At some point in your life, you will face something that feels like ruin. It may be your marriage, where either conflict or betrayal makes you feel what began as a fairytale dream now feels like a nightmare, something so broken it cannot be put back together. It may be your parenting, where the cute and adorable moments of infancy and small childhood turned into years of conflict and animosity, until you found yourself living with a hostile stranger, who is still your child. It might be after a death in the family: the death of a spouse, a child, a parent, and the gaping hole feels like everything has fallen apart. It might be your business, where either bad decisions or things beyond your control have ruined what you built and left you with almost nothing. Maybe it’s your finances, where debt and expenses dug you into a hole you feel you will never climb out of. You may even find yourself in a church situation where either the leadership has fallen and been disqualified, or some kind of split has occurred dividing the church into parties and factions, a place of suspicion and rivalry rather than family unity.

Above all, you may come to a place where spiritually you reach what feels like rock-bottom: your sins seem stronger than ever, God seems far away, distant and unreal, none of the spiritual disciplines seem to stick and your heart is just drifting further and further from the things of God. What do you do when you seem to be sitting in the ruins of something?

The Bible reveals a God who wishes to restore, heal and rebuild. He does this both because He is loving and seeks our good, but also because He deserves glory as the rescuer, the fixer, the repairer, the healer. The grand story of the Bible is Good News, euangellion in the Greek, Goodspel in old English and Gospel in modern English. The good news is that God does not forsake us when things have fallen apart. In fact, He rather specialises in picking up the pieces. We read this morning in Joel that God can restore the years that the locust has eaten. He desires to do so, if you will drop the pride, surrender, and do it his way.

The life of David has a moment when things were in ruins, and David needed to pick up the pieces. Many years of absent-minded rule allowed a rebellious son Absalom to foment a rebellion, steal the throne, drive David into hiding, with a resulting war that led to 20,000 dead, Absalom dead, and a mostly confused nation as to who was now the rightful king. But as we’ll see, David took a number of steps that serve as a wise example of what to do when it looks like everything is in ruins. But David’s response is not the stuff of Internet memes: “you only fail when you stop trying” “Love the person you’ve become and don’t listen to the haters” “Do this for yourself, live for you, honour you,”

David’s response is that of someone shaped by biblical wisdom, shaped by exposure to God’s nature, and living in relationship with God. In chapter 19 and 20, we’ll see four steps David took to pick up the pieces of his ruined kingdom, and restore it.

I. Renew Your Commitments

Now all the people were in a dispute throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king saved us from the hand of our enemies, he delivered us from the hand of the Philistines, and now he has fled from the land because of Absalom.

But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, has died in battle. Now therefore, why do you say nothing about bringing back the king?”

So King David sent to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, saying, “Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, ‘Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house, since the words of all Israel have come to the king, to his very house?

You are my brethren, you are my bone and my flesh. Why then are you the last to bring back the king?’

And say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you are not commander of the army before me continually in place of Joab.’ ”

So he swayed the hearts of all the men of Judah, just as the heart of one man, so that they sent this word to the king: “Return, you and all your servants!”

(2 Samuel 19:9–14)

We pick up the story when David is still in the city he fled to, Mahanaim. It was there that he waited out the battle with Absalom, it was there that he heard the news that the battle was won and Absalom was slain, and there he gave vent to inappropriate grief over his rebellious son, and nearly lost the trust of those who had fought for him. But now David is back in his right mind, and he knows the important thing is that the confused and divided citizens renew their covenant with him, re-establish their loyalties.

Some had supported Absalom, and didn’t know where to stand. In fact, David’s own tribe, Judah, likely had many people who cooperated with Absalom in his rebellion, because he began it in Hebron, the most important city in Judah. Maybe those in Judah didn’t know what David would do to them. David reaches out to them and sends the priest to say, “we are family! You should be the first to renew your covenant with me!” And as a gesture of goodwill, he replaces Joab as general with Amasa. Amasa was also David’s relative, he was David’s nephew and Joab’s cousin. But Amasa had been the general under Absalom. David is actually taking the former rebel general, pardoning him, and putting him in charge of the army. He is assuring Judah that he will not punish the leaders, and wants them to return and renew their covenant.

