Nathan
From the Series: Legends
Speaker: Joel Schmidgall
Date: July 18, 2010
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Transcript
We continue our ‘Legends’ series and our legend today is a prophet named Nathan in the Old Testament. Nathan was incredible at confrontations. He had a gift. If you have your Bible, open up to II Samuel Chapter 7 and we’ll get there in a moment.
I came to Washington D.C. in 1999 and over these 11 years I have learned to love our city. Everything from going to the National Mall and to see the scenic view, to the history and the vision that combines in our city, to going to Ebenezers where I can have a coffee next to Wolf Blitzer, how cool is that! You can go fishing over in the Anacostia and there’s a good chance that every fish you catch will have three eyes. A lot to love about this city, cultures collide from all over the world. Then, at the same time, I have a love-hate thing going on. There are frustrations going on to. So with every culture, you have every culture’s driving style. I pray that I don’t die while driving in D.C. because I lose my salvation every time I get on 395 South at 5:00 p.m. And I’m hoping there is a 395 exception when I get to the pearly gates and Peter opens that Book up and he doesn’t see my name, ‘Oh, you must have the 395 exception.’ There is a lot that is annoying about our city. Meters are so expensive now! You put a quarter and you get three minutes! A dime is worth 20 seconds now! You put it in and start walking away and it beeps and you have to go back. You have to have ten dollars of change in your pocket just to have a 30-minute meeting downtown. There are a lot of frustrations in our city. There are broken promises. There are people here for the wrong reasons. I think I found a familiar story with people who come to NCC and who are new to D.C. and that’s this, people come with this idea, this excitement when they come into this city because of the energy and the nature of our city. They come to change the world! They show up and they want to change the world through legislation and through business and they want to change the world through international work. Then something happens – they are confronted with bureaucracy and it’s almost like the July heat in D.C. the humidity that overwhelms you and the bureaucracy begins to overwhelm them and their dreams go from wanting to change the world to this feeling of disillusionment and disappointment, if you will. They find themselves in this position where they realize that their influence doesn’t go far beyond their office.
Nathan, the prophet, his influence doesn’t go far beyond his office. He became known through the Scripture only because of his relationship with David. He is not the kind of guy that will influence thousands, but he knows a guy that will influence thousands. We seldom remember that behind Paul, there was Barnabas and behind Moses, there was Joshua and behind Calvin, there was Hobbs! Behind Joel Schmidgall, there was Nina Schmidgall, rolling her eyes. There is always someone behind the influencer. Today I want to talk about what it means to influence the influencer and specifically look at Nathan. II Samuel 7:1
1 After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent."
3 Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you."
David has a genuinely good desire here in this Scripture. He lives in this palatial house made our of cedar, a very find wood, and he looks out the window and sees the Ark of the covenant in the Motel 6 across the street. So he decides that there is something not right about that. So he goes to his buddies and he begins to tell them about this and asks what he should do, and Nathan gives him a double thumbs-up and tells him to go for it. It’s a seemingly normal circumstance and interaction but what happens next in the story is what sets Nathan apart as an influence behind the influencer. Verse 4
4 That night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:
5 "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" '
God does not dwell in a place, He resides in a people. What are you trying to build right now in your life that is meaningless to God? Out of a good heart maybe you’ve defined success one way, but today I wonder if God is saying, ‘Your success is failure to Me and your failure is success to Me. When did I ask you to build that resume? When did I ask you to build the project?’
Here’s where the application hits home for me, in my home. I come home from work and I walk in and I love to get some chill time at the end of the night. It feels good to be able to relax so I get home and I go into logistics mode. I begin doing chores around the house and I begin cleaning things up, but failure in achieving my success is the best thing that can happen to me, because my failure comes in a form of a three-year-old about this high and a one-year-old about this high. My kids usually stop me from my plan but the fact is, that’s the best thing that can happen. I really believe that the Lord finds pleasure in that half-hour that I give to Zeke and Ella or their favorite game, tackle-time, I think the Lord finds more pleasure in that than He finds in me achieving what I have defined as success.
