After God’s Heart
Psalm 19:1-14; 1 Samuel 13:14
On this Father's Day, I am led to a man of men, a prince of princes and a statesman of politicians. He was a poet, musician and military leader who conquered nations and put fear in his enemies. The most profound accomplishment that would be a fantastic epitaph was this simple phrase: “a man after God’s heart”. I speak of none other than David – a boy, a sheep-herder whose boyish features would not have been unlike many of today’s young hockey stars who can’t grow a playoff beard.
If you’re musing, “I’m not a father nor a man” I say, no matter. What is featured in this lesson is for all of us. It is not gender-specific or unique. So, I invite you to ask yourself, “What does this have to do with me?”
Everyone like and need to be affirmed (emotional support and encouragement). Psychologist Alfred Adler (a father of psychiatry) said, “Genuine human connection is as essential to our existence as air and water.”
We are desperate for affirmation.
It is difficult to acquire because in our society affirmation is rooted in performance:
...Students/friends, wear certain brands (wear those a certain way), hair styles, language (necessary for emotional support/encouragement)
...Parents to children, friend to someone – “Proud of you” (performance); reversely, “disappointed in you”
...Job evaluation – performance evaluations (points/scores); interviews – “What would you do if…”
...Church – measure someone’s spiritual commitment or ‘devotion’ on the ways they support the Corps or don’t support the Corps.
...We expect “outsiders” to perform (behave) certain ways as a sign of progress in the faith; there are benchmarks to measure if they’re making “spiritual progress”
...Success for artists or professional athletes is determined by production – recording sales and place in the charts or goals scored or touch-down records and so on.
Affirmation based on performance is a high ideal often not achieved because who of us is exceptional in performance all the time? Most of us are fortunate if we perform well enough some of the time.
This is not how God affirms us. David is our case-study and proves that GOD DOES NOT AFFIRM US BECAUSE OF EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE!
David’s track-record is not something to be proud of. You wouldn’t write home about it or use it in your resume.
...8 wives (nowhere near God’s instruction of Ge 2:24 “one wife”)
...When he should have been gone to war with his troops he stayed home and lived regretfully the rest of his life with adultery in his record.
...Then he tried to cover his tracks when Bathsheba became pregnant and so had her husband killed on the front-lines of battle; then he married Bathsheba.
...When Amon, David’s son and subsequent heir, raped his half-sister Tamar, David did nothing
...When Absalom, angry with Amon’s actions, killed Amon, David did nothing about that either.
A life laced with polygamy, adultery, murder, deception, irresponsibility and injustice was the same life that received the commendation, “a man after my own heart.” Clearly, GOD DOES NOT AFFIRM US BECAUSE OF EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE!
That magnificent christening was first announced in 1 Samuel 13. King Saul was going to war against the Philistines. The practice prior to engaging the enemy involved a sacrifice by the priest, to seek God’s guidance and blessing. Fear was sweeping through the camp, so much so that soldiers were scattering and hiding in caves. Saul felt he was losing control of the troops and since the priest hadn’t shown up for his appointment to offer the sacrifice, Saul took it upon himself to do it. When Samuel the priest showed up, just as the sacrifice was completed, things fell apart. Saul’s act was blasphemous, an irreverent act. We pick up the story in verse 14 where Samuel the priest charges King Saul, “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” Luke speaks of this in Acts 13:22, citing the same passage.
David wasn’t favoured because of his performance; there were too many things out of place for that to succeed. THE ONLY THING DAVID DID WAS PURSUE GOD. That’s not a performance outcome. It is an act of the will.
GOD DOES NOT AFFIRM US BECAUSE OF EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE! HE AFFIRMS US BECAUSE WE PURSUE HIM!
So what does it look like to say we pursue God? We will consider how David pursued God and as a result eventually gained God’s favour because of his pursuit, not his success!
1. David was passionate for God
Not passionate ABOUT – but FOR. There are many people passion ABOUT the church, their favourite sports team or a weigh-loss program. But they won't go so far as invest their lives and resources in the church, buy season's tickets or actually keep a plan to lose weight. One has to be passion FOR those things to go that far.
