Look on the Heart                            

                                              1 Samuel 15:34- 16: 13

 

  

          After fifteen or so years out in the hinterlands perfecting his craft, the apostle Paul has come in from the cold and has embarked, along with Barnabas and John Mark, upon his first missionary journey. They set sail from the island of Cypress and land at Perga. From there, they journey to Psidian Antioch, a town not to be confused with Syrian Antioch, where it all started for Paul. Psidian Antioch was a Roman colony with a large Jewish population. It was pluralistic in its worship practices and had several temples in addition to the synagogue. For unknown reasons, John Mark left them there and returned to Jerusalem. As was his wont, Paul went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, where he was asked to speak, and he did. His rousing message was continued the following Sabbath before most of the city. This prompted enough jealousy among the Jewish religious leaders to see to it that Paul and Barnabas were driven out of the city. But not before they had filled the disciples there with joy and the Holy Spirit.

          Among Paul’s comments in that first synagogue message recorded by Luke in Acts 13, is this: that God raised up David to be the king of Israel, and that God said of David that he was “a man after my heart, who will do my will.”

          Flash back a thousand years. Saul’s reign is coming to an end. God has decided to replace him.  He has had a colored kingship. He has done things right, but he has gone on his own too much. God wants a change. Samuel, who didn’t want a monarchy to begin with, now doesn’t want a change. He grieves over the failing of Saul. Then God comes to town. He tells Samuel to quit grieving. God has one more job for Samuel and it is to anoint Saul’s successor.

          How does God pick a king? Well, how do we pick our leaders? Will that be informative of how God acts? We pick our leaders based upon democratic principles. People line up support with big business connections and when they think they can raise a couple hundred million dollars, then they tell us that they want to be President. Then they spend all that money raising more money and lining up more support. Eventually they run off all but two people. They make a lot of promises and we go to the ballot box and decide who makes the most sense or causes us the least worry. One of the first mistakes we make in democracy is letting anyone run who actually wants the job. We should only elect those who don’t want the job. But hey, that’s American politics. God is no politician.

          So how does God pick a king? According to 1^st Samuel, he doesn’t use the yardstick many of us use. He doesn’t even look at the outside of a man or woman at all. God looks on the heart. Tall, fit, handsome, pretty, smart, educated, polished, all wonderful attributes. For instance, Eliab, the oldest son of Jesse, was thought to be a pretty good catch. Even old, experienced Samuel took one look at him and said surely he was looking at God’s anointed. But God said “next.”  In fact, God passed on seven sons of Jesse. Finally, the youngest was called. He was a teenager, probably red-headed and freckled. He was a shepherd of his father’s sheep, nice-looking but young and inexperienced. God said yes. That’s the one. Anoint him. And Samuel obeyed the Lord.

          It was to be eleven more years before young David actually took the throne as king of Israel, but God had brought him from a pasture next to a tiny town barely on the map and picked him out of a lineup of brothers. In the process of calling these men before him, God tells Samuel how it’s done. “Do not look on his outward appearance or on the height of his stature…For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

          So that’s how God picks out his own. He pays little if any attention to the outside of a person. God looks on the heart. What is the heart? Is it different in the original languages? Yes, a little. In the Hebrew, the language used in 1st Samuel, the word is lebab (בב£), which means inner man, mind, will, heart. When Luke uses the word in Acts, it is kardia (καρδία), which means the seat of the inner self. For me, I think heart in these uses means the core, the bottom line feeling where we are who we are. I think that’s what God looks for in us. Who are we when we are found out, when we are raw, when we must show that of which we are made . That is where God goes to see us.

          In the story of the anointing of David, we find God seeking out a man after his own heart. God looked deep inside to find what he was looking for. Can we do the same? I think we should try, but I don’t think we should ever expect to have God’s vision. That’s not in the cards. But that’s the wrong approach anyway. We don’t need to look that deep into the core of our friends and family. Instead, we need to allow them to see us at our core. Who are we, really? Can our friends and family, indeed a total stranger, look at us and realize that we are who we present, that they can look upon our hearts and find us to be who we say we are?

          David is a great example for us all. It’s not that he lived a perfect life. Far from it. He committed adultery, arguably even murder. His reign was marked with examples of extreme violence. But whenever God called him on it, David confessed. He agonized over his shortcomings. He worked hard to change. And he loved God. Oh, how he loved God and hated to disappoint him. Our passage tells us that at the anointing, the Spirit of God rushed upon David from that day forward. Unlike other heroes of the Old Testament, the Scripture never mentions the Spirt of God leaving David.  The chronicler tells that God’s Spirit stayed with David!

          What does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart? Charles Swindoll puts it this way: ‘It means your life is in harmony with the Lord. What is important to him is important to you. What burdens him burdens you. When He says ‘Go to the right,’ you go to the right…When He says, ‘This is wrong and I want you to change,’ you come to terms with it because you have a heart for God. That’s bottom-line, biblical Christianity.”

          Look at David. What was his secret? He loved God. That’s the first and greatest step. There is no reason that every single one of us cannot become persons after God’s own heart. He made you so you could do that. What are you waiting for!