After God’s Own Heart
1 Samuel 16:1-13
If you spend enough time reading the Bible, one of the things you start to notice is that it never flatters its heroes. It tells us the complete truth, good and bad, about everyone we meet. This is one of the reasons that I don’t believe the Bible was written by mankind for mankind, for it rarely shows us in a good light. A true and fair light, yes. But always a good light? No.
However, it is in showing us the good and the bad, the victories and the defeats, the triumphs of character and the complete lack of character (often about the same person within verses of one another!) that gives us a wonderful glimpse into the grace and mercy of God. For God chooses to use the imperfect, the weak, the selfish and the flawed to accomplish His plan of salvation. You don’t read about perfect heroes. You read about men and women who are scoundrels and liars and sinners, who show tremendous strength of faith along with immense amount of failure. You know, people like you and me. We read about these heroes of the faith in the Bible and, if we are honest, in many ways it is like reading our own autobiography. This will be very true as we look at the life of David.
And here is the truth we need to know and believe if we are going to fully engage in a study of David, King of Israel: God isn’t looking for perfect people. He is looking for men and women who truly have God’s interests at heart. And David was just that man.
In fact, David was such a man after God’s heart that more has been written about him than about any other biblical character. Abraham has about fourteen chapters dedicated to him, and so does Joseph. Jacob has eleven and Elijah ten. And David? Sixty-six, not including fifty-nine references in the New Testament.
With all this biblical room given to only one person, you might get the idea that he was some kind of superhuman super-hero. But as you may have already read, David is anything but superhuman. Yes, he had God’s spirit working powerfully in and through him, but he was still capable of the most glaring sins, both public and private sins, as well as private sins that went public. He was capable of tremendous grace towards his enemies, huge faith in God, deep emotions in his worship, incredible courage in the face of Goliath-sized odds and immense financial generosity when it came to building God’s Temple. But he was also subject to deep depression, fits of rage, tremendous lust, lying, deceiving and Academy Award winning acting when he needed to look crazy, drooling on his beard and scratching doors with his fingernails (1 Sam. 21:13).
And this is the man God said was after His own heart? Really God? Did you read this morning’s paper about his latest episode with Bathsheba? Isn’t it time we kicked him out of the church? I mean, that is what we’d do if he was pastoring a church today, right?
It seems that God’s reason for choosing people to be used in His Kingdom is quite different from the reasons we’d choose people. Now, let’s take a look at qualities God looks for in choosing men and women to be used for His glory, and we’ll start by reading 1 Sam. 16:1-13.
To give us some background, God has rejected Saul as king because Saul would not keep the Lord’s command. Saul was told to wait seven days in Gilgal until Samuel arrived (1 Sam. 10:8) to present burnt offerings to God. But Samuel doesn’t arrive on time and the Saul’s troops start to scatter. Afraid of losing his men, Saul offers a burnt sacrifice. But naturally, just about that time Samuel does appear. Now, Saul’s sin wasn’t in offering the sacrifice, for both David (1 Kings 3:15) and Solomon (2 Sam. 24:25) offer similar sacrifices. Saul’s sin was in disobeying God’s word through the prophet Samuel – a sin he would commit again (1 Sam. 15:26) when he didn’t destroy every living thing in Amalek, but saved back some animals for a sacrifice. But the truth is to obey is better than sacrifice; to heed his voice is better that offering the fat of rams (1 Sam. 15:22).
God has rejected Saul, but as is typical with God, the world didn’t know what God had rejected. Everyone but those God informed, in this case Samuel, thought Saul was still God’s chosen. But God had His eye on another – a man, as Samuel said in 1 Sam. 13:14, “after his own heart.”
Before God rejected Saul He already had such a man in mind. So in search of such a man, God sends Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of the sons of Jesse. Did you hear where he went? Bethlehem. Not Jerusalem. Not London. New York. Not Washington D.C. Not the place where the Tabernacle was, but a little village of a place outside the noise and crowds of the leaders and shakers. Bethlehem.
I like the way Micah describes it. “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past” (Micah 5:2). Ephrathah is another name for Bethlehem, which even after the time of David is called “only a small village.” But we now know that two of Israel’s greatest rulers came from Bethlehem: King David and his ancestor, Jesus the Messiah.
