A Man After Gods Own Heart

(The Life Of David)

September 29, 2006 through October 1, 2006

Dave McDowell

Based on 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles

Introduction:

This is Dave’s second time speaking to the men of First Church. He spoke at the 2002 Men’s Conference. See notes below.

Dave now pastors a church in West Chicago, Community Fellowship.

Dave is a graduate of Wheaton and Gordon-Conwell. He has been married to Gloria for 35 years and had five grown children with one grandchild.

Session 1: Dave (not the Biblical one) Shares His Own Heart

Jonathan Edwards ministered for 25 years in the same town that I ministered in, Northampton, MA. Things seem to have changed.

He wrote a book called 2^nd year resolutions. In there he says:

Resolved, I will live my life in such a way that if I live to old age I will have no regret.

Do you think it is possible to live your life with no regret?

I grew up in a God centered household. We were REALLY God centered. In our house, if you didn’t go to church, you got thrown out, like my brother did. We took God very seriously.

But it wasn’t enough. My brother never received Christ. He died and I don’t know where he is. A Godly environment doesn’t mean everybody gets saved.

I felt Christ for the first time when I was five years old. When I asked my father what I should do, he said give your heart to God.

I believed in Christ, but I wasn’t a follower because I wouldn’t publicly acknowledge my faith. I kept my faith private. I was a stealthy Christian. I would talk about Jesus if I was confronted.

I went to Wheaton because they were a Christian school with sports. I was mostly interested in the sports. Being away from my family’s influence, I wandered from the faith. There was a group of us and we all did. We left for the summer. My roommates came back from the summer charged for Christ. They had spent the summer with Campus Crusade in California. All of a sudden they wanted to do lots of things that made me uncomfortable.

How do you react to people who love Christ more than you do?

You are probably here because God got a hold of you. Generally it comes through a series of circumstances.

In my case, I realized what a hypocrite I was. My roommates had sold out to Christ. Jesus convicted me. I got down on my knees and confessed Jesus as Lord and committed my life to him. I said:

“I desire to live my life for you with no reserve, no retreat, and no regrets.”

At my fathers funeral I was shocked at the number of people that gave their life to Christ because he shared the Gospel with them. I had no idea. He quietly shared the Gospel with everyone and made a difference for the Kingdom.

I knew since a young age that the hand of God was on my life. At my father’s funeral, I realized that I couldn’t be a doctor (as I wanted to be), I needed to be a preacher (what God wanted me to be).

So I went to Gordon-Conwell, graduated, and joined my first church in Albany NY. I went there and almost blew it. I had lots of freedom without accountability. I went into a nose dive. I was spiraling down into a very dark place. Only God’s direct intervention pulled me out of my nose-dive.

I had to go back into a small local church. I went to Northampton where the previous pastor crashed and burned on the path I was headed. He divorced his wife and ran off with his secretary. I confessed my sins to my wife and formed an accountability group. God showed me that without Him pulling me out of my nose dive, I would have gone down in flames the same way the previous pastor did.

Let’s go back to the question I started with. Do I have regret? Yes, I do.

What really helped me is Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It contains the secret of living with regret.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 3:7-14

You have a choice of whether you are going to hang on to your regrets, or whether you are accept the forgiveness of Christ and pursue the prize that awaits all of us. You can’t hang on to the failures of the past and pursue the prize in the future.

To pursue the God who pursues you is what it means to be a man after Gods own heart.

Be in the pursuit of Christ. That is part and parcel of it. Either you are burdened with regret, or you have repented of it and are in wild pursuit of Jesus. You can’t do both.

Session 2: What Does It Mean To Be A Man After God’s Own Heart

I’ve been attracted to David since I was a young boy. He is my namesake.

As a boy, I loved the stories of taking out a wild animal or giant with a slingshot.

Now, the thing that intrigues me about David is that scripture says that he was a man after God’s own heart. Why is that? What does that mean? Does it mean that he is always thinking about God? Is he without sin? Always meditating on the scriptures?

