Fellowship in the Word

Guest (Male): Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bill Gebhardt: David strengthened himself. Do you do this? Most Americans don't. Most Christian Americans don't. You see, that's kind of the issue here. I need more medication. I'm having a bad day. I need four glasses of wine tonight. I have to. I need to find therapy. I need someone to strengthen me.

But do you strengthen yourself? See, that's a very important thing here. David strengthens himself, notice, in the Lord, Yahweh, the personal covenant-keeping God, Yahweh. Wow. And then a most important word: his God.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bill Gebhardt: We live in a changing and very difficult world. The Washington Post did a survey asking readers to describe our country with one single word. Most of them I can't say. Those were the one-word descriptions, but the ones I can say are these: exhausting, lost, and chaotic were the most quoted words in the Washington Post. I believe yesterday's events sort of once again leave you with the same idea about the status of our country.

And it's not just bad enough to live in a country that has so many cultural difficulties, but as we all know, we all have personal difficulties too. We have people who are very much in grief. We have people who are worrisome and full of anxiety, and we have people that have anger issues.

And so, because of it all, I hate to say it this way, but as a country and as a church, and I mean the universal church, we are drinking more, medicating more, and seeking out more therapy than any time in our history. And yet the despair remains and it continues to grow.

I love what Robert Morgan says. He said, "We must attack despair on the basis of spiritual truth. God expects and equips us to fight this affliction with every available spiritual weapon, not just the therapeutic ones. Nothing can replace a spiritual foundation based on the Lord Jesus Christ. No self-improvement method can exceed having your spirit, soul, and body governed by the Holy Spirit of God. No therapy in the world can match the theology of the Bible with its healing that's in its words."

And yet the despair remains. My experience has been as a pastor that I know many people through the years in this church that know their Bible. They know the Bible. I know many people in this church that know their Bible and serve the Lord. And I know many people in this church that know their Bible, serve the Lord, and care about other people.

However, when real difficult circumstances enter their life, they are full of anxiety, worry, and fear. They are full of all these things. And I have to ask myself the question, why? Why is that the case?

In the early 1600s, Brother Lawrence wrote a book, *Practicing the Presence of God*. And I'm going to do a series starting today on practicing the presence of God because what I believe is that even though we know the Bible, even though we serve the Lord, somehow we aren't practicing in our lives the presence of God on a consistent basis. So when things become difficult, we begin to sort of fall apart.

And so I want to begin this series by saying this: we can practice the presence of God in our lives by learning how to strengthen ourselves. Open your Bibles to 1 Samuel 27. It's an interesting story to say the very least. Of course, it's 1 Samuel, so we're talking about David. And we always think of David in such unique ways, you know, the man after God's own heart, David. But I want you to see how David's going on with David.

27:1: "Then David said to himself, 'Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines. Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.' And so David arose, crossed over, he and the 600 men who were with him, to Achish, the son of Maoch, the king of Gath. And David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, each with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's widow. Now it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, so he no longer searched for him."

First thing I want you to see: everything that's going to happen, like a lot of times in our lives, this is all David's doing. This is David. This has nothing to do with God, by the way. Did he entreat the Lord at all? Anything? No. "Look, Saul's going to get me. And so I've got to go and I'm going to hide in the land of the Philistines."

And it's interesting. I hope you know your Bible well enough to know he's going to go to be with Achish, who is the king of Gath. Now, do you know anybody else in the Bible that came from Gath? Anybody? Real tall guy? Real tall, nine feet nine inches, real tall? That's Goliath. He's going now to hide out in Goliath's town from Saul.

Now think of the irony of that. He as a teenager slew Goliath, but now as a man, he's running and hiding from Saul. He comes up with this on his own. And so then it says, "Then David said to Achish, 'If I have now found favor in your sight, let them give me a place in one of the cities of the country that I may live there, for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?'"

He says, "This may not be the best city for me." Now we read between the lines. Maybe Saul has some brothers or friends. Maybe I shouldn't be in Gath. "Achish gave him Ziklag that day; therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. The number of days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months."

