But we're going to hear from God's inspired word now from 2 Samuel chapter 17. We're going to finish off this chapter today, beginning to read at verse 24. Here are the inerrant inspired word of God written for you. Then David went to Mahanaim and Absalom crossed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him. and Absalom made Amasa captain of the army instead of Joab. This Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Jithra, an Israelite who had gone into Abigail, the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother. So Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead. Now what happened when David had come to Mahanaim that Shobi, the son of Nahash, from Rabah of the people of Ammon, Machir the son of Amil from Lodabar and Barzilai the Gileadite from Rogalim brought beds and basins, earthen vessels and wheat, barley and flour, parched grain and beans, lentils and parched seeds, honey and curds, sheep and cheese of the herd for David and the people who were with him to eat. For they said, the people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we study it, we continue to worship you. And we pray that the meditations of our heart would be acceptable in your sight. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. A pastor recently shared a story about a Christian couple in Colorado that had found a log house up in the mountains and it looked like this was just going to be perfect for the ministry that they intended to be involved in. And so they asked God to bless them with that house. But one thing after another went wrong and even the mortgage that they had already qualified for, for some reason unknown to them, was taken away and over a period of time finally the deal completely closed and fell through. Now they were disappointed and they wondered why God had not answered their prayer because it just did seem so perfect. But they just left that in God's hands and that winter there was an avalanche that completely took out that house. Now, they could understand why it was that God at every point was stymieing them in their efforts to get this house. In hindsight, they could see that this disappointment was actually a blessing, a blessing in disguise. But at the time, it sure did not seem like that. And as you think about this past year, some of you have probably gone through disappointments that are far, far worse than what that couple experienced. And certainly in this passage here, David's disappointments could have been crushingly disappointing. And yet the interesting thing is that the Psalms that were written during this period of time, and we'll probably look at one next week, the Psalms written during this time you will discover that even the most crushing of his disappointments were turned by God into blessings. I will admit not every one of these disappointments that I've listed here are explicitly said to be blessings in disguise. But in Psalm 36, David rejoices in the incredible provisions of God as he is fleeing, leaving everything behind. And he talks about drinking from the river of God's pleasures while he is running for his life. What in the world is going on with that? David had experienced something supernatural that goes beyond what simply our human abilities can enter into and we're going to try to dig into that something especially a little bit later on. But first of all I want to look at each disappointment and blessing and make application in our lives. And I should hasten to say that just because I listed those there does not mean those are the only disappointments that David had experienced in the last two or three days. There were a lot more in earlier verses. I mean, even the misinterpreted one where he thinks that Mephibosheth has betrayed him. That was a huge disappointment even though it was totally mistaken and Mephibosheth had in no way betrayed him. But we're just going to focus on the ones that are in this passage. And in verses 23 through 26 you will see that he had disappointments galore. First of all he was in exile. He had to flee so quickly that he had to leave everything behind. Verse 24 says, Then David went to Mahanaim, that's 23 miles east of the Jordan River, Jerusalem's west of the Jordan River. And it was a fortified Levitical city that Ish-bosheth had fled to himself to form a rump government. But now the tables have turned and it's David who is in exile. Now we'll see in a moment that that city of Mahanaim was an incredible blessing. It was a blessing of the clergy welcoming him and protecting him. But when we've lost everything, it's hard to see the blessings. We tend to focus on what we have lost and we miss out. I remember when Jim Baker got out of prison, he talked about the blessings of his prison term. the former head of PTL Ministries. It was a huge, huge multi-million dollar TV program that he lost due to a sex and money scandal. He ended up having a five-year prison term, so he was a crook. there, but God used that prison sentence to change his heart, to change his theology, and to sanctify him. And as soon as he got out, he began preaching against the gospel of money that had so gripped his soul before. And he said, I was teaching the opposite of what Jesus had said. If you fall in love with the things of this world, you will be disappointed. And God wants you to be disappointed, okay? It's a good thing to be disappointed. But that disappointment and that exile of Baker into prison was what drove him into the blessing of the Lord. The second disappointment for David was his son Absalom. That's pretty obvious. Verse 24 continues, and Absalom crossed over the Jordan. He was chasing David. He wanted to kill his own father. What a louse of a son. What an ungrateful wretch he was. David had invested so much in this son, Absalom, that this was a major disappointment. He was brokenhearted over this. But when you read again in the Psalms written during this period, you see that David allowed this disappointment to renew him in his own repentance. to