Allen Jackson - A Heart for God - Part 1
I had really intended to begin a new series this weekend. I had prepared to do that, but as I was doing the Bible reading, I hope you’re reading the Bible with us. On every year we read through the Bible systematically and it has become one of the most transformational parts of the church. I really get no credit for that. I wasn’t aware of it for a long time and I was surprised by the impact it’s had. That’s a very painful truthful confession. But I can tell you it’s been one of the most transformational things we’ve ever done as a community. And one of the benefits is as we do that, and you can read the Bible any way you choose to.
I’m not saying ours is better, but there’s a benefit in that because when you interact with one another beyond a worship service, you have a point of faith that is an easy conversation. And we have, there’s just been almost unlimited number of reports that have come back on how that has had a benefit. So we’ve begun 1 Samuel, and as I was reading through that again, it seemed to me to be so on point with our conversation about God’s plan and God’s promises and God’s people. I’ve said to you many times in the last few weeks that in the Old Testament under the old covenant God led the former slaves of Egypt under the leadership of Joshua into a Promised Land. It was the land he promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s at the heart of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible story.
Well, in the new covenant, God, under the leadership of Jesus, leads his people into the land of his promises. Not a piece of territory, but a life defined by the promises of God. The most binding word for a commitment in all of scripture is covenant. And the promises of God are derived from the covenant that he’s made. You and I have standing in the kingdom of God through the covenant God made with Abram. And we’re given access to that covenant through the person of Jesus of Nazareth. So understanding the promises of God changes our whole awareness. And as I was reading through 1 Samuel and God keeping his promises to his people and the challenges they have of living in the midst of that. But the process of occupying their inheritance and maintaining their place with the Lord was a very uneven journey.
And I think it’s worth reflection because I don’t think we live with that imagination. The way the gospel’s been presented for a few decades, you know, is that once you’ve kind of buttoned down your initiation into the kingdom, the new birth, being born again, saved, whichever label is preferred, you know, we think at that point it’s a pretty steady ride. And that’s not really the presentation of scripture. I don’t want you to live in fear of your salvation. I do want you to be mindful of it, and not live presumptively. So to do that, we started with 1 Samuel, and then we got up to the point where Saul is going to be their king, their first king. The last of the judges is Samuel.
The book of Judges you’ve read already lists a number of judges. Some of them are high profile, you know, Samson or Gideon perhaps, some maybe less celebrated, Deborah, Jephthah, but they’re judges. Not people in black robes presiding over courtrooms, they were the leaders of the 12 tribes. From time to time when there was an external threat that required a more national response, God would raise up a leader that would have the skill set necessary to overcome whatever the threat was. Gideon against the Midianites, Samson against the Philistines. And so the story went. Well, Samuel is the last of the judges. And he’s the last of the judges because the tribal leaders come to Samuel and they say, «We don’t like this system. We don’t like you. You’re old. And you’re a lousy parent. And we don’t want you to lead us anymore».
And Samuel was somewhat put off by that, as I think most of us would be. You know, I think in The Living Bible, he looked back at them and said, «Well, you’re ugly and fat; so»? But Samuel went to God and God said, «Samuel, it’s not you they’re rejecting. They’ve been behaving this way since the brick pits of Egypt». He had to say that because it felt a great deal like personal rejection. Can you imagine that you could serve God faithfully and still, well into your journey, face seasons of significant rejection?
You see, it’s not an even course, it’s not an even journey, because we live in a broken fallen world and sin exists and human beings still rebel against God. It’s not just a story in the opening chapters of Genesis. We live in a generation where people are very much rebelling against God. And the church is struggling, the people of God, whatever label you wanna use for that, we’re struggling to understand how we respond. Should we acknowledge it? Should we talk about it? Should we avoid it? Is it appropriate? The messaging we’ve received for decades is no, we shouldn’t notice it. We shouldn’t talk about it. The church and the state should be separate.
You understand that’s an idea that came from the pit. It is, because the more fully you remove the moral influences of a Judeo-Christian worldview from the authority structure over our lives, the more authoritarian they will become, I promise you. And we remove God from the imagination of the authority over our lives, then we look to secular authorities to protect us and to provide for us. And the technical definition for that is idolatry. So we need our faith integrated into the authority structures over our life. We don’t want a state church, we don’t want the state determining what we say or believe or dictating what you have to say or believe. That’s horrific. But we can’t afford to have our faith banned from the public square, from the public schools, from our college campuses, from our courtrooms.
