JUL 23 2017 | The Giant Series S1E12 | 1 Samuel 13:1-15

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E12 · "1 Samuel 13:1-15" · Adam Stadtmiller · July 23, 2017
1 Samuel 13:1-15
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

1 Samuel 13, 1 through 15 should be behind me and in your bulletins. Saul was 30 years old when he became king and he reigned over Israel 42 years. Saul chose 3,000 men from Israel. 2,000 were with him at Michmash and in the hill country of Bethel. And 1,000 were with Jonathan at Gibeah and Benjamin. The rest of the many sent back to their homes. Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba and the Philistine heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, let the Hebrews hear. So all Israel heard the news. Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost and now Israel has become obnoxious to the Philistines and the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.

The Philistines assembled to fight Israel with 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers and soldiers as numerous as the sands and the seashore. They went up and camped at Michmash east of Beth-Avon. When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets among the rocks and in pits and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

Saul remained at Gilgal and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal. And Saul's men began to scatter. So he said, bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings. And Saul offered up the burnt offering. And just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived.

And Saul went out to greet him. What have you done? Asked Samuel. Saul replied, well, when I saw that the men were scattering, that you did not come to set the set time and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash, I thought, now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal. And I've not sought the Lord's favor. So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.

You have done a foolish thing, Samuel said. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God gave you. If you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people because you have not kept the Lord's command.

Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin. And Saul counted the men who were there. They numbered 600. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks, Joe. You're so good at that. We have such great Bible readers here at the church, right? It's like a reader's theater, right? I remember that. You're driving late through Arizona, two in the morning.

You turn on the AM, right? No one remembers that? Okay. Just me. I'm the only one that's driven through Arizona. There you go. Okay. I got one other person. Then Dave will hang out after the service. We'll talk about reader's theater, especially that really bad Christian reader's theater. Have you guys ever heard that one? Okay. Maybe you haven't. Saul has a timing issue.

He's got an issue with timing. I heard a joke one time, and it went like this. You know what the funniest thing about jokes are? Timing. Get it? I knew that wasn't going to work. Saul has this issue with timing. Thank you, Gretchen. I can tell you like that. I'll be here all week. Try the chicken. Been gone two weeks. This is what you get. Hey, we are looking at the giant series again and continuing.

I kind of feel like the overarching theme is, are we going with our giants to take control ourselves, or are we going to give God the margin to do his thing? We as a people are designed to take care of ourselves. We are, especially in America, we are an independent people. We are called to be an independent people, to do everything on our own.

We're not as, we don't have the same group mentality as perhaps they have in a culture like Australia. We do it on our own. And we see here when push comes to shove, that Saul's trigger is to take things, take matters into his own hands. And so the question, once again, using 1 Samuel as a mirror for your own life this week, is when push comes to shove and one of the big five triggers in our life, and I'll tell you what those are in a moment, but one of them is timing, and God doesn't show up, what is the first thing that you do?

What is your go-to reaction when there is an issue or a problem in your life? And we see that Saul, as you'll see in your notes here, Saul has a timing issue. Will he take control, acting on his own accord, or will he live in dominion, waiting upon the Lord's salvation? Now, I believe that there's five, you know, and if you go to Africa, they say that there's the big five if you go on a safari that you want to see.

I think there's the elephant, I think the water buffalo's one, the lion, there's a few others that are there, I don't know them all. But I believe that faith has a big five as well. And these are the ones that cause the most angst and worry in our life. And if faith had a big five in the game hunting of life, or the game watching of life, I believe that there is.

The first one is, and these aren't in order, but one would be health. Obviously, when you go to the doctor or you feel a little, you know, a little bump that wasn't, shouldn't quite be there or whatever it is, what happens immediately? We, you know, I remember in my 20s, I always thought I had cancer. Like, I don't know, I just lived in this, I don't know if anybody else has that, but I, in my 20s, I had this thing and then I, I had this, this tumor and I thought, and I actually did have a tumor.

And I remember the Lord taking me out on the beach one day and I just felt like I went face to face with that. And God showed me that verse in Psalms where it says, you know, 10,000 will fall on your left, 10,000 on your right. And I felt like the Lord said, hey, I've got you in this one. And I went and everything was fine. And I remember from that point on, that health thing had kind of diminished.

