For Samuel 16 at verse 1, the previous chapter had the rejection, the Lord's rejection of Saul for his disobedience, refusing to destroy the Amalekites, the king and their animals as he was called to do. And so God rejected Saul from being king. Now 1 Samuel 16 verse 1, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you grieve over Saul? since I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and go, I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons. And Samuel said, how can I go if Saul hears that he will kill me? And the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. and invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you." Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, do you come peaceably? And he said, peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance. But the Lord looks on the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. Then Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here? And he said, There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul's servants said to him, Behold, now a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well. So Saul said to his servants, Provide for me a man who can play well, and bring him to me. One of the young men answered, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him. Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me David, your son, who is with the sheep. And Jesse took a donkey, laid him with bread, and a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by David his son to Saul. And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight. And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed. and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him. People of God, we live in a culture in which various viewpoints are celebrated. Everybody's got a right to a viewpoint. Every viewpoint is to be appreciated except the viewpoint that says maybe somebody's viewpoint is a wrong viewpoint. That's the one viewpoint that is intolerable. Truth be told, we also are prone to assuming that our viewpoint is valid, it's good, it's right, it's helpful. We naturally assume that we see well, that we're good at evaluating things, that we have an understanding. But in our passage tonight, we read a lot about viewpoints, about seeing things. The Lord says to his prophet Samuel in verse one, he says, I have provided for myself a king among Jesse's sons. And the word there translated provided is the word see. I have seen among his sons a king for myself. And in fact the root of that word to see is found some nine times in this chapter translated in various ways. sometimes to see, sometimes about someone's appearance, but the same word over and over, and you get the clear impression as you read through the chapter, this is all about seeing, it's all about viewpoints, and by the end of the chapter, it becomes very, very clear that there's one who sees, who sees well, there's one whose viewpoint is correct, and that is the Lord our God. Tonight, we rejoice that the Lord has seen a king for his people. He has provided one for Israel. The one who prefigures the ultimate one God has seen for us, our Lord Jesus Christ. Tonight we see the Lord's choice. The Lord's choice brings hope, first of all. The Lord's choice brings a surprise, secondly. And the Lord's choice brings waiting, thirdly. Hope, surprise, and waiting are the fruit of God's choice. Well, the book, or the chapter opens with Samuel grieving, Samuel weeping, Samuel sorrowing over Saul. How long will you grieve over Saul, the Lord asked Samuel, his prophet. Now, Samuel's grief by itself was not a problem, it wasn't bad. In fact, we might say, would that we could grieve like Samuel. Would that we sorrowed over things that were worthy to be sorrowed over, a failed leader, like a famous pastor committing adultery, like sin working in the congregation and harming God's people, like the weakness of the church and its betrayal of the Lord. Would that we could grieve the things that God grieves. Samuel here is not simply grieving a friend here, a man, Saul, that he loved, but he is grieving what this means for the church, as we saw last time. The rejection of Saul is an enormous deal. You know, we're so used to this, we've read this so many times before, that we know, of course, what's coming, the anointing of David and all of this, it leads to Jesus, and so we just pass over this rejection of Saul without any real trouble at all. In fact, we're rather glad, get him out of there at last. We don't want Saul. That's not the way the prophet of the Lord saw it. He did not know what was coming next. He knew that God had called him to begin a new form of government in Israel, this monarchy. He knew that Saul had been appointed the first king. He knew that because of God's grace and the way God covenanted with him and what he demanded of the king, there was great hope, there was high expectation. This could be a new day in the life of God's people, the period of the