Finding Confidence When Rejected

Well, welcome to week one of our brand new series on the life of King David of the Bible, Jason David, who stoked about this. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. My name is René, one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. I want to tell you something cool about this series right off the top. We are doing this series together with about seven other churches, and here's one very cool thing. They are from seven different denominations. So as we said last week, we've got everything from Holy Rollin' to the Frozen Chosen. They're all there together. We're all in this. And I want to specifically welcome a couple of congregations that are joining us on video this morning for week one. I want to welcome CBC Community Presbyterian Church in Danville, great church out there, and Community Baptist Church up in Cordova, Alaska. And so everybody joining us live in the auditorium here at Twin Lakes Church, turn around and look at the cameras and wave. Welcome, CBC and CBC. It is great to have you guys with us for week one.

King David is in the Bible far more than any other biblical character except for Jesus. There's not even a close second. And earlier this year I figured, well, if he's not important to the Bible, I want to know his story better. And so I went to Israel. I went on his trail to the spots where his story happened, often traveling with an archaeologist to see some amazing new discoveries that not only prove David existed, but they give us insight about his world. I learned a ton, grew a ton, wrote about it in a new book, Chasing David. I hope you pick one of these books up. All the proceeds, by the way, go to church ministries. Not to me. This is a nonprofit endeavor.

But here's the way this works. Each chapter in the book ties into each week's message and gives far more detail than I could ever offer or than any of the other pastors at the other churches could ever offer in their sermons. It ties into each week starting this week, week one with chapter one. And there's also small group lessons in the back of the book. The small groups all have video discussion starters that we filmed in Israel. These are available for free on YouTube and other digital platforms. For example, the first video is in Bethlehem. That's where we filmed it because that's where this first story about David's life takes place. So to get this stuff, sign up for a small group. They start this week. More details in your bulletins and outside.

Now here's why I think you will love us. In this series, we are going to watch as David faces down giant fears and recovers from his own moral fall, how he handles life's chaos, how he rallies. It seems like his biggest dreams are dying. In other words, we're going to see David live through so many life experiences that we're all going to go through in one way or another. We're going to have friends who go through these things in one way or another. So we need to know how does somebody in relationship with God navigate all of these episodes in a typical life. David's story is in the Bible so that we can see what it looks like to be in relationship with God, not as some stained glass saint, but as a real flesh and blood human being. It is so relevant to all of life. So let's dig in.

Today, the surprising origin of King David. And before we get into the message, just for fun, kind of a change of pace, I want to give you a little quiz. Are you up for this? Can you name these celebrities before they were famous? And if you're watching on video, just go ahead and shout it out at CPC, CBC, wherever you're watching. And I'm going to start with a very easy one. All right. Who is this? Go ahead and shout it out. It is Harrison Ford, of course. Let's make it just slightly harder. Who is this woman? That is Amy Poehler from Parks and Rec. That's right. Isn't that interesting? All right. What about this gang lead junior hire? Any guesses? Wow. I can't believe you guys do that one. That is Gwyneth Paltrow. How about this kind of nerd lead guy? That is Johnny Depp. That's right. It's just making you feel better about your own junior high school yearbook pictures because it is me.

Let's go over to musicians. Who is this? One person. I heard one person say it out loud. That is Bruce Springsteen. Can you believe that? All right. Now, don't shout it out if you know it. Just let this one sink in for a little bit. Who is this fine young man here? Here's a little clue. Look at the lips. Yeah, it's Steven Tyler, believe it or not, who has actually gotten less mature looking as he's aged? It's like a businessman there in seventh grade. Just two more. These are my favorites. This next one, if you happen to know it, don't shout it out yet because I want people to try to guess this. Who is this? Look closely at this picture. Who could this person be? Believe it or not, this is George Clooney. Can you believe that? Can you say late bloomer, right? And who is this? Believe it or not, this is Brad Pitts, who I think for the rest of his life is compensating for that page board haircut that mom made him wear when he was in junior high school. I love that he's even wearing a jersey that says "rejects," right?

