First Samuel, first Samuel, chapter number.
Somebody told me their favorite place,
I got interested and then I said,
well what's your favorite kind?
And he said Hawaiian pizza and I said,
I don't trust you at all.
Who likes Hawaiian pizza?
Yeah, you guys are weird. You don't put fruit on a pizza?
What are you doing?
I don't know what's gotten into you people.
My wife said that when she went to Thailand,
that they tried to make,
they thought of pizza as American,
which is like, it's Italian, right?
But they thought it was American
and they like wanted to make it even more like American.
So they put in the crust, they stuffed the crust,
but they stuffed it with hot dogs.
Yeah, I'm a little bit offended at that.
Like that's what they think we're like, you know?
It's like, all the Americans,
they like anything that makes them chubby.
So I'm excited about, okay,
tell me your favorite pizza place, ready?
One, two, three.
Me too, me too.
And what's your favorite flavor, ready?
Me too, so it's getting out of control, okay.
I heard today from in the teen event
that Pastor Miles doesn't like cheese.
I know.
But I also heard that he does like pizza.
Now explain that to me.
They're not different.
Cheese is pizza's greatest platform.
No, wait, pizza is cheese's greatest platform.
That's what I meant.
So I don't, you make no sense to me.
Okay.
Kids nowadays, you know?
So we're in first Samuel chapter 16.
I remember distinctly being about nine years old
and my dad had taken a church.
And like I've told you before, there was just roughly,
I think 19 people voted on him, 15, 18 people voted on him.
So very, very small.
We had come from a church that ran about 250, 300 people.
So a church not unlike our church.
And there weren't very many kids
and it was just very, very small.
And my brother and I would come
and I remember having moments where like,
there was one, I remember being, it was a Wednesday night.
I remember it being a Wednesday night
because I wasn't wearing a tie.
And I was, I had, there's another kid next to me.
It may have been Corey.
I don't know, there wasn't that many kids.
I don't think it was Corey.
But I was talking and my dad was preaching
and from the pulpit he goes, Benjamin.
And I was like, oh.
Like it was, I knew exactly what was gonna happen
when I got home.
It was not good.
But I remember asking my dad on the way home,
dad like, there's no kids.
Like there's no, I don't have any friends.
At our last church we had all these friends.
I don't have any friends.
There's no kids.
There's no, nobody our age or whatever.
And I remember my dad telling me,
don't worry son, they're coming.
They're gonna come.
We're gonna reach them.
And that's exactly what happened.
Some of my best friends in the world
are people that came to that church over those years
and God grew the church.
But I remember worrying about,
are we gonna have any people, right?
These past couple of years being a pastor here
has been such a joy.
And I'm so grateful to be here.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be your pastor
and to do ministry and life with you all.
And it's just been amazing.
I also want you to know that I'm thrilled to death
that God has brought Corey and Jessica Kirchner here.
They are people that God has used and are using.
And I believe that as they continue to be faithful to God
he's gonna use them mightily in the future.
I also believe that about Miles and Anna.
I thank God's using them.
And they're having such an effective ministry here
as Corey and Jess are.
And I'm very thankful that God's brought them here.
I was talking to a friend this afternoon
who last week was announced to have officially taken over
some of the outreach duties at the last church
that I came from.
And I think I've told you this,
when I first got to that church
I knew that I wasn't necessarily gonna be there forever.
And so my prayer was that God would provide someone
to replace me when I left.
And that kind of officially happened last week.
And I was just so thrilled.
I was crying because the God answered
a six or seven year prayer.
You ever have that happen?
It's just an amazing thing.
So I say all that to say this,
ministry takes leadership,
ministry takes effort,
ministry takes energy.
And all of these things that I'm talking to you about tonight
I remember when I first got here
knowing that Pastor Herb and Miss Judy
they were getting ready to leave.
I knew that they weren't long for us.
And I knew that we needed to hire at least one,
maybe two people.
And I had no idea exactly who that was gonna be.
In fact, the guys that I thought it was gonna be
ended up, I thought for sure they were gonna be those guys
and they ended up both saying no.
And they're God directed.
Aren't you glad that God directs?
And so I was like, well, who's gonna be?
And then God provided these two guys.
