King of Hearts, Part 1: A Heart After God
⌥ Type: Sunday Morning Service
🎬 Series: A Heart After God
⛪ Sermon: Part 1 - A Heart After God
🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen
📜 Description: God testified that David was a man after His own heart — not because David was perfect, but because of the posture of his heart: humble, repentant, and hungry for God. The heart, defined as the center of our thinking, emotions, and will, is what God sees past every polished image and social media filter to examine. Just as David kept his heart in sync with God through honesty, quick repentance, and wholehearted worship, we are invited to stop managing our image and start aligning our hearts with God's.
ℹ️ Tip: The video is set to start at the beginning of the sermon, but you can scrub the playhead to any part of the service. ℹ️
Additional Info
The info below was generated by an AI from the audio recording of the sermon.
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Use the questions listed below as a launching point to discuss the sermon points together as a family. These are great for dinner table discussions and small groups.
Estimated time: 45 minutes
Icebreaker (5 minutes)
If someone who knew you well were asked to describe the "real you" — not your social media self — what do you think they would say? What would you hope they would say?
Opening Scripture
Acts 13:22 — "I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do."
Read this verse aloud together before diving into discussion.
Discussion Questions (30 minutes)
1. God testified about David with complete, eyewitness accuracy — warts and all. How does it make you feel to know that God sees everything about you and still calls you toward a relationship with Him?
2. The message described three qualities God is looking for: humility, a repentant heart, and hunger. Which of these do you find most natural? Which feels hardest for you right now?
3. The difference between King Saul and King David wasn't how much they sinned — they both failed. The difference was how they responded. What does your own pattern of response to failure look like? Do you tend to shift blame, go silent, or run toward God?
4. Psalm 51:1–3 captures David's raw honesty with God. Is there an area in your life right now where you need to pray that kind of prayer?
5. The message used the image of two dancers — one leading, one following. In what areas of your life are you trying to lead the dance instead of following God?
6. Psalm 42 compares longing for God to a deer desperately panting for water. How would you honestly describe your hunger for God right now — and what tends to crowd God out of first place in your life?
Key Scriptures from This Message
Acts 13:22 · 1 Samuel 12:20 · Psalm 139:23 · Psalm 51:1–3 · Psalm 84:2 · Psalm 42:1 · Psalm 40:8
Closing Action Step (5 minutes)
This week, set aside 10 minutes each day to pray Psalm 139:23 — "Search me, O God, and know my heart" — and then sit quietly and let God surface anything He wants to address. Write down what you sense and bring it back to share with the group next week.
Closing Prayer
Close by praying together that each group member would have the courage to be fully honest with God this week — and to run toward Him rather than away from Him whenever misalignment surfaces.
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Acts 13:22 — Historical Context
When Paul quotes God's testimony about David in Acts 13:22, he is preaching in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch on his first missionary journey — roughly A.D. 47–48. His audience is a mixed crowd of Jewish worshipers and God-fearing Gentiles who would have recognized David immediately as Israel's most celebrated king, ruling from approximately 1010–970 B.C. Paul's use of this quote is deliberate and strategic: he is connecting the story of Israel all the way from the Exodus to David to Jesus, arguing that the promises made to David find their ultimate fulfillment in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The phrase "a man after my own heart" appears to be drawn from a combination of 1 Samuel 13:14 and Psalm 89, both of which were deeply embedded in Jewish memory and worship.
The original context of 1 Samuel 13:14 is telling. God spoke those words not as a reward for David's past behavior — David was not yet on the scene — but as a declaration of future intention, contrasting the kind of king God was now seeking with Saul's disobedience. In the ancient Near East, a king's heart was considered the governing center of the entire nation's spiritual life. A king with a heart aligned to God meant the whole people would follow in worship and obedience; a king with a divided heart meant national disaster. This is why the stakes of David's story feel so high throughout the Old Testament.
Psalm 51 — Historical Context
Psalm 51 carries the inscription: "A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba." This places it around 1000–990 B.C., in the aftermath of one of the most serious moral collapses in David's life — his adultery with Bathsheba and his orchestration of the death of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. The prophet Nathan confronted David directly using a parable (2 Samuel 12), and David's response was immediate and total confession.
