Mike Bickle emphasizes the foundation of David's intimacy with God, which is rooted in his confidence in God's love. He explores how David, despite his rise to prominence and the accompanying challenges, maintained a free spirit and a heart focused on knowing God rather than seeking power. Bickle highlights that David's gratitude and understanding of being beloved by God allowed him to endure both prosperity and adversity, fostering a deep intimacy with the Lord. This confidence in love is essential for believers to experience genuine intimacy with God, as it empowers them to respond authentically to His love.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And Lord, we thank you for the glorious reality of who you are. Lord, we thank you for yourself. We thank you for you. We bless the Lord for the reality of who you are. And we just echo what Cindy said earlier. We could do without so many things, but not Jesus. We cannot do without Jesus moving on our spirits. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen. Last week in session 12, we looked at 1 Samuel chapter 18, and I talked about David having a free spirit. And the context, and that's what I'm talking about again tonight, but just giving a little bit more behind that, that in the context of 1 Samuel 18, 19, and 20, those three chapters go together. David has just been recently promoted at the city of Gibeah, which is the capital. It's the king's court. He went from a shepherd boy in the back hills of the hills of Bethlehem, and suddenly he's in the king's court. And in the king's court, he has this strange mixture of very sudden promotion and honor before the whole nation. And the whole nation's captured with this young 20-year-old. Maybe, he's probably about 17 when he kills Goliath, and he's still 17 and 18 and 19 in these years that he's in Gibeah, about five years. And it's a very strange season of his life because he has notoriety second to nobody in the nation, just as a young 20-year-old. He's the most talked about man in the nation. And he is a national hero. He's won the great battle against the Philistines, which that's not just a story. It's real history. He really did that, and it was a national disaster for the nation of Israel. I mean, they were really going to be in trouble if they lost that battle. And so David's in the king's court, and now King Saul loves him, but King Saul has a seed of jealousy that we looked at last week that touches his spirit. And he begins to change and vacillate to real extremes, hot and cold. One time, he loves David like his own son. The next time, he hates David because he's afraid of him, the scripture says. So David has this very odd experience of this instant national prominence that he's never had known what to do with. But alongside of it, he has more troubles than he's ever had in his life because the honor and the prominence brought tremendous, cruel jealousy against him. And so he's needing to manage his life and his heart before God. And the question of the hour is, can David touch God with prominence and this strange, intense adversity? Can he touch God in the same dimension that he did in the quietness of the hills of Bethlehem? Because it's clear David was after one thing. He wanted to know God. He didn't want to be king. David never wanted to be king. We'll show that in one of the other sessions. David's desire was never to be king. It was to touch God and to operate in the anointing of God at the heart level. He wanted to be known of God. He wanted to know God. He wanted to be loved of God. He wanted to love God back. And it just so happened God made him king, which really made his life difficult. And the reason that he was the perfect person to be king, I mean he was the right person for the job because he did not want to be king. He wanted God. And the Lord's looking for men and women right now, old and young, to raise up to positions of prominence and authority that don't want or don't care about it. For real they don't. I mean it's kind of a kind of a popular thing to say that we don't. It looks good on our resume. Oh I don't like that stuff anyway. But David really walked it out in reality. And the thing that I talked about last week was David had a free spirit as opposed to Saul who had a guarded spirit and an anxious spirit. Saul was very guarded and very anxious and fear-driven. And David had a free spirit. Because what David really cared about he knew he could have. And that was something at the heart level. That's what he really cared about. And what he cared in a very secondary way about was his prominence and money and honor in the kingdom. And that's why his spirit was free. Because he had confidence he could get what he really was after. He wanted the right things and he knew he could have them. So he had a far easier go and an open hand about the external things. I'm not saying that he didn't care about them at all. But they truly were secondary in his life. As you read the book of Psalms and just look at the way he reacted under great pressure and great prominence. He was a lovesick worshiper and he had a servant spirit as well. Even as king he had a servant spirit which is very odd for a king to have a servant spirit. And that's what's so astounding about the king of kings has the ultimate servant spirit. But David's key was to this free spirit was his gratitude. He had a thankful happy spirit in God and this gratitude was was anchored in his intimacy. I mean I am struck by David's gratitude towards God in his adversity. His gratitude towards God even when has prosperity. He's far more grateful for what's happening in his heart. He's overwhelmed with thanksgiving and praise for what's happening at the heart level. And that goes back that those roots go deep into his intimacy with God. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. The foundation of David's intimacy is his confidence. David felt confident in love and I mean that in a twofold way. He felt confident that God loved him and he felt confident that his love was authentic. The love he returned back to God. Even though it was weak, even though it was flawed, it was still real from God's esteem and David knew that. I'm gonna say that again although I'll say it a number of times. David had confidence that God liked him. Beloved when this touches our spirit a little bit that God actually likes us. He enjoys us. I mean when it touches us that the real person God really knows us and really likes us has a spark of enthusiasm in his spirit about you for real. That changes everything when that spark touches our hearts or when that revelation touches our hearts about the enthusiasm of God's heart towards us. There is nothing more powerful on the human spirit than when it strikes us even in the most elementary way that there's an enthusiastic spark and delight in God about me even in my weakness. The reason I say even in my weakness because if God is enthusiastic about me and my weakness it means the enthusiasm will stay the course of time. If God is only enthusiastic about me if I'm you know breaking spiritual gymnastic records and you know I'm outdoing Paul the Apostle then I never ever am confident that God's enthusiasm will stay steady towards me. It has to be understood that God's enthusiasm is towards us as genuine believers. I'm talking to genuine believers now. I'm not talking about just in general God is enthusiastic about people. Well he is. God so loves the world but God doesn't enjoy the world. God so loves every human being but God does not enjoy most of the human beings on the planet. He's in an adversarial relationship with them. They grieve him and he's striving with them. He's trying to win them and conquer them and they are at war with him right now. He does not enjoy them though he loves them. I'm talking about God enjoying us and God enjoying us even in our weakness meaning the enjoyment as as we are sincere in our in the yes in our spirit before God that enjoyment we can have confidence in it and when we have a bad afternoon or a bad week or a bad month we don't think all all of a sudden oh no it's all different now you know uh go to jail do not pass go start over you're back at ground zero everything that you've ever uh attained in your relationship with God is now gone because you blew it yesterday it's not how it works David was one of the few people that really grasped that in the Old Testament I mean in a profound way this the way this thing was weighty on his spirit the reality of this and having uh just a little touch of this in my own life and desperate for a far greater touch of it a little touch of this understanding has profoundly affected the way I evaluate my own life and the way I evaluate my ministry the way I evaluate my future and the way I evaluate you the way I evaluate me is the most important thing about how I evaluate you that's the way it works with you as well you know it's the woman that cried oh God help me love my neighbor as myself and the Lord whispered he says that's the problem you do you hate yourself and you hate your neighbor that's the problem the reason you hate your neighbor one reason is because you hate yourself you do love your neighbor just like you love yourself and that is the problem well that was kind of a little bunny trail we'll get back on path there but as this spark this touch of revelation I mean this little spark of revelation has touched my spirit the divine enthusiasm towards me making it personal now and I look at this David had a a significant experience of this but as I've touched this a little bit I've seen this awaken this understanding awaken in the hearts of people for years it changes the way I view myself it changes the way I view the future it changes the way I view my ministry it changes the way I view what I'm doing at three in the afternoon it just changes the way I view everything and it changes the way I view people others well David had this this touch to spirit but it's not enough to know that God enjoys us that's not enough it seems like it is but it isn't we have to know the way our human spirit is built we have to know that we are genuine in our response back to God and wholehearted when I think God loves me but I'm not sure I love God my heart is still grieving even though God loves me there's still a part of me that's grieving you were simply made to love you were created to be wholehearted and the idea that we can just rest in the fact that God loves us while we know that we're living in defiance and in compromise of that love and we're living with our with the energies of our lives spread out on other lovers I'm thinking about I'm talking about areas of compromise using the words of a song that sang around IHOP when we know that something inside