And one of the guys I thought was gonna be there
is the guy that just got with the answer to the prayer.
And I was asked my problem.
He said no to me and praise the Lord.
He said no because he's there still
and God's using them.
And I'm just really, really grateful for all of that.
I had the task of hiring staff
to help us fulfill our commission here.
And I wasn't exactly sure who I would get
and how I would get them.
And I knew that in the long term.
I'd love to see God raise up.
I know this that in the long term
I wanna see God raise up people from among our church
to be discipled and grow into leadership
both here and around the world.
But I say all of this to say,
I give you all of that information to tell you this.
God's got a plan.
God always has a plan.
And sometimes we worry, oh no God,
what are you gonna do?
Who are you gonna provide?
How are we gonna do this?
And that's not just true of staff positions.
It's true of every important, great commission task
that we have in this place.
Here's how I look at all of you.
I believe all of you that know Jesus
and are a part of our church are in full-time ministry.
There's not like some special set of people
who are particularly more used by God necessarily.
I believe that all of us are called to be ministers.
Do you guys agree with me on that?
I believe that with all my heart.
And there are times that we're looking,
okay man, we need this position or that position.
We need someone to help in this area or that area.
And sometimes as a pastor I get worried.
Who are we gonna have?
Who's gonna do it?
Who's gonna step up?
And you know what God provides?
He really does.
There have been times where I have panicked
and asked the question, God,
who are you going to provide for this ministry,
that ministry?
Who do we have to help?
Who are you going to raise up to lead?
And if you aim at sending people,
sometimes you send people and you're like,
oh no, we just sent them.
And now who's gonna do it?
And I thought they were sent.
But God's gonna always raise those people up.
While we impact the answer to that
through faithful obedience to reach, teach, and minister,
God always has a plan.
And this was the question that was fresh
in the heart of Samuel
when we get to first Samuel chapter 16.
We're doing a series on David.
And to help you understand who David is,
we kind of got to start out with who Samuel and Saul is.
Saul was the first king, as you know, of Israel.
Up until the time of Saul,
God had directed with his people, it was a theocracy.
He led his people through chosen prophets,
through judges, they went through Joshua and Moses
and judges and then it got to the place
where the people wanted a king.
And God, if Samuel, it was so interesting,
Samuel says, hey, you know what a king's gonna do?
A king's gonna use your sons for soldiers,
he's gonna use your daughters, he's gonna tax you.
Who agrees, politicians tend to tax.
He's gonna take your money, but they wanted a king.
Like all the other nations,
because it was going so well for all those other nations,
we want a king.
And so there was a king, it was named with Saul,
he, Saul was this king and they said something notable
about him, they said that he was,
what did they notice about him?
He was a good looking guy, he was tall,
he was, the Bible says, head and shoulders
above all the rest.
And so that's who they ended up choosing to be the king.
But what's interesting is Saul,
to catch us up to where we're gonna talk about David tonight,
Saul started making a bunch of bad decisions.
If you look at First Samuel chapter 13,
and you look at verses eight to 13.
And so, God very clearly did not want to have a mixture
of prophet, priest and king.
Prophet, priest and king is described as two people
in the whole of the word of God, Melchizedek and Jesus.
And Saul, who was the king, got impatient because Samuel,
the prophet was supposed to come to do sacrifices,
and he wasn't there when Saul wanted him to be there,
so Saul began to make sacrifices
and that was a great sin towards God.
That happened in Samuel chapter,
First Samuel chapter 13.
And First Samuel chapter 14, Saul made this really dumb oath
and put the son of Jonathan, his son at Jeopardy.
He oathed something, he made a promise
that put Jonathan at risk because of what he promised to do
and that was a very dumb idea.
And when we get to First Samuel chapter 15,
it's like 13 dumb idea, sinful idea.
See, sin makes you stupid, right?
So First Samuel 13, he makes a stupid,
sinful mistake.
In chapter 14, he makes that rash vow.
In chapter 15, God saw something very, very clear.
Samuel also sent a Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee
to be king over his people over Israel.
Now therefore, hearken to the voice of the words of the Lord,
thus saith the Lord of hosts.
I remember that which Amalek did to Israel,
how he laid weight for him in the way
when he came up from Egypt.
Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have
and spare them not but slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling oxen sheep, camel and ass.
