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Mill City Church

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  1. 3d ago

    Acts 1:6-11

    Chet Phillips preaches Acts 1:6-11.

  2. Aug 2

    Acts 1:1-5

    Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. Acts 1:1-5 Spencer Cary Download Transcript Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We did it you guys. We made it through 2 Samuel. 1 and 2 Samuel. And now we're in the book of Acts. So if you're new to our church, we typically, not exclusively, but the majority of what we do is we walk through books of the Bible. And we're gonna go verse by verse, passage by passage. And we're in Acts chapter 1 today. As we begin the book of Acts, we'll be in this for the next season. We're in the first five verses of the book of Acts. That is on page 1053, 1053 in your black Bibles. The main text will be coming from the Bible. So we will hold a Bible and read that with this. There'll be other texts. They'll be on the screen. But we're gonna introduce the book of Acts because it is wise when you jump into a book to have some context for what you're actually studying. So I want to point out three things as we begin to introduce us, I think, well to understanding the book of Acts. If you grab a study Bible, like the ESV study Bible, you open it up before we start reading a book. If you're gonna study it, you're gonna see different introductory elements. And I'm gonna give you three that kind of help us frame our time together in the book of Acts. Genre, author, and purpose. So let me hit those very quickly. It's important to first know the genre because not all scripture is the same. You don't read Proverbs like you read the Psalms, like you read Genesis, like you read the Gospels, like you read the epistles, the letters in the New Testament. They are all, they come from different genres. So it's important to understand what you're reading before you jump in. The book of Acts is historical narrative. Functions like the Gospels in that way. It's historical narrative. It's a bunch of stories that tell the story of how the church began starting in the first three decades of the church is what the book of Acts and 28 chapters covers. So from around 33 AD to around 60 to 65 AD, we're gonna read a bunch of stories and teachings that shaped the church early on and that we get to be shaped by as well. So it's one of the longest books in the New Testament. The Gospel of Luke is the only book that's longer and we'll be in it for a bit. So the second thing that is helpful to know is the author. And the author is Luke. So Luke was inspired by God to write this. So let's introduce ourselves to Luke. We don't know a ton. Here's what we do know. Luke was likely Greek. Okay. He may have been Jewish, it's debated, but if he's Jewish, he's very what you would call Hellenistic, meaning he's very Greek influenced. So he's Greek. What we also can see from the letters of the New Testament is he's likely a doctor. So likely a physician like Mike Goble who was just standing here leading us in prayer. He's a doctor. It's also clear that he's an historian. He was tasked with the job of both telling an orderly account of the Gospel in Luke of Jesus Christ and his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection and the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church. So some will say that Paul wrote most of the New Testament. It's actually not true. When you go by word count, Luke actually was inspired to write most of the New Testament because Luke and Acts is longer than all Paul's 13 letters combined. Fun fact. Three, purpose. Okay. Why is the book of Acts and our Bibles? Why did God inspire it? Why was it so important that it became an essential part of what's called the New Testament canon? What is the official books of the New Testament? Why do we have this? That's what we get to look at today. One of the things that's clear when you read the book of Luke is that there's this foreshadowing of the inclusion of the Gentiles. So that's basically, I would assume everybody in this room that comes from a non-Jewish background. There's this foreshadowing that the Gospel is going to go to the nations and that we're going to be included. And the book of Acts is going to show us how. How we are brought into the household of faith. So we're going to see this. We're going to look at the values and the witness and the Gospel that spread all that comes out of this. We're going to look at key figures like Philip and Peter and James, the brother of Jesus Christ, and Paul. We're going to look at all of this. And when you actually, if you look at a Bible and you go to Acts, oftentimes they're going to have the subscript that we have from the earliest manuscripts that says Acts of the Apostles. And if you read that, it may lead you to believe that this book is primarily about the work of the apostles. But what we're going to see is this book is primarily about a God rescuing his people and his rescue plan for the nations. And then even more of the point, one of the things that makes Acts so unique and so essential is it gives us the most comprehensive window into the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We're going to read a lot about the Holy Spirit. No book in the Bible mentions the Holy Spirit more than the book of Acts. It would be wrong to say that this book is only about the work of the Holy Spirit, because God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are both present and loom large in this book. But there's no other book in the Bible that gives us a more upfront window to the work of the Holy Spirit than the book of Acts, which makes this very helpful for us as we want to be a Spirit empowered people and the season that we're in trying to be missional and planting a church. So we're very excited to be able to walk this book together. And what we're going to see today and these first few verses and what we're going to see throughout this series can be summarized in this sentence, the Holy Spirit in God's church taking Jesus to the world. That what we're going to see is the Holy Spirit in God's church taking Jesus to the world. So let me pray and then we'll walk through this introduction together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the good news of the gospel that we just sang about, that we just prayed for, that we just recited from the Scriptures. God, I pray that you would help us be, have open eyes to see how you started your church and what it's built upon. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, go to verse one. In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. So let's pause there. Out the gate, there should be some questions that jump off the page. Who's Theophilus? When did you do all this, where you dealt with all the things that Jesus began and taught? And that is why understanding Acts, it's very helpful to have a working general knowledge of the book of Luke. The gospel of Luke helps us understand the book of Acts. Luke functions very much like a part one and Acts functions very much like a part two. So what I want to do a little bit today is to go to the book of Luke and to help us see a little bit of how this helps us understand Acts. I want to go to Luke chapter one. This will be on the screen. You can look up here and hold that place in Acts because we'll come back to it. Luke chapter one says, many have undertaken to draw up an account of these things that have been fulfilled among us just as they were handed down to us by those who were, who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you most excellent Theophilus so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. So this is very similar to the introduction to the book of Acts. Who is Theophilus? We don't know for sure. We know that his name means lover of God. Theo and Phyllis, those are two different Greek words to come together, lover of God. It is very likely that he was a wealthy Christian who put the money forward for Luke to do the work of gathering all these reports. It takes time and energy and effort and money to go and travel throughout all of the New Testament world and to put together what is the gospel of Luke? What is these stories that tell us about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? And we should be familiar with that concept because we know today they are investigative reporters, that they make their living, they get paid to go out and do investigative work and put together reports from Bob Woodward and his work all the way to reporters like Christopher Rufo today. They are all types of different people that get paid to put together reports. And that is what Luke was. He was an historian who got paid and traveled to go and put together this gospel of Luke that tells us about Jesus Christ. And what I appreciate about Luke is that he's not only just giving us a bunch of facts about Jesus, he does the work of organizing it into a story. So when you rea

