CALL TO CONFESSION

Matthew 20:25-28

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Loving heavenly Father, forgive us for our selfish desire to have others serve us, and for our love of power and influence. You call us to be servants who lovingly pour out our lives for those around us. Lord, our hearts are deceitful, desperately wicked, and relentlessly self focused. When we do honor, care for, and serve others, we secretly hope that people are watching and noticing so that our humility will be applauded and praised. Forgive us for a very deep sinfulness.

Precious Savior, you knew that we could never escape our self-love and passion for power and influence. You took the form of a servant, took on our frailty, in order to obey and suffer in our place. Thank you for your gentle humility. Thank you for suffering for our prideful, glory-loving hearts, and for giving us your perfect righteousness. Thank you for choosing the cross so that we could be free from the punishment that we deserve.

Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with a deep and burning gratitude for our life in Christ. We have been freed from the power of sin, now free us from our love of power and glory. Show us our sinful thoughts and motives, then melt our hearts with sweet repentance and show us Christ again and again. May he increase and may we decrease in our thoughts and desires, and help us to love and serve those he has called us to care for. Amen.

“Take a few moments to personally confess your sins to the Lord.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

Philippians 2:8-11

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

• We live in a confusing world. So much happens that we don’t understand. 
• Events unfold and we don’t know the half of what’s really behind them. 
• And part of the reason for that is that the way things look to us is not always the way things really are. 
• We make decisions based on how things seem. We form our judgments by appearances.
• And then later we find out that how it seemed and how it actually was were two very different things. 
• Our eyes are not reliable guides. 

• Think about an iceberg. There’s a great chunk rising out of the water that looks huge. But that’s only a fraction of what’s really there. Nearly all of it is hidden beneath the surface. 
• That’s us. That’s how we go through life. We make our calls based on the little sliver we can see. 
• And all the while, the largest part of what’s really happening is down below the surface, out of sight. 
• We covered this last week. Man looks at the outward appearance. That’s all we can see.

• This is especially true when it comes to what things mean. 
• We talk with great confidence about why things happen and what’s behind them. 
• But if we’re honest, we don’t see nearly enough to be sure of the meaning of anything. 
• And for the Christian, it goes deeper still. 
• Any way of reading this world that leaves God out of the equation is going to get it wrong.
• Because God doesn’t see the way we see. 

• We learned this back in v7. The Lord looks on the heart. 
• He sees every person and every event in the light of His own purpose. 
• The world looks completely different from where He sits than it does from where we sit. 
• He sees the whole iceberg. We just see the tip of the iceberg. 

• Who could have guessed what it meant when old Samuel walked into Bethlehem that day with a horn of oil? 
• To the elders it was just the prophet coming to offer sacrifices. 
• To God it was the anointing of a king according to his own heart. 
• And who could have guessed, years later in that same little town of Bethlehem, what it meant when a baby was born in a stable? 
• The world saw nothing. They saw an ordinary birth.
• Heaven saw everything. The Savior of the world had come. 
• Keep that in mind as we walk through the rest of chapter 16. 

• Here is how you would have seen the events with your own two eyes:
• Saul is still on the throne.
• David is still taking care of sheep. 
• And when David finally does come to the palace, he doesn’t come as a general or hero. He comes as the hired musician. 
• If we see as man sees, that’s the whole picture. 
• Saul the king and David his servant with a harp. 

• The narrator wants us to see more. He wants to open our eyes to what’s really going on, the things you can’t perceive with the natural eye. The part beneath the surface.
• God had already chosen David to be a different kind of king than Saul ever was. 
• And the last thing we were told was this: “The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.” 
• And that changes everything! 

• Our main theme is: God sees what we cannot, and He rules what we cannot see. 

1 Samuel 16:14-23

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 And Saul's servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” 17 So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” 19 Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.” 20 And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. 21 And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. 22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” 23 And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

• “Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul…”
• You have to feel the contrast with v13.
• The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David and the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. 
• Same Spirit moving in opposite directions. From one king to another. 

• Now, this is not referring to Saul losing his salvation. 
• The way the Spirit of the Lord came upon people in the OT and the way the Spirit indwells believers today is different. 
• In the OT, the Spirit equipped the leaders of God’s people for a specific purpose. 
• The judges God raised up had a special Spirit-empowerment to do things that could not be done by sheer human power or ability. 
• Saul had been promised and received that same empowerment when he was anointed and made king. 
• The Spirit of the Lord rushing upon a man was to equip a man for an office, and in Saul’s case, to do the work of a king over God’s people. 