So God, clear command, right?
How are they supposed to defeat the Amalekites?
Total destruction.
By the way, God is an arbitrary when he does that.
Some people have used this particular verse
and other verses like that to say, God's unjust, right?
God's a big meanie, he's trying to kill everybody.
But God is an arbitrary, these people had done,
this is judgment on the kind of things that they had done.
And so God gave very, very clear commands to Saul.
But what does Saul do?
Look at verse nine.
But Saul and the people spared Agag,
that's the king of the Amalekites.
Let's go back to verse 18 and he took Agag,
the king of the Amalekites alive
and utterly destroyed all the people
with the edge of the sword.
So he did partial obedience.
And I'm gonna tell you what my parents told me
and what I need on recorder with my kids, right?
Partial obedience is what kind of obedience?
Disobedience, it's disobedience.
And so it says here that Saul spared Agag,
the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings,
and the lambs and all that was good
and would not utterly destroy them,
but everything that was violent referees,
that they destroyed utterly.
Basically he says, God doesn't make sense
that God would have me destroy everything.
I'm gonna keep the valuable parts.
The king I can use for leverage,
these animals, why would we kill them?
That's good meat, amen?
That's good meat, like why would we do that?
So then here comes Samuel, verse 10.
And then the word of the Lord came into Samuel saying,
it repented me that I have set up Saul to be king.
For he has turned back from following me
and hath not performed my commandments.
And it grieves Samuel and he cried unto the Lord at night.
Is Samuel upset?
What's Samuel upset about?
I just got this king started.
We just did orientation, right?
And now I told these people, why are you wanting a king?
The kings are just gonna be problems.
And here it is, we got a king
and he keeps making all of these sinful choices.
And how long was Samuel up?
He's off all night.
Is he worried?
Yeah, he's worried.
And then here comes Samuel.
Verse 12, and when Samuel rose early
to meet Saul in the morning,
it was told Samuel saying, Saul came to Carmel
and behold, he set him up a place
and has gone about and passed on and gone down to Gilgal.
And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him,
this is Saul telling Samuel, you know, it's like,
okay, I know I did wrong.
I'm gonna, here we go.
Blessed be thou of the Lord,
I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
And Samuel said, what's true?
He had disobeyed.
Partial obedience is disobedience.
And Samuel said, oh, you did, did you?
What mean is then this bleeding of the sheep in my ears?
And the lo, you guys don't like my sheep?
That's pretty good.
And the lowing of cattle, can anybody give me
a lowing of cattle? That's pretty, that's awful.
You did not do good.
Okay.
And the lowing of oxen, which I hear,
and Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites
for the people, for the people spared the best
of the sheep in the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord,
thy God.
What did he just say?
Did he keep the sheep and the animals
to sacrifice? No.
And who made the choice? Was it the people?
It was Saul.
Now that you're standing in front of the teacher,
here comes the excuses, right?
We kept the best of the sheep, the oxen,
to sacrifice unto the Lord, thy God,
and the rest, we have utterly destroyed.
Then Samuel said unto the Saul,
stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord has said
to me this night.
And he said unto him, say on.
And Samuel said, when thou was little in thine own sight,
was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel,
and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel.
You know what he's asking?
Back when you were humble,
back when you didn't think a lot of yourself,
that's when God anointed you.
That's when God set you to be king over all these people.
Where is it?
Verse 18.
The Lord sent thee on a journey and said,
go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,
and fight against them until they be consumed.
Wherefore then, this thou not obey the Lord,
the voice of the Lord, but disfly upon the spoil,
and disevil in the sight of the Lord.
And Saul said unto Samuel,
yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord,
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me,
and have brought agag the king of the Amalekites,
and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people, who's he blaming?
Yeah, but the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen.
The chief of the things which should have been
utterly destroyed to sacrifice,
unto the Lord thy God and Gilgall.
And Samuel said,
hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, here it is,
to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to hearken than the fat of rams.
Saul's not admitting that he did wrong, right?
He's trying to say, no, I did right, I obeyed.
But partial obedience is disobedience.
He doesn't get it.
Samuel keeps coming at him, keeps coming at him.
Look down, look down at verse number 24.