does not work right it's not enough to know God loves me I need to know I'm authentic in my response back to him and the two of those together of course there's a sequence knowing God enjoys me is obviously first but knowing there's an authentic yes in my spirit back to God those two together make the human heart mighty really it makes it mighty and those two are strengthened not only by this not only by this but this is the missing ingredient uh in a dramatic way it's strengthened by feeding our spirit on the word of God the thing that is such a common idea that everybody knows that it's fed by that but the most neglected dimension in the body of Christ is feeding our spirit saturating ourself on the word of God the most acclaimed but the most neglected and as I feed my spirit on the word of God when I read it hours one guy told me he goes when I hear you talk it's almost like you think there's a relationship uh to how much time you put in I go let there be no misunderstanding there is a dynamic relationship to how much time I spend in the word and what my heart feels like absolutely there's he goes oh well isn't that legalism I go no you're all mixed up it's not what legalism is legalism isn't about that it's the attitude of trying to earn God's favor by trying to motivate God to love us because of our superior dedication somebody no I go that's not legalism there is a dynamic relationship to these two truths touching your spirit to time I want to say t-i-m-e the amount of time that's not the only thing but beloved don't let anybody don't let anybody uh get you off track time matters in the presence of God spending time really matters we have this kind of really off-center idea of grace we uh neglect our relationship with God on the run on the fast track and grace somehow rebounds us into glory in the process that's called presumption it's not the grace of God and so over the years I have found this has been strengthened in my spirit this idea that God enjoys me and then the second idea that I authentically enjoy God or I love God it's real it's when my when my love is weak when my love is weak and frail as it is this hour I don't mean because it's something particular today it has been 35 years my love is weak and frail it continues to be weak and frail my love is still real weak love is not false love weak love is the only kind of love we have except God gives the increase that's the only kind we have and I the more I love God the more I understand the areas that are not fully his the closer I get to the Lord the more I understand the distance I am from him you know it's it's the same thing you you've heard the testimony of the you know the uh the aerospace department in in Houston the mathematics you know the the guy that was the PhD in math or the guy that made the straight A's in math in high school thought he knew math and now the top mathematician in Houston at the space department understands more than anybody how much math he does not understand it's the same way with the Lord the closer that I get to the Lord and I'm sure it's true with you the more I understand and what I don't understand the more I love the Lord the clearer it is that my love is weak when I was young I thought when my love was fervent I thought it was strong because it was since it was sincere and as I got closer I went oh my goodness Lord there's so many pockets of resistance to you in my heart I thought there was one or two oh my goodness there's so many more than that okay let's get on with the notes here well you know my style is just kind of say the whole notes in the introduction and then kind of race through them and skip the last four pages so that's kind of my style I get so excited about writing them that I can't wait for page two so I just give it in the introduction and then get to page two and you already got it there okay David uh David's gratitude his ability to endure prosperity in 1st Samuel 18 19 and 20 and we'll look at uh that more next week and his ability to endure uh adversity was because his spirit was grateful because he had a free spirit because he was going after what he was going after most he knew could not be stopped that was at the heart level he wasn't mostly going after things at the circumstantial level though he did have that that was part of what God wanted him to go after but it was his second wasn't 20th it was just second and his free spirit was built on the fact he was confident he could have the things he wanted most and they just happened to be at the heart level internal it's critical that we make those things at the heart level and his free spirit and gratitude was built upon the fact of his intimacy with God a David had a revelation he had a revelation that that's a powerful he had a supernatural understanding that a real person God a real person saw him valued him forgave him longed for him he had a real revelation that a real person saw him in his real life in in real time and space that he saw him on Monday afternoon and valued what he was going through and forgave him for his weakness and longed for him David saw this and his spirit was alive with that reality absolutely alive he had a revelation he was dear to God he had a revelation that he was precious to God even in his weakness however I must say this yet with a sincere desire for a hundredfold obedience I can't say that too many times you