David: Part 1 - A Life in Pursuit of the King

Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our

lead pastor Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message

would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you

to the life changing love of Jesus.

May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow him today.

Good morning, church. How are you guys doing?

Who who all been on vacation already?

Any June, all July. All right, save the best for the

end of summer. All right, let me introduce

myself. My name is Brian Schneider and I

have the pleasure to serve as the executive pastor here at

River City. And I'm just honored they'll

share God's word with you this morning.

So let's begin in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank

you for this day. We ask you to open our hearts

and our minds just to hear from Your Word.

Lord, you are loving God who pursues US daily.

Lord, I pray that we can live faithfully to You and receive

all the blessing that you have for us.

And I pray Amen. All right, I received something

concerning this past week. I received an invite to my 20th

high school reunion. I have never gone on a high

school reunion, but I'm thinking about going on this one.

And then I started to think, would I even recognize anybody I

went to high school with? And so I pulled out photos from

high school just to see, don't do that.

It does not make you feel good, right?

As I'm looking at these old high school photos, I'm looking at

what I'm wearing. I'm like, Oh my gosh, what was I

thinking? Why did I care so much about

what people thought and what cars we drove and what we

pursued? And we were just chasing silly,

silly things. And it's easy now looking back

to say, oh, man, yeah, we were foolish.

We were young and we chased empty things.

How many of you still play the tuba, right?

That was a waste of time. How many of you are please still

playing football? No, now you're getting surgery

on your knees and your back because you played football,

right? So there's so much to look back

and, and, and to just regret. And so since I just regretted a

lot of stuff looking at those photos this week, I want you to

share with me in that. And so one thing that is a what

happens throughout the decades is close change.

And one thing you can look at from generation to generation is

what popular jeans were at the time.

And so I know you did it because back then we all wanted to be

loved and be popular. So I'm going to have everyone

just own what jeans you wore in high school, what the popular

style was. So if you went to high school in

the 70s and you wore those flared bell bottom jeans, hands

up, let me see it. Own it.

You did it. It's embarrassing, but you all

did it all right. And then those who went to high

school in the 80s and spent all their money on those designer

jeans are those awful acid wash jeans.

Hands up, own it. You did it.

It's embarrassing, but you all did it all right.

If you went to high school in the 90s and guys, you were, you

thought your Backstreet Boy, you wore those baggy jeans and

girls, you wore those high rise, AKA mom jeans.

Put those hands up. Own it.

You did it. If you look at the pictures, it

looks awful. Your hair is all poofy.

Jeans were too high. Own it.

We did that. It's embarrassing, but we did

it. And if you went to high school

in the 2000s, this is my generation.

I'm going to own it. I had on those ripped jeans,

right way ripped, destroyed, easily come apart.

And then, ladies, those low rise jeans, you were showing a lot of

waste back then. Own it.

If you wore those jeans just to fit in, we did it.

And then finally, the 2000 tens, those skinny jeans, the jeans

you got to lay on your bed just to get them on, right?

Some of you probably still have some on.

Go ahead and own it. You are the skinny jeans

generation. Own it.

You. You cared more about being cool

than the blood circulation. That's all right.

So we can all look back and realize there was a time in our

life that we were foolish, that we chased empty things that just

didn't amount to much. And the reason I bring that up

is this much like our Christian faith, there was a time in our

life or we didn't know Christ and we didn't know our King.

And so we chased everything this world had to offer and we sought

validation in the world. We we put our identity and what

sports we played and all those stuff as Christians, we didn't

know any better. So we chased all the things of

the world. And one thing, hopefully now as

we move on in our faith, we've learned that those things were

empty. Because when you got one, was it

enough? No, then you had to pursue

something else and something better and something better.

And so that is where we're at in our faith is God has grace and

love for us. And he's saying this is a

process of sanctification. You're now in a period between

when you got to know your King and before you'll stand before

your king. And this is a time to be

faithful because God loves us and he wants to bless us.

