Saul’s Mixed-up Priorities

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Well, as I mentioned to you earlier in talking about the series that we’re going to start today, I really love the stories of the Old Testament. I always have. I love those stories since I was a little kid in Sunday school and learned them.

But God didn’t just put them in the Bible so that we could say, well, isn’t that interesting? There’s a reason for each of those stories, and usually they tell us something about the character of God. They point toward Jesus Christ in some way.

They give us some sort of example that we can follow. There’s some reason for them being in there, and it’s our job to figure out what we can learn from those stories. And as I said, many of those stories will give us examples.

Some of them are positive examples to follow, where the Bible says, here’s somebody you want to be like. Some of them are negative examples that we’re supposed to avoid, where the Bible says you don’t want to do what that person has done. And Saul would fall into the latter category.

He was somebody who started out well, started out, as I mentioned, with tremendous potential to serve God. Saul, unlike a lot of kings in his day, didn’t fight his way to the throne. And he wasn’t born to the throne either.

Those were pretty much the two ways that somebody became king in the ancient world. You were either born the son of a king, you were the heir, or you fought your way to the throne. Saul did neither of those things.

Saul was appointed by God and anointed by God is the word that the Bible uses. But when the people of Israel said, we want a king, and the prophet Samuel said, no, you don’t, and he warned them about all the things that were going to happen, and he said, he’s going to raise your taxes sky high. He’s going to take your sons to be in his standing army.

He’s going to take your daughters to work in his household. He’s going to, you know, you’re going to have to support your king. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The people said, no, we want to be like everybody else. That was the point of Israel. They weren’t supposed to be like everybody else.

And God gave in. God said, Samuel, they haven’t rejected you. They’ve rejected having me as their king.

So give the people what they ask for. And yet God picked somebody who had the potential to be a good king. Because I don’t think at this point God was ready to punish them for their disobedience.

God tended to give Israel chance after chance after chance, as he does with us. And I’m thankful that God is gracious. And so God chose Saul and said, here’s somebody who not only looks the part.

The Bible teaches that Saul looked like a king. That’s kind of important. You want somebody who’s going to be imposing against the enemy that they’re not going to want to mess with.

He looked the part, but also God said, here’s somebody who has the potential to rule well. And so God put him in this position where he was all of a sudden king of Israel. And he started out with this potential to be a great man.

As a matter of fact, God said, if you’ll serve me, if you’ll serve me well, then your family will sit on the throne for several generations. Now, they weren’t going to stay there forever because God had made a promise that the king of Israel was going to come through the tribe of Judah. And Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin.

But God, if Saul ruled well, God was going to honor him by allowing Saul’s, letting Saul be the beginning of a dynasty. He was going to let Saul be the beginning of the dynasty and let Saul’s family sit on the throne for a few generations. And I think everybody in Israel was excited about having Saul on the throne.

He was somebody who started out really well for about two years. He did well for about two years. And I believe his reign was 40 years, and it was kind of downhill after those first two.

And what we’re going to look at over the next several weeks, or four weeks, four is not several, this and the next three weeks, we’re going to look at four of Saul’s great failures. Four of the places where Saul took the potential that he had and the office that God had given him, and he squandered it. And you may have seen on the pictures on the door on the way in, I’ve called this series the sideline servant, Because God intended Saul to be this great servant who was going to do great things in Israel.

And Saul messed up so much that he ended up just being completely sidelined. He had to set out the game. He wasn’t the king.

He didn’t get to be the king that God had called him to be. He squandered this. And I think that as we look at these failures of Saul’s, we can learn from these as well.

These will give us some things to remember. Because if you are a Christian in this room, I recognize there may be some of you in here who are new to the idea of Christianity. Maybe you came with somebody else.

Maybe you’ve never trusted in Christ as your Savior. You’re here because you’re curious or you’re here because somebody else brought you. I think there’s some things that you can learn as well.

