And after He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said,
“I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.”
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
Remember, O Lord, on David’s behalf,
All his affliction;
How he swore to the Lord
And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,
“Surely I will not enter my house,
Nor lie on my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
Until I find a place for the Lord,
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah;
We found it in the field of Jaar.
Let us go into His dwelling place;
Let us worship at His footstool.
For the Lord has chosen Zion;
He has desired it for His habitation.
“This is My resting place forever;
Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Lord, we thank You so much for the privilege of gathering once again in Your name. Lord, we thank You for the privilege of being in Your presence, worshiping and giving You thanks. Lord, we remember together that Yours is that mighty name—the name of the Victor, the One who conquered. Lord, we bow down before the Victor.
Lord, we place this time under Your lordship. Thank You, Lord Jesus. You are the Overcomer, and we worship You. We give You thanks.
And Lord, as we are in Your presence, we pray: would You lead us in Your presence through Your Word? We pray that the Holy Spirit would sovereignly take charge of this time, that He would enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may see the things of the Lord.
Lord, we need Your revelation. We need that enlightenment that only comes from You. Would You grant it to us even in this time? We pray that You would quicken our tired mortal bodies, Lord, that by Your presence, by Your life, by Your Spirit, You would energize us and give us the grace to remain alert to what You have to say in this time.
We commit it and bring it at Your feet. Be glorified, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I would like just to review very quickly some of the things that we said yesterday. The first thing is our theme verse. Really, as I think anyone who reads the Bible will agree, this is one of the most amazing statements that you find in the Bible: that God Himself would make such a declaration, such a statement, about any man.
He says, “I have found David.” As we mentioned, there is the idea, the sense, that He has been looking for someone for such a long time. It is almost the sense that, “I finally found one. I have found David.”
And the thing that is amazing about the statement of the Lord concerning David is that he is a man after His heart. He says, “I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after My heart.” That is the thing that the Lord was seeking for all the time.
We mentioned Psalm 25, something that David wrote. It is almost like a testimony of his own experience:
The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him.
Somehow, to this man after God’s heart, whom the Lord was able to find, the secret of the Lord was revealed. Actually, he had revelation after revelation of those things that were in God’s heart for centuries, waiting to be revealed. But where was that man who had the heart that could receive the revelation?
So finally, in David, the Lord found that man. That is the testimony in our theme verse. It is almost as though He says, “Finally, I have found David, a man after My heart.”
Yesterday, essentially, we tried to consider what David saw. If you want to sum up what he saw, what he discovered, the secret into which he entered, I feel that the city of Jerusalem somehow sums up all that revelation that was given to him.
We know it is more than that. We know that first he took Jerusalem, then he brought the ark into Jerusalem, and then he had the desire for the house of the Lord. He gathered the materials when he was not allowed to build it, and all that. But, if you want, you can sum up all those things in the city of Jerusalem.
Actually, as we look at the Bible as a whole, we see Jerusalem as that silver thread that begins in the garden of Eden, in the very opening of the Bible, and goes all the way to the closing of our Bibles. The whole purpose of God is somehow represented in that city. One day, all the works of God will be consummated in the city of the New Jerusalem.
That is what David saw. That is the secret that somehow he saw. We do not know exactly how. That is an interesting thing. If you know, please come and talk to me—I would love to hear that. But somehow, he understood.
He understood that that city, not very relevant or impressive in itself, was related to what God wanted. It represented something. It was a picture of something that God wants.
He understood that it was God’s choice, as declared in Deuteronomy. It was something related to God’s will; it was what God had purposed. It was His prerogative. He had chosen that city.
He understood somehow that that city had to do with the great King. Of course, David himself was only a shadow. I think, when you read the Psalms, it is very clear that David never saw himself as that final great King. He was only a shadow of the great King.
He says in one psalm—the psalm the Lord Jesus used when He asked the Pharisees—that “the Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I put Your enemies as a footstool under Your feet.’” David understood that his own Lord was the great King.
When he says, “The Lord said to my Lord,” there are two different Persons: the Lord God the Father speaking to the Son. Somehow David understood that this One was really the great King. This One was the One to whom that city belongs. Therefore, Jerusalem is entitled the city of the great King.
