I Shall Go To Him (Afternoon)
Download MP3Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon or evening? Afternoon? Evening? Anyone?
Speaker 1:Evening. Evening? Good evening. We'll go with that. Good early evening.
Speaker 1:Today, we're gonna be continuing our sermon series through the life of David. So you can go ahead and turn to 2nd Samuel chapter 12. Today, we're going to be talking about suffering. And we're going to look at suffering in David's life today because of his sin, but we're also going to talk about suffering more broadly in our own lives as well. So let's look at this passage together.
Speaker 1:2nd Samuel chapter 12, we'll begin in verse 13. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.
Speaker 1:Then Nathan went to his house. And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David and he became sick. David, therefore, sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them.
Speaker 1:On the 7th day, the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead. For they said, behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him, the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.
Speaker 1:But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, is the child dead? They said, he is dead. Then David rose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes.
Speaker 1:He went into the house of the Lord and he worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when they set food before him, when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. Then servants said to him, what is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive.
Speaker 1:But when your child died, you arose and ate food. He said, while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept for I said, who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live. But, now, he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?
Speaker 1:I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. This is the word of the Lord. If you'll pray with me. Lord, this is a heavy text today. And so we come to you.
Speaker 1:We know you are the author of your word here that we are diving into together today. And we know that you are the God of all comfort who comforts us in all of our sorrows and sufferings and weaknesses. And so, Lord, we come to you and we ask you to speak to us today. We ask for wisdom. We ask for insight.
Speaker 1:We ask for understanding. But, Lord, most of all, we ask for more of you, that your spirit will comfort us and will be with us. So, Lord, I ask that right now, the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. In the name of Christ, amen. So C.
Speaker 1:S. Lewis said a quote that many of you have probably heard before in his book, The Problem of Pain. Here's what he says. God whispers to us in our pleasures. Speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.
Speaker 1:It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Suffering is one of the universal experiences in human life. The details may vary, but in this room, there's not one person who is unfamiliar with suffering. It's also one of the hardest topics to understand and to know how to think rightly about it. Even for the Christian, suffering can really mess with you.
Speaker 1:It brings up bigger questions. And in my experience, we often find that we won't get the satisfactory answers that we look for for most of these questions. Instead, we are pushed to a simple and deeper faith in Jesus. Now, some of you may know of Joni Eareckson Tada. She's a woman who is certainly no stranger to suffering.
Speaker 1:She was involved in a diving accident at the age of 17, and she was paralyzed from the waist down. Condemned to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic. Now, she's written many of her own books about her life and her suffering, but she also wrote the intro to a book on suffering by another woman you might be familiar with, Elizabeth Elliott. She's the wife of her late husband, Jim Elliott, the famous missionary who was killed by the Indians he was trying to reach in South America. Now, in this book by Elizabeth Elliott, entitled, Suffering is Never for Nothing, Johnny addresses this Elliott knew that true maturity, joy, and contentment has less to do with a mechanistic assessment of God's plan and more to do with being pushed and at times, shoved against the breast of your savior.
Speaker 1:Not a tidy orderly list, but an earnest grappling with the angel of the Lord. When affliction decimates you, then you understand guided me through more than 50 years of paralysis, guided me through more than 50 years of paralysis, pain, and cancer. Suffering is anything but simple. There really are no clear answers. And, I certainly won't change that reality today in this sermon.
Speaker 1:But I do want you to know that what Elizabeth and what Johnny just pointed out is true for us today. That in the midst of suffering, God's desire for you is to lean into him. Not to lean into clarity or answers or resolution, but to lean into him. So, that's where we're going today. Let's look look at this story together and let's look first at David's suffering.
Speaker 1:Now, to remind you what has preceded this, in chapter 11, we hear of David's heinous crimes of his committing of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder cover up of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. We see that God has sent his prophet, Nathan, to come confront David about this sin. And, where this text picks up today is at the end of that confrontation. Now, what this text is gonna deal with is God's judgment, his discipline on David because of David's sin. It is painful.
Speaker 1:It's even confusing at times and it's sobering. As we walk through this text, I want to do so by helping us to think about the suffering in our own lives as well. Because it is impossible to say everything about suffering in one sermon, I'm just gonna limit myself to 3 things. I'm going to introduce 3 truths about suffering for us today. So here is our first truth.
Speaker 1:Suffering is always the result of sin. Suffering is always the result of sin. Now, before I take another step, I wanna clarify. Sometimes, suffering is the direct result of specific particular sin and sometimes, suffering is the indirect result of general sin and brokenness in the world. So, sometimes, there is a direct correlation between the sin and the suffering and sometimes there isn't.