  3. Jul 26

    2 Samuel 24

    Chet Phillips preaches 2 Samuel 24 in the 2 Samuel series on July 26, 2026.

  4. Jul 19

    2 Samuel 23

    Spencer Carey preaches 2 Samuel 23 in the 2 Samuel series on July 19, 2026.

  5. Jul 12

    2 Samuel 22

    Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 22 Matt Freeman Download Transcript It's good to see you guys this morning. If you would go ahead, grab a Bible and turn to 2 Samuel 22. If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you to grab one of the black ones that are under the seats right in front of you. We're going to be on page 313. I'm going to put some of the extra passages and verses on the screen for us, but the bulk of our time is just going to be walking through this passage together. So, we want you to have a Bible in your hands. If we haven't met yet, my name is Matt Freeman. I get the opportunity to serve here as a lay pastor. And most Sundays you'll see me up here with a guitar in my hands or maybe playing piano and leading worship. But I am thankful for the times where I get the opportunity to teach our church family when it makes the most sense for our team. The truth is I'm usually just called in for the passages that Chet and Spencer find too difficult. But today is a little bit more in my wheelhouse. And so we're coming to the end of our time in 1 and 2 Samuel and we're bringing our study on the life of David to a close. And Chet mentioned this last week, but we have left the chronological flow of things and we've really just entered into the epilogue where the writer of 1 and 2 Samuel is just highlighting specific vignettes in David's life for us to focus in on to learn something from. But part of what's interesting here is that the books of 1 and 2 Samuel are historical narrative, meaning that they're just giving us a historical account of the people of God. And we've been tracing that through the lives of Samuel and then Saul and now David. But in this epilogue, we're given a song, which is crazy because we've been walking through all of this history, but now we're given a song. In fact, in the ESV, the title is David's Song of Deliverance. And so, it's at least curious enough for us to lean in and go, why a song? Why here? And for me, I love music. So, I'm pumped about the fact that it's a song. I listen to music constantly. I am either playing or singing all the time. People who know me well know my life is like I'm a walking musical. But music has this incredible power about it. It has the ability to make us feel things more deeply than we could without it. Just imagine your favorite movie without the musical score behind it. Imagine Jaws without the two notes getting faster and faster and faster. Imagine the opening of a Star Wars movie without the fanfare. It's just words suddenly going across your screen at an awkward angle. Think about it. Think about going to a wedding. The doors open. The bride walks in and it's just shuffling feet. Music helps us feel that moments matter. Music also helps us remember things way more easily. Some of you have a very deep bank of song lyrics. Some of those songs you wish you could forget, but you just remember songs. Let's play a game. [He prompts the congregation with a brief Bon Jovi lyric, and they sing the response in harmony.] That wasn't just melody. It was harmony. Like, also, I bet you didn't have singing Bon Jovi on your bingo card for this morning. But we could play that game all morning long. Music's also a part of how we learned. Nearly half of everything you learned in elementary school was set to a song. It's part of how we give honor and celebrate. It's why we sing happy birthday. We do the national anthem. You know, over the course of your life, music is how you got through your first breakup. Music's how you got pumped up for a game. You know that if you're at a college football game and the band kicks in, it's go time. Music helps us feel these things. And here's the reality. God created music. He beautifully and intentionally and creatively baked all of this stuff into it, and he made it important in the life of his people. Roughly one-third of the Old Testament is divinely inspired poetry. The book in the Bible with the largest number of chapters and one of the largest books in the Bible is the book of Psalms. John Piper says in the Psalms you can find 27 different human emotions and how they're given expression in relation to God. The people of God are a musical people. We're singing people. We're commanded over 50 times in the Bible to sing to the Lord. And here we are at the end of historical narrative and we're