Marcus Mecum - Lessons From A Life of Criticism
Hi, I'm pastor Marcus Mecum. It is our honor that you chose to spend some time with us today. There's no greater privilege that we have than opening up the scriptures and sharing God's word with each and everyone of you. Before we get to the message in just a minute, I wanna encourage you, if you've never done this, to come and worship with us live and online at 7 hills church. It will bless you so much. You'll worship with us. You can chat with us and get to know us a little bit more. And I believe that if you'll make that a priority, that today, God's word will not only speak to you through this but you'll have another resource that you can go to throughout the week that will bless you in your walk with God. So, let's get right to the message and I'll see you in just a few moments.
Amen. 2 Samuel 16:5, "As king David approached Bahurim, a man from the same clan as Saul's family came out from there. His name was Shimei". Everybody, say, "Shimei". It talk a lot about him. "And he cursed as he came out. He pelted David and all the king's officials with stones, through all the troops, the special guard were on David's right and on his left. As he cursed, Shimei said, 'get out, get out, you murderer, you scoundrel! The Lord has repaid you for all the blood you shed in the household of Saul, in whose place you have reigned. The Lord has given the kingdom into the hands of your son Absalom. And you have come to ruin because you are a murderer'! Then Abishai said to the king, 'why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Let me go over and cut his head off'".
That's the father's day moment right there. "Let us go over and cut his head off". All the dads said, "Yeah". "So, Abishai says, 'why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Let us go over and cut off his head'". That's in your Bible. "But the king said, 'what does this have to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord said to him, 'curse David,' who can ask, 'why do you do this'? Then David said to Abishai and all of his officials, 'my son, my own flesh and my blood, is trying to kill me. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone: let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look upon my misery,'" look upon this criticism, "'and restore to me his covenant blessing instead of his curse today'. So, David and his men continued along the road while Shimei was going along the hillside opposite of them, cursing as he went. Throwing stones and showering them with dirt. And the king and all his people when they arrived at their destination were exhausted. And there he refreshed himself".
I wanna talk to you about, "Lessons learned from a life of criticism". If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, part of your walk will be criticized. The standards you hold, the God you serve, will be criticized. It is impossible to really serve God and not face criticism from people that don't understand your walk, don't understand the life change that you've experienced. The Bible says, "Beware when all men speak well of you". Early on in my walk with God, I can remember having to learn the difference between conviction and condemnation. Many of you have learned that as well that condemnation is not from God. "Jesus did not come to condemn the world".
Condemn, just look at the word, con damn. A con that convinces you you're damned. It's a trick of the enemy to make you believe there's no hope, there's no future. And Jesus did not come in to condemn, but he does convict us through his spirit, through his word. Conviction is less about telling you what you've done wrong and it's more about saying, "Hey, I wanna give you a picture of your future and I want to inspire you to let go the things, let go of the behaviors, the mindsets, the habits, that will keep you back from being who I've called you to be". And God will give you a picture of that and you will not be satisfied, you will not be okay. Yes, there will be regret. Yes, there will be a sense of repentance. But overall, there'll be a sense, "God, I cannot settle. I cannot let my mistakes define me". That is conviction.
I remember having to learn the difference between godly sorrow and shame. That Jesus took our sin and our shame on the cross. That shame is not from God. That the world will shame you, religion will shame you, but God does not put shame on you. That's the world. Shame on you. That's the world. That's religion. Jesus took on our shame on the cross. And the difference between shame and godly sorrow is shame is an identity issue. It's not, "You should feel bad for what you've done". But it says, "What you did back there, that mistake you made, that season you were in, that is who you are". And you're convinced that's who you are. "You're never going to be any different. You're always going to be the addict. You're always gonna have, you're just an angry person. You're just a hostile person, that is who you are".
That is shame that says that you are that. You may have done something, but God gives us godly sorrow. godly sorrow again, introduces to us repentance, but it gives us a picture of what God wants us to be. It does not cause us to get stuck in a place that we've been. My point in saying this is criticism is one of those things that is a perverted form. That's what the devil has. He only can take what God provides for us, the godly. So, godly sorrow is from him, from God. Conviction is from God and correction is from God. God wants us to be corrected. He wants us to even right now in this message, God is faithful to correct us.
God is faithful to surround us if we'll listen to them with people that had been where we wanna go. They're further along down the road. Maybe for whatever reason in life God has positioned them around you. And the Bible says if God wants to curse your life, you know, well, you know what he does? He removes the elders from your life. If God wants to curse his church, he removes the elders. He allows you to have a mindset of Rehoboam where you don't surround yourself with people that are older and people that are more seasoned than you. You have to have people in your life that will correct you. It's not enjoyable. You don't like it.
I now have the same people that had been in my life in this way for now decades coming on 20, some 25 years. And now, it's not even that they correct me for what I'm doing. Many times, they're correcting me for what they think that I might do. And I love it. "Hey, I just wanna warn you. It might", 'cause they know the pitfalls. They've lived life. They've seen more than I've seen. And you have to have those people in your life. But we have to also be careful when it comes to the idea of criticism just like we would with shame, just like we would with condemnation.
