JAN 27 2019 | The Crown: David as King S1E2 | Kings Without A Crown

Sea Change Church · The Crown: David as King · "Kings Without A Crown" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · January 27, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning. My name is Alex, one of the leaders in our surf church group. Rebecca pretty much nailed it with an announcement. We're starting this Thursday, so if you surf or know anyone that surfs, come, especially if they're Grom, or also check out Christian Surfers. And I'm reading the scripture this morning, which is from 2 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 1 to 7. After this, David inquired of the Lord, Shall I go up into any cities of Judah? And the Lord said to him, Go up. David said, To which shall I go up? And he said, To Hebron. So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahanoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

And David brought up his men who were with him, everyone with his household, and they lived in the towns of Hebron. And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. When they told David it was the men of Jebesh-Gilead who buried Saul, David sent messengers to the men of Jebesh-Gilead and said to them, May you be blessed by the Lord, because you showed this loyalty to Saul, your Lord, and buried him.

Now may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you, and I will do good to you because you have done this thing. Now therefore, let your hands be strong and be valiant, for Saul, your Lord, is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me king over them. The word of the Lord. Thanks, Alex, my man. So, hey, one of the things I want you to do as we go through this series on the crown is to understand some of the core ideas, practical ideas that I want to share with you that you can actually, during the week, remember pretty easily and use it as a navigation for your life on making decisions.

One of the key things we saw last week is the Amalekite came to David and brought the crown to him, which is interesting. David never chased the crown, and in not chasing the crown, the crown came and was laid at his feet. And we live in a society that tells you you need to chase your destiny. David didn't chase his destiny. He walked with it. And over and over again, by just being the man that God had called him to be, the things that were destined for him would come and lay at his feet.

Take a look at Deuteronomy 28, verses 1 and 2, when you have some free time, and look about how your destiny will come and it will overtake you. There's a few things we want to look at as we go through this crown series. We're in week two. We have about five more weeks after this, and I want you to circle a few things. In chapter one, last week, I asked you to circle, he took it. Because the Amalekite, when David asked him, how did you get this crown, something this Amalekite never should have touched, even Saul's armor bearer wouldn't touch it.

Even Saul's armor bearer would not kill Saul when Saul asked him. The Amalekite comes thinking he's going to get glory, and he tells David, here's this crown, here's the armbands, here's the spear. And David says, how did you get it? He said, I took it. David never took the crown. In fact, the crown was given to him, and the crown, I believe, was placed upon his head, and we never see him actually holding the crown. It doesn't say that he took the crown from the Amalekite in chapter one, but that it was given to him, and I bet he didn't even touch it.

The next thing is he ends up, and we'll talk about this today, up in Judah, which, where he is made king. He does not come in, and as the king, putting the crown on his head, as we see Jesus coming in, when Jesus comes in, and as a king would come in on a donkey. But David just goes up to the city, and he is made king, once again, not chasing his destiny. So the key word last week was he took it, but the key phrase this week is, shall I go up?

And you're going to see that in the scripture in verse one. It's in bold. It should be in your notes. And it says, shall I go up? And this is a question that I really want you to put in your spiritual Rolodex, that probably you should be using two to three times a day, at least. I mean, not that God is going to come to you in this great epiphany, or this great theophany, which means like a divine being stands in front of you and says, yes, Harry, you should go up and buy donuts for the youth group.

I'm not saying get so into, like, I can't turn left or right unless I ask God. But on some way that you are letting God know that I want you in the peace. And then trusting God for the results. We're going to talk about this, but the idea is, shall I go up? I realized this week I had been working on vision and getting very excited about it, and had two or three decisions that I had made that I knew were good decisions, and felt like right decisions.

And then when I read that, I realized, you know, I really have to ask the Lord about that. Maybe I should ask God about that. So I put the entire plan that I had in my mind for a few things I wanted to do, just on ice for a while. And I just said, God, shall I go up? It's a great thing. So circle, shall I go up? And when you are in your life and you don't have an understanding, like James says, and you need wisdom, just ask God for wisdom.