Of course, David also wants to replace Joab. Joab killed his son, when he expressly asked them not to. Joab is growing increasingly powerful, with his own armour-bearers and bodyguards. He is too powerful for David to take direct steps against him, but he once again removes him from power.

So David makes the rendezvous point important city of Gilgal. It had a lot of symbolism: it was where Israel first camped when Joshua led them across the Jordan; it was where the next generation after Moses entered into a covenant with God; it was where Samuel renewed Israel’s covenant with God. This is a city of covenant renewal. The main leaders of Judah meet there, and then go to escort the king back.

In a ceremonial way, David crosses the Jordan river by a ferry boat. Just as he crossed over the brook Kidron when fleeing the city, now he crosses back over on the Jordan, like Israel entering the land, the king entering Israel. The tribe of Judah, and every other tribe that makes it up to Gilgal, is there going to renew their loyalty, swear oaths of fealty, even as David swears to rule over them justly. After a time of confusing revolt, rebellion and upheaval, the very best thing is for the nation and David to publicly pledge their loyalty to each other.

It might sound strange, but when picking up the pieces, we do best when the first thing we do is to renew our commitment to our priorities. Instead of trying to track down a thousand fragments of your life that have now blown up in a thousand directions, the wise believer begins with deepest commitments. First things first. This is what Jesus says to the church at Ephesus which has lost its way. He says, “You’ve lost your first love, so repent, and do the first works”. In other words, come back to your first love by doing the things that are first in priority, first in importance. Renew your vows of love to me, the Lord says, and begin doing those first things again.

For a marriage that seems on the rocks, it begins by going back to basics: what did we pledge to God and to each other to do? Renew that commitment. A broken relationship with your children looks like renewing your commitment to raise your children to obey and honour. Your finances might be in a mess, and a lot of things might be out of your control, but have you lost sight of the most basic commitment: God says if I work honestly, and spend wisely that He will provide. Renew your commitment to hard work, to honest provision, to biblical finances, to biblical economics. Has your church life and membership dissolved to nearly nothing? Renew your commitment to God’s church. Come to the Lord’s Supper and renew your membership covenant. And ultimately, all these commitments come back to one large commitment: your commitment to Christ. You will only be as good a spouse, parent, worker, scholar, church member as you are a committed follower of Christ. Maybe some Absaloms have stolen your heart for a season, and you need to repent and welcome back the king to His rightful place on the throne of your heart.

Renewing covenants is the first way that we biblically pick up the pieces. But that is not all, nor is it enough. The next thing we see David doing is

II. Forgive Your Enemies and Friends

Now Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king when he had crossed the Jordan.

Then 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, that the king should take it to heart.

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.”

But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, “Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD’s anointed?”

And David said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, 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 Shimei, “You shall not die.” And the king swore to him.

(2 Samuel 19:16–23)

Hurrying to meet David as he crosses the Jordan is the man who cursed David and threw rocks and dirt at him when he was fleeing Jerusalem. Shimei was the Benjamite who called David a worthless man, a man of blood. Shimei is there with a thousand men, but not to wage war, but to beg forgiveness from a place of strength. Abishai had wanted to cut off Shimei’s head back when he was insulting the king and had been held back by David, and now again, David must hold him back as Abishai wants revenge.

But what is David’s response? He says in effect, God has restored my throne. Should anyone be put to death this day? He has granted a general amnesty, not executing Joab, or the general Amasa, or any of the leaders who supported Absalom. So he forgives Shimei. That doesn’t mean David is naïve about how troublesome or dangerous this man is, and on his death bed he will tell Solomon to put a kind of quarantine on Shimei’s movements to protect his throne. But David is choosing to forgive.

He is in the position of strength, the position in which he can gloat, or make his enemies squirm, or humiliate them. Instead, he chooses forgiveness.

