I remember when I got that call, that call from the Nominations Committee. How many of you cringed when you got the call from the Nominations Committee? The Nominations Committee, but I got that call. I mean, I had historically been in leadership.
I was maybe 28 years old and I had been in leadership in different places. Usually it was in finance because I was a CPA. And this call was different than the other calls because they called and they said, Hey Eric, we think you, you have been really interested in Bible studies.
You’ve helped and you’ve even led a Bible study. Why don’t you be on our spiritual growth team? And I was like, where’s the treasurer part? And so I joined the spiritual growth team, which, you know, you never know what’s going to happen. That led to being the lay leader of the church.
And then that eventually led to, well, this. But when someone calls you or points out to you that you’ve got something in you, that God has put something on your heart or in your life, and we want to see, we want to explore that and see what is happening with that. It makes a huge difference.
And God can take everything. And I’m seeing hugely now as it comes back, having an accounting background, how God can use that for God’s glory too in all that we have. You see, what I’m talking about, I mean, no one put oil on my head, but I’m talking about being anointed.
In the Bible, all the way through, it talks about anointing. And it talks about anointing in many different ways. The Hebrew word Mesa means to anoint or to smear.
I mean, it’s a better word. I mean, what if I came up to you and I said, it’s about time you got smeared. To anoint or to smear or to consecrate.
And when you consecrate something, you set it apart, you carve it out. It is different than just saying, hey, we have this opening, and I know you’re someone who doesn’t say no, so you get to do it, okay? What it means is you carve it out, and God puts within you this passion and these gifts that make it an incredible thing. And the anointing is something that is really cool because it is, when it is done in the Spirit, is one of the most awesome partnerships between God and us.
Because we see in the Bible, just like we talked about with baptism last week, that often when there is anointing and that anointing comes from God intervening through a human being, then there’s something that happens with the Holy Spirit within us. But the Holy Spirit works through that anointing. Now, we think of it in so many different ways, but that anointing leads all the way up until the final time when the bishop lays hands on you and anoints you.
Do you know what that’s like? It’s a recognition at some point of the church saying, we see these gifts in you, and we want you to use them for God’s glory, representing God through the church. That anointing is something that we may tend to ignore, especially with mainline backgrounds, but the anointing is something that God uses incredibly. We can learn from David and Solomon about being anointed servants.
Both of them were anointed for a special purpose. Does anybody know what that special purpose is? It was king. They were anointed as king.
Now, each of them had flaws, and some of them were exploited more than the other. Now, we don’t even start with Saul. The anointing we see in 1 Samuel starts with Saul, and Saul is anointed king, and Samuel even shows us in here the words, and Saul received a new heart.
Now, why did he need a new heart? He was called to be king, and Samuel anointed his king, and as soon as everybody got together to celebrate, Saul was hiding under the table. And Saul needed a heart of courage, and Saul needed something else, and then Saul eventually built it up so that courage transferred over to pride, and he’s like, I can take care of everything myself. And behind pride is fear, and in that fear comes us doing things out of impatience and not waiting on God and not trusting in God’s timing, and that’s what Saul did, and it destroyed his rule, his kingdom.
So when we pick up here with David, I’m going to back up just a few verses to 13, and we’re going to look at 13, 14, and then go on to 1 Samuel 16. Will you stand as you are able? Samuel came to Saul after Saul finally had just stopped listening to God, and he said, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.
And then over in verse 16, when they came, this is when Samuel came to anoint the new king, he looked on Eliab and thought, surely the Lord’s anointing is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height or of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord sees not as man sees. Man sees on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the… Why don’t everybody say this word with me? Heart.
The Lord looks on the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one.
And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. Then Samuel said to Jesse, are all your sons here? And he said, there remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes.
And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.
Then Samuel took a 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.
Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tortured him. The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God, thanks be to God. You may be seated.
Isn’t it fun when I end with the two words tortured him? Are you feeling the good news yet? David’s heart, David was Masach. He was anointed. He was called to be something he never thought he could be.
He was called to be something that God was already preparing for him throughout his whole life, and now he was sitting there before his brothers, who his family didn’t even think twice about him. Because he was young, whatever else it was. Because somebody had to take care of the sheep so it might as well be David.
Now if you watch the House of David show, they add some other reasons that aren’t in the Bible on why David is there, which is a pretty, that’s a pretty action-packed show. David was called a man after God’s own heart. He looked at each one of the brothers that he was talking about.
Samuel was just going down the list, just like Saul. He saw the brothers. This one’s tall, this one’s good looking, this one looks powerful.
God said no. Okay, let’s go to number two. Tall, powerful, no.
All the way through seven up. And then number eight showed up when he was young. Now it doesn’t say anything negative about David’s physical appearance.
It doesn’t say he was a scrawny little sheep herder who smelled like sheep stuff. It says he was ruddy. Ruddy means red.
But it’s like having redness in your cheeks. It was a compliment. It was having that redness of youth, that strength of youth where he probably ran back from tending the sheep to get there and his cheeks were red from that.
And it showed he was in shape, he had strength. Did it say he was cross-eyed? It says he had beautiful eyes and was handsome. He had the outward appearance things, but those are things Samuel added.
There’s only one reason God chose David to be anointed his king, and that was for his heart. Now, if you look throughout the Bible and you see the people that are anointed, some are anointed to be prophets or priests, some are anointed to be kings, and then we see in the New Testament where when the disciples went out and they used, and in Mark 6 it says, and they anointed heads with oil, and you know what happened when they anointed heads with oil? The demons came out. So, there are demons, there are anointings for special services, there are anointings that consecrate and bring in the Holy Spirit.
