I'm going to call on Chase Kohi and he's going to read our scripture reading for us this morning. Good morning. Today's scripture reading is from 1 Samuel chapter 30 verses 1 through 6 and maybe found on page on page 292 in the Bible underneath the seat in front of you. 1 Samuel chapter 30 verses 1 through 6. David and his men reached stick lag on the third day. Now the Amalakites had raided the Nagev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it and it had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them but carried them off as they went on their way. When David and his men came to Ziklag they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters took it captive. So David and his men wept allowed until they had no strength left to weep. David's two wives had been captured. A hinoam of Jeteriel and Abigail, the widow of Navel of Carmel. David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him. Each one was bitter and spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God, the Word of the Lord.
You know there is one person that I would have hated to be last Sunday night. Yes, Courtney Lee of the Orlando Magic. He had a perfect alley you pass from Torkello right there at the final second of the game. It would have tied the series one to one and who knows if Courtney Lee had sunk that basket in that final second of game two of the NBA finals, the game tonight might be of a completely different nature. I'd hated to be that guy. What is your if only, what if you, what is your if only, have you ever said something like if only I hadn't eaten that last piece of chocolate cake, if only I'd listen to my mother, if only I hadn't gotten married so soon, if only I'd been a better husband, if only I had not gotten us into so much debt, if only I hadn't done drugs, if only I hadn't had an abortion, if only I knew then what I know now. Have you ever said if only I suspect every single one of us has. Let's talk this morning about how to handle failure. Now I'm not talking about those little run of the mill mistakes that we all make, not talking about leaving your sprinkler running all night long or running out of gas on 408 or something like that. No, I'm talking about the really big failures. I'm talking this morning about the fact that well you weren't there for your friend or I'm talking about the fact that you blew up at work this past week or the way you treated your spouse on the way to church this morning, perhaps, or that visit to a website that you shouldn't have been looking at or maybe a moral failure in your past that you haven't been able to let go of. Is it possible to move beyond the failures of your life into a new beginning? Is it really possible to transcend failure and experience joy and freedom? Yes, it is. It is possible. Absolutely so. And this story from the life of David is going to help you understand how. So what I want to do this morning is ask and try to answer three questions. First is what was David's failure in this passage? Second, what were the effects of David's failure? And finally, what did David do about it? That is, what did David do? How did he move beyond failure and into freedom? So let's begin with the first question. What was David's failure in the story that you heard chase read a little while ago? Well, in order to answer that, I have to back up a little bit and give you some background. Now this is going to get a bit complicated. So stay with me, pay attention and you'll catch on to what's going on. In order to ask the question, what was David's failure in chapter 30, you got to go back a few chapters. So let me do that for you and put it into my own words. Back in chapter 27 of first Samuel, David and his 600 men that he has been with. Now, you know, if you've been with us for a while, you know this journey that David is on. He is fleeing from King Saul. King Saul was insanely jealous of David. He was envious of David's successes and of his fame. And so he is after David. He's tried to kill David several times. If you've been here, you know those stories. So back in chapter 27, David and his 600 men that are with him are still on the run away from Saul. So what they do in chapter 27 is they figure, okay, David says the best thing I can do is go out of Israelite territory and get into Felisting territory. And so he goes to this guy by the name of Akish who was the King of Gath. Now, if you've been attentive this series, you remember that he did that already once before. Do you remember the time when David ran to Akish King of Gath and pretended to be insane? And Akish looked at David and he said, what is this guy doing here? Get him out of here. Send him home. I've got enough crazy people around here. I don't need one more. And so that didn't go very well for David. But in chapter 27 of first Samuel, he says, I'm going to try it again. I'm going to go back to Akish King of Gath and see what happens. And so he goes there and he says, here I am, Akish, please give me sanctuary. And the second time Akish does do that. He welcomes David and his 600 soldiers into Felisting territory. In fact, he goes further than that. He gives David a city to live in. He gives him the city of Zicklag, Z-I-K-L-A-G. And David ends up living there with his soldiers for over a year, about a year and four months we learn back there. He and his men come up with this ingenious plan. At least they think it's ingenious. David figures, all right, I'm going to live in Zicklag, but I want to try to earn the trust of Akish King of Gath. And here's what I'm going to do. David