But look at all these. My point is you would never pick most of these people in junior high school and think they're going to be celebrities, right? Well, that factor goes double in the case of David in the Bible. As Chuck Swindoll says when he was a young man, he was, quote, "a nobody nobody knew." And his story starts, "David is an overlooked, underrated, uninvited, unappreciated, unknown teenager." And he goes on to such great things. And here's what's so wonderful about that. If you ever struggle with your own self-esteem, if you've ever thought, "Can God really use somebody like me from my background who's done the things that I did in my life?" If you ever struggle with the approval of others, the origin story of David may seriously change your life.

I believe that if you really get what we're going to be talking about today, it can set you free from living for the approval of others, from always worrying about what others think of you, from worrying about what God thinks of you. So let's dive in. I call this finding confidence when rejected. If you have your Bibles, turn to 1 Samuel 16. And also there are notes available for this message tucked right into your bulletin, or you can also get them online if you just click on the notes button.

As our story starts, 3,000 years ago, the prophet Samuel receives direction from God. Verse 1, "The Lord said to Samuel, 'Go to Bethlehem and find a man named Jesse, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king.'" Now to this day, if you go to Bethlehem, one of the fields there is traditionally identified as the field of Boaz. Boaz was David's great grandfather, so this field may very well have been the actual family field of David's family. And if it wasn't this one, it was nearby because Bethlehem isn't that big.

So as Samuel approaches this spot, or somewhere within a couple of square miles of this, think of this, God's just told him, "I'm going to select a king and he's going to replace Saul." So he must have been picturing the kind of person that God is going to direct him toward, and he must have been trying to picture who is going to be able to oppose Saul. Because here's how Saul is described. That's the first king of Israel. He's starting to unravel. He's losing his grip on his sanity. He's a very dangerous monarch at this point. But he's also described as being head and shoulders taller than the next man in Israel. In fact, I think we've got a picture here by Rembrandt, which I think kind of displays this, where you see Saul there, and you see his face. He's kind of going mad, and yet he's head and shoulders taller than the person there playing the harp. This was Saul.

As Samuel imagined the person who's going to replace Saul, he must have been picturing somebody who could kind of out-tall and out-power Saul. Kind of a younger version of Saul, Saul 2.0. And what happens instead totally surprises him. Verse 6, "When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab," that's the oldest son of Jesse, "and thought, 'Surely this is the Lord's anointed.' But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Don't judge by his appearance or height, for I rejected him. The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by the outward appearance. The Lord looks at the heart."

And then Jesse told his son Abinadab to step forward. Very proud dad. He's like, "Oh, you don't want that, son? I got another one. I got seven of them here." Step forward, son, and walk in front of Samuel, but Samuel said, "This is not the one the Lord has chosen." Next, Jesse stole the proud dad. He's the agent here. He summoned Shammaiya, but Samuel said, "Neither is this the one the Lord has chosen." In the same way, all seven of Jesse's sons were presented to Samuel. Now stop there. In the same way. In what way were they presented to Samuel? Who's presenting them to Samuel? Jesse. Each one of them, dad's like, "Oh, you don't want that one? I got another." And it's like every time Samuel says, "Not this one. I got another. Here we go."

But Samuel said to Jesse, "The Lord has not chosen any of these." And then notice what happens. What does Jesse do next? Nothing. Jesse doesn't say anything. He doesn't offer anything else. There's sort of an awkward silence. And then Samuel asked, "Are these all the sons you have?" Well, it turns out Jesse doesn't just have the seven sons. He's got eight. But the eighth one, he just sort of isn't talking about, is he? He doesn't rush over to go, "Well, then here's another one." He just sort of pretends like, "This is all the sons I got." And if you've ever felt uninvited, if you've ever felt left out less than unloved, I want you to check out four challenges that David was facing in his own family of origin. And I think this really helps you understand David as we move forward in this series.

Jot this down. First, David was belittled. I mean, quite literally, belittled when Samuel says, "Are these all there are?" "There's the youngest," Jesse replied, "The youngest." David had seven older brothers, two older sisters. David was the tenth of ten kids. But that word for youngest is the Hebrew ha-katan, which may have sort of a belittling label. It means little, insignificant. It was used at times to refer to the pinky finger. Well, there's pinky. One Hebrew scholar says this sort of implies "runt." Hi, Dad. Hey, "runt." Literally he's belittled with his father's label. And it gets worse.

