David - Man Up!

Well, good morning and welcome to Tri-State Community Church. Another beautiful day the Lord has made, right?! I just wanted to start by saying, I don't know if we say it enough, how wonderful it is to be here with you people.

! And the service that you do to the Lord is really amazing. I was just writing down a number of stuff that I just so enjoy coming here.

Your service, your smile. Where's the smile today? Okay, I'm seeing some good smiles. Helps me out. Tim, good job. How you encourage one another. It's really encouraging.

It's encouraging how you encourage. How you help people. All these people that you're helping financially. Food. How you help people. Wisdom that you have.

Laughing. Roger, I'm putting you in charge of the laughing group. You know how to make people laugh. It's great. It's great. And the example that you guys have to follow the Lord for me has been great.

How you fight. Sometimes you have to fight with God and you win battles over trials in your life. And I see a great deal of humility in this church.

And that's just exciting to be a part of that. And to keep that up. Keep doing that. Because that's what we need. That's the light that we need to be in this world.

In this city of Dubuque. With our neighbors. Keep praying for your neighbors. That they can come to know you. So I just wanted to say that starting out.

And let's pray. Let's pray especially for a Jim Munson's family. Lord, I want to go to you here today freshly. And say thank you for, again, these people.

And what you've done in their lives. Just think about all the years that you've worked in people's lives here. And we put Jim Munson's one of them. And Jane. We pray for Jim and his family.

That you give comfort. Help us come alongside of him. Connect to him. Give him comfort as his wife has passed. Passed on to eternity to be with Jesus.

Bless them, Lord, today. There's a few other people I want to pray for. Our pastor, Jack, has still got some pretty good health problems going on. Pray for him, Lord.

That he can get healing through that time. Continue to pray for Jim's cancer. To stay healthy. Any other ones they may have forgotten. Lord, you put them in your hands. Someone that might be sick today.

And give you the glory. Show us the truth in the word. As we open up the word of God. We're going to learn a little bit about David today. And if you would, just show us the truth in that, Lord.

As we hear the words of the scripture spoken. Amen. And give me great boldness and truth, Lord, that I would speak clearly these truths today.

Amen. So, I've entitled it, David, man up. And not that I don't want to speak to the women in here.

Certainly, this is for both men and women. But I am going to direct, just be honest, I'm going to direct a little more directly to the men today. But most of the truths are for men and women.

You'll see that. So, I, there's been, I've, over the years, especially recent years, there's been a lot of talk with leaders, different pastors that I know of, and helping men be men and be leaders.

And there's not, there's less and less. Whether it's leader of a Bible study, just being a good leader in your home, being a pastor, those kind of things. It seems like it's a real challenge for all these different pastors I talk to.

We're all going through the same struggle. And so, I was just thinking about that. This culture does not, does not help us become the men we're supposed to be, or the women for that matter.

The culture does not help that. And so, we have to look, where do we look? We look to the scriptures. We look at different people in the Bible. David's the one I want to look at today. Help us learn about more of what it means to be a man.

A man after God's own heart. We'll see that in a minute. I, uh, I was thinking about my own life, about being a man, what that means.

It's kind of good to do this sometimes, to look back at your history. And so, I looked at my growing up years, and in no way do I diminish that I love my dad, because I did.

He passed about six years ago. He was a great provider for me. And, uh, but I'm looking at, did I really learn about being a man from my dad?

And there's a number of things that I don't think I did. He, he did not, again, I hope, don't take this like I'm trying to really put my dad down.

I'm just trying to help you understand my, my history. Because I think it's good for you to look at your history. I, he never really engaged me. I don't remember having talks with my dad about being a man.

Just life talks. He was there. He, he, he, he provided. Uh, we took vacations. Um, lots of good things. I've got great memories, but I don't remember some of the engagement part.

I remember playing by myself all the time. We used to play ditch. I can't remember what it was, but it's called ditch. Running around, chasing each other. So, that's what I have to go on.

Now, does that excuse me from being the man I should be? No, absolutely not. So, I have to learn. I learn from you guys. I learn from, from God, the scriptures, the truth.

