JUN 4 2017 | The Giant Series S1E5 | 1 Samuel 4 (Part 2)

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E5 · "1 Samuel 4 (Part 2)" · Adam Stadtmiller · June 4, 2017
1 Samuel 4
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

He wants to give you more. Samuel had this ability. Let's look at Israel's problem now as they have these giants of spiritual activity, but no presence. Okay, basically doing a bunch of church stuff, doing a bunch of spiritual things, but no presence of God. Here's two things we're going to look at quickly. First, Israel trusted. They put their trust. Great word. Where do you put your trust? In spiritual activity rather than spiritual obedience.

Number two, Israel trusted more in God's stuff than his presence. And we'll see that in a moment. They trusted a lot in the stuff of God. And we can get very caught up into the stuff. We're going to keep rolling through here. The first point is this. Israel trusted in spiritual activity rather than spiritual obedience. It's because Israel had a priestly culture of physical sacrifice not accompanied by devotion or obedience.

They had a corrupted priesthood. They had a corrupted priesthood. 1 Samuel 1.12 says this about the sons of Eli. Now these were the very men who were overseeing the sacrifices unto the Lord. These were the sons of Eli who he did not restrain. It says, now the sons of Eli were what? Worthless men. And they did not know the Lord. Living in the temple, but didn't know the Lord.

They were offering nothing of value. Completely using the things of God for their own gratification. We know that they were actually stealing the sacrifice of the Lord. I'm going to say, I'm actually terrified. Like, many of you have tried to give me a check, right? Many of you have tried to give me a check at the end of service. Oh, I forgot to give it to the usher or whatever. You know, on occasion somebody's standing there and I might hand it to them.

But for them, I tell you what, I don't want to touch money at the church. I want to have nothing. I'm just, I'm not, the word's not terrified. I want to be very respectful of those type of things. Like, I don't know about the men that raised me up, but they gave me a very healthy fear of the Lord. I want to say, I don't want to be afraid of the Lord, but I want to have a fear of the Lord. I want to have, let's say, fear meaning a deep respect of the Lord.

These guys had lost that. It had just become common what they were doing and it had become to gratify their own selves and trying to have a platform of self-gratification. We see that Samuel was complete opposite of this, giving all to God. Look in Samuel 1.29, when it's, or excuse me, 1 Samuel 2.29, when it speaks about the father of these two boys.

It says, why then, and this is coming from a prophecy, is why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling? And this is speaking to Eli, the high priest at the time. And honor your sons, what? Above me. By fattening yourself on the choicest parts of every offering of my people, Israel. I'm going to be speaking on, at Father's Day here pretty soon.

But I think it is very, it is a temptation for parents to often honor their children more than they honor the Lord. And not to restrain their children. And we are living in a culture where civic humanism, look it up on Google, civic humanism is continuing, started in the 14th century, is continuing to be foisted upon our culture in new and I would say by devious means, that is encouraging us to have no restraint for our children.

To give any restraint for our children is something that is denying their humanity. I talked about that earlier in my talks on humanism. But what I want to speak on Father's Day is the importance of fathers. You know, you oftentimes hear about, you know, gender stereotypes. And that's become a negative thing in our culture today. What about gender strengths?

That's something I don't hear too often. There are gender strengths. And one of the strengths of a father is the ability for godly wisdom in discipline. And the respect oftentimes that comes for fathers. Now I got to tell you what, I had a lot more fear and healthy respect for my dad than I did for my mom. I don't know why, maybe it was his size or what it was.

There was just something about dad, okay, that was dad. Mom had her place as well. But when it came to one, I knew that the law was going to get laid, okay? It was grandpa, or it was dad, or my grandma actually. Because she had a switch and she'd take me out and hold my arm and switch my legs. You know, I'll just leave it at the switch. Let me just speak for me.

It didn't hurt me. It was a good thing for me personally. So we'll just leave it at that. Why do you honor your sons above me? I want to say we have to get back to loving godly discipline with children. And to show them healthy boundaries in life. And that there is a really good word on occasion that works. It's called no. We'll talk about that coming up.