And Saul said to Samuel, I have,
so finally he admits it, I've sinned,
for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord
in thy words because I feared the people.
No, you blame the people.
I feared the people and their voice.
Now therefore I pray the pardon my sin
and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord.
You know what he's asking him?
Fine.
I'm sorry.
Anybody ever tell you you're sorry like that?
You did this to me, I'm sorry.
Are you really sorry?
I don't feel like you're sorry.
I'm sorry.
What do you want me to say?
I'm sorry.
Could you just go with me?
Could we just cover this thing up?
Let's just go worship together.
Let's just look at Samuel's response.
And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with thee.
For thou hast rejected the word of the Lord
and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.
And as Samuel turned about to go away,
he laid upon the skirt of his mantle and it rents.
So Samuel leaves and it catches and it rips his mantle.
Verse 28, and Samuel said unto him,
the Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day.
You want a visual, here's the visual.
And hath given it to the neighbor of thine
that is better than thou.
And also the strength of visual will not lie nor repent
for he is not a man that he should repent.
Who's the strength of Israel?
God, the Lord.
Verse 30, then he said, I have sinned and yet honor me now.
I pray thee, this is Saul saying to Samuel,
can you just cover this up?
I'm sorry, this time I'm really sorry.
Now that the punishment is there,
now that I'm gonna be taken away as king,
all of a sudden I feel sincere.
I'm sorry, can you just go with me?
Before the elders of the people and before Israel
and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God.
Of course, Samuel says no.
Verse 35, Samuel came no more to see Saul
until the day of his death.
Nevertheless, Samuel, what does it say?
Morned over Saul.
Samuel's the prophet, Samuel's the one that goes
from God to the people.
He's the one that was used to anoint kings.
This is kind of a new rule for a prophet.
And he's the person that's supposed to speak
on behalf of God to the king.
The king's been rejected by God and now Samuel
doesn't go to the king anymore because God saw
because God's rejected him as king.
And he's upset, but it says here that he mourned for Saul.
And the Lord repented that he had made King Saul
king over Israel.
So Samuel finds himself in a tough place.
He's, Samuel realizes there's this king Saul,
God's rejected him king.
He's told him, he's rejected him as king.
And he's told him, hey, there's gonna be somebody else
that replaces you as king.
Saul knows that, but guess what?
Saul is still the, he's still the king.
Saul and his line are rejected.
So what's there to be done?
He's mourning because now there needs to be a new king.
There needs to be a new leader, but who's it gonna be?
We just got this guy started.
How is this gonna work out?
God, I'm so worried, I'm so confused, I'm so scared.
I'm so sad about what's going on.
So here's the question for us tonight.
How do we respond when we need a leader?
How do we, what do we do when we have a big need
and we do not know how it's gonna work out?
How does God respond?
Well, just a couple of things.
Here's a contrast, these three points I'm gonna give you,
four points tonight, are a contrast between how man
responds and how God responds.
Which one are we supposed to do?
Which one are we supposed to mimic?
The way man responds or God responds?
God, amen, that's it.
Let's look at how man responds and how God responds.
Number one, man panics God provides.
Man panics God provides.
Look at verse one.
So now before you do, back in verse,
what verse was the last one there?
Back in verse 35, what's Samuel doing?
He's mourning, right?
Okay, look at verse one.
And the Lord said unto Samuel,
how long without mourn for Saul,
see him and I have rejected him over reigning over Israel?
Are you gonna just stay depressed?
He's not the solution.
I'm the solution, that's what he's saying.
Are you worried?
I've rejected him, stop mourning over him.
Fill thy horn with oil, what does that mean?
He's got a horn, some kind of thing that's full of oil,
and the oil is what was used to anoint the king.
So he's saying fill thy horn with oil and go,
I will send thee to Jesse the Bethelomite,
for I provided me a king among his sons.
Can I just tell you, in times where we panic,
we don't have to panic,
because God knows what he's doing.
God knows what he's doing.
He has a plan in place.
We do not thwart the plans and purposes of God.
We can disobey God, no doubt, right?
Who agrees with me, we can disobey God, we can.
But when we disobey, that doesn't thwart the plan of God.
When we do wrong, that doesn't, it's not good for us,
but God's gonna get his stuff done.
He gets what he wants done to accomplish.
