Anybody here remember a scenario like this playing out in your life?  You’re standing on the sideline of the basketball court or the baseball field or you’re on the playground as teams are chosen.  You never get the chance to be the captain and so you try to play it cool as you stand in line with the rest of your peers.  But today is no different than any other day.  This game is no different than the last.  You know who will be chosen first.  He’s the biggest guy here not to mention the fact that his team always wins!  As the teams are chosen, members are picked according to their appearance and ability.  The biggest and fastest kids are chosen first and then come the kids that no one really wants but someone will take.  Somewhere down the line you know you’ll be picked, you just hope it won’t be last… again.  It’s this childhood practice of choosing teams that implants within our minds the idea that appearance and ability are everything!  And while it would certainly be nice to grow up and realize how false that notion is, the reality is our culture does everything to reinforce that image.  Why is that American icons, superstars, those who are the wealthiest and most well known, are almost exclusively those with the best appearance or most ability?

Gone are the days when character and lifestyle were valued above all else.  Heroism today is all about who others think we are and has very little to do with who we really are.  There are many people out there though who are looking for someone to look up to—someone who stands out as being different than the rest of the crowd not because of their glitz and glamour but because of what’s on the inside.  We’re looking for someone who stands head and shoulders above the crowd not because of their appearance but because of their heart.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say that about a presidential candidate?  Of course, there are some people who can’t even get past the middle name of a candidate—we judge someone now based on his or her name, not on what they stand for.  We judge candidates based on ridiculous, false emails we get that try to instill fear in people.  Do you really want to be reduced to voting for someone simply because you are scared of the other candidates?  Wouldn’t you rather vote for someone you can believe in, rather than voting against someone you are scared of? 

You’ve heard the expressions—“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”  “Beauty is only skin deep.”  “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”  “Looks can be deceiving.”  You know why we have these expressions?  Because we naturally think the opposite about people.  We naturally do judge people by the way they look.  We judge people based on skin color, where they live, what their name is.  We judge people based on their political or religious affiliation.  We like to label people and put them in our own little categories—liberal or conservative, blue or red, Catholic or Protestant, black or white, rich or poor.  Thankfully, God doesn’t see ourselves as we see others.  Too bad we aren’t more like God—but we have come here this morning to worship God and get a word from God so that is a good start.

God chose David to be king not because He looked the part or seemed qualified in the eyes of his peers, but because God knew his heart.  Before we get into David’s part of this story, let me give you a little background on our passage this morning.  By the time we get to 1 Sam. 16, the very first king has been ruling over Israel for 20-25 years and his name was Saul.  God didn’t want to give His people Israel a king, but they demanded one because they wanted to be just like the nations surrounding them.  God finally conceded and chose a king they would want—He chose Saul.  By all human standards Saul was a perfect candidate for king, the Bible says Saul was a head taller than anyone else, and handsome (1 Sam. 9:1-2).  At first Saul seemed to be a good king; he mobilized the scattered nation of Israel to win victories against the attacks of surrounding nations. However, while he won victories on the battlefield, as time rolled on, it became evident that he had many flaws.  He was impatient and impulsive, prone to temper tantrums, was concerned about his image and popularity (in other words he was interested in what people thought of him rather than what God thought of him), he was prone to jealousy, and worse yet, he disobeyed God on several occasions.  Although Saul was a natural choice for king by outward appearances, he failed as a king.  Just before we are introduced to David, we learn in chapter 15 that God had rejected Saul because of Saul’s disobedience of God, and He sent the prophet Samuel out to anoint a new king over Israel whom God had already chosen.

We read in 1 Sam. 16:1, "God sent the prophet Samuel to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint one of his sons to be the next king."  Which son would it be?  Jesse lined his sons up from oldest to youngest for Samuel’s inspection.  The first was Eliab, the oldest and Samuel thought surely this was God’s chosen; he was a lot like Saul, tall, dark, handsome, strong, a soldier.  But what was God’s response to Samuel? 1 Sam. 16:7: "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.’"  What is God’s measuring stick? The heart.  God looks at the heart, not the outside.  So Jesse’s sons walked by Samuel one by one, oldest to youngest, but God didn’t affirm any of them as king.  Samuel finally had to ask, “Are these all your sons?”  And Jesse replied almost as an afterthought, “there is still the youngest, but he is tending the sheep.”  Almost as if to say, don’t bother with that one Samuel, surely it couldn’t be David, he’s the sheepherder.  David’s own father didn’t even consider him to be a potential candidate for king.  This is certainly nothing new.  How many children have felt that their parents compare them to their brothers and sisters and whether it is spoken or unspoken the feeling is still the same, you’re not as good as they are.  You’re not as smart they are, you’re not as talented as they are, you’re not as good looking as they are.  The message is, you’re not good enough to be anyone important.  Maybe you grew up with some of those negative comparisons from your parents.  Did you ever feel that way growing up?  Do you still feel it today?  Have you ever done that to your children, whether intentionally or unintentionally?

Aren’t you glad our heavenly Father doesn’t look at the outside package to determine who He will use?  God isn’t primarily interested in your looks, or your athletic ability, how smart we are, or our appearance.  God looks at our heart.  God made you the way you are for a reason, and He loves you just the way He made you.  Like His choice of David, He chooses people according to their heart.  God works the opposite of our society.  We live in a society which rewards beauty (think Hollywood, Extreme Makeover, cosmetic surgery, botox, makeup,), ability, intelligence (university’s, doctoral degrees).  But that is not what God rewards, God rewards those who have a heart for Him, who love Him, and are obedient to Him.  The Bible says, “This is love for God: to obey His commands (1 Jn. 5:3).”  Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15).  God chooses unlikely people to accomplish His purposes so His power can be manifest in their weakness.  God uses people who will depend upon His power rather than upon their own strength and abilities. They are humbled knowing it wasn’t them, it was God and they are driven then back to God in worship and prayer. When amazing things happen, God then receives the honor and glory rather than us.  So people will look at us and say, “How in the world are they able to do that?”  And the only conclusion they will be able to make is, “it must be God,” and they will recognize we have been with Jesus.  God wants people to be amazed at His ability, not ours.

1 Cor. 1:26-29 says: "Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him."  Or as the Message translation has it, “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life.  I don’t see many of the ‘brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.  Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses; chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’”? 

Who does God choose to use?  God chooses “nobodies” by the world’s perspective, but they are people who have a heart for God, they have been with Jesus, and God has filled them with His Spirit to accomplish His purposes, to do amazing things to shame the wise so they must give glory and honor to God.  God is still looking for people to accomplish His purposes.  When God looks at your heart, and believe me He does, what does He see?  Does God see a heart which is sold out and on fire for Him? Or is your heart cold and indifferent to God?  Or perhaps just lukewarm?  Does your heart resonate with God’s? Perhaps our first prayer this morning should be for God to perform heart surgery—we must pray that we can all be people after God’s heart.

          We need to pray that we would see others as God sees them.  We are not usually on the same page as God when it comes to judging others or ourselves for that matter.  We should be cautious about judging other people and their potential effectiveness in the kingdom of God and we should not question our own abilities and gifts for service.  We often fail to see the God-potential in others or in ourselves because we are easily impressed by the wrong indicators.  But our text for today shows us, in fact the whole Bible shows us, that God often uses the least likely people to accomplish His purposes.  Try to see others and yourself as God sees you.  Amen.