God Looks at the Heart and We don't

Samuel 16 – God Looks at the Heart, and We Don’t

1. Intro Slide – Gateway Church

a. Master of Divinity from Trinity

b. Pastoral Fellow at High Point Church, which I have been attending regularly for the past 8 years here in Madison

c. Plan to be a Pastor

d. Married to my wonderful and supportive wife, Jenny.

e. THANK YOU for this opportunity. I invite your feedback as I am in this time of learning. I have grown up in the church my entire life so a sermon on Sunday is on the one hand the most normal thing ever, but on the other hand: this is one of the most “fear of the Lord” moments for me as I get to preach His word to His people.

Initial Hook story: Ok, can I share a story from my life 5 to 6 years ago. And no, this isn’t just to continue to flatter myself in front of you all, but does pertain to today’s message.

When I was at UW Madison getting my Mechanical Engineering degree, I started to question my calling into vocational ministry. So, after I graduated I worked at HPC as a Pastoral Intern for a year with the primary goal of discovering if I was called or not. Day after Day, I am praying to God that he would show me if I am called into ministry or not. During that time was also going to small prayer nights, basically a small group time where we sang some worshiped songs and then prayed for each other, Madison, and our churches. The group was somewhat eclectic coming from a variety of churches, and we would just cram into an apartment in the evening, sit on the futon, beanbag, or ground and just fellowship together. During one of these prayer nights, I was sitting next to a guy that comes most weeks, but was kind of socially awkward. Not only that, but he often said a variety of things that he was either learning from the bible, or things that God put on his heart to share which I questioned the validity of. He was the sort of guy that I take what he says with a grain of salt if you know what I mean. Well, this one meeting, he leans over to me as everyone else is talking amongst themselves and says “I believe God has given me a word for you, and that word is ‘revival’”. And even though this was a guy I did not respect or even someone I really wanted to hang out with, when he said that it struck a bell in my heart, and I knew it was from the Lord. Now this caused two main problems in me at the time: First, I don’t know what it means or what it’s for. Even to this day, I am unsure if it is something that already happened in my life, or will happen in the future. But second, not only was I confused, I was also slightly angry at God. Why must he use someone I don’t respect or value to impact my life or be the messenger for God’s word for me, especially if it is for something as important as my future job or something like a revival. The next weeks, I was in conflict over, why God didn’t use my pastor, or my “cool” friends at the prayer night to pass along the message.

You see, I thought I knew the sort of person that God uses, the put together, cool, eloquent, popular Christians that we naturally lean towards following and wanting to be like. This friend that told me this was just going about his life trying to follow God and do everything that he was told by Him. But I don’t want to see him that way.

So, lets see what this has to do with today’s passage. 1 Samuel 16 is a transition moment in the story. In order to understand it, we must look back to Saul’s life and ahead to David’s.

2. Past Weeks Recap

a. 1 Samuel 8 – Israel Demands for a King and is warned

b. 1 Samuel 9-11 – Saul chosen as King, satisfying Israel’s desires

i. Tall, handsome, led their armies to vistory, and the people start to follow him

c. 1 Samuel 12 – Samuel steps back from leading to make way for Saul

d. 1 Samuel 13-14 – Saul makes sacrifices in the place of Samuel

e. 1 Samuel 15 – Saul plunders rather than destroy the Amalekites

f. 1 Samuel 13-15 – Saul is rejected as king and God searches for a “Man after his own heart” (13:14, 15:28)

i. So chapter 15 ends with Samuel and Saul Going their separate ways… Would you stand and join with me in the reading.

Pause for bible lookup – pages?

3. Read 1 Samuel 16

a. 1The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you.” 4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

b. 6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest,[a] but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.”

c. 12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. 14 Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 And Saul's servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” 17 So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.”

d. 18 One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” 19 Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.” 20 And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. 21 And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. 22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” 23 And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

4. Big Ideas from this Chapter

a. Samuel Grieves over Saul – God’s people are to be led by Him

i. Samuel grieved over Israel wanting a king in place of God, and now that they have a king, hopes and longs for Saul to repent and lead Israel back to full devotion to God. Samuel recognizes that God’s people are to be led by Him.

b. The Spirit Fills David and Leaves Saul – God’s Spirit Empowers

i. Throughout this chapter we see God’s anointing Spirit filling David and departing from Saul. Twice this chapter marks David with the Spirit, after his anointing and later when the official references him. This is in contrast to Saul’s experience. This contrast is to magnify to us the difference that God’s Spirit makes in lives, How the Spirit Empowers.

ii. But The Spirit’s empowering isn’t puppeting, Saul was filled with the Spirit and still went his own way.

c. Main: God Looks at the Heart and We Don’t

i. This is found in God’s very words as he describes human nature and his nature when he says “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

ii. So God looks at the Heart and We Don’t. What does this actually mean? Why does God make this point in the transition from Saul to David? And why does it matter for us today? It matters because…

