[0:00] We're going to read together now from God's Word, and if you'd like to turn with me to 1 Samuel and chapter 16, 1 Samuel and chapter 16, if you've got the church, well the Pew Bible in that sense, then that page I will find in a moment.
[0:21] It's page 287, page 287 in the church Bible. It's great when I sit, I must sit down more often, because when I sit down and come back up again, the church has doubled in size, because people have arrived, it's great.
[0:37] So I'll sit down again halfway through my sermon and see what happens if we get any more. It may actually be the opposite, that if I sit down halfway through my sermon, the church may half empty, so perhaps I better not.
[0:47] Okay, welcome anyway, each one of you. We're going to read then God's Word, and we're going to read from 1 Samuel 16, beginning at verse 1, reading through to and including verse 13.
[1:01] Here is God's faithful Word. The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?
[1:13] Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I've chosen one of his sons to be king. But Samuel said, how can I go?
[1:25] If Saul hears about it, he will kill me. The Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do.
[1:38] You are to anoint for me the one I indicate. Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him.
[1:49] They asked, do you come in peace? Samuel replied, yes, in peace. I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.
[2:01] Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here before me.
[2:14] But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
[2:25] People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, the Lord has not chosen this one either.
[2:39] Jesse then made Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, nor has the Lord chosen this one. Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, the Lord has not chosen these.
[2:53] So he asked Jesse, are these all the sons you have? They're still the youngest, Jesse answered. He's tending the sheep. Samuel said, send for him.
[3:04] We'll not sit down until he arrives. So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health, had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, rise and anoint him.
[3:17] This is the one. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.
[3:29] Samuel then went to Ramah. We thank God for his faithful word. So we're back in 1 Samuel in chapter 16. And those of you who are with us regularly on a Sunday morning know we've been looking at the life of Samuel.
[3:44] Not dealing with everything in 1 Samuel, but the life of Samuel in particular. His birth and conception even from the very start through to his coming to know the Lord and serve him.
[3:56] And when we get to chapter 16, we're near the end of his life. We're near that point where he will die. He's an old man now. And many things have been happening to him.
[4:07] Many things that have been difficult for him. But chapter 16 is probably one of the best known events in the life of Samuel. The anointing of David, the young shepherd boy who would eventually become king, the greatest king of Israel and lead his people for many, many years.
[4:29] And through David, of course, and his line would come the promised king, the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was called the son of David.
[4:40] And in that passage, we came across probably again one of the most important verses in the Bible, perhaps one of the best known verses, perhaps a verse you may even know by heart, slightly different here in the New International Version we have.
[4:55] People look at the outward appearance. The AV and others, man look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Such an important, vital truth that we understand about God.
[5:07] We look on the outward, God looks at the heart. He sees every heart. And if we could grasp that truth, that wonderful reality that God sees the heart, it would have a very great effect upon how we live.
[5:21] As Christians in this day, we live in a visual age. We live in an age which is all about senses outwardly. But if we would grasp and understand the truth that God sees the heart and is more concerned and interested in the heart than anything outward, then it would affect us greatly.
[5:39] It would make us very careful about guarding our hearts, very concerned about what we let into our hearts, very concerned about what we love with our hearts. But I'm not going to talk about that this morning, because I'm sure you've heard many sermons about the heart and about this verse.
[5:57] I want to look at something different. I want us to look particularly at Samuel. Again, as I said, we're dealing with mainly Samuel, his life, how the Lord dealt with him, how the Lord equipped him, how the Lord used him, how the Lord spoke through him.
[6:10] And I want particularly to pick up this whole concern of Samuel and Samuel's mourning. Verse 1 of chapter 16, The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn?
[6:23] Samuel is in mourning. Samuel is deeply, if I can put it this way, depressed. He's deeply upset. He is deeply troubled. Well, what has happened?
[6:33] Why is he in this position of mourning? Well, if you were here last week, some of you weren't, just to remind you, last week we looked at how Saul, King Saul, had been sent by God on a mission to completely destroy the Amalekites, the wicked and evil nation, the people who were so bent on evil that God ultimately called for their destruction.