And he says, you know what? I bless faithfulness.

You know what? It's going to lead you.

Nowhere is chasing the empty things of this world that will

one day, one day be destroyed. And so that's what God desires

from us. He desires faithfulness.

Our God says that you can't have two masters.

You're either going to serve one and hate the other, or you're

going to devote yourself to 1 and despise the other.

And so where we are, if you believe in Jesus as your savior,

you believe God is king, then one thing we believe is that

what God has for us is better than what this world can offer

us. But we live in a world with

social media that's doing its hardest to try to get us to

chase empty and meaningless things.

And here's what I don't want to happen one day.

I don't want us to stand before our King and regret all these

empty things we chased and miss out on all the good, lasting and

permanent things that God was hoping to give us.

We don't want to miss out on the blessing of God.

He loves us. He's always going to forgive us.

He's going to pursue us always, and He wants great things from

us. But if we chase empty things,

we're going to miss out on the good.

Things of God. So what I want us to the to just

go over this morning is 3 characteristics of a faithful

follower of God. And our goal is not perfection.

We cannot be perfect. This is why we needed Jesus to

come and die on the cross for us because God knows we are bent

towards emptiness and sin. We can't be perfect.

God doesn't expect us to be perfect.

He just hopes that we're faithful.

And he's saying I want faithfulness for you because

it's what's best for you. I want to bless you and do great

things in your life, but to receive that you got to be

faithful. And so we're going to go over

three things God desires and a faithful follower of him 3

characteristics. And how we're going to flush

those out is we're going to flush them out through the

example of David because we're, we got started in this series,

the life of David and it's a life in pursue the king and the

king is not David. We're not pursuing David or

pursuing our king. And we're looking at David

because at the end of his life, God said, you are faithful

follower of me. And because of that, I'm going

to bless you and do great things through you and your family.

And that's what we want when we stand before our king.

Now, I don't know how you were as a high schooler, but I, I

often learn from good examples, but I even learned even more

from bad examples, right? And I had all the sibling that

taught me a lot, right? And so there's also a bad

example we have and, and first Samuel, and that's King Saul,

the first king of Israel. That guy was chasing everything

in this world. And ultimately God says that's

not faithfulness. And so I want us to look at

these two characters, the first king of Israel and David, the

second king of Israel, and compare and contrast and see

what we can learn from them in a good example and a bad.

So our first characteristic that God desires for us is that God

desires for us to pursue and follow him.

He's saying, look, I want to bless you, but to do that, you

got to pursue and follow me. This is what faithfulness to me

looks like. It's pursuing to follow me at

times. You're going to get caught up

and tricked by this world to chase empty things.

That's fine. I could forgive that.

But point yourself towards me because I will do greater things

than you than you ever can imagine if you just point your

life towards me. So let's see how Saul does in

this First Samuel 1311 through 14.

I'll give you a little background on Saul.

The people as as Greg right up here, the people rebelled

against God. They because we're broken.

We couldn't say faithful to God. And so they asked God for a

human king because they said a human king we can manipulate to

do our bidding, but God, we can't manipulate it.

This doesn't work. He doesn't fall for it.

And so out of their sin and rebellion against God, they

asked for a human king because they know they could pressure a

human king to to give them what they wanted.

And that was all the things this world had to offer.

And so here Saul is, is been chosen by God.

He's the biggest and best of his nation.

They say he's a head of tall, a head above the rest, right?

Everyone's looking up to him. Great leader.

A lot of times if you're tall, you get picked for leadership

positions, right? This is Saul.

And so he's, he's leading his army, getting ready for battle,

cause the, the enemies of God and his nation were coming up

against him. And every time Israel went to

battle, they were outnumbered, and it was scary.

And so he knows what he's supposed to do as king.

He's supposed to wait. And they go to battle when God

says they go to war because God gives them the victory.

And the people knew this. And so he's up there and he's

waiting, and he's been waiting and waiting.

