King David No.1 God's way of choosing

Let's join together and sing in Mission Praise number 77, Christ's Triumphant. God's a glorious God, the God of angels, made of humble clay, coming, truly living, Son of man, on earth, living, life, untreated, treated, crucified, defeated, sin, justified. God's a glorious God, the God in us, eternal, praise to Him in throne, God of angels, eternal, true.

Our hearts and voices raising, through the ages, His love, cease to see, upon the ages, His triumph song. God's a glorious God, the God in us, eternal, praise to Him in throne. Now Lisa's going to read the word to us.

This evening's reading is taken from 1 Samuel chapter 16. The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem.

I have chosen one of his sons to be king. But Samuel said, How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me. The Lord said, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint me the one I indicate. Samuel did what the Lord said.

When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, Do you come in peace? Samuel replied, Yes, in peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord.

But the Lord said to 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.

Then Jesse called Abindadab and made him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, The Lord has not chosen this one either. Jesse then made Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, Nor has the Lord chosen this one.

Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, The Lord has not chosen these. So he asked Jesse, Are these all the sons you have? There is still the youngest, Jesse answered, but he is tending the sheep. Samuel said, Send for him.

We will not sit down until he arrives. So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy with a fine appearance and handsome features.

Then the Lord said, Rise and anoint him. He is the one. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers.

And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah. Such love, pure as the whitest snow.

Such love, weeps for the shame I know. Such love, paying the debt I owe. O Jesus, such love.

619 in Mission Praise. Let's stand. Such love.

Such love, pure as the whitest snow. Such love, weeps for the shame I know. Such love, paying the debt I owe.

O Jesus, such love. Such love, spilling my emptiness. Such love, filling my emptiness.

Such love, showing me holiness. O Jesus, such love. Such love, grace of eternity.

Such love, sleeping through history. Such love, until awakening. O Jesus, such love.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Our Father looks for true obedience, and true obedience has a cost. And the song we're going to sing is Purify My Heart.

But actually, purification, there is a cost. If you sing this, you are inviting the Holy Spirit to do a work in your life. Do you realize that? To acknowledge that when you ask our Father to do a work by Spirit in our lives, He will show you the areas of your lives that need to be changed.

He will show you the areas of your lives, the walk, at the moment you're walking, may need to be changed. Your lifestyle may need to radically change. If you are willing for those changes, if you are willing to move on into this new year, if you are willing to be a sharp cutting edge for our Father, to move out in power and in authority and have an effect for the Kingdom of God, you will need to be purified.

And it will be a painful process. And so I only sing this song, if you really mean it, Refiner's Fire. The heat from the furnace that actually needs to raise up the dross so that we can just wipe that across the top.

We can skim our lives so we're left as pure gold. One, three, one in the supplement. Purify my heart.

Let me be as gold and precious silver. Purify my heart. Let me be as gold and precious silver.

Purify my heart. Let me be as gold, pure gold. O great Refiner's love, my heart's one desire is to be holy.

Set apart for you, Lord, I choose to be holy. Set apart for you, my Master, ready to do your will. Let me grow within and make me holy, deep within.

Refiner's fire, my heart's one desire is to be holy. Set apart for you, Lord, I choose to be holy. Set apart for you, my Master, ready to do your will.

Yes, Father, we've made that commitment before you. You've heard what we've said. Purify my heart.

It's personal. It's very personal. Purify my heart so that I may come forth as precious gold before you.

Father, we're looking forward to hearing your word this evening. Father, just bless Tony this evening and bless us as we receive your word and help us to act on what we hear. We pray that you'll raise Tony up this evening, fill him with your Spirit so that your Spirit will talk out and use Tony to speak to our hearts.

And we pray for those who have moved into this house this evening, into your presence, not knowing quite what to expect. Father, we pray that you'll deal with them by your Spirit. We're looking for changed lives.

Father, start that work in my life and work out from there. Father, we love you. We love your word.

We love your people. But most of all, we love you because you are our Heavenly Father. And you love us so much that you gave us through your only Son, the Lord Jesus.

What can we give you back? What can we give you back? Amen. And have your Bibles open at once. Samuel in chapter 16.

