New Beginnings

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. The great temptation for you this year, the great temptation is probably going to be for you to pursue some good purpose, some good thing that you believe God wants you to have to pursue that in your own way. Welcome to another day of solid biblical teaching with Pastor J.D. Greer here on Summit Life.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today we're moving into the book of 2 Samuel as we follow the story of King David. Pastor J.D. will walk us through a few ways in which David was a man after God's own heart and yet what we ultimately see through the first several chapters of this book is that not even David was the king that Israel was looking for. The king that they needed and that we need today was one fully without sin, willing to lay down his life even for his enemies. With such a king on the throne, one in full control, we can learn to accept with joy what God has for us this year and beyond. So grab your Bible and let's jump right in.

Here's Pastor J.D. I heard about an old atheist who was taking a walk through the woods when suddenly he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him and when he turned to look to his horror he saw a seven foot grizzly bear snarling at him. He panicked and he ran as fast as he could and the bear started to charge at him. So this man got to a tree with some low-hanging branches and he started to climb up into that tree. To his surprise he saw the bear climbing the tree behind him at which point this old atheist just cried out, oh God save me, and suddenly time stopped. The bear froze.

All the noises in the forest grew quiet. A bright light shone directly upon the man from heaven and a voice boomed from the sky. You deny my existence all these years and you expect me to help you now in this moment you cry out to me? The atheist looked directly into the light and he said, you know, you're right, you're right, you're right.

It is hypocritical of me to ask you now to treat me like a Christian after I have lived my whole life denying that you even exist. But maybe, perhaps, maybe you could make the bear a Christian. Very well said the voice and the light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. The bear stopped, got down on his knees, bowed his head and said, Lord bless this food which I am about to receive from my bounty through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Amen. New Year's is a great time for new beginnings and I want to talk about a few of those today as we resume our study of King David. So if you have your Bible, open them to 2 Samuel.

2 Samuel. You guys remember King David? The story of David's life is told in two seasons. This morning we are going to cover the first five chapters of the book of 2 Samuel, which I know sounds like a lot but I promise you it is not. These chapters basically serve as a review of David's life highlighting what made David special in biblical history.

This is like your season one recap and we're going to consider two questions as we move our way through these five chapters. Number one, what was it that made David a man after God's own heart? David is called that in 1 Samuel 13. He was the greatest king in Israel's history. There were lots of reasons that David was called a man after God's own heart.

We're going to look at three of them today, but here is the second question we are going to consider. Number two, why is David not the king that we're looking for? These chapters contain a couple of pretty significant hints that David is not the king that Israel has been waiting for. God had promised a king that would bring Israel identity, security, and happiness.

In a word, a king that would bring them salvation. Israel first had their hearts broken with Saul. They thought that would be the king that would bring them those things. Had their hearts broken with him and then they thought that surely David must be that king because Saul failed him. David was going to be a lot better, but these chapters are going to show you that in some really important ways, David is not that king.

So that's our agenda for today. So make sure your Bible is open to 2 Samuel 1. But first, here is our season one recap. We left 1 Samuel on a sad note. King Saul and his son Jonathan, who was David's best friend, have both died tragically in a battle with the Philistines, who was Israel's arch enemy.

David, meanwhile, is still on the run. He's been exiled from Israel by Saul, who was insanely jealous of him. The prophet Samuel had anointed David to be the next king after Saul, and Saul responded to that by trying to kill David because Saul wanted one of his kings to be his son.

So he tries to kill David, even though David had done nothing but serve Saul faithfully for his whole life and given himself to protect Israel. As the book of 2 Samuel opens, a strange Amalekite man shows up in David's camp when David is in exile with some disturbing news. Verse 3, David says to this man, where do you come from?

Where do you come from? And the man replied, I have escaped from the camp of Israel, from the battle. And David said to him, how did it go? How did the battle turn out?

Tell me. And this guy answered, the people fled from the battle, and also many of the people, the Israelite people, have fallen and are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead. This is the first that David has heard of Israel's loss and also of Saul and Jonathan's deaths. And so David asked this Amalekite man how he knows these things. And the man says that as he was passing by the battlefield, he heard Saul call out to him. Saul was badly wounded from one of the archers, and so he asked this Amalekite man to put him out of his misery before the Philistines could get to him and supposedly torture him or, you know, take him captive. Now we know that this man is lying.