And the prophet is not coming on time.

And so he sees his people start to leave the battlefield, and

he's counting the number of swords and Shields and Spears

leaving. And that's where he put his

trust because he was pursuing the world.

And so he freaks out and he says I'm not going to.

Wait on God, I'm going to go ahead and just do the blessing

and then the people feel confident we can go to war.

As soon as he does this, the prophet Sam becomes and look

what he says to him in verse 13. Then Samuel says to Saul, you

have made a foolish choice. You have not obeyed the

commandment that the Lord your God has given you.

Had you done that, the Lord would establish your Kingdom

over Israel forever. But now your Kingdom will not

continue. The Lord has sought out for

himself a man who is loyal to him.

The Lord has appointed him to be the leader of his people.

For you have not obeyed, but the Lord's commanded you.

God is seeing as Samuel, He's. Like you're about the wrong

things, man. You're investing and putting

your trust in the number of swords and Spears.

My Kingdom is bigger than that. That's what the world trusts,

and if you trust in that, it's going to let you down.

He's saying, pursue me. I promise you what I have for

you is better than anything this world has to offer.

Stop pursuing and trusting empty things in this world.

They'll only let you down. They won't fulfill you.

We put our hope in that car. We get that car, and then our

neighbor gets a better one. And then we're like, oh, now I

need a better one, right? We know this about the world.

It's false promises, but God's saying, if you want me to bless

you, you want me to do great things for you, just pursue me.

God always pursues us. He will never abandoned us.

He will always forgive us. All he asked in return is just

for us to pursue him. He's like a parent of a teenager

saying, look, I love you. I'll do anything for you.

Just show me a little bit of that back.

Come on, work. With me, that's what God desires

for us. But for Samuel or for Saul?

He just wasn't faithful. He was about.

The things of this world, that's what he was investing in,

putting his trust in. Now let's look at David and

First Samuel 1745 through 47. You guys know this story.

This is the most famous story and scripture as far as what we

teach in Bible school, right? Everyone knows David and

Goliath. Everyone knows this story.

And just to give you a little context, they was probably

around 12 years old at this time.

And Israel again is being threatened by enemies, the

Philistines, and they're outnumbered 3 to 1.

And so Saul has his troops there, and he's afraid because

he's greatly outnumbered. And remember, he put his trust

in swords and Spears. And he says, man, we don't have

enough to beat these guys. And not only that is they had

this giant Goliath who's standing in front of their army

guys probably like 8 feet tall things Shaquille O'Neal up

there, right? He's intimidating and he's

mocking Israel and mocking their God.

And so David comes to deliver lunch to his brothers who are

there getting ready for battle. And he hears this mocking of

this, this soldier, this Philistine soldier, and he turns

to everyone and. Goes guys, what are we doing?

Let's go, let's go, let's go fight him.

And everyone's like, no, we're not doing it, all right?

We're not dying today. And the person who should have

been fighting his soul, their biggest and best soldier, and he

didn't want to risk his Kingdom, didn't run and risk his status.

He didn't want to risk all the things he's gained on this

earth. And so they let David, a 12 year

old boy, go out to fight their battle.

That shows you the unfaithfulness of this people.

But here's the crazy thing about David is look at his attitude as

he goes. If I was a 12 year old boy, I'd

be like, I'm I'm this is it. I'm dead, right?

Do I have the confidence he has to approach this giant and to

know he's going to get victory because he knows who he serves.

He's been pursuing the Lord. Look what he says in verse 45

says, but David replied to the Philistine.

You are coming against me with sword and spear and javelin, but

I am coming against you in the name of the Lord of heaven's

armies, the God of Israel's armies, who you have defied.

This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand.

I will strike you down and cut off your head.

This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the

birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land.

Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God.

And all this assembly will know that is not by sword or spear

that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord's, and He

will deliver you into our hand. Wow, that's some bold words

coming from a 12 year old with a stick in a slingshot, right?

