David | DaveTrenholm.com

Published June 22, 2020

The Wicked, The Wrathful, and The Wise – Part 2

We did part 1 last week, and this morning we are going to look at part 2 of a story that I’ve dubbed “The Wicked, the wrathful, and the wise.”

It’s not the most famous story in the Bible – but it is a riveting tale and it’s found in 1 Samuel chapter 25. It’s the story of King David (before he was king) as he interacted with a sheep farmer named Nabal. Nabal, who was known for being crude and mean in all his dealings, was quite a contrast to his wife, Abigail, who was known for being sensible and beautiful! These two characters couldn’t be more different!

We haven’t seen much of Abigail in this story so far, but we’ve had a quite an introduction to Nabal!

You see, this story all begins at sheep-shearing time – a time of feasting and celebration. David, who has been on the run from Saul, has been camped near Nabal’s shepherds around Carmel. Now David had been very good to Nabal’s shepherds as they camped near each other – David’s men had kept them safe from the Philistines and nothing was ever stolen from them during their time together…

And so, when David hears that Nabal is sheering his sheep and is having a great celebration, he sends messengers to Nabal asking if Nabal could kindly share whatever provisions he could with his friend David and his men!

Nabal, however – true to his reputation, would do nothing of the sort and responded by heaping insults upon David and sent David’s messengers home empty-handed.

As you might imagine, this did not sit well with David who’s only recorded response to Nabal’s rude reply was to tell his men “Grab your swords” as he strapped on his own! In classic case of wild over-reaction, David sets out to murder Nabal in retaliation for his insults! This is quite out of character for David – a guy who is called “a man after God’s own heart” – but I guess it goes to show how even the best of us are aways susceptible to sin! We ought not think we’ve matured beyond the point of being able to mess up big time – cuz that’s just what David is about to do.

And that’s about where we left off last week – David and 400 of his men are armed and headed towards Nabal’s house with the intent to murder every man in Nabal’s household.

We pick up the story now as the scene shifts back to Nabal’s home. It says in verse 14…

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The Wicked, the Wrathful, and the Wise – Part 1

For the past few weeks we’ve been looking at some of the lesser-known stories of the Old Testament. And I’ll tell ya – it’s been quite a mixed bag of goodies! We’ve had talking donkeys, floating axeheads, human cannibalism, and more! They may be lesser known, but these have been some of the most sensational stories of the Bible! And all of them have been packed with important lessons about God and how He wants us live in this world!

Now the story I want to look at today isn’t quite as sensational, but it’s still an incredible story – one that I think would probably make a pretty fantastic movie! It’s got some great movie characters – a villain you love to hate, a band of blood-thirsty vigilantes eager for revenge, and a brave & beautiful leading lady who saves the day! It would be an Oscar winner for sure! And like those other stories we’ve looked at – it’s not the most well-known story in the Bible, but there is much that we can learn from it.

We find this particular story in the book of 1 Samuel – chapter 25. So let’s turn there now and the author will introduce us to all the main characters in the first few verses. It begins like this:

Then David moved down to the wilderness of Maon. 2 There was a wealthy man from Maon who owned property near the town of Carmel. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and it was sheep-shearing time. 3 This man’s name was Nabal, and his wife, Abigail, was a sensible and beautiful woman. But Nabal, a descendant of Caleb, was crude and mean in all his dealings.

1 Samuel 25:1b-3

So there is at least one familiar character in this story – I’m sure most of you have at least heard of King David. Although at this point, David has not yet become king. Saul is still the King of Israel, and he has been hunting David like a criminal – chasing him all around the wilderness – even though David has never done anything to harm him! Saul is consumed by his jealousy of David and is determined to kill him, but David continues to be loyal to Saul and is equally determined not to harm Saul in any way.

In fact, in just the chapter before this, David was hiding from Saul in a cave when Saul just happened to come into that very cave to go to the bathroom. David snuck up and quietly cut off the corner of Saul’s rob – showing Saul how He most certainly could have killed him if he wanted to – but he didn’t.

