The Anointing Looks Good on You

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.” 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.

The Anointing Looks Good on You

How many of you are only children in your families? Now how many of you have younger brothers or sisters? How many of you are the oldest child? As the oldest child in my family I never had to wait for things. I was always the first to get things. I was the first to get a pedal bike. The first to learn how to ride it. Back in Bermuda when your sixteen you an get a 50cc scooter bike. I was the first to turn sixteen and there I was the first to get an actual bike. But on the flip side of things, I was the first to be called on to take care of my youngest sister who is 15 years younger than me. I was the first to be asked to help teach her how to ride her pedal bike. I was the first to help her learn to tie her shoes. I was the first person to be asked to nurture and care for my little sister besides my mother and I was not the best choice for the job. See I have another sister who is only 3 years younger than me. She has all the qualities of a nurturing, caring compassionate sibling whereas I had all the natural masculine tough love tendencies. When my baby sister fell off her bike for the first time and scraped her knee she cried and I told her to be a big girl, suck it up and get back on the bike. Whereas my sister picked her up, kissed her boo boo better and got her a band-aid. I was not in the right position to do what my mother expected of me, and my sister was more qualified to do the job that my mother had called me to do. I said all of this to let you all know that Sometimes we place our youth in places where we believe they should be, but that place may not be where God needs them to be.

I have noticed over my 22 years of life that I haven’t always been placed in positions that I am called to be in. There are times where I am placed in situations that I have no business being in. Have you ever had that one friend that gets themselves into sticky situation that you had no part in, yet they call your name and drag you into it? I can think of a time when I was younger that something like this happened to me. I used to love playing football as a kid and one day my best friend invited me to play football with him. I told him that I couldn’t go because I had to finish my homework. His mother didn’t want him to play football either until his homework was done. So he told his mother that he was coming to my house to do homework, but he didn’t come to my house to do homework. He went to the football field and played football with some other boys. When he got home, his mother was so mad at him and she called my mom. Because my best friend told a lie, I got in trouble for something I did not do. I got placed in a position where I was not called to be.

New Life Church do we ever place our children in positions where they are not called to be? Do we look at the size of our kids and place them in certain positions? We look at their outward appearance and place them in positions that they do not need to be in. I have seen taller children get placed in the center position on a basketball court, to grow up and end up being the shortest player out of everyone. I have seen the child who loved to talk the most get the position as the scripture reader, when the quiet child wanted to read the scripture. I have seen outward appearance fool the very elect into calling the wrong person for the wrong position. Look at Saul. He was tall and attractive and his attractiveness was one of the main reasons that God allowed Samuel to anoint him as king. We find out later that Saul was the wrong man for the position. The text tells us that something similar was about to happen as Samuel encountered Jesse’s sons. Samuel had planned to anoint a son based off his outward appearance, but god doesn’t look at outward appearance. God looks at the heart, and therefore sometimes we get upset when the young people we place into positions do not live up to the positions that we placed them in.

My mother had placed me in the position of a maternal figure for my baby sister when she was not there. She had placed me in a position that I was not called to be in. I was almost one hundred percent certain that I would not completely live up to this calling that she had placed on me and when she found out that I was not living up to the standards that she had for me she became very upset. My outward appearance as the oldest child did not match my inward motivation to care for my sister. Looking at me, my mother though that because I was the oldest, I was the most responsible. She thought I was the most loving. The most caring, but she did not realize that I was also the most tough. When it appears that our young people are failing at the positions that we placed them in, maybe we need to stop looking at their mistakes, and start looking at ourselves for placing them incorrectly. We need to stop beating them up and start building them up in a new position. We need to stop breaking their desires to be in church and start bridging the gap between their desires and their capabilities. We need not let our young people get to the place where Saul was. In order to do this, sometimes we need to step back and let God call the young person for certain positions.

So my mother didn’t want to change my position as maternal figure for my sister. It wasn’t until my sister came to my mother and told her that I was not acting as caring as I should to my sister that my mother moved me from that position. Sometimes an external force has the power to change a young person’s position. If you read the story, had it not been for the voice of God speaking to Samuel, the wrong person would have been appointed in the wrong position. God needs to be the one to appoint people to positions and the one to take people out of their positions. We need to listen to God’s voice when we pick our youth leaders. We need not just look at their external features. We need not pick a praise team leader because they can sing. We need not pick a youth day preacher because they can preach. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and show us who needs to be appointed. We also need to remember that sometimes God calls the people that you least expect to fill the roles you never expected them to fill.

There is something special about the way that God works. He doesn’t call the person most qualified for the position. He qualifies the person who he calls. In my mother’s mind I was the most qualified for the position. I was the eldest, therefore I was the most responsible. In her eye I was the best candidate for the job, but in actuality, my sister was called for the job and God was qualifying her for it.

David appeared to be the least qualified for the position of Israel’s new king. He had never been in power before. He was the youngest of all his brothers. He had no experience being a leader. Externally, he was not qualified. David was a shepherd. He was placed in a position of shepherding sheep. His father placed him in a position that God did not want him in. His position at the time made him appear the least qualified. Young people have your parents ever made you do something you didn’t want to do? Well my dad used to make me clean the bathroom when I was younger and I hated every minute of it. I hated the smell of the cleaning products. I hated touching the dirt. I hated getting water all over me. David’s dad had him doing a dirty job, but sometimes that dirty job gives you the skills that you need for a later date.