In the ancient world, kings were rarely held accountable by anyone. They were considered semi-divine or at minimum beyond reproach. David's willingness to be rebuked by a prophet and to publish his repentance in song — placing it permanently in Israel's worship hymnbook — was countercultural in the extreme. Psalm 51 became one of the central penitential psalms used in Jewish liturgy and later in Christian tradition. The phrases "wash me," "cleanse me," and "blot out my transgressions" all draw on ancient purification language from Israelite priestly practice, connecting personal confession to the broader covenant relationship between God and His people.
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A Heart Like David's — Kids Lesson (Ages 6–12)
Total time: approximately 45 minutes | Designed for volunteer leaders
Introduction (5 minutes)
Start by asking the kids: "Has anyone ever been chosen for something special — like being picked first for a team or chosen for a part in a play?" Let a few kids share. Then say: "Today we're going to learn about someone God chose — not because he was the biggest, the strongest, or the most popular, but because of something on the INSIDE."
Hold up your hand over your heart and ask: "What's in here? What does your heart actually do — not just pump blood, but what does it mean when we say 'your heart'?" Take a few answers. Then explain: "In the Bible, your heart means the real YOU — how you think, what you feel, and what you decide to do."
Scripture (5 minutes)
Acts 13:22 — "I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do."
Read it together once. Then ask: "Who is saying this? (God!) Who is He talking about? (David!) Why is this a big deal?" Explain that God was saying David's heart matched up with His. That's a really special thing.
Craft — "Heart Sync" Card (10 minutes)
Supplies needed: Cardstock or thick paper, markers, crayons, stickers (optional)
Instructions: Have each kid fold a piece of cardstock in half to make a card. On the outside, they draw two hearts side by side with an arrow between them (like a sync symbol). On the inside, they write or draw one thing they want their heart to match up with God on — something like "being kind," "forgiving a friend," or "not being afraid." Encourage them to keep the card somewhere they'll see it this week.
Game — "Sync Up!" (10 minutes)
How to play: Have kids pair up. One person is the "leader," the other is the "follower." The leader makes slow movements (raising arms, turning around, jumping once) and the follower tries to copy them exactly at the same time — like a mirror. After 60 seconds, switch roles.
After the game, bring everyone back together and ask: "Was it easier to lead or to follow? What made it hard to stay in sync?" Then connect it: "Staying in sync with God means reading the Bible, praying, and listening — it takes practice, just like the game!"
Discussion Questions (5 minutes)
1. Why do you think God cared more about David's heart than his size or strength?
2. David made some really big mistakes. But what did he do when he knew he did something wrong? (He said sorry to God and meant it.) How can we do that too?
3. What is one thing you could do this week to keep your heart close to God?
Wrap-Up Prayer
Have the kids repeat after you, line by line:
"God, thank You for caring about my heart. I want my heart to be close to You. Help me to be humble, to say sorry when I'm wrong, and to really want to know You. I want to be like David — not perfect, but always coming back to You. Amen."
Leader tip: After the prayer, remind kids to take their Heart Sync card home and put it somewhere they'll see it — like their mirror or their nightstand.
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I think God wants you to know that He's the same God of the Bible who can And that all of those stories are historical Sometimes we look at the Word of God as if it's a storybook that we read to our children, and maybe they were things that happened a long time ago, but they don't apply to today.
But God wants you to know that every single story applies to today.
Who can say amen?
That the God who healed still heals today.
That the God who did miracles while Jesus was here still does miracles.
Today, he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.
And so this summer we're introducing this series entitled King of hearts.
It's all about a person in the Bible by the name of David And and I just I need to encourage you guys to understand.
I I had people come up to me and say, Why why do we have cards in the lobby These are not cards, these are invitations to people.
They are conversation starters.
If you look closely, you see it's a king on one side and it's a shepherd on the other side.
And on this side it says, please come to church.
We have service on Wednesday and Sunday, and every service is going to be on the life of David.
One of the reasons we're doing that is because there is more biographical information on David than any other person in the Bible.
Do you understand this?