So, I just encourage you to do that. Pause a minute, especially you men. Both men and women, look at your history. What, did you really learn what it means to be a woman from your mom? Or your grandmother? Or an aunt? Or an uncle?

Those things. I think it's important to do that. So, I've, it's kind of a maybe, you could say this is a part two. If you were here a couple months ago, I spoke on David and Goliath. So, we started to see the beginning of David, his manhood, if you will, as he defeated the giant Goliath.

And so, what I want to do is, is today it's, I'm not going to pick really one scripture area and study it carefully. Normally, I would like to do that. But to see David's character as a man, we're going to scroll through his story and pause every so often and look at some scripture about David.

And see if it shows us something more about him being the man of God that he, that he was. And we do know that David had some tough things in his life, some horrific sin, if you will.

It was murder, adultery, lying, a few other things. And we're going to kind of see how that plays into his story a little bit. We'll talk about that. So, let's, let's start to read some scripture here about David.

In 1 Samuel chapter 13, so pretty much going to be mostly in, in Samuel and some of the psalms that he wrote. We're going to look at some psalms as we scroll through and look at his life. And what it means to be a man.

Man up. Man up was the title. Man up. We know what that means. Be the man that God wants us to be. Man up. But Samuel said to Saul, So, this story talks about, this scripture talks about David being a man after God's own heart.

And it takes place when the first king of Israel, was King Saul, was slipping. We saw when, if you were here for the David Glyph story, we talk about Saul was, the spirit left him and he was becoming worse and more evil.

He started out good and then he went south. And so God chose David to be the next king. Knowing him to be the next king. And because he was a man after God's own heart. And I wanted to look at what that means.

A man. After God's own heart. Today. Also in Acts, references the same thing. After he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king.

Concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart. Who will do all my will?

Very important part. Very important part. We can't just be the man God wants us to be. We need to be part of God's will. Doing God's will. All of God's will, it says.

So why would God say such a thing about David? What can we learn about David? That's quite a statement. I kind of would like God to say that about me someday.

I don't know. What did David have that others didn't have? We know Saul ultimately didn't measure up with the standards of what God wanted as a king.

David was the youngest of eight sons. The youngest one. To be anointed the next king. I find it very fascinating how God chooses kind of no-name people to do great things.

All throughout scripture. Gideon was like the lowest tribe, the lowest son, or he was just, he was a no-name guy. Gideon was. Ruth.

Esther. These are people that weren't really, have any renowned position. Some of the prophets. The disciples. You know, fishermen.

Poor fishermen. Mary and Joseph. You know. Tim. Just a no-name guy. Right? Maybe many of you are too.

There's just not that, we're not famous. God chooses people like that. I wonder why, that's why I like those hero movies where like a no-name guy, you know, becomes the hero of the thing.

It just, it just, I feel it's exciting to watch that. We know in chapter 16. Oh, I forgot to do my slide.

No, I didn't. Where am I, we're out of order here. Oh, there we go. Sorry. Okay, back to Acts 13.22.

I want to read it one more time. After he had removed him. After he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will, not part, but all of God's will.

Did he fail at it? Yes, I'm sure. He wasn't perfect. But his life was all out for God. It starts out that way. The story of David and Goliath was amazing.

We learned so much about reading David's story. As I said, we're going to scroll through and start diving in a little bit to each area of his character. It's really, really opened my eyes to David.

Really did. And so the first one, as we mentioned it already a little bit about the story of David and Goliath, I'm just going to summarize again briefly what happened. But it's a story of faith. And other things.

But faith stuck out to me when I read the story of David and Goliath. The Israelites were in trouble. They were in trouble. The Philistines that invaded their land, the Philistines were as an arch enemy of the Israelites, had been for many years and will be for many more after this.

And they were on one side of the valley ready to attack the Israelites. And the Israelites were on one side of the valley, on the other side of the valley, and Goliath came out and the battle could have been decided by one person.

That's how they did it back then. Goliath said, if you can beat me, you win the battle. If you beat Goliath, you win the battle. And David comes on the scene. God had already prepared him for the battle.

