A Man After God’s Own Heart

A Man After God’s Own Heart

David, Part 2

By Pastor Matt Black

30 January 2008
Midweek Prayer Meeting
1 Samuel 13:14

Scripture and Theme: What kind of a heart do you have? The title of our message this evening is: “A Man After God’s Own Heart”. If your heart pants for God, then you’ll look like Jesus Christ on the outside. Open your Bible to the book of 1 Samuel 13:14 this evening. We are looking at the life of David tonight.

Do you have a heart that is on fire for God, or is it as cold as the winter storm that blew in last night? I was looking at that storm from inside my nice warm living room. I saw all that snow blowing off the roof, and I was glad I was warm and inside. But sometimes spiritually we feel as cold as that wind driven snow, don’t we? Our heart can easily become dry, and cold, and disobedient.

Look at 1 Samuel 13:14, Samuel says to Saul: “But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou [SAUL] hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee”.

Prayer: Lord, tonight we ask that you would peer into our hearts. Uncover what is there. If there is ugliness there, we ask that you would reveal it in your mercy and love for us. If we are discouraged in doing what is right and our flesh is ready to give up but our heart is trusting in you, reveal that followers of Christ are never failures if they are following and panting after you. Lord if there is someone here tonight that is cold and stubborn, I pray that you would do a work by your Holy Spirit and that you would melt that heart. Lord whatever way we came in here, I pray that we would leave here melted, pliable, and on fire for you. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.

Introduction: Do you have a heart for God? What do you love? When the Bible talks about the heart it is talking about your control center. What is it that controls you? Well if your flesh controls your heart, then your flesh is going to go after the world. And it is going to be seen in habits that feed your flesh. And if the Spirit of God controls your heart, you’re going to be denying your flesh, and you’re going to be happy in the things of God.

Tonight, we come face to face with a boy who loves God. And there is darkness all over Israel—there is sin in every place. Sometimes we wonder how can we change our atmosphere? How can I change my neighborhood? How can I change my family? How can I change myself?! It’s not a complicated answer. It’s the heart. It all begins with the heart. You want to see change? Humble your heart. And pray for those around you to have their hearts humbled before God, pliable and moldable.

So we come to this phrase: “a man after God’s own heart”. Sometimes we can take a meaningful phrase, but through over use it becomes vain and meaningless. When we say “a man or a woman after God’s own heart”, what does that mean?

I. We need to ASK ourselves: what does it mean to have a heart for God?

What does it mean to have a heart after God? Turn over to Acts 13:22. Here we have a little commentary about David. Essentially, what we find out is that in this verse having a heart for God is having a heart that is obedient. And I’m going to explain what that means, because sometimes we think of obedience as cold, dry, dead, lifeless duty. That’s not what this is.

A heart for God does not just dry dead lifeless obedience. Acts 13:22 gives us a bit more information. It says that “he [God] raised up unto [ISRAEL] David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart,” and then it gives this little commentary. What does it say? It says “which shall fulfil all my will.”

Now remember what Jesus said in John 14:15? “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” If you love God, then you’ll want to do His will above all things. Let me illustrate it this way…

Illustration: When I was courting Jill, I took a trip to Louisiana to see my sister on break from college. Actually I really wasn’t looking to see my sister—that was a halfway destination point. You see four hours east of New Orleans is Pensacola, Florida where Jill attended. And early at 5 o’clock in the morning—I set out for Pensacola. Was I tired? Yes! My body was tired. But my heart didn’t care what my body felt like, because my heart made a four hour trip into a three hour trip from New Orleans to Pensacola. My heart bone communicated with my foot bone, and thankfully I didn’t see any flashing lights on the way. My heart was in love with Jill, and so my body obeyed my heart. I had a heart for Jill, and so my heart made my body obey.

In the same way, David had a heart for God to do all of his will. And whatever that will was, when he was tired or cranky or discouraged, because he loved God, he did what pleased God.

A. You see, God-centered obedience does not depend on my SENSES (FEELINGS) or my SITUATION. It doesn’t matter that it’s raining in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. My heart says “go to Pensacola”.

If you really love the Lord, you’re going to be with God’s people on the Lord’s Day. When I’m on vacation I never take a vacation from worshipping with God’s people. How about you? “Well, I can’t wait to go on vacation—I won’t have to go to church on Wednesday night”. Well, that just reveals where your heart is.