He is mentioned in in Matthew, he's mentioned in Revelation, so he bookends the entire New Testament Jesus is also mentioned in Matthew, and Jesus is also mentioned in Revelation.
So there is a strong correlation between these two.
David in the Old Testament is a Jesus figure.
David in the Old Testament is also an example. for you and I of what kind of hearts God is looking for.
God is looking for a heart after Him who can say Amen.
In talking about hearts, uh, I read this story this week about 300,000 doctors and nurses that went to Las Vegas for a convention.
And it was with the American Heart Association.
And uh all morning long they talked about the importance of a low-fat diet for a healthy heart.
They spent the morning teaching people how to live, how to eat, and how to maintain health.
But then it came time for lunch Here it comes.
Pizza, exactly.
Double cheeseburgers with bacon on top of them.
Malted milkshakes, extra large French fries.
They ate worse than anybody!
So there were reporters there and they were trying to figure out what was going on.
They went to one of these uh cardiologists and said, Aren't you hypocritical?
And he said, Oh, don't worry about it.
I took my name tag off Don't worry about it.
I worry about my heart and I don't mean in a in a oh I'm so anxious.
I make sure and take care of my heart.
I ex Exercise every single week at least two or three times.
I play basketball and pickleball and softball and other things to to keep my heart in shape physically The question is, what do I do for my heart spiritually?
If God were to ask for character witnesses for you. to to say what kind of heart does that person have?
What would they say?
I mean we wouldn't want them to know the truth, right?
We don't want them to know we get angry in traffic on the 301.
We don't want them to know that we're grumpy before we have our first cup of coffee in the morning.
We want a whitewashed image of our character.
So if you're looking for a home loan or a new job or a security clearance for the CIA, when they do this background check, what are they going to find?
What's really interesting is God Himself testifies concerning one person in the Bible I want you to imagine this just for a second, that God says, I have testified concerning a man by the name of David.
I mean, I I would hope my mom would testify about my character.
I'd hope my dad would testify to my character.
Maybe my wife would testify to my character.
Or maybe if there if the great cloud of witnesses is up there, maybe Paul or or or Abraham or someone would say, you know what, there's a good man down there But the scripture here tells us that God himself testified concerning David.
So as we kick off our summer series entitled King of Hearts, we're going to find out why.
We're going to find out why it is that this frail, sin-stained, broken man is considered a man after God's own heart.
Let's look at Acts chapter 13 again, beginning in verse 22.
This is what it says: God testified concerning David.
I have found David, son of Jesse.
A man after my own heart.
He will do everything.
Say everything.
He will do everything I want him to do.
God testified concerning David.
I want you to understand the significance, the power, the importance of this particular verse God calls Himself as a witness on the world stage, as a character witness for one person by the name of David.
God provides literally eyewitness testimony.
And I'm here to tell you, his memory doesn't fade.
His memory isn't isn't quite you know misty on the details.
God sees all, knows all, remembers all.
His testimony in the scriptures has nothing to do with rumor, innuendo , hearsay.
He doesn't have a fading memory in any way, shape, or form.
God literally had a front row seat to the life of David and he said, this is a man after my own heart.
Would he do the same thing for you and me?
See, we live in the age of social media filters where someone my age can look 25 on Facebook.
Oh yeah, I could put filters on me and I could look really good or I could just put a picture of me when I was 25 on there.
A lot of people do that.
Pretending that they're there's something that they're not.
Everybody's life looks amazing online.
Robin had a her 62nd birthday recently.
And uh I I took her to Universal Studios last week.
She kind of likes having some fun walking in a fantasy area.
We were there for a number of days.
And uh she shared some some pictures on Facebook.
You might have seen some of these pictures.
We've got them up here.
Um there we are.
Uh what this first one, Robin, where were we on that one?
I can't see what's in the background.
The what?
The boat.
What boat?
Huh?
Oh, when we got on the boat to drive to to ride from the hotel to the park, we had to get on a boat.
Okay.
And the second one is in front of those fountains at Epic.
I don't know if you've been to Epic Universal, but but that's what that one is.
The next one is me being cool in my thing shirt, I guess.
And in the middle you see the Diet Coke hats Now everything looks beautiful, doesn't it?
Everything looks wonderful.
