God's Plan in Our Struggles - 2 Samuel 17-19

"There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.”

-Dallas Willard

Last night I was awoken every 30 minutes by my four-year-old son screaming that his legs hurt. There was no scratch, bruise, or any other physical sign of distress. There were a couple of problems here, but if I’m being honest, the primary one was figuring out how to fall back asleep and stay asleep. This morning, my son ate a donut (at least one) and then was let loose at the church building. We had solved the last problem so effectively that it was now a task to keep his little legs from shuffling in every direction other than the way that we were requesting. My problem had changed, but a problem remained. This afternoon, I will attempt to watch the Chiefs game, and I can guarantee you that a whole other problem will arise, and we will figure out yet another solution (albeit a temporary one).

Few, if any of our problems and struggles (no matter how small and fleeting) are planned. My boy did not ask for leg cramps in the middle of the night and I did not request aggressive yelps in my ear at 3 in the morning. Your recent struggles may seem far more serious, but the fact remains: life is a struggle. So what do we do? We cannot avoid problems, nor can we speed them up. But what we can do is prepare ourselves so that we are not shaken when struggles arise. Perhaps this is why Jesus told us to build our life on a solid foundation (see Matt. 7:24-27), and maybe this why Paul called us not to be tossed by the waves of life (see Eph. 4:14). Two easy ways for us to prepare: remember that God may be hard to see, but He is never absent, and we need others to keep us afloat.

Read 2 Samuel 17-18 and Luke 5:1-11

• What is a problem that you have just solved, or gotten out of? What is a struggle that you are in the midst of? How do you feel about the reality that there is another problem on the way?

• Where do you get your hope for the coming struggles? Who do you allow to remind you that God may feel distant, but He is not absent? How do you respond when they share that information with you?

• If you truly believed that God’s will for your life is found in His Word, how would you live? How would you approach Him and the Bible? Where do you see the disconnect between your lived reality and what you claim?

• Have you run across a problem in life that apprenticeship to Jesus does not solve? If so, what? If not, what keeps you from running to Him every time a struggle arises?

What to do When it Can't Get Worse - 2 Samuel 16

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

-Viktor Frankl

This morning (literally this morning, not making it up), when I got to work I had a rather unpleasant conversation. It was more than an unpleasant conversation actually, it was confrontational and uncomfortable. A stranger looked me in the eye as I tried to hand him a couple of water bottles and attempted to don a new nickname upon me - I will not be using the nickname on this devotional! Let’s say it wasn’t a name that I will be asking you to call me anytime soon. After we had an unproductive exchange, the man walked away and our days went on. I walked away in a tizzy, ready to bemoan my innocence, find how many ways I could cut this guy down in my head, and garner sympathy from the next person I saw.

This morning, a man abruptly woke up. He was outside, chilled to his bones with no jacket, draped only by a small blanket, and all alone. The first words that stirred him from his slumber sounded something like, “Good morning man, I have to ask you to move somewhere else.” This voice came from a stranger who stood above our second character (seemingly judgmentally), looking like he might need a new nickname that embodied his abrasive tact. Instead of substantive help, our sleepy new friend was kicked out of the corner where he had found a sliver of comfort and safety. So he got up, shared a piece of his mind, and ventured on, disquieted and discouraged.

The story all depends on perspective, right? How we respond to trying circumstances has everything to do with our view of God, ourselves, and others. Our unadulterated belief system bubbles to the surface when we face difficulties and seemingly unfair conditions. It is when the rubber of our true, deep-held beliefs meets the road of real-life events. Our big question is, “What do we do when it feels like things can’t get any worse?”

Read 2 Samuel 16

1. Think of a time when you felt you were being treated unfairly, or when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse for you - What was your initial response? What did that say about how you view God, yourself, and others?

2. When things go poorly, what is a disconnect between your professed belief in God and your actual response? What keeps you from living according to what you say you believe?

3. How do you think God views you in those moments? Is it different from when you act consistently with your beliefs? Why? (Don’t feel like you have to offer the “right” answer).

