11/19/23 1 Samuel 13:6-14 “Choosing Right in a Wrong World!”

16 Nov 11/19/23 1 Samuel 13:6-14 “Choosing Right in a Wrong World!”

11/19/23    1 Samuel 13:6-14        “Choosing Right in a Wrong World!”

I would like to say right at the beginning that I am really glad that I am as old as I am.  I think that most people who are under, let’s say 21, wish that they were a little older.  Then it seems that after we get to 21 and older, we wish we were younger.  I don’t know why this is but it is.  We saw this one time when I was talking in children’s time.  I agree with the youngsters.  When I was their age, I wished I was 16 and had a driver’s license.  It is not that big a deal anymore now that I have had a license for 58 years.  I also agree with some of the older people who wished you were younger.  There are mornings when I get up that I wish I didn’t have this ache or this pain.  But there is one thing that I have now that I didn’t have many years ago and I seem to get more of it all the time.  I have much more self-control than I have ever had.  This is something that has gradually increased for me as I have gotten older.  There might be others who have had this experience also.  With this increased self-control, I have had increased fulfillment in my life.  God has been good to me and He keeps giving me more self-control and patience which continues to help me make me make the right decisions.  The fruits of the Spirit are a good circle to be in and I often find myself there.  Today, we are going to take a look at Saul, the first king of Israel, and see what kind of self-control he had and how he didn’t do the right thing.

It is never easy to make the right decisions.  Rick Gillespie-Mobley shows us three examples.  There was a woman who was $200 short on her rent money. She was a bit desperate and prayed about it.  The next day she found a purse on the bus.  She looked inside the purse and found $400 and an ID for a 72-year-old woman.  She didn’t know what to do so she took $200 and returned the purse anonymously.   She almost did the right thing.  There was a young man who went to a video store to rent a movie.  When he got home, he found the wrong movie inside the sleeve.  It was an X rated movie.  He was going to take it back but he decided to watch it first.  He wanted to do the right thing but he didn’t.

A young high school student could only go to a friend’s party if she passed her history test.  She studied hard but decided to make a little cheat sheet, just in case.  The next morning, she prayed about the test and God reminded her of the cheat sheet so she tore it up.  During the ten-question matching part of the test, she knew 7 answers but not three.  The smartest person in the class was right in front of her and she could see those 3 answers.  She copied them.  She tried to do right but temptation overcame her.  These types of things happen to us all the time in this modern world.

First of all, I would like to clarify one thing.  Often time’s people will say that they succumbed to temptation or temptation overcame them like I just stated in the last story.  To say this is totally wrong.  You don’t succumb to temptation; you choose temptation over what is right.  It is always a conscious decision.  All the people in these opening stories chose to do the wrong thing.  It was their choice.  When you are faced with situations like this and we all are from time to time, it is your choice and your choice only if you do the right thing or the wrong thing.  You like to say temptation overcame you so that you don’t have to take responsibility for your actions.  This is one of the problems we have in our modern society.  No one takes responsibility for their actions any more.  I just wanted to clarify this before we move ahead.

As we begin, we find that Saul is the king of Israel.  He was a big, tall, strapping type of guy.  He was the poster boy for the local body building club.  The people wanted him to be king because he looked sooo good and anyone looking this good would have to be a great king.  The trouble was that he had all sorts of turmoil going on his inside.  For one thing, he had an ego the size of a house.  He would touch bases once in a while with God but for the most part his life was all about Saul.  He also had a bad temper.  He was prone to huge mood swings.  Today, he might be what they call bipolar or manic/depressive.  So just because Saul looked so good didn’t make him a good king.

In our reading, we have Saul gathering up the troops from the tribes of Israel to go into battle against an obviously much larger and/or stronger force in the Philistines.  Troops were deserting and hiding.  Even the troops who were next to their king were afraid of the Philistines.  At this point in their history Samuel was the prophet for Saul.  He has told Saul to wait and not go into battle for 7 days until Samuel returns.  This is a long time to wait when you are staring down the barrel of the enemy.  They waited the 7 days as directed.  By the 7^th day, the men of the army immediately surrounding the king had begun to desert him.

Saul is in a desperate way.  It is now the morning of the 7^th day and there is no Samuel in sight.  This had to be Saul’s way of thinking but we don’t know for sure.  He thinks, “I am the king.  I really don’t need a prophet to help me.  As king, I can take the place of the prophet and make the offerings necessary for this battle.  I have to do something because that slowpoke Samuel isn’t here and everyone is afraid and some are leaving.  I will do this.”  Then he proceeded to make the offerings to God.  We have to remember that people didn’t do the actual offerings in those days.  It had to be a priest or prophet.  This was God’s command.

This is what happened and it is just like things that happen in our lives.  Just after Saul gets done making the offerings, here comes old Samuel.  Now because Saul has not had the patience to wait for Samuel and God, there will be consequences.  Like in our opening stories, Saul almost did the right thing.  But he didn’t.  Instead, he made the decision and he alone made this decision and now he will lose his kingdom.

Now you may think that this is a little harsh but I don’t think so.  There is a strong message here for us.  Saul was appointed by God to be king.  Samuel was appointed by God to be the prophet.  These people are held to a higher accountability than most of us.  Leaders of the world should take note of this.  If you are going against the ways of God, there will be consequences.  The same thing can be said of our pastors and priests who are leading the many churches who worship false gods.  We see later in our story that Samuel also disobeyed God and there were consequences.  If we think that we can lead the people of God in ways that are not from God, then there will be consequences.  Therefore, I ask of you, I beg of you, if you ever think I’m not preaching or teaching in the ways of God, let me know.  I don’t want to suffer the consequences and I don’t want you too either.