Criticism is an ungodly form of correction. And anyone you look up to in scripture you'll find was under the constant pressure of criticism. Moses had Korah. Elijah had Jezebel. Paul had Alexander and Demas. Jesus had Sadducees and pharisees. And then, king David had Shimei. He had others, but if you look at the life of David, his highs and his lows, it's one of the best parts of David. As you can see, in one moment he's taking out Goliath and he has that high. And the next moment, he has the low of Bathsheba. One moment he's got the high point in his life where he doesn't touch the Lord's anointed even though Saul is trying to kill him.
And the next moment, you see, the low of him killing Uriah. One moment you see David bringing back the ark and there is this complete dependence on God. The next place you see him is a low and he's numbering Israel to see if they're able in their own strength to take on the enemies that they have. And here you have with David, to me, one of his high points.
The story of Shimei is one of David's greatest moments. This is one of the greatest places that we can see the heart of what made king David great. He's in a vulnerable place as we read. He's in a broken place. He's just lost his throne to his own son, and his own son, Absalom, has chased him out of the City of Jerusalem, is chasing him out of Israel, and is after him to kill him. He's not just running from his son, Absalom, but he's also had many of the people that had been closest to him that have turned their back on him. He's lost everything that in his life he's worked for, he's fought for and it's all gone. It's all been taken from him. And as he's leaving the City of Jerusalem Shimei finds himself on a hillside and he starts attacking him in this weak, vulnerable, and broken moment.
I want you to get the picture. Shimei has the moral high ground. Shimei is up there on the hillside. He has an exaggerated view of his own position in life and he's attacking David. He's coming against David. He's throwing rocks. He's throwing all these things at David. And who is this Shimei? Where did he come from? I think it's an important thing to ask, "Who is the critic in this story"? He's from the house of Saul. He would have been raised to believe that David was his enemy. At dinners, and conversations, bedtime stories, he would have, his whole life, heard the worst about David. David is a sworn enemy of the house of Saul. His background would have positioned him against David. He had lost his position of royalty when David became king.
When David entered into the City of Jerusalem to become king after king Saul had died, all of those who were close to the throne would have lost their royal position, would have lost their privileges there in the kingdom. And so, his best days are behind him. Shimei has gone from the palace to living a normal life. And for 30 years, he wakes up and he looks at just normal, and he looks back when he was in the palace, and he looks back when he had the royal privileges, and he looks back on all of that. He's lost and he's festered for over 30 years that it's David that took that from him. It's David that removed him from all of those privileges. And he assigns the blame for where he is to David.
This hillside that he's on, this moral high ground that he's taken, he's throwing rocks and dirt and he's cursing David. He's saying, "The reason your family is falling apart is because God is against you. The reason that you've lost everything is God is judging you. What kind of man has his own son turn on him? David, this is payback. God is getting you back for what you've done to me". And criticism is hitting David, when he is in his most wounded and vulnerable moment. Shimei is convinced that God is against David. Shimei believes if he doesn't like David, that no one else should and definitely, God should not.
The goal is not to help David. The goal is to hurt him. The goal is to bring him down. Throwing rocks, throwing dirt, and cursing David. "You're finally after all these years", can you hear the gloating in his voice? Can you hear the spite in his tone? "You're finally getting what was coming to you". But if you look at the contrast of these two men it's interesting. David is surrounded by men. He's surrounded by his friends. They're protecting him from the stones that are being thrown. They're protecting him from the insults that are being thrown at David. Whereas, if you look at Shimei, he is all alone.
David is in a low place, but he's surrounded. Shimei is in a high place, but he's all alone, which teaches us a lot about criticism. It leads to isolation and loneliness. Even if you're right about it, many times what happens when you're overly critical of others, people begin to say, "I see how you treat them," and they get worried and fearful whether they say it or not at some point, that might turn and hit me. And so, they begin to withdraw themselves and create distance from you.
What I'm saying to you is, it's so important that we ask ourselves not, "Am I David"? And not, "Am I Shimei"? And not, "Am I an Abishai in the story"? All of us are all three. All of us struggle with criticism. All of us struggle with a critical. It's like sin. It's like any other type of temptation. It is common to man. We'll be tempted in every way to take up the high ground. And we have to be careful as that begins to happen, to not allow it to get ahold of us. Anyone of us are vulnerable to it, including me. Abishai, one of David's greatest warriors, killed 300 men at one time with only a spear, says to David, "Give me a shot at this dead dog. I'll cut his head off".
Do you feel the emotion when he says that? Do you feel just a sense of, "Give me a shot. I'll deal with Shimei. He'll never mess with you again". But David doesn't retaliate. David doesn't revile evil for evil. He doesn't pick up stones. He does not throw them back. Instead, he gives us a master class on walking through criticism. In five lessons, I want you to learn from this story.
