JAN 20 2019 | The Crown: David as King S1E1 | The Death of Saul

Sea Change Church · The Crown: David as King · "The Death of Saul" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · January 20, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi, my name is Devin Bryant. My wife Eden Bryant is over there. She's an elder in the church. And then I'm told I'm supposed to tell you about my ministry. So I'm a volunteer high school football and track and field coach at Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley in my free time. So here we go. It's a second Samuel 1, 1 through 16. After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag.

And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp and with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. David said to him, Where are you from? And he said to him, I have escaped from the camp of Israel. And David said to him, How did it go? Tell me. And he answered, The people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.

Then David said to the young man who told him, How did you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead? And the young man told him, By chance, I happened to be on Mount Gilboa. And there was Saul leaning on his spear. And behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me and he called to me. And I answered, Here I am. And he said to me, Who are you? I answered him, I am an Amalekite.

And he said to me, Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers. So I stood behind him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to you, my Lord. Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them. And so did all the men who were with him.

And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan, his son, for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. And David said to the young man who told him, Where did you come from? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner and Amalekite. David said to him, How is it you are not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? And David called one of the young men and said, Go execute him.

And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed. Thank you, Devin. It's a good man right there. I love that guy. You can trust him. I met a lot of grown-ups that act like children. I met some young men that act like men. That guy acts like a man. I love it. I reached out. Verse 10. I took the crown.

I took it. Took the crown. This is a crown that had been promised to David, that David in his own life had never reached out to take himself. He had been anointed at 13 years old to be the king of Israel. He had been anointed by Samuel, the prophet. The seer had come to him and said, You are the king. And then an Amalekite comes, lying, thinking he's bringing David a favor, thinking he's going to be blessed for doing so.

And when David asked him, How did you get this? He says, I reached out and took the crown. This is a story about destiny as we move into the crown series right now. And it is a story about a crown, but what this crown represents. This crown represents a destiny. This crown represents a calling. This crown represents a purpose. But with God, we find out in the scripture that God cares more about the heart than he cares about the crown.

And are you becoming the person that can actually wear the crown that God has for you? Now, you're eventually going to be that person. When we get to heaven, we will be perfected, Christ says. But we will take our crowns like the elders, and we will cast them at the feet of Christ over and over again. But we're walking in to a story of David and looking at destiny. Destiny is something that has intrigued me my entire life.

I've thought about destiny. I've thought about purpose. It's intrigued me for years. And over the last five to ten years, I've really had to wrestle with destiny and purpose. I believe that we are being sold a bill of goods, not only in the secular world, but in the Christian world, that tells you that there is a perfect purpose. And if you just find it, that you will have all the things that Christ offered you for free.

There is this great search that says that you have to become something. You have to sing your song, dance your dance, you know, have your play sold on Broadway, become that thing. And once you get into this imaginary center of God's will, you will have peace, joy, once again, all the things that God promised for free. David, once again, is a person who sees a crown, but never reaches out to take the crown. And so as we move into this seven-week series, it is going to put up a mirror to you to look and think about destiny, purpose, life, meaning, and how you are stewarding your heart to become the person that Christ has called into a greater destiny than your own.

Now, if you're American, you understand the term manifest destiny. Manifest destiny was a term from the 1800s by many. It was disavowed by Lincoln. It was disavowed by Ulysses S. Grant that said American imperialism and westward expansion was a manifested destiny from the divine that America and its culture and its political system and all the understanding that comes along with it, much like British colonialism, was destined by God to take the land and to bring freedom and peace to it.

And much of that was tied up in religion and the whole idea of that. And that had some real positives. It also had some very big negatives. And we're not here to talk about that, but this understanding of destiny is something that goes deep into every one of our hearts as an American. The American dream is one about individualism. It is one about reaching out and taking your destiny by the throat. It is becoming all that you were called and meant to be and finding a path to do that.

And that they say that everyone should have the opportunity to become that. But destiny is interesting because when we don't feel that we have claimed our destiny or perhaps it's been stolen from us, it puts us into a corner. It boxes us into dry and waterless pastures that make us feel very lost and desperate, wondering what the meaning of life is and what its purpose. And so I wrote this morning, which is not in your notes, that destiny is one of life's great unknowns.

We'll never know completely about destiny. We know that God is in the midst and we believe that he has a greater destiny. But is there just one destiny or is there multiple roads that he can use to get to a final destiny? Because he knows that the destiny is that everything will be placed under the feet of Jesus in all eternity. And that is the eternal destiny. But are there many ways in between that? And is it possible to miss our destiny?

