Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: What a joy to be together. Amen.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: You guys are great.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: I like you guys, you know that. I like you guys.
I, I Before, before we jump in, we're going to be in 1st Samuel today continuing our series New Days.
Before we get there, I just, I
[00:00:22] Speaker B: just have to take a second and just brag on our lay pastors for a second. Can we, can we just stop for a minute and appreciate how blessed we are to have Pastor Greg and Pastor Jesse server at church.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: These guys are amazing. You guys, you guys don't know how
[00:00:37] Speaker B: blessed you are at a normal sized church like ours to have lay pastors like Jesse and Craig who come in the pulpit and preach, give me weeks off to work on other stuff, who care for our church, who divide up the work.
We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the pastoral prize. I am so grateful that Craig and Jesse are my pastors like these guys are. These guys are awesome.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: And I'm sorry Craig, that you have
[00:01:01] Speaker B: to sit in the back and listen
[00:01:02] Speaker A: to me say this, but you need to hear it because we are, we
[00:01:06] Speaker B: are grateful for you guys.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: I, I legitimately like, I feel it
[00:01:10] Speaker B: when I don't get to hang out with you guys on a weekend when I don't get to preach like you. You're my family. I miss you and so I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: We are continuing our series. We're going to be in 1st Samuel chapter 10 this morning continuing this series that we've called New Days. We've been talking about the fact that we worship a God who is guiding us toward his good future for us.
And the truth of it is simply this, Beloved, if you are in Christ, your best is yet to come.
It does not matter what your life looks like. Can we sit in that truth for a second? And if you are in Christ, that is true for each and every one of us.
There's this guy that I've been praying
[00:01:55] Speaker B: for and ministering to at Breadco. Those of you who know me know I write most of my sermons in St. Louis Breadco.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: I don't have an office.
We, we turn, we turned our, the offices here at the church into kids
[00:02:06] Speaker B: rooms and we turned the office at
[00:02:08] Speaker A: my house into kids rooms so I don't have an office spying out at the library and Breadcock. Uh, everywhere I try and write sermons, kids appear. So I don't know what's going on there. Uh, but I, I hang out there. There's this guy I've been ministering to. He's an older guy and he is very clear, very blunt and clear. He's not interested in what he calls religious stuff.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Uh, he tells me that, that he thinks I'm a neat guy, but I'm way, I'm just, I'm just too into it.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: He, he, he likes to say that you need to be a more well
[00:02:35] Speaker B: rounded person and not, and not have, and not be so passionate about, about religion.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: But somehow every time he comes in
[00:02:43] Speaker B: and sees me, he comes over and sits and talks to me for 30, 40, 90, 120 minutes and we catch up. And I've gotten to have a lot of cool gospel conversations.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: But this last week we got to have the single most clear and direct
[00:02:57] Speaker B: gospel conversation we've ever had in a couple years. I've been getting to know this guy
[00:03:01] Speaker A: and it started because he attended a funeral for a friend who he found
[00:03:05] Speaker B: out was a pastor.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: He had met the guy through pickleball.
He knew he was a Christian, but again, didn't realize how into it he was.
And he ended up going to this guy's memorial and was really struck by what he experienced. He didn't realize how much this guy's
[00:03:24] Speaker B: faith had formed him. And he was really struck by, he
[00:03:27] Speaker A: sat there and told me about this guy's family, his kids, his grandkids, his great grandkids, the, the hope and the joy at the funeral. It actually, it actually captured him so
[00:03:37] Speaker B: much that it caused him to sit back and for the first time in our relationship, genuinely consider the claims of the gospel.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: It's a really powerful experience to get
[00:03:48] Speaker B: to be a part of that, like
[00:03:49] Speaker A: a really like, privileged moment. And by the way, pray for Bob
[00:03:52] Speaker B: if you think of him this week.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: But I share that. Not to be like, wow, how cool am I? I share that because there is a truth that there is something eminently, immensely beautiful and attractive about the real gospel promises of Jesus.
There's something about the kingdom of God that when you see it, when you get a snip of it, it's actually attractive.
It's beautiful. So again, I say, beloved, if you are in Christ, your best is, is yet to come.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Jesus is continually saving, redeeming and sanctifying you in Christ.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Your life is on a trajectory toward glory. Even with, even with all of the suffering, all of the trials, all of the pain, all of the loss, all of the injustice, all the ways the curse affects us in our experience of life, the promise of Jesus ultimately ends in redemption and eternity.