Speaker 1:That suffering is not because of a directly correlated sin, but it is still because of sin in the world, nonetheless. So let's talk about each of these because their particular realities about those. Now, what we see here in the text is the first. David has sinned, and his very particular and clear sin is very directly related to the suffering that comes as a result of it. How do we know this?
Speaker 1:Well, David has broken God's law. There are a long list of ways, but just off the top of my head, he lusted after a woman. He then committed adultery with that woman by taking her by force. He used his position of power and authority, not to help others, covers his sin many more times and up to this point, we don't see any sign of repentance until today. Furthermore, God's made it even more abundantly clear that he sinned, because he sent Nathan, his prophet, to say, you have sinned, and that he has brought judgment on himself and on everyone around him.
Speaker 1:Now, there's an interesting thing here. David's discipline, which ends up leading to a great deal of suffering and pain and loss in his life, It's also directly related and connected to the nature of his particular sin. 1 commentator says this, David has let violence and sexual immorality loose in his household. When you let those loose, you may not be able to get them back in their cage. So David has done evil in God's eyes.
Speaker 1:We see Nathan tell him that evil will come on his household. David has slept with his neighbor's wife. God says, a neighbor is going to sleep with his, but not in private. He used the sword for violence. The sword will now not depart from his house.
Speaker 1:Now, we're gonna see this play out for the rest of David's life and his kingship, not only this week, but next week, we're gonna begin to see how Absalom, David's son, rises against him to try to take over his throne. He will then sleep with David's wives on the rooftop for all of Israel to see. Sexual immorality and violence will completely overtake David's household from this point on in his kingship. Now, in David's gut judgment, when Nathan comes to him and tells him this pay fourfold from what was taken from him, what he took from someone else. And we see that by the end of David's life, 4 of his sons will have died.
Speaker 1:So we see this very clearly and painfully on display that David's suffering is the direct result of his sin. Sin always brings death and suffering. Oftentimes, it is in a direct and obvious way. Now, at this point, David may have reached what is his all time low as king. In fact, there's actually an important question that lingers here.
Speaker 1:Now, it's not obvious at first, but it's here. What does this mean for David's kingship? God says, through Nathan three times, that David has despised and scorned the Lord and his word by what he's done. What was the particular word of the Lord to David? It was a covenant promise that his kingdom and his throne would never end.
Speaker 1:But now, David has got to be wondering at this point, have I blown it? Is God going to revoke his promise? Is he going to abandon me? In potentially the most shocking turn of this whole story, God answers that in a way that is different than what we'd expect. He tells David, he's not going to die.
Speaker 1:God says that he has put away his sin. In other words, God is not going to hold it against him. He's not going to revoke his promise. He's not going to abandon his covenant. Now, this is surprising to say the least.
Speaker 1:As David says in Psalm 51, his sin is ever before him. I mean, it's before us to see today. It's blatant, it's ugly, and God has condemned it in no light terms. So, how can God simply overlook it? I mean, this seems like a huge miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1:Does God just sweep it under the rug and forget about it? We should feel the weight of David's sin here. We should feel uncomfortable and even angry that he would seem to get away with this. That's because we know that sin is ugly, that it deserves judgment and it always makes a mess in our lives. Now, the final and potentially most challenging part of David's sin is that he is not the only one to suffer because of it.
Speaker 1:In fact, David's sin has affected everyone around him. Just think of who this includes. Just a quick list. Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab who has to carry out David's hit order, all of Uriah's friends, the soldiers who now miss him, all of those in David's household who are going to be affected by the sword coming, David's wives, his children, now, we're gonna see that it affects his baby son. God says that while David's life won't be required of him, his sons will.
Speaker 1:Guys, I'm gonna be honest. This is hard for me to wrap my mind around. This is one of those places in scripture that it really just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why would God let guilty, conniving, selfish, entitled David get off the hook, but have his innocent baby die? Where's the justice and the goodness in that?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Any guesses that I can venture at this point will likely leave us unsatisfied as suffering so often does. It leaves us with questions, deep ones and like David, we have to decide what to do with those questions. Now, we're gonna see in a minute how Does the devastating reality of the consequences of your sin overwhelm you? Maybe, for some in here like David, you've come to the shocking realization of your sin and you see how it's caused nothing but pain in your life.