given a song. And it's not just any song. It's a song that's so important that it's not just put in the Bible once, it's in the Bible twice. We have a near verbatim replica of this song given to us in Psalm 18 that we started as our call to worship this morning. And so, knowing that God's the creator of music and knowing all that he's put into it, why do we get this song here? So at this season of David's life, after decades of war and strife and danger and hundreds of deliverances, it says that David now has rest from his enemies and from Saul. He's now a successful and powerful king. And what does David do? He worships God. In the ancient world, when earthly kings came to the end of their lives and they wanted people to celebrate their victories and conquest, they would build monuments to themselves. They wanted future generations to look at their strength, their power, their accomplishments, but not David. David doesn't say, "Look at me." He says, "Look at God." The song is not a monument to David's victories. It's a testimony to David's God. And so its placement here in the epilogue is to teach us that it's all about God. So in some ways this morning, David's going to teach us about worship. We're going to walk through this song together, and we're going to let David fix our eyes on the Lord. Hopefully by the end of it, we're going to see how this song extends to us, into our lives and into our story as well. So let's ask the Lord to help us do that. Would you pray with me? God, we know that you have intentionally placed this song in the epilogue after we've seen so much of David's story for a reason. So, I pray that you would help us let David fix our eyes on you this morning. That we would see why David worships you his whole life long. And that would extend into our story as well. In Jesus' name, amen. So, let's take a look at it together. 2 Samuel 22. Again, this is mirrored in Psalm 18, meaning it's not just David's personal song. It is meant to be a song of deliverance for all of God's people. And what we're going to see here is that this song is all about David's God, not David's victories. But verse one gets us into it. It says this: > And David spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. (2 Samuel 22:1 ESV) It just sets the context for the song. We're not actually into the song yet. And it says that David spoke these words to the LORD. So LORD, if you're looking in your Bible, it's capitalized. It's L O R D. This is the personal covenant name of God that he gave to his people. This is Yahweh. And so David is singing this song to his personal God, Yahweh. And again, we've left chronology here. We don't know exactly when this sits in David's life, but we've read 1 and 2 Samuel, so we know a lot of things. We know the kinds of deliverances that he's been delivered from. We know at least we can go back to one of our first encounters where God delivers David from Goliath and then battle after battle with the Philistines and then from Saul. But we've also seen that once he becomes king, he's delivered from his son Absalom, who rebels against him. He goes on the run. Most recently, we looked at the rebellion of Sheba. And so David, looking back over a lifetime of deliverance with gratitude in his heart, can't help but erupt in praise to the Lord. And so let's pick it back up in verse two. We'll go through seven: > He said, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,> my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,> my shield, and the horn of my salvation,> my stronghold and my refuge,> my savior; you save me from violence.> I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,> and I am saved from my enemies.> For the waves of death encompassed me,> the torrents of destruction assailed me;> the cords of Sheol entangled me;> the snares of death confronted me.> In my distress I called upon the LORD;> to my God I called.> From his temple he heard my voice,> and my cry came to his ears. (2 Samuel 22:2–7 ESV) You can just feel the language of an old, battle-worn warrior here. David has continually found his strength in the Lord. And so he reaches for every word that he can find. Look back at it. It says rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn, stronghold, refuge. But notice, David is not just teaching us to praise God only when life feels good and settled. He's teaching us how to praise God in the middle of every season. He remembers the waves of death, the torrents of destruction, the days when he felt alone and afraid, surrounded and desperate for rescue. And yet in all of it, he cries out to the Lord and he p

