What Matters Most

SUMMARY

In this sermon, Karl Ihfe begins a new series called "The Heart of a King," focusing on David's life and what made him "a man after God's own heart" (Acts 13:22). He emphasizes that while David was gifted in many ways, it was his heart that drew God to him. Karl highlights three key characteristics of David's heart:

1. Wild abandon to God: David worshipped with unbridled passion, as seen in his dancing before the Ark (2 Samuel 6).

2. Deep reflection: David spent time alone with God, pondering and considering, as evidenced in many Psalms (e.g., Psalm 139:23-24).

3. Stubborn love: David loved persistently, even towards those who wronged him, like Saul and Absalom.

Karl encourages the congregation to cultivate these heart qualities, reminding them that God looks at the heart, not outward appearances (1 Samuel 16:7).

TRANSCRIPTION:

Well, if you have your Bible invite you to Turn over to 1 Samuel 16. We're launching into a new series for the summer. It's called the Heart of a King. Looking at the life of David and thinking about this man, David, complicated figure as he is, he was a Renaissance man. If you know much about the life of David, he was an incredible, incredibly skilled musician.

Kind of the Yo Yo Ma of his day, if you will. In fact, scripture tells us that Saul's depression was so dark and so overwhelming that he would invite David to come and play for him. Because just the playing of music helped relieve his fear, his anxiety. Many of us know the power of music in our lives and David had that power to share with the king. He was a formidable warrior, the original Braveheart.

Before Braveheart was Braveheart, there was David, right? He fought Goliath, this incredibly overwhelming nine foot tall giant, right? With only a sling and three little stones. He was a teenager, if that. He was an exceptional leader.

You might think of Admiral William McGraven, the one who did the TED talk or the commencement speech about make your bed every day. But this incredible leader who. Leaders just flocked to the George Washington, before George Washington was George Washington, there was King David and there was David the man and. And warriors flocked to follow his incredible leadership. He was a fierce competitor, right?

The Patrick Mahomes. Before Patrick Mahomes was Patrick Mahomes, there was David, this incredible competitor. We're told about his exploits of killing lions and bears as he protected his sheep. He didn't want anyone or anything to get in his way. But not only that.

David had this tender heart, this voice of a poet, the William Shakespeare. David wrote most of the prayer book of the church, most of the Psalms, many of them are attributed to David, where he'd pour out his heart before the Lord. Not only the joys and the hopes and the excitement, but the burdens and the challenges and the overwhelming nature sometimes that life can beat down on us. Those words came from David's lips, many of them. He was a skilled statesman, the Abraham Lincoln of his day.

Israel achieved its highest economic and political stability under his reign. In fact, today, the flag of Israel is the flag of the star of David. They attribute their greatest height of political and economic reality was under the leadership of David. In fact, the Messiah would be called the son of David. Why?

Because they were hoping that it would be someone just like David who would lead us into the promised land. He was also physically attractive. That doesn't hurt. He's the Glenn Powell of The day some of you know who that is.

He was handsome, he was strong, he was leader. Credible traits and qualities. And yet none of these are the qualities. The traits that were told is what drew God to David. David was also somewhat of a Renaissance man when it came to sin.

He was pretty creative and eclectic in his pursuits of sinful life. In fact, we know he broke at least four of the ten Commandments that we have documented here in Scripture. He made made innumerable parenting mistakes, decisions that would bring harm and mistrust and brokenness in his family life. And yet still God saw him. It was drawn to him.

Which leads us to asking this question.

What? Why? How could a man so gifted and so flawed as David be the only person in Scripture to be labeled as a man after God? God's own heart. Those are astounding words I want us to take the summer to just reflect on.

What does that mean? What does it look like? What was it about David's heart that would inspire the writers of Scripture and God himself to say's a man after my own heart. Each week we're going to look at a different quality or trait that I think contributed to that heart. I'm so thankful to John Ortberg who wrote a series on this topic a number of years ago.

And it's just chased me throughout the years. It's been one of my favorites. And I go back and read through it and so I thought I want to share some of what he shared with you as we think together about what does it mean to have a heart like a king, A heart like King David. There's much of his life that we wouldn't want to emulate. But there are some key areas that I think we see.

