Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning.
[00:00:06] If you don't know me, my name is Jesse, one of the pastors here.
[00:00:10] Today we're going to be continuing in First Samuel. So if you want to grab a Bible and turn there, that'd be great. We say this every week. If you don't have a Bible or you don't own a copy of the Bible, we heavily encourage you to grab one of our copies. They should be in every row under one of the seats.
[00:00:29] And we encourage you to take that and take it home with you. Having regular access to God's Word and interacting with God's Word regularly is incredibly important for every person.
[00:00:41] All right, so we are going to be in First Samuel, chapter eight today. And as we have worked through First Samuel, we've broken this book up into these kind of smaller series. It's a very long book. And so we're tying these smaller series together kind of thematically.
[00:01:00] So we started the book by going through a series we called Faithful, where we looked at God's faithfulness toward Israel and at times their unfaithfulness to God. And now last week, Pastor Sam started us in a series that we're calling New Beginnings. We're going to be continuing in that this morning.
[00:01:19] Today is a very serious turning point in the biblical narrative. Up to this point, there are few places in scripture where we see as serious of consequences for the Israelites long term as this passage.
[00:01:33] This is really the turning point where the people of God move from following God's direct leadership and seeing him as the direct leader of their nation over to becoming a monarchy and following a human king.
[00:01:49] While the consequences of this passage for the people of Israel are very intense, we don't want us to get so focused on the story that we forget that there are important consequences for us as well.
[00:02:04] So let's make sure that we're asking God to not just speak and teach us, but also to put those words into our hearts and change us. So go ahead and let's pray and let's ask for God to speak to us.
[00:02:20] God, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that you love and care for us. And we thank you that you see each one of us and you know exactly what we need.
[00:02:31] God, I pray that you would not just have us be hearers of the Word this morning, but doers of the Word, that you would sink your words into our hearts, that you would change us and we would go forth from this place as a new creation with a new beginning.
[00:02:48] Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
[00:02:51] All right, let me Just give us a really quick recap to get us up to speed where we're at in the story.
[00:02:58] So the Israelites have been at war with the Philistines for quite some time now. They've been on this roller coaster of prosperity which has been directly tied to the faithfulness of their priests, leaders, and the people themselves. In following the covenant that their ancestors made with God, they've proven themselves time and time again to be unfaithful to this covenant, while God has proven Himself time and time again to be faithful to keep his end of the covenant, that if they follow him, he will go before them, he will protect them, he will lead them, and he will fight their battles for them.
[00:03:40] But this cycle of their unfaithfulness eventually comes together in God allowing the Israelites to be defeated by the Philistines.
[00:03:51] The primary place of worship where the ark was held at Shiloh, is destroyed and his ark is captured by the Philistines.
[00:04:00] After the ark passes through the different Philistine cities, really on this missionary journey by God, we see that the ark returns to Israel.
[00:04:11] And then 20 years pass while the prophet Samuel is judging the people and acting as God's mouthpiece to them.
[00:04:19] And then at the end of this 20 years, the people decide to repent and God leads them in battle again against the Philistines, this time fighting for them and totally defeating the Philistines, taking back all the territory that the Israelites had lost.
[00:04:35] So that's the story up to now.
[00:04:37] Let's read our passage. We are in first Samuel, chapter eight, and we're going to be doing the whole chapter.
[00:04:45] It says, when Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. His firstborn son's name was Joel and his second was Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. However, his sons did not walk in his ways.
[00:05:02] They turned toward dishonest prophet, took bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.
[00:05:21] When they said, give us a king to judge us, Samuel considered their demand wrong. So he prayed to the Lord. But the Lord told him, listen to the people and everything they say to you, they have not rejected you. They have rejected me as their king. They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt, until this day, abandoning me and worshipping other gods.
[00:05:43] Listen to them, but solemnly warn them and tell them about the customary rights of the king who will reign over them.
[00:05:50] Samuel told all the Lord's words to the people who were asking him for a king.
[00:05:54] He said, these are the rights of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands, or commanders of 50s to plow his ground and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots.
[00:06:15] He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks and bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants.
