Thank you very much, Margot, and good evening, everyone. Good to see you here this evening.
I want to begin with two questions.
Question one, if you could win any award in the world, what would it be?
What would you choose? Anything. It doesn't matter where you've got the talents, not anything.
If you win it, what would you want?
So you might say an Oscar, a Grammy. If you're into football, the Ballon d'Or.
Maybe one of various halls of fame. If you're in this country, become a knight or a dame, whatever.
However, I'd suggest that the most prestigious award to win in our world is a Nobel Prize, and in particular a Nobel Peace Prize.
If you win a Nobel Peace Prize, you've been recognised by a very distinguished international group of judges
as being someone who's made a real contribution to peace in our world.
Someone who has made a big difference for good in our world.
And so past Nobel Peace Prizers include people like Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela,
and others who are famous, and lots and lots I suspect most of us have never heard of.
But all of them have this, that they were recognised as being peacemakers.
We'll think about one of them towards the end of the service.
Question two.
What is the highest compliment that anyone could pay you as a Christian?
What is the highest compliment anyone could pay you as a Christian?
I thought of two answers to this.
One is to say that you're like Christ.
That's what we want to be as Christians, isn't it?
We want to become more and more like our Lord, to become daily more like Christ.
And the second one, which really is equivalent, is to be called a child of God.
We sang about that in our first song this evening, didn't we?
Being a child of God.
Now all of us, if we know the Lord Jesus, are children of God, purely by his grace and by the great love that he lavished on us,
as John reminds us in his epistle.
But there's also a sense in which we can be recognised as children of God by what we do and by how we act.
People look at us and they see something of the character of God in us.
What is the kind of thing that might make people think that?
Well, we don't have to think too hard because we have the Lord Jesus to tell us.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
Those who make peace, who bring an end to conflict and who are able to bring peace into whatever situation they are,
are those who are both in our world recognised as being very good people
and also spiritually, if they know the Lord Jesus, are recognised as being God's children.
And this evening we're looking at a peacemaker as the key character in our chapter.
A lady called Abigail.
Like a lot of characters in our Bible, Abigail comes on the scene, she's there for a short period
and then we hear virtually nothing of her after that.
She's only mentioned ever again as the wife of David or as the father of some of his children.
And yet in 1 Samuel chapter 25, she stands out as someone of outstanding wisdom and insight and spirituality
and a really great example to us.
Now we can learn a lot from Abigail this evening about what it means to be a peacemaker,
about what it means to be God's children in our world.
Before we dive into the chapter, just a little bit of context.
Although it stands alone quite well, 1 Samuel 25 obviously is part of the wider narrative of Samuel.
Just one or two things to note from that.
The chapter is bracketed by three weddings and a funeral.
Funeral at the beginning is the funeral of Samuel.
Samuel who is probably the greatest Israelite since Moses, certainly since Joshua.
The greatest of the judges, a priest, a prophet and the one who anointed the first two kings of Israel.
And Samuel now is gone.
That's significant.
Although Samuel's relationship with Saul had largely broken down,
to some extent Samuel is probably still a restraint on Saul
and certainly an encouragement to David as the one who had anointed him
and would give him the assurance that he remained God's choice for the king of Israel.
So Samuel is gone.
At the end of the chapter we have the three weddings.
Now we're not going to get into polygamy here and the rights and wrongs of it.
God's planned out there is one man and one woman,
but that's not the way it was in those days.
And we see three weddings.
One of them is David's wife being taken away from him by Saul.
Michal, his wife, who is Saul's daughter, was taken away and given to someone else in marriage.
And David has two weddings.
And the significance of these two weddings is that he marries women from the tribe of Judah
and so confirms his political status among the tribe.
He is seen as one of them.
And when it comes to being king later on, it's Judah who first recognised David.
And no doubt what happens in this chapter, to some extent, has an influence on that.
More broadly, as we look at the chapter in the context of 1 Samuel,
we see it as somewhere where David is confirmed in his knowledge that he will be the king.
And he is also challenged.
And it is a maturing process for David,
as he is led to recognise the wrong that he almost did
and to understand a bit more about what it takes to be God's chosen king.
So it is a chapter of some significance in the book,
but we don't want to focus on that this evening.
