The King Maker - Pastor Chris Buskirk 5.5.19

The prayer that is, I don't want to be like you, Jesus, to have your heart in me.

What would it mean to have that kind of heart?

Stu Stu Weber talks about the, the four pillars of a man's heart.

And I still, Weber is quite a man himself.

He's a decorated Green Baret, uh, combatant from Vietnam.

Uh,

he's a man's man in every way.

And when he returned from the war, he had already decided in his heart that his life was going to matter for the most important of things.

He became a pastor.

He's a pastor in Oregon and he does a lot of work with understanding, uh, the role of men, particularly biblical men, godly men, and recovering that kind of masculinity.

And he says there's four pillars to every godly man's heart.

Four pillars.

They are a king.

MMM.

I remember the next two.

But villa, a king, a warrior, a mentor, and a friend, a king, a warrior, a mentor, and a friend.

What a well rounded view of manhood.

He calls it being a Tinder, Tinder warrior.

And he says that the biblical word for husband actually means a manager, a cultivator.

It means one who takes responsibility at the heart of godly manhood is rejection of passive safety and a taking of responsibility.

That's what Robert Lewis said in his makings of a modern day knight to reject passivity, to embrace responsibility.

We often think of two sides to kingship.

One side being a king means that you're respected, you're treated with deference.

Everybody likes that part of being a king.

The part that's often unexplored is what earns that kind of respect.

And that is a person who takes initiative and absorbs great response.

I just watched a movie, uh, this, this last weekend, you know, it's one of those$3, saw it at the top of the Bin and Walmart as you pass by that huge horde of entertainment, you know, uh, grabbed one out.

I look pretty good.

I hadn't seen it.

I'd seen advertisements of it years ago and never got around.

It was called Captain Phillips.

Do you remember anybody remember that?

A captain of a ship that defends his ship and his crew against the wiles of, of pirates who would just as soon have them dead for the sake of their money.

And he in a, in a pivotal scene that kind of frames what that movie's about.

The pirates have come on the ship and they've, they've got the captain and others in, in the, what do you call the room where they run everything?

Uh,

the, the bridge.

Yes.

I think of Star Trek.

Yes.

And they're up there on the bridge of the ship and, uh, the guys have their machine guns drawn and they put one to the head of one of his crew members and they're threatening his life.

And they said, if you don't do what we're going to do, this man dies.

And he says, don't shoot him.

Don't shoot him.

I'm the captain.

Shoot me.

That's taking responsibility.

That's taking responsibility, the role of, of, of a man and in the church and, and in a family.

Uh, though it is an honor to place.

It is also a place of great responsibility in that what Paul said of Jesus men, husbands have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

No, that's Philippians.

He says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her and make her holy, right?

He lays down his life.

That's a picture of Jesus forever redefined what it meant to be a leader and to be a king according to Jesus.

Those that would be really great would be the servant of all in that, right?

And so it's in taking responsibility that a man's manhood is founded.

Does that make sense?

Are you following with me there?

And so for our manhood Sake, gentlemen, I want to point that out to you, that that is nothing to shrink back from.

That is something to fully embrace.

This idea of being a king don't, don't take king is something that's just just privileged and a dominant, and that's a childish understanding of kingship.

That's King of the mountain King Kingship, right?

We played that when we were four, five and six but you don't play that anymore because that was just a game.

It was about dominance.

It was about being the one at the top of the hill and see you and whoever else you could knock down, turn that hill upside down and you've got a biblical understanding of kingship.

It's not what you can take and what you can control.

It's what you give and what you contribute.

It's who you serve that makes you great and the greatest among you shall be the servant of all.

Isn't that the case?

Wherever you are in the kingdom, if you serve God, you will serve other people, but those who serve the most, it would be the king that serves the whole kingdom.

Are you with me?

Does that make sense?

And so we've got to understand this idea of kingship through the Lens of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said that you, you understand kingship and leadership in that you lord it over others.

No, this isn't the king of the mountain stuff.

This is stuff that takes a real man.