But this is what David was about.

Bio says he was a man after it was God's own heart.

He said, look, I've, I've, I defeated a lion in a bear

before, not because I'm awesome, but because my God is awesome

and I pursue and follow him. And so if someone's mocking my

God and I serve my God, let's go.

And I know what my God can do. That's the attitude we want to

have that confidence. So many times we get caught up

putting our our faith and our trust in our savings account or

in in our health and this and that and that stuff can all go

in a minute. But let's maybe put our

faithfulness and hope and something better and something

laster more lasting, something that is eternal and that's our

king. So God desires us for for us to

pursue and follow him. Sounds simple, but it's not easy

because we're broken and our world is broken.

And God doesn't expect perfection.

He just expects a little bit of faithfulness.

And he's saying, if you're faithful, I will.

Do more in you than you could ever realize #2 What God desires

for us. Characteristic that God desires

in His people and and and those who claim to faithfully follow

Him is God desires for us to respond to and obey Him as King,

God desires for us. To respond to and obey him as

king. Now when I say respond to this

is this is like repentance. This is submission.

This is saying God saying, look, I know you're going to screw up.

You're human beings. That's why to send my son to die

for you. I know you're going to screw up.

If you think you can live perfect, you're nuts because you

are going to screw up. But how you respond to me is the

difference, right? If you rebel against me, I'm

going to give you to the empty things you chase.

But if you respond to me with repentance.

I'll do great things for you. I'll respond and with

faithfulness to your faithfulness.

And so let's see what Saul does in First Samuel 1514 to 24.

Again, Saul is at battle. And every time Saul went to

battle, when he got a victory, he would build a monument on

that mountain to himself. That shows you what Saul was

about to him. It wasn't the IT was, it wasn't

God's victories. It was his victory.

And here. He was told specifically by God,

look, there's a group of people that harassed my nation coming

out of Egypt and Israel and just out of pure evil, we're trying

to be a thorn in Israel's side and, and hurt them and kill them

at every moment for no reason. And he goes, so I'm going to

bring justice for my people because our God loves us and he

wants us to have justice. As he says, I'm going to command

Israel to go and defeat these Amalekites, and I will give you

victory. But Saul, listen to me because

you screwed up last time. When you go do this, do this for

me. Pursue me and my victory.

Don't pursue yours. Don't rush on the.

Plunder saying destroy it all. This is not about you getting

rich. And let's look what Saul does.

Saul rushes on the plunder and the prophet Samuel has to call

him outlook. In verse 19 it says why haven't

you obeyed the Lord? Instead you have greedily rushed

upon the plunder and you have done what is wrong in the Lord's

estimation. And verse 20 says then Saul,

Saul said to Samuel, but I have obeyed the Lord.

I went on the campaign, Lord sent me on.

I brought back the king of a God, of a God of the Malachites

after exterminating the Malachites.

But the army took from the plunder some of the sheep, the

cattle, and the best of what was slaughtered to sacrifice to the

Lord and Gilgal. So there's actually 2 excuses

that Saul gives here. The first one he's called out,

right? He's saying I obeyed the Lord.

And the prophet says what holy sheeps and cows I hear here.

Clearly you didn't because you were commanded.

To destroy these. And you kept them and his first

excuse, and we do this sometimes when we get caught in sin and

God lovingly challenges because God disciplines the ones he

loves. So he's always going to come and

challenge us either through other believers in our life or

directly through him and and prayer as we seek him.

And so he's challenged. And Saul gives this excuse.

He says, OK, well, yes, you know, I did take those, but I

did it for God. How many of us have done that?

Oh, well, I know I don't have the money to buy this new car,

but I bought it. But I'm going.

To use it for the Lord. No, you're not.

You did it so you can stroll around in a new car, right?

