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2001
7th January (am) - David, A Heart For God

Scripture Sentences at beginning of the Service:

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:9

Intro. to Reading:

Charles Swindoll, an American minister, in one of his books, tells of his first Bible - one with colourful pictures of the great Bible characters, interspersed through its pages - maybe, as a child, you had one like that too.

He says that he spent many a Sunday morning, sitting beside his parents in church, 'fighting the boredom' by leafing through that Bible, looking at the pictures, trying to imagine and relive the great stories in which those characters in the pictures featured - Noah, Moses, Samson, Jonah, Peter and Paul ... and others.

We hope that we won't be bored as we begin, today, to look at the life of one of the people who almost certainly featured in Swindoll's Bible pictures - David - to whom more chapters are devoted than any other OT character.

We want to begin, this morning, by reading about how David was chosen to be King: 1 Samuel ch.16 vs,1-13

Sermon

George W. Bush is President Elect in the United States - but what an unbelievable shambles we witnessed as the American courts tried to decided who had actually won the election! Wasn't it absolutely incredible - how bizarre to see the TV pictures of the count officials in Florida trying to decide whether those silly punched cards were valid votes for Bush or Gore.

I heard a wise crack at Christmas that Bill Clinton had stopped all nativity scenes at the White House at Christmas, not for religious reasons, but because, in the light of the election fiasco, they couldn't find 3 wise men in the whole of Washington!

What an amazing way to choose the President, the man whose power and influence is so great, not just in America but far beyond!

Well, this morning, we want to learn about the process of choosing another great leader - the process by which David came to be identified as the next King for God's OT people - in many ways, it was just as amazing a choosing process when David was chosen as King.

In the weeks to come we will see that he became the great king of God's OT people, and that in the long term plans of God, it was from the line of David that another, even greater king, would come - one whom we heard about at Christmas - The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David and ....... his kingdom will never end.

So let's find out about that choosing process.

The first thing we can say is that David was chosen before the time, through God's awesome wisdom. We read about the actual day David was identified by the prophet, Samuel - the day Samuel came to offer a sacrifice at Bethlehem with Jesse and his family - but that wasn't actually the time that David was chosen. In the awesome mystery of how God determines all the events of history, and decides all things in all lives, David had already been chosen! He had absolutely no idea that this was so, but 3 chapters before the one we read, Samuel had conveyed God's view to the then king, Saul - God's verdict that Saul's kingdom would not last, that he had acted foolishly and disobediently, without any real loyalty to God's ways, that he had not proved to be God's kind of King ......therefore the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.'

1 Sam.13:14

Samuel had no idea who this new leader would be, David was perhaps only a young boy at the time, it would be many years before he would actually become king, for Saul reigned for 42 years, but the choice had ben made in the awesome wisdom of God.

The simple point is that the choosing day we read about was actually only the outward fulfillment of what God had decided many years earlier in his awesome, awesome wisdom - something that had been determined long before in the mysterious, wisdom and goodness of God, as he worked out his purposes for his people then in OT days, and far beyond in his purposes for the whole world through Jesus who would come.

It is indeed an power-packed reminder that God is sovereign - he rules and overrules, he decides and determines; how he plans and fulfils his purposes of wisdom and love, and no life or situation can run counter to those ultimate awesome choices of God.

In a very important way, this amazing advance choosing of David, is a reminder of how you and I come to have God's hope for our lives - of how we come to be people of Christian faith, people who belong to Christ and to his Church here in Ballyclare.

God, in his awesome wisdom and ways chose us and brought us into this faith, long, long before we ever understood it or saw it for ourselves. And we are here as members of this congregation by his decision.

It's not as if we have made the great choice by ourselves - it's not as if we should feel good about how we have made our decision for Christ - oh yes, we do have to choose and decide and make our personal response of willingness to trust in Jesus - but long before we made that decision, God has know us, he has loved us, he has chosen us in his awesome wisdom.

'You did not choose me, I chose you', said Jesus to his disciples in Jn.15:16

'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, wrote Paul to the Ephesian Christians, in love he predestined us (chose us) to be adopted as his Sons through Jesus Christ ..... the riches of God's grace lavished on us ...' Ephes.1:4-7

Isn't that a humbling reminder - no room for self congratulations; no justification for feeling that we have made some kind of religious choice that is really above and beyond the call of duty, which others have not made.

We have been able to put our trust in Christ and to have his hope for our lives, because in his awesome ways, he first chose us. When we see it like that - and that is how we must see it - then the only feeling we should have is one of humble gratitude and loving response.

Today as we think of David chosen before the time it came to pass through God's awesome wisdom, we maybe ought to think especially of how we are told in Scripture that 'before the time', at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly ..... while we were still sinners ..'

Today Communion reminds us of what Jesus had to do because he had chosen us and loved us before we knew, understood or even cared.

The second main thing that we can say is that David was chosen at the time by God's amazing grace.

When the time came for David to be identified, the old prophet, Samuel, who knew that Saul had been rejected by God, even though he continued as king, was instructed by God to go to the town of Bethlehem and to the family of a man called Jesse, because God had chosen one of his sons to be anointed as the next King over God's people.

Samuel went with considerable trepidation, because to select a new king was tantamount to rebellion against the king in office, Saul.

He also went pretty much in the dark, because he had no idea which son was to be chosen, but he obeyed God's leading: 'I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.'

