1 Samuel 21-22
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning, my name's Chet, I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab your Bible and go to First Samuel, chapter 21. We're going to be in chapters 21 and 22 today. We're looking through both of those chapters.
When I was growing up, probably three to five, I think I watched Mary Poppins 42,000 times. I'm pretty sure that we only had like a handful of VHS that my grandmother had recorded from her television. So I also have a lot of commercials really, really memorized. But I watched that on a regular basis. And there's this scene towards the end of the movie where the children had been in a bank and there was some bank trouble. And I don't want to get into a whole discussion of finance, but they had to run out of the bank and they get lost in London. And thus begins a series of back to back to back to back moments that were utterly terrifying to me.
It was like they took all the vulnerabilities of a four year old and just pummeled them. So they're lost in a city. Terrifying. Just not knowing where your parents are for like 12 seconds when you're four and five is scary. They're running through a city. This is, you know, it's awful. Then they come around a corner in an alleyway and an old lady pops out and goes, come with me, children. And it's like, why would she do that? And you don't know if she was intending to be helpful. They run away. She seemed scary. So they take off. Then they come around a corner and a dog jumps out and starts barking aggressively at them. When you're a child, a dog is the size of a bear. Like, I mean, you know. Then they turn and they run and they go down an alleyway and a shadowy figure grabs them. Turns out that that's their friend, but you don't know it at the time.
I just remember like this seared in my brain, this series of events. And I remember even as a little kid, like, I'm pretty sure there were times where I just stopped watching the movie before that I was like, well, let's move on. I know they make it at the. And I think there were other times where I just left the room and like waited till I heard the song start back up, you know, because it's a children's movie where things are supposed to be happy. And then I returned, but it was really this interesting peek into things that made me feel very vulnerable and very alone. And this real dive into fears that I had.
As we're reading through this text today, we're going to see how Saul, David and a handful of other people deal with fear. What it does to them, where it takes them. There's a reality to fear, that it drives us towards something, towards someone, it exposes us in a way. And so what I hope we see in this text is we're going to see them as they interact with it. They're going to see how they handle it. And what I hope we'll learn together is the scariest place to be and the safest place to be as we study this text together.
So let's pray quickly for us and then we'll move into chapter 21 of First Samuel. Lord, we ask for your help. We ask for your Spirit to speak in a way that we can understand, that you would help us to deal with our fears and to see what fear does to us in a way that draws us to you. In Jesus name, amen.
So David's on the run. Saul wants to kill him. Saul's the king. David was very close to Saul, was a general, was his bodyguard, was all these different things. And he's now having to flee for his life. And that's what we saw last week as Jonathan, Saul's son, helped David escape.
Chapter 21.
Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. So he goes to Nob, and we're going to find out that Nob is a whole city of priests. It seems as if after everything, after Shiloh was destroyed and the ark was taken, they get the ark back, and it seems like now the center of the priesthood is here. It's unclear whether the ark is also here, but the priests are. And this is where priestly activities will be taking place for the people of Israel, the sacrifices and all that.
So he goes there to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him,
"Why are you alone and no one with you?"
So it's odd for David to be by himself. Ahimelech knows David, but David usually has like a whole crew. He's either with the king, he's with his military units that he's overseeing. For David just to show up is what business does he have? Did something terrible happen? What's going on?
So he comes out, that's why he's trembling. And he says, what? What's going on? And David said to Ahimelech, the priest,
"The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you and with which I have charged you.' And I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here."
So David just says, secret king business. And I've got some people that I'm definitely meeting who are real at a very specific place that you can't know about, and I need bread. None of that is true, except for that David wants bread, but he's on the run and he is just trying to get out of here.
And the priest answered, David,
"I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread if the young men have kept themselves from women,"
which just has to do with sexual activity, makes you unclean in the law. So that's what that is. It's not just like women, some mean thing about them. It just has to do with sexual activity.
David answered the priest,
"Truly, women have been kept from us. As always, when I go on an expedition, the vessels of the young men are holy, even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?"
