I’m here tonight to give you a short little message.
Who knows who David is in the bible? Everyone? Okay. I really want you guys to read this if you can this week. It starts at 1 Samuel 16.
Before I start, let me tell you a story in high school. I went to a public school and I loved to go there for one reason. Want to guess? It’s not the food! Okay, there’s this one guy, he’s seriously so handsome. I was like, “Ooh, there’s Joe! He’s so cute!” He never knew. I never talked to him. Never ever, ever, ever, ever. But I could not wait to see him at school. He dated all the pretty girls. He liked all the pretty girls and I just thought of myself as ugly, homely, big haired. It was a long time ago. Big hair was popular back then. Like this, kind of. I was a cheerleader with big hair.
Have you ever looked at someone else and thought, “They are so much prettier than me,” or, “They are better at sports than me.” Have you ever felt like that? Do you compare yourself? Every day of the day. When you compare yourself, do you put yourself up like, “Yeah, I’m better than them,” or are you always feeling down?
Don’t you sometimes feel like crap when you compare yourself to someone else? Don’t you? Really? It’s easy to do, right? “They talk better.” “They have more friends. These two spent the night together and I wasn’t invited—right? You can feel pretty stinky most of the time if you want to. Well, David had a whole slew of brothers. Samuel went to David’s dad’s house and God told him someone in his house is gonna be a king. So he’s like, “Go to Jesse’s house. Someone in the house of Jesse is going to be king.” God was choosing them and picking them out. So Samuel shows up and he scans.
Samuel just started scanning the room with Jesse and his sons. “Who is it, Lord? Who is gonna be king?” Guess what? God did not pick the dad. It wasn’t the dad, Jesse. He did not pick the oldest in the room or the wisest in the room either.
When Samuel saw Eliab, he said, “Surely this is the Lord’s anointed one standing here.” The Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his height for I have rejected him.” The first thing Samuel did was look and think, “Yes, he’s the one! He looks like a king!” Have you ever looked at somebody like that before? They look rich, right? They look like a hunter, right? We judge people from the first time we see them.
The first thing Samuel did was he started judging all the people by their appearance. God said, “People look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.” So think about that for a minute. When you look at somebody and you think they’re better than you, maybe that’s just the stuff that they can do or what they look like on the outside. But it’s not what their heart is.
Then Jesse called another one of his sons and he passed in front of Samuel. He sees him and he passes by and Lord’s like, “Nope. I haven’t chosen that one either”. They’re old boys. It’s all the oldest sons. And then another one passes by and the Lord’s like, “Nope. I didn’t choose that one either.”
Jesse had seven sons that had already passed by Samuel and the Lord was like, “I have chosen none of these. None of them.” He’s like, “Man, Jesse are these all the sons that you have? I don’t see anybody here that is fit to be king.” I love this, because Jesse says, “There’s still the youngest.”
Do you have a younger sibling? Or are you the youngest? So how do we typically think about the youngest kid? Spoiled. Annoying. They are bossy, sassy, and loud. They may be underestimated. You look down on the youngest one, don’t you? I bet David’s brothers looked down on him too.
But Jesse’s like, “Well there’s still the youngest.” Guess what he’s doing. What did he do? He was a shepherd so he was in the fields. He was tending sheep. So they sent for him and Samuel said, “Send for him and we will not sit down until he arrives.” Think about this—all the oldest sons are already present so they work near the house. They probably have an honorable job. But David is out far away and they have to go send for him and bring him in. “He was glowing with health. He had a fine appearance and handsome features.” God said, “Rise and anoint this one.”
Can you imagine if your little sibling was anointed by God and said like, “Hey, you know what, you’re not gonna be king, Jake, but Abby is. Sorry.” But you know what, sometimes, we don’t see the heart because we don’t take the time to get to know the heart, right?
Here’s what I do know: I do know that every single one in this room is called to reign as a king in this life. Including your little brother. That’s what Romans says. Romans 10:17, if you look it up in the Amplified Bible, if anyone’s taking notes, it says that we’re to reign as kings in this life.
So it’s as if God walks in this room and he scans it. Every single one that knows him, he is choosing. He has picked you and he has called you to be a king in this life. You may be the youngest in your family or you might be the oldest, but he has chosen you. He needs you to step up into the role that he has called you.
The world will let you just be a kid and have fun but God wants you to be a king. When you’re a king, it comes with a responsibility and accountability. It comes with a calling and a cry of your heart. You guys are here worshiping God but David, the reason he was appointed king was because he knew God so well.
David spent time away from the crowd learning who God was and talking to him and speaking to him and learning. It said he glowed. Did you know people, when they spend time with God, you can actually see them radiate? If you look with spiritual eyes, if you say, “God, give me eyes to see people how you see them and tell me what’s really going on with them,” you can see them glow. How seriously are you taking that charge to seek God when you’re all alone? If you can’t hear his voice, you can read the bible and hear from him every day. You can read your bible, you can pray, you can just sit and listen.
But I wanna give you guys a challenge this week. In Kathleen’s challenge you may be the first fifteen, maybe you are the first thirty. You read Revelations. You have lead worship. But the challenge is can you have a heart like David? The bible says that David had a heart like God’s. Don’t you want a heart like that? I just wanted you guys to know that.
Do you receive that God has chosen you to reign as a king in this life? When you start to compare yourself, just think like, “Hey, wait a second. I’m to reign as a king in this life.” When you know you’re supposed to reign as a king, you don’t give up. You don’t give up. You don’t quit. You don’t stop. You keep going back to God and say, “I’m sorry, will you help me?”
Would you guys like to make a pledge to just take that up and pray? Leaders, raise your hands if you’re interested. You don’t have to raise your hand. So we’re just gonna say a little prayer-ish pledge.
Father, thank you for making me a king like David. I take it seriously. I wanna know your heart more. Will you help me mine deep the word of God? Will you open my eyes? Will you open my heart? Will you make me real? Help me to stop judging myself and others.
Father we love you and we praise you for this day. God, we thank you for your word and we just thank you God that we get to reign as kings in this life. I pray that each one of these kids will make an impact in their family, that when their family is down or discouraged or frustrated that they would bring joy and lift up because they bring your truth and your word and they glow in you. In Jesus’s name, amen.
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