Faithfulness and Failure
2 Samuel 23
Back in the 1980s, people spent thousands of dollars to own the latest trend in household pets – pot-bellied pigs. They were imported from Vietnam. Breeders claimed that these mini-pigs were quite smart and would grow to only 40 lbs. They were half right. They were, and are, very, very smart. Traditional pig breeds are too – about as smart as the smartest breeds of dogs. But while they’re much smaller than their 600-700 lb. more traditional counterparts, they have a tendency to grow to closer to 150 lbs. and, like all pigs, they tend to become more aggressive as they age. We had a pot-bellied pig on our farm for a while.
So what do people do with an unwanted pot-bellied pig they have discovered is, because it’s a pig, much more comfortable living outside, and will root up your carpet if kept in the house? Well, yes, they can eat it, but once it’s a pet the chances of that happening are pretty small, even for farmers. For many people back in the 80s when the pot-bellied pig fad was going strong, Dale Riffle came to the rescue. Someone had given him one of these pigs, and he fell in love with it. The pig, Rufus, never learned to use its litter box and enjoyed ripping up carpets and wallpaper and putting holes in drywall. But he wasn’t being bad. He was just being a pig. So Riffle sold his suburban home and moved with Rufus to a give-acre farm in West Virginia. He started taking in other unwanted pigs, and before long, he was living in hog heaven.
He died back in 2014, but at one point there were 180 no-longer-wanted pot-bellied pigs living on his farm. According to an article in U.S. News and World Report, they slept on beds of pine shavings, wallowed in mud puddles, soaked in plastic swimming pools, and listened to piped-in classical music. And they never had to fear that one day they’d become bacon or pork chops. There was actually a waiting list of unwanted pigs trying to get a hoof in the door at Riffle’s farm.
Dale Riffle told the reporter, “We’re all put on earth for some reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life.” How could anyone in their right mind fall in love with pigs? To be fair, people do. They are quite smart and curious and if you can get past the damage they do by being smart and curious, and the mud they make to stay cool in the warmer months, they really can be endearing. But let’s be honest – far more people are in love with pigs on their plate in the form of bacon than in the living room or out in the barn making a mess of things.
As amazing as Dale Riffle’s love of pot-bellied pigs may seem to us, we encounter something even more amazing every day and we pay no attention to it. The infinite, perfectly holy, majestic, awesome God of the universe is passionately in love with insignificant, messy, sometimes openly rebellious, frequently indifferent people. God loves people like you and me. And instead of throwing us away when we made, and make, a mess of things, he wades into the mess, forgiving our sin and cleaning us up and holding us close. Oh, he doesn’t ignore or overlook the mess. No, in Jesus he cleans it, and us, up.
We’ve spent this summer walking together through the life of David in the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel. David was Israel’s shepherd-poet-warrior king, and he’s perhaps the single most significant person to appear in the pages of Scripture outside of Jesus himself. Over the past couple of months we’ve seen David at his highest and best, and at his lowest and worse. You see, like you and I, David was a real mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we’ve seen it all.
We’ve seen him at his best – defeating Goliath, befriending Jonathan, writing poetry and music, and refusing to harm Saul, Israel’s king at the time, even though God had anointed David the next king of Israel. And we’ve seen him at his worst, giving in to lust, committing adultery and then murder, and ignoring the challenges of his children. Today, as we close this series of sermons on David’s life, we find him, near the end of his life, looking back over his life. The words we’re looking at today are called David’s “last words.” Certainly not the last words he ever uttered, but his last public statement as king over Israel. What does he see, as he looks back over his life? Turn with me to 2 Samuel 23:1-7.
The first thing David notices is the grace of God’s call on his life. Look closely at V. 1. David, looking back over his life, sees himself – before he met a prophet named Samuel who anointed him king; before he became a minstrel in Saul’s court; before Goliath; before being given command of Saul’s army; before his ascension to the throne – and he sees himself out in the wilderness near Bethlehem, taking care of his father’s sheep.
When David’s father Jesse’s sons were summoned to appear before the prophet Samuel, David was left out – either forgotten or ignored. It wasn’t until all of Jesse’s sons had appeared before Samuel and rejected as Israel’s next king; it wasn’t until Samuel had to ask Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” (1 Sam. 16:11) that they remembered David at all. “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” Youngest sons don’t become kings. Certainly not the youngest of eight sons. Princes don’t spend their time in the wilderness keeping sheep. Not in this world, anyway.
