Well, good morning, everybody. Good morning. If I have not met you, my name is David, and I'm one of the elders here at Church with the Grove. I'm usually down at the Walnut Grove campus, but I have the privilege of being down here this morning. Pastor Nathan and his family are on vacation over the past week. So if you're a first-time guest, I welcome you. But come back next week because Pastor Nathan is awesome. So Carol knows. So it's a pleasure to be with you here this morning. We're going to be looking, continuing our series that we've been looking at over the summer, looking at the life of David. This morning we'll be reading from 1 Samuel 18. So if you have a Bible, if you'd like to go ahead and flip over there, 1 Samuel 18. We'll have scripture on the screen as well, and also in the Church of the Grove app, you can follow along in the notes there too. But we'll be picking up in week one of our series, we looked at David's humble beginnings as a kind of a nobody, as a shepherd boy. He was overlooked. But we saw that despite that, God builds his plans with unlikely people. Last week we revisited one of the most popular events in the Bible, the showdown between David and Goliath. And in our reflection of that passage, we were reminded that David was a foreshadowing of Jesus. And because of Christ's victory over sin and death, we can face every lesser giant that comes our way. If you would pray with me this morning. Lord, I pray that you would uh open our hearts to what you have to tell us this morning. Lord, give me the words to say. Um these folks don't need to hear anything that I have to say, but they need a word from you this morning, God. I pray that you would unite our spirits, Lord. Um that we would uh be open to what you have to challenge us with, what you have uh in store to bless us with this morning. God, I thank you for every person in this room that's here today. And I just pray that you would be lifted up and magnified. Uh not only in the songs that we have sung and we will continue to sing, but also as we open your word. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. When I was around 13 years old, I can remember being home over the summer with not much to do. I was bored. That's probably not a surprise to many of you parents with kids that are home all the time right now. So you probably hear that a little bit too, that you know, they're bored. So I was too young to drive myself, so I was stuck at home. You know, this was like 2001, so like if I had a phone at all at that point, I probably probably had an awesome Nokia 5110, prepaid phone, track phone. So that's how cool I was. It was prepaid. Uh I don't know if you guys remember that Nokia is probably about that big, had the little stubby antenna. You could take the face plates off, so that was awesome. Maybe you could play snake on there. There wasn't a whole lot going on, but with that, I might have had that, but regardless, I was at home, I was at bored. We're we're pre-iPhone at this point in time, so there's nothing that was that was still several years away. Um so no phone entertained me. Social media was not really a thing yet, so there was no YouTube, there was no Instagram to find fun videos and funny content and share with friends or enjoy. Myself, that wasn't there. The internet wasn't too impressive, it was kind of slow and clunky, and there, you know, so that wasn't really an option either. So the bottom line is I was at home and I was bored around 13 years old. But one day in my boredom, I took interest in an old acoustic guitar that was set aside in the corner of our family living room. The guitar had belonged to my mother who had gotten it when she was younger, and it just kind of had laid around there. So over that summer I picked up that guitar and I tinkered with it some, and I found some old instructional booklets that were laying around the house, and I taught myself some basic elements of playing the guitar. Not too long after that, my father saw that I was taking an interest in the guitar, so he started bringing out an electric guitar he had played when he was younger. Now, this was automatically a lot cooler. Uh, it was a lot more energy, it was edgier, it was more rock and roll. So at 13 I was starting to get into some rock music. Like it was probably Christian rock, you know, that's probably as far as we went. But nonetheless, it was energetic, you know, and I was excited about it. So I found out, you know, my dad started playing this guitar a little bit. I got to kind of mess around with it. I found out it was actually a little easier to play on my fingers than an electric guitar. But uh one of the things that was so cool about it is it was loud. You know, back in the day, for the last like 40 years or so, you'd see giant amplifiers stacked up on stage. We kind of shifted the model, you don't see that now, but we still have giant speakers that are projecting the volume there. But that's kind of what you know we grew up with, like with the electric guitar. Uh, it was more energetic, it was a bit easier to play, and it was powerful because it was amplified. And it didn't take me too long to realize that the electric guitar could