But this really is geared toward those who’ve said, yes, I belong to Jesus Christ. I believe in him as my Savior. I trust him. I want to serve him.

if you’re a Christian, you’ve been called to serve God, and he’s put you in a position to be able to serve God. He may not put you in a position of great authority like King of Israel, but God has put you where you are to serve him, and then he’s given you the opportunity to choose whether you’re going to do that well or not, okay? And he teaches us what we need to do to do it well, to be faithful.

Saul is an example of some of the ways that we can mess that up. Now, before we get too far into this, I do want to tell you too, don’t look at this as the story of Saul as somebody that, oh, he messed up and God could never use him again. And so the moral of the story is that if I’ve messed up, I’m done serving God.

He can never use me. That’s not the point because we’re going to look at four major failures that he had, but these took place. These were not all of them.

And these took place over 38 years. 38 years. And what that tells me is that God gave Saul 38 years of opportunities to change course and do what he was supposed to do.

It’s not God’s fault that Saul just chose the wrong option all the time. That God gave him 38 years of opportunities. And so as we read through this, don’t think, well, I’m just a Saul.

I’ve messed up before God can never use me. That’s not the point. Because even after Saul messed up, you know, there were consequences and God said, okay, you’re going to lose the kingdom.

He didn’t necessarily take it away from him right then. God said, okay, your descendants are not going to sit on the throne after you. But God didn’t just remove him from the throne.

God still gave him opportunities. God still gave him the chance to be used. And see, we serve a God who’s gracious.

And we serve a God who even when we mess up, There may be consequences. And if we’re honest about it, there should be consequences when we disobey him. But we serve a God who gives us chance after chance.

He gives us more chances than we deserve. And so the moral of this story and the stories that we’re going to look at over the next few weeks is not you’ve got to do things perfectly or God can never use you. It’s avoid these pitfalls because they get in the way of you serving God.

And do this instead. Even if you’ve messed up, God can still use you. If he gives you another opportunity, he can still use you to avoid these things.

So as we study what Saul did in the past, different Saul, by the way. This is not the one who turned into the apostle Paul. As we study what Saul did in the past, this is not about what we’ve done in the past, because God forgives and God gives grace.

This is about what God calls us to do in the future, and how we can learn from his example what not to do and to do it well. So when we come into 1 Samuel chapter 13, and if you’re new to the scriptures, it’s about halfway through your Bible, almost halfway. It’s the ninth book of the Bible, 1 Samuel, right before 2 Samuel.

So if you get to 2 Samuel, you’ve gone too far. Turn back one. 1 Samuel chapter 13, when we get there, we’re two years into Saul’s reign.

This is where things start to go downhill. And he’s dealing with the Philistine invasion. Philistines were a barbaric pagan tribe that lived next to Israel and gave them constant trouble for hundreds of years.

And where we are in chapter 13, they’ve invaded and they’ve nearly split the country in half. They’ve marched through the middle of the country and they’ve nearly split it in half. And seeing that they were camped at this city called Geba, it was in the center of the country, it was north of Jerusalem, they’ve got this major fortress there and Jonathan, who was Saul’s son and a pretty good guy, said, you know what, we can’t let the Philistines stay there because that lets them cut the country in two.

So Jonathan took some men and he went up to Gaba and he was able to overrun their fortress there. He was able to kick the Philistines out of that little fort in the middle of the country. Well, this incensed the Philistines and they sort threw everything they had at the Israelites.

Think of the way America reacted after Pearl Harbor. One attack, and then we threw everything we had at them. That’s sort of what they did.

One attack, and the Philistines said, oh no, this is not going to stand. And so they threw everything they had at the Israelites, and it says there were 30,000 chariots and 6,000 cavalrymen, and there was Enumerable infantry, I think it says there were as many foot soldiers as the grains of sand on the seashore. Obviously, that’s hyperbole.

The Bible doesn’t mean there were trillions and trillions of soldiers. It just means there were so many, you couldn’t count them. And they sent all of these people, and they sent them back into the middle of the country.