says, I'm going to tell Akish that I'm going to go out and raid Israelite towns and kill Israelites. Now David's in Israelite, right? But he says I'm going to go out to Akish. He says I'm going to go out and kill some of the Israelites. He does that in order to convince Akish that he's now on their side instead of Israel's side. But in reality, what David does is he makes raids upon Israel's enemies, not upon Israel. He wipes out entire towns of Israelite enemies and then comes back in the evening and tells Akish that he took care of some more Israelites. So what he's doing, even though it's by deception, is he's winning the friendship and winning the trust of this guy, Akish King of Gath. Well, the day arrives where Akish is going to go attack the Israelites directly. David says, let me join you. He says over there in chapter 28, Akish, you'll see for yourself what David can do. Now you and I know that what he's intending to do is get in there with the Philistine soldiers, but at the last minute turn around and start fighting the Philistines, but Akish doesn't know that. So Akish says, sure, come on. You hate them as much as I do. So David and his men join them in chapter 29. They march out with the Philistines to engage the Israelites in battle. Uh oh, here's where the problems begin because Akish's commanders see David and his men marching up there with them. And the commanders say, wait a second, Akish, you can't trust David. He's made you think that he's on our side, but you can't trust David because this is the David that the thousands of people said David has killed this tens of thousands. You can't allow David and his men to join us. And so Akish argues back and forth a little bit with his commanders, but finally he has to agree with them. Okay, David, you can't go. He tells David that and at first David puts up a little argument and says, wait, Akish, no, really, I'm on your side, but in the last analysis, David and his men turn around and they return to Ziklag, which brings us to chapter 30. Now what happens in this reading that you heard is that David returns to Ziklag. Only to find out that while they were gone, they had left the women and children defenseless in Ziklag. And while they were gone, the Amalakites, now this is a whole nother group of people, the Amalakites were a nomadic people who had been Israel's enemies from way back. The Amalakites had marched in and destroyed the town of Ziklag, burned it to the ground and taken all of the women and children captive back home to their hideout, their place. David and his men arrive in Ziklag, find it destroyed and David is distressed. And that's where we read this reading a little while ago. You see, do you follow all of that? Do you understand the story? All right, what David had done was he had come up with a doozy of a plan. When the trust of Akish, the king of gas, make him think he was on his side, go out with the Philistine army against Israel, and then at the very last moment turn and begin to defeat the Philistines. It would be sort of like Jack Bauer pretending to be a terrorist when really he's working for the FBI the whole while. Or that was his intention anyway, which goes to show that sometimes even when we have the best intentions, we end up making mistakes. Well, this plan of David's didn't work. The Philistine commanders were on to him. They sent him home. The plan that David had been working on all those 16 months fizzled right before his very eyes. And while David was traipsing all around the countryside, what had he done? He had left the town of Ziklag defenseless, open prey. It was a cakewalk for the Amalakites. They marched right in, burned the town of the ground and took the women and children prisoner. Here's what David had done. He had made a colossal strategic error. Those of you who are in leadership, you know what I'm talking about. David had been overconfident. He had tried to be clever without being careful. And as a result, there was disaster. In a word, I think what David's mistake was, he had been self-reliant instead of God reliant. And it cost him dearly. What's the takeaway here? The takeaway here is that everybody fails. You fail. I fail. Just like I was telling the children, we all make mistakes. If David could do it, certainly I can and you as well. It's not a question of if you fail but win. Read the Bible and you're going to see story after story of men and women who make mistakes. Sometimes awful mistakes. Moses was a murderer. Noah was a binge drinker. Abraham had a problem with lying. His wife Sarah had a problem trusting God. Samson needed anger management classes. Gideon led his country into idolatry. So did Aaron. Moses's brother. The prophet Samuel was a lousy father. So was the priest Eli. And so were most of the kings of Israel. Solomon was a skirt chaser. You might as well consider the whole history of the nation of Israel, right? They witnessed miracle after miracle from God. And yet they blew it time and time again. And need I say, the disciples are perfect pictures of failure as well. They were with Jesus. Peter denied. He even knew Jesus at the end. They had so many problems and mistakes on their record. Have you heard this Chinese proverb, even the best needles are not sharp at both ends? The scriptures teach the same thing. We read in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 that there's not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. James 3.2 says we all stumble in many ways. The question is why? Why do we stumble and make these kind of mistakes? Well, you