  6. Jul 5

    2 Samuel 21

    Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 21 Chet Phillips Download Transcript Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab a Bible and go to 2 Samuel, chapter 21. We've been working our way through 1 and 2 Samuel and we have reached what commentators call the epilogue of 2 Samuel that the main story has ended. And in the final four chapters, we're going to be in chapter 21. In the final four chapters, we're going to have six pictures that are kind of closing pictures on the kingship of David. And they are not in chronological order. They are in a thematic order. And they're meant to kind of sum up the picture of David for us. The actual story of David's death and Solomon becoming king, that doesn't happen until 1 Kings. You got to work all the way through into 1 Kings for that to kind of to pick up there. So, what this is is almost like the movie's ended, the end credits are rolling, and then it's cutting to different scenes or showing you different pictures of things to try to kind of give you the last picture that it wants you to have of King David. And so, we're going to see two of those pictures today. Now, I heard one pastor put it this way in regards to this text. It's not difficult to understand, but there are aspects of it that are difficult to accept. And so, we're going to go through this text that has some difficulties in it for us. Our hope is to understand why it's here. What was the author trying to tell the people in the original the original hearers? What how would they have understood this? What are we trying to see about David? And then as from our standpoint, what should we do with a text like this? And how do we understand this kind of text? And so hopefully we'll be edified by it, pointed towards Jesus in it. But let's pray and then we'll jump in. Lord, we ask for your mercy. We ask for your grace. and we ask that we would honor you well in the reading and the studying of your word and in submission to it. May your spirit be at work and help us to love Jesus more in Jesus name. Amen. Chapter 21 verse one. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years year after year and David sought the face of the Lord. Okay, so famine in this region is not uncommon, but three years of it is is getting bad. And we're told that David starts asking the Lord. We don't know exactly when he began, but he's seeking the Lord to understand what's going on here. it's starting to seem like one of the covenantal curses, which is in the in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, if they don't follow the law, it says that your your crops won't yield their fruit. You you will find that your trees don't produce. And so he's starting to go and ask the Lord, is something going on? What's happening here? And this is what happened. Says David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, there is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death. So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. Now, there are several things we need to consider that are going on right here in this text. One is Saul was the original king. Saul is not king anymore. Saul is dead. But there is guilt on Saul, on Saul's house. This blood guilt on Saul. in Saul's house for something that Saul did and the entire nation is paying for it. There's a famine in the land because of blood guilt. Now, blood guilt is a specific thing in the law that is the shedding of innocent blood. And so, there's blood guilt because Saul led the people to attack the Gibeonites. And it says they weren't the Gibeonites aren't the people of Israel, but the people of Israel had promised to protect them. Now, that going to take a little history lesson. That happens in Joshua chapter 9. So, Joshua is sent in with the people of Israel to take over the land. They're they're marching through. They're supposed to get rid of all the Amorites. Well, the Amorites who live in Gibby find out that they're coming and they think this isn't going to go well. So, they come up with a trick to make it seem like they're from another place. They show up. They meet with the people of Israel and they make a covenant with them. People of Israel shouldn't have made this covenant. They should have consulted the Lord, but they make it. When they find out they've been tricked and that the Gibeonites aren't from a far land, but they're from right here and they're a part of the people group they're supposed to get rid of, the people of Israel are like,"Let's kill them."And Joshua and the elders say,"We can't. We promised that we wouldn't. We co we signed the Lord up in covenant with them that we would not kill them."So we we can't. Then we would make it seem like God is a liar and he is not. And so we have to keep this promise. Well, Saul in his zeal not for the Lord, but for the people of Israel and Judah. So, he's running around going,"Israel, Israel, Judah, Judah, Judah, oi, oi, oi."Stuff like that. He's super zealous for his people. He decides the Gibeonites, who've been here forever, who are a subjugated people, we're just going to kill all of them. And so, this would have been a massacre. These people would not have been, they were surrounded by the people of Israel. They were servants to the people of Israel. they would not have been in a position to defend themselves. And he just starts killing them. That story, this is all we get of that story. There's no place that tells us that anywhere else in the text. And so David says,"Why is there a famine?"And God says,"Saul broke a 400year-old covenant that he was supposed to keep."So there's a couple of things. One is God expects you to keep your promises. We ought to be people who keep our promises. Now, if you want to not make a lot of promises, that's fine. Like, if if today you came over to me and said,"Why haven't you given me $5? You've sinned against me."I might would argue,"No, I haven't. That's not like a thing I have to do. I have not sinned against you."But if I had promised to give you $5 and then didn't give it to you, have I sinned against you? Yes. And have I sinned against the Lord? Yes. So somehow in our agreement, the Lord gets involved. He binds covenants together. Now they specifically had done it in the name of the Lord. But even as we make agreements with one another, we can still sin against God by being the type of people who don't keep up with our end of the agreement. And we'll say things like,"Yeah, but we made that deal like 10 years ago."This was 400 years old, and Saul was meant to keep it. Here's the other thing that's happening in this text. Saul was the representative head for the people of Israel. So as king, he can sin on their behalf and lead them all into sin. He's the representative head of the people of Israel of his family. And so he sins and it spreads. The consequences spread. And David as the representative head of the people of Israel now is going to have to figure it out. That's why it says he calls the Gibeonites. When he finds this out, he's got to fix the problem. Now, we don't think about headship that often, but one of the New Testament pictures we're given, it's Old and New Testament, is that husbands are the head of their family. They're head of their wife. They're the head of the household. So, I want to say to husbands in the room, every problem in your house is your problem. You don't get to say,"Well, that's her thing. Well, she's the one who deals with the kids. Well, she told me she didn't want me to be involved in that, so we'll just see how it goes."That's not how it works. David doesn't get to go,"Well, that was Saul's fault. take it up with Saul. Oh, he's dead. Let's move on. David has to try to figure out this problem because he's the representative head for the people of Israel. So, that's where we are. That's what's happening at this moment in the text. Okay. So, he's called the Gibeonites. Verse three. And David said to the Gibeonites,"What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?"There's blood, guilt, there's sin. There needs to be atonement. How can we atone for this sin? That's what he's asking. The Gibeonites said to him,"It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house. Neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel."And he said,"What do you say that I shall do for you?"So he calls them together and says,"How do we make this right? How do we atone for this?"And they say,"Is it sitting the sort of thing that we can settle out of court? It's not the sort of thing that's not a matter of silver and gold. You can't just pay off this debt with money. And then they say,"And we're not allowed to put people to death. That's not the position that we're in."And then they stop talking. Because what they're saying to him i

