A Child Can Do It • 1 Samuel 16

35:06 Teaching begins

Notes

Today we see an old man and a young boy with something in common. They know God and they walk with Him. They learn Him, serve Him, and obey Him. Because they serve and obey God He leads them with wisdom and blessing.

They both began to learn God as kids. You think, are they super-children? It’s not easy, therefore you seek God with Him. But it’s not complicated. It’s so simple that a child can do it.

Therefore you can do it, too.
I’m reading in 1 Samuel 16 (to v. 5).

1. Samuel finds out the Lord is done grieving and is now moving ahead with His plans, vv. 1-5.

A. What a question God asks Samuel: “How long will you grieve over Saul?” Saul, of course, was fired as king by God and he refuses to stop being king. It’s really gone bad.

B. You can imagine Samuel answering, “What? I thought we were bummed and depressed, right? What happened?”

C. Samuel is learning something new about God: He’s not depressed about setbacks or difficulties or obstacles.

1. We look at Saul staying on the throne after God fires him. We say, “What an unsolvable mess! What are we going to do?”

2. But God knows what He is doing. He knows His power, He knows everything that will go wrong. He has planned with all the wrong turns and upsets in mind.

D. He moves to the next phase of His plan. He says, “C’mon, let’s get up and be productive.” God is not an optimist, blindly confident that everything is going to somehow turn out okay. He is sovereign. He’s going to make everything turn out okay according to His will.

E. Samuel has a problem obeying God. He knows that he is still in the public eye. If he makes a move it will get back to Saul. But God has a simple solution: take a cow with you and make a sacrifice. God solves the problem easily without telling everyone what He’s doing.

F. Since Samuel is still the man whose every word from God comes true, the elders of Bethlehem are nervous. “Anything wrong? Are we okay?” Naw, we’re fine. Let’s have a sacrifice to the Lord, shall we? And he makes sure that Jesse and his sons will be there.

2. God is still teaching Samuel about Himself, and class is in session, vv. 6-13.

A. Samuel looks at Eliab, thinks to himself, this is the guy. He’s probably a good looking guy, the oldest son, got lots of life experience, as first born he has the priority in inheritance.

B. God says, “Don’t look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him.”

1. Now the two things about Saul that everybody reacted to was, he was the most handsome man in Israel, and he was the tallest. He was physically impressive.

2. “You only see the outward appearance, Samuel. I look directly on the heart, and that’s why I say, he’s not the one.” Just like we see, oh, he has a big nose, she has long hair, God sees our thoughts, our feelings, our desires, our choices. We’re all open and laid bare before His eyes.

C. Samuel never had to learn that before, but he’s learning it now, over and over again. He sees seven sons and God says, “No, no, no, no.”

D. This is a learning session, and a little tension increases the learning process. Jesse is out of sons. Slight pause. I can imagine Samuel looking at Jesse, Jesse looking at Samuel. And God isn’t talking! Remember, God said the man He chose would be one of Jesse’s sons, so there must be more. Samuel says, “Got any more sons?”

E. Jesse says, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” We didn’t even think about him. He’s the youngest, he’s the last, he’s the least. We never considered him. He’s insignificant. He’s not anybody. But now they’re all thinking about him, waiting dinner on him.

F. And this good looking kid comes in, and God says, “This is the one.” And Samuel anoints David king of Israel in the midst of his brothers and father. What do you suppose they’re thinking? Him? He’s my kid brother. Why him? Well, God approves of him, and we’ll see why in a minute.

G. Along with being anointed with oil, the Holy Spirit comes upon David mightily from that day forward. The Spirit directs, enables, empowers David.

3. Now God begins to train David to be king by having him serve the present king, vv. 14-23.

A. The Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul and he begins to be terrified by an evil spirit from the Lord.

1. 2 Chronicles 15:2 The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.

2. Saul is in rebellion against God. He’s holding on to the throne when God said He was tearing away the kingdom from him. He is going to remain king no matter what.

3. God is not going to strengthen Saul to resist and disobey Him. He allows an evil spirit to terrify Saul at certain times. Saul is guilty and he knows it but he is stubborn and going his own way.

B. Saul’s servants see what’s happening and tell him you need a skilled musician to come in and play for you, and Saul says, okay.