The beautiful story of God and how he works with those who are gifted and fought to do some pretty incredible things in his kingdom. You may know the backstory here in 1 Samuel 16. By the time we get to the story that Clayton read for is just a moment ago. Saul has been told by God that he is no longer going to be the king, that God's going to rip that away because he wouldn't trust God. He had an evil heart.

And we see that downward spiral in Saul's life. Well, it's at this moment that God sends Samuel, a prophet, to the town of Bethlehem. This rinky dink, one horse, not even a stoplight, like maybe a blinking light town Bethlehem. And as you can imagine, Samuel wasn't super excited. You heard it in his own words, God, you know we got a king.

It's not really a good idea to go anoint a king when you already got a king. And God says, just go. And so Samuel goes. And it's interesting, when he shows up, how do the townspeople respond? Hooray, it's Samuel.

They go, uh, oh, who screwed up? What’d you do? Why is he here? Right. When the prophet showed up in your town, that wasn't a good thing.

That usually meant somebody messed something up. And Samuel says, no, no, no. I'm here to make a sacrifice. And so he creates this opportunity to meal together where they share. And God says, we're going to get Jesse, invite him to bring all his sons.

And so Jesse shows up prouder than a peacock, flaunting his sons in front of Samuel, like, this is it. He starts with Eliab. Eliab, if you translate the Hebrew, it means you to man, loosely translated. And Eli shows up and he's the man. And Samuel looks at him and says, he's the man.

And the elders look at him and say, he's the man. And God looks at him and says, he's not the man. It's not him. And so the next six brothers come walking through. None of them are the man.

And Samuel ask a strange question. It seems kind of an odd question to ask. Do you have any other sons? Like, Jesse would have been like, I think this is everybody. But I'm not sure.

He's like, well, yeah, we have the youngest one. Not even given a name. It's just the young one. He's the lowest one on the pecking order. He's out watching the sheep.

Samuel says, bring him in. You see, God talks to Samuel. It says, Samuel, you're looking at the wrong things. In fact, he says, don't consider his appearance or his height, for I've rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at.

People look at the outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. And that may be a word for us today. Maybe that's a word that God wants to give you this morning. The world looks at the outside appearance.

God looks at the heart. I don't know about you, but that's an encouraging word for a chubby, old, aging preacher like me to know. I don't have to keep looking better for God to use me. I don't have to pretend that I'm not broken, that I don't struggle with things just like you do. And God could still use me.

It's not that gifts aren't important. God gifts his whole church. He Gives everyone a gift and says, use it for the common good. And when you have a gift, I want you to use it to my glory. But that's not what makes God drawn closer to you.

That's not what was reflective of God's heart. It wasn't in David's life. It's not an ours. So God says same. I quit judging people by their outward appearance.

Looking at how tall or strong or how much money they make, or the kind of car that they drive, or the house that they live in, or the classes that they're in at school or the college or university that they're attending, or that they graduated from, or the job that they have or they hope to have or one day might have. He says, I want you to look at the heart. And so I want us to spend the next few moments this morning and then the next few weeks together thinking about what was it about David's heart? What was it about David's heart that drew God to him and him to God? This morning I wants to think just about a couple of characteristics, the soil, if you will, of the kind of heart that David had that I think contributed to this.

And the first one was this. David had a heart that was just a wild, abandoned to God. David had this unguarded and passionate heart. If you read through the Psalms, one of the most common refrains that comes over, we heard it this morning. I will praise you with all my heart.

David would cry out to God with all of his heart. He was not someone who held back or who calculated when it came to expressing his love for God. We have lots of examples of this. Maybe you remember the story in 2 Samuel 6, when the ark has not been in Jerusalem for a long time, and he brings it back in and David dances in a linen ephod before God, before the Lord, right? Dances mightily before God and all the people because he just can't help it.

It just comes overflowing as he has learned about what the presence of the ark has meant for God's people in other places. And now it's in Jerusalem, and now it's back in the city. Oh, he can't help himself.

When was the last time that you were so full of joy, so thankful for who God is, that you just couldn't contain it in your worship? You almost danced a little bit. Maybe not in the linen ephod, but you danced. You cried out to God. You are so thankful that your eyes see and your ears hear and your mind thinks and your heart beats and your Lungs fill with air.