Indeed, two more people come to meet him, this time supposedly friends, Ziba and Mephibosheth. When David fled, Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth’s estate had claimed that Mephibosheth was glad for Absalom’s insurrection and had supported it. David had given Ziba all Mephibosheth’s property. But this time, with aid from others, Mephibosheth has made it to David and now speaks for himself.

Now Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king. And he had not cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace.

So it was, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, “Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?”

And he answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go to the king,’ because your servant is lame.

And he has slandered your servant to my lord the king, but my lord the king is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes.

(2 Samuel 19:24–27)

Mephibosheth explains that he was never on Absalom’s side. Instead, he says Ziba took the opportunity to run away with a donkey, leaving lame Mephibosheth at home, and made up stories. Mephibosheth could not physically catch up with David, but he chose to show his grief by not washing or grooming himself: signs of mourning and fasting, which you can’t fake in a day.

It seems likely that Mephibosheth is telling the truth. Ziba is also there, almost certainly shaking his head and disputing the account. But it is one man’s word against another’s. Instead David does something like Solomon will one day with the two women disputing over a baby. He says, divide the land up between you two. Mephibosheth’s response is a lot like that of the real mother when Solomon suggested cutting the child in two: no, let her keep it. But either way, David is forgiving his friends, whether or not they schemed behind his back or not. David knows that a lack of forgiveness is the undoing of any leader.

When you are at rock bottom, there is almost always someone who has harmed you or wronged you. Someone who actively hurt you and failed to do enough. When things are a mess, you can always think of someone who you think failed you.

If you want to pick up the pieces, you will have to obey God and forgive. Bitterness will cloud and poison every decision you make. No one who remains bitter can have a clean conscience, the filling of the Spirit, and clear discernment. Bitter, angry people, never succeed in picking up the pieces, because just as they start to do so, they throw one of those pieces at someone. Just when they begin to glue the pieces of the priceless vase together, they decide to throw it against the wall in anger. No one can fix a bad situation by adding revenge, malice, gossip, slander, evil thoughts, resentment and bitterness.

If it looks like everything is in ruins, after you come back to the most basic commitments and renew those before God, then forgive. Forgive your spouse. Forgive your children; forgive your parents. Forgive your employees, your boss, or those who betrayed you in business. Forgive your church leaders. Forgive the church members who turned against you. Forgive those who chose the wrong side when things were up in the air.

Notice I didn’t say forgive yourself. You can’t forgive yourself because you can’t steal from your self and be in debt to yourself. You can have misplaced guilt, but the remedy for misplaced guilt is a right understanding of the cross, not forgiving yourself.

And I definitely didn’t say forgive God. God never seeks or needs our forgiveness because He never sins against us. If you are angry with God, then it is you who needs forgiveness, not God. God doesn’t need to confess to you; you need to confess misplaced pride and anger and seek His forgiveness.

God’s forgiveness of you in Christ is the power to forgive everyone else. God has released you of your debts, how can you still hold others to their debts against you? God has provided payment for all sins on the cross and in hell. Your punishing someone else in your heart is misplaced and inadequate. Leave the justice to God, and forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

David renewed covenant commitments and loyalties. David forgave his enemies and his friends. The third way that David picked up the pieces was

III. Affirm Your Gratitude

And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim and went across the Jordan with the king, to escort him across the Jordan.

Now Barzillai was a very aged man, eighty years old. And he had provided the king with supplies while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very rich man.

And the king said to Barzillai, “Come across with me, and I will provide for you while you are with me in Jerusalem.”

(2 Samuel 19:31–33)

Barzillai was an aged man who had supported and helped David during his forced exile. It had to have been a huge expense, to find provisions for David, his household, and the hundreds of soldiers who were with him in the town. It probably numbered in the thousands. But Barzillai was a man who had lived through the time of Samuel the prophet, through the time of Saul, and had finally seen God’s chosen man in David. He was loyal when David was popular and powerful, and loyal when David was lowly and humiliated.