And yet how easy is it to
[00:04:59] Speaker B: forget that truth, right?
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Like, how easy is it to just get caught up in the trappings and
[00:05:06] Speaker B: trials and sufferings of this world and
[00:05:10] Speaker A: our day to day and just plain forget that Jesus has bought for you glory and eternity.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: He's promised these things to us.
And beloved God keeps His promises. Amen.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: So that's really like, that's really the
[00:05:29] Speaker B: purpose of this whole series we're doing in this chunk of First Samuel. Our God is a God of new days.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: He's a God who's moving us toward our best. A God who promises us our best days are ahead. We long for that.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: But.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: But it's easy to miss, easy to lose sight of and seemingly, I think, even easy to short circuit, right?
Like God calls us to do something in our life, he commands us to wait upon his timing, to obey him in some area of life and practice, to step out in faith, to endure a loss or suffering for his glory. And we forget the promises in the pain of the right now. And we act against God's glorious new
[00:06:14] Speaker B: day in our lives.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: But as we'll see in our text
[00:06:17] Speaker B: today and over the next few chunks of text in 1st Samuel, the beauty is you are simply not powerful enough to short circuit God's good trajectory for your life.
Beloved, you can't short circuit God's good new day for you.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: You can't.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: You're not smart enough.
You're not powerful enough.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: And that's my main point today. That's where we're going today. We're going to talk today about the truth that God works through even sinful
[00:06:46] Speaker B: humanity to bring about his glorious new day.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: So here in that God works through sinful you, right?
He works through your faithlessness, works through your failure, works through your sin to bring about his glorious good future for you and for the world.
So I really think the problem and a problem we're going to see in our text is that many of us live like we can and do mess up God's plans.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: I mean, here's the deal, right? Like we're responsible for our actions, we have effects on the world around us. Our foolishness can cause us to miss out on what our experience and what God is doing around us. The question is not whether or not your actions matter and you're responsible for them. Your actions matter. You are responsible for them. The question is whether or not God is hindered by your failure or not.
We're going to see in 1st Samuel 10 today. You can go ahead and turn there. By the way, if you don't have a Bible with you today, we have ones around the room just look under the chairs.
They're there somewhere.
We're going to look at how at Israel and how they highlight some of the common ways that we seemingly short circuit God's good plan for our lives.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: But we're also going to see how
[00:08:03] Speaker B: God then responds to our screw ups.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: So pray with me.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: We're going to jump into this. We're going to see what the Spirit might say to us in a Jesus, we we need you today.
We need you to be our discipler. We need you to be our teacher.
Lord, for those of us in this room who walked in here today full of the joy and excitement of what this life has to offer God, I pray that you would remind us of your presence, even joys that bring us to thanksgiving worship.
For those of us who drug ourselves over the threshold today, who are feeling the pain, the hurt, the loss of the curse, who are going through the difficulties of this broken world, Lord, I pray that you would be our hope, our encourage our reminder today, Jesus, for all of us. Pray that you would be our discipler spirit. Remind us of what we've forgotten. Teach us new things about you. Challenge us, encourage us, convict us. Let us leave here today having been met with by you, Jesus.
We need you for this, Father. We need your power. So we pray it in your name, Jesus.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Amen.
So first Samuel, chapter 10, we're going to start. In verse 17 we read this.
Samuel summoned the people to the Lord at Mizpah and said to the Israelites, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says. I brought Israel out of Egypt and I rescued you from the power of the Egyptians and all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But today you have rejected your God who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions. You said to him, you must set a king over us now. Therefore present yourselves before the Lord by
[00:09:40] Speaker B: your tribes and your clans.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Wolf, Not a great way to start
[00:09:45] Speaker B: a gathering with a spiritual leader.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: You have to remember. Okay, we're stepping into the middle of
[00:09:50] Speaker B: an ongoing narrative here, right?