He already fought a lion and a bear with God's help. And David recognizes it was God. It wasn't him. David goes down, defeats the giant Goliath, and they win the battle by faith.

Because he knew it was God who was going to do it with him. It was by faith. David's first character quality we were looking at today is his incredible faith in God.

David, he manned up. He manned up. Second one is, David had a loyal friend.

He had a loyal friend. Let's read about it. Now it came about, so this is, I'll try and keep you updated where we're at in the story a little bit.

So you have a little idea. If you've never read the story, you can have some idea where we're at. So after David beats Goliath, King Saul appoints him to be one of the, like the main guy of the army.

Of the soldiers. And he goes out and he fights battles and he wins greatly because God's with him. And they start singing about David.

They said, the women start singing about David. They said, Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands. And in the midst of all this, David develops a friendship with King Saul's son of all people.

Interesting. The son of the king becomes David's great friend. And the king, we'll see also, starts to despise David because David becomes so famous.

The king wants to be the famous guy. He can't handle David coming on the scene like that. And eventually we're going to see that the king wants to kill him. So in the midst of that, here we have this amazing relationship forming.

A loyal. Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul that Jonathan committed himself to David. And Jonathan loved him as himself. And Saul took him that day and did not let him return to his father's house.

Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David. With his military gear, including his sword, his bow, and his belt.

Not only did Jonathan become a loyal friend, he knew the role that David was going to take to be the next king. Here's my robe. I'm the heir. Jonathan is the son of the king.

He'd be the next king. Nope. David's going to be the next king. I'm loyal to David. David. What a great friend. Great loyalty. It's amazing.

You've got to read the rest of the story, though, to get more. There's more to the story of Jonathan and David. There's more interactions that they have. If you read the story, you'll pick up on that. But I wanted to point out the character of David having a loyal friend.

I'm reading a book. Just finished it last night. It's called Devotion. It's a true story about mainly two men, two aviators that flew for the Navy on the aircraft carrier.

They flew Corsair airplanes. And it was in the Korean War. And it was a brutal war. It was a very brutal war. Don't read the book if you...

It's because it gets pretty tough stuff. A lot of death. It takes place at the time... There was a couple skirmishes, but there was one kind of a... I wouldn't call it famous, but it was a pretty brutal event that happened in the Korean War.

It was the Chosin Valley. There was about 30,000 Marines stationed in this valley fighting the North Koreans. Well, it turned out they ended up fighting the Chinese because they entered the war on behalf of the North Koreans.

Many of them did. And it was brutally cold. Brutally cold in that valley. 30 to 50 below at times. And not only did people die because of the war, they died because of the cold and just fighting the elements.

And so these two men, Jesse and Tom, were eight... It's about... These two guys, Jesse was a black man. And he became famous because he was the first black aviator from an aircraft carrier.

And he was on, like, one of the Time Life or one of those magazines. He was on the cover of it. And so their role was to fly in and help the Marines because they became surrounded by 120,000 Chinese soldiers.

And they were 30,000 strong. And so they would, you know, bomb the area around to try and help the Marines in this battle. And so what happened one time when they were flying in, Jesse and Tom were...

Tom, I believe, was Jesse's wingman. And Jesse got shot down in this brutal cold weather in North Korea. And he crashed, landed his plane.

It looked intact. And so Tom, his loyal friend, said, no way am I leaving him there alone. I'm going down. He was even told, you don't go down.

If your friend goes down, he goes down. He said, nope, I'm loyal. I am going to find my friend and get him. So he flies down and crash lands and he was able to get out of his plane okay.

And it's brutally cold. He gets over to find Jesse in the plane. He couldn't get Jesse out. Jesse was still alive, but he was jammed into the airplane. He couldn't get him out. He radios in the helicopter to come get help.

And the helicopter starts to come. And then he says, hold on. Make sure you bring an axe with you. You know, an axe to try and we're going to get him out. So the helicopter actually turned around, went to get an axe, and then actually came back. And they tried to get him free.

They tried everything they could to get him free. And they couldn't do it. And finally, Jesse said, his last words before he died, he said, tell my wife, Daisy, how much I love you.

