SERIES: A Person After God’s Heart
Post-Mortem on a Man After God’s Heart
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note to David: I think this sermon could be posted under 1 Chronicles, Acts 13, and Mike’s Favorites.
Introduction: Let me tell you about two people I know. I have disguised the details just enough to make sure no one could guess who I’m talking about. Most of you would not know these individuals anyway. The first is the pastor of a large evangelical church who got sexually involved with a teenage girl. The other is a Christian mother of three, married 19 years, always faithful to her husband. Which of these two individuals do you think has a closer walk with God?
Well, you may have an initial emotional reaction, and some of you already have made up your minds, but I really haven’t told you enough about these two to make an intelligent decision, have I? So let me tell you a little more. The pastor, very gifted, widely known in his denomination, a seminary graduate with impeccable credentials, has conducted seminars on Christian marriage and even did so hypocritically during the time of his involvement with the girl. The woman I spoke of is active in her church, regularly attends Bible study, and sings in the church choir. Is it a clearer issue now? The revulsion we have for sexual immorality, particularly when it involves a religious leader, makes it easy for most of us to decide which of these two is the better Christian.
But let me tell you a little more. The incident with the pastor happened seven years ago when the girl was 18. The pastor was experiencing a severe case of burnout—emotional and spiritual exhaustion—and his defenses were down. He immediately confessed the sin to his wife, sought forgiveness from the girl and her family, received forgiveness from both, sought counseling for the whole family from a professional Christian counselor, resigned from his church, went through a restoration process, and then accepted another ministry in another city. For the past six years he has humbly carried on a very effective ministry; his family is closer than ever; and his fellowship with God has been fully restored. Those who know him best will testify that he is a different man today, though they know nothing of what transpired to bring about the positive change. Only through a strange set of circumstances did I learn about this tragedy in his past.
The woman, on the other hand, has some things in her life you should also know. She’s a non-stop gossip, cutting anyone and everyone down whenever she has the opportunity. She has no personal devotional life, and she couldn’t survive two days without tranquilizers. She has emotionally withdrawn from her husband to the point that they are like two strangers under the same roof. She constantly berates her teenage daughter and the two of them have virtually no relationship.
Now let me ask the question again. Which of these two individuals has a closer walk with God? Conservative Christians often used to judge people on whether they smoked, drank, danced or played cards, and the same people tended to justify themselves in the sight of God if they refrained from the same. We’ve grown up a bit and have awakened to the fact that those are not generally the issues of eternal import. Instead, today we judge people based on whether they have committed certain gross sins, and we tend to justify ourselves in the sight of God if we have refrained from the same. Frankly, I’m not sure we’ve advanced very far; I believe we need an entirely different basis of evaluation.
For the past year we have been studying the life of a man who lusted after a woman, committed adultery with her, killed her husband in cold blood, took the woman to be his wife, was a miserable failure as a parent, and stubbornly persisted in a sin that resulted in the deaths of 70,000 people. Sounds like a pretty bad dude, doesn’t he? Sounds like someone who wouldn’t have a prayer getting elected to the deacon board at our Annual Meeting. Yet he is the only person in the Bible called, “a man after God’s own heart.” How is that possible? Only because God has a different standard by which he judges people.
Now please listen carefully. In no way am I using this illustration to excuse the pastor to whom I referred for the heinous sin he committed, and in no way am I suggesting that the sins of David are less than revolting and tragic. You can’t have attended our services this past year and come away with that impression, for I have constantly pressed home the truth that “the harvest reaped bears a direct relation to the seed sown.” I have preached as strongly as I know how, in the words of the song by the Cathedral Quarter, that…
Sin will take you further than you want to go,
Slowly but wholly taking control.
Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay.
Sin will cost you more than you want to pay.
But I am saying that we need to learn to look beyond the tragic events in people’s lives (and even in our own lives) and really believe that the grossest sinner can find forgiveness and acceptance and restoration if he or she has a heart for God.
The Corinthian church was made up of a miserable lot of moral rejects. Paul wrote to them and asked:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”
That verse makes it clear that the grossest unbeliever can find cleansing in Jesus Christ and be accepted fully as a member of the Body of Christ. His past is not held against him. But David’s life teaches us an equally important truth, namely that the believer is capable of the grossest sin, and he too can find cleansing in Jesus Christ and can be restored to useful service, if he will confess and repent and humbly accept the discipline that God always brings to bear upon His children when they sin.
There is probably no one here this morning who has sinned more grievously than David. By the same token, there is no one here who could not earn the epitaph that David was given by the Apostle Paul—”a person after God’s own heart.” But it cannot be earned by attending services at least three times a month, putting a check in the offering each week, and saying a perfunctory prayer at the dinner table. No, David had a passion for God. He was never lukewarm, a state which the book of Revelation tells us causes God to vomit. God would rather that we be ice cold in our relationship with Him than lukewarm—He specifically says so in Revelation 3:15.
When David failed, he failed miserably, but he always came back with renewed fervor and intense devotion to God. It’s as though each time God forgave him, David was more overwhelmed by the debt he owed to God’s grace. I cannot help but think of a parable Jesus told in Luke 7:36-50:
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[c] and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
David had some huge debts cancelled. His love for God revealed that he understood that and was grateful for it.