• Now that empowering presence is withdrawn. The anointing for kingship is lifted. 
• Saul will no longer have the Lord’s help in ruling. 

• Now this didn’t happen out of nowhere.
• Back in ch13, Saul’s impatience in waiting for Samuel led him to offer a sacrifice which was not his to offer.
• In ch 15, God gave him a clear command to destroy Amalek, not sparing anyone or anything, and Saul kept back the best of the spoils and spared the king. 
• And then he acted like he had completely obeyed God when Samuel confronted him. 
• Samuel pronounced the terrible judgment of God: because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you from being king. 
• Saul was reaping the harvest of rejection after a long season of sowing disobedience. 

• This is a sobering warning for us. Saul looked like he had all the makings of a spiritual life from the outside. And none of that translated into a heart that was fully devoted to God.
• You can be near the holy things and not be holy. There are people who have sat in good churches their whole lives, who know the songs, who know their way around the Bible, and whose hearts have never bowed to King Jesus. 
• Being useful to God is not the same as being known by God. 
• Saul had the trappings and the Spirit departed. 
• Don’t mistake the trappings of religion for the reality of a heart that loves the Lord. 

• Does this mean as a Christian I can lose the Holy Spirit? No. The Spirit will not depart a regenerated believer who has trusted Christ.
•  In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:13-14)
• The Helper Jesus sent us will be with us forever! (John 14:16)

THE HARMFUL SPIRIT 

• Not only does the Spirit depart from him, but the Lord sends a harmful spirit to torment Saul. 
• Saul servants can see the effects of this and say the same thing. 
• What does this mean? The word translated “harmful” can be translated “evil,” “wicked,” or “injurious.” 
• The sense is that of a spirit exerting a malignant influence. 
• The text doesn’t tell us what the torment looked like. But from Saul’s later behavior in the narrative it would suggest a severe mental or emotional disturbance.
• We’ll see that this wasn’t a permanent condition, but something that overcame Saul repeatedly.
• But how are we to reconcile the phrase that this tormenting spirit was “from the Lord.” 
• This indicates to us we are talking about something spiritual, not just merely psychological. 
• The peace of God has left Saul and in its place there is darkness. A storm in the soul. 

• First, we need to see this in light of our understanding that God ordains everything that comes to pass. There is nothing rogue in God’s universe where things happen that God did not decree. 
• If there were, God would not be God and we could not trust him with anything because he is not completely sovereign. 
• A God who only governs the good and pleasant things and has no control over the painful ones is no comfort at all. 
• Our confession states plainly, that God, “in His infinite power and wisdom, upholds, directs, arranges, and governs all creatures and things…by his perfectly wise and holy providence, to the purpose for which they were created.” That He is the first cause, and nothing happens by chance or outside God’s providence. (1689 LBCF 5.1,2)
• And God governs even sinful actions to accomplish his perfectly holy purposes, yet he does this in such a way that sinful actions arise only from the creatures and not from God. Because God is altogether holy and righteous, He can neither originate nor approve of sin. (1689 LBCF 5.4)
• If this were a demonic spirit, the evil is the spirit’s own. 
• The hardness in Saul’s heart is Saul’s own. 
• God is not doing evil, he cannot, and yet not one bit of it is outside of his sovereign permission and purpose. 

• I believe we need to see the harmful spirit from the Lord as a partial judgment coming upon Saul. 
• God removes his Spirit and he hands Saul over to torment. 
• God is sovereign over the spiritual realm, not just the angelic host of heaven, but the powers of darkness also. And he bends even them to serve His purposes. 
• God is on the throne and everything else under His feet! 

• What happened to Saul was a specific act of judgment on a specific man who rejected God’s word repeatedly. 
• But it is not a diagnosis for every dark season of the human heart. 
• If you’re struggling with heaviness, anxiety, or depression that even some of God’s children walk through, it does not mean the Spirit of God has left you and you are under his wrath. 
• Some of the godliest believers who ever lived knew deep darkness of soul. 
• The great hymn writer William Cowper battled such heavy despair and darkness.
• Charles Spurgeon fought seasons of crushing depression his whole ministry. 
• If you are in a dark place, don’t hear Saul’s judgment as your sentence. 
• Hear instead the deeper truth of this passage. 
• The same God who governs Saul’s torment governs your trials, and he governs them for your good and His glory, not for your ruin. 
• And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
• The phrase, “from the Lord,” that troubles many, is the very thing that should comfort and steady us. 