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Like to kind of catch us up really quick. This is in what's called in scripture, the era of the Judges. God had freed Israel from slavery in Egypt and over two generations led them into their promised land. But it was not happily ever after. Once Israel stepped into Canaan, they. They really kind of broke up and divided into different tribal affiliations. Rather than staying unified as one people under their covenant with God, they were divided, isolated, and increasingly they lived just like their pagan neighbors. They were more influenced by the nations around them than they influenced them. And the Book of Judges tells this story over and over and over, where various tribes break covenant with God, fall into sin, fall into idolatry, are conquered, are oppressed and suffered out of the various peoples living in the land. Eventually, they get sick of it. They turn back to God in repentance. And God would raise up a judge who would lead them spiritually, but also lead them physically into battle. And with how the story goes, everything will go great until the judge died. And then eventually, slowly, that area would fall back into the same pattern, adapting the religious practice of the people around them. And the cycle continues. And that's literally the whole Book of Judges just goes in this death spiral, getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And so you get to the end of the book and the last couples, the last couple chapters of the Book
[00:11:15] Speaker B: of Judges, this is not an exaggeration,
[00:11:17] Speaker A: are functionally the most detestable stories in the entire scripture.
They're horrific, and they're meant to be horrific. The last couple narratives in Judges are meant to show you God's people are no different.
They're no different in the land around them. They live just like the people around them. They have so forsaken their covenant. And First Samuel picks up this narrative. It's in the time of the Judges, in this time when Israel's divided, isolated, sinful, and it talks about how God was brings about a new thing. It's the end of this cycle. Samuel is the last Judge.
He did. He led Israel into a season of repentance and return to their covenant. But we see in the narrative of First Samuel the same cycle beginning again, right? Israel's successful militarily. They push away the Philistines. They're doing good. But as Samuel ages and gets nearer to death, his sons try to continue in his footsteps. But they're terrible.
By this time, the various tribal leaders of Israel, they've seen this cycle play out so many times. They know their stories well enough that they're sick of it. These other peoples around them are becoming more and more powerful. They've organized into city states with organized militaries and kings. They're advancing in technology beyond where the Israelites are because of their societal organization. And the Israelite leaders want that kind of safety and stability.
They see the future staring down the barrel of Samuel's death and go, we don't want to do this again.
There's only so many times we can go through this cycle before we just get destroyed.
And so they approach Samuel. Jesse talked about this two weeks ago. They say, look, we're done with this. Your kids are terrible. We want a king like the other nations.
And Samuel takes that personally.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: And there's just a moment to insert the Michael Jordan meme. Can we just sit that for a second? Yeah. Some of you get it, Some of you get it.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, he takes it personally.
He sees it as Israel's rejection of his leadership. Oh, it was a delay. There it is.
That was great.
I had a moment where I went, I guess that wasn't that funny. The room was so quiet.
It was just the delay. I like it.
Samuel sees this as Israel's rejection of his leadership. But God tells him, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. And so you know what?
I'm going to give him a king.
And Samuel warns them, you want king like everyone else. You think that'll be so great. And what I non ironically think is one of the most hilarious texts in the entire Bible.
Samuel tells Israel how much they won't like having a king by describing to them taxes.
And I think that is non ironically hilarious.
But all of this leads to our scene.
God has chosen this new king for Israel through Samuel. He sent Samuel to anoint this man, Saul. And Saul is the obvious choice.
And he plays it down on from the smallest tribe. But here's the thing. He's from a wealthy family. He's strong, he's tall. Every outward appearance of a great king,
[00:14:37] Speaker B: just like the nations around him. And so Samuel anoints Saul as king. But Saul keeps it secret until today
[00:14:48] Speaker A: in our text, everyone finds out. Samuel calls all the leaders of Israel together at Mizpah. Now, if you were here a month ago, as we were going through first
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Samuel, that name might be familiar.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: This is the exact spot where Israel gathered to renew their covenant. This is the place where Samuel had them rededicate themselves to the Lord to. To his leadership. This is where they inaugurated the new Ebenezer for Israel. Don't forget how much God has done for you. Don't forget that you are his people. He is your God. Samuel, even bringing them here to set up their earthly king is a rebuke to them, right?
But Samuel makes it as plain as he can. He reminds them who God is. He reminds them what their relationship to God is. God is the one who saved you from Egypt. God is the one who protects you. God is the one who set up this Ebenezer. God is the one who defeated the Philistines for you. This God who you covenanted yourself to, you have rejected.
And because you want a king like the other nations because you don't want to be God's people. You want an earthly king. Well, you're going to get one. So line up.
Which as a parent of four children, I get that sentiment. Yeah, that's what you really want. All right, get in here.
Now, if you're like me, you may
[00:16:12] Speaker B: be wondering at this point, why is this such a big deal?
Right?
