King David No.5 Get rid of your grudges

Okay, reading from 1 Samuel chapter 24, right the way through. 1 Samuel 24. After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, David is in the desert of En Gedi.

So Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all Israel and set out to look for David and all his men near the crags of the wild goats. He came to the sheep pens along the way. A cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself.

David and his men were far back in the cave. The men said, this is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish. Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

Afterwards, David was conscious stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, or lift my hand against him, for he is the anointed of the Lord. With these words, David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul.

And Saul left the cave and went his way. Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, my Lord, the king. When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

He said to Saul, why do you listen when men say David is bent on harming you? This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord gave you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said I will not lift my hand against my master because he is the Lord's anointed.

See my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand. I cut off the corner of your robe, but it did not kill you. Now understand and recognize that I am not guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion.

I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes, from evildoers come evildoers, so my hand will not touch you.

Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea? May the Lord be our judge and decide between us. May he consider my cause and uphold it. May he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand.

When David finished saying this, Saul asked, is that your voice, David my son? And he wept aloud. You are more righteous than I, he said. You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.

You have just now told me of the good you did to me. The Lord gave me into your hands, but you did not kill me. When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the Lord reward you well for the way you treated me today.

I know that you will surely be king, and the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands. Now swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father's family. So David gave his oath to Saul.

Then Saul returned home, but David and his men went out to the stronghold. Father, we bring your holy word before you, and as it's brought before us, we ask that you will open it out and help us to apply to our own circumstances those things that you wish to teach us. We thank you that here is a lamp to our path and a light to our way, and we pray that we may get direction this evening from what is perhaps a very unusual passage of scripture.

May the page be illuminated and arrest by your holy spirit our attention, not only our curiosity, but humble our wills so that they may buckle under the authority of God, and we shall go from this place determined to serve you better than the way that we came in. If there's anyone here who's particularly in trouble in the area of our subject matter this evening, we ask that not only shall they be academically informed by your word, but treated therapeutically by your spirit. Lord, enlarge our understanding of your grace for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Amen. So, I want to talk to you about how to get rid of your grudges.

What is a grudge? Well, the new dictionary will tell you that a grudge is blind and uncontrolled hatred. It's animosity, resentment, rancor, spite. A grudge gives birth to bitterness, and as such a grudge is incompatible with Christianity, ideally understood.

The apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians in the third chapter, or the fourth chapter in the thirty-first verse, says, get rid of all bitterness. Hebrews talks about the root of bitterness, and it suggests that if you're growing that root, it so stifles your personality that the only thing a grudge really does is hurt the one who holds the rancor against someone else. Central to our story this evening is a man who was indeed a grudge man.

Saul, the king of Israel, he got a chip on his shoulder which was larger than the pillar of stone on which Jacob rested his head that night when Jacob had a most unusual dream. He was a man with a clenched fist. Have you ever thought that if you clench your fist you cannot shake hands? The person with a grudge cannot engage in a handshake.

With a net result there can be no fellowship. A person with a grudge is a person in rebellion. Now it's the Holy Spirit's business to lift from the convictions, the personality of all followers of the Lord Jesus, any trace of grudge or bitterness.

I am hazarding a guess which actually, if I was a betting man, which I'm not, I wouldn't really be risking anything, and that is the majority of people in this congregation have got a grudge, a grudge against someone, a grudge against something. And at the human level I probably have to argue that the reason for your grudge and you retaining it is valid at the human level. I've been a pastor too long not to sympathize with people who've been very badly treated.

The woman who when she was a child was sexually exploited, for her to not have a grudge against the person who took advantage of her is, again at the human level, suggesting almost too much. I've known of kids who have been badly informed by their parents and as a result their lives, as the years have opened up, have been difficult ones. Parents who not only gave wrong information but also were careless, cavalier in the dispensing of their responsibility as parents.