  7. Jun 28

    2 Samuel 19:40-20

    Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 19:40-20 Spencer Cary Download Transcript Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We are continuing to walk through the book of 2 Samuel. We'll get towards the end, you guys. We're going to be in chapter 19, verse 40. We're going to go all the way through chapter 20 today. It's on page 310 in those black Bibles. And to 311, I encourage you to follow along with us as we walk through 2 Samuel. We are kind of having a moment in our country right now because the World Cup is here. And it's not just, which if you didn't know, that's soccer, you guys. It's not just that we're actually winning and it seems like we're pretty good. It's that people from all around the world have come to America. And they love it here. I've watched so many of these videos, it's ridiculous. There's so many videos of people from Europe, from Africa, from Japan, that are just so excited about Buc-ee's, about free refills, about Costco, and ranch. Ranch dressing is having a moment. But it's wonderful because there's all these things that they love. It's like, you know what? We've got some good things going on. We're just kind of celebrating a moment as a country. We're all united joyously for the first time in a long time. And the reason that it feels like it's the first time in a long time is because I don't know if you've been paying attention. The last decade plus has been a lot. It's been a lot of hostility. It's been a lot of disunity. I mean, it's been a lot of just tribalism and hate. And man. And I just want to capture that. I want to read some quotes. And these are from public figures, political leaders. But this kind of captures the last 10 years of kind of what we've been in. It's been just at each other's throats. There's a few different quotes from a few different people. We will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin. That's talking about fellow citizens. Live like vermin. There's another one. If you see anybody from that cabinet, that political cabinet, in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gas station, you get out and create a crowd. You push back on them. You tell them why they're not welcome anymore anywhere. That's another one. The third one. We need a national divorce. We are two completely different countries living under one flag. And one side is trying to destroy the other. Straight up calling for it. A national divorce. Last one. You could put half of his supporters into what I call a basket of deplorables. So half of someone's supporters deplorable. Now, you can say, well, that's politicians. And many of them are like the worst of us. And I'm not going to fight you super hard on that because there might be some merit to some of that argument. But it's not just leaders like that. That's trickled down and been reposted and been recirculated on social media and break rooms and shop floors at family get-togethers. We've seen this over and over again. So much to the point where the word Nazi and commie has almost lost its meaning entirely. We've heard destroying America, threat to democracy, enemy from within, fascists, on and on and on and on and on. If you've been insulated from this, brother or sister, blessed are you. It's kind of hard to miss it. But if you've had any touch points with people, the Internet, there's a lot of angry people right now with a lot of alarmist, heightened, extremist rhetoric that is symptomatic of a deeper problem of deep disunity that many of us have observed and felt for a long time at this point. And we're getting ready to celebrate our 250th birthday. And I think the story we have in 2 Samuel is timely because it's going to highlight what happens when you have unresolved conflict that weaves its way through a nation. And that, paired with heated, intensified rhetoric and words, brings about consequences that we should be careful to take notice of. And as Christians, we should consider on a national level, on a local level, and within our own church, that we are called to live differently than many who are trying to tear each other apart today. And as we take a big step back from this, as we walk through this story, my hope is that we see Christ as our ultimate hope in the widening rift that we are currently living in. So let's pray, and then we'll walk this together. Heavenly Father, I thank you that our hope is in Christ alone. And that message resounds in beautiful, wonderful, unifying ways against the backdrop of history that is filled with broken people fighting for their own interest. God, I pray that you'd help us see the truth of the Scriptures, the hope of the Gospel, and that we leave here in faith and obedience and repentance. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so last week when Chet ended, where he ended, it was a moment after the civil war between Absalom and David where there was a lot of good happening. There was the pardoning of enemies. There was the rewarding of individuals. And this is exactly where Chet ended last week in verse 40. It says, The king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him. All the people of Judah and also half the people of Israel brought the king on his way. Okay. So that last sentence is really important context here. And it's a problem. Because after the civil war, they should be coming together, unified, and taking David back. But what's happened is, is it says, All of Judah and half of Israel. And what that is, is political positioning. All of Judah to put influence, to gain influence with David as he's being reestablished in Jerusalem. And half of Israel. That's a problem, y'all. If the American civil war ended, and afterwards the north said, You know what? We're going to give the south, I don't know, five to ten senators. And we're going to have forty to fifty. It would have restarted. Because that's not unifying. That's how you have unequal representation. That's not how it's supposed to go. And the people of Israel see this, And they are upset. Verse 41. Then all the men of Israel came to the king, And said to the king, Why have our brothers, the men of Judah, stolen you away? All right, pause there. Israel sees this, And they go to David, And they're like, Why have the people of Judah, our brothers, stolen you away? Now that kind of gets lost on us in the English. But in their language, in their context, With this being used throughout the scriptures, That's fighting words right there. That is a massive accusation. You are stealing our king. Why are they stealing you away? And it says, And brought the king and his household over the Jordan, And all of David's men with him. So, They level this accusation. Verse 42. All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is our close relative, Why then are you angry over this matter? They say, Because we're related to him. Like more than you. Like you're a distant cousin. We're close cousins. This is David we're talking about. Of the tribe of Judah. So, Why are you angry about this? They continue. Have we eaten at the king's expense? Or has he given us any gift? Have we taken advantage of the situation in a way that promotes us? Have we taken bribes? Have we taken favors? Why are you angry? Verse 43. And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, We have ten shares in the king. And in David also, We have more than you. Why then do you despise us? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king? All right. Pause there. They're saying, We have ten shares. We have ten tribes. What are you doing? How do you as one tribe get all this influence with David? Why do you hate us? Why do you despise us? And they just keep going. It says, But the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel. And you can see them devolving into a shouting match. And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer. Fiercer. Harsher. Louder. Intensified. Talking. Yelling. Over. One another. And what's happening here is the widening of an ongoing rift that is never going to heal in this nation. Wounds are not going to be healed that come out of this. And it shows that words matter. They matter. Israel comes in hot. They say, Why are you stealing our king? And Judah doesn't slow down. They answer back. Israel answers back. The words get more fierce. More intensified. And now they're at it again. In conflict. Raging. Now. Pick up in chapter 20 verse 1. There's somebody present. Who is going to take advantage of the anger in this moment? Verse 1. Now there happened to be there a worthless man whose name was Sheba. The son of Bichri. A Benjaminite. Okay. So. While they're all shouting at each other. There's a man named Sheba from the tribe of Benjamin. Son of Bichri. Okay. And he is an opportunist. Now he's described as a worthless man. We're going to see why in a moment. He's an opportunist. Who is going to seize on all the anger that is happening right here. It says, And he blew the trumpet and said, We have no portion in David. And we have