know most messages I'm hitting one point or the other and rarely do I hit both of them adequately in one message one message I'll or I'll go a few weeks in a row hitting hard the need to pursue a hundredfold obedience and sometimes I'll go well what about grace I go I can't hit everything hard in every you know 45 minute uh message and then uh like tonight I want to go on the other the other dimension it's not an opposite by any means it's just another dimension of the weakness God's delight is towards us but it's in context to going hard after God don't throw away the part that we must be pursuing him and in my pursuit of God I find it's very weak and it's frail but the pursuit is real and I'm trying to obey him a hundred percent that's a critical pursuit though I've never attained it never ever attained it but I pursue it consistently and when I hit a wall I look at it I call it sin and I go this is not okay and I'm gonna I'm gonna recommit myself again to go hard and in the process I'm gonna push delete on my failure stand before the Lord enjoy him enjoying me and then recommit myself to go hard again and that to me is the simplest way I know talk about the balance of the grace of God David understood his spiritual immaturity was not rebellion rebellion and immaturity are not the same though they look the same sometimes outwardly sometimes what David did outwardly and what the man who didn't fear God at all did outwardly and you know for an hour someone might go wait that's the exact attitude that's they have the same attitude right now they they look like they have the same mindset right now they look like they're doing some of the same things the difference is when David walked out sin and darkness he hated it he went to war against it in his heart rebellion and immaturity are not the same thing be confidence in love before God is necessary in order to enjoy intimacy with God now maybe if this is a new subject to you you think let me think about that for a minute what now we want to enjoy intimacy with God we want to feel his presence we want to we want this anointing of feeling his love for us and the anointing to give our love back to feel it from him and to give it back to him it's a two-fold thing well it's really threefold because then it overflows to other people i talk uh often about the threefold love of God we feel it from him we give it back to him by the grace of God there's a there's a anointing there's a power to give it back but then there's an overflow to others believers and unbelievers alike so whether saved or unsaved there's an overflow to others it's a threefold love anyway this ability to enjoy intimacy to feel God's pleasure of my life and to feel an authentic loving him back that's what i mean those are some of the kind of the anatomy of intimacy if i had to break intimacy down and i was pressed i don't know that there's any good uh definitions of intimacy because intimacy is a uh it's not something that you get a bottle of you know and you check it out and you you know you buy a bottle intimacy it's a it's a living reality of a human heart with God's heart and and i don't know that there's a perfect measurement or definition of it but uh i don't always know exactly what it is but i know when i touch it i know when i touch the reality of it though i don't know the full definition of it and i'm sure that many of you can relate to that but a part of intimacy is this ability to feel his pleasure i mean to feel it by this holy spirit's anointing but again putting the word in my heart really helps with that oh i love to feel his enjoyment towards me i love the feeling i feel powerful i feel uh i feel like nothing can stop me because nothing can in the will of God nothing can stop me in the will of God ultimately there might be hindrances and things that slow me down but when i feel powerful i feel i feel eternal because i am i'm gonna live forever it's true when i feel this enjoyment of God in my spirit i feel mighty inside and when i feel this this uh i know that i know that i'm i'm genuine i'm not again i'm not mature i'm not perfected but i'm genuine my love is real for back to him oh my spirit is so alive that's what i mean by intimacy those are components of intimacy but by no means the whole of intimacy intimacy is a a big subject i've got so many books from the mystics and the contemplatives and from all through church history i mean hundreds and hundreds of them on intimacy and love and and mystical union with the heart of of a believer in God and and i love to read all the definitions and all of them are are just as on the edges as everybody else they've all got one little facet of it i concluded there is no complete definition that any person has it's bigger than it's bigger than but anyway having confidence having confidence be in love before God is necessary i have to be confident that God loves me in my weakness or i will never ever launch into this experiential feeling of which intimacy is the big subject but it's bigger than experiential feeling i will never ever get into intimacy if i lack if i have profound lack of confidence i may always lack it some but if i have a profound lack of confidence that God loves me that God enjoys me my intimacy experience is really shut down because here's what happens we instantly retreat and we put guards up over our heart if we think God is angry at