And you just can't believe God, you've given me life. That you just couldn't contain it. The joy just kept flowing out of you. You see, David couldn't hold it in. It couldn't contain it.

It came out in his words, it came out of his actions. It came out in his singing and his dancing, and it freaked some people out. Honestly, have you ever been so engaged in worship that other people looking like, dude, what's going on with him? David's wife, Michael, when she sees him dancing this way, she's like, yeah, nice work. It looks real kingly in front of all the servants and all your subjects.

Real kingly. And David says, you have no idea. Just wait, just wait. I'll celebrate before the Lord. I'll become even more undignified than this.

And I'll be humiliated in my own eyes because God is so good, he's so faithful. I was thinking this week and even this morning, the last time, that I was just so overwhelmed with joy that I couldn't contain it. It was at a volleyball match earlier this last school year when Hallie's team, the Lubbock High Westerners, beat the Coronado team volleyball for the first time ever in the history of their program. And as you can imagine, it was incredible. We got a little clip of the last point, and I just want you to watch how these girls respond.

The coach is standing there like this high five. And now what you don't see is if the camera had panned over to the parents. We were losing our minds, just going, so excited. I was literally brought to tears watching the girls celebrate. This thing that had never happened had finally happened, and we can't even contain it.

At one point, a couple of the girls were just jumping, and it was like they didn't know what else to do. All they could do was just jump. And I couldn't help but wonder, is that God's heart for us, when he sees us, just can't contain our joy. We cry out and worship when we're so moved by his creation or by people he's brought into our life, we can't contain it. I remember one Christmas with my parents and watching my dad, and he was just blubbering like an old sea lion, his words.

And I looked at my mom and I'm like, what's wrong with dad? She goes, he just. He's so happy. He doesn't have words. It's just coming out.

And David's life, his heart was just wild, abandoned. It just couldn't contain it. David's heart for who God was. I wonder if that's how God feels when he sees us have a wild abandoned for the life that he's given to us and living it to its fullest. Well, not only that, David had a heart of deep reflection.

You don't often see these two things going together. This wild, abandoned, passionate and this deep reflective thinking. Again, you just go to the Psalms and you can hear it. David say things like search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my thoughts, my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in a different way, in the everlasting way.

David spent a lot of time waiting. You know, this moment that Clayton read for just a moment ago in 1 Samuel 16. It'll be 15 years before that moment is fully realized in David's life. For 15 years he waited and he waited and he waited. In fact, the next day he's going back out with the sheep.

Those waiting years weren't wasted years. David learned how to be alone with God, how to ponder and to consider. And God shaped his heart. I think God wants to shape our hearts. Henry Noen is a noted theologian, thinker, teacher who wrote Solitude that's time alone with God.

It molds self righteous people into gentle, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced and convicted of their sin and so fully aware of God's greater mercy that their life itself becomes a ministry.

See, a heart that's shaped by deep reflection is so convinced of our sin but God's greater goodness. But we can't help but just be a ministry. You know, Broadway, we have our core values. Pursue God, build community, unleash compassion. We talk about those things all the time.

We invite you to live those out. Those values are a means to an end that we want your heart to become so shaped by who God is and who God's created you to be that you can't help but be a ministry to the people around you. That when they experience you in line somewhere and it's a long line and it's a frustrating line that they experience God's presence and peace through you. That emits of the crazy chaos and relationships that you get to be a ministry, a visible, tangible witness of God's grace in the world. You see, David's life started going downhill when he quit spending time alone with God.

When everything was going great, when he was finally established as the king and he was in the palace and he had everything he could have ever dreamed of. He didn't need to spend time alone with God.

We see it goes downhill. Time alone is critical to developing heart of deep reflection. The very first psalm of the prayer book, David writes these words. Blessed is the one who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and it meditates on his law day and night.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yield its fruit and season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever they do, it prospers. It takes time for roots to grow. It takes cultivation and nurturing. I think David put those elements into his life when he was a young man out in the fields, when he was on the run for his life.

We saw that time alone with God shaped David. We're going to have to spend time alone with God. We're going to have to carve that time out in the midst of the craziness of what we call life these days, that we don't get a chance to just quit our jobs and run off into the woods or into the wilderness. We have to keep living our life. But will we be disciplined enough to take time out to say, God, it's important that I become more like you, so I've got to spend some time with you.

