Sumer Blockbuster: David

Transcription

1 Sumer Blockbuster: David Today we will be continuing the series about the epic stories in the Bible with David. Although the sermon from Hope church focused primarily on the story of David and Goliath, I wanted to give a wider picture about the life of David. To begin, I wonder how many of you have already thought about their epitaph or how they will be remembered? It can be challenging: how will we be remembered? As a loving person? As a serving person? As a counselling person? I wanted to base this sermon on how David was remembered in the Bible. If you had to summarize David's life in one sentence, how would you put it? What does the Bible say about David? In the Bible David is remembered as a Man after God's own heart. What epitaph could be better than being a man (or a woman) after God's heart? Personally, I sign up straight away!!!! Now let's go through David's life and try to find out clues about why he was a man after God's heart. 1. First of all, are you discouraged by what other people think about you? Or is what God thinks about you enough to keep you going? To try to answer this question, we can look in the Bible and read 1 Samuel Through this passage, we see that David is the 8 th son of Jesse. In ancient Israel, having a son was seen as a blessing: it kept the family name, and the inheritance in the land. So you can imagine Jesse having his first son and being very happy. Then he has a second one, he is still happy, better two than one! Then a third one, great, he can lose one or two, the name will still be kept. Then son number 4, 5, 6, 7... you can imagine Jesse saying at David's birth thank you Lord, another son, he will never be the head of the family, or anything important, but he may be useful. And David ends up looking after the family herd of sheep. He is a son of Jesse, but when Samuel asks to see his sons, Jesse brings forth his firstborn first, then the second, up to the seventh, but we realise that he didn't even bother to bring David!! Have you ever felt rejected, or neglected, or insignificant? Imagine in which background David grew up!! His father didn't bother to call him to be present for the sacrifice alongside all his brothers!! It is like his own father is saying okay David is my son, but there isn't much about him, don't even bother looking at him, I have seven better options here. When we read the story of David we see that even if he was a son of Jesse like all his brothers, he was the one looking after the sheep. A little bit further in the story, when Jesse needs someone to bring food to his three elder sons who are fighting in the army and have some

2 news about them, he sends David. And when David is asking about Goliath, his eldest brother say to him: 1 Samuel And Eliab, his oldest brother, hearing what David said to the men, was moved to wrath against David, and said, Why have you come here? Into whose care have you given that little flock of sheep in the waste land? I have knowledge of your pride and the evil of your heart, you have come down to see the fight.. In other words, his eldest brother is saying to David: okay kid, this is big boys business here, stop showing off, go back to where you belong: looking after the sheep!! Like you always did, and like you always will!! I don't know if you have older brothers or sisters, but these are harsh words. After his father, David is denied by his elder brother!! If you think you are pretty low in self-confidence, how could it be worse than David? Imagine David growing up, his father and elder brothers looking down on him. Not the perfect family background!! Then a little bit further 1 Samuel : After his father and brothers, now Saul, the king of Israel is saying to David You are only a young man, and is discouraging him to go and fight with Goliath. How would you have responded after all this? Would you be confident enough to go and fight with Goliath? David had all the reasons to give up and go back to looking after the sheep. We see in David's answer that he didn't mind what other people thought about him, he puts all his trust in God. David wasn't self-confident when he chose to let God deliver Israel through him, he was confident that God would deliver Israel through him. He didn't let what other people thought about him be an obstacle to be used by God. Do you let what people (or yourself) think about you be an obstacle to being used by God? To illustrate that, I will tell you a small testimony. A year and a half ago, the ICG went through a difficult time, just a few of us were remaining, and we had to think how we were going to continue the church. That is when we started ICG 2.0. Mary was the only member of the worship team left, so she was asked to be the worship leader. It was way out of her comfort zone, she really enjoyed playing the piano in the worship team, but singing and leading the worship was a totally different thing, and she was quite stressed about it. I was looking for a way to support her, but I couldn't play any useful instrument. We were talking about it at home, and I said: If it helps you, I could sing with you to support you. Of course she was happy about it and accepted. I am sure it has already happened to you, in the middle of a conversation, you say something, and after saying it and thinking about it, you say to yourself why on earth did I say that? But you are stuck with your word. It was a bit like that for me. In my high school years, music lessons were more hide and seek lessons. I tried to

