KING DAVID (pt. 4)

It’s one thing to bring God’s presence into our city (lives), but it’s another thing entirely to His presence change how we actually behave (live)

It’s easier to judge those who are “all in”, than to get in the street and join the celebration 

True passion requires true humility

What is one “rule of dignity”, you hold onto that keeps you (or others) from being fully present with God?

When might you be watching from the window, being critical and even in disgust because you don’t approve?

“Lord, make me even more undignified for your sake.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the New Beginnings Church podcast from Delaware, Ohio. To learn more about New Beginnings Church, visit us online at Delaware NewBeginnings.com. Today's message is from Pastor David Horse.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Well, good morning again, and uh we're gonna continue through this uh just this time of of a few weeks of just hitting key parts of King David's life. Uh and and if you ever get a chance, go and read it because it's it's a tremendous read, it's a tremendous study. Uh there were things I've been reading in between that I went, I forgot about that. That would have been good to put in there. Uh so, but that gives me more material for another time that works. But we're talking about and looking and seeing how God uses mess and faithfulness in David's life, and then we're seeing in how God could also use our mess and our faithfulness as well. If you knew my dad, you would know that he was a pretty fun guy. He was he he always liked to have fun, he would laugh. Um, but at least from what I recall, he wasn't wasn't one that needed to be the center of life, right? He didn't need to be the center of the party. He didn't have to stand out in the crowd. At least that's what I always observed and I remembered. But that was until Tracy and I's wedding. Now my mom's gonna laugh because she remembers this quite well. Uh, and and most of us have been to a wedding reception where there is that one person who dances without a care in the world. Whether they have liquid courage or not, they just go all out. And if you've been to any kind of wedding reception, a lot of people stayed in the chairs. They were spectators, and then there were some out on the floor and they were dancing, whether it was a fast dance or a slow dance, but there's always that one person that you're going, dear Lord, help us. Because I don't know how this is gonna turn out. Either people are gonna run or somebody's gonna break a leg, literally. That was my dad. My dad was that person at our wedding when the oldies music came on. He just transported back to the 50s and 60s. You guys know what I'm talking about? And just had some fun. And he was enjoying, he was celebrating the moment. He he was just having a joyous time, and and and I think people enjoyed watching them. I think some cringed. If you ever saw me dance, you'd cringe too. Uh, maybe, maybe they laughed, but dad didn't care because he was in a moment. He was celebrating his son and his new daughter. He never saw her as a daughter-in-law. She became part of the family, she became part of the household. And so today, I hope, I hope through this story of David, I hope we see why losing our dignity is actually a good thing. It's a heart thing. Our image we project can look differently than a consecrated, dedicated heart to God. That was something I added in the last two days, so it's not on your screen. So I want you to hear that again. Our image we project can look differently than a consecrated, dedicated heart to God. In other words, people can tell who we are just by how we talk and how we act and how we how we whatever we do in life. And we're going to talk about that with David here, but before we get there, I've got to give you a little bit of past here because we've got some missing pieces leading up to this time of David. And this is what I'm calling the traveling ark. So even before Saul was king, the Israelites were in a war with Philistine, with the Philistines again. That's a theme throughout uh this time frame. And the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant. Okay? That's in 1 Samuel 4. In 1 Samuel 5, the Philistines moved the ark to three different places because every place it went to, it caused some kind of famine and plague and death. It was, uh we've all seen like Indiana Jones, right? You you don't touch the ark, you don't mess with the ark because bad things happen. And so they keep moving it from place to place to place. And then in 1 Samuel 6 and 7, they finally say this, this is David's translation. You guys can have it. You can have it. Take it back, and they they move it to Israelite city. Uh the first one was Beth Shemesh, which even there 70 people died from it. And then they moved it to another town, Kirieth Jerem, to the house of Abinadab, where it remained for 20 years. And in those 20 years, this is where it's part of this is where they said, Hey, guess what? Guess what? We need a king. We need a king. We we talked about that with David being anointed, that Saul, they wanted a king, so Saul was anointed, Saul became king. In these 20 years, that happened. David was anointed. We had David and Goliath that we talked about uh a few weeks ago, and then um Saul running after them, and then the cave, the cave that we had last week. Now we're to a point where Saul has died, and David has become king, and David wants to bring that ark back home. He wants to bring that ark back to Jerusalem. And so now we're in 2 Samuel chapter 6, is where we're gonna be looking at today. Uh, and the first part of Samuel chapter 6 is the first attempt of David bringing that cart back home, or I'm sorry, that ark back home. And if you know any of the law, the Levites had to carry the ark. So they had these poles that went in, they had to carry the ark, and then you couldn't touch the ark, or your face will melt off like in Indiana Jones. No, you'll just you'll just die. Uh, and and and so David he says, let's bring that back. And they they already have this, if you will, issues