Sermons

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A Cinderella Story
October 22, 2000
First in a sermon series on the life of King David
Pastor Dan Baumgartner     
 I Samuel 16:1-13

I have to tell you, I’m excited about the series of messages we begin today! For the next four to five months, with a break for Advent, we are going to look at the life and person of King David. David the shepherd boy, David the poet, David the warrior, David the lover, David the king. The story is located in the books of First and Second Samuel.

We probably know more about David from scripture than any other person. But I have to warn you before we begin: Don’t come to these stories looking for the ideal role model, for a rock-solid example of integrity and faith…for time and again you will be disappointed. But I would also warn you: don’t come to these stories looking for a weak and shallow person that you will dismiss as a phony…for time and again you will be overwhelmed by David’s heart and life. And somewhere in the convergence of this weakness and this courage…we will find a human being’s honest interaction with God.

And in that story we will find ourselves as well.

Before we hear the scripture, I want to give you just a little bit of very important background to put today’s reading into context. The time is roughly 1000 BC Israel has been a group of loose tribes, more or less existing near one another in the Middle East.

And at a particular point, the people go to one of the acknowledged leaders, a prophet named Samuel…and demand a king. They’ve never had a king before. They’ve had leaders, but really operated as a “theocracy.” When they demanded a king, God said okay. But it grieved God’s heart that the reason they desired a king was “so they could be like other nations.” The first king was chosen, a man named Saul. He looked like a king. Occasionally he even acted like a king. But his heart was more concerned with his own stature and interests…he wasn’t to worried about God’s. Eventually God was sorry he had made Saul the king. He decided that he would have to go. And so he assigned Samuel the job of finding a new king. And that is where we begin the David story.

I Samuel 16:1-13

Do you know this story? There once was a king who invited his whole realm to a celebration as an attempt to find his son, the Prince, a wife. Out of all the women in the land, only one grabbed the Prince’s heart. And later in the story, only this one mysterious woman had a foot that would fit into the glass slipper…thus proving that she was the Prince’s true love. The young lady, of course, was Cinderella. Never was there a more unlikely candidate to become a princess. Poor, dressed in rags, despised by her stepmother, resented by her stepsisters, forced to do the most menial jobs, treated as the lowest of servants. Yet, somehow, someway, unbelievably…she is chosen. It makes no sense, it seems as though it could never happen that way…yet, there she is, standing beside the Prince.

Cinderella lives on. Even today, if there is a sports team that comes out of nowhere to knock off all of the heavily favored and well-known teams…they are called a “Cinderella team.” A “Cinderella story” has come to mean almost anything where the underdog, where someone highly unlikely, rises to the top.

Never was there a better Cinderella than David. Aside from two listings in a genealogy in the book of Ruth, this story in I Samuel 16 is the first mention of the name David anywhere in the Bible. It will appear roughly 800 more times before we are through. He will become the most powerful king of Biblical Israel. He will unite the twelve tribes into a unified state. He will become a wise diplomat. He will make Israel a powerful empire, really for the first and last time. He is a musician, a poet of such renown that most of the Psalms are ascribed to his authorship. Jerusalem will be called the city of David. Jesus will be known, at least partially, as the Son of David. The apostle Paul will give to David the famous designation “a man after God’s own heart.”

Never was there a better Cinderella story.

When God decides to replace Saul as king, he instructs Samuel to go to Bethlehem to find the new king. So Samuel goes, and sets up a private interview session for the sons of Jesse. 

The first son, Eliab, is a fine-looking candidate. Handsome, stately, the eldest son so undoubtedly the responsible and driven one of the bunch. Samuel takes one look and says, “Surely this is the one!” God takes one look and says, “No.” 

Samuel has fallen trap to exactly what I do all the time. He is equating a person’s appearance with their brains, leadership ability or heart. I’m embarrassed to say that I constantly confuse these things. I remember feeling so embarrassed over my first impression of a man who would later become a real spiritual mentor to me. He didn’t LOOK like a mentor. Short, bald, glasses…everybody knows mentors would be more like Eliab, tall, handsome with a deep voice. 

But I do the reverse, also. I remember meeting a person, nicely grayed, fit and distinguished and thinking that “Here is someone who has real some wisdom, who has their act together…” only to find out they were the most immature of people. God won’t allow Samuel to make this mistake again, and he says “No” to Eliab. “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him…for the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” And so Eliab leaves. 

The second son is not the one, nor the third. In fact, seven sons of Jesse pass by Samuel, and the Lord says “no” to all of them. Now Samuel thinks, “Ooh boy, I must have lost the touch. Came all the way to Bethlehem, and vetoed every single one. I must not be hearing God anymore.” Then on a whim, he says “Jesse…you don’t…I know this sounds silly, but you don’t have any more sons, do you?” And Jesse turns a little red and says, “Well…umm…well yeah, I have one more…but he’s not even worth mentioning. He’s just a little kid. He’s covered with cinders…I mean, sheep droppings.”