The rest of the pictures are probably even better, but I didn't post my frustration face.
Oh yeah, Robin saw it come out again and again because I paid extra Extra money for fast pass tickets, okay?
At every single one of those studios.
I thought I was gonna get to walk to the very front of the line.
So we got early admittance on Saturday, 8 a. m.
We're standing there at the gate.
We go rushing in as fast as we can and I guess we're not as fast as we used to be.
Because the fast pass line had a 40-minute wait.
The other line was two hours and 15 minutes.
And all that was there was early attenders.
And I thought we had a fast pass.
One time when we were in Hollywood trying to get on over back to Islands of Adventure, we had to wait over an hour for the train And that was with a fast pass ticket.
So the frustration face.
Came out a couple we didn't take any pictures of that.
I didn't post what was the the horrible hamburger that we ate.
I mean it was not beef.
I guarantee you it was not beef.
When they talk about mystery meat, it was mystery meat.
I could barely stomach that thing.
It was so bad.
And I didn't post me limping back to the hotel with a swollen foot on the third day, wondering if Medicare covers the theme park.
That's what I was hoping for, but I don't think that took place either.
You know why we do this?
Because we know people judge us from the outside.
They judge us based upon what we look like, by what we wear, by what we drive, by what kind of job we have.
But God was going to give a 100% eyewitness testimony and a truthful testimony.
Now I want you to imagine this.
God is standing before some judge.
The judge hands the Bible out and says, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
So help you.
You.
You know, so help you God.
I I mean I I can see this, but he told the complete truth again.
Did you know there are 66 chapters of the Bible just on David's life?
73 Psalms that speak to his heart.
There's numerous verses about his lineage.
It is a total and complete picture, but it's also an unvarnished picture.
In other words, warts and all.
God didn't whitewash anything.
We find out that this David had an affair.
This David killed another human being.
This David on occasions disobeyed God.
But here's the difference.
Every time he repented, who can say amen?
If men wrote the Bible, they would have edited the life of David.
This is why we know God wrote it.
Because men don't do things like this.
Bathsheba would have would have disappeared.
Uriah would have been deleted.
His family dysfunction would have been buried so deep no one would have been able to find it.
But God doesn't love a polished version of you.
He loves you for you.
Right now Right where you're at, God loves you.
God cares about you, and he wants you on his team in Jesus' name.
So the scripture says that that God found David, son of Jesse.
I find that interesting that God's on the lookout, don't you?
That God's literally right now looking for people with a heart just like David's.
This is why it's written in the New Testament.
Paul is in the middle of a sermon.
He's preaching to a group of people, and he brings up David and says he had a heart after After God.
It's so you and I know that God is still on the lookout for men and women just like Him.
And God does not look on the outside, just you know He appreciates beauty, okay, but he's never deceived by beauty.
Beauty can trick people.
He's not impressed by your talent.
He's the one who gave you your talent.
He's not impressed by anyone's credentials, anyone's reputation, your online presence.
He's looking at your heart.
Say heart.
He's looking at our heart 1 Samuel 12.
20, Samuel's talking to all the children of Israel.
And this is what he says: Serve the Lord with all your heart.
What's the heart?
I mean, I've got one pumping in my chest.
You know what they're really referring to?
They're referring to the real you.
What makes up Pastor Tom?
What makes up who you are?
The entirety Or maybe more specifically, the central focus of your life.
What is it?
We have so many American sayings when it comes to the heart.
Take heart.
That means don't be afraid, right?
Get your heart on or set your heart on something.
That means that that you're focusing with your mind.
Give your heart or or a broken heart is referring to to love.
Take it to heart or memorize something by heart again is your thinking processes.
So the heart symbolizes the very center of your entire being, the epicenter of your life.
This is the key phrase that we're going to focus on for this summer.
The heart is where you discern, desire , decide, and dedicate.
It's your thinking, it's your emotions, and it's your will.
It's the entirety of who you really are, not this body.
It's something more spiritual, something more real, something more substantial on the inside of you.
And God is looking for the right kind of heart.
And we're going to spend all summer talking about this, but let me give you three things about David right now that'll get us started.
Number one is this, God is looking for humble hearts.