make him realize there but for the grace of God go I, and to dig deeper and deeper into the heart of God." The huge betrayal led David to write by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit at least 17 Psalms. There are a lot of scholars who believe he wrote a lot of other Psalms, but at least 17 that are really not questioned that much. And when you look through those 17 Psalms, You realize that David was ministering to countless people down through the ages through the very disappointment that he experienced. He's ministered to the anguish and the pain and the disappointments of others. So there's blessings that flowed through David into the lives of others as a direct result of this disappointment. But the disappointment was a blessing to David himself. David had made an idol out of Absalom had pampered him, refused to show tough love to him when it was needed. And we're going to be seeing that David didn't totally learn his lesson until the end of chapter 18. But Absalom was an idol. And you know what God does with idols, right? He's in the idol-destroying business. That's what God is all about. And if you have learned, like David did, to press into the heart of God, you can handle those disappointments much more easily. But if you do not know Jesus and the power of His resurrection, then you are not going to know the fellowship of His sufferings. Or another way of saying it is you won't experience His fellowship in the midst of your disappointments. And the result of that can make you bitter, just like it made Amasa Joab, Jithra and Zerui, extremely bitter people. And that's usually the two ways that disappointments lead in our lives. It either makes us bitter or it makes us better by God's grace. The third disappointment was that David's army sided with Absalom. Now when you think about it, you study it, it really is crazy. David had never done anything but good for that army. Unlike Saul, he was not a centralist. David believed in a very minimalistic government and he maximized the freedoms of citizens and he certainly was a hero within the army. And yet verse 24 continues, "...he and all the men of Israel with him." For some reason these men are willing to go along with Absalom and his government and to fight against the former commander that they loved. It's really a strange business. And that would be a huge disappointment to David. If your heart is set on popularity, that could destroy you. But if, like David, your heart is set on God and pleasing Him no matter what happens, over time it will wean you away from the idolatry of popularity and wanting to be liked and the peer pressure that can sometimes happen. But I want us to think about those soldiers a bit. By the end of chapter 19, if you were one of those soldiers, you'd be disappointed in yourself for having sided with the majority. What a huge mistake. You'd be kicking yourself. Now some people just drift with the current and they do not take unpopular stands that might hurt, might be painful at the time. They become a disappointment to themselves simply because they have not made decisions. Instead they let others make those decisions for them. Ronald Reagan recounted the time when he stopped being a passive decision-maker. He was actually a pretty young boy at the time. But his aunt had taken him to a shoemaker to get a custom-made pair of shoes. Just pretty pricey stuff. And when he was at the cobbler, the cobbler said, Do you want square toe or round toe? And Reagan hemmed and hawed and he said, I don't really know. And he said, well, come back in a couple of days and tell me what you want. Well, Reagan didn't come back in a couple of days. Several days later, the cobbler found him on the street and he said, hey, have you made a decision yet on what kind of shoes you want? And he still had not made a decision. He says, well, I'll make the decision for you. You'll get your shoes tomorrow. And when Reagan picked up his shoes, He was shocked to see that one had square toe and the other shoe had a round toe. And this is what Reagan said was the lesson he learned in his life. Looking at those shoes every day taught me a lesson. If you do not make your own decision, somebody else will make them for you. And it's probably what happened with those soldiers. You know, it was uncomfortable making a decision for David or against David. And they decided, I'm not going to make a decision, which means what? It means that the decision was made for them. And the officers, they just said, well, we'll go along with what our officers have decided. And those officers probably did not want to disappoint their commanding officers who did not want to disappoint Absalom. But you will be a failure if your goal in life is to avoid disappointments. Disappointments are part and parcel of life. If you are godly, you're going to have disappointments and you are going to be a disappointment to somebody. There's no way around it. It's just impossible for it to be otherwise. You're going to have disappointments and you will be disappointments to other people if you are following the Lord. So fear of disappointment must not keep us from making godly decisions. Now the fourth disappointment was Amasa. Amasa was Joab's cousin and David's nephew by his adopted sister, Abigail. And you might think that within a family, they ought to be a little bit more tightly knit than this. And yet I think most of us know families that have been divided. You know, during the war between the states, there were families fighting on both sides of that war. And all down through history, there have been times where there are family members who are huge disappointments. But if you look at it from Amos's perspective, he had his own disappointments that drove him. Up until this time, he has been bypassed by his uncle David. He's not involved in the government. He's not involved in the... He's been bypassed. This is the first time he's been put into a leadership position and it's by Absalom. And so the question comes, why? Why