Well beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, tonight we want to turn to another Old Testament figure, a well-known person, David. And over the next coming time, Lord willing, if I'm able to serve you, we will consider the life of David together. And I want to start tonight as we read this. It's a little longer, but it sets the stage for the coming of David into the kingdom. So we turn to 1 Samuel 15. We'll begin at verse 10, and we'll read through verse 13 of chapter 16. 1 Samuel 15 verse 10. Let's hear the word of God. Now, the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel. And he cried out to the Lord all night. So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul went to Carmel. And indeed, he set up a monument for himself, and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. But Samuel said, What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said to Saul, be quiet, and I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, speak on. So Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Now, the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me and brought back Agag king of Amalek. And I've utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. So Samuel said, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king.' Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord.' But Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord. and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe and it tore. So Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor of yours who is better than you. And also, the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. Then he, Saul, said, I have sinned, yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. Then Samuel said, bring Agag, king of the Amalekites, here to me. So Agag came to him cautiously, and Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past. But Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. Now the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse the Bethelmite, for I have provided myself a king among his sons. And Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. But the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for me the one I name to you. So Samuel did what the Lord said and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, do you come peaceably? And he said peaceably, I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before me. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shema pass by, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. And Samuel said to Jesse, are all the young men here? Then he said, there remains yet the youngest, and there he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. So he went and brought him in. Now he was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is the one. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah. Now this ends then the reading of our scripture this evening. Well, beloved, we are looking this evening to this wonderful historical account of God's story. as it's unfolded in the life of David. Here's a story I think that most all of us, and the children as well, even as we sung our last song together, we recognize that this is one of the most famous psalms, the shepherd's psalm, the Lord is my shepherd, that we sing together. And certainly as we consider this man, it was a man in the Old Testament of like passion as we see with the prophet Elijah. But it's also a man that we are told was a man after God's own heart. A man who knew the living God, had a relationship with the Lord, and as his life unfolds, we get snapshots and pictures into the events of his life that we, each one of us who know the Lord as well, will be able to relate to and benefit from and learn to hope, as David did, in the Lord our God. So what I want to do is consider this history of David in the coming months together with you, God helping us. And I want to consider tonight more of a broader view rather than a specific textual view, but what is a context to set us up for this consideration of a series on David. I want to do it with the theme of God chooses David. a man after his own heart. I want to look at five reasons, first of all, to consider this life of David. What is the value, what is the importance of doing a series like this? Second of all, I want to work through briefly, but comprehensively to some degree, the providence of God unfolded from Adam and Eve till the point we meet with David himself. It's important for us, I think, to see this hand of God as that is the bigger picture here that we cannot lose sight of as we consider David's life, though the providence leading up to David's anointing. And then lastly we'll look at his choice here as we read it in 1 Samuel 16 of David being selected to be the next king of Israel. If you were a Jew, an Israelite, a young boy or a girl, I am sure you would love to hear the stories of these Old Testament figures being told by your dad or your mom over and over again. You as young children, I'm sure, have books on David and Joseph and some of the other Old Testament figures and Jesus, of course. But these stories as they're told and retold are the only way in which the Old Testament children would often have heard of the mighty acts of God that He was doing. And they then would be able to hear these stories and be able to make application and understanding for their own life how they were to live in light of the stories that were being told. And so as we embark on this journey and a consideration of this history of David, I want to do this for five reasons. And first of all, I think it is the most important reason we do this is because, as I'm sure you understand, David in the Old Testament is one of the particular prominent ones who is called a figure or a type or shadow of Christ himself. There is continual reference