[00:06:28] He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves can become his servants. When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you've chosen for yourselves. But the Lord won't answer you. On that day, the people refused to listen to Samuel. No, they said, we must have a king over us. Then we'll be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us, go out before us and fight our battles.
[00:07:00] Samuel listened to all the people's words and then repeated them to the Lord. Listen to them, the Lord told Samuel. Appoint a king for them. Then Samuel told the men of Israel, each of you go back to your city.
[00:07:12] That's the word of the Lord for us today.
[00:07:17] This is a very serious passage. Like I said, this is a turning point in the narrative.
[00:07:25] We see another unnamed period of time passes. We're told right at the start that Samuel has become old.
[00:07:33] Now, that could be just a way for us to see that time has passed. But I think it actually plays into our story. It gives us context for what the Israelites are going through.
[00:07:45] Ever since the death of Joshua, God has appointed judges and prophets to lead the people, for him to be this figurehead, for him to speak to the people and lead them. But each time when that judge has passed away, eventually the people have returned to their sin and things have begun to spiral for them. They've had this cycle of sin and God calling up a judge or a leader, and then that person saving them, and then them turning back to their sin.
[00:08:13] Added on to this, they're still just a generation away from the last time. One of Their prominent leaders appointed his sons to positions of leadership. And it didn't go well that time either, which we saw with Eli and his sons.
[00:08:27] We learn from our passage that Samuel has done the same thing.
[00:08:31] He's appointed his sons to judge the people, and it isn't going well.
[00:08:36] I want to just pause for a minute and talk about the leadership structure of ancient Israel. We throw around a lot of words like judge, prophet, priest, elder, but I want us to actually make sure we understand the context of these ancient Israelites and their government.
[00:08:52] So, first off, the nation of Israel was a tribal people. When the children of Jacob moved to Egypt and the family started to grow, the people began to identify themselves in these tribes, these family groups, using the names of the children of Jacob as their tribal names. And by the time they left Egypt, what had once been a family group had expanded dramatically into an entire nation's worth of people.
[00:09:18] Then, throughout their time in the wilderness, they continued to forge their identities around these tribes. And by the time Joshua led the people into the promised land, they conquered it and took the land by tribes.
[00:09:32] So we have what is called Israel, which is really less of a nation and more of just a loose collection of tribes that all have land next to each other.
[00:09:43] The connecting point for them is God and that they are all related in some way.
[00:09:51] These tribes are led by elders who make the decisions for these individual tribes. Now, the last time we saw the elders show up in the narrative, they got together and decided that it was a good idea to send the Ark of God onto the battlefield. And we saw the consequences of that.
[00:10:08] So we have this governmental structure of Israel really being a group of tribes with elders leading each individual tribe. And then those elders gather collectively when they need to make national decisions.
[00:10:19] Secondly, we also have priests. We saw the story of Eli and his family. These were the priests that God had established. God established the priesthood and the Levites in order to run the religious structures of the nation.
[00:10:33] The priests held a lot of leadership and sway over the people, as we saw with Eli and his sons, because of God being the actual leader of the people and the way that God set up the religious structure of feasts and sacrifices.
[00:10:50] Thirdly, we see that there are judges. Now, Moses first established judges when the people's disputes got to be too much for him to handle by himself.
[00:10:59] These were people that traditionally took upon themselves the position in the city gates to hear the disputes of the people and to make help them to work through those.
[00:11:11] However, over time, God also used this figure of the judge as an Inspirational figure to rally the people around a cause for God's purpose. And Samuel is really operating in this capacity as a big J judge over Israel. He is the one that God is using as his figurehead to lead the people into battle, to lead the people into repentance, to lead the people as a prophet and as the judge.
[00:11:43] And we see that there is also this position of prophet, which often combines with the position of judge in these times. And the prophet is the mouthpiece of God, who God is speaking directly through, to give messages to his people.
[00:12:00] So I want us to have that context because I think it can be easy for us, as a people who have been raised in a certain type of culture, to view the Israelites in a certain way and to view them as a single nation when that's really not their reality.
[00:12:17] As it says in Judges, chapter 21, verse 25, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did whatever seemed right to him.
[00:12:26] That's the context that we're stepping into in this story. These tribes have been scattered and separate, and it makes it difficult for them to work together.
