David Making the Man

SERMON: 2016-01-17--s1316--david-making-the-man-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:36:03.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: Both the opening segment [0] and the closing segment [269] contain continuous theological exposition and pastoral application related to the sermon's main themes (David's life and trusting God). ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Now David, as you will recall, is known in scripture as the man after God's own heart. And the reason he is called a man after God's own heart is not because he was so perfect or that his life was without sin, quite the contrary, his sins were blatant, his imperfections obvious. They are described for us in scripture in graphic detail. But he was known as a man after God's own heart because he understood the heart of God as it related to the promises that God had made to Abraham many years ago. You will recall when God entered into covenant with Abraham, God said to Abraham, "I'm going to give you a land. I'm going to make out of you a mighty nation. I'm going to bless that nation and through that nation my blessings are going to reach to the ends of the earth." This was God's purpose for his people. David not only understood that, but he gave himself to it wholeheartedly. And so he delivered the nation from the enemy, he caused his people to prosper, he created administrative structures, he made sure that the worship of God was central and under his rule and under the rule of his son Solomon, the nation of Israel became a light to the surrounding nations. He was committed to the purposes of God. So much so that when the Apostle Paul in one of his missionary journeys in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 13, summarizes David's life like this. When David had served God's purposes in his own generation, he fell asleep, he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. Now the context is a quotation from Psalm 16 which David wrote, but which applied beyond David because David's body stayed in the grave, Jesus did not and so it is proof that David was not the Messiah, but Jesus was. But apart from all of that, Paul's description is interesting. He says David had served God's purpose in his own generation. That's what made him a man after God's own heart and I don't know about you, but I can't imagine anything more special or important than to come to the end of my life knowing that I have fulfilled God's purpose for my life. Wouldn't you say the same? I mean what was the difference between Saul and David? You know when I was younger I used to have a lot of sympathy for Saul because I felt the poor soul couldn't get it right no matter how hard he tried. Step out of line and you get walloped. David, he can commit adultery and he can commit murder and yeah he gets punished, but somehow he's still okay. What's the difference between the two of them? Well if you look at it closely, Saul was selfish to the core. For Saul, who was very insecure, it was all about me and what my needs are. David, who was much more deeply rooted in God's love, it wasn't about David, it was about God and God's purposes. That's what he was committed to and that's what made him special in the eyes of God. So a question we want to try to consider together this morning then is what elements made David the kind of man that he was? What are the factors that we can identify that made David a man committed to the purposes of God? In the time that we have we're going to try to cover three of them. Don't know if we can manage it, but let's try. Number one, what are the outstanding factors in David's life that made him a man after God's own heart is that he was faithful over little. He was faithful in the little. We first meet David, you may remember, in the book of Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 16 when the prophet Samuel comes to Bethlehem to the home of Jesse to anoint one of his sons king over Israel. God's been fed up with Saul, has taken his presence away from Saul. Samuel has been very upset about that because he had hopes for Saul despite it all. But God sends him to Bethlehem and there as the story progresses and you know it well, seven sons of Jesse are paraded past Samuel in the hope and expectation that one of these will be the future king over Israel. Each time God says no until all seven sons have passed by and Samuel has a bit of a problem because now what? And so he turns to Jesse and he says do you still have another son? And sure enough of course he does. His name is David but he's out in the field looking after the sheep while everybody else is part of this party with Samuel. And so they fetch him, he gets anointed with oil and that is where the spirit of the Lord truly comes upon David to equip him for the kind of job that God has for him. Now there are two elements in that part of the story that I think are really important for us to understand. And the first is this, in the kingdom of God many of the last shall be first even as many of the first are last. Many of the last shall be first. I mean think this through with me a little bit. Here's Samuel, they're having this grand feast and celebration to find out who's going to be king. Seven sons are there but nobody's bothered to invite David. Now maybe it's because he's too far away and they can't get a message to him, that's a possibility I suppose. But I suspect the real reason is he's only a young lad and in that kind of culture young lads don't really matter a lot because what matters is when you're big and brawny, which is why Samuel when the first son of Jesse comes marching by, Samuel you will recall says to himself, "Surely this is the man whom God has chosen." And God responds with these very familiar words in 1 Samuel 16 verse 7, "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at." Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. The Lord looks at the heart. And so from God's perspective what matters is not the natural gifts and talents that you bring to the table first and foremost, what matters from God's perspective is, is your heart committed to him? Does it beat for what he beats for? And if it does then it doesn't matter if you're young, it doesn't matter if you're uneducated, it doesn't matter if you're not very smart or very rich, God can use you for his kingdom purposes. In fact, that's the pattern throughout all of scripture, isn't it? Paul writes about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and you've often heard me quote these words, "Brothers," he says, "think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him because it is in the Lord and the Lord alone that we are called to do our boasting. Don't underestimate what God can do with you regardless of your background because what matters is your heart before God. Many of the last will be first." The other thing in this story that I think really stands out is that many of the skills that David learns in his youth are the skills or let me reverse that, many of the skills that David would need later on in life. He in fact learns in his youth. And again the language here is very interesting in his conversation with Samuel. Samuel asks Jesse are these all the sons you have? And Jesse says there is still the youngest but he is doing what? Tending the sheep. Now think about that. What does it mean to tend the sheep? Well it means to look after them. It means to make sure they are fed and watered. It means you make sure that they are protected from wild animals, they are treated if they are ill, and you expend an enormous amount of time and energy to make sure that your sheep prosper. And so all of these are skills that later on David needs to become shepherd over the people of Israel. But he has learned them in his youth without having any idea that one day these qualifications would serve him well because here it is that he learns the gifts of courage and administration and how to wage war and how to stand up and to protect his people. Listen to how he describes it in conversation with Saul when Saul challenges him and says listen you are only a young boy you cannot possibly take on Goliath he is a man that has been fighting all his life. And David's response is this your servant has been keeping his father's sheep when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock I went after it struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth when it turned on me I seized it by its hair take a little nerve I tell you I seized it by its hair struck it and killed it your servant has killed both the lion and the bear this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God and the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine Saul said to David go and the Lord be with you how do you argue with a young lad who was so convinced that he can do it. Two lessons there that I think are really important for us to understand and the first is that we must teach our children to be faithful over little we must teach our children to be faithful over little as I said a moment ago David had no idea when he was tending those sheep that the skills that he would learn in shepherding would be skills that he would need one day to shepherd God's people and likewise your kids and my kids have no idea what awaits them later on in life and there is this huge temptation on everybody's part to say well you know I'll just automatically make the leap into greatness as the years go by that happens to some but it happens only to fear for most of us life is more like one step at a time until you get to the place where you're going because you have been faithful in little faithful in little in the kingdom of God qualifies you to be faithful over much don't think you're going to run the world if you don't know how to clean up your bedroom don't think you're going to manage corporate finance if you can't stop your own spending don't think you can be entrusted with significant responsibility if you're always late for work those are qualities that our kids need to learn in youth and you and I as parents have an obligation to try to help them to do that as much as possible the second lesson here that flows out of this little bit of the story is that we must teach our children to develop an active faith in God did you notice how David put it the God who who saved me from the paw of the bear and the lion is also the God who is going to save me from this uncircumcised Philistine he learned in his youth what it was to trust and to depend on the living God of Israel a lot of talk these days in evangelical church circles about the number of youth that drift away from churches they've gone to church all their youth they've gone to Christian schools they've gone to catechism or Sunday school or youth classes and yet by the time they hit college multitudes of them disappear and so a lot of people are scratching their heads and they're saying why is this happening and what is it that we can do about it and obviously it's a very complicated issue we live in a very secular world it has a powerful impact on our own children too but you know what is the best protection the best protection is to have youth for whom God is real and who have experienced the presence and the power of God in their own lives and so you and I as parents we need to take teachable moments not just teach them great old Bible stories of things that happened years ago but incorporated into their lives the same God who did what he did for David can do it for you and identifying teachable moments we need to take our children by the hand and we need to teach them how to trust God in the very specific issues of the challenges and the pains of their lives one of the reasons we're launching fast track next week and you've heard about it last week and there's an insert about it in the bulletin this week is because we want families to gather around scripture and talk about the God of the Bible not as some