1 Samuel 15 (part 2)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. So, we are in week two of 1st Samuel 15.
So, we were originally going to I was going to approach this all in one clip and then after looking at it, we realized that uh we'll see in a few moments in kind of beginning in verse three and four is a very visible display of the wrath of God. And uh in our western culture, we're not the best prepped to be able to receive that uh even though that's not the main point of the text. So last week, we spent some time uh looking at that uh this passage in light of uh the wrath of God as an essential part of God's character that flows from Genesis into the New Testament. So if you weren't here, I encourage you uh you can go back and listen to that. But we're going to look at what is actually the main point of this week.
It is Saul's disobedience that leads to his rejection of his kingship. So, we're going to walk through this today and we're going to see that one of the biggest reasons for Saul's failure here, but also elsewhere is that Saul simply just doesn't know God. He doesn't know God. And what flows out of that is disobedience. And we're going to look at three different aspects of his disobedience after we walk through this story that kind of give us three warnings and three lessons for us as the Church to see the importance of both knowing God and not falling into some of the same traps that he fell into.
So I'm going to pray and then we're going to walk through this together. Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us have hearts to receive your word. God, I pray that we would not just be hearers of the word, but we be doers of the word. We respond in faith and repentance and in worship and in delighting in you above all things. We ask this in Jesus name.
Amen. All right. So, we're going to start off in verse one. And Samuel said to Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel." Now, therefore, listen to the words of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, I have noted what Amalecch did to Israel and opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalecch and devote to destruction all they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey, which pause, that's what we spent all of last weekend is trying to understand that right there in light of the rest of the Scriptures. So, if you're new here or you weren't here last week and you're encounting that for the first time, I would encourage you go back and listen to last week as we sat in that idea as an aspect of God's character, his wrath.
But we're going to move on. Verse four. So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in to 200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalecch and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kennites, "Go depart.
Go down from there. go down from among the Amalachites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kennites departed from among the Amalachites, which this, as you remember last week, God's judgment is on the Amalachites. The Amalachites were the ones who opposed the people of God, sought to exterminate them, sought to war against them in the book of Exodus.
The Kennites are actually a people that were good towards God and his people. So the judgment is for the Amalachites. The Kennites leave. And then verse seven, and Saul defeated the Amalachites from Havala as far as sure, which is east of Egypt. And he took Aag, the king of the Amalachites alive, and do devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.
But Saul and the people spared Aag and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, of the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. So they devote to destruction, the Amalachites, men, women, they they they they fulfill part of it, but then Saul leads the people and decides Aag will be spared and the best of their livestock. So he disobys the Lord. And when you look at all the destruction that happened that he doesn't follow through with the rest of this, it's like why?
What's happening here? And this greatly displeases the Lord. Verse 10, the word of the Lord came to Samuel. I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. And Samuel was angry and he cried to the Lord all night.
So God judges Saul. So I regret that I made him king. He's not performed my commandments. And Samuel's angry. He's upset.
He cries to the Lord all night because this is difficult. Samuel loves Saul. Loves him. Has a heart for him. And if you've ever invested in someone, if you ever given your life away to someone that you've loved and you spent time with and you and you gave your energy to and you help them, point them to God and they you show them what it looks like to follow God, what it looks like to love God, what it looks like to know God, what it looks like to obey his commands, and then they reject that and self-destruct.
I mean, it is painful to see people that you love do this. And Samuel feels that through the night as he's crying out to the Lord. Verse 12, Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. So he wakes up and it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gil. So, not only is Samuel receiving the reality that Saul has disobeyed the Lord, he's been rejected.
He hears of there's a monument that Saul has set up to his own greatness. He doesn't he's blind. He doesn't even see this is to his own re disobedience, to his own rebellion against the will of God that he's making monuments to his own sin and he can't see it. Verse 13. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed be you to the Lord.
I have performed the commandment of the Lord." And listen, the rest of this just reads very much like Saul is a thoughtless child. Like he he doesn't get it. He's like, "Look," sometimes I tell my kids, "Yeah, clean up clean up your room. Go in." Like, "Look, I've cleaned it. It's great.