[00:12:37] Now, we see in the story that Samuel appoints his sons as judges, and they're proven to not be righteous. This position of judge, this righteous person who is supposed to help other people work through their problems, they are not righteous. They're corrupt.
[00:12:54] Now, the elders of Israel, seeing this concerning thing, gathered together, and they remember the terrible leadership of Eli's sons and the consequences that that had for their nation.
[00:13:06] So they gather together, worried about what will be next after Samuel because he has grown old.
[00:13:11] So they gather together and they discuss what they want to do. And once they've decided what they want, they go to Samuel at Ramah and they present their demand to him. And this is what they say, look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.
[00:13:29] I may have said the phrase, look, you are old to Pastor Craig before, and it doesn't tend to go well.
[00:13:41] Samuel clearly doesn't like it here either, and not even to mention the fact that they are really insulting his sons as well.
[00:13:50] Samuel takes this all personally. He thinks that their demand is wrong. He takes it personally. And so he steps away from the elders and he goes to God.
[00:14:00] Let's look at God's response here.
[00:14:04] He says, listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you. They have rejected me as their king. They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt, until this day, abandoning me and worshiping other gods. Listen to them, but solemnly warn them and tell them about the customary rights of the king who will reign over them.
[00:14:25] So God essentially says, no, Samuel, they haven't rejected you. They're rejecting me. They've been rejecting me ever since I brought them out of Egypt.
[00:14:35] This is kind of an aside, but I think it's important for us to stop for just a moment and see that God tells Samuel that the people weren't rejecting him. I can only imagine how Samuel was feeling in this moment.
[00:14:47] He intimately knows the story of Eli and his sons because he was there. God delivered the pronouncement, the judgment against Eli and his sons through Samuel.
[00:14:58] And now, in his own old age, Samuel appoints his own sons to leadership and it goes bad.
[00:15:06] Now, there are several factors that make this different. Beersheba is quite a ways away from Ramah. It wasn't the same as Eli's sons serving as priests right in the same household as him. But I don't think Samuel would care about those differences in this moment.
[00:15:22] Have you ever felt guilt about a choice you made that hurt other people?
[00:15:26] What about someone that you loved and were responsible for hurting other people?
[00:15:31] This is a real hurt that I'm sure that Samuel was facing. I'm sure he felt a great amount of guilt over what was going on.
[00:15:38] But God is so kind and gracious to Samuel in this moment, despite everything that's going on, despite Samuel's failings as a parent and a leader, despite the serious nature of what's going on with the people's rejection of God's own leadership, God takes the time out to be gracious to Samuel.
[00:16:00] That's how much he loves Samuel and how much he loves us. That's how good and gracious he is.
[00:16:06] Words like good and gracious and merciful simply are not enough to actually describe how God treats us. But they're what we have. This is what he proves himself to be. His love is good and merciful to us, and everything else rests on that.
[00:16:23] Sorry, I know that was a bit of a sidetrack, but I think it's important. Let's. Let's focus in here. God says, no, Samuel, they haven't rejected you. They've rejected me. Let's peel this answer apart a bit.
[00:16:35] I think it would be easy to read this story and come away with the thought that God was upset because the people wanted a king, that God didn't want them to have a king. I think it would be easy to focus on the historical nature of this story to see we know what happens, to see that the kings eventually turn bad and to point the finger and say, okay, monarchies are bad, kings are bad.
[00:17:00] That isn't really the point of this story.
[00:17:04] We have to be careful because the people wanting a king wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
[00:17:08] Remember, they're a tribal society. They aren't really a nation. They have a bunch of different tribes living next to each other. And that makes it really tough to organize and do a lot of things that a nation needs to do, including and especially protecting themselves from invaders like the Philistines.
[00:17:27] Them coming together to become a real nation under a centralized government isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, God predicted that they would want this many, many, many years before.
[00:17:39] Put a finger in First Samuel and turn back with me to Deuteronomy chapter 17, if you would.
[00:17:46] In Deuteronomy chapter 17, we see this passage that is in the middle of God giving very specific instructions about how the Israelites should live and structure their society when they moved into the promised land.