So the King is what makes Jerusalem Jerusalem. But at the same time, it is a city. The two things go hand in hand. That city is supposed somehow to express the Lord—but not merely as an expression of the Lord Jesus in Himself, in isolation.
No, it is a city. There are people there, inhabitants somehow expressing the Lord. The Lord is dwelling in their midst, and that is the representation. That is the testimony behind Jerusalem.
The name of the Lord was supposed to be placed upon that city. The house of the Lord was what was supposed to be built in that city. David saw all those things. It is an amazing vision.
The second thing we considered was this: how did he see it? Why did he see it? What was the reason behind him being able to see it when so many people, and so many centuries of history, had elapsed since Deuteronomy 12 before David finally appeared?
How come only David? What is the reason? What is behind it? We saw that it was something related to his heart.
If we were to use New Testament language, I feel that what Paul says to the Ephesians applies. Somehow David saw because he had the eyes of his heart enlightened. Unless that happens, we never really see. Again, it is not a mental understanding.
I am not talking about being able to write about it or understand mentally what it is about. To see with your heart is really to enter into the secret of the Lord. That is what happened to David. The eyes of his heart were enlightened.
There was something in his heart that corresponded to the heart of God. That is the secret behind it. That is the key. It is not a mental thing; there is a heart-to-heart correspondence.
Again, our theme verse: “I have found David, a man after My heart.” You see, the heart of the Lord found something corresponding in the heart of David. That is the ultimate reason. That is what enabled David to see that secret.
We also mentioned that, in the final analysis, David was not the one who attained or achieved such a heart. I think that if we could ask him, he would tell us so—but I will suggest it. He was not the one who produced that heart.
Out of his relationship with the Lord, beautifully depicted in Psalm 23—out of such a love relationship with his Shepherd, out of all the grace that the Shepherd lavished upon him—such a heart was produced.
But it was much more a response. It was not David taking the initiative; it was David responding to the Lord’s grace. That is what is behind this man having such revelation: simply someone who responds with a full heart, with a whole heart, to what the Lord is revealing.
That is what we tried to cover yesterday. Today, we would like to take a further step into this matter. We would like to see some additional spiritual principles in this matter of the heart that can see what the Lord is after.
If the main principle is this heart that is completely open to the Lord, responding to His grace, where God can find some correspondence, then that seems to me to be the main principle. But we can see in David’s life additional principles—some very important features that reveal a heart after God’s heart.
The question we could try to consider is this: What is the practical outworking of a heart that is after God’s heart? Is that a sentimental thing? Is it something purely ethereal? Or what is it in practice? How can you see such a heart that is after His heart?
When we try to consider that, I think I was too ambitious, because I guess the list goes on and on and on. It is simply amazing what the Lord did in this man. So I had to limit myself to a couple of aspects that I feel somehow reveal what the Lord developed in this heart in a very practical way.
Besides that basic point—his completeness for the Lord, the eyes of his heart being enlightened—what else could be placed under those spiritual principles that reveal a man after God’s heart?
I feel this is tremendously relevant to all of us, as we find ourselves under the same calling. We find ourselves called to be citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. So this is for all of us, brothers and sisters: not merely to understand what these principles are, but to allow the Holy Spirit to work these principles in our very lives.
So I would like to consider them and start with the first one.
David’s pursuit of God’s purpose—his pursuit of what he saw in God’s heart—was always centered on a Person.
I hope this makes sense to you. Essentially, what I am trying to say is this: David never pursued Jerusalem as something in itself, apart from the Lord.
It may sound subtle, and you may say, “What is the big deal?” But we have the terrible capacity to do this: to take something that is from the Lord, that is His will, and somehow take it apart from Him and make a thing out of it. We make it something that we pursue, but it is no longer related to Him.
Thank the Lord, I do not think we ever see this in David’s heart. His pursuit of what the Lord is after is always centered in a Person. How fundamental, how precious, that is.
Now, if we bring this into New Testament language, we know that the church is the antitype, the reality, of what Jerusalem is. The church is what the Lord is after. That is His will, which we see in the garden and at the end of the Book. That is what He has been pursuing all these years, and that is where He is going to obtain it.