David wasn't offering lip-service ABOUT God. He was experiencing first-hand, God's activity in his world which led him to be passionate FOR God; he was invested. He speaks at length about God’s majesty (Ps8:1), wonders (Ps9:1), holiness (Ps15) and says the heavens declared God’s glory (Ps19) He called God his shepherd (Ps23), the Creator (Ps24), his sustainer (Ps25) and his light and salvation (Ps27). David speaks of being in God’s debt (Ps29) and it goes on. David made no apology, actually, he declared it openly. David was passionate FOR God
Psalm 122: 1, "I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Psalm 23: 6, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 27: 4, "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple." David loved going to church! He loved worship! That's characteristic of people who are passionate FOR God!
David’s acknowledgement of GOD had nothing to do with his performance. He simply recognized YHWH for who He is and whatever David was or wasn’t, he knew who God is – and he declared that. He made it clear that he loved God and everything that God was about. Did David “get it right” – seldom it seems. Did David obey everything instructed of him by God – not always but the point is, he wanted to and tried. He read his Bible, he went to church; he knew the stories and songs of deliverance; he had been there a few times and could write his own stories!
God, our Father, loves his children. There are countless times when we don’t make choices based on his guidance and wisdom. Often we will be reaping consequences for our decisions, sometimes not so severe and other times with years of payback for bad decisions. Yet, in the process of all this, God never casts us off and decides that “you made your bed now lie in it”. The moment we open our hearts to him, broken and repentant, he comes running to us full of compassion, forgiveness and grace! It is what love does.
Some people who are not parents do not understand why parents sometimes don’t have better control of their children and they continue to keep bailing their children out of trouble when they don’t behave or show respect to their parents. One has to be a parent to understand why that happens. But the closest analogy is God putting up with our disobedience and reckless behaviour. Actually, parents get it from Him.
God’s inconceivable love for David just led to David being incredibly in love with God! Reviewing David’s portfolio makes us question how that’s possible. But that love is at the heart of David’s passion for God.
There are some guys in my life that I simply enjoy being with. We can have a great conversation or a round of golf or whatever else men do and the time is never lost, it doesn’t drag by. It is engaging and fun and edifying. When we feel like that about God, we can’t get enough of him. We thirst for His company and his presence is our food and drink. The more we get of Him the more we want. And God is feeling the same way about us! We make a mess of things and make bad choices; we don’t prioritize well or we forget about Him in our planning. But it doesn’t change GOD’S HEART FOR US!
GOD DOES NOT AFFIRM US BECAUSE OF EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE! HE AFFIRMS US BECAUSE WE PURSUE HIM! WE AFFIRMS US BECAUSE HE LOVES US!
2. David credited God for his successes
Success is a complicated word. What is success? Does it require a certain number of digits in a salary or living a particular lifestyle or holding a particular type of career? We seem to peg it that way. That is compounded by the problem of thinking “I achieved all this.” Everyone is smitten by the mega-church personalities in North America. When we have special events it is the speaker who charges multi-thousands of dollars that everyone wants to book for an event. Somehow they are perceived as the successful speakers and preachers.
David – sheep-herder; of the smallest tribe of an insignificant family. Nobodies really, with no significant lineage or influence. This boy took food to his brothers who were soldiers in the Israelite army. He asked questions about what was going on which led to him saying he’d fight a formidable enemy. Probably shaking in his boots, he stared the enemy down and, drawing on the relationship of the God he knew, he remembered as a shepherd, killing a lion and a bear on two separate occasions when his flock of sheep was threatened. There was no room for “I” in any accomplishment before. He said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." (1 Samuel 17:37)
David could have flaunted his accomplishments and left God out of the equation. He could have talked about overcoming the corporate giant to save his small enterprise. But he didn’t. His success he said was God’s hand, God’s work, God’s doing.
There’s no one successful on their solo performance and ingenuity:
- University students need bank of mom and dad
- The aspiring business professional needs references and top-dogs to endorse them
- The budding entrepreneur needs investors
- The homeowner needed a mortgage beyond their personal resources
Nothing we achieve was ever without someone else in some way investing in us.
We’ve heard the timeless words NO MAN IS AN ISLAND by John Donne (1572-1631). He wrote it as one of several essays when he was seriously ill in the winter of 1623, just 51 years old. There are variations of it but from what I can research, the original writing was this way:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Donne used the poem to argue that we cannot have enough of our neighbour’s pain; that, being aware of another’s pain makes us stronger. We can take the poem further by suggesting that we cannot thrive when isolated from other people. And taking that thought further still, there isn’t one of us successful in any venture apart from God’s interplay with our activity, living and breathing. The people who think they’re doing life in their own strength and ingenuity are setting themselves up for an awakening revelation – we don’t succeed apart from God’s provision and permission.