You ever overcome a giant, you know, there, you do have people that are hypochondriacs, that they're constantly focused on their health where they don't need to be. It distracts them from what God has called them to do. But health would be one of those, one of those five. Another you'd see would be wealth. Our provision, you know, not so much are we going to have the big house on the hill, although people worry about that, but am I just going to have enough to sustain, to make it?

Does God care for me enough? Number three, I would say, this would be a huge one, especially in American culture, purpose. What has God built you for? Are you in the center of God's will? Don't mess it up. You mess it up, you're going to ruin your whole life, you know, that God is, you know, let me just say this, God's bigger than your purpose. And if we live a value-driven life, which is something I'm going to be speaking about, I'm going to be doing three weeks on value-driven life when David finishes his Tuesday on the emotional IQ of Jesus, I'll be talking about this understanding of living according to our values and not so much according to our goals.

If you live according to your values, you can reach them every single time. You have the opportunity. We're not sure we can always reach our goals. We set these goals, but goals are something you might reach, but you might not. But if you live a value-driven life, you might even supersede your goals because the scripture tells us in Ephesians 3.20 that God plans to give you more than you could ever hope, dream, or what?

Imagine. So spend the next year imagining the best future for your life ever. And let me assure you that it doesn't come close to what God has for you. So do we set goals? It's not that we throw the baby out with the bathwater, but in regard to purpose, maybe our purpose, as I spoke about on the first sermon of this year as we went into it, what does it look like to have a value-driven life?

What are your values? Are they adventure? Some of ours are adventure. Carrie and I go away every couple months and we look at our values. Are we living according to our values? Life comes and goes and it has the ebb and flow and my friend in Australia calls it the froth and bubble of life. But in the midst of the froth and bubble of life, are we living our values?

And so that would be one in regard to your purpose. And I would say that if you want to accomplish your purpose, live according to your values and according to God's values and your purpose will hunt you down. You will not be able to outrun your purpose. It will come and it will lay at your feet. Are you living according to your values? See, oftentimes I want all of my goals, but I want them not to actually meet the values that God has called me to live by.

I want what I want, but I also want what I want. And so are we willing to do that? I put number four, partner. And I think it's much wider than that. I was going to call Carol halfway through the week and say, hey, could you change that? But I figured I would just tell you in the sermon. I would say relationships. Not just a partner in your life.

That would be a big relationship that we talk about, especially for people when you're single and you're looking for someone to share your life with. That's a big deal. The Bible begins with a marriage. It ends with a marriage. So you see that in scripture and it's a big deal. But I would say it's broader. That's relationships. I know parents who are disenfranchised from their children and that's a big deal.

And they want to see that relationship healed and fixed. But of the big five, relationships would be one there as well. And then the one we're going to talk about today, and I wore my Stormtrooper watch today, FYI. So just for the theme of timing, not that you would notice it. But this idea of God's timing. I think one of the questions we love to ask is when.

When. When. We all want God now. We all want it to happen now. We all want things to happen within our own timing. Think about the when issues of your life. What have you been waiting on? We started the giant series with a big timing issue looking at Hannah, who was the mother of Samuel. And she had a timing issue. But at the end, she made her peace with God and walked away a person of values saying, God, whatever you have for me, I want to serve the Lord.

And then God granted it. It wasn't a deal. I don't feel that she said, this is a deal that I'm working with you, God. But nonetheless, there was this issue of when. And when she got her heart right, because that's the currency of heaven, right? It's our hearts. God is not really as concerned about your purpose as he is about your heart. We saw in this scripture that when God came to Samuel, or excuse me, to Saul to make him king, God was all in.

Saul was not a temporary solution until we got to David. God said, I would have what? Established your kingdom for how long? Well, forever. But due to a heart that was full of giants, that was fearful mostly of people, and not allowing these giants, and caring more about people, caring more about other things than about God. God said, I'm not going to expand your influence.

I'm going to contract your influence. That's going to be the final point on the notes today. That as we live in obedience to our values, we're going to see God oftentimes expand your influence. Expand your influence in your neighborhood. Expand the influence of your church in a neighborhood. But I believe right now that because of the way, as a community, that we are living as a church, that God is expanding our influence at La Jolla Christian Fellowship.

