JUL 9 2017 | The Giant Series S1E10 | 1 Samuel 9

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E10 · "1 Samuel 9" · Adam Stadtmiller · July 9, 2017
1 Samuel 9
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

1 Samuel chapter 9. There was a Benjaminite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish, son of Abiel, son of Zekor, son of Belkorath, son of Aphia, of Benjamin. Kish had a son named Saul, a handsome young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and a head taller than anyone else. Now the donkeys belonging to Saul's father, Kish, were lost, and Kish said to his son Saul, Take one of the servants with you and go look for the donkeys.

So he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and through the area around Shalisha, but they did not find them. Then they went on into the district of Salim, but the donkeys weren't there. And then he passed through the territory of Benjamin, but they did not find them. When they reached the district of Zuf, Saul said to the servant who was with him, Come, let's go back or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us.

But the servant replied, Look, in this town there is a man of God. He is highly respected. Everything he says comes true. Let's go there now. Perhaps he will tell us what way to take. And Saul said to his servant, If we go, what can we give this man? The food in the sacks is gone. We have no gift to take to the man of God. What do we have? And the servant answered again, Look, I have a quarter of a shekel of silver.

I will give it to the man of God so he will tell us what way to take. Formerly in Israel, if someone went to inquire of God, they would say, Come, let us go to the seer, because the prophet of today used to be called a seer. Good, Saul said to his servant. Come and let us go. So they set out for the town where the man of God was. They went up to the town.

And as they were entering it, there was Samuel, the man of God, coming toward them on his way to the high place. Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed this to Samuel. About this time tomorrow, I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin. Anoint him ruler over my people Israel. And he will deliver them from the hand of the Philistines.

I have looked upon my people, for their cry has reached me. When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, This is the man I spoke to you about. He will govern my people. Lord, may your word dwell richly in our hearts and bless our pastor Adam as he shares in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, my friend. Take it all. Take it all. That would be great.

Good morning, church. Good to see you. Good to be here on this beautiful summer day. Good to see you as we were in a passage and looking for donkeys. When Bryce said that a few weeks ago, it just hit me as a great book title. I just thought that would be such a great book title, looking for donkeys. Because so often in my life, I feel like, you know, I want to be looking for treasure.

I want to be looking for gold. And I find myself looking for donkeys. And I'm trying not to be a donkey in the process. A lot of play on words here that you could go with with any donkey titles. But we'll just leave it at donkeys. One of the things that we're doing in this giant series is trying to use 1 Samuel, as we're making our way to David, and him fighting the ultimate giant.

Or perhaps the physical giant wasn't that ultimate. Perhaps there are other giants in our life. But using the book of Samuel as a mirror reflection to ask ourselves, what are the giants in our lives? What are the things that come up that shout us down to understanding the character of a giant? They love to taunt. They love to speak things to you that will cause you to have fear.

And in the 1800s, there was another name for what today they call fake news. It was called grand puffery. I don't know if you know that word. But the devil is amazing at grand puffery. He loves to come and taunt you. He loves to give you his forecast of the future and let you know either that things are not the way that they seem or will not be and continue to bring fear into your life.

And so what we try to do is to create our own reality in the midst of this by having control. We use worry as a form of control. And I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but worry is a form of control. It actually has no value to you, but it is a form of control that allows you to feel like you're figuring something out because we worry and think, well, then I'll do this.

And then another worry comes. We go back and forth. And so we oftentimes want to create our own routes through the wilderness. We want to have the ability to fight our own battles where God specifically says over and over again in Scripture that I will fight their battles. Now, one of the things we're going to see in this passage is when Israel was asking for a king, they said, we want a king to go out and fight our battles.

They wanted somebody they could see. They wanted someone they could touch. They wanted some sense of control because believing in an invisible God or a God that shows up every so often wasn't good enough. So God left them to their own devices. And you tend to get results of the self when you use your own ideas and control to win your victories.