David wants to show gratitude to Barzillai by bringing him back to the Jerusalem and providing for him plentifully for the rest of his life. But Barzillai is an old man, at the age when change is not appealing, nor the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of the palace, which his aged senses can no longer really enjoy. He politely turns David down, and asks that David bless Chimham in his place. He might have been Barzillai’s son, and David agrees to do so.

David knows that this is not a day for complaining over what he has lost, for grumbling over the inconveniences, for sulking over what has not happened according to plan. This is the day to give thanks. Giving thanks when things go your way is easy; giving thanks when they don’t is what really glorifies God.

When life seems like it is in ruins, gratitude is vital. Gratitude is the heart of submission to God and expectation of His intervention. It removes the I-deserve pride, and replaces it with an “I don’t deserve but am thankful for” attitude. Gratitude says, “What God ordains is always good”. He does all things well. This situation may not be pleasant, not what I wished for, but let me list out the many grace-gifts that I have in this moment: salvation, eternal life, life and breath, food and clothing, people who do love and support me, all my faculties, a measure of health, more time.

Gratitude is like a solvent that dissolves the remnants of bitterness, complaining, moaning, and self-pity. Where the sunlight of gratitude enters, the cockroaches of envy and discontent and anger flee. Give thanks, and you begin to see your situation more clearly.

Amidst the ruins, give thanks for the spouse you feel you are at war with. Give thanks for your children in rebellion. Give thanks for your parents. Give thanks for the job you have, for the unemployment and what it is teaching, for the business, for the boss, for the employees. Give thanks for the church God has given you with all its flaws.

Above all, give thanks for the truth of what God does for those who have ruined their own lives.

“Man of Sorrows,” what a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah! what a Savior!

How did David pick up pieces? He renewed covenant commitments. He forgave friend and enemy. He chose and expressed gratitude.

But there is one more thing David did.

IV. Prevent Reoccurences Of Sin

Now the king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him. And all the people of Judah escorted the king, and also half the people of Israel.

Just then all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, “Why have our brethren, the men of Judah, stolen you away and brought the king, his household, and all David’s men with him across the Jordan?”

So all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, “Because the king is a close relative of ours. Why then are you angry over this matter? Have we ever eaten at the king’s expense? Or has he given us any gift?”

And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, “We have ten shares in the king; therefore we also have more right to David than you. Why then do you despise us—were we not the first to advise bringing back our king?” Yet the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

(2 Samuel 19:40–43)

Once David and his forces have symbolically crossed the river, he now arrives at the town of Gilgal for the proper ceremony of covenant renewal. Unfortunately, what is meant to be a joyful time of restoration quickly unravels. The ten northern tribes complain that Judah should not have brought the king across the Jordan without them. The Judahites reply that they are related to the king by blood, and that there is nothing untoward or corrupt, David has never shown favouritism to their tribe. The ten tribes reply that if he is the king of Israel, then they have ten shares in him, as opposed to Judah’s one.

The whole thing unravels until a man named Sheba from Benjamin blows the ram’s horn and essentially calls for a secession, the ten tribes to themselves. They all abandon David and follow Sheba. In the meantime, the elders of Judah escort David back to Jerusalem.

David is now facing a repeat situation. He has just dealt with one insurrection, one revolt by his son, and defeated it. He hasn’t even got back to Jerusalem, and he has a second one on his hands.

David knows he needs to stop this second rebellion in its tracks. He tells his new general Amasa to assemble the army of Judah within three days. But in three days, Amasa does not arrive. So David turns to Joab’s brother, Abishai.

And David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom. Take your lord’s servants and pursue him, lest he find for himself fortified cities, and escape us.”

So Joab’s men, with the Cherethites, the Pelethites, and all the mighty men, went out after him. And they went out of Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.

(2 Samuel 20:6–7)

Basically, David says, stop the bleeding, and quick. He is acting with the kind of decisiveness that had been lacking when Absalom was slowly building an army. David isn’t going to let that happen again.