judges, everyone doing what's right in their own eyes because there's no king, could now come to an end perhaps. But the Lord now has rejected Saul because Saul has betrayed the Lord, he's been disobedient. And yet now Samuel, though he knows Saul is wrong, he doesn't know what this means for Israel. Is this the end of Israel? Will they self-destruct? Will the enemies around them come marching in? Will the Philistines kill them? Will there be chaos in Israel? Will there be civil war breakout now? No one knew what happened next. You get the impression even in Bethlehem, as the prophet Samuel was to Bethlehem, the town fathers come trembling to him. You come peaceably. Everyone's a little bit, a little bit uneasy. They've heard about, no doubt, the Samuel leaving Saul and departing from him. They know things are not in a good state. They've heard of God's rejection of Saul. They wonder if God's rejecting them now, maybe. Is Samuel coming in judgment upon them? They've heard about how Samuel hacked Agag to pieces. Everyone's a little uneasy. Reminds us of ourselves. We worry and we fret and we tremble and we're shaken. Sometimes with good reason we grieve over sin. Sorrowed by the failures of ourselves, the church. Sometimes we worry about the wrong things. We worry about silly things, petty things, things that are all self-consuming, our own comfort. And the difference, of course, between Samuel's day and our day is that we know who our king is and we know that his reign endures. We know that we are safe in his hands. And it's that king that the Lord is beginning to reveal for his people in the Old Testament right here through the one he's about to have anointed. The Lord sends Samuel to fill his horn with oil, that anointing oil that would symbolize the authority and the outpouring of the Spirit equipping a man for service. Fill your horn with oil and go, I will send you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have provided myself a king among his sons. Now that's a glorious, glorious word, isn't it? Samuel had been weeping as if there was no hope, grieving as if all was lost, grieving as if perhaps the Lord had abandoned his people to Saul, and Saul had failed, and now it's all over for God's people. And here's the voice of the Lord saying, what are you thinking, Samuel? I never abandoned my people to a mere sinner. I never relinquish control of my church to a mere human and his weakness and sin. I always remain on the throne over my people. I always maintain my own plan for them. The Lord has never had a loss. He never throws up his arms and says, I don't know what to do now. The sins of my people are too much. The failure of their leadership too great. I have no idea how to deal with this now. Let me sit down beside you, Samuel, and we'll cry together. The Lord says, I have provided for myself a king. I see to it the comfort for the saints of the Lord to have a God like this. never undone by our failures or the failures of those around us. If we're grieving the right things, then the Lord comes to us with great hope. And even if we're grieving the wrong things tonight, the Lord comes to us with hope, a hope that restores our interest in the main things, in his kingdom, in his rule, in his cause, in his king. King who takes away our sin, who changes our hearts, who leads us in paths of obedience for his name's sake. God's choice of a king, God's provision of a king, this is the hope of the church, isn't it? That God has a plan, that God's always able to provide, he always has for his people a new beginning, and that he has chosen for his church a king. This is the great great hope of God's people. That God has made a choice for our good. God has provided when all looked hopeless. One who could save. This is the word to every weeping heart, isn't it? This is the word to all those who grieve. Behold, I have provided for myself a king. But there's surprise, isn't there? In the way and who the Lord supplies. Notice that secondly, the Lord's choice brings a surprise. Samuel goes off to Bethlehem, tells the town fathers that he's come to sacrifice, gathers the people, town fathers, maybe the whole town and certainly the family of Jesse. Jesse's sons come strutting in and Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, thinks it's very obvious who the Lord's choice is. When Eliab, the firstborn of Jesse comes walking up, there's no doubt in his mind, this is the man. Here's a man's man, here's a great hunk of manhood, here's a strong man, here's a bright man. And the Lord instantly intervenes and says no. No, that's not the one. Verse seven. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I've rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The whole thing is rather remarkable, isn't it? Here we have the prophet of the Lord. So quickly drawn to Eliab. And we might have expected this of the people of Israel. They had wanted a king like the nations. They were happy with Saul who stood tall above everyone else. They had now a king like the nations. But here's the faithful prophet of God and he is instantly drawn to the outward appearance of Eliab, the firstborn. Reminds us, doesn't it? that as someone has said, the kingdom is safe with none but God. Who else could you trust to make the right choice for us? We can't trust ourselves, we can't trust others, we can't trust a faithful prophet. Who can we trust but the Lord? Truth of the matter is we trust our own opinions far too much. We think that we know well that we see with perception. In fact, oftentimes there's no one we trust more than ourselves. There's no one whose opinion we value more than our own. There's no one whose standards we value more than our own standards. There's no one who we trust to apply those standards more than ourselves. We can see, we know what we need. We know what would be right for our lives. We know what God ought to do. We know what God would do if he loved me. We're like little children, so sure, so sure what we need. We're like little children who grow up and are so thankful that their parents didn't give them what they thought they needed. So we learn time and again that God's choice is superior to our choice. We judge by outward appearances. We judge by human strength. God sees more deeply. God sees differently. God doesn't care what's on the outside. Why? Why, boys and girls, does God not judge by the outward appearance? I mean, if you were gonna get a king for your people, the kind of king who could rule and command respect and lead an army to battle, what kind of king would you choose? Wouldn't you choose a king who looked good on the outside, who looked like a hunk of muscle, who could have a commanding voice and presence? Well, you would because you need that kind of help. But if you're the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth, you don't need human strength. You don't need human might. You're not impressed with the legs of a horse or the legs of a man. What the Lord wants for his people is that his people would depend upon his strength. upon his strength. What the Lord wants from his people is that his people would bow down and depend on the Lord and obey the Lord and yield to the Lord and submit to the Lord. And therefore, what the Lord wants for his people is a king who will do that. A king who will do that. He seeks for his people a king who will lead them to depend upon the Lord, who will lead them to be humble before the Lord, who will lead them to yield their lives in faith and obedience. God wants a king with such a heart. Saul had not been such a man. He had proven in severe ways that he trusted his own wisdom and his own strength over the Lord's and he would not yield to the Lord. But now Samuel has been sent to anoint another king Eliab passes by, he's not the one. Don't look at the outside. The next one passes by, he's not the one either. Don't look at the outside. The next one, the next one, the next one, the next one. Finally, there's no more sons around, and Samuel must've been thinking, what is going on here? And he says to Jesse, do you have any other sons? One more, the youngest, he's out with the sheep. We'll send him and get him because we're not going to eat until he arrives. So they send for David out with the sheep and he appears ruddy and beautiful eyes and handsome. It's not that the Lord hates our beauty. But what the Lord is looking for is the heart. Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Can you imagine the brothers? How is it, especially in that day when the firstborn had all the rights, how is it that we've gone from the firstborn all the way to the lastborn, to the youngest? This wasn't even considered a possibility. I mean, they were surprised even to think that one of them might be king, but to go now to the least of all the brothers, how is this possible? God who chooses the weak and the humble, God who chooses the heart. Here is David called for among the sheep. David the shepherd boy called to be the shepherd of Israel, right? To lead and guide, to protect and provide. It's a spiritual work and God seeks a heart to follow the Lord. The Lord would give, the Lord is giving David such a heart. The Lord's choices are always surprising. At some point we ought to learn not to be surprised by the surprises, right? The Lord's ways, the Lord's purposes, the Lord's wisdom, it surprises us. But never was anyone more surprised than when David's descendant, Jesus of Nazareth, appeared on the scene, and in different ways claimed to be the Messiah. He was not impressive by human standards. He didn't come from Jerusalem, the capital, or at least some noteworthy city in Israel. He was from Nazareth, Backwoods, Hickville. He was not the son of a priest, but of a carpenter. He's just one of us, they said. He's just like us. We know his mother. We know his father. We know his siblings. He doesn't have material wealth. He's poor. He's not approved by the religious leaders of the day. And