If that is what is required, then I would never be a man after God’s own heart, because I am none of those. And no one else is either. There must be something else.

The way to begin is to start before David. Lets start with the guy who preceded David; Saul

Saul began well. But once he got some victories under his belt, he lost all his humility. He built a statue to himself. He tried to be prophet and Priest. Kings were not allowed to be prophet and priest, only Kings. Samuel was called by God as his prophet and he confronts Saul. He gives us a hint of what it means to be a man after God’s own heart.

“You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’S command.” —1 Samuel 13:13-14

Saul didn’t keep the commands of God and was no prize, but that doesn’t mean that David was perfect. In fact, the more you look at David, the worse he looks: Concubines, anger, violence, family problems, adultery, murderer and a host of others. Definitely not perfect. How could someone who does all this be a man after God’s own heart.

After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do. —Acts 13:22

So this is the first thing about being a man after God’s own heart;

“He Will Do Everything I Want Him To Do.”

The first key to being a man after God’s own heart is to do everything that God wants you to do. And to stop doing what God doesn’t want you to do.

David, in spite of all his sins, did this. It is the key element.

David Was A Man Who Whole-Heartily Served God

The second thing is to whole-heartily and completely serve God. This may be part of the first.

Whatever David did, he did completely and passionately. When he went after Goliath, he ran up to him. He worshiped God so completely that he didn’t care about his dignity. He even made his mistakes passionately.

That requires complete integrity. Whole-heartily and integrity are the same base word. You can’t have one without the other.

David did what God wanted him to do, regardless of what the crowd wanted. This was in contrast with Saul, who always took polls. David moved in the direction that God wanted him to do, not the masses.

How about you? Are you whole-hearted in your devotion, pursuit and service to God? Or do you waffle like Saul. Just as important, does your behavior change depending on who is around? Are you different around Godly men than you are with worldly men?

David Was A Humble And Faithful Servant Of God

The third is to be a humble and faithful servant of God.

1 Samuel 16 talks about how David was chosen — re-read it. Read about how Jesse cleaned and dressed David’s seven handsome brothers and ignored David. Here is the key point:

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 man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. —1 Samuel 16:7

Side thought: Could it be that David had problems with his own sons because he was so under-valued by his own father?

Can you image being a teen-ager, getting oil dripped on your head and being told you will be the King of Israel? Wow. But until he became King many years later, he tended the sheep. God was preparing him to be the shepherd of his people by making him a shepherd of his father’s flock. He learned how to take down Goliath by learning the slingshot on Lions and Bears.

The guy that God uses is the humble and faithful man who doesn’t think that God even notices him. It is not the guy that asks why God doesn’t use him. Scripture talks a lot about making something out of nothing. It is always the remnant that carries on.

Psalm 51 talks about the kind of a man that thinks he is something but really isn’t.

Moses is another good example. He spent 40 years thinking he was somebody. He spent the next 40 years in the desert thinking he was a nobody. He spent the last 40 years leading the children of Israel to the promised land.

Don’t forget God sent Moses on ahead. His middle 40 years in the desert was at the base of Mount Sinai. He knew that territory when he was leading Israel because he had been there before.

Ever wonder why you are where you are, and then years later, it becomes clear to you? Do you think that is random happenstance?

God knows you. God has put his hand on you. He is preparing you, just as David was prepared by God to lead Israel to be a blessing, just as he prepared Moses to lead Israel out of bondage into the Promised Land.

David Sinned Greatly, But He Also Repented Completely

The fourth principal is that David was imperfect and sinned greatly, but David also repented deeply and completely.

There was a year between David’s sin of adultery and murder and being found out. Psalm 32, I believe, is a diary of David’s time during that year of not being found out.

Nathan the prophet was sent into David because he didn’t even see that he committed sin against God. Nathan told David this harmless parable about sheep. Then Nathan pointed out that David was the man of the parable.

David could have condemned Nathan and had him killed, which was not uncommon in that day. He could have blamed Bathsheba; what were you doing bathing outside anyway? He could have done all kinds of things.

