Resentment and bitterness often try to hide
under a cloak of self-righteousness.
Grace and peace to everyone, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Welcome to you all, to this online service with God’s Heart TV today.
If you have your Bible, please take your Bible.
We’re going to be looking at some messages from the Word of God.
This is a very unique Book.
It's the only Book where as you read it, it is also reading you.
It's a mirror.
When we read the Bible with prayer, with devotion,
then you are in it, I am in it, but most importantly, God Himself is in it.
And not only does God reveal the heart of man through the Bible, through His Word,
He reveals the heart of God, His love for us and His solution to the problems of mankind.
Thank You, Jesus! So praise the Lord for God's Word!
Let us pray as we ready ourselves to listen to the message.
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You that we are here again in Your presence
to listen to Your Word.
Lord, we pray that You will give us a heart and a mind that is fertile ground
for Your Word to grow in us and to change us for the better.
In Jesus’ mighty name we pray, amen.
If you take your Bibles again, we're going to look at some verses in 1 Samuel.
This is the time when Saul was king, and we're going to pick it up in chapter 16.
For context, I want to read verse 1
and a couple of other verses further down in 1 Samuel 16.
“Now the Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn for Saul,
seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?
Fill your horn with oil, and then go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.’”
So, the context here: Saul was king, but he’d just failed a very important test.
He had chosen, in a time of great pressure, not to please God
but to live to please the people who were around him.
And because of that, God had said, ‘No, he's not going to continue to be king.’
Saul was the ‘human strength’ king - he was man’s choice.
But he failed this important test of obedience to God,
very particularly in this area of being under pressure and living for other people -
making decisions for others rather than those which would please God.
Now I think many of us will be familiar with the story from here.
God sent Samuel to go and find another king, and I'm going to pick it up in verse 6,
because in this message today, we're not going to focus so much on King David.
We're actually going to take a look at his older brother, called Eliab.
Let us read verse 6: “So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said,
‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him!’
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature,
because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees;
for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
There's some interesting background here. Samuel was a prophet; he was a wise man.
Yet even he, when he saw the eldest son come forward, thought: this is the man!
And from what we read here, he may have even said so out loud:
“Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him!” He looked the part.
Not only that, he was the eldest son, the one you would expect to be given most honour.
But God said a very important thing to Samuel: It's not about his physical stature.
Now, Samuel should have known this, of course, from the case of Saul,
where Saul was very much chosen because of his physical stature.
Indeed, it said that he was head and shoulders taller than anyone else.
But even Samuel, the prophet, needed to learn this important lesson here:
“The Lord does not see as man sees.”
Man looks at the outside. God looks at the inside, at the heart.
People see what we do but Jesus looks at why we do it.
Jesus looks at why; man looks at what.
I want to point out here that Eliab was jealous of David.
Samuel went through the other six sons who were also present at the feast there
and God didn’t say yes to any of them.
So Samuel had to say, “Well, do you have another son?”
He said, “Well, yes, the little boy, the little one, and he's out feeding the sheep.”
David was brought back and he was chosen.
Eliab was jealous and he allowed bitterness and resentment to enter his heart.
Anybody in that situation would be tempted to be jealous,
to be envious and to have some bitterness.
But we see that that bitterness started to take root in the heart of Eliab.
And we just need to turn to the next chapter to see that in 1 Samuel 17:17,
“Jesse said to his son David, ‘Take now for your brothers an ephah
of this dried grain and these ten loaves, and run to your brothers at the camp.
And carry these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your
brothers fare, and bring back news of them.’”
Because the elder brothers had gone out to a battle,
and David, the younger one, was too young for that.
He'd been left at home looking after the sheep,
and he was sent by his father on a mercy mission.
Normally when we read this story, we often focus on the fact
that David encountered Goliath when he went to take this blessing to his brothers.
But today, we're going to look at a slightly different angle:
we're going to look at Eliab again.
And I'm going to pick it up in verse 28.
“Eliab his older brother (referring to David) heard when he spoke to the men...”
David had seen Goliath, and he was talking to the others about the situation.
Eliab saw this, and he heard this, and it says, “Eliab’s anger was aroused against David,
and he said, ‘Why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those
few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the insolence of your heart,
for you have come down to see the battle.”
This is the giveaway that Eliab had held a grudge; he’d held offence.
