Dave is interesting in the Bible because he's the first millennial who wrote the Bible as a young man.
He wrote the Scriptures. He gave us 73 of the 150 Psalms.
He's the only person in Scripture that is described as a man after God's own heart.
I want to answer the question of what it is that God looks for in a man or a woman that He wants to mightily use.
And I don't think there's anybody that is more perfect for understanding the mighty power of God than the life of David.
So I want to talk from 1 Samuel 16 today about David and his resume.
David's resume is a beautiful picture to us of the kind of qualities that God looks for in the kind of person that He mightily uses.
And Dave is interesting in the Bible because he's the first millennial who wrote the Bible as a young man.
He wrote the Scriptures. He gave us 73 of the 150 Psalms.
He's the only person in Scripture that is described as a man after God's own heart.
So we get a picture of David's heart. We get a picture of a passionate worshiper, a passionate warrior.
And yet David is saint and sinner. I mean he really makes some pretty huge mistakes in his life.
But he's also considered one of the greatest kings and warriors in all of the Bible.
Israel still considers the reign of David as the greatest time in Israel's history.
And so David's interesting to us because he's probably around 13 or 14 years old when we're first introduced to him.
And that's found in 1 Samuel 16.
And we start to see these qualities that God notices in David that are noteworthy to us.
And I want to teach today on the kind of person that God mightily uses using David as a model and example.
Let me give you the background of where we're going to pick up the story.
Saul is the king of Israel.
And because of Saul's disobedience, because of Saul's fear of man, he's been just having one disappointment after another.
And finally there's a point where God tells Samuel, I'm looking for a new king.
So he invites Samuel to go to Bethlehem to find this new king.
And God tells him everything that he's going to do.
Samuel's actually fearful that Saul's going to find out and kill him.
So he makes up an excuse about going to do a sacrifice there in Bethlehem.
And he comes to Jesse's home.
God leads him there.
And he says, I'm here to anoint one of your sons.
And Jesse parades his sons before Samuel.
And we pick it up in 1 Samuel 16, verse 6.
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.
But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him.
For the Lord does not see as a man sees.
For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
So the first thing to realize is that God is always looking at our heart.
And that the wholeheartedness of our heart is what God notices, not our skill, not our talent, as important as that is.
But God is looking at the heart.
And so the first quality that I would say that marked David, the first quality that marks a man or a woman whom God mightily and powerfully uses,
is one who has developed a core identity based in intimacy with God.
It's that intimacy, that love relationship with God that God noticed in David.
And I just want to challenge you that, you know, what is your core identity?
Is your core identity being successful?
Is your core identity being good looking?
Is your core identity making a lot of money?
I mean, as important as many of those things are, the identity of David was intimacy with God.
And it was out of that core identity that he found his value system.
And sometimes we think that we're going to find our value system in outward things, like being successful.
And thus, we live lives that are completely up and down.
We're always faltering and struggling because we lose our job, or because people don't like us, or we don't have enough friends.
Or the person we went on a date with, you know, rejected us.
That's because our core identity is still in how other people view us.
David was a man after God's own heart.
His core identity was to go after God's heart.
to have intimacy with him.
And I want to challenge you, men and women,
that the type of person that God powerfully and mightily uses
is someone whose core identity is
in a relationship of intimacy with their Heavenly
Father, with God.
And so it's getting up in the morning.
It's spending time with the Lord.
It's PB&J, prayer, Bible, and journal.
It's seeking God's face in prayer.
It's opening God's word, letting God speak to you.
That's where our core identity comes from.
And when that's our core identity,
then what's exciting is that, come what may in our job,
come what may about what people say about us,
the criticism that we go through, we can, I mean,
I'm not saying it's not going to hurt,
but we can go back into that personal dynamic and identity
that comes through knowing Christ
and knowing that you're a son of God,
knowing that you're a daughter of God,
knowing that you're completely forgiven,
knowing that you're completely loved unconditionally,
knowing that even as you go through really, really
difficult times in your life, God, your Father,
is right there for you, and He loves you.
