The Gentle Heart of God // Defining Moments, Part 3

Sometimes, we spend so much of our energy believing that God will give us a breakthrough in our time of need, that we miss the fact that he’s already provided us with everything we need to get through those tough times.

 

So Easy to Miss

Sometimes we can be looking forward to something ... something that God will do; some defining moment in life, without realising what He has already done for us in the past. Let me give you an example: you are going through a tough time, perhaps some difficulty at work or in bringing up our children or in our marriages – we all go through those times. In fact it seems that there is never a time in life when there isn’t some pressure or difficulty in some part of our lives.

And so we start praying feverishly for God to deliver us from those tough times. We start believing Him for a miracle and a breakthrough. Now that’s good; it’s a good thing to do but so many people do that at the expense of realising that the changes God has already made in us – deep within our hearts.

Those changes are meant to help us to travel through those difficult times. Those changes are meant to make us a blessing to others in those dark times. Those changes are meant to make His light; His glory to shine through us out into a lost and hurting world.

There is a saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." It’s absolutely right that we should pray about difficult situations but not at the expense of knowing and trusting in what God has already done; in what we already have in our hands.

This is the third programme in a series that I have called “Defining Moments”. It is so often the case that minor and even major miracles come through the smallest and seemingly, most insignificant event in our lives. It’s a great thing about God – He gets involved in the smallest things in our lives.

But sometimes ... sometimes He’s not so much about wanting to do something fresh and new to deliver us out of a situation; sometimes He is calling us to rely on something that He has already done to get us through that situation.

Today we are going to look at a man who is pretty well known – King David of Israel. He is on the Biblical "A" list if you like and he is probably the greatest King that Israel ever had. Now, David had quite a few defining moments in his life; he had trials, he had victories, he had failures, he had repentance – turning back to God after making a mistake.

He was anointed as the King of Israel by God’s prophet, Samuel when he was just a lad. He slew Goliath; he fled from Saul in the wilderness, running for his life, on and on. He won so many battles; he was so successful!

David had so many defining moments that we could look at in his life but it was something ... something that God did way back before all of those things, that I think was the defining moment in David’s life – the thing that carried him through all those trials; the very reason that God was able to use David so mightily in the history of Israel.

Here’s how it happened. Israel didn’t have a King – their system of government was a theocracy – that meant that God was their King. He would send leaders like Moses and Joshua to lead them and then finally, when they made it out of Egypt through the exodus for forty years, into the Promised Land, He had a series of Judges to judge over Israel – that’s all they needed – to judge whether the people had met God’s law or not. So these Judges presided over Israel.

When they needed specific revelation or guidance or instruction from God, God used men called prophets, to speak His specific will into the life of Israel. But eventually, people decided they wanted a King like all the other nations, so God gave them Saul. Saul was the first King of Israel and he was okay for a while, but pretty soon he turned out to be an abject failure.

So God removed His anointing from Saul; that divine appointment and empowerment and God said, “No more, that’s enough. Saul is no longer My anointed King, even though Saul continued on in the position of King.” That’s how it went – if you have got a Bible, grab it, open it at First Samuel chapter 13, verse 13:

Samuel the prophet said to Saul, “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over His people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

And therein lies, I think, the defining moment for David, even before David’s name is mentioned – the moment when God took the ordinary and turned him into the extraordinary. Later on we discover that this new King is to be David; the shepherd boy, that not even his father thought enough of to bring him before Samuel, the prophet, with his other brothers, to be anointed as King. This was just an ordinary, everyday little shepherd boy.

He was created in his mother’s womb to be a man after God’s own heart; equipped in his very DNA to be a man that God had planned for him to be. And in those lonely times, pasturing his sheep out there on his own, fighting bears and lions and protecting the flock; those seemingly ordinary shepherd things, all along God was growing and developing that heart in David; the shepherd who would be King.

Most of us will know the terrible times that David went through – times when Saul was hunting him down to kill him and yet David refused even to raise his hand against Saul. We are going to share in one particular time to see how this heart worked out in his life. Saul is in a cave; Saul is out there hunting David to kill him – why? Because he realises that people are starting to follow David and he is desperately wanting to cling onto power, so he decides to kill David.

So David, in this cave, has an opportunity to kill Saul but instead of killing him in the dark, he sneaks up and cuts part of Saul’s robe off in the dark. And then calls out to Saul and says,

See, this proves that I had the opportunity to kill you and I didn’t harm you. I am never going to harm you. I will not raise my hand against God’s anointed.