So be here on Father's Day. Anyway, the spiritual problem of caring more about what your kids think, or caring about what other people think, or doing a bunch of spiritual activity without obedience, it's going to come to a head in the life of Saul. Now Israel, after Samuel is done judging them, he's kind of a judge and a priest, they're going to ask for a king.

And we know who that king is going to be. It's going to be Saul. He has a lot of giants that we are going to get into. The fear of man is one of them. It's going to be a really poignant time as we look into that. But this man Saul had this fear that he stood, and it's going to come to an apex. He is actually going to have the kingdom ripped from his hands.

Because he honored man more than he honored God. And he actually goes and makes a sacrifice that only priests are allowed to make. And we'll see that. I won't go into the entire story. But if you look, this is what's going to happen. And let me go to chapter 15 of 1 Samuel. And this is Samuel coming to Saul. And Samuel really was struggling with this idea, with the same issue of not giving Saul too much preference.

He was kind of, you know, Saul was kind of Samuel's boy, so to speak. He anointed him under the kingship. He was kind of a mentor to him. But he kept seeing him make bad decisions. And at one point, after God takes the kingdom away from Saul, God actually comes to Samuel and he goes, Hey, like, quit mourning for Saul. Enough is enough. It's time to move on to the next thing.

And so we see that even Samuel, while he did not give preferential treatment, it was a temptation for him. It was a big struggle and a grief for him to see Saul lose the kingship. I am very aware that if the Lord wants to remove anointing of my pastoring from me, he can do it like that. I've seen it. And I've mentioned it to you multiple times. And it doesn't mean that he rules my salvation, that he would remove his love for me.

But if he says, you know what? Your obedience is not up to snuff to my calling. We're just going to remove some of that divine anointing or whatever you want to call it. He will do that because he loves you enough to do it. And I want to say, I like working within the blessing of the Lord. I don't know if you do. But I like the benefits of being in a relationship with God.

And if you've ever seen the presence, not the presence, but if you've ever seen the anointing of the Lord removed from somebody, it's sobering. Let's say that. And I believe I've seen it a few times in my life. And I don't ever want to go there. And so that's what happened to Saul. We're going to look at that. It says, you know, it says, and Samuel said, has the Lord a great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices?

Because Saul had said, you know, I had to go do the sacrifices. God's going to be happy. But God had said only priests can do it, not you. And Samuel says, does he have a delight in that? Rather than obeying the voice of the Lord, behold, and this is one of the key, if you had 20 key scriptures in the Old Testament, this is one of them. Behold, to obey is what?

Better than to sacrifice. And to listen, better than the fat of rams. God wants hearts, not sacrifices. He wants a contrite and a sacrificed heart that says, God, whatever you want, just spend me. I'm loose change in your pocket. Now we see the exact opposite with David. David comes along and in Acts 13, 22, when we're having a recount of what happened with David, it says the exact opposite of this man, who was a man after what?

God's own heart. It wasn't about sacrifices, although David sacrificed with the best of them. He wasn't about sacrifices. He was about a heart connection with God. Big difference. It says, after removing Saul, he, meaning God, made David their king. God testified concerning him. I have found David, son of Jesse, a man what? After my own heart. And then it says two things.

He will do what? I want everything I want him to do. He will do everything after I want him to do. You want to see that God, that David was a man that said, I want God's heart. I want the heart of God. Now he had a lot of issues. He had a lot of problems in his life. But God keeps going back to the heart. Did he have a heart that was after God? And to look at our hearts as well.

A soft and a contrite heart. Here is leading to obedience. Let's look at part two of why Israel was having issues and why they had come to a place where they were just being pillaged by the Philistines. The Philistines are this giant. That's where Goliath comes from. And David is going to fight that giant and get away from the oppression that is coming from the Philistines.

But Israel trusted more in God's stuff than in his presence. You know, I know a lot of people who worship the Bible, but not the God of the Bible. You see, I know people that are Bible worshipers. They just love, they just, everything's about the Bible. But it feels like God is removed from the Bible. I tell you what, we are not called to worship the Bible of God.

We are called to worship the God of the Bible. The Bible is a holy book that is a tool. I believe in everything about the Bible. But the Bible is a platform that allows us to know intimately the Father God through his spirit. And oftentimes the Bible can become a thing. The Bible can become a thing that we worship. Worship can become a thing that we worship.