[00:18:01] God is telling the people how they, their day to day should go, how their government should be run, how their cities should be run. He's giving them incredible, incredibly specific instructions as their leader, as their king.
[00:18:19] And then we get to this passage in Deuteronomy chapter 17, and this starts in verse 14, goes through 20. Read this with me.
[00:18:29] God says, when you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. Take possession of it, live in it, and say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me.
[00:18:38] You are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you or one who is not of your people.
[00:18:48] However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses. For the Lord has told you, you are never to go back that way again.
[00:18:59] He must not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart won't go astray.
[00:19:04] He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself. When he is seated on his royal throne. He is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction and to do these statutes.
[00:19:27] Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen. He will not turn from this command to the right or to the left, and he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.
[00:19:40] God already knew that the people were eventually going to need and want a human king to rule over them. This wasn't a surprise to God. He even knew the exact words they would use when asking for the king, that they wanted a king like all the nations around them.
[00:19:56] And so God gave them instructions for how a king is supposed to rule and behave. He gives very specific warnings for what the king should and should not do. The king should not be a foreigner. He should not collect many horses or material possessions. They should not go back to Egypt and make alliances there. He should not collect much money for himself or wives for himself, as these things will lead his heart astray.
[00:20:22] He should write the words of this warning on a scroll and read it every single day.
[00:20:27] God gives this warning so that the king will not see himself as above his countrymen, but as a servant, so that he will not stray away from the way of God. God sets up this rule and reign of a king within the leadership structure that God was already creating as a person who is following the ways and commands of God correctly under God's own authority.
[00:20:57] So if God knew that the people would want a king, why does he say that their request here is a rejection of Him?
[00:21:07] I think this is important for us to look at.
[00:21:10] Remember 1st Samuel, chapter 4? We see in that story that the people seek out a totem, the ark, to bring them success as a replacement for repentance and turning to God as their king and leader.
[00:21:26] And this story is really a parallel of that. Here the people are seeking a human replacement instead of God to bring them success.
[00:21:33] Both of these are idolatry. Both are seeking substitutes for God for the proper relationship with God. That's what idolatry is.
[00:21:43] Pastor Sam talked a lot about idolatry last week, and this week is in many ways a continuation of that.
[00:21:49] We as humans have a passion for idolatry, for seeking out substitutes for God. And that's on full display here in this story.
[00:21:57] So the people give in to their idolatrous passion for a substitute for God wanting a human king in place of God's leadership.
[00:22:06] But I think the real crux of why God is upset by the people's desire for a king is because he can see into their hearts to the motivation of their request. And actually they say it right out loud with the way that they say it.
[00:22:19] Look again at 1st Samuel, chapter 8, specifically at verse 5, They said to him, look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have. And then they say it again in verse 20 when they say, then we'll be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us, go out before us and fight our battles.
[00:22:46] This, I think, is the crux of why God is upset. They want to be like all the other nations.
[00:22:54] The language that they use in asking for this king, a king to judge them, go out before them and fight their battles. This is a slap in the face to God and His leadership. Because that's exactly what he tells them constantly that he will do for them. That is his part of the covenant, that he will lead them, he will judge them, he will go out before them and fight their battles.
[00:23:17] And he has proven himself to do that time and time again.
[00:23:23] But they want a human to do those things instead of God.
[00:23:27] And they say that they want to be like all the other nations.
[00:23:31] We know from scripture that the people of Israel were not supposed to be like all of the other nations. They were specifically called out by God. Ever since Abraham was called by God to not be like the other nations.
[00:23:45] They were supposed to be holy, which means to be special, called out, set apart.
[00:23:51] They're supposed to be a holy nation, a people called by God to be different.
[00:23:57] The other nations around them were all incredibly sinful and idolatrous. They worshiped man made idols in order to excuse their incredibly massive amounts of sin.
[00:24:08] The Israelites were supposed to be different.
[00:24:11] They were supposed to be holy. They were supposed to be a light to the world to show them that there is a better way.
[00:24:18] But the Israelites were tired of that. They were tired of being called holy. They were tired of being different. They just wanted to fit in no matter what.
[00:24:27] And this gets to the heart of why God says that people are rejecting him.
