…in with the Lord. And my subject—the theme—has been this matter of sonship.
Now, sonship is when you come to the place in your spiritual life where you finally awaken and realize that you have to be responsible for your own spiritual life; that you’re no longer really satisfied with your mom and dad taking care of your spiritual life, encouraging you to read your Bible, or to pray, or to commune with the Lord. It is that point in life when you say, “I’m responsible for my life. And, Lord, I want to live my life for You.”
To be a responsible child before God—because God created you; you are His. But when we all became in a lost condition, which we are born into, God sacrificed His own Son on your behalf that you might once again become a child of God in the Spirit.
God has done that for you. God has given His only Son. I don’t know about you, brothers and sisters, but I honestly don’t know before the Lord if I could do that—if I could give up my own son for your life. My sons are very precious to me.
And how much more precious must the Son of God, Jesus, have been to the Father. But He willingly did that because of love, and because He created you with a purpose—a purpose in His heart, a plan for your life.
Ultimately, whether you come into God’s purpose in your life, whether God’s plan is effective in your life, will depend on this matter of sonship: the spirit of sonship.
It is God’s heart to bring many sons to glory. The Bible does not say it is His heart to bring many children to glory, even though He wants His whole family to be considered His children. He wants us to come into sonship: the place where we are responsible before Him, where we take spiritual responsibility before Him and say, “Yes, Lord, I am Yours. You have bought me with a price, and You have purchased me for a purpose. I need to serve Your purpose in my life—not what I want to do, but, Lord, what You want to do.”
It is a critical issue for every man and woman born on this earth, because until we get our life aligned right with God Himself, our life will never be right.
Let us pray.
Lord, as we come to Thee this morning, as we come before You, Lord, how can any man share Your heart? How can any man even touch the burden that is upon Your heart?
But we ask this morning, Lord, that You would anoint our time together; that You would anoint this time; that, Lord Jesus, this matter of the spirit of sonship would become real.
Lord, it is not just really for those who are in their teens, but it is for all of us, Lord. For some of us, even though we have come to that place in our life in the past, somehow we have let go of that responsibility. We need to come back to that right place with You.
We come this morning that Your Word might be effective in our hearts, Lord. If it does not get there, it is not going anywhere. So we ask that the power of Your Spirit would be upon us, Lord, to hear, to share, and to receive what You have to say this morning. In Jesus’ name.
I began this series by sharing on Joshua, a young man called to the Lord, very young. And the reason I began with Joshua was because I knew it was important for us as a family here to realize the importance of sonship.
Joshua was a young man who served the Lord, who was found at the tabernacle, wanting to be in the presence of the Lord. When Moses went up to the mountain, he was the one who went halfway up. Though Moses was in the presence of God, Joshua was there in the middle of the mountain, praying faithfully for forty days, just as Moses was there receiving the Word of God.
He was a young man in the first battle we see in the Bible with the Amalekites. He was the one leading in that battle. The Lord found a young man who was faithful, a young man who took responsibility—spiritual responsibility.
What is so encouraging about this young man and Caleb was that when they came to the Promised Land, two years after they had entered the land, God brought them to the Promised Land and sent out the twelve spies. These two young men came back and said, “Let’s go in and take the land. It’s a good land. It’s God’s. It’s flowing with milk and honey.”
The other ten said, “No, no, no. There is a problem here. There are giants in the land. There are things we will never be able to overcome. We will never be able to take this land.”
Joshua and Caleb pleaded with the people that their God was well able to take this land, as He had promised to give them—that everywhere they would put their foot, He would give it to them. But they lost faith, or they had really never gained that faith.
So these two men had to live another thirty-eight years in the desert with the rest of the people. Finally, when God raised up another generation, Joshua and Caleb, around the age of eighty, went into battle. They went into the Promised Land.
They had good, full spirits—the spirit of sonship. It stayed with them all of their life, and they were strong men in the Lord.
Then, last time I spoke of Samuel. What I wanted to emphasize last time was this matter of consecration. Samuel was consecrated from birth to God for His service.