would he have been bypassed? Some think that it was because he was the illegitimate son of David's stepsister Abigail. I'm inclined to think that it was because of Amasa's own ungodly responses to having been an illegitimate son. his reactions and attitudes within the family. We can't know for sure but let's read the whole verse to see what we do know. Verse 25, And Absalom made Amasa captain of the army instead of Joab. This Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Jithra, an Israelite who had gone into Abigail, the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother. When I was preaching in chapter 10 we looked in depth at this verse and we saw that Amasa's relationship to David was very complicated. Amasa's mother was Abigail, the daughter of Nahash, king of Ammon. When David's dad escaped to Ammon, he became friends with the family of the king of Ammon. And when the king of Ammon died, Jesse adopted Abigail and her son Amasa when he married the widow of king Nahash. It's very complicated and I won't repeat everything that we talked about in that chapter. But let me just give you the highlights that are relevant here. It appears that Amos' mother was an Ammonite who had converted and become a Jew. And this verse says that his father was an Israelite, but that's not the whole story. He didn't used to be an Israelite because if you look at 1 Chronicles 2 and verse 17, it gives us another bit of information about Jethro. We find out there that he originally was called Jether and he was an Ishmaelite at that time. Later he fully converted, he became an Israelite. But Amos' dad, original's background was an Ishmaelite. Now it gets even more complicated. The text does not say that Jethreh married Abigail as the NIV and the ESV paraphrase it. It literally says he went into her and it very deliberately does not speak about marriage. Putting two and two together, scholars believe that David's stepsister Abigail had either been raped by this Ishmaelite or engaged in consensual fornication when she was in Ammon. But in any case, Ammasai was an illegitimate child and if you know anything about the culture back then, this gave him a black eye. Now it happens so frequently nowadays, we don't even think the second thing about it. But back then it would have been extremely difficult for Amasa, for Abigail and for Jithra to have made this mistake. They would have been a disappointment. And it may account for some of the bitterness and the negative attitudes within the family. Now I may be reading too much between the lines, I don't think so, but the fact that 1 Chronicles says he was an Ishmaelite with a different name And this chapter says he's now an Israelite. Show to me that God used this traumatic disappointment to lead Jether to conversion and when he became a new a new man, he took on a new name. And sometimes God will bring gold out of the dunghill of our disappointments. And by the way, you might think, okay, this is a weird theory Phil Kaiser came up with. No, this is something that the ancient Jews held to. This is a very common interpretation, and I believe it's the only way of reconciling this passage with 1 Chronicles 2, verse 17, and a couple of other passages. And we talked about that before. But again, it illustrates how we can either respond to disappointment for the good or for the bad. Amasa does not respond for the good. He becomes a disappointment. That's how he responds to his disappointments. He becomes a disappointment himself. Now, I've already dealt with Jithra to some degree. But I do want to highlight the fact that Jethro responded differently than Amasa on one count. He did not allow his negative past to drive his future. And we should not allow our disappointing sins or the sins of our parents to drive our future either. David did not. It would have been very easy for David to be so disappointed with himself and his failures, his sins, that when they got discovered to respond sinfully by trying to hide, minimize his sin, rationalize his sin, going on the attack about his sin, becoming a tyrant. There's any number of sinful responses that he could have had, but he does not do that. He fully confessed his sin, made what restitution he could. Obviously there's not entire restitution that he could do. found cleansing in God's grace and he went on with life. And there are hints that Jethro did exactly that. He converted, changed his name, and took responsibility for his sins. And I love the image in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe that came just after Peter had slain the evil wolf general Maugrim. Aslan comes up to him and he tells him that he has blood on his sword and he looks down sure enough There's blood so Peter wipes off the blood and the wolf's hair onto the grass and then Aslan takes the sword and he dubs him, sir Peter wolf's bane and he says and whatever happens never forget to wipe your sword sometimes in life we will have skirmishes and if we are wronged and It's very easy to allow the wolf's hair and the ugly wolf's blood of resentment and bitterness to cling to that sword. And what it does is it dulls us. It rusts us. It makes our sword unusable. We need to wipe that blood off and we need to go on with life. And that's true even if we are the one who is doing the wrong, if we are the one who was the sinner. We need to confess our sins, get reconciled, wipe off that blood, that blood and that wolf's hair. We need to move on with life just like Jethro did with his own disappointment. Now Zeruiah was the next disappointment for David and the reason that we know that she was a disappointment for him was that every time her name is mentioned by David And this is his sister, remember, every time her name is mentioned, I don't know of any exception to this, it's in connection with a rebuke of her two sons. And it's rebukes like, these men, the sons of Zeruiah are too harsh for me. Or what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, et cetera. Now we've already done a little