FEB 11 2018 | David the Fugitive S1E2 | 1 Samuel 20

Sea Change Church · David the Fugitive S1E2 · "1 Samuel 20" · Adam Stadtmiller · February 11, 2018
1 Samuel 20
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Um, my name is Eden. I am, um, an elder in training at here at La Jolla Christian Fellowship, and I know what majority of you guys are thinking, and that's a really young looking 50 year old. And I practiced that joke at least 10 times in the past two weeks. So glad I got some laughs. Um, we're going to be reading out of First Samuel chapter 20. Oh, also my, I come with my husband, Devin. We've been married for almost a year in May.

We actually got married here with Pastor Adam. So yeah, this place means a lot to us. Stand, stand with, stand, stand with me, Devin. Okay. Okay. Then David came to Nob, to him, to Ahimelech, the priest. And Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, why are you, why are you alone and no one with you? David said to Ahimelech, the priest, the king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to Ahimelech, or has said to me, let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you, and with which I have commissioned you, and I have directed the young men to a certain place.

Now, therefore, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found. The priest answered David and said, there is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is a consecrated bread. If only the young men have kept themselves from women. David answered the priest and said to him, surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out, and the vessels of the young men were holy.

Though it was an ordinary journey, how much more than today will their vessels be holy? So the priest gave him consecrated bread, for there was no bread there, but the bread of the presence, which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away. Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord, and his name was Doeg, the chief of Saul's shepherds.

David said to Ahimelech, now is there not a spear or a sword on hand, for I brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's matter was urgent. Then the priest said, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah. Behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would take it for yourself, take it.

For there is no other except it here. And David said, there is none like it. Give it to me. Then David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David has ten thousands?

David took these words to heart and greatly feared Achish, the king of Gath. So he disguised his sanity before them and acted insanely in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down into his beard. Then Achish said to his servants, behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? Do I lack madmen?

That you have brought this one to act the madmen of my presence? Shall this one come into my house? Word of the Lord. One of my favorite verses. Do I lack madmen? Like I need another one around here. Thank you. If you're a pastor, you'd get that one. No offense. I have learned that wisdom does not, just because you're 50 doesn't mean you're wise. And we want to raise up the next generations and give them opportunities as well.

And Eden is as wise and shrewd as they come beyond her years. And we're excited to have her be an elder in training. We want to do that. Trust me, we have enough close to 50-year-olds on the board like myself. So you're in good hands. You're fine. But awesome. Great job. Good to have you, Eden. And very excited. David is on the run. Here we are in Samuel 21.

Last week we talked about David finally having to realize that Saul was trying to kill him. But now David is on the run. And if there's one thing that I want to say today is that when you're on the run, do you know where to go and how to get home? Whenever David ran, no matter where he ran, he always made sure he was running home. Let me say that again.

No matter where you were on the run, whether it be a health diagnosis, a relational concern, a financial issue, depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, whatever it is, David had all of these things. He left with no food, no weapons, destitute, nothing. He had a few men, merry men that traveled with him. He had depression. He had anxiety. He had all of these things.

But he always was running home. And that is just such a key point in life. Where are you running? We run so many different places to find our answers. But David knew where home was. And one of the reasons we don't want to lose the next generation of young people who are coming up in the church and why we want to keep pressing into our high school ministry, our junior high, our 20-somethings, 30-somethings, these next generations that are coming up that will be leading the church, is so that we have people in society that know how to get home.

If you lose a generation, you have a whole bunch of people that don't know where home is, and they don't know how to get home, and they are orphans. One of the most profound scriptures in the Bible is when Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. He wants to introduce you to the Father, and that is something that we are excited about. In this passage, it's a powerful passage, as David flees to Nob.

And we'll talk about why that's important in a moment. But it's also a passage that Jesus brings up when he is speaking to the Pharisees. They are trying to catch him in a trap of their legalistic constraints. And if you've been here over the last few months, couple of months, I've continued to show how the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament, but it is not a rewriting of Torah.