He’d held on to bitterness and resentment in his heart about David.
What he said in that little outburst had nothing to do with what David had come to do.
David was there innocently to bless them at the command of his father.
What Eliab was saying was nothing to do with David's actions;
it had everything to do with the state of his own heart.
It's important for us to reflect on that because as we look further at this message,
this can be one of the telltale signs to let us see that perhaps we've let resentment
or bitterness lodge in our own hearts -
when we start to say things which don't really relate any longer to the situation.
They’re just an overflow, because as Jesus said,
“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)
You can go along for months and have bitterness in your heart,
and not really see it, because it hides. It hides under other things.
And in this case Eliab thought, probably, that he was doing the right thing here.
He was a grown up person, he was taking his responsibilities.
He was there to fight the enemy and here was this little troublesome brother of his
coming to meddle in things...
He didn't realise that resentment and bitterness often try to hide
under a cloak of self-righteousness.
To your own heart - if you’ve allowed this bitterness to take root there -
to your own heart, it feels like you’re just trying to do the right thing
and all these people around you haven’t got it, and they're doing the wrong thing.
But actually, it's not a battle for righteousness,
it's bitterness hiding under the cloak of self-righteousness.
It's very, very important that any bitterness or resentment of this kind
is rooted out at the earliest opportunity,
because once it starts to bear its evil and ugly fruit, it's bad news.
So, the title of today's message is simply this:
ROOT OUT RESENTMENT AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY.
And just to warn us what can happen if you don't do that, we're going to take a look
at King Saul himself and what happened in the next few chapters of 1 Samuel.
We're going to go to the next chapter, 1 Samuel 18, if we have our Bibles there.
It was still a long time before David actually became king but by this time he had grown;
he was a commander for Saul of one of his bands of troops;
he was working for Saul as a loyal soldier under him and God was giving David success.
We read in 1 Samuel 18:7, “The women sang as they danced and said,
‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.’”
Saul could have chosen to be thankful and to thank God:
‘Wow! The people are rejoicing in the victory that's been won
and me and David are being considered together; this man is a strong support to me!’
He didn't think like that. We read in verse 8: “Saul was very angry, and the saying
displeased him; and he said, ‘They have ascribed to David ten thousands,
and to me they have ascribed only thousands.’”
I think most of us would be happy to have everybody in the city singing
that we’d defeated thousands. But no, this was not good enough for Saul.
If you've got a jealous heart, there's always somebody you can be jealous of.
You can be number two out of 20,000, but you're jealous of number one.
That's the way bitterness and jealousy work.
Let's read what it says then in verse nine, “So Saul eyed David from that day forward.”
This is the New King James Version. Another version I was reading said explicitly,
“Saul eyed David with suspicion from that day forward”.
That's the meaning of that phrase: he eyed him with suspicion from that day forward.
Because there's something about offence; there's something about bitterness.
If you have offence in your heart, if you have a root of bitterness in your heart,
which you are not rooting out, but you're feeding, then you filter everything through it.
So from that time on, it didn’t matter what David was going to do, it was going to be wrong.
David could do anything, and it would be wrong because that seed of evil suspicion
had been planted because he hadn't rooted out that resentment at an earlier stage.
That is a feature of this kind of resentment - you filter everything through it
so your whole worldview, of the person you resent and of other people, is distorted.
And the sad thing is - but for the grace of God, you don't even recognise it.
Moving on, this was what I call stage one of the evil fruit of resentment.
Saul was looking suspiciously at David all the time, and in his heart he was angry.
We just need to move on a couple of chapters and we can see an example
of what I would describe as phase two, which is cruel and sarcastic words.
We have the thoughts - the things in the heart - but then it comes out.
Anything in the heart ends up coming out in words.
I’m going to pick up the story here in 1 Samuel 20:27,
“It happened the next day, the second day of the month, that David’s place was empty...”
This is a big dinner table for King Saul, with his various supporters, helpers and team,
and a particular place - that for David - was empty.
“...And Saul said to Jonathan his son, ‘Why has the son of Jesse not come to eat,
either yesterday or today?’ So Jonathan answered Saul, ‘David earnestly asked
permission of me to go to Bethlehem. And he said, “Please let me go,
for our family has a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to be there.
And now, if I have found favour in your eyes, please let me get away and see my brothers.”’”
Actually, Jonathan and David had worked out this story as a test.
