David as King: Conflict Leads to Gospel-Centered Worship

Uzzah, however, was not the only one involved in this faulty worship service. What set him apart was the touch. And why did this matter? Uzzah’s touch represents a failure to understand his own sinfulness. Uzzah saw the ark headed toward the dirt, and he reached out because he assumed his hand was less dirty than the ground. Most of us would have done the same. But think of this: the earth has never committed the blasphemy of rejecting God’s authority. The earth has always obeyed the commands of God. Dirt could never pollute the ark. But the touch of a sinful man could.

Uzzah did not understand this so he tried to do God a favor. David did not understand this so he got upset with God. Chances are, we do not understand this so we join David in his frustration. But the reason we do not understand the judgment of God is that we do not understand the wickedness of our sinfulness.

Scripture offers this truth without apology: that the punishment God gives to sinners is not more severe than the crime. Most of us think that hell, for instance, is too severe a punishment for sin. How can even a full lifetime of sins—say, 70 years—merit an eternity apart from God? We tend to think that God’s justice is an overreaction.

Or think of the cross. Our sin was apparently so heinous that Jesus, the Son of God, had to come to earth and be torn to shreds. Crucifixion was an unspeakably brutal process, meant to inflict maximum pain and to showcase a person’s shame to anyone watching. The crucified person, with holes in his hands and feet, would have to pull up to even breathe in, forcing pressure on these wounds. The utter torment was nearly unbearable even to watch. The Roman author Cicero, for instance, says that when the Romans crucified women (yes, they did), they would crucify them backwards so people were not forced to watch their agony.

This was the punishment God Himself took for our sins. It was brutal. It was unbearable. It was disgusting. And that is precisely the point. The reaction we have to an event as horrific as crucifixion is the reaction we ought to have toward sin. The cross should remind us that our sin is unspeakably wicked. At its core sin is not merely transgressing a boundary. It is a delight in the wrong, accompanied by a hatred of God. And God simply cannot allow an attitude of treason against Him into His presence.

The usual rejoinder to a line of reasoning like this is to point out that God is “a God of love.” But on some level we understand that love itself requires boundaries. If, for instance, an unrepentant, active sexual predator came to our church and offered to volunteer with the children’s ministry, would it be loving to allow him? “Brother, we are so glad you are here! Feel free to roam about. We accept you as you are.” If that is love, it is a narrow and warped view. For the sake of our children, love demands that we also act with wisdom.

What if this sexual predator repented? We would probably still maintain boundaries with our children, but we would have a more welcoming stance. The problem with those in hell, however, is that they refuse to repent. They are not down in hell, begging God for mercy. No, they rush headlong away from God because they resent and resist His authority in their lives. They may hate the pain of hell, but they hate the rule of God even more.

It bears repeating: the punishment is not too severe for the crime. God is so holy that He cannot tolerate impurity. Just as we would rightly resist a blood infusion with “just a little” of the HIV virus in it, God resists sinners who think they are smitten with “just a little” sin. The difference between Uzzah and us is that God gives us time to repent of our callous attitude. If He were to strike us down for picking up His Word with the same nonchalance as Uzzah, who among us would still be alive? Do we realize the magnanimity of His grace toward us, that we can come into God’s presence, day after day, year after year, and not be struck down?

The ark of the Lord remained in his house three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his whole family.

It was reported to King David: “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s family and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God.” So David went and had the ark of God brought up from Obed-edom’s house to the city of David with rejoicing. When those carrying the ark of the Lord advanced six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf. (2 Sam 6:11-13)

God would be within His rights as a just God to allow our story to end in verse 10, with Uzzah’s funeral. Yet the love of God breaks through once more, not as a result of any Israelite obedience but by the sheer mercy of God. Obed-edom, the newest landlord for the ark, has seen a change of fortune. Unlike several of the previous takers—for whom the ark only meant tumors, mice, and death—his household has seen the blessing of God.