[6:54] Saul went and he compromised. He did just enough, he thought, to obey God. He went and he did not fully obey from the heart the command of God. It had been a trait in his life so far, as we've seen.
[7:06] And the result was that God said through Samuel to Saul, As you've rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you as king. Saul, this king that the people had longed for, was now rejected by God.
[7:23] And Samuel, the Lord, the people were all let down, badly let down, by the sinful attitude, the sinful actions of Saul.
[7:34] And Samuel especially was heartbroken and disappointed. If you go back to chapter 15 and verse 35, just a verse before we see, Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him.
[7:52] Samuel mourned for him. He deeply affected, deeply disappointed. Go back to chapter 15 and verse 10, we see something of that again. When the Lord spoke to Samuel and said, verse 11, I regret that I've made Saul king because he has turned away from me, not carried out my instructions.
[8:10] Samuel was angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night. This is not just some passing whim. This is not just a slight disappointment. This is for Samuel, heartbreak.
[8:23] The deepest kind. Disappointment of the deepest kind. And because we're looking at how the Lord dealt with Samuel, we're seeing again and again how the Lord deals with us and how his dealing with us is the same.
[8:37] When we read the Old Testament, when we read the Bible, we find again and again, the reality is that the people of the Bible are people like us. The world may have changed in so many ways, but in the heart of hearts, men and women, we are just the same as we have always been, right the way back to when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden.
[8:54] We have not changed in our needs, in our struggles, in our sorrows, in our disappointments. And the reality is that you and I here this morning, many of us will have known deep, deep disappointment of hearts.
[9:07] Many of us will be able to empathize thoroughly with Samuel and of his mourning, his deep dissatisfaction, his deep disappointment. Now I'm not talking about those trivial things that seem to be spread across the news and spread across the newspapers and even in our own lives.
[9:25] Those trivial disappointments of getting late and missing the plane. Important though it is, pretty trivial. Or that disappointment of our football team going out of the European Cup in a dishonoring and humiliating way.
[9:41] Those are just insignificant things. Not talking about those things that we sulk about, don't we? When that TV show we really wanted to watch and we'd set up the recorder for and it didn't work properly because we hadn't done it right and we're disappointed and we sulk about it because we didn't see what happened to so-and-so at the end of the last program.
[10:02] No, not those things where we act like petulant children and it seems to be sadly more and more common that that's expected or even accepted of a child of two having a tantrum and lying in the middle of the supermarket kicking its legs.
[10:18] We may not lie in the supermarket kicking our legs because we don't get the sweets we want but we can act inwardly like that. Petulant children, disappointed and soaking. This isn't what Samuel is talking about.
[10:29] This isn't what happened to Samuel here. This isn't what happens to many of you, I'm sure as well. We're talking about mourning. Now there's one event that particularly comes to mind when you talk about somebody mourning.
[10:41] They're mourning because of death. You mourn when somebody dies. You mourn when you lose somebody dear to you. That's the sort of attitude. That's the sort of deepness of depression, the deepness of disappointment that's coming in the very heart of Samuel.
[10:58] He feels so let down, so hurt by Saul. He doesn't seem able to lift himself out of it. He's in the, by Pilgrim's Progress words, the slough of despondent.
[11:12] And he can't seem to lift himself out at all of that deep sorrow. As the Lord says to him, Samuel, how long will you mourn? Still longing. Don't know whether this is weeks later, months later, potentially years later.
[11:25] He couldn't even bring himself to see Saul again, we're told in verse 35. So upset. The truth of the reality, the truth of the situation is this, that the disappointments that hurt us the most, the disappointments that cause us the most deep wounds are the wounds of those that we love, isn't it?
[11:48] Those that are near to us, those who we care for. In one sense, we couldn't give two figs for somebody in the street. We don't know who's a stranger, who may be unpleasant, or somebody who cuts us up in the car and then lobs the veerous out the window and all those sort of things.
[12:02] We don't care about those sort of people. They may upset us for a while, but it's people we love, people we care about. When they turn against us, when they hurt us, that's when the wound is deepest. Someone we thought was a friend, someone we had depended upon and shared things with, and suddenly they turn against us, they shun us, because we're not perhaps doing the things that they want to do.