bit of a study of her in the past, and we've seen that she is characterized as a hard to get along with woman. And the implication of David's words are that Joab and Abishai hold on to grudges, just like she did. They're quick to squash differences of view, just like she was. They were given to bitterness, just like she was. They get angry very quickly, just like she did. They're quick to chop people's heads off, just like she was. You get the impression David did not look forward to family reunions with his sister, or as some say, his stepsister. I believe it was a stepsister that he had, and yet... Despite the difficulties, David recognized the value of her sons, and he used them. Now it's true that later on, David does try on three occasions, tries to get rid of Joab, and he will try it again in the next chapter, but that's only because Joab now has murder on his hands, and he's a threat to David, and he doesn't know quite how to deal with Joab. But even before that murder, Joab was hard to get along with, and yet at that time, he was greatly valued by David. He recognized only God can change the heart. And he didn't value the attitudes of Joab, but he does value Joab as a person. Almost every commentator will say that David would not have survived without Joab. Even the people who have become the worst disappointments can be valued if we will look at life from what God is seeking to do rather than simply what will make us feel better. And let me tell you, The people God brings into your life for your good don't always make you feel good. And that's OK, so long as it doesn't make you bitter and does not make you have resentment. And David had a remarkable ability to forgive and to put up with incredibly tough characters. In fact, when we get to that list of mighty men, the heroes of David, you're going to be shocked at some of the people that David was willing to hang around with. And I think he was a model for us in that, just like Jesus was a model for us when he was a friend of good guys. Now he was a friend of sinners, right? And we need to be reaching out just as David did as well. Jesus took into his midst the two sons of thunder, which everybody says they had tempers, you know, they were hard to get along with. He took into his midst Simon the zealot. If you know anything about the zealots you think, whoa, why in the world would he have a zealot amongst his twelve disciples? But here's the point. If curmudgeons get you angry, you know what a curmudgeon is, right? A curmudgeon is a guy who's just ornery. He's hard to get along with. If curmudgeons get you angry, don't just look at what's wrong with a curmudgeon. Of course there's stuff wrong in his life. He shouldn't be a curmudgeon and God can deal with him. But what you need to be asking yourselves is why do I let that curmudgeon get under my skin? Why do I get so so irritated what's going on inside of my heart? I want you to consider the possibility that God has given that curmudgeon as his gift for your sanctification and you need to start thanking God for that curmudgeon say Lord I I'm going to do the best I can loving this person and working with this person and valuing him as a blood-bought saint. The last disappointment is given in verse 26. So Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead. The Israelite armies had crossed the Jordan River. They'd caught up with David in a remarkably short period of time. Now Hushai had hoped to slow them down with his advice. His advice was accepted, so it slowed them down by a few hours. He was probably hoping for a week or two so that more troops would be able to defect to David. But at least it slowed it down enough for him to get to Mahanaim. But it would have been nice to have a little bit more time. And yet God gets far more glory by things working out this way. He gets more glory when David wins against unbelievable odds than if David's wishes were satisfied. So hopefully you can see how there were blessings hidden even in the disappointments. Now, you may not be able to discover what the blessings are and the disappointments that God has placed into your life over the past year, but by faith, you know without a shadow of a doubt that they are there. Romans 8, 28 guarantees that they are there. By faith, you can put off the negative feelings and you can begin thanking God, yes, for those disappointments. Not just that there's good in the midst, but thanking Him for those disappointments that they are working together for your good. And this is exactly what David did in Psalms 36, 37, 55, 61, 63, and other Psalms. And what I'm going to do for you right now is I'm going to read the first few verses of Psalm 37. And maybe you can make this to be your response to the disappointments of the past year. Okay. On the day of this flight from Absalom, David said, Do not fret because of evil doers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of Him who prospers in His way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it only causes harm." So that's the first bit of advice that David gives when you have disappointments in your life. Put off the negative responses that your flesh has a tendency to give. But if that's as far as you go, you're not going to yet enter into the supernatural joy that David experiences in Psalm 26. In addition to putting off the negative emotions of bitterness, anger, fretting, envy, disappointment, frustration, that's what he's putting off in this psalm here. He then puts on the supernatural graces of joy, peace, love, forgiveness, patience, and other positive virtues that flow from the power of the Holy Spirit that men cannot do in their own strength. We're talking supernatural here. David counted his blessings on this flight. He had, after all, escaped. Verse 27 says, Now it happened when David had come to Mahanaim. Now, Ahithophel's plan was to capture David before he crossed the Jordan River, but God frustrated that plan. He managed to escape, and while David is escaping, David praises