How Would Someone Sum Up Your Life?

If someone who knows you well were to write a summary of your life in just a few sentences, what would they say? Would the things he or she says mention the things you are most passionate about? Would those few sentences reflect your walk with God? Would it be positive or negative?

As I have studied David’s life this summer and shared messages with you from what the Bible tells us about him, I have found some remarkable sentences in the account of his life in 1 and 2 Samuel that summarize his life. These sentences sum up the various events of David’s life and point to Godly characteristics that we can learn from. These sentences reveal to us the life of “a man after God’s own heart” and show us how to live with a heart for God.

Here is a sampling organized around some of the main events of David’s life:

David’s anointing to be king of Israel:

• Man looks at the outward appearance (literally ‘the face’), but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). From the time that he was anointed, the Lord knew that David had a heart for God, and God chose him to be king because of his heart. What does God see when he looks at your heart?
• “The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David” (1 Samuel 16:13). David did not live by his own power, but by the power of God. Just as the Spirit came upon David at his anointing, so he comes into our lives we accept Christ and are baptized. Do you choose to live by the power of God’s Spirit within you?

David’s slaying of Goliath:

• “I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied (1 Samuel 17:45). David could slay Goliath because he was more than a boy with a slingshot; he was a warrior fighting in the name of the Lord Almighty. People today may choose to defy the Lord as Goliath did, but my question for you is: Do you live in the name of the Lord Almighty?

David’s moving the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem:

• When David danced before the Lord, only to be criticized by his wife, he said, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” (2 Samuel 6:21, 22). David worshiped the Lord freely and extravagantly, without inhibitions. Do you celebrate freely before the Lord when you come to worship?

David’s desiring to build a Temple:

• David desired a Temple, but when God told him “no,” he “went in and sat before the Lord.” (2 Samuel 7:18). After receiving what had to be one of the great disappointments of his life, David went in and sat and talked with the Lord. In his prayer, David asks the Lord, “Who am I...that you have brought me this far?” He goes on to acknowledge the greatness of God. When you have a heart for God, you acknowledge his greatness even when he does not give you the things you desire. Do you recognize that God always knows best?

David’s kindness to Jonathan’s son

• After David settled in Jerusalem as king, he asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can shown God’s kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:3). Saul had made himself David’s enemy, but David had a great friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan, so he sought to demonstrate kindness (the word is actually “grace”) to anyone left from Saul’s family — and he did so with Jonathan’s son. Do you extend God’s kindness, his grace, to others, even those with whom you disagree?

David’s repentance for adultery and murder:

• When confronted for his sins, David responded to Nathan, the prophet, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). He was the king, but he acknowledged his sin. We all sin, and we know we do. Do you acknowledge your sin to God and receive his mercy?
• When David’s infant son died, he said, “Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23), In some way, David had come to understand that, through our faith and the mercy of God, we live beyond the grave. He lived for the day that he would see his child again. Do you live for eternity?

These are just some of the lessons David can teach us. The New Testament tells us that “God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do’” (Acts 13:22). We too can live with hearts for God. I hope you are learning these lessons from the life of David.

Worship With a Heart For God

The central piece to the life of the church today is the weekly worship service. More people come into church by first attending worship than through any other means. We put a lot of time and energy into our worship – as well we should – but do we really lead people in worshiping with a heart for God?

A study of the life of David, the second king of Israel, led me to consider this question this summer. It is a question well worth pondering.

David had faced this question, because he became king at a time in Israel’s history in which they had neglected the proper worship of God for over twenty years. We know this because the Ark of the Covenant, the place where God’s glory rested and therefore the centerpiece of their worship, had been left in the home of a priest named Abinadab for all those years (you can read that story in 1 Samuel 4-6 and 7:1-2).

When David became king he realized that this centerpiece of their worship was missing, so he determined to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem where he had established his capital. In the account of his bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, as told in 2 Samuel 6, I find three ways in which we can worship God. Each has relevance for today’s worship practices.

(1) We can worship God with complacence. This is the worship largely promoted by the church. I know; I know. You say, our church does not worship complacently, but observe the experience of David.

David took 30,000 people with him to the home of Abinadab, 10 miles from Jerusalem, to retrieve the Ark. They put the Ark on a new ox cart to transport it. Everyone was celebrating and singing and playing instruments and worshiping. David knew that in order to worship God properly, they needed the Ark of the Covenant in their midst, but Abinadab must have been aghast at the complacency of the celebration. They were taking it all too lightly. This was the Ark of God, after all.