[12:23] Somebody who uses us, a friend who simply comes alongside, uses us just for their own ends, or uses our tragedy or our sorrow for gossip.
[12:37] Someone who we've loved, who's been unfaithful to us, who can really understand, unless they've been through it, the agony of betrayal, or even the anguish of loss, of death.
[12:54] These are deep things. These are real things. These are the things that, the situations that crush our hearts. Samuel knew that himself.
[13:07] David, sorry, Paul, the apostle speaks in this way. He speaks of himself as hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair.
[13:20] Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed. How? How is it possible? And you read the life of Paul and you see the things that happened to him.
[13:30] Stoned he was, to the point that they thought he was dead. Beaten with rods on several occasions. He speaks about the fact he was hungry, he was naked, he was, all sorts of things happened to him.
[13:42] He says, even when all these things came, these deep disappointments, these deep and terrible things happened to me. He said, I wasn't crushed by them. I didn't despair. I wasn't destroyed.
[13:54] What's the secret, Paul? How did you manage that? Ultimately, the answer comes because Paul had hope. He had hope which sprang from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[14:07] For he says just later on in that same passage, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us up with Jesus. Hope. In Romans chapter 5 and verse 5 when he talks about the persecutions and the troubles and the trials of life, he says this, hope does not disappoint us.
[14:27] Hope is the antidote to disappointment. This is how God deals with Samuel. This is how God meets with Samuel and helps him and lifts him and raises him up out of the disappointment, out of the mourning, out of the slough, out of the despondency, out of the depression.
[14:46] He lifts him up with hope. So let's look at how he does that. Let's look at how God deals with Samuel. Let's look at how he deals with us as well and how his desire is that we too should have hope in the face of life which is disappointing at times and how we can live and not be crushed, not be overwhelmed, not be destroyed.
[15:09] Verse 1, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul since I've rejected him as king over Israel? One thing that we need to understand right from the start is this, disappointment, there's going to be lots of D's this morning, disappointment dampens even the most dedicated disciple.
[15:30] It's good, isn't it? I didn't even steal that one. Disappointment dampens even the most dedicated disciple. Now you couldn't get anybody more faithful than Samuel, could you?
[15:42] I just mentioned at the beginning. From a boy, he served the Lord. From a boy, he had this zeal for God. He was somebody who served with distinction all through a long life and a long ministry.
[15:54] But if he was called to speak for God, Samuel spoke for God, even towards Eli when he had to rebuke him. God never says a bad word against Samuel. God never has to say, Samuel, you should have done this.
[16:07] Well, Samuel, I'm disappointed in you. Well, Samuel, that was wrong. Never anywhere. Even the people that he served, even the people who he'd been there judge for for so many years, recognized that he was a man of great integrity.
[16:24] They said, you have not cheated or oppressed us. You've not taken anything from anyone's hand. He'd been upright, honest, faithful, devoted, good.
[16:37] Now, we know that he was a man who had discouragements. Discouragement, as we said, right as a young child. When Eli, the chief priest, and he had to go and speak to him and rebuke him and tell him off, he had discouragements with the people, particularly when the people said, we don't want you to be our prophet and leader anymore, Samuel, and we don't want God to be our king anymore.
[16:58] We want our own king. We want to be just like everybody else. We want to fit in with a gang of people who live in this part of the world. And we're told that that displeased him. Displeased him that God's people acted in that way and it certainly displeased God as well.
[17:13] But never before had he felt such utter utter disappointment. There's something very important here, a principle that we need to take on board, something that we need to understand.
[17:27] All God's people get disappointments. Well, you say, well, that's obvious. Yeah, but it's not obvious. You see, the trouble is that there are times when we think ourselves, if I was more godly, my life wouldn't be so tough.
[17:42] If I was more Christ-like, then I wouldn't be disappointed. If I was more holy and so on and so forth, my life would be much better. But dear friends, whoever we are as Christians, however we may judge ourselves or think of ourselves, the reality is that we shall all, all of us, experience in our lives times of discouragement, times of disappointment, times of sorrow.