His last words. And then Tom had to leave with the helicopter and go back. And he received a medal of honor, one of the highest honors you can get in the military.

It was awarded to him by the president. It turns out, the news didn't get it right. They said Jesse died right away. But the truth was that his loyal friend was there for him at his death.

And was able to hear those precious words that he was able to tell his wife, Daisy. I was there when your husband died. He was with me and he told me to tell you how much I love you.

Now, that's loyalty. Loyalty friends. We need close friends. Boy, gosh, I would not be sitting here if I didn't have loyal friends.

Close friends that I meet with regularly and talk about things. Of course, my wife is my first loyal friend. But as a man, I need a man friend, too. And I've had man friends for a long time.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that. We need close friends for accountability, for support, for encouragement. Life's tough. It beats up on you. Being a man of God.

David, he manned up. David was humble. Oh, I forgot to read this verse.

A friend loves at all times and a brother's born for adversity. Friend loves at all times. We need close friends. David was humble. So a little background to this.

So we're scrolling through the story now. So here's the part of the story where King Saul wants to award, because of David's great warrior and winning battles, David wants to, but he's also, I mean, King Saul wants to award David his daughter in marriage.

So Saul's servant spoke these words to David. But David said, Is it trivial in your sight to become the king's son-in-law, since I'm only a poor man and insignificant?

David understands where he stood. I'm going to marry the king's daughter? Really? He's humble.

He's a humble man. Now there's a lot to this story. You need to read it. It turns out Saul reneges, doesn't give him that daughter. Then he wants to, and Saul's trying to get to David, right?

He's starting to hate him now. And there's another daughter he eventually gives to David. He says, but first you've got to go kill 100 Philistines. King Saul's thinking that David will go and get killed by trying to do that.

David goes out and kills 200. Comes back. He's a humble man. He's a humble man. Later on, farther, much farther, when David becomes a king, here he is, a prominent king, this is what he says.

Then David the king came in and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, Lord God, and who are the members of my household that you have brought me this far? He's a humble guy.

He understands it's God. It's brought him anywhere. If anywhere, it's from God. Godly men choose humility. Men and women alike. They choose humility.

David knew his limitations. That's part of being humble, knowing your limitations. David wrote this. David wrote this. Psalm 131. Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes arrogant, nor do I involve myself in great matters or in things too difficult for me.

Godly men admit they can't do certain things. You ever been around your husband? I can do it.

I got this. We don't always got it, do we? It's true. We have to learn our limitations. Yeah, we got to try things, right?

But we need to know our limitations. That's okay to be wrong, not know how to do something. Just admit it. It's okay. It's awesome to be around humble men, humble women.

It feels great. I can be myself when I'm around humble people. I don't have to try and live up to someone trying to be more than what they are. David, he manned up.

He was humble. He led a group. So now David has left. King Saul is trying to kill him, and he had to flee.

And he's on the run for a long time. You read the story. There's a lot of things going on when he flees King Saul. This is one of the things that happened at the beginning of that, when he begins to flee from the King Saul.

So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's household heard about it, they went down there to him.

Then everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. And he became captain over them.

Now there were about 400 men with him. What kind of people is that? Maybe you may call them a bunch of misfits. People like me. All these people.

He didn't chose these people. They went to him, and he led them greatly. You read stories of all these different events that took place as he led these people. Many times they said, we should do this or that.

And they said, no, we need to share with everybody. The king stood up for what was right. King David did. Before he became a king, so we'll call him David at this time. You know, we can't choose who follows us.

If you lead a Bible study, we don't know who's going to walk in that door. When we go to work, we don't know who's going to be under us or over us or next to us in our workplaces.

We don't get to choose those people, do we? We've got to lead them well. We've got to be righteous and honest people. David did that. He was happy to lead them. There was even times where they were out in camp somewhere, and they would protect the farmers around them.

David was in charge of that. David manned up. Another story when they were out trying to escape.

King Saul. They went into a cave. They went into a cave to hide. Guess who comes rolling into the cave? King Saul, of all people.

