Today, we delve into the life of David, exploring what it truly means to be a person after God's own heart. Despite his great sins and struggles, David is celebrated for his deep relationship with God and his ability to rise after every fall. We examine how his genuine repentance and commitment to God's will, even amidst adversity, shaped his legacy. Through David's story, we learn that true obedience is not about perfection but about a heart that consistently seeks to align with God's desires. Join us as we reflect on how these principles can be applied in our own lives, guiding us to become individuals who embody a heart after God.

Takeaways:

1. This podcast offers a thematic commentary on the Bible, focusing on historical context and personal application.
2. We explore what it means to be a person after God's own heart, referencing the life of David.
3. David's journey shows that being after God's heart includes facing both great successes and significant failures.
4. The importance of perseverance in faith is emphasized, as trials can lead to spiritual growth and maturity.
5. David's life illustrates that sincere repentance and a heart for God can lead to restoration after sin.
6. We learn that our actions and words reflect our true heart, guiding us to align our priorities with God's will.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. www.bible805.com

The transcript for this podcast is A.I. generated and though it has all the content, sometimes has odd breaks, spelling, and spacing.

For an almost exact copy of the text, go to the www.Bible805.com site for downloadable NOTES or to the www.Bible805Academy.com for downloadable and editable Notes, Discussion Guide, Audio and Video files, plus the original PowerPoints—for your personal study or all you need to teach the lesson.

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Welcome to through the Bible in chronological order from Bible 805 and Yvon Prehn. This podcast is a somewhat unique and, I trust, a helpful historical and thematic commentary on the readings in the Bible.

It's not a verse by verse study, but one that I pray you'll find thoughtful and challenging. New episodes are released each Wednesday and today our lesson is David. Great goodness and great sins, yet Always a man after God's own heart.

We call David a man after God's own heart, and this phrase is part of a sermon of the Apostle Paul's in the New Testament where he's talking about the history of Israel. And Paul says after removing Saul, he made David their king. God 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. It's a goal I think we'd like to have said of all of us.

And in this lesson we'll look at what does it mean to be a man or a woman after God's own heart. Then we'll review how David lived it out and finally, how we can make it true in our lives.

First, let's look at the definition of the word heart, which is cardia in the Greek. It's the same word used to describe the heart as an organ in the body, but obviously it means much more than that.

Here's the expanded meaning of the word cardia. It says cardia. This is in the Blue Letter Bible.

It says cardia, in addition to the organ that pumps blood, is the center and seat of the spiritual life.

Also, we can think of it as the soul or the mind, the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors of the will and character.

In Hebrew it's a word labav and by extension also in the Hebrew it means the inner person, the self, the seat of thought and emotion, conscience, courage, mind and understanding. So let's look at how this word is used in other places of Scripture for a real understanding of it.

Now here are some other uses of the word heart in the Bible. In Matthew 6:21 it says, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Our heart reflects what's important to us.

To be after God's own heart, we should attempt to make important to us the same things that are important to God.

Now, popular culture has really diminished the definition of the word heart. We've made it just some mushy emotion. But again, it's so much more than that.

In James 5, 8, in the Amplified, it says, you, you too, be patient, strengthen your hearts. And the Amplified says, keep them energized and firmly committed to God, because the coming of the Lord is near.

Now, this is much more than just having positive feelings about your faith. I love that phrase, energized and firmly committed to God.

Living with the reality that Jesus can arrive at any time, either by his return or he can call you home. If that is the primary direction of your heart, your heart can be a heart after God's own heart.

It will not mean that you're perfect, but that you respond correctly when you make mistakes. And this is important because we seldom make straight line progress to becoming all God wants us to, to be.

Now, in the past, I did a whole lesson on talking about how we reconcile the sovereignty of God in contrast with our human will.

And the way that I illustrated this is I had a straight line for our lives, just really all of our life, until the point that Jesus calls us home, that he's finished with us here. And God has a plan for us, and God knows exactly what that is, and his plan is this straight line.

Now, however, we don't always follow that straight line. We go up, we go down, we go around, we backtrack, we all, all over the place. So our lives look like a real squiggly line.