Jesus didn't come to rewrite the Torah. He filled it in every way. But we find in Jesus a much more ideologically gray figure. He has both ends in the way that he speaks. He's not completely black and white, although there are many black and whites in Jesus' life. And the scriptures have black and whites. And Jesus knew what they are, but he was willing to break the pharisaical rules.

So when a woman is caught in the act of adultery and she should be stoned, Jesus lets her go. He shouldn't have done that. I had breakfast with a few of our guys this morning. A few, just some, you know, young, amazing guys that are in our church. And one of them said, you know, God is not fair. And I thought, I'm not sure I agree with that. But the more they began to speak, they all agreed.

So I realized that these three, you know, 20, 30 something guys must be right because they all agreed. And so I began to think about it. And he said, it's not fair that we get to go to heaven. And I was like, that's true. It's not fair. It's not fair that God sent his son to die on the cross for us. You know what? You're not fair. Actually, I agree.

So, you know, footnote, you know, awesome 20 something guys in our church today that he's not, he's not a fair God, but he is a just God who loves us. And so Jesus didn't come to be a new Pharisee. And there's a lot of things that are open. And one of the things we're going to talk about today is why does God allow for freedom? Why does God allow for grace?

Why does mercy triumph over judgment? And why do we have the ability to live free from shame and free from guilt if we want? Jesus gives us freedom from the legalistic rules. Here's two truths that we are going to speak about today. The first is relationship supersedes religion. I'm not one of those people that wants to throw out religion. In James, it says that there is a type of true religion.

Religion organizes your relationship. That's all religion is. Religion without relationship is falsity. But religion is saying, I decide that I'm going to get up and go to a prayer service at 6 a.m. three days a week. That's religion. It's organizing your relationship. I want to be highly religious as long as it is orchestrating and is structuring a beautiful relationship.

I think the trellis that grows, the vine, excuse me, that grows organically needs to have a trellis or else it just goes all over your yard. And so we want to have this religion that gives a framework for our relationship. We don't want to just have a relationship with no markers. A relationship with, I don't really need to go to church anymore.

I hear that all the time. It's just a relationship. And so one of the truths of today's relationship supersedes religion. Let me ask you is how's that balance going? How's your religion versus your relationship? We'll talk about that. The second truth that we're going to see today is when, if you can circle anything, when the moment of opportunity or desperation, because those are two key moments, when the moment of opportunity or desperate challenge comes, it's too late to prepare.

That is the truth. That when your moment of opportunity comes, you ask financial investors, you ask other people, when the moment of opportunity comes, if you are not prepared, you will miss your opportunity. And there is one thing that is true for all opportunities. They pass. It is true for all of them. What we fail to see often is that in order to take advantage of the opportunities and the open doors that God gives you, because we serve a God of open doors.

Read Revelations. God opens doors. He opens doors for Paul in Asia. He's opening doors for you in your life. He is a God of open doors. That Paul was prepared. David was prepared when opportunity came to strike. We fail to prepare when we don't see what is coming. And so often I meet believers, myself included, who don't see what we want coming over the horizon.

And we get discouraged not knowing that just like the sun rises, that behind the horizon, even though it's darkest before the dawn, that the sun is coming. Your moment of opportunity is coming. And instead of preparing and doing the things that we're going to see, that David made it his ritualistic and his relational lifestyle, that his relationship was formed in the religiosity, and that's probably not the right word, but in the religion that he had when he worshipped, when he prepared, that when the moment of desperation came, when the moment of opportunity came, whether it be killing Goliath or running from Saul, David was prepared to run.

He was prepared to strike down, excuse me, not Saul, Goliath. He was prepared to strike down Goliath because he had prepared out as a shepherd. When he was there, he had been anointed king and then thrown back into being a shepherd. And you have to believe that he was asking himself, what am I doing here? I thought I was the king. Heck, even the Philistines in Achish, that's Gath, that is the Philistine territory when he crosses over.

He actually, in this story, crosses over to Gath. Even the Philistines knew he was the king. Saul actually was the king, right? But when he comes, they're like, hey, this guy's the king. Even his enemies knew who the king is. The only person who didn't know who the king was, pretty much, was Saul. Even Jonathan, his son, knew who the king was and was willing to give up his sword, was willing to give up his weapons, was willing to give up his cloak, to say, I will humble myself before the chosen one of the Lord.