Sound familiar? Do you make excuses?

What he did was say: “I have sinned!

A man after God’s own heart isn’t a man who doesn’t sin, it is the man who sins and takes complete responsibility of his behavior. He says “The Buck Stops Here!” He doesn’t try to blame someone else. He doesn’t whine. He isn’t a victim.

But the man after God’s own heart does not stop here for it could lead to self pity… Instead the man after God’s own heart goes to God Himself for forgiveness and cleansing. The man after God’s own heart is the man who is painfully aware of his own sinfulness and joyfully trusts in God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

We are sinners by design and disposition and we need to fess up and accept the consequences of our actions. It’s not that we sin once in a while. We sin constantly and deeply. But we also need to go to the Living God and beg for forgiveness.

Apart form the grace of God I could not even see the sin I committed against God. We are forced to face our sin so we can repent, not so we can make excuses and try to get out of it or cover it up. God’s mercy gives us the mirror to see all our sin.

David Received Forgiveness

The final thing that David did was receive forgiveness. He sinned, he begged for forgiveness, and when God forgave him, David received the forgiveness and praised God for his graciousness.

Read Psalm 32. It talks about David’s joy in Gods forgiveness. Remember that he said these after Nathan showed him his sin and he repented. Here are the first 7 verses:

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”— and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.

Some people struggle with receiving grace. I offered some change to man in a McDonald’s who was short. He looked me straight in the eye and told me that he didn’t accept charity and walked away from his food. We are all like that, where our pride prevents us from receiving the blessings that God has for us. If you reject the Gospel, you are doing the same thing.

Take the charity of God. Don’t be so pride filled that you won’t accept the gift of forgiveness. Don’t leave everything on the table that God wants you to have because you are unwilling to receive it.

Session 3: A Deeper Look At Integrity

I have a tremendous desire for men to be men. To be men before their wives, their sons, their friends, and mostly before God.

We want to talk about integrity, and how it relates to us personally.

The definition of integrity is: The quality or state of being complete, whole and entire. Unimpaired or sound; upright and honest. It comes from the Latin with the same base as the word for integer. Integrity is being a whole person (number).

A man with integrity is someone who is the same on the inside as he is on the outside.

The Bible is filled with references about integrity:

As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ —1 Kings 9:4-5

I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things have I given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. —1 Chronicles 29:17

And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them. —Psalm 78:72

This has to be on your mirror

I will walk in my house in the integrity of my heart.  Psalm 101:2

The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out. Proverbs 10:9

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. Proverbs 11:3

The righteous man leads a blameless life; blessed are his children after him. Proverbs 20:7

Your kids are watching, all the time. Do your kids a favor and walk in integrity in your house.

What would the opposite of integrity be? Hypocrisy is probably the best summary. Anything that makes the divide between what one speaks and what one lives. Being different on the inside and the outside.

As a nation, we claim to want integrity (like in our elected officials). But we don’t expect it to happen because we are not really a nation of integrity.

The Day America Told The Truth; by James Patterson and Peter Kim. They used a survey that guaranteed the anonymity of the people taking it. They were looking for honest answers.

They found that there is no moral authority in America. “American’s are making up their own moral code.” Only 13% believe all Ten Commandments; 40% believed in five of the ten.

American’s are not honest. “Lying has become an integral part of American lives and culture.” We lie and don’t think about it. We lie for no reason. The authors estimate 91% of respondents lie on a regular basis.

Marriage and family are no longer sacred institutions. 33% of married people confessed that they have had affairs, 30% don’t love their spouses.

They found that the work ethic is gone. Workers admit that they spend 20% of their time at work goofing off. That is 7 hours a week. Basically one day a week goofing off.

We may say that we want integrity, but we are not a nation of integrity. What we really want is others to have integrity.

What is integrity? There are three main aspects:

Honesty

Let’s start with honesty. We want people to be honest, but are we? Do we ‘modify’ our taxes? We tell the truth, but not the whole truth. Do we feel if we are a little bit honest, do we feel better about being dishonest? What about ‘white’ lies?