in the scriptures of David and even in the New Testament referring back to David. Christ is the son of David. He will come out of the loins of David. God will, he tells David at the end of his life, establish an eternal kingdom in his lineage. And even as we go back to the beginning pages of scripture, we know that God had promised to Adam and Eve the seed of the woman. And it's through this seed as we see it unfold in God's marvelous providence in the Old Testament that David is a central dividing figure that brings us forward to Joseph and Mary in the New Testament. We know that Abraham too was told of God that the seed that would proceed out of him would be the seed of the woman. This was foretold also through Isaac and Jacob and then Judah, out of whom we are told the scepter would not depart, his father told him, from his lineage, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh, until Christ come, and to him would be the gathering of the people. And so what makes this first point so impressive is that the Lord in particular says about David, this is a man after my heart. Now, of course, we know that the heart of David had been transformed, had come to salvation, had come to regeneration and new birth. We know that. Because everyone, David himself confesses, is born in sin and iniquity. So when God says, here is a man after his own heart, what he sees in David is this transformation of his own grace and his own work by his spirit. And it would do us good to reflect upon David then and how he responds to various different things in his life to learn how we ought to respond as a man after God's own heart or a woman after God's own heart in the 21st century as well. We will uncover then, as we study the life of David, the heart of our God. and what he calls us to be. And as David will come to sit on the throne in the kingdom, it will be a picture of our King, our David, our Christ, who is even now, though we can't see him, but he is sitting on the throne in the kingdom of heaven. ruling over all things perfectly, which David could never have accomplished. Now another reason we would consider the life of David is because of the priority that God himself gives to David. David really is the center hub of the whole Old Testament. His name is mentioned 1,127 times in Scripture, 58 of those being in the New Testament. There's actually 61 chapters devoted to this unfolding of the history of David's life. So much is written about David. But he's also written an account of his own heart in the Psalms. So even as we sing from the Psalms, we're singing really what David himself within his own spiritual existence was wanting to express. of his downs, of his depths, of sorrow, of his wondering where is God in my suffering and affliction and to the heights of magnifying God and praising Him and glorying in God. And what we learn from the life of David as well is he was not one who, like Saul, was lifted up in pride. It seemed David really never forgot his origins. He walked humbly with his God. The foolishness of God is wiser than men. The weakness of God is stronger than men. Paul says, don't you see your calling, brothers? Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. Yea, the base things and the things that are despised has God chosen, and the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are. God is going to call a boy who is seemingly on the outskirts of his family taking care of sheep to raise him up to be the leader of his own people. It's pure grace. It's a reminder to us as well that we were and are nobody in ourselves. If we are someone, it's only because of God's grace having made us alive in Christ and that now is our identity. So now we are called to reflect upon this history also of David and to learn how God would have us to live in this present world. A third reason I think we can consider the life of David is because as I've been stating in one way or another, his life is presented to us in vivid color. His heart is laid bare. There's times when David is going to struggle with anger. How does he deal with that? How does he respond? And sometimes wrongly, but the Lord will correct him. And sometimes he even falls into sin. Sometimes he is afraid. He thinks one day he's going to perish by the hand of Saul. And he runs away. All these kinds of emotions, all these kinds of things that are happening in David's life, we can, in some measure or other, relate to that we may learn from them, not to fall after his example, but to learn also from the times in which David was exemplifying this heart that loved above all other things his God. God never cast out David as he did Saul. And if we have been chosen of God in Christ Jesus, set apart, he will not reject us for Christ's sake. Though we deserve to be, David deserved to be removed from his kingship. We'll see that, but God didn't do it. He upheld him, brought him to repentance, restored him, and used him. God and his plan for David has a plan for you. Do you know what that plan is? Do you rely upon the promises of God that he's given you in his word as David needed to do at times in his life? We see in vivid colors the life of David and we will learn how we are then also called to live. You will face giants. We're living in interesting times, aren't we? Confusing. No one really knows what's going to happen tomorrow. It's as much as anyone's guess. There's no confidence and no settled certainty. We were traveling along in life in the United States at least quite comfortably. We kind of could predict the way things were going to go. Not so more. Not so much. What's going to happen in 2023? There may be giants. There may be difficulties we don't even begin to perceive. There may be truths that we don't even begin to understand that have been hidden from our view for so long. We've accepted the lie. There's