There are a ton of reasons why people walk away from God or, as some say, “lose their faith.” Very often it is related to difficulties and trials that they face which end up being too strong for them to bear. In such cases, some people despair and crack under the pressure and may even blame God for their circumstances. The fact that all of us likely know someone like this punctuates the point that we need to have our theology worked out before we face deep waters. We need to be prepared knowing that for a believer, it is possible to go from despairing of life to the worship of God. As we look at 1 Samuel 16:14 to 19:17 on Sunday, we’ll see David in a precarious situation that threatened to shipwreck his relationship with God. The narrative will help us see that we can indeed trust his perfect plan. This message will also prepare us for a look at Psalm 59 next Sunday where David writes a song about the experiences we’ll look at this week.

Series: The Great Exchange

Todd Dugard

Message: 2 – From despair to worship: Part 1

Harvest Bible Chapel

Text: 1 Samuel 16:14-19:17

Sept 22, 2024

To go from despairing of life to the worship of God I must…

…accept that “bad” things happen to “good” people (19:1a)

Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and he volunteered.

R. C. Sproul

…surround myself with faithful friends (19:1b-7)

Matthew 10:36–37

Biblical friendship exists when two or more people, bound together by a common faith in Jesus Christ, pursue him and his kingdom with intentionality and vulnerability. Rather than serving as an end in itself, biblical friendship serves primarily to bring glory to Christ, who brought us into friendship with the Father. It is indispensable to the work of the gospel in the earth, and an essential element of what God created us for.

Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep

…acknowledge the sovereignty of God (19:8-10)

Under divine providence everything ultimately was attributed to him; why not say he did it in the first place?

Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible

God brough redemption and forgiveness to anyone who would believe. It goes against all the normative patterns that we follow like power and strength are better than weakness, winning is better than losing, big is better than small, health is better than sickness, comfortable living is better than suffering, to gain is better than to suffer sacrifice and loss...The message that we proclaim, the message of the gospel, is based in a complete reversal of power and conquest. The cross of Jesus Christ, a symbol of death and shame and weakness and suffering, stands at the heart of our faith.

David Barker

Isaiah 53:10a

Romans 8:18

Romans 8:28

…trust his perfect plan (19:11-17)

Psalm 59:9