The risk for us is that there seem to be two extremes among the Lord’s people. Even if you know very little about church history—that is my case, I guess—you can see clearly that there are two extremes when you come to this matter.
The first is that some people in church history have made the church the center of everything. It is like a thing in itself, apart from the Lord. Every time this has happened—and it has happened several times in church history—it has ended in something very damaging, in spiritual wreckage, if I can use that expression.
This matter of the purpose of the Lord is always centered in a Person. Paul says in Ephesians that it is according to His eternal purpose, which He purposed in Christ Jesus—never apart from the Lord.
This matter of the church being a vessel is always according to the purpose in Christ Jesus. Thank the Lord, David is such a testimony of someone who pursued the purpose of the Lord, who served his generation according to God’s purpose, but always centered in a Person, never apart from Him.
So one extreme is that we have the risk of pursuing these things apart from the Lord. The other extreme comes when we see the excesses that have happened in church history, when we see that perhaps some groups have made the church something in itself.
The other risk, the other extreme, is to throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say. We go to the other extreme and say, “Well, there is so much excess, there is so much risk, and maybe this is dangerous teaching. We should not go there.”
Many people will say, “To me, Christ is enough,” which in one sense is a wonderful thought. However, that is not at all what the Lord is after. You see the other risk: we see something wrong that happened and say, “No, I am not touching this anymore.” Somehow, when we do that, we shut ourselves out of what God is after, out of God’s purpose.
God’s purpose is something eternal. That is the little word we find in Ephesians. When we read our Bibles, it is very clear: it is from the beginning to the end, and it will never change.
If I say, “Well, I am after Christ, and Christ to me is enough,” that will not change what the Lord is after. That is the tragedy. God’s purpose is not simply Christ expressed in Himself, nor simply Christ expressed in some saints in isolation—not even that.
It is Christ expressed corporately through this corporate vessel, His body, the church. If that is not what we are pursuing—centered in Him, yes—but if that is not our pursuit, something is amiss.
I feel that when we see that His purpose is something eternal, we should ask the following question: Is it really possible for me, or for anyone, truly to love the Lord and not care for what He is after?
It would be a very strange thing. If you love any person and have absolutely no interest in what that person wants or likes, I would put a question mark on your love for that person. Really, it would be a very strange thing.
Unfortunately, that is the attitude of some saints. I cannot think that it is not out of sincerity; I think it is. Yet, if I say I love the Lord and have no interest in pursuing what He is after—what He gave His life to make possible—am I really loving Him?
We read some verses in Philippians, and I find it wonderful. To me, the very fact that Ephesians, this epistle that reveals God’s purpose—what He is after—is side by side with Philippians is meaningful.
Ephesians is the clearest exposition of God’s purpose in the Bible. Through the Bible you see it in type: Jerusalem, the house of the Lord. In Ephesians you see all the metaphors explained—the real thing, the spiritual reality.
But I find it very interesting that this epistle, which is the most complete unveiling of God’s heart and of His purpose concerning His Son, which has to do with the church, is side by side with another epistle: Philippians.
Philippians 3, as Brother Lance said so many times, was to him the most amazing testimony to be found in the whole Bible. The more I walk with the Lord, the more I appreciate that statement.
Indeed, if you come to think about it, what a testimony! When Paul says, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing sublimity”—in my translation—“of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus,” he saw something in the Person of the Lord Jesus, in His Person and nothing else.
He saw something so precious, so worth pursuing, that he—a man who had much to which he naturally could cling, much that could be desirable—said, “I count it all loss.” It was worth throwing it away because of the preciousness of this Person.
Then he goes on to state the secret of his life: “I did not get there, but I do one thing. I forget the things that are behind, and I press on toward the mark, toward the goal.” That goal is nobody else than that Person.
The reason I am bringing these verses from Philippians is that Ephesians and Philippians are side by side. More amazingly, they are among the prison epistles, together with Colossians and Philemon. They were written around the same time.
At roughly the same time that Paul wrote the greatest unveiling of God’s purpose, he was writing Philippians. I feel that reveals something very, very important. Paul was not pursuing the church, God’s purpose, as something in itself apart from the Person who is supposed to be expressed.