us we back away from him and we guard our heart because it it it injures our heart the thought that he's angry at us and he's scolding us and he's driving us out of his presence nobody can worship God with an open spirit thinking God's angry at them they have to settle the issue first and that's why in worship times it's very common for a person to be worshiping and the beautiful worships you know the presence of God in a room and they're negotiating with God the whole time i promise i'll never do it again if you'll forgive me this one more time they can't worship at all they're always negotiating now the reason i know about that i didn't read a book on it because i did it a lot in my early days oh my worship i love you i love you if you'll forgive me one more time i'll never ask again i promise this is almost the last time and when i began to get a little bit of confidence it doesn't take a lot all of a sudden your experience on the inside radically changes and that's where gratitude that's the soil of which gratitude grows in our spirit and the most powerful thing you and i will ever have in our spirit this is a big statement is gratitude gratitude it seems like it's not uh but it is it is that not that i'm uh infallible in my statements but that's a thought through statement for many years the most powerful thing that will ever touch your spirit that will sustain you is called gratitude and that is the most difficult thing to awaken in the human spirit is gratitude that's why there's a thousand verses that's not a real number but all over the bible that says praise the lord give thanks and that's why it's really hard to do it gratitude is the is the most powerful operation when we're grateful before god then we love obedience we're grateful for before god we have confidence we're grateful for before god we serve people who don't deserve it we endure hardship gratitude is the most powerful protection it's the most powerful component of love is you know it's the unit that makes love really fiery is gratitude and david had gratitude in his spirit like i i've never seen it's it's equal in the old testament the way that david felt gratitude before god anyway having confidence is critical we have to have confidence and in all of your acquiring acquire confidence with god that he loves you and that your love is real if that gets injured everything else is injured in your spiritual life when that gets injured all hands on deck get that repaired before anything else when my confidence before god is injured i don't need another ministry trip i don't need to go uh on another uh activity or venture i don't need those kinds of things i need to get my spirit healed up and strengthened and uh really get intact again in a powerful way i value my confidence in love the fact that god confidence that he loves me and the confidence that i love him again imperfectly but genuinely i value that more than anything else in my whole life because when that is there my spirit can be mighty when that is not there then again everything else is fledgling it's weak it's it's it's it's it's uh i i i i lose my way spiritually let's look continue to read this confidence in love before god is necessary in order to enjoy intimacy with god this requires living in the reality of our belovedness before god with the confidence that god sees us as genuine lovers or authentic lovers all the redeemed god calls them the beloved of god all the redeemed are beloved of him the genuinely born again here's what david said in psalm 60 he's praying and part of his argument for god to answer him is that he said god i'm your beloved that you would deliver me your beloved deliver me i i love to say that to the lord i just steal this straight from the bible and i i come before the lord i've done this for many years i say i come before the lord worship i go lord here i am your servant your beloved one and i love to add the next phrase your favorite one because i'm way ahead of myself but on the notes here but everybody in christ jesus has the right to stand as one of god's favorites every single believer stands in the place is god's favorite because god said that he loved you as much as he loved jesus christ he loves me as much as he loves jesus beloved you know what that makes i'm gonna make this real personal instead of saying you i'm just gonna really lap this up right now i can feel it when i'm saying i like it but do you know what that means that means i'm god's favorite well it's true of you too he loves you as much as he loves jesus is what jesus said it's what the father said in the scripture it's true you were his favorite so i love to come before the lord and i i challenge you to do this but when i first uh uh did this the first couple times it felt like it felt like so much heresy i had so much resistance i'll have you stand up in a minute and do it say it quietly so your neighbor doesn't have to know if you really did but i you some of you will be surprised you'll go i'd say here i am lord your servant your beloved your favorite one i'd say the same phrase but here's how at first i go here i am lord your servant that was easy your beloved oh god i'm not going to do that thing one more time i promise you this time i couldn't even finish the sentence i'd go off into a spirit of negotiation i couldn't say beloved without proving to him i was real i'm sure nobody else