I said destiny is one of the great unknowns. We won't really know that. It's a quagmire. It causes some to shoot for the stars while others to embrace acts of self-harm because of desperation. In walking with destiny, we often find the divine. But in chasing destiny, the devil within. Very different stories here between an Amalekite who was chasing destiny. He was willing to strike down the Lord's anointed to take something that was not him, to lie about it and to bring to David that he might step into his destiny.

He was grabbing his destiny, taking hold of it, running towards it, chasing destiny. But he was coming to a man who had never chased his destiny. He was coming to a man who we saw over and over again in 1 Samuel, who passively through faith, waited through faithful passivity, waited and the crown came and was laid at his feet. David could have taken the crown many times. He could have reached out. He could have had that thing that he had been promised.

But he didn't want it by his own volition. I said in the first service, and I'll say it again, that you can grab your own destiny on your own. Or you can wait for God to bring it and lay it at your feet. You know, David never took anything until he was king that was not his own. Matter of fact, the biggest fault that David had before he was king was he cut off a piece of Saul's robe. And he felt grief-stricken because he cut off a piece of Saul's robe.

He never wanted to harm Saul. Saul was like a father figure to him, and you might not get that. We'll talk about that in a moment. But for a long time, when he first had saved Israel, and he was a young boy, and Saul brought him in to serve him, there was a father-son relationship that went awry when God started implementing the anointing upon David, which was initially for Saul. Saul had a destiny, and he lost his destiny.

Scripture says in the Old Testament that God had said to him, if you had done the things I asked with all of your heart and not turned from me, then I would have set up, established your kingdom for eternity. The reason he could do that is because it would come through Christ. That Christ would have come through the line of Saul. As opposed, it came through the line of David. So once again, God can play with multiple destinies down here because he's going to get his business done in his time and in his way.

But he said to Saul, it would have come through you, but now it will not. And I have chosen someone, a man after my own what? Heart. A man after my own heart. And so we have two stories here of this Amalekite coming and saying, I took the crown in verse 10. And the crown comes and lays at David's feet. That is the story of faithful passivity. Of waiting faithfully, passively, but at the same time, making sure that your side of the street is clean.

That your heart is becoming the heart that can wear the crown. You don't need a head to wear the crown, you need a heart to wear the crown. And God talks about this in this passage. And he shares that David would never reach out and take anything that was not his own until he became king. I have to say that David was better, in my opinion, David was better as a boy, shepherd, as a servant, and as a fugitive on the run than he ever was as king.

Now God used him as king. God did powerful things. There will never be a king like David, although Solomon did great things. The kingdom of Israel was united under David. He became king of Judah, which is the lower kingdom, southern kingdom, excuse me. And then he became the king of Israel seven years later. But the people are the ones that made him king. The crown came and was brought to him and was laid at his feet.

I got to say, about five years ago, I think I got that right in my life. I finally got to the point where I said, I'm not going to reach out and take any more crowns. I'm tired of taking crowns. And I got to say, you can take the crown that you want. You can have your destiny without God, but you're not going to have the same ending. People reach out all the time. But are you willing to wait? And David was willing to wait.

That was until he was king. And one of the other key things is we look at this idea of destiny. We all think that when we get to our destiny, when you get the marriage that you want, when you get the kid that you've always dreamed of having, because you've always seen yourself as a mother or a father, and then you have your child and they go awry or something doesn't happen. And once you get to the destiny, oftentimes it proves more difficult than you imagined.

Because we're always the star of our own dreams. We always mind surf the future. We're always the one where it's successful. But life is hard and heavy is the head that wears the crown. And Proverbs talks about that it's better to be a field worker. You will have more pieces of field worker, it says. You will sleep sweet. But heavy is the head that wears the crown. My question is, do you really want what God has for you or what the destiny might be?

And some people, because they're afraid of succeeding, will continually self-inflict a way to miss their destiny. I've met many people who will continue to do things to move away from what God has called them to do because they're afraid of the crown. Don't be afraid of the crown, but don't take it from anyone else's head. Get your heart in the right place and let God come and bring the crowns to your feet. If you look at your notes, you'll see in David we find the story.

