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After God’s Own Heart?

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After the Easter holiday, this coming Lord’s Day I plan to return to 1 Samuel 13 and pick up where I left off 2 weeks ago (Lord willing). In 1 Samuel 13, we have the first mention of what could be an interpretive problem. After Saul is rejected for his foolishness (and going hard after his own ingenuity and impatience rather than God), we are told that God would choose a new king after His own heart.

This has led many to speculate something like this: God was looking throughout the land to see if there was anyone who loved Him above everything else and, whew, He found that person in David. David was awesome-sauce. He was able to kill giants, wild animals threatening the flock, honor Saul, befriend Jonathan, fight the Philistines. His heart for God is evident in all of this. He wrote the Psalms for goodness sake.

Unfortunately, this interpretation doesn’t take into account the train wreck that was David’s personal life: multiple wives, the use of position/authority to rape, kill, and take. How he (especially in 2 Samuel) increasingly looks more like Saul (and a king like the other nations) than one who has a heart for God. So, how do we make sense of this?

I’m helped by what Jen Wilkin and others have said and written. Jen invited us to consider thinking of this phrase like the line from the hymn A Mighty Fortress: “a man of God’s own choosing.” John Woodhouse, for instance, says this phrase “a man after God’s own heart” means:

“a man of God’s own choosing, a man God has set his heart on. [It is] talking about the place the man has in God’s heart rather than the place God has in the man’s heart”.
(Woodhouse, 1 Samuel: Looking for a Leader, page 287)

Another article that discusses this in a longer way is called David: A Man Chosen According to God’s Heart. I’ve also benefitted from the following episodes of the Knowing Faith podcast featuring Jen Wilkin, JT English, and Kyle Worley. Check out episode 31 (There’s No Such Thing as 2 Samuel) at the 12:50 mark, episode 35 (People Getting Shanked) at the 7:30 mark, and episode 40 (Not What It Looks Like) at the 18:40 mark.

So, if we follow this line of reasoning…

What made David special wasn’t something within him but something outside of him. Specifically, in contrast to Saul, who was tall, handsome, and the one the people asked for, we have David, a man chosen according to God’s heart, who did many worthy things in preparing to and eventually becoming king. He did these not because they came naturally, but because God had chosen him.

I hope this encourages you and it’s something we can continue to be curious about as we move through 1 and 2 Samuel.

Weekend Preview – Hate, Hearts

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heartexposureThis coming Sunday, I’m preaching John 11:55-12:19 and calling the sermon Haters Gonna Hate.  There are all kinds of sinister motives revealed in this passage.  I think the way this will most help us is revealing all the motives that lie in our hearts, keeping us from following Jesus the way He deserves.

There are things like misguided passions, love of money, the world’s resistance, and jealousy that cloud what a pure following of Jesus might look like.

So, would you pray that God would search you and know your heart, try you and know your thoughts, to see if there is any wicked way in you, and lead you in the way everlasting.  We’re headed here this Sunday.

Reading Your Own Heart (as a pastor)

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I’ve been blogging through a sermon by Andrew Fuller entitled “Spiritual Knowledge and Love Necessary for the Ministry” from John 5:35 (Post 1, Post 2), and I’ll wrap up my thoughts with this post.  I’ve highlighted in previous posts how much I appreciate this sermon, but there is one part that stuck out to me in the end of this sermon.  In applying what this looks like for his listeners, he encourages them to read the lives of good men, to study and pray over the Word, to life the life of a Christian, and commune with God in private.  These are all excellent counsel, but it was this word that especially penetrating:

Read men, as well as books, and your own heart, in order that you may read others.  Copyists, you know, are generally bunglers.  There is nothing that equals what is immediately from the life.  We need always be making our observations, wherever we are, or wherever we go.  If we get a system of human nature, or experience, or any thing else, from books rather than from our own knowledge, it will be liable to two disadvantages.  First, it is not likely to be so near the truth; for systems which go through several hands are like successive copies of a painting, every copy of the preceding one is more unlike the original–or like the telling of a tale, the circumstances of which you do not know of your own personal knowledge: every time it is repeated there is some variation, and thus it becomes further removed from the truth.  Thus Agrippa showed his wisdom, when, instead of depending on the testimony of others, he determined to hear Paul himself.  Secondly, if it be correct, still it will not be so serviceable to you as if it were a system of your own working.  Saul’s armor might be better than David’s sling; but not to him, seeing he had not proved it.  