God, saying, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? He was counting his blessings. I've already mentioned that Mahanaim was a Levitical city. It was where the clergy resided. And these clergy welcomed David with open arms, and they took a huge risk in doing so, because you remember from chapter 16 that Absalom's full intent was to destroy any city that harbored David. So if David does not win in the next chapter, they could be history. And this was a time when the church interposed itself against an ungodly civil government and provided safety and harbor for those who are seeking to escape from its tyranny. And there have been many times in history when the church has engaged in civil disobedience and done the right thing in protecting the innocent. Now it doesn't have to be civil disobedience. Pat and Kit and Gary and I were talking last week and trying to think through how we can do more in the pro-life ministry. We already have people who are working in the Crisis Pregnancy Center. We've got people who go occasionally and we picket, we support financially some pro-life organizations. But they were thinking, let's think beyond that. How do we as a congregation provide refuge for babies who are destined to die? We thought, well, one way that we could do it, and we're gonna try to strategize and see what the legalities and everything are, but one way that we could do this would be to help provide for the delivery in the hospital of a baby who is, there's so many factors that go into abortion, finances is one of those. Another way that we could do it is, provide shepherding homes for mothers who are being almost forced into getting an abortion by either parents or by boyfriends or something else like that. But there may come a time when this church on many different fronts is going to have to become a city of Mahanaim. In other words, we're going to have to protect those who are fleeing, need refuge, need protection. It happened during the homeschool battles in the past and it could happen again in other fronts. So we need to think through these kinds of things. But what a blessing that this was to David in the midst of his discouragements. The next blessing was Shobi. Verse 27, now it happened when David had come to Mahanaim that Shelbi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the people of Ammon. He was a foreigner. In fact, we already saw in 2 Samuel 10 that Shobi's brother was Hanun, the wicked king of Ammon, who disgraced David's ambassadors. Remember, he cut their clothing off and half their beards off and he fought against David. And so he really was a bad guy, but Hanun's sister Abigail and her brother Shobi had embraced the God of Israel and they'd become David's allies. And actually David's dad had adopted at least Shelby's sister into his family. David didn't hold it against Shelby that he was a foreigner or that his brother had declared himself an enemy. He was not prejudiced against Shelby's Ammonite background. For David it was an issue of are you for God or are you against God? He was willing to embrace anyone whom Christ embraced. That was the dividing line. Not culture, not skin color. David was way too big hearted for that. In fact, when you look at the people who loved David and were willing to lay their lives down for David and whom David loved and he was willing to lay down his life for them, You see people like the Pelopites and the Cherethites. They were Philistines. Now, they weren't Philistines anymore because they had converted, right, and become a part of Israel. But they were incredibly loyal to the God of Israel and to David himself. And then you've got the recent convert in the earlier chapter, Ittai, the Gittite. He was also a convert from the city of Gath. And then you've got other names like Uriah the Hittite. Okay, he was a foreigner. Now David betrayed his friend, but he had been a friend of David. And you've got Zelech the Ammonite, Rimeh, Rehab, and Ba'anah the Canaanites. Yes, David saw these people as being blessings from the hand of God. Some were converts. and others who had become Israelites all the way, and others who had not yet become Israelites. They had converted, they were saved, but they had not yet gone through the full process of becoming Israelites, which would have required a circumcision as well. But David valued them, he loved them, and they valued and loved David. So Shobi, the son of an Ammonite, brings a mess of food and supplies to his friend. The fourth blessing was Machir, the son of Ammiel from Lodabar. Now he had previously been a supporter of Saul and he had protected the grandson of Saul Mephibosheth. We saw that story. So way back in chapter 9 we already saw that Machir was a very generous and kind-hearted man. He got no benefit from protecting and supporting the crippled Mephibosheth. In fact he was sticking his neck out. He didn't know how David would react to this. Mephibosheth could have been a threat to David. But he realized this is the right thing to do. I need to protect this man. And so when David welcomed Mephibosheth to his table in chapter 9, Mephibosheth had been hiding out with this man in Lodabar. The man had taken compassion upon a homeless cripple and had supported him out of the goodness of his heart. So when this man sees that David extends the same kindness and bestows all kinds of riches upon Mephibosheth, He realizes this is a man with a kindred spirit. Overnight they became friends. It was a very kindred spirit kind of a relationship. And he was engaging in something now that was just as risky, just as self-sacrificing as what he had done in chapter 9. But for men like Makir, it's not an issue of risk or reward that drives them. It's an issue of what is the right thing to do. D.A. Carson tells of a time when he was hugely impacted by a friend to be much more self-sacrificing and selfless than he was. They'd both been involved in ministry but they were so worn out they were going for some R&R at the beach. And when they got to the