Now all that is kind of by way of introduction. Earlier we read the simple, almost anti-climactic account of David’s death. There’s not much one can add to it. But I think we could all profit from doing a post-mortem on David, examining his spiritual liabilities and assets, and then taking a brief look at his last words. I think we will get more than a hint at what set him apart from his contemporaries, even from those who never broke the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th Commandments. We will find that having a passion for God is not just some mystical state of super-spirituality but is fleshed out in certain definite character traits and attitudes.
David’s spiritual liabilities
David’s spiritual liabilities are never hidden or glossed over in the word of God. Have you ever thought about how remarkable it is that the Bible is completely honest about the sins of its greatest heroes. For centuries the medieval church tried to hide the gross moral failures of the renaissance Popes. The Mormon church has gone to great lengths to rewrite the personal history of the prophet Joseph Smith, to leave out the seamier aspects of his life. Camelot kept its secrets about J.F.K., and Martin Luther King’s peccadilloes were at first vigorously denied by his associates. P.T.L. paid huge sums to keep a lid on Jimmy Bakker’s scandal.
But the Bible hides nothing, denies nothing. God’s great warriors and heroes are painted in blacks and blues, as well as in reds and yellows. We are told about their miserable failures as well as their glorious victories. From the opening chapters of Genesis there are tales of murder and incest and drunkenness and betrayal and adultery—not just those perpetrated by pagan Canaanites, but those carried out by God’s own people, those whom he clearly counts as his spiritual children!
Of course, there are also tales of chastisement and discipline and the awful consequences of these sins, so never is the impression given that God considers such behavior “business as usual.” But the Bible is honest. When you open its pages, the masks are missing. Certainly, that’s true with David.
I will not take a lot of time to review David’s liabilities, but let me briefly remind you of some of them. He lusted after a beautiful woman and committed adultery with her. When she got pregnant, he used intrigue to blame the pregnancy on the woman’s husband. When that didn’t work, he murdered him and seized his wife to be his own. He neglected his children, refusing to discipline them when they committed moral atrocities and acted rebelliously. His pride later drove him to sin in such a way that a terrible plague came upon his nation and tens of thousands died.
Not a good track record, is it? But there is something else in the account of this man’s life. Let’s remind ourselves of some of his spiritual assets we have examined during our sojourn through 1 and 2 Samuel.
David’s spiritual assets
He didn’t seek greatness; it sought him. I’m referring here, of course, to the initial choice of David to become King, made by God through Samuel, as described in 1 Samuel 16. He was not ambitious for fame or fortune, just a shepherd boy, faithfully tending his father’s herds, the least of Jesse’s sons. When Jesse learned that one of his sons would become the next king, he paraded them out one after the other, totally neglecting to bring the youngest, the runt of the litter. Even the prophet Samuel was convinced that the tallest and best looking of Jesse’s boys was the one, but God spoke to him, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” And God chose David to become a great leader.
He didn’t look for escape from difficulty; he looked for God’s strength in the difficulty. Here I’m thinking of the formidable obstacle the Israelites faced in the form of Goliath the Philistine. David, still a boy, anointed but not crowned, refused to look at Goliath’s size, but instead focused on the size on his God. He spoke to the giant who had contemptuously degraded him before his countrymen,
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
And the young shepherd boy won a great victory that day.
He didn’t try to go it alone; he became accountable to a godly friend. David had a friend named Jonathan. Many factors militated against their relationship, but they refused to allow those factors to drive a wedge between them. They practiced acceptance, loyalty, generosity, availability, affirmation, transparency, vulnerability, and unfailing honesty with one another. That friendship was crucial in the formative stages of David’s public life. The person who thinks he can survive and thrive without such relationships is fooling himself. The greater the man, the greater is the need for accountability.
He didn’t take revenge; he let God repay his enemies. Time after time King Saul, aware that David was God’s choice to succeed him, tried to kill David. Saul drove him into exile, forced him to live in caves, kidnapped his family, burned his home, and murdered innocent people whom David loved. But David knew that Saul himself was God’s anointed for the time being and realized that if he was to be removed from the throne, God would have to do it and it would have to be done according to His timetable. So, though he had several opportunities to eliminate the man who was trying to kill him, he refused to do so. On one occasion when David was hiding in a cave, Saul came in to relieve himself, and David cut a corner off Saul’s robe so that he could later prove to Saul that he wished him no harm. But not only did he not use the occasion to harm Saul, he even felt guilty for embarrassing Saul.
On another occasion David came upon Saul and his army when God had put them into a deep sleep. This time he took Saul’s spear and water jug but refused to lay hands on him. To his cohort who wanted to put Saul out of his misery, David said, “Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the Lord lives the Lord himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed.” He knew God’s exhortation, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” saith the Lord.” (Rom. 12:19)
He didn’t pout when God said “no;” he helped someone else fulfill his dreams. In 2 Samuel 7 the prophet Nathan came to David with good news and bad news. The good news was that God was going to establish a great covenant with David, which included a great name, a perpetual kingdom, and rest from Israel’s enemies. The bad news was that David was not going to be allowed to build a house for the Lord. This was a real blow to him, for he had established the Holy City as his capitol; he had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem after it had been in exile from the central sanctuary for nearly a hundred years; and he had a great dream to provide a palatial place of worship in keeping with the greatness of his God. But God said “no.”
