Earn This

How many of you remember the movie Saving Private Ryan? This is not just a movie day. I know the sermonette alluded to another movie. How many of you have never seen the movie? Just for my emphasis. Okay. For those of you that haven't, it's a World War II movie. It starts on D-Day.

The story revolves around the effort of a small platoon of American soldiers to go behind the lines in France to extract a Private Ryan, James Ryan, who is the last surviving brother of a family of five brothers. Four of them have been killed. He's the last one. The War Department says, get him out, bring him home so his mother doesn't suffer the loss of all of her sons. Saving Private Ryan. The whole story, then, is this platoon of American soldiers that go into, behind the lines, to find this paratrooper, James Ryan, and to bring him home.

And all that goes on. Long story short, it comes down to the last climactic episode of the movie. And this platoon of soldiers are in this bombed-out town, and they are under attack by a much, much larger squadron of German troops. And, as in all stories and movies like this, not everybody survives. And the last redoubt, on the far side of the bridge, at the very last moment, there's only about three, two members of that platoon that are still alive. And one of them, the captain of the platoon, who is played by Tom Hanks, has been shot, and he's dying.

And he's being held in the arms by this Private Ryan, James Ryan. And Tom Hanks is dying, Mr. Captain Miller, in the movie. And he looks into the eyes of this Private Ryan, and he says two words. He says two words to him. And then the scene dissolves. And it is present day at the American Military Cemetery in Normandy. And the older, now old, Private Ryan is kneeling with tears at a white cross in that American Cemetery in front of the grave of Captain Miller.

And that's the last scene as it ends. And he's remembering those two words. You may remember what those two words are, you may not. We'll come back to those two words at the end of the sermon. So pay attention. I've been thinking about an episode to share with you and some thoughts that have been revolving around my mind from another story.

This is a biblical story. And it is a story revolving around the life of King David. And it's found back in 1 Samuel 16. If you will turn back there.

We're going to dive right into an episode in the life of King David. He has been king. And it's one that we do know about and are well aware of. Because it is the point in David's life where his son Absalom engineers a coup, a rebellion, and is going to march on Jerusalem, seize the throne. Lots of family intrigued behind this. Absalom has worked for a long time to ingratiate himself with people and to leverage the unrest and some of the mistrust toward his father the king and to expand it as things happen in politics and intrigues like this.

And it comes down to the point where he does marshal enough forces to threaten the throne. And it comes to the point where David then has to flee for his life with those who are faithful to him. It's a civil war within the nation of Israel. David, of course, is the second king. Remember, Saul was the first king.

And David is the second king. And we come to the point in chapter 16 where David is actually having to literally flee in an ignominious fashion with his court and a few loyal soldiers and people. And he leaves in chapter 16. And they begin to go out and cross the Kidron Valley and ascend the Mount of Olives. This begins in chapter 15, actually. It says he's barefoot, probably riding on a horse or an ass at that time to leave with the others. And they ascend the Mount of Olives, the Kidron Valley, beyond where Jerusalem sets. And they're heading east. They're going to cross the Jordan, and they're going to seek refuge many, many miles away from Jerusalem.

And others come along and gather around David as he leaves. And actually, as chapter 16 begins, he has even brought provisions by a man named Zeba who met him in verse 1 with a couple of saddled donkeys and 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins and fruits and a skin of wine. And so there are people who sympathize with him and want to help him as he leaves. But not everyone. You go down to verse 5 of chapter 16. You'll see that there are some who are glad David is leaving.

