Good morning.
Well, it looks as though I’m your substitute teacher. I think you’ve all gotten the email from Jerry that Bobby Mueller, who was going to speak on the priesthood of all believers, was not able to speak this morning because of an illness.
I never like those 7:30 calls on Sunday morning. They never turn out right for some reason. Well, those middle-of-the-night calls—I never like those calls. But Jerry called me, and I’m willing to share what’s on my heart.
Now, I’ve already confused you. Not only do you have the wrong speaker; you have the wrong message. Jerry said, “What’s on your heart?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know, brother. I really don’t know.” He caught me cold with a hot cup of coffee, and I said, “Maybe Revelation 1:5-6.”
I didn’t know he put that in the email, because I didn’t go. So when I went upstairs to be before the Lord and was praying, it seemed the Lord took me to Psalm 27. So, you’re totally confused starting out this morning. I understand that, but may the Lord meet us in a precious way.
We’ll just read Psalm 27:4. This is David’s psalm, one of his most famous psalms.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
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 inquire in His temple.
Let’s just have a word of prayer.
Lord, we’re so grateful that we can come to You. This morning we heard that call: “Come to You.” And we’re so grateful. When we open Your Word, we must come to You, because no one can speak a word from the Lord except it come from the Lord.
We tell You again: it’s always in my heart what Peter said that day when so many were offended. So many of Your disciples turned back, turned away, and You looked and You said, “Will you also go?” And Peter said, “Thou hast the words of eternal life. To whom shall we go?”
Lord, once again, we pray the Holy Spirit would quicken us together to hear what the Spirit is speaking to the churches. We’re not concerned with what man has to say, but we value what the Lord has to say.
We pray You would fill this place with Your glory. We pray You would fill these unusual circumstances with Your presence, and You would speak to us a living word. For together we ask this in the name of our precious Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, the subject today ought to be pretty clear from that verse. David’s secret is the message: David’s secret.
David’s secret was this simple phrase: one thing. Now, brothers and sisters, I believe in the Christian life that would solve many of our problems if that were our secret, like David’s.
We’re too complicated as Christians so often. We’re confused because there’s so much detail that we tend to lose our way. We think we should be doing this, and we should be doing that, and we should be stronger in this and stronger in that. We tend to lose our way because our eyes are moving from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. Before you know it, our eyes are filled with many things.
I believe David had a secret. He shared that secret, and I believe it is to be our secret. That secret is one thing—that which took over the man, that which captured the man, that which made the man what he was.
If we, by the grace of God, could be such a people that our testimony, in our circumstances and in our walk, were like David’s, and we could say, “One thing have we asked of the Lord; that will we seek after: to behold the beauty of the Lord, to dwell in His house forever,” I believe that would be a great secret above every secret.
I believe it changed David, and I believe it can change us.
I’ll never forget how easy it is to become distracted. Some of you know I play at golf, and I don’t play golf very well. That’s the problem. One of my partners said, “Maybe you shouldn’t play so much.” Well, the problem is, I don’t play enough. My other partner told me he wished.
But when I saw that, I took lessons. I want to tell you, I took lessons. I thought that was the secret. It wasn’t the secret.
I went to a pro, and the first day I hit a seven iron. She wanted to see if I could really hit a golf ball, and I hit the best seven iron I’d ever hit. She said, “Quit your day job.” It was the highest compliment. I thought, “Boy, look at this. I can hit a seven iron.”
Then she started making me look at so many things. She said, “Well, let’s get your grip right.” So she fooled with my grip. She fooled with my stance. She did all kinds of things with where I held my head. She said, “This is what you need to be focused on, and this is what you need to be focused on.”
By the fourth lesson, I could hardly hit a golf ball. It was terrible—so terrible. I don’t think she’s done this to anyone else. She took the golf club out of my hand and said, “Who are you? I don’t know you.”
The whole problem was that I would come up to that golf ball and there were a million things on my mind: get your stance straight, get your head straight, relax, set your back right, do all these things. And if you do all these things, then you’ll get it right. That wasn’t the secret.