can thank Adam and Eve for it. We've inherited from them a fallen nature. We are very, very broken and wounded human beings. We are selfish. We are proud. We are lacking in judgment and all kinds of things. That's why we fail. The way Francis Schaeffer expressed it one time was he said we are glorious ruins. We're glorious because we're created in the image of God. There's dignity there, but at the same time we blew it so badly. We are ruins. We sin constantly. So failure is a fact of life. It was for David and it will be for you and me too. Well, the second question we want to answer today. Not only was what was David's failure, but what were the effects of it? Two things I want to point out to you from this passage. Two effects of David's failure. Number one, it almost ruined him personally. It almost ruined him personally. Look at verse 4. Verse 4 says that David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. And verse 6 says David was greatly distressed. You know what? That word is used for often in the Bible to describe a woman in labor. I've never been there. Never will. But I can well imagine that a woman in labor is in great distress. That's a descriptive vivid word to describe how David is feeling there. The word also means oppressed or troubled or bound up and confined and frustrated. It's the feeling almost of being trapped and in prison. Those are the emotions that David is overwhelmed with now when the gravity of the situation settles on him and he realizes his mistake and what he has done to him and many others. Think about it if you can step into his head for a moment. He was spiritually as well as physically exhausted. He'd let everybody down. He felt guilty and ashamed. He felt abandoned by everybody, right? Because now they were talking about stoning him. They turned against him and he was probably disappointed with God too. I mean if I were David I'd be saying God what happened? What happened to that promise? You know I remember when Samuel the prophet said that I was going to be king of Israel someday. Look at it. It's disaster. Look at what I've done. All of those emotions flooding David's heart. It almost ruined him personally. But not only that. Secondly, it almost ruined his relationships with other people. His failure almost totally blasted his relationships away. Look at verse 6 says the men were talking of stoning David. Here's this leader that they've been with for many, many days, months, maybe years and look at what they're doing. They're talking about killing him now because of what he's done. This is how serious this situation is and it goes on in verse 6 to say that each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. See because of David's failure a whole village had been destroyed and people were suffering. Hundreds of people were suffering for what he had committed. That Hebrew word for bitter in verse 6 is the Hebrew word mara which some of you might remember from Exodus 15. Do you remember that when the people of Israel were marching up out of Egypt to go to the promised land? One of their stops along the way were the waters of mara. It means bitter, bitter waters distasteful. And here in this verse this word means angry and anguished and furious. The soldiers were furious at David. They were grieving bitterly for all they knew. Their wives and children had been dead for days. They didn't have the rest of chapter 30 like you and I do. See how deadly failure can be? It can take you out of the battle. It can totally take you out of the battle. But here's what we learned from David in the rest of this chapter. Failure even when you commit it doesn't have to ruin yourself and your relationships. It doesn't have to define you. Your failure can actually refine you. Failure doesn't have to define you. It can refine you. It can actually improve you rather than impair you if you respond to it with faith. So that's what we're going to look at now. What did David do about his failure? Did he, as I was talking with the kids about Thomas Edison, did he just say like many people did about Edison? Oh, I give up. I'm terrible. I'm awful. No, you'll see what he did at the end of verse six. Look at those last eight words of verse six. It says, David found strength in the Lord his God. Failure refined David. It didn't define him. It improved him. It didn't impair him. David found strength in the Lord his God. That phrase found strength means that David took courage. He was encouraged. He prevailed. It means to steal yourself or to be resolute and firm and tough and unyielding and stubborn. Friend, if you've failed, you've got to learn from David's example here to be unyielding and to steal yourself not in your own self but in the Lord your God. Do you notice that? That David took strength found strength in the Lord and his relationship with God rather than from his own resources. So what did David do to find strength in the Lord his God? Let me show you three things. The first thing was that he turned his failure into prayer. David turned his failure into prayer. Look at verse seven. We stopped short of verse seven. So I want to read that for you now. In verse seven, it says that David said to the priest, the son of a Himalach, bring me the FOD and a Biotar brought it to him and David inquired of the Lord. Do you remember if you were here a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the FOD? The high priest wore an FOD over his tunic, right? And on the FOD was a breast piece and within the breast piece were the earm and thumem, these things, these