Speaker 1:Maybe, your pattern of lies has finally caught up to you and it's made a huge mess. Maybe, your pattern of giving into lust has finally led to something bigger. Maybe your selfishness and your pride have caused broken relationships all around you. Has your greed consumed everything that you once thought would make you happy? Have you downplayed and justified sin so much that you can no longer tell the difference between what is true and what isn't?
Speaker 1:One thing is clear in scripture. Our sin always leads to death. It will consume us. And though, it might seem harmless or appealing at first, it will lead to nothing but brokenness and suffering. So, what does David do when he is confronted with his sin?
Speaker 1:Well, in verse 13, very simply, he says, I've sinned against the Lord. Now, Psalm 51 goes into a lot more detail about how David feels about this particular time of sin, but he doesn't make excuses. He doesn't run from it. He repents and he receives forgiveness. If you find yourself in this position, flee sin and repent.
Speaker 1:Here is the good news for all of us, those of us who don't want to admit how much like David we actually are. Our sin does deserve death, but we don't have to pay for it. Someone else already did. His name is Jesus. Romans 8 says that, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1:So, David isn't going through all of this because he has to pay for his sin. God says, he's already put it away and the same applies for us. We don't have to pay the punishment for our sin. But, at the same time, here in this text, we see there are realities. There are natural consequences for our sin, as I say to my children all the time.
Speaker 1:And David is walking those out. Okay. So we've spent a lot of time talking about direct sin leading to direct suffering. And that's because it's in all of our lives even when we don't know it, which is why can be so tricky for us to know if our suffering is because of our direct sin. How can you know?
Speaker 1:Psalms 1912 says, who can discern our hidden sins? The psalmist asks God to show him and to cleanse him. So we must ask God, as David does in Psalm 139, to search our hearts and to test us and to see if there's any grievous way in us. Now, one thing you can know, God is committed to revealing our sin to us and bringing us into the freedom of repentance and forgiveness. If your sin is causing suffering in your life, I'm gonna bet there's a good chance that you already know it.
Speaker 1:Sin tends to rear its ugly head in obvious ways despite our best efforts. But, if you don't know it, it, God is committed to showing you, especially, as you seek him and ask him to do so. God makes David sin and his discipline crystal clear. Why? Because any good parent wants their child to know how they can grow.
Speaker 1:So, when you realize your sin, repent. Jesus paid for your sin. He has put it away. Praise God. Now, but, suffering is not always the natural consequence of your particular sin.
Speaker 1:Why is this a thing? Why do we sometimes suffer from disease and death and loss and all kinds of pain, when we have not necessarily sinned in a way that has brought that on us? The answer is still sin. But, sin in our fallen, broken, marred world. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, a curse was brought on all of creation.
Speaker 1:Nothing is as it should be. There are thorns and thistles. There are pains in our labors. There's disease and death. There's infertility and miscarriage and stillbirth.
Speaker 1:There are unfulfilled longings and expectations. There are natural disasters and devastating losses. All of creation is groaning, waiting to be freed from its bondage. It's what Romans says. It's everywhere.
Speaker 1:We cannot escape it. Now, in John 9, we're told a story about a blind man who is healed by Jesus, but, first, when the disciples encounter this man, they asked Jesus, how did this happen? Why is he blind? Is it because of his sin or his parents' sin? They couldn't imagine any other reason for this suffering.
Speaker 1:But, Jesus says, neither. He is blind so that God can show his power and glory. So, for some reason, not due to this man's sin, God has allowed him to be born blind. That doesn't seem fair. Right?
Speaker 1:Doesn't seem loving. Seems a little harsh, but God says that in the face of brokenness that exists because of our collective sin, he intends to show his glory. Another similar story is found in Luke 13. There had been some tragedies that had happened recently, which had caused a lot of deaths. Some Galileans were killed by Pilate, and a tower fell on some others, and just as with the blind man, everyone assumes that it's because those people were worse sinners that they were being punished, but Jesus says, no.
Speaker 1:They're not worse than you. They're not worse sinners than us. He says, these terrible things happen because there's this terrible thing in the world called sin, and everyone's response to the to these things should be that we should repent of our sins. Sometimes in life, we will find ourselves looking at an unbearable situation with heartache and devastation, and loss. We're gonna wonder why, and there won't be a clear answer.
Speaker 1:And, while it certainly won't fix things, it is important to know that it is the result of sin in the world and that should make us hate sin even more. When we see sin and then its effects and all of its ugliness, we should be filled with a righteous anger, and we should cry out to God for deliverance from it. Okay. So, let's keep moving. Here's our second truth about suffering.