He is blessing what is happening. That does not mean that if things were not growing that God isn't blessing it. But I feel like God said, there's a season. The people that are here right now, what I'm doing in their lives as a group, it's not just Pastor Adam and the elders' ideas. It's what we're all doing that God is expanding in. I'll give you an example.

Alex Reynolds, our leader of Surf Church, went down this week and asked for a permit to run the Jesus Fish Fest Surf Contest at La Jolla Shores. We could not get it last year. Very hard to get a contest at La Jolla Shores because there's so many. We were granted that permit. And on November 4th, we will have the Jesus Fish Fest Surf Contest in La Jolla Shores.

Run by Surf Church and La Jolla Christian Fellowship. That's a big deal. And we're also going to bless the Wind and Sea many unique contests. Now, Wind and Sea Club has been here, you know, a long time. Not as long as the church, but a long time. And they've been doing contests. And last year, we said, we're just going to go down and make pancakes for you.

We're not going to have a contest there. We had a very successful one in OB. But we just wanted to serve. And I thought, the Surf Church, God just honored them. And Alex sent me this awesome picture of him with the permit. So it was so exciting. Do you see God expanding or contracting your influence? This doesn't mean that your business is growing.

This means that you see more ability to change people's lives because you're in it. More ability on your street. More ability within your business or within your school. Where you see more people coming to you and saying, hey, I have a question to ask you. You see this expanding of influence. God is looking for people who he wants to use to expand and establish his kingdom on earth.

And if you want to get in collaboration with God, then he is going to give you a territory to establish his kingdom through you within something that he calls you to be in dominion with him over. And so, but a lot of that has to do with timing. Here's the rub with all these big five. The rub with all these faith-building challenges is the fear of the unknown.

Every single one of these is a faith-based issue. God understood how to create a life that allows us to lean into the thing that actually brings us eternal life and salvation. That is saying, God, I can't do it on my own. I trust in what I cannot see. Today, we are living in this church a faith-based life. I read a Stephen Hawking quote this week.

He says, God, science cannot disprove God. And he's actually right with that. And I've said it many times that not believing in God is a form of faith. You cannot disprove him as much as you cannot prove him. But he said, science has made God unnecessary. I'd like to read more about why he thinks that. But what we see here is a lack of faith. Everything needs to be proved.

I don't know if you saw, but they disproved this week. The chewy, and I didn't even know this existed. Maybe some of you do. The chewy caramel milk center Milky Way theory. Okay? So of the Milky Way, there was like, I have no idea what it means. Some of you are brilliant. But now they say there's a black hole in the Milky Way. And that's how it was.

And it disproved it. Well, I went back to 2008. And I was reading all these blogs about science has proven the chewy caramel Milky Way theory. And we need to teach this in schools. And this disproves faith. And I'm reading these huge blogs now. But once again, we've messed up. You know, now we've got a new thing. It's the black hole theory. And then there'll be another theory.

On and on. My theory is this. Is I will never know, but I can believe in a God who loves me. That there is a loving God. And, you know, like a former atheist recently said to me, If I was going to have faith in one thing, The thing of not having faith in God was causing me to live a miserable life. And so if I'm going to have faith, I want to at least have faith in something that's bringing me joy.

And believing in Christ is bringing me joy. Timing. How's God doing with your watch right now? How's God doing with your timing? Has he shown up? Or has he not shown up? We're a people that are tied to chronology. This is the difficult and interesting thing with the scriptures. Is that God calls us to live with our souls in eternity. As the police said, we are spirits in what?

A material world. He has put us, these eternal souls, in a temporal world. In a temporal world that we are supposed to find this balance of being eternal people in a very temporal world. How do we do that with bodies that fade away? With the, you know, the minds that fade away with these things. We lose our abilities. As we get older, the world goes on.

We're these temporal people. How do we harvest eternality? And how do we look at time the way God looks at time? What I told somebody recently was that God sees our moment and where we are in life as a whole. You have to see that when God sees your life, he sees the entire journey. He not only sees your birth, all the difficult times, the breakup, the divorce, whatever you've gone through in your life.