And they want to make a public display of this. Such is one man who comes out as David evidently goes over the rise of the Mount of Olives and to a small village in verse 5 that is called Baharim. He comes to Baharim, and there was in that village a man from the family of the house of Saul. Now this is important to note because remember Saul, the first king of Israel, was actually David's father-in-law. And he was married to Saul's daughter, Michael, his first wife. And you remember the story of David slaying Goliath, comes into the court of Saul, and Saul of course had his problems and had been rejected by God because of his sins. David then becomes the king, but only after a number of years of having to hide out. What you have to realize is that David was not accepted by every person in Israel as a legitimate king. There were many who still looked to Saul or the house of Saul as the rightful line for kings. David had united much of the tribes together, and he'd established his capital in Jerusalem, but there was still an element, minority, but an element of people who did not accept him as legitimate as the king. And they always looked to... they had hoped that Jonathan would have lived, or perhaps some other one from the family of Saul would have become king. Here we find that there was a living in this village, a relative of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gira. And he came out, and he met this party of David and his immediate entourage as they were leaving Jerusalem. And he came out, but he didn't come out waving palm fronds or bringing any food. He didn't come out bringing any greetings. He came cursing, continuously, as he came. And he threw stones at David, and at all the servants of King David, and all the people, and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. So here this Shimei comes right into the midst of the departing Kingly entourage. Imagine the audacity. I don't know if you want to call it courage or not. He must have felt that he had the upper hand, and he would not be hurried that he was a complete fool. I don't know. And he began to throw stones at these men, and at David, and all the people, and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. The mighty men of David, when you read on later in this book about the mighty men, these were no wimps. These were pretty accomplished combat veterans. They were the Delta Force, the Green Berets, the special forces of David's aren't his mighty men. And what they did, and the feats are listed later on, and they were all around David. They could have dispatched Shimei just like that. So what Shimei is doing here is quite notable and quite interesting. Now verse 7, Shimei said thus when he cursed. Here's what he said, Come out! Come out! You bloodthirsty man! You rogue! You rogue! If you look in, you've got a little number there, you look up in your margin to find what that could also be translated. Mine says here in a margin of my King James Bible, I said you are a man of bloodshed, a worthless man. A worthless man! He's talking to the king. He's talking to David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. He's talking to the man who had killed Goliath. He calls him a worthless man. Stop and think about that.

David's being treated like Rodney Dangerfield. He's getting no respect.

No respect, and he's the king. He's God's anointed. He is setting as the ruler of Israel, chosen by God because God looked down at him, this youngest son of Jesse, and said to Samuel, I know his heart. That's why he was chosen above all the others. And he is being called here a bloodthirsty man, which David was a bloody man. But he was calling him a worthless man. worthless.

Shamiiah goes on in verse 8, The LORD has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul.

Jonathan had died. Saul had died. No doubt other family members of Saul had died, as well as those that were loyal to him. And he said, God's brought this blood on you. You are responsible. Have you ever been accused of something by somebody who has accused you of being responsible for hurting someone, losing something, a project that went bad, and you are being pinned with the blame and it is being placed on your shoulders, and you're being told you're responsible for what has happened? It's your fault. It's not a very good place to be in. This is what was happening here to David. He is being accused and the blame for the blood on the house of Saul in whose place it says, you have reigned. So again, he was not accepted by Shamiiah, as well as others, because he's just fomenting a vein of thought that had existed for a number of years and never went away. And the LORD, he says, God has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom, your son. So now you're caught in your own evil because you are a bloodthirsty man. You're caught in your own evil. It's as if Shamiiah is saying, you have designed this evil. You're responsible for this civil war. You're responsible for all the upset within Israel. You're accountable for that, David. It's your fault. You're the king. You didn't do your job.

You're responsible for this civil war. That's what Shamiiah is saying to him.

To the king, to God's anointed, to the man setting in the responsibility for the nation of Israel, he's saying, you're responsible for this. That's a pretty strong indictment. I wonder what was going through David's mind.

Maybe he was thinking about the neglect as a father that he had had with his son Absalom, and what he had done wrong with him over the years. If he'd just now done this, that his son would not have engineered this evil. Maybe he's thinking, yeah, maybe I am responsible for this. If I had spent more time with him, if I had listened to him, if I had tried to, even after he came back into favor, and I brought him back, what if? What if? You have to imagine this was going through David's mind. He said, you're caught in your own evil as if David had spun this web of problems, mistakes, judgment, planning, and purposes, and it was all his fault. Well, Abishai, one of David's mighty men, verse 9, the son of Zoriah, said to the king, Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? You can almost imagine him beginning to pull his sword out. Why should this dead dog curse you? Let me dispatch him real quick, run him through, and we can get on moving on. This is the way they thought. This was not New Testament Church 101.

All right, it just wasn't. I think we all understand that. He says, please, let me go over and plop off his head. And he could have done it, and he would not have had a qualm of conscience about it. Not at all. Not Abishai. David's response is instructive. The king said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zoriah? He's speaking to Abishai. He says, look, that's not what we're about. Not this time.