We risk missing the sweetness of God if we rush too quickly past this point. David’s last interaction with God led him to a crisis of faith, one that caused David to be angry and afraid. David had seen God in action and had pushed Him away. We might expect God to confront David for his disobedience. What we see instead is a slow process in which God woos David back to Himself. David has said to God, “Please leave me alone.” And God has gently responded, “I love you too much to do that.”

David hears the news of Obed-edom as a sort of promise for himself. God’s intention is not to be wrathful forever. So David ends the radio silence between him and God, determined to bring God’s presence back to his city with him.

These three months have been instructive for David, too. He must have done some reading because now, instead of using an oxcart to pull the ark, David has ensured that people are “carrying” it (v. 13). The poles are back in place, and David is attempting to worship God the way God has revealed.

The poles, however, are just the start. The caravan has not even taken a dozen steps before David calls a halt and offers up the chief picture of worship in all Scripture—sacrifice. The Israelite people were familiar with animal sacrifice, harkening back to the great sign of Passover. In the Passover, God had provided a way of salvation for His people: through the death of a spotless lamb, God’s wrath would “pass over” the households of Israel. And Israel’s worship centered on rehearsing this scene, reminding them that God’s presence with His people could only come at the cost of substitutionary death.

The pinnacle of the Israelite calendar was the Day of Atonement, in which a priest took the blood of a sacrificed lamb and sprinkled it on the ark. This was both a reminder of what God had done and a promise that He would one day send an ultimate sacrifice to pay sin’s penalty of death. We now see what Israel only looked forward to—that sin’s penalty of death would be paid by Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God who alone could take away the sin of the world.

Like Uzzah, Jesus would die the death of a sinner, struck down by the wrath of God. But His death would not be the punishment due Him for His own sins; instead His death would be the result of our sins. Just as the Passover lamb shed its blood in place of the Israelite people so they could live in God’s presence, so Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, shed His blood in our place so the presence of God would not be fatal but sweet to us.

Sin requires death. There is no getting around this. And there are only two options: either we reject God and pay the steep price ourselves, or we accept the sacrifice Jesus dearly made on our behalf. His grace is a gift, but it is a gift that must be received. David knew this, and he responded the only way people ever respond in light of God’s gracious love—with overwhelming praise.

Even though chapter 6 is full of worship—and lessons for us about worship—few contemporary readers find these scenes in verses 14-23 normal. David’s first worship service ended with a man being struck dead; his second worship service, although more conventional, involved the slaughter of an animal four times David’s size; and this last worship service finds David stripping down half naked and dancing like a madman (v. 14). Say what you will, but worship with David around was anything but mundane.

David’s dancing, however, irks his wife Michal (v. 20). Unrestrained dancing in your underpants might communicate passion, but it did not—in her mind—communicate dignity. It was conduct unbecoming of a king.

Michal, we recall, is Saul’s daughter, and it seems that the apple has not fallen far from the tree. King Saul was undone because he insisted on preening and peacocking so that others would think highly of him. As a result, he lost the Spirit of God. Now Michal, following her father step for step, prioritizes public image above all else. We ought to seriously ponder whether we find Michal’s reaction in our own heart. We know, of course, that we should defend David. But how often do we consider our image above our devotion to God?

We might have been intimidated by Michal’s attack, but David certainly was not (vv. 21-22). He fired back, “Look, God is finished with Saul and his house. He’s chosen me, but not because of my might. He chose me to put His glory on display, and that is just what I plan to do.” David understood what Saul consistently missed—that God wanted to make a big deal of Himself, not of the king. So if exalting God meant that David needed to be humiliated, David was on board. What is true for David is true for us as well: Only one person can be large in my life. It is either me or God.

David’s worship made clear who was the most valuable person in his life. So what does our worship tell others about the value of God to us?