He sees it all. But he also sees you at the end with him in heaven celebrating for eternity. He sees it all. And he honors it all as one. See, as temporal people, we tend to live as slaves to the moment. To the tyranny of the urgent. Without this view of the eternal hope. The scripture on a regular basis is pointing. Paul's doing this regularly saying, hey, but look ahead.

But look ahead. Live in the moment. But look ahead. Have hope of what is to come. Jesus did not despise the shame. He did not despise the cross. Because he knew, the scripture says, of what was coming before him. And so in the moments of our deepest suffering, God is in that moment. He's weeping with you. But he's also celebrating the fact that one day you will be restored to him.

Let's just look at this 2 Peter text. It will be up on the screen. It says, but do not forget this one thing, dear friend. With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years. And a thousand years is like a day. The Lord, now this is such a great promise. You could write this, write this. If you're having a problem with God's timing, write this and put it on your fridge.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise. As some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you. Not wanting anyone to perish. But everyone to come to repentance. When, Lord? When? You know, we're fascinated by when the end of the world is going to be. They have whole churches that are built upon apocalyptic thinking. I kind of stopped doing that a long time ago.

I read a, I've read 500 pages of an 800 page book on the Reformation. Riveting. You have to read it. It's brand new. I'm sure you'd love it. And I'm looking at Luther. And I'm looking at Zwingli. And all these guys are saying that the end of the world has come. Basil is the new Jerusalem. Basil, Germany. Okay, Basel. Is the new, yeah, believe it. Is the new Jerusalem.

And that we're going to set this up and create a new culture. Because the end of the world is coming. Is Basil, is that in Switzerland or Germany? Switzerland. Yeah, thank you, Renly. I'm glad I caught myself. It's in Switzerland. And that was Zwingli because they were the Swiss Reformed. Thank you very much. See, I'm a little bit, I'm getting it. They were thinking that.

Paul himself was thinking that the end of the world was here. Bonhoeffer during World War II was thinking that the world was here. The end of the world was here. I want to say what I have learned by looking at church history is to live in the moment. And to live that when Jesus is going to come, whenever he comes. And to live my values in this moment.

How are you living in the moment? We all want God now. We all want him in the moment. Except when it comes to judging us for our sin. Then we all want a little more time, right? Right? Like, how happy are you that God is not as quick to the trigger as you would like him to be in other things in your life? I put it here. We tend to want God to move quicker.

Except when it comes to acting upon our disobedience. You know, maybe you have that thing that's been 20 years in your life. And you still got it. 20 years. Like, you know, and are you praying as fervently that God just acts? Come on, take care of this. Just not take me out, God. Come on, take me out. Whatever you have to do, God, do it now. No. That's not what we pray.

God, help me. Give me more time. I'll figure it out. Give me patience. Patience with me, God. We all want God's timing to go quick unless it comes to us. And we're happy that he's working out a plan in our lives when he's patient. God's patient. He knows exactly what he's doing. Turn your notes over if you would. It's interesting. It's interesting because this scripture, this whole passage, and the Bible itself is chronological.

God being eternal God still continues to focus on time. And this chapter immediately starts, if you look at the beginning of this chapter, it talks about the length of Saul's reign. Now, what is so interesting is it says that he reigned for 42 years. And then his kingdom ended. What is so interesting is that a little bit later it says that it was supposed to, as we said earlier, have an eternal influence.

But it did not. Verse 1. Saul was 30 years old when he became king. He reigned over Israel for 42 years. So he was 72 years. Saul became king at the age of 30. Now, within this chapter, just this chapter, it mentions that he becomes king. And in the first year or few years, this is early in his reign, God removes his anointing from him as king and starts looking for a new king.

But then God keeps him as king for almost 40 more years. Do you find that interesting? Why would God keep someone that he has rejected to be the king for 40 more years? It's an issue of timing and what God's looking for. And God is not bound to time. This is the thing we need to understand with God, especially with your life. He's not bound to time.

He created time. He lives outside of time. And he can change time like he did with Hezekiah to make the sun go backwards. He can redeem the years that the locusts have eaten in your life. I believe that God has given me my entire childhood back by the way that I have been a father to my children. In being a father to my children, I have experienced what it's like to be a child fathered by a good father.

