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I don't know if you've been able
to figure it out, but the songs in the first half give the foundation
for the reconciliation that God has given. These ones dealt with
the resistance that comes from the world of flesh and the devil
to that unity, and that we are bound and determined to pursue
what God has ordained for the church and for this world, the
reconciliation by grace all to the glory of God. And we're going
to be looking at a passage right now, 2 Samuel chapter 19. that shows a messy reconciliation. It's not as full as you would
hope that it could be. And yet the principles that God
has ordained for reconciliation are all illustrated here. So
2 Samuel chapter 19 beginning to read at verse 9. Now all the
people were in a dispute throughout all the tribes of Israel saying
the king saved us from the hand of our enemies, he delivered
us from the hand of the Philistines and now he has fled from the
land because of Absalom. But Absalom whom we anointed
over us has died in battle. Now therefore why do you say
nothing about bringing back the king? So King David sent to Zadok
and Abiathar the priests saying, speak to the elders of Judah
saying, why are you the last to bring the king back to his
house since the words of all Israel have come to the king
to his very house? You are my brethren. You are
my bone and my flesh. Why then are you the last to
bring back the king? And say to Amasa, are you not
my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also
if you are not commander of the army before me continually in
the place of Joab. So he swayed the hearts of all
the men of Judah just as the heart of one man so that they
sent this word to the king, return you and all your servants. And
the king returned and came to the Jordan. And Judah came to
Gilgal to go to meet the king, to escort the king across the
Jordan. And Shimei, the son of Gerah of Benjamite, who was from
Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet
King David. There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him and
Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul and his 15 sons and his
20 servants with him. And they went over the Jordan
before the king. Then a ferry boat went across
to carry over the king's household and to do what he thought good.
Amen. Father, we thank you for your
word, and it is our glory to study it and to seek to live
it out. And we pray for the power of
your Holy Spirit to do so in Jesus name. Amen. But when there is major conflict,
as has been happening earlier in this chapter, it can sometimes
be a tricky thing to bring about reconciliation. This is true
between individuals and families and churches. Certainly true
when it comes to civil areas because there's so many more
people, so many widely varied opinions, so many more sins to
complicate matters. But even though this reconciliation
that David was attempting here was messy in some ways, I am
so grateful that it's included in the canon of Scripture because
life is messy. And the messiness of reconciliations
that we attempt here on earth looks much more frequently like
what goes on in this chapter than it does like the picture-perfect
reconciliations that you see in the books. And the first thing
that we see here, that we see in modern life, is that not everyone
really wants to be reconciled. Verse 9 begins, Now all the people
were in a dispute throughout all the tribes of Israel. They
were arguing about whether they really ought to be reconciled
to David. Those who were pushing for reconciliation
were not necessarily giving the best answers, but at least they
were motivated to try to patch things up. But that word dispute,
I think, makes it quite clear not everybody was on board. Some
assume, some commentators assume, because of the dynamics that
occur later on in this chapter, that this was regional differences
between North and South. That may have factored into it.
I'm not convinced that's the entire answer because if you
look at the way it's worded, it's just not in one region or
the other. It says, now all the people were
in a dispute throughout all the tribes of Israel. So even within
a tribe, any given tribe, there was disputing going back and
forth, probably for two reasons. Because of the lies and the slander
that Absalom had sent out about David, people had mixed feelings
about him, whether they even should be reconciled. And there
was probably fear of retaliation And so whatever the case, whatever
the reasons were, not everybody wanted reconciliation. It would
take some pretty major sacrifices on the part of David to convince
them that he was sincere. And this is so true to life.
Down through the years, I have seen numerous reasons for resistance
to reconciliation. even by godly people. Sometimes
the resistance is because people are skeptical of the sincerity
of the other person. They wonder, is he really repentant? I'm not sure that I want to trust
that person again. Sometimes it's because of pride.
There can be any number of reasons why people would not want to
be reconciled. But I bring this up because we
need to be prepared ahead of time to understand potential
problems obstacles to reconciliation, what the potential solutions
to those obstacles might be. David was certainly prepared
and it was a good thing that he was. And so I would recommend
that you do at least a little bit of study on these potentials
for people not wanting to be reconciled with you. There's
great books out there. My favorite book is by Ken Sandy.