So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there, but the bread of the Presence which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day that it is taken away.
So the tabernacle seems to be here, the bread of the Presence is here. They would set it out on the Sabbath before the Lord as a picture of the meal, the connection, the communion that we have with the Lord, that they have with the Lord. And then they would rotate it out on the Sabbath. And the old loaves were allowed to be eaten by the priests. And Ahimelech breaks that rule to give to David in a time of need.
Jesus references this and says that he did right, that this was correct to do, to break a ceremonial law for the sake of caring for someone. And he says this in this argument with the Pharisees about the Sabbath, saying that some things were built for our good and our blessing, and therefore, if there's opposition, we can bless others in those moments. And that's what he's talking about.
So David takes that bread and he now has five loaves of bread that was the bread of the Presence, but the priest is allowing him to have it.
Verse 7.
Now, a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg, the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen, he's detained before the Lord. It may be a Sabbath if they've just swapped the bread out. So it's possible he wasn't allowed to travel very long. It's also possible he's doing some sort of thing because he's an Edomite to become a follower of God. It's also possible that he has some sort of sickness or skin disease and he's having to be watched because there's all these. These are several of the reasons why you might be detained before the Lord. He could also just be there doing some, basically, some holy days for himself as he worships the Lord.
But that's it. That's all it tells us about him. It just in the middle of this story goes, hey, Doeg, the Edomite is here. And it's going to go right back to the story. And that's foreshadowing. So remember him, he'll show up later, but he doesn't do anything here.
Verse 8.
Then David said to Ahimelech,
"Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me because the king's business required haste."
And the priest said,
"The sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah. Behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the Ephod, if you will. Take that, take it, for there's none but that here."
And David said,
"There is none like that. Give it to me."
So David says, I was in such a hurry, I don't even have any weapons. Do you have any weapons? He says, you gave us Goliath's sword. It's still here. And David says, great, that sword is awesome. I will take it. And so he has a nice, probably fairly large sword that he leaves with.
Verse 10.
And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.
Okay, David doesn't have any options. That's what this just told us. The plan that he's come up with is, I'm going to show up to Gath with Goliath of Gath's sword and see how that goes. It seems like he's intending to maybe be like a mercenary. He's just going to go there and serve there. He's absolutely on the run from his home, his people, his everything.
And the servants of Achish said to him, to Achish,
"Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances? Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands."
So if David was planning on being undercover, he shows up and they're like, mmm. And they go to the king and they're like, I'm pretty sure they have a song about how good he is at murdering us. I'm pretty sure that's him.
And David took those words, these words to heart. So he somehow overheard this. In this situation, was much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them, pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.
So somehow, on his way before the king, he just starts acting insane, drooling, marking up the walls. That's the best disguise he can come up with on the fly, you guys. And it works.
Then Achish said to his servants,
"Behold, you see, the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? Do I lack mad men that you've brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?"
So they're like, hey, we've got David. And then he goes, you brought a crazy person here. Thank you so much. Did you think that was what I really needed? I needed those.
Some of y'all like to memorize verses for specific situations that you can remind, you know, rehearse yourself or say to other people. Maybe this one for, like, when your family's coming over for vacation or something, or your in-laws are coming and you can just quote to your spouse,
"Do we lack mad men in their house? Are we gonna let this fellow in just for y'all?"
Bible memorization, you're welcome. Probably won't be one of our monthly verses, but it's a good one.
All right, chapter 22.
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
So David then leaves. He heads back over into Israelite territory and hides in King Achish's. So his plan to go to Gath does not work and he escapes. Now, an interesting thing happens as we get to follow this story and as we have the whole revelation of the Scriptures, because this text doesn't tell us a lot of what's going on with David, what he's thinking. We just hear what he's doing. We hear some of what he says, but we don't get to see what's going on with him.
And so far, in the midst of fear, he's just run and he's come up with what arguably is an ill-advised plan to run to Gath. But that's all he comes up with. He ends up in this cave. But in the book of Psalms we have songs and poems and worship that David writes. And there's one that has this inscription above it. It says, this is Psalm 34. It says of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away.
