SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, I think it's really important that even when everybody else forgets about you, God doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: Even in your own family.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we get a picture again in the next chapter in the Valley of Elah with how his brothers almost despise David with such a condescending attitude toward their youngest brother, David.
SPEAKER_01: He's not really esteemed highly, even in his own family.
SPEAKER_01: But God notices his heart.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: We are in the second week of Worshiper Warrior, and we are looking at the life of David.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know this, some of you may not.
SPEAKER_01: But five years ago, when I resigned at Mountain Springs Church, not knowing what God had for me, but having had the word seven times the road less traveled, I began to walk and walk and prayer walk mile after mile each day.
SPEAKER_01: Really, really a difficult time.
SPEAKER_01: And I would walk sometimes for hours out in Black Forest where I live, and then come back to my fire pit and read about this guy named David.
SPEAKER_01: And God used David in my life to restore my heart.
SPEAKER_01: And it's my conviction, because there's more about David than anyone else in all of the Bible, his motivations, his sin.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about a saint and sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I read one author who said, if there's ever anybody who is bipolar in the Bible, it's David.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, his notorious sin, if you ask almost anybody, even on the street, you know anything about David in the Bible, it's going to be Goliath and David and Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what everybody knows.
SPEAKER_01: Well, those are pretty, a pretty good picture, prophetic picture of the man David at his lowest, probably not his highest, but definitely close to one of his highest with the battle in the Valley of Elah with Goliath.
SPEAKER_01: So it's my prayer, as we talk about being worshippers and warriors here at the road, and you hear me talk about it all the time, it's the name of our men's ministry, that you would understand that with David we can relate to a man who wasn't perfect.
SPEAKER_01: He certainly didn't have altar boy qualities.
SPEAKER_01: But God judged him and raised him up, not because of the morality of his life, but because of the direction of his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we look at David, we're looking at a man whose heart, the only man in the Bible who it says his heart was hard after God, and he had a heart after God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And in God's somehow mysterious editing process, men and women, of how he views a man, how he views a woman, he looks differently at us than we look at ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And in a in a world where the church has been prominent in our nation since its founding, religious traditions have built up and ways of judging churches and judging each other, many times have been become very different than what the inerrant, infallible scriptures show us.
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is no better true and no deeper true than in the life of David.
SPEAKER_01: So if you turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 16, and we talked about being wholehearted last week, and so I don't want to cover that again.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I believe: I believe David is a prophetic witness to us today that began with the New Testament, with the coming of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, of a new work of the Spirit, a new work of God's Spirit in the nations today that are affecting us.
SPEAKER_01: And really, Mark and Carrie and Dallas and Dan and you guys here in Schuyler are a picture of what the scriptures prophetically said in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: This is in Acts 15, it says, After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down.
SPEAKER_01: I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not going to go into it today, but next week I'll cover it more.
SPEAKER_01: This idea of what David did in raising up worship artists, what David did in raising up thousands of men and women to make up choirs and praise and worship like the world had never seen at that time.
SPEAKER_01: And God is raising up that tabernacle of David again in our day.
SPEAKER_01: It's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: I remember going to Newport Beach, California in the 70s and being introduced to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and seeing a rock band up front.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, now this is an oxymoron, if I'd ever seen one.
SPEAKER_01: I had grown up Lutheran, high church.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was a liturgical high church guy, clerical collar.
SPEAKER_01: I was an acolyte.
SPEAKER_01: Crucifer carried the cross in with the choir behind me.
SPEAKER_01: The biggest controversy in the Lutheran church in the 1960s and 70s was they changed the color of the hymnal.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's some big wars right there, folks.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
SPEAKER_01: And then I go out and I see this band, I see Chuck Gerard on the stage, and I see Love Song, and we'd go on Friday nights, and I, my mind was blown out.
SPEAKER_01: I could not believe it.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember coming back to the South after that, and nobody could believe what I had seen because I didn't have a little camera on my phone, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And so I said, no, they don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: No, they do, man.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_01: It's a new kind of music.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming to the church.
SPEAKER_01: Tabernacle of David.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women being built.
SPEAKER_01: A new way of looking at church, a new way of looking at life as worshipers and warriors like the world had never seen.
SPEAKER_01: And God's raising that up again, even in our day.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize, men and women, there's more people alive today in the world than all the people that have ever lived combined?