It is always side by side: pursuing the Lord’s purpose, centered on the Person of the Lord Jesus. He is the center. Somehow David’s pursuit is exactly of the same nature as Paul’s pursuit.
Let us read again the verse we read in Psalm 27. I think it makes this principle very clear.
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord.
You see, the house of the Lord was one of the things, one of the revelations, David had. The Lord was after a house to be built in Jerusalem. That is what He was after. David is expressing here that he wants that. If the Lord wants that, he wants to pursue it.
But did you realize the ultimate reason, the final analysis, for why he desired the house of the Lord? What did he want to behold in the house of the Lord? To behold the beauty of the Lord.
He never pursued this matter of the Lord’s purpose apart from the Lord—never. Brothers and sisters, this is our calling. This is our privilege. This is the kind of pursuit that ought to be in our hearts in this matter: yes, pursuing His purpose, but centered in a Person.
That is the first thing I would like to suggest as a spiritual principle. It is a practical outworking of what is a heart after the Lord: pursuing what He is after, centered on a Person, even the Person of the Lord Jesus.
The second spiritual principle that I think is very clear in David’s life is that his pursuit of the Lord’s purpose was something quite practical.
What do I mean? It is very easy for us to have revelation about something and take it as some sort of inspiring truth—something beautiful, an ideal, something very nice—but very little more than that. It is something you admire, something that inspires you, but it remains a wonderful theory in your life and nothing more.
David’s pursuit of God’s purpose was not of that type. It was not that he saw something inspiring and said, “Okay, wonderful,” then wrote a bunch of psalms about how wonderful it was, and it stayed at that. His pursuit of the Lord’s purpose was extremely practical and extremely intense.
Did you pay attention to Psalm 132 that we read? I know everybody seems a little tired tonight, but did you pay attention?
We do not know if David wrote Psalm 132. Apparently not, because it speaks about David in the third person. It could have been, but perhaps not. Perhaps someone was describing David’s experience. But did you realize what this psalm is saying?
Remember, O Lord, on David’s behalf, all his affliction;
How he swore to the Lord
And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob.
Here is his vow. Whether he was writing it or not, we do not know, but this is what David vowed:
Surely I will not enter my house,
Nor lie on my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
Until I find a place for the Lord,
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.
Do you see that there is nothing merely theoretical or idealistic here that remains at that level? When David saw what was in God’s heart, there was an intense and practical pursuit.
All his heart was on that—not just on a sentimental or theoretical level. He says, “I am not resting until the Lord gets His rest.” All my energy, all my might, is going into that. What a heart!
This is the type, this is the kind, of heart that the Lord is after. This is the heart of a man after God’s heart: seeing His purpose and pursuing, in a practical way, what the Lord is after.
I feel that this matter is something very practical for us. Somehow David understood that this had to do with the Lord’s people. If you read several psalms, that pursuit is not merely about having the house or having a structure. It is about that house being a means for the Lord to be expressed in a corporate way.
Even in the Old Testament, you can see that understanding. Because David understood that it was about the Lord’s people—about the Lord obtaining His rest among His people—he developed such a shepherd’s heart.
At the beginning of his life, David was a shepherd of literal sheep, of animals. As he became king, he became the shepherd of the nation, the shepherd of the people. He was a real shepherd, not merely in a figurative way.
He was truly one who had concern and desire for the Lord’s people. Something that amazes me when I read some of his psalms—and there are so many examples that it is hard to pinpoint only one or two—is that you see so clearly a true concern for the people of the Lord.
It is not merely that he loves the Lord and is pursuing Him. He wants the people to enter into the same experience, to follow the Lord with him. I just want to show you this in two psalms, to give you a taste of it.
I understand that our brother shared in the workshop today on the matter of having a shepherd’s heart for the Lord’s people, or something similar. Unfortunately, I missed it. But whatever the theme of the workshop was, this is clearly a main characteristic in the heart of this man after God’s heart, and it should be something the Holy Spirit works in our lives.
Let us look quickly at two psalms that reveal this spiritual principle: David’s concern for the Lord’s people.
I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear it and rejoice