Jonathan couldn't believe that his father hated David
because David was so loyal and helpful.
But David had an inkling, a realisation, that his father (Saul) had a real issue with him.
So he said these words, and then from the end of verse 29,
“...Therefore he has not come to the king’s table.’
Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan, and he said to him,
‘You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen
the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?’”
Oh, it's very sad just to read this.
It's almost embarrassing to read those words from the mouth of Saul.
This is a further development of the evil fruit of resentment and bitterness.
Sarcastic and cruel words say a lot more about the person speaking them
than they do about the object of that sarcasm and cruelty.
There's no logical reason why Saul at this stage
should start bringing Jonathan's mother into it.
The problem was that he was jealous of David, but he filtered everything through it
so much that he just blurted out cruel, sarcastic words.
This is a great warning, but it's also in a funny kind of way an encouragement
to you and me, because God will give us warnings before it gets too, too late.
If you find yourself sometimes speaking to those you love and afterwards you think,
‘Where did that come from? It wasn't really provoked.’
Then perhaps that's a reason to reflect and to let God shine the light of His Word
into your heart so that you also can root out any bitter seed,
any root of resentment, before it's too late.
Phase three - we're going to very quickly look at because this is scary in the extreme -
is another two chapters further on.
We're going to pick it up in 1 Samuel 22:13. There's another person on the scene now.
This is a priest. David had been to see this priest, and the priest had prayed for him,
given him some food and also let him take the sword of Goliath,
which David had captured in the first place.
There was nothing in that encounter where David was minded to work against Saul.
David was working against Saul’s enemies.
But Saul got to hear that this priest had helped David and he hauls him up in verse 13,
“Saul said to him, ‘Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse...’”
He can’t even use his name David now. He is just calling him a son of Jesse.
“...in that you have given him bread and a sword, and have inquired of God for him,
that he should rise against me, to lie in wait...”
This is not what David was doing at all; he wasn’t rising against Saul.
In fact, there were two clearcut opportunities where he was easily able to kill Saul
and he didn't because he saw Saul as God’s anointed; he had respect for his position.
Verse 14, “Ahimelech answered the king and said, ‘And who among all your servants
is as faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law,
who goes at your bidding, and is honourable in your house?
Did I then begin to inquire of God for him? Far be it from me!
Let not the king impute anything to his servant, or to any in the house of my father.
For your servant knew nothing of all this, little or much.’
And the king said, ‘You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house!’
The king said to the guards who stood about him, ‘Turn and kill the priests of the Lord,
because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled
and did not tell it to me.’ But the servants of the king would not lift their hands
to strike the priests of the Lord.”
I won't read it out but he tells a foreigner who is with him,
who doesn't have that same respect, ‘You go and kill them.’
He doesn't only kill the priests and their families; he destroys the whole town -
women and children as well.
85 priests plus a town - just because he had resentment against David.
And it wasn't actually justified.
This action that he carried out was probably the lowest point of his whole reign,
and there were many low points. It was dreadful!
I want us to realise a very salutary truth.
Saul was actually a religious man. Even at this time when he was so angry
against David, he was doing things in the name of the Lord. He used God's name.
He thought he was doing God's work. He was religious.
And if you’d have taken him a couple of years earlier and said,
‘Saul, you're going to kill 85 of the Lord's priests, and destroy a whole city.’
He would have said, ‘What? No way! I love the Lord. I serve the Lord.
I'm not going to kill 85 of His priests!’
But that's what the final evil fruit of that resentment and bitterness can do.
This is an extreme case.
But it's how far it can go if it's not dealt with, if it's not rooted out.
Saul acted out of character and the very same thing can happen to any of us.
If that resentment, bitterness, jealousy, whatever it might be is not dealt with
and rooted out at the earliest stage, then not only can we speak
words that tear down instead of building up - not only that -
we actually take destructive actions, which we would have never imagined
because it's the bitter fruit coming out.
This is not where we want to go!
We want to root out resentment at the earliest opportunity!
There's a great encouragement for us here
because we just need to look at our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's just consider Him for a moment.
He suffered the consequences of this kind of bitterness, resentment from
the Pharisees and Sadducees, the politicians, the common people, whoever it was -
He suffered the fruit of that in the extreme.
And in Jesus’ case, He hadn't actually done anything ever wrong.
