“Madness Begins” - 1 Samuel 18
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 30 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
The mirror responds, "Vain is your beauty, majesty. But, oh, a lovely maid I see. Rags cannot hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee."
The queen's face contorts and her eyes burn with anger. How could a maid, dressed only in rags, compare to the regal beauty of the queen? "Reveal her name!" demands the queen. The mirror tells the queen the name of Snow White. "A lash for her!" hisses the queen.
Though she is a beautiful queen surrounded by royalty, her envy of Snow White consumes her. From that moment forward the queen seeks to destroy Snow White. The queen commands a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her, returning only with her heart. When this doesn't work, the queen attempts to kill Snow White by giving her a poison apple. Ultimately, the queen perishes while fleeing the scene of the crime. She is destroyed by envy.
Ahhh… Envy/Jealousy. It is described as cancer in our bones. From Wikipedia - Jealousy is an emotion; the term generally refers to the thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, concern, and envy over relative lack of possessions, status or something of great personal value, particularly in reference to a human comparator. Jealousy often consists of a combination of emotions such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness and disgust. How many of us have experienced this kind of emotion at some time in our lives? Many times? Still feel it today? A woman who is angry that her husband is flirting with another woman, a man who resents his coworker for being promoted before he was, and a teenager who is annoyed at her sister for going to the movies with her best friend are all experiencing jealousy. What causes it…some common ones.
Sibling rivalry, or the jealousy and envy one sibling feels as a result of the love, attention, and resources received by another sibling. Romantic jealousy, or fear and anxiety about the perceived or actual loss of a romantic partner. Workplace jealousy, or the jealousy and envy one might feel toward a coworker's career accomplishments, social acclaim, or treatment by superiors. Ministry larger churches, more successful ministries, ect.
Envy and Jealousy affects us all in so many different ways. But is there hope for us to be free of the snares of jealousy? We will see in our passage today.
As soon as David had finished speaking to Saul, he and Jonathon became kindred spirits making a covenant together. When they returned from defeating the Philistines, there was singing and celebration. The song did not please Saul too much. And again, the harmful spirit rushed upon Saul and he “raved” in his house in madness. David came to play the lyre and Saul hurled his spear at him trying to pin him against the wall. But David twice escaped. Finally, Saul sent David away to lead his troops into battle hoping he would die. Yet David, succeeded at everything he had done causing more fear to appear in Saul and at the same time increasing the love that Israel had for David. Saul wanted to allegedly hook David up with his apparently already spoken for daughter and all he had to do was continue to fight battles for Saul. Saul had secretly hoped that the Philistines might kill David so that he would not have to. David said who am I that I should be the king’s son-in-law? He graciously declined. Later Saul found out that David was loved by his other daughter Mical and decided to give her to David to be one who would lead him into idolatry or time for the Philistines to end David. But David said, I got nothing to pay a bride-price. Saul only demanded 100 Philistine foreskins. David brought him 200. Saul also increased in madness realizing how much the Lord was with David and how much his daughter loved him. He from then on was an enemy of David till the day he died. David continued to be victorious, much more than any of the other leaders of Saul. The name of David became very famous.
This was their song:
“Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his ten thousands!”
This made Saul very angry. “What’s this?” he said. “They credit David with ten thousands and me with only thousands. Next they’ll be making him their king!” So from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.
The very next day a tormenting spirit from God overwhelmed Saul, and he began to rave in his house like a madman. David was playing the harp, as he did each day. But Saul had a spear in his hand, and he suddenly hurled it at David, intending to pin him to the wall. But David escaped him twice.
Saul was then afraid of David, for the Lord was with David and had turned away from Saul.
1 Samuel 18:
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
Madness
Unhappily ever after
Christ is more than enough
The first thing we will see today is that jealousy can destroy us with madness like it affected Saul. The second thing is how jealousy can be one of those things that we can hold onto till the grave, unhappily ever after like it was for Saul. And finally, we will see that it is our faith and trust in the more than enough Lord Jesus that will free us from the unbelief of Jealousy.
