Ancient King David was a great leader of
his time. He also struggled to hold up
his relationship with God. Most of his
life was filled with turmoil, sinful conduct and the consequences of those choices.
Yet he is the only person in all of
Scripture, the entire Bible, who is called out “by God’s own words… “a man after MY own heart.”
Acts
13:22 says of David,
“After removing Saul, he made David their
king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after
my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.‘”
Is
there something in David that we can aspire to in our Christian lives today?
Let’s start by examining David’s feelings
about his relationship with God. The
following words describe the heart of David as revealed in his own writings:
Humble – Lowborn men are
but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance, they are
nothing; together they are only a breath. Psalm 62:9
Reverent – I call to the
Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. Psalm 18:3
Respectful – Be merciful to
me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my
body with grief. Psalm 31:9
Trusting – The LORD is my
light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my
life—of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1
Loving – I love you, O
Lord, my strength. Psalm 18:1
Devoted – You have filled
my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. Psalm 4:7
Recognition – I will praise
you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. Psalm 9:1
Faithful – Surely goodness
and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house
of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:6
Obedient – Give me understanding,
and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Psalm 119:34
Repentant – For the sake of
your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. Psalm 25:11
David’s example is a proven road map for
how we are to live our life in harmony with God.
“Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
The “right spirit” here is an established, firm, unwavering spirit that guided
his every thought and action. He wanted to be done with the instability that he
experienced, that led to his sin and family troubles.
What
does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart? 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, “Stop that in your life,” you stop it. 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.
One might ask.. why isn’t David crying out
for self-control and restraint? Why isn’t he praying for men to hold him
accountable? Why isn’t he praying for protected eyes and sex-free thoughts?
The reason may surprise you… David knows
that his sexual sin was just a symptom, not the disease. People give way to any
kind of sin because they don’t have the fullness of joy and gladness found only
by being in Christ. Their spirits are not steadfast and firm and established in
a right relationship with God. They waver. They are enticed, and they give way
to sin because God does not have the preeminent place in their feelings and
thoughts that He should.
David knew this about himself. Do we?
David is showing us, by the way he prays, what the real need is for
those who sin. Not a word in Psalm 51 about sex. Instead: “Let
me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. . . .
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing, firm,
established spirit.” David dug deep
into his soul to find the real problem… his heart was not as “full of the
things of the Lord” as it should have been.
David understood that IF his heart and
every thought of his mind could be FULL of the things of God, then there would
be no room for anything else. No room
for doubt or contemplations of sin. This is profound wisdom for us.
Psalm
51:15 says…
“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will
declare your praise.” Praise is what joy in God does when obstacles are
taken out of the way. That is what he is praying for: O God, overcome
everything in my life that keeps my heart dull and my mouth shut when they
ought to be praising. Make my joy irrepressible, overflowing with praise.
Verse
13 declares David’s deepest desire… “Then
I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”
David is not content to be forgiven. He is not content to be clean of sin. He
is not content to have a right spirit. He is not content to be joyful in God by
himself. He will not be content until his broken life serves the healing of
others. “Then I will teach transgressors
your ways, and sinners will return to you.” The upshot for David was to
live from a heart devoted to helping others.
The upshot for us is the same… to have a life of effective and
passionate evangelism, unencumbered by sin.
Which brings us to the last point.
Psalm
51:17 is profound… “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken
and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” David discovered the wisdom of the ages… that
God had crushed him in love and that a broken and contrite heart is the mark of
all God’s children.
When you are a man or woman after God’s
heart, you are deeply sensitive to spiritual things. Second Chronicles 16:9
explains it this way: “For the eyes of
the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support
those whose heart is completely His.”
What
is God looking for?
He is looking for men and women whose hearts are His…completely. That means
there are no locked closets. Nothing’s been swept under the rugs. That means
that when you do wrong, you admit it and come to terms with it. You long to
please Him in your actions. You care deeply about the motivations behind your
actions. God is not looking for magnificent specimens of humanity. He’s looking
for deeply spiritual, genuinely humble, honest-to-the-core servants who have
integrity.
God
wants Integrity. He wants to see us as complete, whole,
innocent, having the simplicity of life, wholesome, sound, unimpaired by sin
and malice towards our fellow believers.
It’s what you are when nobody’s looking. We live in a world that says,
in many ways, “If you just make a good
impression, that’s all that matters.” But you will never be a man or woman
of God if that’s your philosophy. Never. You can’t fake it with the Almighty.
He is not impressed with externals. He always focuses on the inward qualities,
like the character of the heart . . . those things that take time and
discipline to cultivate.
Brokenhearted
joy. This is foundational to everything. Being a
Christian means being broken and contrite. Don’t make the mistake of thinking
you get beyond this in this life. It marks the life of God’s happy children
till they die.
We are broken and contrite all the way
home — unless sin gets the proud upper hand.
Being broken and contrite is not against joy and praise and witness.
It’s the flavor of Christian joy and praise and witness.
Consider
the words of Jonathan Edwards, an American revivalist preacher and theologian
of the early 1700s…
All gracious affections [feelings, emotions] that are
a sweet [aroma] to Christ . . . are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian
love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the
saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and
their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble
brokenhearted joy.
