Our days are filled with choices, aren't they? Every day we face a multitude of choices. Take today as an example. Many of the choices for today were made before the day even began. We decided what time to set our alarm clocks so that we could get up this morning. We've chosen to put different things on our calendar for today. We maybe even chose what to wear before this day began. There were a lot of choices we made before the day started. And yet, as the day goes on, we will be faced with many more choices. Do I honk at the guy who cut me off? Do I yell at my child for not clearing the table? Do I praise my child for clearing the table? Do I take a nap this afternoon? Do I mow the grass? Do I come back to church tonight? Do I, do I, do I? It's almost endless. And you know, a lot of the choices that we have to make from minute to minute are those that if we have enough time, we can probably figure out what the right answer would be. But we all recognize in life that a lot of times our choices come and we have to make instantaneous decisions. We don't have time to stop and analyze. We have to decide now. After all, the child is already walking away from the table. What do we do? As we encounter the vast range of choices, do we have a governing principle? and overriding, controlling philosophy? Do we have something to guide us to make these specific choices when the opportunity presents itself and the time demands? If we have that, what should it be? As we turn to our chapter this morning in our series through 1 Samuel, It's going to be helpful to remember that two weeks ago in chapter 24, David had a chance to put an end to his trouble. Remember, Saul had wandered into a cave where David and his men were hiding, and David had an opportunity. He could have ended Saul's life right then and there, but instead, David showed mercy. And from his actions, we're reminded that we are to show mercy, even as we sang about here this morning. We're to show mercy because we have received mercy ourselves. Last week was another lesson in mercy, one that David almost failed when the opportunity came. Remember, he was offended by Nabal. And David set out to destroy Nabal and all the men who were with him, rather than show mercy. He almost failed to learn that mercy should be extended to those who are less powerful, as well as those who are more powerful. It was only that timely intervention by Abigail, Nabal's wife, that prevented David from slaughter. And from that event, though, David learned the hard lesson, hopefully a lesson that we can learn more easily having experienced David's learning of that lesson. Hopefully we can learn from his experience, but the lesson that God never needs us to take matters into our own hands. The reason I'm reminding you of these lessons from the last couple weeks is because our chapter this morning is largely a repeat of those lessons. It's largely repeat. It seems like to learn things well, we need repetition, don't we? We need repetition. Some of you have been working on our memory verse challenge for the year. Each month we have a different verse that we're challenged to learn, and some of you have been doing that, and you remarked to me that how you've discovered that those verses from the very beginning of the year have actually locked into your brain now. You've repeated them so many times that even though you were convinced you couldn't memorize, now you know them. Repetition. Every skill we learn, we learn by repeating it over and over, tying our shoes as children. perfecting our golf swing as adults, even learning memory verses. All of these develop through repetition. And that seems to be what God is doing in these three chapters that we're looking at here in 1 Samuel. Chapter 24, chapter 25, now chapter 26. Seems like God is using repetition, repeating the same lessons multiple times. David's been taught that he was to choose mercy. He's been taught that he was to choose to let God handle things. He's been taught these things. Will he put them into practice? As the title of the sermon states, will he put them into practice when the opportunity comes? We need to be constantly asking ourselves very similar questions. As I've already pointed out, life is filled with countless decisions that we make. Will mercy guide our decisions? Will confidence in God guide our decisions? The way I would summarize the overall lesson, if we put it all together and we try to tie all these thoughts into one brief way, I would say it this way. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. We must choose. It won't just happen. We must consciously make a choice. We must choose daily. Each day presents new opportunities regarding us making choices. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Righteous faith, that linking of mercy with trust in God who controls all the events. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Let's start reading our chapter this morning. Notice the events here that David faces as he faces this repeat lesson. We'll read the whole chapter together. Then the Zephites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, You may remember the Zephites, they were the same troublemakers back in chapter 4. They're the ones who are serving as informants to Saul. So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Zeph, having with him 3,000 chosen men of Israel, to search for David in the wilderness of Zeph. Saul camped in the hill of Hekelah, which is before Jeshimon, beside the road, and David was staying in the wilderness. When he saw that Saul came after him in the wilderness, David sent out spies, or actually more like scouts. He sent out scouts, and he knew that Saul was definitely coming. David then arose and went to the place where Saul had camped. And David saw where Saul lay, and Abner, the son of Ner, the commander of his army, And Saul was lying in the circle of the camp, and the people were camped around him. So we've got Saul in the middle of 3,000 men all around him. Be a fairly large