You know, let me give you a golf lesson. You can pay me for this golf lesson, by the way. Go up to the golf ball, set yourself, take a deep breath, and relax. Just look at the golf ball. One thing.
Well, that’s a kind of poor illustration, but it really came home to me one day when I was praying before the Lord. That was what was wrong. Now, my golf game hasn’t improved, and this message isn’t going to be about golf.
But I did discover that focusing on one thing was the great secret.
When you look at this, I think above all it is a word of encouragement, because I think we exclude ourselves. When we think of David, the great David, we say, “We are not Davids. None of us are Davids. How can we be like David?”
The strong encouragement of the Word of God is that every one of us can be like David and know that one thing. Every one of us can be like David.
I think when you look—and we’ll look at sort of three areas—David’s circumstances were terrifically difficult. I believe there’s a word of encouragement there. Here you take one who was in the most difficult circumstances, certainly some of the most difficult in the whole of the Old Testament, and we derive great encouragement from what he discovered in the midst of those circumstances.
Now, as we begin this new year, brothers and sisters, there’s a purpose to this message. I want us to look at this new year differently. Your circumstances may be terrifically difficult. I don’t know your circumstances. You don’t know my circumstances. But David’s secret was discovered in the middle of his circumstances.
He discovered one thing that made him triumphant, and I believe that’s what we should discover.
He shared with us his own greatest secret. And if we can lay hold—or let me put it differently, because I think it’s different—if it can lay hold of us. There’s a difference between you laying hold of a secret and a secret laying hold of you. When the secret of the Lord lays hold of you, you’ll be captured and changed forever. That’s what happened to David.
The last thing in this arena of three that I think about with David was David’s testimony. What a startling testimony he had. You’ll be shocked at the testimony, even though most of you know it, that this man possessed before God.
In the end, isn’t the important thing that we have a living testimony? Whether we’re an individual believer in Christ, which we are, or whether we’re a corporate group gathered in the name of the Lord, isn’t the important thing that we have a living testimony? God, in the end, is after testimony, and He found testimony in David’s life.
So I want us to look at this, in a broad way, in David’s life, in these three areas, and see this one thing. I think if, going into this new year, we can have this kind of focus, it can help us in our walk as individual believers, and it can help us in our life together as the assembly of God.
I don’t think this is just an ideal. I hope you don’t think we share just principles. With David, it entered into the very practice of his life. In the dirtiest, hardest, and most difficult places of his life, he discovered this great secret of one thing. I think we can as well.
This phrase, “one thing,” is a very important phrase in the Bible. I think of Mary of Bethany. The Lord said of her, “You’ve chosen that one thing that is necessary.”
What if we did that? What if we, as a people of God, had this testimony about us: that we’ve chosen that one thing that is necessary? What a difference we would be. What a difference Bethany was. What a difference that home with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus was.
Think of Paul when he shared his great secret with the Philippian church. He said, “This one thing I do.” Don’t you think that’s important? I believe that’s breathtakingly important.
This one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Is there anything more important than that one thing?
Then I think maybe of the rich young ruler. This is the negative aspect. You remember, he thought he was the cat’s meow. I don’t know if you use that phrase or even know what that means. He thought he was something. He thought he had it all figured out, and he came and devoted his life to follow the Lord.
The rich young ruler didn’t discover the secret. The Lord said to him, “One thing thou lackest.” He never saw it. He thought he could serve the Lord. He thought he had kept the commandments. He thought he had done everything right. He went on to even say, “I have done all these since my youth.”
Brothers and sisters, I believe this simple phrase is of extreme importance. I believe if we understood it, and if it caught us, we’d be a changed people. We’d never be the same. We would be people like David. We would be a people like Mary of Bethany. We would be a people like the apostle Paul. And we would be a people different than the rich young ruler.
Maybe in future times we’ll talk about these other folks, but today let’s focus on David.
Now, David’s circumstances, when you read these psalms, are perplexingly difficult. Read Psalm 27. They are extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Yet, in the middle of those extraordinarily difficult circumstances, he discovered a great secret that carried him through every one of those circumstances.