What happens next shows you what kind of man Joab was. He and his brother come across Amasa. Again, we don’t know why he delayed. But Joab likely is suspicious, doesn’t trust him since he was Absalom’s general, and doesn’t like the fact that he has replaced him. So Joab pretends to be coming forward in a greeting of friendship, and lets his sword fall out. He picks it up as if to replace it with his left hand, draws Amasa close with his right hand on his beard, and then stabs Amasa in the stomach. As David will later say, he sheds the blood of war during peacetime. Remember for later reference: Joab is an unpunished murderer, walking free in Israel. Twice he has murdered a man who was not at war with him.

Joab and Abishai don’t bother to bury the body, and as soldiers from Judah come across the body of their former general, it halts them in their tracks. Finally, they move the body and cover it so that the men will be undistracted in their pursuit of Sheba.

Sheba travels north, passing through many cities until he arrives at Abel Beth-maacah, located just west of Dan about 8 km. This was a more prominent city, and was fortified, which is why Sheba goes in there to take refuge from Joab’s pursuing forces. Joab begins building a ramp over the wall to destroy the city who is harbouring Sheba.

Within the city is a wise woman, likely a noblewoman, one of the city’s sages. Apparently the city was known for its counsel and advice, so she may have been one of the trained sages or oracles. She understood that Joab would level the whole city to get at one man. So she asks Joab if he is a killer of innocent civilians.

I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why would you swallow up the inheritance of the LORD?”

And Joab answered and said, “Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy!

That is not so. But a man from the mountains of Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, has raised his hand against the king, against David. Deliver him only, and I will depart from the city.”

So the woman said to Joab, “Watch, his head will be thrown to you over the wall.”

Then the woman in her wisdom went to all the people. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. Then he blew a trumpet, and they withdrew from the city, every man to his tent. So Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem.

(2 Samuel 20:19–22)

A gruesome end to a terrible affair. But what it meant was that David’s kingdom was again secured. Verses 23 to 26 shows you that organisation and administration, which shows this was once again orderly, established and peaceful.

It was good that David renewed commitments. It was good that David forgave, and that David showed gratitude. But if David had not acted decisively and swiftly to prevent a re-occurrence of rebellion, he would have had the same situation all over again, in a slightly different form.

Part of picking up the pieces is to truly repent of the sin that brought you to that point, and to do everything in your God-enabled power to not do the same again. The Bible warns us against repeating folly with strong words, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to its folly.”

Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It is madness to keep doing the same things in your marriage or in your parenting, and expect it to improve. It’s madness to be in financial ruin and keep repeating those things that got you there. It’s madness to be desperately unhappy in a church and keep doing the same things expecting it to change. It’s madness to be in a massive spiritual slump in your Christian life and make no significant changes to your private worship in the Word and prayer, or your corporate worship in your life in the church, or your life worship in your everyday habits. And perhaps the greatest madness of all is to know you are not a child of God, know you are not saved, not in Christ, and do nothing significantly different, just keep on doing what you’ve always done.

Prevent re-occurrences by turning, repenting, doing a 180, bringing to your situation the obedience and the approach you didn’t do before. Bring the Word of God, God’s way into the picture. Do it His way, not more of your own way.

For things genuinely out of your control like the loss of a loved one, you simply submit and accept the suffering God sends. For everything else, you submit and seek to respond in ways you didn’t respond before. Seek biblical change for marriage, for parenting. Seek biblical ethics and economics for work and finance. Seek a biblical church and to build a biblical church. Seek growth and renewal in your life.

This is how God slowly restores and rebuilds what was in ruins. It begins with renewing commitments. For some here that might mean a first-time commitment to turn and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For Christians, it might mean renewing your vows: marriage vows, church membership vows, commitments to family, church, work, or your walk with Christ.

It goes on to forgiveness, removing all bitterness for anyone who has harmed. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. It then perfumes the air with gratitude, giving thanks for all things in Christ Jesus, removing the I-deserve with Amazing-grace perspective.

And then we bring the Word of God to bear on our lives, bringing biblical change by submitting to what God says.

Can God restore the years the locust has eaten? He can, and it would bring Him glory to do so. The requirement? The humility to turn back to Him: As God put it in Joel:

“Now, therefore,” says the LORD, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”

So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

(Joel 2:12–13)