God, I don't know what to do. The cool thing about Romans 8.28 that says, even if you get it wrong, God will work it out. Like, I just love that promise of the scripture. It says that all things, not some things, will work together for good for those that love God and are called according to your purpose. No, not according to your purpose. The Bible says called according to his purpose. And so there's a few things that I want us to remember, and I'm just going to hit them super hard every single week.

The first, and this isn't in your notes, you can write it down, is intimacy with the divine. It's intimacy with the Father in the New Testament. But David actually is one of the first archetypes in the Old Testament that shows what it's like, what New Testament spiritual intimacy will look like, although David never had the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, living, indwelling inside of him, which is available to us after the death of Christ on the cross.

We become his temple. Now, David would go in, he had spoken to angels, he had had God's presence come upon him in many different ways. But he had never had that deeper intimacy. But he is a prophetic voice into the kind of relationship that God wants to have and that is available now since Christ died on the cross. And so the first thing is intimacy. And when you're thinking about what your life's all about, I guess the place we want to start is how's your intimacy with God?

Are you just going through the motions? I mean intimacy. The kind of intimacy that we desire when we think about a life's partner. Somebody you could share everything in. We have this beautiful mosaic or narrative that we make in our mind of this relationship that we want to have. Well, God wants to be more than that. But the first is intimacy. So I'm going to continue to press you as a congregation. Us as a congregation.

As we worship. As we fellowship. Are we experiencing the divine intimacy? And if you are a person that has been broke earlier in your life, I experience, most of us have experienced that kind of brokenness. Whether it be through an abusive parent or an abusive relationship or through a divorce or something that happened, we actually tend to wall ourselves up against intimacy. We tend to wall ourselves up and live by other means of control to get what we want and understand what we hope to understand through ways that God does not desire.

He desires that you would have knowledge through knowing him. The way you know what you're supposed to do is by knowing God at his core. So the first is this, is intimacy. And then the second thing that I'm going to hit, it's just going to be very simple because I want to be simple here and I want to be practical. The second thing is this, is purpose based in a heart's posture. That your purpose is not so much based on if you get to dance your dance, if you get to sing your song, write your play, have the relationship you wanted, whether it's I want to have kids or whatever it is, that it isn't based on this linear, very simplistic understanding of what your purpose is.

And I would say that our purpose is much greater, it's actually infinite, is much greater than we would like to define. And we live in a Western society that is trying to narrow down purpose to one or two or three things in your life. You get the job you always wanted, or you're giving your life away in a mission for God in a way that you feel like, okay, I've reached my purpose. I want to say that purpose is about heart's posture and intimacy with God.

Number one, one of the great statements, I think it was Augustine, that says, love God and do what you want. It's basically been simplified down. The Westminster Confession, if you were to read the Westminster Confession, speaks about just worshiping God in everything that you do. But we have been sold a bill of goods, I believe, in the Western Christian Church, for sure, that says, if you can get to that thing that you think you're supposed to have, if you get the shiny thing that you wanted, or if you find the center of God's will, which I don't believe God has a center, I believe that God is a, infancy doesn't have a center.

He is bigger than that. If you find that place that you discern in your mind is the direct spot that you're supposed to be, and you can maintain it, because we don't think about maintenance, then you will have all the things, love, hope, peace, joy, that Christ promised you for free. See if you have not heard that. That if you get to this place, this mythical, legendary place of the center of God's will, and obviously we need to have obedience and try to follow God as best we can, but if you can get to this place, and then you're in that place, you have this moment of self-actualization.

I'll take you back to Psychology 101. You have some Maslow, Maslow moment, right? And you're at the top of the hierarchy of needs, and you have actual self-actualization. At that point, then, you can finally have everything that Christ offered. That is the message that I hear over and over again. And it's completely bunk. Christ says, you can be a pauper with nothing, dying in a, you know, Bolshevik prison in, you know, 1915, and have no hope for your future, completely broken in a death work camp, and you can have all the things that I promised you without ever having to have all the rest.