David would have and did give the order to take off many other heads prior to this. But times have changed. It's a different situation. He says, this is not what we're about right now.

So let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, curse David. David has taken a step back from this scene, and he was not taking Shimei's curse personally.

Sometimes when you get into a position where you may be accused of spinning evil or doing something wrong, you get to that point, you better be able to, at certain times, take a step back, take a deep breath, and not go with your gut instinct or an emotional reaction through words or email or even punching a guy's lights out. Take a step back, because this is what David did. He said, you know, God may have said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so? David said to Abishai and to all of his servants, see how my son, who came from my own body, seeks my life, as he's speaking of Absalom, my own son seeks my life. How much more now may this benjamite, he said, you know, if the son that I bore, if he seeks my life, then all right, if it's this benjamite, then all right, if it's this benjamite, I'm not even related to him. He does it as well, and it's not unnatural. He says, let him alone and let him curse, for so the Lord has ordered him.

David had seen that this somehow was all working out according to God's purpose and plan.

It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing this day. So he's saying, let him throw his rocks, let him curse, let him spit on me, and Abishai, let him spit on you too. Let that happen. It may be that this will work out. David didn't know that it would completely. I don't know what I can't say. We could read all we could read into a lot of things here. Maybe he didn't know if he would come back to Jerusalem. So he said, it may be that God will repay good for this. Verse 13, As David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him, and cursed as he went, threw stones at him, and kicked up dust.

Now the king and all the people who were with him became worried, and they refreshed themselves there. Every time I read this scene, I just have to get a chuckle. It is a comical scene. Here's the Shimei. I kind of imagine him as a little spindly-legged half-pinted runt of a guy. Running along the little hillside along the train of David and his men are trying to move along. He's running along, jumping up and down, throwing rocks, kicking up dust, shouting to the top of his lungs, and just venting. It's kind of humorous to me because they could have killed him just like that, like swatting a nap. They have to listen to it. Here's this little, I imagine him a runt of a guy doing this. Shimei, to me, is the earnest tea bass of the Old Testament. Some of you are laughing. How many of you remember who earnest tea bass was? Put your hands. How many remember earnest tea bass? All of us old people in this room. Earnest tea bass was a fictional character in the old Andy Griffith Show of the 1960s. He's still on the reruns and I think he was in three shows. But earnest tea bass was a little runt of a guy who came down out of the hills into Mayberry and he threw rocks through windows. And he kicked up dust and he just made the nuisance for Sheriff Andy and Deputy Barney Fife. He was in only three episodes. I was reading this in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a good thing to find out all kinds of information. And one of them, he wanted to marry the Charlene Darlin and marry into that family. But he was a little runt of a guy, but he said he was the best rock thrower in the county. What a distinction. That was his claim to fame. He'd break windows and throw rocks at people. And he was always a nuisance for Andy and Barney Fife. Barney would always say, he's a nut whenever he'd be running out of town. And he'd kind of kick up his heels and dance around. He says, you've not seen the last of earnest tea bass. It was kind of his parting phrase all the time. So I look at Shimii as kind of the earnest tea bass of the Old Testament. Throwing rocks at David, cursing him, making a nuisance of himself as David leaves the scene. Well, this is not the last that we see of Shimii, or earnest tea, because we haven't seen the last of earnest tea Shimii here. Turn over to chapter 19. You see, after the Civil War comes to a conclusion, Absalom is killed, David is now returning to Jerusalem. In chapter 19, who does he see? As he's coming back from the east side of the Jordan River, back to crossing the river. He's coming to the Jordan River, and he's on his way back to Jerusalem. He is met by a number of people. And verse 16 of chapter 19 tells us that Shimii, son of Gira, came down with the men of Judah to meet David. There were a thousand men of Benjamin, and others' servants were with him as they were ferrying the king over the Jordan. And verse 18, the ferry boat went across to carry over the king's household and to do what he thought good. And then it goes on and says, now Shimii, the son of Gira, fell down before the king when he had crossed the Jordan. A different scene, a different attitude. He said to the king, do not let my Lord impute iniquity to me, or remember what wrong your servant did on the day that my Lord the king left Jerusalem. And the king should take it to heart.