of disobedience because they use a cart and they use some oxen and and they're moving it. All right, Abinadab's sons are moving it, and with this cart, something happens, it gets shifted, and the ark's gonna fall. And Uzzah, one of the sons, you ever had something that's about to fall? What do you do? You know what happened to him? He died because this was a camp command of God. This is you don't touch the ark, you don't touch the ark. He wouldn't have had to touch the ark if they would have used the poles and the Levites, just like he was told. This is one of those things where my dad would say, See what I told you, son? I told you to do it, right? I say that to Christian all the time. Hi, Christian. He just walked in. Hi, Christian, all the time. This is the you should have done it this way. So now we have another delay. This angered David, this terrified David, and so he halts his procession, and the ark was taken to the house of Obed-Edom, where it will remain for three more months. Now, if you go to another book in the Old Testament, 1 Chronicles chapter 15, it talks about this. And at the at at this place of Obed-Edom, where it was for three months, it brought blessings to this family. And this prompted David to try again. Only this time, we're gonna do it the right way. We're gonna do it the right way. And so now this brings us to where we are in 2 Samuel chapter 6, where there's just gonna be this collision, if you will, between reputation and revelation, if you will. Reputation, the image of his rep of a reputation, okay, or the image of a revelation of who David worships. It's the revelation of the image that that David has that he pours out before the Lord. Friends, it's one thing to bring God's presence into our cities or to invite God's presence into our lives when we believe in Jesus. It's another thing entirely for his presence, you know, for his presence to change how we actually behave and live. And we're gonna see this because the presence of God is literally coming into Jerusalem, and we're gonna see people act one way, and we're gonna talk about a specific person that acts a whole nother way. But for David, for David, this is a moment where he shows that he has an audience of one. With the whole kingdom, I'm presuming here, with everybody here, all of Jerusalem here. David has an audience of one. He could care less what other people think about around him, and we're gonna see that. And so he has a time of sacrifice and worship to the one God, the God of Israel, not caring about what the people think. 2 Samuel 6, verse 12 to 15 are the first few verses we're gonna read. This this morning I'm reading now the NIV version. They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David sacrificed, am I in the right one? Yeah. No. Where am I at? I'm sorry. I'm over like in verse 16 here. Rewind, reset. Now King David was told, this is where you're gonna hear about uh him wanting to bring the ark back. The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has because of the ark of God. So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. How? With rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord, they carried it, they did it the right way, had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sounds of trumpets. See that that last part? Shouts and the sounds of trumpet. Who brought it up? All he, David, and all of Israel. So we have this over-the-top procession because the Ark of the Covenant means something to them. This is the presence of God. And it's back home where it belongs. Definitely over the top. This procession, this this parade that's happening. I remember, I remember in the smaller towns, I think some of the bigger cities did it, but when people would come back from combat or war, there would be a celebration. You could see all the old pictures from uh the different world wars, people would come back and the town would celebrate the coming back of a son. And even today, a son and a daughter, this is it. This is the celebration, a righteous reason. David sees this celebration as a righteous reason because he's celebrating God's faithfulness to Israel. He's celebrating God's faithfulness, his presence back in Israel. And even if you think about it, this is about atonement and forgiveness. They they they they messed up bringing it back the first time. I mean, they lost it even before David, and yet God still allowed it to come back. So this is atonement, this is forgiveness. And there was this grand sacrifice before the Lord and all the people and the dance. We'll just call it the dance. How did he dance with all his might? Any of you ever dance with all your all your might? Some of us shouldn't dance with all of our might anymore. It hurt too much. But the the piece that I want us to remember is what he's wearing, this linen ephod, this like priestly garment. It wasn't like his big kingly outfit. He's just wearing cloth, basically. And where was he? He was in the midst of the people. Most of the times, where are the kings at? Looking down from their perch positions where they're safe and they don't have to be around the common folk. But David, the symbolism, this this, even literally, he set aside his royalty and humbled himself before God for all to see. It seems like we have a social norm here in the West in the United States on how we worship. We have the high church traditional, right? Reading, song, up, down, kneel, reading, song, up, down. I grew up in that church, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. And then there's more the laid back, where we are more of a contemporary, or intermixed with some of our traditional loves that we have with the church. And then you have the charismatic, where they do dance with all their might in church. I don't want to pull a muscle, that's why I don't dance. But we have this social norm where we we go, what are they doing? That's boring. I don't like that. Here's what I notice. When I stopped worrying about my own sacrifices or the way I do things, when I stop thinking about how I am worshiping, then I start wondering about everybody else. And I