Though God always has that straight line in mind.

The vitally important thing to remember is that no matter what the twists and turns of life, successes or sins, somehow, if somehow, somewhere in your heart of hearts, you decide that following Jesus and becoming what he wants you to be, to do his will, is the most important thing inside you. That's what matters the most.

And a really good verse to pray as we begin this exploration of what it means to be a person after God's own heart is to pray like David did, where he said, search me, O God, know my heart, test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

This is so good because we don't know how to straighten out all the squiggly parts and bring ourselves into line with God's will and if we ask him, he'll let us know. Now, with that as an introduction, let's look at what we can learn from David's life.

It's important to understand that striving to be a person after God's heart does not mean a life without problems or without sin, because David had plenty of both of them. But notice how he reacts to them. This is so important, and especially in contrast with Saul.

If you haven't listened to that lesson, it's the one previous to this in our chronological through the Bible. So go back and listen to that. But when Saul made a mistake, he made excuses and he just dug himself deeper into whatever sin he committed.

So to see how this works out, let's look at the falling and rising in David's life to learn from the positive and avoid the negative. Now, David is a young man. He was anointed to be king when he was approximately only 15 or 16 years old. But tough times are going to be ahead. Now.

Initial application here Encourage young people and all of us to dream really big dreams for God, while at the same time helping them to see the training and denial and discipline that they're going to need to make their calling a reality. Don't give anyone at any age the false idea that Christianity is all fun, good times, and a protection against everything that's difficult.

If you do that, what happens? And again, this applies at any stage of life.

If you think the Christian life is a guarantee against troubles, when troubles come, you'll bail out, get angry with God, complain, whine, and walk away. But in reality, the greater the calling, most likely the more challenges a person will have as they persist to fill it.

We all need to see trials as training to help us grow in Christlikeness.

In James 1:2, it says, Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds of because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Perseverance is the key.

Again, the verse says, let perseverance finish its work.

Anyone can have a passion, a heart for God for a short time, but lifelong perseverance, perseverance when all is going badly or sadly, that is the important Thing. Let's look and really look at the attitudes and responses of David's life that developed in him, this lifelong heart, this perseverance for God.

Now, during the probably 15 years until he became king, after fighting a lion and a bear, he fought Goliath and he won. And yet it's really interesting now think about this. He never refers to beating Goliath again. He doesn't mention it in any of the Psalms.

His focus was always on the strength of God to give credit to where credit is due. Always in his life, he didn't talk about, well, you know, we remember what I did, you know, I mean, I killed the giant.

And, you know, he doesn't do that. But in spite of that just being who he is, he becomes popular in Saul's court. He marries his daughter, he leads armies.

But then Saul turns on him and he's a fugitive for many years again. Somewhere between 10 to 15 years, he is on the run and in miserable circumstances. His wife's given to someone else.

He loses his best friend, Jonathan. Saul during this time, whined, disobeyed, acted presumptively.

Even when he experienced trials, blessings, whatever it was, Saul as the king, did not do well, did not act the way God wanted him to act. But David, in contrast, did not complain, acted kindly to others. He corrected himself when he was wrong.

He never followed through on getting revenge on his own. He turned his trials into a legacy of trust and praise to God. And he wrote many psalms during this time. He refers to them in the Psalms.

Well, this happened when I hid in the cave. This happened when Doeg the Edomite was after me. This happened then. This happened then.

Here is a representative of one of them, and there are so many. But be inspired. You might think about writing your own psalms in difficult times. Now here's Psalm 37 out of the Living Bible.

Just enjoy and listen to this, where David says, never envy the wicked. Soon they fade away like grass and disappear. Trust in the Lord instead. Be kind and good to others.

Then you'll live safely here in the land and prosper, feeding in safety. Be delighted with the Lord. Then he'll give you all your heart's desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord.

Trust him to help you do it, and he will. Your innocence will be clear to everyone. He will vindicate you with the blazing light of justice shining down as from the noonday sun.

Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him to act. Don't be envious of evil men who prosper. Stop your anger. Turn off your wrath don't fret and worry.

It only leads to harm, for the wicked will be destroyed. But those who trust the Lord will be given every blessing. Only a little while and the wicked will disappear. You'll look for them in vain.

But all who humble themselves before the Lord will be given every blessing and will have wonderful peace. Now here's more about how he refused to take matters into his own hands. This is an example of it, because it is never ours to do.

Never ours to do what God is going to work out. He didn't kill Saul, though he had many opportunities to do so, and Saul was after him to try to kill him.

He knew God's overall commands that he was not to harm the king anointed by the Lord. When Saul was in a cave and unprotected or asleep in the camp, those were just two times that we know about.

He could have easily killed him, but he didn't let an earthly event, a seeming coincidence, guide him. Though the stakes were huge. The kingship and a kingdom, as well as the lives of all who followed him were on the line.

Yet he held firm in obeying God. Here is an important application.

Be careful of making a wrong decision just because some random event happened, some sign you think, or whatever is contrary to either previous guidance, a clear command from God, or the clear teaching from the Bible.

No matter if it is a challenging provocation or a positive event, there is never a circumstance that should cause you to disobey what you know God wants you to do. Be clear about the guidance in His Word. Nobody makes you do anything. Circumstances don't force you to take shortcuts.

You lose your temper, cheat, take a moral shortcut, react badly because you chose to do that. Even advice by otherwise good people who care about you may need to be ignored.

David and all his troops could have easily rationalized that God had given Saul into their hands, and so it must be okay to kill him. But it wasn't. These situations are tests. Does David truly love and trust God as he says he does?

Does David obey God no matter if it goes against everything he wants? Even now, this is really important, what God anointed him to do.

Does he trust God no matter how long it takes for God to fulfill his promise or how much it costs? And does he do it without whining, complaining, or blaming others, as Saul did all the time?

And does that love of God translate into obedience even when it's not in his best interest? God allows tests like this to see what is truly in our hearts and primarily to show us, because God already knows.

But we see what's in our hearts when these tests come now the results of his obedience. Through these challenges, it matured him to become the greatest king in Israel's history.

Many challenges, many battles during this time where he needed to listen to God.

Also, many psalms again were written during this time and remember the context of them as you read them that would bless humanity throughout human history. If David had not trusted God, he and all of us after him would have lost out. Application.

Do not rush through the difficult situation God is using to train you. Don't disobey a clear command or calling, no matter what. Especially if it's something that appears good.

It's what you want, but that you know isn't God's will. Wait for God to work. Trust God's timing above all else. And I should clarify what I just said.

Even if you know it's God's will, God might want something for you, but the timing is off. We humans are just dreadful at our sense of timing. We want everything right now. And God often has a different timetable.

But we must trust him to allow him to work out things. In his timing, in his way, David finally becomes king of all Israel.

He continues to fight battle after battle, solidifying the boundaries of the land for the first time. Israel now occupies the land that was given them after the Exodus. David conquers Jerusalem, makes it his capital.

He decides to bring the Ark to Jerusalem. It hadn't been in the Tabernacle since the Philistines had captured it. But he did it the wrong way. He put the Ark on a cart.

And when Uzzah, the son of the man who owned the cart, reached out his hand to steady it, he was struck dead. David was angry. He left the ark for three months and finally moved it properly as was prescribed in the law, on the shoulders of the priests.

And all went well. Initially, though, David demonstrated pride and self will application. We must be so careful.

Just because God gives us success in one area, we can never think we're above the law or God's clear commands to us in an area that's not ours to make decisions in. Then David wants to build a temple. Nathan the prophet first tells him, go ahead, do it. The Lord is with you. Nothing wrong with that desire.

Much good about it from a human viewpoint. But that was not God's plan for him. And Nathan goes back and tells him that David cannot build the temple. However, his son will.

And God will give him an everlasting heritage. David's response? He accepts it and he praises God. He gets back to doing what he was called to do. Conquer and fight battles. Application.