It's called The Peacemaker. But we do need to understand
occasionally there is a resistance to even the desire for reconciliation. Then point two, verses nine through
10 give the reasoning of at least some of the advocates for reconciliation. Now all the people were in a
dispute throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king saved
us from the hand of our enemies. He delivered us from the hand
of the Philistines. Now he has fled from the land
because of Absalom. But Absalom, whom we anointed
over us, has died in battle. Now therefore, why do you say
nothing about bringing back the king?" Now, I see five arguments
being used by the proponents for reconciliation. And the first
argument is they say, technically, he's still the king. They call
him the king, which implies that the, again, as we saw before,
the anointing that they gave of Absalom was unconstitutional.
David had never been properly deposed. There was a process
you could go through where you could impeach a king and he's
no longer your king, but they're still recognizing he's the king.
Second, they acknowledge that David had done them good, had
done a wonderful job in protecting them from their enemies, which
is the biggest reason for even having a king. A king was not
supposed to be administrating everything in your lives like
happens here in America. His primary purpose was protection,
and he did a great job at that. Third, at least some seem to
be blaming Absalom for the reconciliation. And that makes sense because
in chapter 15 we saw that Absalom had spent quite three years spreading
all kinds of slander and lies about David. One of the lies that was spread
was that, okay, he's a bad king. Those are some of the lies that
he's spread. But the other one that we saw very clearly was
that Absalom and Ahithophel were claiming that David was dying
anyway, dying of a disease. and that Absalom was the heir
apparent. And they're saying, wow, David
sure doesn't seem like he's dying. And so this is another reason. They do take some of the blame
themselves in verse 10. They say, Absalom whom we anointed
over us. So, I mean, it was us who did
this. And then the fourth reason is
that they don't have much choice because Absalom is dead. Even
though David didn't seem like he's dying, it's pretty clear
Absalom is dead. The fifth reason given is that
somebody needs to do something. Nobody's willing to take the
first step, but there does seem to be at least some advocates
for reconciliation. But commentators point out, despite
all of the disputes, it does not look like anything has happened
or is likely to happen, and that is why the frustrated question
in the last part of verse 10. Now therefore, why do you say
nothing about bringing back the king? These are the people in
Israel that are asking this. Making no forward movement, the
leaders don't seem to be able to act. So David recognizes,
okay, we've probably got to have third-party negotiators involved
in this, and who would be better for this than pastors? Who would
be better for this than Abiathar and Zadok, the priests? They
were knowledgeable in the law of God. They were godly. They
wanted a godly outcome. They were respected leaders by
both sides of this dispute. They were more likely to be able
to speak to both sides without them feeling threatened. So verse
11 says, so King David sent to Zadok and Abiathar the priest
saying, speak to the elders of Judah. It can take some of the
emotion out of a debate when you can have third party advocates
who begin and help to process the discussions that are going
on. And by the way, I think it is
usually preferable to have mediation than to take things to court.
Now there is a place for court, but it's usually a last resort
type of a situation. Let me give you some of the disadvantages
of a court and the advantages of mediation like what was going
on here. First, it's rare that a court
settlement, whether you're talking about civil court or a church
court, it is rare that a court case settlement will end up as
a win-win situation where good mediation can often be a discussion
of we versus the problem. A court case tends to have one
party versus the other party in almost always. It's a win-lose
situation. And even though the winner wins,
he loses a bunch of stuff as well. Second, energies are primarily
directed to minimizing the evidence against you when you're taking
things to court and focusing only on proving that the other
person is wrong. There's no motivation to look
at things from the other person's perspective, whereas in mediation,
that's quite different. Third, in a court case, it is
conflict-focused rather than relationship-focused. This tends
to exacerbate the bad feelings rather than dealing with them.
