New King

Good morning. We're looking at 1 Samuel 16. We're continuing on now with our series in 1 Samuel. As we begin, I want us to kind of go over one of those basic truths we have to remember. We have been created in God's image. Male and female, he created them in his image, according to his likeness. At one level, this is a great honor. It's a privileged position. We're created lower than the angels, but the angels do not have that position and honor and relationship. It's also a job description. We're supposed to image him. We're supposed to reflect him. We're supposed to be his ambassadors. We are called to be like God. We're supposed to reflect him. Now if we hear that instruction in Genesis 1, we see it in Genesis 2, we're supposed to be at work, we're supposed to be keeping his garden. We go on to Genesis 3 and it's interesting what happens there. Satan promises that if we take the fruit of that one tree, our eyes will be opened. We will see things as God sees them. Now, Satan as always, it's kind of true. Eyes were opened. But Adam and Eve, once their eyes were opened, once they've actually gone their own way and rejected God, they did not like what they saw. They were full of shame because they had recognized they had rebelled against their God, and they tried to hide. And the rest of history is man trying to make God in his image. trying to treat God as if he were like us. And you see this in paganism. You see this bartering with God. We saw this in Saul in the way he was constantly manipulating God and making sacrifices rather than obeying. One of our problems is we want God to be more like us. But can you imagine the problem we would have if God was like us? If God were as impatient as I am, none of us would be here. If God lacked my attention to detail, He wouldn't care for you. Praise God, He is not like us. We have to remember that that is a constant problem that man has had throughout history and that we constantly want to remake God. There was a German theologian, and the better the German theologian name, usually the more dangerous their theology. Ludwig Feuerbach. His book's called The Essence of Christianity. That sounds promising, right? The essence of Christianity. According to Feuerbach, the essence of Christianity is summarized in this phrase, to be content with God, you must find yourself in God. Now that can be interpreted in a couple ways, but what he means by that is to be content with God, you make God who you want him to be. The essence of Christianity is projecting yourself on God. It's a man-made religion. This goes back to what Calvin said, we're idle factories. If I were Box Wright, we typically, are projecting our thoughts and our desires on God. He was an observer and a scientist, and he described what we too often do. This morning we're coming to hear God speak so that that's not all we do, so that we can be corrected. This morning we're going to see God, We're going to see man, we're going to see how they're different. We're going to appreciate how God is God, the way He functions. A thematic verse for our passage that I want us to think about, it's Isaiah 55. I believe it captures a lot of what is going to be, we're gonna be considering in 1 Samuel 16, and really all of scripture. Isaiah 55, beginning in verse six. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than your thoughts." God's ways are higher. God's thoughts are better. The encouraging thing there is it's an invitation to think those thoughts. It's an invitation to be elevated out of this earthly way of thinking. It's an invitation to be elevated out of our sinful way of thinking, and to be part of what God thinks, and how God lives. In our passage, there are three basic movements. There's three basic scenes. The first is Samuel goes to anoint David in Bethlehem. The second is David comes out of the field to be anointed in Bethlehem. And then third, David goes to the palace to provide comfort for Saul. Three basic movements, those are our three basic sections. We'll look at an order. The main picture here is God sees. That's kind of the two words, God sees. If you're looking for the one word kind of hanger for each one, God's provision. God's, or the provision, the heart, the anointing. The provision, the heart, the anointing. First, God's provision. God comes to Samuel, and he seems to be confronting Samuel here with this question, how long are you gonna grieve over Saul? So the context here is God's people said, we want a king like the nation. Samuel said, this isn't a good idea. This is exactly what God said not to do in Deuteronomy 17. If you do this, it's not going to go well for you. They said, do it anyway. We know we're rejecting God. We want a king like the nations. Samuel goes along with the people because God tells him to. He anoints Saul. Saul then is affirmed in three different ways by God, and then rejected by God, and rejected by the people. And now after 1 Samuel 15, where God has a clear confrontation through Samuel to Saul, God does not delight in your sacrifices. He wants your obedience. He's grieving over Saul. At one level, we can appreciate because he had a part in his anointing, because he had a part in his call, he's grieving. We see a personal connection there, but at another level, this might be him moping around a little bit. God's saying, stop grieving. My plan is clear. I've rejected him. Now we're going to keep going. Fill your horn with oil and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king from his sons. Now I said earlier this passage is all about seeing. God sees. Notice what God says he's going to do. He tells Samuel, get