Preamble
I've been preaching a very occasional series at church based on 1 Samuel, and I'm coming to the end. Not the end of the book, but the end of the life of Samuel, and I feel it is a good time to take a break from that book. It's been fun but I think it is time to move on.
Anyway, the final sermon will start from I Samuel 16:1-13 where Samuel anoints David to be the next King of Israel, and God tell him (Samuel) "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart"
The question I want to answer is "When He looked at David's heart, what did the LORD see?".
Introduction
We have some idea what Samuel would have seen. He looked first at Eliab the eldest son and would have been culturally predisposed to prefer him: first sons tended to get priority. From what God told Samuel not to look at, we can assume that Samuel saw a tall, strong, handsome man not unlike what he saw in Saul when he first anointed a king over Israel.
These are the sorts of things we first see when we look at someone too as they are easy to see. Some people might look for a handsome face, others for good grooming or good dress sense but while these things have some value in themselves, they are obviously not what God was looking for.
As we get to know people more we can usually see a little more into the heart of the person. We might start the see the strength of their character more than the strength of their arm. We may perceive the height of their integrity as much as the height of their head. But looking into someones heart is not easy and rarely certain. People put up barriers and hide their inner self too well, even sometimes from people whom they love.
For us to expect to be able to look into David's heart and see what God saw is doubtlessly expecting too much. But we do have a window in which we can catch some glimpses, and if those glimpses draw a consistent picture, then maybe we can be confident that we have seen something real. That window is the Psalms.
Of the 150 Psalms that are recorded in that book of the bible, approximately half claim David as their author. Many of these show deep emotional responses to different situations and seem to reveal something of the inner man. While we obviously cannot assume that everything that God saw is equally revealed in the Psalms, it seems reasonable to assume that themes which occur repeatedly and strongly in David's psalms were similarly strong and visible to God in David's heart.
As I read David's psalms two things stand out very clearly: Dependence and Worship.
Dependence
David's dependence on God is very clear in many Psalms:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. - Ps 23.
O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy;
In your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Ps 143
These are just two examples of many many evidences of David's dependence on God.
We must be careful though, how we understand David's dependence on God. It is not what you might call a parasitic dependence where David expects God to do everything for him, to supply all his needs promptly and to make his life easy. It was not a dependence which took the place of David's responsibility to live out his life.
Rather, it was a dependence that might be called an Ultimate Dependence.
David is quite capable of making decisions and taking action and working to achieve the ends that he had in sight. We see that quite clearly in his life as a young man, as a soldier and leader in the army, and as King of Israel.
But at the same time he knows that his decisions cannot be trusted unless they are guided by God. His actions may not achieve what he intends without entrusting them to God. His ends may turn out to be fruitless unless he stays close to God through it all.
There seems at first to be a strong contrast between the historical David as portrayed in Samuel and the personal David as portrayed in the Psalms that he wrote.
On the one hand we have a might warrior of who it is sung "Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands" (1 Sam 18:7), and who commands a group of as many as six hundred men while in exile (1 Sam 23:13). On the other hand we have a fearful and worried man who cries "The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground, he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead" (Psalm 143:3).
This contrast shows, I think, how effective David's dependence of God was a providing him with stability in his life. David certainly had enemies at many times in his life, both before he was King when, for a time, he was treated like an outlaw in his own land, and after he became King when even his own son turned against him (2 Samuel 15). He had more reason than most of us to be very concerned for his life. Yet at all times he was able to command loyal followers and able to show genuine love for his enemies who were set on killing him (1 Sam 24, 2 Sam 18:33).
This dependence goes right back to the days of his youth when he was a shepherd looking after his father's sheep. As he told Saul before venturing out to confront Goliath: "The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Even then, David had a courage that came not so much from knowing his own strength but from knowing his God.
So it seems clear that when God looked at David's heart on that special day he saw that David depended not on himself but on God. It almost goes without saying that this would have been something that God was happy to see, but I think it is worth confirming that point, and what better way that to look for this dependence in the life of God's Son, Jesus.
There are many examples of Jesus both claiming a dependence on God, and of him acting that out particularly in prayer. This is probably best expressing John 5:19 where he says "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself' he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also."
An abiding dependence on God is something that He loves to see in the hearts of His children, and something that he clearly saw in David.