And then fourth, the disputants lack ownership of the results. What happens in a court is they're
having a decision imposed upon them by the court, whether they
like it or not. Whereas when you've got mediation,
you're working together on something that hopefully will be mutually
satisfying. And that's exactly what happens
in these verses. Now, I bring that up not because
there was even a court case possible. There wasn't. Even the war has
similar, you know, dynamics to it. But I bring it up just to
show that when you bring negotiators, third-party people into a question,
sometimes it can help to resolve the problems. And too frequently,
especially in micro-Presbyterian denominations, but you see it
in the PCA, you see it in the OPC, in Reformed circles, too
frequently, people just take everything to court, and they're
missing out on these other possibilities that the Peacemakers book talks
about. Now, in most churches, you don't have ever any discipline,
and that's a bad thing, but there are extremes that we need to
avoid on this. Now, obviously, we're missing
a lot of details on what exactly Zadok and Abiathar were able
to talk through. But even what we have recorded
here, I think, gives hints of a normal process for reconciliation. We've already hinted at the first
point. Somebody needs to make the first move. Right? Would have been easy for David
to say, they wronged me. They're going to have to make
the first move. I'm not going to do it. But for the sake of
God's glory in the kingdom, he made the first move by asking
Zadok and Abiathar to get involved and even he gave hints to them
as to what could be said and what he was willing to do. And
too many times, reconciliation stops at this point. One or both
parties to a conflict are utterly unwilling to be the first ones
to reach out to the other party. You know, they feel done in and
they're thinking, you know, hey, that other person's totally in
the wrong. It's their move. It's not on me to do this. I'm
not going to budge an inch until they do such and such. And we
might ask, did David have some wrong? Well, obviously, yes,
he did. Way back, he had that sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.
And God says that this was part of his discipline of David. But
from a human perspective, in terms of legalities or anything
like that, there wasn't anything that David had done that was
wrong. But with all of the slander that Absalom had spread out there,
there was plenty for both sides to be offended over. And it would
have been easy for both sides to be waiting for an eternity
for the other party to admit their wrongs. Maturity will take
the first step whether I'm in the wrong or whether I'm in the
right. It really doesn't matter. My focus should be on God's glory,
the testimony of Christ and the good of the brethren. Next, there
often needs to be some effort put into getting the reluctant
party or parties on board. I want you to notice again the
question at the end of verse 11, why are you the last to bring
the king back to his house since the words of all Israel have
come to the king to his very house." Now that reference to
all Israel indicates commentators say that the ten northern tribes
have already quite easily reconciled to David, but it was the southern
leaders that David was more closely identified with who were saying
no. They were dragging their feet
perhaps because they had been more closely identified with
the rebellion with Absalom. So efforts were being made to
try to draw the reluctant parties into the talks. The third process
issue that we see is the realization that unconditional acceptance
of each other does not mean unconditional agreement. And failure to understand
this has sometimes been a huge, huge impediment to reconciliation. People think that they can't
be reconciled until they can totally agree. So let me repeat
that principle. Unconditional acceptance of a
person does not mean total agreement with that person. Instead, it
means forgiveness and walking in grace. There may be things
that they still would not see eye to eye on, but you can still
be unconditionally committed to each other. And if this key
process is not embraced, attempts at reconciliation will keep getting
scuttled. You see, the problem in the first
place was not their differences. They'd always had that. The problem
was that they were alienated. They were treating each other
as enemies. They had broken fellowship. David
was willing to live with the differences and he was hoping
that these people were willing to live with the differences
as well and still be committed to each other. And this principle
applies to marriage and to many different areas of life. If we
will only be reconciled when the other party has fully, completely
repented or perfectly changed their mind on every last area
of disagreement that we've had over the last 30 years, the likelihood
of reconciliation is pretty slim. Now let me just illustrate this.
If I were to point with my finger, which I'm not going to do, at
various people in this congregation, I'm sure that there are a number
of people that I could point to whom we would have pretty
significant disagreements with. And I think you would probably
recognize what those disagreements are because, even if I'm not,
because I've got the big mouth, right? Everybody knows what I
believe. and maybe you keep it to yourself. So here's the question.
Why can we love each other and respect each other and embrace
each other in the Lord when we've got all of these differences?