ready. You're gonna anoint somebody. There's oil, okay? There's a real purpose here, and there's a very specific direction. Not just Bethlehem, but Jesse. For I have provided for myself a king. We're gonna look down later, and one of the key verses is verse seven. The Lord does not see as man sees. What's interesting is that root word for see in verse seven is the same root word for provide. Think about the word provision. God sees. In provision, God sees the need, God sees the solution, and God sees the way to bring it about. to provide is a video. He's foreseeing the need. He's foreseeing the plan. He's putting it in place. We see here a God who is in complete and absolute control. He's not a brilliant chess player who's just thinking ahead. He's making a plan happen for His people. He sees it all. And He's not a distant observer. He's an actor. God's provision, God's seeing the need, God's seeing the solution, God's seeing the way forward, he moves Samuel. Now what happens next is kind of confusing, but I appreciate how Samuel helps kind of reflect on how we can be fickle at times. He says to God, how can I go? If Saul hears of it, he'll kill me. He understands what's happening. Another king's coming, he's going to anoint them, and now Samuel's afraid of Saul. Samuel just told Saul to his face, God's rejected you, you're done, three times. Okay, he went from a bold man of faith, like Elijah did, to a cowering man. It's interesting how we can be kind of turned to and fro. The Lord said, the Lord kind of gives him a covert operation. You're gonna go, you're gonna make a sacrifice, you're gonna invite Jesse. And when the people of Bethlehem have Samuel come, are you coming peacefully? Samuel's been a man who has confronted many. He's been a man who has come to bring the word of God and they want to know what's happening. It's very clear Samuel's coming peaceably. He's coming to have a sacrifice with Jesse. Now, between 1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 16, to celebrate Christmas, we just meditated upon Matthew 2. If you weren't here with us, Matthew 2 is when the wise men or the magi from the east, they come to King Herod and they ask King Herod, where's the newborn king? Kind of an awkward question. He's in Bethlehem, where God said he would be based upon God's word in Micah. Well, here we see that Micah isn't something new, that Bethlehem and Jesse are something that God has been planning and providing a long time before. This isn't the first mention of Jesse. To kind of just give a basic structure of Scripture here is God's been promising a king, promising a son, promising a king, promising a son, and judges, it's supposed to help us see how much we need a king? What's the theme of Judges? The people did what was right in their own eyes. Why? There's no king. They're unruly and they need to be ruled by a good king. And Ruth is this sweet book that happens in the time of the Judges. Remember the very first line. In the time of the Judges, there's this sweet story. Okay, it's a difficult story. A family, they move to Moab. They move out of Israel. The sons marry Moabite women, and then all the father and the sons, they all die, and you're left with a widow and daughters who are widows, and they go back to Israel. And Ruth, the Moabite, one of the daughters who's now widowed, she goes back, your God is my God, your people are my people. She's a model of a godly woman, but she's also there, Boaz's future wife, Boaz being the kinsman redeemer. And this whole Ruth story, while it's a sweet story of redemption and it's a sweet story of faithfulness, if we look at the end, it's repeated twice. Chapter four, verse 17, and then four, verse 22. This whole story was to show you. Boaz begets Obed. Obed, Jesse. Jesse, David. We were saying earlier, come behold the wondrous mystery. We can see God's been providing this whole time. His scripture lines up with these dots. We can trace these scarlet threads so that we can see His plan is perfect. It is being executed to perfection. Sin does not hinder it. He's a good God who's going to bring about His good King in His good way. Jesse and Bethlehem are helping, in the Old Testament, us now to see how clearly He has put together His plan of salvation He has provided. The next point is where we're gonna spend most of our time. God sees, and specifically, the heart. So God has told Samuel, get up, quit grieving. Saul has been rejected, even though he's still practicing being a king. He's gonna be on the throne practicing kingship for some time. Samuel has this covert operation. He calls Jesse, and notice what he says in verse six. Notice what he thinks. Surely this is the Lord's anointing. before him. He was, he was tall. Look at his appearance. He's, he's tall in stature. That is just like the way Israel thought was Saul. Saul was a handsome man who was a head taller than everybody else. That's what made him stand out whenever Israel wanted the wrong kind of king. And now Samuel is judging upon appearance just like the nation. And this is where it would have to be a little frightening when you think something and then God speaks a correction to you. God said, do not look on his appearance, for on the height of the stature, because I've rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Now, this is an important point as we're going to think about what it means to be a man after God's own heart, as we see God looks at the heart. As the story plays out, we're going to get a bigger picture. Let's continue. We're going to come back to that verse and just meditate upon it. That is a great memory verse for the passage. Verse 