David was also excluded, clearly, from the biggest thing that has ever happened to his family. And he's not invited. His dad says, "But he's out in the fields watching the sheep and the goats." Now, before you say, "Well, somebody had to watch the sheep and the goats," this was apparently a pretty well-off family. Jesse was one of the elders of the towns. They surely had a lot of other staff that could have done this. Let me put it this way. Let's say the Secretary of State of the United States of America says, "Hey, I'm going to come to your house and I'm going to pick one of your kids to get a full-ride scholarship to Stanford all the way into the PhD realm if that's what they desire. So set out your kids. I'm going to pick one. It's going to be a big surprise. What are you going to do? What happens if you clean up all your kids and you line up all your kids and you get all your kids ready for the Secretary of State's visit except for the one you send to Fresno to do an errand? What is that going to tell you about how you feel about that kid?"

Clearly things were not very tight, right, between David and Dad. Why did Jesse leave David out? Why did Jesse not follow the pattern that he followed with all the other sons of just rushing to the next son and presenting into Samuel? Why did he do that? Well scholars have a theory, and this is not some modern theory. This is an ancient Jewish rabbinical tradition that goes back as far as, at least as far back as the time of Christ. So this is an ancient idea and it's got some scriptural support to it. The idea is this. David was born as the result of some adulterous relationship that his mother had. Is there scripture to support this? Well many people believe David himself is referencing this when he says in Psalm 51:5, "In sin did my mother conceive me." Now marital relations are not sinful ever. So what did he mean? Maybe he's referring to his own conception. And maybe David is left out because David was not seen by Jesse or the other brothers as really one of them. For whatever reason, we don't know exactly why, that's conjecture. For whatever reason he is definitely excluded.

He's sort of Cinderella doing chores while the stepsisters go to the party, right? And what's more, he's insulted by his own family. And this was apparently a pattern. Let me give you an example. David's oldest brother, Eliab, says to him in the next chapter, "I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is." Whoa man, that's a lot of horsepower against baby brother, right? Most brothers that are that much older than a baby brother, they're going to be kind of protective. No, not Eliab. There was just battle. And in the verse after this, David says something very telling. He says, "What have I done now? I was only asking a question." And that word now, "What have I done now?" implies there was apparently this constant tension.

And then to top it all off, he is actually disqualified from serving in any kind of spiritual leadership role by one of the laws of the people, which read Deuteronomy 23:3, "No Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord even down to the 10th generation." Bad news for David, great-grandma Ruth was a Moabite. That's a lot closer than the 10th generation. So David is from an ethnic background, a racial background that is not looked upon favorably in his culture. It's despised. It's disqualified. So look at all these strikes against this kid. I mean, we could go on, but just with this four, you've got big time family of origin issues. And then watch this. "And the Lord said, 'This is the one who annoyed him.'" Don't you love that? The one that his own father labeled with this belittling label, the one his own father excluded, the one his own brother insulted, the one his own people disqualified, that's the one.

And so as David stood there among his brothers, I love that little detail, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with it. And I want you to watch this. Anointing in those days wasn't just like a little dab on the forehead. This would just run down all over your hair and your head and your neck and shoulders and your clothes. The olive oil was a special recipe for the anointing oil, and I put the recipe in those Chasing David books. They mixed it with spices like ginger and cinnamon. And the idea was that it gave you a new scent, a new identity. It marked you as someone chosen by God with a special destiny, as part of God's plan.

And God not only chooses him, he empowers him with the Holy Spirit. It says, "And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on." Can you picture it? I love this painting of that moment by the painter Velasquez because look at the details. I think he really read his Bible and got it right. Look at David's dad and brothers. They do not look too thrilled. They're like, "Yeah!" right? Yet David will remember the moment that the anointing oil of God changed his life. It changed his destiny. It marked him as chosen. And you can see him again and again and again throughout his life when he's facing tough times, when he's facing oppression, when he's facing teenage rebellion, when all kinds of things are going wrong in his life, he keeps circling back to this moment and saying, "But you have a destiny for me. You picked me. You embraced me. I am yours. And so I trust in you." What a beautiful moment for David.

