Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning once again and welcome to this gathering of Hope Bible Fellowship.

At this time our children may be dismissed to our children’s worship time out the back doors of the sanctuary.

I invite the rest of you to open your Bible to I Samuel chapter 16.

For the last couple of weeks leading up to Christmas Day, we have been investigating the family line of Jesus in a series called Family Christmas.

The first week we looked at Rahab who was an outsider and a prostitute, yet there was room in Jesus’ family for her.

I stated that if there was room for someone like her then there is room for you in Jesus’ family as well.

Last week we looked at Ruth and Boaz and how God used Boaz as a kinsman redeemer to graft an outsider and non-Israelite widow into the family line of Jesus.

And this week we look at one of the most famous names we see pop up in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

In the book, “Team of Rivals”, Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that Abraham Lincoln “has unequalled power to captivate the imagination and to inspire emotion.”

Many feel the same about David.

There is something about this man said to be a man after God’s own heart that captivates us.

In some cases he draws our ire for his behavior in certain situations.

King David of Israel’s life is well documented in scripture with many of its ups and downs.

He had some really high highs and some really low, lows.

And here he is for us to look at.

Now, I want to begin by noting a couple of important items as we enter today.

First, I won’t be covering the entire life of David.

I’ll mention some things about his later life but this particular passage is regarding when David was anointed as king though he would not actually get to reign as king for some time afterward.

Secondly, the main thing I want you to understand that goes on in the life of David is that David is never the main character in the story.

We need to come to scripture understanding that God is the main character.

He’s the hero of the story.

It isn’t David and it’s not us.

It is possible to really go far afield with our understanding if we come to the Bible with the idea that it’s all about us.

For sure, the scriptures do talk about us but we are not the hero of the story.

Jesus is the hero of the story, even in the Old Testament.

This is key.

With that in mind, let’s dive into I Samuel 16:1-13

This is the Word of the Lord.

Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand and apply it to our lives.

PRAY

Let me give you a brief (very brief) history of Israel to bring us up to this point of David being anointed.

Years and years before, God had chosen Israel to be his people.

There was nothing special about them that made God choose them, but in His sovereign will and way He chose them as His people.

Eventually, they end up in captivity in Egypt as slaves to Pharoah and the Egyptians.

God raises up a leader for them named Moses, who is His messenger to the people and to Pharoah.

God sends ten plagues on the Egyptians until they release the people and send them on their way.

God rescues them from the pursuing Egyptian army after Pharoah changes his mind.

The people sinned and God decreed that they would wander in the wilderness for forty years before they would enter the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.

God gave them the Law of Moses and specific instructions for how to worship Him and sacrifice to atone for sin.

All of these events are recounted in the first five books of the Bible.

All of this time there was no king in Israel and they were simply led by God.

Then we enter a period of time that we were in last week, the period of judges.

There was a cycle that we see repeated over and over in this time.

The people would do evil in the sight of the Lord.

God would send another nation of oppress the people.

The people would cry out to God and God would send a judge to rescue the people.

Then they would have peace for a time and the cycle would repeat.

Over and over again.

The final verse in Judges tells us that

Eventually the Israelites complain because they want a king like all of the other nations around them.

They tell Samuel, the prophet, that they want a king.

God tells Samuel to warn them about the ways of the king that will reign over them.

So he does and they still demand a king.

Here’s what it says in chapter 8, verses 19 through 22.

Samuel is sent by God to anoint a man named Saul as king.

He was to be a king to unite and rule Israel under God.

This is the king that the people asked for.

Then, as men do, Saul sinned against God.

He was rejected by God as king.

There’s so much here that it feels like a disservice to the enormity of that statement to buzz by it.

A whole sermon could be preached on that alone.

But we continue on.

Samuel is in deep distress over Saul.

He had been grieving over Saul.

God speaks to Samuel and tells him to get up and head for a guy named Jesse and there God will show him who the new king will be.

I want you to see something:

I. Samuel obeyed and went.

The prophets kind of get superhero status in our minds sometimes but they were just men.

They were fallible sinners just like you and me but who were used mightily by God.

Samuel was in grief over what had gone on with Saul and how the king that he had anointed had fallen so far from the Lord.

But when God spoke, he got up and headed out.

His grief would not deter him from living obediently to what God had commanded him to do.

He feared Saul because Saul was only faithful to himself.

Who could tell what Saul would do if he found out Samuel was coming for the purpose of anointing a new king.

Friends, how many times in our lives do we let our fear or our circumstances keep us from being obedient to what God has called us to do.

God hasn’t called you to go and anoint another king in place of the one you’re scared of.

He’s called you to read his Word, to love Him, to do the things He commands and too often we are too scared of the world around us or our own discomfort or too preoccupied with ourselves that we disobey what has clearly been commanded us by God.

If that’s you today, repent of your sin and turn towards God.

He offers forgiveness in Jesus Christ alone.

Samuel belonged to the Lord and though he was afraid, he went.

God gave him more information about the plan.

He needed to go to offer a sacrifice anyway so God uses that official occasion for a way to get Samuel in front of Jesse and his sons to anoint one of them as king.

God tells Samuel that He will show him which one of Jesse’s sons it will be.

So Samuel gets to Bethlehem and gets Jesse’s sons in front of him.

But there is a problem.

II.

Man only sees what is visible.

Eliab is the oldest so of course, he steps up first.

Samuel even thinks that this has got to be the guy.

But God says no. Then the next comes up and it’s not him either.

Samuel asks Jesse if these are all of his sons and Jesse says there’s the younest still but he’s with the sheep.

Samuel tells him to send for this youngest and they aren’t going to sit down till he comes.

At this point, try to imagine you’re there.

The tallest, the strongest looking son have not been chosen.

The ones that you would look at and think, that’s king material right there.

Saul was a tall, manly kind of guy.

One would assume that pattern might hold for the next king.

Isn’t that how we choose?

We look for the guy who has the best haircut or the snappy dresser.

We look for the guy who has the money or the one who is successful by the world’s standards.