But if you want to have dominion rather than control, dominion will give you more territory than you can actually control in your life. Okay? This is one of the goals of Christian spirituality is to be able to have dominion over, to have influence can be another word, influence over a larger area of territory, whether that be emotional territory, whether that be physical territory, whether that be influence, whether that be, you know, whatever God would have, would be financial, whatever God decides to deem, to give to you, to bless you with, the goal of Christian spirituality is to live in collaboration with God where he is able to influence more, to increase your territory beyond something you could control on your own.

Okay? So the desire then is to, now he asked something in return for this. He asked you to trust in him. He asked you to have a thing called faith, which is actually a substance the scripture says. It's not a mystical smoke that kind of is just there. Faith is a substance. It is made of the DNA of hope. And he says, I want you to collaborate with me so that I can give you more influence than you can have on your own.

Now, if you want to be the king of your life, because that's what Bryce asked. It was a great question. I keep going back to that a few weeks ago when he preached. How did we get here? And he said the question, the answer to how you got where you are right now, can often be summed up with saying, who is the king of my life? Israel wanted all the blessings.

They wanted all the territory. They wanted all the inheritance that God had to them. But they didn't want to do it God's way. They wanted to have a king of their own that they could look at. And so, as is the habit often with God, he gave them what they wanted. God will oftentimes give you what you want. And what we're going to find, though, the cool thing about it, is in the end of this passage, even though God gave them what they wanted and they rebelled and they rejected God, they still were the apple of his eye and he comes in to rescue them with grace.

And so, grace is one of the key components of what we're looking at today. Let's go to verses 1 through 3 because there was a lot in this passage. As Israel is looking for donkeys, basically. They're trying to find treasure, but they're looking in the wrong places. They're looking for the wrong things. And they oftentimes don't have the ability to have spiritual eyes to see what God is doing in their midst.

And we're going to see some really powerful lessons that came out of the Scripture to me from the life of Saul. That Saul just thinks he's looking for donkeys, but God is speaking prophetically to him about the future. God is leading him to become the king. And while he fails, God still was honoring him and was going to bless them. God was going to bless Israel, even though they rejected him.

He was going to bless Israel. As long as they followed him and the kings followed him, he says, Okay, we'll do it your way and I will still give you grace. Now, have you found that in your life? Where you've done it your own way, but God, as you look back, he's still been there. He has an incredible heart for you. And when we go our own way, he wants to be there to bless us in the midst of it.

So there's a few things we're going to look at. We're going to look at having spiritual eyes. On a road sometimes where, you know, there's a lot of different metaphors we can look at, but sometimes you feel like, what am I doing with my life? What's happening? I feel like I should be here, but I feel like I'm just looking for donkeys all the way.

If we have spiritual eyes, we can see what God is doing in the midst. And so this is one of the things that I want to encourage you, is to develop your spiritual eyes. I want to say that as believers, the majority of the decisions we make in our life that are major decisions probably need to lean heavier on the spiritual eyes than on what you can see physically.

And when you look into a situation, do you have the ability to understand what God is saying to you through scripture, through the peace that comes through it? Or does it sometimes, is it contrary to what you can see in the moment with your physical eyes? We see that Saul, they wanted Saul because he was impressive. Everything looked like the king that would lead them, but God knew his heart and knew where he would lead them.

So let's look at first that God giving Israel the king that they demanded, but not the one that God intended. And that being God wanted to be their king. Now it says there was a Benjaminite, a man of standing. Very important, circle that. They're very impressed with standing, with his platform, with the amount of followers he had. It says that Benjaminite of standing, whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekeroth, the son of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What that is basically saying is he was somebody. If he was nobody, they wouldn't say he was the son of this and the son of that and the father of this and da, da, da. They do all that to show that he had social cachet. Okay? We see in our society today that people want that really, really badly. They want a platform. They want more followers. Because you know what?

That gives you value. To be able to have a life of value separate of what other people think is something that Jesus was able, a life that Jesus was able to lead. Well, he says that he has all these of Apphia, of Benjamin. Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome as a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel. And he was a head taller than anyone else.

That was a big deal back then. That was a big deal. You know, Jesus, it's interesting, if you look about the prophecies about Jesus, it basically says if you were to look at him, you wouldn't notice anything special. You see the difference there. David was a young, says, you know, handsome, ruddy boy. But it doesn't talk about him in the same way that it speaks about Saul or perhaps Absalom.