Anything less than this as a tyrant.

A king is first a king and character, right?

That's what Jesus taught us.

If you go back to the to, I don't want you to miss this, did you see the opening slide there for the series live like kings?

I want you to study that for just a second.

That's the size style of crown that we can be man enough to where if the son of man lives in us, right?

It's to that call, that kind of kingship that I think the relationship of Jonathan and David speak, that we would live like kings.

I want you to hear this in, in David's challenge to Solomon if you would.

Uh, before we kinda jump in and turn to first kings.

The first scripture that I want us to just kind of absorb this morning.

First Kings chapter two, verses two and three.

These are the deathbed words of King David to his son.

First of all, who himself was to be a king.

From David to Solomon.

David speaks these words, I am going the way of all the earth.

He's about to die, be strong.

Therefore, and show yourself a man and keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimony's according to what is written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do.

And wherever you turn, keep the charge of the Lord.

The definition of a king is the one who takes responsibility.

I want us to get that straight.

Now, I imagined who could help us get in touch with this store.

If this was going to be a movie, how would I start it?

And that started with a scene in Jerusalem and the market is bustling and people are bringing in their grapes and they're bringing them before a a relatively young man and, and each, each of the vineyard owners is coming up with their cart.

And if they're not chosen, they'll just go onto market that day.

But this guy is choosing for the king's table.

And so we samples the grapes from this cart and he savors it and he closes his eyes and he's, he, he's samples another.

And this kid's good at this.

This kid's good at this.

In fact, his father who was deputized him for this little task, uh, is the Lord of the king's table.

He is the principal servant of the king.

His name is Ziba and Ziva is a biblical character.

You'll hear his name come up in second Samuel again and again, and zip his son.

He had 15 sons.

Actually, we don't know their names, so I'm giving this guy a name.

His name is Paul t.

If you look back, t was of the Benjamite tribe.

One that took, uh, went into the holy land to spy out the land for the tribe of Benjamin.

And this guy is of the tribe of Benjamin Ziva, the servant, the master servant of the king.

He is of the tribe of Benjamin.

And I can imagine him there in the sampling place.

And then all of a sudden he opens his eyes and with clarity, he's made his choice.

And he calls the name of the two vineyard owners that will supply the grapes for the king's table.

And as they walk away, some of the men who were not choosing muttered, who made this Guy Lord over us.

It must be heady as a young man to have that kind of power, to have that kind of responsibility to be able to make those kinds of choices and they stick.

But, but some resent it and, and they walk away one muttering to another.

Who is he?

And the other one says, well he is faulty.

He's the youngest son of Zebra, Zebra who is served every king of Israel.

He first serves Saul and then he served David and now we use serving prince my afib Schiff.

He knows kings and this is his son.

Polity goes back to the palace.

The crates are being unloaded into the palace kitchen that day into the pantry and the father and the son partake of the grapes from that cart and they go[inaudible] yeah, this is joy stuff.

Well done, my son, you've chosen well again, maybe the best crop we've had in years here.

This is fantastic.

And he puts his hand on the shoulder of his son in pride and in Paul's, he looks up at his dad and he said, Ah, Ah Dad, I, I've, I've got 14 other brothers.

Each of them older than me, Eto of all one of them is unique to himself, but dad, somebody gets to serve as king men may become different things, but, but some men and some men become kings.

Dad, I want to be a king.

Zaba laughs at his son, kind of amused.

He said, son, you can choose a grape, but you can't choose to be a king.

Only God makes king.

Okay.

[inaudible]

only God makes king's well.

Well Dad, you, you've known all the kings.

You've known all the kings from, from Saul, even up to prince, my famous chef and Prince Jonathan.

You knew them all.

You knew them up close and personal.

Nobody in all of Israel knows more about being a king, as observed it from, from closer range than you have dad, would you teach me to be a king?

So some men pretend to be kings, some men pose, some men want to be treated as a king.

Some P at men want to be adored as a king.

Some men want to be respected as a king, but no man who is yet to know whom he serves.

It's ready to be a king.