Speaker 1:Suffering is never for nothing. This is actually the title of that Elizabeth Elliot book that I referenced earlier, one that I'd highly recommend to anyone walking through suffering. Suffering is never for nothing. Now, here's where we begin to venture into more of the mysterious and the challenging aspects of suffering. As soon as you try to start to explain it and justify it, it never fully satisfies.
Speaker 1:Now, many of you might know that a little over 2 years ago, my wife and I found out that we were going to be having conjoined twins. The shock of that reality is
Collin Hansen:something I can't really convey to you right now, honestly.
Speaker 1:Things like fear, honestly. Things like fear, despair, anger, discouragement, feeling crushed, confusion, all of these were some of my immediate gut reactions. And, I'll be honest with you, much of the reasons that I have heard along the way have not satisfied me. They've often only made me angry or brought up more questions in my head. It certainly has felt many times to me like my suffering was for nothing or that the reasons that were mentioned were not good enough to justify that sort of pain.
Speaker 1:And so, I know that many of you who are in here now have recently been walking through your own journeys of intense suffering and loss. Some of you have suffered in ways far greater than I can ever imagine. And you might hear me say today that your suffering is not for nothing and you might think, nope. Not true. That's okay.
Speaker 1:I've been there and to be honest, I'm still there more often than I'd like to admit, but I have walked through enough suffering to begin to see that some of these truths in the midst of my pain can be a comfort. And while it doesn't always add up in my finite brain, while it doesn't always answer all of my questions and it doesn't make me feel good immediately, I've actually begun to find some purpose and comfort in the fact that my suffering is not for nothing. Now, there's an old hymn that speaks to this challenging disposition towards suffering. It's called, whatever my God ordains is right by a man named Samuel Radagast. Let me read a few lines for you.
Speaker 1:Whatever my God ordains is right. His holy will abideth. I will be still, whatever he does and follow where he guideth. He is my God and though dark my road, he holds me that I shall not fall. And, so, to him I leave it all and so to him I leave it all.
Speaker 1:What on shrinking. My God is true, each morn, untrinking. My God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart. Guys, this is hard. I have to honestly ask myself if I believe this, which is actually an important point that suffering brings us to in God's design.
Speaker 1:Do I really believe this? Do I believe that God is who he says he is? Do I believe that his words are true? Because I either believe all of this or I don't. And if I don't, where do I go then?
Speaker 1:And if I do, I have to figure out how to reconcile this with my reality, which seems contradictory. Psalm 14517 says, the Lord is right or just in all of his ways and good in all his works. In my times of suffering, I look at verses like these and I say, yeah. I don't know. It certainly doesn't seem that way, God.
Speaker 1:The things in my life don't seem just and good and fair and so I have to come back to that question. Even when the things in my life don't seem good, is God. Do I believe that or do I not? And, I end up at the same place every time saying, I don't see how this can be good or how you can be just in this, but I believe your word. I believe that you are.
Speaker 1:That somehow, this thing that clearly isn't good doesn't negate who you are. Guys, injustices happen all the time, but God is still just. Bad things happen all the time, but God is still good. Unfair things seem to rule the day, but God is still fair. His plans are not my plans, they're above.
Speaker 1:His ways are higher than mine. He sees the whole picture. I do not. And so, though everything in my circumstance may point me to say that there is no purpose in this suffering, I ask God to continue to give me the faith to believe that he is who he says he is, and that he is working good somehow. Now, if you're in a time of suffering outline person, this is like points to a and b and outline person, this is like points to a and b and c.
Speaker 1:My wife told me I needed to clarify that because this is getting confusing. So, 2 a, this is what God wants to accomplish in your suffering quickly. Suffering should draw us to God, dependence on him. This is what it did for David. In our text, we see that when his son became sick, he fell on his face before God without food or sleep, and he called out to the only one who could intervene on his son's behalf.
Speaker 1:And then, even when his son died, he goes to the house of God and worships. Fall on your face before God in your suffering and beg him for mercy. David's pain didn't turn him away from God. It turned him to God. In your pain, turn to God.
Speaker 1:And if you feel like you don't have the words or the strength or the faith or the boldness to come to God with what you really feel, go to the Psalms. I love the Psalms. There are a lot of psalms about those who are suffering. Call out to God with every emotion you have. Come to him with your anger, your frustration, your bitterness, your sadness.
Speaker 1:God can take it. Number 2. God wants to remind you in your suffering that you are not alone. There's something powerful about companionship in the midst of suffering. Think about all the stories that we love.