And you remember what happened - Samuel at first thought that God must have chosen one of Jesse's older sons who looked the part, all right - Samuel could see Eliab or Abinadab or Shammah as the sort of man who might make the next king.

But you remember the word of the Lord that came to Samuel - don't go by the outward appearances - the Lord doesn't choose the way most people choose -' Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'

And of course our everyday world still tends to place an awful lot of emphasis on outward appearances - we all like to give the right impression by what we wear and how we behave outwardly; when it comes to politics, 'image' is sometimes everything - how the candidates come across on TV, maybe more than their actual integrity and policies.

Samuel, I have not chosen any of these men, because there outward appearance is inconsequential - and then Jesse mentioned that he had one more son - he hadn't even thought of mentioning him, never mind bringing him before Samuel at the sacrifice - David, who he was the youngest, the apparently most insignificant member of the family, the most unlikely choice.

And yet when he was brought in from his shepherding duties, Samuel was in no doubt that this was the man of God's choosing - the one he had chosen a long time before! David was an amazing choice - not just because he was the youngest and the least important - but maybe, even more so, because there probably wasn't anything else of great significance to commend him or to qualify him as a future king.

Maybe we have to understand that David was chosen purely on the basis of God's amazing grace.

Sometimes we read this story and we think that the main point is that although David didn't look much outwardly, God looked at the heart, and there in David he saw a man of great godliness and of utterly reliable character - and that God chose David because of what David already was!

I don't think so - God chose David out of sheer love and amazing grace - he loved David because he loved him, he chose David because he chose him - he looked at David's 'heart', he had already begun to work in David's life even though David probably didn't understand it too clearly - and that day he began to make David aware of his high calling in the service of God and of God's people.

Maybe it is very good to remind ourselves again that this is still the way God chooses and calls us into Christian faith

Not one person among us should ever feel that there was something about us that commended our lives to God - that it is not as if we are just the sort of people God is looking for - that there is a bit of character or quality that God liked, and which therefore led him to choose us and bring us to faith in Christ.

Not at all - that was what some of the religious people in Jesus' day thought - the scribes and pharisees who thought that if Jesus really was the Messiah from God, he should know to concentrate on them because they were religious and upright in their lifestyle - Jesus had to say to them that he had come 'to seek and to save what was lost' - to be a doctor to those who were sick and dying, not to those who mistakenly thought they were healthy.

God has chosen us to have the faith and hope of Jesus Christ in our lives - not because we deserve to have such hope - he has chosen us, not because he sees something quietly encouraging about us as people - he chooses us because he chooses us; he loves us because he loves us - he looks at the heart and he sees what we are and he chooses to give us his amazing grace in Jesus Christ.

'This is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.'

Today, above all days, we should remember this and respond with humbling, heartfelt gladness.

(God's awesome wisdom; God's amazing grace)

The final lesson we want to learn from today's story of the choosing of David is that he was chosen for the time of God's astounding purposes.

'Rise and anoint him', Samuel heard God say once he saw David - that's the one who will be king in succession to Saul, and from that day onward we are told that 'the Spirit of the Lord came on David in power'

In the sermons to come we will find out a bit about how David did become God's greatest OT king - a man whose wonderful faith finds expression in the psalms we love - a man who learnt to trust God and live before God in faith - by no means a perfect man, because he fell badly into sin at times; a man who knew tragedy and trouble in his life - and yet through it all, a man through whom God worked out his astounding purposes.

Ps.78:70 sums up David's life like this: He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens ..... to be the shepherd of his people, Jacob ..... and David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skilful hands he led them.'

And not only that, 'great David's greater son, would in the fullness of time come - his life begun at Bethelem, the town of David; his life reaching its climax on that day when the crowds cried out 'Hosanna to the son of David' as a man entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

David had been chosen to play his part in the astounding, eternal purposes of God. I wonder do we see our lives in that way - that God has given us the privileged possession of faith and hope through Christ, so that we play our part in the astounding purposes of God for the world.

Sometimes we just want to our faith to be a comfort to our lives, a cushion that protects and promises us hope when all else fails us. It ought not to be like that - God chooses us in his amazing grace, so that we will be usable and useful in his astounding purposes. Paul explains it like that in Ephes. 2.

He tells us that it is by grace that we have been saved - not by works - the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus ... and then he goes on to say this: For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

As we contemplate God's incomparable grace and kindness to us today - as it is visibly set before us in bread and wine - as we taste again and see that the Lord is good ........ we have to consider whether we are concerned for the astounding purposes of God, whether we are willingly playing the part for which he has made us able by his Spirit ..... or whether we are just trying to bask idly and uncommittedly in the warm sunshine of his love.

It cannot be like that - every single person of Christ has a part in his astounding purposes, as one of the first communion questions reminds me, for I am asked to offer a fitting proportion of my time, talents and money for his work in the world.

And so today as I marvel at his awesome wisdom and rejoice in his amazing grace, I must also roll up my sleeves, get out my daily diary and open my bank account to his astounding purposes of love and hope for the world.

We may not have as important a part in the purposes of God as David, but we most assuredly have a part, chosen to receive his grace and called to live as his people.

We want Communion to clarify this matter for us, to encourage us in our trust in Christ, and to help us renew our willingness to serve him.