So he hid out from Saul. He came up with this all on his own. Now go with me to chapter 29, the more immediate context. And the immediate context is this: the Philistines and Israel are going to do battle. There's going to be a battle between the land of the Philistines and the armies of Saul. So now look what happens.

"Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies at Aphek while the Israelites were camping by the spring which is at Jezreel. And the lords of the Philistines were proceeding by the hundreds and by the thousands, and David and his men were proceeding on the rear with Achish."

Now I want you to think about this. The army of the Philistines is moving toward the army of Israel coming this way. And behind the army of the Philistines is Achish and David with his 600 Israelites behind the Philistine army.

"Then the commanders of the Philistines said, 'Why are these Hebrews doing here?' And Achish said to the commanders of the Philistines, 'Is this not David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, who has been with me these days rather these years? I find no fault in him from the day that he deserted to me to this day.' But the commanders of the Philistines were angry with him, and the commanders of the Philistines said to him, 'Make the man go back, that he may return to his place where you have assigned him. Do not let him go down in battle with us, or in the battle he may become an adversary to us. For with what could this man make himself acceptable to his lord? Would it not be the heads of these men? Is this not David whom they sing in the dances, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands?'"

Now this is kind of funny. The Philistines know the top ten singing list out of Israel. That's the song that everybody sang in Israel: Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands. The Philistines know that. Now we're going to put that guy behind us, the guy who as a teenager slew Goliath. This is a bad idea.

"Then Achish called David and said to him, 'As the Lord lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army are pleasing in my sight, for I have not found evil in you from the day of your coming to me this day. Nevertheless, you are not pleasing in the sight of the lords. Now therefore, return and go in peace that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines.'"

Verse 11 says, "So David arose early, he and his men, and departed in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines went up to Jezreel." So now we see that's the immediate context. David's now heading back.

Chapter 30, verse 1: "Then it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day," a sixty-mile walk from where they were. Twenty miles a day, they're back in Ziklag. "The Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag and overthrown Ziklag and they burned it with fire. And they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great, without killing anyone, and carried them off and went their way."

Now you can imagine all these men have wives and families. They're going back to this town and they see it smoking from the distance and they're walking toward it. They get there and it's burnt to the ground. All their wives and all their children have been taken off by the Amalekites, every single one of them.

"When David and his men came to the city, behold it was burned with fire, their wives, their sons, and daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and they wept until there was no strength in them to weep." This is complete, total anguish. They believe all of our wives, all of our children are all dead or going to be enslaved. This is what happened. We came back into the land.

"Now David's two wives had been taken captive as well, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite. Moreover, David becomes greatly distressed." That's an understatement. Why? "Because the people spoke of stoning him." That's his loyal 600. These are the men that followed David everywhere. These are the men that all would readily give their lives for David. They are his 600.

They're going through the grieving process. The grieving process has certain stages in it for everyone. Usually the first stage often when you hear about someone you love died is denial. That can last for a few minutes or a few days. It just can't be true. It just can't be true. But the second stage is anger turned outward. Anger turned outward. I'm angry. And boy, you can get angry at all kinds of things.

There was a fellow that I worked with in the church years ago here, and he was an open-heart surgeon. And it was fascinating to talk to him. And I asked him about the job, what was it like, and what was the hardest part? And he said, "Well, the medical part's not real hard. The hardest part is anytime I do surgery on anybody and their family's waiting, I always make sure I'm the one that goes and talks to them after the surgery. Always."

And he said, "And sometimes, not most of the time, sometimes the patient doesn't survive. Sometimes even going in you think it's going to be a normal everyday surgery and the patient dies. And he said when I go out and tell the loved ones that the patient has died, what do you think happens? 'You killed our father. You killed my husband.' You see, the anger turned outward."

I said, "Well, how do you deal with it?" He said, "It's just part of the territory. I understand it. There's people you want to blame. There's always someone you want to blame. There's a temptation there." So notice what these guys do. "Moreover, David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered. We lost our kids, our little boys, our little girls, and our wives because of you. We even followed you to this godforsaken place in the land of the Philistines, and now they're dead or as good as dead."

It says David was greatly distressed. Yes, I would imagine. Up until now, I'd say this is the lowest point in David's life. Notice the next word though: but. Even though he's greatly distressed, but David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Wow. David strengthened himself.