Last thing finished with this day. David's heart was characterized by this stubborn love. And one of the things that we'll learn and we'll see over the summer together is that when David loved you, you just stayed loved. Psalm 78 said he loved his people with the heart of a shepherd. This integrity of heart he would love obstinate, silly sheep.

And we actually have a couple of folks here who go to our church that raise sheep. And you want to know what sheep are like, I'll make an introduction. They're not the brightest animal in the barnyard. They struggle a lot. They're silly.

They follow all kinds of crazy things. And yet David loved his people. I mean, look at the people in his life and we'll spend some time looking at these folks. King Saul, David had a love for him that even though he tried to kill David multiple times, that when it was finally Saul's turn to die, David didn't stand up and rejoice over him. Instead, he writes one of the most beautiful poems.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It's not glib. He's not taking joy in his demise and said it's broken because he remembered the man that Saul could have been and that maybe at times tried to be, but his heart closed off the God and David cries out on his behalf, maybe remember his friend Saul's son, Jonathan, who could have been David's major opponent, his number one enemy for the throne. And instead they developed this incredible friendship, and we'll look at that this summer. And it was so powerful and so important to David that when they had to be separated, life no longer allowed them to be in relationship together.

They wept. The scripture says David wept the most because his love and Jonathan's love for him, he says it was more precious than even that of a woman. He’s the most precious love that he could have found. An amazing thing. Or maybe you remember David's own son, the story of him.

And we'll look at Absalom and the brokenness that happened there and all the hopes and dreams that David had for his son, even though his son would rebel, chase after other gods who would try to run David out of the palace, just do incredible things to demean him. And when his son dies and his throne has now got some stability, he doesn't have to worry. He doesn't have to look behind him anymore. He doesn't rejoice, he doesn't gloat. Instead he says, my son, oh, my son, if it had just been me.

It just been me, not you. At this heart of David, this wild abandoned, this deep reflection and the stubborn love. When David loved you, you just stayed loved. You just stayed loved. And maybe that's.

Maybe that's the key. May. Maybe that's what drew God's heart to him. Because God doesn't give up on us. He just loves us to the point that he said, it’ll be me.

I'll take your place. I'll die the death that you can't die. I'll give it up for you because I love you and I care about you.

See, that's the kind of heart that I'm hoping and praying church that we will seek after and we'll see together. We'll hear it in the Psalms this summer. We'll see it in David's life lived out. I love how he ends Psalm 23, maybe the most famous psalm in all of scripture. His last words are, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

He doesn't say, I hope, I'll be there. I'm going to give it the old college try. He says, I will. I'm going to be there. And you may have to drag me out kicking and screaming and sometimes they did.

I know I make a mess and I know I screw things up, but I ain't going anywhere. I am chasing after God. I'm going to dwell in his house. I'm going to keep going back. And after all of the brokenness in David's life, we'll see this continuing theme.

He just keeps coming back. He just keeps coming back. So, church, I invite you, Would you go on this journey with me this summer to look at the heart of a king? What does it mean to be a man, a woman, after God's own heart? How might God be challenging you and your love for him?

Maybe it's to open up your eyes to this unabashed worship. Say, would you just have a wild abandoned heart to God to not be afraid about what others think or say, but just worship God and spirit and truth? Maybe for some of us it's going to be God. I need to reflect some on my life. I need to spend some time thinking about what are those other things that are chasing and competing for my attention that intended to give my heart to.

Or maybe it's God, would you break through and help me to love those around me with this stubborn love where I don't hold sins against people, I learn how to forgive. I don't pretend that it doesn't hurt and I don't shy away from hard conversations and trying to make things right and trying for'a new pathway forward. But God, would you give me that stubborn love that you have for me where you won't quit and you won't give up? Oh, God, may that be true of us this day. Father, would you help us this summer as we spend time in your Word together, thinking and reflecting on worshiping you and considering how you're calling us to a deeper way of love?

God, we want our hearts to be like yours. So much so that when we die that those who know us, who have been in relationship with us, who spent any time with us, would say that was truly a man, that was truly a woman after God's own heart. That's who we want to be this year. Would you help it to be true? In Jesus name, amen.