Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Have Mixed Motives? | Historical Books | 2 Samuel 3:26-39

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Do you have mixed motives? Are you self-sacrificial? Do you look to the interest of others? In today's episode, Jensen shares how 2 Samuel 3:26-39 reminds us of Jesus' pure, self-sacrificial motives. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Have you ever done the right thing but had an ulterior motive? Like, I'll do all the dishes so that when my husband comes home and sees that I did such a nice thing, he'll have to say yes when I ask him to do all of bedtime tonight so that I can go and hang out with a friend. Or I'm going to stay late after church to help clean up because I want the praise and acceptance of the staff at my church. See, motives are hard because deep down, I think that I know that in everything I do,

there's probably always a part of me that's motivated by selfish reasons. My motives are rarely pure. Most everything I do probably has some net outcome that leans a little bit in my direction, makes my life a little comier, happier, wealthier. And when something won't give anything back or it might even cost me, well, it's hard to want to do that thing. See, when I'm focused on building my kingdom, my life, my motives, even when I do something good, they're ultimately mixed.

In our passage today, we will see that David is no stranger to mixed motives. Now, before we dive in, we need to get a few characters and storyline straight. In case you haven't been reading along, there are three people that you need to know today. First, Abner, who is Saul's former command. who has since his death been loyal to Saul's son, the king over Israel. Secondly, there's Joab, who's a commander in David's army. And third, David, the anointed king of Israel, who is currently acting king of only Judah, which is a portion of Israel's tribes.

Now, previously in a battle, Abner, despite trying not to, ends up killing Joab's brother who would not relent in attacking him. Now Abner has come to David to give him his loyalty and to help him unite the tribes of Israel with the tribes of Judah to create one unified nation under David. And David has accepted this offer of loyalty and agrees to work alongside Abner. But when Joab finds out, he's not happy.

So in our passage today, Joab plots and successfully murders Abner apart from the knowledge of King David. And when King David finds out, he says this, I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord concerning the blood of Abner, son of Nur. And then he curses Joab and his family. Next, he publicly mourns Abner and holds a funeral for him. He even refuses to eat for the day as a show of his grief over the murder of Abner. The narrator includes this note after he refuses food.

All the people took note. and were pleased. Indeed, everything the king did pleased them. So on that day, all the people there and all Israel knew that the king had no part in the murder of Abner, son of Nur. Finally, David ends the chapter saying, Then the king said to his men, do you not realize that a commander and a great man has fallen in Israel this day? And today, though I am the anointed king, I am weak, and these sons of Zariah are too strong for me. May the Lord repay the evil doer according to his evil deeds. As you trace the story, you'll notice throughout that David is careful to be clear that he took no part in this murder.

He distances himself from Joab, even calling himself weak, and calls on the Lord to repay the evil doers. When the narrator gives commentary, he lets us know that all the people were there, those from Israel and Judah, and all the people, were pleased. They all knew that David had no part in the murder. And to his credit, David had no knowledge of this murder beforehand and did his best to mourn Abner. But we also see him protecting his image, playing the politics of the moment, making sure the tribes that Abner had been wooing to join David knew that he hadn't been part of this. He is stabilizing the political landscape of his time. One thing that tips us off to David's potential mixed motivations is his lack of true punishment of Joab. Abner may have killed Joab's brother first, but that was in battle, in some ways out of self-defense.

And here, Joab kills Abner in cold blood, taking vengeance into his own hands. And David seems to let him off without any real consequences, nothing more than a stern reprimand. And secondly, his comment. on the death of Abner focuses almost entirely on smoothing out the political trouble it could cause him rather than focusing on the injustice of the murder that Joab has perpetrated. David is less concerned with the injustice, more concerned with shoring up his own kingdom. He wants to ensure a smooth uniting of the nation with him as king. And Joab must be important to his kingdom, important enough that he fails to

adequately hold him accountable for his actions. Now, this doesn't go down as a total failure for David, right? Like, he mourns Abner, he fast for him, he rebukes Joab. But in the middle of it, we find murky waters. What do we do with that? What do we do when we look at our own lives and see the same trail of me-motivated moves? I think first it reminds us that although next to Saul, David is a godly king, he is not the king. He is not God. He is not human. He's just another Adam. He's not the one that we worship or the one that we should look to emulate. He's kind of just like us. Our motivations will always be mixed when our main focus is building, securing, and storing up treasures in our own kingdoms that we're building. Instead of looking to David,

we should be pointed to the true king, the one who gave up everything. The one who gave up everything, his throne in heaven to become a human, to suffer, and to die. Not for his own gain, but for hours. As Jesus was on the cross, he called for the forgiveness of the very men who were murdering him. Even in moments of deep injustice, his concern was not self-motivated, but for the other, longing that they could find security in the forgiveness and acceptance of God. He knew the path he was on was the path that would establish God's kingdom and cast its door open wide for the world. The self-sacrifice of the cross is the call for every Christian to emulate Jesus. See, we can have the same humble nature of Jesus, the kind that's willing to do the hard things even when it costs us,

the kind that is motivated by the good of others not for ourselves. We can have it when we live for God's kingdom, when we recognize that all we have, all we could build, all we could ever accomplish is his already, and that he freely offers us abundant life in his kingdom. The way of Jesus' self-sacrifice, it's humility, it's looking to the interests of others, not to our own. God would you give us the strength to rest in the security and promise of your kingdom?

Would you deepen our knowledge and our belief in your kingdom so that we would be empowered to lay our lives down for the good of others and your kingdom? May we find our motivation in bringing you glory and in building your kingdom. May we spend our days with Jesus becoming like him and living in his ways. God free us from the temptation to be able to be. focus on ourselves and our kingdoms. Remind us of the very real truth that all we need is found in you and your kingdom. We love you, God. Amen.