King David will visit Westwood this summer through a new sermon series: “Living With a Heart For God.” Perhaps as much as anyone else in the Bible David teaches us how to live with a heart for God.
Chuck Swindoll says about him: “Few men in history have been so gifted and respected as the sweet singer of Israel, David, the youngest son of Jesse. His personality was a strange combination of simplicity and complexity.”
J. Oswald Sanders summed up David’s life this way: “He swung between extremes, but paradoxically evidenced an abiding stability. The oscillating needle always returned to its pole – God Himself.”
His story begins before we even meet him. When the prophet Samuel rebukes King Saul, David’s predecessor, for not obeying God, Samuel said to him, “Your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.” David was that man, and so became known as “the man after God’s own heart.”
David always longed to serve God well, from the time he was an obscure shepherd boy in the hills of Judea to his reign as king. Yet woven in his life were moments of sin and the normal struggles with life that demonstrated flaws in his character and failure in his reign. He had great victories, such as his defeat of the giant Goliath, but also struggled with great sin, such as his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. Yet he wrote some of the greatest songs of praise ever written, words in the Psalms that still move our hearts.
We can learn much from him about having a heart for God. Let’s share the adventure of his life together this summer.
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