1 Samuel 21-22

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Good morning, my name's Chet, I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab your Bible and go to First Samuel, chapter 21. We're going to be in chapters 21 and 22 today. We're looking through both of those chapters.

When I was growing up, probably three to five, I think I watched Mary Poppins 42,000 times. I'm pretty sure that we only had like a handful of VHS that my grandmother had recorded from her television. So I also have a lot of commercials really, really memorized. But I watched that on a regular basis. And there's this scene towards the end of the movie where the children had been in a bank and there was some bank trouble. And I don't want to get into a whole discussion of finance, but they had to run out of the bank and they get lost in London. And thus begins a series of back to back to back to back moments that were utterly terrifying to me.

It was like they took all the vulnerabilities of a four year old and just pummeled them. So they're lost in a city. Terrifying. Just not knowing where your parents are for like 12 seconds when you're four and five is scary. They're running through a city. This is, you know, it's awful. Then they come around a corner in an alleyway and an old lady pops out and goes, come with me, children. And it's like, why would she do that? And you don't know if she was intending to be helpful. They run away. She seemed scary. So they take off. Then they come around a corner and a dog jumps out and starts barking aggressively at them. When you're a child, a dog is the size of a bear. Like, I mean, you know. Then they turn and they run and they go down an alleyway and a shadowy figure grabs them. Turns out that that's their friend, but you don't know it at the time.

I just remember like this seared in my brain, this series of events. And I remember even as a little kid, like, I'm pretty sure there were times where I just stopped watching the movie before that I was like, well, let's move on. I know they make it at the. And I think there were other times where I just left the room and like waited till I heard the song start back up, you know, because it's a children's movie where things are supposed to be happy. And then I returned, but it was really this interesting peek into things that made me feel very vulnerable and very alone. And this real dive into fears that I had.

As we're reading through this text today, we're going to see how Saul, David and a handful of other people deal with fear. What it does to them, where it takes them. There's a reality to fear, that it drives us towards something, towards someone, it exposes us in a way. And so what I hope we see in this text is we're going to see them as they interact with it. They're going to see how they handle it. And what I hope we'll learn together is the scariest place to be and the safest place to be as we study this text together.

So let's pray quickly for us and then we'll move into chapter 21 of First Samuel. Lord, we ask for your help. We ask for your Spirit to speak in a way that we can understand, that you would help us to deal with our fears and to see what fear does to us in a way that draws us to you. In Jesus name, amen.

So David's on the run. Saul wants to kill him. Saul's the king. David was very close to Saul, was a general, was his bodyguard, was all these different things. And he's now having to flee for his life. And that's what we saw last week as Jonathan, Saul's son, helped David escape.

Chapter 21.

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. So he goes to Nob, and we're going to find out that Nob is a whole city of priests. It seems as if after everything, after Shiloh was destroyed and the ark was taken, they get the ark back, and it seems like now the center of the priesthood is here. It's unclear whether the ark is also here, but the priests are. And this is where priestly activities will be taking place for the people of Israel, the sacrifices and all that.

So he goes there to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him,

"Why are you alone and no one with you?"

So it's odd for David to be by himself. Ahimelech knows David, but David usually has like a whole crew. He's either with the king, he's with his military units that he's overseeing. For David just to show up is what business does he have? Did something terrible happen? What's going on?

So he comes out, that's why he's trembling. And he says, what? What's going on? And David said to Ahimelech, the priest,

"The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you and with which I have charged you.' And I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here."

So David just says, secret king business. And I've got some people that I'm definitely meeting who are real at a very specific place that you can't know about, and I need bread. None of that is true, except for that David wants bread, but he's on the run and he is just trying to get out of here.

And the priest answered, David,

"I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread if the young men have kept themselves from women,"

which just has to do with sexual activity, makes you unclean in the law. So that's what that is. It's not just like women, some mean thing about them. It just has to do with sexual activity.

David answered the priest,

"Truly, women have been kept from us. As always, when I go on an expedition, the vessels of the young men are holy, even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?"

So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there, but the bread of the Presence which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day that it is taken away.

So the tabernacle seems to be here, the bread of the Presence is here. They would set it out on the Sabbath before the Lord as a picture of the meal, the connection, the communion that we have with the Lord, that they have with the Lord. And then they would rotate it out on the Sabbath. And the old loaves were allowed to be eaten by the priests. And Ahimelech breaks that rule to give to David in a time of need.

Jesus references this and says that he did right, that this was correct to do, to break a ceremonial law for the sake of caring for someone. And he says this in this argument with the Pharisees about the Sabbath, saying that some things were built for our good and our blessing, and therefore, if there's opposition, we can bless others in those moments. And that's what he's talking about.

So David takes that bread and he now has five loaves of bread that was the bread of the Presence, but the priest is allowing him to have it.

Verse 7.

Now, a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg, the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen, he's detained before the Lord. It may be a Sabbath if they've just swapped the bread out. So it's possible he wasn't allowed to travel very long. It's also possible he's doing some sort of thing because he's an Edomite to become a follower of God. It's also possible that he has some sort of sickness or skin disease and he's having to be watched because there's all these. These are several of the reasons why you might be detained before the Lord. He could also just be there doing some, basically, some holy days for himself as he worships the Lord.

But that's it. That's all it tells us about him. It just in the middle of this story goes, hey, Doeg, the Edomite is here. And it's going to go right back to the story. And that's foreshadowing. So remember him, he'll show up later, but he doesn't do anything here.

Verse 8.

Then David said to Ahimelech,

"Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me because the king's business required haste."

And the priest said,

"The sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah. Behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the Ephod, if you will. Take that, take it, for there's none but that here."

And David said,

"There is none like that. Give it to me."

So David says, I was in such a hurry, I don't even have any weapons. Do you have any weapons? He says, you gave us Goliath's sword. It's still here. And David says, great, that sword is awesome. I will take it. And so he has a nice, probably fairly large sword that he leaves with.

Verse 10.

And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.

Okay, David doesn't have any options. That's what this just told us. The plan that he's come up with is, I'm going to show up to Gath with Goliath of Gath's sword and see how that goes. It seems like he's intending to maybe be like a mercenary. He's just going to go there and serve there. He's absolutely on the run from his home, his people, his everything.

And the servants of Achish said to him, to Achish,

"Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances? Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands."

So if David was planning on being undercover, he shows up and they're like, mmm. And they go to the king and they're like, I'm pretty sure they have a song about how good he is at murdering us. I'm pretty sure that's him.

And David took those words, these words to heart. So he somehow overheard this. In this situation, was much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them, pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.

So somehow, on his way before the king, he just starts acting insane, drooling, marking up the walls. That's the best disguise he can come up with on the fly, you guys. And it works.

Then Achish said to his servants,

"Behold, you see, the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? Do I lack mad men that you've brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?"

So they're like, hey, we've got David. And then he goes, you brought a crazy person here. Thank you so much. Did you think that was what I really needed? I needed those.

Some of y'all like to memorize verses for specific situations that you can remind, you know, rehearse yourself or say to other people. Maybe this one for, like, when your family's coming over for vacation or something, or your in-laws are coming and you can just quote to your spouse,

"Do we lack mad men in their house? Are we gonna let this fellow in just for y'all?"

Bible memorization, you're welcome. Probably won't be one of our monthly verses, but it's a good one.

All right, chapter 22.

David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.

So David then leaves. He heads back over into Israelite territory and hides in King Achish's. So his plan to go to Gath does not work and he escapes. Now, an interesting thing happens as we get to follow this story and as we have the whole revelation of the Scriptures, because this text doesn't tell us a lot of what's going on with David, what he's thinking. We just hear what he's doing. We hear some of what he says, but we don't get to see what's going on with him.

And so far, in the midst of fear, he's just run and he's come up with what arguably is an ill-advised plan to run to Gath. But that's all he comes up with. He ends up in this cave. But in the book of Psalms we have songs and poems and worship that David writes. And there's one that has this inscription above it. It says, this is Psalm 34. It says of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away.

Now this text calls him Achish, which seems to be a title, and Abimelech seems to be his name. So like if you said he was in front of Caesar and then later it says Nero, it's the same guy. So Achish and Abimelech.

So we actually get to hear what, how David responds after this moment when he gets to escape. And so it seems like he wrote this while in the cave or on his way to it. He starts off in the first four verses, worshiping, praising. He says,

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them."

So he says, I had fear and he rescued me. And those who fear the Lord he protects. So David's interaction with fear is shifting here. He's saying, in my fear I began to go to the Lord, and now I fear him. He's the most fearful, so he's been on the run. It doesn't seem like he's handled everything so well so far. But now, as everything slows down, as he's trying to process through this, and he's worshiping the Lord for rescuing him out of Gath, this is what he's writing.

Verse 8,

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack."

He keeps going.

Verse 18,

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."

In verse 22 he says,

"The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned."

This is how he ends it. So he says, I'm hiding in him. I'm taking refuge in him. My hope is in him. That's David as he deals with this fear.

So chapter 22, let's pick back up in the text.

David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.

David on the run, hiding in a cave, trying to figure out what he's going to do, trying to lay low, writing some songs from his expert hiding place. He looks out one day, keeping a good lookout, and he's like, mom.

Because his whole family shows up. They all come to him, which makes sense. And maybe he had to go out for supplies. Maybe word spreads at some point where David is, but his whole family comes to him, which makes sense, because if David's on the run from Saul, they're probably not that safe from Saul. And Saul may go look to them to find David.

So they all go to David. Then it says this.

"And everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about 400 men."

So his mom, his brothers, his dad, they all show up. Then other people just start showing up. And it's like, why are you here? I am stressed beyond belief. Everything out there is terrible. I heard David was in a cave, and I thought, I'm gonna go get in that cave. Somebody else shows up. Why are you here? I owe so many people so much money. Cave started sounding pretty good. Everyone who's bitter in soul, so the most frustrated, angry people who are, they're not going to read, they're not going to vote for Saul when reelection time comes back around like, this hasn't worked for them. That's who's showing up to David. And then it says he becomes commander of them. So they showed up and they were like, everything is awful. And he's like, okay, do some push ups. It's time to start training. I guess y'all are gonna have to listen to what I say if you're hanging out in my cave. And they do. So now he has 400 distressed, bitter in soul people who owe a lot of money to other people. They're all with David now, plus his mom and his brothers and his dad, okay?

And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab. So now he leaves again. He takes all these people with him, it seems. And he said to the king of Moab,

"Please let my father and my mother stay with you till I know what God will do for me."

And he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.

So reading some commentaries on this, there was a couple of different ideas as to why the king of Moab would let him do that. Some of the things they put out were housing fugitives because the Moabites were enemies of the Israelites. So the king to house fugitives that are against Saul seems like maybe that's a good idea.

There's also just a general cultural thing of hospitality. So it's possible they're just doing what their culture does, which is show hospitality in these sort of situations.

There's a theory that it's possible that one of the reasons they went to Moab was that Jesse is the grandson of Ruth, who was from Moab. So there's some family connection here.

And I've come up with my own theory, which is that David showed up with 400 desperate men and said, hey, will you watch my mom? And they were like, sure. You and your friends gonna leave? He's like, we're gonna hang out a little bit, but just keep an eye on them until we figure out what's gonna happen.

So any one of those is possible as to why they've said yes to this, but they do say yes to this. David leaves his parents with the king of Moab, and he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.

Then the prophet Gad said to David,

"Do not remain in the stronghold. Depart and go into the land of Judah."

So he says, we're not going to stay in Moab. The Lord wants you to go back to Judah. And he does. And we're going to see Gad show up periodically through the story of David.

So David departed and went to the forest of Heref.

Now the story is going to shift to Saul. So we've seen David dealing with fear. We've seen him on the run, and we've seen him as this process is happening, growing in worship and saying, he's going to trust in the Lord.

And now we're going to see Saul as he deals with fear.

Verse 6.

Now, Saul heard that David was discovered and the men who were with him.

If you're playing hide and seek and someone finds you, you may not have had the best hiding spot. If your entire family finds you, plus 400 strangers, you don't have a good hiding spot.

So David now is discovered. They know he's out. They know kind of where he is. And he's got 400 people traveling around with him. And this news makes it to Saul. So he's no longer incognito. He's known.

Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height with his spear in his hand. And all his servants were standing about him, which first of all, of course he has a spear in his hand. He seems to always be holding a spear. But also what is happening in this text, it says he was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height with his spear. And all his servants, all of those things are markers of leadership and kingship. That you would sit under an obvious tree, they would hold court there, they would answer questions there, they would judge there that he's on a height, that he's got servants, that he's holding his spear. So in some ways this text says Saul the king was out kinging in a very kingly way. That's kind of what that text is doing. It's building him up as much like he's super kinging. Right now. We got David hiding in a cave, wandering around other places, trying to figure out what he's going to do, hiding in a forest. And now we've got Saul, the kingiest king that ever did king.

And Saul said to his servants who stood about him here now,

"People of Benjamin."

Okay, that's interesting. Benjamin is the tribe that Saul is from. He's been king for a long time. He's been king over all of Israel for a long time. It's possible that he only always has kept just Benjaminites the closest to him. Or as he's grown more and more paranoid and more and more fearful, he's gotten rid of everybody who doesn't belong to his tribe and now has perfectly surrounded himself with Benjaminites. But either way, he's paranoid and fearful.

And we're going to hear from his speech how far that goes.

But these are only people from his clan. He's suspicious, fearful.

"Hear now, people of Benjamin, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, that all of you have conspired against me?"

So he stands there and says, you just are so certain that David's gonna bless all of you, that he's gonna care for all of you, that you're all gonna be so important when he becomes king, that you've all conspired against me? And that's not true. But he now doubts everyone that's around him.

Still, in verse 8, he says,

"No one discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as at this day."

He is correct that Jonathan did make a covenant with David, but it was because they loved one another. It was a covenant of friendship to care for one another. They make a covenant that they're not going to harm each other. And Jonathan goes out of his way to keep his dad from sinning against David.

But he is not helping David lie in wait against Saul.

David isn't lying in wait against Saul. David's not out to get Saul. Saul's out to get David. Saul is actually not in danger, not from David, but he thinks he is. And he's saying, everyone's against me.

And Saul's entire world has shrunk to just him. It's just him. Everybody's an enemy. Everybody's in on it. Everything's a secret. Everything's falling apart.

Then answered Doeg, the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul,

"I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, and he inquired of the Lord for him and gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine."

We actually don't know if he inquired of the Lord from him. Our text doesn't tell us that. But Doeg says he did. But that's something you do before military stuff. He doesn't say he gave him five loaves of bread. He calls it provisions, just militarizing it up a little bit. And he gives him a sword. He basically says, hey, Ahimelech's in on it.

Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub and all his father's house. The priests who were at Nob and all of them came to the king. It would have taken a couple miles away, so to go get them to come back. This took a couple hours, but they all come.

And Saul said,

"Hear now, son of Ahitub?"

And he answered,

"Here I am, my lord."

And Saul said to him,

"Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me to lie in wait as at this day?"

Then Ahimelech answered the king,

"And who among all your servants is as faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law and captain over your bodyguard and honored in your house? Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No. Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of this, of all of this. Much or little."

So Ahimelech just says, it's David. David, your bodyguard, your son-in-law. I've done this. I do this. I would do this for him anytime he comes. I'm not in on something. I didn't know any of this. Don't add that to me. Don't add that to my family. That's not the case.

Aside from those noises, that's what he said. He may have said it really calmly, I don't know, but he just kind of lists out like five things in a row where he's just like, I didn't have anything to do with anything, and this is normal for me to do whatever David asks.

Verse 16.

And the king said,

"You shall surely die, Ahimelech. You and all your father's house."

And the king said to the guard who stood about him,

"Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David. They knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me."

But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord.

You got to hear the sentence that Saul said. He looks at his servants and says, that's it. Kill all the priests of the Lord because they're on David's team. Priests of the Lord. They're on David's team.

And then I don't know if y'all can see the fear and the frustration. And Saul's face turned purple as all of his soldiers are just like, nope, I'm not.

I love his soldiers in this moment because they all know there's going to be a day I stand before the Lord and it won't be Saul. There's a day that I will stand before my king and it isn't Saul. And I'm not going on record as killing a priest, it's not happening. You can kill me. That's fine. Then I'll go stand before the Lord and go, do you see me not kill that priest? Do you see what I just died for? Like, they just don't move.

And again, I'm sure this just confirms in Saul that everyone is against him. His whole world has shrunk down to his center of gravity and Doeg.

Then the king said to Doeg,

"You turn and strike down the priests."

And Doeg, the Edomite turned and struck down the priests. And he killed on that day 85 persons who wore the linen ephod. Doeg is an Edomite. He doesn't care.

So he kills them, 85 of them. They brought all the males from that household. They kill all of them. And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep. He put to the sword.

Saul does to the city of the priests what he was not willing to do to the Amalekites when it was for the Lord and it was holy war, he was unwilling to do it. When it's for him and it's his trying to keep his seat of power, he's willing to.

Verse 20.

But one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled to David.

Alright, so something very interesting has happened in this passage.

In chapter two, a man of God comes to Eli and says the priesthood is not going to stay with your family because you've dishonored me. He says they're going to be wiped out. There will only be left one who will cry his eyes out. That's what just happened. Abiathar is that one.

And eventually it's taken from him. He doesn't get to carry on serving the Lord. So the curse of God is poured out on this family through the wicked choices of Saul.

So Saul is very wrong to do what he does. But we also see the hand of God at work in fulfilling his promises. It's a very interesting thing that happens here. But it doesn't mean that Saul's right to do what he does. It just means that when God says something, it happens.

And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord.

And David said to Abiathar,

"I knew on that day when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father's house."

David's response is, that's on me. While David was on the run, while David was doing what he did, he said, I knew that. I knew he was going to tell him. And I don't know if David fully understood what was going to come from that. I don't see how he could have. But he just says, yeah, that's. I'm the one to blame for this.

Verse 21,

"Stay with me. Do not be afraid for he who seeks my life seeks your life with me. You shall be in safekeeping."

So that's his response to Abiathar.

There's a very interesting call it a social phenomenon that's happening in this text. But everybody who's absolutely desperate is going to David. If everything has fallen apart, if you have no hope of a future, if everything has fallen around your ears, they go to David.

And I can't help but see that and see that that's exactly what happens in the New Testament with Jesus. That when Jesus is on earth, the people who flock to him are the poor, the destitute, the sinners, the weak, the small, the outcasts.

This actually is one of the things that he and the religious leaders get into arguments over all the time. They're like, you hang out with absolute human garbage. And Jesus is like, right, because the sick need a physician, not the well.

And there's this thing where if you really know that you're in need, you start looking for somewhere to go, some bit of hope, someone to run to.

And so we see in this story as it plays out that you have fear, legitimate, real, terrible fear, actual bad things.

And David, as we follow this out, he runs to the Lord and there's all of these people that run to David. And then there's Saul who tries to handle everything in his own strength.

And I told you earlier that we would see. I'm trying to tell you the scariest place to be.

The scariest place to be is where you are the biggest person in the world.

The scariest place to be is where you are utterly, completely, absolutely self-sufficient.

The scariest place to be is where the center of existence has boiled down to your center of gravity, where it's all up to you.

That's where Saul is.

Trust, no one believes, no one hopes in nothing, just whatever he can tooth and nail and claw and grab, whatever he can get done, all up to him.

And I don't know if you know it, but that's what our culture has told you over and over again is what you need to go do.

Express yourself, find yourself, succeed, accomplish, win, earn.

It's up to you.

The most powerful snowflake in the world that you've got to on your own. Be sufficient, be capable, be good.

That's what religion shows up and tells you so often is be good, be moral, do it. It's up to you.

That's terrifying.

The guards around Saul know something that we need to know is that one day you're going to stand before the real Lord, the real King.