We're looking this particular time in the year in our evening services at the thought not only of our Lord Jesus but also of David. David was the greatest king that Israel ever knew. And you find the record of his life locked up in the dusty pages of the historical books in the Old Testament.

There is that of David which anticipates in some degree the coming and the life and the accomplishments of our Lord Jesus. To the end that sometimes the Lord Jesus is described as King David's greatest son. And last Sunday evening we started this particular series by focusing in and rightly so on the Lord Jesus, King Jesus and his great declaration, I am the bread of life.

Well, now I'm taking you to one who in some measure just faintly caught a little bit of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to be looking at his life the next three Sundays. Then we'll go back to another declaration that David's greatest descendant made.

Are you a choosy person? I mean by that, do you make up your mind quickly? You know Christmas presents were no problem for you to select because you checked the August catalogue and you were down there at Christmas Eve and within 10 minutes you got all that you needed. You're the sort of person who's not easily fobbed off. You know when given two or three options you know just which one to home in on.

A choosy person is someone who uses their insights, they're deliberate in the way that they react to options. They don't do a knee jerk. They don't spin around with no opinions on particular subjects.

Choosy people are definite in what they have in mind, what their goals are. And the Bible is a book that actually suggests that you and I in one sense ought to be people at least, if not choosy, people who can make a decision. Here's Moses, or rather here's Joshua.

And he says on one occasion to a company of people somewhat similar to ourselves, but turn the clock back 3,000 years or so, choose you, this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, I'm going to serve the Lord. I've made that choice.

Here is a different context, a different time scale in history. The man who is central just at this point in my illustration is Pilate. And he's got on one side of him a criminal with a great deal of form, a great deal of criminality attached to his police record.

And on the other side is the beloved Lord Jesus. And Pilate says to a rabble who really were not very good at working out who would be the best person to lead the nation or the best person to be released on this occasion. And Pilate says, who will you have me release, Jesus or Barabbas? So in both Testaments, Old Testament, New Testament, you get the concept of choices being illustrated.

But more particularly, God has a choice. Did you know that? I don't understand how God goes about choosing the people who are going to follow Him, but He does. Before the world was made, the Bible tells us that there were a specific number, an innumerable company of people who God in His grace was going to bring to a knowledge of salvation.

And yet on the flip side, the Bible tells us this, that you and I have responsibility to make your own choice in regard to serving the Lord Jesus Christ, becoming His disciple. How you line those two things up, well, the Scripture never helps us. It just tells us that we are to take the Gospel to every person and press upon them the need to be saved, realizing that however the overarching sovereignty of God is at working, bringing about a human response.

Now, here's King Jesus. And at the beginning of His earthly ministry, as a man of 28, He has something to do. He has to choose.

He has to choose 12 men who are going to be with Him for three years, His close companions, His students. And He selects them. Now here, going back to this Old Testament story, is a man who's operating on behalf of God.

His name is Samuel. And a choice has got to be made because there's a vacancy. The King of Israel at this time is a dud one.

His lifespan will be curtailed. There will be a vacant spot, a vacant chair, and someone has to be selected to fill the role of the King of Israel. And Samuel gets the job of making the choice, or seemingly so.

So you find in the opening verses of the 16th chapter that Samuel is told to go to Bethlehem. Now Samuel's a religious man, a leader. He's the sort of man who actually instills respect and also fear into the hearts of people when he comes into their territory.

And here's Samuel coming to the town of Bethlehem, passing through the fields around Bethlehem. And when people see Samuel, their hearts are filled with fear. Isn't it interesting that when you turn the clock on a few hundred years, you read in the New Testament of shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, and they fear because suddenly the silence, the relative silence is interrupted and angels declare that in Bethlehem has been born someone who will impact society in such a way he will be utterly unique.

And before that occasion, Samuel moves to Bethlehem and he too is going to declare a man to be king. And when people see Samuel, they're afraid like the shepherds were. But there's no need for the Bethlehemites on either occasion to be really afraid because when Samuel approaches Bethlehem on this occasion, he offers a sacrifice.

And when the Lord Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem, 30-odd years later, he will offer his own life as a sacrifice for your sin and for my sin so that when we stand before God, we do not need to stand before him in cringing fear. But in one sense, I'm going on a tangent a little bit and come back now to the main point because though Samuel does offer this sacrifice and invite people to come to the religious celebration that he has inaugurated, his main purpose for being there is, you remember, to find someone, to fill the place that eventually Saul will leave and make a fine king of Israel. God is looking for a man.