No Man is ready to lead.

That has not first learned how to heat.

Well, Dad, I'm your youngest son and yet you and trust me, the picking of the grapes and the picking of the crops.

Am I not?

You're most responsible son.

If someone's going to be king, then why not me?

Yes.

Uh, it's a good thing to desire to be a king.

Better yet to know how to become one.

Will you teach me fodder if you will?

Listen, listen closely and listen long.

I'll tell you how to live like a king and it starts a story that keeps his son spellbound from conversation to conversation as he learns what it means to really be a king, not just poses one, not just desire to be one.

The question that he has asked has an earth, this bigger question, and that is who makes kings, who is the king maker according to the Zippa, it's God himself.

Samuel, as we've already talked about this morning, emulates that he was one that turned to the Lord, let let the Lord and his character and his worship of the Lord shape who he was.

Speak Lord.

Your servant listens early on in his life.

Samuel is the last of the judges, a great prophet of God, one for whom the Scripture says that God didn't, that did not let a word of Samuel fail.

Yeah,

he was that consistent.

He was that obedient early in his life.

Somehow he found his way to the well of life and it strengthened him.

And that is a bit of a mystery, isn't it?

Because both, both, uh, Samuel and Eli were those who were known to have shoddy sons.

Bill, they had a heart of God.

They were not perfect men.

They didn't take responsibility, his fathers and, and they raised worthless sons.

Well when they came to Samuel and said, we want you to make us a king, it hurts.

Samuel goes, he had two sons that were to follow him.

He had hoped that they would be the next judges of Israel.

The next ones that everyone looked to and authority and power.

He hoped that they would become kings, but they were not ones of Samuel's way.

According to those who came to Samuel.

You see, Israel was in kind of a cycle.

It had happened with almost every judge that God would, because of the cries of the people raise up someone to judge them and someone to lead them and the people would repent and for a season God could pour out his blessings upon them, but then they would get distracted.

That would follow other gods.

They would turn away and again and again.

They would find themselves being oppressed by the powers around them because they had no strength within.

It was a cycle that was happening over and over and over again, and the people of Israel knew what would happen next, especially if those who would follow.

Samuel would be young men like his sons.

What a heartbreak.

They come to Samuel and they say, we want a king.

And their motives were, were typical.

They were as human as they could be.

They wanted a king because they wanted a king to lead them in battle.

They wanted a king to be a consistent one, a reign of kings, if you will.

So that we can push off our pressors and really come into her own.

We will, we will.

We want a king a to lead us in our battles.

We want a king to Unitus and unite the tribes.

And Samuel First Anointed Saul, I'm making a long story very short this morning, he anointed Saul to be king.

And when the spirit of God came on, saw the scriptures say in First Samuel, when the spirit of God came upon Saul, it changed the man.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can I just give you two quick snapshots of the before and after of Saul?

When the Holy Spirit came upon him before saw was, uh, he was the best looking of the bunch head and shoulders taller than anyone in Israel.

You know what I mean?

These a Jeff Westerman just towering, easy to pick out in the crowd.

You know what I'm talking about?

A very popular guy, but almost every man when it comes to measuring yourself by the manhood, if Jesus feels inadequate, that's almost too much of a stretch.

And so sometimes instead of taking responsibility, we, we, we shy back from that.

We're not really sure we're ready to take that on, to make that plunge.

I'm the captain, shoot me and, and, and saw was that way in many ways.

He was a model of a regular guy right now.

Now here's Saul.

Samuel is told by God that that's the guy that he's going to anoint him and make him king and Saul invites us out.

Samuel invites all of Israel to be a part of that coronation moment where he will reveal that Saul is the first king of Israel and everybody's there.

They've all come in.

They put their luggage aside, they've gathered and it's Samuel's ready to honor Saul.

He can't find him.

Do you know where s saw the would be king is.

He's hiding in the luggage.

He's going to be hailed king and he's trying to pass as a bellboy Eurythmy this, this is King Saul Pre God's anointing.

But after God's anointing, something changes.