Let's focus on the narrative and let's see what we can learn from it.
So we have, first of all, what I've called the truculence of a miserly man.
Triculence is someone who is very awkward, almost for the sake of being awkward,
and is very aggressive in their dealings with others.
And I think that's a good description of Nabal.
So the first thing we learn about Nabal in the early verses of the chapter
was that he was very wealthy.
Before we even know his name, we're told about his wealth,
the thousand goats and three thousand sheep that he had.
He was a man who in this world's terms had done well.
And yet when we come to verse 3,
and we find out a bit more about Nabal,
the comment on him was that he was a surly man and mean in his dealings.
And that wasn't just the opinion of the writer to Samuel.
As we go through the chapter,
we find that his own servants, his wife, David,
everyone has a similar view of Nabal,
that he is really an idiot, a fool,
and someone who is really difficult to deal with.
A very unattractive character.
But it's this man that David comes looking for help.
David and his band of men,
quite a big band by this stage,
as we saw when he put his army together,
they were dependent on the goodwill of people like Nabal.
They were outlaws.
And they were dependent on others to be able to provide with them
with what they needed.
And they had made this deliberate decision.
They weren't going to take things for themselves.
So David very deliberately had taken nothing from Nabal.
Rather, he had protected Nabal's flocks
and made sure that others didn't come and take from them.
And so David sends a very polite message to Nabal.
And it really is polite.
He talks about himself as Nabal's son.
He talks about what he has done for Nabal.
And he very politely asks,
well, at this time of festival,
when you're rejoicing at all that you've been given by God,
can you spare something for me and for my men?
And Nabal, if he was in tune at all
with the traditions of Eastern hospitality,
of Middle Eastern hospitality,
he would have provided for David.
That was what you did.
If someone came to you and needed you,
didn't send them away,
you provided for them.
But Nabal was having none of it.
And Nabal made these really rude
and quite violent comments about David.
Who is this son of Jesse?
As if he was a nobody,
someone people had never heard of,
even though he was a national hero,
not just for killing Goliath,
but for all his other exploits for the nation.
He then talks about him as a servant
who's broken away from his master.
As if, again, he is a nobody,
he is worthless.
Why should he help him?
And so says, well,
why should I give him
what I've built up for myself?
I don't want to help this man David at all.
He was a really miserly man.
And on top of that,
he was very aggressive.
And at a human level,
it's not at all surprising
that David got quite upset about it.
To be treated in this way,
such a deliberate insult,
it was no surprise that David felt,
well, I need to go and do something about.
It's this.
Lesson for us from Nabal,
I don't want to dwell on him.
As Christians,
as believers in the Lord Jesus,
there are two things I think
it is very important we show
in all our dealings with others.
One is to be generous.
Now, I'll be thinking last few Sundays
about that and about your attitude towards money.
And we are called to be generous,
particularly to those who are in need.
And then the second thing I think we're called to do
is to treat everyone with respect.
Not to show particular respect
to those who have lots of things,
to those who are powerful,
to those who don't really need it,
but to show respect to everyone
and to treat them with real dignity.
That, after all, is what our Saviour did.
When Jesus was on this earth,
he didn't differentiate between people.
He treated everyone with respect.
And in these regards,
we need to be the complete opposite of Nabal.
Not miserly, not truculent,
but generous and treating people
with real respect and with dignity.
So let's leave Nabal behind
and let's look at Abigail.
And I've called this section
The Influence of a Wise Woman.
So David's servants come back
and they tell David what Nabal said.
David said,
Well, I'm having none of this.
Let's get our swords out.
And he takes some of his men
and they're on their way
to destroy Abigail
and to kill all the men
and no doubt to take his land
and his property as well.
And Abigail hears about it.
There's a servant here
who has a small but very significant role
in relaying to Abigail
what has happened
and in prompting her into action.
But Abigail,
as soon as she hears what's happened,
she realises she needs to do something.
She can't just let this pass,
otherwise disaster is coming
on their household.
So she gets all this food together,
much more, I think,
than David asked for,
perhaps expected,
and she goes out
and she goes to meet David.
And as Abigail comes
and she talks to David,
I think she looks in three directions.
She looks backwards.
She looks at what's happened
and she recognises
that a wrong has been done to David,
albeit she didn't know about it at the time.
