Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s Not Up to You

Ugh! Have you ever been around really slimy people?

You know crooked people, selfish people, conceited people.

Uggh! after being around them for any prolonged period, you feel like you need to take a shower.

We have been hanging out with King Saul a bit too long.

It is a bit tiring, isn't it?

Ugh, poor leadership, impatience, pride failure to trust God, sin, guilt, and rejection, I honestly don't know how much more I can mentally take, and if you are in that same place, I have some good news for you.

Well, scratch that.

I have some great news for you.

Today, we open up chapter 16, and we are introduced to David.

The shepherd boy turned king.

"The Man after God's Own heart".

There are hundreds of Books and Bible studies on David.

Next, to Jesus and argument can be made that he is perhaps the greatest character in Bible.

With that in mind, I sat down with a stack of legal pads and I prepared to concoct a 42 part sermon series on some of the traits of David and how we can become like David in 37 easy steps.

But something happened.

When I sat down to look at the 97 traits that made David great, naturally, I turned to His selection as King of Israel.

So I opened , and read about David being anointed King of Israel, and I had a pad of paper all ready to go, and write all of the things that made David great.

But as I read, I found out that the story of David's anointing to the Kingship really isn't about David at all.

The story of David's rise to King is actually about God.

Pray

Church people sometimes can a bit heavy laden, and I get that, it is the way it is sometimes.

What happens is Jesus reaches into the muck and mire of their sin filled lives and He pulls them out of the slimy pit of sin and He sets their feet on a rock.

What happens is that at some point in every Christians life Jesus reaches in, and removes their heart of stone, and He replaces it with a heart of flesh.

And when that happens, When Jesus does that, you become so overjoyed that God did that, that you well, you fall in love with Jesus.

The heart of flesh that you now have becomes aware of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit impresses on you ways to do right with God, and sin starts to bother you.

As you look around the world you sin around you and your heart of flesh becomes heavy, and burdened.

Because Jesus saved you, you want the Good news to spread, and you desperately want to see the Kingdom of God advance so you become hopeful and your heart is heavy when it doesn't advance.

Samuel is like that.

We haven't talked a lot about Samuel, but he has this heart, a fleshy heart one that grieves for sin, and the obstacles to God's kingdom.

In first Samuel 8.6 when the people first asked for king, it displeased Samuel, so he prayed to the Lord.

Then, last week in 1 Samuel chapter 15, when Saul disobeyed the Lord we read in verse 11 that when the Lord was grieved, Samuel was troubled and cried out to the Lord all night.

But it didn't end there for Samuel.

After that horrible incident in chapter 15, when all was said and done, and Saul was confronted, and after all that Samuel still had to deal with the grief over the sin of Saul and the failed leadership.

Church, if you are kept up all night grieving over the sin you see around you, or if apparent setbacks to the advancement of the Kingdom of God, cause you to mourn, you are not alone.

You are just a bit like Samuel.

God has given you a fleshy heart.

But friends, you don't have to stay in that place.

Samuel, the Lord says, "How long will you mourn?"

It is time to move on.

The Lord says to Samuel I was the one that rejected him.

Saul, the one the people chose.

You don't have to mourn any longer Samuel.

It is part of my plan, and my plan is always good.

You may not always understand it, it may bring you sorrow for a time, but be assured my plan is good.

I have a better way for my people than the choice that they made.

I have a better way.

God is telling Samuel, yeah, it is hard to be under corrupt leadership, it may cause you pain for a while, but trust in God.

Stop mourning, let's get back to the business at hand.

God Brings Samuel back to the reason he was called in the first place.

God is bringing Samuel to the original task that he had done in the first place.

I had you be my representative, and now it is time to get back to that.

Pick up your, horn and your oil and let's go.

Let's go a new King, this time one I pick, one of the sons of Jesse in Bethlehem.

Maybe you remember Jesse.

Not the greatest lineage.

Some of his family weren't even originally Jews.

His Dad was Obed, who was the son of Boaz and Ruth.

Ruth, a Moabitess, by all rites she should not have been part of God's family, but by the grace of God, through her faith, she became part of the lineage of Jesse, who is now going to become the father of the king.

Samuel, though, well he is a little resistant.

And for good reason he has been hurt before.

He poured everything he had into Saul, and it didn't work out, and Saul is mad, and rejected, and now Samuel who would rather just fold into a ball and be done, is to ready to be hurt again.

But the Lord has a plan.

GO in worship, with the sacrifice, because, I got this.

It is not on your shoulders anymore Samuel, I will show you who I have chosen.

So Samuel does what God says, and heads to Bethlehem, and something extraordinary happens.

They are actually afraid of him!

When God is in control, we have nothing to fear, and Samuel has found out that apparently they are more afraid of Him, than he is of them.

Perhaps, God in His grace showed this to Samuel so he would be assured of God's plan.

So then Samuel replies,

16:5,

Consecrate yourselves is the Old Testament way of saying “get cleaned up we are going to church.”

It is the act of getting set apart for God, because they are going to enter into His presence, and we are going to Sacrifice, and God is going to do something big.

Consecrate is the Old Testament way of saying get cleaned up we are going to church.

Make sure you are set apart for God, because we are going to enter into His presence, and we are going to Sacrifice, and God is going to do something big.

1 Samuel 16.

Samuel the prophet sees the one!

But not so fast Samuel....

The Lord looks to the heart, and we can be thankful and overflowing with joy that God does that.

God does not look at things of this world!

Not even when choosing His king.

God looks through to the heart.

And he sees a man that he loves, and Eliab, is not him.

So Samuel keeps looking.

Samuel sees 7 of Jesse Sons.

Each time one comes before Him, the Lord has not chosen Him.

Finally Samuel sees all the sons, and not one of them is the one the Lord has chosen.

It is interesting isn’t it?

The Lord has the prophet the one who should know the Lord the one who can see the desires of the Lord, and he can’t see the one the Lord has called.

Maybe the Lord is showing Samuel, that it is really in the Lord’s hand, just to make sure that Samuel knows that it isn’t up to him.

In fact

So Samuel asks .

Sam 16:11

There is one more.

He is out tending the flocks in the fields near Bethlehem.

Send for him, go get him.

He is not hiding, not like the last king, he is just doing his job, quietly.

So insignificant that he wasn’t even considered by his own Father.

David, was just being David, and God was being God.

It wasn’t anything that David did that brought him to be king, it was God that made David king.

So as I begin the 42 part series on 37 ways to be like David, I don’t see anything anything that David did that made him king that day, but I do see a God of grace and mercy and love that reaches down to a nation, that has rejected Him.