The greatest king in Israel’s history wasn’t great because of his strength, virtue or leadership. He was great because of his heart. This series walks through several of the key events from the life of David. We’ll explore the theme of what it means to be a person “after God’s own heart”. 

David had a unique endorsement from God. He was a man after God’s own heart. It was this quality that not only turned David into a giant slayer, but into the precursor of Jesus. We’re beginning the journey in the middle of the story, where we find David’s heart drawn to glorify the Lord by building him a worthy temple.  But God wanted to make it clear that David would not build a house for the Lord. The Lord would build a house for David. And his house would reign forever. And this tells us something about God’s heart.

David was an unlikely man to be anointed as the next king of Israel. He was the youngest not the oldest, the weakest not the strongest, the least not the greatest. But you should never judge a book by its cover.  But God chose him for one specific reason, and it didn’t have anything to do with the measurables. God chose David because he was a man after God’s own heart. But how far will that get you when a towering enemy stood, opposing God’s people? 

What do you do when you are under bad leadership? Like, really BAD leadership? David has something to teach us in this arena. His boss wanted to kill him. Literally. And later in his life, his own son, Absalom, staged a coup and David had to run for his life. David’s response to both of these men is a masterclass on what to do when you’re under bad authority. David will show us how to respond to bad leadership, and how to do it while preserving your own emotional and spiritual health.  

David’s outlaw days were marked by a contrast of moral achievements and moral compromise. By God’s kindness and the intervention of an unlikely character, he was spared from great sin and taught a lesson in godliness. Abigail’s wisdom teaches us that repaying evil with evil is normal. But God calls us to repay evil with blessings. People who repay evil with good are the real giant killers.  

Are your beliefs about God fully aligned with God as he actually is? The answer will show up in your “halleluiah”. Your halleluiah will be drawn to idolatry until you come to terms with God’s holiness. Just as water and fire cannot exist together, neither can God’s holiness and human sinfulness exist together. And this brings us to the Ark of the Covenant. It was of utmost importance to David to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, to the tabernacle of the Lord. But along the way, David learned a critical lesson. If you don’t understand God’s holiness, you will be destroyed. 

Today is an episode from David’s life that transcends the Bible itself. In the course of a chapter, David becomes a liar, and adulterer, and a mass murderer. Why? Sin is deceitful, and David was deceived into thinking that he was the True King. The Sin beneath David’s sins was idolatry. His worship was no longer for the True King, but created things. What we learn is that even a converted member of God’s family can commit truly evil deeds. In this, we learn from David that our hope and our goal is not to become morally superior to others. Our hope is that Jesus paid the penalty for us.

Our biggest flaws are flaws we usually cannot see in ourselves, or we cannot overcome by ourselves. That’s where David was. He needed the fearlessness of Nathan to return him to his senses. When David was confronted his sin, he quickly recognized the full extent of his idolatry. His heart was absolutely broken. It was broken by the consequences of what his sin created. But more than that, he was broken by the fact that he has sinned against God. In this message, we’ll look at the heart of true repentance, so that we can more faithfully practice it in our lives.