LiMember - Family - Meet David

Children’s Sermon

Pausing instead of reacting…blue liquid timer on my desk? deep breaths, cool hands...

Scripture

2 Samuel 7:18-22 - Then King David went in and sat in the presence of God. He asked, “Who am I, Lord God, and what significance is my family, that you have brought me to this time and place? And yet, this was only the beginning for you’ve told me of my family far into the future, given me glimpses of what’s to come, Lord God! What more can I say to you? You know me, Lord, just as I am! You’re doing all this not because of who I am but because of who you are, and you’ve let me in on it. You are so great, God! There is none like you and no God other than you, as we’ve all heard with our ears.

Engage

I’ve met all kinds of families over the years, before and during my ministry career. Most are somewhere in the middle, others you know are extreme in one way or another. I remember one family from years ago that is what I’d call super scrubbed. Everything they present is clean, wholesome, sentimental…about their upbringings and such. But there’s enough evidence to suggest the story isn’t exactly as they tell it. I’ve known others who share everything, perhaps never even conquering it and almost entirely still living in drama that goes back decades. Some simply try to erase or escape their past entirely, never mentioning it. I have someone in mind who I think, to some extent, tried to do this. Any questions about their past are brushed off or answered with vagueness or platitudes.

I’m going to look at remembering and the importance of family in remembering these next several weeks, centered around the story of David and his family. I thank God we have this story recorded, it is something remarkable that informs every generation since.

Acknowledge Book - A Gathering of Memories by Charles Pinches.

Encounter

Friends, remembering properly is not scrubbing and sentimental but sincere and salvific!

We have the books of Scripture to illustrate this point. The writers of Scripture, in many instances, could’ve scrubbed or cleaned the truth a bit as they were documenting the stories of their times. Well, they might say, people don’t need to know about this scandal or that fall from grace. Thanks to God, and for our benefit, they didn’t do that. The Bible is transparent, time and time again, about the struggles of families. King David is a prime illustration.

Let’s refresh ourselves on the outline of David’s story. He’s the youngest of eight sons. The prophet Samuel is told the new King of Israel is coming from the line of Jesse, the father of David. When Samuel comes to anoint a son of Jesse’s as King, David isn’t even there. Yet, he is the chosen one. He is described as a talented musician and herdmen. Then, he defeats Goliath the Philistine using artillery (a slingshot and rock) rather than hand to hand combat. He plays music for a hurting Saul. He is adored by the people of Israel. Saul gets jealous, tries to have him killed multiple times, but ultimately is overthrown by David. David then unites Judah and Israel into one Kingdom, still reflected on by Jews, even today, as the golden age. David is tremendously successful, but then trouble strikes, thanks to his own sin.

David makes a terrible mess of his family and he’s forgiven by God, which is important, but the consequences, as they do, continue to ripple down through generations that follow. Any scandals of the British royal family, or other leaders of our times, pale in comparison to the family of David. David builds his kingdom through violence. David is remarkably fortunate.

Whatever David wants, David seems to get, though sometimes through trials of fire. Saul is eventually eliminated as a threat. When his son contends for his throne, which we’ll look at more next week, that eventually ends favorably as well, though with deep pain. There seems to be a tendency for the good things others possess to come surprisingly into David’s possession with David no worse for the wear, at least in terms of power.

Many of us in America tend to get what we want too, especially materially. It’s good we have we need, excepting the supply chain crisis, but always getting what we desire isn’t probably the best thing for us.

I know many people of faith struggle with God calling David a man after his own heart. But most disciples who study and pray come to realize God is not condoning the sins of David whatsoever, he IS condoning David’s repentance and his faith in God.

Back to his family, though. David knows a truth we all live as well, no amount of power or money can change our family history. I can remember, during my childhood, if someone made it out of poverty to some level of success, sometimes a jealous person would say, “All the money in the world won’t really change them, they’ll always be poor white trash.” How hateful. And untrue. But, at the same time, there is no escaping our family systems.

There are some common ways humans cope with difficulties from their family systems that don’t really help us and should be avoided or turned away from. One result of past pain might be regret. Regret is a form of memory particularly suited to the family, since the connectional web of a family doesn’t allow us to be whoever we want to be. My family won’t let me be me, someone might say. And they may carry this tagline in the form of regret their entire lives. Regret runs the danger of turning into bitterness. Bitterness is regret stripped of any hope. Surely you all have known those who suffer from bitterness. We examined the fictional Ebenezer Scrooge, a prime illustration of extreme bitterness. Dickens brilliantly lets us into the regret behind the bitterness from Scrooge’s past.

If we can’t handle regret, sometimes we sentimentalize. To make something sentimental, we scrub it. We lift up on the good and ignore the pain. Others might simply walk away and re-create themselves, reinventing themselves in the form of who they want to be and thereby attempting to obliterate their family connections. Hallmark makes a bunch of movies around the holidays with this subcurrent, lol.

Friends, Friends, remembering properly is not scrubbing and sentimental but sincere and salvific! Attempting to obliterate our family connections or deny them guarantees we’ll never overcome them. There is a great deal of truth in therapists who say many dysfunctions of adults are simply the outworkings of unresolved family of origin issues.

God is able to make all things new! Yet, he does it through overcoming....not through denial or obliteration. David’s family will be an example of this as we move forward through the family portion of this series.

So, remembering properly is not scrubbing. It’s remembering the truth but not giving the past undue control over us. Also, remembering proper is salvific. Huh? Salvific in the sense that our messed up family systems, and our messed up selves, should point us to the truth of just how desperately we need a savior. We cannot possibly overcome all of this alone, we need God, we need Jesus to help us. This is where David shines. He routinely turns to God to give thanks, to plead for help, to confess. So should we!

David’s regret is held in check by his knowledge of the God of mercy, who is the only path to overcoming a past like David’s without resorting to sentimental lies or faulty obliteration.

Remembering properly is not scrubbing and sentimental but sincere and salvific.

Empower

Rev. Pinches tells a story of a mission trip to Africa and the impact of his very American attitude, and what he learned from it. In America, we tend to think of the family like a project…we can plan, execute, complete, improve. I see stuff on social media and in advertising every day in this vein. Yet, after all these years, we still have trouble. The family is not a project…it’s bound to fail if we approach it this way. The family is where, from the beginning of time, men and women have been taught about the limits of their powers. We can really benefit by lowering our expectations and raising our praise.

On this mission trip, they were installing clean water systems. Pinches found himself, by old habit, expecting things to unfold as they had been planned. As they were EXPECTED to happen. When things didn’t happen as expected, what happened? Hey/they were disappointed. Expectations always create the opportunity for disappointment. The Africans, on the other hand, greeted each day not with expectations but with thankfulness. Whatever happened, they were thankful. They lived much more in the moment, with more joy.

Charles’s world, and our world often times, is made up of our own wishes, our own desires, whereas their world is one where they’ve been placed by a gracious God.

Don’t fall victim to the tyranny of self-desire! If we don’t, we’re more likely to see the blessings of our families without the lies of sentimentality or obliteration.

We’ll look more at how David worked through this in weeks to come.

Pray