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Like why is God, Why is Samuel making such a big deal? Some of you maybe have Bible study,
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Sunday school alarms going off in your
[00:16:25] Speaker A: head going, didn't God say Israel would have a king? Yes, he did. In Deuteronomy 17, Moses predicts and prophesies
[00:16:36] Speaker B: that Israel will have a king.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: And he actually outlines exactly how Israel will select their king. So what is the problem here?
Why is this so offensive?
The issue here isn't that Israel is asking for a new form of government.
The issue is that Israel is seeking
[00:16:54] Speaker B: a different kind of identity, a different kind of security.
They have lived for generations back and forth in freedom and oppression. They are scared of the surrounding peoples.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: They want a king who they can see, who will go into battle for them because they stopped trusting in this God they can't see.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Right, you guys, this really is Israel's failure here.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Samuel is pointing out not that Israel
[00:17:21] Speaker B: wants a king, God told them they would have a king, but that they
[00:17:24] Speaker A: want a king on their own terms.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: They want to be just like the world and beloved. This is the subtle trap we all fall into.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: We all fall into this trap, every single one of us. There are a couple warnings here that show us how Israel was kind of
[00:17:44] Speaker B: short circuiting God's good plan for them.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: But the root of it is this.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: All of us like Israel, we want to be just like the world.
We fall into that trap because it's wild.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Because this was even in Moses's prophecy
[00:18:01] Speaker B: for their desire for a king. Their motivation for demanding a king was not because they knew God was leading them that way.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: It was not. It was not to seek someone to
[00:18:09] Speaker B: better lead them in faithfulness to their covenant with God.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: They want specifically so they could be
[00:18:15] Speaker B: like the world around them.
God had set Israel apart and Israel wanted, out of their set apartness, they
[00:18:24] Speaker A: wanted a life like the rest of the world. They wanted a king like the other nations who would treat them and lead
[00:18:30] Speaker B: them like the other nations and beloved. How easy is it to fall into that trap?
Amen.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: How often do we find ourselves comparing our life of faith to the life
[00:18:44] Speaker B: of someone giving completely over to the world and if we're honest, we end up just a little envious of our worldly friend, right?
[00:18:56] Speaker A: They have their whole weekend to themselves.
They don't have to get up early. They don't give 10% of their money away.
They are convicted about sexual ethics and conflict resolution and how you speak in public and how you treat other people. That way. They don't just feel bad for living themselves, right?
How easy is it to look at
[00:19:19] Speaker B: the ways of the world, to look at your friends and family who live for themselves and live for their flesh and to just have some envy and life would be so much easier if I didn't have to do this.
And my life would be so much easier if I just could do this.
In his commentary on this text, Greer, he calls this the classic short circuit.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: We want relief from the difficulty of true Christian discipleship, but we want that
[00:19:44] Speaker B: relief in worldly solutions.
If I could just live life like everyone else, it would be easier.
Beloved, that is a glaring warning flag for us.
When. Not if. When you find yourself living with envy of folk who don't have Christ, you know this. You are missing the goodness of God in that moment.
You are missing the goodness of God, of your life. You are in danger of buying a lie over and above the Gospel of Jesus.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: This comes out in some really tangible ways.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Two that I can point out from our text that I think are good to warn us when we're stepping toward this place of desiring the life of the world.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: The big one here is that Israel
[00:20:34] Speaker B: is operating out of fear, not fakes.
Israel's demand for a king is connected to their fear. They fear the power of the Philistines. They fear the poor leadership of Samuel's sons.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: They fear the return of a cycle of oppression. They have Ebenezers of God's faithfulness in their lifetime, in their history.
They have their stories. They have the scripture they have access to. They have spiritual leaders, they have the temple, they have monuments and Ebenezer that Samuel set up reminding them of God's provision to defeat the Philistines.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: But man, they're living in fear in this moment.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: And who can relate?
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Think of your own life, your own story. You have a testimony of salvation if you're in Christ.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: If you're in Christ, I guarantee he
[00:21:21] Speaker B: has always been faithful to you.
But you face some new fear, right?
Some new big potential change in your life, some new risk or scary situation. And how easy is it to forget where you've been, to forget how faithful God has been and to dry up with fear? In the face of the unknown beloved, once again as a warning to yourself.
Anytime you find yourself as a blood bought child of God, driven more by your fear of what this world has to offer than your faith in the ability of God to walk you through it, you're in a dangerous place.
