David Making the Man

SERMON: 2016-01-24--s1416--david-making-the-man-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:37:03.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker continuing a previous sermon topic (exposition). The material remains theological exposition and pastoral application throughout the entire closing window, concluding strongly in segment [333]. Segment [334] is too brief and appears disconnected from the main conclusion. 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 --- As you know, I want to pick up with you this morning where we left off last Sunday morning. We were looking last Sunday morning at two of three factors that God used in David's life to make him into the man after God's own heart of which the scriptures speak. And the first element that we talked about last Sunday morning was the fact that David in his youth was faithful in the little. And when we first meet up with David, and we've talked about this before, in 1 Samuel chapter 16, he is described as tending the sheep. And what a marvelous picture that was for his life's career of shepherding God's people. Think with me about some of the skills that he learned on the backside of those Bethlehem fields. He learned responsibility, looking after his father's flock. He learned how to provide for their needs. He learned to defend them against the enemy. He acquired the skills that he would need to fight battles. He just was faithful in the little. And out of that, we reached a very practical conclusion that one of the important things in our own lives, and certainly in the lives of our children, is that we need to be faithful in little. David had no idea how these things would become the building block of his life moving further on. Second thing that we looked at together was that as life went on for him then, he built on those skills that he developed in his youth. And the first place where you see that is further on in 1 Samuel chapter 16, when he gets called into Saul's court for service. George, can you turn those lights down just a tad for me, please, so I can see you fine folks. David was a harpist. And after the spirit of the Lord had left Saul and had come upon David, David grew in stature and he grew in favor. And Saul began to experience, as you know, these very demonic attacks when an evil spirit from the Lord would come upon him. And so to provide relief for him, they said this man needs some good music. Who will play the music for him? Somebody had remembered David from Bethlehem, they called him Ian, and David for a while at least became the court musician for Saul whenever he would have these seizures. And that's kind of an interesting switch for David. If you think the transition from being behind the sheep in the field to being part of Saul's court, that's a huge transition. But it gave him an opportunity to sit back and watch royalty and the royal court at work. Undoubtedly, there were many practical lessons for him to learn in that whole process. And then of course, it really came to expression as he built upon his skills to fighting the bear and the lion. Because his ability to take on Goliath was directly proportional to what he had learned in his youth. And that's why he says to King Saul in chapter 17, Saul is trying to discourage him from fighting Goliath, of course, because Goliath has been a fighting man from his youth, and David is but a boy. And David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or 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, 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." So David learned to build on those skills, and as we saw last time, that enables him then to rise in the army, become a leading commander, and because God is with him, it really goes well for him all along. And again there, the practical lesson is that as we're faithful over little, God puts us over much, the world will always have a place for people who are fully alive and who are prepared to step into situations, particularly as they walk in obedience to the Lord. And that brings us then to the third point that I introduced briefly last week before we quit, and that is this, David had to trust the Lord to establish him in his kingdom, or to establish his throne. We talked briefly about the fact that David was 30 years old when he became king over Judah, 37 years old when he became king over all Israel. Let's say that he was 15 years of age when he was first anointed, a bicemule, to become king, so you're looking at 15 plus 7, 22 years in total between the promise made to David and the fulfillment of that promise. That's a huge gap of time. And at first, it seemed to be going David's way, because as you know, he beat Goliath, everybody thought that was the cat's meow, but then when he came home from battle, the women came out of their towns and they began to sing this song, and you will have heard these words before. One Samuel chapter 18, when the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang, "Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands." You know, that's not going to end well. Saul was very angry, the refrain galled him. They have credited David with tens of thousands, he thought, but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom? And from that time on, Saul kept a jealous eye on David. As the story continues to develop, Saul's jealousy becomes more and more tinged with evil. The very next story, I believe, in this particular passage, evil spirit from God comes forcibly upon Saul and he throws a spear at David and he tries to pin David to the wall and he does that not only once, but he does that twice. And then further on in chapter 18, he sends him into battle in the hopes that he would get killed in the battle so that David will be out of the way. And then he makes an arrangement for David to marry one of his daughters and the bridal price that he is looking for, kind of an interesting little story, 100 foreskins from the Philistines. And of course the whole idea was you're going to be a dead duck if you try to take on that many Philistines, unfortunately didn't work for him. Then chapter 19, we now have him trying to persuade Jonathan, who was David's bosom pal, to kill him. That didn't work because