Do you do that? Most Americans don't. Most Christian Americans don't. No, no, no, no, no. You see, that's kind of the issue here. I need more medication. I'm having a bad day. I need four glasses of wine tonight. I have to. I need to find therapy. I need someone to strengthen me.

But do you strengthen yourself? See, that's a very important thing here. David strengthens himself, notice, in the Lord, Yahweh, the personal covenant-keeping God, Yahweh. Wow. And then a most important word: his God. His God. Not the God, his God.

Remember the 23rd Psalm? "The Lord is my shepherd." You see, he strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. This is my God. And one of the things I'm sure David did at that time, and the reason he could strengthen himself in his God, is he remembered. He remembered. That's something we need to do if we're going to strengthen ourselves. You need to remember.

Think in David's case. He slew Goliath. So I don't know if you remember this, but he cut off Goliath's head and he took it to Jerusalem for all the Jews to see. Goliath had all these incredibly large weapons. David took all of them and put them in his tent. Now David could never use those weapons. He couldn't even lift them. Why'd David put those weapons in his tent? So he remembered. You see, he remembered what God had done.

That's how you strengthen yourself in God. Remember David said to him, "You uncircumcised Philistine, who dares to taunt the armies of the living God? You can't do that." You see how this works. And so in a sense he strengthens himself.

But there's a major step then he does. "Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, 'Please bring me the Ephod.' And so Abiathar brought him the Ephod to David." The Ephod is part of the garments of the high priest. Part of the garments, and there's a breastplate that the high priest wears. It's nine inches by nine inches. It has twelve stones in it representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

It can only be used, by the way, by the high priest and the leader of the nation in conjunction. The high priest is with David. And so consequently he asked him to bring it. When they're going to do something here, what they had in this was called the Urim and the Thummim, the Urim and the Thummim. These are a way of describing how the stones worked. Urim means lights. Thummim means perfection.

So they would take and they would ask a question and then they would discern what the will of God was. Now understand a bunch of things. First, it can only be with the high priest and the leader. Secondly, no one really knows exactly how it worked. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, said the priest could read the light sequence, yes or no. But no one else has ever said that but Josephus. Some said no, they pulled the stones out and rolled them like casting lots and then read it. No one knows that.

The reason they did it, there's no Holy Spirit. There is no Holy Spirit to ask to discern God's will. And more so in this case, Samuel is dead. Samuel is the prophet-priest. He's the high priest and prophet of Israel. You couldn't go to Samuel and ask him either. So that's what ends up happening. So then David, in strengthening himself, he decides it's going to all come through prayer.

He inquired of the Lord and said, "Shall I pursue this band? Shall I overtake them?" Now as prayers go, that is called short and sweet. That's all he said. That's all I want to know. "Shall I pursue them and shall I overtake them?" And God, or he, said to him, "Pursue, for you will surely overtake them and you will surely rescue all." And if you read the story, that's exactly what happens.

The prayer strengthened David. Okay, now I want you to see how as I build on this, how this works. For us, go with me now to Philippians chapter 4 and verse 6. Now this fits the context perfectly. We've come to this verse often. We're going to look at it a little bit differently today.

Here's the commandment from God: "Be anxious for nothing." Now how many people in this room have violated that this week? You see what I mean? God says it so clearly: "Be anxious for nothing." Don't be anxious. Anxious is just like it's just part of our flesh. We go into worry and anxiety as naturally as anything can possibly happen. All we need is the right circumstances and we're full of fear and anxiety and worry. He said, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, you let your request be known to God."

What's that mean? Pray. Pray. If something's bothering you, the word supplication has an emotional context to it. Pour out your heart. If it's bothering you, it's hurtful, it's scary, tell God. He said with prayer and supplication, notice, with thanksgiving.

Now notice there's no prayer being answered yet. There's no answer. I'm just telling God how I feel about this situation that I'm in. You see, and he said, "Yeah, you have to do that with thanksgiving." Why would I thank God before anything happened? Because he's God. Do you understand that? He's God. You see, he is the all-loving perfect being.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcno.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.