You're missing the truth of the gospel in your word.
And second, we see that Israel is breaking God's timing. We talked about this a little bit. The problem wasn't that Israel wanted a king. The problem is they were not submitting to God's plan for them for a king.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: They're rushing ahead. They, they know Samuel's getting older. They know they don't like his kids. They know the Philistines are strong. And rather than seeking the Lord in his timing, they demand of Samuel and
[00:22:24] Speaker B: God, where are you, beloved? Trying to hurry God along.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: God, I know you're in charge, I know you're wise. I know you're guiding me. I know you've brought me thus far, but I've scoped the situation out and I've got good intel. This is the best way forward. Let's get this thing moving.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: How often do you try and hurry God along?
[00:22:48] Speaker A: How easy is it to get eyes
[00:22:49] Speaker B: on where you think God might be
[00:22:51] Speaker A: leaving you and to then just sprint ahead of him?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: God's calling you to be part of a new thing, to pursue a new career, to start a new ministry.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: I have to get it done now, as ignoring God's timing will lead you
[00:23:05] Speaker B: inevitably to worldly solutions.
The reality is that whenever you find yourself in this sort of hurry, it's very likely that you've already fallen into the other line, that you're operating out of fear, that you're operating out of envy.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: If you find yourself in that big
[00:23:22] Speaker B: of a hurry to get ahead of God, it's probably because other things are already inspiring in your heart. Let that be a warning flag for you to stop, to back up, to consider.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Because here's the real core issue, guys. We are sinful, weak people.
Sorry, I hope that's not terribly offensive, but it's true.
You are weak and needy, just like
[00:23:49] Speaker B: I am weak and needy.
We forget God's faithfulness.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: We forget the ways God takes care of us. We forget these Ebenezers, these monuments and
[00:23:59] Speaker B: reindeers he puts into our life.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: We fall into work, worldly patterns of fear and envy and rushing along and don't deceive yourself. All of us are prone to this, but it's actually worse than that.
There's actually a short circuit Solution that we're even more likely to turn to
[00:24:18] Speaker B: than these three things.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Read on with me.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: In verse 20,
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Samuel had all the tribes of Israel come forward, and the tribe of Benjamin was selected. Then he had the tribe of Benjamin come forward by its clans, and. And the Matchrite clan was selected. And finally, Saul the son of Kish was selected. But when they searched for him, they could not find him.
So they again inquired of the Lord, has the man come here yet? And the Lord replied, there he is, hidden among the supplies.
And they ran and got him from there. And when he stood among the people, he stood a head taller than anyone else. And Samuel said to the people, do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among the entire population. And the people shouted, long live the king.
There's something so interesting to me about this story, this scene with all the mess ups, with all the failures.
I think the thing that's most important
[00:25:10] Speaker B: out of this scene is to see
[00:25:13] Speaker A: that God is still serving Israel.
You catch that? Like, in the midst of the chaos of this story, God is still showing up for them. He still gives them what they asked for. They want a king like the other nations. He gives them a king like the other nations.
I don't know why the author of First Samuel was really intent on you knowing that Saul was super tall, but it tells you a lot. Saul's super tall, guys. He's real stinking tall. You put him in a crowd. Hey, he's the tallest, for sure.
They want a king like everyone else. You get a king like everyone else. Look at him. So tall.
And yet Saul, the mighty tall king
[00:25:56] Speaker B: is hiding, is hiding.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: When they call out his name and they've got the stuff ready and they're ready to install him as a king.
The best man has to offer falls short of Israel's real need.
Like, you could sort of read into this, like, it's a humility thing. Oh, I don't want the glory.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: I don't want.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. It's a false humility.
God has anointed this man king. God has called him to a task. God can and will empower him, just like he's done for Israel all these years. But Saul is Israel in microcosm.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: He doesn't trust God, he doesn't trust himself, and he hides from his responsibilities.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Israel wants a mighty leader to fight
[00:26:43] Speaker B: their battles like everyone else.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: But their chosen hero is literally hiding in the luggage.
It takes God to supernaturally intervene and go, like, did he not show up? Did he Miss the invite and God goes, no, he's here. Look over in the corner.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: He's hiding behind the luggage.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: God has to intervene to even get them Saul. In her commentary on the text, Baldwin just says, this is the inadequacy not
[00:27:10] Speaker B: just of Saul, but of all human leadership.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: When we look to people to be
[00:27:19] Speaker B: the ultimate source of our hope.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: No matter how good a person they
[00:27:23] Speaker B: are, eventually you'll find them hiding in the luggage.