We talk about how people were so impressed by what they could see. We live in a world that is incredibly impressed by what they can see. They just look at this. You know, you look at, you know, social media is just another example of this. It's oftentimes creating these false narratives. So we can just look and be impressed. So impressed. Wow, I see your feet on a beach in Thailand.

Awesome. That's amazing. No more feet, please. Guys, no more feet in the pictures. It's, sorry, I know you probably just did it, right? No more feet. Just, come on. No more wings of the airplane. That one's old. That's 10 years old. Don't care what you're eating unless you give me the recipe. Like, if you're going to put the food on there. It's okay, all right.

It's just my little. All right. It's interesting. They wanted this king, and when they saw him, they were so happy because all they were looking at was with their flesh, what they can see. What they could see. What does it look like? What does God say here? And go to your scripture in 1 Samuel 16, 7. This is so interesting because God is so contrary to the flesh.

You know, the eyes that see something in the way that Israel was seeing, looking at the wrong objectives, looking at the wrong standards, is oftentimes driven by the flesh. It says that God, in 1 Samuel 16, 7, later on it says, But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. That's speaking about Saul.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. I mean, come on. If there's a hundred scriptures that you want to make your own little lexicon of scriptures, and I try to do that myself. I try to have this corpus of scriptures that have become really powerful and important to me, and they help guide my decisions, and I use them to guide my heart.

This is one of them. I mean, let's just read it again. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at outward appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart. The Lord has the ability to see beyond just the physical, to see beyond the veneer, to see deep into the heart of somebody. And why does he love David? Because he says, David has a heart, or as a man, after what?

My own heart. If you want to know what spiritual currency in heaven is, it's heart. You know, it isn't a bunch of good works. It isn't, you know, a bunch of trying to do. You don't have to do anything to please God. You don't have to do any stuff. There's no works righteousness. You don't become righteous because you do a bunch of stuff. But God doesn't want a contrite and a humble heart.

How's the position of your heart? Soft hearts are like magnets for understanding the will of God. Soft heart is a spiritual weapon. The enemy wants to continue to callous people's hearts. It says in the end times, people's love will grow cold. To callous your hearts because a soft, contrite, and humble heart has the ability to hear the voice of God.

Otherwise, we become calloused. We become callous and we can't see. We begin to only see with our own eyes. I want to say, ask you, do you have the ability that when something shows up, whether it's a great thing, you look at this amazing thing, or this bad thing, you have the ability to sink down beyond the surface, below the surface, and say, God, what are you actually saying?

Remember, I've told this story before, but I had a friend and he wanted to move to Rainbow. It was back in 2003, the height of the housing bubble. Everyone's driving the yellow Hummer. That was a sign of it and everything. No offense if you have a yellow Hummer. They're awesome. I'm just saying they were part of it. And he wanted to move to Rainbow.

He was living in Orange County and he was a nurse. And so he only had to work three days a week. And he would do the 72-hour shift or whatever. I could be in Rainbow. And I said, I like Rainbow. It's nice. On the way to Temecula, it's nice. And he found this place and it was just a dump. And I said to him, I said, man, I just, you know, he asked, would you pray about it?

Yeah, I prayed about it. Man, I'm just not feeling good about it. You know, it just, it's expensive. And, you know, it's just that, I got to have it. God, you remember 2003, 2004, got to have it, you know. Got to sign on the dotted line. He goes, oh, I got a word from the Lord. I got a word from the Lord. I went around a corner and there was a dumpster.

And there was a company called Rainbow. It was Rainbow Dumpsters. And it said Rainbow on it. And he goes, it was from the Lord. I'm supposed to buy that house. And I said to him, I said, did you ever consider it was on a dumpster? He's, you know, maybe you're right, dude. And he didn't buy the house. He ended up not buying the house because of that.

I'm not saying I was right. I'm not saying I was right. But do you have the ability to slow the ponies down of your own emotions, the dopamine hits we want from looking for houses or whatever these things are we want to do with our lives, the job you want to take, the person you think is the most amazing person you want to date ever, and slow, just because they said something nice to you and no one said anything nice to you for like two weeks, you know.