And the reason is because of grace. We are connected to each
other not because we agree so much as because we embrace all
whom Christ embraces and we love each other enough to work on
our differences. So our reconciliation, well, let's
wait on the reconciliation part on it. We work on our differences
when we don't have conflict, we work on our differences out
of the security of knowing that we are accepted, that we love
each other, okay? We don't work on our differences
with each other in order to be accepted. The first option flows
from grace. The second option flows from
works righteousness. We're patient with each other,
knowing that God is not finished with us yet. And the beauty of
the body is that we can trust the Lord with those differences.
I mean, He's the one who sanctifies anyway, right? We can't change
anybody's heart. And so we can still love each
other and be committed to each other in the body, even with
differences. So that's the principle that
I'm talking about. But frequently that attitude
completely evaporates after a conflict. Where previously people overlooked
these differences, now that's all they can think about. And
they think they can't be reconciled until every one of those differences
that existed before the conflict is solved. That's completely
backwards thinking. David is making huge concessions
to Amasa and the other Judahite leaders. They are no doubt making
concessions to him as well. And it takes looking at life
from the other person's perspective and working through trust issues.
And that's what the next point is about, gaining understanding. This is the fourth process issue,
and there are four subpoints under that. Everyone has been
walking on eggshells and doesn't quite know how to proceed. So
the first thing that Zadok and Abiathar do is they start asking
questions. There are two why questions in
verses 11 and 12. And what they're trying to do
is they're trying to draw out why are you guys reluctant? What's
going on here? What is behind this? They're
trying to understand what is driving their fears. Now, this
is an incredibly abbreviated account, so we're not told what
stories those leaders told Zadok and Abiathar as to why they're
nervous, why they were reluctant. There was probably a whole lot
going on behind the scenes, but at least we see here that they
were given the opportunity to answer that question. One book
on mediation says that this is a real sticking point on conflict
resolution. People feel like they're not
being heard. It said, and let me quote this
at length, one's interest in telling his or her side of the
story is usually balanced by the other side's disinterest
in listening. Yet successful resolution depends
on both occurring. So it is critical to emphasize
the value of listening skills. I find an extremely helpful technique
in mediation is to ask the listening side to summarize what the talking
side has said. Typically, summarization never
actually takes place because the listener will admit that
he wasn't listening, but then will be more attentive. In situations
of conflict, we typically expend great effort to persuade our
opponents where we are coming from. but we fail to invest in
similar understanding of their side of the argument. In short,
we don't understand them, and we don't understand the problem
from their perspective. And so this first sub-point in
understanding is having and promoting a learning spirit and a listening
heart. The second sub-point of understanding is trying to discover
what interests and perceptions are driving the other side. Frequently
suspicions kick in. How come he's so different all
of a sudden? I don't trust him. I'm not sure what's going on
there, but I don't trust him. Why is he so suddenly cooperative? What's up his sleeve? Since the
Judahites had gone along with the Absalom rebellion, They are
legitimately concerned about whether David will treat them
like enemies. Perhaps after they are so-called reconciled, he's
going to whack off their heads. You know, what's going on? So
David's invitation and his welcome reassures them. David, on his
part, is worried that if they've rebelled against him before,
maybe they're going to rebel after he gets into Jerusalem.
Maybe they will take his head. So he's sure not going to do
go over the Jordan River until he hears from them either. Now,
there's another interest that's mutual, and that is that neither
side was really thrilled with the idea of Israel being split
into two countries, which looked like it could potentially happen.
And so there are shared interests that could be useful to understand. Now, let's take this out of the
area of theory and into the area of common everyday life. Your
son asks you if he can borrow the car for the afternoon. You
say, no. And he leaves the room and that's
the end of the conversation. You might think, we're not an
arguing family, but there may be hidden conflict going on within
his heart because he is so frustrated that he's going to completely
miss out on the sale of Macintosh computers. Now, you know this
is a fictitious story, because Macs are never on sale. But if
both parties were trying to look at the interests of the other
party, it could help to resolve the questions. The dad's interest
is, yeah, it's my day off, but I'm on call, and I don't want
to miss out on a call from a client. The son's interest is, If I don't
get to that store, I'm going to miss the $500 discount. Yeah, right. But anyway, if either
one, the son or the dad, had asked just a couple of questions,
they would have realized, oh, there's some significant interest
here. Maybe we can work out some strategy. The dad, you know,
if he said, why do you need the car? Well, I need it because
I will save $500 if I get it today. He says, well, I could
drop you off at the mall And then I may not be able to pick
you up right away, but at my convenience I'll pick you up."
