Grace in Galatians (Part 172): David Never Quit

https://youtu.be/MShVoiH0wlY?si=C7PK7JqKXLjvoTM5

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

As part of this series, I am teaching a verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Galatians.

Key scriptures for this year: 

2 Peter 3:18 GNT

“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror

“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror

“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture we will study today:

Galatians 6:9 NIV

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Supporting scriptures:

1 Samuel 16:12-13 NIV

“So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; this 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 powerfully upon David.”

1 Samuel 24:6 NIV

“He said to his men, ‘The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.’”

1 Samuel 26:8-9 NIV

“Abishai said to David, ‘Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t strike him twice.’ But David said to Abishai, ‘Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?’”

1 Samuel 30:4-6 NIV

“Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David’s two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”

Psalm 27:13-14 NIV

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

2 Samuel 5:3-5 NIV

“When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, the king made a covenant with them, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.”

Hebrews 6:12 NKJV

“That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Setting the Stage:

Yesterday, we looked at Joseph. I gave you a living, breathing example of Galatians 6:9 from the life of a man who was betrayed, sold, falsely accused, imprisoned, and forgotten by the very person he helped. And yet he never grew bitter. He never lost heart. He kept doing good in every bad situation. And in a single day, God promoted him from prisoner to Prime Minister. Twenty-plus years after the dream, the due season came, and Joseph was standing right there to receive it.

Today, I want to give you another example. Same verse (Gal 6:9). Same principle. Different man. If Joseph shows you what it looks like to endure in captivity, David shows you what it looks like to endure while being hunted. Joseph waited in a pit and a prison. David waited in a cave. Joseph was overlooked and forgotten. David was anointed and then pursued. Both men received a divine promise. Both men had to wait years before that promise came to pass. And both men chose to keep doing the right thing when everything around them was going wrong.

David was anointed to be the King of Israel by the prophet Samuel when he was still a shepherd boy (most scholars believe he was around 17 years old). He did not go looking for the crown. God sent Samuel to his father’s house, and while his older brothers stood there looking qualified, God passed over every one of them and said, in effect, send for the one nobody invited to the ceremony. They brought David in from the fields, still smelling like sheep, and Samuel poured the anointing oil on his head. From that day forward, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. 

David was anointed to be the next King of Israel at 17, but he would not actually lead all of Israel until he was 37. Here’s another thing most people skip over: after the anointing, David did not go to a palace. He went back to the sheep. Then he got called to the palace to serve King Saul. Then he wound up killing a giant with a slingshot and a stone. Then he wound up moving into the palace permanently. Then Saul turned on him, and David spent years running for his life. He was anointed as king, but he had to live as a fugitive for about 13 years. He had a promise from God to wear a crown and live in a palace, but his day-day involved wearing armor and sleeping in caves. He endured multiple seasons in those 13 years, and throughout every season, David kept doing the right thing. He worshiped. He served. He refused to shortcut his way to the throne. He is the second living, breathing example of Galatians 6:9.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. David Did the Right Thing When Saul Did Him Wrong.

Paul says in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not grow weary in doing good.” Just like Joseph, David did not simply endure. He kept doing GOOD in seasons that were anything but good. Twice, God placed King Saul directly in David’s hands. The first time was in the cave at En-Gedi. Now I need you to see this, because this is almost funny if it were not so serious. Saul walked into the very cave where David and his men were hiding to relieve himself. The king of Israel, the man hunting David with an army, stopped at that cave to use it as an outhouse. He had no idea his target was sitting in the back of that same cave watching the whole thing. David’s men whispered, “God has delivered your enemy into your hands!” And they were right. Saul could not have been more vulnerable. He was using the bathroom. David crept close enough in the dark to cut off the corner of Saul’s robe without the king ever knowing he was there. He could have ended it right then. But he did not. David did the right thing. 1 Samuel 24:5 says something that should all teach us a lesson: even cutting the piece of cloth bothered David’s conscience. He felt guilty for taking a piece of a robe off the man who was trying to kill him. That is the condition of a protected heart. 

The second time, David crept into Saul’s sleeping camp at night and came close enough to grab the spear that was stuck in the ground right beside Saul’s head. His commander Abishai said, “God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Let me pin him with one thrust of the spear.” And again, David said no. “Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?” Here is what I want you to see. David had every justification in the world to take Saul out. Saul was trying to kill him. Saul was the obstacle between David and the promise God had already spoken. And yet David looked at both of those moments and chose the right thing over the convenient thing. He chose honor over revenge. He chose God’s timing over his own. That is not weakness. That is GREATNESS. 

How this applies to you:

— David understood that how you get to the promise matters as much as the promise itself. How you get to the promise will determine what you do with it when you arrive.