And on that day you do not want to stand in yourself self-sufficient.

You do not want to stand before the King and say, judge me, evaluate me, I am big enough, I am good enough, I am capable.

That's terrifying.

You don't want to live your life that way.

And you certainly don't want to end your life that way.

We get to do with Jesus what Abiathar does with David and we get to have the same response.

We get to run to him and say, I have no hope anywhere but with you.

And what David says to Abiathar is what Jesus says to us.

Your life is connected to my life and with me you'll be in safekeeping.

That we get to hide ourselves in Christ.

That when he died for sins, he died for us.

That when he was buried, we were buried.

When he rose, we rise.

We get to be hidden in Christ and what he has accomplished.

And we get to stand before the Lord in Christ and not in ourselves and not in our sufficiency.

But we get to say, I have hidden in him.

And no one is put to shame who takes refuge in the Lord.

David prophetically says it at the end of his psalm.

"The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned."

And then we get to live like that in all the fears of life.

You get to go to the Lord. You get to do what David did. He's in the, he's in the cave and he's rehearsing.

You know how long it takes to write a song? It's possible that this just came out, but I think a lot of it is he's working on, he's rehearsing, he's remembering and he's reminding himself over and over and over and over again.

My hope is in you. My trust is in you. I have no good apart from you.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Nobody who is condemned, who places their hope in you.

Nobody who runs to you in refuge, oh, let me hide in you.

Over and over and over and over again.

And then we get to do the same thing that we don't in the middle of fear go, I must act, I've got to do something.

But we get to in the middle of the fear go, okay Lord, if you don't help, I'm in trouble. If you don't show up, I'm in trouble.

I see so often in my own sin. I'll talk to the Lord and I'll say, Lord, if you aren't merciful, if you don't forgive sinners, I have no hope.

But oh thank you that you do. And let me hide in you.

Let me. Let the righteousness of Christ be applied to me.

Let his life and death and burial apply to me.

Let me hide in him.

It's one of my favorite songs is Rock of Ages.

And just at the end it says,

"Let me hide myself in thee, let me hide in you."

And let it be about you.

And so if you've never seen that you actually are not capable enough, strong enough, good enough, if your whole world is about you and you still think you are strong enough, I would say no, come to the Lord.

But if you know you're in debt, in sin, you're destitute, you're distressed, you're bitter, come to the Lord, run to him and say, I need to hide in you.

And for the Christians in the room who are struggling with fear, rehearse for yourself what's true about him.

Start with Psalm 34.

Read it, pray it. Sit. Remind yourself my hope is bound up in you.

That's what Colossians 3 says,

"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

We are hidden with him.

His life and our life, our life is bound up in him.

And with him we are in safe keeping.

Let's pray.

Lord, I pray right now in the name of Jesus, for every person in this room who is self-sufficient. For every person in this room who, when it all boils down, it's just them. Just them and their wisdom, just them and their morality, just them and their strength, just them and their ingenuity, that it's just them.

Lord, I pray that you would, through your Spirit, help them to see how small and how vulnerable and how scary that is, that they might run to you.

Lord, we pray for the person in this room who already sees that, who already feels debt, distress, destitute, desperate, that they would run headlong to you and say, oh, let your life cover me, let your righteousness apply to me. Let me hide myself in you.

And Lord, may the Christians in this room rehearse that over and over and over again. That in fear we might fear you more and know that no one is condemned who takes refuge in you.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

The band's going to come back up. We're going to respond in communion and worship.

---

1 Samuel 20

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Good morning. If you weren't here earlier, I said, my name is Spencer, I'm one of the pastors. We are going to be mostly in First Samuel, chapter 20 as we jump back into First Samuel. We took one break last week, but we're jumping right back in. But we're going to start in actually going back something we've already read back in chapter 18 today. Because what we're going to be seeing in chapter 20 is the friendship of Jonathan and David. But that really begins in 18. And I just wanted the first verse to kind of give us a preview of where we're going.

But in 18:1 it said as soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, this is David.

The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

So this is after David kills Goliath, he sees Jonathan, Jonathan sees him and it says their soul was knit together. And this is the beginning of one of the most famous friendships in all of history. And it begins with two souls knit together in a deep, lasting friendship.

Now as we read this and as we follow the story today, there are parts of us that long for that, that long to have a friendship like this. But where we are kind of culturally, we're not set up well to understand this. I mean, there's lots of warning signs about this. You can look at statistics on this. They've measured kind of friendship and loneliness in America. The bigger problem actually is male friendship and male loneliness. So last year in 2024, they did a study that said that 26% of men reported having six or more close friends. Now back in 1990, that was 55%. So it just kind of shows that over time men are growing lonelier, don't have deep friendships with others like they used to. It's a problem for men and women.

They surveyed all adults. 12% of all adults say they have zero close friends. That 12% of all American adults don't have a friend at all. And we feel the difficulty of that. It gets more complicated, it seems, as you get older to keep friends. That at the end of the movie Stand by Me, a movie from the 80s that captures friendship amongst 12 year old boys, but at the very end he's an adult and he's reflecting back on that summer. And I'll clean up the quote a little bit because it's not appropriate, but he says, I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Goodness, does anyone.

And it's just capturing, like, yeah, I mean, the type of you remember as a kid how innocent you jumped into friendships? I got a. My youngest, she meets everyone. She's like, I'm gonna be your best friend. Just jumps in immediately. And there's this depth you have that you begin to lose over time. And it begins to get more and more difficult.

One of the jokes that's been thrown around the last few years is that no one talks about the miracle of Jesus having 12 close friends in his 30s. And it's like there's some merit to that where it's just. It's difficult, friendships are difficult. But there's. As culture is seeing this, there's a problem here. There's an epidemic of loneliness, particularly in men. And there's all types of risks associated with this. There's risks to physical health, mental health, to all types of risk of suicide. There's this epidemic of loneliness that hits everyone, that hits men particularly the most.

And a problem for us as we approach this story is that we don't have categories to think about these two men and the closeness that they have culturally. The culture doesn't have a category for this without trying to think that something romantic is going on. And that is because closeness and friendship has even been over sexualized. I mean, years ago there was a very weak attempt to try to fabricate a romantic relationship between David and Jonathan. There's nothing in the text, there has never been anything in these stories to say that over 3,000 years of commentaries on this backs that up. There's nothing here. So that attempt, though weak, isn't around as much anymore. It certainly was agenda driven trying to legitimize homosexuality. But I think it's also symptomatic of a culture, especially amongst men, that cannot conceive of closeness amongst two men. That two men's souls being knit together is literally seen as God gay by our culture. And that's a problem. It's a problem that we can't conceive of nearness like this in men or women, but particularly a problem for men.

So what I'm hoping today is as we walk through this, we're going to view this friendship between David and Jonathan and we're going to see three essential aspects of what it means to be a godly friend. And then my hope is, is that as we learn from David and Jonathan, as we glean from this passage, that we would see where to find the purest form of friendship.

So let me pray and then we'll walk through this together. God, I pray that you give us ears to hear this certainly is not a neutral subject. There are folks here that are struggling in friendships right now. There are folks here that are longing for friendship, feeling lonely. God, I pray that you would speak to us this morning. And we respond as the church is supposed to, by loving you and obeying your word in Jesus name. Amen.

All right, so the verse one said as soon as going back to chapter 18, as soon as he had finished speaking to Saul,

The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt.

Okay, so what we see from here and some examples here, but also the thread that gets pulled throughout this story is the first essential aspect of, of godly friendship. And that is that godly friendship is selfless. The godly friendship is selfless.

We see that Jonathan loves David, and we see later on that David loves Jonathan. It says their souls were knit together, that they kind of make this covenant of friendship. And one of the first things that Jonathan does is a seeing Jonathan seeing David and his soul as more valuable than his. So he loved him like it was his own soul. And then he gives up, says his robe and his armor and his sword and his bow and his belt, that he considers David as more important. He's selfless. He shows a deference here. And that's what godly friendship is. It's caring about your friend more than you do your own self.

But that is not what our culture values in friendship. Our culture doesn't see friendship that way. Our culture sees friendship mostly as back scratching. I scratch your back, but then you got to scratch my back. And if you don't scratch my back, we got a problem. We have an invisible scoreboard for friends in our lives that they have to keep up. They got to do the same. They got to be able to reciprocate. And if they don't, it's a problem. And what happens is when your friend is actually struggling, you're like, what have you done for me? I'm pouring myself out. What are you doing for me?

And there's certainly, listen, there certainly is some wisdom in not burning yourself out on fools. I mean, the Proverbs make that clear. They'll be friends of fools. So there's some wisdom in that. But I think largely what happens is, is that we've made friendship consumeristic. We've watched a lot of Seinfeld, a lot of Friends, a lot of How I Met Your Mother, a lot of shows that make friendship about fun and what they can be given to you and the fun they add to your life. And the moment that your friend is struggling and the moment that your friend is not as fun as they used to be, well, their utility has been used up and then we move on. That's what happens.

But we should look for friends that are selfless. And we should be a friend that is selfless. That's helpful when you go through seasons that are difficult. Last year in particular was not a fun year. This was not a fun year for me, not a fun year for my family. We just had a lot of difficulties and a lot of trials that we were working through. And I was so thankful to Jesus that I had friends that displayed this selflessness, that I had friends that would, at a moment's notice, drop everything and come and watch our children. I had friends that I knew prayed for us regularly. Like they didn't. Just like they didn't say they did, but they actually did it. Actually, I knew that they were regularly praying.

I had friends that would ask questions, difficult questions. I had friends that would embody Proverbs 27:6 that said,

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Meaning that good friends are willing to risk relational discomfort in wounding you temporarily for your ultimate good. To have friends that are willing to risk relational capital and make things difficult, to say difficult things to you because it's ultimately for your good, because they care more about you than do the comfort of friendship. We need that.

I was so thankful to God that I had that. And we should seek to be these types of friends like Jonathan, who was selfless.

One of the things that you see throughout this story is that as from this point forward, Jonathan begins to decrease and David begins to increase in favor. Going into chapter 20, you see that Jonathan, who was the son of King Saul, that they start to decrease and Jonathan and David grows in favor with the people. And not for a moment do you see Jonathan respond in selfishness and jealousy and envy of what his friend is getting.

That's wonderful.

One of the things I appreciate about Chet Phillips, which let me give a caveat here, what I'm about to say is something actually really genuine about our friendship. Because I know if you've been here long enough, you know, we poke fun at each other a lot. We burn each other. That's what we do. He preaches, he makes fun of me. I preach, I make fun of him. We're savage towards each other. It's part of our love language.

I'm not going to comment on how he gives awkward hugs. I'm not going to comment on how his face is naturally very angry looking. Looks like the kind of dad that would yell at the refs at a youth football game. I'm not going to say any of that. What I'm about to say is actually quite genuine.

That I appreciate about our friendship is that he is not jealous. There are times where God has blessed me and he's eager to know about it. And he digs. He says, no, no, no, no, tell me more about him. I was like, well, I mean, you know, this happened and that was good. And this happened and that was good. And some folks when you share with, sometimes you're like, you can tell. They're like, oh, I'm so happy for you. It's so good. I'm so glad that God has blessed you. And you're like, okay, I'm gonna reel it back in a little bit.

But with him, he just says, no, tell me more. I want to know. I want to be able to, I want to be joyful when God has blessed you. And that's selflessness. And I appreciate that about the friendship that we have. And that's what Jonathan is to David. As David increases in favor, Jonathan is not envious. He's not clinging to favor of the people, but he's selfless towards David.

Now we're through chapter 19. We saw that Jonathan's father, Saul, King Saul, is trying to kill David over and over again. And then finally we saw at the end of chapter 19 where Saul comes to boldly kill David at the feet of the prophet Samuel. And that God defends David with prophecy, that Saul is stricken with prophecy, prophetic praise. That's how chapter 19 ended.

Years have gone by at this point and Saul is growing in rage towards David. David. And now it's very clear that Saul has it out completely for David. Everybody knows it. And the friendship of Jonathan and David is really being tested in chapter 20 as his rage has been unrelenting. And there's this wonder, did Saul actually, was he changed by God when he was prophesying? Or does he still want David dead? And David thinks, absolutely, he still wants me dead.

So we pick up in verse one of chapter 20, it says,

Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, "What have I done? What is my guilt and what is my sin before your father that he seeks my life?" And he said to him, "Far from it! You shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing either great or small without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so." But David vowed again, saying, "Your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes." And he thought, "Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved." But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death."

David's like, your dad wants to kill me. No, really, he wants to kill me. And Jonathan's like, no, no. And then David's like, no, you don't understand. He's trying to. He's still trying to kill me. And Jonathan's like, don't you know that if I find out about this, I'm gonna let you know? And David's like, yeah, but your father knows. He knows of our friendship. He knows of our love for one another. He's gonna hide this from you.

And David, you can tell how distressed he is. And he's like, I'm a step away from death. And then Jonathan hears all this and he says,

Then Jonathan said to David, "Whatever you say, I will do for you."

Okay, whatever you say, I'll do for you. Which again highlights the selflessness of Jonathan. All right, I hear you. I'm listening. What can I do?

Verse 5.

David said to Jonathan, "Behold, tomorrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit at the table with the king. But let me go, that I may hide myself in the field to the third day at evening. If your father misses me at all, then say, 'David earnestly asked leave of me to run to Bethlehem, his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the clan.' If he says, 'Good,' it will be well with your servant. But if he is angry, then know that harm is determined by him."

So David comes up with a plan. They're going to test the wrath of Saul. He says, I'm not going to show up to the new moon festival. This is a time of festivities where they would make sacrifices to the Lord. He was expected to attend as being a part of the king's court. And he says, if I don't show up and your father is okay with it, we'll know that his wrath has subsided and I can come back. But if he's angry and that shows up in my absence I will know that he wants me dead.

Verse 8.

Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?"

And Jonathan said,

Far be it from you! If I knew that it was determined by my father that harm should come to you, would I not tell you?

Then Jonathan said. Then David said to Jonathan, "Who will tell me if your father answers you roughly?" And Jonathan said to David, "Come, let us go out into the field." So they both went out into the field.

So again this back and forth of how am I going to know? How am I going to know that I'm going to be safe? And Jonathan brings them out into the field and they continue this.

In verse 12 it says,

Jonathan said to David, "The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness when I have sounded out my father about this time tomorrow or the third day. Behold, if he is well disposed towards David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you?"

He said, if I find out, I'm going to let you know.

Verse 13.

But should it please my father to do you harm, the Lord do so to Jonathan. More also, if I do not disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in safety."

He says, if I catch wind that my father wants you dead, I will let you know so that you can safely escape. May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father.

Which Paul's right there. That is the recognition very clearly from Jonathan that the favor of God has shifted from Saul in his house to David. And what he's going to say next is the recognition and the acceptance that David is the anointed king, the one who Samuel anointed to be the next king.

Verse 14.

"If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the Lord, that I may not die. And do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever, when the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth."

And that is a part of this friendship covenant. This agreement is the request: when you become king in your steadfast love towards me, do not take this out on my descendants. My children live as you become king. And Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying,

"May the Lord take vengeance on David's enemies."

And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

So they're bound together in this covenant of friendship that will outlive them. And I want us to see the second essential aspect of godly friendship, and that is that godly friendship is steadfast. The godly friendship is steadfast.

Show me the steadfast love of the Lord. Do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever.

Jonathan asks. Godly friendship is steadfast. You need friends who are steadfast, who are faithful when times are difficult. And you should want to be the type of friend who is steadfast, immovable, faithful to your friend when they are struggling. You should want to embody this type of friendship.

This is what the Proverbs are capturing in Proverbs 18:24, when it says,

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 17:17 says,

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,

that you want friends and to be the kind of friend who loves at all times, who's born for the difficult moments of life.

So Matt Freeman, who is one of our pastors, and if you've been coming around, if you're new, been around the last couple of months, you haven't seen Matt. He's been on sabbatical for the last three months. This is actually the final week of sabbatical. Be back next week, which is exciting. Yeah, you can celebrate that, ten of you.

But one of the things I've appreciated about the friendship that Matt and I have is that over, really, the close to the last decade of doing ministry together, I know that Matt is going to be steadfast. I know that he's going to be there when things are difficult, when you do ministry together, like, there are things that are wonderful that you get to celebrate of how God is at work in some powerful ways. And there's also a lot of moments of difficulty. And I've just known for years, like, he's there, that he's in it with me, that he's going to stick closer than a brother, that he's going to be steadfast.

I know that when things get difficult, he's going to be there. He's going to. I know that I'm going to get a message from him asking, how are you doing? How's your soul? How's your walk? With Jesus, how's your family? I know he's going to ask. I know he's going to ask difficult questions because he's there with me, side by side. Even when we get in each other's grill sometimes, because every now and then we'll have an argument, we'll have a dust up, because that's what happens when you work together. And there are times when my wife is like, oh, you guys got an argument, and there's tension in her voice and it's like, it's okay, like, we're fine. We're for each other. We're for each other's good. We're going to disagree at times, but I know that he's going to ride or die. I know that we're going to stick it out together because there's this steadfastness, this loyalty, this faithfulness within him.

And that's the type of faithfulness and steadfastness that Jonathan and David display towards each other. That in the face of death, in the face of some really big political changes that are happening, they are knit together, their love and their friendship is. Is steadfast, it is going to make it and traverse through any of the storms they're about to face.

And that is the type of friendship that we should seek and the type of friends we should seek to be. There's a steadfastness in their friendship.

It continues in verse 18 as they're working out this plan.

Then Jonathan said to him, "Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed because your seat will be empty on the third day. Go down quickly to the place where you hid yourself when the matter was in hand, and remain beside the stone heap. And I will shoot three arrows to the side of it as though I shot at a mark. And behold, I will send the boy, saying, 'Go find the arrows.' If I say to the boy, 'Look, the arrows are on this side of you, take them,' then you are to come, for as the Lord lives, it is safe for you and there is no danger. But if I say to the youth, 'Look, the arrows are beyond you,' then go, for the Lord has sent you away. And as for the matter of which you and I have spoken, behold, the Lord is between you and me forever."

So they devise this plan because it seems like they can't even be seen together at this point that they're going to have. He's going to go out, he's going to shoot arrows, and he says, I shoot him. And they land on this side. And I say to my arrow boy, go to this side and if you get the arrows, you'll know that's the signal. It's safe to come out, it's safe to come back.

Saul doesn't want to kill you. But if I shoot beyond and I tell my arrow boy that the arrows are beyond, you should know that you need to run because my father wants to kill you. So that's the secret sign that they work out together.

All right? Verse 24.

So David hid himself in the field. And when the new moon came, the king sat down to eat food. The king sat on his seat, as at other times on the seat by the wall. Jonathan sat opposite and Abner sat by Saul's side. But David's place was empty.

Verse 26.

Yet Saul did not say anything that day, for he thought something has happened to him. He is not clean, surely he is not clean.

He just thinks, okay, he might be ceremonially unclean. So if you're ceremonially unclean, you can't be in the presence of others. You gotta do some rituals, come back. He'll be back the next day.

Verse 27.

But on the second day, the day after the new moon, David's place was empty. And Saul said to Jonathan, his son, "Why has not the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?"

Jonathan answered Saul,

"David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem. He said, 'Let me go, for our clan holds a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to be there.' So now if I found favor in your eyes, let me get away and see my brothers.' For this reason, he has not come to the king's table."

So I'm going to sugarcoat that straight up lie. Bible's not prescriptive and sometimes like this very descriptive of what's happening here. So he lies. Saul doesn't buy it at all.

Verse 30.

Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan. And he said to him, "You son of a perverse rebellious woman!"

Which that's his wife taking shots everywhere.

"You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and the shame of your mother's nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives on earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established."

