Joseph: The Story of Reputation

The First Presbyterian Church of Hemet

Trust and Obey

Dr. Larry Thorson
June 27, 2010

I Samuel 13:1-15

1 Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years. 2 Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest he sent back to their homes.

3 Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" 4 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.

5 The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Mikmash, east of Beth Aven. 6 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. 7 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. 8 He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. 9 So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings." And Saul offered up the burnt offering. 10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

11 "What have you done?" asked Samuel. Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, 12 I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."

13 "You have done a foolish thing," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 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." 15 Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about six hundred.

1. Summarize the biblical text:

Jonathon, the son of King Saul launched an unauthorized war with the Philistines when the troops were not ready. Israel's soldiers starting fleeing, hiding wherever they could. Saul, anxious about losing all his troops, ignores what God told him to do and offered sacrifices himself. This was the beginning of the end of his reign.

2. What is the main point of this sermon?

When we face a crisis, try not to let the crisis dictate our actions. God will still be in charge as much during the crisis as before the crisis. Continue doing what you know the Lord has commanded you to do.

3. What action could readers take as a result of this sermon?

Since crises cannot always be avoided, recognize that at some time in your life something is going to happen that will challenge your well being. Today, before the next crisis hits, make a plan for what you want to absolutely keep doing whenever hard times hit.

Introduction

With today's message we get back to our summer sermon series “Saul and David – A Study in Leadership”. Every leader eventually faces a crisis in leadership and a defining moment when he or she has to make a difficult legacy altering decision. Herbert Hoover had the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt had World War II. Harry Truman had Korea. Dwight Eisenhower had school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas. John Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs. Lyndon Johnson had Vietnam. Richard Nixon had Watergate. Gerald Ford had the Nixon pardon. Jimmy Carter had Iran. Ronald Reagan had the Iran Contra affair. George Bush had Kuwait. Bill Clinton had the banking crisis. George W. Bush had 911 and Katrina.

Defining Moments

Every leader at some point faces a defining moment. How we respond to those moments, even regardless its outcome, is what we may most often be remembered for. My defining moment as an associate pastor in Plano, Texas came the morning after a tragic accident took the life of a popular college student from a prominent family in our church. Walking into a sanctuary packed with weeping teenagers and their parents including the mother of the deceased to lead them in some sort of meaningful worship became a defining moment for me there.

The thing about defining moments is that they rarely come when we're expecting them. For example a friend calls and says that her husband was just taken to the hospital and she's home alone and scared. But you have expensive tickets to a show and need to leave immediately to make it on time. What are you going to do? One of many defining moments in your life. It's called a defining moment because our response will reveal what is really going on inside us.

King Saul and His Son Jonathan

King Saul had just that kind of defining moment early in his long reign over Israel. In I Samuel 13:1 we read “Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years. 2 Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest he sent back to their homes.”

While 3,000 men sounds like a fairly large force, it wouldn't be much in combat. This number was considered mostly personal bodyguards for Saul and his son Jonathan. Not a shabby entourage. In fact just to show us how confident King Saul was in their protection and how much he was not expecting a war at that time the Bible says he sent the rest of the troops home. But then we read in v.3...

Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it.

Now the situation is going to turn into a crisis, quickly. How many men did we read son Jonathan had under his command? One thousand. With only a thousand men to protect him, Jonathan managed to launch Israel into war with a powerful enemy. Why did he do it? We don't know for sure but I have a few ideas. The outpost at Geba was located in Benjamin, the home state for Saul and Jonathan. Jonathan more than likely grew up hearing his dad talking trash about the Philistines. Their presence in his home state had to have been humiliating and frustrating. His anger may have just boiled over. He was clearly not listening to his father or God at this point because nowhere do we hear from God or his father to attack.

Now let's look at how Saul reacted to what was going to become a defining moment for him starting in v.3b... Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" 4 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.

Obviously, Saul didn't feel so safe anymore with just his 2,000 man bodyguard unit. So he amassed his army at Gilgal, about 11 miles from Geba where Jonathan had attacked.

This was now definitely a crisis. It was defining moment time for King Saul. The enemy had solders “as numerous as the sand on the seashore.” Maybe that's a little exaggerated but the point is that Jonathan managed to wake up a huge, sleeping giant. He blew it in no simple terms. It's important to realize that King Saul didn't cause this problem. Our crises are not always our own doing. How we react to it is.

How Saul Reacted to His Crisis

8 He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. That verse needs a little background information. Samuel was God's judge or prophet. If Saul wanted to lead God's country he needed to learn to get his direction from God's prophet Samuel. In I Samuel 10:8 we read what direction Samuel gave him “Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do."

Saul went down to Gilgal just like Samuel told him to do. He waited the seven days for Samuel just like he told him to do. But Samuel didn't show up. Isn't there something called the ten minute rule? If the instructor doesn't show up within ten minutes of the scheduled start of class students are free to leave. Right? Or was it 20 minutes?

Anyway, the crisis was getting worse. Saul's men were getting scared and discouraged. They were starting to scatter. Samuel is late. Maybe he forgot. “If I don't do something my whole army is going to disappear.” “I've got to fix this.” I could just hear Saul reasoning in his mind.