Application #1: You see a heart for God is characterized by putting obedience to God…

Ø above emotions

Ø above what my body feels like

Ø above what other people think of me

Ø above what I think I want or need

1. Application to husband/wife relationship: God says “Love your wife [HUSBAND] as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). And your dear loving wife says, ‘I need help with the dishes’. Now, men, can I tell you something? When your wife asks for help, that means she’s in crisis mode, and she really needs help. Most ladies are not going to ask for help most of the time. And if you have a heart for God you’re going to help your wife.

Are you controlled by your desires and whims or are you controlled by what pleases God? Let’s talk about FEELINGS! I know there are situations when you do not have to be controlled by your feelings.

2. Application to Tiredness: Maybe you say, I have a heart for God until I am tired. When I am tired, then I struggle with obedience to God and my heart turns away from God.[1] Listen, tiredness and difficulties do not make your heart mean or hard. Tiredness and tough situations just REVEAL that your heart is already hard!

3. Application to Emotions: We have to ask: what does it mean to have a heart for God? Does it mean to be emotional about God? You may be emotional about God. I’m emotional about my wife, and I love my wife. But if I told you I love my wife and tomorrow I was arrested for spousal abuse, you wouldn’t think I love my wife, and you would be right. If you love someone you care for them. You take care of them. You find out what their needs are. You serve them. And that brings us to another point about God-centered obedience.

B. God-centered obedience is revealed through your SERVICE to other people.

Application #2: Think of obedience to God in regards to your service to other people. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

How do you serve other people? That’s how much you love God. That’s how much you have a heart for God. David served others. He saw the whole Israeli army cowering in their armor. David didn’t need armor. He served the entire country of Israel by walking over to Goliath with a slingshot and defeating him out of a heart of love for God.

Your lack of love for God is seen in your lack of service to other people. Jesus said in Matthew 25:45, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” When you pass up an opportunity to serve you are skipping out on Jesus!

1. Children and young people, obedience to your parents mirrors your heart for God. Do you scoff at your parents? You are scoffing at God. Do you lovingly obey your parents? Then you have a heart for God! If you turn your back on your parents, that reveals that you’ve turned your back on God.

2. Men, how about your employer / employee relationship men? Do you tear your boss down behind his back, or do you lift him up even if he’s wrong? Are you a person of loyalty? Are you loyal to your company? Do you try to get the job done, or do you cut corners. All of this reveals a heart or lack thereof for God. Do you serve your boss as you would serve the Lord? How you talk about your boss is what you think of the Lord.

3. Singles, God commands you to use your extra time to serve your brethren in the church. Now do you use your own time for yourself? Then that’s what you think about God. Or maybe you serve the brethren in ways no one knows. It reveals your heart for God.

4. Mothers, how do you treat your children? Do you speak to them in loving kindness, or are you short with them? It reveals a heart for God when you love your children and do unto them as unto yourself.

So based on your life, do you have a heart for God? It matters very little how much you say you have a heart for God. Your life must reflect it. 1 John 3:18 says it perfectly, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Transition: We asked ourselves first, what does it mean to have a heart for God?

II. Secondly, We need to TEST ourselves to see if we have a heart for God. Remember 1 Samuel 16:12. Here we see that God tested David over a period of years! I wonder how you and I are coming out on the test of my obedience to God. Do I obey when it is easy and convenient, or do I obey when it is hard, and nobody’s going to give me any praise? That’s what God loves. Look at these verses in I Samuel 16, beginning with verse 12, and we’re going to see how David was anointed to be king, and then he was told essentially to wait. It wasn’t verbally, but if you look at the story of his life, he didn’t become king upon his anointing by Samuel. He had to WAIT. His love for God was tested. Look at this: “And [JESSE] sent, and brought [DAVID] in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.” This is the King! This is the one that’s going to rule Israel! “13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward.” He was gifted! He had insight! The insight of a king! He had the inspiration. He had the understanding of the Word of God. He had the leadership abilities, right from that moment. David was just a boy but he would have to wait years and years and years to be king.

David’s “god” was not the kingdom. Look at the Psalms. When David was being chased with a javelin and hunted by the current King of Israel, David did not complain, but trusted in God. God tested David’s heart. Year after year, trial after trial came. Saul hunted him down night after night. David slept in caves. He escaped death. He did all of this knowing he had God’s approval to be king. Whether it was the temptation to take Saul’s life, and he knew that Saul’s time was over and David was the rightful heir of the throne, David waited—He waited on God’s perfect timing. That’s a heart for God! And David passed the test! He was a man after God’s own heart.