Which what he does there is he appeals to the base desire of power. Don't you know that David sits on the throne that you're supposed to sit on next? That he's taking the throne from you to your own shame? Jonathan, will you not turn him over? Turn him in so that you can be the future king.

He appeals to this base desire for power.

For as long as the Son of Jesse lives on earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Therefore send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die."

And Jonathan answered Saul, his father,

"Why should he be put to death? What has he done?"

But Saul hurled his spear at him to strike him.

So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.

And Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food the second day of the month. For he was grieved for David because his father had disgraced him.

So Jonathan seeks to again make the case he's done nothing to you. He's only done good to you.

In this country does what Saul does repeatedly, which is pick up. I don't know if he has these spears handy all the time. I mean, he just must rule with a spear. But he also, he's not good at it because he misses again. Happens multiple times in the story. He keeps missing.

And Jonathan is grieved. He's grieved because he knows that his father seeks to kill him. And this is going to change things going forward.

Verse 35.

In the morning, Jonathan went out to the field to the appointment with David and with him, a little boy. They're going to enact a plan, he said to his boy, "Run and find the arrows that I shoot." As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the boy came to the place of the arrow that Jonathan had shot, Jonathan called after the boy and said, "It's not the arrow beyond you," it's the signal." And Jonathan called after the boy, "Hurry, be quick and do not stay."

So Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows and came to his master. But the boy knew nothing. Only Jonathan and David knew the matter.

And Jonathan gave his weapons to his boy and said to him,

"Go and carry them in."

Carry them to the city so that signals you need to run. My father wants to kill you.

Verse 41.

As soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most.

Then Jonathan said to David,

"Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, 'The Lord shall be between me and you and between my offspring and your offspring.'"

For

And they rose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city.

So when the arrow boy is there, their emotions are held together and they begin to be released.

Now you might be thinking, as I thought, why did you go to all this trouble to do this sign if you're just going to pop out and talk? As I had the same thought, I don't fully know my best, my best take is that that was the plan. But they're so overwhelmed by emotion and they're so overwhelmed by their love for one another that this can't be the last time they see each other, that they're willing to risk safety for the sake of embracing one last time as friends.

So he comes out, bows to the ground, showing deference and respect. They kiss, which this is like Italians do today. This is a cultural greeting for them. So this is kissing on both sides of the cheek. New Testament says, greet each other with a holy kiss.

You've been here long enough, you know, we don't do that. We're not going to start. But this is dapping each other up. This is bro huggin. This is the culturally appropriate way to greet one, to greet a friend like this. So they greet, they embrace, and they weep.

This is David. So David wept the most, weeping bitterly. And I think the reason, A, why they're willing to risk coming out in the open and B, why this is such a grievous moment, such a sad filled moment is because they know everything's going to change. Their friendship and the way that it has gone is not going to continue. David's going to be on the run for the rest of his days. They won't be together anymore and their hearts are broken because of the love they have for one another as friends and what they're having to give up to continue.

And that brings me to the third essential aspect of godly friendship. And that godly friendship is sacrificial. The godly friendship is sacrificial.

It's hard to tell when Jonathan knew fully that David was the one that Samuel had anointed to be the future king of Israel. Some are going to argue and say that in the beginning of chapter 18, when he gives up his cloak, he gives up his, his robe and his armor that's symbolic of the passing of the torch and that Jonathan in that moment was conveying that. I think that's a little speculative, but I wouldn't lean and say that's put a ton of force on that. It certainly shows a great amount of deference and respect.

But boy, oh boy, when you get through chapter 19, if you're not convinced by the end of chapter 19, it's so clear here in chapter 20 that Jonathan knows that God has chosen David to be king and not him. He knows it.

Which means that every single step that Jonathan takes in helping David is solidifying David on the throne and not him. That every time, that he continues to help David, every time he helps save and preserve his life, that he is counting the future of David as more significant than his own. That he's sacrificing his place on the throne.

He's not fighting the will of God. He's trusting in God's will and his choice. And also loving his friend sacrificially. It's a beautiful picture. What friendship is supposed to be in sacrificial friendship.

One of the themes that shows up in the Lord of the Rings and the series is friendship. One of the main themes of that story. And particularly if you focus on the friendship between Samwise and Frodo, the two hobbits, that is one filled with sacrificial friendship.

In the first movie, when Frodo has decided that he's going to go on his own, he's going to take the Ring himself, that he gets on the boat and Sam, who cannot swim, follows him out into the water and begins to drown himself because he's so committed for the betterment of Frodo to help his friend that he's willing to sacrifice his own life to make the point.

The books quote and say, "I'll knock holes in all the boats." That's this thing. You're not going without me. I'm giving up my life, my safety, for the sake of helping you and the burden that you are carrying. I'll sink every boat and we'll sink together. But you're not going out alone.

And when you follow that story throughout all three of the movies or books, you see this over and over and over again, all the way to the very end where they're almost there to deliver the Ring and they're starving and they only got a little food left. And Sam gives Frodo the majority of the food, sacrificing for the sake of his friend who's so deeply burdened. It's a beautiful picture of sacrificial friendship.

Are you willing to be the type of friend that says, I will sink this boat? You're not going anywhere until we talk this through, until you tell me what's going on, until you let me help you. Are you willing to be the type of friend who's willing to go without that your friend is struggling and they're in their season of adversity. And when you talk, they're mostly sharing about their problems. But you're willing to sacrifice sharing your life for the sake of helping them bear this burden. Because you love them and because you count them more significant than yourself. Are you willing to be a sacrificial friend on behalf of your friends?

That's what Jonathan was to David. It's a beautiful picture of sacrificial friendship. To love your friend at cost to yourself. Your friendship was filled with selfless, steadfast and sacrificial friendship.

Now as you walk through this, you may be receiving this and may be thinking and evaluating. Man, I wish I had friends like that. You may be thinking about the friends in your life. I wish that person was more selfless. That person, they're not steadfast, they're not faithful like they should be. They're not sacrificing.

And what I want to push on is I think you've missed a step. Because if you're immediate response to this story is to begin to evaluate all the ways that your friends have failed you, you haven't looked in the mirror first.

Jesus says,

"Take the plank out of your own eye, so that you can see the speck in your brother's eye."

You should do the soul work of examining your own heart and asking difficult questions.

Have I been selfless? Like, really considering others more significant than myself? Are you steadfast? Are you there when things are difficult? Are you looking for an exit as soon as things get difficult, as soon as the fun stops? Do you sacrifice? Do you give up time? Do you give up energy? Are you willing to give away for the sake of your friend and your friends?

And maybe you do that soul work and you say, yeah, I need to repent here. I need to change here. I need to have a conversation there. And then you come to the conclusion, but, yeah, but there's still this longing within me. Like, I've tried to be a friend for years and this type of deep friendship has eluded me for years. And this becomes really a story of pain for you.

What I'd like to suggest is two things.

The first, don't give up. I think the Church of Jesus Christ is a beautiful place to find friends, to find deep friendships that embody the friendship of David and Jonathan.

So first is, don't give up. Press in.

The second is that it's very possible that you have placed your hope in the friendship of men and women. And what I want to very clearly say is that your ultimate hope should be in friendship with God. That this deep longing and desire will only be fully satiated and satisfied in friendship with God.

Because while Jonathan and David are a wonderful example of friendship, and they are, and we should learn from them, they are not the purest form of friendship that is found in this life.

You see, Jonathan and David start as two men who love each other. But the friendship that God offers doesn't start that way. The friendship that Jesus offers us is to people who are hostile to him, to people who oppose his very ways.

You see, when you read the Gospels and you get to a passage like Luke 7, when chapter 7, verse 34, when the Pharisees, the religious leaders are taking a shot at Jesus and they say,

"The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look at him, a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'"

That when we read that, we most often think about the self righteousness of the religious leaders because Jesus is willing to be friends with the lowliest, the sinners.

But what gets lost in them is that Jesus befriends crowds of people whose very lives and the choices that they make every day oppose the way that Jesus has set out for creation, that they, with every deliberate choice to sin against God, they have chosen to sin against Jesus.

And what this ultimately is, is foreshadowing of what Jesus offers us in the Gospel that we, as the passage we read earlier, were alienated and hostile in mind. What Mike was preaching about last week, that as Jesus displays kindness to us, we don't start that way. We are enemies of God.

So this isn't two people who love each other initially. This is Jesus who loves hostile sinners. And the love and the friendship that he offers us breaks through to our hearts in a way that captures us.

And another foreshadowing that Jesus does in his ministry. In John 15, Jesus says,

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

Which is a foreshadowing of what's about to happen in an act so selfless, so steadfast in love, so sacrificial, that Jesus lays down his life at the cross for enemies to make them friends.

That is the purest form of friendship that you can discover in this life. It is friendship with God and fellowship with him that you get a picture of now that resounds more beautifully, more wonderfully into eternity.

That is where our hope should be.

So yes, as we learn this and as we talk about this in groups this week, we absolutely should learn from David and Jonathan and we should see the selflessness and the steadfastness and the sacrificial nature of their friendship. And we should walk away from this, evaluating ourselves, the friends that we can be.

But for those of us that are longing for fellowship, those of us that are longing for friendship, we must first take the step of finding that in Christ and the most perfect and most pure friendship that is offered in him.

The band's going to come up and we get to do that and consider that for a moment, that we should consider Christ and what he offers.

And it is possible that for some of you, the loneliness that you feel in this life is not just because you don't have good friends. It's because you actually don't have Christ.

And my hope for you this morning is that you would find your hope for fulfillment and friendship in Christ and Him alone.

And for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, some of us need to walk away and we need to. We might need to have some conversations with some people this week, might need to confess some sin and confess some ways that we have failed, might need to consider the ways in which we need to grow in this so that we can be the type of godly friend that desires that God desires his people be.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us see the friendship that is offered in you, the friendship that is offered in our Savior, in Christ, the friend that we have in him. God, I pray that that would compel our hearts towards faith and surrendering to have fellowship with you from here into eternity. God, I pray that we would not leave this word without reflecting on our own hearts and the ways that we have failed to be the friends that God has called us to be and that we would change. And that the fruit that comes out of the effort this week results in reconciliation. It results in love, results in service, results in godliness and friendship. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

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Luke 6:27-36

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

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Transcript

Good morning. My name is Mike and I was going to walk out the back door, but Isaac had to mention my name in the prayer, so I decided to go ahead and come on up here today. I am not one of the pastors here, but I am an elder in training. Over the last several years in my life, I've been exercising the calling of God that I feel on my life and in my heart toward pastoral ministry. It's something that I have felt growing for a long time. A few months ago, I was asked to participate in the elder training process. I am working this calling out. I'm not just a pastor when I want to be. I am working this calling out with my friends, with my community group, and under the guidance of our elders here. They've given me this opportunity this morning.

I have a day job. I am a physician kind of by training, and that's what I do Monday through Friday throughout the week. Over the last several years, I have had the opportunity to teach in different settings here in our church. I've been able to teach some of your children in the kids city setting. We actually do an assembly similar to this, and we do 60 to 70 minutes of teaching and they don't complain. So no, we do just a couple short minutes of teaching with them and then we break out into classrooms and teach, and I've gotten to share the Scriptures with them there.

I had the opportunity to share the Scriptures with some of your teenagers in the student night setting. Just this last semester, I was able to teach alongside Isaac Hill, who heads that up, and we were working through the Gospel of John. We were blessed by that, and we were thankful to be able to share that with the teenagers in that setting.

I've also been able to teach some of you next door in the Sunday school setting just last week. I was able to do that. Our brother Scott Hill faithfully teaches that class week after week after week. That meets in our other building at 9:30. It's an excellent opportunity to study the word together, and he's let me teach alongside him and he's given me the opportunity to fill in for him when he steps away.

I was asked or I was given the option to pick the text that I wanted to, and I decided to pick something from the New Testament. We've been going through Samuel, right? We've been going through Old Testament narrative, and I was thinking, well, maybe let's step away from that and let's go into the New Testament for a little bit and spend a week here. I thought, what specifically would our congregation want to hear? And I thought, well, maybe something with a lot of imagery, a lot of pictures, a lot of symbolism, something that's got parts of it that are hotly contested and debated. And so, of course, I landed on Revelation. But I decided maybe something a little bit different would be more appropriate for our setting.

Today, we are going to be in the Gospel of Luke. We're going to be in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6, verses 27-36. Before we start, I'm going to pray and ask for the Lord's help.

Father, we thank you for the opportunity to study the Scripture this morning. We've really got nothing apart from it. It tells us of you, and it's our privilege to be able to know it, to study it, and to have our lives changed from it. You know that I am a man desperately in need of grace, and I pray that you would meet me with your grace this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.

So let's open up our Bibles to Luke chapter 6, verses 27-36. This is on page 53 in the blue Bible. The blue Bibles are under the seats in the rows in front of you and you can grab those, and if you don't have a Bible you can actually keep that. We want you to have a copy of God's word.

Like I said, we are stepping out today from the Old Testament narrative in Samuel, narrative of David, of Saul, of the Israelite people, of Samuel himself at that time, and now we're kind of jumping into the New Testament narrative in the Gospel of Luke. This is the story of Jesus Christ.

Just briefly for some context, Luke wrote this gospel around 58 to 60 AD. It is a defense of the Christian faith. It tells the story of the Christ on earth and it shows us Jesus's mission which was to bring salvation to people as well as fulfill some of the Old Testament prophecies that were written about him. Luke himself was a physician, so we can infer he was smart. He was probably pretty cool. I'll leave it there. He was a companion to the Apostle Paul, and Luke spent years interviewing eyewitnesses, people who walked alongside Jesus. And he compiled all of that into this gospel account.

What we're going to look at today, this section does mirror another section in a different gospel. And that's common for that to happen. But it mirrors some similar teaching more familiar you might have heard called the Sermon on the Mount which is Matthew 5 through 7. This passage in Luke has some similarities to it.

So what we're going to study or what we're going to look at is what Jesus has to teach his followers about kindness and compassion. We're going to begin in verse 27.

“But I say to you who hear,
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also,
and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
Give to everyone who begs from you,
and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Now, we probably hear all that and think, "Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. That sounds good. That sounds fine." Especially when we hear that last verse, right? Because we can latch on to that because we've heard it before. That's one of those phrases that sort of has permeated and passed through our culture through generations. And it's something known as the golden rule.

Parents teach an aspect of this to their kids, right? When you hit your brother or when you're deciding, should I hit my brother? I want you to think, do you want your brother to hit you? And even at a young age, you can conceptualize that pretty well. I don't want to get hit. I'm not going to hit my brother.

Teachers in a classroom setting, right? As kids are going from, especially in younger ages, as they're going from being just at home to now interacting with people from other families, teaching them how to interact with those people, how they would want to be interacted with. And there's even probably some level in our workplaces that we apply this teaching, right? If you are wondering, should I put that in the email to everyone? Should I put that thing about my coworker in there? Maybe think, would you like to read that about you? Right? If you do that, that's probably a fairly safe way to navigate those different interactions.

So, we've heard this many times and we usually just agree. When was the last time you saw on CNN, golden rule is being revoked? We're anti-Golden rule, and the golden rule is canceled. Right? You don't see that happening. I actually did this week and Googled, is the golden rule outdated or something to see? I did find an article, but it was on a website I hadn't heard of, so I didn't click on it. I decided that that was probably not something that was being spread through the masses at large, so this would actually still make sense.

But if we are really going to understand what Jesus is calling us to do and really understand the weight of these statements, we have to go back and think about who he's commanding us to act this way towards. He says,

“Those who hate you, those who curse you, those who abuse you,
those who strike you, and those who take from you.”

Guys, this is not a call to be nice to your friends. This is not a call to be kind to the person that you sit next to on Sundays at church. This is a call to be kind to the people who absolutely cannot stand you.

Now, we have a tendency probably in our minds to think or to wonder, is Jesus overselling this, right? Is he going really far in how he's talking to us? But if you do half of that, it's probably fine. We have a tendency to think maybe this is just for effect. But to help us understand that, let's think about who he was talking to, who was standing in the crowd. That was a mix of Jewish people probably from Jerusalem and from Judea.

These are the people whose ancestors we read about when we studied the book of Exodus. These are the people who were enslaved by the Egyptian Pharaoh who never had a day off to rest from work, who made bricks to build up that kingdom, never seeing an ounce of the glory, an ounce of the honor for their own. Even when they were about to escape from Egypt, the Pharaoh in his final act sent his army out to die, trying to retrieve them and bring them back under oppression.

After that, they wandered through the wilderness for many years and they went through this cycle of oppression with other nations and judges, and God raised up judges for them. They turned from what God had said to them to do and they went back to their sin, and they're in this constant cycle of oppression.

And then right up to where we're studying on Sundays, these kingdoms said, "We want a king. We want a king." And they were given one. God relented, they were given a king. Ultimately that kingdom is fractured, and nothing comes of it, and they end up being dissipated and occupied by other nations, right? The Babylonians, the Persians—throughout history, these really prominent, massive empires occupied and oppressed this people group.

And now when Jesus is talking to them, they're under occupation still. They're under occupation from the Roman Empire. So he said all these things to a people that were hated, that were cursed, that were abused, that were struck, and that had every single thing taken from them. Jesus is not overstating or overselling this at all. This would have actually directly applied to the people that he was talking to that day. It would have probably been felt very deeply and viscerally by them. And this thing He was calling them to do would have seemed truly impossible.

Now, this teaching calls them into kindness, right? But what does it have to do with us? Two days ago, we celebrated a holiday that exists to show that we are not under another empire, that we are not subject to another regime. One of our pastors spent time giving missiles to people to shoot into the air just so they could show that a British soldier could not come into their house without a warrant and take their stuff and make them cook for them.

So we are not exactly under, in our current day and age, the oppression of another outside regime. Why this teaching still brings to bear on our lives is because things like hate, abuse, and stealing have been permeating cultures throughout all of time and they absolutely exist in our culture today. Even if you personally haven't experienced something like that or something that extreme, the point Jesus is getting at is not to minimize what you've walked through in your life actually, but to emphasize just how great the thing that he's calling us into is.

So I want us to go back through that text again and think about each one of these directives. Love your enemies. Love is sometimes a wishy-washy word or a phrase that our culture doesn't always know what it exactly means. But we do have some biblical data that tells us patience, kindness, not envying, not boasting, not making yourself out better than someone else. We have some terms for love that we can use.

Most commonly in our culture and in the Bible, we think about love in the sense of husbands and wives, spouses. That's a fairly easy example for us to grasp what love probably looks like. So here Jesus says,

"Love your enemies."

And tags it right up next to doing this. Or he says to love and tags this right up next to doing this to your enemies.

This is not like I'm driving down the road and somebody cuts me off in traffic and I say, "You know, I see him later," and I just wave them along. I'm going to be the bigger person. This is saying somebody's flying down the road and sideswipes me and I drive off the road and I hit a tree and I'm severely injured and my car is totally destroyed and I'm in the hospital for months and when I finally recover, I've got nothing left in my name. I barely have a car to drive. I'm going down the road and I see that same guy and his lane's ending and he's in trouble if he doesn't get over and I let him in. That's loving your enemies.

Doing good to those who hate you means improving the well-being of the person that actively hates you. When people hate us, we probably do one of two things. We either hate them back. "You're going to get into me. I'm going to get after you," like we're buttheads and have fights over things like that, or we just say, "No, you're not going to bother me. You're going to take the high ground and not say anything." And even we see this play out in kids in middle school and high school. There are either fistfights or people pretend like they don't hear what you say because that way it looks like it didn't bother me, and then at home they deal with the fallout of that.

But what doing good to those who hate you is, is when your neighbor comes to you and says, "I'm building a fence on my property and it's going to go five feet into your property line and I don't really care." No matter what you say to him, he's going to do that. One day you come home and it's not five feet on your lawn, it's 10 feet on your lawn. And if you live in a subdivision, that's a lot. So you are seriously out some space. And then when he comes home from work the following day, you're in his front yard. You've cut it perfectly. You're edging right along the driveway. You've got the leaf blower, and you're cleaning it off and you're making it look perfect.