I'm fortunate my dad was a good dad, but I realize that that possibly puts me amongst a minority of people. I bear him no grudge, I only honor his memory, would to God that everyone could say the same. How I would feel if my dad had been a bully, a tyrant, if my mom had not been available to me when I was a kid and needed her, I don't know.

But what I am arguing is this, that whatever grudge you may harbor against anyone, I've only used parents as an illustration, there are so many that you could think of in terms of personal incidents, whatever grudge you might harbor against them and however legitimate it may seem at one level, the only person who is finally hurt by a grudge is the grudger, the one who exercises that particular personality trait. What is the opposite of grudge? The dictionary says affection. I disagree, I sometimes do disagree with dictionaries and occasionally add to the English language.

I think that biblically, if not as far as the classified Oxford dictionary is concerned, biblically the opposite of grudge is grace. Grace means clemency, forgiveness, indulgence, leniency, mercy. There's a lovely verse in the New Testament which I want Ruth to sing to us one day because I've got it to a tune that I brought from South Africa.

The Apostle Paul saying of God, it's your kindness that leads us to forgiveness and repentance, O Lord. The kindness of God is a grace of God. And a man who has received the kindness of God by logic wants to reflect that kindness himself to others.

And one thing you can say about the character of God is he does not bear grudges. Now let's bring the concept of grudge and grace to the Lord's prayer. Forgive us this day our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Forgive us today our grudges as we forgive those who have a grudge against us. Cover, Lord, your legitimate grievance with us and we will cover our legitimate grievance with others. Crack open the Lord's prayer.

My logic is unassailable. It leads you to that conviction. Now here is Saul and he is the grudge man.

He harbors resentment. Here is David who features in this twenty-fourth chapter and he is the grace man. David could legitimately have grudges against Saul, but he refuses to harbor them.

Now, one of the things that Tim and I have been trying to show you in these Sundays, these past Sunday evenings, is that David in some way, not entirely by a long chalk, but in some way he anticipates one who is called affectionately David's greatest son. In other words, you see something of the character of our Lord Jesus in David. And one thing you can say about Jesus is this.

He was a grace man, not a grudge man. He had every legitimate reason to harbor resentment, but you put him on a psychiatric chair and you cannot find any evidence of grudge at all. Here is your personality.

Here is the pivot. My right, grudge. My left, grace.

You remember when you were kids you went to the playground and you had to go on the seesaw? Let us have a seesaw this evening. Here is grace. Here is grudge.

Where is the weight in your life? Are you a grace man or a grudge man? Do you harbor resentment or do you redirect kindness and forgiveness to those who have sinned against you? It is not easy to be a grace person. Four thousand plus women were raped in Rwanda in the last few months. Unpleasant stuff from the pulpit this evening, but we are men and women of this world and to put our heads in the sand and to think that these things do not happen, well really it is quite absurd.

How many times do I tell you that Christians are called to out-think anybody else and therefore you are to be informed as to what happens. Two years back in Bosnia there was an attempt by so-called Christians, nominal Christians, to have born in the Muslim community around Christmas Day. Can you think of anything more sick and immoral than this? Children born of rape.

I sometimes think to myself, if I was one of those mothers, what would my attitude be to the child that I bore or to the person who had violated my body and caused that child to be conceived? Could I really forgive or would not I rightfully harbour grudge to the end of my days? And I have to say from God's word, however legitimate the grudge might seem, man, God asks ultimately for grace, for you, for me to forgive. In this passage you have got a grace, man. You have got a grudge, man, and you have got the challenge of the seesaw.

See yourself in the chapter. Where do you figure? Where do you feature? Do you have a right to harbour a grudge and still claim to be a Christian? We don't incidentally on a Sunday night cavalierly choose our songs. Quite a lot of thought goes into what we sing and if there is repetition it's only to enforce upon your mind the simplicity or the profundity of the truth that's being expressed on the overheads.

Likewise in the selection of hymns. So I brought you to John Newton's hymn. Amazing grace, you were comfortable with that.

I mean the grace of God is amazing, isn't it? But then he goes on to say that saved a wretch like me. Now you did sing that, didn't you? You didn't say that saved a wretch like you. That's what you might have meant.