He's groveling. He is eating dirt. He has fallen down, and he is begging for mercy. He said, please don't remember what I said, for I, your servant, know that I have sinned.

Therefore, here I am, the first to come today of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my Lord the king. So he's trying to ingratiate himself. He knows that he can be killed. But Abishai, there's Abishai again, he answered and said, shall not Shimii be put to death for this because he cursed the Lord's anointed. So he wants his still of a mindset to flop off his head. David said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zerai, that you should be adversaries to me today? Shall any man be put to death today in Israel? For do I not know that today I am king over Israel? Therefore, the king said to Shimii, you shall not die, and the king swore to him. So, David did not want the glory of his return to Jerusalem on this day to be befouled by the killing of a man who everybody at least there recognized was not worth staining the sword that would be pulled to do the job. And so he grants him mercy. Shimii thought he was a dead man walking, and David gave him mercy. There's a proverb talk about that it is within a king's right to extend mercy, and when that is given, that's quite a high thing. Clemency, whether it comes from a king, a president, a prime minister, he commuted the sentence of death here twice on Shimii. When he could have been within his rights, if you will, looking at it from that perspective, he could have separated the man from his head, and nobody would have held David guilty of it. Abishai would not have been tried in a court for war crimes for it, but he didn't do it. Twice now, Shimii is given mercy, and David says, you shall not die, and the king and the king swore to him during that time. Well, David's life goes on. We don't see any more of Shimii at this point. David grows older. He comes down to the time of the end of his life, and you know that he eventually turns over the throne to his son Solomon. In 1 Kings 2, just a few pages forward, we come to the episode, the scene, where David is giving instructions to his son Solomon. There was a little bit of intrigue at the time of David David lay dying. Another son tried to usurp the throne. Solomon is the right designated, the rightful heir. And David is on his deathbed, verse 1, the days of David drew near that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son. He says, I'm going the way of all the earth. He knows he's dying. And so, here's the scene where he's giving some last-minute instructions as to what he needed to do to establish his throne. And he talks about Joab, who had been David's chief of staff, his chief of the army, if you will, Joab, and the problems that were there. That's a whole other story within David's life. But down in verse 8, he mentions Shimei. He says, you see, you have with you Shimei, the son of Gerah. This is several years later, and David had a long memory. He didn't forget. Shimei is still alive. And David says, you still got Shimei around. He cursed me with a malicious curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword. Now, therefore, do not hold him guiltless. For you are a wise man, and you know what to do to him. You're a wise man. Don't hold him guiltless, but bring his gray hair down to the grave with blood.

I kind of think of the scene from Godfather here, where Don Corleone is giving some last instructions to Michael, as to how he will know who's the traitor. Whenever the time comes, he tells him the sign that will let him know who the traitor in their family is. And he's giving him other instruction. This is what David is doing as he tells Solomon how to establish his throne. And he said to Shimei, don't hold him guiltless. You're a wise man, you'll know what to do. It's an open-ended charge. David says, don't let his gray hair come down to the bring his gray hair down to the grave with blood, which essentially is a phrase that's saying, don't let him die peacefully in his bed. That probably reflects David's personal wish that Shimei would get what was coming to him. But he leaves it up to Solomon for the judgment of how to do it, what to do with him, and how to handle Shimei. So it's not a complete threat or sentence of death, but he says, deal with him. Well, what does Solomon do? Well, let's look down in verse 36.

After a few other matters were tidied up, Joab and other things were done here, verse 36, the king, Solomon now, sent and called for Shimei. And he said to him, build yourself a house in Jerusalem, dwell there, and do not go out from there everywhere, anywhere. Interesting. Shimei now is coming before Solomon, probably thinking that he's going to be, you know, at worst killed, next worst exiled. And Solomon probably has got a plan in mind, and he lays it before Shimei. He says, build a house. Now, again, kind of like Shimei has got to be looking every day over his shoulder, wondering when is the knife in the back going to come? When is the stranger walking down the street going to deal with me? Or is this the noise I hear in the night? Somebody coming for me? That's how Shimei has to live his life. It's a good thing. Build your house. Enjoy it. Plant a garden.