So down to Bethlehem Samuel travels to find God’s anointed one, the one God chose before anyone else even knew it. And that is often the way with God. He makes choices long before He tells His servants the prophets and preachers and leaders. Now, what were the qualities of David that made God say, even before He was anointed as king, that David was a man after God’s own heart? What are the qualities God is still looking for in men and women that would make them people whose heart is fully engaged in following God? What is God looking for?
1. Spirituality. I say “spirituality” not because it sounds spiritual, but because there isn’t a better way of putting it, and having said it I now need to define it. To be a “spiritual” person does not mean you walk around silently like some kind of ancient mystic, listening to the quiet breath of God for instructions on what to say and how to pray. It doesn’t mean you’re always ready to say something prophetic and give a word of knowledge. It doesn’t mean you can quote a thousand different verses on any given subject. Try this for a definition of spirituality: Living your life in harmony with God.
To be spiritual means you make God’s thoughts your thoughts, God’s priorities your priorities. What is important to God is important to you. What burdens God burdens you. When He says, “Go right” you go right, you don’t say, “Why?” A spiritual person decides to follow God knowing that God doesn’t need to explain Himself to anyone. A spiritual person is one whose heart is sensitive to the things of God. 2 Chron. 16:9 says, “The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” God is looking for men and women who are completely dedicated to Him.
That was David: Completely dedicated to God in every aspect of his very earthly life. And his was a very earthly life. In Psalm 18:29 David says, “With your help I can conquer an army. I can leap over walls with a helping hand from you.” Can you envision a leaping David? Can you see him running, coming to a wall and leaping over it without hesitation and continuing his run? Eugene Peterson describes David as “running toward Goliath, running from Saul, pursuing God, meeting Jonathan, rounding up stray sheep, whatever, but running. And leaping. Certainly not strolling or loitering. David’s is a most exuberant story. Earthy spirituality characterizes his life and accounts for the exuberance. Earthy: down-to-earth, dealing with everydayness, praying while doing the laundry, singing in the snarl of traffic. Spiritual: moved and animated by the Spirit of God and therefore alive to God” (Leaping Over A Wall, pg. 11).
Spirituality means you invited God into your everyday, very ordinary, dull, repetitive sameness and converse with Him about the dullness, the hopes, the dreams, the disappointments and the surprises, the decisions about what to make for dinner and how to pray for a child with cancer. The most spiritual people are the most ordinary people. They aren’t necessarily the religious leaders we see on television, but the unseen housewives and workers we never see up front who are affecting the lives of men and women all over the world without ever getting their names mentioned in Christianity Today or appearing on PTL.
A spiritual person is a man or woman who longs to please God. They know going in that loving God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength is not going to please every one of their friends or all their family. It certainly didn’t please all of David’s brothers. But a spiritual person, although they are concerned with the thoughts of others, do not make what other people think their prime motivation for doing what they do. They know that at the end of their lives they must answer to God, so they look to make their every moment count in the sight of God. And when they fail, which they will (although hopefully, not quite as dramatically as David failed), they turn quickly to God, grieve over their wrongs, and allow His grace and forgiveness to guide their future actions. A spiritual person is an everyday person who chooses to put God first in everything they do.
Question: Who is the most “spiritual” person you know?
2. Humility. It is hard to be proud when you are the eighth of eight sons. Forever you will be the baby brother. Be the eighth out of eight kids and you learn to be humble in a hurry. For humility, it’s been said, comes through humiliation.
When Samuel arrives in Bethlehem, he asks Jesse to assemble his sons. So Jesse, starting with the oldest, parades his sons in front of the prophet Samuel who, at God’s instructions, is looking for the next king. When Samuel sees Eliab, the eldest, he says, “Yep. That’s our man!” You’d think ‘ol Sammy would have known better than that. Samuel was looking at his height and appearance, which is exactly what Saul had going for him, as Saul stood head and shoulders above anyone else (1 Sam. 10:23). But God had to remind Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” So Samuel continues to on down the line of Jesse’s sons.
When the seventh son appears and Samuel still has no instructions from the Holy Spirit, he begins to think something is wrong. So he says to Jesse, “Hey. Are you sure these are all the sons you have?” Seven sons because seven is the number of perfection. This was the perfect lineup. Who could ask for more? Well, Samuel asks for more. And Jesse, scratching his beard says, “Oh yeah. I got one more. Forgot all about him. He’s the youngest and all he’s good for is tending the sheep.” The eighth son. Of course he was the eighth son, for the number eight is the number of completion, of superabundance, of a new beginning. PIANO SCALE. Of course when David does appear the Lord says, “This is the one; anoint him.”