So we need to move away, and this is something David greatly understood. David wanted God more than David wanted the crown. The question is, do you want God more than you want the crown? And so the second thing, the first thing that I had was intimacy, but the second thing is, your purpose is based in a heart's posture, and we'll talk about that. Okay, we had two lessons so far. The first is never chase your destiny, and the second, which we're going to have by the end of this series, we'll have seven of these that you can follow, kind of if you want to follow David's path to understanding and knowing God, is seek the right thing.

And that right thing is intimacy with God. And so what David does, is David regularly asks to God, what should I do in this place? And he expected an answer. And how those answers come, we'll talk about as we go further on through this, but he was seeking the right thing. I got a quote from Viktor Frankl. Well, he's not a Christ follower, but he wrote a book called A Man's Search for Meaning. It was highly influential in my life as I read it.

He was in a death camp, a German death camp in World War II. And he spoke about trying to find meaning when you're in a death camp. And that's interesting, because if Christ promises are, they're true for all humanity, not just the few of us that get to, to understand ourselves as living in a purpose, of getting the shiny thing that we want. Christ promises have to be available to every single person who believes. And so he was asking himself, in the midst of a death camp, how do you find your meaning and how do you find your purpose?

And this is something that has really impacted me if I want to talk to all believers. Because the privilege of being able to chase your own personal purpose, or the thing that you want, your heart's desire, is probably only 150 years old. Most of us haven't had that. It is a modern understanding, and only for those in a social elite class that have the ability to make that decision. Winston Churchill said, to him, the core line that divides social classes is those that have the ability to have their work be of their choice and have it fulfill their dreams and desires.

It was some kind of quote like that. But he was saying that the social class makes a difference when you can choose your direction in your life. That is something that is very new. And if that is true, and we're going to buy that bill of goods, and we have to say that every other person that was forced into a vocation, or into slavery, as we see in the first century, did not have that option and could not follow that purpose.

So Viktor Frankl says this, and I love this, don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you're going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And if you put that on your fridge, that will bring a lot more peace to your life. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself, or as a byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than one's self.

I think that is so powerful. This week I was thinking, I said, you know what? Nothing's going to make you happy unless you're already happy. It's true. Nothing is going to make you happy unless you're already happy. And I wouldn't even want to use the word happy. I'd rather use the word joy. But America has a pursuit of happiness. Maybe you've seen the movie. Maybe you've heard about it before that in our governmental documents.

As you'll see under, in Viktor Frankl, there's another quote. And I said, Many exchange knowing God in a desperate search for discerning their purpose. What I really want to do is give you freedom. It's for freedom that you have been set free. And I seriously believe that one of the, if I had a top five for Western Christians, you're not going to find this in the slums of India probably, but for Western Christians, there is a deep soul's pang that we are, we have let become part of our spiritual DNA that tells you that unless you get to a certain point, you're not completely there.

You will not have fulfillment. And it is so anti to the gospel. The gospel says that Jesus plus nothing is everything. That Jesus and prison is enough. That Jesus and cancer is enough. That Jesus and not ever getting to fulfill the thing that you want is enough. And does God want to give us the desires of our heart? Absolutely. It's a different sermon though. But what we need to do is just release ourselves and be able to walk in and understand that you are the beloved of God no matter what.

That God loves you desperately. And this is something David understood. This is why he could continue to return to God after he murdered someone and stole their wife. It's one of the greatest figures of Christianity. Now, if we knew that there was someone in here who did that, who sent someone to the front lines to be murdered and then stole that person's spouse if you knew that that had happened, how would that play in the social construct of the day of our congregation?

