David: God Sees What Others May Not See

Introduction

When it comes time for picking teams each captain chooses players for their team based on outward appearance. They pick the tallest, the strongest, the fastest or the most popular. We don’t tend to see captains looking through the group of children waiting to play and picking the one who is the best team player, or the best at strategy, or the one who sticks to the rules.

We want the biggest and strongest. We judge people by what we see with very little attention to their internal character. This isn’t only done in sports. With relationships most people pick the prettiest or the most popular. Few people are actively looking for the person quiet in spirit who loves God faithfully. We may say that’s what we want in a partner but the reality is that we are drawn to those who look good way faster than those who are good.

Israel had rejected God as their ruler and wanted a king just like the other nations. God gave them what they wanted in Saul, their first king. He was the obvious choice because he stood head and shoulders above everyone else. He looked kingly but it turned out he didn’t have the depth of character required to be king.

Saul was more concerned with himself than with following God and at the end of 1 Samuel 15 we find Samuel telling Saul that God had rejected him because God is more concerned with a heart of obedience than any outward act of sacrifice.

1 Samuel 15:22–23 ESV

22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

At the beginning of 1 Samuel 16, God sends Samuel to annoint a new king. When Samuel arrives at Jesse’s house as God instructed, he immediately thinks he has found the future king when he spots Eliab, Jesse’s eldest son. Samuel again made the classic mistake of thinking the tall handsome one was the obvious choice.

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV

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.”

Samuel went through all seven brothers and God rejected every one. Samuel had to ask Jesse if he had any other sons. David had been completely forgotten. He was out tending sheep and they hadn’t even considered that he might be the one God had chosen.

Perhaps that’s how you often feel. Often overlooked and unconcidered. But God isn‘t like men. God isn’t looking for the tallest, the strongest, or the best looking. God isn’t interested in how many followers you have on Instagram or how many views you got on TikTok.

God looks at your heart. God is looking for young people who seek to follow Him. God is looking for young people of faith who will depend on Him and who will wait on His timing as He works in their lives.

God isn’t looking for the self-sufficient, He is looking for the God-sufficient.

Faith to Face a Giant

When David was still a young man, his three eldest brothers were in the army and off at war with the Philistines. David was still tending his father’s sheep when he was tasked to take supplies to his brothers and see if they were well.

When David arrived at the battlefront he found Israel’s army cowaring in fear of a single man. Granted he was nine feet, nine inches tall and his armour weighed over 55 kilograms. Goliath was a litteral giant and he stood there taunting Israel’s army.

1 Samuel 17:8–10 ESV

8 He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” 10 And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.”

Goliath’s challenge reminds me of the scene in Princess Bride between Fezzik (the Giant) and the Man in Black.

Fezzik throws a rock that narrowly misses the Man in Black’s head and he says, “I didn’t have to miss”. Then Fezzik says they should face each other as God intended, sportsmanlike, skill against skill alone. The Man in Black asks, “so you’ll put down your rock and I put down my sword and we try to kill each other like civilised people?” When Fezzik agrees, the Man in Black replies, “I think the odds are slightly in your favour at hand fighting.”

Goliath was calling for a one-on-one fight because he knew he had an unfair advantage.

But David volunteered. David wasn’t afraid of Goliath’s taunt. David stepped up to face the giant everyone else was cowering from. When Saul heard this he replied,

1 Samuel 17:33 ESV

33 And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.”

Saul saw a young man and didn’t think he was up to the challenge. He thought David was out of his league. But David told Saul how God had prepared him for this moment during his years caring for his father’s sheep.

1 Samuel 17:34–36 ESV

34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”

But it’s important to pay attention to where David’s confidence came from. It wasn’t in his own ability to take down lions and bears. It wasn’t in his own skill or strength, it was in knowing that God had been there for him in the past and God would be there for him again.

