Sermons from Redeemer Community Church

Joel Brooks: 00:00

If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to first Samuel chapter 18. When I was younger, I used to mispronounce a lot of words. Instead of saying chest of drawers, it was Chester drawers. Instead of saying wheelbarrow, it was wheelbarrow. I didn't know I was dyslexic at the time.

Joel Brooks: 00:26

Who laughed at my dyslexia? Just come on. That's cruel. No. A lot of words, I just their meaning, I I just got wrong.

Joel Brooks: 00:37

And so, embarrassingly, like, this this was the the word most embarrassing. I I didn't know what it meant. I thought it just meant skin, kinda like epidermis, and that's the word cleavage. Thought it just meant skin. I didn't know any difference till I was a freshman in college.

Joel Brooks: 00:55

Led led to an awkward awkward conversation. My kids at times, as they're growing up, they they get their words wrong. One of our our our middle child, Natalie, over and over, she used to make bad decisions. And so, we just kept saying, you need to make good decisions. You need to make good decisions.

Joel Brooks: 01:14

And we did that for a year, and finally, after a year, she goes, dad, what's a decision? We just don't know. I say all of that because there are certain Christian words we say all the time, and we probably don't even think about what they mean. And we're probably wrong. Growing up, for instance, the word Christ.

Joel Brooks: 01:34

I thought Christ, embarrassingly so, was Jesus's last name. I mean, because think about it. It's not like it's in our our common vocabulary. We're just, you know, dropping the word Christ all the time. If so, I'd probably need to talk to you.

Joel Brooks: 01:47

But it was always no Jesus Christ. It was in church. It was it was his last name, and then when I finally realized that's not what it means, that Christ is actually the word for anointed one. The anointed one. The king.

Joel Brooks: 02:00

The messiah. The Christ. Somewhere in my brain, it still got lodged into what's just kind of Jesus's last name. And as I read through scripture, I I don't think of every time I see the word Christ. This is the King, the Messiah.

Joel Brooks: 02:18

A few weeks back, we got to see how Samuel anointed David, making him the Christ with a little c. Jesus will be the Christ with the capital c. But when we read the story we're about to read before us, we're gonna learn a lot about what a Christ, the Christ looks like and how we are to respond to Him. And that's really what this story is about. How are we supposed to respond to the anointed one, to the king, to the Messiah?

Joel Brooks: 02:49

So I said first Samuel 18. We're actually gonna begin reading in the just the last couple verses of 17 first. Verse 57. And as soon as David returned from striking the striking down of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, whose son are you, young man?

Joel Brooks: 03:12

And David answered, I am the son of your servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul.

Joel Brooks: 03:36

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor, and even his sword, and his bow, and his belt. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him. So that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments.

Joel Brooks: 04:14

And the women sang to one another as they celebrated. Saul has struck down his 1,000 and David his 10,000. And Saul was very angry. And this saying displeased him. He said, they have ascribed to David 10000.

Joel Brooks: 04:30

And to me, they have ascribed 1,000. What more can he have, but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day on. The next day, a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul. And he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre as he did day by day.

Joel Brooks: 04:49

Saul had a spear in his hand and Saul hurled the spear for he thought, I will pin David to the wall, but David evaded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a 1,000 and he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.

Joel Brooks: 05:22

But all Israel and Judah loved David for he went out and came in before them. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Pray with me. Father, we thank you for sending us your son Jesus, who is our savior, who is the Christ, the one who has defeated our greatest enemies, the one who calls us to himself.

Joel Brooks: 05:50

And I pray that this morning through your spirit, you would allow us to joyfully submit to your lordship that we might become more like you, Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

Joel Brooks: 06:12

I mentioned this a number of weeks ago, but it bears repeating again. The Bible has a lot to say about David. It has so much to say about David. It actually what we read about him is the largest ancient biography we have. In my bible, there's a 158 pages devoted to David.

Joel Brooks: 06:35

To put that in perspective, the gospels only take up a 120 pages in my bible. David just dominates the pages of scripture. And as you read about David, and now that we're getting to his rise of power, we're gonna begin getting more and more into who he was as a person, you're gonna realize that he's actually incredibly complex. I have little patience for commentators or for pastors who who teach David as as a one dimensional person. Like he's he only does good here.