I think it was the Gibeah nights they found up, fell into some trouble with some people on the, on the Amalekites, termites, I've got, I don't know what they were but, but there, there were some people in and they had come upon Gibeah and they had forced themselves on me and they said, either surrender to us and, and you will become our slaves and we will gouge out one.

I have every one of you as a disgrace in a shame upon Israel.

There's a lot of dynamic in first and second Samuel about shame and honor.

And they said this, well, if we can't find anybody to fight for us in a week will surrender to you and you can take one of our eyes, but give us a week.

Is that pitiful or what?

That's pill.

And they go, they go, they heard solid, just been anointed king.

But some of the people that said, who is this guy to be our king?

And in this moment he, he unifies the people behind them.

They come to Saul and they tell him, Saul has been out working that day and any cut, which doesn't sound much like Saul, he maybe he's changed already.

He comes in and uh, uh, he hears the story of what's happened to his brothers and all of Israel has heard what's happened to their brothers and they said, well, you know, that's just one of our 12 tribes.

We're not getting involved in that.

Rather than being filled with faith.

They were filled with fear and they ran the other way.

Saul was the one who saw the towers coming down on nine 11 and instead of running away from the chaos, ran up the stairs, saw, gets angry.

So I'll gets angry and he chops up a steer that he'd been at the, the, the, the land with cuts it up into pieces and sends it to every tribe and says, you join me or this will happen to you.

All of Israel's shows up and whoever's been picking on the GIB unites runs the other way.

There's a new bully in Israel and his name is Saul.

A man has stood up, someone who's taken responsibility but saw, you remember, it was a, was a bit of a mess that people wanted a king.

They, they, they, they wanted a, uh, but, but, but saw, bless his heart, could not find his place to the will of his deepest obedience often enough or perhaps even at all.

Do I have time to go into all that?

Uh, look at, uh, first Samuel, here's the story.

It's in first Samuel 15.

Saul's now the new champion of, of Israel.

And God tells him to go and now it's time to take out, uh, the descendants of amyloid.

They didn't let, uh, Joshua through or Moses through back when they were coming up out of Egypt, and now it's time to strike them down and to remove them.

It's supposed to be a complete annihilation.

Nothing is to be left.

And, uh, that, that's the, the word of God to Saul and Saul.

Some of the people numbered them as 20 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah.

They go in, they take the Amalekites got honors them in the battle.

But though God honors Saul, Saul does not honored God, but Saul and the people spared a gag.

Verse Nine, and the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fat links and the lambs and all that was good.

And we're willing to destroy them utterly.

But everything despised and worthless that they are utterly destroyed.

Do you understand what's happening?

God says, I want a clean slate.

We were removing this, uh, pestilence from the land.

These, that worship, worship a god who are no gods, those who sacrifice children on their altars, no more of this.

He's judging this.

He's wiping it clean.

And Saul goes in and he sees rather than, uh, uh, he see some stuff he wants.

Well, this, you know, some of this stuff's no good, fine burn that we will have done what God told us to do.

But, but let's keep the really nice half person.

Take them home and then he gets home and Samuel comes and says, Hey, have you done what the, what the Lord told you to do?

Of course I've done what the Lord has told me to do.

Oh really?

Then what's this bleeding of the lambs I hear

Ah,

soulless come home with the booty.

Right?

He wanted to serve God.

He just wanted to have a little for himself on the side.

Are you with me?

Okay.

And so instead of following God fully saw the sides to use God for himself to use his position to make himself fat.

Right.

And then when Samuel confronts him, he does his best job to spin doctorate.

No, no, no, no, no.

We, we brought back the bulls to make sacrifice to your God.

Saul was the worst kind of salesman.

He could spin anything.

And Samuel tells him that because he could not honor God fully, that God has judged him unworthy of being a king.

And then God tells Samuel to go and anoint another king.

He tells him to go to the house of Jesse, the Bethlehemite and Beth, uh, and Jessie has as many sons and God's going to show him which one of those sons he's chosen to make him king.

God already knows the sons in that household.