Let’s pick it up in First Samuel chapter 24, beginning at verse 12 – and so David says to Saul, look:

May the Lord judge between you and me. May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you. As the ancient proverb says, ‘Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness,’ but my hand shall not be against you,” says David to King Saul. “Against whom shall the King of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A single flea? May the Lord therefore be judge and give sentence between you and me. May He see to it and plead my cause and vindicate me against you."

When David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son, David?” Saul lifted up his voice and wept. He said to David, “You are more righteous than I for you have repaid me with good whereas I have repaid you evil. Today you have explained how you have dealt well with me and that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands. For who has ever found an enemy and sent the enemy safely away?

So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me. Now I know that you shall surely be King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. So swear to me therefore, by the Lord, that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that you will not wipe out my name from my father’s house.” So David swore this to Saul and then Saul went home but David and his men went up to a stronghold.

We are going to have a look how that promise worked its way out in David’s life next.

 

A Promise Fulfilled

Pretty amazing stuff for how David reacted to Saul and what an amazing promise that David makes to Saul, to bless his descendants when he becomes King and even more amazing, when Saul and his sons die, David mourns their death. I mean Saul hunted him down and tried to kill him. I don’t know, my hunch is, I would have been celebrating Saul’s death – "Finally now I’m safe, finally now I’m King" – but not David. You can read it in Second Samuel chapter 1, verse 12:

He mourned and wept and fasted for Saul and his son Jonathan when they died.

Right now we are going to look at how ordinary people become extraordinary. How the heart that God put into David shines forth the love and the glory of God in the most beautiful way as he fulfils his promise to Saul. And he does it in the life of a young man called Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son. So Saul had a son called Jonathan, Jonathan before he died, had a son called Mephibosheth.

Now most people have never heard of Mephibosheth - he is definitely not on the Biblical ‘A’ list. This is one of those stories we don’t hear that much. It’s not about some great victory of King David; it’s not about some spectacular battle or anything like that. Let’s have a look at it – we pick it up in Second Samuel chapter 9, beginning at verse 1:

David asked, “Is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba and he was summoned to David and the King said to him, “Are you Ziba?” and he answered, “Yes, at your service!” So the King said, “Is there anyone remaining in the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?”

And Ziba said to the King, “There remains a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet.” The King said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the King, “He is in the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul came to David and fell on his face and did obeisance. David said, “Mephibosheth!” He answered, “I am your servant.”

David said to him, “Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan; I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul and you yourself shall eat at my table always.” He did obeisance and said, “What is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog like me?”

Then the King summoned Saul’s servant Ziba, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house, I have given to your master’s grandson. You and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, so that your master’s grandson may have food to eat; but your master’s grandson Mephibosheth shall always eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

Then Ziba said to the King, “According to all that my lord the King commands his servant, your servant shall do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the King’s sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he always ate at the King’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

See, so often there was a bloody transition of power from one King to another. You know, the new King would kill, not only the old King but all the descendants of the old King to make sure that there would be no challenge to the throne from the old King’s bloodline.

Mephibosheth was Saul’s grandson – he was crippled in his feet, living in obscurity in Lo-debar, hoping not to be noticed. And I use that term "crippled" which is politically incorrect these days – I use that word deliberately because there was no political correctness in those days. If you were disabled, you were at the bottom of the heap – almost an outcast.

And yet here for the sake of David’s covenant with Saul and his friendship with Jonathan, David elevates Mephibosheth to the King’s table and restores all the possessions of King Saul, his grandfather, to Mephibosheth, this young man. What an absolutely extraordinary act of grace! For Mephibosheth it was like ... like winning the lottery – it was unbelievable.

In fact, it’s the accumulation of a pattern in the life of David. Saul twice tries to kill David and twice David has the opportunity to strike Saul down; to take the throne; to guarantee his safety. After all, hadn’t David already been anointed by the prophet Samuel as King? “Come on, David, just do it, get on with it. End this pain and misery and risk – believe in a breakthrough from God. Take things into your own hands.”

That’s what David’s followers were urging him to do but David’s response in First Samuel chapter 24, verse 6, is this:

He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to raise my hand against him; for he is the Lord’s anointed.”

