Terrible Trade

Good morning. Thanks for coming. It’s good to see you all. Coffee will be good churches good the last few months, but it’s even better of coffee. So thank you for grinding through this without some just to give you a little heads up. High level we are. This is a workbook that’s in the resource library. Terrorist named, which is wonderful. That is out there in the library. Um, if you need one of these, grab one of these. We’re gonna play a little catch up this week and next week. We had a guest preacher a few weeks ago and we told him, brother, share whatever on your heart. Just share the word of whatever is on your heart. And he did great, but I’m playing catch up a little bit. And so we’re gonna cover an extra chapter this week and next week. But the high level strategy is that come Easter because all your neighborhood in your networks, your friends, your family, they’re gonna get invited by you to come to church. And they’re likely to come around Easter season usually. Um, come Easter, we will be concluding this before Easter. Samuel will be starting a new Siri’s first Peter following Easter. And I love first Peter. I’ve preached that before. Other times it’s been excellent. And so we’re excited about Easter. Excited about today, Excited about everything. We’re looking at what God has been doing. Um, but just I’m gonna play a little catch up this week and next week, and that will be fine. So let’s pray, Val, your heads. Shut your eyes. Let’s pray. God, thank you for today. Thank you for what we’re looking at. In your word. I thank you for your word is powerful asset people would hear from you and your your scripture. I set your spirit convict hearts I set your word would instruct hearts pray to kick people in the But I need a butt kicking approach. You encourage and support people that need encouragement that need a hug from you, Lord Heavenly encouragement. Lord, I ask that you just really give us what we need. Three a word today I pray people would hear from you and your scripture in the book of First Samuel, we just love you and commit today to you in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. So when you when you preach, there’s There’s parts of the Bible. You you gotta preach in parts of the Bible you wanna preach and there’s preference preaching. And I’m a rehabilitated preference preacher who who, uh, check the wrong thing there. I’m a rehabilitated preference preacher who doesn’t always prefer to preach certain sections of the Bible. There’s parts I prefer, but today is lucky for me. Ah, part of the Bible I do enjoy was looking at. I do enjoy this subject we’re looking at today. We’re looking at transitions, um, transitioning of leadership. There’s usually stereotypically at a church. When you talk about it, this kind of theme of a sermon, it’s because someone’s getting fired. Someone’s taking a job somewhere else. Someone’s going out on church, plant someone’s feel called emissions or something. And then we’re breaking some very unfortunate or fortunate news to you guys because one of us pastors is leaving or something that’s stereotypically when people covered this topic of transition plan, succession planning and all that stuff, to my knowledge, into the first service fasters knowledge. We don’t know if anything big that’s happening like that in our church, but it’s okay to preemptively preach through a passage that is usually steeped with excitement. Um, if that’s okay, so first annual 89 10, 11. We’re covering a lot today. The nation of Israel is transitioning from, uh, theocracy to a monarchy king leading a kingdom. The Nation of Israel is looking around at all the other nations around them, the Philippines, Emirates, and they They want to be like the other nations around them. And they approach Samuel and they and they lay out, lay out their concerns. Um, in every organization, every leadership in every organization you have. Ah, you have a list on your phone or a list in your drawer of If this person puts gives you there two weeks notice you’re gonna you’re gonna reach for a trash can. You’re gonna be nervous. There. You’re gonna be scared. Andi. Usually historically Christians, Christianity, churches were very bad at succession planning. Not like us, because we’re young. We haven’t had to do it yet, but some churches are very good at it. But your passenger all kind of young, so you don’t worry about that and think about that. And normally, churches kind of grow old together, and then they don’t do succession planning. Well, but I love that. What we see, some three main principles. That So it’s me looking over these four chapters this last week. Um, there’s when we go through succession planning transitions in our life when we go through transitions in your life. This is the foundational statement that we’re all running off of here. There’s transitions in your life is when people get in trouble when you transition from one season. Life when your transition for being single to being married from being married, having kids from your first job to your second job, from