They wanted to retake Geba. They wanted to retake the fortress. They wanted to teach the Israelites a lesson.

So they took everything, and they threw it into the middle of Israel around Geba, and they camped at this city called Michmash that was not too far away from there. And they were prepared to teach Saul a lesson and his armies once and for all. And so the people of Israel saw this and they became worried, as we would be.

Imagine the Russians were camped out in Shawnee. We might get a little nervous, right? That just at any time, they’re going to come overrun us here.

And so the people started to flee. They started fleeing to the east across the Jordan River. And some of the army did the same thing.

Some of the Israelite army got nervous and began to flee across the river. They began to desert. And Saul stopped at the river just before the river in a town called Gilgal. And he said, I’m going to wait here for the prophet Samuel.

We don’t have all the details, but we can read from the text that they had already made an agreement that in seven days Samuel was going to meet him there and he was going to make a sacrifice to the Lord asking God’s favor for the Israelite armies. And so Saul stopped there at Gilgal. he didn’t flee across the river, he just went up to the edge of the river and stopped there. And he waited for Samuel for seven days.

And Saul believed, and I think rightly so, he believed that if Samuel made this offering to God, that God would give them victory over the Philistines. That if Samuel just came and made a sacrifice and prayed, God would pretty much do whatever Samuel wanted. Now that doesn’t mean that Samuel had power over God, that just means Samuel was on the same page with what God wanted.

And so he waited seven days. The refugees continued to flood across the river. They continued to go across the Jordan.

His army was continuing to desert. People were sneaking away. The forces were crumbling around him.

It was just a really desperate situation there in Gilgal. And Saul became really anxious when day seven came and Samuel still hadn’t arrived. And as we like to tell our children, the day is not over. They’re asking at breakfast time.

I thought we were going to Chick-fil-A for dinner. It’s not dinner time yet. The day is not over.

And yet day seven gets there and it’s like the sun comes up and Samuel’s not there and Saul starts to doubt because he was supposed to be here in seven days. Okay, day seven’s not over yet. So here’s where he begins his mistake.

We’re going to look at chapter 13, verse 9. And Saul said, bring hither a burnt offering to me and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.

Okay. Samuel hadn’t arrived yet, so Saul said, I’m just going to do this myself. There were a couple reasons why Saul wasn’t supposed to do this.

He offered the peace offering, the burnt offering, and there’s a lot involved there. We don’t have time to get into this morning, but basically they’d take a bull, they’d slice it up in pieces, they’d burn it on the altar, and they’d offer it to God. There were two reasons why he wasn’t supposed to do this.

First of all, there was sort of the general principle that these sacrifices were only supposed to be offered by priests and Levites. God had already said that. And Saul wasn’t either.

The priests and Levites all came from the tribe of Levi, and Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. And so already, you’ve got Saul taking matters into his own hands and saying, you know, I know God said this, but I think this, and this is what I’m going to do. Anytime you find yourself thinking, I know God said this, but you’re treading on dangerous ground, all right?

Stop and think it through. That’s what he did. He said, you know, God said, these people are supposed to make the sacrifices, but I’m king of Israel.

I can do what I want. And he made the sacrifice himself. There was also the particular reason.

There’s the general reason of it’s supposed to be a priest or a Levite. There was the particular reason that God had told Saul to wait for Samuel, who would be there in seven days. Particular to this situation, God said, wait, and Samuel will be there.

They had already agreed to that. They’d already discussed it. We see that in verse 13 later on that they talk about it.

It was already, he knew what he was supposed to do. It wasn’t even, oh, let’s go look and see what the Bible says, the Old Testament, the scrolls. Let’s see what they say.

He had been told in this specific instance, you need to wait. This is what you need to do. Saul didn’t wait the seven days, but instead he took matters into his own hands, and he offered the offering.

It says in verse 10, And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of the offering, the bird offering, behold, Samuel came, and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him. So if he just waited a few more minutes, Samuel literally walks to the camp as soon as Saul is finished with this offering. And Saul, here’s the thing, Saul didn’t seem to be bothered by his disobedience.