understands that and then i said you're you're uh saved one no that's true i mean we are you're you're you know one of your guys i it was so hard to say that because i had this idea to say that i mean it was years ago i've been saying it for many years and i would i begin many worship meetings just i hopped this thing where you're standing i said lord here i am your servant your beloved i'm quoting psalm 60 year below your favorite one here i am your favorite one it's me again here i am lord i know you're happy and i tell you there's something that washes my spirit when i do that and i know that that's the spirit of king david's intimate relationship with god was i don't i'm sure he didn't say exactly those words but that was the spirit of his internal life with god beloved this will make you mighty inside mighty and what i mean by mighty inside that when trouble or glory happens i mean man's glory when promotion or trouble comes you can stay steady that's what i mean by having a mighty spirit when something threatening or something real uh positive you're steady you don't get dizzy by either one of them you don't lose your way at the heart level that's what i mean by a mighty spirit you stay connected many a person with just the little beginnings of promotion get so dizzied by the prospect of having getting attention from somebody or from their ministry or their business or their something whatever you know there's different various ways people get attention they're so awestruck by it and then they're so afraid they might lose it before they even get it they start getting fearful of losing it they get so dizzied by the prospect of attention or prominence or prosperity whatever and then they get real dizzied by any threat of it and what i mean by dizzy they they get internally so confused so afraid so paranoid there's a guy down the office that's going to take my part of the business or take my part of the ministry or take my part of their neighborhood or take my part of and and people just have the hardest time staying steady because they don't have a mighty spirit and i'm giving you all this kind of a lengthy explanation because these very simple verses all flow out of this reality when david says you're beloved he's talking about this whole realm and much more if he was here he might go hey i'm in a whole lot more than you said mike there's a lot more you don't know about this but when we stand before god and say you're beloved deliver me your beloved beloved there is a dynamic behind that reality that we want to enter into isn't that right david said in psalm 17 keep me as the apple of your eye the apple the pupil of the eye there there's nothing you guard more carefully and precisely than the apple of your eye the pupil of your eye i mean here you're just having a good time even before any big danger comes all just a big breeze comes and just a little bit of sand gets it all sudden you're the first thing you do you'll stop your conversation you'll do anything to guard your eye even from the smallest little grain of sand just moving in the wind just a little dust of wind you don't even think about it but it is our absolute top priority that we give the most precise detail attention to is our eye we just do it so naturally we don't think about it and david says keep me as your top priority the one that you give the most precise attention to keep me at that level and he wasn't this wasn't a face a faith statement where he was claiming something he did not grasp he he felt this he felt this my prayer my desire is that we feel this we feel the power of this romans 1 7 paul said to all the saints you're beloved of god and this is uh specifically tying in to this reality that king david had because king david would uh be the person when i think of the beloved of god in the old testament two uh men come to mind instantly king david and daniel the prophet and the reason daniel the prophet because in daniel chapter 8 and in daniel chapter 9 the angel appeared to daniel and said you are the beloved one before god i mean can you imagine an angel appearing like out of the sky and the he says do not be afraid i mean this angel mighty angel and by the way you are the beloved of god and now i got a message for you and i mean daniel's rocked when he hears this well well paul and romans 1 is is uh pointing to david and daniel undoubtedly they are clearly the two profound examples in the scripture of being beloved of god romans 9 paul the apostles is is quoting the the lord and he said and paul is saying he the lord says about gentile believers about gentiles i will call them my people who were not my people and i will call her beloved who is not beloved he says i'm going to take gentiles who don't know anything about me who were not beloved in my sight i did not have relationship because beloved is only something that's true when we come into a redemptive relationship with the lord he can love us but we're not beloved of god yet he says i'm going to take the these gentile pagans that were not my people and they were not beloved and i'm going to call them my people and i'm going to rename them the beloved and you are such you are the ones he was talking about you're most of you in this room are gentile believers that the lord reached out his hands across the nations and called you to himself we were not a people and we were not beloved but