Pastor Edgar Mayer;
For more sermons and other writings check out pastors homepage: http://www.geocities.com/mayeredgar
The
Heart Of Sister B
Tommy Tenney: Gods Favorite House, Shippensburg: Destiny Image 1999,
p105-106: Dear Sister B was a real wonder to me when I was growing up. My
grandfather and father co-pastored a church in Louisiana, and at times when the
spiritual climate got a little tough in a service, they would confer and then
call for Sister B to sing.
Now that didnt make much sense to me because Sister Bs voice
sounded something like a disharmonious foghorn. I just couldnt stand her
singing and neither could the other kids, so we used to make fun of her
(secretly, of course)
my father and grandfather knew what they were doing.
They called for her because every time that sister began to sing, tears would
start rolling and the hardness of the service would be shattered. For some
reason, when Sister B stood up to sing to God, the presence of God would
suddenly be ushered in.
There was no obvious connection between her physical voice and the
sudden approach of Gods presence
The beautiful melody that attracted God to
our little church
could only be heard with
spiritual hearing
The key
was the fact that she was a worshipper. When she stood up to sing, she was
oblivious to the row of snickering boys and the other people in the pews. She
sang directly to God as an act of pure worship for His own pleasure, period. As
a result, God didnt want to miss a single note of her lullaby to Him
Do we know what this testimony is about?
Snickering boys missed the impact of Sister Bs singing but the
father and grandfather knew what they were doing. The disharmonious foghorn of
Sister B ushered in the
presence and Spirit of God with the result that the spiritual climate of the
congregation changed. Tears would start rolling and hardened hearts would begin
to melt in repentance.
When David a Bible character was a young shepherd boy, he had already some of Sister Bs
qualities. He didnt have a foghorn
voice but his reputation was similar. As the youngest of the family with
seven older brothers he was somehow
neglected. For instance, when the prophet Samuel came to
This is what happened. I read from the
Bible 1 Samuel 16:6-13:
Samuel saw Eliab [the eldest of Jesses sons] and
thought, Surely the Lords anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord
said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have
rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Humans look at
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
Jesse had seven of
his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him: The Lord has not chosen
these. So he asked Jesse, Are these all of the sons you have? There is the
youngest, Jesse answered, but he is tending the sheep.
What was wrong with David? Why did his
father Jesse not volunteer his name when the prophet Samuel had rejected all of
the other sons? Why did his father have to be asked whether there was still
another boy and then, why did he say to Samuel:
but he is tending
the sheep
almost implying that
David was unavailable?
Like Sister B David
did not seem to enjoy the favour of all those around him. In his case there
were no snickering boys but a less than encouraging father. Yet, Samuel said to
Jesse: Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives. So Jesse sent for David and had him brought
in.
Now I read again from 1 Samuel 16:12-13:
David was ruddy,
with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, Rise and
anoint him; he is the one. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in
the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came
upon David in power
As God saw
something in Sister B, so
God saw something in David the same quality a pure heart the heart of
a worshipper.
Earlier on when Samuel
was impressed by the eldest son Eliab thinking: Surely this is the one, God had rebuked him with the words: Do not consider his
appearance or his height
the Lord looks at the heart. The Lord looks at the heart and had already
spelled out on a previous occasion that indeed he 1 Samuel 13:14:
has sought out a man after his own
heart
David now
surprisingly the shepherd boy the youngest he had the kind of heart that attracted God and therefore an entire
horn of oil was poured out over him he was anointed with oil which signified his anointing with the Holy
Spirit who from that day came upon him in power. David was about to be the new
king over the nation of God.
What was the first consequence of that?
He became even more like Sister B.
I read the remainder of the Bible
chapter 1 Samuel 16:14-23: Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed
from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Sauls attendants
said to him, See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord
command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will
play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better.
So Saul said to his attendants, Find someone
One
of the servants answered, I have seen a son of Jesse of
Davids music came with the same power
as Sister Bs singing. The hardness would shatter. Relief
would come and torment disappear. There was power in Davids
worship to drive away the evil spirit of Saul.