only one certainty that will remain, this word. And if we have a heart after God, He will preserve us. He will keep us. He will keep also as he preserved David from so many enemies that surrounded him to destroy him, the devil himself. And we can learn from his history that God will keep us. A fourth reason we can look at David's life is because at the climax of David's existence, we see the city of Jerusalem being established, the center of Israel and the whole earth. And that city of Jerusalem, you still realize as you read the news today, is a center pivotal point in all of human history. It affects us still to this day. And the last reason I set before you is that the Holy Spirit, who inspired this word about David to be written, communicates often through stories. We like objective truths, and they're important. The Apostle Paul was very good at setting forth objective truths. We are justified by faith, and so on. But here as we look at history, as we look at a story, Jesus told stories too, didn't he children? And there was meaning, there was purpose, there was message communicated through the story. And the Holy Spirit has an objective with this story of David as well. But in order to understand this story of David, I think we need to go back and rehearse as the children of Israel would have done leading up to this very event of when we begin this history of David being anointed king. While I already mentioned that Adam and Eve had been promised after their fall into sin, a seed that would come and crush the head of the serpent. And throughout that whole Old Testament period, there was this desire, this longing of the people of God for that coming seed, this man-child, if you will. That continued even after the time of the flood. You remember before that time, The world was populated and grown very wicked and God decided to destroy the whole world and preserve only righteous Noah and his family, a seed. And he destroys the whole world in the flood. And afterward, Noah and his children come off the ark and build an altar. And as we follow then that lineage, we come to Abraham who is called out of Ur of Chaldeas. And God promised Abraham a glorious promise. He was going to bring him into the land flowing with milk and honey. And all of his children, he said, will be blessed. And all the seeds of the earth would be blessed in him. And they would be as many as the stars of heaven. You remember this story. And what happened? Abraham's getting older and older and getting past the age of even having children. And he must be getting a little worried that, well, is God going to fulfill his promise? I don't even have one son, let alone as many as the stars of heaven. And so him and his wife agreed together that they will take a servant. And they will use this woman to bring seed into the family. And Ishmael is born. And God comes to Abraham and says, no, this is not the seed. I will give you as I have promised. My plan is not altered. You will have a son and your seed will be as many as the stars of heaven. In due time, Sarah will have a son." And she did. Isaac is born. Isaac has two sons. Esau and Jacob. Jacob the deceiver is chosen by God. And we've considered it some length in the past year or so, how the seed of Jacob and all of his sons with Joseph being a central figure here. It was God's choice. You remember Joseph was that favored son. of Rachel. But the choice of God isn't even through Joseph, but it's through Leah, the one put aside, through Judah. You remember what happened to Judah? Remember, we considered that when we were looking at the life of Joseph. He ended up with a relationship with his daughter-in-law. and had a child. And it's in this marvelous providence of God, in spite of sin, that he's bringing us to this point of revealing his plan also in David. But that marvelous providence of God bringing all the children of Israel to Egypt puts them there for hundreds of years. Eventually, they're in slavery. They cry out to God in their suffering. And he brings them out by Moses, after all the plagues. He brings them through the Red Sea, defeats the enemy for them. And then we follow the children of Israel into the wilderness. And because of their unbelief, they need to wander in the wilderness 40 years. God is teaching them during that time. And then eventually they enter in through Joshua and he leads them into this promised land. And you would think once they've entered the promised land, they would live in abundance. They would reflect on the goodness of God and never forget him again. How contrary to the human heart. They forgot God. And so God sends judges. to bring them back. You read the book of Judges again and again. They depart from God and he sends a judge, and they depart from God and he sends a judge, and people ended up doing what was right in their own eyes, and God had to correct them. And in the middle of this time of the Judges, we have a man named Amimelech. And Amimelech had gone into another country with his wife Naomi, and they had two sons. They wanted to escape God's Judgment. And so they fled the drought to this heathen land, the land of Moab. The two sons married, Orpah and Ruth. And after time, the two sons and Amimelech died. And we read that his wife is going back to Israel. You remember that story. Orpah and Ruth want to accompany her. Orpah turns back. Ruth goes with her. The book of Ruth unpacks this wonderful story. And then there is a kinsman redeemer who ends up marrying Ruth. And that child that is born is given to nurse as part of the seed of Limelech with Naomi. And this one who was born is, you remember, Obed, who is the father of Jesse, who is the father of David. Now during this time, there was another mother who was barren. She couldn't have children. She was very distraught. Her name was Hannah. She went up to the