We do this all the time. We try to justify our actions of

pursuing the things of this world and try to say, hey, they

can also be for God. God's like, no, it's either me

or this. I don't care that you have a

car. I just don't want you to love

it, right? I just don't want you to love

the things this world love me. And that's what Saul was doing

as he was loving the the, the, the the status he was in more

than he cared about what God thought of him and what God

said. And then when that excuse didn't

work and Samuel didn't buy it, he gives another one look in the

second part of verse 24 says, for I was afraid of the army, so

I obeyed their voice. His excuses.

It's not my fault. It's the people's fault.

How many times do we do that when we're caught in sin?

Well, I only responded that way. It's because they were acting

this way right? Every Co worker you have that

you start to scuffle with, it's always their fault right?

It's never ours. But if they don't know God, the.

King, and we do. Why should we act that way?

Right? So God desires for us to respond

with repentance and obedience and saw because of what He was

seeking in life, responded with excuses, manipulation and

blaming of others. That's not going to get you

anything but more emptiness that you pursue.

God's saying, man, don't do that because you're chasing after

empty things. Repent so I can bless you and

work through you. Now let's look at David and

Second Samuel 1213 through 17. You guys heard a little bit of

this story last week with Pastor Jason talking about David's

biggest mistake, right? He screws up again.

God knows we're going to screw up.

We're not perfect. So David messes up big time.

He commits adultery and then he murders the husband just to help

cover it up. And so he screwed up.

He's not in a good place. And so because our God loves us,

he's always going to pursue us and and seek us to correct

ourselves. And so the prophet Nathan comes

to David and he says, man, you screwed up, you're lost.

You're, you're getting caught up and things that just don't

matter. Things that one day when you

stand before your king, you're going to regret.

And look at David's response to this.

Then David exclaimed to Nathan. I have sinned against the Lord.

Nathan replied to David. Yes, the Lord has forgiven your

sin. You are not going to die.

Nonetheless, because you have treated the Lord with such

contempt in this matter, the son who has been born to you will

certainly die. Then verse 16.

Then David prayed to God for the child and fasted he would even

go and spend the night lying on the ground.

The elders of his house stood over him and tried to lift him

from the ground, but he was unwilling and refused to eat

food with them. This is a different response

than Saul. This is kind of what what

brokenness looks like when we sin, that sin doesn't only just

impact us and impacts the people around us.

David sees this and he's he's sorrowful for the consequences

that others are going to have to pay because of his brokenness,

because his bad decision. And so he's sad, he's fasting

and he's praying. He's saying, God, please, I know

I deserve punishment, but please let others not suffer because of

me. This is what repentance looks

like. It looks like sorrow and sadness

for our sin because we know that thing that we pursued, that we

did isn't going to lead to anything but shame and guilt and

sadness and hurt for other people.

And so he felt that hurt. David felt that and he said,

God, if there's any way you can have these others not suffer

because of me, let that be. But ultimately your will be

done. And then the punishment came and

then his response is, OK, let's move forward.

God, I own what I did and now let's move forward in obedience.

That's what God wants. That's what faithfulness looks

like. When we screw up and we're going

to screw up and we're going to screw up a lot, what

faithfulness looks like. If you want to see God work in

your life, respond that way. Respond like David say, you know

what, I own this, I screwed up. Let's go forward and do that

with your spouse one time. They're like what?

You never owned that right? You admitted you let let forgot

to take out the trash, right? It requires a different response

because we claim to be followers of a king who loves us and is

going to forgive us and give us mercy and grace.

So let's act like David. Let's own it.

Let's respond with ownership and then let's move to obedience.

Let's not be like Saul. And say, you know what, I'll

give you excuse and manipulation excuse that's going to lead us

nowhere. God wants to bless us, but he

blesses faithfulness. Let's look at our third thing

that God desires in a faithful follower of his in order to

bless us and us be the the to live out the life that he

intends for us. And this is God desires for our

identity and value to be in serving our king.

He wants our identity and value to be in serving king.

This is one of the hardest ones that the realize.