But don't go out anywhere, because it will be, he says, on the day that you go out and cross the Brook Kidron. That's the brook that is in the Kidron Valley that separates to this day the hill where the city of Jerusalem sets in the Mount of Olives. He says, because you can cross the Brook Kidron and know for certain you will die. That's your boundary. Your blood will be on your own head. So Shimei now is responsible for this. He can accept the terms of his punishment and live within those, be a little bit edgy the rest of his life. Always wondering who's walking behind him, what might happen. But he's got the choice to accept that, and he's got to walk the line. He's given a chance. He could rehabilitate himself. He could grow old in peace and perhaps realize that he'd been a fool one day. It's his choice. Solomon is, again, giving mercy to Shimei. This is the third time Shimei is given mercy. So Shimei said to the king, the saying is good, as my Lord the king has said, so your servant will do. So he signs the agreement. He's kind of called into a room and Solomon puts the agreement in front of him. He's signed here. And Shimei says, okay, I'll sign my name, and I'll go and I'll build my house, and I'll abide by the terms of this improvement plan. This is an improvement plan for Shimei.

So he dwelt in Jerusalem many days. Now it happened at the end of three years. So three years go along in the story. Three years later, two slaves of Shimei ran away to Akish, the son of Makah, king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, look, your slaves are in Gath. We shouldn't be surprised that he would have two servants to run away. Would you want to work for Shimei? What kind of an employer do you think Shimei was? He probably didn't pay much, didn't give them clean quarters and meager rations as their master, and probably beat them. Probably beat them as well. We all know the stories, you know, of slaves running away from their masters because of mistreatment. This is no doubt what happened here. And it's not something that Shimei can live with. His pride is wounded, probably more than even just his means of his property leaving. And it's a matter of pride. When people like Shimei stand and curse the authority, they're proud, they're vain, they're self-righteous, they're full of themselves.

They're little men trying to be big men. Look at me. He probably bragged for a long time how he cursed David and how David didn't do anything to him because he was afraid. Shimei would start drinking with his friends in his neighborhood back home. He probably embellished this story over the years, told it was not anything that you could even recognize with reality.

He was a vile, detestable, eagle-centered man. And he couldn't deal with the fact that the two servants that he probably beat, belittled, and abused ran off.

And so he got up, saddled his donkey, and he went to Akish at Gath to seek his slaves. In other words, he crossed the kid-runner. He crossed that boundary. He violated the plan, the agreement that he had with Solomon. And Solomon was no longer bound by that agreement. When you break a contract, when you break something you put your name to, it's no longer valid.

Shimei went and he brought his slaves from Gath. He probably put shackles around them, probably drugged them behind his donkey. They walked, he wrote. And Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had come back. The king sent and called for him. And he said to him, Did I not make you swear by the Lord that warn you, saying... And what he's doing in verse 42, he's reading the terms of the agreement. He probably had it pulled out by the lawyer, brought it in from human resources.

It's his employee file right here in front. We said right here, Shimei, correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't you sign this? Didn't you agree to this? Did I not make you swear by the Lord and warn you, saying, No, for certain that on the day you go out and travel anywhere, you shall surely die? And you said to me, The word I've heard is good. Show me where to sign. Give me that Mont Blanc pin. Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the commandment that I gave you? The king said more over to Shimei, You know, as your heart acknowledges, all the wickedness that you did to my father, David, therefore the Lord will return your wickedness on your own head. But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever. Solomon was not going to put up with Shimei anymore. He had given mercy. He'd allowed the man an opportunity, and now he's rendering judgment. So the king commanded Beniah, the son of Jehiadah, and he went out and struck him down, and he died. Thus the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. And so ends the story of Shimei.

So ends the story of Shimei.

It's thinking of this story, and there are a number of lessons from it, especially how David and then Solomon, but most importantly, back when David had to deal with him as he was leaving Jerusalem and as he was coming in. There are many lessons for that. If you find yourself in a position where you hold... Well, we couldn't say life and death, although David did hold life and death over Shimei, but you know, you hold a certain power over somebody. You're in a position where you have the power. How do you handle it? How do you handle it? Do you want people to know that you're in charge? Do you want people to know that you can do this lawfully, legally, by all the policies, practices, and standards? I can do this. So let's do it. You can do it. You could be within your rights.

David could have killed him, but he took a step back and he chose not to.