God is looking for humble hearts.
So what's the opposite of humility?
Pride.
Pride That's right.
So pride is the enemy.
And pride is sneaky.
Sometimes it looks like arrogance.
Sometimes it looks like, oh, that guy's just arrogant.
But sometimes it goes into a self-preservation mode where you don't do what God wants you to do because you're too afraid.
That's got nothing to do with arrogance.
That's because your pride is protecting you.
And so it doesn't always look the same.
We can really recognize arrogance easy, but the other one almost appears to be humility at times.
And it's false humility.
We have to be careful because Scripture says that God resists the proud.
That word resist is a military word.
It means that God fights against the proud.
How would you do in a in a one-round fight with God Himself?
I I don't think we would do very good.
I don't think anyone would come out a winner.
And so we don't want to be arrogant because God is going to resist us, but he gives grace to the humble.
Now, we need to understand that pride is is not good.
And in an American culture, pride is cherished.
Pride is, they had great pride in their team.
Take great pride in your company.
Take great pride in your work ethic.
Now, there is a little something to that.
There is one verse in Galatians chapter 6 that says, if your motives are pure And something that you do, you can take pride in that.
Okay?
If your motives are pure.
But there's another 99 verses in the Bible that say pride is Bad.
Listen to this.
The scripture says pride is wicked.
It says it's evil.
It says it's stubborn.
It says it's a chain.
It says it is the iniquity of Sodom.
If I were to ask you, what's the major sin of Sodom, is that the one you would have come up with?
No.
Our minds would have gone to sections sins because that's what we think.
But the reason they went down that path was because of their pride Scripture says that God resists that.
Now, this is seen in the lives of King David and in King Saul.
Watch this King Saul built monuments to himself after he disobeyed God, while David built a tabernacle to house the presence of God.
Saul strived to protect his own reputation where David, his main cause was the name of God.
Saul, I would call like a modern-day influencer, always promoting himself, obsessed with his public image, but David was less concerned about followers and more concerned about following God himself.
He wanted to be obedient.
Who could say amen?
Psalm chapter 139 verse 23.
This is the transparency of David.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Are you willing to do that?
Are you willing to allow God just to search you and whatever's in there to raise it out and and if it's bad to get rid of it, if it's good to hold on to it, because God secondly is looking for repentance.
Hearts.
When Saul was confronted with his wrongdoing, he would make excuses, he would shift the blame on someone else.
He was trying to manage his image at all times.
But David When David was confronted, he was quick to confess.
He was fast to say, I'm sorry.
He always responded in a positive way.
Listen to the words from Psalm chapter 51.
Listen to this.
Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Are you hearing this?
If you read the 73 Psalms that are written by David, you will find oftentimes he says, God, wash me of my sins.
Cleanse me of my iniquity.
Take away any evil.
Put a guard on my mouth.
Make sure that the words that come out of my mouth are are honoring you.
The difference between Saul and David was not failure.
They both failed.
They both made tons of mistakes.
The difference was Saul went ahead with his own plan and didn't care in arrogance.
Whereas David was quick to respond positively again and again and again.
I think that points to the third thing here, and that is God is looking for hungry hearts John chapter 4 puts it this way, that God is seeking true worshipers.
How did David worship?
In every way he could imagine.
He would sing, he'd play musical instruments, he would dance, he would shout, he would holler, he'd clap his hands.
He would jump in in what appeared to be hysteria at times, and he didn't care what anybody thought about his demonstrations because his heart was pure.
That meant his demonstrations were pure too And so when we enter praise and worship and and we say he turned us around and we go like this, people shouldn't look at us funny.
They should go, I want that.
I want that hunger.
I want that desire.
Psalm 84, 2, my soul longs.
Yes, it even faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Psalm 42 says that as the deer pants for water, so my soul longs for my God.
A dear panting is desperation.
It's survival language.
David is saying that I can't go on in life without God.
He's got to be my number one.
There are so many people who hunger for success or comfort or entertainment or position.
And none of those things are evil in and of themselves unless they are above God in the priority list.
God must be our number one.
And that's what David did again and again.
Because hungry people rearranged their priorities to eat.