For any other person, even David, you could find an excuse somewhere.
‘Well, he did this wrong, you know.’ Not in the case of Jesus.
He was pure. He did nothing wrong.
And yet He suffered the consequences of that evil fruit to a cruel death through crucifixion.
And as He was being crucified, He said, “Father, forgive them.”
This is very powerful.
When Jesus said, “Father, forgive them,”
‘them’ includes you and me.
That is not just a historical story on that awful day in the first century.
That is the Word of God.
“Forgive them” - forgive you, forgive me.
The power of forgiveness.
Jesus not only said, “Forgive them”, which includes you and me,
He actually sacrificed His life so that we might be reconciled to God.
He took the punishment through His death and then through His resurrection,
the punishment that we deserve, to reconcile us to God.
And it's important to see this because
if we're not careful, even the forgiveness of Jesus, we can use it as though
it's a kind of free ticket to be able to sin a bit because
‘it’s okay, we’re going to be forgiven later.
Let’s let the resentment go to stage two and we can always be forgiven later...’
I'm sorry. I speak flippantly. I don’t mean that.
But there's a risk that we can see forgiveness like that - a free pass.
But no, through His sacrifice, He restored a relationship -
the relationship with the One who created us,
with the One who has the power to defeat sin in our lives.
So it's not a free pass to sin.
The reconciliation and forgiveness of Jesus Christ
is a reconciliation to the God who gives us the power to overcome sin.
But that power is not in ourselves.
This is very important and I want to make it practical for each of us today.
We, I hope, have not seen an extreme case like the ones we've just read of
but I think every single one of us
have known something of the effect of bitterness and resentment in our hearts.
Because Jesus even said, ‘Offences will always come.’
There will always be an opportunity. The temptation to this will be there.
Ironically, it’s usually with those who are closest to you that
you have this temptation to have bitterness and resentment.
It will come.
But the route to rooting it out,
the way to get it out is not to do it in our own strength.
It's to come to Jesus because the answer is in relationship.
I really want to emphasise that because I'm no different to anyone else.
I struggle with this. And I thought, ‘Where did that come from? How can I get rid of it?’
And I can’t get rid of it in myself because Jesus wants me to build a relationship with Him.
And it's not a magic prayer - ‘Ok, if I say this formula of words,
that will purify my heart and I’ll be okay.
I've got the prayer point. Now I know the words, I'm going to say them.’
No! It’s through a relationship.
And the barriers to that relationship have been broken down
because Jesus removed them - that barrier of sin.
We have been forgiven. We can have a relationship with the Living God.
And it's only in that relationship, the Holy Spirit will root it out
because the promise in Ezekiel 36:26 is ‘I will give them a new heart.’
And that doesn't come through some kind of ‘magical thing’.
That comes through relationship with Jesus Christ.
So, God has great things in store for every one of us connected to this service.
But you know something?
We cannot come to God for blessing and at the same time hide from Him.
I want to say that again.
We can’t come to God for a blessing and at the same time hide from Him.
We have to come with transparency, with honesty.
And I use that example because, funnily enough, Saul did exactly that a few chapters later on.
Saul had banished all the witches and wizards out of Israel; he was a religious person.
He knew it was wrong, he got rid of them - but he got into a difficult position.
He really wanted to hear from God and he was very misguided.
And he thought if he went to one of these witches he had ‘knocked out’,
that he could hear from God, and so he disguised himself.
Now, it's not the whole story I want to mention here; it's simply this point -
that in the same moment Saul disguised himself so he wouldn't be recognised,
he was going to hear a message from God to tell him which way he should go.
Now we can think - how ridiculous is that?
There is somebody, God, who has the blessing for us and we're trying to disguise ourselves.
But you know, if we're not careful, we can do the same thing.
And let's just watch our hearts. Let's not hide anything from Him.
We can’t come to God to receive a blessing and at the same time say,
‘I've got this behind me and God's not going to see it.’ No.
The God who will bless is the God who sees all.
We need to come to Jesus and I invite us all simply now - let us pray together.
Lord Jesus Christ, I need You.
Lord, I have sinned in thought, word and deed.
Come into my heart.
Wash me, forgive me with Your precious Blood.
Oh Holy Spirit, work in me that I may have a heart free from offence.
Work in me to root out any resentment.
And Lord, give me the grace to forgive others
and always to give them another chance.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.