[18:08] Life is not a bed of roses. Well, in one sense, it is because it's got prickles as well as flowers. Disappointment's part of life.
[18:19] It's one of the things we have to prepare our children for, isn't it? That's why I don't give them any pocket money. I never buy them any sweets. Never take them anywhere nice.
[18:30] No. Of course not. Disappointment's part of life. Because life is full of relationships. And people will always disappoint us.
[18:43] And we will always disappoint people. You know, that's a very sort of serious and a very sort of negative view of life, but it's a real view, isn't it? It's a biblical view of life.
[18:54] Here was Samuel, as I said. Here was Samuel who was such a godly man. And we can see all the way through, we look through the scriptures, we find again and again godly men and women. We find them struggling.
[19:06] We find them up against it. We find them disappointed. We find them hard pressed. We find them depressed. We get the Elijah's, don't we? He's been on Mount Carmel and God's done this amazing thing and sent fire from heaven and all the people, the whole country's turned back to God.
[19:19] It's an amazing revival. And a couple of days later, there's poor Elijah running away, hiding under a tree saying, wish I could die, wish I could die, wish I could die. My life's so tough. Samuel knew it, Elijah knew it, David knew it, the Apostle Paul knew it.
[19:38] But of course, who knew it more than anyone else? Surely the Lord Jesus knew disappointment. Can't we possibly consider that our Lord Jesus Christ was broken hearted by the desertion of his disciples, every one of them fleeing and leaving him?
[19:52] Can't we say that Jesus was broken hearted by the betrayal of Judas, someone who he'd known and counted as a friend for three years? Wasn't he surely broken hearted by the denial of Peter who before the people said, I never knew this Jesus who you're talking about.
[20:06] Don't you think that cut to the heart of the Lord Jesus? Don't you think that pierced his soul? Of course it did. Yes, he knew all about those things beforehand.
[20:17] He told them, yes, one of you are going to betray me, you're going to desert me, Peter, you're going to deny me. He knew all about it, but just because you know that something's going to happen doesn't mean that it suddenly makes you unaware of the pain of it.
[20:28] Just because you know you're going to have an operation doesn't mean that it's not going to hurt. The Lord Jesus knew it. And so will you and so will I.
[20:41] Do not let the devil lie to you and say to you that the only reason that you struggle in life is because you're such an awful person and such a poor Christian. It's absolute rubbish.
[20:52] Yes, we bring upon ourselves consequences of our sins, but whoever we are as believers, whoever we are as God's children, disappointment will come because we are dealing with people and we're dealing with ourselves and we are fallen, frail, foolish, weak, and so on.
[21:14] But that's encouraging. That's got to be encouraging to know that here is a man of God who knew disappointment. The second thing is this. This is perhaps a little bit more difficult, but this is the road, if I can put it away, the way back out of disappointment, dealing with disappointment.
[21:30] And it's again four D's. Disappointment doesn't deserve dwelling on. Disappointment doesn't deserve dwelling on.
[21:42] Again, verse 1 of chapter 16, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul? That's really harsh, isn't it? The Lord, in one sense, is saying to Samuel, get over it.
[21:58] That's harsh, isn't it? Isn't that unfeeling? Isn't that lacking in compassion? Let's remember that the Lord is our kindest friend. The Lord is the one who has the most tender love, mercy, compassion for us more than any other person in the world.
[22:16] and there are times when he says to us, enough is enough. There is a time when we have to stop feeling disappointed.
[22:27] There is a time for us to turn around from that dwelling upon the disappointment because that's what's happening, isn't it? Samuel is dwelling upon Saul's sin, dwelling upon the situation that has happened, dwelling upon the pain.
[22:40] If we put it in our own terms, he's picking at the wound, isn't he? He's not allowing it to heal. He's not saying you're wrong to mourn. No.
[22:51] It's not wrong to mourn. The Lord Jesus wept at this graveside of Lazarus. He wept over the city of Jerusalem because of their sin. It's not wrong to mourn, but it's wrong to enjoy mourning, if I can put it that way, to dwell upon it, to make it your all.
