God chooses a shepherd to deliver and rule over His people.
God chooses a shepherd to deliver and rule over His people.
Advent Day 13, the Shepherd King and the Giant Slayer.
No one suspects David will one day slay giants or become the king of Israel.
David is Jesse's son, the youngest of many brothers.
He's the next in line to serve as a shepherd boy, and most likely shows up to dinner grubby, starving, and stinking of sheep.
If his family notices him at all, they almost immediately dismiss him from their minds.
But God sees David.
God peers into David's heart and finds the making of a good, wise king.
And God chooses David, a young boy and shepherd, to deliver and rule over God's people.
Samuel, the last judge of Israel, worries.
He worries about the people.
He worries about the king's soul.
His worries feel like stones.
He pushes up a hill only to have them roll right back down again.
Worrying isn't getting him anywhere.
So he rises, joins creaking, back popping, to seek God's counsel.
The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you grieve over Saul since I've rejected him from being king over Israel?
Fill your horn with oil and gold.
I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.
First Samuel, 16, verse 1.
It can be hard to move forward, even when it becomes clear moving forward is necessary.
Why do you think Samuel struggles to move forward?
When have you found it hard to surrender a bad decision or situation?
What help would help you move forward?
David wonders the hills and valleys near Bethlehem with his father's sheep.
He's a good shepherd.
And he takes satisfaction in doing good work, no matter how his brothers tease him or forget to call him Enphyspher.
He protects the sheep.
They fear no evil, whether predator or pond, when David walks beside them.
But he isn't thinking about brothers or dangers right now.
He is revising a few lines of verse in his head, turning them over like small stones in his hand.
Oh, Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Down the hill at David's home, Samuel visits with Jesse.
Samuel examines each of Jesse's sons.
But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I've rejected him.
For the Lord sees not as man sees, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
And the Lord said, arise, anoint David, for this is he from 1 Samuel 16.
How does the Lord see?
Life goes on, little changes for David or the kingdom of Israel.
War with the Philistines again, David's brothers head to the battlefield.
There they wait for the Philistines of a champion, Goliath, whose weapons and words flood them with dismay and fear.
A stalemate, every day, Goliath strolls forth, issues his challenge, and saunters back to the Philistines line.
Then a change.
David shows up, and David speaks up.
Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God, 1 Samuel 17:36.
What is it that motivates David to speak?
David battles Goliath as himself, a shepherd boy, armed with the sling and stones.
But David understands and maybe even sees what the people of God cannot.
The living God is with him, and so are the Lord's hosts, as David strides towards Goliath, he cries.
You come to me with the sword, and with the spear, and with the javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves, not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand, 1 Samuel 17:45-47.
What does David remember and proclaim?
What do you need to remember about God?
How could you proclaim that truth today and this week?
David may kill giants, but he refuses again and again to kill the soul.
He waits on the Lord to fulfill the promise given to him.
David will be king.
Many years later, David becomes king.
David is a good king, but he's not a perfect king.
He makes mistakes.
He sins greatly.
Toward the end of his life, he asks himself, what makes for a good king?
David ponders the question, weighs it like a stone in his hand.
He examines which of his many sons might rule after him.
This one, God?
What about this one?
He thinks back to his own anointing.
Why did God choose him?