When a man or woman of God fails, nothing of God fails.
So he says get up and go, verse two,
and you can almost, we read between the lines here, okay?
So this is my thought process.
Has this ever happened to you?
God leads you in a certain way or a certain direction,
or you read a passage in the scripture, says,
okay, if that happens, the Bible tells me
what I'm supposed to do.
But wait, if I do that, then this could happen,
or that could happen, or that could happen.
Anybody ever been there?
That's what happens in verse two.
And Samuel said, how can I go?
If Saul hear it, he will kill me.
He's still the K-I-N-G king.
Can you hear the gears turning in Samuel's mind?
Wait, if I go get a new king, who's gonna be mad about that?
Oh yeah, Saul, the captain of the armies.
Who's he talking to?
Who's Samuel talking to?
You guys are like, okay.
No, do you get it?
God told him to go.
When God tells him to go, he goes, okay, oh wait,
he might kill me.
God, he might, oh yeah, I'm talking to God.
Right?
Have you ever done that?
God, don't you know that's gonna be difficult?
God, don't you know if I obey, I could get hurt?
Sure you could, why not?
Of course you could.
But to obey is better than sacrifice, right?
Look at the Lord's response.
I love this, second part of verse two.
And the Lord said, take a heifer with thee
and say I am come to sacrifice to the Lord
and call Jesse to the sacrifice.
And I will show thee what thou shalt do and thou shalt
anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.
Isn't that just like God?
He doesn't give him the whole rest of the story,
he just gives him exactly what to do next.
He doesn't even tell, he's like, you're gonna go to this house
and eventually I'm gonna tell you it is.
It's like, someone's like, Samuel probably was thinking,
why can't you just tell me now?
No, I want you to take the horn of the Lord
and call Jesse to the sacrifice.
No, I want you to take the horn of the Lord,
I want you to take the heifer, the sacrifice
and I want you to go to Jesse
and I want you to go to Bethlehem
and I'm gonna tell you who it is.
He just tells him the house to go to
and to take the sacrifice.
Do the next thing and I'll show you what to do
when you get there.
You know what he's telling me to do?
Just obey, just trust me.
Verse four, and Samuel did that which the Lord spake.
Isn't that a great, you should underline that in your Bible.
And Samuel did that which the Lord spake.
You want a pattern for life, there's your pattern.
God tells you to do something, you want what you should do?
You should do it.
Even if it seems weird, even if it seems hard,
even if it seems difficult, just do what God tells you to do.
Kids, you want a good life?
A good life happens when you find out what God said
and you do it.
You know why God gives you parents?
It's okay.
You know why God gives you parents?
He wants you to learn how to obey, how to obey.
If you can obey your dad, then eventually you can obey God.
And if you can't obey your dad, you're not gonna obey God.
Are you with me?
Kids, if you got it, say I got it.
Like three of you got it, okay, good.
Is it any different for us adults?
No.
There's a whole lot of adults that never learned
how to obey when they were kids
and so they've had a hard time ever since.
Samuel did that which the Lord spake and came to,
what's the next word, verse four.
Samuel did that which the Lord spake and came to,
does God have a plan?
Where did he go?
What do you know about Bethlehem?
It's the city of David.
It's the city that we know of that God said
that the Messiah would come through.
And the elders of the town trembled out his coming
and said, come us out peaceably.
What's the point?
Man panics, God provides.
God already has a plan.
Just because we don't know God's plan
does not mean that God does not have one.
Look where he told him to go.
Bethlehem, does God have a plan?
He has a plan, the house of bread.
He's got a plan.
Here's the second thing, ready?
Man chooses, God corrects.
Sometimes man chooses and God corrects.
Look at verse five.
These men ask him, are you coming in peace?
Verse five, and he said, peaceably I come to sacrifice
and the Lord sanctify yourselves
and come with me to the sacrifice.
And he sanctified Jesse and his sons
and called them to the sacrifice.
And it came to pass when they were come
that he looked on Eliab.
Now why was Saul going to Jesse?
God had told him, take the horn,
take the sacrifice, go see his sons
and we're gonna pick out a king.
So he sees Eliab, one of the sons of Jesse
and he said, what did he say?
Surely the Lord's anointed this before him.
What are you saying?