mysterious articles that were used by the high priest to communicate the will of God to people back in that day. And so David decides I'm going to turn failure into prayer and the key phrase that I want you to catch is David inquired the Lord. This is a picture of prayer. The first thing David did was he turned his failure into prayer. See, when you've messed up, it is so awfully easy to become entirely self-absorbed, right? You begin to go over and over and over your failure again and again in your mind. You dwell on the would-have, could-have, should-have. And you say to yourself, why did I do that? And what should I've done differently? You blame yourself. David doesn't do that. Instead, he makes a beeline to God. Read through the Psalms and you'll see how beautifully, again and again, David takes his guilt, his shame, his issues, his sins to the Lord in prayer. That's one thing I admire the most about this man. You know, some of you think, and I know you do because I do, and I know you as well, some of you think that when you sin, when you fail, God doesn't want to talk about it with you for a while. He just wants to put some distance between himself and you for a while. Is that how you look at God after you failed? When I was growing up, my mom dealt with me that way. She would often say, after I've done something wrong, Michael, and that was her favorite name for me in those times, Michael, you should be ashamed of yourself. Go to your room. So I would doodifully go to my room. You know what that taught me over time? That it's when I've failed, and when I've sinned, that the one who says he or she loves me does not want to talk with me about it. And so I learned a habit of hiding. Is that how you see God after you've messed up? Is he saying, I don't want to talk about it with you? You should be ashamed. Go to your room. That's exactly what Adam and he thought when they sinned against God in the garden, they hid in shame. Friend, that is not the voice of God. It is when you have failed that God most wants to talk with you about it. It is when you've sinned and when you're conscious of your shortcomings that he says, come to me, all you are weary, and I'll give you rest. I want to talk with you at that time. John 6, 37 says, whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. Never will Jesus drive you away. When you come to him in your mess up, he will welcome you. So make a beeline to God. Talk to him about it. Take your sins and failures to him. Don't run away from him. That's the first thing we learned from David. He turned failure into prayer. Secondly, David turned failure into action. He turned his failure into action. Look at verse 8. It says, David, inquired of the Lord, shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them? Pursue them, the Lord answered. You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue. See, David didn't stand around and pout. He didn't go around and ponder and ask all these people's opinions. He didn't say, why did I go to gath in the first place? If only I had not done that, we wouldn't be in this situation right now. No, David didn't replay the past instead. He kept moving. I'm reading a book by John Ortberg. Great writer. And Ortberg in that book talks about the time when his little three-year-old son was playing on the floor with his Fisher Price Tape recorder. And John's wife, the little boy's mom was in the next room and they were just talking back and forth. And the little boy asked his mom this very profound question. He said to her, mommy, do you know what the trouble with life is? Now, when your three-year-old asks you that, you perk up. Mommy, do you know what the trouble with life is? And John's wife answered her son, no, what's the trouble with life, son? And the little boy said, the trouble with life is you can't hit the rewind button. Wow. What an amazing insight. No, you can't hit the rewind button. No matter how hard you try, you can't go back and do it over again. You can't go backwards. The best you can do is move forward. And that's what we see David doing here. He calls for the priest who wears the effod, checks the erum and thumam and says to David, go, pursue the amalachites, you will certainly overtake them. And off he goes. And that's exactly what happens in the rest of 1 Samuel, chapter 30. He does indeed defeat the amalachites. But the point right now is that if you've recently experienced failure, there's probably something you need to be doing about it right now. Perhaps you need to make a confession to somebody whom you've heard. Perhaps there's the issue of restitution, making something right that you've made wrong. Or maybe you should share your experience of failure with your life group or some other person or group of people. You know, that's one reason why I'm sure God allows us to fail so that we can help others learn from our mistakes. Mentor someone else through your failure. Tell them what you've experienced. Perhaps you need counseling to help you process the effects of your mistake. Learning from it, journaling about it, there's so many things. But the point is, act on your failure. Don't dwell on it. Certainly don't go back and try to replay it. Well, the thing that we've learned so far is David turned his failure in a prayer. He turned his failure into action. The third thing that we see in this chapter, though, and this is key, this is the most important thing, is that David fell back on God's grace. In the midst of his failure and guilt and shame, in the midst of his distress, though it cost him