Jesus comes on the earth and he comes looking for men. And the years have rolled by and we find ourselves in 1995 and still I tell you that God is looking for men and women to make at the human level a choice and to be his followers, his disciples. Do you ever conduct interviews? Have you ever had the pleasurable experience of being interviewed? Perhaps not so pleasurable.

What sort of thing, those of you who have conducted interviews, what do you look for? I mean, here's a candidate and he's going to come to your school on your staff. Maybe he's going to be a mechanic in Cedar Garage or other auspicious places of industry here in Worthing. What do you look for? What impresses you? I mean, what do you think this elderly man, this revered Samuel, will look for when he tries to find someone to take the place of Saul? Well, it seems that what Samuel wanted was someone of fine physique.

Now, there's a household that's headed up by a man called Jesse and he's got eight sons, but the eighth is not really very well known. And Samuel comes to Jesse and he says, I'd like an interview with your lads. Now, there is a misplaced idea that advancing years brings with it maturity.

It should, it could, but sometimes it doesn't. Well, here is the oldest son and his name, Eliab. He stands before Samuel.

Not only is he the oldest, he's good-looking. He's tall. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says somewhere, it's interesting that very often the people that God uses are ugly.

Don't you find that quite an encouraging comment? I mean, when you go out from the tab with your friend this evening, just pass on that little gem and tell them not to be too despondent because the pastor said ugly people are still used by God. I mean, there was a man by the name of Whitefield, the great evangelist and the cartoonist. When they got going, they called him Dr. Squintus because he squinted.

God sometimes does use the most unlikely person. But here, in this particular instance, the one who's standing before Samuel, far from being ugly, he's attractive. Far from being bland, he seems to have a personality that suggests itself to Samuel, this is the anointed one.

Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. You know, if I encourage you by suggesting that God often uses ugly people, an even greater source of encouragement is because I can back this up with greater evidence. The majority of folk who Jesus selected to follow him would probably not have done very well in the interview in a staff room situation in Worthing or a garage or what have you because the followers of Jesus who he met on the seashore of Galilee or working for the Roman civil service were not exactly men who immediately would have inspired you as being folk who would be of kingly disposition, people who could sort of pick up the ethos, the personality in some measure of the Lord Jesus and continue the work that he, the Son of God, had come on earth to do.

I want to tell you that to be muscular does not necessarily mean that you're mighty. To be healthy does not necessarily mean that you are holy. To be wealthy does not necessarily mean that you are wise.

And when Samuel has a look at this man and says, here, Lord, is the obvious choice, he gets the divine reproof. Samuel, haven't you learned? This was the test that you run over Saul and he seemed to be the right man. He was head and shoulders above everyone else.

He had good looks and so on and so forth. And Samuel is told, the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Do you know there are a group of preachers who lived some centuries ago called Puritans and they're often caricatured, but the people who caricature them have got no clue as to what the Puritans were. They were not doer men. They enjoyed life to the full, actually.

They had a ball. But they lived life within the parameters of the teachings of God's word. But when they were preaching, they'd really hit home.

Here's one of them. Muscularity is not Christianity. Bodily beauty is not holiness.

Not how you look, but what you are ought to be the first care of your lives. For if you have a selfish disposition, a sordid soul, or a sinful life, your outward beauty will be like a jewel in a pig's nose. Well, not exactly how to entrench and influence people, but you know, they told them pretty straight in those days, didn't they? God is not just concerned about the outward.

He's concerned about the inward. God sees a princely person, potentially, where some of us see just a drab, insipid, bland, hopeless individual. I'm glad that the choices of God are often surprising.

So, this man, Jesse, he's propelled his first son, but he doesn't pass the test. He's still in the ranks of the unemployed. Up comes the next one, with that rather difficult name to pronounce, Binadab.

He doesn't make the grade, neither does Shammah, neither do any of the others who pass by. Seven sons. Has Samuel got it wrong? Are these all the sons you've got, Jesse? You know, there is some indication in the text that Jesse didn't really have a great esteem for the eighth lad.