Joel Brooks: 07:08

He's only pointing us to Jesus because that is not the case at all. It's not that simple. When I study David's life, I see a man who was extraordinarily humble. The times he wasn't being so arrogant. I see a person who had such a tender heart when he wasn't being brutal.

Joel Brooks: 07:30

A person who could be so compassionate and kind, but he would also kill you on the spot if you brought him bad news. He could be so naive about the way that the world works, yet he was also really politically astute. We know that David loved God. He was a man after God's own heart, but did you know that he also kept household idols in his house? You read about that later in this chapter.

Joel Brooks: 07:56

There are times that David would be full of emotion. He he would wear his heart on his sleeve. And then there's times you have absolutely no idea what David is thinking. I mean, in this chapter here, Dave or Jonathan essentially says, I love you, man. And David doesn't say anything in response.

Joel Brooks: 08:13

Matter of fact, you see everybody else around loving David, but David isn't described as having any kind of feelings in this chapter. You have no idea what he's thinking. He is so complex. You you you don't know what his Enneagram number is. Yeah.

Joel Brooks: 08:27

I mean, it literally it could be anything. There's times where David seems like he lacks any ambition. And then there's times you find at the end of this chapter, where, king Saul gives him a bridal price for one of his daughters and says, you need to bring back a 104 skins. David brings back 200. And the way it's worded, it shows that he numbered them before Saul, meaning he's counting them.

Joel Brooks: 08:54

And I'm just assuming he these people didn't willingly give their foreskins to David. He killed 200 people. And he is going 123, counts 200. What kind of man does that? Well, a brutal man who wants the throne.

Joel Brooks: 09:12

That's who. I mean, it's just he's a hard man to figure out. And and I love it because the bible just doesn't give this simplistic picture of someone who understands that all of us are really complex creatures. Aren't we? There's times we're capable of extraordinary beauty and goodness, and there's times we surprise our own selves with the depth of our sin and the horror that we do.

Joel Brooks: 09:36

David is no different. I love that when you see David here, you see a real person, not a fictitious character. And and we need to keep all of David in mind in the weeks ahead as we begin to study his life. The story that we have before us begins really in this unreal fashion. David has just killed Goliath and he's brought before King Saul.

Joel Brooks: 10:00

And even though David is just a boy, there is no doubt as to who the man is. The man is the one who's holding the head of the giant in his hand. I mean, it's an unbelievable scene. He probably has Goliath's huge sword in one hand, and he's holding by the, you know, the hair, this this bloody decapitated giant's head in the other. And he's going and he's talking to Saul at this moment.

Joel Brooks: 10:26

It's no wonder that Saul didn't recognize David at this point because that's not the same boy he plays quietly the harp in his room while he's going mad. Jonathan, the moment he sees David, instantly thinks, I like this kid. I like him a lot because Jonathan was a warrior. If you go back a few chapters in the bible, you can actually read some of Jonathan's exploits. And he was not like his father.

Joel Brooks: 10:56

He was a fierce warrior and he was full of faith. And when he sees David holding that head of Goliath, he thinks David did what I even was scared to do. As full of faith and as fierce as Jonathan was, he wouldn't go and fight Goliath, but David did. And he was in awe of David. And so it says he loved him.

Joel Brooks: 11:22

At that moment, Jonathan knew who the real king was. It wasn't his dad. It wasn't going to be him. It was going to be the boy holding, their enemy's head in front of them. We read that Jonathan's soul was knit to David and that he loved him as his own soul.

Joel Brooks: 11:43

Now we're gonna look a lot more at their friendship next week. That's what we're gonna really explore then. But I do wanna say a few words about their friendship now because it's so remarkable. For starters, Jonathan was a lot older than David. I hate to disappoint, you know, because in your children's bible, they're the same age.

Joel Brooks: 12:01

It's probably the picture you had. You know, they were just kind of, you know, 2 peas in a pod as my mom would say. But there was a huge age gap between them. We know this because David was born in the 10th year of Saul's reign. Yet by the 3rd year of Saul's reign, Jonathan was already a captain in the army.