Of course, when Saul realized how David spared his life, he repented and left David alone for the time being and went back home – but David, knowing that Saul would soon change his mind, headed out further into the wilderness of Maon.

Now in Maon, we find our two other characters in this story. We have Nabal – who was a very rich sheep farmer and was known for being crude and mean in all his dealings. And then we have his wife, Abigail, who was known for being sensible and beautiful!

These two characters seem to be quite a contrast to each other. I guess it’s true that opposites attract – or it could be that this was an arranged marriage. We’re not really given that information – we’re just simply told that Nabal was known for being crude and mean while his wife, Abigail, was known for being beautiful and sensible.

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Discipleship in Community

For the past two weeks we’ve been looking at our mission as followers of Jesus Christ to be and to make disciples. And I know this isn’t the first time most of us have looked at this issue of discipleship. I think most of us understand that one of our main goals as his followers, is to help people trust and follow Jesus. I mean, Jesus’ command to his original followers makes our objective pretty clear. Matthew 28:18 says…

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

So the objective is pretty clear, but what’s not as clear, is exactly how we are supposed to do that. The end goal is pretty obvious – the “how to get there” is not so specific.

And so to find the “how”, we’ve been looking at the Biblical patterns and the models for discipleship. How did Jesus do it? How did the early church do it? How did Paul & Timothy and all those guys do it? How did they do it back in the Old Testament? And how can we do it today?

How do we help people trust and follow Jesus?

Well, we’ve found that discipleship happens in five different contexts. There are five types of relationships that all contribute to the disciple-making process.

We’ve identified these contexts as the public context, the social context, the personal context, the transparent context, and the divine context. And of course, we’re not going to find a verse that lists these five contexts for making disciple – but throughout the Bible we can see that God uses these 5 different contexts to help people trust and follow Him.

And so our goal for these next few weeks is to understand how God works in these contexts so that we can maximize our efforts in our own discipleship and in the discipleship of others.

Last week we looked at the public context. And the public context is defined as 100s of people gathering together around a shared resource – this could be thousands of fans at football game or a hundred people on a flight to Edmonton, or a youtube video seen by millions or what the church is most commonly known for – a bunch of people gathering for the Sunday morning worship service.

And we discovered that the public context really isn’t well suited for building personal relationships, but it is well suited to conveying information and sharing stories with large groups of people. Jesus certainly made use of this context as he preached to the crowds and did miracles and told parables. That was all done in groups of 100s or 1000s and it was certainly significant in helping people trust and follow Jesus.

And so following that pattern, we determined that the Sunday morning service can be a place where people experience inspiration to keep serving Jesus – We are motivated, persuaded, encouraged, influenced, moved, stirred, spurred on, energized, and awakened. We also get a sense of movementum (That’s movement and momentum jammed together) as we see that God is at work all around us. And then, through preaching and teaching, we are reminded that everything revolves around God – this is ultimately His story and we get to be a part of it.

And so certainly the public context can be very significant in helping people trust and follow Jesus. But of course, that can’t be the only context. We would miss out on so much if that was the only place where we were discipled. And as we are going to discover today, we would have a really hard time making new disciples if that was the only context where we contributed to the discipleship of others.

And so on that note, today we are going to look at the social context.

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King Amaziah vs King David – A Matter of Heart

This morning we are going to conclude our series – Lessons from the Kings. Over the past couple of months we’ve looked at several different kings of Isreal. Some were very good – some were very bad. Some were famous – some were pretty obscure. But all of them had an important lesson to teach us. And I believe that’s going to be true for our last kings today.

Today we are going to look at two kings. King David & King Amaziah. Now I know you’ve heard of King David, but King Amaziah might be a little more obscure to you. Now he certainly isn’t one of the most famous kings. He’s not known for his goodness or for his badness or for his badness for that matter. But he is a noteable character. And I’ve chosen him today because I want to contrast his life with King David’s.

Let’s start today by looking at King David.

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The Wicked, The Wrathful, and The Wise – Part 2

The Wicked, the Wrathful, and the Wise – Part 1

Discipleship in Community

King Amaziah vs King David – A Matter of Heart