think we do that. When we're not focused on ourselves and God, our own sacrifice of worship, our own sacrifice of praise, then we become worried on how everybody else is doing it. That's where we fall into danger. The danger of a window. The danger of a window. Listen to verse 16 here. As the ark of the Lord was entering the city of David, Michael, daughter of Saul, watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was happy. No, she despised him in her heart. The danger of a window. The danger of us thinking we have it all right. This is his wife. This is who he was able to marry because he beat Goliath. He was promised a different daughter, and Saul went back on that. I mean, but this was still his first wife. She despised him for how he worshiped the God of Israel. Friends, worship should be part of our everyday life with our words, with our actions, even how we shop, how we fill up our tank of gas, how we walk our dogs, how we get up in the morning, how we go to bed at night. It is to be a worship to our Lord. But sometimes we can be tempted to be like Michael and be the spectator. In other words, to not participate in the worship because we keep it for Sunday mornings. That's my worship time, 10:30 to 11:30. Maybe 11:45 if David goes too long. Right? To be the spectator, not participate in worship. Or even some of us will take that next step to judge it, to judge how others are worshiping the Lord. We don't raise hands here. Huh, what? Sometimes that happens. Sometimes uh we we get this this judging piece. There was this lady at Grace Church that I served at for a couple years. And and at least once or twice a month, she would get, she would always say it was a prompting of the Spirit. And in the middle of a worship song, sometimes she would just kneel and worship kneeling. Sometimes in the middle of a sermon, she would go up to the kneeling rail and just start praying. Had a discussion with her. There were some people bothered by it. I wasn't bothered by it. In fact, I was like, this is neat. Someone's praying while I'm preaching. Um and she's and I asked her, I said, you know, I'm just curious. What what prompts you to do that? And she said, The Holy Spirit. I just feel like at that time that I need to either get on my knees, whether it's at my chair or at the kneeling rail, because either something was said or something's going to be said that somebody's gonna hear, and she'd say, Maybe it was me, but they're gonna need prayer because it's gonna be tough to hear. And it was just a beautiful, beautiful thing. But we spectate and we judge, and we we do this in different ways. I mean, we do this, uh, I don't know how many of you watch reality TV. I do not. I have a family, that's my reality TV. Um, but some people watch The Voice, some people watch uh American Idol. What do you do? You watch, you spectate, right? And you judge. You vote yes or no. Do I like them the best? Do I well, you know, whatever it is. And sometimes that can bleed into our spiritual lives because we're so busy making choices and judging other people and different things in our life that we want to voice our opinions about how somebody's worshiping or how worship is, instead of participating in the activity of worship. I can't remember if I told you this story before. Uh, don't stop me because I'm gonna tell you anyways. Um, Francis Chan at one time he told a story that after a service a lady came up to him and said, Pastor Chan, I didn't like worship today. And he said, That's okay, we weren't worshiping you. Now that sounds like it stings a little bit, doesn't it? But how much truth is in that? How much truth is in that? I come here hoping that you gain one little nugget of a sermon. I hope you come here on Sunday that that you feel the presence and you're in the midst of the presence of God when when the worship team's leading, when we're in prayer, when we're in back fellowshipping, when we're when we're driving off and and going to Bob Evans or wherever we go. I I hope that worship continues out the door and down the road when we hit the point and everybody's stuck and you go, mmm. Amen? I have no idea where I'm at. It's here's my point. It's easier to judge those who are all in when it comes to worship, when it when it comes to how we live out our faith. It's easy to judge people than actually get into the street and join the celebration. Oh, that guy's just dancing. I don't want that. You don't have to dance, just be there with him. David chooses uh sacrifice of his image over self-consciousness in his worship and his life. Sacrifice over self-consciousness. He chooses to dance, to get in with the people, to not feel like he's so high up that he wasn't one of those people, to not forget that at one time he was a shepherd, that God had called and anointed to be king. Let's uh continue verses 17 to 19 here. They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. Remember, there's no temple yet. So we have the tent of meetings. You know, there's this place where they place the ark. Uh, and so they they have this tent pitched for it, and David sacrificed again burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates, a cake of raisins to each person and the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. So not just he didn't care, it wasn't just for one family, it was for whoever was there. And all the people went to their homes. Worship costs. Our worship costs some. Our sacrifices. Whatever we're given to the Lord, that's worship. Our time, what it's what we give to the Lord and worship, our treasures, our talents, we give it to the Lord and worship. David was given all this back to God, and he was giving it to the people. It cost him even what we're gonna see relationally with Michael, but it also is another thing, change in his heart, a heart after God. And so David provided this sacrifice, he provided food for the people. It's all a king should be doing, but he did it in worship and he blessed people. The work as a follower of Jesus is to bless people in the name of Jesus, not in the name of our church. That's that's our mission is to go and bless