And Samuel Goes, grieve that saw, has not lived up to his billing.

Go grieve that he's failed as a man and as a king.

And in a first Samuel 16, he shows up in Bethlehem and it even Samuels, a bit fearful of Saul and his impetuousness.

And so he asked God, how do I go anoint someone else king and, and, and saw, not hear about it and kill me.

He says, well, just go undercover.

Go.

And though you're the prophet and the of the land go and everyone expects, expects you to be a great spiritual authority.

So go, go and give a sacrifice there in Bethlehem.

Go with a hat.

So he carries his own bowl into Bethlehem there meets Jesse and invites Jesse and his family to be a part of the sacrifice, right.

And so, uh, Samuel gets into town undercover.

His business is not fully known.

He goes to the house of Jesse and starts looking over his sons.

You remember?

And, and the first son was he lem good looking kid.

Oh Man.

Valedictorian, captain of the football team.

This, this kid was sharp, this kid was sharp.

He was easily the choice.

Oh God, you've done good here.

Didn't know Jesse had such boys, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him for God.

Does not see as man sees for man, looks at the outward appearance.

Man, I'm sure Samuel must have flinched with that man.

Looks at the outward appearance.

He, he had been so impressed with saws outward in parents, uh, uh, uh, head above any other, you know, all over the rest of Israel.

Was that at Saul's shoulders?

A good looking man?

Anybody would have been proud to have called him their king.

Just, just, just look at him.

But God does not judge by looks or outward appearance.

But the Lord looks at the heart.

One after another of Jesse's sons come before him.

And God does not give the affirmation that any of them are the one that he's chosen.

These are all your sons?

No, Jesse says, I, I have an eighth

Haka town

and that's how we get introduced today.

And then some bibles that translates him, the youngest.

Maybe you're a better translation of Haka town would be a runt.

It's the worthless one.

The discard.

Yeah.

Jessie knows that the Prophet has come to his house to anoint someone king and he has all his sons show up, but surely

thought the hackathon

he's out keeping the sheep.

Jesse wouldn't even be proud for that kid to be the king.

Surely with all these other candidates.

No.

I

don't know if David even had to hear that.

Don't you think he knew it growing up in that house?

How his own father thought about it.

Well, I've got another son, a worthless one out in the fields and it took the prophet of God to say, well, we'll stand here until he comes in the door.

Go get him.

And David comes in and something in the hardest.

Samuel resonates with this young man who's just walked in the door and God says, take out the oil flask that I told you to bring and anoint him as my choice.

Anoint him as my choices.

One, I dunno how many of you are familiar with the family of origin wound.

Maybe someone's told you you would never amount to anything.

May.

Maybe someone's told you that you weren't enough and May and maybe David had been told that so much, not only by his father, even by his brothers.

When, when David goes later on to his brothers on the war front and and they're facing Goliath, he takes them something to eat and they say, we know why you here.

It's interesting that they actually says, and, and Samuel anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

How do you think those other brothers felt about it?

Holy cow is Samuel Office.

What's going on?

He's got us to pick from any anoints the runt.

You think we've had trouble dealing with him before?

Can you imagine now let me know why you've come out here to the battle.

You insolent one, you think you're so that you're really something, aren't you?

Well, just look at you.

Who's taking care of the sheep back home now?

Mr Responsible.

Can you imagine growing up in a home?

Can you imagine what it then meant to David to be called in from the fields there to discover the spiritual authority of the land in his house who trembles beforehand and says, you are God's chosen ones, and he anoints him and it says from that point on, the spirit of God came upon David from that point forward, the spirit of God came upon David.

Oh, that's a, that's an interesting tale and we'll follow this father wound when David doesn't get it healed and satisfied again and again with God.

He'll turn to other things in his life.

I think to somehow make up for that haunting prophetic word, almost of doubt that you're not enough, that you don't measure up, that you're just a hockey town.

But when the Holy Spirit comes upon him, it says he was with the spirit, was upon him from, from then on, that God had especially chose him in somehow, especially accompanied him.

