Transcription
Let's pray.
Family, Lord, we strive to obey your commandment to love you with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul.
Yes, Lord.
With our whole heart, we come before you. We lay our lives in your hands and ask you to shape and mold us by the Holy Spirit power through the preaching of your holy word.
Speak Lord, for your servants are listening. In the name of Jesus our Christ, we do pray. Amen.
Amen.
Well family, today we come to the sixth and final sermon of our summer series simply entitled "You Make Me Better." For all six of these sermons, I've been sharing with you what you ought to be able to repeat by yourself right now. That's that when God wants to bless you, God doesn't send you things.
God sends you people.
For this entire series, we have been embracing the fact that our lives are deeply impacted and our journeys are influenced by the right relationships God uses at the right season, at the right time in our lives. There are certain people you need in your life fulfilling a certain assignment from God to help you become what God created you to be. Marcia, we've been using David as a lens to look at our own life. And prayerfully, you know by now that you need a Samuel.
You're going to have a Goliath.
We all have a Saul and Nathan is necessary.
I want to be honest with you. I have struggled in prayerfully laying out this sixth and final sermon because I felt it would be inappropriate to preach six sermons about the people you need in your life looking through the lens of David and they all be men. I felt compelled to highlight a woman's impact on David's life and Dr. Judy, it's so important that as a congregation we see the voice and the presence and God's use of women in Bible so that you can appreciate God's use of women in church. If if you never see how God uses a woman in scripture, you'll never accept how God can use a woman in the pulpit. and you'll wind up allowing misguided, uninformed readings of Moses and Paul to create an imprisoned and oppressive culture against women in church that you then feel is God ordained simply because you're ignorant of scripture.
[Applause]
So, so I really wanted in this last sermon to make certain we highlight a woman who helped shape David's life because the truth be told, all of us have a woman's fingerprint on our resume of life somewhere.
At some moment, somewhere in your life, God used a sister to help direct your path.
Dr. Judy, the struggle is that David doesn't have many positive relationships with women.
That's right.
As a matter of fact, scripture only highlights three women with a story of David. There's Bathsheba, which you already know about. There's Abigail, the wife of Nabal, who talks David out of revenge.
That's right.
And then there's a sister named Michal. Michal. Michal. Michal. I hope you've heard that name before. She's one of Saul's daughters. And sadly, like most women in the Bible, she's used as a pawn in a struggle between two men, David and her father, Saul.
Today, allow me, if you will, in our scripture reading to give you two passages of scripture from two different chapters, two different books of the Bible. I want to share with you where we first meet Michal and then where we last see Michal. Let me give you the beginning and the end of the story of Michal and I'll fill in the blanks in just a moment. We first see Michal in 1st Samuel 18 and we last experience her in 2 Samuel 6. If you are able, won't you stand as together we reverence the reading, the hearing of the word of God from 1st Samuel 18 and then 2 Samuel chapter 6. Listen for the word of the Lord from the New International Version of the Bible.
1st Samuel 18 beginning in verse 20.
"Now Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David. And when they told Saul about it, he was pleased. 'I'll give her to him,' he thought, 'so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.' So Saul said to David, 'Now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law.'"
That's where we first meet her. Let's see where we last see her.
2 Samuel chapter 6.
"As the ark of the Lord was entering the city of David, Michal, daughter of Saul, watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart. Verse 20. When David returned home to bless his household, Michal, daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and said, 'How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half naked in full view of the slave girls of his servant, as any vulgar fellow would do.' David said to Michal, 'It was before the Lord who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people of Israel. I will celebrate before the Lord.
I will become even more undignified than this.
And I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.' And Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death."
Let me highlight two verses.
Chapter 18 verse 20. "Now Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David."
2 Samuel 6. "And when Michal saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart."
It started in love, and it ended in hate.
You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.