Twice, at his own risk, refuses to kill Saul and then when David learns of Saul’s death, he goes into mourning and now ... now to cap all this off, he pours his favour and his grace and his mercy and his possessions on the descendant; the grandson of the man who hunted him like an animal.

Do you see how David refused to take things into his own hands, to end his suffering, to ensure his own safety? And as utterly extraordinary as his behaviour was, it was like it was the most naturally, ordinary, obvious thing for him to do. Do you see that? Why? Because David ... David was a man after God’s own heart.

David didn’t spend his time looking for a breakthrough; he lived through the trials with the heart of God in him. That’s why he blessed Mephibosheth – that’s why he was the perfect shepherd King for Israel – a man after God’s own heart.

 

Where it All Began

So what are we to learn from this story? Is today’s message as simple as "Well, be like David?" Um, no, I don’t think so – I don’t know about you but I’m no David. I think there is a much deeper; much more wonderful story for you and for me to discover here. It’s not just about ourselves; not just about David – it’s about God.

So what was this defining moment in David’s story; when did it happen? Well, it’s before David was anointed King, it’s before David had his battles and his trials and his victories and ... and all that stuff. When was David’s defining moment; when did he receive a heart that was the same as God’s? Right back at the beginning – actually David knew that. He wrote a Psalm; he wrote Psalm 139. Let’s just listen to what he wrote here – Psalm 139 beginning at verse 13. This is David writing this. He is saying to God:

For it was You who formed my inward parts; it was You who knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works O God, that I know very well. My frame, it wasn’t hidden from You when I was being made in secret, intricately woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. I try and count them but they are more than the sand; I come to the end – and I am still with You.

That’s a Psalm of David! David realised what was going on here. He looks back and he realises that God handcrafted him in his mother’s womb. That heart of God that was in him was part of his very DNA blueprint. But not only that – all those days as a shepherd - protecting his flock – were part of God’s plan.

Listen how David talks about those days, when as a young man, he convinces Saul to let him go up against Goliath in that famous battle. First Samuel chapter 17, beginning at verse 33:

Saul said to David, “You are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy and he has been a warrior from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father and whenever a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went straight after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth. And if it turned against me I would catch it by the jaw and strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them to me, since he has defied the armies of the living God."

See, David seemed to know that not only was the heart of God handcrafted in him but those very mundane days of being a shepherd boy and protecting a flock of sheep and going after the lost lamb – those seemingly mundane, everyday things in his life thus far, had prepared him for this battle against the giant Goliath. David knew that the way that God had made him, had prepared him to be the shepherd of Israel.

Do you see what God is saying to you and me today? Do you have any idea what God has done in handcrafting your DNA and mine, in putting His heart into you and to me? Do you have any idea how carefully He has prepared us through every moment of every day for a time just as this? Through all the boring and mundane and everyday things that we have travelled through – who we are and what we have been through are such a perfect fit, because they are part of God’s plan to prepare us to be who He has called us to be – to do what He has called us to do.

"But Berni", I hear you say, "You don’t understand how mundane my life has been. You have no idea what a hash I have made of things. Maybe David is a man after God’s own heart, but me? No!" You and I were never meant to be David; you were always meant to be you – I was always meant to be me. Wake up! Stop comparing!

When we look at our lives they are so mundane! You know, ninety nine point nine percent of life is mundane but the miracle in it is that every moment is part of God’s plan. Every hair on our heads is known to God! What defines us is not the mundane – what defines us is God’s plan – for every strand of our DNA and for every moment of every day that we live and breathe on this earth.

When we are going through tough times, should we pray – should we ask God for a breakthrough? Absolutely, we should! But so often God’s plan is for us to live through those things, with what He has already put in us. The defining moment happened a long time ago.

Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil and starving. He didn’t spend five days, not ten, not twenty, not thirty or thirty five or thirty nine – God’s plan was for Him to spend forty days. And we don’t know how long our wilderness tour is going to last but this thing we do know, God ... God has prepared us for times such as this.

God is preparing us right now for the future He has planned. There is such wonder in who He has made us to be. He has given us everything we need through Christ, to live out today with His joy in our hearts, for His glory. Who knows, maybe today or tomorrow or the next day, maybe He will bring a Mephibosheth into our lives for us to lavish His grace and His kindness and His mercy and His love upon that person.

Who knows what God has got planned? Who knows how long the trials are going to last? Sometimes God just wants us to rest on what He has already done and just live day by day by day through the things that He is calling us to travel through.