temple to pray. And she receives an answer from the Lord that she will be given a son. She's given a son. That son's name, you remember, is Samuel. And this was a time in the book of Judges where we read every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. And even the sons of the priest in those days, Levi, were very wicked men. And Samuel grew up in the temple alongside of Eli. And all Israel understood that the priests in those days were to communicate what God's word was to the people. And the people wanted nothing to do with Eli's sons. And they desired then, eventually, a king. Samuel, who had grown up into the position of leadership now, was grieved. And he goes to the Lord and the Lord says to him, they haven't rejected you, but they have rejected me. I will give them a king. But it will be a man after their choosing, after their heart. And so God says, listen to them and protest loudly to them, let them know when this king comes, he's gonna take your sons and your daughters, he's gonna take your land by taxes, and you're not going to be happy with your king. And when this king Saul was selected, do you remember what happened? He came one day, he stood out head and shoulders above the others Saul did, Everybody looked up to him as a figure to be followed. The outward appearance was to everyone, this is our king. And we even read the spirit of the Lord came upon him. We read that another spirit was in him and even it said that when Samuel left, God gave him another heart, but he didn't have a new heart. You see, it was not that God didn't want his people to have a king, because he'd already given them laws in Deuteronomy about kings, but God was displeased that Israel had rejected him. And so soon after Saul was anointed, his heart grew cold, his real heart. began to show. And that leads us to this consideration of what we read tonight. God had come because Saul rejected God's word, he was rejected from being king. When you look back at these words of Samuel to him, You know what happened? God had told King Saul to destroy completely the enemy. And Saul refused. Oh, he did majority of what God had said, but not all to the detail. He must have been involved in this in his own heart as well. He blames it on the people. You heard that when we read it. But here's what Samuel says, So as we look at this transition in Israel from Saul to David, a man after his own heart to a man after God's heart. The question we're going to be coming back to again and again is this, where's your heart? Are you like Saul, child of the covenant, knew the commands of God, did them mostly, but must hear the words of Samuel. The Lord does not have delight in burnt sacrifices. We can come here to church, we can sing, we can read our Bibles in our homes, All the sacrifices, so to speak, we know as Christians we're supposed to do. But obeying the voice of the Lord is better than all that. Are we obeying his voice? Do we want to be a David, a man after God's own heart? And so when Saul comes to the recognition that he had been rejected, he wants Samuel to stay by him, be near to him so he don't face all the people with God departed. And so when Samuel turns to go away, he takes hold of his robe and it rips. And Samuel says, torn the kingdom away from you. This brings us to the history of David in our last thought tonight. The choice of David. How often don't we judge by appearances? We do that continually. There's something of value we do judge when we come into a situation and we look at the people in the room or we look at what's happening. We have to make certain judgments. But that's not how God judges. And it's not ultimately how He wants us to judge. We have a hard enough time judging our own hearts, let alone someone else's heart. Children, it's interesting when Jesus was performing some of his first miracles, remember that man that was let down in Mark 2? He was let down at the feet of Jesus. He had come to be healed. He was lame on the bed. And Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven you. And the people in the back of that room, the scribes and Pharisees, they said, who does this guy think he is? God forgives sin. Not people. That's what they reasoned, Mark tells us, in their hearts. And Jesus immediately says, why are you reasoning in your hearts? What is easier to do? To say to this man, rise up and walk, or to say, your sins are forgiven you, but that you will know that I am the Son of God. I say to this man, rise up and walk. He addressed their hearts. And God wants us in this consideration of David in particular to focus in on our hearts. Out of the heart is the issue of life. Jesus said to us, what's in your heart is going to come out of your mouth. It's going to come out of my mouth. And sometimes there's unpleasant things coming out of our mouths. That means there's unpleasant things in our heart. That means our hearts have to be transformed. changed. Today's culture is obsessed with externals, airbrushed, modified images and pictures and all for appearance. And what we learn from this very introduction of David to be selected to be king of God's people is this glorious truth. Samuel, Don't look at the outward appearance. I look at the heart. The people had chosen Saul by his outward appearance. He looked impressive. He was kingly in stature. Certainly he was the one who could lead them into battle and destroy the enemies. And yet we find the very opposite. Saul sends out the people while he stays behind, cowering in fear. When Goliath comes out from the Philistine camp, Saul is trembling. It's going to be David who is going to come forward in the strength of the Lord his God. Now, as Samuel goes to anoint David, he comes to this town where Jesse is, because God had told him to go there. Whether or not Samuel had communicated with Jesse that he was going