getting a degree to getting out of school to just getting a job. I mean, transitions in life is what gets us in trouble as Christians. Uh, those air hard times for us, usually difficult times for us, that air steeped in heartache, faith, fear. There’s a lot of trials that happen in life, and usually it’s. It’s not the highlights of the low lights that get us. It’s those. It’s those transition periods that define your life as Christians. And so there’s some very key do and don’t do this, that we can learn from this passages. Do this. Don’t do this. We talk about transitions until we prayed. We’re looking at organizational change. Um, Israel. Israel. The nation is in a transition period. Samuel has been. We’ve heard about him for last couple of weeks. He it was raining as a judge means he’s like a religious slash judicial leader of the nation of Israel. He had, like a circuit off major, influential cities. He transitioned around on the major hubs in Israel, and he’d show up and arrive and have ceremonies, do some religious work and judge situations off fighting between clans, between families, between individuals and he’d be on this circuit. He’d be moving around and and Samuel gave his entire life to lead Toa Love and to judge the nation of Israel. He was their political religious leader his entire life, and he’s getting older and older and age. And as he gets older and older and age, the clan leaders of all the different clans of Israel, the 12 clans, they’re wealthy, influential leaders, their elders come to him, and they wanna acknowledge the reality that Samuels getting older and in in Chapter eight, they won’t acknowledge the fact that his sons, who has been kind of propping up in the city together to do kind of the religious judge work also that they weren’t cutting it. They were not the same man. They were not come from the same cloth they had. Character deficit, deficit sees in their life that they were not able to do the same kind of work of the same kind of authority and trust as Samuel had. And so they come to him with an ulterior motive with a plan and they present There’s reality. You’re getting older, Samuel. What are we gonna do after you get older? We know we want a king. That’s where we pick up in chapter eight. So before we jump into chapter eight, I want you to remind you of Chapter seven. The very end of Chapter seven been covered this last week, the Nation of Israel repented and they turned their heart from idols at the end of Chapter seven last week. And then they’re in the beginning of Chapter eight. The Nation of Israel is adapted and modified and evolved. Teoh, a new idol. They wanna be just like everyone else. They wanna look like the Joneses. They wanna they wanna chase after the amorous there, chasing after the Philistines. They want a warrior king to lead them into battle. They want a warrior king to be the central governor of their political structure. They wanna not just cut Samuel out. But ultimately they want to cut God out of their leadership structure. Because if you had a king, you could bribe him. He can die. He could be manipulated. He could be wooed. He can. You can curry favor of a person. It’s very difficult to curry favor bride, manipulate Wu and outlive God. God, as the all raining generational king of the Nation of Israel who took them from Egypt to this current point in history is outliving everyone of these religious wealthy, all these clan wealthy leaders and they want to replace God with a man who they can lead. So we pick it up in the first eight. Let’s read First Samuel, Chapter eight versus one. When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. His first born son was named Name was Joel Joel Joel, and his second was Abuja. They were judges in Beersheba. However, his sons did not walk in his ways. They turn towards dishonest profits, took bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Mammoth. They said to him, Look your old, your sons, your not walk in your ways Therefore appoint to King to judge us the same as all the other nations have. Then they said, Give us a king to judge us When they said that Samuels just dropped, He goes to God, He prays to God and it’s personal. It’s not just attack on his legacy in his life. It’s an attack on God. But he’s given his whole life to this entire process. His whole life has been built around and riding around the nation of Israel, laying out not just as a spiritual leader but as a physical leader. And Eli had trouble of his sons. Samuel had trouble of his sons, also and not. It doesn’t seem to be at the same level as Eli Sons, but still his son’s character disqualify them from being the leader. It seems like in our circle and Christian circles, the succession planning for the main elderly lead pastor is his son. That seems to be the succession plan in most of Christianity. If you knew that or not, it seemed to be not in all churches, some churches, very good at this. I think of a few that I’ve been learning and studying about, but most churches, it’s kind of like Grandpa did it. The dad did it. The