camp, I would think. I've never camped with 3,000 people. Then David said to Ahimelech, the Hittite, and to Abishai, the son of Zariah, Job's brother, saying, who will go down with me to Saul in the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with you. So David and Abishai came to the people at night, and behold, Saul lay sleeping inside the circle with his spear stuck in the ground at his head. And Abner and the people were lying around him. Then Abishai said to David, today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now therefore, please let me strike him with spear to the ground with one stroke. I will not strike him the second time. Okay, I imagine that while Abishai was saying that was probably in whispers and a lot of actions, pointing the spear, let me just, I can do this. But David said to Abishai, again probably in whispers, After all, there's 3,000 people sleeping around you. Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be without guilt? David also said, as the Lord lives, surely the Lord will strike him, for his day will come that he dies, but he will go down into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed, but now please take the spear that is at his head and the jug of water, and let's go." So David took the spear and the jug of water from beside Saul's head, and they went away, but no one saw or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a sound sleep from the Lord had fallen on them. crossed over to the other side and stood on top of the mountain at a distance with a large area between them. David called to the people and to Abner, the son of Nerus, saying, Will you not answer, Abner? Then Abner replied, Who are you who calls to the king? So David said to Abner, Are you not a man? And who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not guarded your Lord the King? For one of the people came to destroy the king, your Lord. This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, all of you must surely die because you did not guard your Lord's anointed. But now see where the king's spear is and the jug of water that was at his head." Then Saul recognized David's voice and said, "'Is this your voice, my son David?' And David said, it is my voice, my lord the king. And he also said, why then is my lord pursuing his servant? For what have I done? Or what evil is in my hand? Now therefore, please let my lord the king listen to the words of his servant. If the lord Yahweh there has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it is men, cursed are they before Yahweh, for they've driven me out today so that I would have no attachment with the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go, serve other gods. Now then, do not let my blood fall to the ground away from the presence of the Lord. For the king of Israel has come out to search for a single flea, just as one hunts a partridge in the mountains. Then Saul said, I have sinned. Return my son David for I will not harm you again because my life was precious in your sight this day. Behold, I have played the fool and have committed a serious error. David replied, behold, the spear of the king. Now let one of the young men come over and take it. The Lord will repay each man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, but the Lord delivered you into my hand today. I refuse to stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed. Now behold, as your life was highly valued in my sight this day, so may my life be highly valued in the sight of the Lord, and may he deliver me from all distress. Then Saul said to David, blessed are you my son, David, you will both accomplish much and surely prevail. So David went on his way and Saul returned to his place. It's significant to note that these are the final words that Saul and David ever say to each other. Significant because Saul's final words to David are words of blessing. From this, what can we learn about the righteous faith that David is learning about? What can we learn? We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. What lessons can we learn? Well, I think in the first 12 verses, what I want us to observe here is that righteous faith waits on the Lord. Righteous faith waits on the Lord. It seems as if David's clearly learned his lesson now in these first 12 verses. The opportunity comes again for David to take Saul's life. He can end all of this running for your life, hiding in caves, hiding in the wilderness. He can end it. Abishai is actually there urging him to let it happen. He says, I'll do the dirty work. Let me take the spear and pin him to the ground. Obviously, this is God's plan for you. God's delivered him right into your hand. And still David refuses to take matters into his own hands. He's learned that the God is able to work things out however he chooses. God may choose to strike Saul down like he struck Nabal down in last chapter. And if God chooses to do that, David says he can do it through battle, he can do it through natural causes. Regardless of the method God chooses, God can do what he chooses to do. And David's confident that Saul's day will come. Because after all, God has promised as much. David has also learned that God can deliver him in countless ways from all his troubles. Deliverance may come through an Abigail. Deliverance may come through an unnatural sound sleep of 3,000 men. David has clearly learned that God is able to accomplish his purposes in his own ways, in his own timing. And David, because he's learned that, will wait on the Lord. Faith is trust. That's what faith means. Faith is trust. It's trust in something. Well, righteous faith is a faith that trusts in the righteousness of the Lord by waiting on Him. David's learned this lesson. Have we? Have we, as we've walked through these chapters with David, have we learned the lessons that David has learned. We've had the opportunity to see what David's learned. Have we learned with him? I can pretty much guarantee that an opportunity will present itself before today