4. In what ways do you think God is calling you to change your perspective when your life feels unfair? How can you put that into practice this week? Who are you going to invite in to this call?

Faith, Failure, and Friends - 2 Samuel 15

“My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

-Jesus

Depending on the translation the Bible uses the word friend up to 100 times. That’s a lot! Do you remember the “good ol’ days”? These were the days when you would grab the landline and dial one of the handful of friends’ phone numbers you had locked in your brain. The days when you could pull out your school directory and call someone that lived bike-riding distance from you. How simple friendships worked: you grab your bike, I’ll grab mine, and we will do nothing for an entire afternoon and we will do it again tomorrow. 

Somewhere along the way our interpersonal relationships have gotten a bit more complicated. We have built up scars and callouses. Many of us have moved to new locations, started families, or forgotten to call back too many times. The friendships that many of us hold are nothing to brag home about: a nod in the hallway at work, a shared hobby, or a pal that we know is doing nothing but helping feed one of our vices. We still deeply need these relationships though!

For me, it is a wild thought that Jesus would spend His final night with His disciples (see John 13-17) talking to them about the necessity of unity and capping it off by referring to this rag-tag group of nobodies as His friends. Think about what that means, and the kind of repeated conversations that it took for these bonds to be built. Think about how the primary path that Jesus claimed the world would know His Church is how we love one another. I wonder what life would look like for each of us if we took that call more seriously and every day decided that we would pursue and cultivate intentional friendships.

Read 2 Samuel 15 and Psalm 3

1. Think about the person you would consider the best friend you have ever had (past or present) - What did it take for you to build that friendship? What did it take to sustain that relationship? How did (or does) that person influence you?

2. In our chapter David has interactions with several friends (Ittai, the priests, and Hushai) - what do you notice about their interactions with one another?

3. Who are the closest friends in your life right now? How do they influence your relationship with God? How do you influence their relationships with God?

4. Who is someone that needs you to lean in and fight for them in friendship this week? What could that look like? How are you going to befriend them this week?

Family Matters - 2 Samuel 13-14

“Formation happens day by day; distortion happens day by day. We are either helping our sons move into

adulthood or joining the culture’s attempt to trap them in an extended adolescence”

- Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father

Nothing happens in a vacuum. This saying has nothing to do with your vacuum cleaner (don’t feel bad if your brain first went there). Instead, it means that everything is connected, rather than isolated. This is the profoundly real concept that the Bible harps on repeatedly when the authors mention that we reap what we sow. If you plant an apple tree, you should expect to see the sprouts of an apple tree after some time. If you shoot a squirt gun into the wind, you should expect to get sprayed a little bit - this analogy should really hit home with the gentlemen.

In our chapters this week, David’s actions (and more significantly, inactions) produce a result that should be bone-shuttering for us. The king’s moral failures have begun to preview his own undoing: we are coming off of his foolish decisions surrounding Bathsheba and the natural consequences that followed. What we see is that licentiousness and impulsivity do not skip a generation in the king’s family. The apple does not fall far from the tree! What should pain us most is that the depravity in the kingdom could have been avoided with a little bit of intentionality. If David had the wherewithal to lead his sons Amnon and Absalom humbly they would not have inherited the capacity to make such a colossal mess out of their lives, and one another. If David had parented his children with the care and concern that God desired, the torch would not have been passed with such catastrophic consequences: incest, rape, murder, and deception. What a role the family has!

As you read through these chapters, I want you to think a little bit about your family. Hopefully, you share little in common with David and his children’s outcomes, but I would imagine you will see some overlap. David is a father of anger and passivity. Amnon is a son who has developed no self-control. Absalom is a child who takes the reigns to find justice where none has been pursued. Tamar is a daughter who is not protected. You see, God created the family very intentionally to play an influential role in each of our lives, and He intended it to be positive. What is crazier is that God made the nuclear family to point us to His family, the Church, where He is the head and we are His children. He intends for His Church to be interdependent and unified, despite our histories and idiosyncrasies. He has made us to be a part of one another’s formation day by day, rather than each other’s distortion.