3. David owned his stuff
We come back to the story of adultery and murdering the woman’s husband to cover his tracks. The plan seemed like it would work and he might actually pull this off. But justice has a way of catching up with us.
2 Samuel 12 – Nathan the prophet told king David a story of a rich man who wanted to entertain a traveller. The rich man stole a poor man’s only lamb rather than take one from his wealthy stock. Nathan wondered what should happen. King David, infuriated by the story, decided that man must be put to death! Of course, the lesson was, David was the rich man who stole Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
What follows is very interesting. When Nathan said, “You’re that man” (1 Sam 12:7), David didn’t go into “yeah, but…” defenses or try to talk himself out of the dilemma. David’s response was, “I have sinned against the LORD” (1 Sam 12:13). He owned it. It takes a man of incredible strength to own his stuff.
Believed to be a year later when David wrote Psalm 51 of his affair and crimes of that dreadful time (read a few verses…)
David was often concerned about his character and the condition of his spirituality. In Psalm 26 he invites God to test and try him, to examine his heart and mind (v2).
Owning our stuff is where most men fall flat on our faces. Accountability only works properly when we invite someone who loves us to be honest with us and we square our shoulders and take the medicine when what they say is not affirming. We struggle with that. Glenys would say to the cadets when challenging them about how they looked in their uniforms, “Ask someone who loves you, “how do I look?” If we will be characterised or described as “a man after God’s heart”, we need people in our lives who won’t go easy on us. If everyone around you constantly tells you how good you are, you need new friends; you need friends who love you honestly. It’s the whole Ephesians 4:15 when Christians were facing a time of weak faith and circumstances got the better of them. Paul said, “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” In other words, Paul is saying we need friends who will tell us, with much love and concern, that we need to grow up; that we need to mature in Christ and not become stuck and lack spiritual maturity. And then, we need to own our stuff and give God much thanks for the people in our lives who care enough about us to be honest.
4. David faced humiliation for God’s sake
This is a tough one when you have a significant other in your life, be that a spouse, close friend, or parents that you deeply respect and they have a powerful influence speaking into what you do and how your life is unfolding. For David it was his wife. 2 Samuel 6 – the Ark of God’s covenant was coming back to Jerusalem. 16As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart… 20…How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would! 21David said to Michal, …I will celebrate before the Lord. 22I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”
David’s nakedness is a picture of all we’ve explored to this point. David clearly understood God’s activity in his world; he knew his successes was because of one thing – God’s favour. He knew God’s nature, one of holiness and purity and came to a place of owning his stuff – his sin and brokenness. David depended desperately on God’s mercy and grace, and knowing God’s all pervading and invading holiness, he was humiliated and naked before God, a broken, sinful, worthless creature. It is this tension, the dance between God’s perfection and David’s flawed humanity, that God credited David as “a man after God’s heart”.
If owning our stuff is a difficult step for guys, this one is harder still. If we’ll be characterised as men after God’s heart, we must be willing to be humiliated. Pope Francis is credited with saying, “There can be neither humility nor holiness without walking the path of humiliation.” One research article suggests that “emphasizing humility, holiness, and introspection, are seen by some men as “weak” or somehow less than masculine.”
Moving beyond gender, it is not easy to be humiliated for Christ in a post-modern society. We are about decorum and high-society appearances if I may call it that. We’re no different than the society of Luke’s day when Jesus told the parable of a Pharisee and a Tax Collector in St. Luke 13:9-14. The religious leader strutted around, self-confident and sure of himself, looking down on everyone else. He praised himself for his accomplishments and generosity and spoke about all the good he did and how he was better than the tax collector. But the Jewish Revenue agent who was cheating the government out of revenue wouldn’t look up to heaven and pounding his chest, a broken shell of a man, said to God, “have mercy on me, a sinner.” We can’t bring ourselves to use the word “sinner” – it’s repulsive, antiquated and out of place. The lesson teaches us that until we’re prepared to be humiliated for Christ, we can’t be saved from destruction.
If the people who know me had to decide my epitaph, I hope they could say I was a man after God’s heart.
What would you want your epitaph to say?