What are you going to do in a crisis when all the voices around you are screaming at you to do something? Recently the press had been challenging the President to do something about the BP oil leak saying he'd been too soft on them. They wanted him to do something even it meant yelling at BP if he had to. So he did something. He put a six month moratorium on all new offshore drilling in the Gulf and immediately a New Orleans judge who owned stock in the drilling companies blocked his decree. Which just goes to show you that there's just no way a leader can make everyone happy all of the time or even make anyone happy.

Saul's Impatience

What Saul did next defined his entire reign as king. 9 So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings." And Saul offered up the burnt offering. 10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

For a moment we get a glimpse into what went through Saul's mind when he decided to disobey God by making an offering that only ordained priests from certain families were allowed to do. The first and probably most important in Saul's mind was that the people were scattering. He was scared. That's like saying church attendance is declining and we have to try something, anything before it's too late and we have to close the doors of the church. A lot of church leaders are saying that today in America.

His second reason for doing the offering is because Samuel didn't come when they had agreed to come. That's like praying and God doesn't answer your prayer when you thought he should. “God I need the rent money by Friday” and it doesn't show up on Friday.

His third reason was that the Philistine's were assembling for what looked like a massacre of Israel. Crises are rarely pretty. This one was looking really ugly and Saul got scared.

The Fall of Saul

Samuel responded in verse 13 "You have done a foolish thing," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 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." 15 Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about six hundred.

In Saul's defining moment, Samuel says to him “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you...” To put it simply, Saul had not trusted and obeyed. But it's hard to be obedient when you can't trust that God is going to be there for you in the crisis. When Samuel didn't show up on time after seven days, waiting became really hard. But what God wants more than anything from us, is obedience to his commands. He doesn't care how much money we amass. He doesn't care how many members joined your church. He doesn't care how many years you served as an elder or deacon. What God cares about more than anything in the whole world is how obedient you've been to his Word. Obedience takes trust and trust takes patience and patience takes time to develop. Trust and obey, as the old hymn we used to sing when I was a child goes, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.

The Impact of Trust

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, "Jump! I'll catch you." He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you." But the boy protested, "Daddy, I can't see you." The father replied, "But I can see you and that's all that matters."

Duke University psychiatrist Redford B. Williams wrote a book called The Trusting Heart (New York: Random House). What he discovered is that Type A behavior will not kill you. Grueling schedules, workaholism, stress, hurriedness - all these "Type A" personality syndromes are not predictive of early death. Only hostility, cynicism, aggression, and orneriness - these are the killers. People who cannot trust, people who can only try to control everything, are in more than spiritual jeopardy. Their health is on the line as well.[1]

I read a story about a pastor who while he was in the seminary saw his mother become very sick. He prayed that she would live to see his ordination. He prayed with fervor, with a strong faith and a believing faith, hoping and wanting her to enjoy this day of days. To his utter shock and amazement, she died when he still had two, maybe two-and-a-half years to go.

He writes that it really undermined his confidence and faith, and it wasn't only grief that he had to deal with. What if he had constructed this whole thing out of his imagination? What if God isn't there? What if he won't be there? What if he'd made a tremendous mistake? And as a result of all that thought and agonizing, it all just simply cleared up one day as he was praying. It was as though he heard a voice saying, "Listen, your mother was very sick, she was in pain. You wanted me to keep her alive for two more years in that condition? No, no, no. It was time. I wanted to bring her home. She'll watch your ordination. Don't worry about that." So it became clear to him that God's wisdom is better than the best wisdom he'd ever had-that God knows and that he can trust God even if he didn't understand Him[2]

Conclusion: What Crisis are You Trying to Fix?

Trust and then obey. It's too bad King Saul didn't have the trust thing down. But it's hard to have the obedience thing down without the trust. It's hard to trust when you want to always have control.

This week ask yourself what crisis am I trying to fix or trying to control? That's what Saul was trying to do, fix his crisis. That's God's job, fixing crises. I've said it before recently and I'll say it again, if you're still alive you're going to have crises. Don't be surprised when they come. Trust that God will see you through the crisis when you commit it to him and then obey the things you know he wants you to do. Decide that now, when you're not in crisis and then when it hits, you can “Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.”

The greatest crisis you'll ever face is what to do with your sins. Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for those sins. What we have to do is trust that Jesus paid for those sins and obey him by opening your heart in prayer asking him to come in and take control of your life. Pray “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in need of a savior, I open the controls of my life and turn them over to you to save me.” “Come and be my Savior and Lord.” Pray that prayer today and the greatest crisis you'll ever face will be resolved.

Small Group Ice Breaker Questions

1. If you have a date to meet someone, how late can that person be before you give up on them?

2. Describe a really hard decision you had to make. How did it turn

out?

Discussion Questions

1. Why did King Saul get condemned by God and Samuel? Do you think it was fair or harsh?

2. List Saul's reasons for offering sacrifices himself.

3. What's the difference between seeking the Lord's direction and what Saul did when he was in his crisis? How would that apply to leadership in a church today?

4. Why is compassion both so hard to show and so intensely satisfying when shown to those in need?

5. When has God been “late” in keeping a promise to you? Did you rush ahead and take things into your own hands? What happened?

6. How hard is it for you to admit when you are wrong?

7. Describe Saul's leadership up to this point?