And there's candy wrappers, which that's a problem. You're not supposed to have candy in your room. Now, I got to address that. Also, there's toys everywhere.
Completely blind, but they've not done what they're supposed to do. And Sam, he g Saul says, "Look, Samuel, I've done it. I performed the commandment of God." Saul is quickly confronted with reality. Vers 14. And Samuel said, "What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the loing of the oxen that I hear?" It's like, "What?
What then? What is the candy wrappers and the toys in the ground? What why do I hear the bleeding of sheep? Why do I hear the loing of of oxen?
If you've performed the commandment of God, then what is that sound, Saul?" He's quick with an explanation. Verse 15, Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalachites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction." So, in true childlike fashion, quick with an explanation, let's go. Now, we we we saved these for the Lord. That what happened was is that we that's what we did. We saved these for the Lord.
See, this is a good thing that we've done, Samuel. And Samuel in true father-like fashion is like, I'm done with this. I'm I'm I'm I'm done with this fixing. Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stop. I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night." And he said to him, "Speak." And Samuel said, "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?
The Lord anointed you king over Israel. The Lord sent you on a mission and said, "Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalachites, and fight against them until they are consumed." It's like, "Though you, Saul, are small in your own eyes, being from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest of the tribes. You are chosen as the king. You were chosen as the one who has authority to lead the people in obeying my voice." It was you that was chosen, raised up for this moment to finally bring judgment on the enemy of the people, the Amalachites. It was you.
Verse 19, why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? which had to be the question that sat on Samuel's soul all night is why why did you do it? Why did you disobey God?
Why did you pounce on the spool? Why? It's because Saul can't see that God has a bigger plan here to bring judgmental. He can't see it. He hears this.
He interprets how he should do it. Does what he wants. And still he's defending himself. Verse 20 it says, "And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on mission on which the Lord sent me.
I have brought Aag, the king of Amalecch, and I have devoted the Amalachites to destruction." But the people took of the spoil sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, sacrificed to the Lord your God in Gilgal, which is a bit of blame shifting there. Now he's moved the goalpost a little bit. So uh no it was but but the people did but but even even the people did that. It's still a good thing. You know we we obeyed the voice of the Lord and this this livestock.
It's it's going to be set up for the Lord. It's going to be for a good reason. I will we will honor the Lord with sacrifices. And it's clear as you read this, like again, Saul just doesn't know God. He doesn't know God.
Doesn't understand the importance of how all this is tied into your history as a people into the law and to the history that goes back to Exodus 17. Like you you don't know God to think that you are going to offer sacrifices and somehow get away. That's not how this works. At this point, Samuel shifts into which is this. What we're about to hear is is the word of the Lord to Saul.
And it's we can't see this in the English, but this little section in Hebrew rhymes. It's poetic in form. It rhymes and it's going to be sticky and remembered by the people of God for centuries. Verse 22. And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as and obeying the voice of the Lord?" Meaning that does God you think God cares more about your offerings than obedience than obeying the voice of God?
He says, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." He says it's it's better for you to listen and obey than to think the fat of rams which again this isn't to put down sacrifices. Sacrifices are good. In the book of Levit Leviticus you see this intentional structuring of sacrif the sacrificial system that was meant for the people of God to come and worship to remember what sin costs. The fat of rams was a good thing for the people to worship in. But that was not disconnected from a heart that loved God wholly and knew him and was obedient to his voice and what he commands.
Says for this for rebellion is the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. meaning that this sin is like all the other sins in the sense you you're rebelling against the will of God because you have rejected the word of the Lord. He has also rejected you from being king. And this is the final pronouncement of judgment on Saul and his kingship. It's over.
That what was started in his disobedience and the unlawful sacrifices that we saw a few chapters ago is now finalized here. It's over for you as king. And the thought still lingers. Why?
Why go through this massive battle, all the all the destruction and and you do this? Like what were you thinking, Saul? And then finally in verse 24, we get a glimpse into what he was thinking. We see part of the problem. Verse 24, Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord. The final reason comes out. Saul fears his own people. Which means that probably when the battle was wrapping up and they were securing victory, the people did what all the armies in ancient near east did. They started grabbing spoils of victory.
started grabbing sheep and oxmen. And in that moment, the people are hungry to celebrate their own victory. And as Saul sees this, he doesn't have the courage to stand in that moment on the convictions to obey the voice of the Lord. They start murmuring about how much they deserve this. And he fears their opinion more.