Because people are prone to the same fears, the same insecurities, the same failures,
[00:27:32] Speaker A: the same sins that we all have.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: And yet, isn't this the short circuit we all fall into?
Like, the most common one? I gotta. Everything we've already talked about isn't turning to people to fix what is broken in our lives, to help us get to the future we want. Like, isn't that the easiest one?
I think for Christians, it's even more tempting to turn to people because again, consider your own testimony. I guarantee, I guarantee it was people. God used to draw you to the truth of the gospel, right?
When you think back over your own story, there were key people that God used. Parents, friends, Sunday school teachers, pastors, evangelists, college ministry workers.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: People who God used in your life to help you see and experience the
[00:28:22] Speaker B: beauty of the gospel. And don't those people inevitably end up on little pedestals in your heart and your mind?
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Isn't that so hard to avoid? Right.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: But beloved, we must be careful. Anytime we are looking to human authority over God's affuing.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Hear this.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Even me.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: I would say especially me.
The pastors, friends, spouses, family, politicians, celebrities, teachers, podcasters, anybody. The people in your lives who God has used to help you taste the goodness of the gospel. Praise God for them.
They are a gift. They are Ebenezers. They are part of your story. But they are are people.
Sinful, small, scared, faithless people.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: No matter how godly they are, no
[00:29:18] Speaker A: matter how intimately God used them to help you experience the gospel.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Hear this, beloved. They will fall short of you.
They cannot be the bedrock of your faith. They cannot be the bedrock of your life.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: I certainly can't.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: I can't.
None of your pastors came.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Craig comes close.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: But even Craig.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Listen, if I haven't failed you in some tangible way yet at our church, you haven't been here very long.
Don't get me wrong.
Yeah, I'll receive that.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Don't get me wrong.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: I love you guys.
Getting to be your pastor is amongst
[00:30:03] Speaker B: the greatest joys and honors I've received in my entire life. And that's not an exaggeration. I love you guys, genuinely. And I am doing my best to serve you and to lead our church well. And I'm a terrible, faithless, hypocritical sinner.
Those are both true.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: And if you stick around here long enough, you just gotta know I'm gonna let you down.
I'll offend you.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: I'll hurt you.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: I might even be in a moment of sinful anger.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Or do it on purpose, like, for real.
And so will everyone else here, because we're all broken sinners.
And if you find yourself depending on needing a specific person, a specific relationship,
[00:30:42] Speaker A: a specific friendship in order for you to follow God, in order for you to connect with the truth of the gospel. Oh, my faith is built on my connection with.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Fill in the blank.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Beloved, you are in danger.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: You're in danger.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: That pastor, that leader who speaks for God in your life. They may be great.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: I hope they're great, but they're not God.
You need Christ to guide your life.
You need the power of the Spirit to move your faith.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: You need the presence of the Spirit to move you through the difficulties and
[00:31:16] Speaker B: pains of this life.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: No earthly leader can fill the need
[00:31:19] Speaker B: in your heart that only intimacy with God will meet.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Period.
And look how our text wraps this up.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Read these last couple verses of me. Verse 25.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Samuel proclaimed to the people the rights of kingship. He wrote them on a scroll, which he placed in the presence of the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people home. And Saul also went to his home in Gibeon. Brave men whose hearts God had touched went with him. But some wicked men said, how can this guy save us? And they despised him and did not bring him a gift. But Saul said nothing.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: This is the word of the Lord.
The story ends in such an anticlimactic way. Did you catch that?
[00:31:58] Speaker A: It's all done. And everyone just goes home, right? Here's the new king. Okay, see you guys later. And they all head home.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Look what actually happened in the midst of all this, though God did this, in this moment, even in all his
[00:32:15] Speaker A: failures, Saul is God's king.
It's official.
God was the one who revealed where he was hiding. God is the one who begins to work through him. In spite of his obvious shortcomings, in spite of Israel's faithlessness, He even begins to, like, inspire leaders to come around Saul. Right? That's what I love about this text.
In spite of all of Israel's seeming short circuits of.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Of God's good plan for them, we
[00:32:42] Speaker A: see God working for them. And through them anyway.
God isn't actually short circuited by any of these mess ups.