also be less forgiving. You see, playing through an amplifier, which is just basically a special guitar speaker, it would bring out either the best or the worst of my plane. And at that time, there was mostly the worst. There was a lot of the worst, you know, going on, and my parents can attest to that. So if my plane was sloppy or I was out of time, that guitar amplifier would let anyone who was within a half mile radius of the house know that. On the other side of that, too, as I practiced more, I eventually learned, and if I played something that was kind of cool, it would also showcase that as well. So maybe you've had a similar experience, maybe, maybe it's not with the guitar, but an experience where perhaps you learned something or achieved something that had the ability to reveal more about who you are, for better or for worse. This morning we're going to consider the topic of success and the effect it can have on our lives. Success doesn't create our character, but much like the relationship between the amplifier and that electric guitar, success has the power to amplify who you already are and expose the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so the big idea this morning is this that success reveals the true condition of your heart. Success reveals the true condition of your heart. So, 1 Samuel chapter 18, we're going to start here in verse 5. David marched out with the army. Oh, to set this up a little bit better, I guess. This is right after David had defeated Goliath. That's what we talked about last week. That's what we're looking at last chapter. And the first couple verses here in chapter 18, that's when we find David and Jonathan meet. They spark a friendship and a brotherhood. And so now we move into verse 5 here. David marched out with the army and was successful in everything Saul sent him to do. Saul put him in command of the fighting men, which pleased all the people and Saul's servants as well. As the troops were coming back, when David was returning from killing the Philistine, that's Goliath, the women came out from all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul, singing and dancing with tambourines, with shouts of joy, with three-stringed instruments. As they danced, the women sang, Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. Saul was furious and resented this song. They credited tens of thousands to David, he complained, but they only credited me with thousands. What more can he have but the kingdom? So Saul watched David jealously from that day forward. So that brings us to our first point I'd like to just kind of unpack for a second this morning, and that's this: that success reveals unresolved sin. Or success can amplify unresolved sin that is in our life. David's success was the catalyst that exposed the sinful pride that had already taken root in Saul's heart. You see, Saul had a history of disobedience to the Lord. In several instances, he acted foolishly and he decided to implement his own strategy rather than obey what God had told him to do. And just a few chapters earlier in 1 Samuel, the Lord had actually told Saul he would no longer be king of Israel because of this pattern that had developed in his life. Up until now, Saul had shown admiration for David. I mean, David's musical skill had soothed Saul's restlessness. He displayed a type of fatherly care for David by offering him his own armor when David was going to go face Goliath. Chapter 17, verse 25, actually also suggests that David was actually in line to marry one of Saul's daughters as a reward for defeating the giant. So they were almost, you know, they were going to be family to some degree. So up until now, Saul seemed to be totally team David. But when public praise for David's success broke out, Saul's resentment and insecurity became amplified and visible to everyone around him. It has been said that most people can handle obscurity, but few people can handle applause. And that seems to be a little bit of what we see unfold here in the story of Saul. It's no wonder that, uh, let's see where it is. Here in verse 8, it's no wonder that Saul says, What more can David have but the kingdom? In that statement, it seems like the only thing that Saul prized more than his ego was his power and his position as king. In Saul, we see an example of how not to act. We're given a warning of where a prideful heart that has placed lesser things above God can lead us. Saul had fallen into the trap of valuing the gifts over the great giver. God can lead us through these things, though. Now, what happened to Saul, it may not become evident immediately, but over time our true colors will show. You've likely countered this temptation. I know I have. Maybe a friend gets rightly celebrated, but for some reason that that bothers you. That starts to eat away at you. Or perhaps you're a coworker, received a promotion that you felt you deserved, or you felt they didn't earn. These are hard feelings that, if left unchecked, can take us down a dark path. What happens a lot of time is someone else's approval, when that's recognized, it can feel like a whisper to us. We hear that whisper that, hey, you're not quite good