And both sides could have their interests settled. Now, I know
it's a silly illustration, but It's kind of the same thing that
really happens in many areas of life. Many times the conflicts
come in the first place because we're not listening. We don't
have listening hearts to what's going on. What are the pains?
What are the fears? What are the things that are going on
in the other person's heart? David was trying to avoid that. Okay, the third sub-point in
understanding is reminding each other of shared values. The Judahites
were suspicious of David and he tells them in verse 12, you
are my brethren. You are my bone and my flesh.
Why then are you the last to bring back the king? Now in that
statement, he's appealing to both shared values and relationship. OK. When conflict occurs those
things can be completely forgotten because where is our focus? All
we can think about is the bitterness of that problem. OK. Frequently
in divorces people don't consider shared values such as loss of
finances. loss of house, children, lifestyle,
reputation, emotional damage, the synergy of their efforts
together as opposed to being apart, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera, okay? When mediators focus on what
both sides value jointly, many times it can help to give perspective
and help both parties to realize, hey, maybe divorce is not such
a great idea after all. The fifth process item in conflict
resolution is a willingness to take risks in reaching out to
the other person. So, in avoiding a divorce, It
could be the risk of getting hurt all over again. In coming
back to a church after there has been discipline, it could
be the risk of people thinking poorly of us. Now, we think,
well, who would think poorly of a person who's coming back
after discipline? But those are the kinds of things
that go through people's minds. And there is always some risk
of blowback when you are the first to reach out in reconciliation. Well, David took a huge risk
in verse 13 in order to show his goodwill. David instructed
Zadok and Abiathar, and say to Amasa, are you not my bone and
my flesh? God do so to me and more also
if you are not commander of the army before me continually in
the place of Joab. He's giving an ironclad promise
and in doing so he is killing several birds with one stone. He's convincing these leaders. He has no intention of going
back on his word. He is committed all the way.
Let me go through the things that he is doing. First
of all, he was burning his bridges. Very, very helpful. He's burning
his bridges. Second, with one of their own leading David's
army, it ensured against David becoming vindictive against them.
Okay, one of their own is leading the army. How could he be indicative?
Third, it put David in a valuable place in two ways. It put him
in a vulnerable place by taking a stand against Joab, who was
an incredibly powerful man, and it put him in a vulnerable place
by saying, look, I welcome your leading general to work hand
in hand with him. That's a huge risk. Fourth, it
showed that David held no grudges. In fact, it would give credence
to the claim that Absalom's propaganda was just filled with lies. Fifth,
David was showing what he had in common with Amazah. They were
relatives, after all. Sixth, it built a bridge to the
leaders by valuing their top leader. Seventh, it showed unconditional
acceptance. Now David didn't have to agree
with Amasa or what they had done to him in order to accept them. In fact, it would be rather hypocritical
for him to say that's what the whole war was about, right? There
was disagreement over this. So he didn't have to agree with
him to say, look, I will accept you. And then lastly, it was
a powerful statement that David did not approve of Joab's killing
of Absalom. But taking this step is very
risky. Reconciliation always involves
some risks. And if you're only willing to
be reconciled if there is no risk in it for you, you're barking
up a wrong tree. It's not biblical reconciliation
that you're talking about. You're talking about fairy tale
reconciliation. There's always risk that is involved.
