Blessings Reserved for the Repentant

2 Samuel 6:9-11 ESV

9 And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” 10 So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11 And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.

One thing that I’ve noticed throughout the years is that at times, children can be very stubborn, strong willed, and hard-headed. If you’ve ever had small children, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Or if you’ve even spent a considerable amount of time with small children, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

And one of those things that small children have such a hard time doing is saying ‘sorry’ when they’ve done something wrong.

I remember when Jake was very young, maybe 2 or 3 years old, he and I would run into this problem sometimes. He would do something that he wasn’t supposed to, and I may put him in timeout for a few minutes so that he could think about what he had done.

After those few minutes were up, I would call him to me, and I would ask him why it was that I put him in timeout… he would eventually tell me what he had done wrong, and then I would say, “Now, all you have to do is say ‘sorry’ for doing what you did and you can leave timeout.”

And at that, he would cry, kick, scream, roll around… do anything but say ‘sorry’. So, back to timeout he would go. And after we would do this for the umpteenth time, he would finally say that he was sorry for doing what he did, and he could then leave timeout.

But you know, as a parent, it makes you wonder why he just won’t say ‘sorry’. I mean, not saying ‘sorry’ gets him more time in timeout, so, surely, saying ‘sorry’ is the wisest and easiest thing to do, right?

But when we look at ourselves and our own actions which oftentimes offend God, it seems like a lot of times, maybe even more times than not, we too have a hard time just coming to the Lord and saying ‘sorry’… What we oftentimes have a really hard time doing is genuinely repenting.

I remember one time when we were here for our Wednesday Bible study, my brother Dave here, once described repentance pretty well for us. He said, “Everybody is sorry once they get caught, but repentance is legitimate sorrow for offending God, and it’s turning from what we did and not doing it anymore.”

It’s kind of like driving the wrong way down the interstate. We might not think too much of it once we start traveling the wrong way, but once we see cars coming in our direction, we know then that we made a mistake.

So, if that happens, what should do? Turn around! That’s kind of what repentance is, it’s turning away from what you realize is wrong.

But what if even after realizing that you’re going the wrong way down the interstate, you dodge a couple of cars and think to yourself, “It’s ok if I go this way because eventually the cars will stop coming.”?

Well, that’s what it’s like to refuse to repent. You know that what you’re doing is wrong, but you’re determined to just make things work anyway. Because you know, you might go a couple hundred yards without a car coming at you, but the oncoming traffic will come, until you turn around and start driving in the right direction.

We might do something that we know is wrong, that we know offends God. We might even be upset that God is angry with us for offending Him, but a lot of times, that’s all we are: upset that He’s angry with us, but we determine that we’ll just keep doing what makes Him angry and sooner or later He’ll just forget about it and see things our way.

Well, you know, when that happens, when we do that, when we refuse to repent, the one who we are hurting the most is ourselves.

But, on the other hand, when one does recognize his wrong, when he legitimately feels sorrow for disappointing God, and he starts heading in the right direction by no longer doing what he did to disappoint and anger God, well, he actually does experience blessings, and he winds up knowing more than ever before that doing things God’s way is really doing things the best way.

We see a great example of this found within our reading for today.

Last week we talked about how it was David’s desire to bring the Ark of God into the capital city of Jerusalem, which, of course, was a good thing, a very good thing.

But what was not a good thing was the way in which David went about transporting the ark. It was prescribed and commanded by God that the ark be transported via poles that were to be inserted in the sides of the ark and then carried on the shoulders of Kohathites, who were of the tribe of Levi.

But though that was what God commanded, David directed the ark to be transported on a new cart that was carried by oxen.

Now, that seems innocent enough, it may even have seemed like a good thing to do, but it was the opposite of what God commands, so it was not innocent, and it most definitely was not a good thing to do.

And David was forced to recognize his error when Uzzah, who was following behind the ark reached forth his hand to steady the ark when one of the oxen stumbled and the ark became unstable and was thus struck down by God and died on the spot.

Now, we also said last week that when this happened, even though David knew that what he done was wrong, he became angry, not because the holiness of God was violated, but because what he did didn’t go according to his own plans.

Now, the responsible and godly thing to do here, especially after seeing that he was wrong, would be for David to sorrow over his sin and repent of it by doing what is right.

But just like a lot of us do, David didn’t instantly repent. Instead, he came up with what he thought was a reasonable solution that would put off doing what was right and still make things work in his own favor without really doing anything truly productive or godly.

We see this in our reading, where it says:

*2 Samuel 6:9-10a ESV

9 And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” 10a So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David.

So, we said last week that David was angry that God struck down Uzzah, now here we see another emotion of David towards God, and that emotion is fear.

It says that that day, the day in which God struck Uzzah down for violating His holiness, David was afraid of the Lord.

And you know, he should have been afraid after all of that. But at that point, David should have known more than ever that God is One Who is powerful and serious about the worship that His people offer Him. And because he recognized that he had done the wrong thing here, and because he recognized that God is serious about the worship that His people offer Him, David should have instantly repented.

But what David did here was take the procrastinator’s approach to the situation at hand.

Do any of you ever do that? Do you ever procrastinate? I know that I do. Sometimes I’ll know that something is important, and that I need to do it right away, but I keep putting it off, finding convenient excuses to put off what needs to be done today.

That’s what happened here, David said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?!” He wasn’t willing to practice the repentance that was required for him to take up the ark and properly honor God. He just put it off and came up with an alternative.

Once again, we see this in our reading:

*2 Samuel 6:10b-11a ESV

10b But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11a And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months,

David did not take the Ark of God into Jerusalem, for in order for him to do that, he would have to repent and do the right thing, which David was not yet willing to do.

Instead, he just passed the ark off onto someone else: Obed-edom the Gittite. And so, the Ark of God remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months.

So, while David was unwilling to take responsibility and properly care for the ark, he found a man who was. And wouldn’t you know it, the house of the man who properly cared for the ark experienced the blessings that David longed for.

The end of our reading tells us this, where it says:

*2 Samuel 6:11b ESV

11b and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.

So, while David longed for he and the city of Jerusalem to experience the blessings associated with the presence of God through the Ark of God, his unwillingness to repent and do what God commanded him to do made that impossible.

While the one who David just passed the Ark of God onto did experience these blessings… this was a lesson that David had to learn the hard way.

Beloved, last week we talked about worshipping the Lord the right way, the way that He prescribes and commands us to worship Him.

Now, churches all over America have tried to tweak the worship of God, doing things which may appeal to the senses and that glorify man rather than God and they have called it worship.

And yes, these techniques may initially work, but because it is not the way that God commands us to worship Him, He then has no part in such “worship” and His special presence which makes legitimate worship meaningful then departs as the glory of the Lord departed from the Temple in the prophecy of Ezekiel.

Now, when this happens, it is obvious that it has happened, and we then know that we have done wrong.

And when we know this, we can react in one of two ways: we can just pass off responsibility to someone else. We can say, “Let some other church worship God the way He commands them to worship Him! This is how we do it!”

Or we can repent. We can come to God with pain and anguish and sorrow in our hearts because we know that we have disregarded Him as something unholy and unclean and we can plead, “Lord, forgive me! Forgive me, a sinner!” and we can start to do things God’s way.

But know this for sure: if we fail to repent, we will learn the hard way that the one who treats God as holy, experiences what we long to experience. The church who truly treats God and the worship of God as holy will experience what our reformed hearts long to experience, while we will be here continuing to try what doesn’t work and getting the same results.

Beloved, may we repent and worship God as holy like He deserves and commands.