This Amalekite man is lying. We know that because the book of 1 Samuel says that Saul asked his armor bear to kill him, and when the armor bear would not do it, Saul killed himself. More likely is that this Amalekite man was scavenging for treasure among all the dead Israelite soldiers when he stumbled upon King Saul's body and he sensed an opportunity for personal gain. Wouldn't it be awesome, wouldn't David be excited to hear that Saul is dead, he thought, and wouldn't he be especially grateful to anybody who finished Saul off and brought David the crown? Surely this guy, this guy thinks, surely David would be excited about this news. So this guy takes Saul's crown and he brings it to David. David, however, does not react at all like the guy expects. Instead, verse 14, David says, how is it that you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? And then he commands that this guy be executed right there on the spot. And here we see the first of three qualities that make David a man after God's own heart.

Number one, a posture of submission, a posture of submission. David has never wanted to come to the throne by taking matters into his own hands. David had been promised that he would be the king one day. That was a privilege that was rightfully his, but David said you never achieve the purposes of God by compromising the commands of God.

Countless times throughout his life, David has had an opportunity to force his way onto the throne, such as you might recall the cave incident where Saul was in there and was in there using the bathroom by himself and David's hiding there in the shadows and David could easily have stepped out and taken Saul's life and assumed the throne. But David said, no, I will not break the commands of God in order to achieve the purposes of God. The great temptation for you this year, the great temptation is probably going to be for you to pursue some good purpose, some good thing that you believe God wants you to have to pursue that in your own way. The greatest temptation is usually not to pursue some bad end, but to pursue a good end in your way.

I feel like God, for example, I feel like God wants me to be prosperous and he wants me to bless my family with money. That's a good desire, right? But it's not happening fast enough and so I'm gonna cheat here or there. I'm going to compromise a little bit on my taxes or maybe I'll just overwork in order to make that good purpose happen. Or how about this, I feel like God wants me to be married but it's not happening fast enough and so I'll take matters into my own hands and I'll compromise my standards and I won't wait for the one that's a gift from God for me. Or I feel like God wants me to be happy in my marriage and I'm not sure that's possible with this spouse and so I'll leave that spouse and go pursue another one. Or I need to pass this class but I just don't have time to put into this final paper and so I'll plagiarize this final paper or I'll cheat a little bit on this final exam.

It's not that big of a deal and it will help me get the grade. I guarantee you, you are going to have some moment this year where you are tested like this. It's one of the biggest temptations in our lives to take the crown up for ourselves. David's posture is one of waiting on God, trusting in God to fulfill his purposes in his time and in his way. It's not that David is passive, by the way, sitting around doing nothing, waiting on God.

No, he's very active. It's just that his primary posture is one of listening to God first. David doesn't figure out what he wants to do and then ask God to bless it. He asks God what God wants to do and then he seeks to follow him. We're going to see countless examples of this in David's life, like the question that opens up chapter two. If you've got your Bible, take a look at it.

Chapter two, here's how it opens. After this, David inquired the Lord, shall I go up in any of the cities of Judah? Is that what you want to do, God? In one sense, it made a lot of sense because David was supposed to be king and he'd have to have the cities of Judah, so you'd see the answer is of course. But David's like, no, I want to wait on God to go first. And so God said to him, yes, you should go up. David said, to which city shall I go up? And the Lord said, to Hebron. So David went up. God, where do you want to go? Where do you want to go?

I just want to join you. One of the phrases that we've started using around here at the Summit Church is that success in our ministry, listen, means joining God in what he is doing around us. Success is not attempting great things for God and asking him to bless us. Success is discerning where God is at work and joining him in that.

See, listen to this. A lot of us go through life backwards. We assume that God has put us into the world to figure stuff out and to fix everything, so our general attitude is, God, this is what I think needs to be done, so help me in it. Bless me in it. But y'all, listen, in every epic of scripture from start to finish, God is the primary actor. God is the one bringing salvation and blessing to the earth. Our job is to discern where he is at work and join him in that. Jesus explained in John 5 that that was his whole ministry philosophy. He said, my father, John 5 17, my father is always at work around me. My job is to figure out what he's doing and join him in it.

Write this down if you're taking notes. A person after God's own heart seeks to join God in what he is doing. This is Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. We'll get back to today's teaching in just a moment, but first I wanted to let you know about our brand new featured resource, and it's a perfect companion to our current teaching series. It's an eight-part Bible study focused on the life of David that expands on what we've been learning here on Summit Life. Each of the eight studies will give you an in-depth look at a key moment in David's life, and the scripture passages are followed by application questions to make you think about what you've read, as well as prayer prompts to help you reflect on your study and ask God to help you apply it to your life. There's so much to learn from David, both good things to do and maybe some things to avoid, so he's a perfect character for us to spend some extra time learning from. You don't want to miss it, and it's yours with your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry.

To get your copy, call us at 866-335-5220, or you can give online at jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. A person after God's own heart seeks to join God in what he's doing.