7. So what happens next? This reminds me of Genesis 2. Right, God promises a helper and then all the animals go by and none of them are fit and so then God brings about this great exclamation of woman and there's a celebration because the true helper's been found. God brings about this kind of, this failing and numerous rejections to bring about the clarity by which he's called somebody. All the sons go by. all the sons that Jesse saw fit to invite. Samuel says, come for a sacrifice, bring your sons. All seven sons go by, the Lord has not chosen this one, the Lord has not chosen this one, the Lord has not chosen this one. Samuel says, verse 11, are all your sons here? Because I did tell you to invite all your sons. Well, neither remains yet a youngest. He's keeping the sheep. It could be that seven was kind of an ideal number and the eighth son is kind of the extra. There's something clearly happening here where the seven are the inner circle of beloved that get to go to a feast and David is left behind like a servant with a sheep. He's youngest. There's something about him being the least that he's not brought forth by his own father and his sons for the feast. And that's who God chooses. The one who's least in his own family's eyes. The one who is least in his position. Now, this is kind of odd. After it says God doesn't look on appearance, it tells us how he appeared. Let's think about this. Verse 12, and he sent and brought him. Now he was ruddy. He has that reddish hue that a young man has. And he had beautiful eyes and was handsome. Now, if you look over to 1 Samuel 17, when David is going to face Goliath, and he comes out, Goliath is offended. because David was ruddy and handsome. That seems to be words associated with youthfulness. It appears the appearance, the appearance seems to be focused on how young he is, how unfit he is, how he wouldn't be considered for such a position, but God's not worried about that appearance. The Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is he. And then he is anointed. He's a young man, he's a youth, he's not come to full strength as a man, he's the least of the sons. We are told that in chapter 15, verse 28, that he would be a better man than Saul, or Saul's told that a better man will replace him. We're told in chapter 13, verse 14, he is a man after God's own heart. And here we see it's because God looks at the heart, we need to wrestle with that. We're gonna spend a lot of time thinking about this primary point. What is it about David and his heart that makes him a man after God's own heart? What does God see? Well, the heart is the internal person. The heart is what most of us do not see, or we actually don't see. Sometimes we think we can. The heart is where we have our inner thoughts. The heart is the source of desires. The heart is where we have our motives stored up that determine our actions. The heart is our fears and our courage, our willpower and our weakness. It's the internal being that is not seen by man. However, we do see the fruit of those things. God sees directly at the heart. Whatever it is about David, God sees him as he truly is, and he says, that's the kind of guy I want as king. So who is David? What makes him stand out? Here are the things we know about David. He's a poet. He's a musician. He's a shepherd. He's a giant slayer. He's a beast wrestler. He's a warrior and he will be king. When we say David is a man for God's own heart, at one level we're saying God has chosen him. God in his own internal being, God in his own heart has set his affections on David in a way that says this is the one I want. But it has to mean more than that. At another level, it means there's something about David's own heart that is so aligned with God's heart that it is pleasing to God. It doesn't mean that every thought David has is godly. It doesn't mean every action David has is godly. It means there's something about David's heart that is like God. We can see this. He's courageous. He doesn't fear giants because he trusts God. He's honorable. He will not put his hands on King Saul to kill him because he sees the position of king and honors it. He even is grieved at Saul's funeral in 2 Samuel 1. He's reverent. He rejoices and even dances when the ark comes, just rejoicing and seeking to praise God. He wants to build God a temple. Those are some things we could see about David that would make him like God, a heart after God. But the context of that heart, a man after God's own heart is important. Let's turn there. 1 Samuel 13, that's just a few chapters before. 1 Samuel 13, it's found in verse 14. This is the first rejection of Saul. Saul has been impatient. He decided to go ahead and make the sacrifice rather than wait for Samuel to make that sacrifice. And so in verse 14, Samuel says to Saul, I'll go back and actually read verse 13. Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord has commanded. I think we see in contrast what makes someone after God's own heart because of Saul. It's repeated twice. Saul, you have not kept. the command of God. Therefore, your kingdom will end. God has put a, appointed a man to rule his people. He's a man after God's own heart, in contrast to you, who has not kept God's commandment. The most basic level, having a heart after God, means you obey and keep His commandments. It's pretty obvious from chapter 13, verse 14. Does God see a heart in us that keeps His commandments? Saul's important here in that he's constantly manipulating, he's constantly trying to halfway obey, he's constantly trying to argue and boast, no I have obeyed, What seems to stand out about David is that he keeps the commandments of God. Whatever it means to have a heart after God, to be a man whose heart is after God, it has to include and emphasize keeping God's commandments. Make sense? We can't move on unless that makes sense. Well, we've got a complication. This is where it gets quite interesting. We usually think of David when it comes to David and Goliath, right? We're watching an underdog sports story and there's a David and Goliath. We associate him with being an underdog. The other thing we really associate with is Bathsheba. Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 11. That's the next book we'll be looking at. We're going to keep going on through Samuel, but 2 Samuel 11. After God has told David, I'm going to show you lovingkindness. I'm going to build for you a kingdom forever. After David is faithful and showing lovingkindness, then we have this episode with Bathsheba. Second Samuel 11, I get to preach this sermon twice. This is fun. It begins with a statement, at the time when kings would go out to battle, David stayed home. You already have a great setup there. You already have a wonderful warning. If you're not where you're supposed to be when God tells you to go, you're gonna get in trouble. God has appointed David King. He's supposed to be going into battle, but he is not going. And so what does he do while he's lazily sitting back while his troops are out there? He sees a woman bathing. He takes her. He then finds out she's pregnant. She's married to another man. All right, so we've got adultery. He calls her husband back, expecting him to lie with her when he comes back home. But the Gentile God-fearer, who was married to Bathsheba, so honors the king and his fellow troops that he sleeps in the streets. David doesn't go out and fight when he's supposed to fight. This guy won't go home when he's supposed to be fighting. He's more honorable. The husband does not fall into David's deception. He's born false witness. David's broken two commandments already. He's tried to cover up his sin. He's lied. He has committed adultery. So what does he do next? He sends the husband back into battle. He tells, he carries his own note. And he's told, the commander is told, send him up to the front line and then pull back the troops. Leave him alone to die fighting for the king. David just committed murder. We can throw on this, he coveted Bathsheba by looking at her. He's stolen, he's taken another man's wife. He's broken five out of the 10 commandments. And he's described as a man after God's own heart. How could we possibly think, how could we possibly wrestle with what this means if the most basic meaning, again, based upon verse 14 of chapter 13, you keep God's commandments, but yet he's broken five. This is where the contrast with Saul is important. When Saul is confronted, Saul makes excuses. Saul insists on his obedience. Saul does not heed the word of God. When David is confronted, you see brokenness, you see repentance, you see confession. You see, being a man after God's own heart does not mean you are sinless. Being a man after God's own heart is that you long for and you seek to align your heart with God. When God commands, you seek to obey. When God confronts, you seek to confess and repent. When God forgives, you rejoice. That's my definition of what it means to be a man after God's own heart. Those are the three ingredients. When God commands, you obey. When God confronts, you confess. When God forgives, you rejoice. That's different than that hard-hearted, stiff-necked, self-righteous ruling of one's own self. It's David responding with faith. It doesn't mean he's sinless. It doesn't mean he's sinless. We can go to Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, and we see there in those passages, blessed is he whose sin is forgiven. Blessed is he who receives the mercy of the Lord. He sees sin as we ought to see it. Gross, destructive, dangerous, and deadly. When David is confronted with sin, when his confessions, we see that he seeks to thank God's thoughts after him, and he seeks to see sin as God sees it, it is dangerous and deadly. The second thing we have to see, and this is what was most cutting, he sees grace as we all. David rejoices and begs for mercy. He doesn't presume upon it. He doesn't presume upon grace. He confesses sin with clarity. He seeks God's grace, and he rejoices that he gets it. He doesn't sin presuming upon it. He doesn't confess presuming upon it. He rejoices. Reminds me of Paul's exhortation in Romans 2.4 when he's confronting those who are judgmental. Do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? One of the scariest places to be is practicing sin and everything being okay. One of the most dangerous places to be is practicing sin and feeling like everything's okay because that leads us to presume upon God's grace. There's nothing wrong, everything's fine. That's what David thought until Nathan came and pointed out to him, you are that man. So to be a man after God's own heart, seek to obey, seek to repent, seek to rejoice. Seek to see sin as God sees it. Seek to see grace as God sees it. Now, I want to be very careful and clear about what we're talking about when it comes to God calling David because he is a man of God's own heart. This is not calling David to salvation. There is nothing in David or in any human being that's ever existed that made God look inside and say, this one is better than the others, I'll save him. No, when God sees all of our hearts, he sees sin. When God looked at David's heart to save him, he saw the lust, the anger, the deception already lurking. And he said, I'll save him