I think the church needs to be very careful now that we don't begin to worship worship. You know, hey, how are we doing it? How's that guitar? You know what I mean? Do we get the smoke machine just going just right? You know, where worship, it becomes the presentation of worship is more about than the hearts of worship. That's why we want to take a moment today to just say, hey, stop.

Where's your heart? Hey, great music. Love the guitar. Awesome job on bass, Devin. Are our people connecting, encountering the love of God? See, our whole deal is that you can, we can provide a platform where you encounter God that you can be equipped to engage the world. That you can encounter God here. And so, do we love God's stuff more than we love God himself?

In the 15th century, as I'm reading through the Reformations right now, I'm reading an 800-page book. It's awesome. On the Reformation. And it's from 1450. People are snoring as I say that. 1450, except Elliot and Jim, you know, and a couple others, you know. 1450 to 1650. And the church had fallen in love with the stuff of God. Relics. Love relics. Buildings.

You know, prayer books. They'd just fallen in love with all this God stuff. Israel had fallen in love with a box of God. But the box, the ark of God, was meant to do what? Hold the very what? Presence of God. It was meant, and they couldn't hold the presence of God, but God's presence would dwell within it. And we can see here as we look that they were way about, more about the stuff.

Verse 3, they ask, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Now, here's the answer. This is so interesting. This is the answer, and it shows where their hope lies. Let us bring what? The ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us, and what? Save us from the power of our enemies. Let's bring this box here, and this box will save us from the power of our enemies.

That's so backwards. It's like holding up the Bible and saying, you know, let me have this Bible, and as I, you know, I'm going to hold this Bible because this Bible is going to save me from the power of my enemies. You know, the presence of God using the words of the Bible is what's going to save you. The presence of God anointing His word. But just saying that this box is going to save them, it isn't that.

It's the presence of God that says, if you have a contrite heart, then I will rescue you. I will rescue you from your enemies. We'll talk about the if statements in a moment. But look at this. It says, Israel was never saved by God's box. And I love that. That's one of the translations I found. They call it God's box. It used to bother me because I'm like, no, it's the ark of the covenant.

Quit calling it a box. But in the end, it was just a box. It was just a thing. Just like temples and churches like this and patios. They're just things that hopefully can become a platform that we can orchestrate in the presence of God. But rather, the presence of God or the indwelling was in that box. We're coming in for a landing now, circling the tower.

Joe had a bit of a crash landing earlier. You're going to have to find your own metaphors, Joe. It can quite work for you there, Captain. It says this. And then the other thing is verse five. I love this. It says, as soon as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, what did Israel do? They gave a mighty shout so that the whole earth resounded.

Ooh, the whole earth resounded. Ooh, a lot of spiritual noise. Spiritual noise is not spiritual victory. Let me say that again. Spiritual noise is not spiritual victory. There is, do you see the contrast here? I mean, even the enemies are like, oh, you know, what's that noise? The earth shook. We made a lot of activity. But you know what they didn't have?

A deep, cultivated presence of God that said, I'm willing to deny myself to follow you. That's the deal. That is the gospel. And that is where we find the real presence and power of God. And it isn't until they get that right that they are saved from their enemies. I want to give you two takeaways before we have communion. Here's two takeaways that I got from the scripture that were just personal takeaway.

The verse is this, and it comes out of verse three. God loves you enough not to give you victory. Let me say that again. God loves you more than a victory for you. He loves you enough not to give you a victory. He loves his children enough to say no. That doesn't mean that every time he says no that you're in the wrong. Sometimes God just says no because God says no.

That's it. Sometimes God just says no. And coming to a place like Hannah did to say that's enough for me. Is God's no enough for you? It's a great question of spiritual maturity. We see, but sometimes God loves you not enough to give you a victory. If God would have given the Philistines, excuse me, the Israelites a victory over the Philistines at this point, they would have thought what they were doing was right.

They were offending the Lord. God forbid that he gives us victory while we offend him. Now God is very patient. You see that he gave Samson many, many victories while Samson was doing offensive things because we have this incredibly patient God and thank God he's patient, right? God has this incredible patience. I don't know where I'd be without the patience of God.