What do we do when God says no to what seems to be a good thing? We need to be thankful and again, focus on what we are called to do.

If we can, do all we can to help support others in their calling, even if it's something we wish we could be doing. Encourage, equip, pray for them. That's what David did.

His actions are written about in much more detail in chronicles, and I'm going to be talking about that a little bit more in a minute.

But after that, instead of fighting and leaving the army, which is what he was supposed to do, after standing firm in all of this with Nathan the prophet, he stays home. And that was a mistake.

In Samuel, 2nd Samuel 11, it says it happened in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. He wasn't out doing what he was called to do, which was to be the military leader. He was to fight.

And what follows is his adultery with Bathsheba, murder of her husband, death of his child. Aside from, of course, not to commit adultery and murder. Our application.

You're never, never, ever, ever released from God's calling on your life in things large or small, until the Lord calls you home. It's seldom okay to shift from being obedient in ministry to saying, I put in my time and to totally drop out of serving.

That doesn't mean we must keep doing all the same things that we've done at another time doing them in the same way. But it does mean we're never free from the obligations of discipleship and can now just focus on ourselves.

We may shift, though, in how we express our calling. For me personally, I know I was called to be a writer and teacher for Jesus. I knew that from the time I was very, very young.

And for years as an adult, I expressed that by traveling all over North America, running through airports, standing all day long to teach seminars. That was my Life for almost 20 years. But I can't practice my calling the same way today.

Various challenges came up and I ended up in a wheelchair, couldn't walk. Then after surgeries and extensive physical therapy, I can walk. But walking for any distance and standing is still very challenging for me.

But I can sit really well. My calling hasn't changed my wanting to be and the Lord calling me to be a writer and teacher for Jesus.

That hasn't changed at all, but how I practice it has. I can do writing and teaching online through what I'm doing now with podcasts, videos, blogs, and I sit down to teach when I teach live.

I'm incredibly thankful for the Internet and all it enables me to do to continue my calling to be a writer and a teacher for Jesus. And I'm really thankful for comfy stools and people who help me set up my classes application.

Especially as we get older or other physical challenges come into our lives, we may need to shift, modify, train others, pass on some things in our ministries.

How you fulfill your calling may change, but don't even consider quitting or get to work if you've been sitting on the sidelines because of some excuse. We also never have a reason to cease practicing biblical virtues.

We know the commands in everything Give thanks, do everything without griping or complaining. Do justice, love, kindness, Walk humbly, and hundreds of other similar ones on Christian character.

Youth, middle age, old age, sickness, financial needs, interpersonal issues all have their challenges and possible excuses to act badly.

But we are the eternal disciples of the living God and nothing in our age or current life challenges gives us an excuse for bad behavior or to not be pleasing to him. David knew that even in his sin he did not cease being a man after God's own heart.

In Psalm 51 this was written after Nathan the prophet came to inform it says that after Nathan the prophet came to inform David of God's judgment against him because of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, her husband. This is how David responds. O loving and kind God, have mercy, have pity on me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions.

O wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again, for I admit my shameful deed. It haunts me day and night. It is against you and you alone. I sinned and did this terrible thing.

You saw it all and your sentence against me is just. Create in me a clean new heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. Don't toss me aside, banished forever from your presence.

Don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. You don't want penance. If you did, how gladly I would do it.

You aren't interested in offerings burned before you on the altar. It is a broken spirit. You want remorse and penitence. A broken and contrite heart, O God.

You will not ignore Even in sin, we can still be a person after God's heart. Again, such great contrast with Saul, who when Samuel confronted him, Saul defended himself, rationalized his sin, wouldn't repent.

When Nathan confronted David, he deeply and sincerely repented. Confessing our sins means we agree with God that we sinned.

As First John 1:9 reminds us, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But as important as confession is, we must also accept it and live as forgiven people. David did not let any his sin define the rest of his life.

As he said, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? But with you there's forgiveness that you might be feared for. With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.

And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Forgiven and redeemed after these horrible sins, he continued to serve God. He knew service was not about his worthiness, but a gift from God.