First of all, it’s a blatant violation of our civil liberties. We have the right to free speech, not selected speech, selected by someone else. But the church has capitulated to the point that we don’t really ask for that anymore. We’re a little uncomfortable with it, we get a little tense. Not advocating for candidates. We celebrate candidates that make godly choices or embrace biblical worldviews. I’m astounded that we have a president who used his voice to stand up for a biblical definition of marriage. I mean, not because he always yielded to it personally, but he had the courage to stand up for it in the public arena. He was willing to say that there are only two biological sexes, that God created us male and female.
I think with his determination to root out DEI he’s done more for civil liberties and racial equality than anyone since the Civil Rights Acts in the '60s. And the response to that is he’s been called a racist repeatedly. Now all of those are issues that I believe begin with the Word of God and a biblical worldview and should have been resonating within the church into our culture, that the political leaders should have had to chase those ideas because they were so prevalent amongst the people because they’ve been advocated so clearly and persistently and boldly from the pulpits of our nation. But sadly, the church has wandered a bit.
And so God in his sovereignty has raised up voices, a most unlikely collection of people, to advocate for those positions and it’s given the church an opportunity. And I think the chapters in Samuel are very appropriate for us because it’s very clear that the covenant people of God, the people we’re reading about are the covenant people of God. They’re the delivery system for the redemptive purposes of God. He chose them. He’s given them a Promised Land. He provides protection for them. It’s sprinkled all through those chapters and that they struggled mightily to cooperate with God.
So I don’t think we should immediately imagine that because the church in our generation has struggled to cooperate with God that we are the final chapter in the story. We could be. The King could be returning today. But I don’t believe the primary evidence for that is that the church has wandered into the weeds or that evil is more prevalent. Evil is more prevalent because the church has capitulated. But we can change that.
I want to start in 1 Samuel chapter 10. If you missed the previous session, you can hear it, it’ll bring you up to speed, but this is the…we’re beginning with the ascent of Saul, the rise of Saul to power, the first king in Israelite history. And the only way this is going to be possible is with the cooperation of Samuel, the last of the judges, because Samuel is a far more powerful figure in the culture. You know, in Christian thought and study, Samuel is not such a prominent character. There are others seemingly far more prominent than he is, but in Jewish thought, Samuel is one of the leading voices. But in 1 Samuel chapter 10 and verse 1, it says: «Samuel took a flask of oil and he poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, 'Has not the Lord anointed you leader over his inheritance? '»
Throughout scripture, Old and New Testament, oil is used as a type, a representation of the Holy Spirit, and anointing simply means an invitation to the Spirit of God to empower, to guide, direct, that we would submit to the Spirit of God. So when oil is poured upon someone’s head or we’re anointed with oil, it’s an invitation to the Spirit of God and the power of God into and through the life of that individual. And you certainly would want a leader of the nation who was yielded to under the authority of the Spirit of God. So the symbol of that is Samuel takes oil and anoints Saul. God chooses Saul to be king. He didn’t run for the office. In fact, he’s an awkward, reluctant, I don’t have time to unpack that. When Samuel’s ready to present him as king to the people, they find Saul hiding amongst the luggage.
I studied kingship and politics at Hebrew University some years ago. My professor in that course was an observant Jewish man, he kept the rules. Very distinguished fellow. And I remember when we got to that part where Saul was hiding amongst the luggage, he looked at the class and he went, «I don’t know». But God establishes Saul with a demonstration of his power. Samuel adds his blessing, his affirmation. But he reminds the people that it’s a misguided choice. There’s an interesting tension in the narrative. You’ve been reading it. You know, Samuel anoints Saul. He brings the blessing of God to Saul, and he looks at the people and he said, «You made a boneheaded decision, and you’re gonna suffer for it».
You know, those two things can exist: God’s sovereign intervention on our part and the consequences because we stubbornly rebel against him. We have more of a fantasy Christianity where we think all the consequences are just eliminated. Not from the scripture. 1 Samuel 10, verse 17: «Samuel summoned the people of Israel to the Lord». Now, this is after Saul’s been anointed. Samuel is still gathering the people. His voice carries more authority than Saul’s. Saul’s the newcomer. «And he said to them, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: „I brought Israel out of Egypt, I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you“. But you’ve now rejected your God, who saved you out of your calamities and distresses. And you who said, „Set a king over us“. So now present yourselves before the Lord.'»