If you may remember the story, at around the age of four years old, his mother took Samuel up to the temple and dedicated him to God and to God’s service. Samuel faithfully served. As a young child, his responsibility in the morning was to open the doors of the temple.
Now, that might not seem like a lot to you and me, but for a young child to get up before sunrise every morning and open those doors was, I think, quite a feat. I myself, at age sixty, find it very hard to get up at six in the morning. But Samuel would get up, and he served the Lord faithfully.
You know, he became God’s prophet. He became the prophet before God who brought in the king.
This morning we come to the life of David—another young man. That is why I wanted you here this morning.
When David was very young, being the youngest, he was given the simplest duties—the duties that the older brothers did not want to take up. So he was put out there with a few sheep in the field to take care of them. He grew up doing that.
You know what? His father and his brothers never really thought a lot of David. He was the smallest of them. He was kind of a good-looking little kid, in the sense that, you know, it appeared to his brothers that he was a mama’s boy. He was not appreciated by his father nor his brothers.
And so he was there, but he served those little sheep. He took care of those sheep.
At the age of fifteen, he went from taking care of a few sheep to taking down Goliath—probably the largest man in the territory of his time.
He did not do it to accomplish some feat of great importance. He did it, as we will see, because of the testimony of God.
God had worked in his life so much that, of all the nation of Israel, only one man was willing to take on the giant. That man was a boy, fifteen years of age, with spiritual stature, who was able to stand up for the testimony of God when no other man in the nation could.
So I want to say from the very beginning this morning, brothers and sisters, it is not so much a matter of age. It is a matter of our hearts. It is a matter of giving our heart to the Lord.
At the age of fifteen, He can bring you into spiritual stature. You do not have to wait until you are thirty, forty, or sixty.
So I guess this morning I would have to say this is my burden: it is time to awaken to where you are in life. It is time to awaken to the hour in which we live, which is very short before the Lord comes back, and to realize that God has created you for His own purpose. You need to serve that purpose, or your life, frankly, will be a wasted life.
God has His way. The first way is this: once you have accepted Jesus Christ, you need to consecrate your life to Him—give your life to Him. Say, “Lord, I want to live for You. I do not want to live for myself. I want, Lord, to live by Your standard, not by the standard of this world. I want to live by the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, not in my own strength, trying to do things my way, to live my own life.”
No, Lord, I put all of that aside. I agree with You, Lord: it should be crucified on the cross. I stand with You today, that I am Yours and You can do with me as You will. I will live by Your life.
Consecration.
Let me take a moment. We need to read a minute. Everybody turn to 1 Samuel 16.
We are going to have to read a good little bit this morning, so just bear with me. I think it is important that we read this story, though you may know it.
Chapter 16, verse 1, 1 Samuel:
And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from being king over Israel?
Fill thine horn with oil, and go: I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided Me a king among his sons.
Now let us go to verse 7. Samuel has come to Jesse’s house. We will go to verse 6:
And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him.
But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him:
for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
That is the oldest of Jesse’s sons. In other words, do not look at his outward appearance. He was the biggest; he was the oldest. You cannot look on that. You cannot look on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.
Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this.
Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this.
And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.
And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon.
And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
Let us go to 1 Samuel 17, verse 1:
And the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and were gathered together at Socoh, which belongeth to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.
And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines.
And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.
And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.
Now, I want you to get the impact of this. Six cubits is a little over nine feet tall. The armor that he wore weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds.
And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a javelin of brass between his shoulders.
And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron.
That is about fifteen pounds. Just the head of that spear was fifteen pounds. You know what fifteen pounds is? It is two gallons of milk. If you take two gallons of milk and pick them up in one hand, you will see how heavy just the head of the spear was.
And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.
And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.
When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
David was the son of Jesse of Bethlehem in Judah, who had eight sons. The three eldest sons of Jesse had gone and followed Saul into battle: Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah. David was the youngest. The three eldest followed Saul, but David went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep.
The Philistine drew near morning and evening and presented himself forty days. The giant came out for forty days and made the same declaration. During those forty days, no man in Israel would come forward.