Today we use anointings for blessings and for help people, to help people discern and grow on their path. Jesus, if you look at, we call Jesus, Jesus Christ. Christ, it’s just the Greek word for the Hebrew or Aramaic word, Messiah.
And what is anointing? It’s Masoch. So, Messiah only means the anointed one. In the Old Testament, they looked at each of the kings and they said, God’s anointed.
Like David said, hey, even though I’ve been anointed, right now, Saul is still the king. I will not step on the toes of God’s anointed. Now, Jesus was an anointing that no one ever had in history nor will anybody ever have in the future, and if they tell you to have that anointing, you probably need to go somewhere else.
He is the anointed one, which the anointing for Jesus, the Messiah that they were looking for, or the ultimate Messiah. The Messiah that they were looking for was anointed to what? Save the people. Save the Israelites.
And in that anointing, the saving meant one thing for God and one thing for the people, and hence some of the confusion and hence the cross and hence the resurrection. Save us from our sins. Gosh, even back then they didn’t want to be told Jesus told the Pharisees they were sinners, and you know what they said? Don’t judge me! I’m going to kill you for that.
That’s mean. But Jesus came to save us from our sins. And when we are anointed, it doesn’t mean we have reached perfection, but it means we are set apart for God, and we should be striving for following God and growing in our faith, and becoming more and more having a heart like God every day of our lives, which we call sanctification.
That when we are sanctified, we’re on a journey that is a straight path to God. I mean we wander in all different directions, but that path is pretty straight that we take to God. The great poet and songwriter Charles Wesley wrote these words, A heart in every thought renewed, and full of love divine, perfect and right and pure and good, a copy, Lord of thine.
David had a heart like God. He wasn’t perfect, but he had a lot of attributes that God had. He was a type of Christ.
He wasn’t the anointed one, but he was anointed for a purpose. And so were every one of us in Jesus. So what is God’s heart like? Again, 1 Samuel 13 14 says the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart.
In Psalm 37 that Dana read for us today, it says, Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the house and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the new day.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourselves over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. One of the toughest things about following God and acting and moving and living with a heart of God is that it doesn’t seem to match the heart of the world.
And we see people prospering. We see people being successful who care none at all about God. And then we say, well maybe I’m just taking this a little too far and I need to moderate it a little.
Maybe I need to moderate it a little more. Maybe God’s calling me to do something else and I need to moderate my faith and trust more in myself. And it pulls us away from God.
To have a heart after God’s. What does God want from us the most? What does God want from our heart? In Exodus 3-23 when Moses was freeing the Israelites from Egypt, it’s really wild. I mean, what we think of is them being set free so they can be independent.
But what’s even more important than that is God’s emphasis on, let my son go. It often says, let my people go. Did you guys sing that when you were kids? I used to sing that in BDS.
And so he may worship me. Let my people go so they may go out into the wilderness and worship me. You see, the truth is that’s what Moses came to Pharaoh and said and Pharaoh didn’t like it because they wanted him to worship who? Him.
Their gods. And it wasn’t good. So he said, no.
I’ll be your god. And so the plagues kept coming. I mean, clear to the extent that God said, I’m going to have to take the firstborn of those because it’s that important that you worship me.
I mean, we tend to forget. I mean, we live in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament we also have 10 commandments and the first commandment is to put God first. God is first.
No other gods before him. No gods of our pride. No gods of the world.
No gods of our own wealth. No gods of anything but purely God himself. That is the most important.
A person after God’s own heart, first of all, puts God first. And that’s what God wants with us. In Exodus 34-6 when Moses says, no, we will not go on unless we know your presence is with us.
Show me your presence. And the glory of God passed by Moses and he said to Moses, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That verse is used three times in the Psalms and several other prophets.
It’s important to know God’s heart. Merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That’s the part of God’s heart that he saw in David.
Now David was to an extreme and he didn’t want anything to happen to his sons, even when his sons betrayed him, even in so many cases. But David chose first. Mercy, grace, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Even though he was a mighty warrior, he had those things on his heart. And the point of God taking us and seeing those good things on our hearts is to build and make us new because without God, we can never be who we were anointed to be. In Luke 4, 28, Jesus said, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me.
Jesus was anointed not by man, but directly by God. He was anointed so that he could sacrifice. He was anointed so he could come to serve and not be served.
He was anointed so even the poor could hear the good news. Even the captives could be set free. Even the blind could be made to see.
Even the oppressed could come to liberty. And everyone here could hear about proclamation of the Lord’s favor. David’s heart has a lot in there that we can learn about.
David’s heart is something that even though he tripped and he fell, we’ll talk about some of those failings. David gave a whole sermon on those failings. Even though we have all of that, David’s heart was anointed by God.
And he was the greatest king in all of Israel’s history. And we’re going to, as we walk through and we see how David was anointed, and then we see how Solomon was anointed, we see that despite their flaws, God did great things through them. And that’s kind of how it is for you and for me.
Despite our flaws, God wants to do amazing things for you. You are anointed and set apart for God’s glory. You are anointed and set apart, not just so you can feel the warm fuzzies of the Holy Spirit, but so the Holy Spirit can work through you to bless others around you.
We all have an anointing in Jesus. Let’s pray. Almighty God, thank you so much for the peace that you give us in Jesus Christ.
We pray that we recognize that the Holy Spirit sets us apart. That we are on a journey of sanctification and growth, walking closer and closer to you. We pray that you would take a hold of our stubborn hearts, and that we would worship you with all that we have and all that we are, that we would trust in you more, and know that, yeah, some things are over our head.
Some things we can’t do, but you can do anything, God. You can even do amazing things for us if we just trust in you, if we worship you, if we just obey what you are calling us to. You are that amazing.
Amen.