is over. An opportunity will present for you to take matters into your own hands. The opportunity will come up. The chance will be there. And you'll be able to see it as clear as day. Just as clearly as Abishai could see that spear and says, all I have to do is take the spear and slam it back down one foot over. I can do that. You'll go home this afternoon and you decide to cut your own lawn. Rather than nap, you'll cut your lawn. And your neighbor has gone and blown his clippings all over your yard again. but you can get even with him, because you're going to cut your lawn this afternoon, so you can take your bag off, and you can decide, I'm going to cut my lawn in such a way so that all my clippings work itself over towards his lawn, plus his clippings, after all, they're there too, and I will blow them all back on him. I'll get even. You can do it. Will you? Or will you remember that 1 Peter 3, 9 says, not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. You remember that Peter says the goal later on there in verse 16 of that chapter. Those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. So for the cause of Christ, what will you do? Will you return goodness to your neighbor? Bagging up your clippings as well as his clippings? Waiting on God to somehow put him to shame for his actions? You know, this is such a small matter, especially when you compare to what David is dealing with here. David's dealing with life or death. These are clippings. But God works just as much in the small things as he does in the great things. Will you show righteous faith that waits on the Lord? We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Righteous faith waits on the Lord. Secondly, we can notice here in verses 13 through 16 that, secondly, righteous faith challenges others. It challenges others. Abner was the commander of the army. The job of protecting Saul ultimately fell on Abner, the commander. He was the one ultimately responsible for Saul's well-being. And here David was able to walk right up to Saul while everyone slept. And that meant Abner had failed to fulfill his duty. The fact that the God was behind all the deep snoring did not remove the failure from Abner's record. So David challenged Abner on the matter. He strongly rebukes Abner here, as well as the rest of the 3,000 men, he rebukes them for failing to protect their king. You know, a righteous faith is a faith that challenges others for their failings. It doesn't write the matter off simply as, this is all part of God's plan. It doesn't excuse it just saying, well, God is sovereign over all things. God decreed that this would happen, and therefore it happened. Yes, everything is part of God's sovereign plan. Everything. Nothing is outside of it. All actions, including sinful actions, are part of God's plan. God is ultimately behind everything. And he uses it to accomplish his purpose. That means that things are under God's control. But God also tells us in his word that we are all moral creatures. We are all moral creatures and that means that we are responsible for our choices. We are responsible for our actions. That means that God expects every person to live according to the instructions that God has given for righteousness. The instructions that we have in his revelation to us. Failure to do that is under God's sovereign control. It's not outside of it, but that truth, the fact that it's under God's sovereign control does not eliminate the corollary truth that we are still morally culpable for the failure. We need to understand this nuance, this dichotomy of ideas. We need to understand this because we need to take action when we see moral failures. When we see sinful choices, when we see actions that others have taken that are contrary to God's word, we need to challenge them. Let's be honest. We tend to be a bunch of cowards in this area. We're very cowardly. Our wife snaps at our children in anger, and we look the other way. We rationalize to ourselves saying, well, the kids deserved it. I mean, they were being bad. Yes, the kids maybe deserve discipline, but they did not deserve sinful behavior as part of that discipline. A righteous faith is one that will lovingly pull her wife aside and challenge her on her sin in the situation. Or we're out with a group of friends for lunch, and one of our friends begins to gossip about someone else. Do we look the other way and stay quiet? Or do we challenge? We have a choice to make, don't we? Another friend has gotten upset about something or someone in the church and has decided that because they're upset, they're going to leave the church. Do we stay quiet? We know this is not the right way to resolve conflict biblically. We know that God has told us how to approach conflict. But rather than do that, they're leaving. Do we stay quiet so that we can keep our friendship? Or do we challenge? Sadly, the answer many times to these type of choices, the answer is do we? Comes back to no. We're cowardly. Righteous faith challenges others. That is what we're called to do when we observe moral failures. And failure to live by righteous faith is a moral failure. Failure for us to challenge that moral failure becomes a moral failure on our part because God calls us to challenge sin. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Righteous faith challenges others. Moving on in verses 17 through 20, the example there is Saul and David are interacting with each other. if that righteous faith remains humble. It remains humble. In a very similar manner to what we saw in chapter 24, David tries to put things into perspective. He is not out to get Saul. He is loyal to Saul. He tries to put that in perspective. Not only is he not out to get Saul and loyal to Saul, David points out, I'm incapable because I'm just a nobody. And he says, this makes me unworthy of all of your efforts, King Saul, to get me. One thing that is kind of fun to understand is David's reference to himself here as a partridge in verse 20. That seems a little bit random in English when all of a sudden he says, I'm just a partridge. Why partridge? David's actually making a very clever play on words there. Back in verse 14, Abner called out, who calls to the king? Well, the Hebrew word for partridge is literally, he who calls on the mountain. The partridge was a bird that made it sound up on the mountain, so they gave a word that literally means, he who calls on the mountain. So David is saying, in answer to Abner, who calls on the king? I'm the one who calls on the mountain. I'm just this little bird up here. I'm not in a palace, I'm on a mountain. Like a partridge calling out. I'm not leading an army. I'm just a single flea. We see this humility in how he keeps himself in perspective. But we also see the humility in the fact that in verse 19, David does entertain the possibility that he might have committed a sin against God. He might have committed a sin and God might be using Saul to bring punishment upon him. And David said, since this is a possibility, what he requests is allow me to make things right to God by offering a sacrifice. Don't drive me from the land. Allow me to come before God and offer a sacrifice. We see he remains humble. And you know, one of the greatest difficulties that we face when it comes to making right choices, when we're presented with the need to make a decision, we struggle with remaining properly humble. So often we tell ourselves, and then we actually believe the lie that we just told ourselves, we tell ourselves, we deserve better. We deserve better than this. We deserve to be treated differently than we are. We do not deserve to have our neighbor throw his clippings on our yard. We do not deserve to have our wife snap at us. We do not deserve to be forced to work longer than the rest of the office. Whatever it is, we deserve something different. We deserve better. And don't tell me that you don't think that way. I know we all struggle with this because this is pride. And pride is at the very, very core of our sin nature. Yet the Bible tells us so clearly that we have not received what we deserve. We don't deserve better, we deserve worse than what we've actually received. Remember, we've received mercy, mercy. That's why we can show mercy, because we receive mercy. We've received incredible mercy from the Son of God who died in our place. We deserved eternal damnation. That's what we deserve. But that's not what we receive, is it? Such mercy, when we understand it, humbles us. It brings a perspective to all of life. The minor annoyances that we're getting so worked up over, and they are minor. They're just minor annoyances when you compare it to the vast mercy we've experienced. We're humbled by a perspective. A righteous faith is a faith that focuses on what God has done for us. We are right with God because of our faith in the work of Christ. We're just saying in Christ alone. We hated God. The Bible tells us that's what we did. We hated God. God sent his son. We shook our fist in the face of God. God's Son died on the cross. We tried to stand tall in our own sin. Jesus rose from the grave. And then God forgave us for all of that when we placed our faith in Jesus Christ. That's humbling. We did nothing to deserve our salvation. Have you come to that point of humility? Have you come to the point where you bow before Jesus, recognizing that you deserve damnation for just being you, a sinner? Once we come to that point and we dwell upon that, when we recognize that all we have is in Christ alone, then, and only then, will we have a righteous faith. A righteous faith remains humble. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Righteous faith remains humble. Lastly, in the final verses here, we can observe that the righteous faith hopes in the Lord. It hopes in the Lord. Just like in chapter 24, just a repeat performance when Saul finally realizes that David had an opportunity to take his life and he didn't. Instead, he spared his life. Saul, again, repents of his own actions in pursuit of David. But David's wisely figured out that this repentance may prove just as temporary as all the other ones. So David's learned not to trust Saul's repentance. He doesn't stop running from Saul. He doesn't even trust Saul's integrity enough to bring the spear back on his own. He tells Saul, send a young man over and let him fetch the spear. What Saul might or might not do, though, does not affect David's trust in the Lord. Look again at verse 24. David says, now behold, as your life was highly valued in my sight this day, so may my life be. If you think about it, we'd expect David to say, in your sight, right? That would be perfect symmetry. As I valued your life, so you value my life. After all, you owe it to me. I let you live, you let me live. That's what's owed at this point. But that's not what he said, is it? He says, now behold, as your life was highly valued in my sight this day, so may my life be highly valued in the sight of the Lord. Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, my God. and may he deliver me from all distress." David's hope is in the Lord, not in Saul. And for that reason, David will be totally unaffected if Saul betrays his promise again. David is not hoping in Saul. If Saul betrays him, So be it. David is hoping in the Lord. He knows in verse 23 that the Lord will repay each man for his righteousness, and he'll repay each man for his faithfulness. And David is intent on just being righteous and faithful himself, and let the Lord repay him for it. David has seen that God has been faithful to him, and he knows God has promised to always be faithful. And he recognizes the Lord has also seen David's righteousness and faithfulness. And for that reason, David will hope in the Lord. You know, of all the points we looked at today regarding righteous faith, this is quite possibly the one we most need to grasp. We must place our faith in the Lord. We must place our hope in the Lord as well. We so quickly place our faith in the Lord, or I mean, maybe not quickly, but