when he hung on the cross, well, that sealed the deal. Now we know he's not the Christ because Messiahs don't suffer. But we rejoice tonight, don't we, that this was God's choice for us. God had provided for himself a king. Against all human expectations, against all of our criteria, against all the things we would have chosen, God chose Jesus, his own son. whose heart is pure and beautiful, who is the very image of God and true knowledge and righteousness and holiness, who is humble, who trusted in God, who depend upon the Lord, who is the one fit to rule our lives and to bring us to heaven. Today, many people cannot accept God's choice. They don't believe they need that kind of a king. I don't need a king who tells me what to do. I don't need a king who tells me that my opinion is wrong. I don't need a king who calls me to give up my life. I don't need a king who hangs there in shame and nakedness upon a cross. Do you ever think you need a different king? We wouldn't say it the way the world says it. what is envy and discontentment, but the claim that you'd be better off with a different king. We say in our own way, he's not enough. He doesn't act quick enough. He's not concerned enough. He's not gentle enough. He's not strong enough. He's not my choice. Tonight, the Lord in this text is telling us to trust his eyes over our own, to believe that he sees better than we see. When our grief is not based in righteousness, he says to us, what are you grieving about? Have I not provided for you, King? Consider the places of anxiety in our lives, the places of discontent, and ask yourself if perhaps the Lord is saying, be careful how you judge. God sees more deeply than you see. And perhaps God is also reminding us in our text tonight that when it comes to his people, his greatest goal is not to clothe us with external beauty and external comfort and external wealth, an external easy living, but his great goal is to prepare us to reign with Christ forever. And so you read Romans 8, 28, that God works all things together for good, and then you have to ask, well, what is the great good? Often we don't ask, we assume that the great good is that I should have what I want right now, that I should be comfortable right now. But if you go to Romans 8, you discover what the great good is. God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son, that is, our great good, to come out at the other end looking like Jesus, fit to sit on the throne with him forever, fit to enjoy God forever, fit to glorify God eternally. And when that begins to sink in, you see, then Then we glory not only in Christ, God's choice for us, but we marvel in God's choice in Christ of us. He's chosen me to be a son of God? What is this? The least likely candidate against all human expectations. What do I have to contribute to God but my sin? And he's chosen me? to reign on the throne forever. What a God we have here, what glorious surprises he has for his church. What a wonderful God to save us from our choice of a king, to save us from our self-chosen saviors. What a glorious God He is. To say to Samuel, it's not about what you see, it's not about what you feel, it's not about what you think's gonna happen to Israel, it's about what I have chosen, what I have seen, what I have provided, it is my church. Glorious God he is to say to Samuel who's taken with external strength and to say, no, I've rejected that. I'm not dependent on man's strength. I will have a king for my people who will love me and submit to me, lead my people in righteousness. So Samuel, at the Lord's command, obediently anoints David, and the Spirit of the Lord rushes upon David from that day forward, that David would learn to dedicate his life and his heart to the Lord. But the story doesn't end. Then the Lord's choice brings waiting. We might expect the next thing to happen here is that Saul gets put in jail, or cut down, or drops dead of a heart attack, or something, and David's on the throne, but that's not what happens. The spirit rushes upon David, but then the spirit of the Lord departs from Saul, and a harmful, a troubling spirit torments Saul now. And Saul's servants say to him, behold, now a harmful spirit's tormenting you. Tell us to go find you someone who can play the lyre, the harp, and then he'll play, and it will bring you peace. And Saul says, provide for me, see to it for me, a man who can play well. And one of the young men answers, I have seen a son of Jesse. Well this is remarkable. Suddenly people are beginning to see the one the Lord has provided. The Lord is beginning to open up eyes. Here a man in Saul's own court now sees what before only God had seen, what even Samuel the prophet couldn't see. And now eyes are beginning to see the Lord's choice. This is the kind of God we have who opens our eyes to his choice. So that's the reason we can sing for joy tonight. It's because God has begun to open our eyes that we see the goodness of God's choice. But it's not over because