And this is so important. Because if you're going to follow God, you're going to have to be flawed. Not telling you to create flaws. Not telling you to mess up. But David, we find the story of a very flawed man desperately in love with God. And that is not an oxymoron. That is a reality that all of us live with. And we think so often that you have to be perfect. You have to be, you know, have no problems, no flaws. Your kids have to be doing, you know, amazing or whatever it is to actually love God.

And we set perfectionism of our own selves as a starting point for God. But in David we find the story of a very flawed man, very flawed person, desperately in love with God. And maybe that's you. Maybe you understand that. As the notes say, in this point, David had never taken anything that was not his own. And my question to you, once again using the scripture as a mirror, or are you tempted to take something that's not your own?

David's relationship, especially as spoken in the Psalms, also sets the stage for a type of divine intimacy portrayed in the New Testament. And this is really powerful. Because there is a transition in happening with King David. From a faraway God who speaks through burning bushes and faraway understandings and theophanies, which means like angels coming and all this, you know, outside manifestations, to a God who actually, after Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is going to indwell you and live inside the human heart.

This is what makes Christianity such a stumbling block for so many people. It and Judaism are the only two religions I know of where God is a father and an intimately loving God who wants to walk in a personal divine intimacy with you as his beloved. There is no other religion I know of. There is the spirit within. You talk about finding the God within. But these gods that you speak about or you see perhaps in a New Age movement or if you look at the other major religions of the world, nothing promises a divine intimacy like Christianity and like Judaism.

They speak of it. It's what makes them so uniquely different. And David sets the stage for this. For a Bible, because God never wanted to be far away. It was the sin of mankind that caused a break. He would walk in the cool of the garden, it says, with Adam and Eve. But then there was a break. And right within one chapter of the fall of mankind, God sets his plan to have man back. As a matter of fact, it's even a deeper plan of more intimacy.

No longer will he walk in the garden in the cool of the day with you. But he will live in your heart and you will become the temple of the living God. David sets the stage for this. And we're going to be looking at the different psalms that he wrote, that he wrote while things were happening as he was king. We're going to parlay the, or put next to each other, a parallel, the story of the psalms and when they were written with actually what is happening in the historical reference in 2 Samuel.

And I want to encourage you to read with me through 2 Samuel this powerful story because I'm not going to be able to preach it all on my own. You're going to have to read it. But he did have a divine intimacy. If you've seen your notes, David was living in a conflict also between the anointing and approval of God and the disapproval of man. You want to say, somebody who was disapproved of, maybe you understand that. Maybe you've been disapproved of.

You feel like you've been neglected by your family, your parents, or it's a divorce, or whatever the issue is, or people, you know, a relationship you feel like you've been disapproved of. David was this person. David wasn't even counted among his father Jesse's sons when Samuel the prophet came to find a king. God told Samuel the prophet to go to Jesse and find his sons, and his king would be amongst his sons. So Jesse got all of his sons together, but he forgot one, the little runt that no one would want.

He was out in the field. He was being a shepherd, and he was learning. God was setting his heart on the course for God in the field. Maybe you're out in the field. Maybe you've been forgotten. But we see that God had not forgotten. And each one, Samuel goes by, and he sees this big strapping kid, and he's like, this is the one. This is the king. And God's like, no, that's not the one passed over him because I don't look at the exterior of a person.

I look at their heart. And he went down the row, one after another. This is the one. And he's got this horn of oil. You know, back in the day, when you anoint someone with oil, it isn't like you go get the essentials at Target. You know what I mean? And somebody says, oh, you have a cold? Let me give you some of this witch's potion to put on right here. No, it's essential oils. They're really important. And look, I am going to, you have a broken leg?

Let me just put a little essentials on. It's going to be fine. If you sell essential oils, I'm just kidding. Missed them in your house. Do whatever you want to do. Ooh, Harry Potter. No, I'm just kidding. It's totally kidding. We use them. It wasn't like that. I've been wanting to make fun of essential oils for a while. I'm sorry. Thank you. I've done it. I did it. Yeah, okay, we're done. They brought a horn, and it was full of oil.

And when they broke the horn for their anointing, Samuel was like the seer. Samuel was like the man. He is the most famous person, seer, prophet. But he's running all of Israel. And he comes to Jesse's house, and he finds David, and he's out in a field because he's been neglected. And he comes, and he breaks the horn, and God says, this is my boy. That's the one. This little kid, this little runt. Yeah, the one that had killed bears.