ancient deity way out there but a God who can help me in my struggles with my girlfriend who cares about being bullied in school who cares about whether or not I can get my head around the studies do you know that colleges now have so many students coming who are emotionally unprepared and intellectually incapable of concentrating that they have to start developing whole departments just to look after the mental health being of students we need to be ahead of that ballgame and as Christians we need to be part of the solution as opposed to be part of that problem it's one thing to lament and to wring our hands it's another to say that in Christ we are the children of Abraham remember in Christ God has entered into covenant with us in Christ we are heirs to the promises that God has made so let's take our children by the hand and help them to walk by faith and to experience the power of God that's where it started for David you understand what I'm saying little enthusiasm would be alright it didn't start with Goliath it started with a lion and the bear and you better bet your bottom dollar that the first time that he stepped into it with a lion and the bear that was scary business and the first stone that he threw he probably missed but he got better at it and he was able to slay the giant because he grew in faith so what's the first factor that goes into David's life he that is faithful over little God will put over much he learned in his youth to live out the practices and the principles of being one of God's children second thing then we know in the story the second factor that goes into the making of a man of God is that he hones or he sharpens or he cultivates and he develops his skills pardon me for a moment David hones his skills the next time we meet David in the biblical story is in the latter part of chapter 16 he's just been anointed as king the spirit of the Lord is departed from Saul the spirit of the Lord now rests on David and Saul begins to have these attacks of an evil spirit so much so that he doesn't know what to do with himself and to try to remedy his situation they bring David in to play the harp so he's introduced to Saul's court not as a soldier but as a harpist and he stays there for a little while and the Bible doesn't explain how long he was there we do know that in the next chapter when Goliath shows up David has gone back home and now Jesse sends him to the front to where the soldiers are to inquire about his three eldest sons who are all part of Saul's army and so David goes there and when he gets there of course he hears he hears this situation where this giant of a Goliath comes out every day for what forty days to challenge Israel to send a champion to fight him why should the armies fight and kill each other he says we will fight each other and that will determine the battle and all Israel is shaking in its boots and David hears this blaspheming against the Lord and he is absolutely furious and he offers his services and as you know he steps into the battle the young lad with his slingshot over against the giant and hits him square in the forehead knocks him to the ground grabs his sword and cuts off his head and that settles the battle because now the Philistines are in panic mode Israel goes after them and great is the victory that God gives to the people of Israel now you know that story well every Sunday school child knows that story and a lot of sermons have been preached a lot of books have been written about this battle and it almost always gets pictured in the context of there is little David taking on the big giant and you can draw all kinds of morals about how the little people shouldn't be afraid to take on the giant in the land and there's legitimacy to that that's the thesis by the way of a book by Malcolm Gladwell he's a Canadian journalist now working for the New York Times I believe he is bestselling author of books like blink outliers the tipping point and so on one of his more recent books is called David and Goliath underdogs misfits and the act of battling giants and he argues that far from being disadvantaged the underdog often in fact has the advantage his argument about Goliath by the way is that Goliath was very near sighted then he couldn't see David and that's how David got him I think he's pushing the story more than just a little bit but valid as those points are they miss the real thrust of the passage because the issue is not here's little David taking on a big giant and shall we all learn how to fight those kind of battles no the issue is Goliath is a threat to the covenant promises that God has made to Abram and his offspring remember God promised the land God promised they'd be a nation God promised they would be blessed God promised they would be a blessing now Goliath and the Philistines and all their surrounding enemies who wanted to dominate them were always at odds with God's kingdom purposes for the nation of Israel David as a man after God's own heart understood that and he put his foot down and he says it's not going to happen on my watch and that's why he says what he does to Goliath as they engage the battle you come against me with sword and spear and javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied this day the Lord will hand you over to me and I'll strike you down and cut off your head to dead I will give the today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air of the beasts of the earth and the whole earth will know that there is a God in Israel David got it and he wasn't afraid to take on Goliath because he knew that Goliath stood against the purposes of God and David having learned some of these skills as a youth now is not afraid to go out on a Liam and he steps out and he makes it happen and the result of course is that not only is there a great big celebration in Israel but David now is too valuable for Saul to send back home he takes him into his army gives him responsibility and now David rises through the ranks very