— Some of you have a shortcut in front of you right now. You can see a way to make it happen faster by compromising, by manipulating the situation, by taking something that is not yours to take yet. David had a shortcut twice, and he said no both times. Don’t take the shortcut. The promise is worth the wait.

— David’s men had a theology for killing Saul. They called it God’s favor and His timing. But David had a conviction that overruled their argument. Not everything that looks like an open door is one from God. Learn to distinguish between a door God is opening and a shortcut the enemy is offering.

— One of the most powerful details in this story is that David did not grow bitter toward Saul while Saul hunted him. He honored the position even when he despised the persecution. He continued to serve God with excellence even while sleeping in caves. Your obedience to God is not dependent on how other people treat you.

— Your enemy does not get to determine your character. Saul’s behavior did not become David’s excuse. When you let someone else’s wrong actions justify your wrong response, you may disqualify yourself from the very thing God has prepared. You are not responsible for what they do to you. You are responsible for what you do.

— In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, discover that doing the right thing even when someone is doing you wrong is not just noble. It is necessary. God is looking for people who will do the right thing, even in wrong situations. That’s how you wait on the Lord! 

2. David Lost Everything at Ziklag, But He Strengthened Himself in the Lord.

If the cave at En-Gedi was David’s greatest test of character, then Ziklag was his greatest test of faith. After years of running from Saul, David and his men had been living in the Philistine city of Ziklag. They were away on a military campaign, and when they returned, they found the city burned to the ground. Every woman. Every child. Every family member. Taken captive by the Amalekites. Gone. And then the men who had followed David through years of exile, through caves and wilderness and hiding, turned on him. 1 Samuel 30:6 says David was in great distress because the men were talking of stoning him. The men who had walked with him through the hardest years of his life were now considering killing him. 

David had been on the run for over ten years at this point. He had been believing God time and time again, but this was his lowest point. His family was gone. The families of his men were gone. The town was burnt to the ground. Their children had been captured, and his men had turned on him. David cried until he ran out of tears. The next few words are some of the most powerful in the entire Bible: “But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” He did not run. He did not retaliate. He did not quit. He went straight to God in the middle of the worst moment of his life, and he found strength in the One who had made the promise in the first place. Then he inquired of the Lord, pursued the enemy, and recovered everything. Not some things. Everything. He got it ALL BACK!

How this applies to you:

— Ziklag is the moment when everything you have worked for seems to disappear in a single day. The phone call you did not expect. The relationship that collapsed. The business that went under. The dream that looked finished. Ziklag is not the end of your story. It is the setup for God’s next chapter.

— Notice that when David’s men turned on him, he did not encourage himself in his supporters. He did not call a meeting or wait for someone to come alongside him. He went straight to God. You cannot wait for someone else to encourage you in your Ziklag moment. You have to know how to encourage yourself in the Lord.

— By the end of 1 Samuel 30, David had recovered everything. Every wife, every child, every possession. The text says specifically, “Nothing was missing.” While you are walking on God and waiting for him to do what he promised he would do in your life, there will be moments like this that are very painful. Sometimes we experience real setbacks, but just as long as we don’t give up, we will recover all.

— The two years of silence after the butler forgot Joseph, and the Ziklag moment in David’s story, have this in common: both look like the end, but both are actually the final preparation before the due season breaks wide open. When it feels like everything is lost, your due season is closer than it has ever been.

3. David Protected His Worship in the Gap Between the Anointing and the Crown.

Here is what sets David apart from almost any other figure in Scripture, and I want you to see this because it is the direct parallel to Joseph asking, “Why the long faces?” while sitting in prison. While David was hiding in caves, dodging spears, and living as a fugitive, he was also WRITING. The Psalms. The most honest, most worshipful, most raw conversations with God in the entire Bible were written by a man sleeping in caves and being hunted by a king. Psalm 27 came from that season. “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” He wrote that while Saul’s army was looking for him. Psalm 34 came after David had just pretended to be insane to escape from a Philistine king. He had drooled on his beard and scratched on doors to survive, and then he sat down and wrote, “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” At ALL times. Not when circumstances are favorable. Not when the promise has come to pass. AT ALL TIMES. That is a protected heart. David had every reason to be angry at God. He had been anointed and then chased like a criminal. He had done everything right and still could not reach what God called him to. And yet the Psalms overflow with praise, \raw honesty, and deep worship. He did not just endure the waiting season. He worshiped DURING it. And that worship kept his heart healthy enough to lead a nation when the time came.

How this applies to you:

— The most strategic thing you can do during your waiting season is worship. Not because worship speeds up the harvest, but because worship protects the heart that will one day receive it. Worshipping in a cave kept David’s heart pure, so he was ready to leave the palace.