Thesis: Though sin fuels the fires of jealousy within our hearts causing us to fall into our own form of madness; fearing removal or abandonment of that which we hold dear, our Lord whose name is more famous than any other, more victorious than any other, more frightening to the caverns of darkness than any other, will remove the thorns of jealousy’s unbelief and increase our faith and cover us with the the gospel.
I. Madness
- Madness blossoms from the seeds of jealousy.
A. There was victory in the land with song and celebration in the city. However, in the midst of the party, the grateful mothers, wives, and daughters began to sing lyrics that did not please Saul. Now this was not an uncommon thing to do. Women sang songs to memorialize military successes. Miriam sang a song after the defeat of the Egyptians, Deborah sang after their victory.
B. Saul declared in jealousy that if they praise him now for his victories, next they’ll want to make him king. They still praised Saul… but the 9000 more of David, became 9000 times more Envy. Saul saw incredible treason in this.
C. Now after all that David did, should not there be rejoicing? Even from Saul? Think about it. David saved his kingdom. David kept them from being slaves to the Philistines. No telling what they would have done to Jonathon and the rest of Saul’s family to keep them from an uprising. The people saw this. The soldiers saw this. Jonathon saw it. That is why they rejoiced. But not Saul?
D. Remember, Saul was more concerned about his position as king more than he did his own repentance. He was jealous for anything that would threaten his kingdom… and why not? It was no longer his. God did take the kingdom away from him.
E. His madness sprouted from the seeds of jealousy. And even when plagued with the tormenting spirit and David being the one to bring relief, he tried to kill him. He tried to kill the one who brought relief? The madness continued. He could not kill him so he decided to send him out to fight and maybe the Philistines would kill him. However, David continued to be victorious causing Saul to feel more threatened and his madness to grow. Madness blossoms from the seeds of jealousy.
F. What is jealousy doing in us today? Envy is one of those awful sins. Does it not cause us to do some of the most insane things today? It is so destructive and the scriptures make it clear.
For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
G. It is destructive especially to yourself…
A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body;
jealousy is like cancer in the bones.
Proverb
Did you know that even the wisdom of the world sees it. Psychologists have found that envy decreases life satisfaction and depresses well-being. Envy is positively correlated with depression and neuroticism, and the hostility it breeds may actually make us sick. Recent work suggests that envy can help explain our complicated relationship with social media: it often leads to destructive "social comparison," which decreases happiness. It will literally make you sick and even kill you.
H. Even Forbes wrote an article as to how jealousy can destroy a career.
I. It clearly destroyed Saul. It ate him alive. It drove him to madness. It drove him to despair. It drove him to evil evil evil sins especially against David. Like the Pharisees were so Jealous of Jesus, it drove them madness to crucify their own king! Many of us could have seen this happen to other people we have known. Many of us might have been Saul. Madness blossoms from the seeds of jealousy.
J. Is it driving you? Is it controlling you today? Driving you to miss out on the blessings that God has given. The calling that God has given. Your family. Your friends. Is it driving us to madness today? We want what we cannot have we want a destiny that we cannot have… One of my favorite scriptures concerning destiny.
Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.
Ecclesiastes
K. And for many, like Saul, we are jealous for something that does not belong to us. We are jealous of something that we should not even have in the first place. And if we have it, we are worried that someone is going to take it away because we believe that it is really not ours, because it is not. Madness blossoms from the seeds of jealousy. And it may not be. Let us wake up. Let us not be consumed by envy!
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.
I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
II. Unhappily ever after
- Living with envy… till death do us part.
A. This is interesting. Something that I thought about in reading this. Now I’m not saying that this is what the author had in mind, but in the context of marriage, we find that statement that Saul would be essentially married to envy for the rest of his life.
Saul became even more afraid of him, and he remained David’s enemy for the rest of his life.