Then, verse 14 shows that reconciliation is not simply an administrative
issue, it is a heart issue. Until David won the heart of
these leaders, there would not be lasting reconciliation. So
verse 14 says, So he swayed the hearts of all the men of Judah,
just as the heart of one man, so that they sent this word to
the king, return you and all your servants. Now David could
have fought his way back into kingship, but he wouldn't have
their hearts, would he? He could have bullied his way
back into leadership, but would they ever trust him again? Probably
not. You see, without the hearts of
these leaders, it would not be full biblical reconciliation. To show how powerfully this principle
works, just think of the 10 northern
tribes. Commentators say they almost instantly accepted an
administratively convenient, very easy reconciliation and
they fell out of that reconciliation just as easily at the end of
this chapter. For them, it was just an administrative
thing that could be broken off. On the other hand, though the
Judahites were the slowest and the most reluctant to take back
David, because David had gone through a fuller process of winning
their hearts, they stuck with David even when civil war broke
out once again. I know of a company that Randolph
Lowry claims had treated an employee very, very badly. And he was
called in, he's an attorney, he was called in to be helping
the attorneys to try to settle this. It was a court case, the
man had sued the company in court. And one day when Lowry was talking
with the president of the company, the president confided in him
that he felt terrible at how badly their company had treated
this employee. And he said, well, what are you
fighting it in court for? He said, have you told the employee
that you feel badly about this? He says, oh, no, I've been advised
that would be terrible for the lawsuit. That would come back
to bite us. And he said, well, you've got
to do the right thing. And so he did. He told the guy, look,
we want to make this right. I feel terribly about how badly
we treated you. And almost immediately, this
man was willing to settle out of court for far, far less than
he was suing for. When he saw that they were digging
in their heels, he wanted to punish that company. That's why
he was suing for so much. Now that this apology came, he
just wanted fair treatment. The owner had won his heart just
as David had won these Judahite hearts. And so it really is an
important principle. The seventh process item was
that action needed to follow agreement. When a person asks
for forgiveness, but he doesn't follow through on the specific
actions to change bad behavior, he won't be taken too seriously.
And these people were aggressive in showing these actions of reconciliation. And there's five steps that were
taken. Verse 14 shows their verbal response to David's words was
a very enthusiastic response. so that they sent this word to
the king, return you and all your servants. Reconciliation
was now something mutually agreed to, but the first action was
a verbal action. The kind of words that we speak
can either short circuit or they can reinforce reconciliation.
Next, there was physical reunion, verse 15. Then the king returned
and came to the Jordan, and Judah came to Gilgal to go to meet
the king to escort the king across the Jordan. Now if people say
that they forgive and that they have been reconciled, but they
refuse to be around each other, they're misusing the term forgiveness
and they're misusing the term reconciliation. Reconciliation
involves physical presence. It involves reunion. You're willing
to be around each other. So both sides went to meet each
other. Third, they gave repentance where
necessary. Verse 16, and Shimei, remember
the horrible, horrible treatment that Shimei gave to David. He
was cursing David, throwing stones at David earlier. It says, and
Shimei, the son of Gerah, Benjamite, who was from Bahurim, hurried
and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. And
verses 18 through 23 amplify the story, show him crossing
the river and with wet clothes, falling down prostrate before
David. He was a humbled man. If you
read verses 19 and 20, I mean, you see, this is a humble, thoroughgoing
repentance. But he illustrates the importance
of repentance and the process of reconciliation. Now, the question
could come up, is he the only one who repented or were there
a whole bunch of others? And this is just one sample repentance. We aren't told, but at least
repentance is a part of the process. And then the repentance needs
to be such that it's obvious to all. Verse 17 shows that Shimei
was not ashamed to bring everyone he knew to witness this repentance. It says there were a thousand
men of Benjamin with him. Shame keeps some people from
making their repentance and their reconciliation publicly known
matter. And it's really too bad when
people are ashamed to make their repentance public because it
doesn't model good repentance to others. It doesn't show humility.
It gives no accountability to a person if he starts to break
the peace once again. It's really much better when
people are open about it like Shimei was. So hard as it is,
it's a wonderful step. And then in verses 17 through
18, they serve one another. There were a thousand men of
Benjamin with him, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul,
and his fifteen sons, and his twenty servants with him. And
they went over the Jordan before the king. So they're not just
waiting on the west side of the river. No, they're eagerly crossing
the river, which is inconvenient, to bring the king and his family
and help his men to cross. Verse 18. Then a ferry boat went
across to carry over the king's household and to do what he thought
good. Now Shimei, the son of Gerah, fell down before the king
when he had crossed the Jordan. We'll deal with Shimei next week. But here I just want you to notice
the enthusiasm with which they welcome David back. They make
him and his family comfortable. They seek to serve. And the point
is that action speaks a lot louder than words. And many times loving
actions like these can cement a good reconciliation in place.
