According to the Law, if we’re guilty of one, we are guilty of all; amen?  Every one of us sins every day.  So, the humble man realizes that there is no score card.  There is not a good day or a bad day.  There is abiding in Christ and my trust and hope is in Him, not in my performance, not in other peoples’ perceptions of me.  My hope and my trust is in the lover of my soul who, while I was a sinner, loved me and died for me and ever lives, now, to make intercession.

What was it that made David a man after God’s own heart?  I believe it was humility.  Yes, he was a man that was able to repent, and he had a lot to repent of.  How humbling having been used of God mightily.  Now is a time to be able to give back to God, whom he recognized as his source.  It burned in his heart.  He delighted in the ability and the desire to build a house for God.  We know the story and I don’t want to belabor the point, but we know the story of how the profit had to come back to him.  He told him first, “Do everything that is in your heart,” and the Lord spoke to him and the prophet had to go back and say, “You’re not going to be allowed to build the house of God.”  “Moses you’re not going to be allowed to enter the Promised Land.”  How many of you think those are very humbling experiences in those men’s lives?  He said, “If I can’t build the house, then I’m going to raise some money to build it.”

Praise God.  We know that he gave out of his own pocket.  Out of his own personal money, he gave the equivalent of, today, what would be over a billion dollars to the house of God.  He was a “bloody man.”  He was a man of war.  He was a murderer; he was an adulterer.  David faced, in that day of absolute sovereignty— he, as king, was placed in that conflict that all men know that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  When you’re an absolute sovereign, it’s a very difficult thing to be humble.  He is facing that as king.  Remember, he didn’t ask to be king.  In fact, there was not initially supposed to be a king.  They were being ruled by the judges, but they, the national Israel, wanted to be as the other nations so, “We want a king like all the other nations” and God said, “Samuel, their rejection of my system is not a rejection of you, but of Me.”  The first king arises, Saul, and we see a man who starts out in humility.  A man who he says is the least of the tribe, of the least of the tribes of Israel.  A man who was hiding in the stuff, that when he knew that they were wanting to place him as king, he knew he was not able.  He was hiding out, and yet they went and they received him and placed him into that position.

We know the story of how in his dealing with Agag the kingdom was taken from him.  As Samuel turned to walk away from him, he rent his garment and Samuel turned back and said, “God is going to rend from you the kingdom just as you rent my garment.”  I don’t want to belabor the point, but let’s go back into this, as Saul is now king and his heart is beginning to turn to pride, to ambition, he presumptuously went in and wouldn’t wait for Samuel, and made the offering to God that was unacceptable.  He took upon himself a priesthood; and let me share something with you, right now, that is a great truth.  I don’t care how gifted you are, what anointing you might know, God Himself separates a priesthood that is holy to Himself and you can’t enter it out of your own volition.  You’re going to see in David, in just a moment, a great truth that shows his humility, as to how we respond to God’s anointed.