Finding Light in the Darkness

Well we are in an eight-week series on the life of King David here at TLC and to write this and to actually film this we went over to Israel to walk in the literal footsteps of David. We interviewed experts, we traveled with an archaeologist, we went to key spots in David's life journey to try to understand him a little bit better and that meant that as part of his quest we had to follow David underground into caves and so we're gonna talk about David's cave times today and that means I want to start with a poll to find out where you guys stand when it comes to caves.

I've discovered that there's two kinds of people when it comes to caves. First, people who love exploring caves. When you are driving along a freeway and you see a tourist trap billboard advertising a cave you cannot resist. You have got to pull over and visit that cave. Second, there are people who don't like the idea of being underground in the dark with limited oxygen and tons of earth over their heads ready to collapse upon them at any moment. How many of you are the first kind of person? You love caves. Let me see your hands. We've got a few of you here that's good. How many of you would say I'm the second kind of person? No caves please ever never.

Well I guess I'm kind of the first kind of person all right. I do really like caves and one day in Israel I thought this is gonna be the best day ever because our guide for the day Johnny said I'm gonna take you and your wife Lori and our videographer who was recording all of this for us Jamie Ramm into a cave and he takes us into this cave. But it was kind of cool. It was just sort of like a little hollowed out space in a cliff and I thought all right nothing special. I'm always a little disappointed to be honest with you and it was as we started to leave Johnny says of course you may want to explore further and he points to this opening in the back wall and he claims this is actually not a cave that stops there. It's a tunnel that warms its way through the hill.

Nobody knows how old it is and then it comes out on top of the hill in kind of this sinkhole area and so I said awesome let's go and Johnny and Lori go awesome you go and we will meet you at the opening on the other side and so I looked at them sort of like pityingly and I plunged in. Now when the light of my iPhone wasn't on I could not see an inch in front of me as you can see it got pitch dark at first very exciting but then the tunnel keeps going and going and going and going and going much longer than I felt led by Johnny to believe it would go and I'm thinking to myself how long does this tunnel go and how well do I really know Johnny anyway?

And now my imagination is starting to kick in kind of I don't know if you're I don't know if you ever imagine I'm probably alone in this but if you ever imagine narration of your life anybody? Well I'm imagining my narration narrating the trailer to the documentary about my death. One California pastor lost forever in an ancient Middle Eastern cavern and honestly my breathing starts getting shallow I'm starting to panic and you know what I discovered it is very easy to turn from the first kind of person to the second kind of person extremely fast. What happened next? I'll get to in a few minutes but first the questions I had when I was in that cave how long will this go on? Will I ever see light again? Can I really trust my guide?

They're actually exactly the questions that David must have had about his own cave time only at a much more existential level. So grab your message notes that are in your bulletins let's talk about finding light in the darkness in the cave times of life because maybe you are in a cave right now. You barely got yourself to church today you're in the cave of disease or the cave of divorce or the cave of a death or the cave of the death of a dream or the cave of a job you hate or a job you don't have or finances you don't have or perhaps the darkest cave of all the cave of foolishly rooting for the raiders again that's a dark cave from which there's no escape but it could be all kinds of caves maybe you don't even know why you feel like you're in a cave but you are in your emotions you feel like you're underground in the dark with limited oxygen and tons of earth over your head ready to collapse on you at any moment.

Well today David models survival strategies when you're going through cave times in your life we're gonna be in 1st Samuel chapter 22 and Psalm 142 this morning but I want you to understand what's happening here so let's get some background. When we last left David last weekend the Bible says David was prospering in how many of his ways? All his ways. Imagine what that means literally he had the golden touch every single thing he did prospered he had no bad luck all good luck for the Lord was with him he has just defeated Goliath he becomes a celebrity the Bible says the young girls in the nation composed a song about him that's the truth that's in the Bible they composed this pop song everybody's singing it for real he marries the princess he's rich then suddenly.

Next verse when Saul saw that he was prospering greatly he dreaded him he feels threatened by him he urges his aides to assassinate him and he even tries to spear David to death twice and so David has to start running for his life and there's a phrase David fled and escaped that appears six times in the next five chapters. Fled and escaped, fled and escaped, fled and escaped, fled and escaped he's always just barely escaping the clutches of the murderous King Saul and every single time he has to flee he has to leave something else behind. Here's some of the things David lost in these near-death escapes he lost his job in the Kings court as the court musician very prestigious he lost his possessions literally he lost everything and one night he has to escape out the window of his house he leaves it all behind escapes with the clothes on his back he even loses his wife Saul's daughter Michal she tells him leave me now run for your life and they're reunited much later but the relationship is really never the same he loses his mentor Samuel the prophet who anointed him but the rapid pace of David's moves is too much for him he's an old man and so he has to stay behind and then he loses his only real friend Jonathan they parked tearfully and before they're reunited again Jonathan is killed.