now we are his people and now we are the beloved of the lord c paragraph c he had an unusual confidence in god's mercy he had unusual confidence in his mercy and this is how he could weather these storms he had an unusual ability to trust i mean to fully uh receive the mercy the free mercy of god now when we think about receiving the mercy of god don't only think about one thing because sometimes when people think about receiving the free mercy they only think about receiving it as a gift they don't think about receiving it in terms of receiving it as the gift part one and then in order to receive mercy you have to respond in agreeable way called obedience or you've not received mercy yet receiving mercy is the canceling out of our debt i mean we're already believers so our sinners are being canceled out in that dramatic sense that they were born again but i'm talking canceling out the penalty of what we just did this morning or yesterday or whatever it was but we don't receive mercy only there we receive mercy when we say yes and now i want to live different that's receiving mercy receiving mercy isn't only the canceling out of the negative it's the resolve to enter into the lifestyle of the beloved and when david talked about receiving mercy and uh he meant both and when people talk about today they often mean only getting the freedom of the penalty they don't mean the being beckoned into the spirit of the of living as the beloved you don't really you don't receive mercy if it doesn't call you into god's heart it's a gift that has a consequence when we receive it when we receive the gift a free gift it moves us when it's really received it's impossible for it to touch us in truth without moving us or we've not understood it in truth david said in psalm 13 i love this one because i've needed it he says i've trusted your mercy that is a giant statement that is a giant statement i venture to say many believers do not trust god's mercy what i mean by that they when they uh encounter their weakness when they encounter their sinfulness their darkness the weakness of their flesh they would rather resign just give up in desperation and exasperated with themselves just quit forget it and the lord would whisper you need to trust my mercy and stop resigning i did i'm so disgusted i'm i can't bear it no more the lord says that's because you're trusting your dedication trust my mercy quit resigning and quit retreating have confidence in the fact my mercy is outrageous in its power it's an outrageous mercy and it demands and it awakens a yes in our spirit when that arrow touches us in truth it's powerful he said i trust it psalm 18 oh psalm 18 is one of the all-time greats now i can only say that 10 more times before i've lost my credibility calling every one of these the great one now these uh this is this is truly one of the great psalms of david's psalm 18 because the context and we'll look at it in a few weeks the context is his 16 months of compromise in the city of ziklag david's one of his darkest hours in his young life was the 16 months in ziklag from saw from 1st samuel 27 to 1st samuel 31 four chapters he's 16 months remaining in conscious compromise it's the only time that i know of having studied the life of david over the years where he spent that length of time knowing there was an issue unresolved in his life and he wrote a number of psalms in that 16 month period and he was crying out to god constantly he loved god but fear was paralyzing his heart he was afraid fear was was it was the big thing it wasn't rebellion it was fear i don't want to get into that right now but he wrote psalm 18 on the day the 16 months was over psalm 18 it says it it's on the day that god delivered david from king saul that's when the ziklag 16 month time it was it was a gray area in david's life it was a negative area it was it's those are four chapters again uh 1st samuel 27 28 29 30 27 28 29 30 31 but one chapter in about him so it's four chapters where david i'm sure if he was standing here right now say oh man don't read the end of samuel skip that part get right to the other part i'm sure david's not happy about that in in the human sense because it it shows us it and we're going to go through it line by line his his compromise and ziklag but when he got out of it psalm 18 verse 1 he says on the day after he goes i love you lord some of the guys around him might have said what he goes i love you lord and it was true and they might have went well it's kind of a little bit intense didn't seem like you loved him so much a few weeks ago david says i hold my ground my love is real i love you god that i love you in psalm 18 1 is gigantic his spirit is being washed as he's saying this is over this 16 months is over and and he said i love you i'm sure many times in that 16 months and he meant it but it was that there were unresolved issues i'm not saying david was false it was just unresolved it was a gray it was a dark time to him i knew he david did not like this time and well the different psalms psalm 56 and others but he writes during that time he's in pain he's in pain over this time i love you verse 19 look at this this is absolutely outrageous in the most positive sense he goes god delivered me meaning from the 16 months there were so many perils he went through many perils in ziklag he almost lost his life a couple times he delivered