Last week, we began a journey through the life of David and as we took a look at the process of Samuel anointing David to be the king of Israel we found that:
God chooses to give extraordinary power to ordinary people in ordinary positions in order to serve His purposes.
This week, we’re going to look at the last part of 1 Samuel 16. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to that chapter and let’s read verses 14-23.
Read 1 Samuel 16:14-23
I’ve taken the title of my message this morning from those great theologians – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Their song – “Whistle While You Work” – represents what I think most of us would like our work to be like. At first, I thought I’d just read the words of the song to you, but I thought it would be even better for us to sing the song together. The words will be up on the screen and don’t forget to whistle or hum when you’re instructed to do so.
(Sing song – Can download Karaoke version from Walmart.com or iTunes))
Just whistle while you work (WHISTLE)
And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
So hum a merry tune (HUM)
It won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace
And as you sweep the room
Imagine that the broom is someone that you love
And soon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tune
(PAUSE)
When hearts are high the time will fly so whistle while you work
Just whistle while you work (WHISTLE)
Put on that grin and start right in to whistle loud and long
Just hum a merry tune (HUM)
Just do your best and take a rest and sing yourself a song
(INTERLUDE)
When there’s too much to do
Don’t let it bother you, forget your troubles,
Try to be just like a cheerful chick-a-dee
And whistle while you work (WHISTLE)
Come on get smart, tune up and start
To whistle while you work
Just whistle while you work (WHISTLE)
Put on that grin and start right in to whistle loud and long
Just hum a merry tune (HUM)
Just do your best and take a rest and sing yourself a song
Now wouldn’t it be great if all we had to do to make our work be enjoyable and fulfilling was to just sing a song. Unfortunately, as all of us know, it’s not quite that easy. So let’s spend a few minutes examining this passage of Scripture this morning to see what we can learn about making our work everything God wants it to be.
The interesting thing about this passage is that both main characters – Saul and David – have both been assigned what Eugene Peterson calls “kingwork”. If you go back to 1 Samuel 10, you can read about how Saul was anointed as the first king of Israel. In many ways that experience was very similar to the way David was anointed in the passage that we read last week in the first part of 1 Samuel 16. Samuel anointed Saul with oil and God’s Spirit came upon him in power.
But by the time the events in 1 Samuel 16 occur, something has happened to Saul. And so we find this great contrast between David and Saul. The Spirit of God has now departed from Saul’s life and it has been replaced by an “evil spirit from the Lord.” David, on the other hand, still has God’s Spirit resting on him and while he may not literally whistle while he works, he is at least making music.
So how do we make sure that our work is like David’s and not like Saul’s? How do we whistle while we work?
HOW TO WHISTLE WHILE I WORK:
1. Connect my work and my worship
• God is a worker
At the very beginning of the Bible, God is first presented to us as a worker: In the beginning God created… God spends six days creating and then He takes a day of rest, laying the framework for the connection between my work and my worship.
And that description of God as a worker continues in the New Testament where Jesus describes His Father as a worker and also claims to be a worker Himself:
Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."
John 5:17 (NIV)
Because one of the attributes of God is that He is a worker, it gives intrinsic value to the idea of work. If God is a worker, then work itself must be valuable. And it also means that when I engage in work that I am also engaging my life in one of the attributes of God. And that’s worship.
But not only is God a worker…
• God anoints me to join Him in His work
In the Bible, when God anoints someone, it means that He is giving that person a job to do. Anointing is in effect the link between God’s work and our work. It began all the way back in Genesis 2 when God created Adam and placed them in the Garden and gave him the work of tending the Garden. Even though the Bible doesn’t use the word anoint, that is exactly what God does – He anoints Adam – He gives him a job to do.
A lot of people have the mistaken idea that work is the result of the fall. But Adam’s first job came well before that. The fact that our work is often difficult is a result of the fall, but work itself is actually a blessing from God, not a curse.
Even Jesus was anointed, or called, by God to join His Father in His work:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
Luke 4:18, 19 (NIV)
In 1 Samuel 10, we find that Saul was anointed by Samuel when God gave Him the work of being King of Israel. And we saw last week that Samuel had done the very same thing for David. What’s interesting is that in both cases Saul and David immediately went to work, but it wasn’t doing what we would consider “kingwork”.
Saul went back to farming and David went back to shepherding and he also spent time playing music for King Saul.