The one that had killed lions out in the field. The one that had gained a shepherd's heart. The one who had been rejected. Yeah, the one who wasn't even called in to be considered for the king. That's my boy. Anoint him, and God pours the oil. You know, sometimes God has anointed you for things, and you can't see it because you think you're out in the field. God has anointed you for things, and you haven't seen it. You don't understand it because you're taking man's understanding of who you should be, or a report from by yourself, from your own mind, telling you who you think you should be.

But God says, I have a higher calling for you, and I have an anointing for you. You know what's so crazy? It would be like four decades before he would become king. And God would make him a minion of Saul long before he ever became king. God would take him into the behind the Philistine lines, and he would become a servant of the Philistines after he had killed Goliath and set Israel free. The story of David is radical, and all the time he should be asking himself, what the heck is happening?

This can't be true. What a joke that Samuel was. But he never stopped believing. But he also never reached out and took the crown. And there were so many times. He could have killed Saul in the cave that one time. I think it was at Abdulum, I think is where it was. But there was a cave where he was at, and he could have killed him and taken it. And how many people have taken a wife, or taken a husband, or taken a job, or taken the money because they wanted, or taken an opportunity, when they knew it wasn't right in their heart.

But they wanted their crown more than they wanted the heart. Let me say, do you want the heart or do you want the crown? God, give me the heart. You can have all your crowns. Because when we get to heaven one day, we take our crowns anyways and throw them to the feet of Jesus. The elders in heaven are doing that right now. And this is a powerful story. Are you taking the crown? Are you waiting in faithful passivity? Have you been disapproved by man, but you know the anointing and approval of God?

For David, that's all he needed. David was rejected by not only his family, but eventually by Saul and the nation of Israel, whom he had saved from captivity to the Philistines. When they anointed him king, they came and made him king of Judah, but he wasn't king of all of Israel. That was at Hebron when that happened. But it was seven years later until he became the king of a united Israel. And he had all these people that were Saul's family and all the people that were in Saul's, you know, friendship and lineage that didn't think he should be king.

They wanted to have a different referendum, a new vote. But eventually he became king over all of Israel. But he was king of Judah and then God made him kingdom of Israel when it was his time. But he never reached for it himself. He never campaigned. And when Saul started chasing him into the desert, as we saw in the fugitive series, he didn't ask anybody to come with him. But he did run to the house of the Lord. You see, when Saul was a fugitive, he knew how to get home.

And why is church important for kids? Because when they get out into the world and when push comes to shove and perhaps they're away or something's happening in their life, they know how to get home. I got to say, there's a whole generation of kids right now that don't know where home is. And that is why we are going to continue as a church to plant a stake in the geography of La Jolla and in San Diego and California to say kids matter.

And we want to let them know where home is. Because if you teach them the word of God, they will know the way that they are to go and they will return to it. Not all of them will leave it, but they know how to get home. And some of you are here today because you know how to get home. You had a grandma that would sing those hymns over you. You had a mom that would pray. You'd see. You went your own way. I went my own way.

I knew how to get home. Maybe you know how to get home and David knew where his home was. If you look in your notes to this point, the trademark of David's life was his soul's determination to never take anything that was not given to him by God. But that was all about to change. Verse 14 speaks to this and it shows how this is David's core. This is his ethos. These are his values. David didn't live according to goals.

David lived according to values. His goal was never to be king, but his goal, his value was to become the kind of man that could be king. That's a big difference. David's goal was never to become king, even though he knew he was rightfully anointed as the king. His goal was never to become king, but his value was to become the man and have a heart that could be king. Is that you? Or do you just want the crown? Because I got to say, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

David never denied God or disobeyed until the crown came. Then he killed one of his best friends, one of the most righteous men in scripture. Uriah the Hittite. Love Uriah. It's one of my favorite guys. Bathsheba's husband. Killed him. It's one of his most faithful men. That was a man of God. Took him out because he wanted his wife. Never took anything that wasn't his. He stopped living in faith and took a census of the city.

God said, you don't need to take a census. I tell you, you're going to win. You're going to win. I don't care if there's six. I don't care if there's a hundred. I don't care if there's a million. We don't take censuses. Faith doesn't pencil out, my friend. Faith doesn't pencil out. You can pencil it all out. God's all, I don't care. Like, when do I need odds? You know what I'm saying? With God, it's zero or a hundred percent.