That's actually improving the well-being of a person who hates you.

Bless those who curse you. Now, we don't have a great frame of reference for this currently. Blessing and cursing. I would wager that most of you who said bless this week meant it in the context of a sneeze. But that is not really what blessing is here. Blessing is I am praying for God's favor to be put on another person.

One of the famous examples we have comes from the Old Testament book of Numbers. God says to Moses,

"Go pronounce this blessing on your brother."

And it's

"The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

That's an actual blessing—wanting blessing for another person.

Cursing is also not the way we use it today or cussing. It's a little bit different than what we use today. Cursing is not foul language, rude gestures, inappropriate conversation, as we have it in our context. Cursing is more like the opposite of blessing in that I want your total ruin and total destruction to be brought down on somebody. We do have some Bible examples of cursing. Even just when sin entered in the world, God cursed the earth. And so you can look at different times in the Bible where we see cursing. But blessing and cursing are paired together.

So this is saying that while you are actively praying and asking God, "Will you give him 10 children who each have 10 children? Will you give him everyone in his family who is healthy? Would you make him live to be a hundred and fifteen, and pass away sweetly with his family surrounded by him? All his businesses, tens upon tens upon tens would have success and he would be rich and all the world's goods."

While you're asking that for a person, that same person is hoping that you're totally and completely destroyed off of the earth. While you're hoping for his peaceful end with him surrounded by his family, he's hoping your bloodline comes to an end, that you never find a partner, that you never have a child, and that your last name is totally and utterly destroyed.

That is blessing the people that curse you.

Pray for those who abuse you. This one is probably a little challenging for us to hear. The word abuse sits pretty heavy on our shoulders and even when we hear it, we recoil. Some of you have actually experienced real abuse in awful, awful ways.

Jesus here says,

"On your knees, intercede before the Father on behalf of the person who inflicted you this pain. Pray for those who abuse you."

To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. Just sort of by way of explanation, this is not a little essay on pacifism. Should we fight in wars? Should I defend myself in my house? Striking someone on the cheek is really meant to symbolize or show disrespect. That's what it meant in this cultural context.

And I think we probably have that translate to our cultural moment today. I don't know if I was at an award show—the Tonys, the Grammys, maybe the Oscars—and somebody got up and said something disrespectful about my wife's hair, I might get up and slap that person, and that would be a sign of disrespect given back to them. And I think everybody would be able to do that. And of course, I would go on to win best actor.

This is when the guy at work puts you down, mocks you in front of everyone, and then later the boss comes to you and says, "Hey, you know, so and so, he's actually up for a promotion. What do you think?" And this is you saying, "You know, I think he's pretty good at his time management skills. I think he's got good computer skills," and you start highlighting different things about him that he doesn't deserve to have highlighted about him, but you start highlighting these positive things. Instead of returning disrespect with disrespect, you give respect to him and speak honorably about him.

And from the one who takes your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you. And from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back.

So a cloak is like an outer covering like a jacket. A tunic is more underneath. It covers you from the shoulders down to the hips or ankles depending on how homeschooled you were. So this is saying be radically generous to the people who steal from you.

So, you're at the beach, you're on vacation, and you're walking down the street, and somebody picks your pocket and takes off, and you take off after them and you call the police and you got this guy. You caught him and the police look at you and say, "Well, he stole from you. Do you want to press charges?" And you say, "No." In fact, I had $100 in my wallet, but I'm going to write you a check. I'm going to write you a check for $200. Because this is what it means that when somebody takes your cloak not to withhold your tunic from them.

Also,

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This really does summarize all of these directives well, guys. Sometimes we have such a strong desire for justice and it really, really irks us to see these perpetrators get away with things. But I do want to remind you that in the book of Hebrews, we're told,

"There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

God will make these things right. People who commit injustices will be held accountable.

What he has not done is asked us in this text to mediate out and give out that justice. He teaches us to love. He teaches us to do good and he teaches us to give not just to the people that like us. Not even just to the people that are kind of indifferent to us or tolerate us, but to the people who absolutely cannot stand us and actively choose to oppose us.

Next here in the passage, he's going to talk to us about how the world accomplishes this. We're going to pick up in verse 32.

"If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount."

I think Jesus chooses to give us this explanation here because we sort of gravitate towards this, right? We want to be nice to the people that like us really. Well, if your friend calls you on the phone and they've had a rough day and they're going on and on and you're listening and being empathetic and encouraging them, at the end of the call, they say, "Wow, thank you. You were so kind. Thank you for listening." You might think, "Yeah, you know, I guess in just in the friend group, I'm the kind friend. Yeah, that makes sense."

Or if your co-worker, who you actually do get along with, who helps you out, gets a busy project thrown at them and they're going to be there late and you say, "You know what? I'm going to pitch in and help them take some of that workload off them." And then a few weeks later, you hear them talking and they're saying, "Yeah, you know, he pitched in and helped me right when I needed to. He sacrifices himself. He's so kind." You might think, "Yeah, I am the dependable co-worker. I am kind. I do that. Yeah."

Or if your friend forgets their wallet when you go out to lunch and you spot him and then you think, "Well, now I've got insurance if I ever forget my wallet and I'm out with him." Or if he asks, "Can I—he's going to buy pizza." I don't have to chip in because I already kicked in and gave it to them. We encounter these kind of circumstances all the time.

And this is probably how we think without realizing. We trick ourselves into thinking that we are more kind than we really are. And the reason is because the people we like to be kind to are the people that like us. And so Jesus here very directly is saying that if you're kind to people so that you can just be praised and rewarded, then you are no different than the people who don't follow Christ or don't know Christ because even they are capable of that.

Jesus calls us into sacrificial kindness and sacrificial giving. He calls us to do this to our enemies. And he rebukes the kindness that results in our own advancement in our own gain.

In World War II, on December 20th of 1943, a German pilot by the name of Franz Stigler was flying in German airspace and he encountered a very badly damaged bomber flown by an American pilot with an American crew. He could see holes from multiple bullets in this plane and he could see the crew looked weak and near the point of death. And he had a moment where he could have gone different ways. He could have shot that plane as an enemy out of the sky, reported it back, and been awarded for what he had done. But that's not what he did.

He flew up alongside the wing of this badly damaged American plane and escorted it out of German airspace because he knew that a German anti-aircraft gun would not shoot up at a German plane. He escorted them out to safety and they landed in Switzerland. After that moment finished, the two pilots got out and saluted each other and then the German pilot flew back into Germany. This was never publicized because at the time telling people that an enemy showed kindness isn't good for the war effort.

We don't want to think that our enemy is capable of that, right? But interestingly, in the early 2000s, years after, they were actually able to meet and they became friends and they remained friends until they both passed away just a few months apart from each other in the same year. I think this is just in a small way an example of what it means to look like to be kind or to be compassionate to your enemies.

Now go back with me if you will to the crowd. The crowd that stands there before Jesus. Imagine being one of those people who has been taught since birth from grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, all the cycles of oppression that have kept that people down. And even as they walk out of town to hear Jesus talk, they pass by Roman soldiers who are an ever-present reminder to them of the inescapable enemy that always lurks where they are.

And Jesus says,

"Love those people."

Some of the people that followed Jesus were even part of zealous religious groups who wanted to commit political violence and wanted to commit assassinations. And they're standing there listening to Jesus.

"Love your enemies."

Even you guys put yourself in that position, right? Imagine standing there and think to yourself, Jesus just said,

"Love the guy who put me down so he could get a promotion.
Love the girl that used to bully me in school.
Love the person that inflicted the most emotional pain and suffering or even physical suffering that I've ever experienced."

What would you be thinking? You would be thinking what they were thinking.

Why? Why on earth would we ever do it? They're awful. They are horrible. Why would I ever love them? And if I wanted to, how could it be possible that I could be capable of that?

And as the tension rises in their minds and as the tension rises in our own minds and these questions develop, Jesus tells us the answer:

"But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."

Jesus says that in order to be kind to our enemies, we must understand that God himself was kind to us. See, the answer we come up with is, "Oh, when they apologize to me, then I'll be kind." When they start changing their actions and I actually see it, then I'll be kind. But Jesus says,

"No, kindness to your enemies can only be achieved one way, and it's by understanding God's kindness to you."

Follow this with me. Jesus here teaches,

"Be kind to your enemies."

He roots that kindness in God's kindness to us. Why does that actually make sense? Romans 8:7-8:

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

It makes sense because before we knew Jesus Christ, we were God's enemies. And you might not think that's possible or you might think, "No, that's too much." Well, God, the infinite, existing before anything else for all time, spoke a world into existence, put people on that world to worship him. And I'm not even talking about going through the Ten Commandments and you lied. I'm sure you did. No, no, no, no. I'm talking this God is worthy of our worship at all times. And every time we sit and enjoy our house and we enjoy our family and we enjoy our truck and whatever, and we don't roll it up into worship of the almighty God, we have sinned and we are God's enemy.

Is it that serious? Absolutely. It's that serious. The only way that we can be kind is to understand that God forgave his enemies. And the people that were standing there that day, they've got no idea what's about to come. That he would go through a total sham of a trial and be convicted of a crime that he did not commit.

That he would be physically tortured, beaten, assaulted, that he would be given a purple robe and a crown of thorns, total mockery, so that he might feel shame. And they would make him pick up the cross and walk up the hill, put it up, and they nail him to it and hang him up there in front of everyone to see to execute him.

And while he's up there, we have his words recorded for us:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died for his enemies.

Romans 5:9-11, we read it this morning:

"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
But more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

The story of the Bible is the story of God's kindness to us. So if you today don't know Christ in that way, that's the type of kindness I'm inviting you into. If you do know Jesus, he really does want you to be kind like this. Let's take time to ask the Spirit to reveal the areas where we overlook this teaching.

So, who hates you? Who have you hated? Who curses you? Who have you wanted to see destroyed? Who has abused you? Who has disrespected you? Who has taken from you your time, your money, whatever it is? Is it really important that we be kind to these people? Yes.

Romans 2:4-5:

"Do you despise the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

Kindness is crucial, but we need the help of the Spirit in order to do this. We cannot do it on our own. In our sin, we try to be kind and sometimes it doesn't work. And sometimes we try to be kind and we actually end up being rude and it goes the total opposite direction.

This is not how we naturally think about being kind. We think, well, it's genetic. Have you met that family? They're all smiling. That's not my family. We're sarcastic. We don't do that. We think someone is kind because they don't have the stress we do. If you had my job, you'd understand. I'm way too stressed out to just be kind to everybody I meet. I use it all up at work.

We think we don't have to be kind. Look at my kids. I spend all my time raising those kids, teaching those kids, and trying to be kind to those kids. I don't have leftover to give to the people outside of that. We think when things get better, then I'll be kind. My retirement account's in good shape. My bank account's in good shape. When my house is the house I want, everything's fixed up. When I'm good, then I'll be kind to other people.

This text would suggest otherwise.

We're going to have the band go ahead and come back up here as we close. I think that when Jesus says in verse 36,

"Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful,"

that actually sums all of this up really well.

What is mercy? Mercy is having compassion and kindness on someone whom it is within your power to punish. Our prayer today should be that God would help us to know in our minds and feel in our hearts the depths of the mercy he poured out on us in Christ so that we may reflect that mercy to the world around us.

Some of you need to consider that you are an enemy of Christ but that he died for you and he is welcoming you into his kindness. Some of you have basked in his kindness for years and not for a second thought about how you might reflect that kindness to other people.

If God would go so far as to die on the cross, then you can pray a blessing on a person that's cursed you. You can be kind to the people that make your heart race when we say words like enemy and abuser. The world can't do this. They can be kind to who's kind to them. Only the people of Christ can be kind to their enemies.

By God's grace, may we be a people who understand the mercy of God in our lives. And may this translate into us being merciful and kind to the world around us.

1 Samuel 18-19

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1 Samuel 17

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1 Samuel 16

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1 Samuel 15 (part 2)

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1 Samuel 15 (part 1)

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1 Samuel 13:15-14:46

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1 Samuel 13: 1-15

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1 Samuel 12

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1 Samuel 11

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Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in First Samuel chapter 10, and we're picking up where we left off last week. Last week, we read about Saul being anointed as king. He went looking for some lost donkeys, and eventually, he went to a place where there was a prophet. It turned out that prophet was Samuel. Samuel sees Saul, and God tells Samuel, "That's him. That's the guy I told you was going to be king. I told you you'd see him today." And there he is. He anoints him as king. Saul goes to a dinner where he sits at the head of the table. Then he goes home and tells no one that he has been anointed king.

We're going to pick up today where we left off. Spencer told us a little bit about where this ends up with Saul, and that it doesn't go well for him. But we're not there yet in the story, and today we're going to look at how his story begins. It starts off okay. So, we're going to look at verse 17 of 1 Samuel chapter 10. It says this: Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mispa. He said to the people of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I've brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, 'Set a king over us.' Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands."

They said they want a king. They're bringing together to give them a king. Normally, in these sorts of things, the first person who gets up and talks pumps some ceremony and highlights the importance of the day. Samuel gets up and says, "You used to follow God who saves you from everything. You've rejected him, and today you won't have God. You'll have some guy." Now, line up. It's not the best start, but they're going to line up. They're going to choose a king by lot.

By lot just means a system for randomly choosing. We do some things by lot culturally; we don't call it that, but we draw straws, flip a coin, pull a name from a hat, hold a lottery, or a raffle. Paper rock scissors is just competitive lots where you feel like you won something, even though it was still pretty random.

A lot of things were done by lot historically and culturally all over the place. It just means they have a random system for choosing. They would use urim and thummim. They had the breastplate of the high priest that they would use for this at times. They also may have used some other different methods. People trusted that God would give them the answer through this.

This is not uncommon to them. We see a whole section of this playing out in Joshua chapter 7, where they are trying to find out who sinned against God, and they walk it all the way down to the household of Achan. So they're going to choose by lot. Samuel, verse 20, brings all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.

Now, God already told Samuel who was going to be king. Samuel already told Saul he was going to be king. They're going to do this now by lot. Samuel is going to see, and Saul's going to see, that God is overseeing the lot. But for everybody else, they're just going to see that this is how God works in choosing, and they may not have known or wouldn't have known already that Saul is the one to be chosen. But Benjamin is the tribe he comes from, that Saul is from.

It says the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot. Saul, the son of Kish, was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found.

So, however they were taking lots and doing this, there was some sort of representative tokens or something used to pick a person because they selected a person who's not there. So the lot falls on Saul, the son of Kish, and he's not there.

They looked for him. So they're doing this, and they're like tribe of Benjamin. They move up, and then they do the next process, and they say the clan of the Matrites. Then everybody moves off, and the Matrites come near somehow and then they say Saul, the son of Kish. So is Saul here? Where's Saul? Like, they have to go look for him, and the whole country's here, and now we're looking for Saul. The whole process has stopped to the point that it says, "But when they sought him, he could not be found."

Verse 22: So they inquired again of the Lord, "Is there a man still to come?" It slows down so much that they're like, "Let's ask God again." They inquire of the Lord, "Are we waiting for somebody else? Did we do what is happening?" And God says, "Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage."

We know that Saul showed up, but we don't know at what point he hid. Maybe it was right when they said line up. Maybe it was when Benjamin got picked and he thought, "Oh no." Maybe he waited till it was the Matrites, then he was like, "Oh no." But he definitely wasn't there when they said Saul, the son of Kish. The baggage is the luggage that everybody has shown up with; they just piled all their gear up, all their supplies in a certain spot. And Saul goes and hides, which is a real cute look for your new king.

So God tells them, "No, I picked the right person. He's hiding." Then it says, "Then they ran and took him from there." I would assume, just trying to picture this, they're excited. They run. I also think that means there's a lot of children involved. They say he's in the supplies, and everybody just takes off. This whole group takes off and finds Saul hiding.

I don't know how he hid. The text doesn't tell us. It's possible there was no one near the supplies and he just went there. It's possible he hid. You remember playing hide-and-seek? The better your hiding spot, the more awkward it is to get out of it once you've been caught. We're told that Saul's a big dude. I don't know if he was just tucked behind stuff, and they were like, "God told us you were here," and he came out. Or if he was in stuff, and they had to be like, "Hey man, get up," and he had to crawl out of things. But it's not a good look.

They bring him out. Samuel said to all the people, oh sorry, they ran and took him, and when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. They bring him out, and he's a head taller than everybody. Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people."

There are a couple of ways to understand what he's saying there. He possibly is just saying now that he is king, he stands above everybody else. Here's your king, and no one’s like him. It's a from now on kind of thing. It's also possible that all he's saying here is look at him, remember what he looks like, and he looks different than everybody. So later, when you see a guy who's taller than everybody, you can say, "Oh yeah, I remember that. That's our king." It's possible he's just commenting on what he looks like. It's also possible that what he means is now he stands above everybody, not literally but figuratively.

All the people shouted, "Long live the king." They've chosen the king. They know who it is, and they all shout, "Long live the king."

Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, wrote them in a book, and laid it before the Lord. We don't know what he wrote. My guess is it included some of the stuff we've read in Deuteronomy about what a king is supposed to be like. It probably included some things Samuel said—that if you get a king, he's going to do all this stuff—but he gives some restrictions, this is what a king is allowed to do, and duties, here's what he's supposed to do, has to do. He declares it all to everybody, like, "Alright, y'all got a king now and here's what a king can and can't do and should do." He writes it all down and puts it before the Lord.

Samuel sent all the people away, each to his home. We're going to get more information about how this plays out. I appreciate the detail. They get everybody together; they choose a king. Then they go play hide-and-seek with the king, find him, then Samuel says, "Look at him." He announces, and then he just goes, "Alright, go home."

We're told Saul goes home because they've never had a king before. He doesn't have a palace. He's no castle. They just say, "Here's what kings are allowed to do. You got one. Yay. Go home."

It says, "Saul also went to his home at Gibeah." He just was like, "Okay, I'm king now. I'm going home." With him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched.

God begins to work and sends brave, capable, valiant men with Saul. But some worthless fellows said, "How can this man save us?" They despised him and brought him no present. Other people were apparently prepared to give something to honor the king. But they're like, "We're not doing it. He'll get no present from us. We don't like him."

They despised him, brought him no present, but he held his peace. We're told God touches the hearts of valiant men, and these worthless men reject Saul. But I can't help but feel like the worthless men have a point. They're in a time of war. Part of the reason they've picked a king is they want someone to save them. That's part of the reason Samuel's upset with them: God saves them.

But they are constantly at war with the people around them. They want someone to go out and fight their battles. They say, "How can this guy save us?" Saul's start isn't a good one.

What do we know about Saul at this point? We've read chapters 9 and 10 and were introduced to him in chapter 9. We know his dad is wealthy. If you wanted to talk about that nicely, you'd say he's from a well-off family. If you didn't like Saul, you'd say, "Yeah, daddy's rich." You could spin that one way or the other.

We know his family is wealthy. We know Saul is tall and handsome, so if you wanted to date him, these are the categories you'd pick. I told you a couple of weeks ago that they're not the best ones, but tall, handsome, rich—that doesn't make you king.

So far, we've seen him unsuccessfully find donkeys, and then hide when they called his name. That's what we know of Saul. He was humble, but he seems humble to the point of not wanting to do this.

I don't know if we would like him. Some people would like that he was tall, might like that he was wealthy, and you might appreciate that he's handsome. But I don't know if we'd pick him as king.

In our country, Kennedy and Nixon have a debate, and Nixon was sweaty and people were like, "Seems real sweaty. Can't elect that guy." He lost. I can tell you it's a big deal because I know about it.