Even when David took the throne, he still was tested with Absalom trying to steal the kingdom. God is going to test your faith. He’s going to test your heart.

How can I know if I have a heart for God? You have to look at your life.

A. The heart is the control center of your being. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”. Do you have a life of loving obedience to God?

Do you have a heart for God? Well, you say “I’m tired”. Your tiredness will reveal the kind of heart you have. Once in a while, my four year old son will say “Daddy, you hurt my feelings”. And I give him a hug. You know sometimes people hurt our feelings too, and we have those four-year-old moment. It reveals that we are as selfish as a three year old. We need to grow up! We need to grow up into Christ and put aside childish things.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:34-35 that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”

Is God the stabilizing force in your life? Do you have a heart for God? Do you have a heart for God? You need to search your heart.

Let me clarify one thing before go on. Having a heart for God does not mean that we are happy go lucky all the time. Think of David in the Psalms! It means when you are down, you go to God. When you are up, you don’t get too proud, and you give the glory to God.

B. The heart can be searched only with the help of God. If you want to search your heart, you cannot do it yourself. Your heart is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). You need the help of God.

Ø Psalm 139:2, “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”

Ø We should pray as David. Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Application: Do you serve God when there is no praise of men to be gained? Do you serve God when you are tired, or when it is convenient? Do you give God the maimed sacrifice? Do you give God that which costs you nothing? Do you give God the leftovers?

III. If you have a heart for God, God is going to USE you. God was going to use David. Look back at 1 Samuel 13:14 “the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people”. Just let that sink in there. Here’s this shepherd boy. I mean he was so insignificant that when they heard Samuel was coming to town to anoint the king, they had a bar-b-que, and David was left in the field tending the sheep. He was so insignificant in the eyes of man. What good is a boy who cannot even yet fit into a suit of armor? He was the errand boy of the family. God says—he’s not an errand boy! He’s a man after my own heart! And I’ve commanded him to be captain over my people. That boy is a king. He’s a warrior. He’s a general! That boy’s going to do things for me not because He’s great, but because I the LORD am great, and this boy loves Me.

As David was watching sheep, there were whole armies of Israelite men suited in armor who did not have a heart for God! Armor will not help you if you have no heart for God. David had such a heart for God that this little boy would later go through the front lines and confront the Giant!! We read in 1 Samuel 17:26, that “David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

David had a heart for God. He was not a perfect man, but he always responded rightly when his sin was confronted. He could not bear to go on in his sin when it was brought to his eyes.

His heart for God would propel him in battle. It would propel him in the leadership of a nation. It would sustain him when his life was hunted by Saul. It would sustain him to the very end of his life.

Conclusion: Do you have a heart for God? If you are married, would your spouse say that you have a heart for God? Would your boss say that you have a heart for God? Would your children say you have a heart for God? Are you a man or a woman after God’s own heart?[2]

[1] Or as a lady, you say, you have no idea what I have to deal with as a woman. Ladies are build differently than men, and so there are certain times when I love serving God, and there are other times that I have that are just “ME” times.

[2] I came across a helpful article that I was not able to include in this message, but it is called “Signs of Pleasing God” by Richard Baxter.

"See therefore that you live upon God's approval as that which you chiefly seek, and will suffice you: which you may discover by these signs."

1. You will be most careful to understand the Scripture, to know what doth please and displease God. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

2.You will be more careful in the doing of every duty, to fit it to the pleasing of God than men. (2 Cor. 5:9)

3. You will look to your hearts, and not only to your actions; to your ends, and thoughts, and the inward manner and degree. (Col. 3:1-15)

4. You will look to secret duties as well as public and to that which men see not, as well as unto that which they see. (Eph. 5:3-12)

5. You will reverence your consciences, and have much to do with them, and will not slight them: when they tell you of God's displeasure, it will disquiet you; when they tell you of his approval, it will comfort you. (1 Tim. 1:19)

6. Your pleasing men will be charitable for their good, and pious in order to the pleasing of God, and not proud and ambitious for your honour with them, nor impious against the pleasing of God. (Titus 3:8)

7. Whether men be pleased or displeased, or how they judge of you, or what they call you, will seem a small matter to you, as their own interest, in comparison to God's judgment. You live not on them. You can bear their displeasure, censures, and reproaches, if God be but pleased. (1 Cor. 4:1-5)

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:1-2).