So all of a sudden, he's the dream guy or she's amazing. To slow down and say, Lord, what do you say? Do you have that ability? That is, I mean, seriously, it's hard to get to, but it's basic Christ following 101. To have the ability and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus, what do you want to? We do that through the word of God. We do it through counsel.

We do it through just sitting and saying, is there a peace? I'm always looking for that peace. And there's been so many times where I did something in my heart says no. And everything else says yes. And every time I've not followed that, it's never worked out in my favor. God will work it out in my favor in the end. But it seems that it causes an issue.

They were looking at something, looking beyond the heart to something that they found more impressive than hearts. We see with our own eyes. Let's look at Ephesians 118. Now, this is a powerful New Testament verse that speaks about this. It says, I pray, this is Paul, I pray that the eyes of your what? Heart. Our hearts have eyes. That's a powerful, powerful concept.

Our hearts have eyes. David Levy is going to be speaking on the emotional IQ of Jesus this week. But last year, one of the most profound things he said was that if you look at the scripture, it talks about having spiritual eyes, spiritual, all the senses are represented. You see that, you know, when you're tasting the scripture in certain passages, where they eat the scripture and they can taste it and it's sweet or something becomes bitter, all these spiritual senses that are physical, and I've said this over and over again because we find it in Romans, the physical represents a spiritual truth that in every physical thing that God has created, he has kissed it with his DNA of who he is and the invisible qualities and the divine nature of God.

So it says here, do not, excuse me, in Ephesians 1.18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Enlightened, not darkened, but enlightened, which means if they can be enlightened, they can also be darkened. What brings enlightenment? That's another great sermon series. What brings enlightenment? How do we enlighten our heart? Or how do we cause callousness to our heart?

A lot of it has to do with what comes into your physical eyes. What comes in, what you allow yourself to see, what you allow yourself to hear on a regular basis has the ability to soften or callous our hearts. Enlightened in order that you may what? Know the hope to which he has called you. God is just not just calling you to a great job. He's not calling you to the next vacation.

He's not calling you to your marriage or to whatever. All those things are part of the journey. Today, he's calling you to hope. Hope in what? To hope in his name. To hope in an eternal future where we will feast with God for eternity. That you will know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

You know, how high is the bar that you set? I often said when I was teaching the parents, you know, if our kids just don't have sex before they're married, they don't do drugs, they get into a really good college, they, you know, they get married, you know, and give us a couple kids, like, they've nailed it. Like, as Christian parents, like, that's the highest bar we have.

I gotta say, that is like, that's like base minimum. I find that base minimum. I expect my kids to live at a certain base, but there are riches and glory. I want them to know the eternal God. I want them to know his character. I want them to have soft hearts. I want them to care for the poor. I want them to give of themselves. I want them to know the hope of eternal glory.

You know, aren't we set our bar way too low? No. Because we're looking with physical eyes. You know, whether it be a college education or these different things, I just don't care if my daughter's valedictorian. I just don't. I don't care if she's the queen of the soccer team. I don't know they have queens on soccer teams. Prom queen. What? I just don't care.

I don't care. I mean, if they, if, great. Do great. You know, I was a B average student. It worked. You know, it took me where I needed to go. You know, I'm not saying we don't want to have excellence, but it's just not my highest bar. What I care about is how they treat other people. I care about how they treat each other. I care about if they want to seek after God, if they care for the poor.

Like I've said, these are the bar. This is the eyes that God looks at. And so for your own life, as you judge yourself and you could cheek yourself, and we tend to be really critical of ourselves, are we critical of ourselves because we think, you know, I don't have enough compassion in my life? Or is it, you know, I don't live on the street that I want to live on?

Where, what are we, what eyes are we using? The eyes of your heart. I got to say that there's a lot more grace in the camp of the eyes of your heart. There's a lot more grace for you than trying to live according to the world's standards. Let's just look at, compare and contrast here a little bit about King David's entry onto the social political scene versus Saul when it comes to looking at someone who's going to save you.