to anoint the next king, we're not told for sure. But you could imagine the stir within this town of Bethlehem as the figure, as the representative of God in Israel, Samuel had come to this little town. And as each of the sons of Jesse go before Samuel, the Lord says to him, not this one. Samuel looked on Eliab, strength, stature, certainly a kingly figure, and God said, no. And the next one, no, and the next one, no, no, no. As they all go by, I'm sure Samuel must have been puzzled. Was I wrong? Did I hear God's voice wrong? Was he sent to the wrong place? Was something wrong? Isn't there another son? And they say, oh yeah, we have the baby of the family. He's out keeping the sheep. And it seems David is little esteemed in his family. This is going to come out more as we will find David being sent to his brothers. You remember when they were fighting Goliath and the Philistines. No, he was out on the hillside alone, taking care of the sheep. And Samuel says, no, we're not gonna sit down until he comes. And we read that he came. He was ready of a beautiful countenance, goodly to look upon. And the Lord says to Samuel, arise and anoint him. This is the one. It's God's choice. Not Samuel's, not Jesse's, not Israel. This is God's choice. God chose also his people in Christ to live a life as a king. As priests, we heard tonight in its opening benediction, we are called to be kings and priests to God. If you confess to be in Christ by saving faith, this is your calling, this is my calling. And we can look at David tonight and say, oh, he's chosen to be king of Israel. Why do we put so little value in what God has said He has chosen for His people today? God will accomplish His work, His purposes in His people. He will accomplish His purpose in David. We're going to see that. We're going to learn many things. We're going to see ourselves at times in David's life. But as we look at David, as we consider what God is saying about David, I choose him. If you know that God has chosen, not because you were so great, so wonderful, so sinless, there's no one that fits that category. God chooses the weak, the ones who are despised. He chooses them to make his glory shine. And you and I may think we're not able to do anything. What are we able to do? If I looked at my life, what I've done, if people knew what I did, God can't use me. It's because you're looking at yourself. You're looking at the circumstances. And what God, by His Spirit, wants to tell us in this passage is, if God has chosen you, who are you to say? Do you want to be like Saul and say, no, I'll go partway? God is calling you to follow Him fully. And so in particular, young people who are young, maybe like David was tonight. Do you have a heart after God? Is your desire to walk after Him, to run after Him in the way of His commandments? Or are your hearts still focused on delighting in the things that will never bring you happiness, never bring you joy, never bring you purpose? Well, this life of David, as we're going to consider it, I hope stirs us up to recognize that only in living according to this purpose and this call will we truly live for the purpose we have been created. And in order to have a heart as David had, my friends, you and I must know that work of regeneration in our hearts, the heart that has been transformed by nature. We are born in darkness and in sin. We need a new heart, a new life in Christ Jesus. We need to be born again. The second thing we learn is that this choice, this conversion, this transformation of David was a work of God. Our last point is God chooses David. In some respect, we could say God has chosen you. Even from birth, when you're born in a covenant family, God chooses to set his grace and mercy on you. But what are you going to do in response to that? Are you going to live according to what God has, outwardly at least, according to his covenant set before you? Will you disown it like Saul did? Or will you, like David, be found alone as he was with the sheep, contemplating and thinking and meditating upon these truths? so that you as a 12 year, 13 year old boy or girl can write something of a song like, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not lack. If we have a heart after God, it means we need to live and walk in the spirit. If God has chosen you and called you and transformed you by his grace, and you want to be a man or a woman after God's own heart, you need to be filled and I need to be filled with His Spirit. And Jesus told us clearly, if your son asks you bread, do you give him a stone? Of course not. If you ask of me, if you ask of my Father for the Holy Spirit, Will He not give it? Have we asked to be filled with His Spirit, to have a heart as David here is presented before us, a heart after God? And if we have a heart after God, it will be our desire and delight to walk in obedience. We want to know what is it the Lord wants me to do, to say, to think. And we'll be reading and searching and understanding the scripture so that as it speaks to my heart, as the spirit speaks to me, I will then go in obedience to what he's called me to do and it brings glory to him. As we consider David, it's my prayer that our hearts will be transformed and changed and that it will be said of us, he, she is a man, a woman after God's heart. Let's pray. Merciful and gracious God, we come tonight recognizing that in many ways our hearts and what comes forth from them and betray us. Lord, we do ask for thy grace, afresh and anew, so that we would follow thee in obedience, in desire and delight, and love thee with our whole heart. Remember those whose hearts are still seeking after the things of this world, and do stop them and arrest them and call them back. and transform them into hearts as we have heard as David. Go with us now, we pray, into this week. In Jesus' name, amen.