That's the kind of identity.
That's the kind of core identity that David had.
That's the kind of core identity in the kind of people
that God uses that have resiliency,
because it's really hard to have resiliency
if you're trusting in other things,
because those things can be taken away.
And I've had a couple times in my life
where this was really tested.
I was a gymnast at University of Georgia.
And my freshman year, I was in the paper all the time,
front page of the Red and Black, which
was a newspaper there at University of Georgia,
because that was the first time there had ever
been a gymnast in men's gymnastics at Georgia
that had a full scholarship.
I'd been state champion on rings.
I'd been state champion on parallel bars.
I'd been state champion on floor exercise.
I'd been state champion as an all-around.
And then I get injured.
It's in the second week of practice, my freshman year
at Georgia, and I'm doing a twisting back somersault
on the floor.
And I hit wrong, and it looked like I had torn my ACL.
And suddenly, my whole life was sort of shocked
into the reality that my identity was in gymnastics.
My identity was in success.
And suddenly, bam, just like that, it could have gone away.
It could have been dissipated at that point.
Well, it was at that time that a person shared with me
about a personal, vital, dynamic relationship with Christ.
And after a few months, I gave my heart to Christ.
And I committed myself to him.
And I mean, not right then by any means,
but I found, at least initially, a new identity.
And my new identity was being a child of God.
My new identity was a personal relationship with Christ.
And God did heal my knee.
I went on to four years of a great career at Georgia.
But my identity was no longer in that.
It was in a personal relationship with Christ.
And then about 10 years ago, I was in a church.
I had pastored.
It had grown into the thousands.
And some things happened where I needed to resign.
And I lost everything that I had built over 20 years.
And my maybe kind of success quotient
went from 100 to 0 overnight.
And I had to find, once again, where my core identity was
going to come from.
So it was during that time, through prayer walking,
crying out to God, that I began to rediscover my core identity
being intimacy with Christ and identity with His love for me.
And that was life transforming.
So I want to challenge you in this first quality
that identity with Christ through intimacy
and a personal connection with the Lord,
hearing His voice, crying out to Him, and worshiping Him
is the most important component in being the kind of person
that God can mightily use.
If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 23.
Because I think Psalm 23 really captures
the heart of what I'm saying, the core identity of intimacy
with Christ that David wrote.
It's the most beloved of all Psalms.
Maybe some of you that are listening to my voice
or seeing this video have memorized Psalm 23.
But listen to this.
These are the words of a man whose core identity
is in intimacy with Christ.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
So David is saying that the Lord is my shepherd.
I don't need to want anything.
I don't need to have anything.
God is sufficient for me.
He's my shepherd.
He's going to cause me to lie down in green pastures.
He's going to lead me into peace and quiet.
He's going to restore my soul.
You see, the problem we have is when we think that success, our success, is going to give
us the happiness that we're longing for.
David is saying, look, I'm happy in you.
I'm happy in God.
Lord, when I make you my shepherd, you lead me into peace.
You guide my soul in the paths of goodness and wholeness and righteousness.
And that's just a beautiful picture of what it means to be intimate with Christ.
And then he says, though I'll walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear
no evil, for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they come for me.
David understands the presence of God, and through the presence of God, even in the midst
of evil, even in the midst of tremendous difficulty, this is one who understands an intimacy with
Christ that's daily, that brings a peace and a righteousness and a joy.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever.
He knows there's spiritual warfare in his life.
There's going to be difficult times going through the valleys, but he knows where he's going.
He knows that goodness and mercy will follow him all the days of his life.
So I challenge you that this is the key.
This is the first and most important quality of a core identity.
That's the most stable.
You can take away our houses.
One can take away our finances.
We can lose our job, but if our core identity is in Christ and seeking him every day and
worshipping him and embracing him and in crying out to him, there is a joy, there is
a peace that nothing this world has to offer can give us.
And so I want to challenge you in that.
Become the kind of person God wants you to be by discovering, first of all, quality one,
that your core identity is through intimacy with Christ.
God bless.