Sermon Tone Analysis

/Who Cares?/

Broken Relationships, Part 1

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

June 15~/17, 2007

2 Samuel 13 & 14

 

 

Intro: Raymond Video

 

What a great clip, though I know I am going to get in trouble if I make too many comments about it, since it deals with femaley stuff, time of the month issues.

It is tough, because I can think of so many things to say right now, but like George Bush Sr. said, “Not gonna do it.

Wouldn’t be prudent.”

The clip does illustrate though how hard close relationships are to keep close.

I wish it was easy.

I wish that naturally our marriages just got closer, that our parent ~/ child relationships never got complicated, that friends and family just never hurt each other.

Yet, we know that isn’t true.

We do hurt each other.

Fractures in families and among friends happen, and often they are never dealt with or never dealt with well.

It seems that building close relationships are hard and hurting each other comes easy.

Because of that, we now live in a culture of disposable relationships.

That’s why I have all these disposable things up here, things we buy to throw away.

I love this stuff.

After John’s message on our responsibility to care for the planet last week, I know I need to change my ways, but if was up to me, I’d always use disposable plates and glasses…I hate cleaning up yucky mess…much easier just to chuck it all in the trash.

That’s not good, I now know.

I repent.

As bad as it may be for plates and cups though, think about what happens when our relationships become disposable…when instead of cleaning up the relational messes we cause, we just move on, throw them away.

That is our culture.

We live in a culture that is just not willing to deal with the hard stuff that comes with relationships.

It is easier either to move on, to divorce or just not be around the offender…or just as bad, we stay in the relationship, but refuse to clean up the relational messes.

We just have these messy, bloody, relationships that we don’t heal.

We both know the issues, but we just don’t talk about them, we act like the hurts never happened, and we try to move on.

Over time, the trash on the plates starts to rot.

Our relationships spoil, become putrid or at least shallow.

Today I am going to encourage us to do something different in our relationships, to not just dispose of them or keep them trashed up with relational gunk.

Today I am going to encourage us to have the courage to deal with the hard stuff, to clean up our relationships, and to deal with the hurts that tend to keep our relationships unhealthy.

I want us to be really open and honest about our relationships today, and I want you to take a moment right now and ask God to bring to mind any relational mess that you have yet to clean up, or a relationship that you have just tried to dispose of, but you know it still affects you.

You have undealt with stuff.

This is especially important with family relationships.

When family is involved, we might think we can just move on and not deal with things, but we don’t realize how the undealt with stuff affects us every day.

And our children are watching us, too.

They are learning how to deal with relational hurts and issues by watching us.

They will learn how to relate by mimicking how we relate.

As I have thought about this, there are two relationships that God has brought to mind that I know I need to address and stop avoiding.

Both of them are in my past, and therefore tucked away in the closet, but I know I need to be open to bringing it out of the closet and deal with it.

Today, I’m going to encourage all of us to do the same thing.

Today we are going to examine a story in the Old Testament book called 2 Samuel that is a tough relationship story of a father and son who had major issues and refused to deal with them.

Turn with me to 2 Samuel 13, and today we are going to cover a lot of Bible, so stick with me.

You also need to be prepared, because this is a sordid story, a tough story.

It is one of those stories in the Bible that surprise you that God would even put it in there.

Years ago a friend of my mom’s became a Christian, and I encouraged her to start reading in Genesis, from the beginning of the Bible.

When we saw her next, we asked her how it was going and she said, “Wow, this Bible is amazing.

I had no idea these kinds of stories were in here.

That Abraham was a dirty old man, and all that stuff with these wives, wow.

If I had known this stuff was in the Bible, I would have been reading it instead of all those Danielle Steele novels.”

This is one of those stories, and it is a tragic one, of a broken relationship between a father and son, two people who love each other but end up destroying their lives because they would not deal with the mess.

It all started with a huge offense.

As we jump into the story, keep in mind that David as a king had a lot of wives and concubines.

He wasn’t supposed to, but he did, and because of that he had many, many children.

His first child was named Amnon, who was first in line to the throne.

Next in line was Kileab, who most likely died young.

So, really second in line was a son named Absolom, a very handsome, intelligent, a lot going for him kind of person.

Amnon and Absalom were the first and second sons, but they had different mothers; they were half brothers.

Absolom’s mom was a daughter of a king in a neighboring country, and he had a full sister named Tamar who was also very beautiful.

With that behind us, we are ready for the story:

 

*Slide:_______________ *2 Samuel 13:1-2

 

/In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.

Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her (13:1-2)./

This is obviously not good.

Absalom is in love with his ½ sister and Absalom’s full sister, so much so he feels sick.

He can’t get to her though, because she would have lived in a house with all these other virgin daughters of the king, so a friend of his concocts a plan for him to be able to be alone with Tamar in his bedroom.

He acts like he is sick and gets Tamar to come into his room to nurse him back to health.

I’m not even going to read the story—you can later if you want to—but when she comes into his room, he rapes her and she runs away to her brother Absalom.

In that culture, she was disgraced by Amnon and could no longer live with the other virgins, so she moves in to Absalom’s house.

After she moves in to Absalom’s house, and the rape becomes known to David, here is what happens/:/* *

* *

*Slide:_______________ */ /2 Samuel 13: 21-22

 

/When King David heard all this, he was furious.

Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar (21-22).

/

 

David hears about the rape, and is furious, which is fitting…but he does nothing.

As a father to Tamar, he does nothing.

As a father to Absalom and Amnon, he does nothing.

As a king who is responsible to ensure justice, he does nothing.

He gets angry, but doesn’t do what he is supposed to do.

Both as a father and as the king, what he should do was laid out in that culture, but for whatever reason, he just refuses to do anything.

And Absalom just sits back and stews.

Absalom is ticked off at his brother, and mortified that his dad doesn’t do anything.

And this is where the issue we will see between David and Absalom starts, this offense.

Since David does nothing, Absalom decides to do something to avenge his sister.

He waits two years.

For those two years, Absalom doesn’t talk to his father, and he doesn’t talk to his brother.

But after two years, he does go to his dad and puts into his place his own concocted plan to get Amnon away from all his bodyguards at his home for a celebration.

His plan works, and Absalom has Amnon killed, and Tamar is avenged.

So, now the plot gets thicker.

One son has murdered another.

David’s other sons run back to David’s palace, where he hears the news, and grieves.

Again, he doesn’t /do/ anything, but he grieves.

Absalom runs away to his grandfather, the king of Geshur, to live there.

And while he was gone, verse 37 tells us,

 

*Slide:_______________ */ /2 Samuel 13: 37

 

“/But King David mourned for his son every day.”/

It is unclear which son this verse is talking about, though he was likely grieving the loss of both of his sons.

Clearly, he grieved for Amnon’s loss, but even more so his heart went out to his son Absalom.

What Absalom did was wrong and horrific, but I’m sure David understood the pain he had caused Absalom with his previous offense.

The next verse says,