A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning up upstairs, picking up one of the many messes that you parents are familiar with, and I’m over picking things up and I look across the room and you know what’s going on, there is a bigger mess being created than I am currently cleaning up on the other side of the room, so this has happened a number of times, so I give a stern, ‘Ella! What are you doing?’ And then I hear back, ‘Daddy, I love you.’ She knows how to get her dad. It was one of those moments where I realized that I am not the person I want to be right now. I am doing the exact opposite thing that I need to be doing. So you know what I did? I had this gut reaction to do the exact opposite thing of what I want to do, I took the trunk of toys and I dumped it over. 615 toys! The kids yelled and started running and diving into it and we started playing together and had a good time, because the success that I had defined was not in conjunction or in line with what I think the Lord wanted me to be doing at that moment. Success in his eyes doesn’t always line up with the success that we have defined in our life.
I love the way that Amos Bronson Alcott says it. He says we climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures with successes.
Verse 8
8 "Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth.
Nathan should have just left it alone after verse 3! Why? First, he gets in good with the king. He is able to build his self-esteem and makes a good name with the king. Second, this can only be a good thing for him, the temple being built. He probably gets a promotion and probably gets a corner office in the temple. Third, if you say the wrong thing to the king, something that he doesn’t like, he can end you. He can hit that delete key and you are done. He can turn your 300-page biography into a 100-page biography if you are not careful with what you say to the king. But Nathan does not look to serve himself. He is not out for his own personal agenda.
If you look at your friendships, your relationships with friends and coworkers, what is your tendency? Is it self-service? Are you only looking for promotion, for more money, for what you can get out of a relationship? I know it’s an ugly way to put it and I know none of us are ugly here, so let me put it a different way. When is the last time that you prayed for a coworker? When is the last time you have gone to the Lord and sought Him for a vision for your friends?
Here at NCC, we talk a lot about God’s vision for us and God’s plan and his will for our lives, but sometimes I think we can become so self-focused that I think we miss the point that God is trying to push us towards, and that’s this, you can’t find your purpose in life without helping someone else find their purpose. Think about medicine, if a cure is found, it affects the potential of someone else’s life. This about sports, to achieve the highest goal in sports, you’ve got to allow others to rise up with you and encourage them to use their gifts and to find their place on that team. You make others better around you.
One thing I love about our staff is that we’ve got this talented staff and great people, but no one achieves success at the expense of someone else. Success is always achieved with one another and we celebrate wins and we celebrate what God is doing and the way He is giving each one of us vision. To find your purpose is to empower someone else to find their purpose.
Verse 15
15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me ; your throne will be established forever.' "
Nathan could have left everything alone, but he doesn’t, and God uses this opportunity to bring in one of the few covenants that we find in Scripture. It’s called the Davidic Covenant and it is a turn from some of the other covenants, the Abrahamic Covenant, and God comes in and He says, “No more is it about what you have done, it is about what now I will do in the future.” It is a foreshadowing, a looking head to Christ, the Savior coming to the earth. And He says it’s now about love that is unconditional in your life. He sets a new pattern and David’s life and his ministry is changed and is catapulted into a new place and the nation of Israel takes a new turn and has a different destiny because of this instance. All because Nathan decided something, all because Nathan had the audacity to confront, he had the courage to care and he had the boldness to seek God for his friends.
Let me give three observations from this confrontation. I’m going to give you a couple of lists of observations today so jot these down.
Number one, his motive was pure in confrontation. We are in Washington D.C. and there are a lot of Type A’s here in this crowd. There are a lot of first-borns here, a lot of Alphas here, a lot of us are good at confrontation, we even enjoy confrontation. Some of us do confrontation for a living. I’ve got a friend who is brutally honest but he problem is, he loves the brutality more than he loves the honesty part. So his greeting is, ‘What are you looking at?’ A lot of us are good at confrontation and we are easy with that, very comfortable with the idea, but this is not just about confronting in any situation that you are in. Most of us think that confrontation is a time to speak up when we are annoyed at someone or when we think we need to put them in their place. But that’s not what this Scripture is about. That has nothing to do with the instance we are looking at, so if that’s where your brain is going, go Toyota and do a recall right now and pull it back in, because it leads us to number two:
Number two, if the confrontation is about you, you have to let it go. Nathan comes into this situation, he doesn’t react because David’s idea will negatively affect him, even though it looks like it will, he is in a worse situation if he doesn’t do this thing. He doesn’t react because of that though. He reacts because he sees his friend, he sees his leader in a position to become better. So he talks and he speaks boldly and he shares what God has given to him. Here’s what he does, he adds value to his leader. What if the attitude that we have in our jobs was not to make ourselves look good, was not to advance our resume, not to get whatever we want out of a relationship, what if our attitude in our work places was to add value to our leader? Wouldn’t that be crazy if we all just decided with our coworkers and our friends we just decided, ‘I am going to step out and be part of making their dreams come true today.’ Be a part of seeing God’s vision come to fruition in their life. That’s called constructive confrontation.