Samuel is the intermediary in all of this. It’s really difficult to get your mind around. He’s been rejected. They said, «We don’t want your leadership over us anymore. We don’t like you, you’re old, you’re a bad parent. Kids are awful. Get out of here». But Samuel’s the bridge. He’s orchestrating this transition of power, and they’re cooperating with him. Verse 24: «Samuel said to all the people, 'Do you see the man the Lord has chosen? There’s no one like him among all the people.'» How hard would it be to get your own ego out of the way to do that? He’s not being replaced because he’s not competent, he’s not capable. His leadership in Israel is going to be critical for many years yet. He knows the Lord in a way Saul doesn’t. But he’s acknowledging the choice that God has made. «'There’s no one like him among all the people.' And the people shouted, 'Long live the king! ' Samuel explained to the people the regulations of the kingship. He wrote them down on a scroll, he deposited them before the Lord, and Samuel dismissed the people, to his own home».
Samuel wrote the rules for the monarchy, not the king. It’s a remarkable narrative. You see, we have to have a heart to serve the Lord. You see, we don’t serve the Lord because the leaders that are elected serve the Lord. We don’t hold a biblical worldview because the Supreme Court agrees with us. We don’t take our faith to work with us because the corporate boardroom approves. We don’t take our faith with us to the college campuses because the regents at the university think it’s a good idea. We take our faith because we serve the King. And we’ve been a bit confused. We have been a bit addled. We have drifted a long way away, and there’s a disgruntled group amongst the people. Big shock.
1 Samuel 10, verse 26: «Saul went to his home, accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched». God’s moving the people to support him. «But some troublemakers said, 'How can this fellow save us? ' They despised him and brought no gifts». I would remind you, just in case you have, you don’t remember that there have been grumblers and complainers since Moses walked in out of the desert way back in Exodus. There were grumblers and complainers before they got out of Egypt. There were grumblers and complainers when they were 3 days on the other side of the Red Sea. There were people that grumbled and complained in the journey all the way through the wilderness.
God got tired of it one day and the earth swallowed more than 20,000 of them. Like, a crevasse opened up and they dropped in and the crevasse closed. And the next morning there were people in the complaint line. There were complainers and grumblers when Joshua led them into the Promised Land. There were complainers and grumblers all through the book of Judges. So for hundreds of years, there has been a steady stream of people who said, «We’re not cooperating». So may I ask you a question? What would you deduce from that about the generation in which we live? Is there going to be unanimity about God moving in the earth? Probably not. It may be, it just could be, that there would be grumblers and complainers.
So here’s a suggestion. Don’t join the camp. I’m not suggesting blind allegiance. That’s not the point of the observation. But when you recognize that God is moving, get involved. See, the greatest resistance, typically, when there’s a move of the Spirit of God in the earth through history, I’ve worked on church history a good little bit, and typically those renewal movements, the awakenings, whatever label you prefer, they don’t begin from the establishment, because the establishment stamps out the fire. They typically begin outside the organizational structure. Why? Because the complainers and the grumblers say, «Well, we’ve never done it that way. That’s not how we do it, that’s not what we’ve done in the past».
I smiled last week, we sang worship music from the '90s. Today we sang hymns from before the '90s. So I suppose next week we’ll be doing Gregorian chants. We’re just gonna move right through, you know, we tend to like the music of a generation that was meaningful in a time in our lives, not wicked or evil or inappropriate. Perhaps a bit immature. You know, we do age-appropriate music for the children in the nursery and it changes a bit when they get to early childhood and it changes when they get to elementary and it changes again when they get to high school. Then they’re all kind of acclimated to the music should change to fit their life progression. At some point, we become the church. Not the segmented church.
You know, a lot of language in amongst us about our generations and how we’re different. I have arrived at the conclusion of that because I’ve heard it for such a period of time now. Our age and our season in life to me feels a great deal like a darkened room with a spotlight moving across it. You know, in that moment when the spotlight rests upon you and then it moves again, that’s to me, that’s similar to the impact of your generation. Because at the end of the day, the things that make us similar are far greater than those influences that we think make us so different, amen. In our heart we’re rebellious, we’re stubborn. We’re reluctant to cooperate with God.