1 Samuel 17:37 ESV

37 And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”

Saul tried to help David by placing his armour on him but it was too heavy and bulky and David couldn’t move. God had equipped David using his situation as a shepherd. He needed to be himself and do things the way God had led him to do them up until this point. So David went to the stream, picked out five stones and placed them in his shepherds bag. Then he went to face Goliath with his staff and his sling in his hand.

Goliath jeered at David for coming at him like a dog with a stick. He cursed him and welcomed this unfair fight he was sure to win.

The fight was completely unfair. Goliath was enormous but that was not why it was unfair. It was an unfair fight because David wasn’t alone. David had God Almighty on his side.

1 Samuel 17:45–47 ESV

45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

Then David slung a single stone which hit Goliath on the forehead and he fell down dead.

David was still a young man when he faced Goliath. He was able to face this opponent that had the entire Israelite army trembling because he had great faith. How is it that his faith was so strong? Because he had already been trusting God for a long time. David had depended on God when he was out tending his father’s sheep and God had helped him deal with the predators that came with the job. Every time he experienced God’s help his faith grew.

How have you allowed your faith to grow? In what areas are you depending on God in your life? As you deal with issues at home or at school, are you dealing with them in your own strength or are you inviting God to work in and through you? As you depend on God, He will be there for you. The more that happens, the more your faith will grow. One day you will face a giant that is insurmountable, will you tremble like the Israelites or will you tackle him with faith like David, faith that God is there with you?

Faith to Wait on God’s Timing

David was probably in his teens when he was annointed the future king of Israel but he did not immediately assume the throne. He went to work in Saul’s service as a musician and armour bearer. Then after killing Goliath he became a leader in Saul’s army. God was with David and he was successful wherever Saul sent him (1 Sam 18:5). He was so successful that women sang a song that really irritated Saul:

Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands

David’s popularity with the people grew and yet Saul remained on the throne. Saul became afraid of David and eventually tried to kill David.

At one point Saul was told that David was hiding out in the wilderness of Engedi and he took three tousand men to find David. While they were looking for David, Saul went into a cave to relieve himself. Saul is on the loo in the cave but he doesn’t realise that David and his men are hiding deeper in the same cave. David’s men tell him that this is the moment God has given his enemy into his hand. This would be a perfect opportunity for David to capture or kill Saul and assume the throne he was already annointed for. David stealthily crept forward and cut off the corner of Saul’s robe. David had a crisis of conscience even after only cutting off the corner of Saul’s robe.

1 Samuel 24:6 ESV

6 He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord’s anointed.”

David viewed Saul as God’s annointed, even though he too was God’s annointed. David recognised that God would bring Saul’s reign to an end in His own time and when God was ready, He would establish David as king.

Too often we are impatient and want God to do things in our lives right now. David was somewhere around fifteen when he was annointed to be the next king of Israel, he was thirty when God finally allowed him to assume the throne. During that time God taught David many lessons through many difficult times. He had to work for a terrible boss who repeatedly tried to kill him because he was a threat. David was patient and waited on God’s timing because he had faith that God would do what He had said He would do when the time was right. Not when David thought the time was right but when God said the time was right.

Do you have the faith to wait on God’s timing in your life?

Are you prepared to wait on God to help you find a spouse and get married? Or are you too anxious to have sex that you’ll take what you want now?

Are you prepared to wait on God to move you to the next phase of your life? Or are you in conflict with your parents as you battle for independance, wanting to run your own life and make your own decisions now?

Are you diligently doing your school work and studying, allowing God to use this time, that may be difficult, boring, or frustrating, to build in you the character that He needs you to have so He can use you in the job and ministry He has planned for you?

David knew exactly what God had in plan for him and yet he didn’t rush God and force his way onto the throne before God put him there.

Conclusion

The world tells us that beeing a teenager is about goofing off and having fun. No need to be serious. Seriousness can come later. While others are spending time perfecting their selfies, God is looking for young men and women who have a heart for Him. He is looking for people who are serious about loving Him and serving Him. He will use you now to show that a little person with great faith can be used by God to tackle a giant that great people with little faith cannot face.