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SERMON:
2 Samuel
24:10-17 (NKJV)
10 And David’s heart condemned him after he had
numbered the people. So David said to the Lord,
“I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Your
servant, for I have done very foolishly.”
11 Now
when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, 12
“Go and tell David, ‘Thus says the Lord:
“I offer you three things; choose one
of them for yourself, that I may do it
to you.” ’ ” 13 So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to
him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee
three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be
three days’ plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take
back to Him who sent me.”
14 And
David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of
the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into
the hand of man.”
15 So
the Lord sent a plague upon Israel
from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy
thousand men of the people died. 16 And when the angel stretched out
His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord
relented from the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the
people, “It is enough; now restrain your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of
Araunah the Jebusite.
17
Then David spoke to the Lord when
he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Surely I have sinned,
and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand,
I pray, be against me and against my father’s house.”
INI
In
July of 2005, 1,500 sheep jumped off a cliff in the Van Province of eastern
Turkey. 450 of them died. The other 1,000 survived because the pile of
sheep at the bottom broke their fall.
Why did they run off a cliff? The
shepherds said that one ran off first and the others just followed it.
In
2010, 67 sheep were hit by a train in Germany.
Apparently, they were fleeing from two dogs and ended up running head-on
into a freight train. It was good that they
ran; it was too bad where they ended up.
There
are stories of sheep crowding so tightly together that they suffocate each
other; sheep getting stuck is unlikely places; stories of sheep doing all sorts
of foolish things that sheep do.
How
would you feel about taking a sheep and making him a shepherd? Who
would ever do that? God would. That’s what He did when He called a tax
collector to be a disciple and evangelist.
This is what He did when He took the church’s most notorious persecutor
and turned him into the church’s most famous apostle. This is the God who saw our wretchedness and
still chose us to be His own and then called us to shepherd His people. These actions are not the result of
logic. These are evidence of grace.
Whether
you are a called worker in the public ministry, or whether you are engaged in your
private calling as a child of God, one
thing is true about every person in this building, It’s all about grace… 1. It’s all about grace that is needed
because of our sins 2. It’s all about grace that is provided because of our
Savior.
1.
For David, this was a time of introspection and sad regret. It was day three, and he stood helplessly by, watching the consequences of his sin ravage
the people of Israel. As each new report
came in, the pit in David’s stomach grew larger. Finally, he prayed: ‘Behold, I have sinned and I have done
wickedly. But these sheep, What have they done?
Please let Your hand be against me and against my father’s house.’”
It
is a little surprising that these words came from this man at this time in his
life. This was not a rookie
mistake. David was a seasoned
veteran. He had weathered enough
problems and temptations that he should have known better. He was even warned by Joab, of all people,
that numbering the troops was an extremely bad idea. And yet, he did it anyway. And that tells us something. We never out-live our need for God’s grace. About the time we think we’ve got one
temptation figured out, the devil comes with a different one. Our weaknesses may
change over time. So, Satan finds just
the right temptation to send us jumping off a cliff or lunging in front an oncoming
train.
What
was behind David’s desire to number the army?
Maybe he was trying to divide his
trust between God and the size and strength of his military. Or, maybe it was pride. Three chapters earlier, David was banned from
the battlefield because old age had robbed him of his quickness and agility. It’s bad enough when you have to take the car
keys away from a senior citizen. What
happens when a mighty warrior is told that he is no longer needed, and, in
fact, is a liability and should stay home?
The devil tempts him accordingly.
When
our military took over Iraq in 2003, it didn’t take the insurgents long to
identify a weakness. Despite our
high-tech weapons, the armor-plating on the bottom of some of our vehicles was
dangerously thin. The enemy exploited
that vulnerability by planting roadside bombs.
They were detonated by cell phone as the vehicles passed over the top of
them.
Satan
found David’s weakness. Where will he
find yours? All of us have to deal with
pride, don’t we? How much we’d all
prefer hearing praise about our work than hearing something honest and critical
that was meant to help? Maybe you battle
the same temptation I do, to let sermon preparation get pushed back to the end
of the week. When crunch time hits, you’d
rather do anything – mow the lawn, clean the office – anything rather than the
hard work of producing a fresh message
from God to His people. Maybe, we are
the type who like to win every argument or control everything that happens in
the church. Perhaps, it’s a secret addiction to alcohol or
prescription drugs. Whatever the
weakness, Satan will find it and exploit it.
David’s
sin brought grim consequences – primarily to the people he was called to lead. The number of casualties was horrific: 70,000
men died, roughly 23,000 a day. And for
what? For the vanity of their leader?
