Sanctity of Life Sunday
Last night, Mabel gave me her first elbow. Already got attitude!
She is a person, a unique reflection of God that has never or will never exist again. Isn’t that amazing? 8 billion people on the planet right now—and estimates are around 80 billion so far in history. And our God is so vast and infinite in His glory, each one of them reflects Him in their own unique way.
Because of that, every last one of them has value and dignity, simply by being human.
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And that’s true even if at the next OB appointment, we find out that she’s got some horrible disease, will never live a normal life.
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It’ll be from before she’s born until all eternity, including the last days of her life, when she’s no longer “contributing to society.”
Intro
Green Acres, Mr. Haney. Always just happened to have what Mr. Douglas needed… or so he would try to convince him. It was always a “real life, genuine ___________”
Never understood why Mr. Douglas never caught on… but then again, it’s a show with a talking was a talking pig, so 🤷🏻♂️.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the real thing from the fake—just try to shop on Amazon!
Same thing is true in our own lives—it can be hard to tell what’s real from what’s not real.
Anyone ever told you they were sorry, they realized they had treated you wrong, they were going to change, and then… you found out quickly enough, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? You’d think they got their repentance from Mr. Haney’s wagon.
Tonight we’re going to talk about the differences between true and false repentance. If you’re a part of our church family, you might be thinking, “Don’t we talk about this a lot, like every week?!” Yeah, we do, because it’s an absolutely essential ingredient in the recipe of the Christian life.
From the very beginning of his ministry, what was Jesus’ message?
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:14–15
Jesus says, here’s the good news of God: the kingdom is near. Repent and believe the good news.
Repentance is good news… but we
don’t always see it as that, do we?
Growing up as a church kid, I didn’t see repentance as
a good thing. Like flue medication, it was commendable
to take when you were sick, but it was better to stay well.
Avoiding sin was better than needing to repent.Goody-two-shoes that I was, that was great news. You see,
I was pretty good at obedience and following the rulebook…To behold God is to behold yourself with painful clarity…
Kelly Needham, Gospel Coalition
to know the living God is to be exposed as a hopeless
sinner. And to be a hopeless sinner before the living God
is to take up the posture of repentance—turning from sin
by embracing him.
Two Kinds of Grief over Sin
I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn’t experience any loss from us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:9–10
You are going to have regret & grief over things that you do in your life, that’s inevitable.
How you respond to that grief is where you make the choice to end up at one of two destinations:
- Option #1: Salvation, life without regret—like a motivational slogan you might here while watching football this evening! Sign me up.
- Option #2: Death!
I don’t know about you, but I’ll choose Door #1, thank you!
If it were only that easy…
The heart is more deceitful than anything else,
Jeremiah 17:9
and incurable—who can understand it?
Tell the Story
This chapter is like a strong case of dejá vu.
- C24: David & Saul in the cave at Engedi
- C25: David, Nabal, and Abigail
- C26: David & Saul, Part II
Here comes Saul again
Ziphites ratted out David before, which obviously got them on his good side. Plus, no doubt they heard about what happened to Nob, and they didn’t want it to happen to them if Saul found out that David was hiding nearby.
So they tell Saul the general viscinity where David is. But either their info was a little off, or a little too late, because by the time Saul got there, David has moved on, further into the wilderness.
Advantantage: David
Things are different this time—David is not cornered in a cave. He’s actually the one who has the advantage.
David also has spies in the area who alert him that Saul has come.
He sends out more spies to confirm that it really is Saul, and where he is.
When they bring back their report, Davide immediately heads out to the place where Saul and his 3,000 men are camped.
He looks around to his men and asks…
“Who will go with me into the camp to Saul?”
“I’ll go with you,” answered Abishai.
1 Samuel 26:6
We find out later, Abishai is David’s nephew.
Into the Camp
That night, David and Abishai came to the troops, and Saul was lying there asleep in the inner circle of the camp with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the troops were lying around him.
1 Samuel 26:7
Can you imagine this seen, sneaking through 3,000 soldiers into the inner circle. Step on twig, heart beating out of your chest.
Then Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy to you. Let me thrust the spear through him into the ground just once. I won’t have to strike him twice!”
But David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him, for who can lift a hand against the Lord’s anointed and be innocent?” David added, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. However, as the Lord is my witness, I will never lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed. Instead, take the spear and the water jug by his head, and let’s go.”
1 Samuel 26:8–11
Across the Mountain
David goes a safe distance away, and then calls out to Abner, the general of Saul’s army.
Saul & Pseudo-Repentance
It starts all the way back in Chapter 15, when Saul was told by God to be His hands and feet to bring judgment on the Amalekites. Instead of obeying, Saul and his men spared King Agag and all the best cattle and most valuable goods. When Samuel confronts him, his firs response is…
“But I did obey the Lord!” Saul answered.
1 Samuel 15:20
Samuel: “Then what is all the bleating of sheep and goats and the lowing of cattle I hear?”
And then he goes on to say, “…well, we did keep the best of all the cattle… but we’re going to sacrifice them to the Lord!“
1. Pseudo-repentance always wants to deny
sin’s existence and downplay its severity.