Like, I've always just said that. With God, people say, what do you think? What do you think the odds are that this is going to happen in your life or that? I'm like, zero or a hundred percent. You know what I'm saying? Like, as long as I'm faithful. If I'm faithful, God, it's going to happen. You know? But like Saul, if you want, you can step out. You can step out of God's calling for your life. There's a bunch of ifs in scripture.

We see here that few things have the ability to shape your life, like walking deeply in an understanding that you are approved by God. And we see David walk in this value. This value, knowing he's approved. If you're approved by God, you don't need a crown. Straight up. As soon as I realized how much God loves me, I didn't need anything anymore. I don't need a crown. You don't need a thing. You don't need to be the coolest soccer mom.

You don't need to be the best player on your team. You don't need to have this legacy. These things happen. They'll come. This blessing will just fall off you. You won't have to work to build a legacy. You will just be the person that legacies follow. You know, it's interesting. I was reading one of the best document, excuse me, one of the best biography I've ever read. The best biography. And I read a biography every single year.

Or an autobiography. I've read Disney. I've read Abraham Lincoln. Those are just a couple. Right now I'm reading Walking with Destiny by Churchill. Excuse me, not by Churchill. But it's about Churchill. And the audio book is phenomenal. 47 hours. It's a commitment. Okay? So if you're going to get into that, it's a commitment. Even at one and a half speed, it's a commitment. At 16 years old, Churchill said to who would become Sir Murland Evans when he was 16 years old.

At Eton, excuse me, at Harrow, which is a famous private school in England. He said this when he was 16. Great upheavals, terrible struggles, wars such as one can not imagine. I tell you, London will be in danger. London will be attacked. And I shall be very prominent in the defense of London. I shall be in command of the defenses of London. And I shall save London and England from disaster. This is when he was 16. Dreams of the future are blurred, but the main objective is clear.

I repeat, London will be in danger. And in the high position I shall occupy. It will fall to me to save the capital, to save the empire. In his memoirs after World War II, and he was a, look, he's a flawed guy. You got Gallipoli. You know, you got a lot of failures. If you, a lot of failures. And he wasn't a God follower. He was a Darwinist, believed in destiny, but didn't believe in God. Agnostic at best. But in his memoirs, he said this.

And you can see, it's interesting. You can see the hand of God on this guy. Like, so many times he should have died. It just, I suggest if you need some good entertainment, check this book out. But he said this in his memoirs. After it had happened. And after a civilization had been saved by many others as well. CP is here. He was on D-Day. And that was awesome. He said, I felt as if I were walking with destiny. And that all my past life had been a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

I thought I knew a good deal about it all. And I was sure I should not fail. As we step into this series of destiny, of purpose, there's a couple things I want to say. One, you don't have to find some magical place to find the peace that Christ offers. But what you are going to have to find is a soul's determination to become the kind of person that legacies follow. I don't think legacies are as much manifested and created as they happen as a result of a life well lived.

And many people have great destinies that never followed God. Or great legacies that never followed God. But for the purpose of scripture and for the purpose of this, the question is, are you satisfied with becoming the person who can wear a crown who might never get one? That is the question. Because you will, at one point, be crowned with eternal life, the scripture says. Coming in for a landing, circling the tower.

Let's look at David quickly, just to know where we are in the story. Because David was running from Saul, and now Saul was killed. He no longer is on the run, and he has to ask himself, is now the moment of my destiny? Now will I become the king? Will I march into Jerusalem? Will I do all these things? He actually ends up asking the Lord, should I go up? Even then, at that point, you know, when Saul is dead, and you have the crown, he's got the crown.

Could he not have put it on? I mean, it would have been really solid, right? You're walking into Jerusalem, walking up there with the crown on and saying, I'm the king, I'm the man. You know what he does? He doesn't even put the crown on. He says that he goes and asks the Lord, should I go up? And the Lord said, yes, go up. And they make him. They take him and make him king. It's interesting. People tried to make Jesus king, too.

He said no. Because he had a different kingship. Two different men. Two, you know, one the God-man, but an archetype of what was to come. Because Jesus did not want an earthly crown. David took the earthly crown because God had called him to it. To this point in David's story, we find David now living, as you'll see in the notes, in this really complex irony. When we last left David, he was living in a complex irony.

As an exiled mercenary among the Philistines. He had killed Goliath. I mean, it's like he freed all of Israel. And then they didn't want him. As a boy. They knew who he was. But yet, he ended up, because he was running from Saul, the safest place to be was working for the Philistines. Can you know that? He went and ended up working for the Philistines. Which is such a complex irony because he had killed their giant. He had taken Goliath down.