But God’s kingdom doesn’t work the way this world works. Sin flipped everything about this world upside down. Sin flipped everything about us upside down too. And that upside downness feels normal. It’s all we’ve ever known. So when we place our faith in Jesus and become citizens of God’s kingdom, and God flips us right side up again, the people around us don’t get it and this world’s systems don’t know what to do with us, because we see things differently, we think differently, we value things differently than this world does.
God’s word, spoken quietly into the heart of Samuel the prophet as he sought Israel’s next king among Jesse’s sons, bring this point powerfully home. David was still out with the sheep, forgotten or ignored. It was Jesse’s oldest son Eliab standing before Samuel – tall, strong, attractive, dynamic, the kind of person who stands out in a crowd and draws people to himself – when God whispered to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
Don’t look at their physical appearance, their good looks or their beauty. Don’t look at their winsome, dynamic personality. Don’t look at their wealth. Don’t look at their power in the community. Are these things bad? No! Do they mean that someone possessing them is rejected by God? No! But while they’re so often the only thing this world sees, God simply ignores them and looks deeper, at your heart. The things we value in this world and the things of value in God’s kingdom are diametrically opposed.
When Samuel informed Saul that God had rejected him as king, he said, “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). And then, in the New Testament, St. Paul, in one of his first recorded sermons said, “And when he had removed him (Saul), he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will’” (Acts 13:22). Someone who has a heart after God’s heart is someone who longs to follow God.
David looks back at himself in his youth, tending his father’s sheep, with absolutely nothing on his resume that would lead anyone to think he would be a great warrior and king, and sits in amazement at the grace of God calling him into something that was so much bigger than he was.
That’s what God does. He calls us into something bigger than ourselves, no matter how big or small we THINK we are. He calls us into his plan and purpose. David achieved a great level of success in this world’s eyes. He became king. There’s no title greater from our human perspective. But God calls all of us into his plan and purpose as his children. When David looks back over his life, he’s sees God’s gracious call: “Come. Follow me.” He will probably not make you king. But the call to you and I is the same: “Come. Follow me.”
The second thing David notices is the grace of God’s purpose for his life. Look at Vv. 2-4. David had an awareness that God was at work in his life. Not just in orchestrating this dramatic rise from forgotten and ignored shepherd to king, but in the day to day details of his life. He knew that in his case, when he wrote poetry and music, God was speaking through him. And he knew that when God promised to establish David’s throne in Israel forever through Jesus, the coming Messiah, that God would deliver on that promise, even though he would never live to see it.
He didn’t have the fully fleshed out understanding of a Messiah as we have today, knowing how the story continued. He only saw his little part in God’s great plan, and he knew that it involved, in some way, one who would rule over God’s people perfectly, who would be like the light of day to them, and like a refreshing rain for this world. He had no idea of the immensity of God’s plan of salvation or the role he would play in it. He knew only that God had a purpose for him and for his family and that God would be faithful to fulfill that purpose.
Do you realize that God has a purpose for you? And that you will likely never fully understand it? You are here to do far more than make money. You are here to enjoy being loved by God, and to play a role in what God is doing in this world.
Edward Kimball was a young Sunday School teacher in Boston in 1858. He made it a habit to personally give each student in his class an opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior. He was concerned about one of his students who worked in a shoe store. One day, Kimball visited the young man at the store where he found him in the back stocking shelves, and led him to Christ. That student was Dwight L. Moody who eventually left the shoe business to become one of the greatest evangelists of all time.
Moody became an international speaker and toured the British Isles. He preached in a little chapel pastored by a young man named Frederic Meyer. In his sermon, he told the story of his Sunday School teacher. That message changed Pastor Meyer’s ministry, inspiring him to become an evangelist like Moody. Meyer eventually preached in America, in Northfield, MA where a young preacher heard him say, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?” That remark led J. Wilbur Chapman to respond to God’s call on his life.
Wilbur Chapman went on to become an effective evangelist. He enlisted the help of a volunteer named Billy Sunday who helped him set up for his crusades. Billy Sunday learned how to preach by watching Chapman and eventually took over Chapman’s ministry, becoming a dynamic evangelist. Billy Sunday’s preaching brought thousands to Christ.