She recognises a wrong has been done
and that that idiot Nabal
has done something
which is very foolish
as well as being very mean.
She looks at the present
and she presents to David
all the things she's brought with her
to try to make restitution
for the wrong that's been done
and to try to forestall David
as he would seek to go
and to destroy Abigail.
And then, perhaps most important of all,
she looks to the future
and she recognises David
as the one who is going to be king
and she says to him,
you can be sure that the Lord
is going to be with you.
You will achieve
what the Lord has called you to achieve.
And she says,
well, don't do something stupid now
that's going to destroy that.
Let me look at it a slightly different way.
Making peace.
You'll see where I'm going pretty quickly,
I think, in this.
What happened with Abigail?
So the first thing is
that she recognised
that there was a danger.
David's righteous wrath
had been ignited
and unless something was done,
Nabal was going to pay the penalty
for the wrong that he had done.
As Nabal had insulted David
and had treated him very badly,
so he was going to face judgement
for what he had done
if nothing was done about it.
Abigail recognises the danger.
Second thing she does
is she becomes the servant.
She humbles herself.
I don't know if you noticed
as we were reading what Abigail said,
I think in almost every verse
in what she says,
she talks about herself
as David's servant.
Now, Abigail was someone
who probably had much higher social status
at that point than David did.
She was the beautiful wife
of a wealthy man.
David was an outlaw
and yet Abigail comes
and she humbles herself before David
and again and again
she refers to herself
as his servant.
She recognised the danger,
she became the servant.
Third thing she did
was she accepted the blame.
Now, there was no blame
really attaching to Abigail.
Abigail.
She didn't know
what her husband was doing,
she had no way
of knowing about it
and yet it's almost as if
she says to David,
well, I should have known
and should have been able
to do something about it.
So in verse 24 she says,
my Lord,
let the blame be on me alone.
So the wrong that Nabal had done,
Abigail takes on herself.
She accepts the blame.
She then paid the price.
She brought all this
that was needed
to get rid of David's wrath,
to make him recognise
that what he was doing
was a foolish thing
and he was given
everything he asked for
and probably much more beside.
Abigail paid the price
to make recompense
for Nabal's failure.
And then the final thing she did
was she pleaded Nabal's cause
before David.
She pointed out to him
that it would not be right
if he took the vengeance
that he had intended to.
The price had been paid,
he had got what he had asked for,
it would do him no good,
it would do her household no good.
She pled the cause of herself,
her husband and her household.
Now of course where I'm coming to on that
is that these five things
are exactly what the Lord Jesus did as well.
He recognised the danger that we were in,
that having rejected God,
having insulted God
by going our own way
rather than his way,
we were subject to God's righteous wrath.
The Lord Jesus became the servant.
He took on the form of a servant,
he lived a life of humility,
he humbled himself
to come into our world,
to live our life
and to live it sinlessly.
He accepted the blame,
he had done no wrong
but he took our sins
on himself.
He paid the price,
he paid the price
that we were due
for the wrong we'd done,
he took the punishment
that was ours.
And of course he still
pleads our cause before God,
pleading on the basis
of his righteousness
and on his sacrifice for us.
So Abigail the peacemaker
is a wonderful picture
of Jesus the peacemaker.
So much more of a peacemaker
in all that he has achieved.
So as we were looking at
in Colossians recently,
and it'd be slightly selective
in these verses
but to pick out the bones of them,
Colossians chapter 1,
God was pleased to reconcile
all to himself,
all things,
by making peace
through his blood,
that's Jesus' blood,
shed on the cross.
Jesus became our peace
when he went to the cross
and when he took our place,
accepted our blame
and paid the price
that we were due.
Abigail is a wonderful picture
of Jesus the peacemaker.
And all of us are called
to be peacemakers.
As I said,
we're called to be like Christ,
we're called to be children of God
and a child of God
is a peacemaker.
And as we read through
the New Testament,
again and again,
we're told how important it is
that we live at peace with people
and that we make peace for others.
So Ephesians chapter 4,
Paul says,
make every effort
to keep the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace.
Colossians 3,
let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts
since as members of one body
you are called to peace.
Hebrews 12,
make every effort
to live at peace with everyone
and to be holy.