Now, what was this moment like for God? There's a riveting but almost forgotten Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 89, that offers us God's thoughts at this very moment. I want you to look at this. I love this. God says, these are just a few verses from the Psalm. In verse 20, he says, "I have found my servant David. I have anointed him with my holy oil. I will steady him with my hand. With my powerful arm, I will make him strong, and he will call out to me, 'You are my father.'" It's like God's saying, "I know. David didn't have the great dad in the world, right, but I'm going to be his dad. He's going to see me as his father, and I'll be the rock of his salvation." And God says, "I know he was the tenth of ten kids, but I will make him my firstborn son. I will love him and be kind to him forever. My covenant with him will never end."

Now look at this. When God did all this to David, when he anointed him with this sense of blessing, was there anything David did to earn this? Did Samuel say, "Well, you're apparently the chosen one of God, but you've got to prove it. You've got to go take a sword out of a stone. You've got to go on a quest, bring me back the head of Medusa or a golden fleece." Did he do anything to prove that he deserved this blessing? Nothing. He didn't even know anything was going on, probably. He was just washing the sheep. "David, your dad wants you." Oh no. And he trudges up, and all of a sudden the anointing of oil of God is poured on his head, and everything changes. It's about what God did for David that changed him, not what David did for God.

Throughout the rest of his life, David responds to this love of God all throughout the Psalms and verses like Psalm 27:10, "Oh, even if my mother and father abandoned me, the Lord will hold me close." I really think this is the key to understanding David psychologically. This is why I wanted to start with this. For all the rest of the stories we're going to look at in this series, you'll see that David, no matter what he faces, he has a personal, passionate relationship with God. I believe it's because he found in God what he was lacking everywhere else. He didn't have anybody else's approval. Not even Dad's. But in that moment he realizes, "Everything has changed for me. God has chosen me."

Now you might be thinking, "Great for David." But don't you see David's story is in the Bible to show this is how God longs to treat you and me. David's story is in the Bible as an example of what it looks like to live in relationship with God. And this is so important for people to hear today. Rejection and shame are still feelings that so many of us struggle with. What's the solution to understand what the Bible says? That you are loved by the most important person in the universe. And you know how God proved this? Who was Jesus known for reaching out to in his ministry? The uninvited, the rejected. They were the very people chosen by him, touched by him, healed by him, called by him, given new destinies by him, turned into world changers by him.

And then even more amazingly, Jesus himself voluntarily became—all those things that we mentioned about David—Jesus voluntarily became excluded so we could be included. He voluntarily became belittled so we could be built up. He voluntarily allowed himself to be insulted and mocked so we could be blessed. What God was showing was that through what Christ did for us, he longs for a relationship with us so badly that he's willing to go to those lengths of becoming uninvited himself so that we could be assured that we are invited by him.

And for the rest of our time together, I want to show that what happened to David at his anointing happens to you the moment you receive God's grace. There are so many places in the Bible that we could go to show this, literally hundreds, but I want to show you just one passage we can sort of soak in for the rest of our time together. And here's chapter one, which says first, "No matter how uninvited I am by others, God chooses me." Look at Ephesians 1:4. It says, "Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes." It's a beautiful verse, but you know what I think is a key phrase is, "Even before he made the world." Think about what that means. Long before you could do anything right, long before you could do anything wrong, long before you could do anything to even try to somehow earn it or deserve it, he picked you to love and to choose.

And then skipping a few verses in verse 11, it elaborates, look at this, "Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God just like David. For he chose us," there it is again, "shows us in advance and he makes everything work out according to his," what? That means you have been given a destiny to be a part of God's people just like David, and that means he is going to make everything in your life work out according to that plan. You have a destiny.

Second, no matter how unloved I am, God adopts me. No matter how unloved I am, God adopts me. Look at verse 5, "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ." Why? For an astonishing reason. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Do you know you delight God? What do you think God thinks of you? Right now, at this moment, it gives him pleasure to be in relationship with you, to choose you, to adopt you, to pick you. Do you remember when you were a little kid and people chose teams? Anybody remember that? Because you remember how it usually worked, right? I mean, they are trying to not do this in school, but this is how kids work. The athletic kids get picked first for teams, and then the cool kids get picked, and then the funny kids get picked, and then the kids who are friends of the athletic, cool, and funny kids. Then, if you are like me, you have got a memory of being one of the last two or three people, all the teams are picked, and you are kind of staring at your feet pretending not to care, just hoping someone will pick you.