Joel Brooks: 12:21

In other words, Jonathan was old enough to be David's father. But Jonathan didn't care. That didn't bother him. His soul was absolutely knit or bonded to David because he saw in David something so extraordinary. We read in verse 4 that he stripped himself of the robe that was on him.

Joel Brooks: 12:44

And he gave it to David and he gave his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt. Once again, what we saw last week, remember, when Goliath was being described and it goes through every piece of armor? You have a very similar scene here, which means the author of this is trying to tell you that there is a story happening. Each one of these pieces has significance. This isn't somebody just giving David his clothes, not just giving him some gifts.

Joel Brooks: 13:14

This is giving David his kingship. This robe was the royal robe. This was the royal armor. Every one of these pieces were what would be used to identify the prince. And yet he's giving it all to David.

Joel Brooks: 13:33

He didn't look at David like many of us would and get jealous and think who is this young upstart. He didn't try to squash down this rising star. He recognized that David was the anointed one. He's the true king. And so that meant he needed to give up his right to the throne.

Joel Brooks: 13:52

He needed to become, like we hear in the words of John the Baptist later, I must decrease. The Messiah must increase. I must decrease. Jonathan loves David so much. He makes a covenant with him.

Joel Brooks: 14:12

Once again, this is completely initiated by Jonathan. We have no idea what David's thinking at this moment, but Jonathan loves David. Jonathan wants to make a covenant with David. We're not told what this covenant is. It is most likely a political alliance.

Joel Brooks: 14:28

Jonathan here is officially pledging his life and his loyalty to the anointed one. Alright. So that's what's going on, but why is it here? Why did the author take time to give us the story? Well, I believe it's because Jonathan is being presented to us as a model, a model for what joyful submission to the Christ should look like.

Joel Brooks: 14:54

Joyful submission to the Christ looks like this. We recognize that the Christ has gone before us and fought our battles for us. Our Christ has delivered us from our enemies. And now, moved out of a heart of thanksgiving and love, we joyfully get off our throne and we allow Him to sit in it. That's the model we have before us.

Joel Brooks: 15:23

When we call Jesus, Jesus, the Christ, Jesus Christ, that's what we are saying. We're saying he's not just the king, but he's our king. He doesn't just sit on the throne of heaven, he sits on the throne of our heart. He's not just our savior, but he is also our lord. What you are given here is actually a great picture of conversion.

Joel Brooks: 15:43

Conversion is a joyful submission to the lordship of Jesus who has gone to battle for you. It's a laying down of everything you have, everything you hope to someday have. And you lay those things at the feet of Jesus. I mean, I love the language that's used to describe what Jonathan does. We read he stripped himself.

Joel Brooks: 16:11

He slowly, ceremonially takes off each piece of armor. Each piece of clothing that he formally found his identity in, and he is giving it to David, placing his identity on him. You know, David rejected Saul's armor, but he doesn't reject Jonathan's. Given to him as an act of faith and as an act of love. Makes me ask the question, have I taken off my current hopes, my my dreams for the future?

Joel Brooks: 16:51

Am I holding on to some piece of clothing that I'm still trying to find my identity in and I haven't placed it on Christ? Look at how Saul responds. It's the opposite of Jonathan. We see from the start that Jonathan is is at best, you would call it guarded. At verse 2, we read that he took David that day, and he would not let him return to his father's house.

Joel Brooks: 17:18

Now, this is not Southern hospitality. This is not like if you're visiting someone or like, stay for some sweet tea. I mean it. I'm just not gonna let you go. You gotta stay.

Joel Brooks: 17:27

This, this is strong language. He took David. He would not let him leave. David has no say in the matter here. Saul might be grateful that, you know, David went and he killed Goliath, but he sees David as a threat.

Joel Brooks: 17:45

And he wants to keep that threat as close to him as possible. But this strategy backfires on him. We read in verse 6, as they are coming home from the battle of the Philistines, the women of the city came and they lined the streets and they all began to sing. You're gonna find that throughout David's life, all the women love David. And here he comes, and and they're singing, Saul has struck his 1,000, and David has tens of 1,000.

Joel Brooks: 18:12

Now this isn't really like a song, like it had a tune. Notice it says that they they sang to one another. It's more like a cheer. It's kinda like a giant pep rally is happening. You know, and you have the, you know, the one side, you know, we got spirit.