You say, well, what does that mean, though? I mean, that sounds like it's easy for you to stand up there to say, how do you discern where God is at work? That's a great question. It'd be great if we have one of those little Geiger counters like on Ghostbusters that showed us where the activity of the supernatural was at work. You know, there's the Holy Ghost right there.

I know what he's doing, right? How do you actually discern where God is at work? Great question. Let me give you a few biblical answers. Sometimes it can take the form of a divine call that comes to you through an opportunity that the Spirit invites you into. Think, for example, of Paul who got that vision of the man from Macedonia saying, come over here and help us.

Paul correctly discerned in that that God was calling him to go over and be a part of what he was doing in Macedonia. Now, you may not get an actual vision, but God might let you sense some opportunity where you are positioned and gifted to help. And you sense the Spirit of God beckoning you saying, come and join me in what I'm doing. Or maybe it's going to occur in a conversation that you sense that God has been at work in somebody's heart and he's put you in a place for you to participate in what he's doing. That's what Jesus did with the woman at the well in John 4, the Samaritan woman.

He sensed that the Father had created in her a sense of death, dissatisfaction through her failed marriages. And he sensed that God had put him there to point out where she could find living water. By the way, all my sharing Jesus on an airplane or in a coffee shop stories, they're all like that. I just ask questions and suddenly I get a sense that God has been at work in somebody's life. God's been working somebody's life and I join him in that.

Sometimes you discern where he is at work by experiencing unusual success in something. As a church, we have been involved in lots of different initiatives, but y'all, we have never experienced the success like we have in missions and church planning. We've experienced a success there that we haven't experienced in anything else.

It's like there's a divine wind that just blows behind us in that. We have sent out close to 1600 of our members in 508 church plants, sent out 1600 of our members on church planning teams. We perceive that an area, this is an area that God is at work called us to join. People, sometimes other pastors will ask me, they'll be like, well, how do you, what leadership techniques do you use to do that? And I'm like, I don't know. I know it's that cause I know all these other leadership initiatives I've failed at, at the Summit Church. So I don't think it's my leadership. I got a list of a bunch of stuff that I thought were great ideas that just fell flat, but that one it's been like, no, God has been at work. And he just says, hey, join me in this.

This is what I'm doing. Or I was talking with a friend over the break, a friend about my age who was just expressing some unsettledness with his small group. It's fine. He enjoys a small group, but there was just some unsettledness. Well, in the same conversation, he tells me a couple of stories about this incredible success that he's been having and satisfaction he's been finding in mentoring some younger couples here in our church. And so I said to him, couples in their early twenties and late twenties. And I finally said to him, it seems to me like God might be calling you back from this small group to start one filled with younger couples as you can mentor. So that's seeking to join God in what he's doing because he's giving you a certain amount of success and passion in an area.

And he's calling you to join. One of the coolest pictures of this principle occurs in David's first battle as king. It's recorded in Second Samuel five. So flip over there for a second. It's in verse 22. Listen to this.

I love this. The Philistines came up yet again. Chapter five, verse 22.

The Philistines came up yet again and spread out in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired to the Lord, he said, what do you want me to do? God said, listen to this, whenever you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself. For then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines. And David did as the Lord commanded him. And he struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.

Isn't that an awesome picture? When you hear the sound of the marching in the tops of the trees, that means God's on the move. And when you hear God on the move, you should rouse yourself and join him because then you'll know that God has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines. When you hear and you see evidence of God moving out, rouse yourself and join him.

One of my prayers for 2023 is that God would open up my ears to hear the sound of his marching so that I can join him. You see, all for most of my life, I've done the opposite. I've assumed that it's my responsibility to fix everything and then try to get God's help in that.

That's why I pray God helped me fix the stuff that I got to fix. That's his job, not mine. My job is to join him in what he's doing. At the end of the day, your greatest strategy for success is submission.

That's your strategy for success. Let me show you as one example how that's changed my attitude toward parenting. The burden of making my kids turn out right can feel overwhelming. Am I right, parents? I've never felt less qualified for anything in my life.

I have four teenagers now. Well, a few years ago, right before one of our staff retreats, I was reading Psalm 136 where King David recounts the history of Israel. And David lists out all these events in Israel and in between every event that he puts in the list, he puts this little refrain, the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.

It's in that chapter like 30 some times. The effect that you have reading it is that all of Israel's history, both the high points and the low points, all of it has been woven together by the always faithful, never quitting, steadfast love of God. And so I asked each of our pastoral team, I said, why don't you write out your own personal history, write it out with the high points and the low points, and then we'll get the high points and the low points. And in between every major event in your life, just put that line, the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. As I did that for my own life, I got overwhelmed by two realizations. The first realization was that a faithful God really has led me every step of the way.