And then to cap it all off David even loses his dignity because to save his own life he goes to a city named Gath now does anybody recognize that word Gath Gath was the hometown of somebody famous do you know who was Goliath so it's a Philistine city in fact it's the Philistine headquarters the enemies of Israel and David rightly thinks Saul's never gonna follow me there I'm gonna hide out and Gath nobody will recognize him and instantly like within an hour after his arrival some officers in the Philistine army recognize him and want to kill him of course and to keep them from murdering him David pretends he is insane and the Bible puts some really interesting details in there it says he goes up to the gates of the city and he writes indecipherable marks on there like a like a crazy person writing his own language you know some conspiracy theory that he's writing out it says he lets saliva dribble down his beard and acts like he's having epileptic fits and they boot him out of town because they perceive him to be a madman and we actually now know from Philistine writings that have been discovered that the Philistines thought that insanity was contagious and so they were just like get him out.

And then stripped of everything we get to our first verse in the chapter we're looking at today 1st Samuel 22:1 so David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Agilim this is the actual cave of Agilim in Israel now get this it's only about two miles up the Ella Valley we saw this satellite photo last weekend two miles from the spot where David killed Goliath so think of what this felt like psychologically almost overnight right around the corner from his greatest triumph he is in a hole with nothing Wow now the entrance to the cave even looks like a hole so you could say that David goes into a depression literally he's in a depression in the earth and he's in a depression in his soul and he's just looking around going what what just happened well life happened right like a lot of us David had a plan but in the words of the great theologian Mike Tyson everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth right well David got punched in the mouth ever ever get surprised at how fast life can take a u-turn and that's David right here and I know some of you have been there I know some of you are there right now where you're like yesterday everything was fine yesterday my car worked yesterday I hadn't had this diagnosis yesterday she was alive it seems like yesterday I had a good relationship with my kids or with my spouse and now everything took a u-turn that's David and soon it gets worse it says soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there in the cave.

Now do you think he was happy to see him remember these are the same exact people who tried to hide him on draft day when Samuel came around these are the same brothers who viciously insulted him before he fought Goliath why were they here because they loved David no because Saul's after them too so you got your high-maintenance relatives with you and then it gets worse it says then others began coming men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented lovely here's a question for you when you're depressed do you feel like going to a party with tons of people great party or do you kind of just want to be alone alone right most of us well here's what David gets a his annoying relatives and be all the high-maintenance people in the entire country it says about 400 men squeezed into the cave with him.

It's almost humorous when I picture this I picture do you ever see what about Bob I picture Bill Murray I picture David with about 400 Bob's all crowding into the cave and they're all crying in unison David I need I need echoing through the cave right how do you imagine David must have felt well you don't have to imagine because he wrote about it two of his Psalms in the Bible Psalm 142 and Psalm 57 were actually written during this period so now that you know the background let me read you just all of one of them Psalm 142 and as you listen to his words this is written in that cave so imagine the dark imagine the cold imagine the BO from all those characters crowding in right next to him right this is the mind space David is in when he writes I cry out to the Lord I plead for the Lord's mercy I poured out my complaints to him and I tell him all my troubles I am overwhelmed you know the way to safety only you because wherever I go my enemies have set traps for me I look for somebody to come and help me but no one gives me passing thought no one will help me no one cares a bit about what happens to me and then I pray to the Lord Oh Lord I say you are my place of refuge here you're all I really want in life hear my cry for I'm very low rescue me from my persecutors for they are too strong for me bring me out of this prison so I can thank you he's like I want to thank you I want to thank you but I'm not there yet so free me from this prison and then the godly will crowd around me isn't that kind of funny that he has that line knowing his context it's kind of like he's saying and not these bozos I'm next to right now for you are good to me.

