"Living with the enemy"

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One Samuel chapter 27. And we're starting that's on page two nine nine. And we're starting at verse one. But David thought to himself, one of these days, I shall be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines.

Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand. David and the 600 men with him left and went over to Achish, son of Maoch, king of Gath. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish, and each man had his family with him. And David had his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him.

David said to Achish, if I found favor in your eyes, let a place be assigned to me in one of the country towns that I may live there. Why should your servants live in the royal city with you? So on that day, Achish gave him Ziklag, and it's belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. David lived in the Philistine territory for a year and four months. Now David and his men went up and raided the Gershurites, the Gersites, and the Amalekites from ancient times.

These people have lived in the land extending to Shur and Egypt. Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive. But he took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels and clothes, and then he returned to Achish. When Achish asked, where did you go raiding today? David did say, against the Negev Of Judah, or against the Negev Of Jeremiah, or against the Negev of the Kenites.

Did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he thought, they must inform on us and say, this is what David did. And such was his practice as long as he lived in the Philistine territory. Achish trusted David and said to himself, he's become so obnoxious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant for life. In those days, the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, you must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army.

David said, then you will see for yourself what your servant can do. Achish replied, very well. I'll make you my bodyguard for life. Thank you, Paul, for reading that. Please keep the passage open in front of you.

So one Samuel 27 and into 28. And, thank you as well to Gareth for doing the all age slot this morning. You will you might notice in as I go through the sermon that there are themes that had come out from what was in the all age slot and even things that were prayed for in the prayers. It all fits beautifully with this passage and what I'm gonna be saying this morning. And it you'll think, wow.

This all fits beautifully. You've worked this out well together. And it wasn't like that at all. It's just in the Lord's goodness that's the way it's worked. But is great to have it when sometimes when things just work like that.

It's beautiful. Okay. Let me pray for us as we come to God's word. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you that we can read the bible, but we need your help.

Father, help us to understand it. Help us to engage with it. Help us to see truths in your word and to see how they apply to us and how they should shape and change the way we think and the way that we live. And most of all, father, please, would you help us this morning to put our trust more fully in Jesus. Amen.

Many of us battle fears. We all battle feels our fears, I would think. Some of us are just better at not showing it than others. Some of us, it's it's the big scale things in the world around us, things that maybe hit the news headlines. Things like global warming or the wars around the world that that we were praying for earlier.

And some of us, it's the more personal things, things that don't make the news headlines, but nevertheless hit us and hit our hearts strongly. Maybe for you, it's fears to do with maybe living on your own. Fears about what ifs. It's the what ifs, isn't it? What if someone breaks in?

What if I have an accident and no one can help? For others, it's fears to do with work. What if I lose my job? What if I can't change job? What if I'm stuck where I am?

Others, it's financial fears. Others, it's fears maybe for your children or grandchildren. What if? It only takes them being a few minutes late walking home from school and the fears start to rise, don't they? What if?

What if they've had an accident? What if they've been kidnapped? What if? And the fears rise. And the list could just go on and on.

And some of us, like I say, are better ignoring fears, and others, they dominate us. They shape our lives and our behavior and sometimes stop us doing things we would love to do. Now today in one Samuel in one Samuel 27 and the first couple of verses of 28, we are gonna see David, and he makes a real mess of things. It it's actually a bit of a reminder, isn't it, that as you go through the bible, a lot of the bible heroes, in fact, all of them apart from Jesus, they're all sinners, and they all make a mess of things, and sometimes it is quite spectacular. And we need to remember that all those heroes, they're made of the same stuff as us.

And therefore, as we see David make a mess of things, we can actually look into his heart. Amazingly, this chapter, we can see right into his heart, into his thinking as he makes a mess of things, and, actually, we can see ourselves there as well. And the thing that sparks him making a mess of things is actually a fear and a fear that he deals with badly. But, actually, he deals with it in a similar way to the way most of us do. So let's get into this chapter.

Chapter 27, and our first heading is gonna be fear tries to take control. Fear tries to take control. Now let me just give you a little bit of context. So, Saul is king of Israel. We've seen that over, over recent weeks, but maybe you you're new this morning, in which case, this is gonna be new to you.

Saul is king of Israel, but he has been a bad king. He has rejected God, and so God has rejected him as king over his people, the Israelites. God has chosen David, therefore, to be Saul's successor, but Saul doesn't like David and wants to have him killed. So we have had many chapters where Saul has been chasing after David to try to kill him. And in recent chapters, David has had the opportunity to kill Saul and has decided not to take it and to trust God.