SPEAKER_01: That means that in this generation, as God brings revival, as God brings reformation, as God brings a revolution of the kingdom of God, we're going to populate heaven like never before in history.
SPEAKER_01: And God has his hand on this generation, the next generation, and the next.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we say around here, we're building a kingdom of God revolution that will last for a hundred years.
SPEAKER_01: If we were to come back a hundred years, we would want to, if the Lord tarries, that God would have built a strong and powerful worshiper and warrior church, building wholehearted disciples of Jesus that is still having an influence and an impact upon our city and upon the Rocky Mountain region.
SPEAKER_01: So in 1 Samuel 16, let's pick it up again, like we did last week, verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: So it was when they came, this is Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember, he comes to Bethlehem, he's been instructed by the Lord to anoint the next king.
SPEAKER_01: So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab, that's the oldest son, and said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.
SPEAKER_01: So even Samuel is still looking as a man looks, still looking at height and looks and pedigree.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him, for the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel and said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one.
SPEAKER_01: Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen any of these.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel said to Jesse, Are all the young men here?
SPEAKER_01: I think he's confused at this point.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said, Oh, wait, I forgot.
SPEAKER_01: There remains yet the youngest.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there he is.
SPEAKER_01: So he must have looked out the window or something, keeping the sheep.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes here.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important that even when everybody else forgets about you, God doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: Even in your own family.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we get a picture again in the next chapter in the Valley of Elah, with how his brothers almost despise David with such a condescending attitude toward their youngest brother, David, he's not really esteemed highly, even in his own family.
SPEAKER_01: But God notices his heart.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about the secret places with God that gets only God's attention.
SPEAKER_01: Those times of prayer, those times of crying out to God when nobody's there and nobody notices, and nobody gives any mention to who you are, God does.
SPEAKER_01: And God is noticing something in David about his heart that he's calling out.
SPEAKER_01: So he went and brought him in.
SPEAKER_01: He was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is the one.
SPEAKER_01: Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.
SPEAKER_01: And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
SPEAKER_01: So Samuel arose and went to Rama.
SPEAKER_01: But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just make an addendum here to this.
SPEAKER_01: All through the Old Testament, any demonic spirit is seen as a spirit from God.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually part of the dispensation of that period.
SPEAKER_01: You see it different in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It's concealed in the old and revealed in the new.
SPEAKER_01: So we believe this is a demonic spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And Saul's servant said to him, Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.
SPEAKER_01: Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.
SPEAKER_01: So Saul said to his servants, Provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about a resume.
SPEAKER_01: The resume of David.
SPEAKER_01: David had a resume.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe there's a spiritual resume for all of us men and women that God is developing in you.
SPEAKER_01: So we often look at our educational pedigree.
SPEAKER_01: We often look at maybe how intelligent we are, our IQ, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But God has a spiritual resume that He's developing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And that spiritual resume is usually developed through hardship.
SPEAKER_01: It's usually developed through difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: And how we start responding to those situations that are difficult in our life are actually forming a spiritual resume.
SPEAKER_01: So for the next few weeks, I'm going to talk about a spiritual resume of a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to notice a key word here.
SPEAKER_01: It says here, verse 16, he was skillful.
SPEAKER_01: David was skillful.
SPEAKER_01: David is 13 years old, we believe.
SPEAKER_01: Some say 15.
SPEAKER_01: So between 13 and 15, I'm going to choose 13.
SPEAKER_01: He's 13 years old because we know for 17 years he ran from Saul, and at 30 he became king, so I believe he's 13.
SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty good at math.
SPEAKER_01: But at 13 and at 13, listen now, he's developed a skill.
SPEAKER_01: I love what my wife has often said, every kid is a genius.
SPEAKER_01: Every kid has a skill, and it's probably one of the most important things we do as parents is to notice the potential in our kids and call it out.
SPEAKER_01: So someone had noticed it, I don't know if someone had noticed it.
SPEAKER_01: David had a heart after God, and he and he had developed a skill on a heart.
SPEAKER_01: Malcolm Gladwell, in his powerful book, Outlier, explains the importance of the 10,000-hour rule, is what he called it.
SPEAKER_01: 10,000-hour rule in developing a skill.
SPEAKER_01: Which he considers the key to success in any field, a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years, or 40 hours a week for five years, of focused attention on a skill.
SPEAKER_01: David, can you believe this?