Jonathan was loyal to David. Then once again he throws his spear at David and tries to kill him. Then he sends his men to David's house to try to arrest him, but his daughter, Michael, who now is David's wife, tricks him by having David climb out the window and leaving a teraphim or an idol in the bed, and Saul's anger continues to accelerate to the point where time and time again he sends 3,000 of his men to try to find David and to try to do him in. Did a little math as to how long David was chased around by Saul, and there are differences of opinion depending on what scholars you consult, but the expectation is that anywhere from 7 to 11 years he was running around in the wilderness with his band of men trying to stay out of Saul's clutches. And it's easy to read those stories through the eyes of those who know how the story ends, but if you want to get a good feel of David's heart in that process, read the Psalms because many of his most intensive Psalms were written when his life hung in the balance. So on and on this went until you get to the end of the book of 1 Samuel, in chapter 31, the Philistines again come into the land, Saul tries to engage them, he and his soldiers lose the battle, his three sons get killed, he himself is mortally wounded, asks his armor bearer to kill him, he refuses to do that, and so of course the tragic ending of Saul is that he falls in his own sword and that is the end of King Saul. David in the next book, 2 Samuel, moves to Hebron after consulting the Lord, all of Judah comes to him, crowns him as king, because he is of the tribe of Judah of course, but the other tribes of Israel crown as king the descendants of King Saul, so you have 7 years of intensive battles that rage before finally all Israel comes to King David and they crown him as king, 22 years at least between when he was crowned or anointed by Samuel and when he was crowned finally king over all Israel, 22 years of a lot of pain and suffering. So the question of course is what do we learn from a story like this, well three things just real quick, and the first is this, it is God's job to establish us. One verse that you'll often hear me quote because it so captures this notion is from the book of Psalms, Psalms 75, the verses 6 and 7, "For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment putting down one and lifting up another." Not from the east, not from the west, not from the wilderness which happens to be south, but it is God who lifts up his people. And here's the thing about that that's really important for us to try to understand, God does not operate a democracy, God operates a theocracy. When God builds his kingdom it is God and God alone who has the authority and then he rules the whole universe not only directly through his own authority but also as you know indirectly through delegated authority. And so he raises up governments and he raises up teachers and he raises up parents and he raises up bosses and sooner or later everybody in the world is under somebody even if they are over somebody. And ever since the fall the human tendency is to strive for position and to strive for recognition and to stay on top of the game, that's why nations go to war, that's why husbands and wives get divorced, that is why children become rebellious, that's why nations split up, that's why organizations fall apart because at the end of the day the human tendency is to think that I must establish myself. The biblical reality is that it's God's job to establish us, it's God's job to move situations and circumstances around so that based on our calling and based on our gifting and based on his control of circumstances and situations we can rise to the level of our competence that God has ordained for us. And learning to trust that and to believe that in a world that's full of competition, in a world where all the evidence sometimes appears to be against that is a mark of true faith. And for David to continue to believe that God would arrange the circumstances of his life that he would become king over all Israel even when all the evidence was against it is a demonstration of the level of faith that God instilled in King David when life was so incredibly difficult. The clearest example of that of course is the person of Jesus Christ because Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings and he rules over all the universe and he did it not by waging all the battles that the human race always is waging but by walking in covenant faithfulness and obedience before God the Father and you've often heard me quote Philippians too for the joy that was said before him after having humbled himself even unto death God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every day. And so if you want to get ahead in life and if you want to acquire the kind of place, the kind of place of influence and position that the human heart really craves and longs for then the road to that is the road of humility and obedience and walking with our God because he's the one who lifts up the one and who lowers the other. That's his character and that's his nature and that is a principle that runs throughout all of scripture. One lesson that we learn in this is that it is our job then to trust God to accomplish precisely what he has promised that he would do and the temptation, the temptation, the nature of temptation is always to believe as Chad Hovind was saying this morning that God is not good and that he is not to be trusted and that therefore we need to take matters into our own hands and we need to try to make it happen and when you are spiritually inclined then it is very easy to interpret the circumstances of life in such a way as to say well God is giving me this opportunity and so I must step into it. And there's some good examples of that in David's life. One example that comes to mind is David in 1 Samuel chapter 24 and you'll know this story. David and his men are being chased around the wilderness by King Saul and they are hiding way back in this cave, you'll remember the story? But wouldn't you know it, King Saul has to go to the bathroom, funny story I think and he comes into the cave with David and his men hiding in the back. Now you've got to picture this because he's got what 