Well, maybe you still feel a little bit like that, kind of like in your family, or at work, or even here at church, all the teams are picked, and you are just kind of hoping someone will pick you. Well, do you get that the Bible says, "God sees you and says, 'I pick you'? You are mine. You are chosen. You are adopted." And third, Ephesians 1 says, "No matter how unqualified I am, God empowers me." See, David really wasn't qualified to be king. He really wasn't, but God empowered him with his Holy Spirit. Same thing happens to you and me. Look at verse 13. "When you believed in Christ," it doesn't say later once you've earned it, "when you believed, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit whom he promised long ago, anointed you with the Spirit just like David." And that gives you power just like David. Verse 18, "I want you to know about the great and mighty power that God has for us followers. It's the same wonderful power he used when he raised Christ from death." What? That's power. You've got resurrection power. That means nothing God wants you to do will be impossible for you to do.

Now do you see the difference it makes to believe this? I want to get personal and kind of super vulnerable here about how life-changing this can be. I've shared many times that I lost my father when I was about four years old. This is one of the last pictures I have actually of me with Dad. And I won't belabor that again except to say that a loss like that as a child does affect you of course. There's all this research now to support this. Basically the lens through which I looked at life was skewed. Partly because I didn't have a dad helping to build esteem and identity, although mom was wonderful. But I grew up very unsure of myself as a boy and a young man. And when I went to my faith to get affirmation, I got mixed messages.

I did believe God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son that whoever believes in him shouldn't perish but of everlasting life. So God loved me enough to save me. But somehow I also got the message that it was prideful to love myself. That it was carnal to feel good about myself. And it was more spiritual to berate myself constantly. To tell myself I'm nothing, I'm so stupid, I'm so sinful. And most of my prayers were I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. So now I look back and characterize it as I became a saved but self-loathing Christian. I knew I was forgiven by God but I didn't really understand how God's grace changed my identity.

Part of my process in crawling out of that hole was one day I found this list in a book and I was blown away. It says Christians who do not see their chosenness in Christ exhibit these symptoms. Can you relate to any of these? They live with a high level of anxiety. They always feel like something's about to go wrong. The other shoe's going to drop. They struggle to trust people because they're afraid they'll get hurt again. That's also why they have superficial relationships. They have a hard time accepting compliments. They have little confidence in themselves. They struggle with discouragement and depression. They often feel God is mad at them. Now everyone probably struggles with these feelings from time to time but for some people, and I can speak here from personal experience, this is like a constant low hum of background noise. If this is hitting a nerve, let me just say this is not how God wants you to live.

This is why these truths are in the Bible over and over again. In fact, look in your notes where it says the Christian's new identity. I want to suggest that we as a group actually read the sound loud. You don't have to if you don't feel comfortable. Nobody's going to think anything of that. I encourage you to read this out loud with me so you can hear yourself declaring to you what God has said is true of you. I want to be clear, you're not declaring these things to make them happen. God has said they already happened the moment you believed in Jesus. If you believed in Christ, God has poured these blessings on you like he poured that anointing oil on David and changed your identity. Let's declare this together. Would you read this out loud together with me if you're comfortable?

I believe that in Christ Jesus I have a new identity. I have been chosen by God. I am adopted by God. I am anointed with the Spirit and empowered by God. I am called by God for a destiny and a purpose so God will work all things in my life together for good. God has raised me and made me an heir with Christ of the kingdom of heaven. Because of who I am in Christ, I am more than a conqueror. In fact, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God is my Father and if he is for me, who can be against me? And I believe these things because God, my Father in heaven, says they are true. Amen.

Stop taking charge of your thoughts about yourself. Stop thinking of yourself just as belittled, excluded, insulted, disqualified because according to the Bible, your circumstances have changed. I'll close with this story. True story. For several decades, till about 1929, the United States did something that almost nobody remembers today called the orphan train. Have you heard of this? Thousands of children were living on the streets of several major East Coast cities, homeless. And every year, thousands of these orphans and abandoned kids were put on westbound trains and shipped across the US. They think as many as 250,000 children rode orphan trains. The trains would stop in rural areas and the orphans would be brought out for viewings, lined up on the station platforms or opera houses or town squares like livestock at an auction. And some would be selected and others would be rejected and they'd have to get back on the train, the orphan train. What must that have been like?