So, brothers and sisters, if you think this burden is just about Bible teaching, it’s not. What is on my heart is that I want you, and I want me, to discover this great secret that will carry us through every circumstance—no matter how hard it is, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how extraordinarily impossible it seems.
There is a secret you can know that can make you go through, and go through triumphantly.
Look at this psalm. We didn’t read it all. I was trying to save time; I may not be successful after all. But there is a repeated phrase in this psalm: “Mine enemies” and “mine adversaries.” It’s repeated again and again.
This is not a psalm of leisure. This is a psalm of great and terrible circumstances. He repeated again and again these simple words: “Mine enemies” and “mine adversaries.” Those were his circumstances.
Look at Psalm 27:2.
When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh,
Even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.
Look at Psalm 27:3.
Though a host should encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise against me,
Even then will I be confident.
Look at Psalm 27:6.
And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me;
And I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy;
I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.
Look at Psalm 27:11-12.
Teach me Thy way, O Lord,
And lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.
Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries:
For false witnesses are risen up against me,
And such as breathe out cruelty.
I think it’s very clear—the circumstances in this psalm, and really the circumstances of David’s life. He was pursued like an animal. Can you imagine?
I don’t think any one of you thinks, when you get up in the morning and go to work—if you go to work—or whatever you’re doing, if you’re at home with the children, if you’re going to school, that you’re going to be pursued like an animal. But David was.
David is an absolute illustration of the worst-case scenario. The reason he is an illustration of the worst-case scenario is that we see one who, in the absolute worst of circumstances, discovered the greatest secret. It is the ultimate encouragement to us who have lesser crosses to bear. Do you understand?
I can repeat some of my old illustrations because Linda’s not here, and I’m confident you won’t tell her. But my whole career has been focused on worst case. As a structural engineer, that’s all we do.
The building code puts the responsibility on us and says, “You take a structure and put the worst-case wind loads on it. You put the worst-case combination of occupant loads on it—both dead, not dead people, by the way, but building load and human beings—and arrange them in such circumstances that they create the worst possible effect.”
Then, and only then—oh no, by the way—it says you also have to throw an earthquake at that building and make sure it can stand up under an earthquake.
It used to be, when I was a young engineer, we were exempt from designing for earthquakes. I remember the first time I had to design a dairy in Boston for an earthquake. I didn’t know what to do, because we were exempt. But this was Boston, and this wasn’t Virginia.
In the worst case, if you can find the secret, you can go through. That’s David’s life. He was pursued like an animal. He was a hunted man.
You remember Saul. I think the story of Saul illustrates David’s life. Saul pursued him, incessantly pursued him. You remember when David was in his presence and Saul hurled the spear into the wall, and David ducked. You remember how furious Saul was.
He sought for him. He drove him into the wilderness, and he hunted him day after day, because Saul was losing his kingdom.
I think you all know the story. Turn to 1 Samuel. I’ll read a little bit of it to refresh your memory.
First Samuel 18:10-11.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as he did day by day; and Saul had the spear in his hand.
And Saul cast the spear; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
All the theologians have argued with that verse: what does it mean? You’re not going to get the answer today, by the way.
Read on. This was why Saul was so furious. His kingdom was slipping away. He was a man of the flesh, and he saw this one who was of a different spirit.
Listen to 1 Samuel 18:12-16:
And Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul.
Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.
And David prospered in all his ways; and the Lord was with him.
That was David’s secret. Even Saul recognized it. Saul removed him and made him captain over a thousand, and David prospered in all his ways because the Lord was with him.
There is hardly a greater secret than that. This was David’s secret. Even Saul saw it—the one who was pursuing him like an animal to slay him. He said, “The Lord is with him.” What a secret.
You remember when David wrote that beloved psalm, perhaps the most famous Scripture in the Old Testament: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, what does he say? “I will fear no evil.” Why does he say it? Because, “Thou art with me.”