That should be a real encouragement to us because it shows that all legitimate work is in effect “kingwork.” I really like what Eugene Peterson writes about this concept in his book Leap over a Wall:
I want to use the word kingwork to describe all true work. I’m using this word in order to call attention to the essential dignity of work as such, to emphasize that our work is of a kind with God’s work. All real work, genuine work, is subsumed under kingwork.
When I begin to look at my work as kingwork, when I see my job as a call, an anointing from God to join Him in His work, then it’s much easier to connect my work and my worship.
So both David and Saul were anointed to do God’s kingwork. But something happened to Saul along the way. And that leads us to a caution:
• Beware the temptation to focus on my work rather than on God
I firmly believe that is what happened to Saul. If you read the accounts of Saul early in his reign, you’ll find that Saul didn’t let the idea that he was king go to his head. Until the first military crisis of his reign occurred, Saul just kept on doing his ordinary farm work.
And when that first battle was fought at Jabesh Gilead, Saul proved to be not only a good general, but also a good person when he refused to allow those who had earlier opposed his leadership to be killed.
But as his success continued, it wasn’t long until Saul lost his focus on God and he began focusing on the work itself. For some reason he forgot the idea that God had anointed him and given him kingwork to do and he became so wrapped up in the work itself that he forgot that he was supposed to be doing God’s work, not his work. That is readily apparent in two separate events in Saul’s life.
In 1 Samuel 13, we read that Saul had gone to Gilgal, where he had been instructed to wait for the prophet Samuel to come and make sacrifices before he and his people went into battle. But when Samuel wasn’t there at the appointed time and the troops began to get restless and fearful, Saul went ahead and made the sacrifices himself.
In the second incident, recorded in 1 Samuel, God specifically instructed Saul to completely destroy the Amelekites and to kill all the people and livestock and destroy all that belonged to them. But Saul had his people keep some of the best of the livestock, which Saul later claimed that the people were going to sacrifice to God. We don’t know whether they actually made the sacrifices – probably not – but it doesn’t really matter because they were disobeying a specific command of God.
Instead of work and worship being connected, in both these events Saul chose to separate the two and he used worship in order to try to make his work prosper. He was trying to use God as a resource to do his work, and God will not be used.
So we read in 1 Samuel 16:14 that God removed His Spirit from Saul and that an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. If we’re not careful to understand that verse we can come up with some real bad theology. At first glance, it makes it sound as if God is the source of the evil spirit that torments Saul. But we know from Scripture, especially from James 1, that God is never the source of evil. However, sometimes, either for our own good or for the purpose of judgment, God can and does permit or allow evil into our lives. For instance, God frequently used the evil nations around Israel to punish His people when they sinned against Him.
The sentence structure in the Hebrew indicates that the evil spirit is from God only in the sense that God has permitted the spirit into Saul’s life. As a result of his disobedience, God had taken away His Spirit and he was allowing another spirit to torment Saul. In this passage the word “evil” could also be translated “troubling”, “disturbing” or “injurious”. It’s even possible that the troubling spirit referred to was Saul’s own evil mindset that chose to persistently disobey God similar to what Paul writes about in Romans 1 when he describes how God gives men over to their own depraved minds. Or it may have been some kind of satanic spirit that God permitted to torment Saul as a result of his disobedience. Either way, Saul no longer had the benefit of God’s Spirit in his life as a result of focusing on his work and separating work and worship.
We need to be careful in our work that we don’t get so focused on the work that we forget God. I find that’s particularly a temptation for pastors. It’s so easy to think that I’m doing “kingwork” that I can get my focus off God and either try to do things in my own power or try to use worship as a tool to facilitate my work.
I’ve also seen people who have tried to use worship as a tool to accomplish their work. They figure they’ll go to church because it’s a good place to make contacts and further their business. There is nothing wrong with meeting people at church and if that somehow benefits me in my job I don’t think God would begrudge me that. But when my primary motive for entering into worship is so that worship can serve my work – beware! As Saul’s life demonstrates, God will not be used like that.
2. Concentrate on serving, regardless of my position
Even though Saul no longer had that mindset, there was a time early on in his reign when he had observed this principle. But David seems to grasp this principle and apply it throughout most of his life.