Read 2 Samuel 13-14

1. What are your immediate observations and thoughts after reading this story? What could David have done to prevent, reverse, or reconcile the pain that his children have produced? Instead of helping, where was David?

2. How does your family background affect your daily decisions? What did it teach you about God? What were you taught about friendships and trusting others? What do you wish was better communicated or modeled?

3. When you read that the Church is intended to look like a family, how do you feel? Is this a new concept? What would the Church look like if we all made the decision to adopt one another as family? How would your life change?

4. What is keeping you from adopting this view? What are you going to do about it this week?

How to Get Back Up - 2 Samuel 12

“When we are powerless to do a thing, it is a great joy that we can come and step inside the ability of

Jesus.”

- Corrie Ten Boom

In one of his most conflictual letters in the Bible, Paul drags a tremendously spiritual phrase out of his back pocket: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ” (2 Cor. 12:9) The big question for most of us is, can he actually mean this? When a dear friend of mine struggled with alcoholism, it was terrifying and heartbreaking to watch. He was (and still is) an impressive guy; he played some college football, flew through college without much friction, married his high school sweetheart, did well in graduate school, and made friends with everyone he met, seemingly without trying. He was a good-looking guy from a great family with the charisma, confidence, and competence that turns many of us green with envy. And yet time after time, my friend gave himself over to the bottle and found himself hiding the evidence until he started getting caught. When his problem had devolved to the point of outside intervention, it was clear that he had no idea how to handle the mess that he found himself in. I distinctly recall sitting in his parents’ basement after he was told that the next day, for the second time, he was going to rehab. With slumped shoulders and a thousand-yard stare, he avoided eye contact with me and muttered something to the effect of, “That place is for people who are really broken.” In other words: not him.

My friend graduated his way out of rehab, and has been doing very well since... thank God! The point that righted the ship was the recognition that he was broken; he is one of those broken people. In fact, it was his strength -or the illusion of it- that actually kept him from being healed. It was his inability to relinquish his own goodness that was dragging him into a pit. Neither self-promotion nor self-pity would get him out of the mess that he found himself in. The only answer was falling to his knees and choosing to trust God enough to reshape Him. This is what David learns in 2 Samuel 12. This lesson is the one that the older brother in the Prodigal Son story was desperately needy for in Luke 15. Paul could honestly brag about his weakness because he had found healing at the crossroads of brokenness and humiliation. This is the place that God has always met people and this is the exact intersection that He longs to call you repeatedly to “get back up.”

Read 2 Samuel 12:13-31 and Luke 15:11-32

1. Why do you think that we spend so much time and energy trying to convince others that we are doing well? Why do you think that when we actually admit our brokenness we look for pity and justification rather than help?

2. Which side of the fence do you find yourself on more frequently: hiding from brokenness or seeking justification and indulging in self-pity? How so? Why do you think that is?

3. How do you view your own weakness? How does God view your weakness?

4. What will it require from you to humbly admit your brokenness and allow God to strengthen you to get back up this week? Who do you think He wants you to invite into that this week? How are you going to do this?

Healing from Brokenness - 2 Samuel 11-12

“Do you want to be made well?”

- Jesus

Have you ever heard the phrase, “There is no such thing as a dumb question?” First and foremost, it is categorically false! I love my four-year-old to death, and he tends to ask very insightful questions, but sometimes a doozy will leak out. Micah hears adults around him discuss the time around him every single day, and he has decided to take the leap into conversation a handful of times lately. “Um Dad, is it 44?” - This is a dumb question from a sweet face. By the time I was 29, I had gone under anesthesia for 5 separate knee surgeries, one ankle surgery, and had spent a portion of every year except one over 14 years on crutches or in a walking boot. Physical Therapists had become very familiar faces. Safe to say, I had contracted what some doctors call “broken body” (not a diagnosis). What you may not know is that almost everyone has rolled an ankle or awkwardly twisted their knee, and everyone has a suggestion of how to heal someone else. “Have you tried ice?” - “I found this guy on Instagram, have you seen his videos?” - “What if you stretched this way?” - Well-intended questions can feel dumb, and even insulting.