What a secret. Brothers and sisters, if this year you only discover in your circumstances, “The Lord is with me,” you have made a great discovery.
With that single discovery, you can go through almost everything, because David did. Even Saul saw it. He was furious because the Lord was with him. He was possessed with a demonic spirit, pursuing him to destroy him.
None of you have those circumstances, but all of you can have that secret. None of you will taste this kind of demonic hatred—possibly, you may—but all of you can know this divine favor: the Lord is with you.
Could you ask, as you begin this year, anything greater than that? Is there any wish you could make greater than that? This is not a wish. This is a fact.
I remember Campbell Morgan. When he ended that great, present-day wonderful book—if you haven’t read it, please read it—his study of Matthew, he came to the very end of the book, when the risen Lord said, “All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.” You remember.
Then the Lord said, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” What a secret.
Campbell Morgan thought he was encouraging a little old lady. She was in her eighties. He went to her and read her that profound verse. He said, “What do you think? Isn’t that the greatest promise in the Bible?”
This little old lady, maybe wiser than the great prince of expositors, said to him, “Sir, that is not a promise. That is a fact.”
How wonderful. The Lord is with me. Can there be any simpler thing? Can there be any more profound thing? Can there be any greater assurance?
You remember when the Lord spoke to Moses at the end of his life. He said, “Be strong and of good courage.” Then He said, “Go and share this with Joshua: as I was with you, so I will be with him. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
Then God Himself said to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage.” We’ve been hearing from Jim in Joshua. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” What encouragement that is—so profound.
I think when the writer of Hebrews—I always refer to the writer of Hebrews; you know this. You may be a little annoyed by it, but I always call him that anonymous, anointed writer of Hebrews. When he was summing up his understanding of the whole Old Testament period, he quoted that verse that was given to Moses, that was given to Joshua, and through them was given to all the people of God.
In Hebrews 13:5, he said:
I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.
How wonderful. David discovered that secret. In the year ahead, and for the rest of our life, we need to discover this secret. It is tremendously wonderful.
David’s circumstances, by the way, didn’t get better. They seemed to have gotten worse. You remember, driven to the cave of Adullam, in that cave with those ones who were despised and rejected. Yet in that place, hiding, they became the mighty men of God—the mighty men of valor.
That’s what can happen when we know the secret.
I hope you understand what David went through. Not only were his enemies pursuing him; his family pursued him. Have you ever thought of that? Absalom pursued him. You remember that—his own son, his third son.
You remember when Absalom was killed and David’s heart was broken with inconsolable grief:
O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!
Would I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
What circumstances. Think of his fourth son, Adonijah. He wanted to claim the throne. It doesn’t seem to get any better. It wasn’t just his enemies; it was his family.
Instead, David made Solomon king in Gihon. But, brothers and sisters, you need to understand this man’s circumstances to understand this man’s secret. Otherwise, you never get it. It will be theoretical. It won’t be real to you.
I believe there’s something great in what he discovered. I believe that when you read the psalm, you discover even darker circumstances. He said:
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take me up.
Now you think, listen, you think you’ve got a bad situation. This is King David saying, “When my father and my mother forsake me.” Right here in this psalm: “Then the Lord will take me up.”
You remember they did forget him. You remember when the prophet went to Saul and said, “You’ve been rejected, and God has sought a man after His own heart.” You remember that, don’t you?
Then they said, “Go to Jesse the Bethlehemite’s house and bring his sons.” Well, he had eight sons. From one of those would come the new king, the man after God’s own heart. All seven sons were brought before the prophet, and he concluded, “None of these are the one.”
You see, his family had left him out in the sheepfold. He wasn’t worthy to come into the presence of the king who had failed and be considered to be the king that God selected.
Read those words with great care: “When my father and my mother forsake me.”
I’ll never forget one time sharing with a young lady—and I will not be specific—who had terrible family circumstances, terrible family life. As we were with her, this verse in Psalm 27 came to my heart. It was all like a chair, and I said, “When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.”
What a secret. What a powerful secret.