Are you honest with your wife and kids? Do you lie to hide your real reasons? Are we sorry that we can’t meet our obligations? Really sorry?

Do we cover up what we want to do with excuses? Do we claim to have commitments when we just don’t want to do it? Do you always tell the truth?

Do we have our priorities in their proper place?

Trustworthiness

Trustworthy is the second trait. When I think of an honest man, I also think of a trustworthy man. “You can trust this guy.” He stands by principals no matter what the consequences. A trustworthy guy understands that there are moral absolutes in a world without values.

Our fiction has them. Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s novels is a noble man in a gray world.

Is there a grey area in your life? How much is grey? Is there an absolute moral value in your life? Is there right and wrong? Are you willing to do the right things regardless of circumstances or consequences?

For a man of integrity, there is no grey. There is a right and a wrong. There are principals worth standing by and promoting. I chose to do the right thing no matter what the cost. That’s a man of integrity. That’s a man you can trust.

When the book of Proverbs talks about a man of integrity, it implies that we will adhere to Gods will and laws. We have a duty to obey God’s absolute commands. God is Holy and the law of God reflects God’s character. If we are children of the living God, then we reflect his character.

Under Authority of God

The last aspect of integrity acknowledges that there is a private life that is under the authority of God.

Who are you when no one is looking? The man of integrity says he is the same guy you see every day. Even in my most private moments I am in the presence of God.

Are we honest and trustworthy in all things? A man in Long Beach, CA goes into a KFC and orders a box of chicken. The manager gives him, by mistake, the box where he was hiding the cash from the registers. The guy leaves in a car with a young lady. The guy finds the money, a substantial amount, and returns it. The manager is very grateful and tries to call the media to get the guy some recognition. “You deserve to be on the news so people know there are still honest people out there!” The guy says: “I don’t want to be on the news. I don’t want any attention. The woman I am with isn’t my wife.”

When Paul talks about the desirable qualities for an elder, he says:

Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.  (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. —1 Timothy 3:1-7

These are quality’s we should all aspire to. Christians should be above reproach in their public testimony before a watching world.

I believe the snare of the devil is the diminishment of the Gospel because of the lack of integrity of leadership.

This leads me to why integrity is important. It is not just because we live our lives before God, or because of the example we are for our family, or the church. It is important because People will judge the quality of the Gospel by the quality of the men and women that claim to be Christians.

George Barnum says that the number one reason that the un-churched don’t go to church is because of the hypocrisy of Christians.

Non-believers will do everything to get your goat. They will push all your buttons and openly ridicule your faith. They rub shoulders with you to see what comes off. These are tests to see how authentic our faith is. They want to see if you are a believer, or a quasi-believer. Do you practice what you preach?

The thing I have learned about evangelism is that people will make a lot of decisions about us, before they make the big decision for Christ. We are the living demonstrations for the Gospel.

I sure wish that wasn’t so. But it is the chief reason to be a man of integrity is because the world is watching me to see if Jesus is relevant in my life, before they decide if He is relevant to them.

A preacher got on a trolley in London on Monday morning after preaching the day before. The trolley driver gave him WAY too much change. The preacher thought how handy this could be, but then decided to return the overage. When he came to his stop, he returns the extra to the trolley driver. The trolley driver said “It wasn’t a mistake. I heard you preach yesterday, and I wanted to see if you practiced what you preached.”

How would you have survived that test? The world will do strange things to see if you are authentic.

Our lives are made up of a collection of small choices we make. There is a poem that talks about this that I modified with an extra verse.

Sow a thought, reap an act.

Sow an act, reap a habit

Sow a habit reap a character

Sow a character, reap a destiny,

Sow a destiny, reap a soul.

Every little choice you make — makes you. Your road to integrity starts tonight with the choices you make in your small group.

Pick one of these areas, and work on it. God will convict you on the one you need to fix. And you already have everything you need to fix it. You have what it takes.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. —2 Peter 1:3

How do you do this? Cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Let it guide you.