people in the name of Jesus. It's great that we do it for from new beginnings, but if no If nobody ever noticed that it was us, would it matter? It shouldn't. So we sacrifice our time, our talents, and our treasures as an act of worship and obedience to our Lord, and that costs something. And that cost, the cost shouldn't be done, shouldn't come with an empty heart. Right? Our hearts are full. God fills us, He gives us what we need in order to do. And there is pain. There is pain when it comes to the sacrifices. The cost should not come with an empty heart, but after the cost, we should go home with an empty heart, waiting for God to fill it back up again. That's the price of passion. That's the price of passion that we have. Passion, when we're passionate about something, if you're passionate about something, do you just go, oh, that's cool? Or do you empty yourself out into it? If we're passionate about our family, we empty ourselves out to our family. If we're passionate about our job, we empty all we can in order for that job to be fulfilled well. The price of passion. When David returned home to bless his household, passion, the price of passion. Now he's blessed the people. Now he's going home to bless his household. Michael, daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and said, How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants, as any vulgar fellow would. Well, good morning to you too. Sorry. David said to Michael, It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father, or anyone from his house. This this hurts a little bit. This probably hurts Michael a little bit. Because Saul, when he died, his three sons died, and so his line died, which made the opening for David to be king, even though David was always already anointed. But this might sting Michael a little bit. He says, the Lord chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler of the Lord's people, Israel. I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor. Well, he's saying this, I went to their level. I was with them, and they didn't see this as undignified. They see me as me, loving the Lord. And they're gonna hold me in honor from that. Not contempt, if you will, like she's doing. Michael didn't see humility or worship with David. She saw what she didn't like. She saw what she didn't think as normal or kingly, what a king should do. And we can say that Michael, uh, she she represents the inner critic within us, whose values are proper behavior over passionate devotion. And I think sometimes in the New Testament we can see that with the Pharisees. Proper behavior over passionate devotion. But David's response to his wife, to the ark coming back, is in rhythm of holy living, because he would rather be a fool for God than a king for men. His first and only priority in life was to worship God, to become more undignified, to be humiliated to himself and to the people, not because he was a bad leader, but because he was the right leader. Because what he understood is this is that true passion requires true humility to take who we think we want to be, the image that we want to bear, and put on the image that Christ has made us in. His own image. Our image we project can look differently than a consecrated, dedicated heart to God. We live in a Michael-like culture that rewards polished, rewards the poised and the professional. Now, I I don't want you to hear that we can just be sloppy because I believe God likes excellence. In the sense that just do the best you can. Otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen a shepherd. Otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen many people within the Bible. God is looking for a dancing heart. God is looking for a passionate heart, a heart that's after his own. Jesus is wanting a dancing heart. He wants an intimate, passionate, life-changing relationship with you. And we can't do that. We can't do that if we're only gonna give him an hour of our week. We can't give him our whole selves if we say, for an hour I'm gonna do this, and the rest of the week I'm gonna go do this because I can come back. That's not the relationship Jesus is looking for. And he proved that by going on the cross for you. He proved that by saying, I'm gonna take the sin of the whole world and I'm gonna place them on my shoulders. And then I'm gonna show the world how much I love them because I'm gonna raise from the dead and I'm gonna give them my spirit to help guide and to nurture them, to grow them, to grow their hearts. See, Jesus in Matthew 6 says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so if Jesus is our treasure, if Jesus is our true love, if Jesus is our priority, then our heart needs to be there as well. So let's reflect a moment. What is one rule of dignity? What is what is one uh thing that's holding you up on the balcony in the window looking down that keeps you or might even keep others from being fully present with the Lord? Whether that's in church or out of church, but what is something that you hold on to that you're going, it's gotta be this way, and it's actually holding you back from deepening your relationship with Jesus. When might you be watching from the window, being critical, maybe even in disgust, because it's something that you don't approve. Those questions were hard for me to sit on this week because God convicted in my heart that there are still things that I say, why are they doing that? David's worship was held in great regard for the Lord, but he was met with a critique of his clothes and his dedication to God. Let's not fear looking foolish in our missions, in our worship, and how we go out and live our lives. Let's not live, let's not let the fear of looking foolish rob us of the blessing of living a life of worship for the Lord. Maybe, just maybe, our prayer should be this this week. Lord, make me even more undignified for your sake.

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Thanks for listening to the New Beginnings Church Podcast. For all our messages, sermon notes, and the latest updates, visit Delaware New Beginnings.com. We'll see you next week.