Some of you are going to do this today.
Someone's going to come up to you and say, hey, you want to go to a movie?
And you're going to say after I go to lunch, I need a burger first.
I need uh whatever it is.
I need a salad.
I need to get some sustenance in me because when you're hungry, you make sure and go and get something to eat.
You always make room for what you crave.
If I were to look at your calendar, your checkbook, your finances, your schedule, your thoughts.
What would it say?
Remember, God sees all of those things.
So when we start thinking about why did God say David was a man after his own heart, wasn't because he was flawless.
It wasn't because he was sinless.
It was because he prioritized God.
He sought after God.
And Finally, this is the last point, he synced his heart with God's heart.
He synced up with God a heart To heart synchronization.
Acts 13 22.
God testified concerning David.
I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.
When I wrote InSyncDown, the first thing I wanted to do was start a boy band.
I cannot say that phrase without thinking of Justin Timberlake.
Bye bye bye.
You know?
I I don't even know how that song is in my mind, but when I wrote this down in my notes actually I wrote this probably two weeks ago.
I I I'm like bye bye bye and I'm like where did that song come from?
And so I got online and I typed in in sync and sure enough it was probably their biggest hit And I and it's still floating around in my head, and I didn't even like 90s music.
Who here likes nineties music?
Let me see your hands.
Be honest, uh I see ya, I see ya, okay.
It was probably my least favorite, I'm a seventies music kind of guy Oh wow.
There are a lot of old people in this room right now.
Okay.
How about sixties music?
Oh my Lord!
You're still on this planet?
Oh my Lord.
I I don't know if you noticed uh if you get s one of the satellite uh stations They did away with 60s music on there.
It now starts with 70s, 80s, 90s.
And you can find it somewhere, but it used to be 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2 Thousand tens, sixties is gone now I guess there's not enough people listening to it anymore.
So Robin and I, we were gonna sing a song one time at church.
We had marginal success seen at my dad's church in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
So we thought, you know what, hey, we we were well received.
Robin's got a great voice, she can carry me uh through anything.
And and so we decided to do silent night for Christmas at the first church that I pastored at in Eugene, Oregon, and we were practicing the song, and it was the Cece Wynans and her brother's version.
Anybody know about their singing?
Well, Robin nailed it.
She could do such a great job.
And and I all my job was to do was to sing harmony.
That's all I'm sorry, to sing the the melody, the the the main line.
She was the one harmonizing.
Every time she would go to harmony, I would follow her lead.
Every single time I could not do my part.
We practiced for weeks.
She would hammer it out on the piano.
I could sing my part when she wasn't singing.
And as soon as she was added in, I would do the harmony line.
Now In singing a duet, it probably wasn't a good thing, but in regards to God, it's a great thing.
Because you want to be in unity with God You want your heart to be in sync with him.
You want your mind to be in sync with him.
You want to think like God.
You need to know what's important to God.
You need to think What burdens God, burdens me.
God enjoys, I also enjoy.
And if you wonder how you figure that out, it's simply by reading the Bible.
Again and again.
Read the 73 Psalms that David wrote.
You will hear the heart of God just flow out of those Psalms again.
That's why the Psalms are many people's favorite book.
Because they find themselves in the Psalms.
And it's not all flowery.
Some of it's very personal.
Some of it's very harsh.
Some of it's David saying, Why, why, why, why?
And when he gets to the end of the chapter, he's like, I still want why, but I trust you completely.
I would really like to know God, but you're my God.
I will go through whatever you think I'm capable of going through.
Oh, you might hear a complaint to you, but God, I will never utter that complaint to any other human being in the name of Jesus Christ.
Because the Psalms reveal a heart that is joyful, a heart that is loving, a heart that is in pain at different times, but it is always in agreement with God.
I think about syncing my my devices together.
I have an iPad, I have an Apple phone, I have an Apple computer.
And what amazes me is sometimes I'm typing on my computer in my office right before this service.
Because I'm going over my sermon and I don't like a line and I'm like, I gotta change that.
And I change it on my computer and and it it flies into outer space somewhere and then all of a sudden my iPad sinks up.
I'm like, that's awesome.