What’s Fuller getting at in this quote?  As helpful as books may be, if we spend too much time in them, it might begin to distort reality.  We must live life, attend to our own hearts and work at the application of truth ourselves.  There are so many applications here from not preaching someone else’s sermons or relying too heavily on commentaries to failing to apply and have a tender heart.  It’s often been my experience that those pastors who lay the heavy load on people aren’t too great at applying things in their own heart.  Those sermons with the ripest application for my hearers tend to be when I have worked hard to apply this to my own heart first.

I commend this sermon to you for reading again.  I have a PDF I’d be happy to email you if you click on the link at the top right of my blog.  Thanks.

Pastors Need Spiritual Knowledge and Love

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I’m slowly plodding through Andrew Fuller‘s sermons and came across one that really resonated with a lot of what I think about the work that pastors are called to do.  This sermon was an ordination sermon that Fuller preached for a young minister’s ordination on John 5:35 — “He was a burning and a shining light.”  It’s entitled “Knowledge and Love Essential to the Ministry.” [1]  I’d be happy to send a PDF of this short 5 page sermon to anyone who emails me (upper right corner of my site).  The call that Fuller gives is to live out the qualities of spiritual light and holy love in the work pastors do.

The simple outline:
Spiritual light and holy love are the qualities which Christ here commends…
I. In the great work of preaching the Gospel.

A) How necessary is it to understand in some good degree the holy character of God!
B) A knowledge of Christ, as the Mediator between God and man, is necessary.
C) A knowledge of human nature as created is necessary.
D) A knowledge of human nature as depraved is necessary.
E) A knowledge of human nature as sanctified by the Spirit is necessary.

II. In presiding in the church of God.

III. In the more private duty of visiting the people.

IV. In your whole demeanor through life.

a few things which Fuller found of use to conduce to these ends:
1) Read the lives of good men
2) Study the Word of God, above all other books, and pray over it.
3) Read men, as well as books, and your own heart, in order that you may read others.
4) Live the life of a Christian as well as a minister.
5) Commune with God in private.
6) Holy forth the word of life, not only by precept, but by a holy practice.

More to come on this sermon later…

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[1] Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Memoirs, Sermons, Etc., ed. Joseph Belcher, vol. 1 (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 478-482.

My Weekend – Disciple Now

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Blessed to have an opportunity to serve my former student and (still my) friend, Dale Baker, and the students God’s entrusted to him at Parkway Baptist in my hometown, St. Louis.

Our theme for the weekend is “a heart for God” and we’ll be looking at how our hearts function (Biblically speaking not medical journal mumbo jumbo) and how our hearts can be changed by the Gospel.

Would you join me in praying for a great weekend for these students and asking God to raise up from this group worshippers who give Him glory.  And, if you think of it, pray for me, that I would serve in God’s strength so that He’s glorified through me.

DC Email – Ministry Mediocrity and Our Hearts

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Here’s my email to Elders/Deacons at Crestview on 9/17/13:

In Tripp’s Dangerous Calling, Chapter 10 “Mediocrity,” we’re called to levels of ministry excellence because of who God is and the awe that He deserves.  Tripp’s contention is mediocrity isn’t so much about this or that resource or the latest and greatest things, but “Ministry mediocrity in any form is always an issue of the heart.  If this describes you, then run in humble confession to your Savior and embrace the grace that has the power to rescue you from you and, in so doing, to give you back your awe.”  Our service and ministry aren’t what define us.  We’re defined by the relationship that God has initiated toward us in the Gospel.
Today, then, take a look at your service in the church, your labors, your works, and be honest, does this reflect the awe that your heart feels before God?  Might it be that you need your awe rekindled?  Grace is found at God’s throne and it’s a merciful grace there for every moment.  Let’s collectively run there to find Him today and have our ministry hearts recalibrated. 