sun is doing it kind of. It’s kind of a family business. And if you if you think of like there’s a I was looking at learning about this this last couple months, it’s been very enlightening. But the statistics of there’s this leadership cliff that happens, Uh, in transitions of succession, planning of the grandpa, to the father, to the grandson. The likelihood of there being a third generation pastor in the pulpit in America is 10% right now. That’s a surprising statistic. Think about think about the cliff that happened in my own generation. My sons are in the room, so this is gonna be awkward, but they’re not paying attention. My dad got saved in college. He, he, uh, names. Iva went on a church plant, I think, to Missouri. Then he went on church. Plan toe Florida. I forget Where? Gainesville, Florida. I was born in Maryland. That’s where he went to another church plan. And then he went to, I think, Aims again for a season back to Minnesota for a season. And then he went out to do a church plant. In this. They’re all Colorado North Flynn, Brighton, Aurora, Parker. Those are different cities. I went off to college and Nebraska Omaha up the street in Omagh, Ha up the road in Omaha. And then he went, uh, toe Loveland for a season for Collins for a transitional tough season. And then he went down to Denver, downtown Denver, for another plant and then went to Kansas for another church plant. And then he went. It’s now currently in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and he helped start a church network of 262 180 some churches at its pinnacle height. That’s a lot. Well, I mean, maybe not for you. I think that’s a lot. I’ve been a few. That’s my pedigree. I don’t care. I love my life and gods let me hear. You get what I’m saying like that’s that’s that’s different, you know? And I think about like Billy Graham, Franklin Graham. I mean, this is rough, but we should move on. This is my soapbox. I’ll get off my soapbox. But there is. There’s a there’s a there’s a on There’s a There’s no biblical precedent that father’s hand the business off to their sons As far as the work of God, you see that God’s hand and God’s call on people’s life. And sometimes that’s a father. That’s a son when you look at the Patriarchs. But a lot of times that the judges and the profits, it’s God’s hand interrupting and disrupting a person’s life and placing the call of God all the person’s life. And so the Nation of Israel is trying to do that. Nepotism is keeping the family father something, and the leaders goto samu and say, Hey, this is not gonna cut it. We cannot do this. Give us someone to judge us like all the other nations. And what falls is the account of the finding the selection process and they’re raising up of the first king of visual. And what we see, if you’ve read your Bible before, is most kings in the Bible are not good kings, their human kings and their bad kings, and I titled The Sermon. A terrible, Terrible trade. If you If you’re in NFL Fan and you aren’t the Kansas City Chiefs, you’re in the market of upgrading quarterback. If the Shawn Watson or someone came along, you might be interested in trading for a better quarterback. And it’s amazing what draft capital on what actual money and what players get traded to get that franchise quarterback because all Super Bowl promised land roads usually have a pretty significantly skilled quarterback running the team. And there’s gonna be some very interesting, very bad trades that could happen in the future. To get those quarterbacks, the Nation of Israel is about to go through a horrific leadership trade that is just terrible. They’re going from God leading them just saw. And as we learn about Saul, I learned things about Saul. I didn’t realize that I didn’t know the first several times I read this story growing up. This is this is a huge pendulum swing. Think of God how he interrupted Israel back in Egypt. 430 years of them being in Egypt. Remember Joseph Brothers, Egypt? They stayed in Egypt. The nation visual grew and multiplied tremendously in Egypt, the mega superpower nation economy military Just It’s a huge, powerful country. Israel Lights grew to over a million people in the capital city of Egypt. And then God got Moses, Remember? Now, remember Moses He went in there. And there’s those 10 plagues crazy plagues that occurred. I just read this last week or so. Is these crazy 10 amazing signs and wonder plagues to prove to the nation of Israel those million people that God is Jehovah Gira, that God provides God who saves God, who redeemed his people out of Israel out of Egypt, out of Israel, they leave Egypt crossed through the Red Sea, split the ocean, walk through the Red Sea. They go out on the other side of Red Sea and there’s a pillar of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night to provide and protect them as they go around and get him outside where they get the 10 Commandments. God is introducing himself to a nation. It’s just shocking off, and God has been their leader, King, communicating to them through the priests, through the