The first election I was able to vote in was Obama, way after Kennedy and Nixon. If Nixon had been hiding in the back under a table, not well, hyperventilating, and they had to start off by saying, "Candidate Nixon is hiding in the back under a table, breathing in a bag, refuses to come out, says that he'd like to speak to his mother," they would have had a tough time. They would ask Senator Kennedy what he thought about that. But Nixon was just sweaty. He glistened too much on TV, and people said, "Can't trust him." People were kind of right.

So there you go. This guy hid. They had to go find him. What makes him special? Why is God blessing and sending valiant men with him? And why are these people called worthless? He didn't win a battle. He didn't accomplish anything. He didn't win a tournament. He wasn't the most anything, really—most tall. I want to show you all what it says.

Verse 24: Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen?" Now we know why he's special—the Lord chose him. Therefore, it's worthless to reject him whom the Lord has chosen, and it's a good thing to do to follow him whom the Lord has chosen because he's chosen.

That's what makes him special—God, in his divine choosing, chose him.

But everybody goes home. Saul keeps his peace. We're going to chapter 11.

Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead. We've been hearing about problems with the Philistines on the west. Israel is in the middle. Jabesh Gilead is over here on the east, and the Ammonites are over here. The Ammonites have now besieged Jabesh Gilead on the other side of the Jordan.

Isn't it nice to live where and when we do, where this doesn't happen as often? Historically, this was super common: an army shows up, you're hanging out, suddenly you see people marching, your walled city is surrounded, and they just besiege it. If you have a big enough army, you're ready to go get some stuff.

All the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, "Make a treaty with us and we will serve you." That phrasing is actually "cut a treaty with us," which is how they would cut a covenant. They would cut up an animal, mingle the blood, then walk through. It's officially called a suzerain and vassal covenant, where you have one ruling authority over a vassal state that will pay tribute, taxes.

So they say, "That's a nice besieging army you have there." They send out an envoy and say, "We'll cut a covenant with you and start sending you money. Deal." Nahash says, "Deal." But Nahash the Ammonite said, "On this condition: I will make a treaty with you that I gouge out all your right eyes and thus bring disgrace on all Israel."

They’re not going to cut up an animal; they’re going to cut up you. Line up. I'll pop out all your right eyes and bring shame on all Israel. That'll be the covenant, then you'll owe me taxes.

The elders of Jabesh said, "Give us seven days' respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you."

That's desperation. What else can they do? They said, "Let us go through all Israel and ask." He says yes, which seems crazy culturally—that he would say yes.

They basically say, "Give us a chance to see if someone wants to come kill you. If they do, thanks for waiting. If they don't, you can gouge our eyes out." It makes some sense because his goal was to bring shame on all Israel.

They said, "Let us go through all Israel and ask." He apparently says yes because next we hear: when the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter to the people, and all the people wept aloud.

They heard the news; they were heartbroken. This is awful. They seem despondent. What are we going to do?

The people of Israel have been a loose collection of peoples, tribes, and have never really banded together for some things. That's part of the reason Nahash thinks, "Sure, try to get those people together."

Now Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. He's gone back to work. Saul said, "What is wrong that the people are weeping?" They told him the news about Jabesh.

The spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. He took a yoke of oxen, cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all Israel by messengers, saying, "Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen."

Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man.

Imagine someone rides into your town with two-day-old ox pieces, tosses it down, and says, "Hey." Everybody's like, "What are you doing?" He says, "Saul, our king, cut that ox up." He says, "Get your weapons and muster or he's going to cut your oxen."

It's an effective message. The dread of the Lord fell on the people, and they come as one man.

Verse 8: When Saul mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were 300,000, and the men of Judah 30,000. They told the messengers, "Say this to Jabesh Gilead: Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation."

Their city's besieged. To get that message in, these people must cross back through. Nahash knows they're going back in; people are returning now with the answer. When the messengers told Jabesh, they were glad.

Verse 10: They said to Nahash, "Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you and you may do to us whatever seems good to you."

That phrase is fair translation, or, "We'll come out to you. We'll march out." They intentionally tightrope walk—"We'll come on out; you can do whatever you want to."

There's a little eye play on words, too: "We'll let your eyes do what you want to do," which is what they said.

Verse 11: The next day Saul put the people in three companies; they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, before sunrise, and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. Those who survived were scattered so no two of them were left together.

Nahash surrounded a city, very confident, then 330,000 Israelites showed up in the middle of the night, and it went very poorly for Nahash.

Verse 12: The people said to Samuel, "Who said Saul shouldn't reign over us? Bring those men so we may put them to death." Those who stood against Saul did it publicly. After Saul showed he can lead, muster, bring rescue, they said, "Who said Saul wasn't going to be in charge? Let's kill them, too."

Those guys are there because they all showed up, and they were like, "No, this turned real quick."

Saul said, "Not a man shall be put to death today, for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel."

Samuel said to the people, "Come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom." All the people went to Gilgal; there they made Saul king before the Lord. They sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and Saul and the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

So we've seen Saul anointed, chosen, and now solidify as king.

We've seen bits and pieces of his character. One thing to keep asking: what makes him special? Why is he special? What's worked here to make this good?

Reading the text, God chose him and empowered him. The Spirit of the Lord fell on him, kindled his anger, then Saul acted. The last time we saw him do something good was prophesying when the Spirit fell on him.

He's been chosen and empowered by the Spirit. God hasn't just picked out the best guy—he's picked someone and is empowering them.

I want to take a moment as a church family, as Christians, those following Jesus, to wrap our heads around what Saul has. We have something even better.

What happened for Saul? Something even better has happened for us. So, turn with me to Ephesians 1.

Paul writes to Christians about what it means to belong to the Lord. In verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places."

That's wonderful. We are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

"He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him."

What makes us special? He chose us. What made Saul special? He was chosen.

In the New Testament, he chooses those whom he blesses. We're blessed because he chose us.

"He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him." If you belong to Jesus, you are holy and blameless because of Jesus, not you. You're blessed because of his choosing, not you.

He did this before the foundation of the world. If you're a Christian and wonder why you're special, why did I get to believe this, why me? Because he chose. He did this.

When we look at Saul and say, "Why did he choose Saul?" It doesn't tell us why. It tells us some things, but not the reason.

Why did he choose me? It says, "In love." It's not in us; it's in his love.

We were loved in him, so we love him because he first loved us.

"He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will."

He loves us and brings us to himself, which is wonderful. If you belong to Jesus, you don't get in on a technicality like, "Try not to cause problems; you got in because you trusted in Jesus." No.

"In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons." He wants you and me, the church, to belong to him, to be enjoyed, to be delighted in.

Why does he love me? "According to the purpose of his will."

Then it says to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he blessed us in the beloved. Grace is unearned favor—unearned, unmerited, undeserved.

What gets praised? Not anything you've done or accomplished; it's grace, glorious grace.

You say, "I don't feel good enough." It's not about that. He saved you by glorious grace, and he's wonderful.

According to the purpose of his will.

This is beautiful—that it's by his divine choosing.

Imagine being gathered with the people of Israel and the lot falling to you and saying, "What?"

But what we've been chosen for is so much more glorious, wonderful, eternal. It's staggering what he, in his divine purpose and glorious grace, has chosen in the blood.

It keeps going. Ephesians 1:7, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time—to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."

Highlight this: in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

If you're keeping score at home, trespasses are what you brought.

"According to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom," making known the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, not in you.

He purposed and accomplished it in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him—heaven and earth.

This is about Jesus and God's glorious will.

If you belong to him, it's because he has made you belong to him.

You've been chosen because he's chosen.

You brought sin that made the sacrifice necessary, but you didn't earn, achieve, or keep it. It's not about you.

If they had gathered the people and said, "Hold on. Let's see if he's good at this. Let's watch him a while."

They would all be wrong because God already chose.

If you've trusted Jesus, it's in response to his divine choosing.

You are kept, held, worked on because of him and what he has done.

He has qualified you.

It's about him, not you.

And if you've met yourself, that's great news.

I've had times when I go into a tough conversation prepared, using pep talks, and still fall apart.

It's not about your ability to hold it together or keep it.

It's not about your ability to earn it.

It's about him.

Ok, hold on, sorry.

Verse 11 repeats, but in him we have attained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

If chosen, it's because he did this.

So we who first hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

So he's glorified, praised, exalted.

It's not about you.

You're involved as the object, the recipient.

When you consider your walk with Jesus, you're not the subject or the verb.

God is doing the work, Christ is doing the work.

You're down here being acted on by a glorious God who divinely chooses, rescues, saves, redeems, and keeps according to the purpose of his will, because of his love, because of his glorious grace, and to the praise of his glory.

You shouldn’t think, "I must be one of the good ones."

God didn't pick you because of something special.

You wouldn't conclude you earned or achieved this.

You’d conclude you need to praise his glory.

Why are you a Christian? Because Jesus is wonderful, good; he redeems, saves, and loves.

That would all turn back to praising his glory and grace.

But you say, "Saul falls apart. God chooses, Saul loses it."

Good point.

That's why I said we have something better than Saul.

Saul was chosen for a role in an earthly kingdom.

He was chosen temporarily as a king in a temporary kingdom.

He was empowered by the Spirit for some of what God was going to do, but he ultimately lost it.

We in Christ are not chosen by lot.

We’re chosen by grace.

Not chosen by Samuel through lots, but chosen by Jesus through his blood.

Chosen for an eternal kingdom.

Verse 13: "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation"—that is, Jesus Christ came, died on the cross, rose again so you might have hope and faith.

That's proclaimed in baptism: Jesus was dead and buried, and with him we die and bury our sin.

Without Jesus, we don't rise, but because Jesus rose, we rise.

We are washed clean, made new, given new life; our sin is dead and buried with Christ, and we rise with him with justification—we're made new and whole.

That's what we celebrate.

The gospel says when you heard it and believed it, believed in him, you said, "It's not about me; it's about him. I don't believe in me; I believe in him."

That's your process, your response.

You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

Sealed.

Saul was empowered; we are too.

The New Testament tells us he's empowered us for mission.

But we're not just empowered; we're sealed.

The promised Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.

The Spirit will keep you going until you get the full inheritance of all the blessings of Christ.

It's guaranteed; a guarantee is as good as the person who makes it.

And it's the God of the universe.

You're not just empowered; you're sealed, kept, and guaranteed.

Jesus says you're put in his Father's hand, and no one takes anything from the Father's hand.

If that's true for me and my sons, 10 and 7, it's true for God.

If He’s holding something, He’s not letting go.

It's guaranteed.

Sealed by the Spirit, and it’s working.

He says in chapter 4, "Don't grieve the Spirit by whom you were sealed for the Day of Redemption."

You say, "But I'm doing bad stuff, grieving the Spirit, causing problems."

He says, "Yes, don't do that, but you're sealed for the day of redemption."

That's the Spirit you’re grieving—who will be with you the entire time until he brings you to the conclusion of the inheritance, till he gets you where he plans to take you by his purpose.

He ends, "To the praise of his glory."

Oh, that he might be praised, exalted, lifted up.

Do you realize you've been chosen in a lottery far better than being the king of Israel?

If you belong to Jesus, you’ve been chosen by his divine choosing and good pleasure, according to the purpose of his will.

He lavished grace upon you, made you his forever, sealed you with the Spirit, and will bring you to the end.

May we praise him, honor him, follow him, and not grieve the Spirit.

At all points, may we know it is by his glorious grace, accomplished in him, brought about by him, and about him.

At no point say, "But I haven’t done this," or "I haven’t done that."

Have you trusted in him? Then stop talking about you.

Do you believe in him? Or do you believe in yourself?

We say, "No, I believe in him."

Therefore, we are made free; we are brought to the end.

Praise his name.

Let's pray

1 Samuel 9-10

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Transcript

My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. So, we are back in 1 Samuel after taking a break for Holy Week. And I'll be honest with you, it's a lot of text today. So, if you want to grab a Bible, you can follow along with us. The text will also be on the screen, but we got all of chapter nine and half of chapter 10 that we're going to work through.

So, we're picking back up where we left off in chapter 8 when the people of God demanded to have a king. They wanted a king like the nations. And Samuel, who is the judge and the prophet at the time, listens and then listens to the Lord, and the Lord says give them what they want. So that's how chapter 8 ends.

We begin chapter 9 with really the question: who is this king going to be? Who's the first human king of Israel? We're picking up in verse one: "There is a man of Benjamin."

Let me pause there. Benjamin is a tribe. It's one of the 12 tribes of Israel in the promised land. Benjamin was one of the sons of Jacob of Israel, and it's the smallest of the tribes. Think of it like counties in a state. Benjamin is a smaller region with a small population. When they come into the promised land in the book of Numbers — and right now, as a church, we're going through a reading plan that has Old and New Testament readings — so when you read Numbers, you see that Benjamin has smaller numbers, but that gets worse in the book of Judges when they wage war with the other 11 tribes. You can read that story, and what they are defending is indefensible evil. They almost get wiped out because of it.

This is the tribe of Benjamin. When Benjamin was receiving the blessing for his heritage back in Genesis 49, he is called a ravenous wolf. That's language for they're a bit war hungry, scrappy, and small. They have a checkered past — a really checkered past when you read the book of Judges.

So, there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, son of Abel, son of Zeror, son of Beckarath, son of Aphia, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. He had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people.

If you're familiar with the Old Testament, you may have heard of Saul. Saul is, as we will see in chapters 9 and 10, the first king of Israel. So, we take note that he's a Benjaminite, interestingly, from a wealthy family — the family of Kish. But most importantly, he stands out because he's handsome, tall — taller than anyone else.

He's kind of like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast of Benjamin. No one as slick or fast or strong as Gaston. This is Saul, and he looks the part.

What follows starting in verse three is the story of how he is chosen. Now, the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. Kish said to Saul, "Take one of the young men with you and arise and go and look for the donkeys."

They passed through the hill country of Ephraim and the land of Shallashim but did not find them; they passed through the land of Shaleim but were not there; and they passed through the land of Benjamin but did not find them. So, the donkeys were missing, and this family livelihood was at stake.

Saul and his servant came to the land of Zuf, and Saul said to his servant, "Come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us." He recognizes that their lives may be more important than donkeys.

But his servant had an idea and said, "Behold, there is a man of God in the city, held in honor; all that he says comes true. Let us go there, perhaps he can tell us the way we should go."

Saul replied, "But if we go, what can we bring the man? For our bread and sacks are gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have?"

The servant answered, "Here have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way."

In Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, "Come, let us go to the seer," for what today we call a prophet used to be called a seer.

Saul said to his servant, "Well said, come, let us go." So they went to the city where the man of God was.

On the way up to the city, they met young women coming to draw water and asked them, "Is the seer here?" They answered, "He is. Behold, he is just ahead of you."

The women told them to hurry because the seer had just come to the city for a sacrifice on the high place. Before he eats, he must bless the sacrifice, then those invited will eat. They should go on and meet him immediately.

They went up to the city and saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place — not just any seer, not just any prophet, but Samuel. The book is named after him, so this is a big moment.

Before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel, "Tomorrow about this time, I will send to you a man from Benjamin. You shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines, for I have seen their cry and heard it."

This is not a random coincidence; God is at work, orchestrating ordinary events for extraordinary purposes. So Samuel waits and watches for this man.

When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, "Here is the man of whom I spoke. He shall restrain my people."

Samuel saw Saul arrive, tall and handsome, and God confirmed it was he who would lead the people.

Then Saul approached Samuel at the gate and asked, "Tell me, where is the house of the seer?" Samuel said, "I am the seer."

Samuel invited Saul to eat with him that day, promising to tell him all he had on his mind in the morning. Samuel also reassured Saul about his donkeys—that they had been found, so Saul should not worry.

Samuel then asked, "For whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and your father's house?"

Saul was taken aback by this and said, "Am I not a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes? And is my clan not the humblest of the clans in Benjamin? Why then have you spoken to me like this?"

Samuel did not answer this question but brought Saul in and gave him a place of honor among about 30 guests.

Samuel instructed the cook to bring the portion he had set aside, the choice leg of the animal, and presented it to Saul. This confirmed Saul's special status.

That night, Saul lay down on the roof to sleep, likely overwhelmed by all that had happened.

At dawn, Samuel called Saul to get up so that he might send him on his way.

As they left the city, Samuel told Saul to tell his servant to pass on ahead and then to stop so Samuel could make known to him the word of God.

Samuel took a flask of oil, poured it on Saul's head, and kissed him saying, "The Lord has anointed you to be prince over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the Lord and save them from their surrounding enemies."

There was no doubt now that Saul was chosen and anointed as king. Samuel then gave Saul very specific instructions about events to confirm his kingship.

When Saul left Samuel, he would meet two men by Rachel's tomb in Benjamin who would tell him the donkeys were found and that his father was anxious about him.

From there, Saul would meet three men going to God at Bethel carrying goats, bread, and wine. They would greet him and give him two loaves of bread.

Then, at Gibeah, near a Philistine garrison, Saul would meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, prophesying and playing instruments.

The Spirit of the Lord would rush upon Saul, and he would prophesy with them and be changed into another man.

Samuel instructed Saul to do whatever his hand found to do because God would be with him.

Samuel told Saul to go down before him to Gilgal and wait seven days for Samuel’s arrival to offer sacrifices and give further instructions.

When Samuel turned to leave, God gave Saul another heart. God was actively changing him to be the leader Israel needed.

All the signs came to pass that day. When Saul came to Gibeah, a group of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came upon him; he prophesied.

Those who had known him previously were astounded and asked, "What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul among the prophets?" It became a proverb.

When Saul returned home, his uncle asked where he had been, and Saul said he was seeking the donkeys but went to Samuel when they were not found.

Saul’s uncle asked what Samuel said, and Saul told him the donkeys had been found but kept silent about the matter of the kingdom.

And that is where we stop today, picking up next week with Saul's coronation as the first king of Israel and his initial acts as king.

If you read this story for the first time, there is a lot of optimism: God chooses Benjamin, a tribe with a dark past, and Saul looks the part—tall, handsome, a warrior from the wolf tribe.

But when you read the context, it is not an optimistic story. The people of Israel at the end of chapter 8 refused to obey Samuel and demanded a king to be like the nations, rejecting God as their king and leader.

They didn't want God to fight their battles but to have a human king who would. Saul fits this desire perfectly. He looks like the mighty pagan kings surrounding them.

Yet, the story of Saul is a tragedy. He makes many mistakes; his flaws overtake him, leading to a tragic end. He becomes a footnote in the story of David, a cautionary tale of cowardice and vanity.

Though he looks the part, he does not have the heart to be king. Soon, God will reject him and choose David, a man after His own heart.

David, it turns out, was not impressive by worldly standards — not tall or handsome. In fact, when Jesus comes, Isaiah 53 prophesies he will have no form or majesty, no beauty to desire him.

Jesus does not look like the king people want.

Even now, many want a king who will give them prosperity, power, ease, or control, rather than the King who calls us into relationship and obedience.

We want a king who meets our desires on our schedule rather than giving us what we need in His timing.

Some even want no king at all, preferring to be their own kings.

This folly of wanting a king after our own heart instead of God's remains today.

The good news is that God will bring a king after His own heart through David and ultimately through Jesus, the true King who establishes an eternal kingdom.

As we witness the rise and fall of Saul, let's not be arrogant but reflective, seeing ourselves in this story.

Let's recognize how we also want a king we create rather than the King who has already chosen us.

Tomorrow, we'll take the Lord's Supper, remembering the King who gave His body and blood for us.

Christians come humbly to proclaim our need for King Jesus.

If you are not a Christian, come with humility to this King and place your trust in Him.

The table is open for those who know they need Him.

Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, I pray the gospel of the kingdom comes upon our hearts so we see all the ways we reject You as King.

Help us come humbly and joyfully to Your table, worshiping and delighting in You, trusting Your ways, not our own.