How do you survive cave times not avoid cave times because cave times happen to all of us and I think this is especially important for us after the David and Goliath story which we covered last weekend and look up here for a minute because I don't need to miss this when you are a kid if you ever went to Sunday school or church or you ever had some Bible comic about Bible stories or a Bible storybook book or or you watch Veggie Tales I can guarantee you the story of David fighting Goliath was in there and I can guarantee you the cave years were not but think of this for David the Goliath battle that was approximately one hour on one day the cave times lasted most Bible scholars believe about seven years one day of triumphed and then you know maybe a few months of prosperity then seven years in the cave and follow me here when we only tell the positive encouraging stories from the Bible we paint an unbiblical picture of life and it messes people up people go as somebody emailed me this week what happened I put my pebble into play I believe my God was bigger and then all the wheels came off so what do you do what did David do well there's so much to say and I put a ton more resources in the chasing David book but just to quickly summarize number one you start with this tell God how you feel you tell God how you honestly feel we saw David do it right in verse 1 I cry out I please I pour out what praises at this point thanks no complaints I tell them all my troubles do not hold back a thing about how you feel when you come in prayer to God you know sometimes I think we feel like I gotta be on my best behavior when I pray right I can only only say good things to God about what I'm grateful for and so on I can't just kind of complain to him and tell him I'm mad at him why do we get that idea here's my little theory any of you had a parent who when you were crying and whining as a kid got to the point where they had had enough and told you finish the sentence if you don't stop crying I'm going to give you something to cry about and we think if I tell God how I really feel he's gonna give me something to cry about right zap but all the spiritual giants of the Bible prayed like this even Jesus I love this quote from Philip Yancey as the Bible clearly shows God has a high threshold of tolerance for what is appropriate to say in a prayer God can handle my unsuppressed rage I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing in other words how in the world are you gonna get to where God wants you to be if you don't start from where you really are right and that's why David is so honest you know I'm very low rescue me from my persecutors they're too strong for it they're too strong for him this is the guy who defeated a giant because they're too strong for me they're too strong listen that realization is where God wants us to go to admit I'm powerless over this because ironically that is when you find strength.

Now let me show you what I mean and I want to show you this isn't just like Sunday School propaganda Dan Wagner is part of our fellowship here you're going to hear his story in more detail next weekend it's riveting but some of you know he was in a devastating car accident he and his wife were severely injured their two teenage daughters their only children killed and Dan wrote a little book called according to his purpose about his own cave time for years after that accident and right in the middle of the book it's really a wonderful book there's a poem that Dan wrote there's about eight stanzas to this poem and he wrote it sort of as he continued processing his grief and I just want to show you part of it sort of the beginning of the end right out of the middle of the book he calls the poem grace this is raw stuff he wrote darkness deeper than I ever thought possible closes in on me like a stalker my life is over I have nothing left to live for oh God I'm so afraid I can hardly breathe why me what did I do to deserve this then he writes what he perceived to be God's answer grace my love will conquer your fear the rains have stopped but the darkness persists what little sunlight that slips between the clouds just reveals the extent of the damage in my life there's much work to be done exhausting work oh God give me the strength to go on to rebuild my life from this this rubble give me a reason to live grace let my joy be your strength and here's where it gets at the end God's merciful grace his peace slowly dispels the darkness I can finally see beyond my pain there's joy again in my precious memories yes God does care for me though I don't understand what he is doing or why but I finally feel I can trust him again oh God help me stand and walk with you once more grace lean on my grace.

I wanted to show this to you especially if you're in a cave right now to assure you there is hope and there is healing and there is help when like Dan like David you start with telling God how you honestly fear and then slowly you get to the second place and you trust God for who he is not for what he does but for who he is did you notice that this is where David goes in Psalm 142 he says in fact I'm gonna put verse 5 here on screen and let's all read it out loud together all right because I don't want you to miss this here we go he says then I pray to you Oh Lord I say you are my place of refuge you're all I really want in life listen David had to get to the point where fortune and fame really didn't matter to him anymore the point where the crown of the castle and approval and admiration and possessions and prestige really didn't matter to him anymore the point where he was able to say all I really want is you to be close to you to know you and when you get to the point where the boyfriend or the girlfriend or the dream job or owning the perfect house or the attention and admiration and accolades don't matter as much as I just want to know you Lord that is such a freeing place to be because otherwise it's so easy for all those things to control you to become obsessions for you to become gods to you but how do you get to that place well did you notice the very last words in Psalm 142 for you are good to me not life is good not it's all good it's not always all good but you are good when bad things happen to you it does not mean that what they told you about God is wrong it does not mean that what they told you about you is wrong it does not mean you're not doing it right the Christian life bad things happen to every great hero in the Bible again including Jesus and I really want to talk about this it's been such a burden on my heart like for a month or two because I've been hearing more and more people in person on podcasts and interviews saying that they have left the faith because they're going through some very difficult times in their lives now I'm very sympathetic life can sometimes be so hard but I want to state something very clearly the foundation of our faith is not happily ever after endings the foundation of our faith is not answered prayer the foundation of our faith is not the blessings we receive as much as I love all those things and appreciate all those things I'm grateful for all those things what I'm saying is the foundation of our faith is not the good life the foundation of our faith is our good God trusting that God is good even when life is not good and when that is my baseline what happens is then I can trust that even through this thing that is bad God is going to bring good because God is God and God is good in fact you know there's that there's an old line that we say maybe once in a while like once a year here but but but some of you grew up in churches where this was part of the worship service where the pastor would say God is good and the people would say all the time and then the pastor would say and all the time and the people would say God is good so let's try it God is good and all the time once more God is good and all the time.

