Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 16

Preparing for Sunday - July 5, 2026

This Sunday we start something new: Anointed and Hunted, our walk through the back half of 1 Samuel. Chapter 15 ended with Saul rejected and Samuel grieving him till the day he died. Chapter 16 opens right there, in that wreckage, and that's where we're picking up.
Here's the question I want you carrying into Sunday. What does God see when He looks at you, all the way down, past the part you curate? Could you survive being seen like that?
Work through these before you sit down in the pew, on your own, with your family, or with your group.

Critically Think

• Read 1 Samuel 16:1-5. God interrupts Samuel's grief with a question: "How long will you grieve over Saul?" What had God already done before Samuel was even sent (v. 1b)?
• Read 1 Samuel 16:6-7. Samuel takes one look at Eliab and thinks, "Surely the LORD's anointed is before him." What does the LORD say instead?
• Verse 7 is the sentence the whole chapter turns on: "man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." What's the difference between the way we see and the way He sees?
• Seven of Jesse's sons pass in front of Samuel, and seven times the answer is no (vv. 8-10). Who finally gets sent for, and what's he doing when the message reaches him (vv. 11-12)?
• The moment Samuel anoints David, what happens to him (v. 13)?
• Read 1 Samuel 16:14-23. In the very next verse, what happens to the Spirit of the LORD in relation to Saul? What comes on him instead?
• David is already anointed, though nobody else knows it yet. How does he end up serving inside Saul's own house (vv. 17-21)?

Prayerfully Meditate

• Sit with verse 7 again. Where are you focusing on an image, a reputation, an accomplishment, that God isn't? What would it look like to bring Him your heart instead?
• David is anointed king in verse 13. By verse 21 he's still just a shepherd running errands, walking straight into the house of the man who will hunt him. Being chosen by God did not buy him an easy road. Where have you expected His favor to guarantee ease when Scripture never promised you that?
• The Spirit rushes on David in verse 13 and leaves Saul in verse 14, back to back, in the same breath. It's possible to keep going through the motions of faith when your heart is running from God? Does that describe any part of your life right now?
• Read Jeremiah 17:9-10 and Isaiah 53:2 alongside this chapter. If the LORD looks on the heart, none of us holds up under that kind of look on our own. So how does this chapter point you to a King whose heart was, in the end, wholly His Father's?

Intentionally Act

• Name one specific place you've been polishing a surface God isn't looking at. Bring Him the heart instead this week.
• If you feel overlooked, passed over at work, at home, in this church, remember that David was the one nobody even sent for. Let that shape your prayers this week.
• If you recognize Saul in yourself, going through the motions while your heart has drifted, turn back this week while the turning's still open.
• Ask the Lord for a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), not because yours passes inspection, but because Christ's did, in your place.
• Learn the songs below before Sunday.
  
  

Songs for Sunday

• Holy Forever 
• Behold Our God
• O Praise the Name (Anastasis) 
• Come Thou Fount