Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

I’m curious how many of you have spoken to people who have found it hard to relate to Biblical characters?

Maybe some of us in chapel today have uncertainties about measuring up; Afterall, the Bible is about people who dedicated their lives to God, right?

But there are 6 other days in the week!

There are 24 hours in those days and for about 18 of those hours, I’m awake!

That’s 108 hours a week, and 5,616 hours a year I’m not in church!

This week in our series we get a look into the early life of King David.

For some of us, this might be the breath of fresh air you need.

We get a rather full picture of David; we see his flaws, his sins great and small and get an inside look at the favor God has for him.

The good news is that the grace God shows to David is not reserved for him.

I like David because he is easy to identify with; he’s spiritual without being super righteous and human without being committed to evil.

Just as capable of sinning as anyone else, nevertheless he stands out because of how he responds.

Unlike Saul, he admits his guilt, he doesn’t hide or flee, but accepts consequences and never finds excuses.

His faults don’t consume him, instead, they humble him and enabled him to be merciful and forgiving towards others.

Last week we learned that Saul feared God’s plan.

David, on the other hand, though deserving of God’s wrath on occasion, sought God’s plan above all.

God can work with that.

God uses David, and God can use you too.

If all you bring to the table is faithfulness, God can use you.

In fact, we will see that if you are faithful to God, any kind of might represented in the giant Goliath, means nothing.

Transition

Just like each of us, David was not without troubles and he was not without limitations.

Our story begins with “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

The LORD does not look at the things people look.”

This is displayed to the people through Saul, the first King.

Let me briefly review the events that have taken place.

Samuel, the last of the Judges is an old man.

The people want a king to rule over them, desiring to be like the nations around them.

Samuel warns them that this is a rejection of God as their king as we learned last week, but the people were determined.

They accepted Saul to lead them, and why not?

He stands head and shoulders above all the other men of Israel, he’s strong and handsome.

He looked like the perfect choice as king, and he would have been.

“But, Saul...” The people were so consumed with fitting in with the rest of the nations, with doing things the way the rest of the world did it that they forgot that they were set apart.

They forgot that if they were faithful to God, any kind of might represented in their king, meant nothing.

God sees us differently.

God sees us not as we are, but as he will make us.

Illustration

In 1809, thousands of children were being born.

Among them were influential men of literature, science, and politics: Charles Darwin, Robert Charles Winthrop, Edgar Alan Poe, Alfred Tennyson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln to name a few.

But those names meant nothing then because in 1809 a little French man called Napoleon was marching through Austria and for a while it looked like all the world might fall under his control.

200 years later, more people’s lives have been touched by those no-name babies than by Napoleon.

Point 1

In the very same way, David appears on the scene of a war front between the Philistines and the Israelites.

The first thing I want us to observe from this text is that God uses ordinary people.

“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

The nation of Israel stands in fear of a giant.

What were they waiting for?

My guess is either a miracle or an Israelite giant.

I wonder how often we accuse God of being unfaithful when he’s already equipped us?

When you think about it, it’s actually our lack of faithfulness expressed through our insisting on how God works.

Remember, Samuel said, “The LORD does not look at the things people look.”

And he doesn’t look at things the same way that we do either.

David was the least of his father’s household and his family from the smallest tribe in all of Israel; sound familiar?

Next Sunday we start Advent, a word that means arrival and the season of preparation for the coming Lord.

Recall the introduction to The Story series, Chaplain Koyn brought out the ladder and illustrated the high and low story.

The low story is what God is doing right here in this specific instance, though its implications may be great in nature, the high is what God is doing big picture; illustrating our heritage as believers, weaving together relevance from the low stories into the tapestry of our faith.

You see, low story, God is using David’s faithfulness to deliver Israel.

Low story, God is convicting his people of their wicked ways, this story becoming a lesson about God’s faithfulness and that His ways are above our ways.

High story, God is showing us that we can know that Jesus is the Messiah.

High story, God is fulfilling his covenants with Abraham and Moses and weaving it into the covenant we have with him today.

At the end of David’s life, God makes a covenant with him that he will establish his throne forever.

This is an important revelation about the Messiah prophesies of in Deuteronomy.

400 years before it was said that he would be a prophet like Moses, and now we learn that he will be too a king like David and from his house.

This is only the second such prophesy and it would still be nearly 1,000 years until Jesus is born.

God uses the willing.

Low Story, David’s faithfulness is the point.

High story, David is the means to the point; that God can use you too.

X-Man’s Colossus points out that it’s only “four or five moments - that's all it takes to become a hero.

Everyone thinks it's a full-time job…” he says.

But, “over a lifetime there are only four or five moments that really matter.

Moments when you're offered a choice to make a sacrifice, conquer a flaw, save a friend - spare an enemy.”

When you are willing, God will use you.

Transition

Secondly, God uses those who are teachable.

Earlier we discussed that people sometimes find it hard to relate to our Biblical heroes.

One of the most prominent obstacles to identifying with the stories within our Bible is that the clouds have never opened up, the sun has never shown as a spotlight, and I’ve never heard God’s voice.

Illustration

I’m reminded of a routine by comedian Bill Engvall.

He said one year for a friend’s 38th birthday he got two cakes, one that said “happy” and had a candle in the shape of a “3” on it, and another that said, “birthday” and had a candle-shaped as an “8.”

When he got to the checkout the employee at the asked if he had twins.

“He said yes, my wife was in labor for 5 years!”

This routine was his trademark known as “here’s your sign.”

Point 2

Now I’ll admit life would be a lot easier if God spoke up more.

But when you think about it, would that really benefit us?

Would that align with God’s intent for his kingdom?

We wouldn’t be required to discern, to draw ever closer to God, discipline ourselves, disciple new generations, preach, teach, or require any sort of faithfulness of his people.

The analogy Jesus uses to describe his relationship with the church is that of marriage.

We are his bride; he is our bridegroom.

What sort of relationship can you have with someone who refuses to pursue you, with someone who refuses to study you, commit themselves to you, or remain faithful to?

The story of David is relatable because it resembles more closely the relationship we have with God.

It conveys his struggle to understand God’s will; David laments in the desert the triumph of evildoers.

In fact, if you read through David’s entire story ( through ) God only speaks directly to David 5 times.

Though we attribute David’s success, and rightly so, to God as an intercessor, you will not find one overt miracle.

What I mean here is that the laws of physics are never broken.

The death of Goliath is the natural reaction of receiving the blow delivered by David’s sling.

God works in our lives every day this very same way, the difference here is that in our lives, we can only see what the Lord has done in hindsight.

Imagine you were to write “the book of ‘your name’” how would you describe the Lord’s every day intercession?

Sure, the Army sent me to basic training, but it was really God that sent me.

When I got there at exactly the right time and made precisely the right battle buddy, he gave me his sister’s address so I could write her letters.