This chapter, however, things go horribly wrong. All of a sudden, David seems not to have any trust in God at all. He doesn't trust that God's in control, and he doesn't trust that God will preserve him. Verse one. Have a look with me.

David thought to himself, one of these days, I shall be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand. Now we're gonna just take a few minutes to pause on that one verse. We're not gonna do the whole sermon going through verse by verse in the same pace.

We're gonna slow down on the first verse. And in that first verse, we are given it's almost like an x-ray of Saul's heart that we get to go right into his own thinking and what he's talking to himself. And that's the first thing to notice is he talks to himself. Actually, it's what we all do, isn't it? We all talk to ourselves.

That's how we make decisions. We reason with ourselves. The question is, is what we're saying to ourselves true? What does David say to himself? The first thing he talks about is this fear.

He says, one of these days, I shall be destroyed by the hand of Saul. He's saying one day, my luck is gonna run out. That seems to be what he's saying. He's been on the run from Saul so many times, and Saul has nearly got him lots of times. And so he seems to be saying to himself, I've been lucky so far, but one day my luck is gonna run out.

One day Saul is gonna get me. Now we want to say to him at this point, as those who've been reading one Samuel, David, what are you talking about? You've been promised by God that you are going to be king of Israel. And you've heard on more than one occasion, people say to you, your life is gonna be secure. If you remember a couple of chapters ago, those who were here, Abigail spoke to David and said, you are gonna have a sure dynasty, a sure house.

Your kingship is gonna last for generations, and your life is gonna be secure, and the lives of your enemies will be cast away like a stone from a sling. Do you remember she said that? She has assured David, he's gonna be fine. Saul is not gonna get him, but that's not what we do in our fears. Very often, we ignore God's word, we ignore the existence of God, and we tell ourselves that the worst will happen.

And that's what he's saying to himself. The worst is gonna happen. At some point, it's all gonna go horribly wrong. That's what we do too. In our thinking, when we talk to ourselves, often we will ignore God, forget about him, forget about his word, and we will say to ourselves, the worst really is gonna happen.

My kids are gonna get kidnapped. I'm gonna have that accident. The worst is gonna happen. That's what we tell ourselves. And then David comes up with a plan.

So the next thing he says is, the best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Now, again, we think, as those who've read one Samuel, if you have, this sounds like a terrible plan. Why would you go to the Philistines? David has been attacking the Philistines, killing Philistines. He famously, as we heard earlier, killed Goliath who was the the champion of the Philistines, and who came from a place called Gath, which is where he decides to go.

And the previous time that David escaped and went to Gath, it went so badly wrong. He was captured by the Philistines. The only way he escaped from the king of the Philistine, from the king of Gath, was by pretending to be mad. That's how that's what happened. And since then, he's killed more Philistines, And so he says to himself, I'm gonna go to the Philistines.

But more than that, do you see what he says at the beginning of his plan? He says, the best thing I can do is to do this. Not only does he come up with a plan, he evaluates his plan like marking your own homework and he says, this is the best thing I can do. And we read it and go, really? This is your best plan?

But we do the same thing too. As we face fears, we might come up with a plan, and we assess our own plan and think that's the best thing to do. We don't talk to others. We certainly don't necessarily look at God's word or bring God into it. We just think this is the best plan.

And then he decides what the outcome is gonna be. Do you notice that? He says, then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand. He's saying, I know what the outcome will be. It will definitely be this.

Saul will stop. Now that's quite incredible. He has become he he he has become so convinced in his own mind that his plan will definitely work when we look at it and go, what a ridiculous plan. Now I want you just to take a step back. What is David doing as he reasons with himself in this kind of way?

He's trying to take control, isn't he? I think that's what he's doing. Do you see that? He's trying to take control. He's trying to say, look, here's this big fear, which is Saul is going to get me at some point.

I'm telling myself it's true. I come up with my own plan, and I decide it will definitely work. He's trying to take control. Now can you see yourself in this? It is what we do.

When we're faced with fears, one of our instincts, one of our reactions is, I will try and take control. I don't necessarily think about what God thinks on this, what God says. I don't necessarily bring it to God. I just try to take control. And this is what we all try to do, isn't it?

We fear climate change, so we separate out our recycling. And we think, well, we've taken control. Everything's under control now. Or we think, well, I'm scared about health problems, so I'll take control in various ways. I'll go to the gym, and I feel everything's under control or a bit more under control.

I fear for my children, and therefore I try and control everything. I control what they're gonna watch on screens. Therefore, they'll be safe. I control well, it's a problem in teenage years, isn't it? To try and stop them going off the rails, we'll try and take control.