[23:09] It seems as if here what the Lord is saying to Samuel, all you ever think about is Saul, all you ever care about is Saul. It's become all-consuming. Nothing else in your life really has a place, even me perhaps.
[23:24] If we dwell too long on the failures of others, of the hurts of others, of the disappointments of others, if our mourning doesn't ever end, then it will have a detrimental effect upon our health, physically, and spiritually as well.
[23:39] Many of you know about Queen Victoria and on the death of her husband, Prince Albert, mourned for 40 years until her own death.
[23:49] She never wore anything other than black for 40 years. And for the first 10 years, she hid herself away from the public view. She had no involvement in the government of the country for 10 years.
[24:03] and it affected her popularity. It nearly brought an end to the whole monarchy in the nation until she was virtually forced out of her mourning to return to the public eye.
[24:17] You can say, well, yes, she's right to mourn, right to mourn over her husband, right to mourn over the man that she loved and cared for. But she wasn't right to keep on mourning in that way, that it became the only thing that moved, motivated, affected her life.
[24:36] You see, what happens, dear friends, is when we suffer disappointment at the hands of others, whatever that disappointment may be, we will find if we dwell upon that too much, if we pick on that wound too much, if we just concentrate it, then roots of bitterness will begin to grow into our hearts.
[24:52] Bitterness against the one who caused it. Bitterness against the one who was the means by which they have brought such sorrow and sadness to her. Other sinful attitudes will start to grow and take hold of our lives as well.
[25:10] It has to be dealt with. The disappointment has to be healed. Now, you may say rightly, that's easier said than done, and it is easier said than done.
[25:21] And you may say to me, but Peter, you don't know the disappointment, you don't know the grief, you don't know the mourning, the sorrow of my heart, you don't know what I've been through. I don't. I don't.
[25:32] The Lord does, though. Remember, he sees the heart, he looks on the heart. You may put on a great face, you may put on the brave, all is well in my life, a smiley face, everything's okay, I don't tell people what really is happening, what really is going on, and the brokenheartedness on the inside, but God does see, he does know, he sees clearly, it's not hidden from him, and it's not me who's saying to you, it's the Lord who's saying to Samuel, and then to you, how long will you mourn?
[26:03] How long will you continue? Four more D's. Deliverance from disappointment doesn't depend on people.
[26:17] Deliverance from disappointment doesn't depend on people. Why do I say that? Because, well, if we follow through the events of how the Lord deals with Saul, Samuel, rather, we see that ultimately, God shows him that it's not people who are going to turn the situation around for him.
[26:33] He sends him off to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, and he goes into the house, and God has said to him, one of Jesse's sons, he doesn't say which one, immediately, one of Jesse's sons is going to be the next king.
[26:47] My king, my chosen king, a king that's going to do everything that I want him to do, a really good king. And so, there in verse seven, sorry, then verse six, when they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here before me.
[27:03] The Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height. I imagine, first of all, he was tall, because his height, and he was probably good looking, a stunner as well.
[27:15] Bit fit. And Samuel says, well, here's someone who looks like a king, he's got the regal bearing, and he's got Saul's height. Remember Saul? What made Saul so great was he was head and shoulders above everybody else.
[27:29] You know, when he stood in the crowd, you could see him. Pop, there was Saul's head above the top. And here's Eliab, he's much the same, it would appear, from what the Lord says to him. And so Samuel says, aha, Saul let us down, let's get someone just like Saul.
[27:44] Nice and tall, someone who looks like a king, someone who can put things right. Trouble is, you see, we think that the answer to our disappointment is to replace the object we've lost that has caused the disappointment.
[27:59] So if a friend has let us down, then we need another friend to lift us up. If this person we've turned to has let us down, disappointed us, and hurt us, let's look to someone else. If this relationship, this marriage, or this partner I've had, or whoever, has let me down and betrayed me and divorced me or whatever, then I need another one to replace them and that will make me better.
[28:20] That will heal the wound of my heart. That will make my life complete again. But dear friends, we recognize that the cause of our disappointment was the failure of a person.
