2 Samuel 10 | Danny Eslinger

hello foothills family we're now in chapter 10 of second samuel and in the last chapter was an account of the kindness that david shows to mephibosheth on behalf of jonathan his deceased father whom david loved here now david again shows kindness to king hannan of the ammonites in honor of his father nahash shortly after his death although the ammonites had been enemies of israel at some point nehash had befriended david likely when saul was hunting for david's life david was loyally reciprocating with godly kindness this time david act of kindness was not gratefully received as in chapter 9 but as we see here it resulted instead in a bloody conflict david showed kindness in sending a group of his servants as ambassadors to console and offer support in the loss of his father and new role as king in verse 3 we see how this was received says here the commanders the princes of the ammonites said to hanem their lord do you think that david is honoring your father because he sent consolars to you has david not sent his servants to you in order to search the city to spy it out and overthrow it so hanan took david's servants and shaved off half of their beards and cut off their garments in the middle as far as their hips and sent them away so hanen's advisors and friends casted great doubt on david's motives and accused them of spying hanan taking their venomous words to his heart and likely following their advice lays hands on david's servants shaming and humiliating them by sending them away half naked and with half beards now we know we know that david's kindness was sincere he was offering them his hand he wanted to bless them and to be a friend what was behind their suspicion well they certainly had reason to wonder about their motives that israel had been and still was considered an enemy to ammon but it was their great mistake that they failed to investigate david and his men their their intentions to investigate it further they thought that they knew they pridefully made no room for the possibility that their assessment and assumptions were wrong maybe this was also a reflection of their own evil intentions because people do often fear in others that which lies in their own hearts what hanan should have done instead was check into the matter the matter further himself he should have went to david's servants and further interviewed them have you ever experienced how much your perspective can shift when you finally hear from the person who otherwise appeared so guilty hanan would have likely heard david's heart through them and could have been spared this grave mistake what do we do as christians when we're in a similar situation when it appears that someone has evil intentions towards us humility is shown by an openness that our perspective might be wrong or incomplete that's why the bible instructs us to go to that person to bring it up with them to hear from them it's the harder thing often for people to take this step because it takes effort it takes courage and many do what hannan did and just take their assumptions to heart to their own hurt when the shoes on the other foot we want people to believe that our motives are good don't we sometimes circumstances can make us look bad and and what a great gift it is when we when when people give us the benefit of doubt hannan apparently didn't give david's men the opportunity to express their heart or prove their kind intentions first corinthians 13 a well-known passage that describes how love behaves says that love believes all things and hopes all things this implies that loving someone includes choosing to believe the best about them that they have a good heart and good motives and even when it appears they do not to treat them with an openness that you might be missing something and to leave room that you might be wrong that if you're going to assume anything to assume that they have good intentions even if mixed with ungodly motives maybe you like hanan's advisors find yourself ruled by suspicion of people's motives maybe you've been burned in the past and decided that you never allow it to happen again not being able to receive love and kindness but instead ruled by a spirit of suspicion always wondering what's their angle why are they doing this leaving no room for a good reason but assuming a bad one always expecting betrayal looking under every rock to find what you are expecting to find assuming a bad motive assuming that they're that the other person is seeking their benefit at your expense you can just see it you can't see it sorry you can't see it but you're looking for it you're assuming the worst unable to give love by believing all things and hoping all things and unable to receive love because you can't believe that they really are coming from that motive this often happens when due to bad experiences you've come to believe things that are more in line with the devil's lies than god's truth you've taken to heart the toxic whispers of the devil this happens that when the devil whispering saying that you know the reason this certain event happened is because and he fills in the blank and you've taken what happened to you and made it a wrong meaning out of it as a personal example i experienced a string of rejections in my childhood years and the false meaning that i made was i'm unlovable and when people see that i'm unlovable they will reject me i believed about myself that i was defective and i believed about others that they would eventually stop liking me and to break the pattern of rejection in my life and to gain the ability to receive and give love freely i had to repent of my agreement with the devil with his whispers as much as my life had seemed to confirm that that they were true and i had to embrace and receive god's evaluation of who i was and i had to come into agreement with him and his love for me so i came to believe that i was in fact lovable as god's creation if anybody was and that the rejection that i'd experienced was more about their issues their immaturity hurts and fears than my deficiency i came to see that my beliefs had been self-fulfilling we get more of what we expect i expected rejection and so my fear of rejection made me act in ways that repelled others many were hurt by my defense mechanism and reluctance to get close and therefore be hurt again loving people requires freedom from fear being ruled by fear will trigger us to react in unhelpful unloving and often destructive ways being established in god's love will enable us to respond in godly ways which will be helpful and result in blessing fear and doubt will lead to embracing ungodly methods of self-protection rather than deriving our security from god according to his methods hannan decided to hurt david before david hurt him it feels safer to have your guard up and to be preemptive it can feel vulnerable to allow god to be our shield i know at times i rejected others before they had the opportunity to reject me are there any ways that you are using ungodly methods to protect yourself from being hurt there are times that you do need to protect yourself how could hannan have protected himself from this real possibility of david you know coming sending spies how could he even handle that possibility in a godly way first he would have gone to david's men to hear them out before taking any assumptions to heart and even if if he found their story lacking he could have protected himself and sent them away in a respectful way so when the sons of hainan realized the implication of what they had done how badly they had offended david instead of humbling themselves and seeking david's forgiveness for their huge mistake they escalated the conflict by preparing for war they realized that they were outmatched so they hired a mercenary army to fight alongside them with 33 000 additional men well david caught wind of this and he preemptively sent joab his army commander with all of his forces and shortly after the battle began both armies fled from the israelites and joab seeing that they had victory returned to jerusalem well it wasn't long after that the enemy is regrouped and david finds out about it and he gathers the army again and fights fights against them killing over 40 000 of the enemy soldiers and this resulted in a peace treaty between the arameans and israel and they would no longer ally themselves with ammon but instead they served israel what a horrific result to an act of pure kindness what if hanan would have received david's kindness forty thousand people wouldn't have died hanan would have been blessed by god through this friendship with david it would have resulted in honor instead of shame our ability to handle these kinds of situations can make a world of difference for us how do you handle situations in which someone appears to have ill intentions toward you do you have wise people in your ear steering you toward godly steps or do you listen to worldly advice that would poison your heart and lead to ungodly reactions do you go to the person to bring up the matter and hear from them their thoughts and heart or instead do you take your negative assumptions into your own heart god will bring us into the situations that expose our fears our doubts and defense mechanisms because he wants to transform us and bless us and we can bring these things before god and exchange them for his love truth and security so we can avoid painful consequences like hayden experienced and enjoy god's reward god bless you foothills family you

Channel: Foothills Christian Church

Views: 435

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Id: l7CXaa4Ga1Q

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021