Saul is looking for David to kill him. He walks into the cave. And the men go, this is our opportunity. Let's kill him. Nope.

He's the anointed king. Don't you dare touch him. Don't touch him. Sorry.

May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord take vengeance on you for me, but my hand shall not be against you. David's not going to be against the king. As the proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes wickedness.

That wasn't going to solve the problem, killing the king. He's the anointed. David trusts God in this case. He trusts God that that's the anointed. I'm not touching him.

I don't care if he's trying to kill me. I'm letting him go. His trust was in God. I think of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.

I memorized this one years ago. It's one of the more famous Proverbs, if you will. Trust, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him, and he'll make your paths straight.

Your own understanding would say kill him, because he's trying to kill you. David understood truth, righteousness. He stood for that. His men got to see that under him.

He chose to love King Saul and let him live. David, he manned up. He trusted God. David loved God's law.

He loves the scriptures. He loved God's law. I delight to do your will, my God. Your law is within my heart. David wrote that. He loves it. Think about this scripture verse.

I don't know if you've ever said this to God yourself. I would encourage you to write that one down. When you're laying down on your bed tonight, speak that verse to God. Tell him that you'll love his law.

Ask God to help you learn to love his law. We need help for everything. God loves to hear from us, to talk to him about everything.

Give him everything. He loved the law of God. How else can we know God's will if we don't know his word? Oh, I don't know what God's will for my life is.

We've got to know the word. We've got to love God's law. Learn to love it. One of my favorite psalms, On my bed I remember you, I think of you through the watches of the night.

I just love that psalm. That's God. That's talking to God. Thinking about God on your bed, Sitting up, standing down, Wherever you're at. I forgot to look it up.

There's a verse that talks about singing to God on your bed. I forgot to look that one up. I was going to share that one. Singing to God on your bed. You ever done that? You ever sang to God on your bed?

Spend some time thinking about God. It really matters. It's prayer. David, he manned up. This is David.

He's a man. He's thankful. David's thankful. We're getting a lot from the psalms here as well, Because he wrote these psalms.

You get the heart of David here. Psalm 26, 6-7, I will wash my hands in innocence, And I will go around your altar, Lord, That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, And declare all your wonders.

That's a good thing. Tell the wonders of God through thanksgiving. He's thankful to God, And he declares his wonders. We could read psalms all day here.

I picked out a few. Psalm 138, I will give you thanks with all my heart. Not just give thanks. With all my heart.

That's hard to do sometimes. I will sing your praises before the gods. I will bow down toward your holy temple, And give thanks to your name, For your mercy and your truth.

For you have made your word great, According to all your name. On the day I called, You answered me, You made me bold with the strength of my soul. You read the whole story in full, You understand all the different life events David went through.

Peace, quiet, fear, anxiety, Being chased after, Hunted down by the king, no less. He was thankful. He was thankful.

It's hard to give thanks when times go tough. Isn't it? It's really hard to give thanks when time gets tough. But God calls us to that. God's allowed things to happen in our life for a reason.

Thank him for it. It's building character in your life. David manned up. He was thankful. David understands who gets the credit.

He understands who gets the credit. Shortly after he became king, They brought the Ark of the Covenant Into the city, In a tent, And he's dancing and singing, Thanking the Lord.

I'm not a good dancer. Whatever that looked like back then. Whatever dance move you got, He was dancing before the Lord. I'm not going to dance for you.

Here's some more of what David says About giving God credit. Then David the king came in And sat before the Lord.

So he's a king now. And he said, Who am I, Lord God? And who are the members of my household That you have brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in your eyes, Lord God. For you have spoken also of the house of your servant Regarding the distant future.

And this is the custom of mankind, Lord God. Again, what is more? What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Lord God.

For the sake of your word And according to your heart, You have done all this greatness. You have done it all. To let your servant know, For this reason you are great, Lord God.

For there is no one like you. And there is no God except you According to all that you have heard With our ears. This is how he talks to God. Do you talk to God like that?

You're awesome, God. You did that. You did this. You did that. Everything we do, it's good. God did it.