No. They can't go out. They're not allowed to go out. Oh, no. No.

No. We're not gonna allow that because I've gotta be in control because otherwise things will go horribly wrong. Our instinct is to take control. We get life insurance, travel insurance, holiday insurance, all in case something goes wrong. And if those are in place, we feel better.

We feel everything is more under control, and we don't fear as much. Now I'm not saying it's wrong to do some of those things. Obviously, you you should monitor what your children are watching. And it is a good idea to have travel insurance. All those things.

It's more what's going on in our hearts that we try to take control and therefore our fears are relieved. Do you see that? Now what by doing that are we saying about who is really in control of everything. We're trying to take control, and we're trying to say, I can I can manage this? Fear tries to take control, But the way David is doing this is to ignore God, ignore God's word, and try and take control himself.

Now I want you to see, we're now gonna go through the rest of the chapter, and we're gonna go through it pretty quickly. Because I want you to see that taking control is like herding cats, which AI did a good job on that picture I thought. I don't know if there are any cats with too many legs or anything like that that AI produced, but I think that's a pretty good image. It's like herding cats. You sort of think, well, I've got one of them under control, maybe a little bit, but everything else is going horribly wrong.

And that's what you see with David in this chapter. So he puts the plan into action. He puts the plan into action. He says, right. We're gonna head over to the Philistines.

So he does. He heads over to Gath. Verse three. He says, David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David and his two wives, Ahenom of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal.

So he and his men, they all head over to Gath, to the Philistine territory, to the enemy. And bizarrely, from our point of view, us thinking this was a terrible plan, bizarrely, it seems to go quite well. Verse four. When Saul was told that that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him. So David is now in Gath.

Seemingly, the king of Gath seems to have welcomed him, which is a bit weird, but he has, and Saul has now stopped searching for David. Great. David, your plan worked. You're in control. All is good.

Or is it? What's been the cost of him doing this? Well, now he and his men and all their families are living in enemy territory. And for him to be there, he must have made friends with the king of Gath, Achish, and be in league with him. And as we saw last chapter, for David to be away from Israel is in a sense to be away from the presence of the Lord.

Is that alright? Doesn't seem alright. Well, anyway, David then says, well, we can't stay living in the capital city, king of Gath, Achish. Would you give us somewhere to live? And he does.

He gives him Ziklag. Verse six, Achish gave him Ziklag, and that's belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. So David and his men are now living in Philistine territory in this place called Ziklag, and they're there for a year and four months, which is long enough for you to think, what are they doing in this time while they're living in enemy territory? And that's what we're told. Verse eight, we find that they go raiding.

In other words, they go attacking places to take what's there. And we're told where they do this. They attack the Geshurites, the Gersites, and the Amalekites. Now these are not Philistines, and they're not Israelites. They're other people that David is attacking.

He attacks them, and they don't leave anyone alive. Verse nine, when he attacks, they don't leave men, women, or children alive. Men or women alive. Sorry. They take the cattle, the donkeys, and all that all that's there.

Now the difficulty is there's no comment in the text as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. And actually commentaries are a little bit divided. Is David doing a good thing here? Is he doing a bad thing? You might think, well, it seems pretty bad.

But they go, well, maybe he's trying to obey the Lord because there was a command sometime back, a command to Moses and Joshua to say, that you should destroy all the people in the land. And some commentators are saying, well, maybe David is doing that. Saul is clearly not as king of Israel, but maybe David's doing a good thing here. I don't think he is. I think the text is actually saying this is a bad thing, and the reason was for that is because of what the explanation that follows.

So just carry on in the verses. Verse 10, when Achish asked, where did you raid today? David would say, against the Negev of Judah or against the Negev of Jeremiah or against the Negev of the Kenites. He did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he thought they might inform on us and say this is what David did. Okay.

That needs a little bit of explanation. Those places that David is saying to Achish that he has been attacking So he's been attacking other people, but he says to Achish, we've been attacking these people in the Negev, and that is Israel or allies of Israel, of God's people. In other words, David is claiming to Achish that he's attacking Israel, God's people, his former people. So trying to say to Achish, I'm not loyal to them anymore. In fact, I'm attacking them now.

That's how loyal I am to you. And he kills off all the men and women, so that none of them could go to Achish and say, oh, no. No. No. We're from these other people.

That's why he's doing it. So I think what David is doing here is seeing there is another fear now. There was a fear that Saul would would get him and kill him. Now the fear is Achish will find out that actually maybe David is still loyal to Israel. So his fear now is that Achish will find that out, and the way he now tries to take control is lying and slaughter.