Despite these people's sinful motives and Saul's fearful hiding, God finds him. God installs him. He touches the hearts of the bands of men who follow him. Beloved, God works through even our sins and failures to bring about his good.
As we'll see in these coming texts, even a bad earthly king and a sinful worldly people can point us to
[00:33:17] Speaker B: God's ultimate plan for a perfect king.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: As we see God installing and using Saul, it should draw us as the readers with thanksgiving that Jesus is the
[00:33:28] Speaker B: true and better king. Amen. I mean, think about this. Like Israel rejects God for a king.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: The king they got is this man hiding out in the luggage. But God doesn't abandon them or abandon
[00:33:39] Speaker B: his plan for Israel and for our redemption.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: The King of Israel, guys, in the Old Testament is the shadow that draws
[00:33:46] Speaker B: our eyes up to the substance that is Jesus.
Because God did send a true king
[00:33:52] Speaker A: to this world and he didn't hide from his call. He carried our sin to the cross.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Because here's the thing you consider the gospel. By all worldly standards, the cross looks
[00:34:03] Speaker B: like the ultimate short circuit.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: The failure of God in this world, this promised Messiah, God himself dying a criminal's death. But just as God uses even sinful,
[00:34:15] Speaker B: broken Saul to leave his people, God uses a bloody cross to save the world, to save you and me. Your failures, the failures of the leaders you trusted, they're not the end of your story.
Beloved, we worship a God who is a master at weaving our hiding and our rejecting into his redeeming.
So that raises the question, is God. If God is working through these sinful structures and mishappenings, is that his will? Right? Is God out there causing all this sin and suffering, this failure, this sinfulness? Like, isn't He, Isn't he sovereign?
Here's the thing.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: The that's a good question.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: The simple answer to an incredibly complex question is no.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: And I'm going to blaze through what is one of the most discussed theological
[00:35:08] Speaker B: questions in all of church history.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: And if you want to geek out
[00:35:11] Speaker B: on it, reach out. I'll buy you a coffee and we can dig in as deep as this deserves.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: But for our purposes today, on a Sunday, right?
What's important to note is this.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: God is not the author of our evil. We are.
But our God is so good that he brings about redemption even from our evil.
Anybody in the room old enough to remember Bob Ross?
You know I'm talking about the TBS painter I think the youth did a retreat with Bob Ross as the thing was that last fall or the year before.
Yeah.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: If you guys don't remember, Bob Ross is a PBS painter with the Frozen. Who taught you how to paint?
[00:35:52] Speaker B: He's great.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: He has this incredibly oft repeated quote. There are no mistakes. There are only happy accidents.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Right now, here's the problem with that quote.
It's not totally true because we humans make mistakes all the time.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Heck, we make willful, evil decisions all the time.
But what I love is the second
[00:36:20] Speaker B: half of that quote, the one that doesn't make it onto the T shirts as often, where he says, when we get over the fear of our mistakes, we realize that you can work with any of the mistakes you make while painting. You can do something with them. And he says that's when painting actually gets done, is when you realize no mistake is going to ruin your pain. You'd always do something with them.
Here's the beauty. Beloved.
God can and does work with every single one of your mistakes, every single one of your sinful rebellions. I found a license for you to sin. Like, go do whatever you want.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: You should be seeking him. You should be seeking to kill your sin, to grow in holiness.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: But there is such safety, such freedom in the truth that your father can
[00:37:10] Speaker A: adapt to whatever dumb decisions you are making, that he's actually in control. And guys, that's, that's, that's a comfort
[00:37:21] Speaker B: that can make this life of faith actually fun.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: When we realize that you're not, you're
[00:37:28] Speaker B: not able to mess up the amazing thing God is doing in this world.
He is advancing his kingdom. He is moving forward, seeking and saving
[00:37:37] Speaker A: the lost, redeeming what sin has broken,
[00:37:40] Speaker B: bringing about his good and perfect eternity.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: And whatever you do to seemingly screw it up, you're going to find in hindsight that he sovereignly went back and wove that into the work he was
[00:37:51] Speaker B: doing, because he's just that good.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: One of my sons is entirely fearless.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: And for the sake of this story, the remain nameless.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Entirely fearless.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Bandy, you can come back up if you want to.