[00:24:31] Yes, they have this idolatrous desire to replace him as their leader, but they're also rejecting their very nature as a wholly set apart people, which means they're rejecting his ownership over them completely. They want to be like all the other nations, not God's holy, set apart people.
[00:24:51] So God tells Samuel to warn these elders about what a human king is going to do.
[00:24:56] Now keep in mind, God had already given them instructions for what a human king for over them should look like in Deuteronomy, chapter 17. But that is not what Samuel warns them that their king will do to them.
[00:25:09] God had already specifically given them a structure for how a human king could be appointed and what it would look like. But they choose to go outside of this structure and ask for a king like all the other nations. So God gives them a warning about what that king will do.
[00:25:27] Let's take a minute and look at what that warning is. Verses 10 through 18 Samuel told all the Lord's words to the people who are asking him for a king. He said, these are the rights of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands, or commanders of 50s to plow his ground and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots.
[00:25:56] He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks and bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants. He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves can become his servants. When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you've chosen for yourselves. But the Lord won't answer you on that day.
[00:26:30] There's a couple of important things that I want us to see out of this.
[00:26:35] First off, I think it's important to point out that this isn't some crazy abuse of power that God is warning them about. This is just what a monarchy looks like.
[00:26:44] Every monarchy in history has looked like this. The king is a person who is able to take the citizens and make them into an army, to take them to become his servants, to take their land and give it to his friends, to become nobles.
[00:26:58] These are things that a monarch just does.
[00:27:05] The second thing that I want us to point out is the heavy emphasis on the word take here. This is not going to be a nice relationship where the people get to just give what they have in an excess to help each other out. This is a relationship where the king is going to take what he pleases.
[00:27:25] And again, this is not abnormal to what a monarchy is.
[00:27:33] Now, this point, I think, again, it's easy for us to think that this is just a pronouncement against what a monarchy is. But I think what we really see in First Samuel is that any human leadership that is removed from God is bad.
[00:27:50] In Eli and his sons, we saw that religious leadership can go bad in Samuel and his sons. We saw that their system of judgeship goes bad. Here we see elder led tribal leadership go bad. And now we begin to see kingship go bad.
[00:28:05] The reality is that there's not a human method of government or leadership that has ever worked super well. They all end up being controlled by sinful people and hurting others.
[00:28:16] The irony I think of the Israelites request here is tremendous.
[00:28:21] The Israelites look to a king to guarantee prosperity and security.
[00:28:26] But God warns them that what they will receive instead is a king who will take things from them. They wanted a king who they could control.
[00:28:34] Instead, the king ends up controlling them.
[00:28:36] And I think it's wild that they now have two different, very close together stories of a leader appointing his sons to leadership after him and that it goes bad for their nation. But now they want to establish a monarchy where by definition sons will take over for their fathers instead of these elders having a say over who the next king will be.
[00:28:59] Now looking forward, we can see that the monarchy over Israel very quickly goes bad.
[00:29:06] Saul starts as a good king but eventually goes bad. King David does not follow God's commands in Deuteronomy chapter 17, leading him to a lot of personal pain and pain for the whole nation. And then just a short generation later, we see King Solomon who violates every single one of God's warnings in Deuteronomy chapter 17 and the consequences of what God warned them of happen.
[00:29:29] Solomon amasses horses. He makes alliances with Egypt. He amasses huge amounts of wealth that he takes from the people and he takes many wives for himself. He forces the people to be a part of his building projects. He is known as one of the greatest and wealthiest and wisest kings ever.
[00:29:49] But all of those things lead his heart astray to worship idols.
[00:29:55] He is seen as a terrible king for these people who cry out to God under his heavy hand. And God does not answer them, leading the people to tear the nation apart into two different kingdoms.
[00:30:11] God had a better way. God had a way for a king who would not do all of those things. The people ignored it.
[00:30:19] God warns the elders of Israel here about their choice, but they persist. They say, no, we must have a king over us.
[00:30:28] And then I think something crazy happens. God lets them have it.
[00:30:33] Can we just take a minute to sit in that?