In our passage in John 5, Jesus has to have asked what felt like an asinine question. A paralyzed man sits prostrate upon his mat, waiting for an opportunity to be healed. Today is just like yesterday, which was just like every day in the previous 38 years. Jesus walks up to this man and asks, “Do you want to be made well?” Duh, Jesus! But there is so much more to this question; older translations quote Jesus as asking, “Do you want to be made whole?” Now that is a bigger question - this question requires an acknowledgment of brokenness, like soul-level brokenness. This question means that there is One who can make you whole, and it will require that you abandon those areas of your brokenness that you may not want to admit you actually enjoy a little bit... or find your identity in... or can’t imagine your life without. “Do you want to be made whole?” - This question means there is likely a life path to walk that will ask you to continue to choose wholeness day after day after day.

Read 2 Samuel 11-12 and John 5:1-17

1. Why is the question, “Do you want to be made well/whole?” more complicated for you than a simple “yes” sometimes? When you think of something God wants to clean, mend, and heal, what comes to mind?

2. What does it require of someone to be made well, or whole, who has not received salvation from Jesus? What might it look like for you to continue to be made well/whole if you have already made the decision to receive Jesus’ salvation (if you have)?

3. Why do you think the Jews respond with such angst and hostility towards Jesus’ healing? In what ways to we harbor the same feelings toward God’s offer of wholeness towards us?

4. In what way(s) can you join God in the things that He is trying to heal and make whole in your life? What is one thing you can do this week to receive what He is offering you?

Lust and Adultery - 2 Samuel 11-12

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”

-Andre Malraux

I want you to close your eyes and imagine something (don’t actually close your eyes because then you couldn’t read my directions). Okay, eyes closed? Picture a world wherein every person you see has an antenna sticking out of our heads. Not a small antenna, like a big honker; maybe a foot long each. Everyone you see is getting their antenna caught on inconvenient objects: low hanging branches, a child’s partially-flying kite, the closing doors of a subway. What a silly picture! Add this frustrating element to our setting: everyone has a belligerent stick poking directly out of their skulls, but almost no one is willing to acknowledge its existence. Women are wearing beehive haircuts with a subtle wire poking out the top. Men are dressing their domes with Abe Lincoln top hats that don’t quite reach their hair. Some decide to lean all the way into their antenna-identity, claiming that it is the stick poking out of their brain that makes them who they are. They have all but lost an understanding of who they are because this piece of them has become the most important and sacred marker of their person. Everyone is walking through life with a mightily inconvenient and seemingly embarrassing characteristic, and no one knows how to appropriately address it.

I realize the metaphor breaks down in a multitude of directions, but this should not be that foreign of a concept to us. We live in a society that has taken God-given sexuality and attempted to redefine and reshape its intended purpose. The outcome: every single one of us has a background with adultery and lust, and most of us would like to cover it up or redefine the subject entirely. There are desires in each of us that have been fed and/or demonized, and most (if not all) of us are getting them inconveniently and painfully tangled in the wrong places. Jesus wants to form our desires; He wants to accurately define lust, show us the consequences of walking against His design and plan, and He intends to lead us into freedom. That being said, the boundaries we set up can only go so far. If we are going to live a free life like we were intended, we have to look at what we love most and redirect the loose ends toward Jesus and His Word. The desires that we feed will inevitably grow!

Read 2 Samuel 11-12 and Proverbs 6

1. What do you find yourself hiding right now? (From others, God, or yourself) What do you think hiding and covering up actually accomplishes? Why do you think lust and adultery carry so much weight for us?

2. What (if any) boundaries do you have in line to protect you from lust and adultery? How does that answer offer insight to your heart and how you prioritize your relationship with God?

3. What we feed will inevitably grow - look at your priorities, how you spend your time, money, and what your phone screen shows most... What in your heart is being fed? How has that affected your attitude towards God, others, and the rest of life?

4. What is God calling you to do this week to feed your relationship with Him? What is calling you to do to help starve sin?