[Applause]
Beloved, in 1971, an R&B quartet out of New York City released a song that was made popular by The Pretenders, then covered by Annie Lennox, and in 1997 became the title of a box office hit starring Martin Lawrence. For those that don't know the song by The Persuaders, it was made popular by The Pretenders. And if you weren't born in 1997, the song is simply called "There's a Thin Line between Love and Hate." And although I don't have empirical evidence, I would suggest that possibly The Persuaders were having Bible study on the relationship between David and Michal when they titled that song. Because the best way to describe this relationship is that it's a thin line between love and hate.
Allow me to remind you of some of the seedy, sorted details of this love story. It begins in 1st Samuel 18 when Saul, enraged by jealousy, is still trying to find a way to get rid of David, who's rising in the polls to be the next king of Israel. Saul makes a decision that maybe if he marries my oldest daughter, Merab, Merab can use me to help set David up. And so Saul tries to foster a marriage between David and Merab, only for David to say he's not interested in her. Dr. Morgan. Then word comes to Saul that his next daughter, Michal, is in love with David. And Saul figures, "This is exactly what I need because if Michal already loves David and David marries Michal, then Michal can help me set David up." So Saul goes to David and says, "Well, you didn't want Merab. How about Michal? And you can have her if you kill a 100 Philistines." David not only kills 100, he kills 200, seeming to suggest that he really wants to marry Michal.
Go forward to chapter 19. Saul puts it to the test. David and Michal are married and Saul wants to drop by the house one day so he can kill David. and he thinks Michal will help set him up, only to find out that Michal's love for David is greater than her loyalty to her father. She helps David escape and then puts a dummy, a mannequin, in the bed to fool her dad. And her dad ain't none too pleased to find out Michal loves David more than she loves Saul.
We don't see Michal again until 1st Samuel chapter 25. In 1st Samuel chapter 25, things are getting a little bit heated and something has changed because David has now taken to marry a woman named Abigail, who was the former wife of a brother named Nabal. And when David marries Abigail and goes on a honeymoon, Saul comes back to the house. Stay with me. He grabs Michal and forces her to marry a brother named Palti or Paltiel. So David is now married to Abigail, only to find out that Michal is now married to Paltiel.
Fast forward to 2 Samuel chapter 3. In 2 Samuel chapter 3, Saul is dead. His son Ish-bosheth is now king of Israel. And Abner, one of Saul's greatest generals, is now having tension with Saul's other son named Joab. 'Cause Joab has accused Abner of sleeping with Saul's concubines. I love the Bible. You ain't got to watch soap operas. You just need to read the Bible. So Abner and Joab are going at it while Ish-bosheth is king. And Abner gets so mad, Abner goes to David to defect and says, "I will bring all of Saul's kingdom with me and put it in your hands because I'm sick of Joab and I'm sick of Ish-bosheth." And David says, "Cool, but in order for you to defect to me, I need you to go get Michal and bring her back to me because I paid for her with 200 dead Philistines." Michal is packed up, put in a chariot and sent back to David. And then, the saddest portrait in scripture, shows up in 2 Samuel 3:17. They have packed her up, moved her out of Paltiel's house. And the Bible says that while she's being forced to go back to David, Paltiel is walking behind her crying. He is following the caravan, walking behind his wife, and the soldiers force him to turn around and go back.
Fast forward to 2 Samuel chapter 6, which is also recorded in 1st Chronicles 15. David is now king of Israel. He's brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. And when he brings it back, he gets so caught up in worship and excitement that he starts dancing and shouting and leaping before the Lord. And Deja, the Bible says he danced till his clothes fell off. And the Bible says that Michal is watching him out a window and she despised him in her heart.
It starts with Michal loving David. It ends with her despising David. Make certain you see the bookends. It starts as a beautiful first date. And ends in a miserable marriage she can't get out of. She loved David and then she hated David. What started in beauty ends in misery.
Let me pause right here 'cause your neighbor's quiet, but somebody on your pew wants to say, "Pastor, you preaching today." 'Cause if you are grown, you know that that's one of the realest stories that you can ever walk through. You know what it's like to love somebody one day and look up the next and you can't stand the sight of them. I wish I just had some grown folk that don't mind your neighbor knowing I'm talking to you right now to just go ahead and wave a hand and declare, "Been there, done that." I know what it's like to feel like Michal. Started off texting, not a block. You know what it's like.