Probably not well. Especially as we live in a society that doesn't allow restoration anymore. But David was this man. He ended up being worse than this man. And he began to get away from the idea that he would never take anything that was not his own. And so are you reaching? Are you chasing destiny? Or are you walking with it? One thing I want to say about purpose before I just move on because this is going to be core.

We're going to talk about intimacy with God and this is going to lead to you knowing Jesus Christ as your savior. So just know that this story is where we're going to end is with a picture for you at the end of the series. It is going to climax with this understanding that Jesus Christ is your way to have that intimacy and that's where we're building to. I don't want any mistake that we're just going to stay in an Old Testament archetype and never get to where the end of the story goes which is Jesus Christ himself.

But one of the things I want to do is I want to hit this idea of purpose one more time and just give you an analogy. And maybe you've seen the movie The Matrix. And The Matrix was, I think, I think God spoke a lot through that secular movie. And could you show that picture? Can we get the picture? Yeah, right on. That is such a heavy understanding. I mean, just to look at that. That is what is happening and it's completely undiscernible in the movie.

There is this matrix that is happening and you're in the midst of it. I want to, I truly believe that if you were to say, God, what's my purpose? And he would take you to heaven and let's say there was a vision. Let's say an angel comes, all right? Takes you, meets you, you're at the fridge and you're getting some late night nachos. You shouldn't eat them, you know, it's too many carbs. You've been trying to do paleo since the first, but you're over it.

It's midnight. The angel comes, paleo, shmalio. It's horrible. Give me some sugar. The angel comes and says, from this fridge, I will take you away and I'm going to show you what your purpose is. And you think, great. He's going to show me that I am finally going to get to do that one thing that I'm supposed to do. He's going to take you and I think it's going to look more like this. That's your purpose. I'm dead serious.

David understood, as we'll see in a few moments here, that there is no way that you can understand your purpose. Now, you can understand what God wants you to do in the moment and if you don't understand, he's still going to direct your steps, it says. We're going to show you some scriptures. This is your purpose. You are going to perhaps meet a guy in a donut shop one day who's going to take his life and you're going to sit down and you're going to be reading your Bible and he's going to see you reading your Bible and he's going to remember his grandma who used to read her Bible and he decides, you know what, this is a sign from God.

You're never going to know what happened and he's going to say, that person right there, I'm not going to take my life today and he's going to get up and leave perhaps. Now, this is just something I'm making up and then all of a sudden, that person is going to move to India and start a place for battered women and out of that group of battered women comes the next president of India. Like, that's the kind of stuff that is happening when God is determining your purpose that you have no clue about.

It's the matrix. You are not going to be able to fathom it and the Bible was clear over and over and over again and so it says, hey, can we just go to this base place? I want to let you know who I am. Rather than your purpose, I want to let you know how much I love you. I want to let you know how much I care for you. Let's just start there and this idea that if you just get the, you got like three things in your mind that if you get them, you get your house in Olivenhain, your little two-acre ranch, oh, did I give that away that I want a two-acre ranch in Olivenhain?

It's okay. Alpaca. Yeah, yeah, castle in Europe, castle in Brooklyn, that's where I dwell. Little Beastie Boy reference. We have this idea that if we just get this thing, if David gets his crown, David totally knew that it was never about the crown. It is so biblical. It is so core to the gospel. Please let it go. Seek ye first, Matthew 6 says, the what? The kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.

Coming in for a turn at the corner. It's not for a landing yet, but we're turning the corner. Psalm 139. Now, David, I've said that these psalms are going to be shown in the historical context of when he was writing it. Now, Psalm 139 was written, it's believed, when David becomes king of Israel, all of Israel and Judah. It was a divided kingdom. There was civil war, which we'll see next week. There was civil war. There were Saul's people, and even though Saul was dead, they still wanted to follow the line of Saul.

But he is made king over Judah. And then it's seven years ruling from Hebron until he becomes king of Israel and Judah over the entire kingdom. There was a united Israel. So he still, even though he was anointed king here, was not king over everything yet. But this scripture was written when he became king over the united nations. So I just want you to know that Israel had a civil war, and there was two, there was Israel, and then there's Judah.