  8. Jun 21

    2 Samuel 19:8b-40

    Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 19:8b-40 Chet Phillips Download Transcript Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab a Bible and go to 2 Samuel chapter 19. We're working our way through the book of 2 Samuel. We have made a shift recently. We would always have the passages that we were on on the screen and we have stopped doing that. Our hope is that as people of the Bible, as people of a book, we would grow in our ability to hold and read a book in a culture that has increasingly lost the ability to hold and read a book. And so we want to be people who we practice that together on Sunday mornings. And our hope is that it'll be helpful. We think it may be a kind of an annoying shift, but we hope that it'll bear fruit and we'll see. So we're not promising we'll never go back to putting it on the screen. We are promising we won't quickly. We're going to try to see if we can learn how to hold and read a book. Bring your Bibles with you. If you don't have a Bible, grab one of the black ones that should be in the seat row and one of those little cages in front of you. If you can't reach one easily, smack someone and do like this till they hand you a Bible. We're going to be on page 309. One of the joys of pastoring is getting to perform weddings. You get to celebrate with people. It's a lot of fun to perform a wedding, to get to be there with people during that time. It can be anxiety ridden because people do remember the things you say at their weddings. And if you mess it up, they're upset by that. But it is fun. And one of the blessings that we have as a church is that we have five pastors. So different ones of our pastors get to participate in performing weddings. There was a time there where I went a long time without getting to perform a wedding. Matt Freeman performed some weddings. Raz Bradley performed some weddings. Isaac Hill performed some weddings. Spencer Cary performed some weddings and I didn't perform any weddings. And that's fine. But my wife and I were discussing this at one point. And she said, yeah, I don't know why people don't ask you to perform their weddings. And I was like, yeah, I don't know either. And then we sat there quietly for a little while. And then she said, I do think people want their pictures to look nice. So I said, hold on a second. So it turns out my beloved wife of many years doesn't think that I always have the most pleasant look on my face. That could tip the balance away from me. But one of the things that's happened is I've sat in other weddings performed by our other pastors. I've heard Spencer say several times in weddings as he goes to have the couple give their vows, declare their vows to one another. He'll say, if you are a married person in the room, I would encourage you at this time to consider your vows. As they take their vows for the first times, I would encourage you to consider your vows that you have made and the promises that you have made and what that looks like in your life right now and have the opportunity to reinvest in your vows. And the reason I bring that up is because that's in some ways how we're going to approach this passage this morning. We are in the middle of David who has had to flee from his son who has rebelled against him. And then they had a battle and Absalom died and everyone ran away and it kind of broke up. And now we're going to see today as David returns back from across the Jordan, back over to Jerusalem. And as we read these individual interactions, we're going to see three individual interactions between David and individuals as he comes back and they have to reckon with the return of their king. We're going to take a moment to consider as a gathered people of God, as Christians who've gathered this morning, that we are in a rebellious kingdom waiting for a returning king. We're in a similar situation. Now, this situation plays out differently than ours is going to play out because David is imperfect and this kingdom that he's coming back to is imperfect, as we'll see in the coming weeks. But we're going to just pause. We're going to read one of these stories, try to understand it, and then we're going to pause and consider for a moment our situation with our better king. And then we're going to kind of work our way through in that manner. So that's what we're going to do today. I'm going to pray for us and then we'll hop in to the story. Lord, we ask that you would help us to consider well the position that we're in, to consider well our