Why do I say that? Well, remember why Samuel has come. Why were the Bethlehemites terrified of Samuel? Well, he was like a Puritan. He was going to really preach it to them hot, you see.

And Samuel says, don't be afraid, because although you're sinners, I've come to offer a sacrifice to the Lord. So, let's bring everyone to the religious celebration. So, Jesse and his household, these seven lads come, but nobody thinks of bringing David in.

Now, that tells me a lot about David. Do you ever feel yourself that you're so insignificant that when anything really important happens, nobody bothers about you? Later on in this story, if we just anticipate the next chapter, here is David, and he's going on a journey because his brothers are fighting with the army of Israel. And when Eliab, his oldest brother, sees him, he speaks to David with such derogatory terms.

What are you doing here? Why aren't you looking after those few sheep in the desert? Why don't you get back into your place? Jesse, don't you have another son? Yeah, but he's just looking after the sheep. Now, to be a shepherd in those days was, in one sense, being like a, I don't know, what profession wouldn't you like to be in? Would you like to be a dustman? Nothing the matter with dustmen. I'm glad that they visit our house, but maybe it's not number one on your list of what you want to be when you leave school.

Well, the idea obtained with the shepherd. And yet, as I was trying to teach in a different context this morning, when God reveals himself to Israel of old, and when the Lord Jesus comes and speaks the word of declaration in his ministry, you find that God uses the language of the shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. I am the good shepherd. And in the book of God, it seems that the one who was a faithful shepherd rated quite highly.

Why? Because of the way the shepherd looked after his animals. Oh, yes. The righteous man looks after his animals, says the book of Proverbs.

The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. You see, here is David, and he's in this obscure job in the backwaters of Bethlehem where nobody really wants to go. Those undulating hills with the sheep.

Who wants to do this? Not Eliab, not any of the older brothers. Let that whippersnapper David do it. If God has got you marked out for something significant, the first test that he will put your way is something that seems utterly unimportant.

He'll give you, if you like, a little bit of paper, and he will say, paint on that paper before he gives you the broad canvas and the oils and the brushes and all the colors. He will test you in small things to see if you can be entrusted with great things. And here is David, and when the lion and the bear come to attack the flock, David will, with skill, use his sling and cause those animals to be felled and his own flock to be in safety.

David, who in the open air around Bethlehem, with just the birds and the sheep as his companions, will watch the day be consumed into the night and see the stars in the heavens, and he will notice the moon and then the next day the sun, and he will say, Lord, in contrast to these things, the sun and the moon, what is man that you are mindful of him? Lord, I feel something of your greatness. I feel something of my creatureliness, something of my smallness. And in nature's academy, David works out something of the character of God, and he comes out of that insignificant role as a shepherd, and he stands before Samuel, and Samuel looks and realizes, what a fool I've been.

It's this lad on whom the spirit of the Lord will fall. He is the one who is destined to be the future king of Israel. And the interesting thing is that the only person who believed it was David.

So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. The only way one Puritan says that you can keep a secret from seven people is not to tell six. Did the brothers not know why Samuel was there? Given some information as to what he was about, he told Jesse.

Why is it that the coin never dropped? Because the whole thing was so ridiculous, so absolutely absurd, that God should pick David, that God should take Matthew, that God should take doubting Thomas, that God should cause the Lord Jesus to bring into the retinue of his disciples a motley group of men who will cause him difficulty after difficulty and embarrassment after embarrassment. Jesus, you need to go on a seminar as to how to interview people. You're making such a mess of it.

Years ago when I was a kid, I now call being 18 or 19 being a kid, straining to make Greek grammar intelligent, intelligible to me. I was translating the Greek epistle to the Romans, and suddenly it hit me, I'd never known it before, that God had chosen me. I don't know why I'd been a Christian for so long and the thought had never occurred that God in his grace actually wanted me, particularly me.

You see, I could understand God moving en masse and that I got caught up because, well, my dad was a Christian and so on and so forth, but he wanted me. And the tears started to roll down my cheeks. And in the fly leaf of my Bible, I wrote the words, It is not that I did choose thee, Lord, for, Lord, that could not be, this heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me.

Thou from my sin hast cleansed me to set and keep me free. This heart will now obey thee and long to live for thee. He chose me.