Now I think David, this is really important.

I think David, when he shows up next week when we talk about him showing up and meeting his lifelong friend Jonathan, his best friend, his is at BBF BFF.

See, I don't know, lol.

And, and, and, and he, he's uh, that that's coming up next week.

And then when David shows up there something between the time he was anointed as a runt and just a kid keeping the sheep to the time he shows up as maybe just a little bit older runt still keeping the sheep.

He is now a transformed young man.

He is a man.

When he shows up on that battlefield, just bringing food for his brothers that talks more about the strength of God, then all the armies of Israel can talk about the strength of Goliath.

He shows up with the contagious cantankerous, irrepressible confidence in God that shames all those passive ones on the field of battle stricken with fear.

He's just a boy and he's the one that shows up as a man.

Who Do you think you are coming here to put us down to Seamus with all your big talk?

Who is this blind?

Who is it?

The tungsten, the armies of God.

That's how it was.

Brothers received him, but note the language of David.

He is become a man that is so confident in God.

He looks at a Goliath and doesn't flinch.

Everyone else looks at Goliath and sees the size of their problem.

He looks at the lions and sees the richness of his opportunity over eyes like that, man, where's that formed?

I think it's formed by knowing where to go with your wound and initially David went to the, well, the well, that was God.

By the time.

The next time he shows up publicly already learned to play the harp and I play it with, with the, with deafness.

He's one of the best harp pickers.

He's a rock star already when he shows up the next time around and he's learned to play that were at home with his brothers as they joyously worshiped together.

I don't think so.

David had a lot of times on his hands to worship because he was always stuck out in the field with the sheep.

But rather than seeing it as a judgment upon him, he saw it as a welcome invitation to hang out with God under those stars.

And and David, even as a boy, started playing his heart, singing his heart songs to God.

Maybe that was already a part of them even before Samuel came, because God had already seen a young man after God's own heart.

You see what David did, even as a little boy that prepared him to be such an incredible man, was he knew who was taken his orders from.

He in many ways, has already chosen who would be lord in his life.

And there's something about the strength of giving yourself to something stronger than you are that multiplies your own strength in what you do and who you are.

David had made that choice.

He was already a worshiper of God when as a shepherd, which is kind of the role of a king, taking care of others, laying down your life for others, being at a doorway to the sheep, defending them with a rod from the, from the wolves, or in this case, a lion and a bear.

You know wolves.

I can see it.

I can take on a few walls, maybe with the stick, but a lion and a bear.

I'm putting on my track shoes.

How about you?

But Not David.

David had already seen.

God is so big and so real in his life that when the lion and the bear showed up, instead of running from the lion and the bear, he chased the lion and the bear and took them out so that when he shows up and sees Goliath, this is just the next notch on his sling, right?

He had already learned about the strength of God in difficult places where he was inadequate.

God had been his adequacy.

He had learned what it meant to go to a well.

Gentlemen, I'll put this before you.

Every man who's going to become God's man.

Number one job is to frequent the well, to find the will and to frequent it, to go to God, to draw your strength from him.

It's not as if that hasn't been a lesson in Israel already.

Don't you remember Samson, who was the strongest of men?

Samson, thank you very much.

I thought I was going to, you made me nervous there for Samson, right?

We know this.

And why was Samson so strong?

Well, it was because of his hair wasn't, it wasn't the strength of, is the secret of his strength, his hair?

No.

No.

The whole story is told, so you'll get this.

It was not his hair.

He had his hair cut and he lost his strength, but he had his haircut and he lost his strength because Delilah had become more delightful to him than the, than the well then the source of his strength in the end, when, when, when Samson takes down the walls of, of the, not God, uh, of their, of the Philistines, w when he tears that temple down with the strength that's returned to him, who does he call out to?

Does he comb through his long hair?

You're whining about his hair.

What needs them even about his vow as a nazarite, he was about the strength that he drew from the God who's vow connected him with the secret of his strength, wasn't his hair.

The secret of his strength was, and when the spirit came upon Samson, he took up the job bone of a donkey and did some business.