now David has to learn to see. How strange it must have been to David to be taken from the sheep, and now to be anointed, to be the king, and then himself to wonder, what does this mean? Now I go back to guarding the sheep? How would I come to the throne? Occupied by Saul, seemingly to be inherited by Jonathan, that courageous warrior? And what's gonna happen to David? Will he begin to desire the throne for the right reasons, for the Lord or for himself? Will he be willing to wait or will he take Saul's life and grab the throne? Will he be purified by this period of being persecuted that's going to follow here and chased by Saul and hiding in caves? This is the Lord's anointed? The Lord is providing his people a A better picture of the coming Jesus, isn't he? The coming Christ, the coming King. What is the Lord's strategy here in all this waiting that we're going to read about now? All this waiting, these days to come. What is the Lord's strategy here when he actually moves David now into the palace, into the court of Saul, not to be on the throne, but to play an instrument for him, to be his musician? Well, I think it's twofold. Number one, it's preparation for David. David comes into the court and David gets to learn about the court, doesn't he? David gets to see how not to run a nation. He gets to see what it looks like when the king doesn't submit to God's will. He gets to learn to wait upon the Lord. He gets to learn to depend not on himself, but upon God. But the second part of the strategy is that the Lord is having mercy on Israel by preventing the nation from erupting. Saul's reign doesn't become total chaos as it might have been had the troubling spirit had his way with Saul, had Saul been overly frustrated, full of anguish, brought to a rage. You can imagine the kind of things that might have happened in the nation, the kind of civil war, the kind of breakdown But in providing David in the midst of that chord, providing that soothing music that came from David's peaceful heart, the Lord calms Saul down. The Lord holds things together. The Lord preserves his people. The road to the throne for David was a long and slow road. The road for David's greater son was a long and slow road. 30 years of living among sinful people. The one righteous person in the universe living among sinners, a sinful mom, a sinful father, sinful brothers and sisters, sinful church. bearing with them, enduring. And then years of ministering, facing the hostility of the religious leaders. Lonely days, nobody understanding his real destiny. They sit upon the throne. This is the path that God appointed for our eternal King. By that method, the Lord, of course, was preparing Jesus for that great work of giving his life on the cross. And by that work, of course, God was preparing his church to see, to see the King, the true King, the King that we needed. As we look at God's holy word here tonight, we rejoice in a Lord who has chosen for us what we never would have chosen for ourselves. David's greater son, and a Lord who, by his grace, has opened our eyes to see, to see one all the better than David, who yes, soothes our hearts, doesn't he, who teaches us to sing, brings the music of his grace, the beauty of his psalms, teaches us to yield to the Lord. And through all of this, a king who is getting us ready to reign, and to reign forever. The road for us tonight is long, and the road for us tonight is slow. We, like David, have our questions. How much longer? Is this what I was called to do? This doesn't seem very profitable. I thought I was destined for the throne. But learning to see as God sees means trusting His eyes. Trusting God's judgment, yielding to His reign. That's how you learn how to reign. You yield to the Lord. Rejoice tonight in a God who sees. And in His all-seeing wisdom has seen for you a King. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we thank you. for your wisdom, for your provision, for your amazing love for us, your people. Father, where would we be tonight if you had left us to our own judgments, left us to our own self-chosen saviors? We'd still be, Lord, in a world of misery, a heap of trouble, entrapped, We praise you, O God, for providing for us your own beloved son as our king. Thank you for the road he was willing to take, for the way in which he humbled himself. And we pray, Lord, that the spirit of this Christ would reign over us and reign in us, and would fit us for glory. Watch over us this week, Lord. May we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Protect your people, we pray. Give to us sure hope to know that you're on the throne, that you reign over us through Christ. Help us not to lose heart, but to find hope. Help us to know that you are a God surprising to our human wisdom. Let us learn to glory in your wisdom that excels ours. And as we look upon our Savior, who is willing to wait and to suffer before the throne, so grant us the grace to follow his path. In his name we pray, amen.