It’s not that Samuel gets there and he thinks, oh man, I should have waited. Why didn’t I just wait a few minutes? He felt like he was the king so he could do whatever he wanted to do, whatever he felt needed to be done.

And we can see this in his attitude because it says he walks out ready to salute Samuel like, hey, how you doing? What’s going on? Look what I did.

He’s proud of himself because by golly, he saw something that needed to be done and he got it done. So when word came that Samuel was arriving, he went out to greet him in a good mood because he’s proud of what he’d done. Now let’s look at verse 11.

It says, And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash. Therefore said I, the Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord.

I forced myself, therefore, and offered a burnt offering. So Samuel came up to him, kind of like a parent would do to a child, and says, what have you done? What have you done?

What were you thinking? I asked that question at least several times a week. What were you thinking?

See, Samuel already knew. God and Samuel were very close. and I think God had told Samuel what had happened.

So he knew that something had gone wrong and as soon as Samuel asked that question, Saul knew he had done something wrong. You’d think Samuel would be proud of him or he probably thought Samuel would be proud of him for making this offering and consulting God but Samuel obviously wasn’t. So he realized he had done something wrong and he does what all great men in the Bible seem to do.

He tries to lay the blame elsewhere. I mean, he goes back to the Adam strategy. You know, Adam tried to blame Eve.

He tried to blame God. That woman that you gave me, he’s trying to blame everybody but himself. Well, Saul starts trying to blame everybody but himself too.

He says, the people were deserting me. It’s their fault. The people were leaving.

The army was crumbling. When he talks about how you, he tells Samuel, you weren’t where you were supposed to be. I expected you to be here already, ignoring the fact that the seventh day wasn’t over yet.

He said the Philistines could have attacked at any moment. So the issue here is his disobedience to God, but he tries to blame the people. He tries to blame Samuel.

He tries to blame the Philistines. It’s everybody’s fault but his. And then he tries to distance himself from the decision because he says he did it against his will, out of necessity.

I didn’t want to do it. I had to do it. If you read that in verse 12, I forced myself.

I didn’t want to do this. well then why did you walk out of there so proud and self-assured a minute ago ready to salute he’s trying to deflect the blame here I forced myself he says he makes the point what if what if the philistines attacked and I hadn’t performed this ritual what then what would have happened then so he’s trying to make it as though I had no choice I was disobedient because I had no choice and many times when we’re disobedient and we think we had no choice we had a choice we just chose the wrong one. I know that’s true of myself a lot.

And one of the things that I like about doing this series on Saul is it gives me a chance to address some issues that people are confused by. There are some stories in 1 Samuel that Christians are confused by and skeptics say, yeah, well, what about this? So clearly, you know, God is not who he says he is.

Here’s one of those issues. Why God would think this was such a big deal. This whole thing is foreign to us. And as Christians, we would look at this and say, what’s the big deal?

He went to worship. What’s the problem? The sacrifice, here’s the problem.

The sacrifice was meant to show that the army and Saul himself were dedicated to God. It was meant to dedicate them and their efforts and their victory to God. It was a way of showing their submission to God and their trust in him.

That was the significance of doing the sacrifice at that moment before they went to war against the Philistines. They had sacrifices they were supposed to do all the time. But the significance of this one really was, in its timing, to show their dedication, their submission, and their trust toward God.

None of those things were shown when the sacrifice itself was disobedient, when it was done in a way that was disobedient. And as Christians, for us, the concept of the sacrifices is foreign to us. We don’t get this.

We think, okay, he was wrong in some details, but he still went and made the sacrifice. That’s not the problem. The problem was not that Saul got some minor details wrong.

The problem was that Saul, because he was the king, thought he was enough of a big shot that he could do whatever he wanted. He could worship God in whatever way he chose, and that God would just have to be okay with whatever Saul was willing to offer. When you get right down to it, it’s not a problem of the details.