3 be forgotten as much as possible by the teacher, I would be in the back, not making any noise, being as invisible as can be. But from time to time the teacher would look on the name list to see who he had to evaluate, and would ask me to come in front of everyone to sing. For me it was the worst thing on earth, singing in front of people, I would have done anything to avoid that. One day I was evaluated, I felt like I tried my best, but when I was finished the teacher said: okay Jean-Baptiste, there is nothing to mark really, so I am going to be nice, I won't mark you today, you will come back next week and you will have to do better. So you can imagine that my marks were quite low, I didn't reach 10/20 too often. That was what other people thought about my singing abilities: quite bad. I felt the same. So I remember the first time we were going to lead the worship with Mary. It was just the two of us. We arrived really early as we were both really nervous about it, so early that the building was locked, so we went for a short walk and sat on a bench and started praying. We prayed that we were both feeling incompetent and inadequate for the job and that it was way out of our comfort zone. We both wished that God could miraculously provide someone else to do the worship. But we came back to the building, set up everything, we had one microphone, the old piano there that sounds quite strange... and no confidence at all! The first few times weren't a real success, but little by little God built up our confidence, other musicians and singers came along, and things got better and better. If someone had told me years ago that one day I was going to sing in front of people and actually enjoy it, I would not have believed him, but God chose to make it happen. So don't be surprised if God chooses to use you in your weaknesses, or in areas where you think you are really bad. God does it to teach us to rely on Him and not to lean on our own abilities. As Paul says when I am weak, then I am strong. God chose David, he was denied by humans, but God chose him, God doesn't look on the outside, but on the inside. God doesn't need supermen or superwomen. He has the power to do everything. He just needs ordinary people that are willing to put their trust in Him. On the outside you may look weak, tired, without any talent or gifts, but God sees the potential inside you!! Remember 1 Samuel 16.7: but the Lord said to Samuel: Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks to the heart. So whatever has been said on you, whatever people think about you doesn't matter. The only important thing is how God sees you, and the plan he has for you. So like David, don't let what others, and what you think about yourself be an obstacle for you to be used by God.

4 2. My second point is: how do you see trials and opposition? I don't know about you, but when I am in the car, I like to listen to the news on the radio. One day, I heard that specialists where thinking that in the near future, due to the use of computers, tablets, TV, smartphones, up to 75% of the population would at one point in their life have to wear glasses or contact lenses. That is a fact (or forecast) about the physical side of the world we are living in. But today I want to challenge you by saying that in the spiritual world we are all wearing glasses or contact lenses! But the good thing is that we can choose what kind of glasses or contact lenses we are wearing. In ancient days it was quite usual, in order to avoid big battles and big casualties, for each army to choose a champion, his best warrior to go and fight for all the army against another champion. The one who would win the one to one fight would win for the whole kingdom, and the other kingdom would be subjected. So here is Goliath, he was defying the Israelites every day for this one to one champion fight. Goliath was a giant, his description in the Bible doesn't give me any desire to go and fight with him!! When we read this story, it is easy to think, that no Israelite stepped forward because they were all small, weak, unarmed,... We read that in Israel there were mighty warriors: Saul was a head taller than anyone else, and David's oldest brother Eliab impressed Samuel by his height and appearance. Even Jonathan, Saul's son was a really good soldier. So what was the problem in finding a champion? We read that they were all afraid. Why? I like to think that it was because they were wearing the wrong glasses. All the Israelites were wearing human glasses: they would know their own strength and abilities, they were confident in their own strength, until someone bigger came. They were facing a problem that seemed too big in their eyes and couldn't see any solution for forty days!! On the other hand, David chose to wear God's glasses. He didn't focus on Goliath's physical skills and his challenge against another champion, but he saw that Goliath in defying Israel was ultimately defying God. Even if Goliath was much bigger than him and a much better warrior than him, he knew that God was bigger and stronger than Goliath When he trusted God to deliver Goliath into his hands, David wasn't self-confident, he was God confident. We all face challenges in our lives that in our eyes are bigger than us and we feel like the Israelites: without solution. Your challenges may be with health, lack of money, finding a job, finding a partner, getting rid of an addiction, lack of sleep,... It can seem to you like Goliath, an obstacle too great to great to be overcome. But don't forget that God is with you, he is bigger than your challenges, and

