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Evangel High School Class
Series: Biblical Lives to Live By
Return to Lives Index
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David This lesson is based on the following passages: (If you are online, you can look them up at Bible Gateway.)
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"The problem with that kid is that he doesn't have any ambition: he'll
never amount to anything." Have you ever heard anyone talk like that
about someone you know or about yourself? Ambition is the desire to
get ahead, to move up, to make yourself something special. It seems
that we are all supposed to be ambitious these days. Our parents are
disappointed if we don't have high goals and work hard to achieve them.
We feel like we are in competition with others, sometimes even with our
friends to be more successful than they are. Ambition has not always been held in such high regard. During the Middle Ages, to be ambitious was to be sinful, because it meant you were not satisfied with your state in life, and not being satisfied with what God had given you was considered to be a form of covetousness. Therefore, to be righteous, one needed to be satisfied with life and to be thankful for what God had given. We can see how ambition, when seen in this light, can be considered sinful. It springs from covetousness, it stimulates competition, it causes people to do unkind things to others just to promote themselves. But does God always want us to stay in the condition we were born into? If so, there would be little reason to go to college or to deny ourselves present pleasures for future rewards. The apostle Paul had this to say about that: "Each one shoud remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so" (I Corinthians 7:20-21). When we look at David and consider his early life, we see that God has given us an example of how a person should control ambition. He is anointed king of Israel by Samuel while he is still a shepherd boy, the youngest of his brothers and apparently the one with the least status. He is sent by is father to take provisions to his brothers who are on the front lines of battle. There he hears Goliath challenging Israel to send out a champion to fight him, and David doesn't understand why someone doesn't go out, trusting in God, to fight the giant. His brother tries to shut him up, claiming that David is conceited (I Samuel 17:28). We all know, though, that David went ahead and fought Goliath, slaying him with his sling and cutting off Goliath's head with his own sword. After this encounter, Saul kept David in his service and gave him a high rank in the army. Because David was successful in battle, people began to praise him, causing Saul to become so jealous that he tried to kill David at least three times before David fled to the wilderness. Even when David was hiding in the desert, Saul brought his army out to find him twice, and both times David had an opportunity to kill Saul. Think about it. David knew God had chosen him to be king in Saul's place, he had been the target of Saul's wrath many times, and here was Saul, his enemy, delivered right into his hands. A truly ambitious man would have read the situation this way: "Finally, God is giving me the chance to get rid of the guy who is standing in my way. True, he is the king, but God has already rejected him and chosen me. True, I would have to kill him, but terrible things happen in war, and he is trying to kill me. This is it: I'll never have another opportunity if I pass this up. God will give the blessing to someone else. In fact, I see clearly now that it is my responsibility to kill Saul and to become king so that Israel will have a good ruler." But what did he say? "The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, or lift up my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the Lord" (I Samuel 24:6). David had great patience. He was willing to wait for God's timing, and he resisted the temptation to make himself great. His state of mind seemed to be one in which he had decided that he would be content to be a fugitive his whole life if that is what God wanted him to be. He was like Job. When Job was in his worst condition, he said, "Though he [God] slay me, yet will I trust him" (Job 13:15). In God's own time, Saul was killed by the Philistines in battle, and first the people of Judah came to David to ask him to be king, and then the whole nation of Israel came to him as well. Through it all, David never exalted himself. He waited on the Lord and was able to write these words once he was king:
he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
Blessed is the man
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