It’s not an issue of the sacrifice. It’s an issue of the condition of Saul’s heart that led him to do the sacrifice in that way. so there’s the problem and we don’t offer sacrifices here there’s a lot of rituals involved in the bible that we don’t do because they’re old testament rituals but you and I face the same issue all the time even as christians we face the same issue problem is not in the details even when we’re even when we’re outwardly serving god the problem’s not in the details the problem is the condition of the heart that says I can do what I want and god’s just going to have to be okay with it.

That was Saul’s attitude. His approach, because of the way he did the sacrifice, because of the attitude behind it, his approach was not about honoring God. It was not about dedicating anything to him.

It was not about showing submission or about trust. It was about treating God like a lucky rabbit’s foot or four-leaf clover or magic spell. You know, we have to make this offering because if we do that, then God will give us what we want. Then it’s almost like God is obligated.

If we go through this magic ritual, then God will have to give us what we want. That was Saul’s approach. And as long as we go through the ritual, I can do it however I want because I’m King Saul.

And clearly, God was not okay with Saul’s attitude. And if we try to treat God like a lucky rabbit’s foot, that he just does whatever we want. If we do this, then he’s obligated to us for that.

And so we can work God and we can maneuver God to do whatever we want. And he just has to be okay with whatever we offer. God is not going to be okay with that arrangement.

Okay? He’s just not. I’m sorry if that bursts anybody’s bubble.

But he’s just not. The God of the Bible is not okay with that arrangement. He wants our trust. He wants our obedience.

So all of that was Saul’s mistake. And then we see the consequences as we look at verses 13 and 14. It says, And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly.

Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee. For now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue.

The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be a captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. There were consequences to Samuel’s disobedience. Folks, there are always consequences to our disobedience.

They may never be this dramatic. I mean, you may never be at the helm of an entire country and then lose your throne because you were disobedient. But I’m here to tell you there will always be consequences for our disobedience.

See, and it’s also, I want to clarify this, it’s also not that God is sitting up there waiting to zap us every time we step out of line. Because God is gracious and God is merciful. Sometimes things are just a natural consequence that God doesn’t even have to give it to us as a punishment.

You know, if I go and gamble away all of my money, and then I lose my house and my car and can’t feed my children, is that God punishing me or is that a natural consequence of my disobedient choices? It’s a natural consequence. Then there are times that God steps in and says, okay, we need to deal with this.

But whether God specifically does it directly or whether God allows it to happen as a natural consequence of our disobedience, there’s always going to be a consequence. We cannot continually obey God and think we’re just going to get by with it forever. I say that to myself as well because God is gracious, and so sometimes you do something or say something wrong and nothing happened.

Nothing happened that I could see, so I think I can get away with it. That’s why my attitude in traffic has gone unchecked for so long. But you know what?

There’s a natural consequence in that when I start hearing my children use words like jerk when we’re in traffic. Okay? I was on my best behavior in Dallas this weekend, I promise.

there’s a natural consequence and it only gets worse from there we can’t disobey god and think that things are always going to go our way god offered to let the throne stay in saul’s family for several generations but saul lost that privilege he lost that privilege if saul had obeyed god here then god would have made him as I said at the beginning of this he would have made him the head of a dynasty he would have made him uh sort of the ancestor that all the great king’s look too. He would have been this mythical figure in the history of Israel. He’d be sort of like our George Washington, but he wasn’t.

Instead, God gave his kingdom. He didn’t take it away that day, but God from this time began preparing the kingdom to be given to somebody whose heart did desire to honor God. The Bible calls David.

Spoiler alert, we’re going to see that it’s David if you’re not familiar with the story. The Bible calls David a man after God’s own heart. David did some pretty shady things during his life.

There’s some good examples we can look at with David and teach our children. That’s who you need to be like. There are some other examples where we say stay away from that kind of behavior.

