W1: A Humble Son ( MS:1 Sm. 16:6-13; SS: Proverbs 22:4; 1 Peter 5:5-6)

Capture: Grab their attention with an illustration.

• Illustration/Story: Share a story about the most humble person you know. Maybe it’s

someone your group is familiar with or even one of your leaders! Illustrate how that

person’s humility is a sign of honor and the mark of a true relationship with Jesus.

My friends at Truett

• We all recognize the importance of humility just as much as we all struggle with it!

Humility is difficult and does not come naturally to our selfish human minds. God calls

us to walk in humility, so how do we do it?

Context

So this mouth we are talking about David, one of my favorite biblical characters! 

David was the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem. When Saul was rejected as king, God chose David as his successor. A handsome and gifted man, David played the lyre to soothe Saul, gaining his favor and eventually becoming his armor-bearer. On a mission to deliver food to his older brothers, David fought and killed the giant Goliath. He became Israel’s greatest king, and made Jerusalem the nation’s capital city. Although he was a godly man, David fell into sin with Bathsheba. God used him not because he was mighty or perfect, but because he found favor in God’s sight. The Lord’s promised David and eternal throne and through his lineage came Jesus the Messiah!

Now about this passage

Verse 13 is the first time that David name is mentioned. 

Samuel was trying to see where the Lord was looking to anointed as king, and Samuel thought it was Saul because of his impressive physical appearance, but that is not what the Lord was seeing. The Lord is looking at the heart! 

The Lord chooses His servants based on their inner lives, not on how they look in the outside. 

Samuel was looking in the outward, God looks in the inner. 

The “heart” in Scripture refers to a person’s inward moral and spiritual life, including emotions, will, and reason. 

Jesse thought it was one of his 7 oldest, but Samuel passed all of them until he went to David, which was working on the sheep. 

Because the Lord has chosen David, not the other brothers!

We see the tension here because Samuel was looking confuse on where is this guy that God anointed, but all along it was David cause God choose him. So Samuel anointed David as king and then went back home. 

1. Humility is KEY! 

• Tension Question: Are you a humble person? If you answered yes to this question,

maybe double-check your answer! Humility is hard but incredibly important in a life

with Christ.

Scripture: Proverbs 22:4 —

      4       The reward for humility and fear of the LORD 

      is riches and honor and life. 

Having the fear of God and being humble comes tie and tie together! 

Remember the fear of God means you take God serious! That’s it!

But if you are humble under Him, you will also be blessed by Him as well! 

It is important to have a good name, a good reputation, and that is far more valuable than wealth! 

People think having a lot of money is valuable and have good character, but I promise you see social media, even the riches people can have the ugliest character. 

Humility is critical. It goes hand in hand with the fear of the Lord to produce riches, honor, and long life. We need humility!

2. A Humble Heart is Seen By God

• Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:6-13 — Summarize the context of this passage. Saul, the first

King of Israel, had been rejected by God. Now, God is seeking a man after His own

heart to anoint as the next king of Israel.

• Samuel is given a word from the Lord to anoint the new king from the sons of Jesse.

Jesse presents his sons, and Samuel is impressed. Judging by their appearance, God

clearly made a good choice!

But remember, they were looking at the outside appearance, which was the physical and of course they looked good, but God is not looking for that, He is looking at the heart! 

• Imagine Samuel’s perspective when each son had passed by, and the Lord had not

chosen any of them. From the looks of the sons, there were perfect candidates for

Kingship!

• God, however, clarified His measuring scale to Samuel, which still applies to us today.

God is much more interested in our hearts. God had seen the heart of David — the

humble son who was not even included in the lineup of sons.

Because of this, some of y’all should know the story, but David is one of the heroes of the faith today and was one of the key people in the lineage of Jesus. David is know as the man after God’s own heart! 

• God cares deeply about our hearts and humility. God is not impressed by our

accomplishments, image, or outward appearance. He cares about the heart.

Bottom Line: A humble heart is seen by God.

3. Submit to God

• Scripture: 1 Peter 5:5-6 (Bible) — God is not just impressed by humility. He opposes the

proud!

Peter is my favorite disciple, he does not play! 

This letter was toward a church in North Asia and the audience is a congregation. Peter is writing to encourage his readers to endure suffering and persecution by giving themselves entirely to God, which is to submit to God fully! 

Peter here in verse 5 is writing towards the younger generation and that is to resist leadership and be humble under the elders of the church. This is exercising gold, biblical authority and this even alone is humility. 

We see also Peter took a proverb for this teaching and took Proverbs 3:34. 

Pride is the devil, but the Lord loves the humble. If you want the eighty hand of God to exalt you, you must humble yourself before God and SUBMIT TO HIM! 

We must cast all our cares to Him! Why? Because the Creator and ruler of the universe cares about you! 

• Many of us, if put in David’s shoes, could have been tempted to think: “This is my

opportunity for greatness! I’m going to go meet the priest!” David, however, was

forgotten by his own family.

• God reached past the “obvious candidates” to exalt the one who was unnoticed: the

humble son.

• The same spiritual principle applies to us today. If we remain humble and submitted

to God, He will exalt us and lift us up in His time!

Bring it to the Cross

One thing I hate is LEG DAY! I do not know why, I thought I will love it, but I don’t! But I need to strengthen my legs so it can match my upper body! And there is no other exercise to increase your leg muscle than squats! You put the weights on your shoulders and you go down, up, down, and up in order to build strength in your legs. In order to build your hamstrings, in order to build your legs, you’ve got to squat! 

But here is the problem with some people and especially if you do it wrong, you do not get low enough! So that mean we are not going to get stronger! 

That is us if we do not submit to God all the way! We are not willing to bend! We just want to just go to church Sunday’s and that is it! We only want to open the word when we are in church, we only want to do things not all the way! 

Submitting to God is we bend all the way down! We submit to God and His way! We grow our relationship, we do His Will and not ours! This is the same what Jesus did for our life! He lived the life we could not lived, died the death we should of died, and rose from the grave so we can have a way to the Father! And because of what He did on the cross, cause He submitted to the Father, He want us to do the same! Bend and submit to Him! When we do, we will be blessed and highly favor, just like David! 

• Application: Submit to God.

Call: How do we respond to the message?

• Altar moment: Submit to God and pray for a renewed heart of humility. God will

supply all you need and teach you how to live a life of humility that He has called you

to live!