David : waiting through danger
June 23, 2024
Wait: Waiting through danger
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship
We come in all our weakness and strength,
with our youth-filled spirits and aging bodies, we come to be your people, O God.
Strong in faith and eager with questions,
singing our praise and whispering our prayers, we come to be your people, O God.
Filled with saintly determination
yet mindful of our human limitations, we come to be your people, O God.
Wondering, waiting, not yet seeing or understanding your purpose
Made strong in your endless love for us, we know ourselves to be yours and we come to be your people, O God.
Hymn: 472 We are God’s people
Prayer of Adoration
O God you have saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done, but because of your own purpose and grace.
Miraculous God, come to us now, even as Samuel came to David
Anoint us to be your servants. Touch us with your Holy Spirit. Reveal your word, that we may hear your message this day, and live as your disciples, taking our place as your servants, while we wait for the pathway you prepare to become clear.
Welcome us as we come and touch the sacred and experience the extraordinary in the ordinary time of worship.
Fill us we pray with your Holy Spirit and grow his strength within us as we confess those things that hold us back from receiving your grace….
Prayer of Confession:
God of broken people and broken places, we confess to you our love of comfort, of the known and predictable, of the safe and secure. We recognise that you call us into unknown place, for an unknown time. We confess that we fear to leave what we know and venture with you into desert and wilderness, into blindness and discomfort. We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know.
God of broken people and broken places, we recognise that you are calling us to leave what we know and venture with you into new things, into engagement and participation, and risk.
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know and we’re not sure where we’re going. We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know.
God of transformation help us to look forward to what you will do, help us to trust your purpose and direction and forgive us when we are hesitant. Amen
Assurance of Pardon
Listen! For this is Good News! God’s Grace is wider than our wildest imaginings. God’s Grace embraces us as we are and where we are and draws us out to be the people we were created to be. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 477 Your hand O God has guided
Scripture:
1 Samuel 16: 1-16 p 443
1 Samuel 31: 1-6 p 468
2 Samuel 2: 1-5 p 472
2 Samuel 5 : 1-5 p 477
Sermon: David : waiting through danger
You get your dream job.
Your dream job. HR processes all the paperwork, makes your name badge and activates your electronic key. No one mentions a start date, but in great expectancy you arrive for work the next morning.
Except someone else is sitting in your office, at your desk, and announces that they have no intention of leaving the office. The boss stops by and says, “yeah, this is a bit of a problem, but he won’t leave and there is nothing I can do about it for now. In the meantime, just do whatever he asks and in time I’ll take care of it and you can take over your job.”
Would you go back?
Would you trust the boss?
Would you wonder what kind of mismanaged place this was?
This is pretty much the place that David is at. Samuel has anointed him King; but, Saul is still on the throne. He can’t be forced off, and because he has an outrageously bad temper and mood swings, as David waited for him to vacate the throne, he found himself playing music and soothing Saul’s outbursts.
It didn’t help.
Yes, David must have had doubts.
In the meantime, David was still going back and helping his father with the sheep, and had been sent by his father to the front line of the war with the Philistines to bring provisions to his brothers. While there he witnessed the stand-off with Goliath. No one dared to take Goliath on.
Well, except David. And with a stone and a sling-shot he shot Goliath in the head and Goliath died. David forever won the praises of the people.
At that point Saul started being jealous of David. And as David led the army in victory after victory Saul’s jealousy grew into paranoia and people sang the praises of David and proclaimed him to be greater than Saul.
Time after time Saul tried to kill him by throwing a spear at him. He sent him to the front lines and ordered the army to withdraw and leave David alone in danger. And he plotted in many ways to have David murdered.
When Saul’s son and David’s best friend Jonathan, confirmed that Saul wanted to murder David, David left and moved around from place to place trying to stay out of Saul’s reach.
Along the way there were many signs that God was with him. When he was hungry people fed him and the soldiers that followed him. Priests gave him food from the altar. Widows brought donkey loads full of provisions. God’s presence was strong.
David continued to be successful in battle and his fame kept growing.
From time to time, Saul roused himself to go searching for David, and found the caves in which David and his men were hiding.
Saul would call out to David and tell him to come back to the palace, all was forgiven, and he would be safe. Somehow, David never quite believed the message, and found another cave to hide in.
Once, David saw Saul at the entrance of the cave and shot an arrow so that it went past Saul’s shoulder. He told Saul, “I could have killed you…but I chose not to.”
The accounts of this long journey through danger while waiting years to take the throne that belonged to David, are worth taking the time to read, or re-read in first and second Samuel. Especially look for how David demonstrated trust in God through all of it. That can’t have been easy.
David showed unwavering loyalty as he continued to fight against the Philistine armies. He had been given a job as he waited for the throne and he would do his best to fulfill it. His fame continued to grow.
We wonder that it must have been difficult for David, to keep fighting Saul’s battle against the Philistines, even as Saul was trying to kill him and plotting against him. But there is a bigger picture here, he wasn’t fighting for Saul, he was fighting for the Kingdom, the Kingdom of which he was King.
The throne needed to be protected for the day he ascended to it.
These were the actions of a man who was committed to the bigger picture: loyalty to God, the security of the throne, seeking peace in Jerusalem, and protecting all of Israel.