enough. But that's not true. So these are hard feelings. If left unchecked, they can take us down a dark path. But it's important to realize that somebody else's success does not diminish God's purpose for your life. As followers of Jesus, we are called to respond differently. Romans 12, 10 says this love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. So as Christians, we are called to outdo one another in the way that we honor others. Not just stop at showing respect or giving kudos or a high five. We're called to go above and beyond. We're called to think well of others and to think of others more than we think of ourselves. This applies in all areas of life, but especially when looking at someone else's success. When we choose to assume the best in others, we are better positioned to obey Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Moving on to verse 10. It says the next day an evil spirit sent from God came powerfully on Saul, and he began to rave inside the palace. I'm going to stop there. Some of your translations, that word rave, some of your translations may say that he prophesied. The idea here is that the things he were saying was kind of crazy and intense, and he was in an agitated state. So that's that's kind of what we see in this verse. But the first part of that verse can be a little uncomfortable, can't it? I know when I saw the scripture I was going to be preaching on, that that gave me pause. And I had to reflect on that and I had to dig into that a little bit more. But it's in God's word, so we can't ignore it, and we have to deal with it. So I want to share a quote with you that has stuck with me and has helped me better understand this concept. And that's this it's that God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves. And that quote is attributed to Joni Erickson Tata. Joni was a teenager when a tragic diving accident left her a quadriplegic and unable to use her limbs. Early on, she wrestled with her condition and her relationship with God. But by God's grace, she found purpose and dedicated her life to ministry. For the last 59 years, she's been an author, she's been a speaker, and God has used her powerful testimony that was birthed out of tragedy and out of suffering to share the gospel with countless people and advocate for the disabled community. You see, God is holy, he does not sin, he does not tempt anyone to sin, and yet an evil spirit was sent from God and came powerfully on Saul. Somehow we have to have a category for all these things to be true. Because God is sovereign, God can use any circumstance, he can use any agent to achieve his purposes. We don't just see this in Joni's life, we see this throughout all of Scripture. We see it in the life of Joseph. Despite the many hardships he endured, he recognized that what others had planned for evil, God had meant for good, for his good, and to save the Israelite nation. In the story of Job, in the first two chapters, we learn that not once but twice, God gave Satan permission to wreak havoc in the life of Job, to ultimately display Job's faithfulness and to magnify God's greatness. In three of the four Gospels, we are told that the Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This event would ultimately glorify Christ, and it shows us how we can counteract temptation with the Word of God. The Apostle Paul wrote about being tormented by a thorn in a flesh and a messenger from Satan that God used to help him maintain humility and learn how to rely on God's grace. And most significantly in Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28, Luke points out that the most powerful display of God's love, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross to take our place, although it was carried out at the hands of Judas and Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews and the Gentiles, they all did what God had predestined to take place. God is holy, he does not sin and he does not tempt anyone, but sometimes he permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves. Diving back into the word here. So the next day an evil spirit sent from God came powerfully on Saul, and he began to rave inside the palace. David was playing the lear as usual, but Saul was holding a spear, and he threw it, thinking, I'll pin David to the wall. But David got away from him twice. So this we looked at how success can reveal unresolved sin in someone's life, but success can also reveal your heart's allegiance. See, David's success showed his humility. At the beginning of this passage, we saw that right after defeating Goliath, Saul actually put David in charge of many of the fighting men of the military. And again, David's just, he's very young at this point. Some say he was probably in his late teens, maybe early 20s, but he was a very young man when all of this happened to him. So despite being a military hero, taking out an enemy that had paralyzed the entire Israel army with fear, David was right back in the king's chambers, acting as a servant, performing, playing music for Saul. He was serving the king as though nothing had changed from when he got plucked out, you know, as a shepherd boy and brought into the palace