The One About Abigail, Identity and How Lame Sin Actually Is
Dear West Family
Well, it’s August apparently. You turn around for a second and you’re into another school year.
Before I get into this week’s reflection, I wanted to give you a little heads up on what’s happening in our services this Sunday and, in doing so, extend an invitation to you to not just attend those services but to prepare your heart and mind for them so that we are all ready for what the Lord might say to all of us. This Sunday I have the responsibility and privilege of preaching through the story of David and Bathsheba (and Uriah of course). It is a famous and sobering text which contains a lot of darkness, but also a lot of hope. We are trying something a little different with our liturgy which entails starting with announcements and then running the worship flow from there. So please be early, and come ready to hear from the Lord at either the 9 or the 11. I anticipate that the Spirit will have both a confronting and deeply comforting word for us all.
As we get near to the end of our study in the life of David, I have been reflecting back on the narrative of this deeply human life recorded for us (mostly) in 1st and 2nd Samuel. In an attempt to keep the series moving and reasonably concise, we have had to leave some stories from his life out, and there are some that I wish we had time to reflect upon. One of those stories takes place in 1 Samuel 25 and concerns a fascinating woman named Abigail. The story is long and complex due to how tied it is to an ancient culture that we don;t identify with at all, but there is an encounter between David and Abigail that is so beautiful that it has had me reflecting on it for weeks. As an aside, it is incredible to note how many of the key moments in David’s life are steered by powerful women. That is a subject for another day though.
In 1 Samuel 25 David was on the run from Saul and came across a pretty nasty fellow called Nabal, who was Abigail’s husband. David was determined to kill Nabal ( killing beautiful women’s husbands is a bit of an unfortunate pattern in David’s life) because Nabal had acted as a bit of a jerk who declined to show hospitality to David and his men. Abigail caught wind of David’s plans and she intercepted him with gifts of extravagant hospitality and with a plea to David to not kill Nabal, and she was successful. What has been sitting with me though is the nature of Abigail’s plea. Here is what she says.
28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” - 1 Sa 25:28–31 (ESV)
Here is what I find so compelling and beautiful about Abigail’s approach. She roots her plea to prevent David from sin in David’s identity as the anointed one of God. She essentially reminds David that the sin of vengeance would be beneath him because of who he was in God’s promise. You’re going to be king, and you are beloved by God, so don’t ruin your royal reputation with a pointless feud!
Friends, this is how temptation to sin works. Before we are prone to sin we first have to forget who we are in Christ! When we are able to remember that we are holy, and cherished, and beloved by God, and that we have been adopted into His family as sons and daughters who get to serve as priests of His great Kingdom, well then, sin seems … beneath us, unfitting for us to trifle with, unworthy of our attention and distraction.
Maybe today you need to just be reminded of your identity as one beloved by God? If you remember that then you diminish the temptation to sin through all the temptations we face to make ourselves feel loved and noticed and accepted. Maybe today you need to remind someone else of who they really are, in an effort to call them away from a life of sin that is beneath the station that Christ has called them to?
If you know who you are, and if you know “whose” you are, then a lot of the battle against the temptation to behave like someone else diminishes in its power over us.
Thank God for the Abigails in our lives. Thank God that you are beloved in Christ. Now go live like that’s true.
The song this week is from David Gray. I am getting to watch him at ACL tonight and will be singing along to this at the top of my lungs! I love his drummer, Craig Mclune, even though he plays a totally inappropriate drum fill at about the 1:50 minute mark.
David Gray - Please Forgive Me ft. BBC Concert Orchestra (Radio 2 Piano Room)
See you Sunday.
Ross