And God has healed my childhood because of the way he allowed me to father my children. I have restored the years that the locusts have eaten. And there's nothing that you have lost in time that God cannot restore and redeem and make better. The enemy wants to tell you that I have come to rob, steal, and destroy, which the scripture says. But God has come to redeem and restore and renew.

And he can do those things and to pray for that renewal that nothing has been lost in God. We see that Saul becomes the king at age 30. And look at the timing here. At age 30, at 1052 before Christ came, David wasn't born. Now, God says in the scripture that he's looking for a man after his own. He's found a man after his own heart. David's not even born yet.

But God is prophesying that. It would be 12 years until David is even born. See, God is setting things up in his timing. He knows exactly what he's doing in his timing. And with your life, he's not slow, as some consider slow. He knows exactly what he's doing. And it takes faith to live in that moment and say, God, I trust your timing and to be content.

I'm starting in September, a four-week series on contentment. We're going to look at what it means like to enjoy your life. To quit worrying about the future and how to enjoy your life and to live in contentment. In 1025, David. Now, look at the timing in David's life. Maybe you've experienced this. David is anointed as king in 1025. It would be 15 years until God allows him to become king in Hebron.

When he becomes king in Hebron, which we'll be talking about in the new year, we're going to be looking at David's kingly years in January, he doesn't even become king of all of Israel. He's only king of half of the nation. It would be another eight years until God makes him king over all of Israel. Like, look at this timing is ridiculous. If I was going to write the Bible, I would have Saul be removed as king.

David would take over immediately and he would be in charge of the entire thing. That's the way God should do it. There's no reason, God, to have Saul. Unless, God, you want to use Saul to train up a young man named David. And it is what David learned on the run. And it is what has David learned as a servant to Saul, who he knew he was a servant to Saul when he was already anointed as king.

You get that? He'd already killed a giant. He'd saved Israel. People were singing David as king killed his 10,000s. He had songs written about him all throughout the land. But yet God said, you're going to serve this guy and he's trying to kill you. You want to talk about some timing issues and some problems with God and wondering about your purpose?

David had these issues. Multiple years of being on the run, trying to be killed. And he's serving this guy. He's had the oil poured over him. Maybe you've had the oil poured over you. Someone's spoken over your life. Someone gave you that scripture, that promise that God has given you, but it hasn't been fulfilled yet. How are you doing in the midst of that?

I want to say what God cares about is the currency of your heart. How you live in the waiting. And what if you're wrong? What if that promise God gave you, you just got it wrong? You know we get God's promises wrong sometimes. Not the biblical promises, but the personal promises. We just get it wrong. And is it okay to maybe get it wrong and to have God say no to that thing?

Are you okay with God saying no and say, God, you're enough? If I never get that thing I want, or do we have to throw God under the bus? You know, I see a lot of Christians that lose their faith. They shipwreck their faith on their understood purpose. They have an understanding of what their life should be, how it should go, comparing it to other people, what they've been told in the past.

And when it doesn't happen, it shipwrecks their faith. God doesn't love me. God doesn't care. Why would God do this to me? Why would I be sick? On and on and on. And that's not the story of the Bible. But the story of the Bible is about one champion. His name's Jesus. Coming to live under the Father's love. And we come along and God has called us to go to the cross.

Are we okay possibly with a no? That doesn't mean that God doesn't have great things for you. But living in the moment. Can you live in the moment of being a slave under Saul? Can you be on the run from Saul and live in that moment with a heart? I got to say, David, in my opinion, David was a much better slave. He was a servant. He wasn't a slave.

He was a much better servant. And he was a much better outcast running from Saul than he ever was a king. The greatest failures you see happen in his life when he was king. You know, sometimes when we're... Sometimes it takes... Heavy is the head that wears the crown. And there's a lot of power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Oftentimes it's easier to live on the run than it is to live as the king.

That is a... Look, if you've been around a while, you know that that's true. And to live in the complete inheritance is the most difficult thing in the world. I believe it's easier to live on the inheritance side of the Jordan, as Israel did, than it was to live, as we learned in Joshua, as in the wilderness. Because sometimes we complain in the wilderness, but there's no giants there to fight.