Now remember, David was a guy that was out with the sheep. No one really cared about him. He was the lowest in his family. Even when they came for the anointing of him, his dad didn't even bring him out. Remember when Samuel was like, hey, don't you have another kid? Right, why? Because he had spiritual eyes. Because he knew Samuel could see things that were not seen.

The ability to see things that are not seen in the physical is being able to live in the spiritual. And so he says, don't you have another kid? Oh yeah, I got another kid. He's out tending the sheep. You know, he's just, nobody would look at him, okay? But then we have this man who's supposed to save Israel from the Philistines and he does some of that.

But in the end, he leads them closer to ruin than he does to greatness. And where is he when they anoint him? Where is he? You know where we find him when he's anointed his king, this strong, tall, handsome guy? He goes, he hides in the luggage. I don't know if you know that story, but they get ready to anoint Saul. We'll look at it here in a second.

And he's hiding in the luggage. This is the guy because he was tall and handsome. They were supposed to lead them on. Saul dealt with fear the rest of his life. Matter of fact, the entire reason Saul lost the kingdom was fear of man. It's a huge giant, bigger than Goliath will ever be. Bigger than Goliath will ever be. Saul comes from high standing, David the least favorite in his clan and left to tend the sheep.

Saul hides when he's anointed his king. David wasn't even anointed his king. And what does he do? He shows up because Israel's being beaten down. He's not even thinking about being king. But he says, who is this uncircumcised? This is one of my favorite 100 verses too. It might be my top five. Who is this uncircumcised Philistines to taunt or assault the armies of the living God?

A little boy just shows up. He's got no desire to be king. He's got no desire for greatness. He's just tired of God getting bad mouthed, of Israel being on the beat down, and says, I want to stand up and make a difference in the world. I want to stand up and make a difference for God. I want to be the boy becoming the man that God has called me to be.

That's who you want to be as king. That's who you want to stand up. But whenever we look at our leaders, whenever we look at a marriage partner, whatever it is, we have to be able to develop eyes of the heart that are enlightened. We have to know the character of God and what God values. Until we know and accept what God values, we will never choose what God values.

David is the man that you want to lead, but he's a little boy. He's been left to tend the sheep. He's been forgotten. He's been cast out. And he was really, he was ruddy. But it doesn't say that he had that same look that everyone else had. Saul hides when anointed as king, and David asked to fight a giant. David said to Saul in 1 Samuel 17, 32, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine.

Your servant will go and fight him. I love that. So good. Don't we want to be like that? Now let's talk about God, because God had his hand on Saul. They had asked about, to have this king, Saul. And God, you know, was willing to bless Saul. He was willing to bless their bad choice. Has God ever done that for you? Has God ever blessed a bad choice, or you're going the wrong direction, but God has still blessed you?

And so God's hand is upon Saul. And there's actually some really positive things we can learn from Saul. Not everything's wrong. But one of the most interesting things that came to me in this entire text is how God leads him to become a king while he thinks he's just searching for donkeys. And this is a powerful word, because so often we feel like where we are in our life is not meeting up to where we think we should be.

That there is this huge plan, and I'm not living up to it, or we feel like, you know, God, what are you doing? And I want to say in the midst of going out and just looking for donkeys and being faithful to what his father had called them to do, that God actually leads him to Samuel to be anointed as king. And it takes spiritual eyes to see that.

Let's just look at this. God often uses a non-secuitous route to get us to our intended destination. And so we're going to look at this idea of, once again, this giant of purpose. In verse 3, his father says to him, take one of your servants. And I highlighted servants there, because once again it shows the differentiation between Saul and David.

Like, he was a kid. Like, how many of you, when you were a kid, your parents said to you, hey, go to the store and take one of your servants with you, okay? Not many of us, right? So he had this standing. He had his own servants to go. So when Saul looked for donkeys, he went with servants. And it says, take your servant with you and go out to look for donkeys.

You know, maybe you feel like God's abandoned you because you've spent the multiple years looking for donkeys, or you feel like you should probably be king, or you want to be king. Here's something about an eternal God that is different than the temporal linear people that we are. That God values the journey as much as he values the destination.