to make music for Saul. As if the women of Israel, like we just read, weren't singing songs, praising him, you know, for the great things he's done. All this left David unfazed. How is this possible? Because David's heart was anchored in the Lord. He saw his worth and God's purposes for him, not what others said about him. David trusted God's timing despite adversity. It says here in the word that Saul threw two spears at him. Now, I don't know if I was David, if I would have stuck around for spear number two. I would have probably, I would have probably, you know, been out of there to not give him a chance to throw that other one at me. As I was reading this, I wondered if maybe the Lord was using this particular experience to test David's own obedience to the calling that had been placed on his life. The bottom line is that David's outward display of humility and courage flowed from his faith in the Lord. Saul's heart was fearful and selfish due to his lack of faith, and it showed in his actions. Picking up in verse 12. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David, but had left Saul. Therefore, Saul sent David away from him and made him commander over a thousand men. David led the troops and continued to be successful in all his activities because the Lord was with him. When Saul observed that David was very successful, he dreaded him. But all Israel and Judah loved David because he was leading their troops. The last thing I'd like to point out this morning is that our lives reveal the Lord's presence. Our lives reveal the Lord's presence. As I read through those verses, that phrase, because the Lord was with David, or because the Lord was with him, that really struck me. What did that mean for David, and what does that mean for us today? We know that the prophet Samuel, he anointed David. He went out to Jesse's farm, I guess we could say, and he was looking for the next king of Israel. And he thought he saw Jesse's older sons, he saw the right guys because they looked apart. David was his second, an afterthought. He was out in the fields working, and yet he was brought in. And God used that unlikely candidate to become the next king of Israel. And in that moment, Saul anointed David in his father's home to become the next king. In that time frame, to be anointed, it meant it indicated that you were set apart for use by God, that God had an important purpose for you. Under the old covenant, an intimate relationship with God was essentially reserved for three types of people: prophets, priests, and kings. Prophets spoke God's words to the people. The priests, they were the people's representative to God. And the kings represented God to the people. In the Old Testament, when individuals experienced the presence of the Lord, it was often accompanied by signs of inner peace and holiness, as well as outer signs of success and prosperity. And God used that in that time. Again, we remember that God was making Israel a nation set apart from all others. In a sense, it's like as if Israel was anointed among all the other nations at the time. And the reason that they had the laws that God gave them was to make them set them apart and let them be different than everyone else and to protect them and preserve them and preserve the bloodline for Jesus Christ to come through it. But Jesus took the place of all these roles. In fact, the word Messiah literally means anointed one. The new covenant in the New Testament assures us that all believers experience the Lord's presence through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We just recognized this a couple weeks ago for Pentecost Sunday, in fact. In 2 Corinthians 1, 21-22, Paul says this: Now it is God who strengthens us with you in Christ and who has anointed us, the church. He has put his seal on us and given us the spirit, our hearts, the spirit in our hearts as a down payment. So he has put a seal on us. He has stamped us as his. When we believe in Jesus, he stamps us as his. Nothing could change that. He's given us the spirit in our hearts as a down payment. When we pass from death to life, when we put our faith in Christ, that chasm between us and God, there's a bridge between there, that's Jesus. And we're able to be adopted into the family of God. And with that, you know, just like families today, there's there's an inheritance. There would have been an inheritance that they understood being part of the family. And that was the Holy Spirit is like our down payment. It's our foreshadowing. It's it's a little bit here, you know, for what we're going to experience in eternity. In eternity, there'll be no more sin. We'll spend present, we'll be in the presence of the Lord holy and completely. Sickness and death will be no more. All these things we can look forward to, but right now we just have a foretaste of what's to come. And the Holy Spirit, God's power living within us, guiding us, teaching us, pointing us to Jesus, that's the gift that we get now. And that's the down payment. So because of Christ's death and And resurrection on our behalf, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit. No longer is anointing reserved only for high priests or prophets