Now some of you are going amen I have learned that others not so sure so what do you do if you're not there yet what do you do if you don't know what to think you're too tired to think well there's another song written in that cave Psalm 57 and David says in verse 1 check this out have mercy on me Oh God have mercy on me for in you my soul takes refuge now watch this I will so beautiful I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed refuge is one of David's favorite words to describe God he uses it 40 times in his psalms and the picture he's painting is of a chick taking shelter under mama's wings and he's saying I may not understand what's going on the rain is pelting and the wind is driving but I don't have to overthink this I can simply take shelter refuge under my God's wings simply trust him because when you go there you're reassured of two things next verse David says I cry out to God most high to God who will fulfill his purpose for me he's saying I know it doesn't look like it right now I'm in a cave I don't have anything but I believe that God's going to fulfill his destiny for me and I want to tell you if you're in a cave right now God still has a plan for you your life is not over now that may be completely different than your plan but he has a plan still and at the end of Psalm 57 David says for your unfailing love is as high as the heavens your faithfulness reaches to the clouds unfailing love again God still has a plan for you and in this verse he's saying and God still loves you and some of you really need to know that so I'm gonna say it again God still has a plan for you and God still loves you take refuge under those wings you don't have to figure it all out just hear him whisper I'm here I've still got a plan and I love you so much.

So you tell God honestly you trust God completely and then third you serve God by helping others actually serving other people is part of the strategy for the cave times remember those 400 high maintenance guys well later in the same verse it says and he David became their commander and all these rejects led by David the reject become an army of rejects and eventually once David becomes king the Bible says they become the mighty men of Israel they had nothing left but David saw those 400 people and he and he emerged from his own self pity and he said I am going to help you forge you into something and then 1st Samuel 22 goes on to tell the story of just one of those 400 men and I think the narrator is telling us I don't have time to tell you all 400 stories but this was typical as the chapter 22 goes on it says one of the times David's fling it continues to a city called knob and the priests in the city of knob feed him shelter him but King Saul's chief herdsman who's watching goats on the hillside above the village a guy named do egg does that sound bad do egg he sees this he reports it to Saul and saw is enraged and he tells his bodyguards I want you to go to knob and I want you to kill all 85 of the priests there and his bodyguards recognize the king is unhinged and they actually refused to do it but do egg sees this as his big chance to get in good with Saul and he says I'll do it and he goes to knob and he slays every priest and then Saul hearing about this becomes just hyped up with rage and he tells do egg don't stop now kill every person in the whole village and do egg does and just a few people escape and one of them makes it guess where David's cave he's one of those 400 a guy named Abi a thar the grandson of the high priest of knob and when he shows up in the cave it says he tells David what happened and then David said to Abi a thar that day when dog the Edomite was there I knew that he would be sure to tell Saul I'm responsible for the death of your whole family now stay with me don't be afraid anymore the man who wants to kill you is trying to kill me too you will be safe with me.

Now David is still in his own cave time he hasn't gotten out of his cave time yet he has nothing but he says to somebody else in their cave time don't be afraid I'll take care of you you're safe here and what the author is telling us is this scene was repeated 400 times can you see how this helped David tell me if you're like me I find one very bad habit I can get into when I'm in a cave is constantly thinking about myself my feelings my anxieties my moods my problems I call this ingrown eyeballs anybody here ever having grown eyeballs the solution outgrown eyeballs think of myself less and think of others more and let me offer a very specific point of application here today as you heard Robin say in the lobby it's connect expo that's our volunteer fair there's a map on back of the sermon notes where every group has a table set up I challenge you go out there today and choose a way to serve especially if you're not involved in something already you will find that service helps to bring you out of your darkness.