[28:31] We shouldn't think that another person is going to be able to deal with the problem. We're looking in the wrong place. Those who are the problem in themselves cannot also be the cure.
[28:44] Friendship, fellowship, that's priceless, that's wonderful, it's good to have, to be appreciated, to enjoy. We need to look after our friends, we need to take care of them, we need to build on those friendships, we need to give of ourselves, but it's not enough.
[28:58] It's not enough to heal the brokenhearted. You know that yourself. That's what we do though, isn't it? We turn from one disappointment, we look to somebody else, we look to someone who will replace that thing, that person, that affection, that love, whatever it is that's missing in my life.
[29:19] They will build me up where the other person has let me down, but they're just the same as the other person. They can't help it, they're sinful as well, they're broken as well, they're failing as well.
[29:29] However good they are, however loving they are, however they try to be, they'll still get it wrong and they'll still let you down, they'll still break your heart because they're a sinful creature. Even with the best intentions, even with the most love and devotion, it's not going to stop another disappointment, another heartbreak.
[29:49] And ultimately, dear friends, if we put our faith and trust in people, nothing's going to prevent them from dying. That's got to happen. We mustn't look in the wrong place.
[30:01] Samuel looked in the wrong place. He thought that he could find the healing to his heart in another man to replace Saul, but he didn't.
[30:11] That wasn't God's answer for him. That wasn't the place of hope for him. Rather, four more D's. Divine deliverance, divine deliverance from disappointment is different.
[30:27] Divine deliverance from disappointment is different. Here's a problem. So Samuel looks at Eliab. He looks tall. He's handsome. He'll do. No, says God.
[30:38] Then Jesse calls Abinadab. Oh, perhaps he'll do. He's the second son, I imagine. I imagine they're in age order since we find that actually the youngest is David.
[30:49] So we imagine they're in age order. So Abinadab, we don't know much about him. Perhaps he's got some other skills or gifts or musical talents or something else. No, he's no good.
[31:00] Then Shama. No, he's no good. Seven sons. It's a little bit, I find it a little bit humorous, isn't it, when the Lord says, haven't you got any more? I've got seven sons. How many do you want to choose from?
[31:11] Talk about being picky. Oh, I was going to say something then but I get into trouble if I say it. Seven. Seven choices he had. No, none of them are any good. What's he going to do?
[31:25] What's he going to do? Can there be any more sons? Yes, there is. Thankfully, there's one more. There's one more. They're still the youngest, says Jesse, verse 11.
[31:41] He's tending the sheep. He's tending the sheep. Clearly, Jesse thought, it doesn't matter that David's not there. I mean, David doesn't matter, does he? He's not important.
[31:52] I've got seven sons, boundary. You know, that's fine. It doesn't matter that David, he doesn't need to be able to sacrifice. But in fact, it did matter. It mattered very, very importantly that David was there but he wasn't there because he was God's choice.
[32:05] He's the anointed one. He's the one who was going to be the king. One of the things that we need to recognize is this, that God can lift us and does lift us out of the disappointment and the depression that we face or deal with in the most unexpected ways.
[32:23] As I said, we would expect that God would send us another friend or another partner or another person or somebody else to meet the gap, to fill the gap, to heal the wound when in fact he doesn't. God is not limited to work or to deliver or to comfort through the means that we expect, things that we look for.
[32:40] He's the God who does it in a most unexpected way. It's a wonderful example of that of course in the life of two of Jesus' disciples on Easter Sunday. Luke 24 tells us about it.
[32:52] There they are, they're walking to Emmaus. You know the story well, I'm sure. And when we meet them we're told that their faces are downcast. They are really, really depressed.
[33:03] They're really struggling. They're really disappointed and the reason they're disappointed is because of Jesus. Because they had pinned their hopes on Jesus and they says to this stranger who comes and approaches them, Jesus was a prophet powerful in word and deed before God and the people.
[33:19] The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death. They crucified him. We'd hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. All our hopes were pinned upon Jesus and then he's been killed and destroyed and we don't know what to do.