Because we don't necessarily realize what we're putting our

identity and value in. In high school, we wore those

Letterman jackets, right? Because that's where our

identity was. It was tied to a sport, it was

tied to a friend group. And So what we should know is

wherever we put our time, our energy and our resources, that's

where our identity is going to go.

So if it's in your job, then your identity is going to be in

your job. If it's in having the, the, the

looking better than your neighbor, then that's where your

identity is going to go. And we can see that.

And Saul's life and first Samuel 18 seven through 9 verse 7 says

the the women were playing the mute were playing the music and

saying Saul has struck down his thousands, but David is 10s of

thousands. This made Saul very angry.

The statement displeased him and he thought they have attributed

David 10s of thousands, but to me they have attributed only

thousands. What does he lack except the

Kingdom. So Saul was keeping an eye on

David from that point on. Saul was jealous because what

Saul valued in life was the the love of other people, the love

of this world. Everything Hollywood tells us,

this is what life's about. Chase after that.

That's what Saul was about. It's about building his Kingdom,

not God's Kingdom. And so when he hears like I

would, I would like if people said, hey, this guy defeats

thousands, that's good. But it wasn't good enough for

Saul. Saul's like, man, they're saying

better things about David than me.

This can't be because my identity is in being the best.

Unfortunately, that's what our high schools train us to think.

They say you got to be the best to be of value.

You got to be the best in the sports.

You got to be all A's and B's. Then you get to college and

you're like, oh, everyone has A's and B's, Like, I'm not

special, right? And it kind of trains us to

pursue the things of this world and put value in the thing in

this world. And it's not till later in life

we realized, man, those things were empty.

I probably could have done just as fine getting B's, right?

I could have been just as fine being on the second string and

now still having my hip work. You know, those things were

empty that we chased. But for Saul, you could see

where he put his time, energy and resources was in building

his Kingdom. And it shows you how he responds

when he feels his identity and those things are threatened.

Often times this is how we act and we don't realize our

identity and value slowly creeps into things of this world until

we're in it, right? Until something happens and and

someone says something bad at you and work and you're like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, do you know who I am?

Right, that pride comes. Out like Saul and says no, I did

this, I deserve this reality. When we stand before our king,

what do we what does he owe us? He's already done everything for

us. So let's look at what a

characteristic in the attitude that we should have and where in

placing our identity and value. Let's look at David's life.

I love this prayer at the end of David's life.

And Second Samuel 718 through 22.

This is at the end of David's life.

This is the guy who killed the giant.

This is the guy who's expanded his Kingdom three times to what

it was. He's defeated every enemy

handedly. He's built palaces and forts and

is the man like no one's greater than him.

And throughout the rest of history, everyone's like David

was the man. And so he's, if anyone should

have something to boast about, it's him.

But David doesn't. He says, look, my identity isn't

who I pursue and who I follow and that's God.

And I know compared to my God, I'm nothing.

And so God decides, he says, look, you are faithful.

You are man after my heart, own heart.

So I'm going to bless you and I'm going to do amazing things

through your descendants and have the Messiah come through

you. And after receiving that

blessing, look at David's response and verse 18.

King David went and sat before the Lord and said, Who am IO,

Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that you should have

brought me to this point? And you didn't stop there.

O Lord God, You have also spoken about the future of your

servant's family. Is this your usual way of

dealing with men? O Sovereign Lord, what more can

David say to you? You have given your servant

special recognition, O Sovereign Lord, for the sake of Your

promise and according to Your purpose, You have done this

great thing in order to reveal it to Your servant.

Therefore you are great, O Sovereign Lord.

There is none like you. There is no God beside you.

What we have heard of you is true.

Wow. I wish I would respond like that

all the time. This is the guy who's the best

in the world at that time and his responses.

Man, I am nothing. Who am I?

God that you would bless me this way.

I promise you what's going to happen is if we're pursuing God

and we're responding God and we're obeying him and our

identities in him, this is what God's going to do.