Without holiness,
no one will see the Lord.
James chapter 3,
peacemakers who sow in peace
reap a harvest
of righteousness.
Christians are called
to be peacemakers.
How sad it is
in our churches
when people fall out
and can't get on
with one another
and the peace
and the unity
that we should have
is destroyed.
If we have that situation,
if we're in that situation
ourselves,
we need to make peace
with whoever it is
that we have the problem with.
If we see others
in that kind of situation,
we need to think
what can we do
to help make peace
in our church.
But more widely
in our world,
Christians are called
to be those
who pursue peace.
And in our workplace,
around our homes,
among those
we associate with,
if there are issues
between people,
then Christians
should be those
who are able to go in
and doing the kind of thing
that Abigail did,
that our Lord himself did,
we should be those
who are able to make peace.
So let's resolve
to go out
and as far as we can
to be peacemakers
this week.
One more thing
I want to talk about
just now
is the providence
of our gracious God.
Because very clearly
in this chapter,
we see the hand of God
at work.
And it's pointed out
particularly by Abigail
as she talks,
as she pleads
with David.
If David had gone ahead
with what he planned to do,
it could have been
disastrous for him.
It would have been
something,
as Abigail says,
that he would have looked
back on for the rest
of his life
and wondered,
why did I act in this way
with so little provocation?
This, remember,
is David,
who in chapter 24,
and we'll see again
in chapter 26,
spared the life
of his sworn enemy,
Saul.
He wasn't willing
to take the life of Saul
because he recognised him
as God's chosen king.
And yet he was willing
to take the life of Nabal,
who'd done a much
smaller thing
to him than Saul,
and alongside that,
to take the lives
of all those
with Nabal.
It would have been
disastrous
in terms of David's
authority to be king,
disastrous geopolitically
in terms of how
he would have been seen
in the tribe of Judah
and further afield.
So it was very much
God's grace
that David was stopped
from doing
this terrible thing.
And stopped by this
wonderful,
wise woman,
Abigail.
As she talks to him,
and as she reminds him
of who he is,
and who he will be,
and what the Lord
has called him to,
and she says,
verse 31,
my master will not
have on his conscience
the staggering burden
of needless bloodshed
or of having
avenged himself.
And then David,
in verse 32 onward,
recognises the wisdom,
the good judgment
of Abigail,
and that the Lord
has been in this.
What do we learn from that?
One thing I think
we need to learn
is that we need
to be willing
to have our faults
pointed out by others.
If there is something
in our lives
that is wrong
and someone comes
unlovingly,
graciously,
points it out to us,
we should examine
our hearts and say,
is that really
the way I am?
And if it is,
we should be willing
to repent of it
and to praise God
for someone who cared
enough about us
to point it out.
The other thing
I think we take from it
is that when we get
into this kind of situation,
not that we're anything
directly equivalent,
but the kind of situation
where we might be tempted
to do something foolish,
to defend ourselves,
or to get back
at someone
who has wronged us,
we need to remember
that we can leave things
in God's hands.
That is what Abigail
was saying,
isn't it?
Even in her reference
to Nabal
and what she says
and what she maybe
foresaw
would happen to him.
Nabal, of course,
is dead by the end
of the chapter,
but it was very much
leave things in God's hands.
You don't need
to do it yourself.
And when someone
wrongs us,
rather than try
to get back at them,
really, really important
that we leave it
in God's hand
and know that he is
the righteous judge.
Again, in this,
we have the example
of the Lord Jesus.
I thought the verse
of the scream,
I don't.
Let me read it to you.
1 Peter 2, verse 23.
When they hurled
their insults at him,
he did not retaliate.
When he suffered,
he made no threats.
Instead,
he entrusted himself
to him who judges justly.
If that kind of thing
happens to us,
let's not try
to take the law
into our own hands
and to get vengeance
or justice
at ourselves
in that sense.
Let's trust God
who knows best
and who ultimately
is the judge.
Finished with,
let's come back
to the Nobel Peace Prize.
As I've said,
there are many winners
of the Nobel Peace Prize
we've never probably heard of.
And that may be true
of last year's winners.
I don't know how many of us
could say who last year's winners were.
I'll tell you.