[00:30:36] God knows that they are actively rejecting him. He knows how bad this is going to go for them. He knows the long term consequences, how this specific choice will shape their nations for generations to come. Come leading to the destruction of their entire nation and the subjugation of their people under other nations.
[00:30:55] He knows the future, and yet he lets them make this choice.
[00:31:01] Is God weak in this moment?
[00:31:05] Should he stop them from making this choice, knowing how many people it will end up hurting?
[00:31:11] It's an important question that I know many people end up struggling with in life.
[00:31:16] Should God be a dictator, not allowing evil to continue, not allowing people to make bad choices that hurt other people?
[00:31:24] We don't have time to fully grapple with that. But I think for our purposes, it's enough to say that God allows people to face the consequences of their own bad choices. And this isn't out of spite. It isn't out of weakness. It's love, it's grace.
[00:31:41] God graciously condescends to the people's desire here, even though it was a rejection of Himself as their divine king. And this is a truth that we see time and time again in scripture and in history and probably have all seen in our own lives. Sometimes God gives us what we ask for and it's bad.
[00:32:00] God is merciful enough to let us choose and then to suffer the consequences of our own choices.
[00:32:09] Why does he do this? How could this possibly be mercy? Why does he allow flawed human leadership that hurts people?
[00:32:17] Why does he allow us personally to make bad and sometimes evil choices?
[00:32:22] He does this for the same reason he does it here, for Israel. To draw us to repentance, to help us to see our own desperate need for a savior.
[00:32:32] The Israelites here thought that they could do this whole thing better than God.
[00:32:36] They thought they could establish a kingdom and a governmental system that would be better than God's leadership over them.
[00:32:44] They wanted to try making the choices for themselves, and it goes very, very poorly.
[00:32:50] But God is merciful enough to let them face those consequences.
[00:32:54] God had his ideal for what his people should look like. But in this far from ideal world, he adapts his purposes and his plan and allows them to have a king. Not only that, but he goes even further. He even incorporates their human king, their monarchy, into his revelation of himself to Israel. He uses these kings that they establish to reveal himself through Saul, especially through King David, through Solomon, who wrote portions of Scripture.
[00:33:31] You know, the reverse of God letting us make bad choices and suffer the consequences is also true.
[00:33:37] Sometimes unanswered prayers are unanswered to protect us.
[00:33:42] God's graciousness and mercy is always better and greater than we can see.
[00:33:49] You know what's incredible? God didn't just plan for the Israelites to have a king. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, he actually desired for the Israelites to have a king, but he had a better plan in place for a king for them, one that was eternally good, eternally righteous, eternally humble and giving.
[00:34:06] Jesus Christ was to be their king. Jesus was the king the people were seeking. Jesus was the king that would actually face the real problems and defeat them of sin and death.
[00:34:18] Jesus alone was the One who could satisfy and save.
[00:34:22] And you know what's incredible? We cannot just talk about God allowing us to face our consequences without also pointing out that he does not allow us to face that final consequence of sin and death. He took that upon himself.
[00:34:37] Jesus love and mercy is so great.
[00:34:41] And even in horrible times like this, where massive things happen, massive shifts in history, God is still proven to be sovereign, the king over all, to be working his plan.
[00:34:56] We cannot defeat his plan.
[00:34:59] God takes their bad choices, he takes their rejection of him and he works through it in order to drive the world to the place where it would be ready for a Savior, ready for the ultimate king to be revealed. Jesus Christ himself.
[00:35:17] This is going long. We need to wrap this up. But like I said at the beginning, I think we would be doing ourselves a grave disservice if we didn't spend some time talking about the impact this should have on us.
[00:35:28] I think this text is incredibly relevant for us today.
[00:35:31] We live in a time and place where the human governments all around the world are causing chaos by making very, very bad choices.
[00:35:39] It doesn't really matter what your personal political beliefs are. I think we can all agree that human led government doesn't work, but what are we supposed to do about that?
[00:35:51] It seems like God is allowing the world to make their own bad decisions.
[00:35:55] He's allowing us to feel the consequences of the choices we've made.
[00:35:59] Most of us don't really have a lot of say in what's happening, but we're still a part of humanity. So we are suffering for the choices of poor leadership.