very rapidly once Samuel 18 5 puts it this way whatever Saul sent him to do David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army this pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well two lessons two lessons that I want to draw from that this morning and the first is this success is a combination of our skills and God's anointing success is a combination of your natural skills and the anointing of God that releases and empowers those skills you see both of that in Davidson counter with Goliath on the one hand he draws on the skills that he learned as a youth how many times would he have practiced that slingshot how many times has he brazenly taken on the lion or the bear how many times has he learned to trust God in the middle of the conflict those are the skills that he is building on and now with the presence of God in his life in a unique and anointed way there is a new determination and a new ability to step into the battle and take on the giant I mean this was a dude nobody in Israel dared touch and here is a little boy and he marches up and in the name of the Lord he conquers the giant there's powerful lessons there because success in life a lot of people don't realize this doesn't just happen yes there are certain individuals they experience what's known as luck they win the lottery or whatever else although most don't live long and happily ever after even when they do just for the record but that's a whole other subject the best thing that you and I can bring to the table and this is true for young and old alike is a life yielded to the Lord filled with his spirit because let me put it this way the more uncertain life gets the less you can prepare for the future have you ever noticed that people love to be able to control the future they love to plan out their lives and they have it all figured out and then the oil price bottoms out and their savings disappear and there is no way there never has been but there certainly is no way today that you can prepare for the future other than to walk closely with your God and to be alive in your spirit so that you can step into the situations that are needed and if you're a young person and you're looking for job and you're looking for work opportunities the most valuable thing you can bring to the table today is a heart that is fully alive and filled with the Holy Spirit and I'll tell you why by the time you finish your training in school and enter the job market the job market will have so changed that most of your training will have been useless and what employers need today is not just people with some experience but people with the native ability to go with the flow and the character qualities that they can step into these situations and make a difference there will always be room for people who are good at what they do you know it's one of the reasons why some of these big corporations build their plants around small town cities in Ontario in the past because that's where they find their best workforce because that's where there have been the most traditional families with the most solid people to whom they can entrust the responsibility of the corporation that's really true so success in life is a function of the gifts that you bring to the table and when those are filled and anointed with the Holy Spirit disguise the limit because he can make us aware of challenges and opportunities that other people do not know even exist closely related to that I would say is that typically and I say typically success opens the door to promotion how does David rise in the ranks because it is now recognized how good he is at what he does and if you're part of a corporation or if you're part of a business or you're trying to get somewhere in life the best way to get there is not to hope that somehow or another somebody will think that you are valuable enough to buy a house or a car or a car or valuable enough to belong to the company and valuable enough to get well paid the best way to get there is you demonstrate who you are and what you're worth because bosses are looking for people who are committed to the well-being of the corporation who can bring the talent to the table and who yes have proper boundaries and all that but who don't whine over every little thing that goes there what doesn't go their way because they're more of a drag than a help and you see that so wonderfully in David's life because he just rises to the top because God is with him and there will always be room even in the secular world let alone in the church world there will always be room for people with servant hearts whose gifts are surrendered to the purposes of God and who can rise to the top because they're dependable they're honest and they're hard-working and they don't complain all the time that's fair to say all right we're gonna stop here I'm gonna just introduce one more point that I want to leave with you and then at some point we'll have to come back to it Lord knows when that'll be maybe next Sunday night I don't know but third point that I want to point out and I don't want to spend time on it now is the David has to trust God to establish his throne how many years pass between promise and fulfillment of that promise let's say he was 15 years old when Saul comes to the home of Jesse to anoint him how old was he when he became king over Judah do you remember 30 years of age that's 15 years of waiting not only that but another seven years pass before he gets to be king over all Israel now if my math is correct that's 22 years and a lot of us are impatient with God when our prayer isn't answered in three weeks so part of our whole mindset needs to be what does it look like to trust God why does it take so long and what are [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:35:56.900; remove through 00:36:03.000] the temptations that we experience when we try to walk that out [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:36:03.000; resume after this marked segment]