David | Part 1 | The Lord Looks at the Heart| 1 Samuel 16
Gathering Question:
What is something about you that someone wouldn’t know about you by looking at you?
Gathering Prayer.
Father, by Your Spirit, would you guide us into all truth. Help us to hear and be attentive to Your voice as we work through this study. In the name of Jesus, Your Son, we pray, Amen.
Opening Questions
- What stood out to you in the sermon?
- What insights did you gain?
- What questions did it raise?
1 Samuel 16:1-13
- What do you think the Lord is looking for in the next king of Israel? Why?
- Put yourself in Samuel’s shoes. What would you be thinking as the Lord passes on each of the 7 sons of Jesse?
Isaiah 52:1-5 and 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
- What do these two passages teach us about how the kingdom of God operates?
Philip Yancey writes about his visit to a leper hospital, “Whenever I feel polluted by the beauty-obsessed celebrity culture I live in – a culture in which people pay exorbitant sums to… achieve some impossible ideal of beauty while others die from lack of treatment and lack of hospitals like Green Pastures – I pull out that photo.
I see two beautiful women: my wife smiling sweetly, holding in her arms an old crone who would flunk any beauty test ever devised except the one that matters most. Out of that deformed, hollow shell of a body, the light of God’s presence shines.”
- When is a time you have struggled to see other people as God does?
- What are some practical ways we can learn to see other people as God does?
Psalm 139
- What does this Psalm teach us about God? What does this Psalm teach us about ourselves?
- Charles Spurgeon writes, Psalm 139 “…warns us against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the soul.” (The Treasury of David, Volume 3). How do you experience the presence of God in your life? Why is it dangerous to ignore the presence of God?
- Like Adam and Eve, we all have a tendency to try to hide from God. What are some ways modern people try to hide from God? What would Psalm 139 teach us about trying to hide from God?
- What difference should it make in our life to know that God is as involved in our lives as Psalm 139 describes?
Closing Prayer