But actually if you got the burden of Newton right, then you would be directing your description at yourself that saved a wretch like me. And Newton was aware of his own wretchedness. One of the things that Saul had problems with was acknowledging the sort of man that he had been and that in one sense he was getting his just desserts.

There was grudge, there was bitterness in his soul. I'm not a drinking man. I don't know much about beer.

It seems to me a contradiction in terms that you can go to a pub and ask for a pint of best bitter. I mean if it's bitter how can it be best? But Saul in the pub of life has pulled many a pint. He's bitter.

He's bitter because, well, he fouled up. He started well, he ran well. When he was elected king or pronounced king he was head and shoulders both physically and probably emotionally and intellectually above all the rest of the Israelites.

But from consultation with Samuel the seer he eventually finishes up consulting the witch of Endor. If that seems old-fashioned then check who Nancy Reagan consulted and advised her husband or who frequently advises princess Diana were still a superstitious lot in the 20th century. He failed as a king, he failed as a father, he failed as a soldier.

He was unable to match David in the bravado that David showed as he entered into the territory of the Philistines. Not that Saul was exempt of achievement at some level but it didn't match that of David. Saul has killed his thousands but David has tens of thousands and that hurt.

And the grudges piled up one on top of another. If you nurse your grudges you will never make them better. That's one thing that nursing can never do.

It can improve your health if you're sick and a nurse assists you or if you take medication and treat yourself. Nurse your grudges and you make it worse and here is Saul in a fit of melancholia and depression. So he pulls the pints of bitterness and he ends up drunk with murderous intent.

First it's David, then it's Jonathan, then it's David again. Jonathan, Saul's son. Why is Saul so possessed with anger towards Jonathan that he will try and run a spear into him? Well because Jonathan is with David and David is Saul's rival.

Doesn't Jonathan know is he such a stupid idiot that if David survives Jonathan won't get the throne? But then if you kill Jonathan he's not going to get the throne in any case. There's more way to get drunk than just to drink beer. You can be drunk of your grudge and with your anger.

Grudge caused the first murder. Cain kills Abel because Abel seems to be better than Cain. That's in the Old Testament.

God the new? Why is John the Baptist's head delivered on a plate? Because there's a woman who's got a grudge against him. Herodias is mad with the Baptist because he says that it is wrong for her to have an affair. Why did the Apostle Paul say at the end of his life, I am the chief of all sinners? My reason is this.

Paul found it hard to forgive himself for the grudge that caused him to lead one of the first persecutions against the Christian church. He was there when Stephen was stoned. He was the man who ransacked Jerusalem and caused the Christians to flee, had some imprisoned and some killed.

So Paul never forgot the shouts. Maybe he looked into the face of someone like Mrs. Hofsepion Meyer knowing that he had been responsible for the death of her husband or his equivalent in those days and he never forgot. And though the years rolled by and the grace of salvation was given to Paul, he could not obliterate the memory.

And someone has written of Paul when he went to heaven that he said something like this or on crossing the Jordan, speaking of those who had been martyred as a result of him, saints did I say with your remembered faces dear men and women whom I sought and slew, how when I reach the heavenly places will I weep with Stephen and with you? Paul why did you do it? Uncontrolled grudge against the followers of Jesus. Grudge can be a killer. Now the Bible is nothing but blunt when it comes to describing some things because the Bible doesn't blush to tell us human life as it actually is.

And here is David and Saul. David has had to go to the wilderness of En Gedi because well Saul has made life so uncomfortable. A vast roaming track of desert sometimes so terribly hot and one occasion Saul goes into a cave, a call of nature.

If the Americans were translating the Hebrew here they would say that Saul went into the restroom. These caves are very strange. I checked one of the authorities.

I've been in this area myself but not into the caves. These caves are a darkest midnight and the keenest eye cannot see five paces inward but one who has been long within and looking towards the entrance can observe with perfect distinctness all that takes place in that direction. You see what had happened? David's men, relatively small number compared with the three thousand of Saul's men, are actually hiding in the cave where Saul goes to do you know what and then they're watching.