while he's a sinner. Being a man after God's own heart doesn't determine our salvation. It determines how God would use us and it determines how much we will enjoy God's salvation. We have to understand here, this affirmation of being a man after God's own heart and being called is being called to useful service for God. It is not being called to salvation. There is nothing in us that makes God want to be with us. It is within us that makes God have to save us. Here we see, I believe, a challenge. Do we see as God sees? Do we see sin as God sees sin? Do we see grace as God sees grace? A key question I think we've got to ask as we think about this passage and this challenge and this call for David, do you see yourself like God sees you? Do we see ourselves like God sees us? We all have a self-perception. We all have a self-image. We all are listening to some person. We're all telling ourselves something about ourselves that forms a self-identity. And there's two basic forms of pride that will blur our vision. The first four pride boasts of what we have. I have what it takes. That's a false confidence. I'm good enough. God must really like me. Look at all the skills I've got that he can use. There's a boasting that gives a wrong vision of ourselves. It's a false confidence. The other form of pride is self-pity. Look how little I am. Look how little I have to offer. I can never be used by God. This is a false humility. Self-righteousness and self-pity are both ways in which we are selfish in the way we see ourselves. We should look to God. He says we're made in His image. There's a great honor and privilege in duty. He looks to us as His children. He says, yes, you're sinful in your actions and you're sinful in your desires, but I've declared you not guilty. I've declared you my son. I've declared you part of my family, my beloved. The danger is if we only hear that sinful part, we're going to beat ourselves up and mope and weep and unhelpfully kind of just focus on that sin. If all we hear is, oh, God loves me and we're all good, we're going to boast and there's something right about us. We have to realize we're simultaneously sinners and saints. We're sinners, declared forgiven. We're sinners who, if we align ourselves with God, can be used by God and can love Him and enjoy Him and serve Him. This isn't silly self-help, look in a mirror and tell yourself something's not true. Maybe nobody likes you. Maybe there's not a lot of good. It's not looking in the mirror and trying to give yourself a pep talk. looking at God's Word and letting it be the truth that tells you about yourself and not walking away and forgetting it quickly. How quickly we forget what God says about us. If you lack joy or a sense of purpose, look to His Word and let His words change the way you think about yourself, change the way you think about others. Become a person whose heart is after God with obedience. Let's look at this last section. The anointing. God sees. We see an anointing. Let's go back to verse 13. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward, and Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. So we see a departing. God go to Bethlehem, anoint David, job done. He now leaves. David now has the Spirit of the Lord. We've seen this before. Saul received the Spirit of the Lord so that he could do his job. When God calls you to do a job, He equips you to do that job. Verse 14. The Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul. There's a change in the guard, spiritually speaking. Saul's still on the throne. Saul's still going to practice being king. David's going to keep caring for sheep. But spiritually speaking, there's a changing of the guard based upon the spirit of the Lord. He is now upon David. He has left Saul. And now we come to the other complicated part of our text. And a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. The word for harmful is really, it's the word for evil. It's got a range of meaning. It could be harmful. It's probably evil. Our options here, as we interpret this, this could either be an angel of the heavens in the heavenly court that God sends down to earth to torment, an executor of his judgment, kind of like Exodus, or, more likely, This is one of the heavenly beings, the angels that rebelled against God, an unclean spirit, as the New Testament would call, a rebellious spirit, what we would call a demon, one of Satan's principalities that has gone against God, and he is being sent by God to torment Saul. If that's the more likely interpretation, that leads to a few questions, right? What is God's relationship to evil is a key one. The first thing I wanted to see, and I believe the most likely interpretation, but I could be wrong, is that this appears to be an evil spirit who torments Saul. The first thing we see is that God is sovereign even over the angels that rebelled against him. God is sovereign even over the angels that rebelled against him. If we go to Job, which gives us a really inside look at spiritual warfare, Satan has to have permission by God to go to Job. And he's limited. You can't touch his body. Satan cannot break God's limitations. Here we see the evil spirit. He did not have the freedom to torment Saul without God sending him, but now he's fully functioning within the perfect plan of God, as we'll see in a moment. Second thing we see is that evil spirits, they're tormenting. The hierarchy of being is God, angels, and man. Our war is spiritual. As Paul tells us, we are battling not against states. We're not supposed to be battling against one another. It's against the principalities and the spirits of the air. There's