[Music]
And and I don't know if having a Michal makes you better, but I do know that what happened between Michal and David makes us better. 'Cause the story of Michal and David gives us a real lesson in love. Not a message about marriage, but a lesson in love.
What happened between Michal and David? How can she love him one day and hate him the next? This for the grown folk today. Um, let me share a few lessons in love. Watch what happens. David brings the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem and Paul, he begins to worship and dance and get caught up in worship so much so that he winds up dancing in his underwear. And the Bible says Michal hates him because she says to him, "That behavior is not befitting a king."
Come on. Come on.
"A king ain't supposed to worship like that. A king is not supposed to shout like that. You embarrassed me with your behavior." Now, here's the problem, y'all. David was chosen to be king because he was a worshipper. So, what God has called him to do, she doesn't respect when he does it. She does not respect what David is called to do and how David does it. And allow me to tell you, love is difficult when there's no respect. It is hard to maintain love if you don't respect what they do and how they do it. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect what you get up every morning to do. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect who you hang out with. It's hard for me to love you if if I don't respect how you relax and unwind. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect what church you go to. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect your devotional life. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect what you've been called to do. And brothers and sisters, I come by to give you a real life lesson that love is fertilized in respect. If you don't respect me outside of our relationship, it will be very hard for you to maintain love for me in our relationship. Go on and preach that, Pastor Wesley. It's hard for me to love you if I don't like what you do. It's hard for me to love you if I don't respect how you do it. It's hard for me to love you if I'm not excited to see you handle business. You you ought to be excited by the person you love. How they get up and do what God has called them to do and the way they put their hands to the chore that is in front of them. And if I don't respect what you do and how you do it, you can't encourage me if you don't respect what I do. Love requires respect.
And beloved, I came by to tell someone before you start loving on somebody, one of the most important things you need in your own inventory is a sense of what God called you to do. An understanding of your own purpose in life, an understanding and discernment of God's assignment on your life. You need to know what brings you joy and what motivates you and makes you want to get up in the morning and what what excites you to do something because you can't be my helpmate if I don't know what I need help doing. So, I got to get right with God to understand my own assignment before I can accept you loving me.
No one's love for you changes God's assignment on you. Go on, say that again, pastor. Nobody's love for you changes God's assignment on you. God sends the person to love you who is to help you with the assignment God has already given you. And if you're not clear on your own purpose, you'll never know what real love is. Uh, if you don't know what you're trying to do, can't nobody truly love you? You got to know for yourself.
[Applause]
She doesn't respect what he does. She doesn't respect how he does it. So she tells him, "David, that embarrassed me." And you know, when I read the scripture, let me tell you how trained you are by church. Because every single sermon I have ever heard about David and Michal demonizes Michal for criticizing David's worship. Every single one. Everyone that I've ever heard uses this passage to say, "Don't let nobody change or challenge how you worship God." There are always some haters in the church who are trying to tell you to sit down, to shut up. It it don't take all of that. And and and we even got a song out of it.
"And I will become even more undignified than this." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I read this passage, choir hollering behind me when when David said, "I'll be more than divine." Amen. Pastor, we going to shout today. Judy, every sermon I've ever heard demonizes Michal for criticizing David when all she really does is believe that with her husband she can share how she feels.
Can I push it? Yeah.
So, she believes that in this marriage, she can tell him how she feels. And watch David's response. She said, "David, that was embarrassing." David's response, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
[Applause]
Her word to David, that hurt me. Yeah. His response, "I'm just getting started." Good teacher, David. That wasn't cool. "I'm going to be more undignified than this." David, you showed yourself to the slave girls. He said, "They going to love me more than you." David cares more about the admiration of strangers than the feelings of his wife. Oh, pastor, we going to go grown today. You mean to tell me you care more about those strangers and what they say about you than what you care about your spouse's own feelings? And it is hard to maintain love with someone who has repeatedly shown you they don't care about how you feel. They don't care about what you're going through. They care more about things outside your relationship than they do about your own feelings.