God’s plan was bigger than both of these Kings.
God’s timing was of more importance than allowing the Philistines to defeat Saul.
That’s a hard lesson for the Church to learn. I know many clergy and key lay people who are disillusioned, and who have battle scars inflicted; not by the enemy, but by the good church folk around them. Some of them left the church is disappointment.
It seems to me that it takes a lot of spiritual discernment to see that sometimes the church people are not acting on behalf of God.
That does not mean that we can turn away from God.
It is
still,
only,
always
only God that we serve.
In the letter of Timothy we read that we are called to preach the word of God in season and out. When the people listen and when the people don’t.
No matter what is going on around us, we still serve God.
In it all, David served God and in every battle with the Philistines and every encounter with Saul it is possible to see that David is confident in what God is asking.
You will recall that last week we talked about knowing God’s voice and picking it out of the many voices that clamour for our attention. This is especially true for David.
David knows God’s voice.
Even as Saul is making long flowery speeches about how David would be safe and the plot to kill him was no longer important…David did not waver in his trust.
As much as he would have liked to believe that he could go back to the palace, he knew better than to believe the lies that Saul told. He was strong against the ways in which Saul tried to manipulate him. The only voice that mattered was God’s.
But David must have warred with that part of his human nature that wanted to be able to be accepted by others, wants to trust others, and tries to see the good in others. We see that in relationships around us all the time. We believe and we trust, when we should be asking God to reveal the truth.
As hard as it must have been for David, he walked away from the empty promises that Saul was making.
More importantly, we see David’s trust in God, when he does not take matters into his own hands. Even the most trusting person, has it in their heart to want to harm the person who harms them. But when David had that opportunity, he did not take it.
He shot that arrow past Saul, not at Saul. He knew that the Kingdom would be given to him in God’s timing.
Yet, how tempting it must have been. If he killed Saul not only would he gain the throne, he could leave aside the life of danger and constant vigilance against Saul’s murderous intent.
Instead, David trusted that God would give him the throne in God’s time. If he killed Saul to take the throne it would not/could not legally or morally be his throne and God’s blessing would not be in it.
Root and Bertrand point out that acceleration is a disease that promises victory; but which ends in spiritual disaster.
So we see David here taking the time to learn, to trust, to listen as he demonstrates his faith and his loyalty.
And, the key lesson is that David is also taking the time to let God do his job. God’s job in this time of waiting was to remove the obstacles.
Trusting God to remove obstacles requires humility.
From the people we have encountered on this journey we have learned that humility is a key characteristic that is developed as we wait on God.
David was humble when he continued to work as a soldier.
David was humble when he turned his back on Saul’s lies and trusted God’s promises.
David was humble when he did not take things into his own hands.
He knew that he did not direct his own life—he had surrendered it to God.
He fought when he needed to. He hid when he needed to. He accepted the gifts people gave him as a sign that God was with him. He never took the future by force. David demonstrated the truth that humility before God requires surrender and a confession that he needed God to save him, guide him and bless him.
Again, we are reminded that what we see around us, is not all that there is. God started working on the answers to our needs before we knew we had them. God continues to work on the answer for our needs as danger and opposition prevents us from seeing anything but despair. God is with us on the journey and is actively supporting and protecting us on the journey.
When we wait and trust God, in God’s time he will remove the obstacles and clear the pathway, and we will enter the promised land.
Wait. God’s timing is perfect. Amen
Affirmation of Faith:
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40: 31 NRSV
Hymn: 467 Praise my soul the God who crowns you
Offering and Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
You have come among us, filling our lives with yourself, your grace and blessings without measure. In trust and confidence we return unto you our tithes, gifts, and offerings. May what we give and what we do, go out into your world that we may participate in the grace you shower upon all people. Amen
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
We thank you, O Lord that when the skies grow dark and buildings fall, you hear us, when deceivers come and the nations rise in anger, you hear us:
We thank you O God that when we take our stand to witness to your truth, when our people are arrested and betrayed, you hear us:
Thus in gratitude we bring you the prayers we have for ourselves, our community and your world.
JOY
CONCERNS
THE WORLD AROUND US
The families of those dying from heat in Saudi Arabia
The families of those who died in wild fires in New Mexico
Mexico and the Southern states devastated by floods and storms
The people of NL and LB displaced by fires
Give us your spirit that we may wait obediently and with discernment; caringly and without passivity; trustingly and without cynicism; honestly and without utopianism,
Grant that our wait may be appropriate to your coming. We wait for your arrival at the right time, so that we may be ready to receive your grace. We ask this in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 457 Now thank we all our God
Benediction
This is a time to demonstrate trust. We believe that God is at work in our world turning hopeless and evil situations into good. We trust that goodness and justice and love will triumph in the end, and that tyranny and oppression cannot fast forever.
God will come among us, bringing peace, providing direction, showing us his way. This is our faith, and our hope.
May grace, peace, and love from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be with you now and forevermore.
Blessing Song: 500 Open my eyes v.1 & chorus
Open my eyes that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me place in my hands the wonderful key
that shall unclasp and set me free Silently now, I wait for thee ready my Lord, thy will to see open my eyes, illumine me Spirit Divine
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