a spiritual battle. This is not a playground. It's warfare. It's too easy to villainize each other, political leaders, as if that's the battle. Christian, it's a spiritual battle. And the call is to stand firm. Or maybe it's to play the liar. It's a joke. A little bit, it's kind of funny to me. In all the spiritual warfare reading I've done, and I've done an unnecessary amount of it, no one ever recommends playing the liar, but that's clearly what actually solves this demon problem. Number three, God himself is not performing evil. He's bringing about his plan. It's remarkable what's actually happening here. We can get bogged down with the harmful spirit, But what's actually happening is God is bringing about to put David, the least son, the shepherd boy, in the palace. Saul is requesting his own successor according to God's provision. Saul's servants said to him, Behold, now a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it and you will be well. So Saul said to his servants, Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me. One of the young men answered, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence. The Lord is with him." Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, send me David your son who is with the sheep. Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and skin of wine and young goat and sent them by David, his son, to Saul. And David came to Saul and entered his servants. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight. For whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well. and the harmful spirit departed from him." It does appear that what's happening with Saul is close, if not exactly what's happening with demonization in the New Testament. God is appointing David and his musical ability to bring relief. Saul has a love for David because of the relief he brings. And notice he puts him in one of the most important positions so that he can learn what it looks like to be a king. He's the armor bearer. best internship ever. All according to God's provision. David's music makes him well, and now David is in place to bring, David is in place for God to bring out as well. As we conclude, let's ask again, do we see as God sees? God's spoken so we can understand His words, so that our earthly minds, our sinful hearts can be elevated up? Are we striving to see things as God sees them? Because even this episode with Saul and David, it appears amazing. It appears on just the level that God's bringing David to give relief to Saul after sending the tormenting demon, but really what God's doing is putting David in the place to take the throne. God's usually up to something that's beyond our ability to see. This is why circumstances, if we only look at them, are dangerous. We can look forward to Scripture and see that this is not a new, or this is still a problem. Remember in the Gospels, Jesus is constantly teaching the disciples, and they don't get it. He would tell them over and over again. Three times Mark records it. I'm going to suffer. I'm going to die. I will rise again. And every time the disciples confronted him, this can't be so. They couldn't see the plan. They couldn't grasp because all they could understand is, no, this isn't the way I want it to work out. Jesus, you're supposed to go into Jerusalem. After you ride that donkey, you're supposed to take over as ruler immediately and kick out all the Romans so we can be Israel again. They couldn't see after God's plan. They weren't willing to deny themselves to see how they were to carry their cross and to follow Him. Their problem is the same problem we always have fought with and wrestled with in the church is we tend to want God to work with the way the world works. We tend to want him to come and give blessings. We expect the blessings to work. We expect God to show his power like the earthly powers show their power. But God is always working against this world. God is always working against us in this world. Because this world is the problem in that it is rebelling against God. God works in a different way. The cross. That's an odd place to declare somebody to be king. It looks foolish, Paul says to many. It doesn't make sense. Unless the problem isn't that we just need a king, we need a Savior. We need to be forgiven of our sins. When you look at the cross, you see how God works. It's in the midst of difficulty. It's in the midst of suffering that we see God most clearly. We want God to bless us in the way we're making great efforts so that we can look good and feel good. We want prosperity. What Jesus promised is sanctification. What Jesus promised is a clear vision of God himself and his glory. And we see the glory and the grace of Christ most clearly in the cross. And I believe the scriptures teach us we will see the grace and glory of God most in our own suffering. If we look. if we seek to see him, be obedient, confess our sins, and rejoice in grace. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are not like us. You are good and perfect, You see our need and you show grace and patience and kindness and mercy and you give truth in the midst of our lies. You sent your son so that we can murder him and be forgiven. He's exalted now and given us the spirit so that we can have the mind of Christ. Forgive us for how quickly and easily we're entertained by our own thoughts. and the thoughts of this world, thank you for calling us up out of this earth and out of our sin to know you so that we can see sin as destructive as it is, so that we can see grace as wonderful as it is, so that we can rejoice that Jesus is our Redeemer. In his name we pray, amen.