their families all moved to Judah, and they settled in the villages near Hebron. 
Then the men of Judah came to David and anointed him king over the people of Judah. 
When David heard that the men of Jabeth Gilead had buried Saul, he sent them this message. 
‘May the Lord bless you for being so loyal to your master Saul and giving him a decent burial.
May the Lord be loyal to you in return, and reward you with His unfailing love. And I too will reward you for what you have done. 
Now that Saul is dead, I ask you to be my strong and loyal subjects, like the people of Judah, who have anointed me as their new king." 

This is King David here, who has been living on the run from King Saul.
And now King Saul is dead, and David has been anointed as the new king. But now he is so forgiving that he also wants the people of Saul to work for him, because, though Saul has been evil to him, they had only just obeyed the order of the king. So, King David is well aware that though king Saul has persecuted him, using his servants to do that job, and they obeyed king Saul, He knows that if they were now his loyal subjects, they would be obeying him like they obeyed King Saul. He will be able to tell them, do this, and they will do it. 
Because, though King Saul had been doing evil against David, he had never wanted harm to come upon him. David knew that Saul’s servants only executed Saul's orders; his servants respected what, as a king, he told them to do. So, if King David had seen that they were really pure evil, those people, he would not have said, I want you to become my loyal subjects. He had been amongst them. He had lived with them. So, he had seen that they were loyal people being faithful to king Saul. And now that he's the king, in his turn, he would love them to be his loyal servants, his loyal people, his loyal subjects.

Yes. So what is that telling us? That when we do good things, even if we are serving an evil person, and we are doing good things, people can still see, and they can also recognize that many might not have a choice to say no to the king. But as for myself, if I were to work for an earthly king, suppose a king were to tell me, “I want you to go and kill King David, I want you to kill that person.” Me being a loyal servant of the king, will I do it? No, I wouldn't do it. Because first of all, before serving the king on earth, we have the First King, the King of kings that we serve. And if we obey the king on the earth and follow his evil doings and his instructions to kill innocent people who've done nothing wrong because of his greed and his jealousy, if we do that, we will be sinning as well, just like that king. So, while serving the kings on the earth, we should not forget that the King of kings is the One who put us here on earth. And what He says, given that we listen to Him, we will always do what is right. And if something is right in God's eyes, it will also be right in the eyes of those who are moral.
But if King David had been an evil person, they could execute that order because it would be a moral judgment from a king who's moral to punish an evildoer. But King David was no evildoer. So the instructions of king Saul to go after him [David] and to end his life was purely evil. So, any of his workers who followed it were cowards, they could not stand up to the king and say, “Why going after him when he did nothing wrong?” But, however, the son of king Saul stood up for David and said, “Father, he did nothing wrong. Why would you kill an innocent man? Why would you want the death of an innocent man?" And that ... King Saul did not take that so kindly with him.
 
Yes. So, we have to ask ourselves this question. While we are on this earth, we have to distinguish between the moral law and the immoral law. If an immoral king were to command us to do something immoral, do we do it? That is the question we must ask ourselves, because I will not do it. Because I fear the God Most High, who is the God of justice, who is a God of love and righteousness, He's the Holy... God of holiness. So He put us here before any man. So whoever we serve here on us, we should not compromise and just go and follow those people like puppets. We are old enough to know right from wrong, and to know when something is immoral. Everyone who contributes to immoral things, even if it is for a king, is still doing something evil. 
Well, I believe in this situation, King David wanted to give them the opportunity to realize that even though they had persecuted him, he had forgiven them. And at this point, if I am one of those people, I would admire King David for what he's doing. I would respect him for giving us such an opportunity to serve him, even after what they had done to him. I would be a changed person because despite what I've done, he has been so kind to me. He's a king now. He could persecute us all. He could command all of us to be killed because now he has the right as a king, but instead, he did the complete opposite because he was a moral king, taking after the King of kings whom he already knew, for He spoke to him. He wanted them to be his loyal servants, not to just be in their own home, but to actually come and work with him. And that is admirable, such a great degree of forgiveness. See, David never wanted King Saul's death, even when he persecuted him. So yes, he forgives evil. I mean, any king, after being anointed king of Israel, he would have held a grudge and said, “Okay, kill all those people who have chased me, wanting to kill me following the commandment of their king.”
But he didn't do that. And that is admirable. So, this is to show us a great level of integrity and forgiveness. 
In this world we live in, we have to really discern what is the moral law and what is the immoral law. That way, if someone were to tell us to do something totally immoral, and to go against God, we should not do it, even if they’d want to take our head. I would not do it, but it depends on an individual. 

So, Lord, thank You so much for ... for this sermon, and thank You for Your servant King David. This is a perfect example he's showing us."

Yes, he knew the Lord indeed, and he loved the Lord. And that was great. He lived his life, and though he made his own mistakes, he repented of them all and served the Lord with love and integrity and faithfulness to Him, and obedience. And that's all that matters. 
We can forgive people, even if they have really wronged us, and we can also give people an opportunity for repentance. Yes, by forgiving we can even forget their evilness on us, giving them room to see for themselves what a kind man has done for them. It might motivate them to strive to be like him.

So, the Lord was pleased with King David. He lived a good life, and if we were to follow also his examples which are good, we’re also going to have a good life. So, let's follow the example of those who have been there before and have made it in the Lord and have done God's will till the end. 

So, thank You, Lord God, we love You, and we thank You for this sermon. We thank You for Your teaching of today. We thank You for Your love, Your mercy, and Your grace, and Your forgiveness. We thank You that You know how to cure us. You have cured King David's heart just as You have cured my heart. For everyone who has ever wronged me, You have helped me to forgive them all. And that is a beautiful thing when people live with no grudge in their heart. We thank You, God, for Your grace and Your mercy, and I thank You for Your people everywhere, those who live with no grudge in their hearts. And I thank You for those whom You clean their hearts from grudge, from unforgiveness so that they will be healed and realize how great forgiveness is and how beautiful it is when people truly go and forgive.
So thank You, Lord God, for Your grace, and Your mercy and Your love. Thank You, Lord Jesus. We love You and we bless You. 

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.