You see, even when your family forgets you, even when your dad doesn’t invite you to the party when the greatest prophet of our times comes to your house, God remembers you. We see two things taking place here: God doesn’t forget who you are, and God sees what others don’t.
The world is all about having the right look and sufficient degrees and who you know that makes you popular and acceptable. Of course, this attitude isn’t something new. When Paul was in Corinth, he knew he had to teach both Jewish and Gentile Corinthians. The Jews there were looking for a miracle, for a sign that proved he had the power of God. They wanted the same thing from Jesus. The Greeks, however, were looking at surface impressions. They weren’t concerned with the inner life as much as they were brains and beauty. But Paul refutes both these attitudes in his letter to the Corinthians. He says “God selected the common and the castoff, whatever lacks status, so He could invalidate the claims of those who think those things are significant. So it makes no sense for any person to boast in God’s presence” (1 Cor. 1:29).
When the whole world is enamored with power, beauty, strength and royalty (even Americans, who left England, were caught up in the last royal birth), it takes a humble spirit to answer the call of God. Everyone in Israel was going to compare little David to big Saul who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. But God makes His choices differently from the way people make their choices. We chose the rich and famous to be our friends because it might make us into somebody admired by the world. But God chooses nobodies and makes them into somebodies.
Furthermore, God didn’t choose a person who was from the priestly tribe, which is what we would do. If you want to get something done in the Kingdom, most church members think, you have to find the minister. Get the pastor involved. He’s special. He has a title. He knows. But then you read about the people who really made a difference in the world and most of the time they are people without ministerial credentials but full of love and the Holy Spirit. Regular people. Sinful people. Earthy people. You know, the one’s Jesus identifies with.
Think about David. He’s a huge man of faith and a total mess at the same time. He’s so human! And remember this: the story of David anticipates the story of Jesus, which is why Jesus is often referred to as “Son of David.” Really? David? You’d think Jesus would identify with a better character. I mean, David was too human with questionable ancestry, being related to Ruth the Moabitess. Eugene Peterson says to think about “David fighting, praying, loving, sinning. David conditioned by the morals and assumption of a brutal Iron Age culture. David with eight wives. David angry; David devious; David generous: David dancing. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing that God can’t and doesn’t use to work his salvation and holiness into our lives. If we’re going to get the most out of the Jesus story, we’ll first want to soak our imaginations in the David story” (Leap Over A Wall, pg. 9).
David reminds us that God uses our everyday selves to serve Him. It should humble us to think of all the ways we are weak, but that in that weakness the miraculous grace of God shines best.
Question: Who is the most humble person you know?
3. Integrity. Psalm 78:71-72 says of David, “From caring of the ewes, who gently nurse their young, He called him to shepherd His people Jacob and to look after Israel, His inheritance. David shepherded them with the honor and integrity of his heart; he led them in wisdom and strong and skillful hands” (The Voice). Did you get that? With the honor and integrity of his heart David cared for his people. It comforts me to know that God isn’t looking for the spectacular among us. He’s looking for down-to-earth spirituality that is humble enough to know they are nothing without God and have the honesty and integrity to stay true to their Lord.
Integrity means complete, whole, innocent, sound, unimpaired. It is deep down in your soul honest. It is the quality that makes you completely reliable to do your job even when your boss isn’t watching. It is the quality that encourages you to do your best even if you aren’t getting paid. It is the quality that helps others know that your word is your bond without you having to sign a contract or say, “I swear!”
This was the heart of David. True, we later find out his actions weren’t always noble and sometimes his sin caused the death of others, but when he was confronted he never blamed someone else. Integrity says, “The cause of my sin stops here with me.” When Samuel confronted Saul with not obeying the Lord, Saul said, “I have disobeyed your instructions and the LORD’S commands, for I was afraid of the people and did what they demanded” (1 Sam. 15:24). That’s not a confession; it an accusation against others. When Nathan confronted David with the sin of taking Bathsheba and having her husband killed, David didn’t add to his confession but simply said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13). That is integrity.
To be a person after God’s heart, you need have an honest, real spirituality, you need to be humble with who you are in God’s sight, and you need to have integrity of heart. And these things don’t happen overnight. Alan Redpath said, “The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.” When God develops people after His own heart He is never in a hurry. It is a life-long process. Are you in it for life?
Question: Who is the most integrious person you know?