SPEAKER_01: David at 13 has put in probably 10,000 hours on the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he's become skilled in his life.
SPEAKER_01: Listen up, young people, it's so important to develop a skill.
SPEAKER_01: The education need, if you want to be a doctor, you're gonna have to go to college.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be an engineer, you're gonna have to go to college.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be someone who is a mechanic, then you gotta work on cars.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a woman and you want to be a housewife, you gotta get married.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the 10,000 hour rule.
SPEAKER_01: Don't date for 10,000 hours, please.
SPEAKER_01: But Proverbs 22 says, Do you see someone skilled in their work, they shall stand before kings.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know Amy Lathan here in our church.
SPEAKER_01: Amy's been a county commissioner.
SPEAKER_01: And she and I were in the back talking today.
SPEAKER_01: And she's now managing Cimarron Hills in that water district.
SPEAKER_01: Has 44 employees under her.
SPEAKER_01: And she couldn't have that job if she hadn't been a county commissioner.
SPEAKER_01: And all the aspects of the education that goes with the leadership that would put her in the position she is now.
SPEAKER_01: And she prays all the time.
SPEAKER_01: She prays at work, she prays with employees.
SPEAKER_01: Her door is open.
SPEAKER_01: They see a difference in Amy's life because she's bringing the presence of the kingdom into that role, but she's skilled.
SPEAKER_01: Develop a skill.
SPEAKER_01: You know it's interesting in Ephesians 1, it talks about the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts 2, it talks about the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit coming.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys realize that's the same spirit?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: That's the same spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So when we're developing a skill or we're working to be something that God's called us to be, to be a missionary in that, maybe in that role or in that job that we have, asking the Spirit for wisdom and revelation to be there and to be used of God there, that's just as spiritual as the Holy Spirit coming upon us and us singing a song.
SPEAKER_01: God anoints us for things.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are artists.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are principals of schools and educators and lawyers.
SPEAKER_01: Man.
SPEAKER_01: That's huge.
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting though, because I want to put a different light on Gladwell.
SPEAKER_01: New research on brain development and skills acquisition is showing that one can master a skill much faster than the 10,000-hour rule that Gladwell espoused.
SPEAKER_01: In recent years, there's been a flurry of interest in skill acquisition and particularly rapid skill acquisition.
SPEAKER_01: Tim Ferris, in his book, The Four-Hour Chef.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying you want to be a chef, but this is where the research comes out of.
SPEAKER_01: Throughout his book, Ferris introduced millions of readers to the idea of meta-learning.
SPEAKER_01: That is the learning about learning.
SPEAKER_01: What they're doing right now, and you guys have heard me talk about this before with neuroscience, and I would call it neurotheology.
SPEAKER_01: Neurotheology, the idea that God, in his creation, has actually created your brain to learn stuff faster than normal.
SPEAKER_01: That you can pick up, you can pick up things, you can develop new habits, you can develop new skills way faster than even the 10,000-hour rule, but you learn by learning.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, as we start to study how the brain works, we're learning that if we'll do those things, that we can learn faster.
SPEAKER_01: So it's learning about learning.
SPEAKER_01: He says three things, and I just passed this on to you.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, create a smart feedback loop.
SPEAKER_01: Create a smart feedback loop.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, let's say you want to play the guitar or you want to learn to play the piano or you want to learn to whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_01: It's having a feedback loop by which either through coaching or mentoring, you're getting feedback quickly on the skill that you're trying to learn.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, deliberate practice, so focus practice.
SPEAKER_01: And then number three, this is really crazy.
SPEAKER_01: We've always known it to be true, and it's called the learning pyramid.
SPEAKER_01: Teach it.
SPEAKER_01: Teach what you're trying to learn to someone.
SPEAKER_01: That the more you teach it, the more you learn it.
SPEAKER_01: Haven't you guys found that to be true?
SPEAKER_01: That if you'll even even if you only have this much knowledge, if you'll just start teaching it to someone younger than you or someone uh less equipped than you, you actually learn quicker.
SPEAKER_01: And they're saying that it just defies the whole 10,000-hour rule as you learn to do that.
SPEAKER_01: So my point here is that David developed a skill.
SPEAKER_01: And part of our spiritual resume, men and women, is to develop a skill.
SPEAKER_01: Ask God for wisdom and what he's called you to do and what he's called you to be.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: So Saul said to his servants, Provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to note that Saul's perspective is somebody who can play well.