He fears them more than God. Because in that moment, he could have used his king authority, his kingly authority, and said, "The next man that grabs a sheep will be struck dead along with that sheep. We will obey the voice of the Lord. Everything will be devoted to destruction. He has given us this victory and we will secure this final victory from God." Nobody grabs anything and they're going down with it.
He could have and they'd have step two, but he doesn't because he fears the people over God. And then also this, he spares Ag, which reeks of pride and arrogance because that right there is what the kings of the ancient near east did. When you conquered and defeated a people, you would take their king and they would become your slave. It was a way to parade around your power. Look at all these kings that I've defeated.
Look at all these these nations I've brought blow. It was it was a power flex to his own glory and not to the glory of God. I mean, you see this in in history. You see this in the Scriptures later with the kings of Judah. This is what happens.
And he acts just like the other kings of the ancient near east, making much of his own glory. Which leads me to believe also that some of this is not just ignorance, but he's also, I think, a little bit lying here. That all this was not just, oh, this is for your glory, God. We're going to do sacrifices. That he's just making up excuses like a child who's been caught.
And he wants Samuel, but but do just do this to me. Return with me that I may bow before the Lord. Which also again, it's like you you you still don't understand the you don't can't read the moment. It's like that's a little bit of I I want to look good in front of the tribal leaders. I want to look good still.
It's like you don't understand. Saul 26. And Samuel said to Saul, I I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. And Samuel said to him, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you." Which that in itself is powerful because that action is like a real time parable of what's to come.
Grabs his robe, piece is torn off, and he says, "Yes. The kingdom has been torn from you. It will be given to another, which is how this is going to play out. 29 Also, the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret.
Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the Lord your God." And it seems a bit of Samuel's compassion shows up here because he does love Saul. So he concedes on that. So Samuel turned back after Saul and Saul bowed before the Lord. Now Samuel's going to finish the job. That's what we saw last week.
We skipped to this part. Verse 32. Then Samuel said, "Bring here to me Aag, the king of the Amalachites." And Aag came to him cheerfully. Aag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is passed." And Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hacked Aag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. So he brings the judgment upon as you as you have done all of this evil, Ag, this is being brought upon you.
Hacks him to pieces. Verse 34. And Samuel went to Rama. And Saul went up to his house in Gibia of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death.
But Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regret that he made Saul king over Israel. So they part ways and Samuel is grieved. And Saul again displays. He does not know God.
He does not heed his commands. He doesn't have a heart and a zeal for obeying the Lord. And his disobedience becomes his downfall. So what I want to do for the rest of our time is I want to take a closer look at his disobedience as warnings for us. I want to examine three examples of his disobedience that serve as a caution for us as we seek to know God and obey his commandments.
So there are three lessons here starting with this first one. The first is follow when you cannot clearly see why. Follow when you cannot clearly see why. They grieved by Saul's disobedience. Samuel says, "Why?
Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?" And what becomes clear here is that he can't understand why God would call for total destruction. Like he in his ignorance decides, I'm going to hear this command and I'm I'm going to fulfill part of it and just kind of do what I want. I mean, it it really is clear that he's ignorant to their history. He's ignorant to the law that he's supposed to delight in the law of the Lord because the moment that he receives that command to destroy the Amalachites.
I mean, should have remembered the book of Exodus. Should have remembered the book of Deuteronomy. Should have remembered the judgment that God had proclaimed that was going to come on the Amalachites. He should have known. But it's clear he doesn't know God.
And when he receives this command, he does what he wants. And that lesson is incredibly important to us to follow when you cannot clearly see why. Especially if you are new to following Jesus or starting to get serious about your faith and you have not read the rest of the Scriptures and understood many of its teachings. If you don't understand the big picture of faith and then you receive a command and you kind of do what you want with it, it doesn't go well. My son is seven and he's really really gifted.