Do we forget who the God is that we worship? Do we become too casual and too complacent in our worship, forgetting that we worship a holy God in all of his glory? Do we simply worship God so that he will improve us a little bit, and design our worship services to make people feel better instead of to pour ourselves out before the Most Holy God?

(2) We can worship God with anger. This is the worship most common in our culture. Nearly one-third of people in our culture believe God is an authoritarian, angry God.

The worship mood of the celebrating crowd moving the Ark to Jerusalem suddenly changed. As they marched along with the Ark of the Covenant on the ox cart something happened. Perhaps the wheel of the cart hit a rock and was jolted. The Ark became unsteady and began to fall. Uzzah, walking alongside the cart, reached out and steadied the Ark. That’s all he did. He probably reacted without even thinking about it but he Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah and struck him dead because he touched the Ark. They named the place, “Outbreak against Uzzah.” They had failed to follow God’s instructions for moving the Ark, and, even though his intentions were right, Uzzah lost his life, and David got angry. The celebration ended. The plans were scrapped. They left the Ark at the home they were passing by.

Many people in our culture have become angry at God for all the evil that is present in our world, but they will not turn to him. How do we explain a loving God to people who are angry at him? Like Israel, when we neglect the proper worship of a Most Holy God, we will only know anger. As Eugene Peterson says, ““Sometimes I think that all religious sites should be posted with signs reading, "’Beware the God.’"

(3) We can worship God with extravagance. This is worship as God intended.

Three months later David returned to retrieve the Ark. In the interim, he had learned how to properly move the Ark, and he observed those regulations. They made sacrifices as they moved toward Jerusalem. When Michal, David’s wife, criticized him for his display of exuberance, he said he would celebrate before the Lord, becoming even more undignified than he had in order to honor the Lord.

That is the kind of celebration we need to bring before the Lord. Call for people to worship by giving all of themselves to the Lord. Remember that we worship the Most Holy God, and pour yourself out before him.

(This post is based on a sermon preached on July 17. To listen to the sermon, go to this page and choose the sermon for July 17.)

Saul’s Death and Christ’s Death

When my brother-in-law, Jerry, died last month, he was buried in the veterans’ cemetery in Johnson City, TN, the same place where my mother was buried a little less than four years ago. My sister, Karen, her daughter, Amy, her daughter-in-law, Kristen, our daughter, Nancy, and I returned to the cemetery later in the day after the burial had been completed. All of the markers in the cemetery are identical crosses, but the cemetery allows the crosses to be personalized with something about the person, besides the facts of name and dates. We walked through the cemetery and noticed some of the things written on some of the grave markers. My sister recognized some of those who had died more recently because she works at the VA Hospital and they had been patients in her department, but all the rest of us were reading things about people we had not known.

Words on grave markers give only a very slight glimpse into a person’s life, but may well sum up the essence of that person’s life.

During the course of David being pursued by King Saul, Saul died by his own hand after battling the Philistines. His grave marker could well have contained words that he himself spoke to David after David spared his life for the second time. 1 Samuel 26:21 records those words for us as part of a promise to David to not harm him. He said, “I have played the fool and have committed a serious error.”

Sometime later, the Philistines defeated Saul’s army in battle. His three sons, including Jonathan, were killed, and Saul would take his own life by falling on his sword (1 Samuel 31:1-6). He had long before that stopped following the Lord, and played the fool to the very end. The heads of Saul and his sons were cut off by the Philistines and carried throughout the land to announce the Philistine victory, and their bodies were publicly displayed hanging on the walls of a city. Israel had been conquered by the Philistines. Saul’s tragic death had drastic consequences for his nation.

Chuck Swindoll compares Saul’s death with the death of Christ — the great Son of David:

• Saul’s death seemed to destroy hope for his nation, while Christ’s death offers hope to all.
• Saul’s death brought victory to his enemies, while Christ’s death brings defeat to even death itself.
• Saul’s death opened the way for David to become king, while Christ’s death opened the way to salvation for everyone who accepts him.

All of us know that we will one day die. Many choose a death like Saul’s — one without hope. They choose to die the fool.

This week our congregation and Lisa McCullum’s family mourn Lisa’s death, but we also rejoice because she had chosen to accept the redeeming death of the great Son of David. Her joy at knowing Christ touched us all. May we choose to face life and death as she did, with the hope of Christ.