If anyone here is not fully trusting in You as King, may You compel their hearts to see You as better.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Easter 2025

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

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Transcript

Good morning. Happy Easter! My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will, grab a Bible and go to Romans chapter 4. We're going to consider just a few verses in the book of Romans this morning. We're going to pick up and look at the text that we looked at on Good Friday if you were with us then. We will be in Romans chapter 4, verses 24 and 25, and then we'll look a little bit at chapter 5.

I want to read this: "It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord." We gather on Easter and we're celebrating that Jesus was raised from the dead, that he was dead and then came alive again, that He was crucified, buried, and then resurrected. His disciples, His mother, those who followed Him, the centurion, the religious leaders—they all saw Him die, saw Him buried, and then came back to life.

There's a story recounted in Luke chapter 24 where Jesus's disciples are together and Jesus shows up after He had been crucified and buried. When He appears, His disciples are frightened and think He's a ghost. I've always thought that was funny that it's included in the Bible, but it makes a lot of sense. If you watch someone be brutally murdered and then be buried, and then you're gathered with people to be sad about it, and then they show up, your response isn't "oh!" Your response is "ah!" You immediately think something's wrong with you, your mind is broken, or ghosts are real. You don't jump to maybe there's a resurrection, maybe you've conquered death.

Jesus shows them His hands and feet and says, "I have hands and feet; spirits don't." He's like, "Ghosts don't have feet, but I do because I'm real." And then He eats food. He verifies that He's been resurrected; He was literally dead and then literally rose back to life. We're going to study a text that helps us understand why that's wonderful because if you don't know much about Christianity, you may know that Jesus died and rose, but we want to know why that's wonderful.

There are people in this room who have things they've done or that have happened, and you're like, "It's happened, it's done, it's sealed, it's final, it's official, it's locked in." But if we follow a God who can rise from the grave, then He can undo things that are sealed and locked in. The most final thing we have is death. You don't go see a judge and they're like, "All right, you're going to be executed today and then you better be at work tomorrow." That's not how it works. The most final thing we have is death. If He can undo that, then He can undo the things that we carry with us.

We will see why it's wonderful. It says, "It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses." That's what we looked at on Friday—that He was delivered up for our trespasses, meaning that we have actual debt, actual sin. One pastor says that sin does something; it literally does something in the world, in spiritual reality. He said it's similar to if I came to your house and broke something.

Let’s say you invited me over to watch something on your television. During our enjoyment, I got very frustrated and threw something at it, breaking it. The party is over; your TV is broken, and I have a debt. I have a guess that you like your TV, since you invited me over specifically to watch it. We have a problem: something is broken, and there are only a few options. I can pay the debt, or you can. Those are our options. I can fix what's broken; the cost can come from me, or the cost can come from you. Even if you said, "Don't worry about it," that doesn't fix your TV. You're just saying you'll pay the debt or incur the cost by never watching TV again or getting a new one.

Do you know who can't say "Don't worry about it"? Me. I can't ruin the party and then go, "Wait, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal, let's pretend it never happened." The one person who can't do that is me. I can't bump into you, spill something on your shirt, and go, "Let's just forget this ever happened. Let's move on. It's not a big deal. It's your shirt, it's not mine. Let's just go about our day." I can't do that.

Y'all realize we do that sometimes with people. We'll say, "Well, I don't know why it’s such a big deal. God just needs to, like, why does He care?" That's us breaking the TV and then saying, "Don't worry about it." We can't do that. There's real debt, real trespass, a real cost.

What we're celebrating is that Jesus paid it—that He was delivered up for our trespasses. That's what we talked about on Good Friday, that He paid the debt. Then it says this: that He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Not only did He take our debt, but when He rose, He was raised for our justification.

Justification is an intentional legal word. It’s very specific, precise, legally precise language. Now if you don't work in law or contracts, you might not see a lot of legally precise language. I think the place we most run into it is on food labels. For example, if you buy Cheese Whiz or something you spray on stuff, it says "processed cheese food" because it can't just say "cheese" since it's not just cheese. It can't say "processed cheese" because then cheese would be a noun. It says "processed cheese food," where "cheese" is an adjective describing the type of food it is. You're like, "What am I eating?" Scientists say, "Food." You're like, "Yeah, but what do you mean?" They're like, "Well, it's a cheese food." So legally precise language.

If you buy Pringles, it doesn't say chips, it says crisps. What is a crisp? Legally, it’s not a chip. That’s about all I know—it’s legally precise language.

One of the places I appreciated this most was on the show The Biggest Loser. On that show, people try to lose weight. It sounds like they just got them together to make fun of them, but actually they lose weight, and the biggest loser is the winner—it's clever and confusing. My wife and I used to watch it, popcorn and Mountain Dew, and they would do challenges.

In these challenges, to win immunity for the week, they'd have to eat a lot of sweets like Pop-Tarts or cupcakes. The trainers would be mad because they were breaking the spirit of the game. But the funny part was: they weren't allowed to say "Pop-Tarts" because they didn't have the rights, so they had to say "sugar-frosted breakfast pastries." It was like a game of Taboo.

The reason I mention this is that the word "justified" in this text is intentionally precise, legal language. It's wonderful because "justified" means legally not guilty in court, but actually it means better than not guilty. It means declared righteous, ruled in your favor—that you are made righteous, declared righteous, legally not guilty, and you get to walk out free. It's officially accomplished by God in the highest court.

This is beautiful, legally precise language. When He was raised, it was for our justification, meaning that you have been declared righteous, that He took your sin to the cross, and that when He rose, you have been made righteous. The debt has been paid.

It's not just that Jesus says, "Hey, if you come to me I'll forgive your sins, and you need to go live a good life." He doesn't just wipe the slate clean; He signs your name at the top and turns it in. That has been applied to your account.

Periodically, I'll hear Christians say things like, and they're right in one aspect, "I'm a sinner; I have debt." If you come in and say, "I'm a pretty good person," we want to tell you, "No, you're not." If nobody’s been kind enough yet to point out how not wonderful you are, welcome to Mil City Church. No, you're not. We are so thoroughly unimpressed with you. You're a sinner. You have real debt. You have real trespasses. We want you to be aware that you innately sin—that you sin on your own and then, when you know it's sin, you still do it. Once you learn it was wrong, you still do it. You can't just say, "It's okay because you're offended; you caused the offense; you can't declare it’s okay."

So, you're a sinner, but if you belong to Jesus, you are not. You are justified and made righteous. I hear Christians sometimes say, "I'm the worst, I'm just so terrible, I'm always waiting." And I say, "And then Jesus made you righteous?" If you belong to Christ, no, you’re not. You're not guilty—you’re made righteous. Paul calls himself the chief of sinners in the context of declaring he’s received mercy. He says that so everyone else can know if Paul can be forgiven, so can you.

The hope that we have is that He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification—that we've been made righteous. But there’s a way this happens; it applies this way.

Go back to the beginning of the sentence: It says, "It will be counted to us." What is "it"? It is what Jesus has done, what Jesus has done will be counted to us, accredited to us, put on our account, granted to us, applied to us. It is what Jesus has done.

How will it be counted to us? By belief. That you believe in Christ, believe that God raised Him from the dead, that you believe He paid your debt, that you want it applied to your account. Then it will be applied.

There's a movie called My Cousin Vinny. My wife was out of town, and I was bored, so I watched it again. It's about two young guys from New York going to school in Alabama. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, driving the wrong car, and get accused of murder. Because they're from New York, it’s not going well. Then one says, "I’m going to call my cousin Vinny," a lawyer from New York.

Vinny shows up. It’s not going well. There’s tension over whether he’ll represent them. The local guy is worse than Vinny. There's a big moment in court where Vinny says to the local guy, "You’re fired. I want to represent my cousin."

It’s a moment where you can look cosmically at God and say, "I want Jesus to represent me. I want Him to go before me. I want Him to take my debt. I want Him to grant His righteousness to me." And it will be counted if you believe. It will be applied to your account by belief. It will be accomplished not by you but by Him. You trust that His death paid your trespasses and His resurrection justified you before the Lord, declared innocent, righteous, holy, and blameless if you'll just believe. If you'll just look and say, "I want Jesus to pay my debt. I want Jesus to cover me. I trust Him. I believe He’s good. I do not want to represent myself."

That’s what it's saying. It will be counted to us who believe.

So again: "It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith—we're justified by faith.

That's the legal word again: not by works, not by morality, not by intelligence, not by effort—you’re justified by faith, by trusting Him, not yourself.

And that makes so much sense. What doesn’t work before God is for you to sin, fail, then go to Him and say, "Don't worry. I got this. I’m going to be good enough, pay it off, do so well that you can’t help but respond singing my praises." That doesn't work.

Instead, we come and say, "I trust Jesus. I believe He’s good. I believe He’s righteous. I believe He paid my debt. I want Him to represent me. I want Him to cover me." And we say, "I trust that He’s good."

The Bible says there will be nobody who entrusts themselves to Him who is put to shame. Nobody that calls on Him will be put to shame. Nobody who says, "If He doesn’t cover it, I’m in trouble," will be put to shame. Everyone who comes to Him for mercy will receive mercy.

We are to be justified by faith, so you just believe. You just trust in the finished work of Jesus.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

You ever been at odds with someone? You can feel it. You've done something, said something, and you're around them and can feel the tension.

It says there is no tension between those who belong to Jesus and the God of the universe.

Every once in a while, I’ll bust into one of my children's rooms. They're little—wouldn’t do this when they’re older, but I do it sometimes just to mess with them. I say, "Aha!" Just to mess with them. It’s fun because often they just look at you like, "What? I was perfectly innocent. I wasn’t doing anything." Other times, the guilt gets to them. They feel like they’ve been caught.

I had a son hide something one time—a toy. He just needed to hide it; it was nothing serious.

The idea is God can look at you and you can just be free. Nothing to worry about, no hint of fear. No "Oh wait." If people announced, "I'm going to come tour your house today," you’d be like, "Hold on. Is it clean? How do I…?" But with God, there’s peace.

We have peace with God through the work of Jesus. We're free.

Some people think Christians are always looking over their shoulders like God’s ready to get them. No. Jesus paid the debt. God’s not mad at you if you belong to Christ, if you’ve trusted Him. He’s not disappointed, upset, or frustrated because the debt has been paid.

Jesus was delivered up for your trespasses. He was raised for your justification.

You’ve been declared innocent, free.

When I was growing up, my dad was self-employed, and sometimes things went well—but other times, it was tight.

My parents would sit my brothers and me down and say, "Money's really tight. If any of you want something, you’re going to be in big trouble." They would say, "You’re going to eat what we give you and be happy about it."

Sometimes, we got to go eat at places with cafeterias. Back then, there was Piccadilly. Let me explain how this works: When you get there, you can see the food, but you can’t access it. The food is in what I call "food prison." There are food wardens who put the food on your plate, and every item you get means debt you’ll pay later.

There were times when we got to go, but beforehand, my dad would say, "Look…" When we got there, he'd tell us what we were allowed. One piece of chicken, two vegetables, some Jell-O. He’d be looking at the cake like, "You know you can’t have that."

We knew the terms in advance, which was good parenting—pre-threaten your children in the truck, then when they try something, just give them the look. Pre-threatening inflates the meaning.

We were supposed to get what we got and be thankful.

Then there were buffets, which were very different. There used to be more buffets—Ryan's, Quincy's, Western Sizzler. We had a place called Fire Mountain. Ryan's had a roll as big as your head.

At a buffet, you pay first and then you’re free. There’s no food warden; you hold the scoop. Nobody protects the food from you. At SNS, you were supposed to get a little and be happy. At a buffet, you’re free.

When my dad took us to buffets, it was so we could hurt ourselves. We were supposed to pile things up, show him, and eat it all—not waste it—try different foods: soft serve, cookies, that weird pink stuff no one liked.

Jesus has been raised for our justification.

Christianity is not the SNS cafeteria; it’s a buffet. I don’t mean license to sin but freedom and joy—a feast.

The debt has been paid. As Christians, we need to repent of sin, mourn the brokenness in the world. But the default mode of the Christian life is joy because Christ is resurrected.

There is no debt; it's all been paid.

We walk with our heads held up, hearts full, rejoicing in the freedom and hope Christ has given, to His glory.

When I piled food on my plate at a buffet, it brought joy to my dad's heart that I appreciated what he had bought.

When we walk as Christians with hope, fellowship, life, joy, and eternity in focus, acknowledging that when we sin, we have propitiation—that Someone stands between us and God—we are not guilty.

We go to Him in grace and forgiveness and say, "It’s never been about me; it’s about You. My trust is in You, the glorious King who saves sinners."

That brings joy and delight to His heart because He already paid the cost.

We walk in freedom.

Galatians says, "It is for freedom that He set us free." I used to read that and wonder, "What does that mean?" It means freedom.

I'm not supposed to think, "I can’t pile two things on my plate at the buffet." I’m supposed to enjoy it, delight, and walk in joy.

That’s what we celebrate at Easter.

If you’ve trusted in Him, you are not dirty, broken, covered in sin.

He was delivered up for your trespasses and raised for your justification.

If He is risen and you've trusted Him, you are free, covered, blameless, and it’s already happened.

We aren’t waiting for the sentence to be dropped. We’re not in court waiting to hear our fate. If you’ve trusted Jesus, the sentence has been passed. He was declared guilty. We have been made righteous.

The band’s coming back up. We’re going to sing.

If you’re a Christian, I remind you Jesus is risen and you are free and made righteous.

If you have not placed your faith in Jesus and plan to represent yourself in court—plan with your own wisdom, morality, goodness, or just declaring, "It's not that big a deal"—I say: Trust Jesus.

Place your faith in Him. Go to the Lord and say, "I want Jesus to cover me. I want Jesus to stand in for me. I want Jesus to pay my debt. When He died, pay my sin. When He rose, give me life."

And it will be counted for those who believe.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we are thankful for the hope of the resurrection that holds secure through the finished work of Jesus—that all who call on Your name will be saved.

You were delivered up for our sin, raised for our justification, and in You and You alone we have hope.

May Your name be glorified. Amen.

Palm Sunday 2025

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

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Sermon Transcript

My name is Spencer, I am one of the pastors here. We are taking a break from 1 Samuel to really be in Holy Week this week. We have Palm Sunday today, Good Friday coming up this Friday for our night of worship, and Easter Sunday. So we're going to pause 1 Samuel, and we're actually going to be in John 15 today. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. We'll get there in a moment.

One of the things I try to do with my children is I try to look for teaching moments, to really build their life on the right truth, to build their life on the right words and phrases about who our God is and how that shapes them. And I'm looking for those opportunities when they come. A year and a half ago, my son… we're trying out different activities. He started karate and gave that a run. Now, I didn't do mixed martial arts as a kid, but I was like, "Alright, we'll give this a go." So I'm watching him, and there's this one day where he's just kind of halfway going through the motions. I appreciate his instructor because his instructor didn't play around. He told him, "Just sit down. If you're not going to participate, just sit down." He got back up again, just kind of halfway through the motions. And then I was done. We were done with that. I put him in the car, and we're off to community group.

I'm looking for just this moment to teach him what I've been trying to teach him for a few weeks at this point. I was just like, "Hey listen, buddy…" What I was trying to teach him is the theology of work: the idea that we work unto the Lord, that everything we do, we do to the glory of God. I wanted him to understand that this may seem small, but it's actually a picture of bigger things. Like, you need to actually listen. You need to work hard. You're there for an hour; do the motions, do all the things. I don't really know what to tell him, but I'm sitting there watching him. You pick it up, do the things that you need to do in order to do this well, because we work unto the Lord. And I'm driving, and I can see in the mirror looking back, his eyes are just kind of glazed over. I'm like, "Are you listening?" And then finally I just said, "Hey buddy, why are you doing karate?" I'd set up the moment where he's just like, "I'm doing it to the glory of God, Dad!" Like, I'm waiting for some smaller version of that, that at least captures what we've been talking about. And he was deep in thought. And then he just said, "To protect women."

And I was like… and it dawned on me that when he started karate just a few months before that, that was one of the things that we had talked about. I was like, well, you know, karate, this will give you the opportunity for self-defense and to grow. And I remember that I had said something about… you know, I was trying to teach him that we as men, we're called to protect and take care of women, and that in our household, yeah, you should learn what it takes to, like, if someone's going to come in, to be able to fight them, to be able to put them on the ground. I think I did some version of that. That's what he took away: that karate was to protect women. And I was like, you know what buddy? Honestly, count the W. Like, I mean, just we'll work on the theology of work stuff on other things, but if you have it in your brain that this is how to protect women, like we're getting somewhere. But I said that months ago, I hadn't even thought about it.

But that happens. We take words, we take ideas, and we build our lives upon them. He had built karate on top of this idea that "I will fight for my sisters, I will fight for my mother." And I was like, yeah, that's good. But we do that. That's something that happens as we build our lives upon ideas and truth and words. And today as we look at this passage, we're going to focus on this teaching from Jesus that teaches just that: the importance of words and how they shape us.

You see, on Palm Sunday, what we just celebrated in the songs that we sang and the liturgy that we read, we celebrate that Jesus came into the city celebrated as Hosanna, the Savior King. And then a whole bunch of things happened between him entering into the city and Good Friday. In fact, when you read the Gospels, they slow down a bunch. The gospels cover the three-year ministry of Jesus, but they really slow down at the end. And a lot of it does cover this final week where we get teaching after teaching of Jesus talking about what it means to be one of his followers, what the kingdom of God is like. And John 15 is one of those teachings. It's actually on the night of Passover when he's teaching his disciples. And we're going to see what he is getting at.

Now, we're not going to see it in its entirety. To do this passage justice would take three or four weeks. I mean, there's a lot going on in John 15. We're only going to do 11 verses. And even to do that, it would take some time because there's a lot of really wonderful pictures of God and some good, wonderful theology packed into this. So I'm not going to be able to answer and do all the things. That's actually part of why we have community groups. If you're in our groups this week, you'll be able to discuss this and go a little bit deeper into some of the other areas. But we're really going to focus and zoom in on one idea that comes out of this text. It's the idea of Jesus's word at work in us and how that has profound power to shape us. Because we live in a world that is offering so many different things you can build your life on, so many different phrases and words and ideas that you can build your life upon. But I want us to see so clearly that Jesus has this invitation to build our life on something better, and that matters immensely. So that's just the one thing we're going to pull from this today, and I want us to sit in this and see this so clearly.

So let me pray for us that we'd have hearts to receive this, and then we will move into this. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give us ears to hear. I pray that we would receive your word and not just be hearers of the word, but be doers. And that comes through believing the gospel. That comes through course-correcting our life, moving away from sin and more towards you. And we can't do that without your power at work within us. So we ask that you would do that. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright. So in John 15, just a little bit of context because we're jumping into the Gospel of John. This is a teaching called, in a series of teachings called, the "I am" teachings. And John, as he's telling the story of Christ – and John's really explicit about how he's written this gospel – it is to explain Christ as God and that you should believe in him. And so he's got seven different teachings he's lined up, these "I am" teachings, that Jesus is telling them who he is. He says, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life." And then we get to this final "I am" teaching here in chapter 15. So I want to read it all in one clip and then we'll work through this.

He says, "‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.’"

Man, there's a lot going on there. A lot of wonderful truths. Now, to even begin to understand what he's getting at, we need to understand that he's using a metaphor to teach something greater. He's using the example of a vine to help teach that he is the vine and we are the branches. Now here's the problem: Many of us are not growing vineyards in this area. It's just not happening. And they would have been very familiar with this language, and we are not. So I think it's helpful to actually see what he's talking about. So this is a typical vineyard vine. And what Jesus is getting at here is that he's the main vine that goes across the trellis, and that we are the branches that flow out of this vine. So there's one main vine that's going across, and there's branches flowing out of this.