And Shimei, he was granted mercy, but he didn't know it. He didn't understand it. He probably interpreted David's mercy as weakness, fear. Maybe Shimei thought, he knows I've got something on him. He knows that I could expose him for the worthless man that he is. I've got a sheaf full of stories from Bethlehem about him as a kid. Maybe that's what he thought. Who knows how things happen? Those things do happen as people are given mercy and don't know that they have been given mercy and don't use it to shape up, improve, repent, go on. David was being reproached. He was being accused unjustly. There's a scripture in 1 Peter 4 that speaks to this, to all of us, as it details what happened to Jesus. 1 Peter 4.

Verse 12, Peter writes, Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. David was in a fiery trial.

You could have been thinking, well, this is strange, but now I see that I did deserve it. I have been lax and didn't see this coming. Peter goes on, verse 13, Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Criticized, reproached, blamed, judged, abused, unjustly treated for the name of Christ. Not because of our mistakes, necessarily, not just because of our sins, but because you are walking in the name of Christ or in the example of Jesus. If you are reproached for that, you are blessed. There is a blessing there. Not so much a blessing if we make a mistake and we are reproached for that, we deserve that. But it says, if it is because of who you are, and you have to go back to the story of David and realize that David was being reproached for who he was, it would become the king. And yes, he was a bloody man. And yes, Saul had made his mistakes. And yes, David had his human mistakes as well, but his heart was right before God. But he was being reproached, in a sense, because of who he was. So Peter is saying, if you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you for the Spirit of glory and of God rest upon you. I'm not sure I fully recognize and understand what that means, but that's a strong blessing, in a sense, or position to realize that when that happens, there is a spirit of glory and of God that comes upon you. And that should be humbling. That should be responsible if you find yourself in that situation. On their part, he's blasphemed on those who are reproaching you. But on your part, he is glorified because of how you react. I could say. Because how you take that, how you would react to someone who's reproaching you for who you are in your righteous life, your sincere desire to obey God and to walk as a Christian, you are glorified. On your part, he or Christ is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, or an evil doer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. That's understood. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this manner. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? So there is a high responsibility on the righteous one, those that are seeking to walk in the name of Christ. Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as to a faithful Creator. Remember that David saw maybe God's got something in this. God's hand is in this, this whole affair, this whole period of upset and unrest. Maybe there's something that God is working out. That's what he said. So let him alone. Abishai, put your sword away. Kind of like Christ telling Peter to put the sword away that night on the Mount of Olives. Maybe, and this is my own personal speculation, maybe Peter is connecting his own action that night as he writes these words. Maybe he's connecting with another thought from the story of David. I don't know, just to speculate. But David, or Peter, certainly learned here. And what he says is valuable and important to us.

So what do we take away? Well, first we will face unjust criticism.

It's inevitable in our life. We will suffer reproach for the name of Christ. When we think we've done good, when we're trying to do our best, there will be some who will not appreciate that. And we'll accuse you of being an evil rogue, a worthless person, spinning and weaving your own web of evil. There will be that's part of life as a Christian for doing good, for seeking to do what is right. So secondly, because of that, arm yourself with a thick skin. Be ready for it. Be able to take it.

And thirdly, understand that mercy is unmerited, and yet it is for everyone. Shimei did not merit any of the mercy, three occasions of mercy that he had. Mercy, that's the nature of mercy. It's never merited. It's never earned. It is given by grace. And sometimes a supervisor, an employer, a king has to extend mercy and should, and no win, and how the right circumstances to do it. Fourthly, when you receive it, and if you ever receive mercy, recognize it. Shimei never recognized it. When you receive mercy, recognize it. And use it well. Which brings me back to the scene from Private Ryan. As Captain Miller lays dying in the arms of Private James Ryan, he looks up into, the dying captain looks up into his eyes, and he says, earn this. That's what he said, those two words. Earn this.

And so that's why when it dissolves to the old man at the graveside years later, he's got tears in his eyes. He's crying and he looks up and he asks his wife, have I been a good man? Have I been a good man? He's thinking, did I earn this? Did I earn all the, you know, in the fictional story, all the others who died saving his life?

When you get mercy, or when you give it, but especially when you receive it, earn it. Appreciate it. You've been given a second chance. Don't throw it away.