5 he wants to deliver you. It is easier said than done, but we should be more confident in God's strength to deliver us like David was. 3. My third point is: how do you react when you have messed up? This third point is the reason why I wanted to do this sermon not just on the story about David and Goliath, because reading this story, it could be easy to idealise David. To think that David was a man after God's heart because he always did what was good and always made the right decisions. We see in the Bible that David loved God, that he wasn't discouraged by others or by the circumstances and that he trusted God, but when we read David's story, we see that there was lots of ups and downs. He wasn't a type of super Christian, or super human doing only right things, he sometimes did wrong things like every human being. To illustrate that we are going to read in 2 Samuel Here we see another side of David, the army goes out, but instead of going to war as usual he stays behind. The story doesn't tell why he stayed behind, but here he is Jerusalem while the men are out. And David gets tempted and gives in to temptation. Then we all know the story, it started with the temptation of seeing Bathsheba, then sending someone to find out who she is, then sending messengers to bring her in, and then commit adultery. But the story doesn't end there, Bathsheba gets pregnant, so David tries to cover it up by bringing back Bathsheba's husband, Uriah for him to sleep with her. But Uriah doesn't go to sleep with her because he knows that his fellow soldiers are fighting far from home and he stays true to them by not going home even if he is in Jerusalem. David even invites him and makes him drunk, but still he doesn't go home to sleep with Bathsheba. So David sends Uriah back to the war and gives order to put him in a bad position of the fight to have him killed. We see the bad circle in which David gets caught: laziness maybe not going to war, then coveting, then adultery, then lying and manipulation to try to hide everything, then murder. But we know that even after all this, David is still remembered as a man after God's heart, how can it be? The answer can be found reading psalm 51, A psalm that David wrote after this story. In this psalm, we discover one of David's strengths: repentance. David doesn't try to find excuses, he admits his sin, his sinful nature and asks for God's forgiveness. He knows that he will always fall short of being perfect but he doesn't let sin get in the way of his relationship with God. He knows God's unfailing love, compassion and asks for forgiveness and mercy straight away. He asks God to create in him a pure heart, and he keeps praising God. We have a lot to learn fromdavid: We all sin, and it is really tempting to try and minimize the impact of our sins, or to find excuses, or to find attenuating circumstances, to say: Yes God I have sinned but You know

6 how tired I am, or You know how desperate I am, or you know how difficult it has been lately, or I know other people that do it... That is not what God is asking. Whatever the circumstances, we need to be like David and confess our sins to God, and ask for His forgiveness, and ask for his strength and His Spirit to keep us from temptation. We shouldn't let guilt and sin stay in the way and block our relationship with God. We should always be rooted in the fact that God loves us always and regardless of what we do. There is no sin too great to separate us from God's love. God loved David even after all this story, and God still used him in great and powerful ways. So whatever sin you have committed, whatever addiction or weakness you have, God loves you and still wants to use you in His plan. And like David, we should keep praising Him whatever happens and whatever we do, we shouldn't let sin get in the way of our worship and adoration of God. So in conclusion, today I would really like to encourage you to be inspired by David's story. 1. However small, untalented or inadequate you are feeling, God wants to use you, He has a perfect plan for you, and a job that He wants you and not someone else to do. Don't let your lack of confidence or how people see you discourage you, God can use even your weaknesses to build his kingdom. Let Him guide you in His ways. 2. Wear God's glasses: remember that however big the problems you are facing, God is even bigger. Trust in him to deliver You in His perfect way and His perfect timing. 3. Remember that God loves you always and in spite of what you do. Don't let sin and guilt spoil your relationship with God. Be quick to confess your sins and ask for forgiveness. Praise Him whatever the circumstances.