It's his credit. We're just vessels that he uses to We just got to do the walking part. God does the work. God does the work. Open our mouths sometimes.

David, he manned up. He manned up. So he's king now. And now we come to the Probably the most troubling part of the story.

We have to talk about it. We have to talk about this. His murder. His adultery. He's up on the top of a roof.

Said when kings go out to battle, He wasn't out in battle like he should have been. He was at home. Watching a woman bathe. He has someone bring that woman to him and he commits adultery with her.

She becomes pregnant. He tries to get the husband. He's out in battle. He's doing his work. Here's the husband doing his work. Here he's committing adultery with a man's wife.

That's doing God's work on the battlefield. Brings her home. She becomes pregnant. So what does he do? He tries to get the husband to come home and sleep with her. So that we can say that she was pregnant by her husband.

But the husband's so righteous he won't even, because it's battle time, he sleeps outside the door. So what does David do?

It gets worse. Now it gets worse. Now he gets his commander involved and says, Hey, put Uriah as the name of the husband. Put him out in the battlefield in a place where he can get killed. Pull back and leave him out there.

How horrible is that? Sure enough, he gets killed in battle because David ordered all that. Used other people. He lied. Horrible sin. It's hard to understand it, honestly.

Then David said to Nathan, so Nathan the prophet comes and reveals this to David, what's going on with this sin. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

This is a good thing. And Nathan said to David, The Lord also has allowed your sin to pass. You shall not die.

David admits his sin. He admits his sin. He goes on to write Psalm 51. You all got to read it sometime. Because sin is what we need to overcome on a regular basis, don't we?

We're sinners. We keep sinning. I'm going to sin again soon. It's part of my makeup. But I have an advocate, Jesus Christ, right? We know he died for our sins.

We saw the story of David and Goliath. Jesus stood in between, if you will, Satan, the prince of darkness, and us, and he won the battle, like David did on the battlefield against Goliath.

We talked about that last time. Sin, forgiveness is complete. Is there consequences for his sin?

Yeah. David had great consequences for that sin. Sometimes we just don't talk about that. Punishment, discipline, God does that to us.

Yeah, we're forgiven. Completely forgiven. But sometimes consequences need to take place. And that's exactly what happened. The sword would never leave your house.

That was told to David after this took place. And lots of things happened in David's life that weren't pleasant. But he was forgiven. He was forgiven.

This is an important aspect we talk about here. And I think we need to understand this. This is an amazing scripture here. Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithfulness, according to your greatness of your compassion.

Wipe out my wrongdoings. Wash me thoroughly from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my wrongdoings and my sin is constantly before me.

We hang on to sin. We forget how forgiven we are. For I know my wrongdoings and my sin is constantly before me. Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge.

Behold, I was brought forth in guilt and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being and in secret.

You will make wisdom known to me. Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean. Cleanse me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and wipe out all my guilty deeds. And there's more to read about it. Wipe them out completely.

They're eradicated. When God, when Jesus forgave us, something we do wrong, it's gone. It's purged. David understands the internal corruption of his heart.

This laundered, dark, ugly cloth needs to be washed and cleaned. Cleanse me. David understands only God can do it.

Only God can cleanse us. This act of God shows how much God loves us and wants to forgive us.

And we saw, and if you read the story, there was consequences for this. He's forgiven. David clearly wants change in his life and he wants God to do the changing.

We can't change ourself. We see God's mighty hand of forgiveness. It's still a tough story. It's a tough story.

This part of the story is tough. The adultery and the murder. I've been thinking about this, the forgiveness. We talk about it so much. I still think we need to learn more.

I don't know. It's such a huge thing. Our forgiveness, the depth of it, it's something to think about. We are completely forgiven. But I know I hang on sometimes.

I know many people have. We don't realize that we feel unworthy to do things for God because of our sin. The power of forgiveness is so amazingly great.

We feel guilty at times. When we're forgiven, we're forgiven. I know, but I feel this way.

No, we're forgiven. David, he manned up, admitted his sin. He repented. He manned up. And the last one, I know we're doing a lot here today, but the last one, I just wanted to give you a good picture of of being a man of God.