And now he was there working for them. And he has to be asking himself, what am I doing here? And maybe you're in a place and you're thinking, what the heck am I doing here? There is no way out. I'm working for the people that I, I freed my nation from these people and they don't want me. You ever felt like that? You're working and they don't want you. But God had a calling and he understood that God had called him to greater things.

And God has called you to greater things. To this point, as I said, the trademark of David's life was his soul's determination to never take anything that was not given to him by God. But that was all about the change. It speaks to this in verse 14 when he says to the Amalekite who comes to it, you got to imagine his face, right? Like imagine David's face. Like this guy comes up to him and he's like, hey David. You know, the guy's thinking to himself, I got it.

I took the crown. David's going to love me. He's going to make me, he's going to put me in his cabinet. I'm going to get like robes. My life is set. This kid's young though, right? So he doesn't, he's got no clue. And so he runs up to him and he's all, David, here, I got this crown. And David's like, huh, how'd you get that? Oh, well, and he didn't want to say he killed him. So he's like, well, he was going to die, which is a lie.

He was going to, I mean, it wasn't a lie, but he didn't kill him. And he says, because remember Saul has an armor bearer who's meant to protect his life. If you read the story, go back a couple of chapters. And Saul's like, says to his armor bearer, hey, kill me. And the armor bearer's like, no, I'm not doing it, dude. And he's all, no, dude, take me out. They're going to kill me. And so Saul falls on his own sword. And you know what this armor bearer does after that?

Kills himself. He knows that's the way you roll when you're the king's armor bearer. But this kid rolls up and he rolls up to David. He's like, hey, you know what, your enemy? Because he thinks Saul's his enemy. And David never, never saw Saul as his enemy. Matter of fact, David kept asking Saul, why are you my enemy? See, the kid, the kid thought he knew David. But David never made Saul his enemy. And some of you have an enemy that maybe you need to make friends with.

Does that make sense? Like David, he wasn't going to live in all this wrath against Saul. Matter of fact, he mourned. Go read after this, the song that he sings. You know, they still sing, you'll see reminiscent songs. He mourned when this father figure died who had also rejected him. Because when he came into his household, then he became a son of Saul, basically. And he was cared for and he was playing music for him.

And then all of a sudden he got rejected again. The second great rejection of David's life. And this kid comes and says, yeah, you know what I did? I brought this to you. You know what, I took him out for you. He was going to die anyways. So I took him out for you. And David, I love this. Imagine his face. Just imagine, put yourself in the scene. Just stand in there, watching. David says, how is it you weren't afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?

That's a good question, right? And David's got to be thinking to himself, I'm Lord's anointed, so what would you do to me? So he looks at the guy and he goes, and I thought Devin read it so well. But he says, your mouth spoke. Get him, boys. Done. See, he took out and took the crown that David was never willing to take on his own. I wonder if David even touched it. I wonder if he just had his guys wrap it up and put it in a blanket, you know?

I wonder. I wonder. It makes me wonder. Going on to the final, as we land, I would say, how contrary is this to a world that constantly tells you to reach out and take your destiny by the throat? David was living a faith-filled passivity at its most active. Read that again. David was living a faith-filled passivity at its most active. David's values caused his destiny to pursue him rather than the other way around. I know that as soon as you let go, that all of a sudden your destiny begins to pursue you.

And I will say you will never outrun your destiny when you stop chasing it. Amen? Let's stand. We'll have Chris come forward. If you extend your hands right now, I want to bless you today and send you with a calling and a purpose to go out and to be at rest, to begin to ask these questions of yourself. Do I want the crown or do I want the heart? Lord Jesus, I bless this congregation now. If you extend your hands. In a world full of cursing, I give you blessing today.

I bless you with an end to the chase. I bless you with the rest that comes from knowing that you are good enough as you are, but God calls you to develop a heart that wants more. A heart after God. I bless you with crowns you've never desired. I bless you with riches you've never seen or dreamed of. I bless you with purposes you've never understood. With an eternity of knowledge and understanding that the Bible would open up a relationship to you that gives you more than you ever dreamed.

For dreams are always less, the scripture says, because he will give you, as Ephesians 3.20 says, more than you can ever hope, dream, or imagine, so that your dreams are paltry and compared to what God has for you. And I send you out now to let go of those other dreams so that God might give you his dream, the dream of his son, and that he might put a crown upon your head, a crown of salvation. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.