Smallest Like a Mustard Seed – Sermon 14 June, 2015

Smallest Like a Mustard Seed
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Last week we looked at Samuel 8, where we read Israel asked for a king and said: “”We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
Samuel was greatly saddened by their request, but God reassured him by saying that it is not him they have rejected but God himself. Then Samuel warned the people to be careful of what may happen, but they said: “We’re good with that, just give us a king.”
Samuel appointed Saul to be king, and the people were happy – he was a great warrior, a foot taller than anyone else and a real male figure. He started well; was humble at the start and did his best to serve God, but it didn’t last, he disobeyed God, and he lost his humility and developed a distrust and obsession.
After disobeying God many times, God pulled away from him, as did Samuel, with great sadness and regret. God went looking for another King who would serve him with his whole heart.
God told Samuel to appoint a new king, who will be great and faithful. God sent Samuel to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, to anoint one of his sons to be the king of Israel. David – Although David is described as a good-looking and healthy boy, his father forgot about him when it came time to present his sons to Samuel. His brothers would have made much better kings as Samuel thought. But God was not concerned with his outward appearance and He was looking at David’s heart. And Samuel said: “The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
One might say that as king, David messed up as much, if not more than Saul – he had committed adultery and murder, there were times that he failed to obey God, he was a terrible father and husband. But regardless of all this se, he was described as “a man after God’s own heart!”
The is God’s main way of working – he does not look at the outward appearance, he looks at the heart – in fact often times the outward appearance is nothing like the heart. There is a prophecy about Jesus that says, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Is 53:2-3
David might have looked as being insignificant or useless, a simple shepherd boy; young and not tall; however, the Lord saw his significance. God used him despite how others felt about him. Why? Because the Lord knew his heart, and He knew what He’s able to accomplish in and through him by the power of the indwelling His Spirit.
Many times those who are underestimated and seen as failures go on to accomplish great things in society. The same principle is true in the kingdom of God. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a Mustard Seed. It looks be small, minor, unnoticeable, but yet it is great and strong.
The Lord often uses people who are rejected by society to bring glory to the kingdom and to Himself. People rejected Jesus, and yet He became the Saviour of the world.
By examining the story of David’s anointing to understand exactly why the Lord chose to work through unexpected people for His kingdom’s purposes.
A- Saul was disqualified
– Great and strong on the outside but inwardly weak and small
Samuel had been commanded to find a new king to replace the former one. “The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king”.
Saul was rejected as king of Israel. How did this happen? The answer is found in 1 Samuel 15. We read that God had commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites because they had formerly ambushed Israel when the people were making their exodus from Egypt.
Saul was supposed to have killed all the Amalekites and destroyed their property and livestock, but he was disobedient to God’s command.
Saul took the king of the Amalekites alive as a trophy and he kept the best of the livestock for himself. He tried to excuse his disobedience by saying that he had kept the animals as a sacrifice to the Lord, but God told him that He desired obedience from him and not sacrifice. The Lord then informed Saul that he had been rejected as king because of his disobedience.
Samuel mourned for Saul, likely because he felt somewhat responsible for anointing him as king, but Samuel had anointed him at the Lord’s command. Not only did Samuel did what God had asked, but he also did what the people wanted. The Israelites demanded a king to rule over them instead of a judge, because they reasoned how they had to appear mighty and glorious like all the other nations in order to be seen as powerful by their enemies.
God had warned Israel that having a king, which was a worldly model for success, would only result in spiritual bondage, but the people refused to listen. God wanted Israel to realize that what looks good in the eyes of people is not always what’s best for His children; and so He allowed the Israelites to learn this lesson through the best teacher in the world, which is experience. The Lord allowed Israel to have her king, in order to show the people that a king is not what they really needed.
The king that the people chose certainly looked good in the eyes of the world, for the Bible says that Saul was very handsome and from a wealthy family, but what appeared good on the outside turned out to be rotten on the inside. So, when Samuel went to find another king among the sons of Jesse, would the people of Israel have learned their lesson on what to look for in a man of God?
B- David was unexpected
– Appears weak from the outside but was strong inwardly
People often look down on those who come from humble beginnings. For example, when Jesus returned to His hometown, people asked, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” (Mt 13) How can poverty, meekness, failure or any other undesirable attribute have the potential to rise to unexpected greatness and astound the world!
When Samuel went in search of the new king, the young man’s father presented the chosen one (David) last because he didn’t fit the image of a king:
Jesse, who represented the Israelites, didn’t know what to look for in a king, for we see that he presented his oldest and strongest sons as candidates. Apparently the Israelites had not yet learned their lesson. These older brothers were presented first because they had qualities that look good to people, while their younger brother was left out in the field to tend the sheep because he was small in stature.
David was a shepherd, which was a trade that demanded much patience and gentleness. The world sees a leader as one who’s able to dominate and move people into action by force, but God views a leader as one who serves and places others before himself. The Lord chose David specifically because of his skills as a shepherd.
David appeared weak, but his experience as a shepherd enabled him to understand how to lead people. God’s people must learn not to look to the outward appearance but to the heart.
Consider leaders in the Bible similar to David who were disqualified if they had been judged through the eyes of people. For example, Moses murdered a man and he complained to God that he wasn’t a public speaker, and yet the Lord used him to deliver six hundred thousand men plus an untold number of women and children from Egypt.
Jeremiah was called by God to preach to the kings of many nations when he was just a teenager.
The apostle Paul persecuted the church and admitted that he wasn’t a public speaker, and yet he was a witness for Jesus Christ and he wrote two thirds of the New Testament.
The Lord uses people who are unexpected because He wants to bring glory to His name by showing that He’s the One who’s in control.
The grace is there, granted by God to provide for holiness of life, submissive obedience and eager zeal to serve. The provision is there in the indwelling power of the Spirit and the Word of God. The only question is what about us?
God has granted us the grace necessary to rise from obscurity to a life of fulfilling service in the kingdom.
We need to give our fear over to God and to come to an understanding that the Lord can use us just as we are; that is, if we’re saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God won’t judge us based on our performance or how good we look, because His love is unconditional and His grace is never-ending, and He looks only at our heart.

Krikor Youmshajekian