So I need to look at all these little areas so you can see the pockets of areas where he was good at. The last one, and no less of the other ones, is David loved to worship.

He loved to worship God. Lots of psalms about that. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy. All you are upright in heart.

We have a song about that. We sing that song. Be glad in the Lord. Right? It's a good song. David rejoiced.

He danced. When the Ark of Covenant came in, he danced to God. He was despised by one of his wives because of it even. He didn't care. Sometimes I think we feel ashamed to sing.

I'm talking to men specifically. It's our own. You know, we don't, you know, our singing is a little bit not so joyful. Doesn't matter what it sounds like, right?

We need to worship God. Be the man God wants you to be. It's part of it. Psalm 634.

But as for me, I will sing of your strength. Yes, I will joyfully sing of your faithfulness in the morning. For you have been my refuge and a place of refuge in the day of my distress.

Day of his distress, he's singing to the Lord. That's even harder to do when you're in distress. Joyfully sing to the Lord. How can I sing to the Lord when I'm like this?

We need a close, loyal friend to help lift us up. Many more verses to talk about that. So if you really look closely at the life of David, you can see some really great character qualities here.

A man after God's own heart. This really helped me see that better. We really start to look at the different areas where David was really good. All these areas are the Christian things we talk about here on Sunday.

Wanting to do God's will. He manned up. That's being a man. Being a man of God. I wrote a list of them here.

I should have put them on a slide. I apologize. He recognizes God's power. I'm summarizing. He trusted God's plan.

He chose humility. He knew his place. He loved God's word. He led misfits. Don't choose who follows you.

We're misfits. All of us are sinners, right? He was thankful in everything. He knew who gets the credit. God gets the credit.

He had a loyal friend. He was repentant. When we sin, he repented. And he loved to worship God. I can't tell you.

Get a chance to read the story. It starts on 1 Samuel 16. You've got to read the rest of that book. You've got to read 2 Samuel. And you should really read 1 Chronicles up to chapter 29.

You'll get that whole story. Take a couple weeks. Half hour every night. Read the story. Fill it in. I went to a funeral a little over a week ago.

I think we had a little email post about it. A friend of ours, a pastor friend named Tim Borsath, he's a pastor up in Decorah. He actually came here to preach one Sunday on creation maybe one or two years ago.

His son Isaac died. 22 years old. He had a kind of a ruptured artery just out of nowhere. Very, very sad.

In the brochure of the funeral when we went to rent, I was reading through the brochure and at the end it said becoming a man's ceremony was in the brochure of the funeral. I thought, what's that?

Becoming a man. So the dad gets up. He starts talking about what it means to be a man. Well, it turns out he has three sons and three daughters.

Isaac, the one that died, was the youngest son. He gives his sons a ceremony of becoming a man. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but we saw part of it at the funeral.

And he got up there and he spoke about what it means to be a man. A leader, a comforter, provider, protector, making you feel secure and other things.

I don't remember what they all were. And then his other two sons had already been through the ceremony. They got up and they all went behind the casket. So the casket's laying here and they're standing behind there and all three of them are there.

And they all had a sword. And they took, they took the sword out together and they clashed them together.

And he pronounced his son to be a man of God. How important it is that we become a man of God, that God created us to be. This culture does not at all teach us how to be a man.

And that was so moving as you can tell. Us dads, we got to help our sons be the men they need to be. Maybe a ceremony, maybe not.

Something where we're showing them how to be a man is such an important thing. So I just end with that today and I hope the word of God, this sword, we can clash it together like they did at that funeral.

Because this is the answer. This is our sword that's going to lead the way to be the man God wants us to be. Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for the word of God. It's amazing. And the stories you put us around to help us learn more about being the man that you wanted to be and the woman you want us to be. Clearly.

Both. Show us that truth today, God. what scripture verse, what quality did David have that we need to learn, that we need help to learn. Bring along someone to support us, a loyal friend, Lord, if we don't have one.

Help us to pursue that. Work together with you, God, to seek your face and to learn to be a man of God. Amen. Amen.