David and Bathsheba - 2 Samuel 11-12

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

-George Orwell, Animal Farm

As a high schooler I was a fan of Jesus - at least some parts of Jesus, maybe not all that He had to say. I liked a lot of what the Bible said and I could not ignore the reality of God. I knew there were ideas that historically came with associating oneself with Jesus (being a part of a church community, reading all of what God had to say, opening yourself up to correction, etc.) but I had an interesting way of avoiding these public associations: I made my own standard. It is an impossibly simple and painstakingly foolish decision to make, but let me explain how I did this. If I ran across something about God’s sexual ethic, self-sacrificing relationships, or respecting those in positions of authority I would metaphorically stuff my fingers in my ears and change the subject, but not before I uttered my favorite line: “If God had me in mind when He made this rule, He would have said something different.”

Perhaps I was simply a closeted narcissist, but I think my experience with sin as a non-Christian is not that far off from the slippery slope of my sinful behavior now. I would venture to say that your thought process is very similar. David’s infamous story with Bathsheba is profoundly reflective of yours and my pattern of rebellion from God. When we believe that we are special (stronger, less sinful, better at toeing the line), we overlook important guidelines that are intended to protect us. When we choose to flirt with temptation instead of fleeing, we begin sliding down the wrong path When we try to hide or cover up our sin, it produces fruit that cannot be hidden until it is dealt with. You and I are especially made in the image of God, granted unique qualities and a special story, but that does not make us uniformly special or “more equal.”

Read 2 Samuel 11 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

1. How well does the pattern of falling into sin relate to your experience? Can you think of an example? At what point was the battle lost for you?

2. Why do you think it is so easy for us to consider ourselves uniquely different from others? How does that affect your relationship with temptation and sin? How does this affect your willingness to share your brokenness with others?

3. Can you think of a particular area(s) of the Bible’s teaching that you try to explain away so that it does not require you to face the consequences? What about the promises God has made?

4. What is an action step you can take this week to take an area of sin and temptation more seriously, knowing that the slope is slipperier than you think? Who are you going to invite in to hear about this?

When Kindness is Rejected - 2 Samuel 10

“Consistent and regular spiritual practices are key to developing a strong relationship with God… Through repetition and routine, spiritual practices help us cultivate a heart that is open and attentive to the voice of God.”

- Dallas Willard

What is your greatest pet-peeve? One of mine is petty and perhaps a little niche: I abhor watching people who are truly bad at basketball make the painful attempt to throw a sphere at a hoop. I understand that nobody is good at everything, and I am aware that some of you would feel annoyed if you had to watch me do something I do poorly, like dance or order food at a Mexican restaurant. The aspect about shooting hoops with a non-basketballer that is most like nails on a chalkboard for me is the frustrated phrase, “I’m really bad at this.” It doesn’t drive me crazy because I am a hopeless optimist (believe me, that’s not the issue). This statement makes my ears bleed because it should not be a surprise to anyone that has not touched a basketball since High School P.E. that they are not Michael Jordan. You have not participated in this sport, nor have you practiced the skills that should make you expect to succeed. In our berserk text this week we see a number of moving pieces: David’s kindness, David’s men humiliated in what should be seen as an act of war, David’s men sent to the battlefield, Mercenaries sent to fight David’s men, etc. In the midst of a wildly chaotic scene we see David’s nephew and war commander, Joab, make a clear directive to his troops: “Be strong and trust the Lord to do what He will.” What a call!

Much like being a refined 3-point marksman without practice, this rally cry from Joab is impossible without a couple ingredients. First, we have no choice but to participate in what God has called His people to. Are you struggling to trust God to show up when you need Him most? Maybe He is waiting for you trust Him enough to obey before He gives you the next clear direction. Second, we are no more born-again mature, than we are physically born with the wisdom of an adult; we need to practice what God tells us to. This means we are called to trust Him enough to obey again and again. He has graciously gifted us with the opportunity to find our strength in Him over and over!