Joel Brooks: 18:26

Yes, we do. And then it's, you know, like, we got spirit. How about you? You know, they're they're just kinda going back and forth, back and forth. And the

Jeffrey Heine: 18:32

cheer is this, Saul has killed the 1,000. And David has his tens of 1,000. Saul has killed his 1,000.

Joel Brooks: 18:41

And so it's just echoing back and forth. And I'm sure, like, at at first, Saul's like, hey. That's it's great. Okay. You know, we get the point.

Joel Brooks: 18:48

You know, it's just kinda you don't have to keep saying that over and over and over. I mean, how would you feel if that happened to you? Is there like, yes. You got a 25 on your ACT, but David got a 32, and they're echoing it back and forth. Yes.

Joel Brooks: 19:11

You're kind of athletic. Yes. But David ran an ultra marathon in record time. Like, okay, I get the point. Yes, you're beautiful.

Joel Brooks: 19:21

Hey, but 25 year, 100 years from now, they're gonna be making nude models

Jeffrey Heine: 19:24

of this man. This guy is gorgeous.

Joel Brooks: 19:29

And they're just shouting it back and forth and back and forth. You're like, I get the point. I get it. How would you feel? These cheers are going on and on.

Joel Brooks: 19:45

Saul's mood darkens. It's like, I get it. I get it. Okay. Alright.

Joel Brooks: 19:50

Fine. Let's put it. Let's put an end to this. I get it. But they kept cheering.

Joel Brooks: 19:56

And so he seeks to put an end to David. He thought, what more can this man have but my kingdom? Now this is not Saul being paranoid. He sees this correctly. What more can they give him than his kingdom?

Joel Brooks: 20:07

That's the next logical step. But the truth is this, Saul should have taken that step. Saul knew the kingdom had been taken away from him. Saul knew that the man standing before him that they're all cheering was the rightful now heir to the throne, that God has picked this man. And Saul in this moment should have given him the kingdom.

Joel Brooks: 20:36

But getting off our throne is hard to do, isn't it? I mean, we are called to give up the rule and the reign of our life to the Messiah. We're called to let the Messiah sit on the throne of our hearts. It's hard. Saul here refuses.

Joel Brooks: 20:55

He refuses because he's being driven by envy and fear. Everyone who David meets here who meets David in this chapter is described as loving him. You go through it and all of Israel, Judah loves him. The women love him. Jonathan loves him.

Joel Brooks: 21:14

Saul's daughter loves him. This she is actually the only woman in the old testament that has ever described as loving a man. And it's described right here. She loves David. Everybody loves him.

Joel Brooks: 21:27

Everyone who sees him is just, you know, smitten with this heroic poetic warrior. Saul's envious. We used to have living across the street from us, a guy, he was he was a model. I hope he does not listen to this podcast. I'll have to call him up later.

Joel Brooks: 21:49

So he he was he was a model, and he would, for some reason, in his front yard, he would wear tight jeans with no shirt, and he would chop firewood. Like, I mean, he's just there like his muscles are just like glistening in the sun, and he would just, he would just chop firewood and people would just like slowly drive by. You know, my wife's coming out of the the just doing things on the front porch a lot, you know, just Everybody, they're they're they're looking at him, and and I kid you not, for his breaks when he was tired, he put down the ax and he pick up a guitar and sit on one of the stumps. And he would play in the front yard. I hated that man.

Joel Brooks: 22:36

Like like, with with a deep, deep hatred there of of of what he was doing. There's it was envy. It was envy. You you you you see him as a threat. Saul's envious of David here.

Joel Brooks: 22:54

Envy is a sin we don't like to confess. Is it? Isn't it? It's some we something we all struggle with, I have found that people would rather confess just about any other sin. They'd rather confess their lust, their anger, their pride, probably how they killed someone.

Joel Brooks: 23:09

They would confess anything else besides, you know, I really struggle with envy because envy makes you look so small, doesn't it? It's like the most petty of all the sins out there, but it also is one of the most powerful sins out there in temptations. Think of this. Envy is what caused satan to fall. Envy is what was there in the garden.