It's a cool quality.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Like, it's cool to have a little boy who's just like that brave. It's also terrifying. I remember once a couple years ago, the boys were only like four or so and we were walking, taking a walk at Castlewood. It's kind of washed out now, but
[00:38:20] Speaker B: the bottom part of the Lone Wolf Trail walks along the side of the Merrimack River. If you guys have been there before,
[00:38:26] Speaker A: I Always feel like you step into
[00:38:27] Speaker B: the Lord of the Rings when you get to that part of the trail because like all the trees are overhanging and there's like sunbeams coming through and the water's going.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: It's very beautiful. But I have my boys with me and they're running around and being wild and crazy. And for whatever reason that day I
[00:38:41] Speaker B: was showing them how to climb a tree.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Like how do you grab onto a
[00:38:45] Speaker B: tree so that you can climb onto it?
[00:38:46] Speaker A: And so they're climbing on different stuff,
[00:38:48] Speaker B: being wild little boys.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: And at one point as we're walking along, I hear my son call out to me, hey dad, look how high I am.
And I turn around and there's this part about halfway through that trunk of the trail where a very large old
[00:39:03] Speaker B: tree has fallen at about a 45 degree angle. You guys might know where this part is.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: My son was 18ish, 20ish feet in the air above my head, having climbed
[00:39:15] Speaker B: up this 45 degree angle tree.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: And by the time I turned around
[00:39:18] Speaker B: and looked at him, he was already in midair jumping toward me.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: He said, hey dad, look how high I am and jumped before I turned around.
So I turn around to him in midair, just.
And by God's grace, my dad instincts kicked in.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: I ran over, I grabbed him, I caught him.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, he didn't fall. It's fine.
I share this because this is how
[00:39:51] Speaker B: our God deals with us in his
[00:39:54] Speaker A: goodness to intervene in our bad decisions. It doesn't mean he's causing our sin,
[00:40:00] Speaker B: our brokenness, but it means he's just so powerful, he's just so good that
[00:40:07] Speaker A: he can work with our mess.
As much as I don't want my son to make dangerous decisions like that,
[00:40:14] Speaker B: I also love that my four year old boy was so confident in the
[00:40:19] Speaker A: protection of his father that he dove
[00:40:22] Speaker B: out of a tree without looking. Right.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: This is where the Bob Ross quote comes in.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: The goodness of God should give us assurance.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: It should draw us to the genuinely
[00:40:37] Speaker B: life giving fun of a life update.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: There's so much hope, so much hope
[00:40:44] Speaker B: in the truth that God is able to account for your stupidity and his amazing cosmic plan. Amen.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Let's do this. I'm gonna invite us as we land
[00:40:55] Speaker B: out to take a moment of prayer and reflection.
I want you to consider your own story. I want you to consider your own circumstances Right now. As we went through this text, I was naming all these different yellow flags, these warning flags that can give us an opportunity to stop and realize, oh, I'M missing the gospel. I'm missing this.
I'm falling into envy with the world. I'm missing the truth, the promises of the gospel. I'd encourage you to take just a moment in reflective prayer and consider your own life right now.
Where are the warning flags in your life that you might be missing the truths of the gospel?
And then I'd invite you just prayerfully to consider the God who is actually strong enough to meet you in your brokenness.
If he actually has a good trajectory he's taking, Lord.
And maybe just ask him.
Ask him to remind you to show you the places where he's shown up, where he's woven your broken story into a story of redemption.
See how that might give perspective on the things you're facing today when you
[00:42:01] Speaker A: feel like you've met with the Lord
[00:42:02] Speaker B: in the way you need. I encourage those of you who are in the room, who are in Christ, to continue in your response through communion.
We take communion every week here at Emmanuel, and we do that for a reason.
We believe what the scripture says about communion, that when we take the elements, this thing that Jesus set up for us in his last night on earth, this bread representing his broken body, this juice representing his blood poured out. Scripture says when we take of the elements, that we're proclaiming his death until his return.
That's a real Bible y way of saying we're proclaiming the sufficiency of Christ's work on the cross, that what Jesus did is actually enough, that God's power in your life is actually enough.
When we take communion, we are reminding ourselves of that truth.
We're also proclaiming it to our brothers and sisters in the room.
And so I'd encourage you when you've taken a minute to meet with Christ in the way your heart needs, you're in this room and you're in Christ. I'd encourage you to consider continuing your response through communion. Let's proclaim tangibly the Gospel together before we lay that our worship today. Beloved, meet with the Lord in the way your heart meets and then continue on a response when you're ready.