hearts, to see our lives well in light of your imminent return. That as people who await the return of a good king to set up a righteous kingdom, that we would wait properly and be ready for that day. Help us to study your word well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're going to pick up in 2 Samuel chapter 19 verse 8b. And the reason b just means the back half of verse 8b. The verses were added later, so sometimes you end up needing to pick up in a different place. So it's just, it says, now Israel had fled every man to his own home. So that's after Absalom's rebellion. Absalom dies. Everybody who was helping him flees. And all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel saying, the king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines. And now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. But Absalom, who we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now, therefore, why do you say nothing about bringing the king back? So Israel begins to argue amongst themselves as they've traveled back home as, hey, we, King David was pretty good. He saved us from the Philistines. We held a very unsuccessful rebellion. Why don't we bring the king back? Why aren't we trying to fix this? That's what they start to say. And apparently this word of this makes it to David. David is in Mahanaim. He fled from Jerusalem. So he's crossed over. That's why they're talking about bringing him back because he left. Once he crossed over the Jordan, he's kind of away from the people, even though there are some tribes that would be up here by the Sea of Galilee. And there are some tribes that are over here at Mahanaim. He's kind of out of the main part of the people, the main part of the promised land. They actually had a whole big discussion of whether or not they could settle tribes on that side of the Jordan because the promised land was on the other side of the Jordan. They decided they could, but then they had all this, you know, relational drama over time to try to settle that they're allowed to be over there, but they are still part of Israel. But the main bulk of the land that belongs to them is on the other side of the Jordan. And David is not there. And they're saying, let's bring him back. And most of what we're going to see today is going to happen at the Jordan River. It's going to happen while David is coming back and people are coming up from Jerusalem in that area to meet him at the Jordan. So that's what they're talking about. It says, and King David, this is verse 11. And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests who were their pro David. They were willing to come with him. He says, say to the elders of Judah, why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house when the word of all Israel has come to the king? So the tribe of Judah is around Jerusalem and that's the tribe that David is from, but they're not murmuring about bringing them back. Everybody else is. And so he sends message to him and says, Hey, say, what are y'all doing? What's the holdup? Why are you taking forever? Verse 12? You are my brothers. We're the same tribe. You are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be last to bring back the king and say to Amasa? Okay. Amasa is David's nephew and Amasa joined Absalom and was Absalom's general in the battle they just had. Joab is David's nephew who's over his army. Amasa was the over Absalom's army. He says, say to Amasa, are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also if you are not commander of my army from now on in place of Joab. So I think David's doing two things there. One, Joab just killed Absalom after David specifically asked him not to. So there seems to be some frustration potentially between David and Joab because Joab is dangerous and willing to not do what David asked. And so there's some hurt there, even though the most recent thing we read was David following Joab's call on how he ought to treat his troops. Amasa would have been in David's army for a long time and only once tried to kill him in a rebellion. But Amasa is probably the strongest figure left in and around Judah. He is over the army. If power is going to shift after Absalom dies, it would most likely shift to Amasa. And so he's saying, hey, you come here, you'll replace Joab, you'll be over my army, and we'll go from there. And so he's in some ways removing Joab, but also removing Amasa as a threat and bringing him back over to his side. That's the game plan here. That'

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