Instead of pouting, David prayed a beautiful prayer of praise and gratitude to God and then set out to help his son Solomon realize the dream by raising funds and stockpiling materials for the temple. He also gave generously of his public and private wealth to make the project possible and encouraged his people to follow his example.
He didn’t forget his commitments; he kept his word. Here I remind you of the story of Mephibosheth, as recorded in chapter 9 of 2 Samuel. David had made an oath to Jonathan to never forget his family. Years later, when Saul and Jonathan were dead and David was King, he remembered his covenant and asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” He was told of a son of Jonathan who had been crippled in both feet when his mother fled from the battle that resulted in Jonathan’s death. He was then living in exile and full of fear, but David invited him to spend the rest of his days at the palace and to eat at his table. He kept his word.
He didn’t tolerate unconfessed sin in his life; he owned up to it and humbly accepted the consequences. The lowest points of David’s life were following his sin with Bathsheba and his sin of taking a census of his soldiers. Both times God sent a prophet, first Nathan and then Gad, to confront David with the seriousness of his disobedience. David did not try to hide his sin or justify himself or plead ameliorating circumstances; rather his immediate response was to say, “I have sinned against the Lord,” and “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant.”
He didn’t allow injustice to derail him; he let God be God. A little later David experienced gross injustice when his son Absalom conspired to take the throne, aided in his treachery by one of David’s closest advisers, Ahithophel. And when driven into exile, he suffered the indignity of having Shimei curse him and throw stones and dirt on him. David’s friends offered to put Shimei out of his misery with a quick knife to the throat, but David responded. “Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.” He decided to let God be God, knowing that He is far more capable at dealing with injustice than we are.
He didn’t slow down before the race was over; he finished strong. David refused to rest on his laurels. At a time when others would have said, “Let the younger men do it,” we find David still going strong, addressing his leaders, exhorting his son, and encouraging his nation to complete the great spiritual and physical tasks before them.
He didn’t take personal credit for success; he gave all the glory to God. Remember what David said at the praise service when the resources for the temple had been raised?
“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, of Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” (1 Chronicles 29:11-13)
Having looked at the liabilities and the assets of King David, there may be the tendency to conclude that so long as one’s spiritual assets exceed one’s spiritual liabilities, one has it made with God. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have listed these, not to demonstrate how David earnedsalvation, but rather to give something of an answer as to why God could call such a scoundrel “a man after his own heart.” David found salvation the same way anyone finds it—by casting himself upon God and recognizing that if sin is ever to be paid for, God would have to provide the payment. God did exactly that, of course, when He sent His son Jesus Christ to die in our place. Jesus took the penalty so that we do not have to.
Quickly I want us to look at David’s final words, for I think we will here get one last hint at why he was “a man after God’s own heart.” It is that he desired to pass on his passion for God and to keep his people and his family from making the same mistakes he made.
David’s final words
The last words of David to the nation. (2 Samuel 23:1-7). We read in 2 Samuel 23, “These are the last words of David: ‘The oracle of David son of Jesse, the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, Israel’s singer of songs: ‘The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; his word was on my tongue. The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: “When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.”‘”
Every one of us rules over a kingdom. When we do so in righteousness and in the fear of God, we are like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning. When we fail to do so, we are like the darkness of midnight when the cold and the rain penetrate to one’s bones.
The last words of David to his son Solomon (1 Kings 2:1-3). In 1 Kings 2 we find the following: “When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son. “I am about to go the way of all the earth,’ he said. ‘So be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go.'”
David here recommends his own spiritual assets to Solomon and warns him against repeating his spiritual liabilities. He has learned a great deal in his walk with God and the greatest lesson he has learned is that there is no substitute for obedience.
If we had time I would also walk you through the Psalms where David, the sweet singer of Israel, continues to this day to preach these truths to God’s people.
Conclusion: Becoming a person after God’s own heart is not accomplished simply by avoiding gross sin and paying our respects to the Almighty. If you have avoided adultery and murder and child abuse and drunkenness I salute you; you have spared yourself much pain and suffering, to say nothing of others. But that does not make you a person after God’s heart and it does not automatically constitute a close walk with God.
Becoming a person after God’s own heart is the result of a passion for God generated by recognition of the great debt we owe Him. Jesus asked, “Which of them will love him more?” And Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” I don’t know how big your debt of sin is, but I I know it’s too big for you to deal with on your own. God offered to cancel it for you when He sent Jesus to die in your place. Doesn’t that fact deserve a response of passionate love and undying devotion? Shouldn’t it drive us to become people after God’s own heart?
DATE: January 22, 1989
Tags:
Spiritual liabilities
Spiritual assets
Revenge
Finishing strong