This is interesting and I hope exciting
because the Spirit of God wants to do the same through us. The Bible says that
we are also anointed with the Holy Spirit I read from the Bible 1 John 2:20: .
you have an anointing from the Holy One
Acts 2:38:
you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you
and therefore
we are also or can also be anointed
smeared with the oil of the Holy Spirit to sing with spiritual power, make music and worship with authority
over evil anything that is tormenting us in our lives.
Do we know that and do we appreciate now
the importance of those that are leading us in worship? It is a high calling to
be the Sister B in our midst. However, before we unpack
this further, let me sound a word of warning. Saul had what David had but then
lost the anointing the Spirit of God on his life which means that you can also lose the favour of God on your life and
then judging by the example of Saul not even be worried about it or even notice. There may be past proud
moments of inspiration a great heritage but this is no guarantee that the Spirit of
God is on you now.
In our Bible story king Saul was the
only one that continued to look confident and in control even though he was the
one that had lost favour with God. The prophet Samuel mourned for Saul and
Gods rejection of him. Then he was afraid that Saul would find out that he was
going to anoint a rival king. The people of Bethlehem in turn became
fearful when Samuel arrived in their midst the prophet only seemed to
come when they were in trouble but Saul
was the only one that was never perturbed by anything. His attendants told him:
See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. But even then he didnt seem to get the message. There was no stopping
in his tracks and asking the question: Why would God send an evil
spirit to torment me? What have I done? There was no humbling of this proud king. Instead he was confident in
finding a solution himself. A musician would do the trick and unlike God
he didnt look at the musicians heart but was told: He is a brave man and
a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man
And so the man, who had lost his anointing, remained blind to his true
condition before God. Could that ever be you and I?
When years later David was faced
with the same threat of losing the closeness of God, he repented and he cried
out in desperation Psalm 51:11: [God], do not cast me from your
presence
[do not] take your Holy Spirit from me. And would that not be our reaction as well? God,
anything but losing the Spirit. I cannot live without your
presence your love touching my heart. Saul was different. He began to live on the borrowed anointing of another
(David). He began to live on the presence
of God that came through the worship of another [but was so blind as to the
value of this borrowed anointing that later he no longer even remembered who
David was 1 Samuel 17:55-58:
Saul said to Abner, commander of the army,
. whose son is that young man?
].
Reinhard Bonnke the German evangelist to Africa conducting mass
rallies before more than a million people he said that one day Jesus spoke to him about writing a classic
evangelistic message and putting it in every household in the Western world.
Reinhard responded by saying to Jesus: Lord, my hands are full. I am
not looking for extra work. And he
was right. There was absolutely enough to do with so many invitations and
conferences and campaigns. But Jesus answered him: You are not my first
choice for the job. You are my third choice. Number one and number two did not
obey. With that Reinhard fell down
on the ground tears welling up in his eyes and he said: I was not your first choice and I was not your
second choice. I was your third choice but I will obey. I will accept the
assignment. Then Reinhard wrote the
booklet and proceeded to reach fourteen nations and 93 million households, but
and this is the point that I want to make can you imagine the consequences for number one and number two
the first two people that were commissioned to do this job for Jesus? They missed out on the anointing for this
work. The Spirit departed from them and settled on another person and
they may have never even realized excusing their disobedience somehow.
A pastor noticed that a new person kept
coming to their Sunday services and that this person kept crying throughout the
worship time. One day this man took the pastor aside and invited him to his
home. When the pastor came, he showed him an old architectural model which amazingly looked
exactly like the building complex of their church. Then he said: I used
to be the pastor of your church. One day I heard from God that we were to build
a bigger worship centre. I was given the vision and had this model made up but
then there was resistance in the church and I ended up walking away from the
conflict. My model went with me but now I come back and see that God gave the
very same vision to someone else and that someone else was more obedient than I
and he built what I should have been building. I missed the anointing of the
Spirit for this task.
And this is the kind of danger that we
all face. King Saul lost what he had and then did not even worry. As far as he
was concerned he was still the king and in charge. But at the same time there
was also the torment of an evil spirit that could only be dealt with the
borrowed anointing of David.
Please, you and I we want the
Spirit to remain on us and not lose what we have and what God wants to give to
us. Is the Holy Spirit on you personally or are you coming to church relying
heavily on the anointing of others the music of our Davids and the
singing of our Sister Bs? There is nothing wrong with coming under the ministry of others but at
some stage we are meant to have our own anointing. The Holy Spirit needs to be
on us as well so that even outside of the Sunday worship service we can enjoy his
presence and the power of worship.
