Defined by Grace and Not Mistakes
There's a familiar refrain in 1 Chronicles to anyone who has read through the Bible from cover to cover. See if you can pick it up.
1 Chronicles 20:1–3 (ESV) In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, Joab led out the army and ravaged the country of the Ammonites and came and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. And Joab struck down Rabbah and overthrew it. 2 And David took the crown of their king from his head. He found that it weighed a talent of gold, and in it was a precious stone. And it was placed on David’s head. And he brought out the spoil of the city, a very great amount. 3 And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and axes. And thus David did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
A learned Bible reader will recall the phrases that begin this chapter. Springtime is wartime and David sends the generals but remains in Jerusalem. What the record of 1 Chronicles ignores is the Bathsheba incident as recorded in 2 Samuel 11. The most wicked moment of David's kingship as he took a married woman for himself while putting her husband away in the most heinous manner. Why is that moment not recorded here?
Remember that 1 Chronicles is written to returning exiles coming home from Babylon after 70 years. They knew that David's sin with Bathsheba was the beginning of a successive downfall of Israel's kings. They knew David's mistake was the catalyst for what defined their last 70 years. But the Lord would not have them live according to the punishment of their sins. The Lord would not have the mistakes of their past define the opportunity of their present.
I wish the church was a lot more like her Lord. We seem to revel in defining people by their mistakes forever. The Pastor who commits adultery? Give him the scarlet letter. The woman who slept around? Shun her. The couple that separated? Let them never make a return to ministry. The drug addict or convict? Never give them another chance. How sad we are so quick to write some of our best warriors off because they made a few bad (even terrible) choices. We should learn from this often skipped over book of 1 Chronicles. Grace can define your place today. Don't let yesterday's sins surround you forever.
The rest of 1 Chronicles 20 outlines the successful and complete victory Israel and David shared over the Philistines.
1 Chronicles 20:4–8 (ESV) And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. 5 And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 6 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 7 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, struck him down. 8 These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
Notice all the victories in this passage and also the shared victories! David conquers and his generals conquer. Why? Because grace was still the defining characteristic of God's work in and through Israel.
I wonder if the modern church fails to experience victory because we fail to embrace more grace. Scripture says in Romans 5:20 "Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more"
The law reveals our inner sinful nature and the inescapable corruption of sin. But the Gospel alone provides the answer. Grace abounds. And it just seems to me that if the law cannot top grace, why do we team up with the side of "more law" and "less grace"? David failed. You will fail. We are human and corrupted from within. But the Good News of Christ is that He is able to make more grace abound so that His church can show a fallen world there's hope beyond our bad moments.
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