I've never lost the wonder of God's choice of me. And David here, it seems that he's the only one who realizes. Now the interesting thing is that even in this particular passage, this Old Testament passage, you get an anticipation of the New Testament doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the presence of his brothers, and even though they were clueless as to what that really signified, David was not. Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.

When God chooses you to follow Him, He also gives you an agenda to which to work. He gives you things to do, and you say, Lord, I can't keep your agenda. The tasks that you placard in front of me are too difficult.

And He says, I know they're too difficult. I know you cannot do it. Now here, I've got my Holy Spirit, and I will baptize you with Him.

I will seal you with the Spirit of God, and that will enable you. Even our beloved Lord, when He came out to the wilderness, having been baptized and spent 40 days tempted by the devil, we are told, came back into Galilee in the power of the Holy Spirit. Those early disciples who had been so fearful when Jesus was crucified, you discover after Acts chapter 2 that these are the men who turned the world upside down.

Why? What happens? God anoints them with His Spirit, and David here becomes a very prudent man. He becomes a man who is eventually absorbed into the purposes of God, and he'll know great difficulty. He'll have to fight with Saul, not literally fight him, but come under the jackboot of Saul.

He'll be thrust into the wilderness of En Gedi. He will know what it's like to be like a partridge that's chased. He will know what it's like not to have anywhere to lay his head, and yet during the days of his physical problem, his spiritual battle, David remains true, and those are the finest years in David's life, and give birth to the best of Psalms as David, running true to the Lord despite the heaped up problems that he faces, nonetheless draws strength from God and achieves God's purposes through him by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and you know, as it was for David, so it can be for you.

David eventually was crowned, but there was a lot of space between the anointing and the crowning. The Bible tells me, and this I don't understand, that one day I will be crowned. One day having run this earthly course, having completed my allotted time scale, I'll stand before the Lord, and that will be glory for me when I see him face to face.

But John Wesley says, or Charles Wesley, casting down our crowns before him, lost in wonder, love, and praise, a reward for keeping true as a disciple of Jesus Christ, the best goal to aim at, the best prize to work for. This was the experience of David, literally crowned in the middle years of his life. This was the experience of our blessed Lord Jesus, great David's greatest son.

He lived out his life to the allotted span, died on the cross, raised on the third day, and eventually returned to heaven. The highest place that heaven affords is his by sovereign right, and there he's crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords, great David's greatest son. I finish.

You know that God loves you. However insignificant you feel you are, God loves you. And in the past you'll learn, so to speak, of what you're doing.

In what perhaps seems to be a very unimportant job or situation in life, God has got his hand on you. God will adjust circumstances and bring to the forefront of leadership those that he wants to be at the forefront. He'll take a Steve Chalk from the obscurity of London.

He'll take a George Verver from pushing pornography when he was a teenager in New York. He'll straighten those men out and he'll make them leaders. He does it today.

He can do it for you. He wants you. Choose this day.

Be choosy. Who are you going to serve? Why not make King Jesus, who died for your sins and was raised for your justification, why not make him your Lord? Why not follow him? And the interesting thing is when you discover that you've done that, you'll also find out actually he got in on the act first for he gave you the very desire to belong to him, the mystery of his grace. Take the example of King David.

Envelop it in the gospel of David's greatest son and respond to God's offer to make your life meaningful and wonderful. Let's pray. Spirit of the living God Fall afresh on me Let's stand.

Spirit of the living God Fall afresh on me Fill me anew Fill me anew Spirit of the Lord Spirit of the living God Spirit of the living God Fill me anew Fill me anew Spirit of the Lord Listen to that melody being played just softly and ask that God in his grace will affirm you as a Christian. David knew that he was to be king of Israel because Samuel had declared it in the name of God. But it wasn't just the word that affirmed it.

It was the word and the spirit. The old Puritans talked about the sealing of the spirit, the quickening of the spirit, the emotional realization that we belong to God and that's available for us within his grace. The spirit of God coming into our hearts convincing us that we belong to the Lord enabling us to cry, Abba Father, you are mine.

Lord, you chose me from the foundations of the world. Lord, I'm grateful. I'm so grateful.

Thank you, Lord. Amen.