David, you see, is nothing more than an afterthought in the family. Seven strong sons Jesse had. Seven is one of those mysterious Biblical numbers of great significance. The seven days of creation. The dream of pharaoh of seven lean years and seven good ones. The land was to receive a Sabbath every seventh year. There were seven churches in Revelation, seven deacons in Acts. Seven is a number signifying completeness and perfection. 

David was the eighth son. He was spending long hours and days off in the fields with the sheep, like some menial servant. His brothers, we will find out in the next chapter, scorned his presence. There is, in fact, nothing that would commend this runt of the litter towards kingship. But as Samuel hears of him, he gets a glint in his eye. “Maybe I’m not losing it after all.” And as soon as David arrives, God says to Samuel “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.”

There is no good reason…NO GOOD REASON that God would choose David. 

Oh, he was also a good-looking kid, but we’re looking here for KING material! Someone with wisdom, understanding, courage, a Ph.D., someone who can formulate a speech…someone who will be witty and entertaining on David Letterman. (I love the political campaign season!!) (pause) You can look all you want. But in the end, you will find David stepping forward for only one reason: He is God’s choice. Walter Brueggemann says it this way: “David is not a human accident, but a divine intention.”

So why does God choose David? Why not someone with more visible qualities. Why not someone who is proud, powerful, wealthy, prepared, seasoned? There must have been ten thousand people that would make better candidates than David. But you know what? It’s such an interesting thing. God almost NEVER chooses those kind of people. When God sends out a search party, it is never for the most capable, the strongest, the brightest, the most educated, the wealthiest, the most articulate. Those are the qualifications that we look at…but not God. God goes right for the heart. 

When God wants someone to build his kingdom, he looks for a heart that is not turned inward. He looks for a heart that is not self-focused. He wants a heart that is turned towards Him. He wants a heart that is DEPENDENT… the one that allows itself to say, “I’m scared. I can’t do this. I want out. Someone else is more talented. This is beyond me.” I think that sense of dependence makes God say, “Aha! Here’s somebody I can work with. Let’s go. We’ll do it together.” 

I mean, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Who does God choose? Joseph, another little brother. Moses, who argues with God that he isn’t a good enough speaker to be a leader. Joshua, whom God must continually tell ,“Be strong, and of good courage. (over and over)…I will be with you.” Isaiah, who volunteers for mission duty…and then when he hears what the task will be, he says, “How long do I have to do this for, God?” The disciples, a ragtag bunch of uneducated fishermen. Or move through history into modern times…how about one very tiny nun who chooses to live in Calcutta, India? 

David, a little shepherd boy. Why is he the one? Only one reason: God chose him. There’s not much more explanation to be had than that. And if God will use someone as unlikely as David…then there is just the whisper of a chance he might want to use you too. Just imagine, just for a second…what if God’s choosing of us…had nothing to do with us? What if God decided to spread his kingdom through the very most ordinary people imaginable? What if God were to say:

•  I want the 40-year old with the belly hanging over the front.
• I want the guy with the baby face.
• I want the woman who is always trying to prove herself.
• I want the one who took eight years to graduate.
• I want the one whose parents said he’d never amount to anything.
•  I want the one who never prays.

What if your credentials just didn’t matter to God? I ask myself that question, and I say, “My God, what a relief!” 

God is in the business of choosing the Cinderella. He starts with David and says, “Let’s build us a kingdom,” a choice that is just downright laughable. But God chooses David.  

A thousand years later, God chooses a descendant of David, a Son of David…to save the world. Jesus, uneducated, untraveled, weak and smelling like a carpenter’s shop… God, how ridiculous, how foolish. “But God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” God chooses Jesus. 

And when God chooses Jesus for our sakes…when God allows the foolishness of the cross to turn into the power of the resurrection on behalf of each and every one of us…God chooses us too. As unlikely, as unqualified, as foolish, as ridiculous as it seems, God chooses us in Christ and says, “Let’s build us a kingdom. Just turn your heart this way. Desire the things that I desire.” 

Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, once prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.” You see, it’s a matter of the heart.

Friends, if we could get just a little glimpse of that, just a peak…I think we might act the way that David did. I think it might well up in us. In Psalm 18, David sings,

“Lord, it is you who lights my lamp;
the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
By you I can crush a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.”

Eugene Peterson says that this image of David “vaulting the wall catches and holds my attention. David running, coming to a stone wall, and without hesitation leaping the wall and continuing on his way -- running toward Goliath, running from Saul, pursuing God, meeting Jonathan, rounding up stray sheep, whatever, but running. And leaping.”

It’s a Cinderella story. It’s my story. And it’s your story. And praise God, in Christ it is our story. Amen.