For instance, at one time David and his
men were raided by the Amalekites who captured all of their women and children.
Davids men were talking about stoning him but then the Bible says that he 1 Samuel 16:6 refreshed himself in the Lord
his God. Can you also refresh yourself
in prayer and worship because the Spirit of God is on you? Can we all become Sister Bs
ourselves rather than living on borrowed
anointings?
Yes, we can. In the past only kings were
anointed but then Jesus became king and they called him the Christ which by the way does mean the anointed one and he the anointed one established a new kingdom where we would
all share in the anointing of kings the pouring out of Holy Spirit oil on
you and me. This can make us so happy.
God explains in the Bible Acts
2:17: In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people. John 7:37-39:
Jesus stood and said in a loud voice: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to
me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of
living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom
those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had
not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified [in his death and
resurrection].
Do we want the anointing? Are you
thirsty? Are you ready to come and drink from Jesus? Do you want to believe in
him and then have streams of living water flow from within you the refreshing flow of the Holy Spirit which is
driving away any torment of any other spirit? This morning make a commitment to trust him. You can have the anointing
because Jesus is willing to give the Spirit to you. Try this out. Have faith.
Jesus died on a cross so that you could be forgiven and receive new life from
God salvation which includes a
new life with the Spirit living water flowing from within us.
This may sound a little too easy simply come and drink simply put your faith in
Jesus but we dont forget for a moment
that the anointing on our life was not cheap. It cost Jesus his life. It cost
him persecution. It cost him pain and death when his holy sacrifice on a cross
became the price for our favour with God. We are thankful to Jesus for what he
has done for us. He is our Lord. We worship him and we follow him
drinking from him the Spirit the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Now getting back to our Bible story we ask more pointedly the question: What attracted God to David? What
made him willing to pour out the Spirit on David and not on his brothers? The
answer to this question is important because God and the Holy Spirit still
respond to the same character qualities. We receive the Spirit by faith in
Jesus Christ we receive when we come thirsty but there are still lessons to learn about letting the Spirit river
flow freely from within us.
With David in mind God had said: Do not consider appearance or height
the Lord
looks at the heart. I have sought out a man after my own heart. What was the heart of David like? Jesus gave
us a hint when he clarified what God desires. He said Matthew 22:37: Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Love the Lord your God with all your
heart. Love God with all your heart. The Bible nowhere explains the nature of
Davids heart but he loved God. He loved to worship him and obey him (cf.
Acts 13:22).
It is no accident that the first
information which we learn about David is that he knew how to play the harp.
The shepherd boy had taught himself to make music to God in the fields and
worship him there on his own with pure devotion when no one else was watching.
God found that intensely attractive and therefore he poured out his Spirit on
him with the result that when the
Spirit came the music and worship
coming from Davids devoted heart would become so pleasing to God and so
powerful that the tormenting evil spirit of Saul would leave him.
If we are not careful, then much of our
devotion to God is intellectual in
the mind only analyzing sermons and constructing theologies but there is something about the kind of
love that is making music because music is the language of the heart and God
longs for our heart the honesty of emotions and devotion without the
mind control and God then does empower
the worship of singing hearts. And this is not a new insight. Martin Luther
said:
The devil flees before the sound of
music almost as much as before the word of God.
music is hateful to the devil and drives him far away.
I come to a close. Jesus promised us:
If anyone is
thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture
has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant
the Spirit
If anyone is thirsty
We are thirsty and we do want the streams of living water flowing from
within us the Holy Spirit and
therefore again this morning right now we do come to him and drink with hearts that are devoted to him and
directed towards him. Nothing must quench the flow of God.
We love him. We love him in worship with the language of the heart. We love him with music and obedience. We love him. Can we all love him? If we have grown cold,
can we make a fresh beginning? What Jesus promised he backed up with his
sacrifice on the cross. Trust him. Put your faith in
him. God is the only one that can quench your thirst. Let him be looking at your
heart with pleasure as he was pleased with the heart of David and then poured
out the Holy Spirit on him. Imagine: Streams of living water will be flowing
from within you the Holy Spirit in abundant measure. Amen.