Uh he's got really an engineering mind in a way that I never did. He got that from his mom. Like he's just really he's really good at at building things and he got this uh this uh STEM gift uh which is a picture of how much my family hates me that they would give my son a STEM gift that I'm going to have to be involved with knowing that I'm not good at this kind of stuff. But they gave him a small engine kit to build a small engine. And it was cool to see him.
I mean, he just jumped in and was like, I mean, just putting it together. I was like, I could never do that at seven. I could barely do that at 36. With my wife's help sometimes, but he's just going for it. And then all of a sudden, he's trying to fit together parts and it's not fitting and it's getting frustrated.
He asked for help. So, we sit down, we disassemble it, and then it's clear. He just said, "Buddy, you you you skipped this step. You didn't do it." In that moment, he just looked at it and said, "Ah, it's not important. I'm going to keep going." And it's like, "That you can't do that, buddy.
You don't know how this works. You don't understand the big picture of how small engines work. You You've got to follow the steps because you don't actually understand this. That's I have to do that all the time. Give me the IKEA set." And it's like I'm one, two, three, four.
I ain't freewill in that. I have freewheel that it's not gone well. And it's like if I if you can't if you don't clearly understand the big picture of why God calls us to obedience, you cannot make it up as you go along. You you can't freew will it. You can't hear a command from God and decide, well, yeah, but I'm just going to obey part of this without understanding these commands are rooted in the Scriptures for a reason in the bigger history of God's people over and over again.
I mean, there there are commands like like flee sexual immorality or or or the the continued command to give to the Lord, give generously to the Lord. Or a third one, the uh uh be slow to speak. All three of those commands show up throughout the Scriptures in different parts. I mean, you can trace through history in different books of the Bible, how important it was for the people of God to heed those commands. But if you receive those and then you just start freewilling it.
Yeah, I know I'm supposed to flee from sexual morality, but like I mean God's a God of grace and I mean he understands like I mean purity is hard and it's like I mean I just just a little. I mean I'll be okay. Like God God's gracious, right? I know I'm supposed to give but right now like I've got a bunch of things I'm trying to do. Like God knows I got I got needs I got to take care of.
So I I just I mean I I'll be generous at some point but right now I've got this stuff to take care of. Not understanding that generosity is it's not about the end. It's not about the means. It's about the end. It's our hearts that we would not worship things but worship God the giver of things.
They might hear yeah I know I'm spo I'm supposed to watch my mouth and stuff but I'm Italian. It's our family. We are expressive people. Doesn't God want me to be my true self?
and we'll rationalize obedience. And that's what Saul did. So, go devote the destruction all that they have. Do not spare them. And he says, "Yeah, but I'll ag that that'll be okay.
You can't do that." We need to know God. We need to know him and understand why he calls us into obedience. But if we have not learned more of who God is and why he commands us to do the things that we do that until we get to that point as we seek to know him, when we see something in the Scriptures that calls us to obedience, we step too. We don't we don't move in the direction that we want. We move in the direction that God wants.
As we seek to know him and understand that in knowing him, I'll fully better be be a be able better to appreciate why he commands me to do this in the first place. Because this type of obedience actually leads to joy. I love what J Packer says about this. He says, "Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man's heart. And once you understand that in light of also the commands that he gives us that those commands even though difficult at times are meant to thrill our heart in knowing more of God.
So the first is follow when you cannot clearly see why which is something Saul failed to do in obedience. The second is fear God not man. Fear God, not man. So Samuel finally gets to the bottom of it in verse 24 and it says Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned for I transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. It's like Saul doesn't know God.
He doesn't because he doesn't fear him like you should. Again, he was given God granted authority as king over his people. But the voices of men were loud. They were loud in his heart. And when he heard the voice of men and what they desired, he feared them over the Lord.