We have to work much, much harder after a conflict in showing these
actions of love, but they are important. Now there's one last
process issue hinted at in this passage, and we'll actually not
get to the passage itself until next week, but I'll briefly mention
that reconciliation can happen even though not all sin issues
are satisfactorily acknowledged, repented of, or resolved. This is why I titled this sermon
Messy Reconciliation. You know, it's messy. It's just
not perfect. The ideal would be to have absolutely every issue
cleared up. But the mention of Ziba makes
it clear that this reconciliation was not perfect and in real life
it rarely is. Ziba most likely had slandered
Mephibosheth in chapter 15, and David most likely had cheated
Mephibosheth out of his property in that same chapter. Most commentators
believe that when David met both parties in this chapter, he simply
couldn't figure out who's telling the truth, who's lying. Somebody
has to be lying when you look at their stories. And because
of that fact, one of the two of them was going to be getting
a bad deal, and nobody, at least at that point, could figure it
out. And when we get to Mephibosheth's story in verses 24 through 30
on another week, it's really heartbreaking to see how sinners
like Ziba can be so brash, so unashamed in their sins against
others. Personally, I think Ziba slandered
Mephibosheth and that the property should never have gone to him
in the first place. But it's an astonishingly bold sin and
yet he gets away with it. He gets away with it. Now thankfully,
Mephibosheth had a very humble, forgiving, God-centered, gracious
attitude and peace is preserved despite ongoing sin. But I mention
Ziba here because in real life, you simply cannot expect every
issue to be resolved before reconciliation is achieved. Sometimes we just
need to do the best thing, you know, the right thing and just
say, OK, Lord, I'm just going to trust you with the whole thing
of the fact that I've been given a bad deal on this. I have personally
had a number of times where I have had to overlook a major injury
because the other person wouldn't own up to it. just would not
accept it, but being reconciled was more important to me than
being right. So those are the kinds of issues
that should be thought through when you're attempting a reconciliation. There's a couple of more that
aren't listed here, but I was actually amazed at how many of
those reconciliation principles you see in this short historical
passage. Now the last point in your outline
is simply anticipating the future. Just because God's grace is at
work today does not mean that it doesn't have to be at work
again tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that.
The initial stages of reconciliation could be so fragile. They could
be easily sabotaged. And even though I'm not going
to be preaching on the passage today, let me go ahead and read
what happens in chapter 19, verse 40 through chapter 20, verse
2. Now the king went on to Gilgal,
and Chimham went on with him, and all the people of Judah escorted
the king and also half the people of Israel. Just then all the
men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, Why have
our brethren, the men of Judah, stolen you away and brought the
king, his household, and all David's men with him across the
Jordan? So all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, because
the king's a close relative of ours. Why then are you angry
over this matter? Have we ever eaten at the king's
expense or has he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered
the men of Judah and said, we have 10 shares in the king. Boy,
it seems so juvenile, the argument going on here, but we have 10
shares in the king. Therefore, we also have more
right to David than you. Why then do you despise us? Were
we not the first to advise bringing back our king? Yet the words
of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of
Israel. And there happened to be there a rebel whose name was
Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite. And he blew a trumpet and said,
we have no share in David, nor do we have inheritance in the
son of Jesse. Every man to his tent, so Israel.
So every man of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba, the
son of Bichri. But the men of Judah from the
Jordan, as far as Jerusalem, remained loyal to their king."
So the reconciliation of 10 tribes to David is completely blown
apart by a few angry words. Okay, it's so sad. But emotional
words frequently destroy the work of God's grace in His people. As a church, we should pray against
that, and we should work against such tendencies. But let me also
say, don't be too disheartened when they happen. I mean, it's
just part of life, part of life. It's our prayer that such things
would not happen frequently in this church, but human nature
being what it is, rebellion can easily surface in a way that
nobody can deal with. But I thought, wow, that's a
pretty sour note to end a sermon on, so I'm not gonna end right
there. I wanna focus on the wonderful sacrificial actions of love that
the Judahites exhibited toward David. Sometimes we will never
know the degree to which some action of love will break down
old walls. It would have been very easy
for David to hold resentment for things that had happened.