And so David has been anointed. They've poured the horn of oil over him. And the sun is rising. It's two hours before the dawn. And he's out there preparing. But he could have been thinking to myself, what am I doing here? I thought I was king. I've got to say, maybe the sun's coming for you. And all you see is the darkness of the night. You've stopped preparing.

You've become destitute. You've become desolate. Your prayer has dropped off the face of the map. You're no longer worshiping the Lord because you're disappointed that he hasn't shown up. But there's an opportunity coming. Or maybe things are going really well and you're just winning. You are hashtag winning right now. Now, everything is going super well.

But this too shall pass. And perhaps you've heard that before, that this too shall pass. And maybe there is a moment and we dread that moment. But we need not dread that moment because, first of all, God works best, it seems, when we're on the run. And second of all, if we've prepared to go on the run at any point. How tightly you hold to things.

One of the things I practice on a regular basis is the ability to accept my family, except for my family, is give anything up at any moment. There was a movie back in the day. It had Al Pacino and a couple others in it. And the whole point of the movie was at the end, could the guy who had all the money and all these things drop it all and just go if the law came?

He was able to let go. How tightly are you holding on to things? I spent this week a couple times out in the yard practicing releasing prayer. If you struggle with concern or anxiety, let me say it is based in clutching on to things. It is holding on to your worry and fear. And anxiety comes from not being able to let go. There is freedom. The freedom, the way, there's many ways because it's a multifaceted attack on anxiety.

And I'm a person that's dealt with that in my life that I find when I am able to release and let go of what people think or how things might go or I can release that, we find freedom. Let me just read this again. When the moment of opportunity or desperate challenge comes, it's too late to prepare. You know, David only knew one way. David lived in constant preparation.

And the one biggest mistake of his life is when he quit preparing. He quit living like that. He stopped going out to battle. Battle was actually something that kept him sharp. But the kings, instead of going out to battle, we know he stays there. And we'll see this in the third part of this series. But he wasn't prepared when the moment of temptation came.

How's your preparation going? And is your preparation based upon your circumstance? That is an epic fail. To base your preparation on your circumstances. Things are going good. I don't need to prepare. Things are going bad. I should stop preparing. God doesn't love me anyways. David, constantly, except for this one time in his life, constantly preparing.

Constantly using his religion to protect his relationship. Constantly making sure that his religion didn't get out of bounds by having a deep relationship. Are you preparing? Maybe the sun's coming. One thing's true about opportunities. They pass. Are you prepared and ready? That's the key for today. Here's important components of this passage. First, verse 1.

I love this. Nob. Nob. Nob. David flees. And in verse 1, then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, why are you alone and no one else with you? He actually had some people with him. Jesus mentions that in Mark 2, that he had companions with him. And a little bit later in the story, he mentions that as well.

So David was traveling with a company. But Ahimelech was concerned because this was odd. This spoke of a rebellion. And you're going to see on the map behind you, you're going to see that Nob is just north of Jerusalem. Nob was the place where the Ark of the Covenant was being kept. Nob was a place that there was a tabernacle. Nob was a place where Goliath's sword was kept.

Nob was a place where the consecrated holy bread was kept, which we'll talk about in a moment. But here's the key. When David set out to run, where was the first place he went? He went to the house of the Lord. You read the Psalms. You read the Psalms. Now David, look, he could have gone in any direction. Any direction, but where does he flee? He flees with nothing else but a few men following him to the house of the Lord.

David knew how to get home. David knew where home was. And so if you read the Psalms, what you are going to see regularly is I go to, God, you are my refuge. God, you are my hiding place. You are my sanctuary. Constantly knew the way home. And I say, whenever you're on the run, run. There's only one place you need to run. Home. Every time. No matter what your desperation is, no matter what you're struggling with, go home.