And there's a lot packed into this. But one of the things he's trying to clearly teach is that his people are in him. We are a part of him. This is something that you read throughout the New Testament. This is what Paul is getting at when he's teaching that Jesus is the head of the church and the church is the body. It's all one. This is where we get teachings about Jesus is the cornerstone, the foundation of our faith that the house is built upon. It's these same ideas that we are in Christ, that when you're a Christian, you are connected to him. And it's a helpful visual to explain what he is getting at.

Now, there also is quite a bit packed into this passage that we don't have time to get into. There's a whole thing on the Father pruning branches, branches thrown into the fire. There's some things on needing to understand being known by spiritual fruit and the importance of that, the importance of the commandments. There's all types of stuff that is going on here. But again, to be able to do this and do this well… I have one option: I could be here for like 60 minutes, which is frowned upon because Kid City has children that have a ticking time bomb. So I'm not going to do that. And I'm not going to stretch this out for three or four weeks. I do think that you'll find some helpful study in this in groups this week. But I do want to focus on this one main idea here: that Jesus, the Word incarnate, this is our God, and we get to abide in him, and we get to be in him and him in us. And I just want us to see this so clearly.

So let's work this going back to the top in verse one when he says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser." Now, Jesus is teaching his disciples, and his disciples are Jewish, and they would have been familiar with this language of the vine. This is not something that's foreign to them, not just because they have lots of vineyards where they were living, but also this is language that flows out of the Old Testament. When you read the Old Testament, you read Psalm 80, Israel is described as a vine taken out of Egypt and planted in the promised land. Isaiah 5 talks about the people of God being described as a vineyard, as a vine. Jeremiah 2 talks about the people of God being called a choice vine. Ezekiel chapter 15 talks about Jerusalem being a vine. We see this over and over again. So much so that in the 100-200 years before Christ, in what's called the intertestamental period between the last book Malachi being written and the gospels happening and Jesus coming, the period of the Maccabees, this period a few hundred years before Christ, they had coins in that time period that had on the back of them a vine from a vineyard, symbolizing Israel. So they were familiar with this. And this was not neutral, that Jesus just took something that they were unfamiliar with that had no loaded language, no loaded meaning in it. He took something that had meaning and also some meaning that we may not see. If you read those Old Testament passages, when it usually talks about Israel as a vine, the people of God as a vine, it speaks negatively. Calls them a wild vine, a useless vine, pictures of disobedience and deserving judgment. So this is not a neutral example that they've been given. But what Jesus is doing is he's taking something that is familiar to them and he's redefining it. He's helping them see this in a different way. And he says, "I am the true vine. I am the vine." And then he says, "My Father is the vinedresser." This is the farmer. This is the gardener, is the one who tends to the vine.

And then he continues in verse two. He says, "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit." Verse three: "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." So there's a lot that he's… I mean, again, if you read the Gospel of John, you see so many of these themes that are connecting together. But John 1 begins with Jesus being declared as the Word who became flesh, the incarnate Word. This is the idea that as God created the world through the power of his spoken word, this God is the Word who became flesh. And this Jesus, this Word, goes to work in his disciples, bringing them to faith. And then they are called, we'll see this later, to live by his words, by his teachings. So we got both pictures here: Jesus the Word who saves and sets apart his people, and the words that he's given for his people to live by, the teachings of the gospel. So he's telling this to his disciples, and it's to 11 disciples, minus Judas. You see, at this point in the Passover meal, Judas has already left. So it's just the 11 that he's talking to when he looks at them, and this is supposed to be unbelievably encouraging, and he says, "You are clean." He looks at 11 men that he's invested three years of his life in, teaching them the kingdom of God and the gospel, helping them see who he is over and over again. And this is the Word that is going to work in their heart to bring them to faith, to be the people of God that he builds the church through, so the people of God may abide in him. He says, "You are clean." This is the power of the word, the power of the word to save us through faith, to set us apart, to make us clean, and to live out his teachings.

But I want us to pause and don't miss this point: That means that the word is powerful. That words in general are powerful. Like, we undersell so often how important it is. We unknowingly build our lives upon words and phrases. We just got done about a month ago with our recovery cycle. Recovery is a 10-week program that we do every year. It's offered for those who are working through any bit of suffering or sin or brokenness. And every year I get to watch, I get a front row seat as a pastor to watch God change people and help them see that they've built their lives upon the wrong words in ways they don't even realize. Because this is what we do. I mean, it's not uncommon in recovery to have someone that remembers a time where their parent years ago said, "Why can't you be as good as this sibling?" And that phrase took root in their heart. And they spent the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years working and striving and proving themselves with an unending work ethic, trying to please others, trying to be the best because years ago they built their life on this idea that they heard so long ago. It's not uncommon in recovery for someone who's been bullied in school growing up or in the workplace to finally make a decision: "That's not going to happen again." That they're no longer going to be in a position where someone overpowers them. They will be in the seat of power. And they build their life upon that idea where everything becomes a power dynamic, and it's beginning to crush their soul. There are positive things we build upon in the wrong ways. It's not uncommon in recovery to hear someone that heard some version of "You're so pretty," "You're so smart," "You're so strong," "You're so dependable" for so long that it went to their head. And instead of that being a place where they turned over thanks to the Lord, it became a place of pride or a place of identity. And the rest of their days has been spent trying to live up to this expectation where "I have to stay the prettiest or the strongest or the smartest or the most dependable." And it's exhausting. And I so love recovery because I get to watch people discover this and then encounter the gospel and a word that is better, that changes them to where they're no longer living under this identity, but they've been given a new one.

But that helps us, I hope that helps us see, that is how powerful words are. And the power of the gospel is immense to change our lives and become a foundation that shapes us. 1 Peter 1:23 says, "since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God." What he is preaching there is that we, through the word of God, are born again. It comes to live in us, and God implants this imperishable seed, this seed that will never die, spoil, or fade. It begins to grow in us, and it changes us through the living and abiding word of God. This is the power of the word, and it's the power of the word at work in us.

And that's something that we should have front and center in our souls, that we should remember how powerful the gospel is. And that's what we celebrate this week, y'all. We just sang songs that celebrated "open wide the gates" and that Jesus comes into the city. We celebrate that he, on Good Friday, as we'll sing so much about on Friday, goes to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and to absorb the wrath of God that we deserve. That as Romans 6 says, "For the wages of sin is death." The good news of the gospel is that we have sinned against a holy and perfect God, but Jesus lovingly goes to the cross to pay that penalty for us. And the next Sunday, we will celebrate that he walks out of the tomb and makes a way for a new life in Christ, for us to be born again through the imperishable seed that gets implanted in us, that brings us to life. And then we celebrate that Jesus ascends to the right hand of God the Father, where he rules and reigns as King and Lord. So that we look at Jesus not just as Savior, not just as conqueror of death, but as the Lord who says "do this," and we do it; "don't do this," and we don't do it; "be obedient here," and we say, "Yes, Lord." This is the gospel that saves us and sets us apart. That's the power of the word at work in his people that saves us.

But also, I don't want us to miss this: it's a continual invitation to us as Christians to abide. Because in verse four he says, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." So Jesus looks at his disciples and he tells them, "Abide in me." Which means to remain, to stay. Abide in me. It's an invitation, but also it's an encouragement because what does he say? "Abide in me, and I in you." That it isn't this effort and toil to just try to stay connected to him; He's at work within us. Which, y'all, makes him the main character here. He's the vine. He is the vine. He says, "Apart from me you can do nothing. A branch apart from me cannot bear fruit. It withers and it dies." He says, "I am the vine. I'm the one that gives life to the branches. I'm the one that sustains the branches. I'm the one that gives you the fruit. It is me at work within you." And the disciples need to hear this. And y'all, we so deeply need to hear this as Christians. We so deeply need to believe this.

Because so many of us are so deeply trying to be vines when he's called us to be branches. We may not say that, but our actions display this: that we want to be the vine. And my question is, are you tired? If you're honest, are you tired of trying to be the vine? It's not the way it's supposed to be. Matt Freeman, our pastor who oversees worship and other things, he's getting ready to take a sabbatical. He's going to be gone for three months, which I'm excited about for him. I'm excited about for him because this is going to be good for his soul. Um, I got to do a sabbatical last year, and I needed it. Um, I needed the time to rest and and to do some soul work. I'm thankful as a church that we get to do these sabbaticals. I'm thankful that we have the time and space and we have the team that can be able to do this. But I needed this because I've realized that so much of my pastoral ministry and my life as a Christian is this endless attempt to be the vine, and it just shows up over and over again. And that's no way to live. And as a pastor, that's an easy way to burn out. I mean, pastoring is a joy, and I love it, and it's wonderful. I wouldn't want to do anything else. But it is hard. There's a spiritual weight to it. And the burnout rate in pastoral ministry is high. I mean, it's high. There's a whole cottage industry devoted right now to trying to understand all the different factors for why pastors are burning out, why they don't last longer than five years. And it's, you know, there's a lot that's going on there. And like many things, these problems are multifaceted, multifactorial. There's a lot of things going on. And there's also trying to figure out how to inspire people to jump into pastoral ministry because there's fewer people jumping into pastoral ministry. So they're all trying to figure this out. But I know one of the factors good and well of this type of burnout is self-inflicted. It is forgetting that you're not the vine, that you're a branch. And my sabbatical taught me that so much, that so much of my effort is from me. And I had to grow in prayerfulness. There was an immense lack of prayerfulness in my life. And I've had to learn to just, when I'm feeling burdened, to just go outside and just walk down Holland Avenue in the sun and see the invisible attributes of God and his glory of his creation and just talk to God and just pray and cast my cares upon him to sustain me. Like, I need this. Well, you need this. Like, as a Christian, you need this.

You need to read the scriptures, not just for the utility of checking a box or doing a thing or completing a task or what, but to actually just gaze upon the beauty of our God and his word. We need this. We need this because we're so trying to be vines, and we're not. We're not capable of it. We're not designed to be the vine. We're not designed to be the source of life, of strength, of identity. No, it comes from him. And there's this invitation to abide in him. And we just miss it, y'all. We miss it. So many of us are trying. So many of us, our Christian faith is like a phone. It's like a phone where it's just going. It's got all... like my wife, when she for a long time she didn't realize that on the iPhone you have to like close out the windows. And then one day I was like, she's like, "My battery keeps dying." I was like, "Let me see it. Have you closed out your windows?" And she's like, "What?" I was like, "You've had a hundred windows going for years! Like, you got to like get rid of these." And so many of us have so many windows open all the time. We're so many things that are happening all the time. And, you know, we'll switch to low power mode and try to stretch the life out of it, and all of a sudden it starts shutting down. And the problem is that it's meant to be connected to the source of power. It's got to be recharged. You can't endlessly use the phone and expect that it's going to function like it's supposed to.

And that's us. We just, we miss this, y'all. We try to work jobs and raise children and pay rent and be good friends and family and clean up our house and be good neighbors and stay healthy and pay debt and be a better spouse. We try to do all the things without ever charging the battery. And we wonder why we are anxious and depressed and sleepless and overmedicated and overstimulated and overwhelmed. And it is because we have underwhelmed our souls by trying to be the vine when he's just saying, "Be a branch." Just be a branch. And we reject this offer to abide in the vine. And we as Christians live lives a million miles a minute. And then when we have the time to truly abide, we will doom scroll and we will distract. And there's this invitation from our Savior that's saying, "Would you abide in me? Would you abide in me?" And we wonder why our faith is so bland and God seems so foreign and our worship seems so boring. And it's because we live lives trying to be vines instead of branches. The power to live the life we're called to live flows from him. It does not flow from ourselves. And some of us, myself included, need to be so deeply confronted by that reality this morning.

And then Jesus continues in verse six. He says, "If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." So he says, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, it'll be done for you." Which is a wonderful invitation that has been so deeply hijacked and marred by prosperity preachers in America, who have just tried to actively ruin that passage every chance they can. As if that's some invitation to fill the desires of your heart. As if that's not connected to the immediate context, what Jesus just taught in John 14. In John 14 he says, "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." So he just taught that, and he's teaching it again. It's this idea of we ask for things in the name of the Lord, in his name, that his will would be done to his glory and not the exaltation of self. And there's a lot of prosperity preachers in America that took that and made that about our own selfish enriched desires, and they've ruined that. And hell is hot, and they're going to see it one day because that is a wicked way to twist this passage. Because what's so beautiful about this passage is to have such a sweet communion with God, to so deeply abide in him and him in you, that he so shaped your desires to be so heavenly and kingdom-motivated, that what flows out of your heart in this deep abiding relationship is things that make much of him, in his name, to his glory, and not our own. And that is a way to live. That is an invitation to a much sweeter, much better life when we live inside the vine.

And then he, we'll finish here in verses 8 through 11. Says, "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." Now goodness, there's a lot in that passage, which again, if you're not part of a group, stop by our connect table today, jump in a group. You could study this this week in your group. So I can't get into all of this. But I do want to end on this idea here, that following the ways of God – and that's keeping his commandments – that following the ways of God is abiding in his love, and that's where joy is found. Like, y'all, we need that so deeply. Our souls need that so deeply. Because our instincts from the flesh, when God says "do this," "don't do this," our instincts say, "Ah, did you say that? Ah, is... I don't know." We don't want to do this. But what he's trying to help us see is that if you're abiding in me, if you're abiding in my love, you'll see this is where joy is found. And maybe against your instincts, but it's better for you because you'll actually discover something that is better.

When my wife and I got married, we had a few different interests. I love sports, I still do. She was a musical theater minor. And to this day, she teaches dance and musical theater for a middle school. So she loves musical theater. And I, when we got married, did not like musical theater. I wasn't raised on it. I saw Oklahoma one time as a kid, and I was like, "That's a glimpse of hell." This is like, I don't love this. But she does. And so I had to finally start to see things from her perspective. And the first musical that finally started to make sense to me is I listened to Les Mis and I saw Les Mis, and I went, huh. I love stories. I love good film. I love music. Okay, I see. And I started to… and then my buddy texted me and said, "Hey, have you heard about this Broadway that just hit called Hamilton?" And I just was like, "No." It's like, I went on Spotify and I listened to it. I went, "Oh my goodness." And then we started going to see Broadways together. We started going up to Charlotte and then, you know, Colombia, and just we started seeing these things. It's like, "Oh, okay." Like, I'm starting to get some of this. And there's some that I truly have begun to enjoy. There's some I still don't enjoy, and I say, "You should go see that with your friend." But there are others where I'm just like, "No, this is a wonderful story. I'm captured by it. I'm captured by the music. I see what they're doing in the first act, how they pull this into the second act. I see this. And now I see how good this is." Now, it was against my instincts; would have never thought I'd be a person that would show up to a Broadway and enjoy it. But I see how some of them, there's a lot of joy in this, and there's joy with her and enjoying this together.

And it may be against our instincts to see the commands of God that we don't want to follow. But if you in faith will trust the vine and trust what he is saying, that this is where joy is actually found. If you do this, you will experience true joy, not the fleeting happiness of this world. Because the world offers us so many things that we can chase after that we think are good, and those things will never satisfy. We have to believe this. We have to believe this wholeheartedly.

A couple days ago, I got to do something that I have so wanted to do for so very long. I got to go to the Masters, which has been a bucket list thing for me to do. Like, I just, I've so badly wanted to go, and I finally got to go. And I got there, and it was awesome. This is probably going to show up in 10 sermon illustrations in the next couple of years because it just was a profound experience for me. But I know some of you don't like golf. It's fine. But stay with me. I was there, and I was enjoying it. I was enjoying all the things that I've wanted to enjoy for years. But I also realized there's a crowd that shows up to the Masters, it's a little different. I thought that, you know, everyone's going to be there and they're going to be enjoying this the whole way to the finish. And by the time we're at 18, the final hole in golf – there's 18 holes – on the final hole, we're there, which is a big deal as you see them finish in the biggest golf tournament in the world, but stay with me. We're there, and there's only like three or four hundred people still left. Like, there just, that's it. I was like, "What in the world? There were thousands of people here earlier, and we're on the final hole of the biggest golf tournament in the world." And what I realized is, is for a lot of people, this is just a social thing. This is a thing. And there's a… I went up to where all the fancy houses are, and I saw all the fancy beautiful people and all the things. And I just had a moment of clarity, not from a position of self-righteousness, but just from a position of just God-given clarity. That's like, there's so many people that want to be in those houses. There's so many people where that's the good life, that that's everything the world offers: money, status, fame, luxuries, riches, all of it. Everything is aimed at that life right there. To be able to do this, it's just a social thing that you do for a minute and go on to the next big thing. And I had such clarity to go, "That's not joyful. That is fleeting worldly happiness. And it's not where joy is found."

And we have to examine our souls to realize where true joy is found. It is found in living a life that abides in the vine. It is found in joyously listening to our Savior and living a life that is pleasing in his sight because that's where ultimate joy is found. And y'all, that invitation is so clearly given to us as the people of God. But we have to have the ears to hear it, and we have to have the eyes to see it. And that's my hope. There are some of you that if you're honest, you've been looking for joy in all the wrong places. That so much of your life has been filled with, "If I can just get to this point in life, if I can just get this, if I can just obtain this, I'll finally be happy." And Jesus so clearly is saying that's not where joy is found. But there is an invitation to you, there is, to come and abide in Christ and have him abide in you, and to live a life connected as a branch to the vine. And my hope is this: in this Holy Week, as we walk through this into Good Friday and we celebrate what he did at the cross, as we walk into Easter and celebrate the empty tomb, that you would have your eyes open to what this invitation is. And you take it, and you'd believe.

And there are those of us that have truly tasted and seen that the Lord is good, that we actually are Christians, we love Christ. But what you need to hear this morning is that some of you have so strived and worked and labored like a vine. And my hope this morning is that you'd hear the invitation so clearly to abide, that you'd see that you are a wonderful branch that God is pruning and doing stuff with. He's trying to bear fruit in. But things need to shift in your life. My hope is that in a group this week, you begin to see that even more clearly, that things need to shift in your life to be a Christian that actually takes the invitation to abide and remembers that you're a branch and he's the vine. Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us see this invitation this morning. God, help us see that you are the source of life and hope and joy and fulfillment and identity. It's you. God, I pray that you'd compel our hearts to believe that. There are those here that have never truly believed that. That has not been their story. They've lived life trying to find joy everywhere else. And God, I pray that you pierce through their heart right now to help them see where true actual joy is found. It is found in you. And there are many of us, God, that we've believed that, we've forgotten it. And we've lived lives trying to be branches. And God, may you pierce through our hearts this morning to help us see who we are actually called to be. And that we begin and remember and rediscover what it means to be a branch connected to you, our wonderful vine. In Jesus' name, Amen.

1 Samuel 8

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

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Transcript

My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 8. We are working our way through the book of 1 Samuel. So if you'll grab a Bible and go to chapter 8, that's where we'll be today.

Much of the book of 1 Samuel deals with the kingship in Israel. They have not had a king. The book is about the questions of will we have a king, how will we have a king, and who will be the king. A large portion of Samuel deals with that. We get into that today as this is where the process of inaugurating kingship in Israel begins.

We're going to read through all of chapter 8, and hopefully, as we see this, we'll learn a little bit about what's going on, a little bit about the hearts of the people, and be able to evaluate ourselves as well. So this is chapter 8, verse 1: "When Samuel became old"—so they had had a big victory and peace with the Philistines and the Amorites—"and Samuel had been judging over Israel, governing and leading, it says when Samuel became old he made his sons judges over Israel." The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba.

Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. So his sons were not governing correctly. This is wickedness. It's wickedness anywhere. It's wickedness in Israel, where explicitly it's taught you're not allowed to do this—you can't take a bribe, can't pervert justice, can't turn your eyes away from what is right. But that's what they're doing. They're using their position for power. Now it's nice that Samuel hadn't. It says they're not doing what their dad had done, but their dad had been good, had done what he was supposed to, had been honest, and had integrity. But his sons aren't.

