This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week 6 of our look through 1
and 2 Samuel, day 1 of week 6 and this is really the day when we go from 1
Samuel to 2 Samuel. We're going to be looking this week at the first five
chapters of 2 Samuel. You know it tells us in the New Testament that these
things that happened to people in the Old Testament happened as examples for us
to help us to understand how to live the faith.

They're not just stories of what happened to them, they are faith examples for
us. And in these first five chapters of 2 Samuel, you get to see from King
David, you get to learn how to make a wise transition. How do you walk through
times of transition in your life?

You see at the end of 1 Samuel, Saul has died and David we know is going to be
the next king. He was anointed long ago by Samuel to be the next king. But how
does David make that transition from Saul's death to him becoming the king?

It's one of the great lessons of 1 and 2 Samuel. And there are all kinds of
transitions that you and I face. We face transitions in business, changes in
leadership, in direction of the company.

We face transitions in families, getting married, moving, having kids,
challenges with relationships, parents dying, kids leaving home. One transition
after another after another in families. We face transitions in churches,
changes in leadership, changes in the community that's around us.

We face transitions in our own lives. We come to these places where because of a
job change or because of a location change, we're making transitions. So what do
you do in the transition?

How do you wisely walk through it? We're going to look this week at nine
principles from these first five chapters of 2 Samuel about how to make wise
transitions, all from the example of how David, this man after God's own heart,
made these kinds of transitions. Here's the first principle.

Realize that the transition will take time. Number one, you realize that the
transition is going to take time. We're going to see as we walk through these
chapters that David doesn't immediately become king.

It is gradual. It's going to happen over the first five chapters of 2 Samuel,
and it's going to happen over more than seven years. It takes time to make a
transition.

Studies show that an organization that wants to change its culture, it takes at
least five years for that organization, under the same leadership, working in
the same direction, to transition the culture. Transitions take time. In a
family, a new baby comes into your home.

You don't always make the transition immediately. It takes time to bond with
that new baby. It takes time to learn how to meet one another's needs as husband
and wife, as parents, and now also as spouses at the same time, while you're
also trying to meet the needs of this crying new person in your home.

Many people think I should make that transition immediately. What's wrong with
me? I didn't bond immediately.

We didn't figure it out immediately. First principle of transitions is realize
that they take time. Let God give you a little grace in this one.

Realize that the transition is going to take time. Stop being so impatient for
the transition to happen. God is working.

It's taking time. But also stop being so down on yourself that it's taking time,
that you take time to make the transition. Number one, you realize it'll take
time.

Second principle we learned from David, very important principle about
transitions is recognize the significance of the past. David in this first
chapter of 2 Samuel does a couple of things. He continues to honor what is past
and he gives praise to God for what is past.

First he continues to honor what is past. Let me read for you what happened in 2
Samuel chapter 1 beginning in verse 1. After the death of Saul, David returned
from his victory over the Amalekites and spent two days at Ziklag.

On the third day a man arrived from Saul's army camp. He had torn his clothes
and put dirt on his head to show that he was in mourning. He fell on the ground
before David in deep respect.

"Where have you come from? " David asked. "I escaped from the Israelite camp,"
the man replied.

"What happened? " David demanded. "Tell me how the battle went.

" The man replied, "Our entire army fled from the battle. Many of the men are
dead and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead. " "How do you know Saul and
Jonathan are dead?

" David demanded of the young man. The man answered, "I happened to be on Mount
Gilboa and there was Saul leaning on his spear with the enemy chariots and
charioteers closing in on him. When he turned and saw me, he cried out for me to
come to him.

How can I help? " I asked him. He responded, "Who are you?

I am an Amalekite," he told him. And then he begged me, "Come over here and put
me out of my misery, for I am in terrible pain and I want to die. " "So I killed
him," the Amalekite told David, "for I knew he couldn't live.

And then I took his crown and his armband and I brought them here to you, my
Lord. " David and his men, in verse 11, tore their clothes in sorrow when they
heard the news. They mourned and they wept and they fasted all day for Saul and
his son Jonathan and for the Lord's army and the nation of Israel because they
had died by the sword that day.

Then David said to the young man who had brought the news, "Where are you from?
" and replied, "I am a foreigner, an Amalekite who lives in your land. " "Why
were you not afraid to kill the Lord's anointed one?

" David asked. Then David said to one of his men, "Kill him. " So the man thrust
a sword into the Amalekite and killed him.