5. We Don’t Look at the Heart of Ourselves and Others

i. Ourselves, family, friends, enemies, co-workers, neighbors.

b. We admire our strengths and excuse our sins

i. Looking at our own sins, we say “everyone does it” or “it doesn’t do much harm compared to others”

ii. But other peoples sins “How could they? Don’t they know that’s wrong, harmful, and wicked”

iii. We take responsibility for our personality strengths, but ignore it for our weakness

1. If you’re an introvert, you want to let others evangelize

2. If you’re a high achieving workman/business man, you may never slow down for rest for a sabbath, remember that God doesn’t want to drive us like slaves.

c. We Totalize our depravity

i. We give into sin by saying we will always sin

ii. Why drive towards perfection like God tells us if we can’t achieve it, and he forgives anyways

1. To that “taste and see that the Lord is good”

d. We like enemies we can criticize and friends that agree with us

i. Our gossip and criticism’s of others actions puffs up our ego in pride and it feels good so we go back to criticism and gossip again and again talking about those that are different than us

ii. We like friends that agree with us – we don’t trust people that are different to be in our lives, our homes, interacting with our kids, because we fear the impact they might have. Instead of looking at a hurting heart to help, we see a dangerous person to hide from.

e. We think strong people can defy God

i. Like Israel’s armies in the next chapter, they don’t dare oppose the strong man that opposes God.

ii. We look at our current culture falling apart and defying God in every manner they can, and we stand as cowards, just contemplating our own survival. Not realizing God is on our side.

6. We Don’t Look at God’s Heart

a. We wrongly judge the sort of people God wants us to be

i. We define success based on our culture. Just like Israel wanting a king to lead them to be great like all the other nations, we strive to “succeed” in the worlds eyes. We put our effort into having nice clothes, house, and car.

ii. We care about the Issues of this world. Our culture hates certain injustices right now, but is completely ignorant of other sins. God is not a 21st century news reporter. We get angry and fired up over the political movements, while ignoring the ways that we covet that nice house we want.

b. We would rather have list of to-do’s rather than fully surrender

i. How much easier would it be to just have a list of 100 things we can and can’t do to live by. We long for that and use religion and legalism to focus on our outward appearances.

c. We obscure God behind vague principles we define

i. Saying something like “God is Love” but never diving deeper into what Love actually means. We keep God simple and defined by our intellectual understandings rather than being washed in his infiniteness.

d. …we don’t look at our own heart, other’s hearts, or God’s heart.

7. The Heart

a. That which all our life and conduct flows from (Proverbs 4:21)

i. Throughout the bible we see the heart and actions linked. This is the same link as faith and works that the book of James describes.

ii. The Heart includes thoughts, emotions, intentions, passions… but I think ultimately is marked by character and virtue. That which persists in us.

b. Saul’s Heart

i. Partially committed to God

ii. Sets up his own Glory

iii. Religious rather than devoted

c. David’s Heart

i. Faith produced courageous action (Goliath, philistines)

ii. Faith produced humble restraint (Saul, Abigail and Nabal, Repentance in Psalms)

8. The Good News: We Can Have Hearts after God’s own

a. We can be full of goodness, Hearts after God’s own.

b. David was described as having a heart after God’s own before this moment of his anointing.

c. We are called to be righteous. “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God my be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17

i. This is a righteousness we are called to, not just Christ’s imputed righteousness on us

9. The Bad News: Our heart is bent on wickedness

a. If I have any sort of honest look at my heart – I am doomed and dammed. I am terrified at the depth that my heart finds ways to turn from God in sin.

b. Like Saul – I am prone to partially being committed to God. Following him in the easy ways that culture approves of, rather than utterly completely following God in all ways

i. As I am entering into vocational ministry, I can’t count the number of times that my heart has desired to not be under that burden. How I could make more money doing easier work at Epic where I worked for a couple years.

ii. Covet nice houses instead of being content

iii. Ignore neighbors and co-workers rather than loving them

10. Jesus’s heart is fully ordered to God

a. The Gospel of John is full of Jesus saying things like “for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38)

b. Jesus was the truly anointed one of God, filled with the Spirit.

c. David had a heart after God’s own and was filled with the Spirit. That is true even though he sinned and failed at moments. Jesus is the perfect exemplifier of God’s heart

d. Jesus has made a way for our stone hearts to be turned into hearts of flesh. Our dead hearts to be given new life. Through faith in God, we are born again, the old has gone. Live with the new hearts God has put in you. Through faith taking courageous actions for God’s glory. David’s heart constantly lead him out of comfort and safety. But wouldn’t we rather have that heart than Saul’s who lived out his live in torment and jealousy of David, grasping at control against God’s will.

11. Application

a. Know God’s Heart

i. Read the Bible

b. Grow Your Own Heart

i. Pray God’s heart for you

ii. Fleeing diversions of heart

1. Treasure is where your heart is. Set your desires on God’s desires, hopes on God’s hopes, not on the diversions of this world.

c. Enact God’s heart

i. Win over other’s hearts to God