Why? Because he's eternal. He lives in all of it at once. Do you see that God isn't like us where he's just in this moment, and he calls us to live in the moment. But God sees the journey, and he sees the beginnings. Do not despise small beginnings, the scripture says. He sees the destination. And the destination has value because of what happens during the journey.

If you look at the things that you've accomplished in your life, as you look back, does not the satisfaction come from looking at all the things that you've gone through, of all the things that have happened, the ups and downs. But when you get to that place, when you get, like Carrie and I are, we're celebrating our 20-year anniversary on Wednesday.

And when we get there, we're going to be able to look back. There's been a lot of ups, a lot of downs, a lot of disagreements, a lot of glory, a lot of fun. But in the midst of that journey, we're going to be able to look back at it, and it brings value to 20 years together to say, hey, we've done it. So we see that, and it says that, as you'll see in your notes, that God values the journey as much as the destination, for it is the contents of the journey that give the destination its ultimate meaning.

God turned a search for donkeys into a coronation as king. God took this meaningless search. Like, probably if you're a really, like, important guy's son, and you have servants, and your dad tells you to go look for donkeys, you're probably bummed on that, right? Who wants to go look for donkeys, right? You never know where God's going to lead you as you look for donkeys.

He ends up talking to Samuel, and Samuel takes him to anoint him as king. Never devalue anywhere along the journey, as long as God is with you and you're seeking God in the midst of us. And this is one of my favorites. This is my favorite sentence of the whole sermon, and I enjoyed this one. So, if you are looking for donkeys, be the best donkey looker that you can be.

You know, we tend, when we're looking for donkeys, just not to be very good donkey lookers. You know what I mean? I don't want to look for donkeys. I'm upset. We complain. We worry. We're upset. God, what are you doing? I want to be here. I want to do this. Not realizing that as soon as you get to that next place, you're going to feel the same way, because there's going to be something else that you want, because we're never satisfied, and we can only become completely content with God.

But wherever God has you, be the best donkey looker that you can be. When I was in Australia, again, it's one of my favorite stories, and I went there to plant a church, and I got there and God had other ideas, and I ended up working at a camp, being the janitor at a camp, and the kids would leave, and I would go up there, and the surf would be really good, but I'd have to go clean, and the kids would think it was funny to make messes and destroy the bathrooms, and I was cleaning all this stuff up, and I thought, I came down here to be the next great whatever of Australia, missionary, you know, whoever, whoever, I just had all these grand visions, and God's like, clean the toilets, and I felt like the Lord said to me one day, just clean the toilet like I'm the next person coming into this bathroom, and I thought, you know what, from that point on, no one cleaned a meaner toilet in Australia than me.