Number one, God sins critics. Not for the critic's sake, but for your sake. It's one of the ways that God will seal in you that man does not have the final say. It seals in you the confidence that God does what he wants to do with who he wants to do it with. He raised up who he wants to raise up and he brings down who he wants to bring down, and it seals that in your heart. David said, "Maybe God sent Shimei. Maybe Shimei is right. I don't like it. Those rocks sting. That dirt being thrown hurts. Those insults go deep". He's been cursed, which speaks to the end of something. In other words, "You'll never be, you'll never get to. It's over for you. You're finished. You are done with. There's no chance". And David says, "Maybe he's right. Maybe in the eyes of God, I'm done. Maybe in the eyes of God, it's over for me".
So, our first response to criticism should not be to cut someone's head off. Our first response should be to ask God, "God, did you send them"? Because it's possible they're saying something that those closest to you are unwilling to say or afraid to say. The Bible speaks against flattery and compliments. Nothing wrong with encouragement, nothing wrong with sincere compliments. But the Bible says of all you get is flattery. How flattery starts out? It's smoother than butter. It's softer than oil. It's like a kiss. But you know how it ends? It ends with an open grave. It violates covenant. It ends in destruction. It ends with loss of position. It ends with an ambush, and it crushes you.
So, a critic could be God giving you a gift. We don't like the harsh wrapping paper it comes in, but if you can get pass that, there is nothing greater than the gift of truth. And so, you have to ask yourself, "Is there some shred of truth in what they're saying"? And the truth will have to wound you and I enough for us to have the humility to say, "God, did you send them? Is there something I can learn from them"? "Is there something I need to hear that they have said"?
Vincent Peale said, "The problem with most of us is we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism". All of us have blind spots. You say, "I don't have one". That's why they call it a blind spot. And if you saw it, it would cease to be a blind spot. And so, what does God do? He sends Shimei to help us in ways that those closest to us cannot.
Number two, criticism is a distraction. For David to cut off shimeI's head, it was dangerous because it was a distraction. And if you read the story, David heard what Shimei had to say. He prayed about what he said. "Maybe God had sent him. Maybe there is something God is trying to teach me through what Shimei is saying". But he never stops moving. They never stop walking. They never, at any point, turn back or slow down. David made a decision, "I have to stay focused on what is most important". He had determined, "I will not lose my focus in the midst of criticism".
Right now, David is looking at his son trying to kill him. He's looking at his nation under attack. He's looking at his family being destroyed and he says to his men, by his continuous focus, "I will not be distracted by the buzzing of the mosquitoes when I gotta keep my eyes on that roaring lion in front of me". Proverbs says, "The wise ignore the insults". The Bible says, "Agree with your adversary quickly," because they're right? No, because it's a waste of time to give all your energy and all your effort constantly over to criticism. There was a day in my younger years as pastor, I believe that I could respond to an email with enough compassion, and enough explanation, and enough detail, that possibly I could take a critic and make them a friend. And I would spend hours at night fashioning and forming the best possible response to someone that had an issue.
My babies were being put to bed, I wasn't there. My wife was needing my attention, I wasn't there. People that loved me in the church were in the hospital not able to make it. Focused on the criticism thinking that I could win them. Times in my life I thought, "We've gotta do this. We've gotta go here". And if I can put a PowerPoint presentation together that gives all the facts, gives all the stats, gives all the data, gives the explanation of why, then people that are against it will be for it. But overtime, I learned that that's not how it works. That's called a distraction.
Agree with them, they might be right. This might be a wrong move. I don't know, but I'm gonna keep focused on where God is taking me. Why? Because like attracts like, spirit attracts spirit, birds of the same feather fly together. And those that God wants to go with me will go, but I will not be distracted along the way. And you cannot be distracted. Criticism is part of your walk with God. Don't stop. Keep moving. Don't slow down. Don't turn back. Don't waste your time. Because what the devil wants to do is pour concrete on us and cause us to stop right there and just be a statue of what could have been as God's people, what might have been, but you're never able to be because you stopped during the criticism.
Number three, determine the volume level of the criticism. If criticism is a whisper, don't give it a microphone. How do you give it a microphone? Responding, answering, defending, explaining. When you do that, it gives it a microphone. David is being pursued by Absalom, which means what? Every minute matters. Absalom is on their trail. Absalom is pursuing them. And if David would have slowed down because of the criticism, it would have jeopardized the safety of his men. And that's why the devil loves it when we're distracted by criticism, because it puts others at risk.
What David showed his mighty men was that their safety and their futures were more important than getting even and letting heads roll. In the end, what I love about it is David found out who his friends were, and David's friends found out that he could be trusted under the fire and the pressure of criticism. When you say to the people that matter, "I'm giving you my best, not that. I'm giving you my focus, not them. I'm giving you my attention and affection. I'll ask God to take the criticism and teach me from it, and then I'll take the critic and I'll give them back to God".
Because the Bible says, God will make your enemies to be at peace with you. I don't make my enemies to be at peace with me, God does if he wills it. And then, the Bible says, God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. In other words, we have to learn to be at peace with the fact that God has made them to be at peace. But our job is to not spend all our time trying to explain, and prove, and convince, and do all that kind of stuff. It is a waste of time and all it does is amplify the wrong voices and slow you down. Shimei really believed, this is what's amazing about criticism. Shimei really believed that he could pull David's closest friends away from him when all it did was pull them closer together.