1 samuel 18:29
He was an enemy of David till he died. Like Marriage… till death do us part. Living with envy unhappily ever after.
B. The Envy was so bad that he even schemed the demise of David with his own daughters. He used them. He used them to get David out into the battlefield.
C. The longer he stayed out there the law of averages would catch up to him and David would fall by the sword. He asked for 100 foreskins! They are not going to give these up without a fight!
D. But it all backfired. Not only did David survive and he gathered 200, all of his victories made him more famous in all of the land. The success of David surpassed all of Saul’s other officers. Which made him more famous.
E. But it all backfired. Not only did the plan to marry Mical to David not only failed but uncovered how much his daughter really loved David.
F. All of this contributed to Saul’s envy, which continued to increase fear and cause him to rave in madness. Now he would be Living with envy unhappily ever after.
G. It is a lot like the Pharisees who, continued in their jealousy, continued to lay traps against Christ and it all backfired.
Later the leaders sent some Pharisees and supporters of Herod to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested.
And Jesus thwarted the trap. Made them look bad instead.
H. If this is us today… we gotta let it go. Many of us deal with this. Many of us know people who are dealing with jealousy. What are we doing? Some of us can even testify that in our time of jealousy we did things that only backfired. Trying to make someone look bad we ended up looking bad instead. Even when we succeed in making them look bad, people are upset with us for doing it. Living with envy unhappily ever after.
I. Have we ever or know of people who have ever, in a fit of jealousy, did the unthinkable. Use people we love? Devise sinful plans? Use people as a stepping-stone? Walk over people to advance? Steal? Jealousy leads to horrid horrid sins!
J. Of course we do stuff like this… in our own way to whatever degree. It is in our nature to want things we cannot have. Commercials, social networks, reality TV, shopping malls… we want what we cannot have. Adam and Eve could eat of any tree in the garden. They had all the other trees and but they wanted to eat from the one they could not have. There is nothing that will stand in the way of the wake of envy… Living with envy unhappily ever after.
K. We get so caught up in what we don’t have that we lose sight of all the amazing things that we do have. Focused on the two in the bush that we forget what we have in our hand! We want the birds, but forget that in our hand is the kingdom of God! What madness!
CS Lewis wrote...Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Jealousy and envy aims at earth! What madness.
III. Content with Christ
- More than we could ever ask or imagine.
A. Today. Many of us struggle with this issue. Another way of putting it, is that we are not content with what we got. What is it? What is it that is driving us to heinous sins?
B. Jealousy. Envy. Discontentment. Unbelief. All rooted in sin. Did we hear something that made us 9000 times more envious? What of our own war in church life… so what if a person can shoot better than you and kill more than you, should we not rejoice that he is on your team? We have a war going on today… we must rejoice when others who fight for the kingdom of God have victory. But we don’t… why?
C. We in a way are married to sin. Till the day we die. Living with envy unhappily ever after. Like Saul, by nature an enemy of God till we die. We have tried and tried but we just cant seem to snap out of it.
D. Can we be free? Can we be delivered? Of course we can. The Gospel tells us so.
E. Christian…Christ has set us free. We are no longer married to sin and the effects of sin in light of the law. No longer Living with envy unhappily ever after. Why? Because we all died. Displayed by the wonderful means of grace called baptism where we are buried with him in death.
F. We can trust that Christ will deliver us from the 9000 times jealousy. The Holy Spirit will give us the power and the motivation to overcome our sins trusting that in Christ we have more than we could ever ask for.
G. All of this because of the work that Christ has done. This is the gospel of Jesus
H. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures… He came to seek and save that which was lost. He became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.
I. Envy causes us to not be content with what we got. The Gospel reminds us of what we got. Jealousy tells us we have nothing. The gospel tells us that we have everything. Jealousy tells us that we do not have enough. The gospel tells us that we have more than enough… above all that we could ever ask or imagine.