And he was king over Judah for seven years. And then we have this in this passage. But seven years later, he would write this, Lord, you have searched me and you have known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord. Lord, you have encircled me. You have placed your hand upon me.

This is key. The extraordinary knowledge is beyond me. It's too lofty. I am unable to reach it. You know what? As soon as you get that understanding that you'll never figure it out, it's way too lofty for you. You're never going to get it. You'll never understand your purpose. You might understand one little place on the map. You might understand a bus stop in Tacoma or Pacoima. It's Pacoima. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Or, you know, one little coffee house in Missouri. You might understand these little destinations. You are never, ever going to understand it. It is too ethereal. It is too eternal. And you're not meant to because then you would be God. What God wants you to do is say, I'm just going to rest in knowing you. You see this? Before you say it, God knows it. He's encircled you. David lived, inculcated, in the understanding that God had this completely sorted out and he didn't have to.

I want to release you from that and say that if you just seek God with a pure heart and a heart's posture, that he will cause everything to work together for good. Turning the page, and we will come in for a landing here soon. A couple Proverbs I'm going to burn through that will just hit this point to show that this is core in the Bible. It's everywhere. Proverbs 20, a man's person's steps are from the Lord. How can the man understand his ways in the standard version?

How can you understand your way? The Lord did it. You're never going to understand it. But you can know the Lord. Scripture says that he will reveal himself to you. And he'd rather reveal himself to you than reveal what you're supposed to do. Trust me. Jeremiah 10, 23, I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. Proverbs 16, 9, a man's heart plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.

David was content to be immersed in relationship rather than a life's pursuit of becoming the king. Seek ye first, as I said, the kingdom of God and all of his righteousness and these things will just be added to you. Like Viktor Frankl said, you do not pursue them. They will ensue as a result of following God. So how then are we to find direction for our lives? Verse 2, and this is what I had you circle, is David asked, it says, and David inquired to the Lord, shall I go up to the cities of Judah?

And the Lord said to him, go up. David said, to which way shall I go? And he said, to Hebron. I gotta say, the way the Lord is gonna direct you is gonna be diverse and it's gonna be unique, I think, to the way He created you. Now, let me just tell you how it works for me. I haven't had an angel show up to me and tell me which direction to go yet. Okay? They actually had this thing called the Urim and the Thummim, is that correct, Kimberly?

Thummim. So the Urim and the Thummim, and they were like these dice. Okay? So this is kind of dicey. So they would, if you use pun, they would take these dice and they would seek the Lord and they would just like throw them. You know what I mean? They'd be like, oh, that's what the Lord told me to do. Let's go do it. I mean, come on, really? Like, God would have all these different ways because back in the day He didn't live within your heart.

Now God speaks to your heart. And I'm gonna talk about four hearts posture that'll allow you to do the best you can making a decision. And that's really where I try to get is just do the best I can. Let me tell you how God spoke to me this week. I was in the fellowship hall and I'm working on my sermon I got a Spotify mix going on. It's just playing. And all of a sudden this song comes on and I'm writing about David's heart and the king's heart and the crown and the song comes on King Without a Crown which I played at the break.

And as I'm listening to it I stopped and I think I think God's speaking to me. Now I know it's ABC and it's a 19 it came out in 1987 and I know it's secular and it wasn't Bethel worship but I stopped and there's like three lines in the song that I just totally plagiarized and used in the sermon. Now I'm copywriting it and I'm footnoting it now. But I was like that's either a really crazy coincidence or God spoke to me.

Yeah I think really God loves to speak to you through your interest. He loves to speak to you through a sunset through baking through different analogies. God just wants to speak. And then we have to decide was that God or was that coincidence? You have to base it on the word of God but I believe one of the keys is just to have an awareness. We'll talk about those postures and we're coming in for a landing now. David asked and one of the postures was shall I go to the cities of Judah?

