How many of you like cicadas? I can’t stand them. They’re noisy, they’re annoying, and if you get too close to them they’ll spit on you. Have you ever had a cicada spit on you? A few years ago, I was walking under a tree full of cicadas, and the next thing I knew they had spit on me. At least I think it was spit. If it wasn’t spit, I definitely don’t want to know what it was.
For all of us, I think there are times when we don’t want to know the truth. What’s in spam? Do you know what spam is? It’s mystery meat sold in a can. No one knows what it really is. But if you find out, don’t tell me because I love spam musubis.
What really happens in fast food kitchens. I’ve had friends who’ve worked in fast food restaurants, and they’ve told me, “I can tell you some real horror stories about what happens back there!” And I say, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know. I love McDonalds. I like going there. Don’t tell me anything.”
The truth can sometimes be really inconvenient. It can be hard to hear because many times we are forced to change the way we live and act, and we don’t want to change. But as Christians, God calls us to be friends of truth. What does that mean?
Today, we’re going to look at the lives of two kings in the Bible. One was a friend of truth, and the other was not. And as we read these stories, I want you to ask yourself a question. Do you have a good relationship with the truth?
2 Chronicles 25:1-10
The first king is probably a guy you’ve never heard of before. His name was Amaziah, and he was the king of Judah. Back in those days, Israel was split up into two kingdoms. One was Israel which was the northern kingdom, and the other was Judah which was the southern kingdom. Israel being much bigger, was also much stronger than Judah at that time. Amaziah became king at the very young age of 25. (2 Chronicles 24:25)
You can pretty much sum up Amaziah’s life in this one verse: Take a look at verse 2. It says, “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly.” Another translation puts it this way, “He did what was right reluctantly.”
How about you? Are you that way? “It’s Sunday again. I’m a Christian, so I guess I better go to church.” Or “They’re passing around the offering basket again. I guess I better give some money.” That’s the kind of attitude that Amaziah had. He did what was right, but often times he did it reluctantly. You see a perfect example of this in verses 5-8.
Amaziah was preparing for a war against a place called Edom. Edom had been under Judah’s control, but they had rebelled against Judah and set up their own king. So Amaziah was preparing to retake control. When he did so, he gathered up men from Judah, but he also hired some mercenaries from Israel to help him in this war. But God sent a man to warn Amaziah about using these men from Israel (7-8)
Why did God say this? The reason was that the kingdom of Israel had turned their backs on God and were following idols. So God said, “If you let these men go with you, I will not go with you and you will lose the battle.
How did Amaziah respond? He whined. “But you don’t understand! I just paid these guys all this money. If I send them home, I’ll lose all of it.”
But the man of God said, “Hey, if you obey the Lord, he can give you much more than that.” And so finally Amaziah grumbled “All right, all right, if you insist, I guess I’ll let them go.” And he did. Amaziah then went to war and Judah won a great victory.
Still there were consequences for his actions in hiring the mercenaries. The mercenaries were so angry about being forced to leave, that they attacked some of the villages of Judah. The Bible doesn’t say this, but I kind of wonder if Amaziah blamed God for this. “I did what you wanted! Now look what happened!” And perhaps it led to what happened next: Amaziah’s complete rejection of the truth.
(2 Chronicles 25:14-16)
After the war, Amaziah brought back the gods of the people he conquered, and he started worshipping them. And God sent a prophet to him and said, “Hey! These ‘gods’ couldn’t even save the Edomites from you! Why are you worshipping them now?”
How did Amaziah respond this time? “Who made you my advisor? Shut up before I kill you.” The prophet said “Fine. But I can see that God is going to destroy you, because you have started following these gods and rejected the warning I gave you.”
Not much later, Amaziah started a war with Israel. When he sent a challenge to the king of Israel, the king of Israel said, “Don’t be so proud of your victory over Edom. You’re nothing compared to us, and if you attack us, you’re just asking for trouble.”
Once again, Amaziah rejected truth in his life, and when he went to war against Israel, he was captured and was Judah was defeated.
How about you? When you face truth, how do you respond? Do you complain about the inconvenience it causes you? Do you reject it completely?
Amaziah was a king who was not friendly with the truth. When faced with truth, he either grumbled about it, or he simply dismissed it. But there was another king who was very different, and his name is David.