Then change, using the grace of God. Be intentional, all the time.

It is like dieting. Diets only work if you are constantly intentional about it. It has to be right now, not tomorrow. This meal I will eat well, not the next one. And I will do it all the time. Over time, it has the desired effect.

God will work in our lives to help us. It is amazing how He helps us when we put everything on the line. The enemy will remind you of your past failures. But God will help you no matter how often you fail, even at the same thing. The Holy Spirit is with you and together, you can do anything!

Let us go to God now, and ask for where you should work, and ask him to help you fix it.

Session 4: Who Am I When No One Is Looking?

Let’s look at Abraham in Genesis 20:1-18. Remember, he is the father of three religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and known as a man of God. But let’s look at the time in his life that was marked by a lack of integrity.

What do we learn about Abraham in this passage?

Let’s do some inductive study. What did you learn about Abraham in this passage?

Abraham had a heart for God. He is a prophet. He married his half-sister.

Beyond the more obvious ones, when the going got tough, he tells half-truths. He did it before in Chapter 12. This had happened before with Abraham and Sarah:

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.

But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had. —Genesis 12:10-20

Does this sound familiar? In both cases, Abraham was hedging his bets and covering his rear-end. And in doing this, he put his wife at risk each time.

How would you tell this story if you were Sarah?

How do you think Sarah felt? I know it’s hard for a man, but try.

Can you imagine being taken into another man’s harem? God saved her from being violated in this case, but not with Pharaoh.

Note that God says the Abimelech, a pagan, was a man of integrity. God says it twice, but never for Abraham.

How did Abraham justify his actions?

He was afraid for his own life and instead of trusting God who called him, he took matters into his own hands (verse 11).

He said he was in a Godless area and he wanted to protect himself and so he told a half-truth (verse 12). He was using his ingenuity to save himself, and not trusting in God to protect him. When the going gets tough, he relies on himself. It makes perfect sense, and that is what should scare us.

He made Sarah’s compliance in this mandatory an issue of love and loyalty with maneuvering (verse 13). She went into the harem and he was scared for this life. He put his wife at risk, and his heir. By putting her womb [who will carry his heir and a key link for bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth in Jesus Christ] at risk, he put A LOT at risk. He trusted his own judgment rather than the covenant of God for a son. No matter how he justified things, he was only trying to save his own skin.

“And when God made me wander…” The Hebrew literally says, “The gods caused me to wander” (verse 13). It’s almost like “The devil made me do it.” He was starting to back into his old pagan ways. We do that too. We fall back into our old ways (before Christ) when the circumstances are right.

How Did Abraham’s Lack Of Integrity Affect Sarah?

He put her at risk to save his own neck.

He demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness in their relationship. He wasn’t “whole” in his love for her. He wasn’t running on all cylinders in understanding her situation. He didn’t understand what that meant to her. Now, it was a different culture, but some things are the same.

We do it all the time, regardless of culture. I live in a way that does not take into consideration my wife.

Husbands, live in an understanding way with your wives, as with the weaker vessel. —1 Peter 3:7

Look beyond the perspective that wives are physically weaker than husbands. Look at the context of the passage. It is talking about wives submitting to their husbands. She has intentionally made herself weak by submitting to you and you need to understand and respect that. You need to step up and provide protection, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

Your wife is joint heir of the grace of God. She is every bit an equal to you when it comes to the kingdom of God. Abraham did not do that. Do you?

How Did Abraham’s Lack Of Integrity Affect Abimelech?

Abimelech saw Abraham’s hypocrisy. Abraham said that he didn’t think there was a fear of God in this place, which was true, but by his actions he did nothing to display the fear of God. So God stepped into the vacuum that Abraham’s integrity left and talked to Abimelech himself.

He failed to display the glory of God to the watching world. He fell into the snare of the devil:

He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. —1 Timothy 3:7

God wants me to be a man of integrity so His Glory is communicated to a pagan world. If I don’t do this, God will still communicate his glory, but I don’t have a part in it. God doesn’t need us to defend him. But we are given the privilege of being the vehicles of his glory in our culture. When we are men of integrity and live in an obedient way, we are communicating God’s glory to a watching world. When we love our wives, we are a great witness for God.