Worship
The other thing that we can see in David's heart through the window of the Psalms, and which Samuel would not have been expected to see, is a heart of worship.
Of the two themes that come though strongly in David's Psalms, I think worship is the strongest. Those psalms which begin with a heart-wrenching dependence often end with uplifting worship. Those that being with worship also end that way. Worship was not only part of how David lived his life, it was a core part of who he was.
I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever". Psalm 145:1
A good example of seeing both of these attitude in the one psalm is Psalm 13 which starts out "How long O LORD? Will you forget me forever?", continues on to "my foes will rejoice when I fall" but ends "I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me."
Or Psalm 63 which begins "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water" and finishes "But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced."
Here he expresses both a deep need for God with a feeling that the need isn't being met, and a deep faith in God, knowing all the God has done for him in the past.
David's worship is expressed in at least two distinct ways which are worth exploring. Firstly there is outward, often vocal, worship that we just saw with "I will sing to the Lord", and we see in many other places such as:
I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever". Psalm 145:1
When the Ark of the Covenant was finally brought to Jerusalem we are told (2 Samuel 6:14) that David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might. That he also sang before God is clear from the simple existence of the many Psalms he wrote, not only in the book of Psalms but also in Samuel for example 2 Samuel 22 begins "David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul."
Secondly there is more reflective inward worship as expressed in
Psalm 63:6 "On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the
watches of the night. Because you are my help I sing in the shadow of
your wings." To think of God through the middle of a sleepless night
is a very honouring an worshipful thing to do.
David does not write or sing about his meditation of God very much. He seems more intent on focussing on his need for God and his love for God. But the evidence of meditation and reflection on who God really is, is still very evident in the Psalms.
To meditate on who God is, what he has done, what his word says, is a deep form of worship that can carry us through the darkest times. It seems that David worshipped God in this way, and God did carry him through some very dark times.
It seems likely that God saw this when he looked at David's heart, and again it is clearly something that God values.
As Jesus said to the women at the well in John 4:23, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind for worshipers the Father seeks." The Father obviously seeks worshipers, and David was one such.
Conclusion
While there was probably much more that God saw in David's heart when he looked, and while in all honestly, God doubtless saw a number of things that he might have wished had not been there, it seems likely that these were two things that God saw were very strong in David's heart, were very pleasing to himself, and were sufficient for him to say "Rise and anoint him; he is the one" the next King of Israel.
So, we have "dependence" and "worship" as two things that God clearly desires. How can we use this in our lives? How does this knowledge guide us today?
I think the answer is simply that we should look to cultivate these characteristics in our hearts whenever the opportunity arises.
We should not condemn ourselves if we think our dependence or our worship isn't what it should be, and nor should we congratulate ourselves if we do see evidence of a truly dependent and worshipful heart. But rather we need to be alert to how we respond, how we act in different situations. When we see that God has allowed a little dependence or worship to grow, we should encourage it and consciously act in that direction even more than we feel.
And when we see in ourselves behaviours that seem to show a dependence on self, or a worship of things rather than of than God, we should turn our backs and make a conscious effort to give God the honour and the glory.
God may not want to use these attributes in us to make us a King of some nation like he did with David. But as Peter tells us in his first letter, we are a chosen people, and a royal priesthood. God does have a purpose for each of our lives, and he can work out that purpose more effectively if we co-operate in growing those attitude that he longs to see. If we endeavour to be, as Paul says of David in Acts 13:22: A person after God's own heart, who will do everything Gods wants you to do.
May God bless you as you seek to grow in dependence on and worship to our Lord.
Comments...
Re: A man after God's own heart (02 August 2009, 12:25 UTC) Some thing you said that really spoke to me in your conclusion was. "we should encourage it (dependency and worship) and consciously act in that direction even more than we feel. "
A scripture that comes to mind is John 14v15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command " An important component is that the love that we have for Jesus or God requires action. These actions don't require that we "feel like it" because most of the time we don't. And though, I don't believe that God wants us to just do what we are told and we will be happy once we get to Heaven. I do believe that it take us surrendering our will to his word. Once this happens we get the reward of experiencing the freedom found in knowing God's truth. John 8v31.
well thx again.