Now this text calls him Achish, which seems to be a title, and Abimelech seems to be his name. So like if you said he was in front of Caesar and then later it says Nero, it's the same guy. So Achish and Abimelech.
So we actually get to hear what, how David responds after this moment when he gets to escape. And so it seems like he wrote this while in the cave or on his way to it. He starts off in the first four verses, worshiping, praising. He says,
"I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them."
So he says, I had fear and he rescued me. And those who fear the Lord he protects. So David's interaction with fear is shifting here. He's saying, in my fear I began to go to the Lord, and now I fear him. He's the most fearful, so he's been on the run. It doesn't seem like he's handled everything so well so far. But now, as everything slows down, as he's trying to process through this, and he's worshiping the Lord for rescuing him out of Gath, this is what he's writing.
Verse 8,
"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack."
He keeps going.
Verse 18,
"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."
In verse 22 he says,
"The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned."
This is how he ends it. So he says, I'm hiding in him. I'm taking refuge in him. My hope is in him. That's David as he deals with this fear.
So chapter 22, let's pick back up in the text.
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.
David on the run, hiding in a cave, trying to figure out what he's going to do, trying to lay low, writing some songs from his expert hiding place. He looks out one day, keeping a good lookout, and he's like, mom.
Because his whole family shows up. They all come to him, which makes sense. And maybe he had to go out for supplies. Maybe word spreads at some point where David is, but his whole family comes to him, which makes sense, because if David's on the run from Saul, they're probably not that safe from Saul. And Saul may go look to them to find David.
So they all go to David. Then it says this.
"And everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about 400 men."
So his mom, his brothers, his dad, they all show up. Then other people just start showing up. And it's like, why are you here? I am stressed beyond belief. Everything out there is terrible. I heard David was in a cave, and I thought, I'm gonna go get in that cave. Somebody else shows up. Why are you here? I owe so many people so much money. Cave started sounding pretty good. Everyone who's bitter in soul, so the most frustrated, angry people who are, they're not going to read, they're not going to vote for Saul when reelection time comes back around like, this hasn't worked for them. That's who's showing up to David. And then it says he becomes commander of them. So they showed up and they were like, everything is awful. And he's like, okay, do some push ups. It's time to start training. I guess y'all are gonna have to listen to what I say if you're hanging out in my cave. And they do. So now he has 400 distressed, bitter in soul people who owe a lot of money to other people. They're all with David now, plus his mom and his brothers and his dad, okay?
And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab. So now he leaves again. He takes all these people with him, it seems. And he said to the king of Moab,
"Please let my father and my mother stay with you till I know what God will do for me."
And he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.
So reading some commentaries on this, there was a couple of different ideas as to why the king of Moab would let him do that. Some of the things they put out were housing fugitives because the Moabites were enemies of the Israelites. So the king to house fugitives that are against Saul seems like maybe that's a good idea.
There's also just a general cultural thing of hospitality. So it's possible they're just doing what their culture does, which is show hospitality in these sort of situations.
There's a theory that it's possible that one of the reasons they went to Moab was that Jesse is the grandson of Ruth, who was from Moab. So there's some family connection here.
And I've come up with my own theory, which is that David showed up with 400 desperate men and said, hey, will you watch my mom? And they were like, sure. You and your friends gonna leave? He's like, we're gonna hang out a little bit, but just keep an eye on them until we figure out what's gonna happen.
So any one of those is possible as to why they've said yes to this, but they do say yes to this. David leaves his parents with the king of Moab, and he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.
Then the prophet Gad said to David,
"Do not remain in the stronghold. Depart and go into the land of Judah."
So he says, we're not going to stay in Moab. The Lord wants you to go back to Judah. And he does. And we're going to see Gad show up periodically through the story of David.
So David departed and went to the forest of Heref.