The Lord said to him go up and which way shall I go? He said go to Hebron. The biblical now this is oh man man man I've been watching too many movies. The biblical mandate is only to seek. It is the vocation of the divine to reveal. Put that in your spiritual pipe and smoke it. Okay? The biblical mandate is only to seek. It is the vocation of the divine to reveal. It's not your job to reveal. We realize if God wants to tell you something He will.

He's God. The point is is that you are asking and being aware. Our job is to seek. God says if you seek me you will find me. God is bent on revealing Himself to you. First through divine creation through creation. Secondly through His word of being known through the word. Thirdly through Jesus manifestation of the divine on earth. And fourth through the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts. there is a four step process of revelation.

There's actually more than that but those are four of the core ways. God is desperate to reveal Himself to you. And you have to realize that if you ask you have to believe that it's God's job to reveal. It's not your job. Our job is to ask. But so often we don't want to ask because we want to be in control. David tilled his life's direction from seeds sown in a seeking heart. I'm going to say it is a seeker's heart that God is after.

And even if you get it wrong all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose. So understanding four things and we're done. God's will is about is more about posture than the steps you take. God's will is more about a heart's posture than the steps you take. Here's the first heart's posture. Always ask. Matthew 7 7 and 8 I would just doggedly ask God like just annoying.

There's even scriptures that says please annoy me basically and I'll finally answer you. Like just annoy God with God what do you think about this? What's your take? And then be aware. But it says in Matthew 7 Jesus said this ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find it knock and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives and those who seek find and the one who knocks it will be opened. Number two stay awake.

First Peter the book of first Peter is all about being awake and aware a lot of it is therefore with minds that are alert and fully sober set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming and Christ is continuing to reveal himself more and more you can see it the prophetic voice in Revelation says that there is a trumpet's call that you should if you're aware you'll be able to see the things that God is doing in your life.

First is always ask second is stay awake have a little notepad write down what you think just be in the conversation few of us ask God anything until something's going wrong seriously I mean how much do you have a how many things do you ask about I have a friend named Orville that if you were to ask him what are you asking God for right now he would pull out a list and have he could spend three hours with you he just everything and if you're having a conversation and you say hey I'm sick he'll say hey let me just get that okay Adam's sick and then he'll check up with me later hey how you how you feeling about that he's in a constant conversation with God always ask stay awake number three walk in love and never violate your heart's constants with every big decision and I'm not living in like should I should I you know turn left or right on every single decision but on major decisions I usually slow down and listen in my heart and I can't ever say that I haven't known what to do it's either yes no or wait if I slow down and let the Holy Spirit there is a peace and a silent voice that if we're living constantly triggering ourselves with dopamine and adrenaline and running around in chaotic motion enemy loves chaos you will not be able to hear that and you'll probably miss a lot of things and God's gonna have to do clean up work which he says he will but whether it was marrying my wife or whether it was taking this job or whether it was these things I would slow down and in my heart I just knew I have to say I just know and I can't explain that but it comes from slowing down never violate your heart's conscience in a decision probably one of the greatest ways I see Christians do this is in who they date I know a lot of believers that are willing to just date somebody because they're lonely and they make decisions or they marry somebody who's not a believer which I have not seen go well yet been in this 25 years you have a binary relationship the Bible speaks about this but so many people because they're lonely will just get active and never ask and never settle down because they don't want to know the answer that they already know the answer to you ever been there you don't want to know the answer that you already know the answer to the scripture says it as well if you can't feel it in your heart follow scripture and finally trust Romans 8 28 says and we know that for those that love God all things work together for good for those that are called according to whose purpose his purpose and so in the matrix of who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do let me affirm to you that you are the beloved of God and to put a relentless search out to find the heart of God and to create a posture in your heart because your purpose is about posture and it's about knowing him amen you