Don't let past sins keep you from serving God, no matter what. David's sin with Bathsheba had serious consequences. His first son with Bathsheba died eventually.

Another son is killed by Absalom, one of his sons, who also revolts and is also eventually killed. Yet this sin was not the final event of David's life. In fact, in the Chronicles, it isn't even mentioned much happened after that.

He sins in other ways. His repentance continues. But David arguably did his greatest work later in life. Now more on that in a minute.

He lived, though, after the sin with Bathsheba, approximately 20 more years from Solomon's birth, until Solomon becomes king. And during that time he made preparations for the Temple, some of his greatest and most lasting work.

He provided resources for it in gold, silver, iron, wood and stone. He provided the people and trained them to do the work.

He organized all the workers, the Levites, everyone involved in the temple work into groups and schedules to do the work. He created detailed job descriptions for everyone involved.

People seldom see these events in their proper place because they read Chronicles with Samuel and Kings with the other historical books, and they'll, you know, they'll just. Because this event happened about the same time as this and like that. But that's, that's really a mistake.

It's best read as the last of the Old Testament, a summary of all that that came before. Now this is its place in the traditional ordering of the Hebrew, Hebrew Bible.

And it's also where you will read it in the Bible 805 chronological reading plan that you can find on the www.bible805.com website. Now a summary of his work in Chronicles.

The design of the courtyards, the arrangement of the rooms, the closets for storing all the holy things.

He gave them his plan for organizing the Levites and the priests in their work of leading and ordering worship in the house of God and for caring for the liturgical furnishings. He provided the exact specifications for how much silver and gold was needed for each article used in the services of worship.

The gold and silver lamp stands, the lamps, the gold tables for the consecrated bread, the silver tables, the gold forks, the bowls, the jars, the incense altar. And he gave him the plans for sculpting the cherubs with their wings outstretched over the crest of the covenant of God, the cherubim throne.

Here are the blueprints for the whole project. God gave me to understand it, David said. As Moses was given the instructions for the tabernacle, David was given the plans for this temple.

He also left us his Psalms that continue to bless us today. Because he went back to a love of his youth, which of course was music. We can assume that prior to this time the Psalms were primarily in oral form.

Later in life, when organizing the music for the temple, he edited and organized them along with his specific instructions. We see in the headers of Psalms as to how they were to be performed.

You know, those little notes to the director of this and that, sung to the tune of lilies in the whatever. All these little notes, David, we assume, put those in when he was organizing them.

He also selected the leaders, Asaph Heman Jeduthen for special service. It says in Chronicles, in preaching and in music. This next comment is really important.

From his recorded prayers, from his years of walking with God, from what were obviously his journals, his songs, his private devotions, whatever form they were in, he was now able to leave a legacy to others.

And I want to talk specifically now to some of you who are pastors, who have been teachers, who have for many years put together a huge archive of movements material. I challenge you put it together for those that you are leaving behind.

We have tools today with the Internet and I am literally praying and working on in the Bible 805 Ministry Some Ways to show you how to do this, but you have many things that can be passed on to others and you have quite honestly free ways to get them out there on the Internet today on ways that will be used. So I challenge you to follow David's example and do that. Now let's again just review the pattern of his life.

After great sins, heartfelt repentance, then accepting God's forgiveness, then he went on to renewed service. After he fell down, he always got back up.

Remember, no matter how great your sin and David committed many the same God who loved and forgave him, loved and forgives you. Accept it and rejoice in it. Do that and you too can be a person after God's own heart.

Now one more verse that always encourages me, and this is really a wonderful encouragement where it says, the way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. That's Proverbs 4:18. Now back to the little squiggly illustration that I showed you.

Our days are bound to be full of them, but don't let the squiggles discourage you. As we go through life, our squiggles, the twists and turns, will even out and our lives will more and more line up with a perfect line of God's plan.

Until one day when we leave the squiggles behind, the straight path is the only road we will travel on with our Lord forever. That's all for now.

For notes from this lesson, related resources and links to teaching materials, go to www.bible805.com in closing, I'm Yvonne Prynn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are on your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.