Number three, Nathan sought the Lord for David. He didn’t just sit down and say, ‘Here’s what I think you should do.’ No, he sought God. He went to the Almighty to seek God on his behalf. That’s added value. I have a friend who calls me every couple of months and every time he says the same thing, ‘Man, I just want to let you know I’ve been praying for you every single Friday. I call your name out to God believing that the visions that God has put in you will come to pass.’ Do you know what that does for me? It gives me confidence. It challenges me and pushes me toward the things of God. It casts me into a different place of knowing that God is moving with me and that I am following his Word and his will as I seek Him. I would listen to what that guy has to say over 99% of the people in my life. Why? Because I know he cares about me and I know he is loyal to me and I know he is committed to success in my life and I know he loves me and he has no agenda for my life but that he wants to see the best of God come to pass in me.
Our city is build is on the struggle for power. Every single day, there is this clash, a struggle for power, achieved over here and not achieved over here, and what happens though is the more power you get, the less you know who your friends are. The more power you get, the harder it is to understand why each person knows you. So what you have is that an advance in power creates an advance in loneliness in this city. So you have these David figures in Washington D.C. who are searching for Nathan, but they can’t find them because they don’t know what their agenda is. And Nathan has three different instances where he shows up in this Scripture, and each one of them give us a hint, a clue, on how to influence an influencer.
The first one is the situation that we are looking at. The first one says this: he speaks life into his leader with no agenda.
The second one is this: he speaks truth into his leader for his leader’s benefit.
The third one is this: he shows loyalty to his leader for his leader’s legacy.
If you want to influence an influencer, do these three things. Love with no agenda; speak truth; and show loyalty. That would get you there.
I was talking to a friend the other night, he is an aid for an influential Senator on the Hill and I brought up this subject and I asked him how he would apply what Nathan is doing here to your office and your situation at work. He said this, “The hardest thing I struggle with on the Hill is defeatism. When someone comes into a meeting with a negative attitude, I go after them. I’m probably too comfortable in confrontations at my job. So for me I think it’s less about the focus of confrontations and more about the behind-the-scenes prayer life. It seems like the power of this story, this situation, come from the prayer, so maybe if more of us spent time praying for those we are working with, the vision of God would be more evident in our workplace.’
Nathan sought God on behalf of his friend, on behalf of his leader, and it sets the nation of Israel and the person of David up for success. But it also does something else, it sets Nathan up for this next confrontation in the story that we find in Chapter 12. We find David sitting in the palace and one day he looks out his window and he sees his neighbor next door, this woman bathing, and he decides to act on his lust. So he does and he is with her in a biblical sense and she becomes pregnant. Then he does something worse, because he can’t figure out how to cover this thing up, he ends up having her husband killed and he brings her into his house. That’s where we find Nathan in this instance and he begins to tell David a parable. It’s a parable about a rich man and a poor man. The poor man has one little lamb and the rich man has everything, and he talks about this poor man and he cares for this little lamb and he loves the little lamb and he raises him up. But then one day the rich man comes in and he takes the little lamb for himself and he uses the lamb for his purposes. David is getting into the story, he is getting fired up and getting passionate about this in verse 6
6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity." 7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes?
Nathan has some serious boldness right here, doesn’t he? To step forward and say this to the king, and in most Scriptures, you would see this then followed by a beheading, but in this circumstance for some reason, David steps forward and repents before the Lord. I don’t know how or why the Lord uses Nathan in this capacity to bring David not only to repentance but to use this situation for God’s glory in the future but He uses Nathan.