And the good and the bad, my life has been pieced together by the steadfast love of the Lord that has never given up on me. Number two, number two, the second realization, the big one for me, listen to this, was that my biggest spiritual moments were not engineered by my parents or by anybody else. See, I had awesome parents, some of you know that, but y'all not one, not one of the big turning point moments in my life, spiritually speaking, not one of them was engineered by them. That's not to take away from their role in my life at all, it's just that God wrote my story. God used my parents in the process, but He was the one doing the writing, not them. My life was saved, not by their careful planning, but by His faithful intervention.

And then it hit me, God is writing my kids' stories also. He's gonna use me in the process, but ultimately, I'm just the glove, He's the hand. I don't carry the weight of engineering their spiritual growth, He carries that weight. I just have to join Him in what He is doing in their lives.

That is a fundamentally different approach, you understand that? He bears the weight, not me. When I carry the weight, it leads to frustration and burnout and anger.

When He carries that weight, I can live with confidence and rest. Hey, Summit Church, good news. This year, I'm not responsible to win my neighbors or my friends or my kids or my family to Christ. The Holy Spirit does that. I'm not responsible to grow this church, either numerically or spiritually.

That's not on me. He does that. He invites me to join in what He is doing, which means that more important than great ideas I might have for God are ears to hear what He's saying and eyes to see what He's doing so I can join Him.

The first quality that makes David a man after God's own heart is a posture of submission. Is that your attitude towards your life? Is that your attitude towards your dating life, those of you that are single, your career, your retirement? God, open my eyes so I can join you in what you're doing. That's the first principle, and it was a long one. I understand that. We got to pick up the pace, so stop slowing me down by nodding at me, okay?

Just look down, and that'll encourage me to move on. There's a second quality that made David a man after God's own heart, number two. We see in David an instinct for mercy, an instinct for mercy. After David hears about Saul and Jonathan's death, David writes this incredible eulogy for the two of them. It starts in verse 17 and goes on for the next 10 or so verses, chapter one. It's broken into three stanzas. They start in verse 19, verse 25, verse 27.

Each stanza begins with the phrase, how the mighty have fallen. What's amazing to me is that there is not one single negative word about Saul and the whole thing. Not one.

Not one. Instead, it's filled with lines like this one in verse 23, where David says, he laments, Saul and Jonathan, Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely. They were swifter than eagles.

They were stronger than lions. You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold in your apparel. How the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle. Y'all, where's the vengeance? Where's the anger? Talk about loving your enemies.

I mean, think about it. After all that Saul had done to David, David's got nothing to say but praise. As we follow David through these next five chapters, we're going to see that what dominates David's rise to power is this instinct for mercy. David mourns the death of his political rivals, and he throws feasts for them when they want to reconcile. Most of David's men want to execute vengeance on Saul's men who chased him through the wilderness and tried to kill him. But David keeps saying to them, no, no, this is going to be a different kind of kingdom. It's going to be a kingdom anchored in mercy. And y'all, that brings about a peace that lasted for David's entire life over four decades.

The greatest leaders in human history have been like this. This is Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. If you missed any part of today's broadcast or would like to explore our entire library of Summit Life sermons free of charge, visit us at jdgreer.com.

Pastor JD, our study of the life of David here on the program actually has a companion resource working specifically through 2 Samuel. Can you boil it down a bit more for us? And what are the themes that we'll see as we work through this study guide?

JD Yeah, great question, Molly. I think we're going to see five themes over eight weeks of study in this guide. The first one is we're just going to understand David's heart. You know, we've heard David called a man after God's own heart, but we're going to see where he got that title from. Second theme is submission to God. David had this posture of submission to God's will. The role of mercy, David becomes an extremely merciful person because he seems to be aware of the mercy that God has shown to him. Some beautiful, beautiful gospel pictures that you'll find in David's life. Another theme is seeking God's glory instead of David's.

In fact, I'd almost say, Molly, that's kind of his secret superpower. Lastly, handling disappointment and how to maintain joy in the midst of that. How to maintain joy, even when things are not happening exactly the way that you want them to because you trust a good and sovereign God's in charge of it all. So grab a copy of the Life of David Bible study that goes along with this teaching series. Even if you're like, I'm listening to the series too late, it's still great. Go get it and just take a journey through the life of David on your own. Go to jdgueer.com. This all new Life of David Bible study is a fantastic supplement to your own devotional time with the Lord. And it would also make a fantastic gift for a loved one or someone that you were discipling. We'd love to send it to you today with your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry. To give, call us now at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give online at jdgueer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Don't miss the conclusion of today's teaching as we learn what it means to be a man or woman after God's own heart. We'll see you Friday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.