400 men with him or more by now so I don't know how deep this cave is but you better believe they had to be really quiet because this is not a time to awaken the bear. But what an opportunity and I love what one of his men says to him in 1 Samuel 24, 4 or more than one, the men said, listen to this, this is the day the Lord spoke of what he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish. Talk about temptation. And you know how the story unfolds, right? David creeps up to where Saul is going to the bathroom and he cuts off a piece off his robe and is immediately stricken with his conscience because he goes on to say then to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed or lift my hand against him for he is the anointed of the Lord. And so here you have David resisting the temptation to take matters into his own hand even though he could have easily justified that this was the opportunity that God was bringing to him. And how many times in your life and in my life do we find ourselves in situations where you know like Abram of old where we're tired of waiting on the Lord and we're tired of trusting the Lord and so like Abram of old we get ourselves an Ishmael because that seems like it's the appropriate thing to do. That's always the nature of temptation. The nature of temptation is to say I don't know that I can trust God to do what he said he would do besides that God has given me common sense and he has given me responsibility and so therefore I'm going to step into this and trust that this is God's opportunity. And temptation then is to bypass our relationship with God and our trust in God in order to get what we want when we need to get it. And the ultimate example of that again are the temptations of Jesus when he first began his ministry. You'll recall he was baptized by the Holy Spirit immediately driven into the wilderness and there Satan came to him and he tempted him with three temptations which were actually the parallel of the temptations that Adam and Eve faced originally in the garden. And where Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation Jesus as the second Adam resisted the temptation. The first temptation was you're hungry make bread out of stones you can't trust the Father to look after you take matters into your own hands he's given you that kind of power. Second temptation jump off the temple appear in the temple court because the prophecies are that that's how the Messiah is going to appear and the nation will recognize that you are indeed the promised Messiah. And then of course the third temptation the crassest one of all and I really like this one because the devil shows him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. It's really interesting because that means the devil thinks that he has considerable power in terms of the glory in the power of the nations it's an interesting principle. And of course the temptation is you bow down to me and I will give you all of that. Now think of how many young women compromise their walk with God because of a non-Christian boyfriend who is more important than God or what God says. Think of the many people who stoop to thievery or to dishonesty or who take matters into their own hands because God's not coming across quickly enough with what he has said that he would do. You begin to understand what the nature of temptation is and David is a man after God's own heart because in the middle of the most intense temptation to make it happen for himself he says God forbid I'm not going to touch the Lord's anointed. King Saul may be rejected by God. King Saul may be headed for disaster. It's not my job to unseat him. Let God do it or let the enemy do it. I will not shed blood needlessly just so that I can be the king. Now if you think of you know how much blood is shed around the world by the nations for people who want to be top dog then you get a little bit of a picture of how incredibly huge that temptation was. It's a third principle though or a third lesson and one that I really think we need to embrace with all our hearts and that's the fact that it's all about can God trust us with his kingdom. Can God trust us with his kingdom. Think that through with me a little bit because there's a lot more at stake here than we tend to realize I think. Go back to the story of creation. God creates Adam and Eve why Adam and Eve are given dominion over all the earth. Out of their relationship with God they are to exercise the will of God over all creation. They are to subdue it and they are to build the kingdom of God. That is to say they are to build a population that will love honor and obey God. They're to build a civilization that lives by his rules that experience his blessings and that carries out his will. That's the Lord's prayer your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the fall Adam and Eve betrayed that relationship with God took matters into their own hands and from that day to this of course as you know we live in a world where people are trying to build their own kingdom as opposed to God's kingdom. Now God's in the business of bringing things back to himself and in order to bring things back to himself he is looking to build a people who know their responsibility before his face. He's looking for people who first of all understand his character. That is to say who understand what God is after which is to say God is after a people who will love him above all and who will love their neighbor as they love themselves. God is looking for a people who not only know that that is his heart but who are committed to doing their part in carrying that out and who are committed to carrying out his will no matter what is the personal cost they must face in order to advance the purposes of God. It's in biblical language all about stewarding it's all about having as our highest priority the values of our master as opposed to thinking of ourselves as owners and I've talked about this before we're not owners of creation we are managers of creation we are called accountable before God of how we spend our time talent and our treasure and God is looking for people who in everything they are and everything they do will always put God first. And that's where you see David shining I've