Let me give you that second list. Four observations from Nathan’s second confrontation, which is very different from the first. We went from a positive confrontation to a negative confrontation.
First is this, Nathan, only moved when God moved. It says that in verse one the Lord sent Nathan to David. Nathan was in constant communication with God, spending time in his presence, and he didn’t just react in confrontation and spontaneity did he? No, he was deliberate in these instances, going before the Lord and seeking God out.
Number two, he is created in confrontation. This might be the point that some of us need to take away, because I think a lot of us move into confrontation because we are agitated or something rubs us the wrong way, so we react from that. Or maybe for some of us, we are dealing with the same recurring problem but we deal with it the same way every single time. Maybe the 50th time of addressing it this way will change the situation. Nathan doesn’t do that though does he? He comes and he brings creative solutions and he takes a serious issue within David and he addresses it creatively. Again, it’s almost a foreshadowing of Christ because he uses a parable to tell a story to illustrate a principle. He begins to tell this story and he gets David sensitive to the situation and empathetic to the situation and by the time he realizes it is about him, he has already got beyond his defenses. That’s where we usually get halted, when the other person gets defensive. He uses his creativity to address and confront in this situation.
Number three, he straight up speaks truth to David. What does he say? He says, “You are the man.” This is probably a common occurrence. If this were to happen in today’s culture, it may have a different tone to it, but I think guys might say, ‘You’re the man!’ But I think in this situation, Nathan says, ‘You are the man that has done this but you are better than that.’ And he stands up with courage to speak truth and to speak life into his friend and say, ‘God has a different plan for you. You know better than this. We both know that you know better.’
Do you have friends in your life that will stand up to you and say, ‘You are being stupid right now man, take a step back.’ Or are you the friend to someone else that can step forward and confront and love and bring truth into the equation.
Number four, confrontation works because of credibility. I don’t know that David would have listened to Nathan if he was just some guy off the street. I don’t think he would have listened to him if they hadn’t had this previous conversation of Nathan showing himself loyal to David, of Nathan proving that he cared about the success of David’s future. When someone comes to you and confronts you and they have no vested interest in your life and they don’t really care about your future, it’s hard to receive that, isn’t it? You just throw it out in the trash bucket, but David has seen that Nathan cares about the success of David’s future. So he is confronted with this idea. Nathan uses this different level of wisdom to get up in his friend’s business and to speak truth into his life. He had shown David care so David gives his ear to him. Nathan brings a level of accountability.
Joseph Myers wrote a book called Organic Community in which he talks about, in accountability, we tend to view ourselves as accountants. The idea that an accountant comes and looks at the text and he looks for errors and he looks for mistakes. But Myers says that instead of looking at ourselves as accountants in accountability, we should look at ourselves as editors. An editor comes to a text and he says, ok, I’m going to look for errors but I’m also going to look for things that are good that I can help improve. I’m going to look at the text as a whole to try to improve and make it better. In accountability, the goal is not just to point out mistakes and errors, it is to have a heart to see improvement and to see someone become better because of our words and modeling. Criticism that is not constructive just causes pain.
Early on in college, I was confronted with sin and the reality of God. I was confronted in a good way, that I needed to come back to the foot of the cross and to the altar, and here’s what I found, that confrontation from God should lead you into confrontation with others. Not in a prideful way, not in a finger-pointing way, but in a way of humility and in a way of, I have just received incredible grace and in my weakness I need to share this with those around me.
I remember going home that summer semester and I went down the list of my friends and got together with them. I remember the first guy I went to, I confronted with an apology. I said, ‘I need to apologize and ask forgiveness and I’ve been wrong in this relationship and I want to be different from here on out.’ The second guy I went to, I said, ‘I’m not satisfied with our relationship, there is no depth to what we have and I want to be part of changing that.’ I went to another guy and said, ‘I want to speak the truth to you in love, the decisions that you are making right now are going to end up in a world of pain, and I’m here to walk with you no matter what, but I’ve got to speak the truth to you and we need to take a different path.’ I went down the list of confrontations and here’s what happened, every single one of those confrontations brought us closer together in relationship. I did not expect that. I went down the list wondering how many of these guys I would lose as friends. But I went through this and every person responded fondly. Why? Because I think I responded, I confronted out of a place of brokenness, not out of pride, but out of my own brokenness, that I had just received from God incredible grace and ‘I can’t leave our relationship at this level.’ This doesn’t just mean that you have to confront in a negative circumstance, I’m talking about confrontation with the grace of God permeating every situation. So I approached those conversations saying that there is more for this interaction and for this relationship, God desires more for us. I built that out of my weakness and out of my brokenness.