"You have condemned yourself," David said, "for you yourself confess that you
killed the Lord's anointed one. " David, read in these verses, continues to
honor what was past, continues to honor Saul even in his death. Now David had to
be tempted to say, "Finally, I can say what I've always thought about Saul, this
crazy man who never should have been king.

" But David never felt that way. He knew that God had called him to be king and
it was time for him to leave, then David could take his place. So he continues
to honor God's anointed.

He's not so much honoring Saul as he's honoring God's choice of Saul, even after
he's gone. He does it by mourning for Saul and for Jonathan, and he does it by
punishing this one who dishonored Saul. Now, by the way, this Amalekite, if you
remember from reading what happened to Saul and Jonathan, he actually lies here.

Saul fell on his own sword, but he's trying to make himself look good and he's
trying to get himself good in the kingdom, but he didn't realize who he was
talking to. He thought he was talking to someone who hated the previous king,
but instead he's talking to David, who at great cost to his own life had honored
God's anointed. One of the things that David could have done in this moment is
start to blame Saul for all that had happened in Israel up to this point, but he
doesn't do that.

And this is one of the key things to learn in a transition, whether it's in your
family or in a business or in a government or in a school or in a church. You
refuse the temptation to blame the past. Poor leadership blames the past.

It's poor leadership to blame the past because it keeps you stuck in the past.
And leadership doesn't look to the past. Leadership looks to the future, what
God has next.

And David refuses that temptation. He continues to honor God's anointed. Not
only does he honor, but he also even praises.

He chooses to praise God for the past. David, in this chapter, sings a song of
praise for Jonathan and also for Saul. Listen to what happened in verse 17.

"Then David composed a funeral song for Saul and Jonathan, and he commanded that
it be taught to the people of Judah. It is known as the Song of the Boa, and it
is recorded in the book of Jasher. " Here's what he sang in verse 19.

"Your pride and joy, O Israel, lies dead on the hills. Oh, how the mighty heroes
have fallen. " In verse 22, "The Boa of Jonathan was powerful, and the sword of
Saul did its mighty work.

They shed the blood of their enemies and pierced the bodies of mighty heroes.
How beloved and gracious were Saul and Jonathan. They were together in life and
in death.

They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. O women of Israel," in verse
24, "weep for Saul, for he dressed you in luxurious scarlet clothing and
garments decorated with gold. O how the mighty heroes have fallen in battle.

Jonathan lies dead on the hills. How I weep for you, my brother Jonathan. O how
much I loved you, and your love for me was deep, deeper than the love of a
woman.

O how the mighty heroes have fallen. " So you heard that phrase three times, "O
how the mighty heroes have fallen. Great in battle," David sings, "loved by the
people.

They brought blessings into your life because of their love for you. " Now
here's David singing all these wonderful things about Saul, who had sinned in
his life, who had done crazy things in his life. Was David lying because he
didn't tell about all the sins of Saul, all his attacks of anger in this song?

No, he was honoring the past. This is an example to me that it's okay to praise
God for the fact that he has used imperfect people. In fact, it's okay to see
heroism even in imperfect people.

If you can't see it there, you're not going to see it anywhere because guess
what? We're all imperfect people. And sometimes I think in our rush to be honest
when someone is gone, we stop being honoring.

We stop seeing the good in someone. It's easy to be negative. But David, one of
the keys in his leadership in this transition is that he continued to see the
positive.

The battles that Saul had won. The blessings that Saul had brought into the
lives of people. And in this song, he honors, he honors for those blessings.

Now as you and I look to the transitions in our lives, this is an example from
David about honoring God for what is in the past. And I want to take a moment
just now in prayer to give us an opportunity to do that. Would you pray with me?

And as we pray in your mind right now, would you honor God for something in the
past in your life? Just say, "Lord, thank you. " It may be a person, it may be
an event, it may be a circumstance, it may be you're in the middle of a
transition and you've been blaming someone for the past and now in your mind you
need to say, "Lord, I do honor the fact that you were at work in their lives.

I do honor this one thing that happened through their lives. " That's what you
do in a transition. You don't focus on the negative, you don't focus on the
past, you focus on the future and you focus on God's blessings.

In prayer, do that in your mind right now. Thank you God for your blessings.
Even through this imperfect person, thank you God for your work, even in this
circumstance that everyone else might see only the bad, but I can see that you
are working even for good in that.

Because in everything you can work together for good. So God, thank you. Thank
you for your work.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look together at how you and I can
seek God's wisdom in the transition.