Jesse said to David, “Take some food to your brethren.” Let us get down to about verse 19.
Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.
And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the trench, as the host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle.
For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army.
And David left his baggage in the hand of the keeper of the baggage, and ran to the army, and came and saluted his brethren.
And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them.
And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid.
And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? Surely to defy Israel is he come up.
David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying:
What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel?
For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?
Eliab, David’s eldest brother, heard this and became angry with David. He said, “Why did you come down here anyway? You have left the sheep. I know your pride and the naughtiness of your heart. You have come down that you might see the battle.”
David said, “What have I now done? Is there not a cause?” Then he turned from him toward another and spoke in the same manner.
I am going to have to move this along. Verse 33: David goes to Saul. Saul hears about David. He knew David because he had been his armor-bearer for a few months. He said, “Bring him to me.” Saul said, “You are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.”
David said to Saul:
Thy servant kept his father’s sheep; and when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock,
I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him.
Thy servant smote both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.
The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
As you know, Saul finally agreed to let David do this. We must go to verse 45.
Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin:
but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
Verse 50:
So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.
Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith.
Boy, does that almost seem like a fairy tale? I do not know how to get across this story so it even seems real.
A young man, fifteen years of age—not only a young man, but a small man, a small boy, the smallest of his family—and he takes on this Philistine with just a sling and some stones, instruments that the Lord had taught him to use.
But think of this: he took on the lion and the bear before that, did he not? I think that is quite something.
But the Word is very clear when you read the whole story. David did not just take on the lion and the bear. It says the Spirit of God came upon David, and he slew the lion and the bear.
David knew that he had no strength. He knew that it was God’s strength. The same power, the same Spirit, which had allowed him to kill the lion and the bear, was the same power in his life through the Holy Spirit by which this giant could certainly be taken down.
David was the only man on that field that day who was not fearful, because he knew God. He had experience with God.
Now, I thought about this, and I said, “Lord, what about Saul? Why did Saul not take on this giant?”
You know, when Saul—the Lord was looking for a king, remember that? That was really God’s purpose. God’s purpose in all of this was that He was looking for a king.
The people said, “Oh yeah, we want a king too.” But they wanted a king like the world wanted. The Lord had a special king in mind, but the people chose Saul. God did not choose Saul. But God allowed it, and God even had Samuel anoint Saul.
So he was a man who knew something of the Spirit of God coming upon him. Actually, when he was first anointed, they could not even find him. They were trying to find him to anoint him, and he was hiding in some luggage. He was so humble. He did not want to do this.
But he was brought forward. He had been chosen by the people. It says he was a very handsome man, and he stood a head taller than all the rest of the people. So he was probably one of the largest men in the nation of Israel. Yet, when this giant appeared, he could not appear before him. He had the Spirit of God, but he was fearful.
Actually, Saul was, from a human standpoint, a pretty good man, at least in the beginning. Even Samuel thought Saul was the right man. But God knew the heart.
It seemed like Saul had all the right qualifications, except one. Only God knew that. There was a flaw in Saul’s heart. What was it?
The Lord tested Saul. In 1 Samuel, we will not read it, but you remember the story. They were at Gilgal, and the Philistines were assembled against the nation of Israel. This was another battle.
Samuel had sent word to Saul. He said, “You need to sacrifice before the Lord before you go into this battle. I will be there in seven days. You just wait until I get there, and we will have the sacrifices; then you can go into battle.”
Saul waited patiently for almost seven days. But at the last hour, when Samuel did not show up, Saul said, “Well, look, this is one of the Lord’s requirements, so I am going to fulfill this requirement. He said we ought to have sacrifices.”
So Saul went ahead and had sacrifices done. Now, only Samuel was supposed to do these sacrifices. God, through Samuel, had told Saul to wait.
But you know, I hope we can differentiate the heart of David and Saul today, because it is so critical. Saul did not quite get it. He said, “Yeah, God wanted to do this, but look, okay, we can fulfill God’s requirement and get on with the battle here.” He could not wait. He almost waited, but he did not quite.
