"SPECIAL BLESSING" TOOLS GOD USES TO BUILD A KING

I Samuel 16:13-23


Last week I spoke to you about “How God Chooses”…God’s choices are sovereign…surprising…and specific. What I really wanted to bring out last week was that regardless of who you are God can choose and use you for His glory! Remember we learned that David was a “nobody” from a family of nobodies…yet God in His sovereignty surprisingly chose this young boy to be a great king.

What I want you to see today is that God is constantly busy, behind the scenes, molding and making us into the man or woman of God that He wants us to be. In fact, we could say that He is in the building business…building you and me. He uses certain tools to build us into the person that He wants us to become.

Here’s the problem…construction is a rough and tough job! It takes time, and it takes persistence. It also requires the use of certain tools…What kind of tools does God use? We find the answer as we look at the life of David.

God Uses the Tool of Solitude (v. 19)
When Samuel asked Jesse if he had any other sons, Jesse said, “There’s the youngest David, but he’s keeping the sheep…David was a shepherd boy…and being a shepherd is a lonely job. He was constantly alone.

BUT one commentator has described that solitude in this way… “It was there on the lonely hills of Judea, with a flock of sheep as companions; the starry sky as his cathedral; and the vast expanse of nature as his classroom that David learned some of the most valuable and basic lessons of life. He learned how to be alone with God and with himself. Away from the distractions and noise of others, David learned how to hear the voice of God…how to commune with God…how to worship God…how to be at peace with himself and his lot in life.”

There are a lot of people who do not like being alone…they just cannot survive without company or noise or activity…most people go to sleep with the TV on!

People who have trouble being alone with themselves, usually have serious inner issues that need to be dealt with…People who have trouble being alone with God, have serious spiritual issues that need to be dealt with.

Remember, God taught Elijah that He doesn’t usually speak with the wind, or with an earthquake, or in the fury of activity and things…but in that small, still voice. It is in the times of solitude that God speaks and we listen.

Problem is…we are rarely still and quite enough to hear His voice. We need to seek solitude…it is a tool of God used to build our relationship with Him. After all if Jesus needed daily solitude with the Father, how much more do we?

I am reminded of part of a song that you might recognize:
In the secret, in the quiet place, in the stillness you are there.
In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait, only for you, because I want to know you more!

God Uses the Tool of Secrecy (v. 18)
Where did David learn these things? How did David come by such characteristics?

He learned lessons in the secret places that he could have never learned in the public eye. We could say that God trained David in obscurity…God trains His servants in private long before He puts them on public display.

Before Elijah stood in power on Mt. Carmel, he learned to walk with God faithfully in private.
Before Elisha stood tall as a great prophet of God, he learned to be a servant in the background as he followed Elijah.
Before Moses was ready to lead God’s people, he spent forty years on the backside of a desert tending sheep.
Remember, even Jesus was raised in obscurity before He stepped into the public.
Before the Lord revealed things to come to the Apostle John, he had to be exiled to a place of solitude on the Isle of Patmos.

It is the same for you and me…we should never despise those moments, days or even years of obscurity…for in those secret places God does His greatest work in us.

Could it be that some of God’s greatest rewards are reserved for those precious saints who have labored in secret closets of prayer or faithfully in positions that are shunned by others? God often saves the best for those who have gone unnoticed, unrecognized, unacknowledged and unappreciated.

So “keep pressing on!” There is a payday someday…God may use you in a public way or a private way, but as He trains you in your secret place, He is getting glory to Himself and that is all that matters!

Have you ever heard of a man named Hur? Probably not! But when Israel went to war with Amalek Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up on a hill…when Moses raised his hands Israel prevailed, when Moses hands came down Amalek prevailed…so Hur and Aaron held up the hands of Moses and Israel prevailed over Amalek…Hur was a nobody who is forever recorded in the Bible for his small, but meaningful task.

God Uses the Tool of Sameness (vs. 11, 19; 17:15)
David was a faithful shepherd. In verse 11, we see that David was with the sheep. Then after he was anointed king over Israel, he returned to keeping the sheep. That’s where we find him when Saul sends for him in verse 19. Then if you will notice in 17:15, David returns to feed the sheep again.

Day after day…tending sheep…sheep to the left and to the right…here a sheep, there a sheep, everywhere a sheep! If David had problems sleeping, no problem! Plenty of sheep to count! OOOH the monotony of it all!

We may get tired of the unending monotony, the mundane, or routine of our lives, but it is during those times that God teaches us to be faithful, persistent, and responsible. Do not ever forget that the little things are the most important things in life.

It was there, alone one those mountains, doing the same things day after day that David learned the priceless lessons of faithfulness. David was good at tending sheep, he did his best, even in the mundane times of life. Then, when God promoted him, he did not have to learn to be faithful; he already knew how. He did not have to learn responsibility; he had already learned that lesson. God used the unending monotony of the routine to shape David for greater things.

God Uses the Tool of Struggle
David may have had a boring job, but there were certainly times of excitement. (The lion and the bear…the giant Goliath…the assault of Saul).

Why would God allow these struggles? ...a lion, a bear, a giant, an angry king? God used them to build David into the man He wanted him to be.

Someone has said that the classroom of adversity teach us the most about the power, provision and providence of an awesome God! (3 Hebrews, Daniel, Paul etc.)

Important: The way we respond to these struggles tells what we really believe about God.
Only 10% of life is about what happens to you…the other 90% is about how you respond to what happens to you. Remember…your struggles can work out to God’s Glory!

I Samuel 17:26 is a great illustration as to the way David responded to the struggle with Goliath…

Conclusion:
The tools that God uses to build a king are the very same tools that He uses to build you and me…

As David was honed upon the wheel of life by God…through solitude, through secrecy and through sameness…God was shaping this boy into the man who would become king.

Think of it this way…you and I are in God’s workshop…He is building us up, and preparing us for His use. Whatever tools the Lord may be applying to your life today, let me encourage you to yield to Him. He isn’t trying to harm you; He is trying to develop within you a life fit for His use.

As you look at the life you are living; can you recognize the qualities that marked David’s life in your own? Can you see the evidence of God at work in you? Is there still room for improvement? I challenge you to come before the Lord and ask Him to continue to work on you. If you have been struggling against His work in your life, then I challenge you to come and submit to Him right now. God is in the business of building kings. What is He doing in your life?

Senior Pastor John Sweat, St
Crossroads Baptist Church
1595 Baxley Road
Middleburg, Florida