Now the story is going to shift to Saul. So we've seen David dealing with fear. We've seen him on the run, and we've seen him as this process is happening, growing in worship and saying, he's going to trust in the Lord.
And now we're going to see Saul as he deals with fear.
Verse 6.
Now, Saul heard that David was discovered and the men who were with him.
If you're playing hide and seek and someone finds you, you may not have had the best hiding spot. If your entire family finds you, plus 400 strangers, you don't have a good hiding spot.
So David now is discovered. They know he's out. They know kind of where he is. And he's got 400 people traveling around with him. And this news makes it to Saul. So he's no longer incognito. He's known.
Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height with his spear in his hand. And all his servants were standing about him, which first of all, of course he has a spear in his hand. He seems to always be holding a spear. But also what is happening in this text, it says he was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height with his spear. And all his servants, all of those things are markers of leadership and kingship. That you would sit under an obvious tree, they would hold court there, they would answer questions there, they would judge there that he's on a height, that he's got servants, that he's holding his spear. So in some ways this text says Saul the king was out kinging in a very kingly way. That's kind of what that text is doing. It's building him up as much like he's super kinging. Right now. We got David hiding in a cave, wandering around other places, trying to figure out what he's going to do, hiding in a forest. And now we've got Saul, the kingiest king that ever did king.
And Saul said to his servants who stood about him here now,
"People of Benjamin."
Okay, that's interesting. Benjamin is the tribe that Saul is from. He's been king for a long time. He's been king over all of Israel for a long time. It's possible that he only always has kept just Benjaminites the closest to him. Or as he's grown more and more paranoid and more and more fearful, he's gotten rid of everybody who doesn't belong to his tribe and now has perfectly surrounded himself with Benjaminites. But either way, he's paranoid and fearful.
And we're going to hear from his speech how far that goes.
But these are only people from his clan. He's suspicious, fearful.
"Hear now, people of Benjamin, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, that all of you have conspired against me?"
So he stands there and says, you just are so certain that David's gonna bless all of you, that he's gonna care for all of you, that you're all gonna be so important when he becomes king, that you've all conspired against me? And that's not true. But he now doubts everyone that's around him.
Still, in verse 8, he says,
"No one discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as at this day."
He is correct that Jonathan did make a covenant with David, but it was because they loved one another. It was a covenant of friendship to care for one another. They make a covenant that they're not going to harm each other. And Jonathan goes out of his way to keep his dad from sinning against David.
But he is not helping David lie in wait against Saul.
David isn't lying in wait against Saul. David's not out to get Saul. Saul's out to get David. Saul is actually not in danger, not from David, but he thinks he is. And he's saying, everyone's against me.
And Saul's entire world has shrunk to just him. It's just him. Everybody's an enemy. Everybody's in on it. Everything's a secret. Everything's falling apart.
Then answered Doeg, the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul,
"I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, and he inquired of the Lord for him and gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine."
We actually don't know if he inquired of the Lord from him. Our text doesn't tell us that. But Doeg says he did. But that's something you do before military stuff. He doesn't say he gave him five loaves of bread. He calls it provisions, just militarizing it up a little bit. And he gives him a sword. He basically says, hey, Ahimelech's in on it.
Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub and all his father's house. The priests who were at Nob and all of them came to the king. It would have taken a couple miles away, so to go get them to come back. This took a couple hours, but they all come.
And Saul said,
"Hear now, son of Ahitub?"
And he answered,
"Here I am, my lord."
And Saul said to him,
"Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me to lie in wait as at this day?"
Then Ahimelech answered the king,
"And who among all your servants is as faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law and captain over your bodyguard and honored in your house? Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No. Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of this, of all of this. Much or little."
So Ahimelech just says, it's David. David, your bodyguard, your son-in-law. I've done this. I do this. I would do this for him anytime he comes. I'm not in on something. I didn't know any of this. Don't add that to me. Don't add that to my family. That's not the case.
Aside from those noises, that's what he said. He may have said it really calmly, I don't know, but he just kind of lists out like five things in a row where he's just like, I didn't have anything to do with anything, and this is normal for me to do whatever David asks.