me because he delighted in me i can imagine i can imagine after ziklag was over i can imagine uh the lady the usa today reporter well david you've had kind of a perilous 16 months we've heard we've only pieced part of it together heard you had some pretty negative things happen uh but now god's delivered you it's the first day of his deliverance is when he writes the psalm why is it that god delivered you david i can see david's guys around him he says i know why god delivered me why because he likes me the lady goes really that's the main reason he delivered you uh-huh he delivered me because he delights in me a couple of his guys are going well you know we have some parts of the story that david probably doesn't want in the you know in in the report and david says no i don't mind put him in the report this is made up made up conversation it's not for samuel david says but one thing i'm sure of he delivered me because he delights in me that i'm sure of this is an incredible confidence he says i've pushed delete beloved we need to have a giant delete button we need to push that delete button but our delete button is giant between us and god because god pushes it but then we got to push it it's over it's over but beloved we need the same giant delete button when our brothers and sisters offend us when they're really wrong we got to push that delete button it's got to be just as big when the guy down the way troubles us and he's got a wrong spirit i said tell you what here's the deal i made the lord you forgive me a hundred percent outrageous i'll forgive them i'll take that deal any day i'll push the button if you'll push the button okay we push the delete button and but it's critical because we love it when we push the delete button but we must absolutely have the same big delete button on the guy that really meant evil towards us david said he delights in me he delights in me what a sentence this is one of the greatest sentences i think david ever uttered he delivered me because he delights in me i mean at the hour of when he wrote this 16 months after zig lag this is i mean if it was after a uh a 21 day yay 40 day fast in the wilderness with him you know he would have a religious argument to say he delights in me because i fast for a long wouldn't be true but that he could you know at least make an argument that people would listen to but he says he delights in me this is after zig lag this is after 16 months of compromise he's back full on 100 going hard for god he goes i'm pushing delete it's all over i'm full on with you right now and the lord says you're right it's we're on and look at verse 35 he told the lord he goes it's the it's your gentle dealings with me that make me great it's because you were so gentle on me when you could have crushed me that's why my heart is going to be great and when he means great at the end of the day he doesn't mean great in terms of just famous he is king of israel he does become king of israel uh down the down the road but that's not that's not the way that i'm applying this god's gentleness in our lives when he treats us gently his goal is to make our hearts mighty and great that's what he wants i'm gonna go to one more verse and we're just going to end with this i'm going to end with this and this you can just read the rest of the notes on on your own if you want them psalm 130 verse 3 david's talking about becoming great by god's gentleness he goes if you lord if you should mark iniquities in other words if you should if you should add them all up all of my sins iniquities and sins is the same idea lord if you should add up all of my sins you know you could just hear a pause like oh no he goes lord what man what woman could stand if you really added up i mean for real added them up what person could stand paul the apostle couldn't billy graham you know who's you know we think of as the famous radical man of god and i and i believe him to be his humility with prominence is unparalleled his genuine humility with unmatched prominence in the world of the evangelical world worldwide and humility i don't get off on that but oh lord who could stand he says but with you there's forgiveness why david said but you forgave me why so that i could get another new beginning so i could grow up to fear you so i could be great i could be mighty in my heart with you you keep forgiving me today so i will be mighty in the fear of god tomorrow i will be great in the fear of god tomorrow because you keep forgiving me today what if god would not have forgiven paul the apostle on that one day he would have never written the scripture what if the great prayer warriors in history god would have decided not to forgive them in that one season and i tell you one thing for sure every one of them have that one season but with the lord david said it he says if you should mark iniquities if you should count them and pay the penalty on them is what he meant to count them and give me my just penalty he goes what human could stand what moses would have made it what elijah would have prophesied it what paul the apostle would have ever ever ever written the new testament though the part of it he goes but with you there's forgiveness in other words you put that with the psalm 1835 you're gentle with me so that i can be great so i can grow up and fear god with a mighty spirit amen we're just going to end with that let's