II Samuel 12
David is the most famous king in Israel’s history. God called him a man after his own heart. But that doesn’t mean David was perfect. In fact, there was a certain incident involving a woman named Bathsheba.
One day David was cruising on the roof of his palace when he looked down and he saw this beautiful woman taking a bath. I’m not exactly sure where she was when she was taking the bath. Maybe she was on the roof of her house, or perhaps David could see through her window.
Maybe at first, David quickly looked away. But then he turned and looked again. And again. And soon he was staring at her. And he called one of his men and said, “Who is that woman?” And the man said, “Isn’t that Bathsheba? She’s the wife of one of your best soldiers, a foreigner named Uriah.” And David said, “Send her up to me.”
And so Bathsheba came, they slept together, and shortly after, Bathsheba sent a message to David saying, “I’m pregnant.”
At that point, David panicked. The first thing he thought was, “I’ve got to cover this up. What am I going to do? I know! I’ll call her husband from the battle lines and ask him to give me a report. Then I’ll send him home, he’ll sleep with his wife, and then he’ll think the baby is his.”
Now how David expected to get away with this, I don’t know. We don’t know how long it took for Bathsheba to realize she was pregnant, but it could’ve been a month or two. Don’t you think Uriah would be a little suspicious when his baby is born early and has none of Uriah’s features?
But anyway, David calls Uriah, has Uriah give him a report, and then David casually says, “Hey, why don’t you go home, kick back, and relax. Spend some time with your wife. I’ll even give you a small gift for you to enjoy together.” But instead of going home, Uriah slept at the entrance of the palace.
When David found out, he panicked again, and said, “Uh, Uriah, why didn’t you go home?” And Uriah said, “How could I do that? My general and fellow soldiers are at war, in a totally uncomfortable situation. How can I relax and be with my wife, while they’re out there in that situation?”
So David said, “Uh right. Of course. Say, why don’t you stay one more night here. We’ll have dinner together, and then you can go back tomorrow.” And so Uriah had dinner with David, and David got him drunk. But after dinner, Uriah still didn’t go home, and instead slept with the rest of David’s servants.
I kind of wonder if perhaps Uriah was suspicious of David already. Maybe he was thinking, “Why is David so determined to get me home and spend time with my wife?” Maybe that’s why Uriah didn’t go home.
But by this time, David was now desperate. So he went to plan C. He gave Uriah a note to give to the general. Basically it said, “Put Uriah where the fighting is the fiercest, and then have your men abandon Uriah.” This time, the plan worked, and Uriah died. David then married Bathsheba, the baby was born, and David was probably thinking to himself, “I did it. I got away with it. Nobody knows what I did. I’m safe.”
Sin is kind of funny sometimes in the way it blinds us. David probably thought no one knew. But there had to be all kinds of rumors flying around at the palace. People who had seen Bathsheba there that night David slept with her. The people wondering at the stupid battle plan David had sent Joab that caused Bathsheba’s husband to conveniently die so David could marry her. And how this baby that was born 7 or 8 months later looked very much like David, and not Uriah.
But more than that, the Bible says that God knew. In 2 Samuel 11:27, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” You can’t hide from God. You may sin, and think no one knows about it. But God knows.
And God sent a prophet named Nathan to David. And Nathan told him a story. (2 Samuel 12:1-4).
Nathan really set up David with this story. He knew David had been a shepherd when he was a boy. He knew the attachment that David had had with his sheep. And so he told this story of how a poor man had his only beloved lamb taken from him by a rich neighbor and how the lamb was killed to make dinner for the neighbor’s guest.
David was furious when he heard this story. He said, “This man deserves to DIE for this!” Nathan looked right at David and said, “You are the man. This is what the Lord says, “I made you king. I gave you this whole kingdom. If you wanted more, you could’ve asked. But now you’ve despised the word of the Lord. You killed Uriah, in order to take his wife.”
How did David respond? Did he deny it? “No I didn’t do that. You’re mistaken. You’ve got the wrong guy.” Did he try to justify it? “Well I didn’t really kill Uriah. He didn’t die by my hand.” Did he try to shut Nathan up? Did he threaten to kill him or throw him in prison? No. Instead he simply said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” If you look at Psalm 51, you’ll see a song of repentance that David wrote.