I think that if we wanted to sum up the problems of Saul, it would be that he had no self-control.  We read in Galatians that self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  We are given these fruits and it is up to us to develop them into our belief system.  Self-control is always the fruit that I will ask the confirmation class or youth group to ponder on a little because I think it is one fruit that we don’t use very much.  It is the one that is needed more than ever in this fast-paced society.

When we don’t have self-control, bad things happen.  I remember once that I knew of a young man who made the bad choice of going to a bar and drinking too much, his choice.  Then he proceeded to pick a fight and got beat up.  He had no self-control.  They want us to legalize marijuana.  I will go along with the argument that everyone who tries this drug, makes this bad decision, will not become addicted.  However, they don’t tell us that just about every drug addict started with the bad decision of using marijuana.  Addictions like this start with no self-control.  People think that just a little drink or smoke or a little look at pornography will not do any harm.  They are wrong.  These bad decisions will not only hurt you but they will hurt you a lot.

Anyway, a lack of self-control will lead you into many bad situations.  So, the question becomes, “What good happens when we use self-control?”  The first thing that self-control leads to is patience and endurance.  Self-control is a sign of a changed life due to the accepting of Jesus Christ as your Savior.  One of the first things that happen when you accept Jesus is that you find that many of the things you used to do are not that important.  There are many things far more important than going down to the local bar every evening as an example.  You become much more patient and wiser in your decisions.  You will find yourself not as rushed as you have been in the past.  You have time for the important things in life.

One of the great things that patience leads to is endurance.  When we begin to slow down and accept things on the terms of Jesus, then we can endure the hardships, the ridicule and the general disdain of non-believers around us.  I know that personally, my anger button has been much harder to trigger since I became a Christian.  Don’t get me wrong, things still bother me but I now have a place to take them.

Can you imagine what our story of Saul would be like if he had a little self-control?  The story would have changed in several ways.  But in today’s reading, we might have found that Saul had the patience to wait a couple more hours for Samuel.  This would have led to Saul keeping his kingdom.  He might have become like David.  He might have been the greatest king that ever lived.  He could have changed his life path at any time if he had just become a devout follower of God and not his own selfish desires.  The point I’m trying to make is that it is never too late to become a follower of Jesus.  Just confess you sins to Him and ask Him into your life.  This will be the beginning of a great new life.  Plus, you will never regret this decision.

I think that probably the greatest thing that happens when we practice self-control is that the other fruits of the Spirit become easier.  If you are in control or God is in control, love becomes easier.  Joy and peace will be in far more abundance in your life if you have some self-control.  The really well-rounded Christian has all the fruits of the Spirit in abundance.  These are the people who we like to model our behavior after.  I like to look at our modern-day Billy Graham.  You probably have other models in your life and I would guess that they have many if not all the fruits of the Spirit.  Just as a suggestion I would ask that you go to Gal. 5:22-23 and read these fruits.  Then pick one of them and pray about it all week.  You will see results.  Quite often when we do these types of exercises, it takes quite some time before we can make them a habit, but you will see small steps. Also, these good traits cannot become your lifestyle unless you take the first step.  Try this today.

All of these fruits of the Spirit lead us to be more God like.  By being more God like, we find ourselves with a lot more love for others.  One of the things about this culture that we live in today is that our focus, according to the culture, should be on me.  This is a selfish society.  Jesus wants our love and our focus to be Him and on others.  It doesn’t matter if the others are doing things wrong; you can do what is right.  Our focus needs to be on others and not ourselves so that we can do the work of Jesus in this world.

Another of the great things about following Jesus is that it is so easy.  Once you have Jesus in your heart, then begin to practice one of the fruits.  I mean, what can be easier than loving people.  Then when you start to be good at one fruit, take on another fruit.  The process gets easier and easier because the last fruit you mastered helps you to conquer the next one.  Pretty soon your whole way of life is turned upside down and you are, are you ready for this, helping strangers.  Following Jesus is about believing in Him and all the other things we talk about but mainly it is about a lifestyle.  It is a lifestyle of love.  Love is not a second-hand emotion.

Saul made a wrong choice when he disobeyed Samuel and God.  The people in our opening stories almost did it right but they ended up making wrong decisions.  Maybe you haven’t made many wrong decisions in your life and I commend you for that.  For me, my life has been filled with wrong decisions.  Before I knew Jesus, it was my way of life.  If you notice, even when Saul made bad choices, his life wasn’t doomed.  Only his kingdom from God was doomed.  The same thing is true for us and I praise the Lord for that.  God will not strike us dead for making a mistake, for choosing wrong.  We know that He will always be there so that we can repent and come back to him.  That is the best news I can give you today.  If you have made a bad choice, turn back to Jesus and He will help you solve your problems and you will feel the tremendous love He has for you.

This is my Thanksgiving sermon.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  We still live in the greatest country in the world even if it needs a little work but then again, we all need a little work.  You are fortunate that you live in a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else.  You watch out for each other.  You have family and friends.  You have your church.  You have your brother and sisters in Christ who love you as Christ loves all of us.  The list goes on and on.  You have much.  Be thankful for all these things but be thankful in the name of Jesus Christ.  Without Jesus, we could still be living in caves.  Everything we see about us is from Jesus and He loves us and always will.  All I can say in return is, “Thank you Jesus.”  Let’s pray.