And then there are times I'm in my office five minutes before the service and I change the line and it doesn't sink.
I'm like, oh, this terrible stuff.
You know, it's not like it has to travel what twenty thousand miles or a thousand miles out into outer space and then a thousand miles back to my computer.
And it usually does it in less than one minute.
But I still get frustrated once in a while.
And I look at this computer, and that's what happened this morning.
It all downloaded.
It's like when I read the Bible, I get a download from God.
I get in sync with God.
I know what he wants.
I start walking. hand in hand with my God.
We start walking as one, walking in step, working together at exactly the same time and the same speed.
Now I'm gonna switch analogies for you real fast to dancing with the stars.
Who watches it, be honest.
Let me see your hands.
A few of you watch it?
Okay.
I catch my wife watching it every now and then.
Uh I'm not a big fan.
The judges kind of freak me out just a little bit.
Okay?
But sometimes when I look over Robin's shoulder, I see two people just beautifully dancing in sync.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, their motions.
How do two people make it look like there's just one unit dancing?
And then I realize something.
I realize that one of the two is leading the dance.
Both don't get their way.
One has to be in charge.
One has to be in control of what's going on.
Two people dancing together can't do different things or it won't harmonize.
It won't be smooth.
It won't flow.
It won't be beautiful.
And sometimes, if we're honest, we want God to be the backup.
We want God to be a backup dancer.
We want God in our lives.
But we don't want him to lead.
We still want to be in charge.
But God says, take my hand and I will lead you where you need to go.
Many of us want God to be our backup dancer, but but He is only a lead who can say amen.
This will allow us to work together as one.
Here's another Psalm to help you understand David's heart.
Psalm 40, verse 8.
I desire to do your will, my God.
Your law is within my heart.
See, that's the key?
Because he knew the law, the Bible, that's what he's talking about, the Torah.
Because he read it, memorized it, understood it.
He was able to desire to do God's will.
The word everything refers to David's whole-hearted devotion.
Being in sync is not about being perfect.
David was both a giant killer and a giant sinner.
He did things that would disqualify him for ministry today.
Did you know that?
David could not be a pastor in assemblies of God churches because of the things he did.
So if David had a heart after God, I take much courage because I know I can have a heart after God Would you stand with me please?
I hope that we all understand that David didn't become the greatest king that ever Israel ever had because of his resume.
It wasn't because he was sinless or because he conquered a giant even.
It wasn't because he did good things.
It's because He became a man after God's heart and refused to be disconnected from God.
Oh, there was one time where it seemed like he was disconnected, but he was quick to come back every single time.
So here's my challenge as we start the summer.
Stop trying to polish your image for people in the pews.
Start being honest with God who already knows your heart.
Because the beauty of David's story isn't that he was the giant slayer.
The beauty is that God could find his heart in a shepherd boy who made a mess of his life If that's true, he can find a heart of gold inside of you too.
Would you bow your heads with me, please?
One of the things that David teaches.
Probably the primary thing is to run to him when I've done wrong.
Run to him.
Don't run away from him.
Run to him at the first hint of misalignment.
And so I want you to pray in your seat right now that you would be in 100% alignment with God.
I'm not going to ask for anybody to raise their hands, but but you know where you are in your relationship.
You know if you've if you've just drifted a little ways away, you know if you've backslidden completely, you know if you're not even a follower of Jesus Christ, and and you're starting to sense That this man David is someone that you could be like.
So in the sanctity of the altar of your seat, I'm asking you to pray And I will pray for you.
Heavenly Father, we come to you in the precious name of Jesus Christ.
And in a congregation this size, With hundreds of people, Father God.
We are all in a different place.
But what is so amazing about the scripture is you spoke to every single one of us here We were all inspired, I hope, to aspire to being something like David.
I pray, Father God, that we all are laying our heart out on our sleeve right now for you to see.
And admitting the maladies, admitting the sin, admitting the transgressions, just like David, and saying, I want to be holy and pure in the name of Jesus Christ.
So, Father God, if there's anybody here that's never accepted Jesus, I pray that in this moment they will latch on to what the Spirit is doing in their hearts, miraculously in Jesus' name.