When David went back to tend his sheep in the pasture or he went to Saul’s palace to play his harp for the king, David wasn’t preparing to do kingwork; he wasn’t serving an apprenticeship, he was actually doing kingwork because he was serving God right where he was.
I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for David when he was summoned to play his harp for King Saul. David knew that he had been anointed as king. He also had to know about Saul’s disobedience and probably sensed that God’s Spirit had been taken out of Saul’s life. But there he is – a good king serving a bad king.
I think that David understood that the essence of kingwork is always serving the needs of others. It is a principle that Jesus taught also:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Mark 10:45 (NIV)
Both David and Jesus demonstrated for us that we can serve others right where we are – whether in a field watching over the sheep, playing the harp for the king, healing the sick and lame, turning water into wine, talking to a Samaritan woman at a well or raising someone from the dead.
One of the things that gives us the most fulfillment in or work is seeing how our work serves the needs of others. I want to encourage you to think about how your work serves others.
Maybe your work is to stay at home and raise your children – there is no doubt that you are serving their needs. Maybe you’re an artist and your work serves the need for beauty in the lives of others. Maybe you’re an engineer and you design products that keep people safe or make their lives easier. Maybe you’re an accountant and you serve people’s needs to keep track of their finances or stay out of trouble with the IRS.
The fact is that for most of us, we can serve needs right where we are. But for a few of you here this morning, you may look at your work and honestly say that your work really doesn’t serve others. Maybe you’re in a business that operates on deceit and takes advantage of people. Or maybe you’re providing a product or service that harms rather than serves. If that’s the case, then it’s probably time to find a new job where you can serve others.
3. Commit to excellence in my work
Although the NIV translation doesn’t bring it out as well as some others, it is apparent from the text that David was very skillful in playing the harp. How much of that skill was just David’s natural talent and how much of it came from practice, I can’t say for sure, but I would guess both of those factors contributed to his skill.
Throughout most of David’s life we see him committing to excellence in his work. As a shepherd, he became so skillful in protecting the sheep that he was able to take those same skills to the battlefield and slay Goliath. As a musician, he not only served King Saul, but he also wrote many of the worship songs of Israel that we find in the Psalms. As King he was skillful at military strategy and administration. When it came to his work David certainly wanted to be all that he could be.
It seems to me that the pattern David gave to us was to find some work that fits the talents, passions and abilities that God has given to us and then do everything we can to develop those talents in order to bring excellence to our work.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we ought to be the very best workers around. In order to do that, I need to start with the right work ethic. In his letter to the Colossian church, Paul gives us the standard for our work ethic.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men
Colossians 3:23 (NIV)
As Christians, we ought to be hard workers. We ought to work with all our hearts, because, as we’ve already seen, our work is an anointing from God that calls us to join Him in his work of serving the needs of others. We’re not merely working for other men, we’re working for God.
But hard work is not enough. If we want to display excellence in our work, we also need to develop our skills:
If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.
Ecclesiastes 10:10 (NIV)
When it comes to developing our skills, I think about my brother Dave. I can remember when he was back in high school and how together he and I, with only a few simple tools, could work on my Ford Pinto. But today, the cars are a lot more sophisticated. While Dave has always had a great natural talent for working on cars, he constantly has to update his skills and buy new equipment in order to do his work with excellence.
Think about it, when you have someone work on your car, do you want someone who has great natural ability, but never updates his or her skills, or do you want someone who may have a little less natural talent, but who is always learning and training to update those skills? When you go in for surgery, do you want the doctor who only performs a few surgeries a year or the one who is constantly updating his knowledge and skills and who is using the latest technology?
As Christians, we should not only be the hardest workers, but we should also be as skilled as we can possibly be.
So do you want to whistle while you work? It might help to sing a song, but I think there’s a much better chance to make your work rewarding and fulfilling if you:
1. Connect your work and your worship
2. Concentrate on serving, regardless of your position
3. Commit to excellence in your work
Looking Back
1. How can I better see my work as “kingwork”? Do I connect my work and my worship or do I “use” my worship to accomplish my work?
2. In what way does my work serve the needs of others? Do I need to consider changing my job or does God want me to serve others right where I am?
3. How can I improve my attitude and my skills in order to bring excellence to my work?
Looking Ahead
1. Read 1 Samuel 21 and 22. David and Doeg were both in the sanctuary, but their experiences and the results were completely different. Think about how “religion” can be used for either good or bad.