Read 2 Samuel 10 and Ephesians 6:10

1.When you read Joab and Paul saying “Be strong” in the Lord, what comes to your mind/heart? What does finding strength in the Lord practically look like for you? Do you feel yourself repeatedly participating in this act?

2. Why do you think God has called His people to strengthen ourselves “in Him?” Why doesn’t He call us to strengthen ourselves without Him, or in our own person?

3. How can you keep yourself from seeing this as an act to gain His favor and acceptance? What keeps you from seeing this process (practicing serving others, praying, reading Scripture, fasting, etc.) as a pathway for God to give you gracious gifts? How are you going to strenthen yourself in the Lord, participate with Him and practice what He calls you to this week?

The Mystery of Grace - 2 Samuel 8-9

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

- Matthew 5:3

I was once told a story about a man named Watchman Nee, a Christian leader in China. Nee was at a retreat with a group of men, teaching them about Scripture and life and one afternoon they decided to take a break. They went out back and ventured down to a river which had more of a current than one man had anticipated. This man had found his way out into the white caps and was beginning to flail around, arms tossing and head bobbing in the moving water. Out of the whole group there was one strong swimmer, but this man made a decision that infuriated Nee: he did nothing for quite some time. After what felt like minutes of watching a helpless man gulp rushing water, the swimmer made his way to the suffering fool and dragged him back to shore. Upon the arrival back to the bank, Nee approached the successful lifeguard and bellowed: “What took you so long?”, wondering if it brought the strong man joy to see the other brother struggling. The retort that found its way back was something like this: “If I had not waited for that man to lose his strength, he would have pulled us both down to certain death.” In other words, the man in the river needed to submit himself to his own inability before he could be saved. Before he surrendered under his own weakness, salvation was an impossibility.

In Matthew 5 Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with a profound statement (see above). What He chose to communicate is the very message that Watchman Nee learned about human buoyancy on that fateful afternoon: until we learn our own weakness and insufficiency, we cannot be saved. Paul echoes this reality in 2 Corinthians 12 when he learns that it is in his own weakness that he can live according to the surpassing strength of Jesus Christ. In our passage this week, a man named Mephibosheth exposes a similar message to us. It is in our complete and utter helplessness that God’s mysterious grace can do its work. If we are dependent upon our own strength and abilities there is no avenue through which grace can flow.

Read 2 Samuel 8-9

1. Your greatest hope before God is that you would recognize that you look a whole lot like Mephibosheth. How do you feel about this statement? What does this mean about you? What does it mean about God?

2. Why do you think we are naturally offended the idea that we cannot earn God’s blessing? How do you respond to this feeling?

3.Why do you think Jesus begins His most well known sermon, where He explains what it looks like for human beings to walk rightly with God, by pointing out that the spiritually bankrupt will be blessed?

3. What does it mean for you if there is nothing you can do to earn God’s mysterious grace? What does that say about your identity? What does He want you to do with that information?

Embracing What God Wants - 2 Samuel 7

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

- Albert Einstein

“I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.“

- Leviticus 26:12

“Thank you, but I did not ask for that.” - This is a devastating sentence for me to hear. What about you? There have been innumerable times in my friendships and family when I tried to offer something nobody requested or needed. Even with my greatest intentions and purest motives, I cannot prove my mowing of the yard as an action of love to my 4-year-old. He has never, and would never ask me to do that. He longs for something more that ironically requires less out of me. He wants my presence and my attention. I could bring home a heftier paycheck and move my wife into a larger, more extravagant home, but that is not what she longs for most. She aches for me to be near and intentional in our home. There is no replacing our interest, care, and availability for those who long for us most. Perhaps this is why we have an epidemic of young men growing up with the means to succeed who simultaneously lack the relation skillset; Dads provided the cash and the environment, but not always what their children wanted most: the nearness and pursuit of their father.