There
is no way David could have foreseen the hefty price his sin would command. But that’s how it works, isn’t it? The price of sin is never posted where you
can see it. The consequences are more
like a bomb than a bullet. It’s not just
the person who sins that pays. There is collateral damage all around.
Imagine
that you were David, looking at the carnage your sin has caused. Or imagine that you were Paul. How would you feel if you had dedicated your
life to choking off the Christian faith -- and then, one day, you realized that
you were totally wrong? How could you
ever undo the damage that your sin had caused?
Suppose, in your effort to eliminate Christianity, you even coerced some
people to abandon the faith?
The
very last thing that any of us wants, is for our sins to impact our
people. But that is the ugly reality. If we neglect our children because we are too
busy in our calling, there is a price that they and we may have to pay. If we
talk ourselves out of making the difficult pastoral calls, someone may pay a
price. If we neglect our ministry, even
for the most seemingly pious of reasons, consequences follow, don’t they? All of
us can understand the sentiment David expressed: “I have sinned; I, the shepherd,
have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done?” (NIV)
2.
Aren’t you glad that shepherding is not
about getting what we deserve? Shepherding
is all about grace. Grace that is
desperately needed because of sin – and wonderfully provided because of Christ.
It’s
amazing that God gave David a choice in his chastening. He could choose 7 years of famine, 3 months
on the run from his enemies, or 3 days
of plague from the Lord. Why would God
want David’s input? Because God was extending an invitation of grace. Were it not for His mercy, the Lord would not
bother to ask. He would simply consume
David and every other sinner in sight. But He did ask, and David knew exactly what to
do: rely on the Lord’s mercy because God
is the God of all grace.
David
wished that the fallout of his sin could be charged to him and his family
instead of letting it fall on his people.
And that is exactly what would happen. A thousand years would pass, but the Lord
would take the punishment for David’s sin and load it upon the shoulders of One
from David’s line. This time, instead
of 70,000 paying the price of one man’s sin, one Man would pay the price of an
entire world of sinners.
David’s
Son would be charged with the sin of numbering the army. He would be declared
guilty of lust, adultery, murder, poor parenting -- of every mistake or
deliberate sin that David had ever committed.
He would also be charged with pride, neglect of duty, addictions to
alcohol or drugs or pornography. Any sin
that you can possibly name was charged to His account. On the altar of His cross, He willingly bore
the sins of every pastor, professor, teacher, or lay person. When His grave was found empty on Easter
morning, the message was powerfully clear: The payment has been accepted. Because of Christ, you are hereby declared “Innocent
of all charges!” by God above.
When
we come face to face with the reality and magnitude of our sins, then we begin to appreciate that shepherding
is all about God’s grace. This isn’t
about how well we perform; this is about how well Jesus performed as our Savior. Our ministry should not be driven by guilt or
fear. It should be driven by a message.
The message is this: We have a Savior who loves us and pardons our
iniquities. God forgave the Church's most
zealous persecutor and He's forgiven you and me, as well. No
matter what we've done, God's grace is always larger and more abundant than
our sin. We could never atone for a single misdeed, but Jesus already has
atoned for them all!
The
fact that God would choose sheep to be shepherds is a powerful testimony to His
grace. Paul described it in this way: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am
chief. 16 However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me
first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are
going to believe on Him for everlasting life.
What
about the fallout of our mistakes? God’s grace can take a really bad situation
and turn it into a blessing. That happened
at the end of this chapter. David
purchased the threshing floor on which to build an altar to God. That small chunk of land would become home to
the temple – a landmark of grace. David could have had the property, the altar,
and the sacrifice for free, but he insisted on paying for them himself. He wanted the altar and sacrifice to cost him
something personally -- not because he had to make up for his wrong – but
because his heart was touched by God’s grace.
That’s
what shepherding is all about. It’s how
the Gospel has changed our lives eternally so that we want to share that
message with everyone we can. It is a
great story-line that God rescues a sinner like David, or Matthew, or me, or you, and then uses us to do His
work. But it’s more than that. It’s the effect that grace has on all who
taste its sweetness firsthand.
I
once read that the oldest known picture of Jesus was found in the catacombs of
Rome. It showed Him as a young Man with
a lamb cradled over His shoulders. It must
have brought comfort to Christians, who were suffering for their faith, to know
that their Good Shepherd was watching over and protecting them.
That’s
the blessing we have. All of us are
sheep who love to wander, who do dumb things.
Instead of giving us what we deserve, our Shepherd picks us up, forgives
us completely, and allows us to share in the work of His eternal kingdom. Our shepherding is not about us. It’s all about His grace. Amen.
▬
Sermon
originally presented by Jim Albrecht, Pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Okabena, MN.
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