He's going to bless you and work through you in ways you didn't

think possible. And in those moments, we want to

respond like David and say, wow, God, why me?

Why are you doing this? Why did you bless me in this

way? Why are you working through

this? That's what we hope.

That's what faithfulness looks like.

But if we're like Saul and we're trying to build our own Kingdom

and and make our own name and putting our pride in what we've

achieved and what we've earned and what we've made on this

earth at the end of our life, what Saul had was shame, regret

as he was killed in battle and his descendants were not

remembered. God says that's not

faithfulness. I wanted to bless you.

I he's pleaded with Saul. He said, look, if you just will

obey me, if you just chase after me, what I can give you.

He wanted to give to Saul what he gave to David.

Saul wasn't faithful. He couldn't figure it out.

He was pursuing something dead and empty in this world and

therefore sacrificed what was better for him, what God had for

him, what God wanted to give him.

And that's how it is for us. God wants to do a great thing

through your life more than you could ever imagine.

He wants to do great things to your kids and their lives in the

generations to come. But to do that, all he's asking

for is faithfulness is if you just be faithful to me, I will

do great things to you and I will bless you in ways you

couldn't imagine. But if you chase after this

world, you're going to end up getting what this world has to

offer you, which is nothing. And here's my fear for us is

that one day when we stand before our God and King in

heaven, we're going to see our lives flash before our eyes and

we're going to look back. And it's going to be like

looking back at high school and be like, oh man, why did I

invest so much in that? Why did I care so much about

that? Because at that point, we're

going to realize what really matters and what didn't.

So I don't want us to look back and be like, oh man, why did we

spend 10 hours a week as a family chasing sports and only

one hour chasing God? Can we get that back?

Is anybody? Nope, right.

You lost that. You missed out on something.

Or I say, man, why did I put all the extra time chasing that

promotion, chasing that title for what?

Man, I regret that man. Why did I care so much about

what that one person thought of me and so little on what God

thought of me? Those are the things we're going

to regret. So because God loves us and He

cares about us, He's trying to save us from that regret.

He's saying you're good. Don't miss out on the blessings

I have for you by chasing empty, worthless things.

If I'm your king, pursue me. When you screw up and you will

screw up, Respond to me as your king.

Don't ignore me and blow me off because I'm trying to help you.

I'm trying to work through you. I'm trying to get you back on

track. And then let's put our identity

and value in him. And if you don't know where your

identity and value is, it's real easy.

Look at where you spend your time, your energy, and your

resources. And that's where our identity

usually follows. Let's look at Ephesians 421

through 24. In verse 21 it says since you

have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes

from Him, throw off your old sinful nature in your former way

of life which is corrupted by lust and deception.

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.

Put on your new nature created to be like God, truly righteous

and holy. Our God has so much love and

grace to give us. He's saying there's no amount of

screw ups you could do that would cause me to reject you.

I love you and I'm going to pursue you.

Chase after me too. Let's have a relationship.

Pursue me saying throw off. This is what sanctification is.

It's between the time we accepted God as king and the

time we will stand before our God and King.

That's the process the slowly learned as Shuck off the empty

old things of this world and to fill them with more lasting and

better and eternal things. That's what we're doing here.

This is the process was the reason we gather the church and

we're in community as we're learning to stop being deceived,

chasing after empty and useless things that one day we'll regret

and start to chase after things that matter in the will fill our

life and that will bless us for all eternity.

That's what we desire. That's what we want.

That's what God wants for us. God wants to bless you and work

through you. And if you follow these

characteristics, if we can learn to be a little bit more like

David and less like Saul, and it's not a comparison because I

want to get in there. And he's like, oh, you're not

good enough. It's not about being good

enough. It's about just loving our God

the way he loves us. We're badly broken, but deeply

loved. If we accept him as king, let's

pursue him as king. Let's submit to him as king, and

let's put our identity and trust in him as king.