Verse 16.
And the king said,
"You shall surely die, Ahimelech. You and all your father's house."
And the king said to the guard who stood about him,
"Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David. They knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me."
But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord.
You got to hear the sentence that Saul said. He looks at his servants and says, that's it. Kill all the priests of the Lord because they're on David's team. Priests of the Lord. They're on David's team.
And then I don't know if y'all can see the fear and the frustration. And Saul's face turned purple as all of his soldiers are just like, nope, I'm not.
I love his soldiers in this moment because they all know there's going to be a day I stand before the Lord and it won't be Saul. There's a day that I will stand before my king and it isn't Saul. And I'm not going on record as killing a priest, it's not happening. You can kill me. That's fine. Then I'll go stand before the Lord and go, do you see me not kill that priest? Do you see what I just died for? Like, they just don't move.
And again, I'm sure this just confirms in Saul that everyone is against him. His whole world has shrunk down to his center of gravity and Doeg.
Then the king said to Doeg,
"You turn and strike down the priests."
And Doeg, the Edomite turned and struck down the priests. And he killed on that day 85 persons who wore the linen ephod. Doeg is an Edomite. He doesn't care.
So he kills them, 85 of them. They brought all the males from that household. They kill all of them. And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep. He put to the sword.
Saul does to the city of the priests what he was not willing to do to the Amalekites when it was for the Lord and it was holy war, he was unwilling to do it. When it's for him and it's his trying to keep his seat of power, he's willing to.
Verse 20.
But one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled to David.
Alright, so something very interesting has happened in this passage.
In chapter two, a man of God comes to Eli and says the priesthood is not going to stay with your family because you've dishonored me. He says they're going to be wiped out. There will only be left one who will cry his eyes out. That's what just happened. Abiathar is that one.
And eventually it's taken from him. He doesn't get to carry on serving the Lord. So the curse of God is poured out on this family through the wicked choices of Saul.
So Saul is very wrong to do what he does. But we also see the hand of God at work in fulfilling his promises. It's a very interesting thing that happens here. But it doesn't mean that Saul's right to do what he does. It just means that when God says something, it happens.
And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord.
And David said to Abiathar,
"I knew on that day when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father's house."
David's response is, that's on me. While David was on the run, while David was doing what he did, he said, I knew that. I knew he was going to tell him. And I don't know if David fully understood what was going to come from that. I don't see how he could have. But he just says, yeah, that's. I'm the one to blame for this.
Verse 21,
"Stay with me. Do not be afraid for he who seeks my life seeks your life with me. You shall be in safekeeping."
So that's his response to Abiathar.
There's a very interesting call it a social phenomenon that's happening in this text. But everybody who's absolutely desperate is going to David. If everything has fallen apart, if you have no hope of a future, if everything has fallen around your ears, they go to David.
And I can't help but see that and see that that's exactly what happens in the New Testament with Jesus. That when Jesus is on earth, the people who flock to him are the poor, the destitute, the sinners, the weak, the small, the outcasts.
This actually is one of the things that he and the religious leaders get into arguments over all the time. They're like, you hang out with absolute human garbage. And Jesus is like, right, because the sick need a physician, not the well.
And there's this thing where if you really know that you're in need, you start looking for somewhere to go, some bit of hope, someone to run to.
And so we see in this story as it plays out that you have fear, legitimate, real, terrible fear, actual bad things.
And David, as we follow this out, he runs to the Lord and there's all of these people that run to David. And then there's Saul who tries to handle everything in his own strength.
And I told you earlier that we would see. I'm trying to tell you the scariest place to be.
The scariest place to be is where you are the biggest person in the world.
The scariest place to be is where you are utterly, completely, absolutely self-sufficient.
The scariest place to be is where the center of existence has boiled down to your center of gravity, where it's all up to you.
That's where Saul is.
Trust, no one believes, no one hopes in nothing, just whatever he can tooth and nail and claw and grab, whatever he can get done, all up to him.