Running there with you…

Dangerous Calling Email – Heart of the Matter

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Here’s the email I sent leaders at my church this week related to Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling book, Chapter 4:

Did you grow up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?  It seemed that ever so often the plot involved Bugs being very tired and drained in a desert, only to see an oasis of rest in the distance.  He would run up and start drinking what he thought was water only to have sand in his mouth.  This mirage deceived him.  In Dangerous Calling, Paul Tripp unpacks the mirage of ministry for us in Chapter 4: “More Than Knowledge and Skill.”   He begins with an illustration of a church that hired a pastor only to learn that he didn’t end up being what they thought he was. 
Here’s a great summary paragraph: “I’m convinced that the big crisis for the church of Jesus Christ is not that we are easily dissatisfied but that we are all too easily satisfied.  We have a regular and perverse ability to make things work that are not and should not be working.  We learn to adjust to things that we should alter. We learn to be okay with things we should be confronting.  We learn how to avoid things we should be facing.  We would rather be comfortable that to hold people accountable.  We swindle ourselves into thinking that things are better than they are, and in so doing we compromise the calling and standards of the God we say we love and serve.  Like sick people who are afraid of the doctor, we collect evidence that points to our health, when really, in our heart of hearts, we know we are sick.  So we settle for a human second best, when God, in grace, offers u so much more.” 
Wowzer, that’s definitely the case often isn’t it?  Tripp continues saying that our ministry is never just shaped by our knowledge, experience and skill.  It always shaped by the true condition of our hearts.  On pp.61-62 there are some great questions that might reveal our hearts.  I commend those to you for study.  The solution is so simple: we “must be enthralled by, in awe of—can I say it: in love with—[our] Redeemer so that everything [we] think, desire, choose, decide, say, and do is propelled by love for Christ and the security of rest in the love of Christ.”  “The heart is the inescapable X factor in ministry.”  So, today, what’s being revealed in your heart?  This chapter, for me at least, is one in which I need to put away my “inner lawyer” (Tripp’s words again) and ask for a tender spirit before the Lord.  What’s being revealed out of your heart today?  Find encouragement in the glorious Gospel.

Pujols, My Heart & The Gospel

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Well, you have probably heard the news that caused my heart to sink this AM: Albert Pujols would be signed by Angels of Anaheim in a 10 year $250 million some odd contract.  My first thoughts were ones of frustration.  After my friends Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth wrote Pujols: More Than The Game, I’ve really worked hard to say that Pujols wasn’t like the other money-hungry guys.  He uses the money God gives him in good ways to bless others.  I was bummed that the focus was on the contract and amount of money “he deserved” etc.

But, as I noticed the response by so many on Facebook and other places, especially Christian people, I realized that this was another opportunity from God to look at my own heart, cravings and desires and see what God might want to teach me.  You see, I naturally default to thinking that I am more righteous than Albert because I would never be about the contract, or so I think.  Yet, undergoing feedback and evaluation by my elders each year and wanting more money for the services I give (and fighting against sinful cravings like greed more and more) I know that I can be guilty of greed just as easily.  It is an expression of self-righteousness to conclude and even boast, “Thank God, I’m not like Albert Pujols selling out for more money.”  Rather, I should confess, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.”  Even if this is true (and most of us aren’t close enough to the situation to know Albert’s heart), I know that my heart’s exalting itself is a sinful response.

Then, there’s the issue of putting faith in man.  I loved watching Albert play the game.  When he messed with Brad Lidge’s head a few years back hitting that homer off Lidge that is still probably flying, I went running through the house screaming.  I love the Cardinals.  I love winning World Championships and Albert’s been a huge part of this.  However, I have to be careful I’m not ascribing to Pujols worship and praise even trust only deserved for Jesus.  This is my heart’s problem.

So, today has proven a good opportunity to grow in grace for me.  Maybe like me, you could grow through this, too.  Therefore, today, lift up your eyes to the hills where your help comes from.  Not a maneuver at baseball’s winter meetings, but from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Hardness of Heart…

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This coming Lord’s Day, we will be looking at Hebrews 3:7-19 and a negative example of what faithfulness to God looks like (from the children of Israel in Numbers 13-14). One of the big warnings is to not have a hard heart. Here’s an excellent definition from William Lane in his book Hebrews: A Call To Commitment:

Hardness of heart signifies treating the Lord with contempt; it is the refusal to believe in the Lord; it is choosing to listen to human voices of despair rather than listening to the voice of God. (p.64)

As you think about your response to God’s Word, are you characterized by a hard heart? Think about your response? Do you treat God with contempt? Are you refusing to believe Him in any area? Are you choosing to listen to human voices over God’s voice? Check your heart and keep it with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life (Proverbs 4:23).