Of course, this can cut in the exact opposite direction as well. If my sons attempted to do chores (yeah right) to earn an allowance and chip in on the mortgage, I would not accept it. I would respond with the same sentiment: “Thank you, but I did not ask for that. I want you!“ I have no desire for my boys to succeed in order to please me, nor do I long for them to try to provide extra value. This is a profound lesson that David has to come to grips with in our text this week. God has no need for the gifts, words, and sacrifices that David is ready to grit his teeth in order to provide. God wants to be David’s treasure and provider, and He does not hesitate to communicate it clearly. God wants the same thing from you: He does not want your religiosity, He has placed Himself in a position to receive your heart.

Read 2 Samuel 7

1. Close your eyes and picture God saying this sentence to you: “Thank you for what you have tried to offer me, but I did not ask you for that.” What feelings and thoughts bubble to the

surface for you? Why?

2. What is it that you have tried to offer to God? How have you responded when He has not jumped at your offering to give you thanks? Why do you think that was your response?

3. God wants you, and He wants to bless you if you belong to Him, because you are His. What is one thing keeping you from embracing what God wants? What steps are you going to take today to give yourself entirely to God? How do you think He will respond?

A Formative Reacquaintance - 2 Samuel 6

To be human is to be forgetful. The trick is to remember what you’re forgetting.”

-Aldous Huxley

I tend to get very forgetful when I get busy, overstimulated, or distracted. No less than one thousand arguments in my home have begun with my inability to remember the answer to a question that I have asked ad nauseam. I ask, and my wife answers. I ask, my wife repeats. I ask, my wife graciously informs me that I have already answered. And then one or two more rounds persist. It may seem like a trivial example, but each time I ask, fail to process, and re-open the case it tends to add tension to our communication and my wife’s perception of how I view her answer (and her). I cannot help but imagine her inner voice telling her: “He has not cared enough to recall my answer.” Fair enough.

On the other hand, if I am focused and locked in on someone else’s words, I can remember facts about them for decades. The smallest of details (good and bad) stick to my brain and heart like chewed gum adheres to the underside of a shoe. When I have listened closely, assigned value to whatever has been communicated, and realized how God wants to use every moment to redeem and draw others to Him, recollection is a piece of cake. It is overwhelmingly true that my own failure to pay attention and value someone/something that has all the difference in whether I hold onto information. The nation of Israel and their King, David, have found themselves in a similar situation that in regard to God and His holy commands. God does not fail to remind them. Just like my wife and me, the only thing that will level the playing field is a reacquaintance with the One who has been forgotten.

Read 2 Samuel 6, Numbers 4:15, and 1 Chronicles 15:1-2;12-15

1. What is your first thought that bubbles to the surface when you hear about God’s response to Uzzah? Why is that your response?

2.The word ‘holy’ is meant to show how separate and different something/someone is; Why do you think we struggle to appropriately respond to God’s holiness? What does God’s holiness mean when it comes to our position before Him? How should that inform our worship of Him?

3. When David settles down and remembers who God is, what does He do? How do you think God wants you to respond to His character right now? What can you do this week to remember Him?

4. How did Jesus keep His holiness and become relatable? Why did He do that for you? What does He want you to do with that information?

The God of Promises - 2 Samuel 5

"The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become—because He made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be."

— C.S. Lewis

If you asked me who I was when I was 14 years old I could have told you a couple things, but my primary answer would have been: a basketball player. I’ve always had a borderline unhealthy relationship with the sport of basketball and this time of my life was right around the peak of my delusion. I had repeatedly preached a message of promise to myself: if you work hard at this, it will give you purpose, hope, and status. You can only imagine how jarring it was when I spent the remainder of my high school years ping-ponging between crutches and rehabilitation, playing only two years of competitive basketball while in school.

Perhaps mine is a silly example for you, but I guarantee that you have made several promises to yourself about who you are. My guess is that those around you have offered similar pathways and opinions as well. What a challenge it is to find the disconnect between those identity-shaping promises and the secure guarantees that God has offered about you in His Word. The all-knowing, all-powerful God that made you and knit your soul together has something to say about you, whether you realize it or not. He knows the very fabric of your being, and has no issue telling you who you are, whether you are willing to believe Him or not. The peace of the Christian life is found in our discovery of those promises, and our submission to them. In our passage, we see a secure David, finally realizing the promise that God made him so long ago. He was always the king, but on this day the check was cashed.