Because David was a shepherd, he developed a few skills that he needed for the position that God had for him. Firstly, he learned how to shepherd sheep. As a shepherd you have many responsibilities. You have to make sure your sheep have green pastures to graze in so that they won’t starve. You have to make sure that your sheep have water to drink so that they won’t be thirsty. Also, you have to keep track of all your sheep. If a sheep were to go missing, you would go out after that sheep and find him. These skills are all necessary if a person wants to be a king. He has to make sure that his people are well fed and that nothing bad happens to his people. God used David’s experience as a shepherd to make him into a better king. My sister had experiences also. She remembered when she fell off her bike and scraped her knee. She remembered how much it hurt and how my mother had kissed it and put a band-aid on it. My sister had learned the skills that she needed to take care of my baby sister. Once we have learned the skills that God wants us to learn, God appoints us to a new position.

So my mom realized that my sister was better at taking care of my baby sister than I was. Because she had seen firsthand and evaluated how I treated my baby sister and how my sister treated her, she appointed my sister into the role of caring for my baby sister. In the same fashion, God evaluated the hearts of all Jesse’s sons. He weighed out who would be the best fit as the next leader of Israel. He factored in all the training that each of them had. He thought about the potential each of them had. He thought about the hearts and minds of each of them and He decided to choose the youngest boy, David. God told Samuel to anoint David. Anointing had a special purpose back in those days. Publically anointing someone signified that this person was called and set aside for a specific public leadership function within the community. The person was anointed to a specific position by God. Scholars say it was almost like an inauguration or an ordination. The position that God was anointing David for was to be the king of Israel. The emphasis here is that God decided the correct position for David to be in. When God places our young people in the positions that He desires them to be, then Miracles will happen.

When my mother placed my sister in charge of my baby sister, I witnessed miracles happening. Before when my sister would fall off her bike she would cry. Now when she fell off her bike she would just get back up and go to my sister who would comfort her. The miracle is that my baby sister was and still is the biggest crybaby in the history of the world. For my sister to hurt herself and not cry, God must have been involved. But because my sister nurtured my baby sister, the miracle of her not crying was made possible.

When God properly appoints our young people, you will see two types of miracles happen. The first miracle that you will see happen is a spiritual miracle. The text tells me that the presence of God was on David since the moment he was anointed. In the next few verses my Bible tells me that Saul began being tormented by a spirit. God used David to cast out that harmful spirit. The only time that Saul could find peace was when David was with him. Sometimes we need the anointed ones to allow god to work spiritual miracles through them. I remember the second sermon I ever preached. I preached it at my church and I had no idea how to give an appeal so I just closed and prayed. I thought the word I preached didn’t have any power. I thought since nobody came up before I prayed that God didn’t use me that day, but my senior pastor felt the Lord and he held off and made an appeal. Someone heard the words God spoke through me, a seventeen-year-old boy, and responded to the appeal and got baptized. Sometimes God works His biggest miracles through His smallest soldiers. That day, God worked a spiritual miracle through me.

The second type of miracle we will see God work through our young people are physical miracles. We are all familiar with the story of David and Goliath. Saul and his entire army were camped out on one side of the valley and Goliath and his army were on the other and Goliath was a huge man. Because of his size and strength, he was able to taunt Saul and his army. No one in Saul’s army was as big as Goliath. No one in Saul’s army was willing to stand up and fight Goliath one on one. Everyone in Saul’s army was completely afraid of this man Goliath except for David. David was anointed to be king and one of the kings duties in Bible days was to lead his army into battle. I believe that David was unafraid of the giant that was in front of him because he remembered the anointing that was over him. I can imagine that David saw Goliath and immediately remembered the anointing. He remembered that he was called to be king and he remembered the role of a king. Kings do not run from battles. Kings do not fear anyone. Kings battle with their men until their death. In remembering his anointing, I believe that David also remembered the one who had anointed him. I bet you David started quoting scriptures.

· “If my God is for me, who could be against me.”

· “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

· Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us

I believe David received the power to defeat Goliath because of the anointing that was upon him. Because of God’s anointing, a giant was slain. Because of God’s anointing a physical battle was won. Because of God’s anointing a miracle was performed. Because of God’s anointing that shy boy can get up preach. Because of God’s anointing that young girl can get up and lead praise and worship. Because of God’s anointing miracles happen. And when miracles start happening you ought to give God some praise. You ought to clap your hands, stomp your feet and sing hallelujah. Because God is good and He is the only one that can appoint people to the miracle working business.

When we allow God to appoint our children, then we allow the next generation of workers to live out their calling in Christ. They are the next group of men and women who will point to His nail pierced hands. The next group of people who will point to His nail pierced feet. They are the next group of people to point the world to the cross. The next group of men and women to say

· Alas and did my savior bleed and did my sovereign die.

· Would he devote that sacred head for someone such as I.

· At the cross where I first saw the light and the burdens of my heart rolled away

· It was there by faith, I received my sight and now I am happy all the days.

So to close, just like my sister, young people are appointed for specific purposes. I admonish you to allow the Holy Spirit to anoint our young people. Allow the spirit to give them direction and allow God to keep appoint them in positions that He wants them to be in. Because when God appoints someone, they lift Him up and He said if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. Will you allow God to be lifted up through the Spirit working within your young people?

Appeal

If you want your young people to be in the position where God appoints them I ask you to raise your hand.

If anyone is at the anointing stage of their life. You are unsure of what God has called you to do. Or you do not know how to do what you are called to do. You need direction from God. Come to the front. God says come and let us reason together. Where two or more are gathered in His name He is in the midst. We can pray for guidance and direction over your life.