Do you see things are getting worse? He's trying to keep control, but it's like herding cats. You think one thing's under control, but then something else sort of needs to be done, and he needs to lie, and he needs to kill in order to try to keep that under control. And now Achish thinks that David is loyal to him. The king of the Philistines thinks that David's loyal to him.

And now chapter 28, it just gets even worse. Chapter 28. In those days, the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, you must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army. David said, then you will see for yourself what your servant can do.

Achish replied, very well. I will make you my bodyguard for life. This is all getting I mean, you think, David, yeah, you're kind of in control, kind of in control, but it is getting way out of hand now. David is being charged with you now got to come and fight the Israelites. The very people that God has says that you're going to be king of.

And he comes out with this ambiguous reply of, then you'll see what your servant will do. It's kind of, what does that mean? Don't know. But David, do you see, is in a real mess here. He's been told you've got to now come and fight against Israel, and he can't back down now, can he?

After all, if he does that, Achish will think, well, now you're loyal to the Israelites. And he can't go and fight the Israelites, can he? Well, you're left on a cliffhanger there as to what's gonna happen. You're gonna have to wait a couple of weeks because after the there's some another incident that comes along with Saul, and we'll find out in a couple of weeks what happens with David. But do you see how things just get worse and worse?

He tries to take control, but actually, you find he's not really in control. So he tries to take control more, and then you find he's not really and and it just it just spirals downhill as sometimes happens with us. As we try to take control of things that we find are actually not controllable, that we try and we try and our fears get greater. So what's the solution? What does the bible say is the solution to deal with fear?

Well, we're gonna look at another passage. In fact, and I don't wanna frighten you with this, we're gonna look at four passages, but you'll be alright. Don't worry. Don't panic. You will still have lunch.

Let's turn. Would you turn? We're gonna go away from one Samuel 27. I wanna take you to Mark chapter four. So that is page I will tell you in a moment.

It's page, 1,006. Page 1,006. Because the bible's solution to fear and fear of things that we cannot control is faith. Faith fights fear. And the way that we grow in faith is not to think, right, I've got this fear.

Right. I better summon up all my faith. Like you're some, I don't know, some superhero just sort of go, right, I'm gonna summon up faith. Right. And now I can deal with the fear.

That is I I'm not sure anyone here thought that's what you had to do, but it that's not what faith is. It's not a kind of summoning up within yourself. And you don't tackle fear with faith by by focusing on the fear. Faith grows and faith tackles fear by focusing on the object of your faith, the thing the one in whom you put your trust. So that's why we're gonna go to Mark four and five to look at Jesus, and we're gonna look at these four incidents, and in each one, these have been put together in Mark's gospel.

Each one, there is something powerful that looks uncontrollable. There's fear and there's faith in everyone. Okay. And they've been put together, I think, for this reason. So Mark chapter four verse 35.

I'm not gonna read through every bit of it, otherwise, it would take too long, but I'm just gonna narrate the way through it. Mark chapter four verse 35, you start with the storm. So Jesus and the disciples are in a boat, and a storm hits, and this is clearly uncontrollable, this storm, and you have very experienced fishermen in the boat who cannot control things. They are frightened. They are frightened they're gonna die, And they call on Jesus, and Jesus stands up, commands the winds and waves, and they stop.

Jesus then says to them, verse 40. Notice this. Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Fear, faith.

They seem to be opposites here. Fear and faith. Jesus says, where's your faith? Why are you afraid? There was this uncontrollable storm.

Jesus controls it. He says, where's your faith? And then the disciples are even more frightened. It says, verse 41, they were terrified. Why are they terrified?

Because Jesus has more control than they do, and Jesus can control something that looks utterly uncontrollable, the storm. That's the first incident. Second incident. First chapter five. You have someone there who is possessed by evil spirits.

This is evil that Jesus is confronting now, and it's uncontrollable. People tried to control this this demon possessed person. They tried to put chains on him, it says. They tried to contain him, but they couldn't. He broke the chains.

Uncontrollable evil. And Jesus meets with this man and casts out the evil spirits. In fact, the evil spirits are frightened of Jesus, and he casts them out. He is showing he is in control even of uncontrollable evil. The people from the towns and villages come out, see what's going on, and we're told, when they when they came out, verse 15, the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

Why? They're frightened of Jesus. They're not rejoicing that this guy has had evil cast out of him. They're frightened of Jesus. The only person who isn't frightened of Jesus at this point is the man who's had the evil spirits cast out of him.