C. So one of Saul’s young men around him says, “ I know just the guy.”

1. And he’s more than a skillful musician, he’s a mighty man of valor, a warrior, wise when he speaks, good-looking, and the Lord is with him. That’s amazing.

2. When the Lord is with you, He blesses you. He makes things go well for you. Think of all those blessings in Leviticus 26 when your ways are pleasing to Him. He can bless every aspect of your life. The nearness of God is my good, said Asaph in Psalm 73:28.

3. God is with David because David is with God. There’s a relationship. David seeks the Lord, and the Lord lets David find Him and know Him and serve Him.

D. Saul says go get this guy, and David turns out to be a great guy. Saul loves him and makes David his armor- bearer, his chief of staff, to attend him personally and carry out his wishes. He’s the kind of guy you want around you, someone who cares about you, isn’t out for himself, not trying to get anything out of you, serves you honestly. That is restful and delightful.

E. Saul makes it a permanent job. I want David with me all the time.

F. Isn’t it amazing the way God gets David right in to the presence of the king? He gets to see how things are done, how a person acts as king, how things go in court, on the battlefield, in peace and in war.

G. This is different from Saul.

1. Saul started being king from day one. He started right at the top. Boom, you’re king now.

2. David is anointed to be king, but he starts out serving. He is content to serve and learn. He doesn’t think, hey, when am I going to be king and have everyone serve me? He doesn’t have ambition, he only wants what God wants, he wants God Himself. He’s humble, just like God. God is humble. He thinks about others. So David is content to serve and watch and learn.

4. So what?

A. Here’s David, a kid, nobody in his family thinks about him. He doesn’t register in their minds.

B. Yet, God thinks about him, says, that’s the guy I want to be king. I can see his heart, and he is after My own heart. What God sees is a heart that is seeking Him, a heart that is yielded to Him. That is valuable to God because it is so rare.

C. Notice that David excels in all his ways. He’s a skilful musician. That takes effort and practice. He’s also a brave man, a good fighter. He knows how to speak wisely; his words have weight, they count.

D. Those words and those actions come from a wise heart.

1. Something happened to David as a young boy: he began to have a relationship with God.

2. And it was especially through the word of God. That’s how you come to know God. You don’t do like people do today; they make up what they think God is and then pretty much ignore Him. That kind of God you can ignore and blaspheme and it doesn’t matter. But David read the scriptures and he thought on them.

E. Then David brought God into every one of his ways. Into his music, into his fighting, into his speaking and conversations, into all the areas of his life.

1. This is what Solomon said his father David taught him. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

2. Proverbs 22:29 Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before unknown men. David excelled in seeking God and bringing Him into all the ways of his life. Kings are looking for those kind of men. They don’t want incapable idiots serving them. They look for the best. God taught David to excel in all his ways.

F. God is looking for the best to serve Him.

1. He’s looking for those whose heart is completely His.

2. Someone who is learning Him and serving Him.

3. The interesting thing is it’s not complicated. David did that as a young boy. Samuel did it when he was young. They both served God and learned Him. They kept doing that their whole life long.

G. Do not make it complicated to follow Jesus.

1. You start by realising you have broken God’s commandments because you only want what you want. The gospel is a command: turn around, come to Jesus, submit yourself to His Lordship, trust that He died in your place to save you, be born again. You begin obeying Him immediately when you receive Him.

2. Be filled with His Holy Spirit. Ask Him to come upon you like He did David when he was just a kid. You’re not too young, you’re not too old.

3. Then be with Him. You read, you pray, you meditate. You don’t have to pray theologically or real flowery or real long. Don’t do that. Talk honestly to God. Simply. You can read the scriptures and think about them for a long time.

H. What will happen is you will learn God. He’s somebody who knows who He is and what He can do. He doesn’t have bad days like we do. He knows what He wants to do. He’s not discouraged or depressed. When we learn Him we won’t get depressed. We’ve been learning on Friday nights that as we consider what the Bible says, God will give us understanding in everything.

I. What does He see when He looks at your heart right now? He sees you just as you are with perfect clarity, everything that’s in your heart. He sees your sin. It’s possible to disobey Jesus, to sin and put distance between you and Him. As soon as you know “I’ve sinned,” then you start obeying Him again. You come to Jesus and be cleansed. Be renewed. Make it simple: learn Jesus and serve Him and obey Him.

Let’s pray.