Every single morning. Every afternoon if you need to. There's times in your life where you need to meet the Lord three times a day. Just to sustain. Just to survive. There's other times where it's more relaxed, but you're still meeting him in the morning. But whenever it is, go home. Let me just tell you your destination. Home is the sanctuary of the Lord.

It is the Father's heart. And here's the even better bit. We now would never have to run to that man-made sanctuary because we are the temple of the living God. And so you can just settle down and let the Lord's presence just well up in you. To begin to listen. To begin to worship. These are things that David did as he constantly prepared. Are you preparing?

Do you know how to get home? And when it's time to run or when something happens, where do you go to? Do you go to the bottle? Do you go to your anger? Do you go to your language? Do you go to controlling relationships? All the tools. Like Batman had that bat belt, remember? He had all these different tools for every little thing. We're like that. We finally go to God.

Let's make our first reaction be to go to God. See what that would look like immediately. No, I'm not going to try to control this situation. That's something we learned last week. David was giving God the margin to win. David before was a boy who was working in an unconscious competence. He was just able to walk in the presence of God to kill giants.

It was no problem. But this time was different. You see, he could have gone and killed Saul. He could have. We know. We know he could have taken Saul out many times. He was in Saul's council. He was in Saul's dinner table. He could have taken matters into his own hands. But this time he had to face an enemy he could not touch. And how do we fight a battle when God says you may not touch that?

Or you may not leave this relationship. You are going to have to battle in this relationship that you vowed to. But you, I am telling you individually. And we all have to hear from the Lord on our own lives. So I'm not saying that that is true for everybody. But for some of you, for some of you, God is saying you will stay in this relationship.

I want you in this relationship. And you will learn how to give me margin to win the battle for you, perhaps. Going on, he ran to Nob. And David finds sustenance there. He finds protection there. He finds the bread of the presence of the covenant. This is what Jesus mentions because he eats it. And he's doing something that is not allowed. You're not allowed to take God's holy things.

And not only has he done that, he actually lies to a Himalek, the priest. You don't lie to a priest. I grew up Catholic. I know. You go to confession. You don't lie to the priest. Of course, I would go to confession every service because I didn't want to sit there for an hour every time. So I go confess. I just make stuff up. Nonetheless, I think I made a few things up just because I didn't want to sit in the service anymore.

It was an hour. But they are good on time, aren't they? Like an hour. And then you're out. You are out in an hour. I don't know how they do it. Around the world, no matter where you go. I'm getting off the point. He lies to the priest. Lies to the priest. Not only that, then he goes to Achish and he deceives Achish and pretends like he's a crazy man.

This guy is lying. He's deceiving. God doesn't give him the smackdown. Why does God allow this? We'll get to that in a moment. But David, when he goes there, he finds sustenance and protection in the house of the Lord. Let me say to you, if you make it a habit of regularly going to the house of the Lord, you will begin to develop a relationship. It takes time to develop.

We expect to get there, sit down for five minutes, have the Shekinah glory of God fall on us, four angels to show up to a choir, you know, something like that, candles to burn, you know, a hand of God to write on the back wall, you know, whatever. And it takes time. It takes time to break through. Try sitting there until you break through. And then after you break through, because I do this a lot, like I break through, I feel God's presence.

I'm like, okay, we're out. Like, what about just basking in the God's presence? You know what I mean? Just like sitting there, letting God's presence come. Those who seek him will what? I just think we quit too easy. We just quit too easy. We think complaining is seeking. Complaining is not seeking. Whining is not seeking. Seeking is sitting before the Lord and saying, God, I need you.

I am desperate for you. I want to listen to worship. Whatever it is, read the word of God. Maybe it's just get silent. Maybe it's take a walk. God has built you for a special relationship with him that is different than mine. To go after God and quit quitting. Don't be a quitter. We just quit when it comes to seeking God. He hasn't shown up. He hasn't done what I wanted.

We're just quitting. The Bible says, if you seek him, you will find him. And I have to say, every time I've sought him, I have found him. Every time. Maybe not in the exact moment I wanted to, but he has made himself known. 25, 30 years into this relationship, he has made himself known every time. And if you seek him, you will find him. How's your seeking going?