judges, communicating directly to his nation, their entire existence. And these elders goto go to Samuel and they say, Samuel, you’re getting old. We want a king like everyone else around us. Which brings us to our first point about this terrible trade transitions in life. The first main point we gotta grab onto to walk away to make these principles work in your day to day life. What are some things you can learn from these four chapters in Samuel, the first main takeaways when you’re going through transitions in life, your walk with God and the council you get is so key when you’re walking of God through transitions, trials that air transitions in life, the council you get is key. I don’t know if it was certain influential elders talking to each other, leading them a different direction. If they’re looking around at the Emirates or the philistine thing, we want to be like them. Oh, they’re intimidating a battle. We want that. I mean, we were so good at consulting everyone in anyone but God as people. And now that we have this all knowing phone in our pockets and makes it even more difficult to consult God, much less the people of God. And so there’s probably three I’m always like this or that, you know? But there’s probably a three. If you had extreme, there’s probably three extremes we fall into. Extreme Number one is the me and my Bible people. They don’t talk to people. They don’t get council. They just grab onto their Bible and they get counsel from their Bible. Raise your hand this morning. If that’s you, you got your verse. You got your promise. You dig in, you’re not budging. Doesn’t matter. Anyone, anyone, a few of you. There we go. There we go. And then there’s the other. So me and my Bible extreme, there’s another extreme over here me and my buddy, you’ve shopped around. You found someone who’s going to tell you what you want to hear, and this is their counsel. And then if you want to attacks you or criticizes, you’re like, Oh, my buddy said, And your body defends and your body protects and your body of firms and accepts anything and everything you want to do with your life. And then there’s me and my blogged your phone. I’m trying to find bees. Okay, Your phone, your all knowing Google search engine optimization world is giving you answers and, you know, curating information for you on your phone as you’re driving your car or you sit on the restaurant. Men and women, we get counsel during seasons of trials and transitions in our life, we get council. It’s not always godly, and it’s not always wise. We have to start the Bible. People were the Bible people. We have to start the Bible, and I have said this before. We cannot cut God out of line for giving counsel for people’s lives. It’s just it’s just short selling them from the whole spiritually development of, you know, spiritually bench pressing trials and transitions in their life. And they come to you for council on. Really, What you want to do is you want to grab the bar and lift up like I got you, buddy. I got you. There you go. But it’s the spiritual strain workout that grows their spiritual faith in their muscles. As a leader as a pastor, the amount of people ask me questions and opinions on their life. Get counsel for me has obviously gone up the last eight years, but before that, when I was a small group community group leader like our context. Once I became a leader, people started that. Well, they must know something. I don’t know when people come to me and get advice men and women, we wanna turn that question right back on them. Brother. Sister, what’s the Lord teaching you? Anything in this Bible answering that question about who you should get married to where you should work If you should make your roommate pay rent or not. You know what is God telling you in the Bible? We should really help them learn to rustle through the trials of life men and women. We should be those people that go to our Bibles first, obviously get godly counsel that affirms what God is teaching in the Bible. And if godly counsel does not affirm, I got teaching in the Bible. Don’t trust yourself, always pray about it. Slow down. And obviously the wisdom of man is we’ll take it if it works. But sometimes the wisdom man does not align with the wisdom of God. We see a main pitfall here during this trial that their transition trial that the leaders Theo, Elders of Israel, got God. They got council that was not godly counsel. And that just derailed the whole nation. We They no longer wanted to walk by faith. They wanted a walk, walk by sight. They wanna walk. They didn’t wanna walk by Faith and God, they wanna walk by sight in the king because they can control Woo bribe a king. They can replace the king. The Nation of Israel responded just like we so often do. They wanted to Russell with people, not with God. They wanted to seek counsel from people, not from God. They wanna have a relationship of a person or a leader, Not with God, their counsel becoming like their peers became their idol. The first warning for us as a church to pull out some truth out of these