This kid is a sharp looking kid.
This has gotta be the guy.
This has gotta be the next king.
You see this guy?
We don't know, I'm feeling in the blanks.
Broad shoulders, strong, tall.
This is king material.
You know when the last time they chose like that,
what happened?
Right.
Verse seven, but the Lord said unto Samuel,
look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature
because I have refused him.
For the Lord seeeth not as man seeeth.
For man looketh on the outward appearance
and the Hebrew, the word for outward appearance
is almost literally face.
Man looks at the face, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
Isn't that true today?
Man looks on the face, God looks on the heart.
How Samuel deciding, well this kid looks good.
This is in the right house, I've done what we're supposed
to do.
He looks sharp, but he says no.
I got somebody in mind and I'm not looking here.
I'm looking here.
You know what God called David in the scripture?
A man after God's own heart.
Verse eight, then Jesse called up Benadab
and made it pass before Samuel and he said,
neither hath the Lord chosen him.
Then Jesse made Shama to pass by and said,
neither hath the Lord chosen this.
And Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, the Lord hath chosen,
the Lord hath not chosen these.
When I was deciding what to call this sermon,
I chose this name.
Oh yeah, I do have one more.
Yeah, I guess I do have one more.
If there's no other reason to think that God chooses
differently than we choose, here's the circumstance.
Verse 11, and Samuel said unto Jesse,
are these all thy children?
And he said, there he remaineth yet the youngest
and behold, he keepeth the sheep.
I didn't even call him in yet.
Here's the point, number three, man forgets.
Man forgets, but God, what?
God remembers.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, send and fetch him,
for we will not sit down till he come hither.
Hey, this is so important, we want him to get here.
Verse 12, and he sent and brought him in,
now he was ready and with all of the beautiful countenance
and goodly to look to.
You know what?
Man looks on the face, God looks on the heart.
That doesn't mean that God only uses ugly people.
Are you with me?
If you're a good looking, don't worry, God will use you too.
Amen.
Praise the Lord for me, I'm just real, that's a dumb joke.
That was stupid.
Okay, verse 13.
And the Lord said, arise, annoying them, for this is he.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil
and anointed him in the midst of the brethren,
and the spirit of the Lord came upon David
from that day forward.
So Samuel rose up and went to Rama.
The one that they weren't sure was gonna be the guy,
ended up being guy.
Now look at what happens, verse 14.
But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul
and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.
You have in the Old Testament,
the Holy Spirit works different
than he does in the New Testament.
The Bible says in the New Testament
that if you don't have the Holy Spirit,
then you are none of his.
So if you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon
people, men and women of God, to do God's service.
You could actually be justified.
Remember it says, the just shall live by faith.
Abraham believed God and it was countered into him
his righteousness.
His right, God's righteousness was imputed onto him
because he had faith in God.
So Abraham was regenerate.
Abraham was saved because God responded to his faith
and gave him righteousness.
Do you get it?
But just because he got righteousness and was saved
didn't mean that he automatically had
the Holy Spirit on him.
In our day, when we're saved, the Holy Spirit comes
and if that's how you know you're justified,
does that make sense?
Okay, so you have in this passage,
at this point, God now anoints David
and the spirit comes onto David for those acts of service.
And then what do you have in the next verse?
The spirit leaving Saul.
So he's got this evil countenance, verse 15,
and Saul's servant said,
and behold now an evil spirit from God trouble with thee.
Let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee
to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp
and it shall come to pass when the evil spirit
from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand
and thou shalt be well.
We need a singer-songwriter.
We need someone to come and to calm you down.
Verse 18, this is the sovereignty of God, isn't it?
Verse 18, then answer one of the servants to say,
behold, I have seen the son of Jesse, the Bethelomite,
that is cunning and playing and mighty, valiant man
and a man of war and prudent in matters and a comely person
and the Lord is with him.
So what does Saul do?
Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and said,
send me David thy son which is with the sheep.
Now isn't that interesting?
Who did that?
Who did it?
God did that.
All of a sudden, you're anointed to be king.
The king probably, if a king knows that there's another person
who's anointed to be in his position,
do you think he'd like him very much?
Who agrees that he wouldn't like him?
And yet God uses the circumstance to get David into the king's court.
