I want to talk to you this week about
a person from the Bible, named David.
Now, eventually, he would become
known as King David,
the many times great-grandpa of Jesus.
He would actually go on to become the greatest king that
the nation of Israel ever had.
With, of course, the exception
of his many times great-grandson Jesus.
So, here's how it started.
God was the king of Israel.
But the Israelite's wanted to be like all the other nations
around them and have a king.
And so God gave them their first king.
He was named Saul.
Now Saul was an impressive guy.
He was a head taller than everybody else.
I mean, if there was a vote, he would have been voted "Mr. Israel".
It's kind of a shame that his
hometown of Gibeah didn't have a high school basketball team.
He would have been the star.
But the problem is Saul didn't always do the things that God wanted
done for his people.
And so God rejected Saul as king.
And he sent his prophet, Samuel, to anoint the next king.
Now, anointing is probably something that we're not super-familiar with.
Basically, it was this.
God would send his prophet with a horn of oil
to go to someone to set them apart for
a special task and then God would equip themfor that task.
And the prophet would pour the oil over the person's head
and that was God, basically saying, "You're the one.
"You're my chosen one."
It was a very special thing.
So God sent Samuel to
this Israelite named Jesse.
Jesse had eight sons and God was going to
anoint one of them as the next king of Israel.
And so Jesse sends his oldest son
out in front of Samuel, his name was Eliab.
And Eliab was an impressive looking guy and
Samuel was probably fingering his horn of oil and
he was thinking to himself, "This has to be the guy."
But, to his surprise, God said, "No, he's not.
"He's not the one I chose."
And then God said something really important.
He says, "The Lord doesn't look at things
"man looks at.
"Man looks at the outward appearance but
"the Lord looks at the heart."
You remember Saul was an outwardly impressive guy
but, inwardly,
his heart wasn't right.
And so God doesn't always pick
the one that the world would pick.
He's going for heart.
Well Jesse's other six sons,
the next six oldest sons,
pass in front of Samuel.
And for each one, Samuel says,
"The Lord has not chosen you.
"The Lord has not chosen you."
Until, finally, the last one passed in front
and he turned to Jesse and he said,
"Do you have any more sons?"
And Jesse said, "Well, yeah, there's
"the youngest one but he's out in the field
"tending the flocks."
And so Samuel calls for him and the servants bring David,
the youngest son,
in front of Samuel, sheep smell and all.
And much to the surprise, I'm sure,
of his father, Jesse, and his
other older seven brothers,
Samuel anoints David, the shepherd boy.
The next king of the nation of Israel.
And so what's the lesson for us?
I think a couple of things.
One, God doesn't ask you
to be the flashiest,
the smartest, the most attractive
person to be able to accomplish his will.
Remember, God doesn't look at those outward appearances.
He's going for heart.
And here's the cool truth.
When God worked faith in your heart,
it was like he was taking his horn of oil and
pouring it all over your head
and saying, "You're the one.
"You’re the one I choose for my service."
What an awesome privilege.
And he puts so many opportunities in front of us
every day to carry that out.
Maybe God's put an opportunity in front of you
to be a helping hand or a listening ear
or a proclaimer of his truth to someone.
So I guess the question would be,
"Who is that someone in your life
"that you could serve today?"
The second lesson, and the more important one, is this:
The shepherds out in the same fields
of Bethlehem a thousand years later ...
Angel choirs would announce the birth
of the shepherd king
who was going to lay down his life
for his sheep.
Jesus, the many times great-grandson
of King David,
never hesitated to serve you.
Use that as motivation in your life
to serve others.