There's a woman from Iraq
called Nadia Murad.
And there was this gentleman
who is from
the Democratic Republic of Congo.
His name is
Denis Mukwege.
Denis Mukwege
is a really interesting character.
I should say,
they both won
the Nobel Peace Prize
for the work they had done
to counter sexual violence
as a weapon of war.
And I'll come back
to what that means
in a few minutes.
Denis Mukwege
is a doctor
who grew up
in a Christian home.
His father was
a Pentecostal pastor.
When he was a boy,
he went with his father
to another boy
who was dying
and they prayed with him
but there was nothing more
they could do.
And Denis said to his father,
well,
why couldn't you help him more,
Dad?
And his father said,
I couldn't do it
because I'm a pastor,
not a doctor.
And at that point,
Denis decided
he was going to take up medicine
and he was going to spend his life
trying to help people
and to heal them.
So he did.
He grew up
and he took a medical degree
and he decided
to specialise
in gynaecology.
And the reason for that
was there was
such a high death rate
after birth
among women
in the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
But as he started
to practise,
Denis came across
a terrible situation.
Woman after woman
who had been raped
and mutilated
as part of the war
in Congo.
And he decided
that he was going
to devote his life
to helping these women,
to helping them
physically
as a surgeon
but also caring for them
and helping them
on the road
to recovery.
And he established
a hospital
and amazingly
about 50,000 women
have been through
that hospital.
All women
who had been raped
and mutilated
as part of the war.
In 2012,
Denis decided
he was going
to take a stand
in the country
against him.
He felt the government
wasn't doing enough.
And at that point,
he was kidnapped
and there was
an attempt made
to execute him,
to assassinate him.
He managed to escape
and he went
to Europe,
to Belgium.
While he was there,
the woman
who had helped
raised money
for his flight back.
These were poor women
who had nothing
in this world
but they said,
it's really important
we have this man.
And he felt,
well, there's nothing
I can do but go back.
This is God calling me
to go back
and to help these women.
So he did
and he is still there
under very armed guard
but still trying to help,
trying to achieve justice
for these women
and to help them physically.
And he says
the reason why
he does that
is his faith
in Jesus.
Let me put up
something he said.
This is Dr. Dennis
Mookwege.
He says to Christians,
we are called
to impact our world
for the glory of Christ.
In the face of opposition
and the devastating effects
of sin,
we may feel helpless.
What can we do?
On one hand,
it is true,
we cannot change
the world around us
but God can.
And he's calling us
to be his agents
of transformation.
We need to be bold
and intentional
in fulfilling that mandate
because God wants
to work through us.
He calls us to be salt
and light
in our broken societies.
can I ask that we take
that away as something
to think about
and to ponder on
this week.
We thought of a woman
who very much
was salt
and light
in her society.
We thought of a saviour
who was the agent
of transformation,
as Tenec Mookwege
calls it,
who came into this world
to take our place
and to have changed
our lives
completely.
What can I do
in my situation
to serve Christ,
to be salt and light,
to be a peacemaker
and to help others?
Probably not going to be
that dramatic
of the kind of thing
we've been thinking
about this evening
but is there something
I can do this week
to bring about peace
and justice
in the area
where I am
and so to be seen
by others
as someone
who is truly
a child
of God.
Let's pray together.
Our Father,
we thank you
for your work
to us this evening.
We thank you
for this woman,
Abigail,
and for the
tremendous wisdom
that she had
as she was faced
with this
terrible and potentially
disastrous situation
and how she was able
to be a true
peacemaker
and to confirm
David in his faith
and to help him
understand more
your way
and to save
her family
from imminent disaster.
We thank you more
for the Lord Jesus
and for the way
that he came
into our situation
and he took
our blame
and he paid
the price
that was ours
so that we could
be at peace
with God.
And we pray
to help us
to be peacemakers
to where we are.
That whatever
situations we may face
where there is
conflict
and where there
are difficulties
between people,
but we may be
those who display
the character
of Christ
and are able
to be his agents
and to work
for good
in our world.
Help us truly
to be peacemakers
in whatever situation
you have placed us
that we may honour
and glorify your name.
Thank you for our time
together.
We commit ourselves
to you and pray
for your blessing
throughout this week
as we ask in the name
of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.