Surely, as the prophet Samuel said, “Is there anybody else?” “You know, there’s this one—the runt of the litter,” he was referred to by some biblical scholars. “Oh, he’s out there in the field, this guy. No, we brought the best, the cream of the crop, before you. They’re here. Pick one to be the king.”
And he said, “No. Go get David.”
This forgotten one, this one who was later pursued like an animal, living in caves, with his own family turning against him—this one was God’s king.
I don’t know if I’m getting it across. It needs to be a word of encouragement in your life. What are your circumstances? What have you discovered in those circumstances?
Have you discovered a presence so real that it can carry you through the darkest moments? Have you discovered “the Lord is with you” so real that He will never leave you nor forsake you? Have you discovered that though father and mother forsake you, He will take you up?
This is David’s secret, and I believe it can be your secret.
I don’t know how much I see, but I want it to be my secret this year. Lord, I don’t know what You have for 2020. I don’t know what circumstances are set before me, but this I do know: the Lord is with me.
Even the enemy knows the Lord is with you, and he’s enraged. But that is a great secret.
Well, let’s look at his greatest secret. If you look at Psalm 27:4 again, I’m so thankful this is not a secret hidden from view, but a secret revealed.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
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 inquire in His temple.
There is no more important secret in David’s life than this one secret. He said, “One thing have I desired.” Now, I don’t know about you, but my list usually includes more than one thing. Sometimes there are many things I desire.
But David was so clear, so crystal clear in his spirit, that he said, “One thing have I desired. That will I seek after.”
Would 2020 be for you a year when you seek the Lord like never before and discover His greatest secrets that are for you and me?
“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 inquire in His temple.” These are not two secrets. This is one secret. At the bottom of that one secret was one thing.
At the bottom, the one thing was to behold the beauty of the Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, that is the great secret.
There is no more powerful word in the Bible than this simple word: behold. The problem with us as believers is that many of us have seen something, but not so many of us have beheld the beauty of the Lord.
You remember when John the Baptist said:
Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!
Brothers and sisters, all I’m telling you that I can discern from what David said is that there is something greater than just seeing. There’s a beholding of the Lord that changes your whole life and your whole circumstances.
Beholding is the key. You remember in Isaiah 6, it changed Isaiah’s ministry when the king died and he became one whose eyes, it says, had seen the King. What a difference.
I’m telling you, if you behold the beauty of the Lord, you’ll never be the same. You won’t just be one well taught; you’ll be one well caught. There’s a huge difference.
David saw something of the Lord. It arrested him for the rest of his life. It changed him from the inside out, and because he beheld the beauty of the Lord, he was never the same again. Until his dying day, he said, “This is my supreme secret.”
Those that will know Him must know this secret.
I’ll never forget when I came here, showing my age, in 1972. The first time I heard Brother Kong, he opened the Book of Acts to us. That ministry became the book the ladies are presently considering on Tuesday morning.
He opened to us the beauty of the Lord. I’ll never forget it. It changed my course as a young man. I said, “Lord, this is what I need. This is what I want.”
It was not just teaching on Acts. It was seeing the Lord continue to do, to speak, and to work in the living body, His church. At the center of everything was the beauty of the Lord. I’ll never forget it.
I remember, as a young man, I got hold of The Pursuit of God. I’ll never forget it. I remember, from Psalm 42, A. W. Tozer’s book: “As the deer pants after the water brooks, so my soul longs after Thee, O God.”
What a secret. It was a secret opened to me. It came as light to me: the secret is a passion for the Lord Himself.
David had that. But David had a twin passion. It isn’t a different passion. If you think it’s a different passion, you don’t understand David. He said, “To dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He had a passion for God’s house.
He had such a passion for the Lord, and such a passion—this twin passion—for God’s house. Brothers and sisters, I can’t explain it. I am miserable at putting it in words. But I remember the impact it had upon me when I was twenty-one years old.
I saw the beauty of the Lord, and I saw the beauty of His house. I was never the same after that moment. Life changed for me.