But, you know, David seems to be able to cut that out of his
life and move on. It didn't mean that he forgot
then. But he refused to bring them
to remembrance. Now you understand the difference
between those two, don't you? Some people mistakenly think
God forgets our sins. That is absolutely false. In fact, I would dare say it
is heretical to say God forgets anything. God is omniscient.
God cannot forget anything. He knows all things. But He refuses
to remember our sins. He refuses to bring our sins
to remembrance. And you say, what's the difference?
There's a huge difference between the two. To forget is a defect
of memory. It's passive. It doesn't take
anything remarkable to forget something. I've had people apologize
to me up and down about some sin that they've committed. I
didn't even remember that they had committed that sin against
me. Nothing remarkably holy about
that. It's just I've got a lousy memory,
okay? But refusing to remember somebody's sins against you,
that's not passive. That is active. It's refusing
to brood on those sins. It's refusing to hold those sins
against them. It's refusing to have grudges.
There's a vast difference between forgetting, which is a defect
of memory, and not remembering, not bringing to remembrance something
against another person. Scripture says God refuses to
remember or bring to remembrance Isaiah 43, verse 24, Jeremiah
31, verse 34. And in Scripture, remembering
our sins against us, 3 John, verse 10, Psalm 25, 7, Psalm
79, 8, there's a number of passages like that. Remembering sins against
you means either you're going to be punished or you're going
to be held accountable for your sins. And God says, hey, when
you've confessed your sins, you've sought reconciliation, I'm not
going to hold you accountable. That's a cool thought. That's
a very cool thought. And when David refused to hold
their bad behavior against them, David was not in any way saying
that their bad behavior was okay or that he would not have a painful
memory of that from time to time. He was going to refuse to brood
on their sins. He was going to refuse to hold
their sins against them to take revenge. That's what forgiveness
is. It's not a passive defective memory. It's an active discipline
of our mind, our emotions and our actions. And it is sacrificial
love that helps to get past that and to grow deeper and deeper
in our relationship. These men are engaging in sacrificial
love for David and David in upcoming chapters is going to be engaging
in sacrificial love toward them. Now, let me and by reading the
testimony of how Randolph Lowry was conquered by the sacrificial
actions of another man. He said, the power of sacrifice
in establishing relationships under the most difficult of circumstances
was made clear to me several years ago. My wife was enduring
a very difficult pregnancy with our first child, one that left
her hospitalized on numerous occasions and confined to bed
for many weeks. That in itself was one act of
loving sacrifice as she took steps to protect the health of
the unborn child. Meanwhile, at the church where
we worshiped was a man with whom I disagreed about almost everything.
We were from different church backgrounds. We were from different
parts of the county. We had vastly different life
and religious experiences, all of which led us to polite tolerance,
but certainly not close friendship. One day, late in the afternoon,
there was a knock on our door. It was Larry. With a full dinner,
he had spent the afternoon cooking especially for us. The awkwardness
of accepting the gift was only exceeded by the generosity of
his spirit. His act of love caused me to
change forever my view of him and establish what will always
be, from my perspective, a Christian bond. Such a bond came not from
our agreement on religious issues or common experiences in life,
but rather from his sacrifice, that kind of sacrifice that leads
to relationship. God so loved the world and God
so loved and alienated people that he did what? He gave his
only begotten son. He gave sacrificially. May we too give sacrificially
by pursuing these steps of reconciliation with those from whom we have
been alienated. Amen. Father God, we thank you
for your word and that it is a paradigm for life. Help us
to live it out. even if it's imperfectly, help
us to live it out. Help us to be committed to the
things you are committed to and to pursue the kind of reconciliation
that your whole redemptive purpose in history has revolved around. And may we be ambassadors, urging
people to be reconciled to Christ, reconciled to each other. Help
us to be a peacemaking congregation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Messy Reconciliations
Series Life of David
Christ died to reconcile sinners to God and to give the foundation for reconciliation in our human relationships. This sermon shows what frequently goes wrong in attempted reconciliations and specific steps to reconcile in a God-glorifying manner.
| Sermon ID | 9953162022570 |
| Duration | 47:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 2 Samuel 19:9-18 |
| Language | English |
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