Inspired by a Billy Sunday Crusade in Charlotte, NC, a group of Christian men dedicated themselves to reaching their city for Christ. They invited an evangelist Mordecai Ham to come and hold a series of evangelistic meetings in 1932. A local farmer loaded his pick-up truck with neighbors and brought them to the meetings. One was a 16 year old boy who sat in the crowd each night spellbound by the message. Each evening the preacher seemed to be shouting and waving his finger at the young man. Night after night, the teenager came and finally on the last night, he went forward and gave his life to Christ. That teenager was Billy Graham. Billy Graham communicated the gospel to more people than any other person in history.
You might say to yourself, “I’m just an insurance salesman.” “I just sell appliances.” “I just manage a doctor’s office.” “I’m just a nurse.” “I just teach students with autism.” “I just embroider business logos on shirts and jackets.” “I just …” “I just …” “I just …” But you can’t see the fullness of what God will do through you. You may never see what God is doing through you. But this you can be sure of … if Jesus is your savior and Lord, God is doing more with your life than you can ever imagine.
The third thing David sees is the grace of God’s forgiveness in his life. Look at Vv. 5-7. David knows the truth of Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” He knows the frustration of Romans 7:15, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” He knows that his status as king, and the power and influence and importance in this world’s eyes that he has as king, and his obvious talent, and his wealth do not insulate him from the impact of sin on the human race. And sin impacted him not only through the arrogance of Goliath and the hatred of Saul and the rebellion of his son Absalom. He knew that sin lived in his own heart and he needed God’s grace.
We know that because he brings up his family. He looks at his family, at his son Solomon who would succeed him as king, and Solomon’s gorgeous mother Bathsheba, now one of his wives, and he can’t help but see his own deep, deep sin and failure. He sees himself going passive, no longer actively engaged in life, and in his passivity giving in to his lust and misusing his power over people to take a woman he wanted and then having her husband, one of his own bodyguards, killed in a desperate attempt to cover it up. He hears the words of Nathan the prophet, “You are the man!” ringing through his throne room as he had unwittingly condemned his own sin.
He hears the words of forgiveness too. “The LORD has put away your sin.” But he knew he would reap what he had sown. His son Amnon’s rape of his half-sister, David’s daughter Tamar. His son Absalom’s open rebellion that caused him to flee Jerusalem for a time. His incompetence as a parent, so often falling short. Bringing calamity on all of Israel through his pride and arrogance. How could he rule Israel if his own house was such a mess. And yet, both were true. Sin and grace. Deep sin, deeper grace. David’s failure had an impact on his own life and on those around him. But God’s grace was deeper still, and God’s promises to David were not abandoned. God did not go back on his word. God was, and is faithful, even when David wasn’t.
It’s easy to see our failures. It’s hard to admit that they’re sin, and that they separate us from God. But that is exactly what they are, and what they do. We spend so much time building a façade of competence and assurance around ourselves that sometimes, we start to believe our own hype. We think we’ve got it all together, but beneath the façade, the rot is there and we know it.
There is no follower of Jesus who hasn’t fallen flat on their faces. The question is, when you become aware of it, what do you do with it? David repented. It took him a remarkably long time to realize fully what he had done, but when he did, he repented. His sin broke his own heart, and he repented. He sought forgiveness. No rationalizing. No excuses. Just, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Had he sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba too? That was never in doubt. But he also knew that his failures, his shortcomings, weren’t just being human. They were sin. Not only did they offend people, they offended God.
The heart after God’s own heart is willing to call it sin, confessing, repenting, and receiving forgiveness. That’s what made David different than his predecessor. That’s the heart we need to cultivate in ourselves. Are we willing to repent and seek forgiveness?
As David looked back over his life, he saw a life marked by grace. He had done some great things. He’d overcome Israel’s enemies in a way no leader before him had been able to do. He’d faced down and defeated Goliath. He’d taken Jerusalem and made it not just his political capitol but also Israel’s religious capitol when he moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. But that isn’t what he saw when he looked back over his life. When he looked back, what he saw was God’s grace. David’s life was a life marked by grace.
And then he died. Flip over just a few pages in your Bible to 1 Kings 2. We have a new writer now, but the story continues. Look at 1 Kings 2:10-12. “Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established.” No more titles. No more emphasis on power and wealth and status and achievements. They were never the point. In death, he’s just David. When he looked back over his life, it wasn’t the titles, the achievements, the power, the status, OR the failures that stood out. It was God’s grace. His was a life marked by grace. Is yours? If not, do you want it to be? Let’s pray.