Thousands could not stand before him, before him, before he's got the foundational stone of biblical manhood is this frequent, the well frequent, the well return again and again to the well, you'll get thirsty.

There'll be times when you get lost, but return to the, well, David wasn't a perfect man.

We'll find out all kinds of ways that David mess things up, that he followed other desires.

And whenever he followed something else that might, that might sab his, his thirst again and again.

What made him special was once he went down that road, he didn't let that become his title, didn't let that become his destiny, didn't let that become his identity.

He was one that belong to God.

He had a heart after God, his heart sought after God.

That means from time to time he was seeking because he had distanced himself from that God that he sought.

Are you with me?

He had a well and he frequented it.

And that was the source of his strength.

So tell me, father paltry must say to, to Zynga, what does this mean?

Okay.

And I hope policy would understand it means for him what it means for us.

And that is that we are ones that need to look upon our own heart as, as David cried out in his song.

Uh,

Psalm one 39 verses 23 and 24 it reads like this.

Search me, O God and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thoughts, everything that worries me.

Father, every Goliath that's out there, every lion in every bear know my anxious thoughts.

No.

The things that are up against me that are bigger than I am.

See if there's any hurtful way in me because I want to be a king that takes responsibility.

I want to be a shepherd that bears the responsibility for those that you have given me to love.

I want to lay down my life for my wife so that she will be sanctified by the way that I defend and care and self give.

Give myself for her.

Lead me in that everlasting way.

Let me read it whole.

Search me o God and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there be any hurtful way in me and what lead me in the ever lasting way.

Lead me.

Do you hear that?

Hm.

Lead me.

He could be a leader because he knew who to heed.

Mm.

Lead me.

Lead me, we'll lose our way.

Our strength will fail, but there's a well that we can return to

[inaudible]

and that oil is God himself, that well there's our Lord Jesus Christ.

Look at your own heart.

Had the courage to pray the prayer that David prayer, search me, O God, know my heart.

Ask him to reveal who you are and where you are and what he sees in you.

If you hear Haka Ton, you're not listening to the spirit of God.

You're listening to other voices in your life that the voice of God would silence.

He sees you for who he created you to be in to become.

Come to that.

Well.

Yeah,

and if you come off into that, well then you like King David.

Though you may fail and know that you may not be perfect.

You will progress in the ways of the Lord.

You will become a man after God's own heart and you my friend will find the strength to obey God, to give him glory and whatever comes against you, no man becomes a king on his own.

No ma'am.

But whether you're ever treated as a king are recognized and it is a king in this life.

The key to being a king and not being a pretender is letting that God shape your heart for his purposes.

Fellows, every one of you can be that kind of man.

And as we walk through this series of living like kings, we're going to find ingredient after ingredient that will reinforce us in that quest.

But it starts right here.

Examine your own heart.

How far are you from that?

Well,

okay,

track your own course.

Back to it.

What is that?

Well for you, how do you feel your heart with the love of God and his heart for you?

Hmm.

Fight for it.

Make time for it.

Carve out those moments because in those moments, God will be shaping you.

Don't try to make a king out of yourself.

The effort is few tile

[inaudible],

but with God it will be fruitful.

Would you pray with me?

Lord God, we thank you this morning that you are a well that always receives this.

Mm.

That that water's not too deep to be accessible to each and every one of us.

It father, I pray that today, this week, we will find a pattern in our lives for returning to that.

Well, if it's singing praise music in the car on the way to work, or we'd be just like David singing praise music in the pastures and on the trails is he walked with his sheep.

Help us to find a practical way, Lord, to fill our lives each and every day with the fire of heaven.

Yeah.

Kings are made Lord God by your skillful hand.

[inaudible]

the heat and the pressure.

It has its purpose.

Mm.

But you owe God or the one who forges our hearts give us wisdom, Lord God, to give them a fresh to use this morning in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit.

I pray men of God rise up and live like kings.

Let's stay on this morning and sing our praises to our Lord as we conclude.

Hmm.