And I don't know if you know it, but that's what our culture has told you over and over again is what you need to go do.
Express yourself, find yourself, succeed, accomplish, win, earn.
It's up to you.
The most powerful snowflake in the world that you've got to on your own. Be sufficient, be capable, be good.
That's what religion shows up and tells you so often is be good, be moral, do it. It's up to you.
That's terrifying.
The guards around Saul know something that we need to know is that one day you're going to stand before the real Lord, the real King.
And on that day you do not want to stand in yourself self-sufficient.
You do not want to stand before the King and say, judge me, evaluate me, I am big enough, I am good enough, I am capable.
That's terrifying.
You don't want to live your life that way.
And you certainly don't want to end your life that way.
We get to do with Jesus what Abiathar does with David and we get to have the same response.
We get to run to him and say, I have no hope anywhere but with you.
And what David says to Abiathar is what Jesus says to us.
Your life is connected to my life and with me you'll be in safekeeping.
That we get to hide ourselves in Christ.
That when he died for sins, he died for us.
That when he was buried, we were buried.
When he rose, we rise.
We get to be hidden in Christ and what he has accomplished.
And we get to stand before the Lord in Christ and not in ourselves and not in our sufficiency.
But we get to say, I have hidden in him.
And no one is put to shame who takes refuge in the Lord.
David prophetically says it at the end of his psalm.
"The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned."
And then we get to live like that in all the fears of life.
You get to go to the Lord. You get to do what David did. He's in the, he's in the cave and he's rehearsing.
You know how long it takes to write a song? It's possible that this just came out, but I think a lot of it is he's working on, he's rehearsing, he's remembering and he's reminding himself over and over and over and over again.
My hope is in you. My trust is in you. I have no good apart from you.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
Nobody who is condemned, who places their hope in you.
Nobody who runs to you in refuge, oh, let me hide in you.
Over and over and over and over again.
And then we get to do the same thing that we don't in the middle of fear go, I must act, I've got to do something.
But we get to in the middle of the fear go, okay Lord, if you don't help, I'm in trouble. If you don't show up, I'm in trouble.
I see so often in my own sin. I'll talk to the Lord and I'll say, Lord, if you aren't merciful, if you don't forgive sinners, I have no hope.
But oh thank you that you do. And let me hide in you.
Let me. Let the righteousness of Christ be applied to me.
Let his life and death and burial apply to me.
Let me hide in him.
It's one of my favorite songs is Rock of Ages.
And just at the end it says,
"Let me hide myself in thee, let me hide in you."
And let it be about you.
And so if you've never seen that you actually are not capable enough, strong enough, good enough, if your whole world is about you and you still think you are strong enough, I would say no, come to the Lord.
But if you know you're in debt, in sin, you're destitute, you're distressed, you're bitter, come to the Lord, run to him and say, I need to hide in you.
And for the Christians in the room who are struggling with fear, rehearse for yourself what's true about him.
Start with Psalm 34.
Read it, pray it. Sit. Remind yourself my hope is bound up in you.
That's what Colossians 3 says,
"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."
We are hidden with him.
His life and our life, our life is bound up in him.
And with him we are in safe keeping.
Let's pray.
Lord, I pray right now in the name of Jesus, for every person in this room who is self-sufficient. For every person in this room who, when it all boils down, it's just them. Just them and their wisdom, just them and their morality, just them and their strength, just them and their ingenuity, that it's just them.
Lord, I pray that you would, through your Spirit, help them to see how small and how vulnerable and how scary that is, that they might run to you.
Lord, we pray for the person in this room who already sees that, who already feels debt, distress, destitute, desperate, that they would run headlong to you and say, oh, let your life cover me, let your righteousness apply to me. Let me hide myself in you.
And Lord, may the Christians in this room rehearse that over and over and over again. That in fear we might fear you more and know that no one is condemned who takes refuge in you.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
The band's going to come back up. We're going to respond in communion and worship.