Let me close with this story. Dr. Alexander Khoruts had run out of options. In 2008, he took on a patient who was suffering from a vicious gut infection. She was crippled by constant diarrhea, which had left her in a wheelchair wearing diapers. Dr. Khoruts treated her with an assortment of antibiotics but nothing could stop this bacteria. His patient was wasting away, losing almost 80 pounds in 8 months. Here’s what he said, ‘She was dwindling down the drain and she probably would have died,’ so he decided his patient needed a transplant. But it wasn’t a normal transplant. He didn’t give her a piece of someone else’s intestine or a new stomach or a different organ, but he gave her some of her husband’s bacteria. He mixed a small sample of her husband’s stool with saline solution and he delivered it into her colon. Dr. Khoruts and his colleagues reported that her diarrhea vanished in a day. Her husband’s microbes had taken over that community in essence, and had taken over those problems, and her husband’s microbes had come in and allowed the infection to disappear. She was completely healed through this interaction and it has become known as beneficial bacteria. It’s this new piece of science taking off and new studies are being done about it but I found it very interesting in the physiological sense, that someone’s bacteria, that there problems, in a sense, could bring healing to someone else’s bacteria or problem.
I relate when I tell my personal brief story about what God did in me and then the confrontation that happened. I look at myself as so messed up at that time with so many problems. I had bacteria and problems in my life but somehow, reacting to God and confronting others, God was able to use this bacteria in my life to effect in a positive way those around me and to use it to gain greater relationships and to advance the grace of God into other’s lives.
That happens for David after this confrontation with Nathan. Psalm 51, a lot of you know this Psalm of David’s reaction to Nathan. It says: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence O Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from me but restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and renew a right spirit within me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to You.
I know so many guys who have grabbed a hold of this Scripture and it has changed their lives, because to grasp on to a story of someone who is so fallen and has made such a wrong decision, who had given in to lust and made a terrible choice in their life, could find redemption before God and could find restoration in God. It has affected millions of stories, millions of people’s lives because David was restored in this instance. And in a sense, it became beneficial bacteria. God used it and He turned it and millions of lives have been changed because of this story. And where did it all start? It started with a prophet named Nathan who cared about his friend, who cared about leader enough to step in to risk his life and say, ‘You are better than this David, there is more for you than this.’
The application is simple today. How can you start being a Nathan? Maybe you need to begin praying for your coworkers. Maybe you need to go to God and grasp a vision for your friends. Maybe you need to begin seeing the potential in those around you and caring enough to get involved in those things and get dirty in the lives around you. Maybe it is just offering yourself to God to confront in positive ways and to be used for his purposes in your friends’ lives.
Brother Lawrence said this, “The depth of our spirituality does not depend upon changing the things we do, but in doing for God what we ordinarily do for ourselves.”
God, we come before You tonight believing Jesus that You can take us in our current state and that You can use us. God I pray for each person in this place that You would help us to step forward and live in a place of courage. Not just courage for ourselves but to look outside of our own life and to look into the lives of those around us. Jesus, sometimes it can be frustrating that our influence hasn’t gone further than it has, especially in a city like this, but Lord You have placed us in strategic points of influence and I believe tonight God that You desire to push and challenge us to fully maximize what You have put within us, to speak vision and life and pray into existence the things that You desire, not just for us but for the people around us. Right now, God I pray that for every person listening today. God, we submit ourselves to You to be used as Nathan. We pray for the David’s in our circle and in our city, those leaders that need your strength. I pray for an overwhelming abundance of your strength to fill their lives but Lord I also pray that we in our different positions can step forward and live our lives in boldness, making daily decisions and confrontations for the kingdom of God. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Ministry Transcription
Margaret Salyers
606-706-5006
margaretsalyers@gmail.com
