People After God's Heart

Things are not always what they seem to be. Sometimes there is more to something or to a specific situation than meets the eye. Consider the following situation.

The Pope’s plane arrived at the air port ahead of schedule and he had a little unexpected free time. So he asks the driver of the limo to let him drive. “You see,” he said, “I never get to do this. People are always driving me around. I would like to do something for myself for once.” The limo driver decides that it wasn’t a big deal, and they were ahead of schedule, so he agrees. The driver and the Pope switch seats, and the Pope takes off. He gets onto the interstate and he is flying down the road.

A police officer sees the limo go by and pulls him over. When he sees the Pope in the driver’s seat he goes back to his car and calls into the station. “I don’t think I can give this guy a ticket.” The officer said. “Why not?” asks the chief. The policeman replies, “Well I think God is in the car.” The chief says, “God? Why do you think God is in the car?”

“Well sir,” the officer said, “The Pope is his chauffeur.”

Things are not always what they seem to be. Sometimes there is more to something or to a specific situation than meets the eye. This is certainly the case as we consider the story about King David. While we know him as the greatest king to have ever ruled in Israel or Judah; there was a time where such a thought would have gotten more laughs than the Pope joke.

David, while he was a handsome young man, was not necessarily what you would expect to find in a king. He didn’t necessarily look the part. But how something looks doesn’t really matter all that much. The way something looks isn’t all that important. This is a lesson that we see as we read the story of David.

Now if you go back to the book of Judges, you can see how the scriptures begin to set the stage for the story of David and the line of kings that comes after him. As we read through the cycles that we talked about last week where there was peace, the people rebelled, they became oppressed, they called out to God and he rescues them; as we read through this we see a common refrain or theme. That is that there was no king is Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

In other words, the reason why you keep seeing this cycle, and these things happening over and over again, is because there is no king in Israel. When we get to the book of 1 Samuel we see the people crying out for a king and God agrees to give them one. But the problem here and with this idea is that they have their own idea about who should be king. You see, they are under the impression that the reason for their problems is political instead of seeing, knowing and realizing that their problems are really spiritual.

The people pick Saul. You probably would have too. This guy looked like a king. He was tall, literally head and shoulders above everyone else. He was a natural leader and fighter. For all intents and purposes Saul was the perfect choice for the king. Of course, there is more to this situation than meets the eye. Saul is not the one that God chose to be king.

The man that God had in mind was not one that you would have picked over Saul. He was even not one that would have been picked over his brothers. I mean this guy is just a kid, he was a shepherd for crying out loud. But God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. People look on the outside and make judgments and decisions based on that. But God sees the heart. The scriptures tell us that David was a man after God’s own heart.

The heart was seen as the center of our emotions, desires, passions and appetites. When the scriptures talk about the heart they are talking about who we are in the deepest and truest sense. The heart is the place where our moral, spiritual and intellectual lives revolve. The heart is also the seat of emotions like, joy, love, courage, anger and sorrow. So as we are talking about heart in this sense, we are talking about who we really are at the center of our being. We are talking about who we are apart from all the airs that we put on.

So this is what we are talking about when we say that David was a man after God’s own heart. But what exactly does this mean? Well we are able to see an example of this as we consider the story of David and Goliath. Perhaps you have heard this story before, right? The Philistines are once again making life difficult for the people. The two armies are encamped across from one another and there is a challenge: your strongest man against our strongest man. The people of the loser will serve the people of the winner. Ok. That is doable. Except that their strongest man is a giant. And when he comes out, the people from Israel hide and tremble in fear. Even King Saul is hiding in his tent. But you can’t really blame them; I mean it is a scary situation.

But what happens when David shows up? He is kind of beside himself. He can’t believe that the people who have the living God on their side are acting this way. He offers to fight and Saul says, “Yes good idea.” Then what does he do? He has David try on his armor. You see, this whole time Saul and the army are seeing the situation from a human perspective. But David sees it as a spiritual battle. He knows that God is with him and so even though there is no physical contest, David knows that this is not a physical battle. This is a spiritual battle and the battle belongs to the Lord. So David steps up and wins the day.

That trust and confidence in God, and then acting accordingly is what it means to be a man or woman after God’s own heart. It is when we understand a little bit about God’s heart and then we act in accordance with that.

So where is God’s heart? Well, God is about the work of reconciliation and restoration. He is about the work of bringing his creation back into relationship with himself. Our God is a God on a mission. That mission is to seek and save the lost. When we align our hearts, our deepest desires and understandings and motivations, with God’s, then we, like David are people after God’s own heart.

We love the same things he loves. We hate the same things he hates. And our lives are lived in such a way that they reflect the understanding that God sees things differently than human beings do. Therefore we aren’t afraid to approach any giant that may come along and decide to challenge us.

When we live our lives as people after God’s own heart than we have our eyes open to see all the ways that God is present in our lives and through Jesus pours out into our lives his love, grace and mercy. When we live our lives as people after God’s own heart than we have our eyes open to see all the opportunities that God gives to us so that we share God’s love, grace and mercy in Jesus with the people around us.

Our God will take common ordinary things and work through them in such amazing ways that it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up. Consider what happens in a worship service for example. On the outside, according to what we see, things seem pretty common and ordinary. You have a lot of the same kinds of things from one week to the next. Some of those things are good. Some of those things are distractions. But do you see what is happening and going on?

God is here in this place. He is with us as we gather in his name. It is not like we offer up our prayers and praises and then they get stuffed in an envelope and mailed to God, please allow six to eight weeks for delivery. But he is here, in our midst. He is here when everything is perfect. He is here when everything is less than perfect. In spite of all the things that would distract us and throw us off, he is here. In a very real sense, when we worship, heaven and earth meet. Our prayers and praises join with those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, who are worshiping in heaven. It is a pretty cool thing.

God will take common ordinary water, bread, wine, and when combined with his word, uses them to richly and abundantly pour out into our lives, forgiveness, life and salvation. God will take common ordinary everyday people. And in our baptism make us one in Christ, where we are the body of Christ. He then sends us out into the world to make his love in Jesus known.

He gives it to us. He gives us all these gifts. He blesses us richly with them for the sake of Jesus. For the sake of the descendant of David who is truly God and truly man, whose life, death and resurrection made all this possible for us. God gives us all these gifts and then sends us out into our world to share this good news with them, so that they too can know this experience.

Do you see it? It is absolutely breathtaking. And our Gracious God will then work through these wonderful gifts in our lives, in order to make us more and more like his son, in his image, in order to make us more and more into a people who are after God’s own heart.

May he give us eyes to see as he sees. May he give us hearts after his own heart. And may we find great joy, peace and blessing in living this out in our lives. Now and always. Amen.