I say that that experience, and being able to lean into it, and I don't know how I had the ability to lean into it, probably just God's grace, because you could equally just become angry, and bitter, and be mad at God, but I don't know why, there was a fork in the road there for me to make a decision, and I honestly don't know why I made the decision to say, God, I'm just going to clean toilets, and if you want me to be a toilet cleaner for life, I'm cool, and literally, I mean, I'd probably be difficult, but if God just wanted me to go back to clean the church's toilets here, and someone else could be pastor, and that's what I knew that he wanted me to do, I honestly can tell you, as much as I can believe that I can do that, like, I don't have to do that, I don't have to write a book, to get to a place where you don't have to do anything anymore, just because you know God loves you, is amazing, to be able to be in that, and you know what, it actually makes being the pastor of a church really fun, it makes doing what you're doing really fun, because you can be comfortable in your own skin, and you don't have to try to prove anything to anybody anymore, you don't have to do that, you can just live and be, and so I want to encourage you to be great donkey lookers this week, as you look for those donkeys, spiritual eyes will find treasure on the donkey road, maybe you're on the donkey road, but don't be a donkey on the donkey road, now this is so interesting, because if Saul had spiritual eyes, and was looking, if you look at this scripture with spiritual eyes, you're going to see some powerful things that come out, let me just tell you the first one that came to me, in ancient Middle Eastern world, leaders rode horses, if they rode into war, and came into a city, but donkeys, if they came in peace, times of peace, as we know, are coming to Israel, and in the reign of Solomon, what does Solomon ride on, when he gets, he has his coronation as king, he rides on a donkey, and so he's, so Saul is looking for donkeys, you know what, he never finds the donkey, but God will eventually find a man, who will sit upon that donkey, and that donkey will, and that man will be the son of David, Solomon, it's interesting too, because it's prophetic, as we look on, the times of peace are coming to Israel, and it says, but you will have a son, I don't have the verse scripture there, but you will have a son, and he will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest, from all of his enemies on every side, and his name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet, during his time, you know what's also interesting, that it stuck out to me, is that not only would Solomon, ride upon a donkey, which meant peace, but Jesus asked his disciples, to go look for what, a donkey, that he can ride upon into, you know, Saul was asked to go look for, a donkey that he never found, Jesus sent his disciples, to go look for donkey, so that he could ride in, and Jesus can ride upon them, and I would say, you know, it takes spiritual eyes, to see, that in the midst of the donkey road, God might be saying, some very powerful things to you, like clean some toilets, and I might, you know, clean them for me, and if you're cleaning them for me, then whatever, if you're, whatever, it doesn't matter what you're doing, whatever you're doing, if you're doing it, in the name of Jesus, and for Jesus, it has eternal value, we have got to get that, you might feel like, you're on the donkey road, but I want to say, you can redeem the donkey road, by knowing that Jesus, is willing to ride upon, the donkey road, and come to you in peace, to open up the eyes of your heart, that you might experience, peace, joy, and the riches of eternal hope, like it says in Ephesians, I heard a guy today say, excuse me, this week on sports radio, he says, you know, I'm a celebrity now, I'm on sports radio, he says, I don't think it's possible, to be a celebrity, and have peace, he said, I've traded my peace, for celebrity, man, I meet so many people, especially younger people, these days, that their whole deal, is to become known, like to be really well known, and to have a platform, so more people, you know, more people can know them, or what they want to say, and the thing I keep asking is, do you have anything to say, I had a friend one time, he says, I'm not going to write a book, until I have anything to say, you know, what do we want, or what are we willing, to trade for, and coming in for a landing here, God is patient, along the donkey road, if you feel like, you're on the donkey road, he's very patient, verse 16, it says, about this time tomorrow, and this is God, speaking to Samuel, about this time tomorrow, I will send you a man, from the land of Benjamin, anoint him to ruler, over my people, he will deliver them, from the hands of the Philistines, which he did, unfortunately, God said, that he would be the one, that would deliver them, from the hands of the Philistines, you see the difference there, like yeah, oh yay, God you're so awesome, you're sending us a man, who's going to deliver us, from the hands of the Philistines, except the scripture says, that you want to deliver us, from the hands of the Philistines, you see how we can look at that, and go that's awesome news, God you're amazing, except you're going to get, earthly results, with that, perhaps you'll have to fight, the Philistines longer, and longer, it says, anoint him ruler, he will deliver them, from the hands of the Philistines, and this is the bit I like, because this is grace, for I have looked upon my people, for their cry, has reached me, God extends grace, to Israel, even after they rejected him, Romans 5, 8, while we were yet sinners, Christ did what, he died for us, 1 Samuel 8, 7, says this, and the Lord told him, to Samuel, listen to, that the people are saying to you, it is not you, they have rejected, but they've rejected me, as their king, the key thing, that sticks out, besides God wanting you, just to honor him, along the donkey road, that you're on, and just be satisfied, looking for donkeys, and seeing him in the midst of it, is God's grace, and love for you, the enemy wants to have, grand puffery, to tell you, hey that little thing you did, God hates you now, he doesn't want to hear your prayers, he's not listening, you know what, you're better off, just not to pray, you know what, Israel completely, rejected God, it said, and God said, you know what, they want a king, they don't want me, but I hear their cries, and I'm going to use the king, that they asked for, to save them, from the Philistines, that's God, that's the goodness of God, you know, don't ever believe, the lies, that God doesn't love you, and just say to him, God, meet me in the midst, of this life, meet me in the midst, of this sin, change my heart, give me a soft heart, open the eyes of my heart, God, that I might see, and experience you, that I might have hope, that we can raise the bar, of where we are living, the place we are living, to live lives, that matter, amen?