or kings, but it's all for all who believe in Jesus. That's the hope we have. This anointing does not guarantee health or wealth, but it does guarantee we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the death and resurrection of Christ, this does not guarantee us a life of success either, but it does prevent us from collapsing beneath all of our failures that we will experience on this side of eternity. In Christ, we learn to lay up our treasures in heaven and to become content in every circumstance, no matter what success looks like in our lives. So, what we looked at this morning, again, success is a catalyst. It doesn't shape who our character, what it is, but it amplifies what's already in our hearts. It can reveal unresolve sin. It can show where our true affections lie, what our heart is surrendered to. And we can also see that the Lord's presence is with us when we believe in him. In this story that we talked about this morning, it's really about two hearts. There's a graphic I wanted to share with you guys here, just to kind of look through this. But we see here, Saul, what we see in Saul's life, we see in this story, Saul was rebellious. He had a streak in him that, you know, he wanted to do things his way. He did not want to follow, you know, what God had laid out as the best plan for the country. David was obedient. We could see that throughout this story, how he did not flee when things got difficult. How he went out and did the hard thing when the entire nation was afraid of Goliath. He went out because God was being mocked and he valued what people thought of God more than what people thought of him. Saul was impulsive. When you read through Saul's story, he was making decisions that were kind of last-minute, kind of foolish decisions. He was just kind of taking random risks that didn't make sense. But David was anointed. God had specifically set him apart for a purpose. And God used him in that way. Saul was self-serving. We could see here, we'll see, you know, uh as we continue reading through 1 Samuel, but Saul was self-serving in different ways where he was trying to make himself look good. Even after a couple chapters ago, even after the Lord had told him he would no longer be king. He begged 1 Samuel to come back with him to the people and kind of smooth things over because it seemed like he cared more about his reputation and what people thought of him instead of the gravity of what was going on and what the Lord had told him. So Saul just seemed self-serving and very much wanting to protect everything that he had acquired. At least that's how he viewed it. But on in contrast, David was humble. Again, we looked at that humility this morning. We saw that David, uh David's success did not prevent him from doing the things that were not attractive or maybe not the coolest things to be doing, just you know, going back in and playing guitar for the king. You know, he was willing to do those things, and he had a servant's heart. Saul was faithless. We could see that his faith in God had deteriorated and that he was just consumed with self-preservation. And that's something that can really challenge us when we experience success or when others around us do. Are we trying to white knuckle and grab, you know, all that and hold it tightly because it was all because of us? When in fact it was really something that God ordained. And to contrast that, David was faithful. David was focused on serving God throughout all these circumstances. He never took his gaze off of what the Lord had called him to do. So the same success that elevated David exposed Saul. Success is a test, and success reveals what is the true condition of your heart. So, what can we do? What are some practical things we can do as we experience success in our lives, whether it's our own or perhaps you know, someone we know. Well, when God blesses you, you want to stay humble, just like we saw in David. Stay humble, don't let those things uh you know get your ego inflated and lose the servant's heart that we hope to have in Christ. Secondly, give God the glory. There's a song that I was thinking of this this morning. Give God the glory, great things he has done. It's a great song. I'm not gonna go through the whole lyrics, but it's an awesome song. But give God the glory, give him the credit for the things that he has done and those blessings. And realize that it's not all of about what we did. Yeah, it's good to try, it's good to learn, it's good to work hard. All those things are good. But ultimately, um, we give God the glory for what he's done. Thirdly, when God blesses you, be grateful. Have a heart full of thanksgiving. Be grateful. Have gratitude in your heart for what God has done. Fourthly, celebrate others. Whether it's their success or maybe it's something that you're being celebrated for. Look for ways to lift up others in the room. Lift up others that have been part of that process. That's a great encouragement to them. And again, like we talked about earlier, we look to outdo in the way we honor others. We want to love our neighbor as ourselves. And lastly, when God blesses you, trust God with your future. Trust God with your future. I