Interestingly enough, Samuel shows up. He said, “Why did you not wait?” Saul said, “Well, you know, we needed to get on with the battle, and you were not showing. You did not show up.” As a matter of fact, Samuel did show up on time. It was right at the very end, right at the last moment. Samuel appeared as he said he would.
You know what God said? He said, “I am going to take the kingdom away from Saul.” Now, does that sound like a very grievous matter to anybody here? I mean, he waited. He did fulfill what he thought God’s requirements were.
Let us go into the second test. They were fighting the Amalekites, and God had told Saul, “Now, in this battle, it is important that you wipe out everything. You cannot leave anyone alive, or any animals alive.”
Really, the Amalekites represent the flesh, brothers and sisters. They always represent the flesh. What God is really saying, from a spiritual standpoint to us today, is this: you cannot leave any part of the flesh alive. Even the best of your flesh is no good to God, and it has to be completely taken out of the picture and destroyed.
But most of us love our good self. It is the only part of us that other people seem to like. So we tend to exalt that, and we even spiritualize our good self at times, thinking, “Whoa, this is the Lord.”
The Lord is very clear: no. No Amalekite stays alive—man, woman, or child. No animals of the Amalekites stay alive. Everything of the flesh must go. That is the spiritual part.
Of course, Saul went into battle, and if you remember the story, he did pretty good. But he saved the king alive, and he saved some sheep—the best of the cattle and the best of the sheep.
Samuel arrived on the scene, and Saul came up to him and said, “Look, we have won the battle. I have done what God has asked me to do. Look, I have even built a little monument to myself,” which he did. He built a little monument to himself because of how good he had done.
Samuel started listening a little bit, and he said, “What is that I hear? I hear the bleating of sheep.”
“Oh yeah, the sheep. Well, I decided to save the best for God. I was going to give the sheep and sacrifice them to the Lord.”
Once again, the Lord rejected Saul.
Does that seem so grievous? I mean, he did destroy everything except the king and all these sheep and cattle—the best of the sheep and cattle. He decided to save them, and after all, he could sacrifice some of them to the Lord, and the Lord would be pleased.
I can only say that God was extremely displeased with Saul, to the point that He had made the decision that Saul was not the king He wanted.
Interestingly enough, the Lord uses this to show the people of that day, and the people today, that Saul is not the kind of king He is after. He is after a king who is after His own heart, and Saul is not that man.
You see, it boils down to a heart issue. Saul just did not have a heart for the Lord.
In fact, Samuel said, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” In other words, Saul was saying, “Look, I am willing to sacrifice some of these animals that I saved to the Lord for helping me win this battle.”
Samuel responds, “Obedience is better than sacrifice. You are trying to substitute the sacrifice that you think you are making for doing God’s will.”
That is not a man after My heart. You are trying to use Me. You only wanted Me to help you win this battle.
Oh yeah, you decided on your own that you were going to save some of the best cattle and, I presume, give some of them to Me in sacrifice.
What He was really saying is, here is a man who, fundamentally, most of us today, if you ran into this man in the world, would say he is a good man. He is even a man who has obviously been touched by God; the Spirit of God was upon him. Yet he really does not have a heart for God.
The reason he does not have a heart for God is that he is living for God the way he wants to live for God. As long as whatever he does, or God asks him to do, makes sense to him and benefits him, he is going to do it. But if God asks him to do something that may not necessarily benefit him, like taking out all the cattle and sheep, no, he is not going to do it.
Look at it: he says, “I have done all that God has asked me to do.” He really believed that. He really believed that he had done all that God had asked him to do.
If he really had a heart for God, he would have recognized right away that he had not done all that God had asked him to do. He never understood. He never repented of that sense of disobeying God. He never repented because he did not see it. He thought he was okay.
I wonder how many of us think we are okay. We have the Spirit of God. We have accepted Jesus Christ in our life. We are willing to have the Lord help us get through our battles, to help us do what we want to do.