[00:36:10] Well, what we can do about it is to realize that God is sovereign, that God is working his plan. Even through these terrible circumstances, we can take comfort in knowing that everything that's happening around us, no matter how terrible, God will work it toward his ultimate aim of drawing people to Himself, of creating his kingdom.
[00:36:32] We can know without a shadow of a doubt that God's plan will end up with Christ Jesus on the throne, all knees bowed to him in heaven and on earth, and that he will reshape the world in his image, making all things good and right, no matter what the world around us currently looks like, we can take comfort in knowing that God is the ultimate sovereign king and his plan is good and will be completed.
[00:37:02] Now at the same time, if you were here last week, Pastor Sam left us with this heavy call to search our own lives for idolatry. This passage calls us to continue that search in our own hearts. And not just to search for idols in our hearts and eradicate them, but to realize that we are called to be holy, just like the Israelites.
[00:37:23] God took these things that he created of creating a nation, a holy people set apart, and he expanded it to include those of us who are Christians, you and me.
[00:37:35] We are now a holy nation set apart for God's glory, called out of the world around us through the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:44] But just like the Israelites, we are prone to look for substitutes for God in our lives.
[00:37:51] We are prone to seek to be just like everyone else in the world around us.
[00:37:57] God does not want that. He wants us to be set apart and holy.
[00:38:02] I think this passage should be a wake up call for each and every one of us because I think this is exactly what we do all the time.
[00:38:11] If you are a believer, God has called you to be holy, to be set apart, a part of a holy nation that are his people. We're called to be different than the world around us, to prioritize different things, to spend our time on different pursuits, to have goals that are different than the people around us.
[00:38:30] Yet I think if we look at our lives with a serious eye, it's often hard to see a difference.
[00:38:38] Do our lives really look different than those around us?
[00:38:43] Are our priorities in day to day really that different than the people around us?
[00:38:48] Could someone look at our calendar and the things that we spend our lives working towards and see a difference in our lives than our neighbors?
[00:38:59] I think that God is calling us this morning to take a serious look at our lives and see if we are truly living like set apart people, like a holy nation, or if we just live like everyone else around us.
[00:39:12] Because that isn't what God is calling us to. He's calling us to be holy, to be set apart, not to look like everyone else.
[00:39:21] And the amazing news is that that isn't just something where we're called to live this boring, monkish life where we sit around in church doing nothing but pray all the time.
[00:39:30] Being a holy nation, being set apart is not boring. It's not just us sitting on our hands trying not to sin. It's not just about what we're not supposed to be doing. We're called to something. We're called to join in with his work.
[00:39:43] In fact, we are called to join in with building his kingdom to actually hasten the return of Jesus, the ultimate completion of God's plan by joining in with him on his mission. We're called to preach the good news of the gospel to those around us, spreading peace and hope. We're called to love those around us with a love that truly puts others above ourselves and proves that our lives have been changed by his love.
[00:40:10] We're called to sacrifice the worldly pleasures and plans that everyone else around us is spending their lives seeking in order to live a wholly set apart life and to first seek the kingdom of God instead of those things.
[00:40:26] Ben, you can come back up.
[00:40:29] We say this every week.
[00:40:31] You can see it back there.
[00:40:33] We say that the goal of our church, the aim of our church, the mission of our church is as Christ pours into us, he pours out of us.
[00:40:41] Exactly what I'm talking about. As Christ pours His love into us, we are not called to sit around and wait for him to do something. We are called to go out and join him in what he is doing.
[00:40:56] We're going to spend a couple of minutes in reflection.
[00:41:00] I encourage you to pray and seriously ask God to help you. Think about your calendar, your life, your priorities.
[00:41:09] Do you live like one that is holy and set apart? Or does your life look like everyone else's after a few minutes of reflection?
[00:41:20] If you're a believer in Jesus, I encourage you to come up and finish this time of reflection by taking communion.
[00:41:28] Taking communion is a way to connect ourselves to Jesus in a real way to acknowledge that the bread represents his body broken for us. The juice represents his blood poured out for us, us all. To call us out of the lives of sin and idolatry that we used to live in and call us to a better life that is lived with Christ Jesus.
[00:41:51] So church, spend some time in reflection and then we'll take communion.
