1 Samuel 16:1-13 – David is anointed August 10, 2008
For the rest of the summer, and possibly into September, I’m going to preach through some stories of King David.
But, I think that to get to David, you have to start back a little further.
Hannah and Samuel
1 Samuel 1:1-2 There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.
That phrase says a lot – Hannah had none. Infertility is a heartbreaker in our society, it was a heartbreaker and a great Shame for Hannah. What made it worse was that Hannah was Elkanah’s favorite, so Peninnah felt insecure and needed to put Hannah down for her lack of children.
When ever they would go to worship, Hannah would pray that God would give her a son.
Once… In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, "LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head."
As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, "How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine."
"Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief."
Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."
So God gives Hannah a son, and she names him Samuel, which means “God heard my prayer.”
And she sings a song:
"My heart rejoices in the LORD;
in the LORD my horn [a] is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.
2 "There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
3 "Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the LORD is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
4 "The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.
6 "The LORD brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7 The LORD sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
"For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s;
on them he has set the world.
9 He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
"It is not by strength that one prevails;
10 those who oppose the LORD will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.
"He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed."
Hannah’s Song becomes a theme throughout Samuel’s books.
Hannah is true to her word, and when Samuel is weaned, she takes him to the House of God at Shiloh to serve the High Priest Eli. Samuel becomes a prophet, and the last Judge of Israel.
From the time of the Exodus to Samuel, Israel had no king but God, and God’s representatives, starting with Moses were Judges.
In Samuel 8, Israel asks for a king: they say, “"We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."
Samuel is greatly saddened by their request, but God consoles him by saying that it is not Samuel they have rejected but God himself.
Samuel warns the people to be careful of what they ask for, because they might just get it:
"This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle [c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day."
1 Samuel 8:11-18
They say, “we’re good with that, just give us a king.”
Samuel appoints Saul to be king, and the people are happy – he is a great warrior, a foot taller than anyone else and real easy on the eyes – he was the George Clooney of the Promised Land.
Saul started well – he had a humility about him, and he did his best to serve God, but it didn’t last, he was put in place by the desire of the people and soon he began to bow to them more than to God, and he lost his humility and developed a megalomania and paranoia.
After disobeying God many times, God pulled away from him, as did Samuel, with great sadness and regret. God went looking for another King who would serve him with his whole heart.
Read 1 Samuel 16:1-13
David – the most famous of the Jewish kings – is an afterthought by his father – pretty much forgotten in the fields
Adam van Koeverden – flag bearer at the Olympics – not just the last to be picked in the schoolyard, but not picked!
Verse 7 – “The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Although David is described as a good-looking and healthy boy, even his father forgot about him when it came time to present his sons to Samuel. – His brothers would have made much better kings as Samuel sees things.
God was not concerned with the outward appearance – he was looking at David’s heart. One might say that, as king, David messed up as much, if not more than Saul – he had that one big sin of adultery and murder, there were times that he failed to obey God, he was a terrible father and husband – he left an incestuous rape unpunished in his own family.
But for all these faults, he was described as “a man after God’s own heart!”
The is God’s main way of working – he does not look at the outward appearance, he looks at the heart – in fact often times the outward appearance is nothing like the heart. There is a prophecy about Jesus that says,
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. – Isaiah 53:2-3
This might sound like good news to you – that God looks at the heart and not the outward appearance – you might feel like your outward presentation is a bit lacking, but your heart is in the right place!
On the other hand, It might worry you, you might think that you outward appearance, such as it is, is still better than your black heart!
A few years ago, I came late to a prayer meeting at the church. I was in a terrible mood – I had lost all my “pastoral cheer” and if there wasn’t a scowl on my face, there sure was one on my heart. The song that was playing as I walked in was “Surrender”
“I’m giving you my heart,
and all that is within
I lay it all down for the sake
of you my King”
My first thought was “You don’t want what’s in my heart, God: it’s full of garbage today.”
The amazing thing is that God doesn’t require that we have a good heart to accept us today. Since Christ, he only wants us to want to have a good heart!
Ezekiel Prophesied about the time that we live in.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. – Ezekiel 36:25-7
In Jesus, we come and say, “my heart is a mess, and I don’t want it to bee that way anymore, please clean it up”. And he takes us and gives a heart transplant, so where our heart was hard to God and his ways in the past, it is now soft to Him and his ways.
God sees the new heart that Jesus gives us, and it is by that new heart that he judges us! And it is a heart to heart relationship that we have with him. We may mess us – hopefully not as much as David! – but he still sees the new soft heart – he forgives us and puts us back on our feet and lets us try again under the power of the spirit.
Prayer for a new heart.