When life has you on the run, the question is, where do you flee to? David knew how to get to the tabernacle of the Lord. Another thing which I think is key here is David does not flee alone. Like I said, he had some scullywags with him. That was my grandma's word. Had some scullywags with him. But he also developed from those scullywags a group of 30 mighty men.

And they were men of renown, men of legend. And one of the things I met with some guys this morning is I just want to keep drawing together around myself mighty men and men that can lead the next generation to be patriarchs in the next generation. I believe that men are called to be patriarchs. They are called to have a patriarchal call. Not that there isn't a matriarchal call as well.

See that in the history of England. You see these strong matriarchs. But those two callings have a difference. And David had the ability to gather around himself incredibly strong men that would die for the cause of defending the God of the universe. That's what I want. I want to surround myself with men. I want women here too, but I'm not called to develop the women's ministry.

Okay? We got ladies to do that. But I am called to try to develop a strong culture of men in this church. And I believe that if you create a strong culture of men, you also will bless women that are here. And you both will come concurrently. I've seen a lot of ministries where it doesn't work the opposite way. I don't know why that is. I've seen a lot of ministries that are full of women and there's no men on site.

But I have rarely seen a ministry. This is no shade on women. But I have rarely, maybe it's on men. I've rarely seen a ministry that is full of godly strong men that doesn't have an equal measure of godly strong women on the other side. My job is not to lead women in discipleship groups. That's not what God's calling me to. But I want to lead strong men.

And if you want to not be a boy when you're 50 years old anymore, then come on and join us because we want to go somewhere. And we call you women to come with us alongside of us arm in arm as we march. Amen? That was dicey. About halfway through that, I'm like, where am I going here? I notice when I get a little bit of sweat going right there. I'm like, I'm off the reservation.

That worked out all right, though. Thank you. All right, let's go back home. Let's go to the scripture. David, when life has you on the run, who are you traveling with? Who are you traveling with? I mean, I looked around when I was 19 and I thought, I don't want to travel with these guys no more. They stole from me. You know, I remember I thought I was having a heart attack one time in PB.

I did have a heart attack one time, but this is a different time I thought I was having a heart attack. Really going bad. And I remember the guy said, get out of my house, dude. I don't want you dying in my house. That's what he said to me, dude. I don't want you dying in my house. How about 911? Pushed me out. I ended up out in walking Mission Beach thinking I was going to die.

I thought, these aren't the people I want to travel with. Scullywags. But I was a bit of a scullywag myself. Began to, men began pouring into me. Dave Dignall, a pastor. Dave Chrysler. Gordon Coulter. I can go through the list. Men who just came to me and just said, hey, we see something in you. You're worth our time. And began to call us to a better thing.

And to the point where one day, I just feel like recently when Dick Cotton passed away, I thought that might be my last father figure. I've had a lot of father figures in my life. Multiple ones. At 50, almost 50, I don't know how many more father figures I have, but he might be the last. And might have been one of the greatest. And I missed that guy.

But I felt like at the end, I remember I said to the Lord, because he prayed for me every day, like many others. And I remember saying to myself, Lord, what am I going to do without, you know, I know a lot of other people pray for me. What am I going to do without Dick Cotton praying for me? Because I can feel it. I can feel the momentum I get from that.

And I felt like the Lord said, maybe it's time for you to step up and lead other guys, because at some point you need to graduate and start doing that yourself. And so I want to continue to call that over. But the question is, who are you traveling with? Maybe you need to change your friend set. Maybe you need to make some phone calls. But maybe you just need to find some people that are encouraging and begin to get a group of mighty women around yourself, a group of mighty men, a group of mighty people that surround yourself with the people of God.

David ends up traveling with people who become just these incredible warriors for God. And he was a man that they wanted to follow. And I guess that's the question to women and men, to all of us. Are you somebody that has the character that other people want to follow? Or are you continuing to act like a 45-year-old child? I had to ask myself that.