Abraham’s actions put Abimelech, his whole family, and his entire kingdom at risk (verse 17, 18). Remember that God told Abimelech that he would die and closed the wombs of his entire family, eliminating his family line.

How did Abraham’s lack of integrity affect his relationship with God? Very badly. Remember that Abraham was justified by faith (Genesis 3:15), but in this case, he used his own judgment. Remember that Paul used Abraham as the example of righteousness through faith in Roman 4. We are saved the same way: by faith in the promise.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. —Proverbs 3:5-7

Abraham was not displaying faith or trust. When a guy like Abraham doesn’t display faith and trust I want to learn from that, because I will do it more easily than he did. I want to trust in God and make the right choice.

How Did Abraham’s Lack Of Integrity Affect His Relationship With God?

He put at risk the very child of promise that was born in the next chapter.

When we sin, we become blind to the damage that we can bring upon our families, children, grand-children, church and country. We are almost saying, “I don’t care about anything else. I am most important”.

In marriage, the opposite of Love isn’t Hate, It is Self. When I put myself over my wife, there isn’t any love.

Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? —Proverbs 6:27-28

No! You can’t coddle a lack of trust in God, demonstrating a sinful behavior in your relationship with God, without having some kind of impact.

Usually, it affects our children. They are always watching us. You see in your children the very thing that you have struggled with. You ask “How in the world did that happen?”

Because it is not as secret as you think. It has an impact on how we live and treat others. We put at risk a group much bigger than ourselves.

In Genesis 26, Abraham’s son Isaac did exactly the same thing as his father. The wording is almost identical.

I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house —Psalm 101:2

The righteous who walks in his integrity — blessed are his children after him! —Proverbs 20:7

The call to trust God came over and over again to Abraham; he failed often. But then remember that Abraham passed the test of sacrificing his son.

The Hebrew commentators claim that Abraham went into the sacrifice expecting that Isaac would be raised from the dead. I don’t believe so. God knew Abrahams heart and didn’t need to test him. He just wanted to show him how much he changed. Often, our trials and tests are God showing us what he sees to overcome what we think we are. Tests force us to really see ourselves, often to show us how we have sinned and our need for repentance.

God then provided a substitution, a wonderful foreshadowing of the Gospel.

How Do We Live A Life Of Integrity?

We need to develop our trust in God and lean not on our own understanding.

So often the reason we go off on our own and do the things we want to do is to fulfill our own needs. I don’t trust that God will fulfill them for me. I want to satisfy my worldly desires; which I know isn’t good for me. We must learn to trust God and not eat our body weight in frosting. We know that what we want will make us sick, but we still go after it.

We need to recognize who we resemble when we lie.

We resemble satan. In John 8 Jesus talks about satan as the father of lies. It is in his very nature. He can’t tell the truth; he can only tell a half-truth.

As a son of God, do you want to resemble the enemy?

We need to recognize that all of life is lived Coram Deo, In the Presence of God.

God is right next to you, all the time. He sees everything you do, knows everything I think, knows everything I feel. Joseph lived in the presence of God and felt it all the time. That is why he ran away from a very desirable woman who threw herself at him and was willing to bear the consequences. The disappointment of God in his behavior was worse than anything man can think up.

We need to learn to love the truth more than we want to escape our pain.

Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Rack, Shack, and Bennie for you Veggie-Tales fans) from Daniel 3. They didn’t give in. They didn’t have any grey in them. This is what they said when Nebuchadnezzar told them to bow to his god of gold or he would roast them alive in a furnace:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." —Daniel 3:18

What a great event. Even if God doesn’t save me, it is more important to die in the truth to live a lie. I’m going to trust God.

Pain should drive you to God.

Pain is God’s megaphone. He whispers to us in our pleasures; he yells at us in our pain. —C.S. Lewis

We need to stop focusing on what you want and start focusing on what God wants.