He wants to be with Jesus. Okay. You've had the storm. You've had evil. Now you get two more incidents that come together.

First and they're blended together. So you get Jairus verse twenty one and twenty two, a guy who comes to Jesus because his daughter is dying. There is nothing that will make you feel more out of control than a child with a terminal illness. That is pretty out of control. That feels like who can control that?

Jairus comes to Jesus, says my daughter is dying. The incident is then interrupted by a woman who comes to Jesus, a woman who has been suffering from bleeding for twelve years. She comes to Jesus and we are told, verse 26, she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she'd had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. In other words, uncontrollable sickness. It's one can control it.

The doctors can't deal with it. No one can. They've tried, but they can't control it. She comes to Jesus, touches his cloak, and is healed. Jesus stops everyone, calls her out to come to him, and we are told she is terrified.

She is trembling with fear, verse 33. And he says to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. Fear and faith. Uncontrollable sickness, and Jesus controls it. Then the people come from Jairus' house and say, the worst news possible, his daughter is dead.

And here is something that is utterly uncontrollable by us, death. We in our culture, we are so frightened of death that what we do is we try to ignore it. We try to pretend it's not there. Try to brush over it. But in the end, we can't do that.

Death is the big uncontrollable, and this man's daughter has died. And everyone thinks, well, that's that's the end. Verse 35. While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. Your daughter is dead, they said.

Why bother the teacher anymore? Let's not carry on with this, he's they said. Don't don't bother him. It's too late. And Jesus says, verse 36, overhearing what they said, Jesus told them, again, notice this, do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Just believe. Have faith. That's what he says to the dying to the man whose daughter has died. Don't be afraid.

Just believe. He goes to the room where the girl is and raises her from the dead. Now I bring you to those four instance because I want you to see four uncontrollable things there. The storm, evil, sickness, death. They are things we are frightened of, things we cannot control, and yet we try to take control of them.

What is these passages saying? Jesus is the one who can control all of them. He has the power to deal with the uncontrollable. How does that help? What what does that do in terms of faith?

What does that teach you about what faith is? Faith, as we said, is not me trying to summon up something within me. It is me looking at Jesus and saying, he is the one who can deal with all of these things. He is the one in control. So when, like David, at the beginning of one Samuel 27, we find there is a fear and we start talking to ourselves, our temptation is to try to take control, and yet the first thing we need to do is to see very often we are not the ones in control.

We do not have the power to deal with these things, but Jesus does. So we cast them onto him and say, Jesus, I need you. I need you to deal with this because this is way out of my ability to deal with. I cast myself on you, and that is faith Saying, Jesus, I need you. I can't do this myself.

I'm very weak. I need you to take control. And faith grows as we look at Jesus, see what he does here, and as we say, right, Jesus, I need you to take control. I wonder what you need to put into Jesus's hands at the moment that maybe you're still trying to take control of. It doesn't mean that we don't take action.

It doesn't mean that we're just passive, of course. And it doesn't mean that things will all go well or that it will all be easy. Don't forget Jairus. He went to Jesus because his daughter was sick, and his daughter died. Things don't always go easy.

It's not always that Jesus goes, yep. Okay. That's all that sorted. But what he said to the to Jairus was then, still, don't be afraid. Just believe.

Jairus then needed faith not just for a healing, but for a resurrection. It is a great joy to hand over things to Jesus, and it is how faith fights fear. Be a bit like, I don't know if you've ever had to call for an ambulance. It's a horrible thing to do. And at that moment after you've called for the ambulance, presumably because there's someone with you, but who's, unwell, had an accident, there's a difficulty, and you are the one who's having to deal with things.

Maybe you're on the phone to 999, they're telling you what to do. And there is the great relief when the ambulance arrives and the paramedics come in, and the worst thing you could do at that point is to say, I'm in control. It's alright. I'm I'll deal with it. You don't do that.

You say to them, it's over to you. I'm gonna get out of your way. Actually, to see Jesus like this, see his power, see his control, the very best thing we can do is to say, Jesus, I need you to take control. I hand this over to you. Let me pray first.

Heavenly father, we pray, please, that you would help us with the fears that we face. Many of us struggle with fears, father. We still do. And though we have seen you at work in the past, we still struggle. And we tell ourselves things which aren't true, and we try to take control.

But, father, thank you that as we look at Jesus, we see someone who is in control, who is powerful, and who wonderfully calls us to have faith in him and to put ourselves in his hands. So help us, we pray, as we face fears. Help us to hand them over to you, to trust them to you, and to keep looking to Jesus that our faith would grow. Amen.