She's vulnerable. Tells David how she feels. And David says to her what none of us want to hear from someone we love when we're being vulnerable. You know what David says? "I'm sorry you feel that way." Let me help you in a loving relationship. "I'm sorry you feel that way" is not a sign that you care for me. "I'm sorry how what I did made you feel" is a whole lot different than "I'm sorry you feel that way." I need to know that my feelings matter. I need to know that you care about what's in my heart. I need to know that even when you don't agree, you understand. Feelings are real. They may be misguided. They may not be based on all the facts, but my feelings are real. And when you show that you don't care about my feelings, how can you say you love me? David doesn't care about how she feels. She doesn't respect what David does.
Can I push this? This for the grown folk. Um, and Dr. Judy, it gets even worse because at the end of it, the Bible says that Michal never had children. I need you to remember how important having male children was to women in that day. It was almost their stamp of value that if a woman didn't give birth to a male child, it was almost as if her life was worthless. Michal doesn't have children. Now the question I want to ask you, why does Michal not have children? Now before you get Holy Ghost filled, let me tell you, the Bible never says she was barren. The Bible never said God closed her womb. And we know that David has at least 20 sons by 11 other women. Someone said, "Jesus, David makes Nick Cannon look sterile." He So here's the question, Patrick. If she's not barren and the Lord has not closed her womb and David has other children, why does Michal not have children?
This for the grown folk. This for the grown folk.
If she's not infertile and David is fertile, why does she not have children? We're going to keep it PG-13. If because David was never intimate with her. David easily gave other women, but he never gave his first wife. Why would a husband not make love to his wife? One scholar suggests that David was punishing her for Saul. And because of Saul, he was never intimate with Michal to give her what she needed to feel validated in life because he's punishing her. And allow me to tell you, love will always fail when punishment is on the agenda. Love will always fail when retribution is in your program. Love will always fail when you want to play tit for tat. Love will always fail when you want to get even. Love will always fail when you want to put someone in the doghouse. Love will always fail when you want to hold on to something that's been wrong and not learn to let it go. Love will always fail where there is no forgiveness. That's why Reverend Morgan read earlier in 1 Corinthians 13:5 that true love keeps no record of wrong. You can't love if you don't forgive. That's right. You can't love if you hold on to a wrong. You can't hold if you want to punish them and make them feel what you felt before you're willing to talk about it. You can't love if you want to put someone in the dog. True love knows how to forgive. True love knows how to let go. True love says we got to work through this thing. True love says, "I could do this, but I'm not going to do this 'cause I care too much about you." You can't love if you want to punish.
Deacon Miles Hatchett was a deacon in my first church and on his 50th wedding anniversary, where he's also turning 80, he was celebrating 50 years with his wife Anna. And every married couple in here that I've had the privilege of marrying, you know, I've told you this, I'm going to tell the whole church. I asked Miles Hatchett on his 50th wedding anniversary, what was the key to making 50 years of marriage? You know what he said to me? Let me tell you what he said is the key to making 50 years of marriage. And for some of us, we'll understand why ours didn't work. Here it is. I'm just here to tell you the truth. Deacon Miles Hatchett said, "If you want to make 50 years, here's the key. You ready? You both can't act a fool at the same time."
[Applause]
Oh, somebody just got a slap on the hand. You both can't act a fool at the same time. When one of you's acting a fool, the other's got to be willing to forgive. The other's got to be willing to let it go. The other's got to be willing to rise above it. The other has to be willing to take the high road. The other has to be willing to love while you're acting a fool. Uh uh.
She doesn't respect what he does. And love requires respect. David doesn't care how she feels. Love requires that my feelings matter. David's not intimate with her 'cause he's punishing her. And love cannot exist where punishment is on the agenda.