SPEAKER_01: His focus is on the skill.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a real anointed guy within the circle of the camp of Saul that has a different perspective.
SPEAKER_01: And I think verse 18 is huge here.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18 is huge.
SPEAKER_01: Then one of the servants answered and said, Look, I've seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, yes, that's true, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the part that's key.
SPEAKER_01: It's cryptic.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is with him.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So someone noticed that the Spirit of God was upon David.
SPEAKER_01: So secondly, he's a worshiper.
SPEAKER_01: But he's a worshiper in the presence.
SPEAKER_01: He's a worshiper in the presence.
SPEAKER_01: He's a presence-based young man.
SPEAKER_01: That presence is upon him.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that the presence of God is with you if you're saved, but it may not rest upon you?
SPEAKER_01: The presence of God is with everyone who's saved.
SPEAKER_01: We have the Spirit of God, but the manifest presence comes through worship.
SPEAKER_01: It comes through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It comes through meditation in the Word.
SPEAKER_01: As we start to spend time in God's Word, the presence comes.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you feel it and sometimes you don't.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a manifestation of His presence that's evidently upon David.
SPEAKER_01: And man, are we going to see next week when we look at what happens with David as he faces a demonized king in worship?
SPEAKER_01: That manifest presence has to be upon him.
SPEAKER_01: You know what we need today?
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, is we don't need just skilled musicians on a stage.
SPEAKER_01: We need skilled musicians on the stage who manifest the presence of God, who release the presence.
SPEAKER_01: You can't release what you ain't got.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we, when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, that's just step one.
SPEAKER_01: But then it's time in His presence.
SPEAKER_01: It's time seeking Him, it's time with the Word opened up before Him.
SPEAKER_01: It's worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's putting on those earphones and worshiping the Lord, closing your eyes, taking your eyes off yourself, off of your problems and your issues, and worshiping him.
SPEAKER_01: And as you become a worshiper, the Spirit of God begins to rest upon us.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Spirit of God, I think, was hovering around Jesus in Joseph and Mary's home.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what we know is that at his baptism it rested upon him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit is like a dove.
SPEAKER_01: And if I had a dove on my shoulder, how would I move?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a lot slower, maybe more gentler, maybe a little more long-suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Because if man, if I'm agitated and worried and moving and jumping around, that dove's not hanging out very long.
SPEAKER_01: That dove rested upon Jesus, and that dove wants to rest upon you and me.
SPEAKER_01: It's the presence of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And I was telling Amy, I said, Amy, when you go in in that water district with your job, you're bringing the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And the desire of all the nations is true.
SPEAKER_01: Our world is looking for presence-based Jesus, wholehearted disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Not the condemning kind, but the loving kind.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we come with that presence-based part of our heart that people begin to notice, that's what they notice.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this guy was, this guy who, whoever this unnamed person is in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: I want to meet him in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Here's Saul just looking at the exterior.
SPEAKER_01: I just want music.
SPEAKER_01: I just want somebody who can play Jessica.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: I just want somebody who can play Almond Brothers.
SPEAKER_01: I just want somebody who can give me some good tunes so I'll relax.
SPEAKER_01: So no, you need someone who the Spirit of God is upon.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's interesting about the harp is every sound of the harp touches every part of our body like no other instrument.
SPEAKER_01: So David has the Spirit of God resting upon him.
SPEAKER_01: And David would later say, as he came to the end of his life, that it wasn't his fight with Goliath.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't the tremendous land acquisition that became a part of Israel all over Israel at the time of his reign.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he said about himself near the end of his life in 2 Samuel 23.
SPEAKER_01: Now these are the last words of David.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says David, the son of Jesse.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: David is a worshiper.
SPEAKER_01: And men and women, David was the one who said that you are holy and you are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: David discovered that when he worshiped and when he praised, God came down.
SPEAKER_01: God was there.
SPEAKER_01: He was raised up.
SPEAKER_01: He was enthroned upon praise in his life, and the presence of God came.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, may we be worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: May we be skillful, but may we be worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: Encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: Spend time with the Lord every day to come into the presence of God and worship him and bless him.
SPEAKER_01: And that and that Spirit of God will begin to rest upon us in greater and greater measure in everything that we do.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll bring that.
SPEAKER_01: You'll not only receive it, but you'll also release it to others in your lives.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.