beach, there was a raucous party of high schoolers with beer and drunkenness and stuff being thrown around, loud music and what he describes in a very proper terms as inappropriate ungodly displays of affection. But anyway, D.A. Carson writes, deeply disappointed that my evening's relaxation was being shattered by a raucous party, I was getting ready to cover my disappointment by moral outrage. I turned to Ken to unload the venom but stopped as I saw him staring at the scene with a faraway look in his eyes and he said rather softly, high school kids, what a mission field. He was so focused on God and God's goodness and that God is always bringing blessings into his life that he didn't see this as a disappointment. It was sort of like Jesus, you know, when the crowds came and everybody's tired and the disciples say, send them away. And Jesus said, no, we need to minister to them. So the very same thing that D.A. Carson saw as a disappointment, his friends saw as a blessing from God to be seized as a ministry opportunity that he was excited about. The third blessing was Barzillai. In chapter 19 we find that he was 80 years old and feeling like he was ready to die. But despite his age he traveled 32 miles to bring these supplies to David and he did it in a remarkable period of time. Now it's true that from Rogalim to Mahanaim is 23 miles as the crow flies, but you can't walk as the crow flies. You have to take the road 12 miles east before you can go south. So it's almost guaranteed. It was 32 miles that he traveled. And he must have traveled a good chunk of the previous day all night and most of this day and ridden fairly hard to be able to get all of this stuff to Mahanaim on time. And to me this speaks of sacrifices of money, of time, effort, loss of sleep, the dangers at night, the discomforts he had to endure. What an incredible blessing to have friends like this. And we're going to see in chapter 19 that David did not take that blessing for granted. Now we have some Barzilai type men and women in this congregation who sacrifice themselves every week, who have servant's heart, and I consider them to be one of the load of blessings that God has put upon me and upon each one of you. Verse 28 speaks of the beds that they brought for David and his men. Now, if you've lost much sleep, as David had lost in the previous night, you know this is fantastic. It appears that David had not slept for a day, a night, and all of this day. And actually, you know, Psalms 3 and Psalm 4 said that he slept soundly the night before the battle. Now, it ascribes that mainly to the fact he just totally trusts God's providence in this. He was not worried about the next day, even though it was against overwhelming odds. But it sure didn't help that, it sure helped, I think, that he had beds to sleep on rather than sleeping on the rocks. We won't spend much time on each of these points, but the ability to clean up with these water basins was an incredible blessing. I've been on mission trips where I've had to go in really poor areas without bathing for days. You wouldn't want to be around me at the end of the week. Oh, man, especially when it's hot. And when you come to a house and they have a warm bowl with a washcloth and you could take a sponge bath, you are in heaven. It's such a blessing. And my point in bringing all of these things up is that we should not forget to thank God for showers and clean water and toothbrushes and the food and abundance that we have and refrigerators and so many things that people just take for granted. In fact, I would encourage you to count up your blessings that other people do not have. If you spent enough time, you would literally come up with hundreds and hundreds of blessings and benefits you experience every single day. that people in poor, poverty-stricken countries never have. And yet what do we tend to focus on? Our disappointments. We just forget about all of the incredible load of blessings. David says daily he loads us with blessings. Actually those people in poor countries are better at counting up their blessings sometimes than we are. They are daily loaded with blessings as well. But it's a focus issue. Anyway, they brought David's growing army some food staples. Verse 28, brought beds and basins, earthen vessels and wheat, barley and flour, parched grain and beans, lentils and parched seeds. But in addition to those necessities were treats and luxuries. Verse 29, honey and curds, sheep and cheese of the herd for David and the people who were with him to eat. They could have survived quite well. without any of those luxuries, but this shows their thoughtfulness, and it shows that God delights in blessing us above and beyond our basic survival needs. He's a very, very generous God. And we shouldn't forget to mention how people that cared for them were also a gift from God's hand. I'm so thankful for the friends that God has given to me in you in this church. Verse 29 ends with the observation, for they said, the people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness. They were thinking of the needs of others ahead of their own safety. I mean, just think of the context. The enemy is nearby. This is not a secret friendship. They are publicly identifying with David and supporting David. And like I said earlier, this could get them into huge trouble. If David does not win this battle, they could be history. And yet these were the type of people who did not allow inconvenience or danger to dictate their relationships. Now there were plenty in Israel we've already seen who just went with the flow. It's much easier to do that. But in this chapter, we see people who did the right thing, even though it took huge sacrifice to do so. They stuck by their friend no matter what. And the different racial background of some of these friends made me think of the risk of relationships in the 1936 Olympics. And the book, the complete book of the Olympics by David Walachinski and Jamie Lukey, David wrote, The 1936 Olympics are best