That they confess their sins and Admit their wrongdoing and take Jesus as their Lord and their Savior and confess it with their mouth.
I pray for those who have backslidden, Father God, that they will run back to you.
I pray for anyone who who senses any emotion.
Of drift in their life, Father God, that they would immediately take measures, Father God, to get as close to God as possible.
Father God, forgive sins today, Father God, heal hearts in this moment.
Father God, in the name of Jesus Christ, draw people mightily to you, I pray, in Jesus' name.
Blog Post
What Does It Mean to Have a Heart After God?
In a world of curated profiles and carefully filtered images, it's easy to focus on how we appear rather than who we actually are. But there is a deeper question worth sitting with: what does the inside of your life look like? And more importantly, what is God looking for?
The Heart Is the Real You
The word "heart," as used throughout the Bible, refers not simply to an organ in your chest but to the very center of your being — your thoughts, your emotions, and your will. It is the place where you discern, desire, decide, and dedicate yourself. Every American idiom we use about the heart — "take heart," "set your heart on," "by heart" — points to this same idea: the heart is the epicenter of who you truly are.
First Samuel 12:20 makes it plain: "Serve the Lord with all your heart." That phrase carries enormous weight, because it asks for the entirety of you — not a polished, Sunday-morning version, but the real thing.
Why God's Testimony About David Matters
In Acts 13:22, God Himself speaks as a character witness for a man named David, son of Jesse: "I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do." This is remarkable. God — who sees all, knows all, and forgets nothing — chose to testify on behalf of one individual. No rumor, no hearsay, no fading memory. A front-row eyewitness account.
What makes this even more striking is the kind of man David was. He had an affair. He was responsible for the death of an innocent man. He disobeyed God on more than one occasion. God did not whitewash any of it. In fact, that is precisely the point: David was not described as a man after God's own heart because he was flawless, but because of what he did every time he failed.
Three Qualities God Is Looking For
There are three qualities in David's life that reveal the kind of heart God is actively seeking today.
The first is humility. Pride — whether it shows up as arrogance or as self-protective fear — is something the Bible treats with remarkable seriousness. Scripture calls pride wicked, stubborn, and a chain. It even identifies it as the foundational sin. God, according to James 4:6, resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. King Saul spent his life building monuments to himself. David spent his building a place for God's presence. The contrast could not be sharper.
The second quality is a repentant heart. When confronted with sin, Saul shifted blame and managed his image. David confessed quickly and completely. Psalm 51 captures this raw, unguarded transparency: "Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me." The difference between Saul and David was not that David sinned less — they both failed repeatedly. The difference was that David ran toward God rather than away from Him the moment he recognized his failure.
The third quality is hunger. David's worship was not quiet or contained. He sang, played instruments, danced, shouted, and clapped. He didn't manage his public image in the presence of God; he gave everything he had. Psalm 84:2 says, "My soul longs, yes, it even faints for the courts of the Lord." Psalm 42 compares his longing for God to a deer desperate for water — survival language, not casual preference. David rearranged his priorities around what he craved most.
Syncing Your Heart With God
Acts 13:22 describes David as a man who would do "everything" God wanted him to do. That word — everything — points not to sinless perfection, but to wholehearted devotion. It describes a life in sync with God's own heart.
Think of the way two devices sync wirelessly. When you update a document on one screen, the change almost instantly appears on another. The connection is seamless because both are aligned to the same source. That is the picture of a heart after God — not identical to God, but consistently, intentionally pointed in His direction.
Or consider two dancers moving as one. What makes the partnership beautiful is not that both people lead, but that one leads and the other follows with complete trust. When we try to make God our backup — present but not in charge — the dance breaks down. He is only a lead. Psalm 40:8 puts it simply: "I desire to do your will, my God. Your law is within my heart."
The Invitation
God is still looking. He is not searching for a resume of accomplishments or a social media profile with the right filters. He is not impressed by talent, credentials, or reputation. He is looking at the heart.
The beauty of David's story is not that he was a giant slayer. It is that God could find a heart of gold inside a shepherd boy who made a profound mess of his life. If that is true for David, it is true for you. Stop polishing your image for others. Start being honest with the One who already knows everything — and still wants to call you His own.