I mean it's one of those moments which you've got to have a sense of humor to read this. Now surely it's legitimate for someone who has been seeking for your life if they're delivered like a pawn into your hands it's legitimate to take their life. Here is a seesaw moment.

It will show you whether David is a grudge man or a grace man. David go for it. You've literally got him with his pants down.

I mean these are soldiers. You can't expect that the language is going to be sophisticated. These are men who've been forced into the career of being outlaws and here is Saul most vulnerable and here is David who has every right to exert his rights as a military man but he waives them.

In what interest? In the interest of God because David is God's man. There is a verse in the bible that says vengeance is mine I will repay. If you read about our beloved Lord Jesus in first Peter chapter two you will discover that it said of Jesus that when he reviled or when he was reviled that is when when people had a go at him he didn't give them back the same currency.

And David anticipates this quality of our beloved Lord at this point. David go for him you've got him and David says no he's the Lord's anointing. Let's leave the outcome to God.

I've often marveled at the character of Jesus haven't you? I mean his mesmerism his or his magnetism. Peter stop mending your nets follow me. Matthew stop getting such a good salary.

Come and join me and your rewards will be out of this world. As I once saw in an American paper advertising for a pastor we can't pay much but ultimately your reward will be out of this world. Well they were dead right.

These men followed Jesus. Now here it is David and what I admire is that that he can hold back the bunch of his 300 troops and and they will do what he says. No we will not kill this man and all that David does is slide alongside Saul and and cut off the the edge of his garment and when Saul has gone back to his own men David says hey Saul King Saul and David prostrates himself before Saul and he shows you the language and the power of grace.

He appeals to the human spirit he says to Saul my father. He appeals the character. He extends not a clenched fist but open hands towards Saul and there is a response you see there is a power in grace.

Gentle Jesus meek and mild look upon a little child pity my simplicity all I have I bring to thee. The earliest prayer that I ever was taught by my mum. There is a simplicity in our Lord Jesus.

There is however a great grace a great strength. It's a forgiving tendency of our Lord Jesus that that has a magnetic effect on people not so. He's not the Lord of the clenched fist he's the Lord of the open hand.

When his hands were forcefully opened at Calvary but his hands are voluntary open always towards sinners and the very imprint of the nail the marks in his hands indicate what he has gone through as a grace man when he could have been a grudge man. David three hundred of us let's get Saul let's sort him out good and proper right now David we've got every reason so to do and you know it. The garden of Gethsemane Peter's a lousy shot goes for the high priest I reckon and misses and gets the ear of his servant.

Put away your sword Peter. Do you not know that my father has legions of angels? I've only to look up and they'll be down in a split second and they'll zap the lot. But I'm not a grudge man.

I'm a grace man. I've often wondered and said from this pulpit before what I would have done allow me this without teaching over the edge of blasphemous thought. If I'd been raised from the dead who I would have picked for the first resurrection appearance? I think I'd have gone for Pontius Pilate.

You know I've just been reading the book I just completed a month or so ago The Long March to Freedom brilliant book Nelson Mandela simple long wonderful. You know I often thought of Nelson Mandela on the occasions Rowena and I have been in her home province of Cape of the Cape Peninsula because Mandela was just in an island across from where I used to swim and sometimes I had thoughts of this man not knowing much about him now I know a lot more because of his biography. 28 years he was on that island and some of the things I did to him I'll not repeat it's too crude and when I read his book I was looking for bitterness and I didn't find it and I was wondering what would be the thoughts of the gods in his earlier years now.

I mean you imagine you're president of the Republic of South Africa you really pack a punch and suddenly you pull up in your automobile outside the home of the gods who looked after you during those years. My I bet the blood would go into their the adrenaline would go into their bloodstream don't you? Get them back for what they did but there seems to be a strange absence of vindictiveness on the part of Mandela and so it is with our beloved lord so it was with David here my father and Saul he responders momentarily temporally to the lavishness of the grace of David. Is that you my son? You're more righteous than I am? Yes the kingdom will be yours.