David didn’t run from truth, even when it hurt. Instead, he embraced it. And he repented. God forgave him, but David still had to face consequences for his actions. For the rest of his life, he faced problems in his family, a lot of them coming because of his sin with Bathsheba.
You see, God will forgive your sin. But he will not necessarily take away the consequences of your sin here on earth. When you sin, it will affect your life.
David learned this, but he never blamed anyone else. He never asked God, “Why did you let this happen?” Instead, he accepted the consequences for his sin. That’s why God could call him a man after his own heart, even after his sin with Bathsheba. How about you? Are you a friend of truth?
What does it mean to be a friend of truth?
It means seeking after truth. Where do we find our source of truth? We find it from the Bible. So many times we try to find truth from other sources. We try to find it from books. We try to find it from pastors. We try to find it from friends. When we’re in trouble, and we need advice, that’s where we often look.
But how often do you turn to your Bibles? How often do you look at what God says when you’re having troubles in your life?
You might be saying, “But I don’t know where the Bible talks about these things.” That’s why you need to read it! Not just when you’re in trouble, but everyday. As you take time to read God’s word, you start to understand the way that God thinks. Don’t just seek God’s truth when you’re in trouble, but seek it daily so that you’ll be prepared when trouble hits.
I really challenge you to take some time everyday to read God’s word. A good place to start might be Proverbs. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, and 31 days in a lot of months. So take time reading a chapter a day, and filling your mind with God’s truth on everyday life. Proverbs has God’s truth on marriage, on finances, on relationships, on a lot of the things people struggle with every day. And as you read God’s truth, write down what God is teaching you. Share it with other people who are seeking truth too.
It means accepting truth even when it hurts or is inconvenient. Truth is not always pleasant to hear. There are times when we don’t want to hear it. I remember one time my pastor in Hawaii gave a message on dating, and how God has told us to save sex for marriage. That sex is a good thing that God created for our pleasure, but it is meant only for marriage. Do you know what happened to church attendance the next week. It dropped. Now maybe this was just coincidence, but it’s also very possible that truth all of a sudden became very inconvenient to the people who heard it. And it stung.
When I was growing up, I had a problem with truth in my life. And there were many times I would lie to my parents about different things, particularly about school. One day, my dad got really upset, and he said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “I can’t trust you anymore. You’ve lied to me too often. If I’m going to trust you again, you’re going to have to earn it.” My father’s words hurt me. Because I wanted his trust. But I knew that if I wanted his trust, I was going to have to change. And that leads to our next point.
Being a friend of truth means letting truth change your life. In other words, act on the truth that you already have. Jesus’ brother James gives us an illustration of this: James 1:22-24.
When I get up in the morning, I’m often dead. I’m definitely not a morning person. I kind of drag myself into the living room sometimes, and just sit there until my head clears. Eventually, I get to the bathroom sink, and it’s not always a pretty sight. My hair’s all over the place, and I just look a mess. So I shave, comb my hair, and make myself look presentable. But can you imagine if one day, I look in the mirror, see how I look, and say, “Aw, who cares,” and just walk away. And all through the day, everyone I meet sees me in that condition?
That’s the picture James gives. It’s not enough to just know what God has said. It’s not enough to just say, “Okay, I accept this is true.” We need to let it change the way we think and act. When you hear God’s truth, what do you do with it? When you hear the messages on Sunday, what do you do with it? After you read God’s word, what do you do with it? Do you just forget it? Or do you let it transform your life. How do you let truth transform your life?
First, think about what the truth you learned means to you. If you read in the Bible that God says you need to forgive, ask yourself, “Is there anyone in my life that I need to forgive?” Ask God about it. Ask him to search your heart.
Second, make a plan of action. Ask yourself, “What am I going to do about this truth? What can I do practically?” Again pray for God’s wisdom on what you should do.
Third, ask God for help to do what he’s told you to do. God doesn’t just ask us to do something and then says, “Okay, you’re on your own.” He’s there to help you if you’ll just ask. Fumi talked about this last week.
Finally, share what God has told you with a friend and ask for their prayers and support. Change is more likely to come, when the people around you are supporting you in that way. Small groups are great for this. If you’re not in a small group, I encourage you to talk to Mark or Fumi and ask how you can get involved.
But again we come to this question: are you a friend of truth? God has called us to be friends of the truth whether it hurts or not. Whether it’s convenient or not. What will you do with the truth that God gives you?
Sunday Messages 