— Psalm 27:13 says, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” That verse tells you everything about David’s heart in the waiting. He was not merely surviving. He was still expecting.

— David also wrote Psalm 13 in the wilderness, where he cried out, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?” He was completely honest with God about the pain of waiting. And then, four verses later in that same psalm, he wrote, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” That is grace-powered endurance. You can tell God it hurts AND still trust Him at the same time. Honest worship is still worship.

— Some of you have stopped worshiping because nothing has changed. You prayed, you gave, you believed, and the situation looks exactly the same. But David worshiped before anything changed, and his worship was not a bargaining tool. It was a declaration. Worship is not how you get God to move. It is how you stay aligned with God while He is moving.

— Weariness attacks your worship first. It is one of the earliest casualties of a long waiting season. When you notice yourself pulling back from prayer, from the Word, from genuine praise, that is the early warning signal that weariness is setting in. Guard your worship the way David did. It is the bridge that carries you from the your NOW to your NEXT!

— David worshipped in the wilderness when no one was watching, no one but God. Wilderness worship builds the character you will need when you make it to your palace season.

— The waiting season is also a worship season! 

4. David’s Due Season Came, and So Will Yours.

David was thirty years old when he became king over Judah. And after 7.5 years, the leaders of all the tribes of Israel came to him at Hebron and said, “The Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’” And they anointed David king over all Israel. The shepherd boy from Bethlehem. The one who was not even invited inside when Samuel came to his father’s house. The youngest, the overlooked one, the one out in the fields while his brothers stood in line looking like kings. He became the greatest king in Israel’s history. The man after God’s own heart. 

That’s David’s story. I want you to discover your story. God did not anoint you to torment you. He did not put the dream in your heart as a cruel joke. He put it there because it is real, it is appointed, and your due season is coming.

How this applies to you:

— David was anointed as a teenager and became king of Judah at thirty. The full scope of his kingship over all twelve tribes came years after that. By the time the complete promise was fulfilled, he had been walking toward it for over twenty years. But every single year was building toward the fullness of what God had planned. Your due season may come in stages. Trust the process and do not despise partial fulfillment.

— Notice that the tribes came to David. He did not campaign for the position. He did not manipulate his way to the being the King of a unified Israel. He stayed faithful, and when the time came, the people God had appointed to recognize him showed up. When it is your due season, God will send the people who need to acknowledge you. You do not have to chase what is already yours.

— David’s story proves that what God reveals in private, He will fulfill in public. Samuel anointed David in his father’s house with just his brothers watching. But the fulfillment of that anointing was witnessed by an entire nation. The private anointing always leads to a public assignment.

— Say this out loud right now: “My due season is on God’s calendar. It is appointed. It is coming. And I will be standing right there when it arrives.” That is not wishful thinking. That is Galatians 6:9. That is what David believed, and that is what carried him from the sheepfold to the throne. 

— I said this yesterday about Joseph, and I want to say it again today about David: if you asked him in heaven whether the caves were worth it, whether Ziklag was worth it, I believe he would tell you that every moment of preparation was worth the throne he walked into. THE HARVEST IS ALWAYS WORTH THE WAIT.

That’s enough for today.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You for the example of David. He was anointed as a shepherd boy and crowned as a king, and in the years between, he endured caves, exile, betrayal, and Ziklag. I choose to follow his example!

I will do the right thing even when someone is doing me wrong. I will not take the shortcut to the promise. I choose honor over advantage, and I trust God’s timing over my own!

When I find myself in a Ziklag moment, when everything looks burned to the ground and even the people closest to me have turned against me, I will strengthen myself in the Lord my God!

I refuse to let Ziklag be the end of my story. David pursued, and he recovered everything. I am pursuing what the enemy has stolen, and I will recover it all. Nothing will be missing!

I protect my worship in the gap between the anointing and the crown. Like David in the caves, I will praise God at all times, because worship is what keeps my heart healthy enough to receive the harvest!

I am still confident of this: I WILL see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. The waiting has not broken my confidence. It has deepened my trust in the One who made the promise!

My due season may come in stages, and I trust the process. I will not despise partial fulfillment. Every stage God brings me through is building toward the fullness of what He has promised!

When it is my due season, God will send the right people to recognize me. I do not have to campaign for what God has already appointed. I just have to stay faithful!

The private anointing God has placed on my life will lead to a public assignment. What He has revealed to me in secret, He will manifest before the eyes of many!

I am living in THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, and I have discovered that David never quit, and neither will I. The cave season is not my conclusion. The Ziklag is not my ending. The throne is waiting, and my due season is on schedule. GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!