The Anointing Of David Series

I Samuel 16:4-13 Life of David

Part 2: The Anointing of David

Thesis: David’s anointing as king of Israel reveals to us that God doesn’t make decision based on the same factors most humans see as important.

Introduction: After Samuel overcame his paralyzing grief and fear, and began to obey the Lord again, where did God send him and why and to whom did the Lord send him. Why are all these things important to us thousands of years later?

The account of the early life of David teaches us that God does not view things from our horizontal perspective, but from heaven He looks down into the heart and evaluates us from that way. He does not choose His servants the way the world chooses them. He has His own standard. It is important for us to know that God uses those whom He chooses. As He calls on us to serve Him, it is not our place to put up the obstacles that we think will keep us from being faithful to God. Moses tried that and it didn’t work for him either. You can try it too but it wont work. We can ask why would God use me to witness to the lost or to teach a class or to care for the sick in His name. I don’t know, but He does. I don’t know how many times someone who has known me from childhood will say to me, ‘I cant believe you’re a preacher’. ‘I never would have guessed you would grow up to be a preacher’, but friends that’s Gods plan, not the worlds, but I am glad He called me. God is in sovereign control where He sends, why He sends us and to whom He sends us.

I. Where Did God Send His Prophet Samuel?

A. God sent Samuel to Bethlehem. Bethlehem was a little village about 6 miles from Jerusalem. The name Bethlehem means house of bread. This was due to the fertile fields around that area. Yet, like the Lord so often does, there is a message even in the name.

The message in this name Bethlehem signifies not only that the fields around the village were fertile enough to feed many, but that from the little town of Bethlehem, God would send that promised child of David who would be able to satisfy the spiritual hunger of all who will believe. In John chapter 6:35 we find these words from our Lord, ‘And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ Jesus is the bread of life to the starving soul and the spiritually malnourished.

It is the choice of this little village which first tells us that God often uses small insignificant things to confound the wise of the world. As a matter of fact the Bible tells us that plainly in 1 Corinthians 1 God does this ‘because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.’ Why does He does this? That no flesh should glory in His presence. King Saul gloried in himself and God rejected him. The Bible says God rejects the proud but gives grace to the humble and out in the fields of Bethlehem there was a humble young man tending sheep whom God had his hand on.

B. God sent Samuel to See Jessie.

Jessie was David’s father. We do not know much about the father of David, except that David never refers to him, but he does mention his mother twice. Perhaps it is that David never had much of a relationship with his father and the failures as a parent that David would later commit were learned from his own father. At any rate we do not know much about David’s father except that when a feast was called with the preacher in town, David was left out alone on the hillsides tending the sheep. We do know that David did not dishonor his father, even in the face of what appears to be a problematic relationship. After all had he been dishonoring his father, he would not have been a man after Gods own heart.