Joel Brooks: 23:37

We had Adam and Eve in the midst of paradise, yet they wanted what God had. They wanted to be like God. I mean, you look at that in in in the garden of Eden where they had everything. It means it doesn't matter how powerful you are, how wealthy you are. You can still struggle with envy.

Joel Brooks: 23:58

As a matter of fact, the more you have of something, often the more envious you get when that something is praised in someone else. So if you were an extraordinarily beautiful person, and yet somebody praises someone else's beauty, how do you feel? Well, that was my thing. Envy. If someone you know, you're in very intelligent person, you know, you crushed your ACTs, you read all the time.

Joel Brooks: 24:31

That's what you're known for. If you overhear someone else talking about how one of your friends is so wise, how do you feel? If you are a really good preacher and you hear someone else go on and on and on about how good someone else's sermon was, how do you feel, hypothetically? Envious. Makes you feel so small, petty.

Joel Brooks: 25:09

It's hard to confess. Usually, whatever good thing you possess, whether it's your fitness, whether it's a certain skill you have or or beauty, or even if it's just like everybody likes my personality, whenever you hear that praise in another, it just rubs you the wrong way. Envy hits and envy will destroy you. It's not gonna destroy that other person. It will destroy you.

Joel Brooks: 25:34

I've heard envy defined as this. It's the poison you drink thinking someone else will die. And it kills you, but it doesn't have to. Envy does not have to destroy you. Envy can actually be a powerful tool in the Lord's hand that he uses to expose your idolatry.

Joel Brooks: 25:54

Because when you begin feeling that envy, if you ask why is it here, God's gonna use that to expose your self righteousness. He's gonna expose you to the things that you were building your identity on. Take that moment to repent when those feelings of envy hit. What is it that I'm building my life upon? It's this thing here and not Christ.

Joel Brooks: 26:19

Ask God to expose your idols and repent of those when that feeling of envy hits. Saul was envious of David, envious of his courage, envious of how the Lord was using him, envious of how all the people were praising him. And because of this, he feared David. He feared David. Over and over again in this chapter, you're gonna read how Saul feared him.

Joel Brooks: 26:49

But here's the thing. There is no reason he should have feared. If Saul had given David his throne, it would not have been the end of him. I know that's what he thought. If I give this up, it it will destroy me.

Joel Brooks: 27:04

It will be the end of me. It would not have been the end of him. It would have been a glorious new beginning. If He could have just humbled Himself, given David a throne, He would have been offered a life of abundance, a life of joy, a life of protection and security under the reign of the Lord's anointed. But his refusal of this is gonna be what leads to his destruction.

Joel Brooks: 27:32

Ironically, his his desire to, I can't I can't give up control. I can't give up control is actually what's gonna cause him to lose complete and total control. He's gonna begin to unravel now on the pages that we will look at in the weeks ahead. He will spiral into destruction. He loses such control here in this chapter.

Joel Brooks: 27:54

Twice, he tries to kill David by hurling a spear at him. So he is so far removed from that that person who didn't even want the kingship. No. I don't want it. I don't want it.

Joel Brooks: 28:06

Now, he will literally try to kill anyone who threatens to take it away. So what's our takeaway from all of this? What are we what are we supposed to learn from this story? I think we're supposed to learn this. There's just 2 ways to respond to the Christ.

Joel Brooks: 28:28

We can respond in joyful submission out of a heart of thanksgiving for how Jesus has delivered us from sin and death, or we can respond out of a heart of envy and fear saying, we want the praise. We want the control. We want to rule our own lives. But please hear me. You do not need to fear the reign of Jesus in your life.

Joel Brooks: 28:56

I know it's scary to get off your throne and to let Jesus sit on it, but there is no king like Jesus. There is no one so loving, no one so forgiving, no one who is so fiercely loyal and passionate towards you, there is no one who will lay down their life for you like Jesus has. Will you joyfully surrender to him? Pray with me. Father, I pray in this moment, those articles of our clothing, those pieces of armor that we have that we're building our identity on, we'd take off and we'd build our identity on you, Jesus.

Joel Brooks: 29:40

Thank you for rescuing us from sin and death. May we now in this moment joyfully surrender to you. We pray this in your name. Amen.