remembered for Hitler's failed attempt to use them to prove his theories of Aryan racial superiority. As it turned out, the most popular hero of the games, even among the German people, was the African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals. During the long jump competition, Owen's German rival, Lutz Long, publicly befriended him in front of the Nazis. And elsewhere I read that he actually shook Jesse Owens' hand right in front of Hitler and congratulated him as if he was glad that Jesse Owens had won. It was a very deliberate, in-your-face statement that he was making. And there was huge risk in doing so. I don't know if there was a cause and effect relationship, but Lutz died on the front lines of the war. But there were other Germans who did just like Lutz did, even in the face of pressure. On pages 49 through 50, this book says, Nazi propaganda had portrayed Negroes as inferior, taunting the United States for relying on, quote, black auxiliaries, unquote. Evidently, though, the message had little effect on the German masses who considered Owens the hero of Berlin. Everywhere he went around town, he was mobbed by fans seeking his autograph or photograph. They even shoved autographed books through his bedroom window in the Olympic Village while he tried to sleep. Now, one British newspaper had a little competition, what's your definition of a friend? And they had hundreds of people writing in to try to win the prize. But the winning definition of a friend was the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out. And it's that kind of friendship that I value amongst the people in this church. I just cherish it. I count you all as some of the blessings that God has loaded, loaded, absolutely loaded upon me. So thank you very much. But of course, The greatest friend that David had was God himself. And when you read the Psalms that David wrote during this period, you realize that David considered God's grace to be more important than his kingdom, his life, or anything that he possessed. And since I hope to preach on maybe one or two of those Psalms, The only thing I'm going to highlight here is that even if you have been robbed of every blessing or you think you've been robbed of every blessing except for salvation and God's sustaining grace, you are blessed indeed. And so as we begin this new year, I think it's appropriate to be reminded from both this passage and the Psalms that form the background to it But it's critically important that we become a thankful people, not a grumbling people. While the scripture does not call us to ignore disappointments, let's focus on the blessings. Robert Cleaver Chapman was an English pastor in a strict and particular Baptist church in the early 1800s in England. Later on, he changed denominations, became a pastor of Plymouth Brethren. And Charles Spurgeon called him, quote, the saintliest man I ever knew. Now even though he was from a different theological background than we are, we're much closer to Spurgeon than he was. I think he was far closer to God and far godlier than I am, and I so value him as a role model. He was very self-sacrificing, just like David's friends were. He was an encourager. His love was so deep that to this day they speak of him as the apostle of love. He was patient under God's providences, but what blew many people away was how joyful and cheerful he was, even under the most dire and difficult of circumstances. One day he told a friend, I'm burdened this morning. Well, the friend was kind of puzzled because he never seemed to be burdened and his face sure didn't look like it was burdened. And so he said, are you really burdened Mr. Chapman? And his response is classic Chapman. Yes, but it's such a wonderful burden. It's an overabundance of blessings for which I cannot find enough time or words to express my gratitude. And seeing the puzzled look on his friend's face, Chapman added with a smile, I'm referring to Psalm 68 verse 19, which fully describes my condition. In that verse, the Father in heaven reminds us that He daily loads us with benefits. The load of blessings was so full in His life that He could hardly bear it. He felt like He was going to bust for joy. Just an amazing thing. Now when you realize the difficulties in His life, His joy doesn't make any sense. Unless of course you've experienced the supernatural joy of the Holy Spirit just like He did. We're not talking about something man-made. We're talking about something that comes from heaven. Then it makes perfect sense. So here's the question this morning. Do you see yourself as loaded with benefits or do you see yourself as loaded with disappointments? Now, I'm not in any way wanting you to deny your disappointments. That would be ridiculous. David does not deny his disappointments. They are real. It's foolish to ignore them. But in the Psalms, David took his disappointments to the God who cares and he dropped them at his feet. Now, too many times what we do is we take our disappointments to God in prayer And then we take our disappointments right back with us. And then we take our disappointments to God in prayer. And we take our disappointments right back with us. We never drop our disappointments. They're always with us. And what we need to do is learn how to drop those disappointments at the feet of Christ. And that's exactly what Psalm 36 teaches us to do. In the first four verses, he's dropping his disappointments, his load of disappointments. There was a disappointments galore, remember. And then he picks up Another load, it's a load of blessings from the throne of Christ and that's verses 5 through 12. In fact, why don't you just go ahead and turn there with me. It's Psalm 36 and we'll begin at verse 1. This is a remarkable exchange and it's an exchange I encourage you to do every single day of your lives. An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes, for he flatters himself in his own eyes when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates." He flatters himself when he hates, okay? The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good. He devises wickedness on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not abhor evil. This is no Pollyanna Christianity that only sees good in the world. No, this is a realistic Christianity that is able to describe evil as exceedingly evil and to fight tooth and nail against it, but David never allowed that evil to make him sour. Okay, that's the point. Every day he takes his pains and his disappointments to Christ, thanks Christ for being willing to bear those pains on his behalf. Now he's looking forward, we look backward, but he had faith in Christ, so he's thankful to Christ that he's willing to bear those in his behalf. He drops off those disappointments and he picks up a new load and that's what we're going to read here in verses 5 through 10. Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains. Your judgments are a great deep. O Lord, You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your pleasures. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light. Oh, continue your lovingkindness to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright in heart." And then he gives a quick backward glance at his disappointments and he says, Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. But then notice this statement of faith. There the workers of iniquity have fallen. They have been cast down and are not able to rise. What a wonderful perspective. It's not denial, but it is a positive perspective on life that gives David daily joy. And Philippians 4 does exactly the same thing. In verse 4 it calls us to rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say rejoice, and it tells us exactly how to do that. It's exactly the same two steps that enabled David to drink on that day from the river of God's pleasures. First of all, Philippians 4, 6 through 7 tells us what to do with our disappointments. It doesn't tell us to be in denial. Instead it says, be anxious for nothing. That's David's fret not of Psalm 37, right? Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. It says if we are willing to leave our requests and our disappointments at God's feet in faith and with thanksgiving. Those are two critical conditions. In faith and with thanksgiving, God's supernatural peace will guard our hearts. That's exactly what happened to David in Psalm 3 and in Psalm 4. He's able, according to those Psalms, to sleep peacefully throughout the whole night and not worry about the the incredible odds that come against him. There are probably plenty of other people to worry about that. But he's able to sleep. Why? Because God's peace is guarding his heart. Have you learned how to drop your burdens or do you pick them right back up again and carry them? If you feel the weight of your disappointments, pains, hurts, and frustrations this morning, I would urge you to ask God to give you the ability to dump them and leave them at the cross of Christ. Now, initially, you might have to do that hundreds of times in a day until it becomes a habit to not pick those burdens back up again. But anyway, Philippians 4 says, the first step is to drop your disappointments at the feet of Jesus in faith and thanksgiving. That means no grumbling, because that'll kill your faith. In faith and thanksgiving. And the next verse says, that then frees us up to focus on God's blessings. It says, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Now Satan's going to do everything he can to get you to do the exact opposite. Satan will try to get you to meditate on the things that are not true. Whatever things are ugly. Whatever things are miserable. Whatever things you don't have. whatever irritates, whatever is disappointing, whatever is missing. But if you want David's peace, joy, and drinking from the river of his pleasures, of his delights, you will need to learn to handle disappointments and blessings just like he did. Drop the disappointments at the feet of Jesus with faith and with thanksgiving that he can handle them quite well. And then being totally confident he's going to answer your prayer. That's faith. You can be freed up to focus on the blessings of the Lord just as Pastor Chapman was in the habit of doing. May this be true of each one of us in this coming year. Amen. Father God, what a boatload of disappointments and blessings that David experienced. And I know that there are people in this congregation who have their own disappointments. But I pray that those disappointments would not blind them to the unbelievably glorious work that you are doing in their midst, conforming them to the image of Christ, working all things together for your glory and for their good. Help us, Father, to see with eyes of faith, to speak with eyes of faith, to not kill our faith with negative words and affirmations and negative negative emotions, but instead, Father, that we would put off, even if it's every minute putting them off, until we learn to daily lay at the feet of Jesus our disappointments so that we can walk in the joy of the Lord. And we thank you that Jesus was willing to bear our pains in His body and that by His scourges we are healed. We are so thankful that we can leave the things that are painful at His feet and that we do not have to walk in our own flesh, in our own right arm of strength, but we can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and that even in our weakness that Christ's strength is made perfect. And so we ask for the filling of your Holy Spirit in each life here. We ask that Jesus would live His life through us Give us the joy and the love and the peace that Pastor Chapman had. Give us the love and the joy and the peace that King David had. These are but men, and yet they were men who depended upon you and your grace. May we be characterized every minute of every day in this coming year by the grace that flows from your throne and all of the fruit of the Spirit that come with that. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.