Career was no longer first. Thank God for my career. It’s almost over, by the way. I have two more years, and I’m retiring. This world had nothing for me. How disappointing, this life.
Family wasn’t first. I hope that doesn’t offend any of you. I love my family just as much as any of you. We had a wonderful day yesterday together. But family wasn’t first.
David’s secret was to behold the beauty of the Lord and to dwell in the house of the Lord all of his days. That’s passion.
I wish the world hadn’t stolen that word, “passion,” and made it a dirty word. It’s a beautiful word.
As we go into 2020, may you have a passion for Christ. What’s absent in the heart of so many believers? There’s understanding. Forgive me for being so repetitious. There’s understanding. Is there a passion?
What a difference. What a difference it’ll make in your life, in your home, in your career, with your family. What a difference it’ll make if that one thing is right.
You know, it’s like that woman with the issue of blood our brother Bob read about. She pressed in with the crowd. The crowd was thronging the Lord. You remember that story.
So dense was the crowd that the disciples wondered at the Lord’s explanation. One in that crowd pressed in—that one with the issue of blood—and touched the hem of His garment. She was forever changed.
The Lord said, “Who touched Me?” The disciples, indignant, said, “How can You say, ‘Who touched You?’ with this crowd that is thronging You—this mass of humanity?”
But He knows when one touches Him and doesn’t just throng Him. Life is forever changed.
I want to encourage you for 2020. All I can say for you and for me is this can be real. This needs to be real. I believe this is David’s greatest secret.
I think maybe I’ll just cut some things short. Do you have that secret?
I remember when our brother started with us going through the Old Testament. I’ve never heard anything like it. We saw Christ in every book of the Old Testament. Now, how can you do that? It was life-giving to the assembly.
Seeing Christ in the Old Testament is a masterpiece. I know he’ll talk to me later and tell me I probably shouldn’t have said this, but it is a masterpiece, because there you see the One who is behind everything in every book.
Obadiah—can you imagine seeing Christ in Obadiah? Can you imagine seeing Christ in Ezekiel, with those hard judgments? I slogged through Ezekiel not that long ago, again.
But if we see Christ in every place, in every circumstance, in every word, we have discovered the great secret.
This is a burden that I think we need for the new year. Let me end with some thoughts on David’s testimony. He had an extraordinary testimony. The things that were said about David have not been said about anyone else. It’s remarkable what God said about David.
If you look at his testimony, there are three things I’d like us to consider momentarily. First, he was a man after God’s own heart. Can you imagine a better thing being said about you?
You remember when Samuel went to Saul and said, “God has sought for Himself a man after His own heart.” That was what God was after. That’s what God is after in you and me: men and women after God’s own heart.
Do you remember in the New Testament, in the Book of Acts, when it tells that very same thing? God is speaking—not the prophet speaking, but God is speaking. He said, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart.”
This was the testimony of David. How wonderful.
Your years will be short, and your eternity will be long. I get a brother in Pointy Valley out there—I feel strongly; I love that brother. His spirit—he’s a Barnabas, a son of encouragement. Every time I talk to him, tears well up in my eyes.
He said, “We have a short life and we have a long life.” I couldn’t agree more.
In this short life, if your resulting testimony can be, “There’s a woman after God’s own heart. There’s a man after God’s own heart. There’s a child after God’s own heart,” what a spectacular testimony that would be.
I think you all would agree that that is a life well lived, and a legacy no one can take away.
That is what was said of David. I’ll read the verse again, Acts 13:22. This is God’s direct word:
And when He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king; to whom also He bare witness and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who shall do all My will.
What an extraordinary testimony.
The other thing said of David is that he had a perfect heart toward God. Now, I think many of us begin to stumble when we read those words in the Old Testament, and we think, “My, I don’t have a perfect heart toward God.” But we’re looking at it from the wrong end.
If you look at David, he was not perfect. The Bible doesn’t say David was perfect. What the Bible says, when it records the testimony of David, is that he had a perfect heart toward God.