Well one man named Lee Nailing, as a very elderly man in 1991, wrote about his experience as one of those orphans. As an eight year old, and this is an actual photo of Lee taken as a child, and I'll tell you the circumstances behind this photo in just a minute. Lee was taken with his two younger brothers and put on a train in New York City by his biological father who struggled with homelessness and alcoholism and whom Lee never saw again. At the sixth stop, finally somebody adopted one brother, but Lee and his other brother moved on. Lee had another stop, a family selected both of them and then the next day decided to keep just the little one and sent Lee back on the orphan train. And then Lee was adopted by a farming family, but on the first day Lee let out the chickens accidentally, they were killed and the angry farmer sent Lee away again to ride the orphan train. And Lee said his little heart was just about to break.

And then he was taken to the home of, as he puts it, a tall man and a short plump woman. And I'll let him tell you what happened next. He writes, "As I approached them, the man extended his hand and shipped mine in a firm grip. 'We're the Nailings, son. We're glad you're going to live here with us.' Not for long, I thought bitterly." He made plans to run away, went to bed. The next morning he comes down for breakfast and when he starts to reach for a biscuit, he says, "Mrs. Nailing, stop me, not until we've said grace," she explained. So I watched as they both bowed their heads. Mrs. Nailing began speaking softly to our father, thanking him for the food and the beautiful day. I knew enough about God to know that the woman's "our father" was the same one who was in the "our father who art in heaven" prayer that the visiting preachers recited over us at the orphanage. But I couldn't understand why she was talking to him as though he were sitting there with us waiting for a share of the biscuits.

And then Mrs. Nailing thanked God for the privilege of raising a son. I stared as she, with closed eyes, began to smile. She was calling me a privilege. And Mr. Nailing must have agreed with her because I looked over and he was beginning to smile too. A strange warm feeling began to fill my aloneness and I looked at the empty chair next to me, maybe in some mysterious way. Our father was sitting there listening. "Dig in, son!" The man's voice startled me. I hadn't even heard the amen. Mr. Nailing didn't seem so bad and this thing about having an "our father" to talk to shook me up a little bit. I ate in total silence. After breakfast, as they walked me to the barber shop for a haircut, we stopped at each of the six houses between our house and the barber shop. And each time the Nailing's walked me up, knocked on the door, and after it opened, introduced me as "our new son." This is our new son. This is our new son. This is our new son six times. As we left the last house, I knew I wouldn't be running away. There was a homeyness there that I'd never known before, and there was something else. Although I didn't know where my papa was or how I could ever write him again, I had the strong feeling that I had found not one, but two new fathers. And I could talk to both of them.

And that's the way it turned out. Isn't that beautiful? And this is from a photograph of Lee that the Nailing's had made shortly after that first haircut. Just look at the joy in that face. And do you see, this is what God does for you. You know, maybe you feel like you've been riding the orphan train. Like every day, it's about making sure that you're presented the best way possible, and you see what the reactions of people are going to be. And sometimes you're accepted, sometimes you're rejected. Sometimes in life you're accepted, but then rejected again. And you've been through that so many times. You bear the wounds, you bear the scars. But what your new, adoptive father is telling you is this. You're not on the orphan train anymore. Your circumstances have changed.

See here's the question. This is the question that changed my life. And it's this. Where do I find my identity? Where do you find your core identity in all the rejection you've experienced on your orphan train ride? Or in what your father says is true of you now? You know, maybe if we could somehow physically manifest your self-image. If somehow we could see a picture in flesh and blood of the way you see yourself. I have feeling a lot of us here would have a soul wearing a jersey that says "rejects." But God sees something else. God wants to put the robe of royalty on you. To anoint you. To change your life. So let him. Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me?

With everybody's head in doubt, whether you're watching at CPC or CBC or watching live here at TLC or somewhere else. With just everybody's heads bowed, I just want to be clear. How do you get all this? All these benefits. Well, what did David have to do? All you need to do is receive it. Receive God's grace. Let him pour his grace upon your life. If that's what you want to do right now, simply pray, "Lord, I receive it. I don't understand it all, but today I want to receive your grace given through the death and resurrection of Christ. And I want to begin to see myself as you see me, as someone with a destiny, somebody chosen and adopted and loved by you." God help us to go forward seeing our chosenness in Christ. May that give us esteem and courage and perseverance and a sense of mission. And God, I pray that you would bless the study of David, bless all the churches doing it with us. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.