think that's, to me, that's the main thing we see in David's life in this passage, is that through all the craziness that was going on, David trusted God each step of the way. And he didn't get sidetracked like Saul did. And when things went a little sideways, Saul reverted to his own plans. But David trusted God with his future, and that's what we need to strive for as well. As I close this morning, I wanted to leave you with a quote from A. W. Tozer. He said, This we often treat Jesus the way Saul treated David. We want him to slay our giants and sing spirits away, but we don't want him to be king. Now you read that, when I read that, that hurts a little bit because I'm like, man. I've been there. We often treat Jesus the way Saul treated David because we want him to slay our giants and sing spirits away, but we don't want him to be king. And that's really the thing, you know, as we uh look at this morning is who's the king of your life? Have you surrendered your heart to the king of kings? Or are you still trying to do everything on your own power? David points us to Jesus, where Saul points us to self-promotion. Though Jesus possessed all authority, he came from heaven, he humbled himself, he served others, and he gave his life for sinners. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus not only forgives our pride and jealousy, but he also gives us a new heart that can rejoice in God's blessings and walk humbly before him. So the answer to this test of success is not trying harder, it's actually surrendering your heart to the King who remained humble in the midst of ultimate glory. Heavenly Father, you are wonderful. You are magnificent. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for what you've shown us this morning. God, I pray for everyone in the room. I don't know what circumstances everyone's dealing with this morning, but Father, I just ask that you would work in our hearts. Help us to search our hearts, Lord, for anything that is not of you. Help us to lay that at the feet of Jesus. God, your grace is sufficient for us in whatever our circumstance looks like. Father, help us to realize that. Help us to see that. Help us to taste and see that the Lord is good. Father, we lift our hearts to you this morning and we ask God that you would just help us to handle success well, to handle it in a way that honors you, that pleases you, that glorifies you. Help us to live with humility. God, help us to realize that we take many things for granted that maybe others are praying for, that others are looking in our life, wanting those things. So we are extremely blessed, whether we realize it or not. Lord, I pray that if anyone is maybe unsure of their relationship with you this morning, God, I pray that you would stir their hearts, Father. Lord, that you would work in their hearts. That you would prompt them to take a step forward to getting to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And ask these things in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen. So this morning we're going to, as we uh, as the band, they're gonna play a song for us in a second, we're gonna participate in communion this morning. Um, so at Churches of the Grove, we do not celebrate a or we do not have a close communion, meaning you don't have to be a covenant family member of the church to participate. Um, but scripture shows us that really believers in Jesus, those are the ones you know who should come and give communion. So in a second, I'll invite you to come to the front. We have tables on both sides. Uh, there'll be some bread. Uh we just ask that you uh kind of dip, dip it in the juice and kind of move out of the way so kind of everybody has the ability to come through. Um why do we do this? Why do we have communion in the first place? On the night of uh Jesus's the Last Supper, on the night of his betrayal by Judas, he sat with the disciples and he told them, Do this and remember the prince of me. Take this bread. This bread represents my body that was broken on your behalf. We know throughout scripture Jesus is the bread of life. Uh and his body was broken on our behalf. So we we take that bread and we eat it in remembrance of him. The juice, the wine, sorry, it's juice today. Uh, but uh the juice represents the blood of Christ. Jesus said this represents the blood spilt for the atonement of sins. So when we partake of communion, we're coming forward, we're surrendering our hearts, we're searching our hearts. Um, so feel free to come forward with your family, you know, if you want to take communion together and pray. But we do it to remember Christ and to remember the sacrifice he made for us and the hope that we have in hell. Heavenly Father, thank you for who you are. Thank you for this morning. I pray that you would impress upon our hearts the greatness of who you are as we participate in communion this morning. Thank you for this group of people. Thank you for this church. Thank you that as we eat together, we are reminded that our relationship with you is not just singular, but it is a collective. That we are the church, we are the bride of Christ. Thank you for what you're doing this morning in our hearts.