we do. We place our faith in Him. We come to Him in salvation. We place our faith there, but then we so often slip into placing our hope in others. We expect of others what only the Lord can give. Think about it. How many times have you felt absolutely crushed because someone else has let you down. Sometimes they don't even know it, but you're crushed anyway. I know there's times that I've gotten frustrated with my wife because I created an expectation that she didn't even know about. For example, maybe we planned that we'd have dinner together and then watch a movie one evening, and based on what I told her, she expected that I would be home at 6.30. Well, I decided I'm going to surprise her. I'll come home an hour early. I'll come home at 5.30. She'll be so excited. She'll be amazed. And I know that when I walk in the door, I'm gonna be greeted with this happy response. And then I come home, I walk in the door at 5.30, and I discover she's not even home. She wasn't expecting me till 6.30. She went to the gym to work out. I find myself frustrated because my hope was in her. Now that's a small example. But we also deal with large incidents in our lives, don't we? We expect a friend, excuse me, to keep confidence on an important matter that we confided to them. And we learn that they did not. They told someone else. We expect a person in the church that we consider to be a very mature spiritual leader. We expect this person to have all of their spiritual disciplines in order. And then we find out that this person is struggling with their devotions. I know that several of you have experienced the extremely painful experience of having a special person look you in the eye and say, I do, and then finding out somewhere along the way it morphed into, I did, but I don't now. The pain of disappointments that come from others keeping faith is real. Yet we also need to recognize that no matter what our example is, whether it's large, whether it's small, the bottom line is that we will only truly be devastated if we've placed our hope in that person. We become crushed when the person doesn't measure up. What we need to learn from these final verses is that righteous faith does not ultimately place its hope in people. Righteous faith places the ultimate hope in God alone. Righteous faith hopes in the Lord. He will never fail. Then when others around us do fail, we can remain strong knowing that the Lord will repay us for our righteousness and our faithfulness. The hardest lesson learned, it seems to me, is that the failures of others do not need to bring failures into your own lives. And the way we keep that from happening is place our hope in the Lord as we make our daily decisions. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Righteous faith hopes in the Lord. Life is filled with daily choices. From moment to moment, we have to make choices. But what guides those? What serves as this governing principle? It's taken David three long chapters, chapters that are filled with weeks of fleeing for his life, running, hiding from those who sought him, even enduring mocking and ridicule from those who didn't even really know him. Yet in these three long chapters, David learned that his life has to be guided by righteous faith. It's righteous faith that will allow him to respond with mercy to others. It's righteous faith that allows him to have contentment with the circumstances and the timing that God's chosen for his life. He's learned to live by righteous faith. On YouTube, if you go on YouTube, you can find videos of blind slalom skiers. competing in the Paralympics. You can find these videos, and these videos of these skiers going down the slalom course blind are amazing. You can also find videos that demonstrate how they learned to do this. After all, it sounds impossible, doesn't it? Skiing while you're blind. But they're paired with sighted skiers. And the blind skiers are taught on the flats how to turn left and how to turn right. And when that's mastered, they're taken up on the slopes where they're paired with sighted partners. And their sighted partners go slightly ahead of them, directing them as they're going down the hill, left, right, left, right. I suppose at one time they probably yelled those commands, but now we have technology so they actually communicate through Bluetooth headsets. And as the blind skiers obey those commands, they're able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending entirely on the sighted skier's words. Recognize, these skiers are flying down the hills sometimes at speeds of 70 miles an hour. It's either complete trust in the instructions they have received, accompanied by immediate decision to obey, or they'll face catastrophe. Friends, if you think about it, we all essentially are going through life like blind skiers. We know that God has told us to respond to things by going left, going right. He's told us, but He's not told us how that will work. We can't see it. He's given us His word, He's given us instructions, but most of the time, while we see in His word we should go this way or that way, we are unable to see why we should do that when the choice is before us. And there are choices before us daily. To turn left or right as he's commanded is to respond by righteous faith. Will we learn to do it instantly? We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. This is what David's learned. This is what we need to learn. I recognize that this is, like I said, largely a repeat lesson from last two weeks, but we need the repetition. We need the repetition because we need it so often that it just becomes a habit in our life that we will respond the way God has instructed, even when we can't see how it will work. Righteous faith needs become our governing principle that instantly guides all of our choices. Righteous faith waits on the Lord. Righteous faith challenges others. Righteous faith remains humble. Righteous faith hopes in the Lord. We must choose daily to live by righteous faith. Let's pray.