"David is Rejected"

When we experience relational hurts (whether through actions, words, or lack of encouragement), we often use phrases like "She broke my heart," or "He hurt my feelings," or it was like getting "punched in the gut." Researcher and neuroscientist Matthew D. Lieberman thought this was just too coincidental, so he set out to study the pain of social rejection. One of his studies involved putting people in a brain scanner while they played an Internet video game called Cyberball where three "people" (a subject and two computerized "players") toss a ball around to each other. The point of Cyberball is to make the research subject feel rejected. At first, all three players toss the ball to each other in turn. But at a certain point, the other two players cut the poor research participant out of the game. They toss the ball just to each other. Even though this is a silly game in a research study and has no bearing on real life, the research subjects were really hurt. They started feeling distress. They felt rejected. When they came out of the scanner, they kept talking to the researchers about how upset they were.

The most interesting part of the study is how their brains processed the social rejection. To the brain, social pain feels a lot like physical pain—a broken heart can feel like a broken leg, as Lieberman puts it. In his book Social, Lieberman writes, "Looking at the [brain scans], side by side, without knowing which was an analysis of physical pain and which was an analysis of social pain, you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference." In other words, "When human beings experience threats or damage to their social bonds, the brain responds in much the same way it responds to physical pain."

Either way… we all know one thing, rejection does not feel too good. Not only can the effects of rejection be difficult for us, but even the fear of rejection can make life decisions, emotions, and clarity difficult. Many times we do all that we can to prevent rejection, but it continues to be something that just cannot be controlled. Sometimes just cannot be avoided, but we still try to avoid it. But as Christians, many times we try to avoid rejection by the world and in doing so, we end up compromising the truths of scripture. Truths about the Bible’s integrity and sufficiency, truths of sexual orientation, definition of marriage, and authority are continuously compromised because of fear of rejection by the world. I wonder if we are more afraid to be rejected by the world than we are of being rejected by God. Offend God before we offend the world.

Family… do we not know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. James writes, Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And yet the beat goes on. But not all rejection is bad. There are many situations were it was the best thing that could have happened to us. Chicago writes a song that illustrates my point… If she would've been faithful, if she could have been true. Then I would've been cheated, I would never know real love. I would've missed out on you. You ever been rejected? You ever had a time where you were rejected and it worked out for the better? Many of us could have been rejected and fear rejection right now…but we need to know that many times rejection eventually becomes rejoicing. We will check this out today.

Last week we saw the unfortunate event of Saul going to the medium of Endor to conger up the spirit of Samuel to find out what he was going to do about the Philistine army mounting against Israel. The next day Saul and his son’s were going to fight and they were all going to be killed. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming already in progress.

The battle is about to begin. The lords of the Philistines were passing by hundreds and saw David and his men. They said the the king, “what are these men doing here?” This is David, he has been with me for a while and there has done nothing wrong since he has been here. The lords said, are you crazy, send him back to where he is staying, he cannot come out with us, what if he turns on us. Is there not a better way for him to reconcile with his master Saul by killing us and giving him our heads? Is this not the guy who the people of Israel declared his killing 10,000’s. Achish have you lost your mind? Achish called for David and told him that he knows that he has done nothing wrong, but the other Philistine rulers wont listen to him so lets not offend them he said and please go back quietly. David replied, what did I do? I didn’t do anything to deserve this. Achish replied, “As far as I am concerned, you are as perfect as an Angel, but the other guys are too afraid. Tomorrow morning you and your men go home.”

1 Samuel 29:10–11 NLT

Now get up early in the morning, and leave with your men as soon as it gets light.” So David and his men headed back into the land of the Philistines, while the Philistine army went on to Jezreel.

The grass withers the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

1. The good news…rejection

2. The good news…relief

3. The good news… the Gospel

The first thing we will look at today is the good news of rejection and how eventually it could lead to rejoicing. The second this we will explore is the relief that it brings the king, but maybe not. Finally, we will focus in on is how the rejection of Christ ultimately brings us all salvation.