[33:36] We don't know where to go. Our whole world is turned upside down. Who is it who came alongside them? Who is it who came and started talking to them?
[33:46] Who is it who came and started to comfort them, to lift them? Who is it who came and spoke to them so that ultimately later on that very same day we find them with the rest of all the apostles we're told filled with amazement and joy?
[34:00] Jesus, isn't it? Unexpectedly we're walking, we're just going on this journey to Emmaus. We don't know what's going to happen. We're so down. Jesus comes alongside. Jesus draws near.
[34:11] Jesus enters into the situation. Speaks to them. And when we come to 1 Samuel 16, remember I said at the beginning David is the forerunner of Jesus.
[34:21] We see that all the way through the New Testament. He's a picture to us of Jesus. He's a shadow of Jesus. He's a reminder of Jesus' coming. David is the one who's going to be sort of a forerunner, a type of Jesus, a type of Christ.
[34:36] And that phrase, that title, Christ, means the anointed one. So when David receives that anointing as he does from the Lord, both of the oil, verse 13, and then of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, then we're meant to think of Jesus, the one who at his baptism received the Holy Spirit upon him.
[34:54] It's filled with the Spirit, anointed one, the Christ. He's the answer. So God has come alongside Samuel and he said to him in the midst of your disappointment, I want to assure you that there is hope and that hope is found in my chosen one, found in my anointed one, found in my Christ, found in my Savior.
[35:20] Now David didn't become king immediately. In fact, he didn't become king during Samuel's lifetime. But God had put in the heart of Samuel hope. Real hope, certain hope, definite hope.
[35:34] Much better hope than the words that we often hear when we go through times of disappointment. People come alongside us and yes, with good intentions they say, oh, things can only get better. Why?
[35:46] On what basis will they get better? For the Christian, things can and must get better because on the hope and the promise and the certainty of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[36:01] How can you and I be certain that our hope in God is not in vain? How can we be certain and sure that putting our hope in Him, looking to Him, trusting in Him, leaving our disappointment with Him, if I can put it that way, and giving it to Him, how do we know that's not in vain?
[36:20] How do we know that's not just positive thinking? or putting the problem under the carpet and hoping it'll go away? Because of the fact that our God is faithful, because our God gives His promises, because as you remember the hope that Paul had at the very start when I talked about the fact that he said we're hard-pressed but not crushed, we're perplexed but not destroyed, and so on.
[36:44] His hope was in what? The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the confidence and assurance we have that God keeps His promises, that God will not fail us, that even the bleakest and most dark situation which was the cross, there is hope, is the resurrection of Jesus.
[36:59] He's alive, He's risen from the dead, He's conquered death. If He's able to conquer death then surely whatever you and I face is easily insurmountable, easily insurmountable for Him.
[37:10] Later this evening, if you've really got the energy and come back, we're going to be in 1 Peter in chapter 5 and we're going to briefly look at the words of Peter here as he encourages God's people and let me leave them with you just to dwell upon for a moment before we sing our hymn.
[37:33] Listen to these words of certainty, of promise and of hope in the face of our disappointments. Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand that He may lift you up at the right time.
[37:53] Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Let's just reflect on God's Word for a moment in the quietness of our hearts in prayer before we sing.
[38:07] final song I'm is a celebration I'm what I'm goin' Tricky my Spirit yea'- Ucommerce m birthday Unchangeable faithful to sing Almighty Jesus, the rule and the Lord He smiles and the love of God His grace as the youth shall be said That holds us so gracious to love The soul he lies to defend Inspire and hear our prayer
[39:11] Thou shepherd, the doctor of mine Thy hope to thy comfort bear Thy sweet name and playkeeper's light If thou art my shield and my sun The night is the darkness in me And fast as my moments grow on They bring me the fear as in me Thy daughter drown of my hope In thee, Lord, I am proud Thy father, Jesus, let's all And who thou hast held me till now
[40:18] I do so years at your house Where in my face the last crew O will thou do so near me And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ After you have suffered a little while Will himself restore you And make you strong, firm and steadfast To him be the power and the glory For ever and ever Amen Amen