So I want to own a, a, a story real quick of a way that I

didn't always used to do that. Well, I used to be more like

Saul than David in a lot of ways and probably still am.

But if you don't know in, in Texas, if you tell people for,

for guys, whenever you introduce someone, our identity is often

times and what we do for a living, right?

You, Oh, here is my name. What do you do for a living is

the first question we're asked, right, Because that's a lot of

times where our identity is. And so when you're a pastor,

right in Texas, I have no problem.

Like, Hey, I'm a pastor and be like, Oh cool, if you go outside

Texas, that's not the response you get, right?

Coming out of seminary, I was in Tucson, AZ.

Not a lot of churches in Tucson, AZ.

And so I didn't know I was naive.

And then you get on the plane with somebody and I'm right next

to this person for 8 hours and they're like, what do you do?

And I was like, oh, I'm a pastor.

And they're like, oh, you're like in a cult.

Or something. I would get the weirdest

expressions and the person would treat me like I'm a leper.

Right there, you're one of those.

Weird religious types. OK.

And so I started to get a little scared.

I'm like, I'm a stop telling people I'm a pastor, I'm going

to tell my to work for a non profit or something.

I don't know anything better than than that 'cause it wasn't

didn't feel good to be rejected by the world.

But then God started to convict me of that.

And he goes, Hey, who do you belong to?

You belong to the world or you belong to me.

And I was like, ah God, you're right.

I belong to you. And he goes, trust me, be

faithful, own your identity and me and watch me do greater

things than you could imagine. And so after Tucson, I was in

Austin. Same reaction.

Not good reactions. All right.

And I'm travelling around the world a lot of times as I served

as a pastor in the missionary. And so I'm often on planes with

people. And I said, oh, OK, God, I'm

going to trust you. And so sure enough, sit next to

the people next to me in plane, especially when you get that

middle seat, you got to do it twice.

And I'm like, hi, yeah, my name is Ryan.

And they're like, what do you do?

And I was like, I served the Lord, right?

I'll just own it. That's what I, that's what I'm

about and man, every single time I respond that way, God blows me

away and this person I'm like covered in tattoos and all I

have like this person definitely not going to like me and they

go, you know what? I'm interested in that.

Tell me more about this Lord. I had this issue coming up and

every time they respond in ways I never could imagine and that

the whole time I'm like worried and nervous because one, I'm in

the middle seat and hate it, but two, because I'm in the

situation and I'm trapped. But I'm like, God, I trust you,

I'll be faithful to you. This is who I am and so many

times people have said, wow, I'm glad I sit next to you.

That encouraged me. I'm going to look more into the

Bible and to God in his word and other times it'll be believers

and they're like, man, I just had this happen and that's

encouraged me so much. I'm like, man, God, the things

you do when we're faithful is so much greater than if we would

claim this world and chase after the things this world.

So my encouragement for you this week is spend some time and

reflection and say, where am I putting my time, my energy, my

resources? What am I pursuing right now?

What am I missing out on that God wants to do through me and

through my life and through the life of my kids?

If we would just chase after him, if we would respond to him

and we put our identity and value in him, God's going to

bless you and do amazing things more than you can imagine.

And then one day when we stand before our Lord and King, we're

going to have regrets, but he's going to say, well done, good

and faithful servant you. My expectation wasn't

perfection. It was just faithfulness.

And you were faithful. And thank you for investing in

my Kingdom. That's what we want to hear.

Let's go ahead and bow and end prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth and your word

and the way you work through King David and even the way that

you showed us and saw how empty this world is and chasing it is

the word. We pray that you continue to

love us, show mercy on us and grace as we seek in this time to

pursue you more to put our identity and value in you more

to respond to you in in obedience and love as you love

us and I pray, Amen. Thank you for joining us today.

River City Church is all about experiencing and expressing

God's love in our lives and community, and we hope that

you've been able to experience that today.

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May the Lord bless and keep you in all grace and peace.