• Saul’s servants suggest music therapy as something that might alleviate Saul's troubled moods.
• Seems like a common sense proposal and common grace insight. In the ancient world music was understood to soothe a troubled mind.
• Music can have a powerful influence on us emotionally and psychologically. 
• The solution put forth was a remedy, but not the right one. What Saul needed was to repent.

• We’re no different. When our soul is troubled, we reach for something to dull the ache, and some of it isn’t even sinful. But none of it gets to the root of the problem. 

• Saul agrees. He says, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” 
• See what God is doing below the surface. 
• Saul’s words, “provide for me a man,” almost echo the Lord’s words in v1, “I have provided for myself a king…”. 
• The man Saul sought to provide for himself will be the very man God had provided for himself. 
• Only God can orchestrate something like that! 

• One of the servants speaks up and says, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite...” 
• Somehow this servant knew about David. 
• And listen to how the servant describes him with these six qualities:
• He is skillful in playing.
• A man of valor.
• A man of war.
• Prudent in speech.
• A man of good presence.
• And most importantly, the Lord is with him. 
• How did David distinguish himself in this way?
• It’s possible this is out of chronological sequence and could have come after the events of chapter 17. 
• It’s also possible that the servant was just trying to talk David up and impress Saul, persuading him to bring on the son of Jesse. 
• Whatever the explanation for this remarkable description, it is truer than the servant could have known. 
• The son of Jesse would display great musical and poetic skill that has endured to this day.
• He would be Israel’s greatest warrior. 
• And most importantly, the Lord was with him. 
• The servant truly could not have known what he was saying. 
• He thinks he’s recommending a court musician but he is actually announcing the man God has anointed to take Saul’s throne.

• This is the amazing providence of God. That is the part of the iceberg under the water, moving through the remark of a servant. 
• He uses a servant’s casual recommendation at exactly the right moment, and through that ordinary word God opens the palace door for the future king of Israel. 

• Saul sends for David. He unwittingly summoned the very one who now possessed the Spirit of the Lord, the same Spirit who had departed from him. The man he summoned for relief carried the very presence whose absence had left him in torment.  

• And notice where David was when Saul sends for him. He is still with the sheep. 
• The anointing had happened, the oil was poured, the Spirit rushed on him, and David went right back to the flock. 
• He went back to the ordinary, hidden work of caring for the sheep, being faithful in the field where nobody important could see him. 
• And yet, somehow his reputation had already traveled all the way to the palace. 

• That’s what the favor of God looks like in a quiet life. 
• Many of you are pouring out your lives in work that doesn’t get applause. 
• David’s throne was being prepared in a sheep field. 
• Many would see those hidden years as wasted years. 
• But this is how God works. Before he ever uses someone in public he forms them in obscurity. 
• John the Baptist "was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance in Israel." (Luke 1:80)
• God would bring David to the palace at just the right moment. 
• Be faithful where God has put you, in the small and unseen place, and trust that the same hand that moved David and promoted him from the field to the palace is at work in your ordinary days too. 

DAVID IN SAUL’S SERVICE

• David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and David became his armor-bearer.
• David earned a position of great trust
• David, the anointed one, the true king of Israel, becomes the man who carries Saul’s armor and stands faithfully at his side. Saul is in effect putting his life in David’s hands. 
• The man God has chosen to replace Saul spends his days serving Saul and soothing Saul with music. 
• And he does it without grasping for power or position. 

• Think about what that took. David knew he was anointed. He could have harbored a secret ambition to seize the throne with Saul broken and in decline.
• Instead he picks up his lyre and serves the man who stands between him and the promise. 
• He waits on God’s timing instead of seizing his own. 

• God is always working! Even when things look bleak. 
• Even when your life feels like it is just going in circles. 
• Even in the mundane tasks you perform and the job you go to that you don't love.
• God is working. He has people in positions you do not know about. 
• He is moving pieces on the board you cannot see. 
• The David in the field this morning will be in the palace by the end of the week, and he has no idea. 
• We don’t have to force the door that God intends to open. 
• We can serve faithfully right where we are, trusting that the same hand at work below the surface is also the hand behind the calendar. And his timing is perfect. 

