A Man After God's Own Heart

1. Secret relationship

1 Samuel 17:32-37
32 David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him."
33 Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."
34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,
35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.
37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you."

The moment we remember David we remember Goliath because we see a situation where David accomplished something that no one else of his age or size or experience could accomplish.

He was able to do that because he was not relying on his own strength or capability but he saw God as his strength.

It didn’t happen within a day but the Bible says that David had a great relationship with God even when he was in the wilderness tending sheep.

He cherished his relationship with God.

You and I can do amazing things for God not with our own strength and talent, but through an incredible relationship with God.

2. Open confession

2 Samuel 12:7-13
7 Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the LORD as to all the righteous acts performed by the LORD for you and your fathers.
8 "After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the LORD for help, and the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your forefathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place.
9 "But they forgot the LORD their God; so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.
10 They cried out to the LORD and said, 'We have sinned; we have forsaken the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.'
11 Then the LORD sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of your enemies on every side, so that you lived securely.
12 "But when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, 'No, we want a king to rule over us'--even though the LORD your God was your king.
13 Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the LORD has set a king over you.

Even though God blessed David, still he was very wicked in the way he behaved with Uriah the Hittite by putting him to sword and taking his wife.

When Nathan rebuked him for his sin, he got broken and humbled himself before the Lord. He decided to be open.

Though he was King, he was not thinking about how others looked at him but he was concerned about how he looked in front of God.

Then he openly confessed his sin in Psalms 51.

Though it was very humiliating, he understood that his salvation was more important than anything else.

Open confession is what will keep our heart soft. This attitude is what made David, a man after God’s own heart.

3. Crazy Love

2 Samuel 6:12-23
12 Now King David was told, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing.
13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf.
14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might,
15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
17 They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD.
18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty.
19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"
21 David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel--I will celebrate before the LORD.
22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."
23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.

David is known for his craziness.

His love for God was so deep that he was literally willing to do anything for Him.

As we read through Psalms, we understand his love for God by the different ways he expresses it - shouting, dancing, blowing the trumpet etc..

This is evident when we read about David dancing in the streets as the ark of God was taken into Jerusalem.

He didn’t care about his majesty or prestige to the point that even his wife despised him.

When was the last time you did something crazy for God?

Today people are crazy for so many unimportant things but not for God.

Challenge

Do something crazy this week to show your love for God.