Thesis: Although many times in our lives we seek to find comfort and protection in the arms of the world and find that it becomes a prison, we rejoice that our Lord in His divine wisdom and grace brings us His salvation in a way that may not make sense, yet it does not matter, for Salvation belongs to the Lord when rejection becomes redemption.

I. The good news… rejection

- Sometimes we just do not know what the Lord is doing for His people

A. We saw two chapters ago that David got himself into a precarious situation. In his trying to find salvation from Saul with the Philistines, he unfortunately, found favor with the Philistine King Achish. David was not truthful about where he had been and what he was doing while in his land, yet this deception brought him even more favor with the king. We ever find that at times many who live on deception often do find favor?

B. But the deception found him so much favor that the king made David and his men his own personal body guard and they were to join him in fighting against Israel. Because he found favor and salvation from the Philistines, he was now going to fight a war against his own kingdom and killed those he is meant to rule… his own people.

C. Could you imagine finding so much favor with an enemy of America so much so that now you would be forced to kill other Americans in a war? Now David could have denied the request, causing suspicion with the King and causing him to hunt him down just like Saul. He was in a no win situation. It was an impossible situation. Maybe some of us can relate to this. Doing something so wrong and foolish that we become stuck and there is just no way out. You are in a no win situation. Impossible situation.

D. When it comes to salvation from of our sinful foolishness, we can rejoice, for nothing will be impossible for our God.

Matthew 19:26 NLT

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

E. What we see here in this passage is a … “Surprise!” Good news came!

F. There was no fooling around with the other Philistine rulers, they assert who in the world are these Hebrews and why are they even here? After Achish answered, the rulers were angry. Sure they were, what in the world is Achish thinking? And then David hears the Gospel? V.4 “Send the man back, that he may return to the place to which you have assigned him. He shall not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us. For how could this fellow reconcile himself to his lord? Would it not be with the heads of the men here? This is his salvation from the Lord!

G. Achish then repeats the good news to David. He tells of his salvation. He was free. The king was rejected.

H. But many times it is not in the way that we would expect… The salvation of the Lord here is rejection. He was rejected by the other rulers and their rejection was the good news that he needed to hear. It was his salvation. His enemies brought him salvation.

I. This was not the first time the Lord used David’s enemy to save him. When Saul was in pursuit of David and almost caught up to him, the Philistines attacked Israel to turn Saul away.

J. Dr. Davis states, “What the text does teach is that even in our folly and fainting fits, we are still no match for our God, who has thousands of unguessable ways by which he rescues his people—even by the mouths of Philistines. He can make the enemy serve us as a friend. He not only prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies but also has the knack of making the enemies prepare the table!”

J. Dr. Davis states, “What the text does teach is that even in our folly and fainting fits, we are still no match for our God, who has thousands of unguessable ways by which he rescues his people—even by the mouths of Philistines. He can make the enemy serve us as a friend. He not only prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies but also has the knack of making the enemies prepare the table!”

K. There was a Christian woman, alone and out of food, was telling her plight to her heavenly Father and asking for her daily bread. Somehow a neighbor, an agnostic or an atheist, overheard the woman praying and decided it was time for a little divine fun. He went and purchased two loaves of bread and left them at her door. Upon discovering them, the woman burst into a devout and grateful prayer of praise. But her neighbor accosted her to demythologize the incident, informing her that he had happened to hear her praying, that he bought the bread, and he had placed it on her step. It was not, then, God who had answered her prayer. But the lady was “armed”: “Oh, yes, it was the Lord who answered my prayer—even though he used the devil to do it.” Mind Blowing.

Romans 11:33 NLT

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

M. But family it is important for us to see why he does things that make us go hmmm? It makes us scratch our heads in wonder as to why? How? What? Huh?

N. The reason its done this way is because God is not trying to get us to have an aha moment. He does not desire us to be entertained with a marvelous twist in a story. He does not desire us to tickle our intellects or to broaden our minds! The reason it is done this way is to cause us to fall to our knees in worship. He is not to be figured out, He is to be glorified, He is not to be comprehended, He is to be praised. He does things this way so that it will drive us to our knees and we declare how impossible it is to understand and how great are His ways. Done to bring glory to Himself. Yes!