I don't want to be a kid anymore. I don't want to be a child anymore. I want to be childish and play and have fun and enjoy my kids. We had a yes weekend with my daughter. It was everything she asked this weekend within reason was a yes. So two days with Lucy, let's go to McDonald's, yes. Can I have the extra cookies? Yes. Let's go to Star Wars, 35 bucks to go to a movie now?

Yes. Can we get ice cream afterwards? Yes. Will you play dolls with me? Yes. Let's go to the pool. Yes. Can we go to the dog park? Yes. Can we go to Balboa Park? Yes. Can we go to the playground? Yes. All of it was yes. Yeah. Do a yes weekend. It's fun. It's fun. Exhausting, but fun. Lions will separate prey before the kill. No. The scripture says the devil's a lion.

He will separate you. Don't get separated from the pack. Especially you volunteers that are here. Oh, what ripe territory to get angry. One of the things Jim always says, he goes, you know what? I have short toes. You're working with me. You're going to need short toes because there's going to be none left. I'm just stepping on them. No, it's true though.

If you're a volunteer here, have short toes. The thing is, oh, somebody, oh, they didn't say hi to me. What did they think? We bail and we get separated from the pack. I'm just going to do religion on my own now. I got to say, we're better in a pack. We travel way better in a pack. We meet Jesus alone on the mountain, but we travel in a pack. Who are you traveling with?

When David gets there, the third thing that we see in this scripture that I think is interesting is Doeg the Edomite. Doeg is kind of like Boba Fett. I don't know if you know who Boba Fett is from, there's Boba Fett, right? From Star Wars. Boba Fett was like this bounty hunter. He was an outcast. He's really quiet. I don't know if he ever talks much.

But if you know who Boba Fett is, then you're going to know who Doeg the Edomite is. He is a descendant of Esau. He was jealous of David. Rabbinical literature say, I'm not sure if Boba Fett was this, but rabbinical literature of the day says he was the greatest scholar, Jewish scholar of the time. He had an argument about the placement of the ark and Jerusalem and where the tabernacle should be.

And so he got upset with David and he held a grudge against David. What I got to say is don't be surprised when you run to the house of the Lord that you don't experience foes along the way. It is so easy to think, Lord, I ran to you. All the foes should be gone. Look, until we get to heaven, the foes are never going to be gone. Even that close in the tabernacle next to the ark of the covenant, a foe was there.

An enemy is always waiting to strike and we need to be aware of that. We need to be prepared for that and not live in this demonic fallacy that if you are really going to be close to God, you won't have anybody's near you. Or that when you find the presence of God, that you won't have an attack sometime afterwards. God's presence will protect us.

He'll make sure we make it through that we can pass through the valley. We can pass through the fire. But David runs to the house of the Lord and he finds Doeg. We know that Doeg, as we'll see in a little bit, ends up wiping out the priest of the Lord. He kills, I think, like 80 priests or something. I don't remember the exact number. But Saul just goes crazy.

Saul has become psychotic. And he uses Doeg, this Edomite, this enemy, this foreigner who was not allowed through a covenant to be touched by the people of the Lord. The Israel had a covenant. We'll talk more about that later. But he was a really bad guy. The key is that David knew how to deal with it. And he was not upset but surprised to find enemies along the way.

Don't be surprised if you find enemies along the way. So just quickly, as we go through the second, the truce that we found here is that relationship supersedes religion. We're going to come in for a landing. There's just a couple more points that I want to hit as David is on the run, but he's running home. Once again, remind you that when you're on the run, there's only one destination you're running to every time.

You run home. So relationship supersedes this religion, but religion structures our relationship. When I speak about religion, or I speak about, excuse me, relationship, and the Bible speaks about relationship, it's speaking about one destination. It's speaking about your heart. God is really concerned with the territory of the heart. He's concerned because it is from the heart that our actions are weighed, that our motives come from the heart.

The mind is awesome, but God talks about our mind, but it is about the heart when he talks about judging the actions and the attitudes of the heart. And if you've gone to this church for all, you see that we have four distinct locations that we focus on. The first is a corner. It's called corner one. It's the corner of your heart. The number one thing we want to see is you have a heart that is for God.