If you read in the Old Testament, in the books of Kings and Chronicles, you realize that is the very standard God used to judge every king of Israel and Judah. They’ll tell of them and say, “His heart was not perfect, like David his father.”
Can you imagine? Don’t you think of the story of Bathsheba? That beautiful woman taking a bath, and David, in the wrong place and not with his troops, saw that woman and lusted after her.
If you can imagine, the king conspired for the killing of her husband, Uriah, and took her to be his wife. You think he was perfect? Do you think you were perfect?
God isn’t looking for the perfect. God is looking for those that are perfect in heart. It’s a big difference. When you see it, you know his secret.
He’s a flawed man. Aren’t you a flawed man? I know I’m a flawed man. It doesn’t take Linda’s reminders to tell me.
You are flawed. I am flawed. David was flawed. Yet the concluding testimony of God was that he had a perfect heart toward God.
Think when he numbered the people. It says Satan filled his heart and made him number the people—such a great sin. Many don’t understand it, but here is one who saw the Lord and yet began to think of trusting in numbers, in himself.
We can never trust in ourselves. Surely, you’ll be disappointed. I like the way Stephen Butcher says it: you’ll either be elated, if you think for some reason you’ve done something right, or you’ll be severely depressed. One or the other.
Never look at yourself. Look at this One. That’s the secret.
He wasn’t perfect. I think that’s the word of encouragement I want to leave with you. You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. We never will be perfect. He is not looking for sinless perfection. He’s looking for one that has the secret of David, and that secret was that he had a perfect heart toward God.
How wonderful that is to me.
By the way, let me just say one more thing. The New Testament never records a single sin of David. You know that? How wonderful. Do you know that even Solomon came from Bathsheba? How wonderful and merciful the Lord is with all of our failing. That’s the encouragement of David.
Finally, this extraordinary verse—we had a conference about it—Acts 13:36. The New American Standard Bible says:
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay.
There is no greater testimony than that. Can you imagine it’s your memorial service, if you had one? The concluding thought in your life—your short life—the concluding thought was: “He served the purpose of God in his generation.”
I can’t imagine a finer testimony.
Brothers and sisters, you were saved not to serve yourself. You were cleansed by the blood of Jesus not to live for yourself, but to be constrained by the love of God to live for Him. That was David’s secret.
May we be those, at the end, that when the Holy Spirit summarizes our short life, it will be said of us too: “They served the purpose of God in their generation and fell asleep.”
Didn’t die—they fell asleep, awaiting the coming of the Lord.
This is David’s one thing. I only mean it to encourage you to begin the year with hope. It doesn’t matter how bad your circumstances are. It matters—the One who will never leave you nor forsake you.
It matters not how difficult your path may be. It matters that this One said, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
It matters if you have a passion for God Himself. I can tell you the difference that made. This is part testimony, part ministry. I can tell you the difference in me.
The Christian life was a terrible struggle when I was first saved—trying to live for Him—and then discovering something that was a greater secret: a passion for God and a passion for His house would settle all the other issues. He would be enough.
That’s David’s one thing.
Finally, what an extraordinary testimony. Can you imagine it being said of you, “You are a man after God’s own heart”? Can you imagine it being said of you, “You were an imperfect man or woman, but you had a perfect heart toward God”?
Can you imagine being said of you, at the end of your short life, that you served the purpose of God in your generation? Then you will know you discovered that one great secret.
Lord, we come to You with a desire to begin this new year in Christ Jesus. We offer ourselves to You, knowing our own inadequacies. We cannot do what You call us to do.
But thank You, Lord, that You haven’t left us to our own devices. You have made known, and You are making known, and You will make known that single secret that can make the Christian life possible.
Lord, would You speak to us? Only You can speak to us. Only You can meet us daily. Only You can change us by causing us to behold the Lord.
Only You can show us the beauty of Your house, where we can continue to behold the Lord with brothers and sisters.
Only You can make our life different enough in this world that people will notice the testimony, and people will say, “This is one who knew the secret.”
All these things we ask for Your sake and in Your name. Amen.