Speaker 1:For the Lord of the Rings geeks like me, Frodo has his 9 friends. He's one of the 9. He has 8 friends. It gets dwindled down to just him and Sam, but all the way to the bitter end, Sam is with him. For Harry Potter people, when Harry is facing Voldemort, spoiler alert, at the very end, he I see some plugging ears.
Speaker 1:He imagines and he has this kind of vision of all of his family and his friends with him in that moment of pain. I mean, this is what David wants to know in the middle of his suffering. We see in Psalm 23, it says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me. God's spirit is with us in our suffering and this is a comfort to us. And I wanna tell you something else that someone told me over the past couple years.
Speaker 1:When you weep, Jesus weeps with you. Think about Jesus at the graveside of his friend, Lazarus, in John 11. Jesus weeps, and he actually gutturally yells out against sin and death and its devastating effects. When you weep, Jesus weeps with you. God's spirit is with you, and furthermore, we have a community of faith.
Speaker 1:Your brothers and sisters who are here with you too. So, lean into them in your suffering. And our third point, to see. God wants us to know that suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. This is what Romans 5 says.
Speaker 1:Suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. Now, when I felt like I wasn't able to see those things accomplished in my suffering, our friend and counselor told us, that's okay. God is more committed to those things happening than you are. When you come to God in your pain, he will grow endurance, character, and hope in you. And, this will take time.
Speaker 1:It doesn't happen overnight, but you can take comfort
Collin Hansen:in this. It won't answer all your
Speaker 1:questions, but it does make us more mature as we suffer. Okay. So, to recap our 2 main points so far about suffering. Suffering is always the result of sin. Number 2, suffering is never for nothing.
Speaker 1:And our third and final point, our truth about suffering. Suffering is never final. It's not forever. Let's go back to David here. David confuses everyone by how he acts.
Speaker 1:He mourns for 7 days when his son is sick, which is typically what happens at a death. And then, when the death actually happens, he gets up and acts normal. Why? What is going on here? Though David doesn't have a full picture, I believe that he has some small glimpse of eternity, here.
Speaker 1:He says, in verse 7, I will go to him, but he will not return to me. There is some gospel comfort in the idea that there is more to this life than what we are presently experiencing. We, as believers, on this side of the cross, we have a fuller picture of this than David did. We know that one day, death and sin will be no more. There will be no more tears or pain or suffering.
Speaker 1:All the wrongs in this world will be made right. They will become untrue. Our suffering will not last forever. Sin and death don't have the final word. That's because there's another story of another son who died.
Speaker 1:This son was also innocent, though, in a much truer and fuller sense. And he also took on the death that was due someone else for their sins, for our sins. This son was a substitution in our place. He who knew no sin became sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This son encountered tremendous suffering and loss.
Speaker 1:He was actually called the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He not only took our sins, but he defeated sin and death. How? Because, unlike David's son who could not return from the dead, Jesus did. Jesus bore our sin.
Speaker 1:He took our pain and then he defeated the grave. Now, this is possible because God didn't revoke his covenant promise to David, despite his sin. That sin that God said he put away from David, how did he put it away? It didn't just disappear. For justice to happen, it had to be dealt with.
Speaker 1:He put it on Jesus. The king in the line of David that was to come through God's covenant promise that he didn't break. Romans 325 says that, in God's divine forbearance, he passed over former sins. This is what we see happening here with David. It's what he has done with all of our sins.
Speaker 1:It's why we aren't condemned either. We are in Christ. He has paid for our sins once and for all through his death. So, through death, we see life. This is the ultimate hope in our suffering.
Speaker 1:Though, we see the effects of sin all around us and we feel the curse of death, we know that life is coming. There's resurrection hope and life for us in this life, in the midst of our suffering. Even in pain and loss, he meets us with forgiveness, grace, and himself. And, ultimately, our suffering is not forever. Praise be to Jesus.
Speaker 1:He has defeated death and he will wipe away every tear. Come, Lord Jesus. Hasten that day and give us more of yourself until then. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, there are times where we have no words and no response seems enough.
Speaker 1:You are with us. Comfort those in this room who are walking through times of grief like this today. And for those who are not right now, may we be a source of encouragement to others. Lord, may we find our hope in you. We know that there's no sin, no loss, no suffering that is too great, too beyond you.
Speaker 1:And so, Lord, we lay ourselves down before you and we ask that you will give us more of yourself. Thank you, Jesus, that we know you have given us all of you and you'll continue to be with us in our suffering. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