Read 2 Samuel 5

1. What kind of feelings do you think David had about God’s promise over those 15 years?

If you were in David’s shoes, how would you have felt at year 12 when you were still

struggling and waiting?

2. Do you know what God says about your identity? What are some of those things? What

is difficult for you to submit your heart to there? Why?

3. Who do you have in your corner that knows what you struggle to believe? How have

you invited them to speak into that? If no one, who will you invite? How will you open

yourself up to them?

What Makes Something "Good News”? - 2 Samuel 4

When I was in high school we had some family over to celebrate my birthday - I don’t remember which one because there is only one thing that my mind has held onto from that day: a single, pernicious gift. My parents had divorced and my mom had begun dating her now husband; he was at the party. I remember gazing across the wrapped presents brought for me and I spotted the biggest one: a heavy box clothed in wrapping paper. That would be my birthday’s grand finale, I had decided. After giving my heart-felt thank you’s to the other present, I zoned in on the final, dense gift. I devoured the outer layer, destroyed the box and

found... 100 feet worth of extension cord. I looked up at my mother’s significant other and he said, “ I noticed you haven’t been weed-whacking the back fence.

This should help. ” He saw this gift as good news, needless to say, I did not.

2 Samuel 4 paints a story almost as dramatic as mine: while he is napping, Saul’s last living son is murdered by his own soldiers. They take his head, sneak out and bring it to David under the guise of good news. David’s “enemy” (their words, not his) was dead, and the Lord used them to avenge David (their words, not the Lord’s). David speaks some truth into the matter and has the men killed, and dismembered. Not particularly hopeful, until you realize that counterfeit “good news” has been confronted by real good news: God will provide, protect, and guide His people; and those who falsify His good news will not prevail.

Read 2 Samuel 4

1. What is your gut-reaction to this story? Why do you think God allows David to respond so aggressively to this false “good news”? What does that say about God?

2. Read Galatians 1:6-12... Why do you think Paul is so stirred about the Galatian Christians believing a gospel that is “really no gospel at all”? How does this differ/compare to your reaction when Jesus’ gospel is misrepresented?

3. Do you fight against counterfeit “good news” in your own heart and mind? How? What do you need to do to make sure you are being formed by the real good news this week?

God’s Mission > Our Mess - 2 Samuel 3

We all knew that kid - maybe you were (or still are) that kid. The kid that was ultra-competitive on the schoolyard and was physically nauseated by the idea of losing a game... the same kid that would grab his ball and run away when the event did not go his way. That kid was the one who made the teams uneven when the clock dwindled down, jumping to the winning side before the buzzer sounded. A selfish actor only focused on his own glory and the shallow affirmation that he wasn’t a loser like the team he left behind. I am reminded of a quote from The Office (of course), where one character refers to himself in the third person: “Andy Bernard does not lose contests, he wins them... or he quits them because they are unfair.”

Abner is that sore loser. Saul’s old number 2 has continued the war against God’s rightful King David, propping up a puppet king (Ish-bosheth). At the drop of the hat, Abner chooses to switch sides, after Ish-bosheth musters some courage to call him out on a breech of faithfulness. After trading sides, Abner is murdered by the brothers of a man he had previously killed. David, having made some mistakes in this chapter, shows his underlying integrity by mourning his fallen frenemy (friend-enemy).

Read 2 Samuel 3

1. In what ways do you take matters into your own hands when you think God, or others are being unfair? Can you think of an example? 

2.Read John 16:33... Why do you think we are surprised when things do not go the way we want them to? How would Jesus have you act when things seem unfair? Why does He want that?

3. Read 1 Peter 2:15-25... In what ways is God calling you to keep your integrity high, even if it means suffering unjust consequences? What are you going to do to stay faithful as God calls you to this? What excuses and lies do you need to squash in order to do this well? (ex. they don’t deserve my love, it’s not fair, I’ve done enough, etc.)