He shrunk down and feared what they thought and what they wanted over what the Lord wanted as they began to pick the spo of victory for themselves. And it's like he's not hearing the voice of the Lord and he's not fearing the Lord in his power. I love how Tim Keller used to talk about this. Tim Keller used to talk about this is this fear of man, this approval that we seek from others. This how much we care about others.
used to talk about in a way that that we become slaves to the opinions of others. That when you care so much about what other people think that whatever they want, you step two because you care more about what they want as opposed to fearing the Lord and his power and seeking to honor him above what others think, which is important, especially if you're a teenager in the room. Teenagers, listen for a moment. Right now, you're going to feel this intense pressure to care so much about what other kids your age think, to care so much about their opinion, what they think of you, and they're going to call you into doing things that disobey the Lord.
They're going to call you into things that don't honor God at all. And you're going to feel this pull and this desire to so much care about what they think about what the Lord thinks. And let me tell you something, that's not going to change with age. Well, it'll change a little. The people will grow up.
Actually, it'll change a little bit more. Some of those people that you care so much about right now, you real talk, you're not even going to know in 10 years, which is wild if you think about it. that you so structure your life in a way that you care so much about someone that very realistically you're not even going to know in 10 years from now. But the way that it doesn't change is that same desire continues until you become an adult. Because when you become an adult, all of a sudden there are other people that you care so much about in your life.
When your boss tells you to do something, you're so fearful of them and you so desire their approval that you're willing to step to because you care more about them. You care more about who it is that you have in your mind right now that you're fearful of as opposed to being obedient to the Lord and being fearful of him above all things. There's a quote attributed to Spurgeon. Says, "The fear of God is the death of every other fear. Like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it." And it's like those voices may seem loud, but if you'll listen intently to the Lord, when the lion roars, everything else is small by comparison.
We want to know God so that we can understand his power and his might to see how much bigger and more powerful and more almighty he is than any of the people in your life than that boss or that supervisor you're so seeking to please. Y'all literally see it for what it is. Your boss might have a gluten allergy. You know what that means?
A piece of bread will take him or her out. They're not big. They're not mighty. They're not powerful in comparison to the almighty eternal God. Like, you've have to see this for what it actually is.
We have to stop caring so dagam much about what other people think about us because their opinions are small and they change with the wind. They shift. I mean, quite literally, the people that we care so much about right now and their opinion of us, y'all, they are going to be dead in 150 years, nobody's going to remember them. Nobody. Maybe some of them might have some great great grandson who goes on whatever the future is of ancestry.com and cares about it, but really they're not they don't last.
And you need to see how that see the eternal scale of how much we should fear and know and revere God in comparison to the people that we order our whole lives around. our peace that gets robbed because we care so much about others. All right. Think I've hit that point hard enough. Fear God.
And hopefully as we seek to do this as God's people, the voice of men, no matter how loud they seek to be, will just seem so small that you can smile and say, "That power is cute by comparison. I just I want to worship and fear the Almighty God instead fall into the same trap as Saul. Third, forsake empty sacrifices. Forsake empty sacrifice. I hope you saw there's three ups up there.
Super Baptist, you guys. Forsake empty sacrifices. Verse 22. And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to listen the fat of rams." That right there becomes, this gets repeated over and over again throughout the script. That's part of why I think it's it rhymes. This is going to stick in the people's memory for centuries. It gets repeated in Psalm 40, Psalm 50, Proverbs 21, Isaiah 1, Jeremiah 7, Micah 6, Hebrews 10. All those either reference or allude to this passage.
The first time it's actually stated right here. It's not again that God thinks little of sacrifices. Far from he thinks much of them. The law makes clear that sacrifices are important, but they are not a charade. It's not a performance.
It's not disconnected from a heart that seeks to know God. It was meant to flow out of a heart that worshiped God, that feared him, that revered him, that loved him, that desired him, that loved him with your whole heart and your soul and your mind and strength. And it cannot be a charade. It was meant to be of a people that took God and their sin seriously. Y'all, this is a massive danger for us to come to the Lord with empty sacrifices.
Presenting yourself as a good Christian when your hidden life is filled with disobedience is not a place you want to be in. is not a state of hardened heart that you want to continue in. And y'all, we we're tempted and we do this that we can make Sunday worship attendance and being in a community group, we can hit every every week, twice a week, and our hearts can be far from God because all this can be a charade. There are other ways that we do this. One of the things that I noticed about me and when I corporate prayer with other people is that uh they would be praying and then I would be thinking about the words that I was going to pray because I was concerned about how my prayer sounded and that it made sense and was coherent and was so fixed on that that made prayer about me and how I sounded as opposed to praying along with them to the Lord and being unconcerned concerned and self forgetful in the moment to actually worship God.