There's no responsibility. And so we see that there's this timing issue. And so look at the timing of David. David eventually becomes the king that God had called him to be. And we'll get to the kingly years of David in the new year. We're going to finish up here by the end of the summer, getting to Goliath. Let me just say, go to the next point here.

What do you do when God does not show up according to your time schedule? I asked this at the beginning of the service. I want to give you very practical tools that this week, when you go home and there's a trigger in your life, the check doesn't come. Whatever the triggers are, we all have our triggers. What's your go-to? And to be able this week to say, Adam asked me the question, what is my go-to?

I need to change my go-to. What is the normal dance? With me, the dance used to be when there was a difficult situation in my life, I would go to the bottle. I would go to drugs. I would go to marijuana. I would find this. And eventually, I had a rested development. I just never matured. Because every time God gave me an opportunity to go to him and mature, what I did was I went to my normal dance step.

Maybe it's time to step out of the dance. Maybe it's time to go away from that thing that gives you comfort and say, you know what, I'm going to lean into God's word here. I'm going to take that moment. And God will probably give you an opportunity this week to do that. When you go, when you're going to have an argument, when you're going to say that thing, it feels so good to say that thing, doesn't it, until you say it, until you press send on Facebook or whatever it is.

What do you do when God does not show up? Verse 6, when the Israelites saw that their situation was critical, good word, and that the army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets and among the rocks and in the pits and the cisterns. They were really good at this under Saul. They were really good. You know, maybe you have the gift of avoidance, you know.

Some of you might just have the gift of avoidance. I'm not saying that the gift of conflict is any better. I'm just saying, you know, that's another one that we go to oftentimes. But do you hide? Do you run? Verse 8 and 9, we see that Saul was willing to wait his allotted amount of time. But when God didn't show up according to when Samuel said he was going to be there, he started tripping out.

Verse 8 and 9, Saul waited seven days, the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal. And Saul's man began to scatter. So he said, bring me the burnt offering. Now, he wasn't the one that was supposed to be burning the burnt offering. It was the Levitical priest. Not allowed to do it. He broke the law. He's not supposed to do it. Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.

And Saul offered up the burnt offering. It was like, quick, do something spiritual that everyone will see. Now, granted, he blamed it on God. I need God's favor in this. I don't, looking at the life of Saul, let me just do a little, you know, psychoanalysis on Saul here a little bit. Saul had a real issue with people's opinions. The fear of man.

Jesus talks a lot of, you could parlay what Jesus talking about the fear of man and Saul. I have a feeling that Saul was more fearful of Israel's opinion of him than the Philistines. I believe that seeing the people scatter, what they think, what they're going to do, what will they say. He was having his self-worth be based on a consensus of what the people were saying in Israel.

Like I say, nothing represents that in our culture today like social media. Like the amount of, of, of star, if there's so many stars, I see stars, celebrities, whatever they are. Basically, they just parrot whatever social media is telling them is okay. And when that changes, they'll come up with a new opinion on it. They'll base their opinion.

Saul had this issue. He cared what people thought. I want to say, if you are going to live in your entire inheritance of what God's called you to, you have to care for people and not care what people think. Let me say that again. You have to care for people. You can't just detach with a hatchet. Oh, to heck with everybody. They're a bunch of jerks.

I know what I'm doing. You know, it's prideful. That's not what I'm saying. Jesus says that he didn't put his trust in any man's opinion because he knew what was in the heart of people. Can you care for people and not care what people think? Not make all of your decisions based on crowdsourcing. You see this in politics all the time. They take these polls and then they tell the politician what to say.

What a stupid, idiotic way to lead. You can't lead that way. Okay, I'm going to lead everybody. What do they all want me to do? That is not how you lead. Leadership is knowing in the core of your soul what you have been called to do and leading and seeing if anybody follows. If no one follows, you're probably not a leader. I heard that in Bible college.

If no one's following. I want to say as a believer today in this culture, if you are going to crowdsource all of your opinions and lead according to what you see the world saying, you will never be able to walk to the inheritance that God has called you to or to lead God's people or to establish the kingdom of God on earth. Because it's a wicked world.

Absolutely wicked. And you have to be willing to say what is not probably culturally appropriate sometimes. Jesus was a master at that. So what does Saul do? What is his go-to? Saul does something spiritual. I'm going to look spiritual. You know what? I'm going to offer the offering. Imagine how the people will think, I'm going to put the priestly garments on.