so much and though it hurt his fellow soldiers, David fell back on God's grace. Now, why do I say that? Is the word grace anywhere in 1 Samuel chapter 30? No. You can look, it's not there. I checked. No, the word is not there, but the idea of grace is there. And you also see grace in David's behavior. Let me show you what I mean. Look now at verses 9 and 10. Verse 9 says that David and the 600 men who were with him came to the basore ravine, where some stayed behind. For 200 men were too exhausted to cross the ravine. But David and 400 men continued the pursuit. All right, what's happening? David has these 600 men, right? And they're often running toward the Amalcites. When 200 of them say, stop the horses, we are exhausted. We can't make it any further. One third of David's fighting force stays at the basore ravine. They can't go on any further. All right, what happens next? Well, look down the page at verse 21. They go out and they fight the Amalcites and sure enough they win. In fact, they not only win against the Amalcites, but they recapture all of the plunder that had been stolen from them by the Amalcites. And they rescued every single one of the women and children. They were not hurt. They were not killed. They were not injured. And so David and his 400 men are feeling really great about this awesome victory that they had won over the Amalcites. So look at verse 21 says, then David came to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the basore ravine. They came out to meet David and the people with him. As David and his men approached, he greeted them. But all the evil men and troublemakers among David's followers said, because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered. However, each man may take his wife and children and go. Well, thank you very much. The 400 say to the 200, hey, you can have your wife and kids, but no plunder for you. You didn't do any work. We did it all. We fought the Amalcites. It's our plunder. Now, can you identify with them? I can. That's exactly how I would have felt. You guys didn't do any work. You don't deserve any reward. Well, look at David's response in verse 23. David replied, no, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed us, handed over to us the forces that came against us. Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike. And David made this a statute and an ordinance for Israel from that day to this. You remember what I've said several times during this series? Don't forget this. The life of David is really not about the life of David. It's about the life of Jesus Christ. Everything we see in the Old Testament points forward to Jesus. And in this passage, David serves as a clear type of Christ. What do I mean by that? I mean that it's kind of a preview of Christ. David shows us he reveals to us the grace and the character of Jesus. What is grace? Grace is undeserved kindness. Unmerited favor. Here we have these 200 men who were too tired to fight. You might say they were failures. But David gives them the same share of the plunders everybody else. You know what? You can tell when somebody gets the grace of God by how they treat other people, especially when those other people have failed. And David gets the grace of God. He has experienced it himself and that is why he is able to give it to other people. Do you? Do you get the grace of God? Do you believe that even when you fail, God loves you? He does. Do you believe that even though you've let yourself and other people down, that God is still for you? He is. Do you believe that even when you've made a mess of things, this verse is still true, Zephaniah 317, it says the Lord is your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. Do you believe that even when you've failed that verse is true? It is if you've trusted in Jesus Christ. Do you believe that even though you've sinned, God still runs to you with open arms and welcomes you back and throws a party in your honor? He does. So do three things. Turn your failure into prayer. Make a beeline to God. Turn your failure into action. Do something with what you've learned from your mistake. And finally fall back on the grace of God. The grace that is greater, greater by far, than all your sin and shame. Let's pray. As we bow our heads in prayer, I'm going to pray a prayer for you. Some of you this morning are conscious of failure. Some of you are saying, if only, if only I'd done this better or differently, if only I hadn't done that. I wonder if you've really discovered the grace of God in the midst of failure. Perhaps you'll repeat this little prayer after me. Father, thank you. That because of your grace, you take my messes and turn them into miracles. You take my failures and turn them into victories. Help me, Lord. Move beyond failure to freedom. Help me learn from my mistakes and move on to serve you and other people. I don't want to live in the land of if only. I don't want to look back. I want to look forward. I don't want to be defined by my failures or controlled by guilt and shame. I want to be refined by my failures and to live in the light of your love and the fullness of joy. So, Lord, I reach out here and now and I receive your grace. I believe that the blood of Christ cleanses me from every sin and every mistake I've ever made or will make. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for my failures, that I might live for your glory. Fill me with your spirit, that I might love you with all my heart and love my neighbor as myself. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.