It’s true of all of the generational separation. It’s great for marketing ploys and it works really well. But before God we’re far more alike than we are different. There’s a disgruntled group in Samuel, 1 Samuel 11. God establishes Saul’s leadership through really a supernatural intervention. It’s a deliverance from an enemy that has plagued them for a great deal of time and through Saul’s leadership, the people find deliverance. «When Saul hears their words, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power».
One of the great differences in the old covenant and the new covenant, in the old covenant, the Spirit of God would come upon people intermittently. The Bible says that Samson would shake himself and the Spirit of God would come upon him and he’d have tremendous strength. Here, the writer records that the Spirit of God comes upon Saul in power and he leads the people through a tremendous victory over a very persistent, seemingly an adversary they couldn’t defeat. In the new covenant, the Spirit of God dwells within us. It’s a remarkable distinction. It’s not an intermittent visit because we’ve been made new creations, new creatures in Christ Jesus. Our sin hasn’t simply been atoned for. We have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness. And the Spirit of God no longer dwells in the holy of holies, in a tabernacle, or in the temple.
The Spirit of God dwells within his people. It’s one of the tremendous shifts between the old and the new covenant, and it’s not about our ethnicity or the denomination we belong to, or our biological sex. It has to do with the condition of our heart. The same Spirit that brought Jesus out of the tomb dwells in you. It’s an amazing statement. «Saul took a pair of oxen, cut them into pieces, sent the pieces throughout the country. 'This is what will be done to anyone who doesn’t follow Saul and Samuel.'» It’s just worth noting in passing that Saul’s still pulling Samuel in. I’m leading, but Samuel’s with me. It’s not an isolated, but his leadership is being established. In same chapter, verse 14: «Samuel said to the people, 'Let’s go and reaffirm the kingship.' So all the people went and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord».
After the tremendous victory, Samuel again adds his influence to secure the place for Saul. It’s a tremendous transition. Israel’s never had a king. They have no capital city. They have no central government. There’s no centralized authority. They’ve been a theocracy. God led them. When they needed leadership, God provided and the people said, «We don’t like that system. We want to be like all the other nations». Folks, you and I don’t wanna be like everybody else. Weird does not make you godly, it just makes you weird. Sometimes Christians get confused on that. They think if they act more weird, it means they’re more spiritual. No, you’re not more spiritual, you’re just weird.
On the other hand, godliness and holiness will make you distinctive from people who don’t want to be godly or holy. You will yield to the authority of God. You’ll yield to the authority of his Word. You will willingly be an ambassador for Jesus of Nazareth. It will influence every aspect of your life. That will bring a distinctiveness to you. It will cause people who don’t yield to the authority of scripture to say you’re a little different. You won’t have to act weird. Like, I would like to invite you out of weird acting. It was a problem for me as a young person. I didn’t want to hang around with Christians because I knew some that, you know, they said they were being spiritual. They weren’t being spiritual. They were being carnal with a lot of godly language and weirdness. You still love me? I give you examples. We do goofy things.
You know, years ago, it’s been a while because my driver’s license was still freshly minted. And I was given the assignment, somebody had come to the community to teach a Bible class. He’s a retired Army colonel, big guy. And then I was gonna take him to the airport, but on the way I was supposed to stop and let him pray for somebody. This was before GPS. This was almost before M-A-P-S but it was, ahem. But I had an address and I knew the general neighborhood and so, but I couldn’t find the house. And so I was gonna have to go on to the airport. He was gonna miss his flight.
And I said, «Well, I guess the devil didn’t want you to pray for that person». He looked over at me and he said, «Son, this has nothing to do with the devil. You had lousy directions». You see, sometimes we get so spiritual because we don’t want to deal with reality. Not too long ago I was doing a Bible study and it was predominantly healthcare workers and we were doing prayer requests at the end of the Small Group which was pretty normal and I asked them to pray because I had three dear friends, at the same time they were all battling cancer.
And I said, «You know, it just feels like a spiritual attack». And one of the docs spoke up, he was a little newer to the faith and he said, «Attack, nothing. You’re just getting old». I didn’t invite him back to Bible study. But I think we all succumb to that sometimes. You know, we hyper-spiritualize things when there is a more ready response to us that would engage us more directly with the purposes of God. Don’t be weird.