Second is this corner. We care about La Jolla. Third is the corner that you live on, and the fourth is the four corners of the earth. But this passage, and David, reflects a man who is after God's own heart. And the thing is, why does God overlook him lying to a Himalek? Why does God allow him to be deceitful with Achish? Why does God allow, you know, or excuse me, why does Jesus allow the disciples to eat the grain when they're passing through the field, as we see in Mark 2?

Because God is judging the actions, not just by an order of religiosity, but by the heart behind the actions. And so we see that David not only had a heart for God, but he was a man after God's own heart. And I have to say, the society we're living in right now is built to destroy your heart. It is built to destroy your care for people. Every headline, every media thing, not every media thing, I want to throw it all in the media, but so much of what we see in TV, whatever, it's meant to destroy your heart.

You look at the amount of violence on TV. It's funny, we have this big thing about guns, but no one ever talks about, just watch commercials during the Super Bowl. Just people just getting blown away. No heart. No heart. And once again, we complain and we get angry about the things that happen in our streets, and then we go home and we use them as entertainment at night and watch them with popcorn and a soda.

We have to guard our hearts. David had a heart that was after God. Jeremiah 17.10, it says, I, the Lord, what? Search the heart. And he examines the mind to reward each person according to their what? To their conduct. According to what their deeds deserve. That means that right there, that scripture shows that the deeds are structured, are stabilized by the actions of the heart.

You can have a bunch of deeds, but they can be hypocritical because your heart doesn't match the actions. I just got to ask you, the territory of your heart, is it calloused? In the end times, people's love will grow cold. And we see that happening today over and over. 1 Samuel 21, it says, David lies, he deceives. But once again, it says that he is, the motives of his heart are shown before God to be true.

In Proverbs 4.23, it says, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Let me just say that again. Hey, guard your heart above all else, not kinda. Okay? Hey, every so often when you think about it, it says above all else. Above all else, guard your heart. It doesn't mean lock your heart up and never give it away. That's not what I'm talking about.

It means guard it from the things that destroy your compassion, your sensitivity, your grace, your mercy. Guard your heart for everything you do. Some of the things you do, no. Everything you do flows from it. Every action you do comes from your heart. What we wanna do is develop a heart. That's why we spend time with God. Because when we spend quality time with God, it changes our heart.

It is a heart transplant every morning. Meeting with God, preparation. Why was David prepared to go on the run? Because he had prepared his heart. That's the whole deal. David was able to take off because he had prepared his heart before the Lord. How is your heart? Because when the moment of opportunity or desperate times come, it's too late to prepare.

It's too late. You can prepare it on the run. I've had to do that before. I've gotten on the run. Trying to prepare your heart while you're on the run is really, really hard. But having a prepared heart when the hard times comes makes it a lot easier. 1 Samuel 13, 14 says that, I will look, seek a man after my own heart. Now thy kingdom shall not continue when he was talking to Saul.

And the Lord has sought a man after his own heart to be captain over his people because thou has not kept which the Lord commanded thee. The Bible is about the heart. The Bible is about preparation. In verse 1, when he came to Nob, it talked about a place that he was prepared to go. And there's a bunch of things in the scripture. We'll just close with this.

Matthew 25, the Bible is about preparation. You know, Jesus is going to come, right? You know, the whole Bible is about preparation. It's about in the end, he's going to show up. And it's not like he just knocks. Now he does show. He says, you'll see. You'll notice. If you're aware, you're going to see that I'm coming. But the day he comes, he's going to come like a thief in the night.

Are you prepared? Matthew 25 talks about the parable of ten virgins. Five weren't prepared. They got left out in the cold. Ephesians 6, 15, keep your feet prepared for the sharing of the gospel. 2 Timothy 4, 2, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Do you hear about those seasons? Whether things are good or bad. Be ready. Prepare. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.

David has spent years preparing for his moment. And he excelled in worship. He excelled in courage. He excelled in prayer. He excelled in faithfulness. He excelled in submission. He excelled in being a son of God. He excelled in knowing the Father and going after his Father in worship and praise. Are you prepared? He称 in again. He aí the same. He los comandes.

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