But I finally figured out the real truth. Can I tell you why this love didn't work? Tell you the truth. Because David never really loved her in the first place. Y'all, the Bible says that Michal loved David. I want you to make note of this. This is a unique passage of scripture because this is the only place in scripture where it says a woman loved a man. The only place in all 66 books where it says a woman loved a man was Michal saying, "I love David." We see the phrase "a man loved a woman" all the time. Jacob loved Rachel. Isaac loved Rebecca. Amnon thought he loved Tamar. That's another story. This is the only place where a woman declares her love for a man and scripture records it. What a beautiful passage that's sad because it never says that David loved Michal. Repeatedly, David shares his love for Jonathan, but he never said he loved Michal. Y'all, this this is so grown that someone's going to get mad when I say it. But the problem is Michal fell in love by herself. Nowhere did David say it. And guess what? David never showed it. After Michal helped him escape from Saul, David never called for her. He never went to find her. He never said, "I miss you." He never asked for her to come be with him. As a matter of fact, the only time David calls for Michal is when Abner is trying to negotiate a defection to the kingdom. And David says, "Bring her to me. Not 'cause I love her, but because I paid for her."
This is going to hurt someone, but do me a favor. Be careful of convincing yourself you're in love by yourself. Be careful of ignoring that someone has never said it. They've never shown it. They've never demonstrated it. They've never exhibited it. And yet you convince yourself, sitting all by yourself, that you are in a loving relationship by yourself. Love is not real if you fall in it by yourself. I know you're mad. Email me at morfleetalphreet.org if you got a problem.
You know what this reminds me of? Um, I made sure both the boys knew how to swim because it's a life-saving discipline. So, I made sure they knew how to swim. And I remember once I had them on vacation, we were out at the pool. They're playing in the shallow end and they both got out and I heard them talking as they walked to the deep end that they're both going to jump in because they can swim. And they said, "Come on, let's jump in the deep end. The deep end is about 10 feet." And they go to the end. Daryl, they're going to jump in the deep end. They made an agreement. We both going to jump in. They counted three. One, two, three. Deuce jumped and went in. And Cooper stayed on the edge. Deuce came up, looked around, and he's mad 'cause nothing's worse than jumping in the deep end by yourself.
[Applause]
Nothing's worse than finding you all in your feelings and they're still testing the water out to figure if this is even a pool they want to jump in. It's a horrible thing to fall in love by yourself. So this is why her feelings changed. Because by the time she gets back to David in 2 Samuel 6, her feelings have changed because of one person, Paltiel. You remember that brother I told you that was walking behind the caravan?
[Applause]
So, here's what happens. Now, she knows what real love looks like. And so, now she can't stomach David because she knows what real love looks like. Brothers and sisters, all of us need a Paltiel in our life who God can use to show us what real love looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like, how it operates. You need someone in your life who teaches you what real love is.
And and and and you know what? I blame Saul. The reason Michal has a distorted definition of love is 'cause Saul never taught her what love ought to look like. The reason some daughters have a jacked-up definition of love is 'cause their father never showed them what real love ought to look like. I don't know who I'm preaching to right now. You take your daughter on her first date so she knows what love looks like. You send her flowers so she knows what love looks like. You hug her in love so that she knows. 'Cause every daughter needs a definition of love before she meets David.
[Applause]
And I don't want to be too Baptist here, but that's why God sent Jesus. Because you need to know what it looks like to be loved. I wish I had some old school Baptist. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." So that in your relationship with Christ, you know what it's like to be loved, to be forgiven, for someone to sacrifice for you, for someone to lay it all on the line for you so that you change your own perception of yourself by the love God has given you. That's why I recommend Jesus to you because no one can love you like the Lord can. And once you experience the love of Jesus, it's hard to accept a messed-up definition of love again.
[Music]
You need Christ in your life. You need a relationship with a Lord that loves you, takes you as you are, and pushes you to be even better. A love of a Savior that said, "I love you so much. Let me show you what it looks like. Watch me carry this cross up this hill and die for you. 'Cause no greater love will anyone have for you than this than that they'll lay down their life for you."
Beloved, my brother, my sister, I need you to know how much God loves you and to receive and welcome that into your life and allow it to transform you from the inside out. Allow it to push you into a place where you are loved by God's people. Our deepest desire at Alfred Street is to share the transformative love of Jesus with you and allow the love of Jesus to work out God's salvation in your life.