You if if that's you, you're making prayer charade. It's it's an empty sacrifice. Other ways that we do this, people can do this with money. You can be generous and show their generosity, but it's performance. It's not out of a heart that seeks to love and obey and delight in God over all things, but it's made to look good before others.
We do this sometimes. Some of y'all may be doing this in your community groups with confession. One of the things you realize in our groups is that we we we're real people with real stuff and we take sin seriously. You might see that that okay, yeah, confession, they care about confessing and and okay, and then you what you're doing is that you'll join in confession, but it's just some small stuff, but really there's some really big stuff right over here and you're not confessing it.
And what you've done is not only been disobedient in confession, but you've made confession a charade to where you're just kind of playing the part to fit in. We do this with singing on Sundays. You may be singing expressively out loud. You may be raising your hands. You may be doing it.
But your mind is completely elsewhere. Your heart is completely elsewhere. And it's just a charade. We do this with good works. any amount of good works that we're that there's this this temptation to do a bunch of good works to think that that's going to gain us favor with God.
I want to get right with God. I want to do these things. I'm here to tell you it's an empty sacrifice. It's a gesture. It's a sh.
This is what Saul thought he could do. Blind to his own hypocrisy. that the fat of any of those rams was not going to make him right with God. So we need to see the danger in that. And as a people this side of Jesus, we should heed this as a cautionary tale.
We should heed Saul, this man who did not follow God, did not obey him, he did not fear God, and that he somehow believed that he could perform empty rituals in order to be right with God and gain favor. All of that flows out of a heart that simply does not know God. Now, as people, this side of Jesus, we have a ritual that reminds us of the God that we fear. That reminds us of the God that we love. That reminds us of the God who sent his son to be crushed for our sin on the cross.
To give us a way to have a life with him, where we get to joyfully follow him and know him. And the result of knowing him flows out of obedience. And one of those rituals, one of those signs is the Lord's Supper, which we're going to take in a moment. I want us to consider the words of 1 Corinthians 11 in preparation as we take the Lord's supper. And I want us to also see the danger of approaching this table as an empty gesture or approaching this table without knowing God.
1 Corinthians 11 23. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. But the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he returns. Something we regularly will practice in our Church to come remember what his death meant to us and that he is coming back. Verse 27, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. that a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That if you come to the table not considering who our God is built on a faith that seeks to know him, that seeks to joyfully receive the grace that he's given us in Christ Jesus. that if this becomes a charade, you're we're we're in danger of this bringing judgment upon ourselves. So, we should consider this.
This meal was ordained to proclaim the Gospel. And if your life exists to proclaim the Gospel, then come to the table in unity to declare his death until he returns. If your life does not exist to proclaim the Gospel, then do not come to this table. Come to the Lord. Come to Jesus in faith.
Discover what it means to know him and to delight in him and to follow him and then the joy that's found in obeying him. But don't come to the table yet. So, what I want to do is I'm going to pray and then we're going to take a moment to prepare ourselves. Band included is going to stay where they're at. In silence, we're going to prepare our hearts and when we are ready, we're going to come joyfully to the table to remember what Jesus has done for us.
If you have a gluten allergy, there's gluten-free in that back corner over there. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I pray that you might prepare our hearts to receive this wonderfully beautiful gift that you've given us. this reminder of your blood that was shed for us. God, I'm thankful that we have a better sacrifice than salt that we have your blood shed for us.
And I pray God that we would understand the value and the importance of that as we come to you in faith, as we come to you in repentance, as we come to you seeking to know you better. And that would change the way that we live. God, if there's anyone here that does not know you, that their life does not exist to proclaim you and make much of you, God, I pray right now that you would pierce through their heart, that they wouldn't come to this table, that we would come to you in faith. Lord Jesus, may you work in our hearts. Amen.
Come when you're ready.