I don't know if he did. He's going to go make a big deal. Everyone's going to be rallied because they're going to see this amazing thing I do. He's going to show them. He's going to take these matters into his own hands and show Israel that he is a God-following man and he's going to do it. And he's going to have those people. And then the army will come back.

They're going to quit hiding. They'll come back. They'll think he's great. And then he'll go off and attack them. Except this is exactly the opposite of what God wanted them to do. God wanted them to wait until God's timing was so that God could have the victory. But remember what we learned a few weeks ago? The scripture said when you get this king, he is going to deliver you.

But the scripture has always said God is the one that's supposed to deliver you. And so he moves into this area where he takes over and he does something spiritual. I wrote in the notes, quick, do something spiritual and blame it on God. Like I see people do that all the time. I have a friend right now. And they're moving and they're looking for a job in another part of the country.

And he called me and he said, hey, I found this place on Craigslist. And it's a really hard rental market right now. And it's $1,000 cheaper than anything. And it's amazing. And I talked to the people and they did a live walkthrough of the place with us. And there's 12 other people on the list. But because I'm a Christian, they said that they would move me to the top of the list.

I don't know if that's legal. Well, move me to the top of the list. But we've got to give a $1,500 deposit and we're going to lose it. So I just want to know what you think. And I said, do you have a job there yet? No, no, no. I don't have a job there yet. No, no. Can you afford it? Well, when I get the job, I'll be able to afford it. I'm like, but you don't have the job yet.

No. Well, it's faith. He said, I'm going to step out in faith. It's going to be amazing. And I was like, wait a second, wait a second. The fact that you're even willing to go to this place where God has called you, it's a pastoral position, to where God has called you to go. Isn't that enough, faith, that you're just willing to leave everything and go and check it out?

Like, why do you have to jump off the cliff? I said, what happens now? Let's just take this out 60 days, okay? 60 days out. You've got your $1,500 down. You get there and then they don't have a job. You've left your house. The job doesn't come through. I know I'm going to get the job. Have you got the job yet? No, then you don't have the job yet, okay?

It's 60 days in now and you have no way to pay that and nowhere to live with your family. How's that looking? Not so good. I said, okay. I said, why don't we just wait on God? I said, why don't we just wait on God? I have done that so many times. When I want what I want, I'm going to lose the house. But we're going to lose it. It's on Craigslist. We're going to lose it.

You know what I said to him? Lose the house. Lose it. There'll be another house. I've just learned that every time. Have you ever gone looking for houses, if you're going to buy a house or whatever, we have found a little secret. There's always another house. Seriously. We found the best house ever. Oh, we're going to make it happen. Oh, it doesn't happen.

We find, oh, it's the best one. Thank God we didn't get that one. This one's amazing. Again and again and again. There's always another house. Quick, do something spiritual. Faith is such an excuse for doing what we want. You don't have to jump off a cliff. And I see, you know, I see this in relationships all the time. Especially speaking to my single people as well.

As, you know, I see this, people come to me like, we're going to get married. We're going to get married. So we're just, you know, we just started sleeping together. Really? Yeah, but we're going to get married. I hear that all the time. But we're going to get married anyways. And then it doesn't work out. Like there's, God has timing for a reason.

And I say, you're going to pay for that. And I tell them all the time, you'll pay for that. I say, when my girls come, not that, hey, look, not that I was a saint. In high school and college. And before college, actually. At all. Running the streets of PB. But when I got things right with my wife, we got things right. And I can look my daughters in the eye and say, with your mom, I kept your mom pure until then.

And it is much easier to have that conversation about purity. Now when my daughter is 15. Than if I would have had that one amazing or ten amazing moments when we were dating and engaged. That isn't that God can't redeem. Like I said, anything that's been lost, God can redeem. But there's just something about God's timing. Because sometimes we use faith to just move to have what we want.

And we use it as an excuse. Quick, do something spiritual. But don't have a heart for God. Finally, obedience is tied to kingdom influence. Great question is how much, how much, we all want influence, right? We all want more followers on Facebook. We all want a, whatever we want. We all want more stuff. Ask yourself the question, how much kingly influence, kingdom influence do I want?