Now I want highlight just one of the unique opportunities that we have you may not know this but our neighbor Cabrillo College brings in athletes on football scholarships there the tuitions paid for but often these young men are from extremely tough backgrounds from poverty and I just found out recently that a lot of them are living in their cars these students I mean they're a lot like David's 400 men in some ways and so we heard about it and we thought can we just offer this opportunity to the church because my guess is some of us have an extra room can you even if just for the semester allow one of these college students to stay there I know you've got questions more details are in your bulletins there's a contact there you can talk to the people outside of the lobby but please consider this or one of the other service opportunities it has a powerful impact.

Now as we close let me take you back to that cave in Israel when all I wanted to do is you'll recall is go back to the entrance because that was familiar to me or stop to move ahead into the darkness what I had to keep telling myself over and over and over and over again was this is not a cave it's a tunnel this is not a cave it's a tunnel at least Johnny alleged this is not a cave it's a tunnel this is all going somewhere and as I kept inching forward finally I saw a glimmer of light and I moved toward it and suddenly I was out I was in the light and I want to tell you today that no matter what darkness you are in, it's not a cave, it's a tunnel. Say that with me, it's not a cave, it's a tunnel. Turn to somebody next to you, look at them and say it's not a cave, it's a tunnel. It's not a cave. It's not a cave. It's a tunnel. See, if you think it's just a cave, what happens is you sit there and you keep looking back at the entrance thinking of the good old days or you sit down and you won't move anywhere, but it's not a cave, it's a tunnel. So keep moving forward, that's the way out.

Now here's the really cool thing. Jesus made this phrase true about every bad thing. By his resurrection he made even the grave into a tunnel and he promises he will do that for every bad thing. And do you see that's why we can ultimately have total confidence because he's there in the darkness with us, leading us out, leading us forward, leading us into the light. And so let me wrap up with this. As the closing illustration for this message, I'm going to ask Trent and the band to come back out because, you know, it's tempting to end a message on David's cave times by cutting right to and then David was crowned king. See everybody, it all turned out okay. And yes, that really happened and we'll get there, but it took a while. And yes, you will get to the light again, but maybe it'll take a while. So for now, I just want us to stay with David in the cave because that's real too. That's life. That's life too. And you know what? You can find hope there too, even before the happy ending comes.

So since David's words were originally song lyrics, we thought let's end the message with a song. Trent wrote a new song based on David's lyrics and I asked him to sing that for us now. And I just want to encourage you, listen to these lyrics, imagine being in the cave with David as he writes them and make these your prayer today. Lord have mercy, shed to my troublesome. Don't desert me, I don't know where I'm going. I look for help around you. No one seems to care, even these my in my. Saviour, my only. Even in the dark of this prison. You're my only hope. So I'm going to keep on believe. You are good. You remember the plan that you have. Spirit, we spend the mind. We need the side. No, I'm desperate for you. My. My. My. My. My. All I really want is you Say to you, "You're my only rage" Even in the dark of this prison Your life will break through And all I really want is you You're my only hope I'll rescue So I'm gonna keep on believing Just in the open You were there in the dark There in the triumph strong in the dark Saying the triumphs Your loving earnest Will carry me in You were there in the triumph There in the triumph strong in the dark Saying the triumphs Your loving earnest Will carry me through All I really want is you Say to you, "You're my only rage" Even in the dark of this prison Your life will break through And all I really want is you You're my only hope I'll rescue So I'm gonna keep on believing Just in the open You're my only rage You're my only rage There's hope. It's not a cave. It's a tunnel. Let's pray together.

Lord, I know that there must be people here in this room, a group this size where there are a ton of people in the cave. But God, I think of those 400 men and that's kind of what church is, a bunch of people who were in trouble, in debt, because of our sin. Discontented, but the Son of David, Jesus, told us, "Don't be afraid. You'll be safe with me." And so here we are. And so I want to pray for everybody in a cave today that they would know that you're good. And Lord, maybe some here are even at the point where they want to follow you as those 400 followed David and want to do that for the first time, saying, "I came here in a cave and I want to follow you out, Jesus." And I don't know exactly what it means to follow you, but as much as I understand, I want to follow you and commit all my life, all the ups and all the downs to you, the one who made every cave into a tunnel by your resurrection power. God, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.