David did some shady things, but the difference between David and Saul is that when God confronted David about his misbehavior and his disobedience, David was repentant. David realized he was wrong and he admitted he was wrong and he asked God’s forgiveness. Even though he sinned, he wanted to be right with God.

Saul just, when God said, you’re wrong here, Saul doubled down. And Saul refused to get right with God. So God was already preparing to give the kingdom to somebody who would love him and obey him.

And we can learn some lessons from this story of Saul. Because I would think that anybody in here who’s a Christian, I think we all want to serve God. God will sometimes call us to do things, and that doesn’t mean we always want to do the individual things that he calls us.

There are things God calls me to do, and I don’t want to. And I feel like sometimes God looks at me and says, like, it matters that you want to or not. I didn’t ask.

God calls us to do things, and we don’t always want to do them. But I think as Christians, overall, in a general way, we want to serve God. We want to run well.

We want to finish well. And there are some lessons that we can learn from to avoid, hopefully avoid, some of Saul’s mistake. His big mistake in the story, again, is the way his priorities were backwards.

We can see Saul’s priorities being backwards all throughout the story if you go back and look through it. God was never Saul’s priority. Saul’s priority was always Saul.

And if I’m not careful, Jared’s priority is always Jared. And surely in a group this size, there’s at least one other person here who fights with that. hopefully I’m not just preaching to myself this morning oh actually hopefully y’all got this all figured out that would be the ideal scenario but if I’m not careful Jared’s priority is Jared no Jared’s priority needs to be God you see the way he Saul did the sacrifice look at the way he did the sacrifice and then ask yourself what mattered more what mattered more what God commanded or what Saul felt like doing I think it’s pretty clear what Saul felt like doing is what mattered to Saul God was not the priority.

The reason for the sacrifice, what mattered more? Honoring God and giving him glory in the upcoming victory or treating the offering like a magic ritual that just had to be done so that Saul didn’t lose. I think it’s pretty clear Saul was just saying, let’s get through this.

Who cares how we do it? Let’s just get through this so I don’t lose. Again, Saul’s priority was not God.

When we read this story, it’s pretty clear that Saul Paul started out as a man who wanted to serve God, but he ended up believing his own press. You know what I mean by that? He started believing he was really as great as everybody around him said.

And so he started to think he could do whatever he wanted to. And he ended up serving himself. Got his priorities backwards.

Folks, we have to keep, again, I’m speaking specifically to the Christians in this, to those who believed in Jesus Christ, who trusted him as their Savior. we have to constantly keep our priorities in check. We have to stay on top of this.

If our top priority in serving God isn’t to glorify him, then we’re heading down a dangerous road. And that applies to all of our situations. We serve God, we’re obedient to him, but why are we doing these things?

What is the priority in doing these things? I have to, I mean, that applies to me in preaching. I have to remind myself all the time, why do I preach?

It’s not so that you all can say I did a good job Because I don’t always feel like I did. It’s a better priority to say, I want you all to learn the Bible and understand God better. That’s a better priority, but that’s still not the top priority.

The top priority in preaching has got to be to honor God. Because not every day are you all going to walk out of here and say, either that was a good message or I learned something. But if I’ve honored God, I’ve done what I was supposed to do.

It applies to why you’re here this morning. Are you here this morning so people can see that you’re here? So that people can say, oh, he’s a good person.

He’s always at church. Or did you see what she was wearing? How nice that was?

Or because, well, if I’m not there, how’s this going to get done? We have all kinds of reasons why we could be here serving God. But if it’s not to glorify God, our priorities are backwards.

And there’s really no point for it. Anything we do to serve God. Telling people about Jesus.

Are we telling people about Jesus because that’s what we’re supposed to do? Are we telling people about Jesus because I feel guilty if I don’t? Am I telling people about Jesus because I want them to know him?

That’s a good priority. But the even better priority is to glorify him. And if we get that top priority right, everything else just sort of falls into place where it belongs.

Because if we want to see Jesus glorified, we’ll also want to see people come to Christ. We’ll also, everything else will be in the right perspective. But anything we do in Go