• The last verse is really powerful. As the tormenting mental anguish washes over Saul, the young man takes up his instrument and begins to play. And for a while, the tormenting storm in the king calms. 
• Saul is refreshed and the harmful spirit lifts. 
• What did David play? Well, about half of the Psalms in the Bible are attributed to David. 
• They were the truth of God set to music. David was a worshiper. His music was theology with a melody and those truths settled the storm in Saul’s soul. 

• There is a real mercy of God in this. God didn’t have to grant Saul any relief, yet he did. 
• Even for a king under judgment, there is a grace being shown.

• But the music only brought relief. It didn’t bring a cure. 
• Saul’s real problem was in his heart. 
• His real problem was a soul that rejected God and his word. 
• And no lyre on earth, no melody so beautiful, could fix that. 
• We know how the story ends. Saul doesn’t get better. He gets worse, until the very man whose music soothed him becomes the man he tries to hunt down and kill.

• The narrator wants you to see something in David that David himself was only a shadow of. 
• The Spirit that rushed on David and departed from Saul was pointing forward. 
• Centuries later, another Anointed One came up out of the waters of baptism and the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove and remained on him. 
• And this true Anointed One, the greater Son of David, was also a shepherd, not of sheep but of souls. 
• He too was a man the Lord was with, but unlike anyone before.  
• And he came into a world of tormented souls estranged from God, and he came to do what no music could ever do. 
• When he encountered a tormented soul, he didn’t need a harp and a song. He spoke a word and demons fled and people were delivered. 

• David could quiet Saul’s storm for an evening but Jesus stills the storm forever. 
• The temporary relief Saul felt when David played was a pale shadow of the eternal rest that Jesus offers to anyone who comes to him. 

• And that is why the Lord Jesus could declare, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:28-29)
• This is the rest Saul never found. He kept searching for everything except the God he had rejected. 
• And that is the rest the world is still chasing today, with a thousand things that bring momentary relief but can never cure. 

CONCLUSION

• Where do you go for rest? Because all of us reach for something. 
• We all have the things we turn to when the soul grows troubled. 
• For one person it is work, for another it’s a screen, the endless scroll that numbs the ache for an hour. For some it’s a substance, entertainment, a purchase, a vacation, and even the comfortable routine of churchgoing with no real living devotion to God at the center of it. 
• The truth is that every one of those brings some temporary relief. That’s what makes them so easy to trust.
• But it’s like Saul, the song ends, and the deeper sickness is still there. 
• Saul was soothed again and again, and never once cured because he would not turn to the only God who could give him a new heart. 

• Don’t settle for the relief that runs out when the King himself is holding out his hands to you. 
• The comfort of the world is real, but it’s not enough, and it doesn’t last, and it won’t be there when you need it most. 
• You were made for a rest that nothing in this world can give, the rest of a heart reconciled to God. 
• “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine, Confessions
• And the glory of it all is that the unseen hand, the sovereign hand that governs both the judgment and the mercy in this passage, the hand that moved the shepherd from the field to the palace, that same hand was one day stretched out on a cross and nailed for you. 
• The true Anointed One did not just bring rest to the troubled and tormented. 
• He took the torment upon himself. 
• He was forsaken so that we would never be and so that the Spirit might rest on us forever and never depart. 

• For the weary today, who has been reaching for everything and finding the relief always runs out, come to the King. Lay down the things that only soothe and never save, and find in him the rest your heart was made for. 

• And to the believer who has known the dark valleys, who has wondered whether God had let go of you, lift your eyes. 
• The hand beneath the surface is holding you still. God does not lose his grip. 
• His providence is mysterious to us, but he is good and he is working for your good. 
• God sees what we cannot, and He rules what we cannot see.

• Let’s all be faithful in the hidden place. Let us wait on the timing of the God who is never late. 
• And let us serve the true King who has already come, who is coming again, and who gives rest to every troubled soul that comes to him. 

• Two Spirits, Two Kings. The Spirit departed from Saul. The Spirit remains on David’s greater Son. 
• And in him, there is rest. Come and find it. 

APPLICATION AND REFLECTION

In light of today's message....

• What did I learn about the gospel?
• How can I apply what I learned about the gospel to my life?
• With whom can I share the gospel this week?