Sermons Christ Community Church: Daytona Beach, FL

David found strength in the Lord his God.

David realizes that, instead of taking his revenge on Nabal, he would be better off leaving the situation in God's hands.

There are two good reasons for thankfulness. One is that we need the inner health that belongs to the deeply thankful. The second, and most important, is that God deserves the honor we give Him when we are truly thankful.

There are 3 important lessons that can be learned from Psalm 13: We should say how we feel, we should ask God for what we want and we should trust God for the results.

In the life of David we see God working in some ways that might seem very mysterious to us.

The Bible doesn't ignore friendship. The story of David and Jonathan is about friendship. It's about a kind of friendship that is both a gift from God and a reflection of God.

Relationships go wrong because of many factors. Jealousy, fear, reactive and vindictive, manipulative and holding long accounts are ways relationships can become broken. The ever changing relationships must have God at the center and the focus. Relationships either grow or drift apart. Focus on God, allow his intervention and find strength to grow in your relationship with others as well as God.

To be truly strong you have to find courage in God. We are living in one of the safest places in the world during one of the safest periods in history and in spite of that many people are living fearful lives. We need the courage to believe that anything God calls us to face we can face and anything God calls us to do we can do. We need courage to live boldly, joyfully, and sacrificially for God.

Our nature and our culture build deeply into our souls a habit of looking at appearances and missing what is most important. Our culture is flooding our eyes and minds with powerful imagery of physical beauty and material things. God's focus is on the heart. We have to remember this! We have to look at people in light of God's perspective. We have to look at the circumstances of life in light of God's perspective. And we have to value the heart above appearances, in life, in others and in ourselves.

The idea in this story of Samuel and Saul is that you are not truly listening to God unless you hear and obey him. Saul didn't listen. It is this failure to listen that leads to Saul losing an incredible opportunity to be blessed by God and used by God. What this teaches us is that no matter who you are or how strong you feel, to be truly strong we must truly listen to God.