I mean, how much, how much influence do you want to actually bring down strongholds in a culture? Looking at Christine Gard over there. She works in Africa. She's worked in downtown San Diego with at-risk kids and ran for city council. And I really know in her heart that she wants to, she actually wants to change the world spiritually. She wants to like have massive like culture shift, spiritual culture shifts change in a culture.

I got to say the road I've watched her walk to make that happen doesn't look that fun, okay? It's been a lot of difficult, challenging things. But she sat with kings. She sat with princes. She's met presidents. She's brought education into different. She sits in our congregation. How much kingdom influence do you want? And are you willing to pay the cost for kingdom influence?

Or you just want another big house on the hill? Do we just want more influence that way? People look at us. Hey, look at that car. Oh, everyone likes him. Or do you want to, do you really want to change the world? I got to say, if we're going to make a difference, it's going to cost you something. And we're in a place right now in Christian spirituality where to be a Christian is going to cost you something.

It's going to cost you something. There is a large contingent of people right now that are trying to move Bible-based believing churches into a small church, into a small corner of hate groups. Do you get that? Do you understand that there are many today, even today, I'll find it, if you want to, I'll show it where it is, that would see what we believe as a church, what many mainline churches believe today are considered hate groups.

Do you get that? And the whole purpose of a small group of people, I don't know the exact size, is to marginalize the church to that point. Now, what's our response going to be? And do we serve God in the midst of that? To follow God and to have kingdom influence is going to take some backbone. It's going to take some faith. And it's going to take a willingness to go after everything that God has called.

And do you really want it? Because it is very easy just to lay down and to crowdsource what our theology should be. What does the world think my theology should be? What does it say about this issue? What does it say about that issue? You know what? Maybe they're right. Somebody came to me recently and said, you know, maybe the Bible just needs updating.

You know, I didn't really know what to tell them. You know what I mean? Like, maybe it does, but when we update it that way, we're going to lose our salvation in the update. You know, in the Bible 2.0. I got to say, do you want kingdom influence here? Let's look at this final scripture and we're done. You've done a foolish thing, Samuel said. You've not kept the command of your Lord has given you.

If you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler over his people because you have not kept the Lord's command. I want to say obedience is directly tied to kingdom influence. I'm not saying the size of your kingdom.

That you're going to, you know, that let's just talk about who we are as a church. This doesn't mean that we're going to become the new, you know, whatever, Tim Keller's church. We're blessing all the churches in the world. We're like Hillsong because we're really faithful as a people and God's going to make us a big church. No, no, no. But let's just look at the church.

Can God give us influence, incredible influence in people's lives? Can he change this little corner? Can he bless our neighbors, the corner that you live in? If we're obedient as a people, will he begin to give us an influence to change a culture? Do we still believe that the culture can be changed or we just think it's just a matter of time until it's all over anyways?

And do we want to have that influence? I want to call you to be a people of God's timing, to be a people of God's purpose, that are willing to stand up and to live according to his demands, that we can live a kingdom influential life. And do you want it? Let's stand. Let's have the band come forward. As we sing this final song, you choose, Olin, your call.

Yeah, right on. I want to, again, give you an opportunity to do something spiritual, to align your heart, the currency of your heart. Where's your heart? And are you wanting the things that God wants? Do you want the influence? Do you want that kind of influence? Or do we just want more stuff? I got to tell you the truth. A lot of the time, personally, I just want to tap out and increase my own kingdom.

I get really discouraged, and I think, this world is a mess. Why should I even deal with it anymore? I just want to tap out, go get my little sheep farm and coffee house in Montana or New Zealand. I don't know if anybody else has those, like, thoughts. But I just want, my life would be a lot easier to not be in this line of work. Go be in, do whatever.

But there's an apex where I feel like God says, hey, on occasion, somebody has to be willing, and people have to be willing to stand up for what we believe is truth. And I want to live for a bigger kingdom. I've had some great mentors and men and women that I've had in my life that have shown me the road. If you don't have a mentor, find somebody in your life that's gone further than you.

And say, I want to go with you. I want to be that kingdom influence. Or sing. Let's do some business with God right now. Let's do some business with God right now.