But as soon as the Lord asks us to do something beyond what we think is reasonable, or what we think is good for us, or what we want to do, we say, “Well, look, Lord, I will not do that. But what I will do is come on Sunday and attend worship time. Or, okay, Lord, I will agree to go to some prayer meeting.”
You see, brothers and sisters, it touches my heart because I know there is a little Saul in here. Old self-life, unfortunately, will not totally go away until the Lord comes and we are with Him. But that is what God has rejected.
Saul was a religious man. That is the best I can say. He was religious. He did religious things. He offered sacrifices. But, you know, it did not touch his heart. He was not in tune with God’s heart.
His heart had no relationship to God, only his mind. He was only interested, frankly, in appeasing his conscience. We will talk about that in another session when we deal with Daniel.
He was only interested in appeasing his conscience. Obviously, his conscience was appeased because he said, “I have done all that God has asked me to do.”
You know what it means to appease God? In other words, you are going to do something that you think God will accept, and because He accepts that, any disobedience in your life is okay. Well, that is not true, and God rejected Saul from being king.
But once again, I want to say it: God did all of this to show and make very clear to you and me today, and to the people of the past, that that is not the kind of person with whom He is pleased. That is not what He is after.
Now, we know the King that He was really after was not just David, though David was the first in line. It was Jesus Himself, who was the true King.
Saul’s problem was that he was religious and dutiful, but he did not really have a heart for God or for the things of the Lord. He would do them, but there was no heart there.
It is kind of like taking the Lord’s Table. We took it this morning, and there was the admonition that we take it seriously. Do not just take it for the sake of taking it—for being religious, for doing your duty, for saying, “Okay, God, I took the Table. I have done what I need this week.”
No. There should be a heart-to-heart transaction when we take the Lord’s Table.
I do not know about you, but when I take the Lord’s Table and my heart is not touched, I know something is not right in here. The Lord’s Table is a spiritual, living thing with God Himself—with the Father and Jesus.
The Lord’s Table is Yours, not mine. He has asked us to come to enter into fellowship with Him, not just to do some sacrament, as it is called—not religious duty.
Think about David a minute. Now, for those who know the story of David, and we do not have time to tell it all, of course, there is so much in David’s life. David was not a perfect man.
David, in his later life, committed two very grievous sins—maybe three, if you want to say it that way.
One night, his army was out in battle. Instead of being out with his army, where he really should have been, he was back in Jerusalem. He saw Bathsheba, and she was so beautiful. She immediately caught his eye and heart.
He said in his own heart, “I have to have this woman for my own.” In order to achieve that, because she was married to one of his generals, David ordered that this man be put in the heat of the battle, where the battle was the heaviest—that he would lead the troops in that battle.
As it turned out, he was killed. When he was killed, David took Bathsheba for his own. Murder and adultery.
Later, because of pride in David’s heart, he had the people numbered. You know how the plague came upon the people, and I forget how many thousands died, until David finally pleaded with God. The people did not do this, but he had done it. God stayed the angel’s hand.
Murder, adultery, pride—sins that, as we view them, brothers and sisters, are far greater than anything Saul had ever done.
Yet we find God saying in Acts that David was a man after My own heart. Wow.
From the human point of view, Saul ought to have been the better man. I think honestly, if we were challenged with that today, and if we did not know any of the spiritual background or what it all meant as we do today, and we were given the lives of these two men and asked to choose between them as to which one we thought was the most righteous, if we were honest, we would have to pick Saul.
But Saul was the one who was rejected from being king.
Now let me say this much so no one gets the wrong idea: David was greatly disciplined. David came under severe discipline from God because of his sins.
It was not as if God just said, “I forgive you,” and that is over. God forgave him. As soon as David confessed, God forgave him. But the disciplined hand of God came upon David.
God did not discipline David because He was angry with David. He disciplined David because He loved him, and He did not want David, who was obviously very weak in this area, to fall again.
So discipline came upon David’s life that he might not sin again. Thank God, it worked. The discipline worked.