How many times do you have that one sin that it's been 25 years in your life and you're just trying to work it out but he knows like deep down you're really crying out, God, I want to be saved from this. I think God is so patient with that. It's when we're like, God, you know what? Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe I won't. Where you become snippet with God.

When we become terse with God. Where our heart becomes callous to God. I think that's when we don't have a workable clay anymore in our lives. David was a workable clay. David did some incredibly grievous things unto the Lord's heart. But he was a workable clay that would come back and say, oh my, you know, God, forgive me for my sins. He was just so contrite before the Lord.

That's what God's looking for. He's not looking for perfection. He's looking for people with soft and contrite hearts. God loves you enough not to give you the victory. And sometimes when we get some spiritual things right, victory will come. I'm not saying that you're, because you haven't had the victory and the thing you want is because you're sinning.

But perhaps it is. And so we need to sit before the Lord. This is a good thing to cultivate. A spirit, my mom came to me this week. She told us, she said the Lord spoke to her and she was getting ready to pray and ask for things. And she said the Lord gave her this word in her heart. Have you, you know, have you taken the trash out yet? That was an interesting way to speak.

And I thought, you know, it's true. Sometimes we got this trash in our life. Just to sit before the Lord with your stuff and say, Jesus, I got, I got sin and I really like this sin. I just like it. I like this attitude. I'm harboring an attitude or whatever it is and I just like it and I don't even want to get rid of it. But I just, make me want to get rid of it.

Do whatever you need to do. Just there. Sit with the Lord and say, God, what do you want of me? That is cultivating a presence of hearing. If you do that regularly, I believe God will begin to speak to you and begin to say, you know what, enough is enough with this in my life. And the final thing that I got is this. It came from looking at the if statements of God.

God was not going to give Israel victory if they continued to sin against Him in the way that they were. God's love is unlimited but it's not unconditional. Now you might need to chew on that for a while and I've been chewing on this for like three months before I said it. God's love is not unlimited. It is unlimited. It will welcome anybody who wants to come.

But if you want to go do a study of the if statements in the scripture, there's over 1700 times the word if is used in scripture. God has, Jesus has conditions. He says, if you want to go to bury the dead and then you can come back and follow me. I want to say this idea that anyone can come as they are and stay as they is is not scriptural. I had a woman come up to me this week and she said, you know, I had this guy and he's not a Christian and he, you know, he said he's spiritual and he wants to date me and I don't know if I should date him but he doesn't follow Jesus and he said he doesn't believe in that and the whole thing.

But I don't want to discriminate against him. And I was like, let me just, can I just set this straight? The purpose of religion is to define truth and discriminate against things that are not truth. It is discriminatory. I'm sorry to say it. It just is. Without discrimination. Now you're not discriminating on, you know, you're discriminating on actions.

The Bible discriminates on actions. Not because you were born German. Okay? You're discriminated against because you're German. No. It is based upon actions. And the Bible, and that's one of the problems that the culture is having with our church today is that they want a religion without any judgment. And I'm not saying we make judgments but we agree with the judgments of God.

It is an if, it is an if-then relationship. God's love is unlimited. He will welcome anybody who wants to come. But he says, there are conditions. And if you don't believe me, just look up if in the Bible. Go to a study of 1734 verses, I think it is. And you will see that God says to Israel, if you do this, if you do this, but if you don't, this is what's going to happen.

The world has a problem with that. But it's the gospel. I want to say it's a soft and contrite heart that says, God, I believe that you know more than I do. And God, I want to follow you. And we live a life that says, I want to discriminate against the things in my own life. And that's where we start. We don't start pointing the finger at everybody else. We start with us.

And we say, God, I want more. Would you please, can I start discriminating against the sin in my life? Can I start discriminating against the issues in my life, the attitudes in my life that keep from a presence? And so this week, here's the challenge. The challenge this week is we have the worship team come forward. The challenge this week is to do things that create a platform for the Holy Spirit in your life.

This week, I tried to do that. It had been a long time since I'd sat and said, I'm going to take some time to intentionally allow the Spirit of God margin in my life. To look at my sin, to enjoy the Lord, to sit in the Scripture, and to ask God, what do you want from me? Because it is at that point we develop an intimacy with God to know the deep secrets of His love.

Amen? Amen. Let's stand.