- “Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but it’s not as bad as…”
Later on in David’s life, the most disastrous failing he had, he prays in Psalm 51: “against you and you only have I sinned.”
Every sin is primarily against God, only secondarily against others. That’s what makes it so serious.
Just a couple days ago I was on Reddit and saw the story of this Russian lady, Victoria, who adopted a black panther kitten after it’s mother rejected it, and she’s raised it ever since, with her rottweiler Venza. Here’s some video from her Instagram, which I’ll link below if you want to see more. Between Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube, Luna’s got almost 13 million followers. Aww, isn’t that cute. It is, I’ll admit it… until it’s not.
You know what I thought after seeing the pictures of her this week? “This is probably not the last story I’m going to see about her.” Ever seen those kinds of stories where someone was keeping an animal like this? They interview people and they’re just shocked: “I don’t know what happened!”
I know what happened, genius. You took an apex predator, top of the food chain, and treated it like a rescue from the local shelter. That animal is either killing something, or she’s thinking about killing something—that’s the only gear she has. When she was licking the dog, in reality she’s getting a taste.
Pseudo-repentance is not interested in killing the panther, it just wants to train the panther to behave.
Worldly sorrow not really interested in getting the killer out of it’s life, out of it’s heart, it’s just concerned with making the killer more controllable, more obedient. Living with it in our homes, in our bedrooms, in our hearts, just hoping it won’t maul us later.
Be kiling sin, or sin will be killing you.
John Owen, The Moritification of Sin
2. Pseudo-repentance always
tries to deflect the blame.
Saul answered Samuel, “I have sinned…
1 Samuel 15:24
because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.
You see this so often in relationships, don’t you?
- “I’m sorry you were offended by… That’s not an apology, let alone true repentance.
- Basically, you could reduce that sentence
and whatever comes next to the first 3 words:
“I’m sorry you.” That tells you all you need
to know, the rest is just extra garbage.
- Basically, you could reduce that sentence
3. Pseudo-repentance always worries
more about appearance than reality.
Saul said, “I have sinned. Please honor me now before the elders of my people…”
1 Samuel 15:30
That is audacious, isn’t it?
Notice how he’s saying, “I’ve sinned, I’ve sinned” but there’s no heartbreak in it. There’s no real grief there. It’s “I’ve sinned, now let’s move on.” The human heart is so broken, we’ll even sometimes use confession as a tool of manipulation to get out of actually dealing with the issue.
- Sometimes that person can even be yourself—you just can’t bear to admit to yourself what’s true about yourself.
4. Pseudo-repentance always
makes empty, emotional promises.
When David finished saying these things to him, Saul replied, “Is that your voice, David my son?” Then Saul wept aloud…
1 Samuel 24:16
How many times have we heard this? And yet nothing ever changes.
Saul responded, “I have sinned. Come back, my son David, I will never harm you again because today you considered my life precious. I have been a fool! I’ve committed a grave error.”
David answered, “Here is the king’s spear; have one of the young men come over and get it. The Lord will repay every man for his righteousness and his loyalty. I wasn’t willing to lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed, even though the Lord handed you over to me today. Just as I considered your life valuable today, so may the Lord consider my life valuable and rescue me from all trouble.”
Saul said to him, “You are blessed, my son David. You will certainly do great things and will also prevail.” Then David went on his way, and Saul returned home.
1 Samuel 26:21–25
David & Genuine Repentance
Let’s look on the positive side. Saul’s life is filled with the signs of pseudo-repentance. What about David’s life, the man after God’s own heart?
- Pseudo-repentance always wants to deny sin’s existence and downplay its severity, but…
1. Genuine repentance means you own it.
That’s what you see in David’s life:
- David confessed to acting inappropriately toward King Saul in front of his men in C24—not something that military leaders are known to do all that often!
- He openly confessed his rage to Abigail in C25:
if you had not come quickly to meet me, Nabal
1 Samuel 25:34
wouldn’t have had any males left by morning light.”
We said that pseudo-repentance always tries to deflect the blame, but genuine repentance means you take responsibility.
2. Genuine repentance is willing
to be confronted with sin.
- That’s basically Abigail’s whole speech.
- Not just sinful actions—he hadn’t taken any yet! She confronted what was she knew was going on in David’s heart, the ungodly anger that was about to lead to ungodly actions.
Today you kept me from participating in bloodshed
1 Samuel 25:33
and avenging myself by my own hand.
3. Genuine repentance is willing
to work hard to resist temptation.
- Do you think it was easy for David to make the right call here? No, probably not… but he still resisted the urge to take matters into his own hands.
4. Genuine repentance is willing and
able to trust in God’s grace and move on.
David didn’t stay stuck where he had fallen.
He was willing to trust in God’s grace, goodness, and timing.
David added, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. However, as the Lord is my witness, I will never lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed.”
1 Samuel 26:10–11
Conclusion
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:10
Doesn’t mean you won’t look back and wish you had done things differently… it means that you’ll look back and realize that even in your worst times, mess ups, screw ups, God has redeemed it all to bring you to where you are. He gets the glory, you get the joy and the life.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God
Mark 1:15
has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Repent and believe the good news tonight, right now, for the first time or the ten thousandth time.
The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.
Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage
Jesus is calling!