But something else about David: when God confronted Saul with his sin, Saul said, “Look, I think I have done all You have asked me to do.” There was no heart there. There was no repentance there.
But when David was confronted by the prophet concerning what he had done in God’s eyes, David immediately said, “Lord, forgive me. You know I sinned.” He had a repentant heart.
Bottom line, the difference between these two men was not their goodness. When you look at their two lives, you would say, in a sense, that Saul appeared to be the better man, as far as human beings looking at this thing. But the issue with God is always the heart—always the heart.
If you do not have a heart for God, get on your knees and ask Him to give you that desire. And He will.
But that is the difference: David’s heart.
David’s life was not perfect, but the Word of God said he had a perfect heart toward the Lord. I hope we see that difference, because we all sitting here today know that we do not live a perfect life.
But it does not mean that your heart cannot be perfect toward the Lord. A perfect heart is a heart that is open to the Lord, easy for the Lord to touch; a heart that is willing to obey the Lord no matter what the cost is; a heart that, when it fails, recognizes it and is willing to go to God and ask for His forgiveness.
A heart that, more than anything, wants a relationship with the Lord. Saul did not really want a relationship with the Lord. He just wanted to use the Lord to help him.
But David had a heart for the Lord, a heart that wanted the Lord. He knew his sin had separated him from the Lord, and David could not stand that. It was more precious to him than life.
So David was a man after God’s heart. David, as we know, had been anointed as a youth eventually to be king, and he came into kingship.
A heart for the Lord. I do not know—maybe I have more. It is twelve o’clock. Maybe I should just stop here for today, and we will share the rest another time.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know about you, but I am so thankful that God deals with the heart. He is not looking for people who just follow rituals, people who just attend so-called church services, people who are religious.
He is looking for people who have a heart—a heart for Him, a heart with Him, a heart to serve Him, a heart of love and to be loved: a relationship.
This whole thing, what I am driving toward, is this matter of communion with the Lord, which we will get into next time. But are we communing with the Lord? Or has our heart gotten out of tune lately with something in our lives?
I would only ask us, and ask my own self, “Lord, touch my heart in You afresh. You love us so much. The Lord loves you all.”
Do we see how gracious God is? Look at David’s sins: adultery, murder, pride. The Lord restored David. He can restore us.
But the Lord does not restore us just to make us feel better. The Lord restores us that our heart might continually yearn for Him, that our heart might be for Him, that when we awaken in the morning, the first thing on our heart is the Lord and that we want to commune with Him.
During the day, when we are at work, or cleaning around the home, or whatever we may be doing, taking care of our children, there are times in the day when you stop for a moment and your heart turns back to the Lord.
You know, our heart needs to have its compass set. Do you know how a compass works? It always points to the north—magnetic north, not true north, but anyway, forget all that technical stuff.
A compass always points to the north. You can take that compass and turn it and do whatever you want to, but if you let it steady out a second, it will turn back to the north.
I pray that God will set the compass of our heart. A faulty compass leads you in a wrong direction.
So may the Lord set the compass of our heart. May we return to Him. May we not neglect communing with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, we thank You today as we come. These young people, Lord—their whole lives lie ahead of them. Yet, Lord, it can be a life of frustration and loss unless it is set upon You.
Lord, we as older ones, we know what it is to go from the right path. We know what it is to stray. We know what it is to grievously sin against You, Lord. Yet we have to say today, Lord, that You have held on to us. We have not held on to Thee.
Lord, You have refused to let go of the strings of our heart, and I thank You for that. I thank You, Lord, that still even today I know in my heart You are the living God, just as David knew.
Lord, I thank You that You have given me experiences with the Lord that strengthened me, that encouraged me, as David with the lion and the bear.
Lord, in this hour I pray that our young people will experience You. They will have the lion-and-bear experiences in their life. I pray in particular, as many of these have invited young friends to this gospel meeting, that they will see that these young ones are responsible before You, and that they will really take it up in prayer, as well as us, Lord.
Lord, have Your way in our lives. We pray today; we give our hearts back to Thee. In Jesus’ name.