said this before but I'll repeat it that's why in the Bible he's known as a man after God's own heart and that is and I'll say this again too this is where the contrast between Saul and King David is so huge I said you know last Sunday morning when I was younger I would read these stories and I've preached on Saul and I've preached on David over the years that and reading the story of Saul used to sort of have sympathy towards the dude because it looks like he got away with nothing I mean David committed adultery David can be guilty of murder and God just keeps right on going with David you know poor Saul he offers a sacrifice before he should and out the door you go dude and it looks like he never got a fair shake until you start looking closely at Saul's life and you discover that Saul's ultimate value is not God in the kingdom of God it is his own skin and his own ambition Saul is a man who is so insecure that it's all about him and you see that when you know they're looking for him to crown him as king and he's hiding in the baggage because he doesn't want to be seen and you see it when you know he gets called on the carpet by Samuel and Samuel is announcing to him the judgment of God and and for Saul it's all about well honor me before the people I know that I messed up and I'm you know but honor me for Saul it's all about Saul and he gets rejected from being king over Israel because God cannot use self-centered people to advance his purposes because every time there is a price to be paid the question that is asked is not is this what God wants and am I prepared to lay down my life in order to make that happen now the question is well how does this benefit me do I get an advantage out of this and God says can't use you and that's where David is so different because though David was as human as you and I he's known as a man after God's own heart because at the end of the day he wanted what God wants sorry gets very practical for you and me because the world's full of Christians who love what God has to offer in his kingdom I mean who wouldn't forgiveness of sins presence of God in your life you know the promise of resurrection the promise of heaven the promise of God's blessings what is there not to like about what God is to offer but at the end of the day what God's looking for is not just people who want to take from him and who are fair-weather Christians he's looking for people who have grown up and who have become mature who understand his plan and his purposes and who are sold out to make his kingdom come and his will done on earth as it is in heaven remember that verse we quote so often from Revelation chapter 12 they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb the word of the testimony and because they love not their lives even unto death how many Christians don't you know that when the road gets a little bit tough they bail or when God is pushing home places of sin that need to be repented of throw in the towel because the pain is simply too great or people when push comes to shove are more interested in their own happiness their own well-being than they are about the sum total of the coming of God's kingdom you see where I'm going with that well thank you for your enthusiastic response that's a big issue because whatever it is in your life or in my life where self-love predominates over love for God or love for the kingdom I can guarantee you God will find it and when he finds it he'll call you to the cross and he'll say alright you know will you die to self in this place will you put me first or is it going to continue to be about you and for some people it's just the tiniest little sin for some people it's the tiniest little relationship for some people it's that deeply guarded place in their hearts that God is not allowed access to because that is my interior world and David is the man after God's own heart and he spends 22 years being chased around the wilderness because if God is going to give him the kingdom he wants those values instilled so that he can be entrusted with great responsibility and I believe the degree to which God can trust you and me with authority and power in the kingdom is the degree to which we have learned to say no to self the devil in the world in those places have learned to say yes to Jesus so that we can be vehicles of his grace interestingly enough you know Jesus in the temptation if you remember the story what happened after he came through the temptation he was empowered by the Holy Spirit to start his work of ministry because God knew that he could be trusted with the power of the kingdom and were you and I left to our own resources this could get pretty discouraging real fast because who knows his own heart and who can change his own heart but that's why we look to the author and the finisher of our faith even the Lord Jesus who for the joy that was said before him endured the cross and all of its shame and today is seated at the right hand of God he is a merciful high priest ever lives to make intercession for us at the Father's right hand and he has a vested interest in helping us grow up to become men and women after God's own heart and it only takes a handful of people you know that only takes a handful of people sold out to Jesus to make a huge difference in the world world changes don't happen because there are great big multitudes who mount great big wonderful campaigns they have their place but I'll tell you Satan's power gets broken by the dedicated Christian on his or her knees who says I will rather die than sell out Jesus because that Satan has no defense against they overcame him by the blood of the lamb the word of the testimony and because they didn't love their lives even unto death David was a man after God's own heart because he was faithful in his youth he built on that faithfulness in his adult life and he learned to put his trust in God as his shield and his defender it'll be different for each one of us and only God by his spirit can apply that in each of our lives but my prayer for me and my prayer for you is that God will say to us one day well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful over little I will put you over much. 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