We also see Samuel repeating what Eli had done. Where Eli's sons were wicked, Samuel's sons are wicked. Eli had helped raise Samuel, and Samuel has repeated some of this same stuff. But the situation is not good.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, "Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways." Which, I just think, "behold" makes it sound fancier, but if you translated it into South Carolina, it would be "look." So they go, "Look, you're old." Just like the start of this—they've all gathered together—they say, "Look, you're old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us, like all the nations."

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." Samuel hears this and goes, "No, this isn't good. I don’t like this." And it's interesting to me because they do have a problem—the problem they have is that Samuel's old. His sons are judging them, and his sons aren't good. So that's going to be a problem; that's fair.

But there's more to that problem. The problem is that Samuel appointed those sons. So maybe one of the problems is that Samuel is bad at making appointments. The other problem is that Samuel, who's a judge, is just going to pass it along to his son. So maybe passing things down hereditarily isn't the best idea.

Do you see how their solution is dumb? Because they come to Samuel and they say, "You're not good at appointing people, and passing things along hereditarily doesn't seem great, so we'd like you to appoint a king so that can pass along his hereditary line." It's like y'all came up with a solution that fixes nothing. This is a bad plan. You just changed the name, but this isn't a good system.

But the response from Samuel is negative. The Hebrew literally says it was evil in his eyes—this is bad. The thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them."

So it seems as if Samuel took it some as a rejection of him. He's bothered by it, hurt by it. And God says, "There's more going on here. It's not just that they're rejecting you—they're rejecting me. I was their king. They're rejecting me as king over them." So it's not just that they're getting rid of you—they're getting rid of me.

And then he says, verse 8: "According to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day—forsaking me and serving other gods—so they are also doing to you." God just says, "Look, I've been dealing with these people for a long time. This is what they do. Now you're sharing in it, but they've done this the whole time." And he ties this idea of wanting a king to idolatry. They're getting rid of God to serve other gods; they're getting rid of you—they want a king. This is what they do. They're rejecting me as king over them.

If we just had 1 Samuel, I think we'd say, "Yeah, asking for a king was wrong. They weren't supposed to do that." But there's a problem, because in Deuteronomy, in the law they already had, there's a provision for getting a king. There's permission for getting a king. So there's got to be more going on here. It can't just be that they asked for a king and that's bad because they're allowed to ask for a king.

We're going to read that passage in just a second. So it has to be something underneath that which we understand can happen. Jesus says this about the Pharisees: they pray long prayers for show. You might say, "Well, prayer is good, so praying longer must be good." And Jesus goes, "Yeah, it's not the prayer; it's what's going on underneath that."

So when we see that they were allowed to ask for a king but this one is immediately both God and Samuel are like, "This is bad," is that there's something else going on underneath it.

Let's look at what Deuteronomy says and try to understand how the kingship should work and what it says about it. Then we'll come back to Samuel.

This is Deuteronomy 17, starting at verse 14: "When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you"—which happened in Joshua and Judges, they're in the land, it's happening in Samuel—they possess it and dwell in it, and then say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me."

Okay, so when you find out, Deuteronomy says you can have a king. The next thing I would want to say from Samuel is, "Ah, but they said 'like all the nations,' and that's their problem." They might have been quoting Deuteronomy. So they slapped a Bible verse on this, or it was really prophetic—what was written in Deuteronomy is exactly what you're going to do.

But they're coming and saying, "We want a king like all the nations." So it can't just be that phrase. But we're going to see that Deuteronomy subverts that. It basically says, "You're going to ask for a king like all the nations, and I'll tell you what kind of king you can have." And then it's very different from the kings of all the nations.

Here's the type of king they're allowed to have: "You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose." So they're allowed to ask; God will pick somebody. So far, that seems like what they're doing. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother.

Okay, that's pretty straightforward. I don't think that's any different from how the other nations work; he's just saying he's got to be an Israelite. Okay, so far, tracking.

Verse 16: "Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, 'You shall never return that way again.'" So there are two things happening here. One, you're not allowed to go back to Egypt. The primary reason you'd want to go back to Egypt is to get horses. And you're not allowed to go get a bunch of horses—period.

What are horses good for? War. That's why a king wants many horses. You'll read in the Bible that the Israelites had a hard time because their enemies had many chariots—the war technology of the day. To have chariots, you needed horses and cavalry. So he says, "No, you can have a king, but he can't be trying to be powerful."

Next, "And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." You can have a king, but he can't be trying to be powerful, and he can't want a bunch of women.

"Nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold." You all are familiar with what kings do—that's like their thing. "I want to be powerful; I want to be rich; bring out the women." That's kings forever, everywhere. So they say, "You want a king like the nations?" He goes, "You're allowed to have a king, and he can't be anything like the nations. He's not allowed to do all the basic king stuff."

Then he tells them what kind of king they're allowed to have: he can't be into warriors, women, or wealth.

Here's the type of king they can have: when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests. Here's what your king's going to do: he's not going to be rich or powerful; he can't have a lot of wives. But he does get to have the Levitical priests stand over him while he makes a hand copy of the Bible. If they don't like it, he starts over. This automatically puts the Levites above the king.

He's got to write his own copy of the Bible. Then it says, "And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them."

You know who your king is—he's the one guy in the kingdom who owns his own version of the Bible, and he reads it every day. Everybody else, the Levites have them, but y'all have to go to him. This guy's got his own copy, and he's going to read it every day. That's your kind of king.

It then says, "That his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers." He's going to read the Bible every day so he doesn't think he's better than y'all. Like a poor king without an army and without a bunch of wives who reads his Bible every day and doesn't think he's better than anybody—that's the kind of king they're allowed to have.

"He may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel." You can have a servant king who leads you in worshiping God. You can have a servant king who loves his Bible. That is the kind of king you can have.

This is not what they were getting at.

But it just dawned on me—ladies, this is excellent dating advice. He needs to be a brother. Find a Christian. Most women, for some reason, are attracted to the same things that you are attracted to in kings.

"I want him to be really powerful. I want him to be a womanizer. Or I want him to be rich." No. That's cute at first, but it gets bad later.

What you need is the dude who's got his own copy of the Bible, carries it everywhere, reads it, and does it.

So, when y'all are out in the world trying to find a man and you see a dude with his Bible who follows it, who's not super caring about all the women, he's not trying to be the most powerful aggressive dude, and not rich—isn't that the thing that's drawing you? Then you get to say, "That's a king right there."

Just letting y'all know. You're welcome.

Back to 1 Samuel. It says, "Now then obey their voice, only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them." So God is telling Samuel, "All right, they can have a king, but you have to tell them what they're about to pick because this is what they're about to pick. They're messing this up. You have to explain it to them."

They're allowed to ask for one. Presumably, they could have come and said, "Hey, you're old, and your sons are awful. We've been reading Deuteronomy and we'd like a king like this." But that's not what they do.

They come and say, "We want one like the nations," not the king like the nations we asked for. Then we're going to do the subversive one God laid out for us—not this humble Bible king but one like the nations. That's what they're asking for.

So he says, "Explain to them what that will look like."

Verse 10: So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots."

Uh-oh, this king has a lot of horses. You guys, he's automatically got horses, horsemen, chariots. He broke rule number two. He's caring about power—that's all he's doing.

He says he will take your sons and appoint commanders of thousands and fifties, some to plow his ground, some to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He’s going to take and build up wealth and strength. That's what you're asking for.

He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive orchards, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and vineyards and give it to his officers and servants. He will take your male servants, female servants, best young men, and donkeys, and put them to his work.

He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.

He says he's going to take a tenth—you’re going to be his slaves. You all, that's the stuff that belonged to the Lord. They were to give all this to the Lord, to the Levites, and trust the Lord to protect and care for them. But he says, "You're bringing in a king who's going to claim it. He's going to claim your sons and daughters. You will be his slaves."

That's not how it was supposed to work. They were supposed to belong to the Lord, not to this guy. He says, "You're selling yourself to him. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day."

You’re picking this, and it's going to go poorly. This is what you want. Then you're going to go to the Lord and say, "Help us." And He’s going to say, "No, I gave you what you wanted."

Which is scary. There are times when we're so frustrated with the Lord that He won't just give us what we want. Can't we just believe He’s good and that sometimes the things we want are bad? There are times where the Lord gives you exactly what you want —and that is not a blessing; it's a curse. So we can trust the Lord even when it doesn't seem like things are working the way we want.

He just says, "You're going to head this direction. This is what's going to happen."

I want to show you this: Exodus 19, when He's making the people of Israel. He's bringing them out. He says, "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, if you'll stick to the book, if you'll follow the law, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples—for all the earth is mine—and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

So they were a kingdom, but not a kingdom with a king. They were a kingdom of priests. They did belong to somebody. They weren't slaves of a king. They were his treasured possession.

Do you know the system they had if they did it? They had Levites spread out that helped them know what was good and right and true. When they had issues, they would come, and the Levites would look in the law. If there was no clear answer, they could seek the Lord to give an answer to help go through disputes and fix things.

They had judges that would get raised up when there was a big problem—as long as they were repentant and faithful. We read this last week. They were before the Lord, fasting. They weren't ready for an army or war. God defended them, promising over and over that he would care for them and defend them, raise up judges.

Do you know judges only worked with volunteer armies? They said, "Who's with me? Let's go."

They didn't conscript people. When God was with a judge leading by the spirit, they won; God protected them. They didn't have taxes. Kings couldn't claim people, take donkeys, or slaves. The people were servants, and Levites were cared for by the people giving graciously to the Lord and to the system he set up.

They didn't have a king. They were to relate to God through the Levites. As long as they did that, God said, "I'll smash anyone who messes with you." And he did.

So they're coming and saying, "We don't want that system. We just want a dude to do this stuff."

But this is verse 19: "But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and said, 'No, there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations. And that our king may judge us and go before us and fight our battles.'"

That's key to understanding part of what's going on in their heart. What the problem is here.

So we're going to come back to that. Just want to finish reading this.

When Samuel heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Obey their voice and make them a king." Samuel then said to the men of Israel, "Go every man to his city."

So Samuel's told, "No, give them a king. That's all they want to do." Then Samuel says, "All right, everybody go home." And maybe he said more, but that's all we get. That's the gist. Go home. And he's going to do it.

As it moves forward, we’ll see what happens.

But I want you to see what they're really asking for and what's happening here.

I've got—you know these are the problems here: they're going to be his slaves. They want him to judge them, which is govern, rule, tell them what's right and wrong, make decisions for them. They want him to go out and fight their battles. But throughout their history, God is the one who goes out and fights their battles.

Even with Gideon, at one point God tells Gideon, "You have too many people. Later, you’ll think you did this." So Gideon stands in front of his army and says, "Who here is scared?" And most of them go home. God says, "Still too many." He does this weird test to see who drinks like a dog. Those he takes. Then they win with lamps and yelling because God was fighting their battles.

This is what Joshua tells them: "One man puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised."

So they said, "No, we want this guy to fight for us." And Samuel looked at them and said, "Y'all know it's your sons who are fighting, right? You're thinking this guy's going to fight, but he's going to take your kids, and they're going to fight for him. They won't have any choice."

They said, "We want him to judge us." But it was the Levites and God who judged them, choosing right and wrong, going to the scriptures. If the text said it, that's what they did. If something wasn't covered, they could inquire of the Lord.

They said, "No, we won't. We just want a guy to do it." But you're supposed to be the Lord's treasured possession, and they're like, "Nah, we'll just serve someone."

This is a problem.

I want to point out something that should resonate with us and that we should consider: what they wanted was a quick fix.

And y'all, don't you just want a quick fix? Don't you want something that just fixes it real fast? That's what I want. We love our American culture. We love quick fixes.

We're all about it. A tip, a trick, a hack. We love to know a guy: "Is there just a guy who can do that? Do we know a guy?" "I got a guy," but I can't tell you about my guy because then he'd be your guy and I can't do you.

We do this. We want just a technique, a difference. They're like, "Ah, these judges aren't working. Let's call them kings. Just change the technique."

We love data. We're going to find the best way. We're going to figure out what the right answer is. We're going to read the right book, and that'll give us the right system.

How many books have you read that gave you a system, and you found out later you had to do the system? It was a nice technique, but you actually needed diligence and stamina and personal growth. Not doing that.

Let me get on Instagram and see if someone else can tell me something that sounds nice, and I'll pretend to do this for a week.

Do y'all realize that what they need is growth? What they need is development. What they need is a relationship with the Lord. What they need is to be diligent in what he's already given them.

They don't need a new technique. They don't need a quick fix. This isn't going to solve the problem.

They're like, "Let him fight the battles." But those are going to be your kids. You're not even thinking this through.

How much do we just want a trick or a pill or a TED talk, or is there just something that'll fix it?

We actually just need to grow as people, repent, develop.

Yeah, I like books. I read books. I got a stack of books I plan to read this year. I'm in the middle of reading four books because I apparently can't read one at a time. I'm all over the place. But you just need this one, right? If you're going to try to navigate romance and marriage or money, parenting, leading a household, or work—you really just need this one. You can pick up a tip or trick here and there. You can hear what some psychologist says about a good way to talk to kids or whatever. That's fine. Anything helpful is helpful. But you still got to do it, and you still got to do it as a person who looks like they belong to Jesus.

Some things that psychologists say are dumb. Just because a therapist said it... I meet a person, and I'm like, "Okay, do they know the Lord? Do they love the Bible? Or are they stupid?" I mean, you could just be getting stuff Marks made up? Marks good? Maybe. But not Marks—that's not who I was looking for! Who am I looking for? Freud, thank you. That's who I was looking for.

We can take shots at Marks, too, but I wasn't meaning to do that today.

Do you know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? You just need your own copy that you read every day, so you don't turn to the right or to the left.

They wanted a quick fix, but the Bible gives us everything we need for life and godliness—everything we need to navigate all the stuff we've got going on.

So if you're like, "I don't know if I've read the right books," just keep reading this one.

There's another thing going on here I think we need to consider.

When they came and made this request, they were trying to swap God out. And I think we can do the same thing as long as we keep him out of these categories.

We can just have something that fits in those categories for us.

We've got a king that we're serving, and I think there are a lot of things that can fit those categories.

I want to take a second for you to consider. I'm going to give you some examples, and we're going to consider them this morning:

What gets your best? What are you a slave to? What do you serve? What gets your best effort? What gets your energy? What drives you? So you're a slave to it, not the Lord.

It makes your decisions. How do you know what's right and good? Which one saves us money? Which one makes us more money? How do you know which job to take? It's real easy—skim to the bottom. How much are they paying? Should I move? I don't know. Are they going to pay more?

Your whole life pulled around by money. "Should we go here? Should we not? Should I have this? Should I not?"

It's just based on money. So it governs you. It's your judge.

How do you know you're safe?

How do you know you're winning? That's easy: it's a dollar amount in a bank.

"I know I'm winning in life because I made more money this year than last year."

So we can do that with money.

We can do that with romance. You can be a slave to a relationship, and you can say, "Well, marriage is good. Romance is good. This stuff is fine."

Yeah. We can ask for a king.

Where's your heart? How's that working?

Some people follow Jesus until they get a boyfriend or girlfriend, and then they're willing to sin with them.

Who's your master? Who are you a slave to?

What's getting your best?

Does it govern your life? Is that how you make decisions?

"I'll change this. I'll change anything as long as I can stay in a relationship."

As long as I can have my romantic life work out.

It doesn't have anything to do with what the Bible says or what I ought to do or not do.

Where I ought to go or not go, what's right or wrong.

I'm not trusting the word; I'm just trusting this will keep me in or get me out of a relationship.

How do you know you're winning? How do you know you're safe? "I only feel okay when I'm in a relationship."

That's how I know I'm okay as a person. That's how I know I'm safe, as long as someone is here and loves me, and says they love me, and I'll do whatever as long as it's that.

Children—children are a blessing from the Lord.

But there's a way that they get your best.

When they're little, they get everything. You get used to that because that's part of what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to care for your children, right? The Bible says to.

But there's a way where they get your devotion. They get your heart, and the Lord doesn't. You say, "Well, my kids don't govern my life."

Well, is your whole schedule built around what league they want to be in? Did you pick your neighborhood based on your children? Did you move to another part of the city based off your children? Did you pick your church based off your children?

It's possible they're the judge that sets what's right and wrong, good and bad, for you.

You're not following the Lord. You're not studying the word.

Having children who are following the Lord with you is one thing, but if they're setting the pace, how do you know you're okay? How do you know you're safe?

"How do I know I'm winning? As long as my kids turn out okay, I'll know."

Oh my gosh, that's a lot of pressure on your children. "Hey, I need you to save me." That's rough. It's not good for you or for them.

You can put happiness there. You can put anything you want. There could be a whole thing that decides those things for us.

"How do you decide what's right or wrong? Well, this made me unhappy, so I know it's wrong. This makes me happy, so I know it's right."

God wants us to be happy. Yes, ultimately endlessly happy in him—not short-term, unrepentantly, sinfully happy. Not at all.

He hates that so much that he would die for it. Jesus died for it.

But he also loves you so much and desires your happiness so much that he died for it.

He might rescue you and make you part of him.

But that's not a way to judge your life.

That's what four-year-olds do, but that’s not what we're to do.

“How do you know you’re okay? How do you know you’re safe? How do you know you’re winning?”

“As long as I feel good?”

That’s insanity.

What Samuel and God want in this passage is for God to be king.

What Deuteronomy wants is a king who loves the Lord as primary, who humbles himself, and serves his brothers.

And both of those hopes and wishes are fulfilled in Christ.

Jesus is God who came as king to humble himself, to serve his brothers, to be the incarnate Word who carried it around everywhere, did not lift himself above his brothers, but died for them so they might be welcomed.

Do you understand that the hope of Deuteronomy, the hope of Samuel, and our collective hope is found in Christ alone?

That’s the kind of king we want.

That’s who we want to be a treasured possession of.

That’s who we want judging us and leading us.

That’s how we want to know who’s fighting our battles and caring for us—Christ and Christ alone.

So we’re going to take communion and celebrate that.

That’s the king we have, who loved, served, rescued, humbled himself to bring his brothers to life and hope, who cares for us, fights our battles, and whom we can trust when things aren’t going the way we want.

But I want you to take a second.

The band’s going to come up and begin to play.

I want you to take a second and ask yourself those questions:

What’s getting my best?

What am I using to make the big decisions in my life?

Is it prayer? Is it church family? Is it the Word? Or is it something else?

How do I tell myself I’m winning? How do I tell myself I’m safe? How do I know I’m okay?

I want you to repent. Talk to the Lord and say, "I don’t want this king. I want you to be my king."

Then take communion and celebrate that you have a good king.

If you are not a Christian, Christ is for you.

Communion is not something for outsiders. It's a celebration where we remind ourselves that his body was broken, his blood was shed, and we have hope in him and him alone.

If you're not a Christian, you don’t know that yet, you don’t understand that yet.

What I would say is: you get to evaluate your life and say, "Yeah, Jesus isn’t my king, but I want him to be because he’s good, forgiving, and there’s hope."

We would love to baptize you, to celebrate that publicly, and then you can take communion.

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, you are a good king.

We ask that by the power of your Spirit, by the truth of your Word, all usurping kings would be removed from thrones today.

That everything else that sits in our hearts to judge, defend, to protect us, that claims it can fight our battles, everything that we are slaves to, that gets our best, and that we submit ourselves to—Lord, may you rule and reign over our hearts.

May we repent, may we come to you in forgiveness and mercy, and may we serve and follow you all the days of our lives.

May your name be praised. Amen.

1 Samuel 7:3-17

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1 Samuel 6-7:2

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Additional Resources

1 Samuel 5

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1 Samuel 4

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