O. It is the sinful and prideful heart that does not appreciate, enigmas, anomalies, paradoxes, the transcendence and incomprehensibility of God. Saying, “I gotta know if He deserving of my worship.” But!! If He really is God, then we should not be able to understand Him. If I could understand Him then He is probably not God.

P. The more I cannot understand God and His ways, the more confidence I have that He really is God. The Scriptures declare that he is beyond us. He cannot be contained in the mind of man. His ways are beyond comprehension. He is unquestionable. So that means that we should take comfort without question when we cannot understand or fully comprehend our Lord. We do not analyze, we worship. Yay!!!

II. The good news…relief

- Sometimes closed doors and closed windows are for our good.

A. I have got to believe that there must have been a flood of relief in the mind of David when he heard this and his spirit was overjoyed. But in light of this gospel message, he could not handle the rejection. But don’t press too hard in your apparent offense lest he change his mind. Don’t keep pushing your deceit. He wanted salvation but not at the expense of his character. Not at the expense of him looking good. See even when it is for our benefit, we still don’t like rejection.

B. This is good news of his salvation wrapped up in his rejection by the rulers of the Philistines. Yet his continued disrespect and deception of the Philistine king in his continued pressing of his blamelessness before him was anything but blameless. Was he really offended by the rejection? Fine I’m out, but how can you reject me this way? He wanted out but he did not want it by rejection! I wanna be saved but not this way! He does not understand.

C. Either way, family, David was saved because he was rejected. You know many of us today can think about times when we were doing our foolish things and we were denied, the door was closed, the window was shut, the opportunity vanished. How many times did we look back on these things and thank God that we were rejected? Sure, it did not feel so good when it first happened, no one likes rejection. But now when you look back you are grateful for it. Thank for being rejected.

D. Personally, there were endless ministry opportunities, record contracts, tours, managers and booking agents, venues, schools, teaching opportunities, publishers, romantic relationships, and churches that I praise the Lord everyday that I was rejected.

E. Have we like David been in these situations because of foolish, selfish, and faithless decisions? The times in life when we knew what was best for ourselves, decided to trust ourselves, times when we were not so merciful, but came to the place where we desired mercy. And how many of these situations did the Lord rescue you from? I’m sure David was thanking the Lord for His mercy later.

F. If there is one thing we see here with David is the tenacious, steadfast, never-ending display of mercy. The mercy of the Lord was abundant in the life of David. He wrote it!

Psalm 23:6 NLT

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

G. And I know that we can all look back and see the mercy of God with all of the foolishness, arrogance, and disobedience and how he had mercy on us. We see how merciful He has been. His mercies are truly new every morning. Sure we have to deal with the pain of discipline of the Lord when we are rebellious, but mercy is near. David knew this… He wrote it.

Psalm 30:5 NLT

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.

III. The good news… the Gospel

- For the rejection of the Son of God brought redemption for us

A. How foolish we are. How sinful we can be. We can look here at David’s behavior and make judgements, but let’s not think that we don’t do the same things. For us lying and deception is deep down in our heart. The Word of the Lord declares it. We trust in our own efforts and own abilities in life and reject the Lord and we have the nerve to blame God for it. We all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God and we all deserve the rejection of the Lord for all the times we have rejected Him. Let’s be honest.

B. But there is hope for us today. We too are saved by rejection, and the Gospel is a form of rejection. We are saved not because God has rejected us, but because Christ was rejected. David got his rejection good news. Here is ours.

Isaiah 53:3–5 NLT

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

D. In other words … Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and...

E. The saying is trust worthy and deserving of full acceptance…

F. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart... for all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

G. There is salvation for us today… it is found in Him and only in Him. Before we became Christians we were like David in an impossible no win situation for salvation.

H. When we find out what it was going to take for us to be saved, we like the apostles thought, this is impossible. Who can be saved? Jesus gives us a gospel nugget; with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible. Rejoice today because Jesus made the impossible, possible.