The grace man is always more powerful than the grudge man. Auschwitz I've mentioned that on a number of occasions probably because I was brought up during and just after the war as a kid. I once went on a pilgrimage I was only 19 years of age 20 years of age I went on a pilgrimage to to Dakar where so many Jews were done to death.

I went around the gas chambers the remains of them. I've got an incredible book in my library records the letters of men at the point of death who wrote to their wives. One letter not recorded in this book but I do recall I do remember it it wasn't written because the prisoner didn't have a pen he'd only got a pin and in the pin and on some toilet paper he made this comment and left it for someone else to read.

It was a prayer about his guards Lord Jesus when you come in your kingdom may our suffering be credited for the forgiveness of our tormentors. Isn't that wonderful? Grace triumphing to the degree that men who could legitimately have held grudges cast their grudges away and became strong even at the moment of death. Our beloved Lord is the grace man he brushes aside the grudges he could legitimately have against you and responds to your plea for forgiveness and clemency and having received that he asks you to be a grace man a grace woman away with the bitterness as we have been forgiven so Lord we forgive the person who exploited me when I was just a virgin child I forgive the lackadaisical careless attitude of my parents I forgive the unfaithfulness of my partner I forgive those who scandalized me I forgive every rotten thing that was ever done against me I forgive and within the act of forgiveness there is such a release and such an intake of love and a sense of well-being two men meet in a cave a grace man and the grudge man and the most powerful was the grace man where do you feature on the seesaw let's pray Father we've looked into an unusual passage of your word we thank you that you'll take daringly a human situation and show us the incredible truths that are locked up in an Old Testament narrative and when we take the negative and have it developed within the New Testament meaning we see there something of what you want us to be we thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood died he for me for me Lord we thank you he did so help us to live our lives in the interest of others forgiving us we have been forgiven in his name amen let's sing that hymn and can it be that I should gain a 33 mission praise sing it quite quickly but we'll still sing it with concentration on each of the words it's an old hymn but it's a good one he left his father's throne above so free so infinite his grace 33 is ♪ Oh, tell me, Lord, how can it be ♪ ♪ That for my conscience I fall in? ♪ ♪ Is it the only hope to die? ♪ ♪ And henceforth its strange design? ♪ ♪ In vain the verse of terror flies ♪ ♪ It's not the death of what's in mind ♪ ♪ This has been your never-ending battle, Lord ♪ ♪ In danger, fighting by the law ♪ ♪ In danger, fighting by the law ♪ ♪ We never try, we throw in by night its weight ♪ ♪ Defeating self, the whole world now ♪ ♪ And till then your madness will never end ♪ ♪ And henceforth its strange design? ♪ ♪ In vain the verse of terror flies ♪ ♪ It's not the death of what's in mind ♪ ♪ This has been your never-ending battle, Lord ♪ fell off, all the grudges.

Have you lost yours? Feelings of anger towards people, maybe anger toward yourself. The Lord does want us free, you know, free of all the things that so often ensnare us as Christian people. Whom the sun sets free shall be free indeed.

I find it hard not to hold grudges. I know I poison myself as a result. You know, I don't preach without the word affecting me.

Sometimes it affects me so much I can hardly get it out. But this is the prescription and this is the blessing. This is the good of the promises that we've been looking at from Scripture.

He wants us to be free. He wants us to be grace men, not grudge men. He wants us to forget a lot of the past and take the present and go into the future and not to let the past bankrupt the present and bankrupt the future.

He wants us to be healed. Let's take the fourth and fifth verses again. We'll take them as quickly, but instrumentalists just drop the sound a little bit so the congregation can win this time.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. By night it used to freely reign, but hope the dungeon came with night.

By chains fell all my love for sweet, by force and force and power me. By chains fell all my love for sweet, ♪ My heart will sing all the time ♪