God did an amazing thing.
Let me give you three lessons, okay?
Three lessons.
Number one, God's solutions are often strange and simple,
so be open.
God had a simple solution for the problem.
Okay, if he won't obey, I'll get a king who can obey.
He didn't give Samuel or David the whole story,
he just gave them the next thing.
Are you with me?
Just do the next thing.
That's often how God works.
Maybe you heard this before.
The just shall live by the Lord.
The just shall live by faith every day.
Just doing the faithful thing you're supposed to do next.
Faith is shown by what?
Works.
Some people put Paul and James at odds,
because they say Paul's saying that we're justified by faith,
and James is saying that we're justified by works.
Anybody ever heard that?
Okay, maybe you haven't.
But if you go look at James, you're like, well,
James seems to be saying he's justified by works.
James isn't saying that we're justified by works.
James is saying that our claim to faith is justified by works.
That if you say you believe God, and that you love God,
then it's going to show up in the way that you live.
Does that make sense?
And so, here's what I'm saying.
If we live by faith, that means we have to live a life
of obedience to God.
Just stay obedient to what you know to do.
When God says do something, you do it.
Number two, God's promotions are sudden and surprising,
so be ready.
Do you think David thought that by the end of the day,
he was going to be anointed to be king?
He's out there watching sheep.
The next thing you know, I'm going to be what?
King?
He's just a little shepherd boy, but now he's being anointed.
He goes back to being a shepherd right after that.
Once it's over, he just goes back and watches the sheep.
Then he gets a message from the person who he is to replace.
Then Saul says, hey, by the way,
we need you to come be a singer-songwriter for the king.
Sometimes God works like that.
All of a sudden you're doing one thing,
you're being faithful to do what you're supposed to do,
you're just going to be a shepherd and you're going to be obedient.
You'd be obedient out in the fields with nobody,
it's just you and the sheep.
All of a sudden God sees that faithfulness,
knows your heart and says, okay,
if you can be trusted with a little,
I'll trust you with more.
Sometimes there have been times, even in this church,
where people have come to the church,
I don't know them very well.
And they come in and like, hey, I can teach,
I can do this, I can do that, put me in coach,
I just want to...
Give me a class.
Like, you've been here five minutes.
I don't know you.
Why don't you just be faithful in this small thing?
And so when you're faithful in that small thing,
then I can know I can trust you with the...
The big thing, are you with me?
That's just a good leadership.
You don't just give somebody,
hand somebody the keys of the car if you don't know if they can drive.
Right? Find out if they can drive.
Be faithful in the small thing and then you can be...
You can be trusted with the big thing.
Number three, God's selections are always sovereign and sure.
So be sensitive.
God doesn't call the qualified.
God qualifies those he calls.
To be called to a task is to be called to be equipped for that task.
Sometimes when we hear about God moving in someone's life towards a task
or a title, we're tempted to think, really, him?
Her?
I know there's been times in my ministry where I was...
I was in school with a certain person
and I knew them in 18, 19, and 20 and then I found out later
at 30, 32, 33 that they'd been given a task
and my memory of them is when they were 18, 19, and 20.
I'm like, really? They're doing what?
Aren't you glad God grows people?
I'm so glad for that.
I'm sure that's what David's brothers and dad must have been thinking.
If Samuel thought, surely this older kid is the right one,
don't you think that those big brothers thought, David?
That's who's getting it.
He's a punk kid.
Who thinks a lot of their little brother, right?
Like, that's how it is.
Just remember, man looks at the outward appearance.
God looks at the heart.
God uses people, ordinary, everyday people.
But he uses, though, those who are faithful to him.
If God can't trust you a sheep, he won't trust you a people.
Are you with me?
If God can't trust you with a little, why should he trust you with a lot?
We see in David a kid who had been faithful in a little bit.
We see in Samuel someone who's panicking, but we got to remember,
God always has a plan.
And can I tell you, God's revealed a lot of his plan to us,
but he hasn't revealed everything.
Who agrees?
Anybody wondering what's going to happen in the next few years in our country?
Can I tell you this?
God's got it.
He's got a plan.
If we're not being faithful now, we won't be faithful if it gets harder.
We've got to be faithful now.
Do what you know to do now, and let God take care of the rest.