It is unfortunate how often the word worship gets reduced to singing. Worship includes singing, of course, but biblical worship encompasses so much more. Worship is, in essence, our response to the gospel. It is less about what we sing and more about how we live. The word itself hints at this, since the original meaning had more to do with worth than with songs. People offer “worth-ship” to something because it demands it, because it has inherent worth.

Seen this way, it becomes clear that our entire lives speak volumes to the world about who has the most worth in our eyes. Worship becomes clear in how we spend our free time, where we spend our money, and what we teach our children. Worship comes out in moments of frustration or anger or in the activities we seek for solace. Worship is seen in our lives when we come face-to-face with sin, injustice, and suffering. Will our responses say, like Saul, that we care more for our image than for God’s priorities? Or will we worship God like David, putting ourselves in humiliating positions so long as we make much of Him?

Understanding worship as whole life, however, does not exempt us from applying that attitude to our singing. When we come together as a body of believers and sing praise to God, we are putting on display God’s greatness and glory in our lives. Our worship should put our hunger for God on display. Our physical response should demonstrate admiration, awe, gratitude, and wonder.

Most of us have a lot to learn from our more expressive brothers and sisters in this regard. Granted, we may acknowledge (in some measure rightly) that our personality plays a role in our singing. Yes, be yourself. But think of this: If someone handed you an envelope with one million dollars in it, would your response really be to smile and flatly say, “Thank you. I appreciate it”? Chances are you would show some emotion, regardless of your personality. Could it be that the problem is not personality but the value we are putting on the priceless gift of salvation? Those who are forgiven much love much, and throughout Scripture that love frequently overflows in embarrassing ways. Many of us simply need to admit that our dignity is more important to us than responding to the gospel. And we need to repent.

On the other hand, however, singing in worship need not always be raucous and exciting. There is indeed a time when, like David, the only appropriate response is to shout and dance like a crazy person. But the Bible presents a range of emotions that are appropriate in worship. Sometimes we need to stand in the presence of God in stunned silence. Sometimes we need to sit in awe. Sometimes we need to bow our heads and weep over sin. And sometimes we need to be flat on our face. What we never need is to pretend that what we do with our tongues and our bodies is irrelevant. Worship starts as an attitude of the heart, but it never stays there.

All the teaching in the world, however, will make little difference if our attitude toward worship remains steeped in works. Most of us have had the experience of hearing from the worship leader, midservice, as he castigates the congregation for not being enthusiastic enough. That may work for a little while, but the natural end of it is burnout. David was not dancing because someone told him to; he was dancing because he understood the gospel.

The gospel, and the gospel alone, holds the power to make our worship fruitful. Notice that little detail in verse 19, about “a raisin cake.” Raisin cakes were the aphrodisiac of the ancient world. David ended his worship service by handing out some raisin cakes and saying, “Go home and be fruitful!” There is an illustration here for us. Natural fruitfulness—the kind that results in babies—does not occur through to-do lists. It is the natural end of a process of intimacy. Spiritual fruitfulness works the same way. We cannot drum up emotions of gratitude and awe on our own. They are the fruit, and they only come as we are caught up in the spiritual intimacy of knowing God and knowing what He has done for us.

True worshipers—both in singing and in life—are those who know the character of God, who know His love for them, who feel deeply that they were once lost and are now saved, were once blind but now see.

The opposite side of this coin, though, is tragically true as well. Those who fail to accept the grace of God bear no fruit. Michal, as verse 23 shows us, ended her days childless. Her mocking led to barrenness. This is a serious punishment for what we might consider a relatively minor mistake. In just a few chapters, we will see David travel the road of adultery, cover-up, and murder. Yet David remains fruitful, while Michal does not. Was Michal’s sin worse? Not necessarily. But her dignity was dangerous because it prevented her from throwing herself on God’s mercy. Ultimately, it is not our bad deeds that keep us from God. They can be forgiven. It is our good deeds—that which we take pride in—that keep us from God because they prevent us from knowing how desperately we need a Savior.