We need to have mirrors in our lives.

We need to live in a house of mirrors. If I have a proper number of mirrors in my life, I will see who I really am. My wife is a mirror. My children are mirrors. My accountability group is a mirror.

You won’t fix anything unless you really know what it looks like. You can’t fix what you can’t see.

Our nature is to defend our sin to the point we break the mirrors.

We need to play back what we see, especially to our wives.

For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. — Proverbs 5:21-23

What Legacy Will You Leave?

Will you leave a reputation or a testimony?

A speaker at a commencement address started with this statement:

You are going to die.

He went on to say: We all will. What will happen after you die is that they will put you in the ground and then everyone will go back to the church and eat potato salad. Then the people who knew you will talk about you. In those conversations you will know whether you have a reputation or a testimony. If they talk about your money, cars, home, and business, you had a reputation. If they say: “Did you know that guy who was like Jesus?”, then you have a testimony.

Men of the Long Obedience

Daniel: A Man For All Seasons

October 18-20, 2002

Dave McDowell

Your legacy to your children is to let them know that men of God exist in the world.

Introduction:

Dave is the pastor of College Church in Northampton, MA and has been there for the last 23 years. He and his wife Gloria have five children.

This weekend is based on the book of Daniel.

There is a certain sense of Glory to be around men of God. Wherever my travels have taken me, I have set up a Men’s Ministry and the first thing I do is have a Men’s Conference.

Northampton has been a challenge, to say the least. It is hard to be a Christian in a pagan environment. Post-Modern, neo-paganism best describes the area. People who think they are so smart, that they are gods. How do you deal with that? You get the attitude of Winston Churchill. When he heard that France had fallen, he said: “Gentlemen, I find this terribly inspiring.”

In the face of a culture that loves itself and doesn’t know where it is going, you become an inspired witness for God.

That is why I chose Daniel for the theme of this weekend. His life was one of significant impact to a pagan culture over a long period of time. That is why I call him “The man for all seasons.” Every season of his life, he faithfully served God and made a mark for his Lord. What did Daniel have that equipped him for a life of service to the Lord? What were the personality and character traits that made him “The man for all seasons.”

Daniel 1:4. Call him a young teenager, fourteen years old. Daniel and three others were captured and forced into training, education and culture at Babylon. They even changed their names. At the end of the third year, they would take exams and if they passed, they would be pressed into service for the King, if not, off to the gulag.

Draw The Line Of Conscience

Summary of Principle: We must draw the line of conscience in matters that will affect our moral and spiritual well-being.

The first issue to deal with in dealing with a pagan culture, you have to know where to draw the line so the pagan culture you are in doesn’t get in you.

Where would you draw the line?

Learning pagan culture? Probably not because he already knew the truth of God.

Changing your name? Probably not because he knew who he was and changing his name did not change who he really was.

Eating and drinking with the King? This is where he drew the line, because he knew the word of God and that the food and wine were from sacrifices to pagan gods and for him to eat of it would be worshiping another God.

We need to draw the line at the things that are spiritually contaminating to us. What does that look like? I don’t know. There are no rules. We should be driven by the Scriptures. We should be able to hear the voices from Scriptures over the voices of the pagan culture. Scripture needs to be such a part of us that we know where to draw the line, even though there is no absolute rules. You know what is evil, and what is good. Your conscience will be your guide.

What happens if we don’t draw that line? When I was a kid, I saw ‘From Russia With Love’, my first James Bond movie. To me, it was a shock to my system. I knew I shouldn’t be watching it, but I kept watching it. Over time, it became less shocking. After a few years, I didn’t think anything of it. A few years later, I became addicted to pornography.

Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. 1 Timothy 1:18-19

Look at the wrong thing long enough, and we become desensitized. It doesn’t bother you quite as much. Over time, we begin to rationalize. Eventually, it won’t bother you at all. Then you will find yourself in a place that you never thought you would be.

If we do draw that line, we may have problems. If you do attend to your conscience, you run a great risk. You may be k