four chapters in Samuel is counsel. We have to get it in the right order from the right people in the right way. Men and women, those extremes You gotta know which you’re prone. Thio. You’re prone to googling it up. You’re prone to grabbing your group of friends. You’re prone to running to God. You got to know what you’re prone to and you gotta You gotta make sure you start with the word of God Mhm. We never want to cut God in line. We always wanna ask them to go back and look at what the Lord is teaching them in their readings there. One year Bible plants, They’re devotional plants. And this is hard for Samuel, the nation that he loved and gave his life to wanted to abandon his entire ministry model. This is deeply personal for him. It’s not just his legacy, but he knew that. You know, power corrupts people, and this new king would be corrupted. This isn’t just a retirement conversation. It’s a legacy conversation. It’s a charged, emotionally charged, lifelong ambition that they’re going after here because when there’s a change of leadership, there’s a change in. There’s a change in vision, a change in direction. The strategic plan changes. The organizational structure changes when you change from having God leading your priest and your judges to lead the nation of Israel. Teoh, a king leading the nation a king, could be correct, and crisis is an accelerant of what is already trending and happening. The threat of the philistine is the threat of the Emirates threatening Israel, growing in strength around Israel, flexing on some cities and the French part of Israel made these elders go and get council. And that was not godly, good counsel. And they didn’t lean on their Walk of God. They had human problems and human eyes, and they had human solutions to a problem only God can fix. And so so Samuel. His sons were found lacking and character and competency. This really threat is perceived bearing down on the nation of Israel. And so, after he warns them, because God told him to in a prayer time, he warns them that currently the nation visual was giving about 10% of their income to keep the temple and keep the priest line and the judges thing rolling, that a king could tax their their properties, their fields, their livestock. He can go in and recruit their sons and daughters out of their homes toe make them become servants and his kingdom. He congrats them into the military. He can come in and hand picked their servants. It was another 10% tax on top of their current 10% tax they’re living under for the organizational structure of their nation. This it was just it was. There’s a lot of unintended consequences that would have followed having a king leading the nation of Israel, Moses predicted this would happen, I think, in Deuteronomy 17. He talked about how there would be a covenant king who would have a covenant and a kingdom, and he would be a supposedly man. I feared. God, um, the Nation of Israel made the wrong decision. They had wrong council, they had poor council. Then they move forward. We pick up here in, uh, first Samuel Verse eight. I’m first Samuel eight, Verse four. So the others gathered together and went to Samuel and then the whole rest of this chapter. He’s just hammering them about what will happen and then verse 18. It’s kind of like I told you so moment, Samuel says. Kinda like he’s probably washing his hands for them, saying someday in verse 18 8, verse 18. When the day comes, you will cry out because of the king you’ve chosen because of the king. You’ve chosen for yourself, but the Lord won’t answer you on that day. They’re making the bed. They’re about to lie in a za nation. He warned them strongly and sternly as the people not to make this decision, but toe wait on God to raise up his king and his time. But they pushed ahead and they muscled forward with their counsel, I’m sure affirming them every step of the way. Anyway. That’s just just join a dismissal where he sent them back home. And he’s tasked to appoint them a king. And he said, each of them go back to your city. The very last verse of Chapter eight and then picking up in Verse nine is when we’re gonna move on to our second main statement that we can rally around as people. A second warning for us Verse nine it Chapter nine. It talks about a very mundane average experience about about Saul because we’re going to reduce the salt. He’s a 40 year old man living at home, which is not stereotypical in our day or in that day. Um, he should have been off on his own by then, is what commentators were telling me. Scholars were telling me they study this. We find out some of his character flaws, Um, but when you get when your first few words about you in the Bible that describe you. Let’s pick that up. In Chapter nine versus two, it says he was a young. He had a young man named Saul, an impressive young man. There was no one more oppressive among visual light, saying he stood a head taller than anyone else. If that’s the beginning of your bio in the Bible, that’s probably not good news for you. He’s handsome and tall, two of the three he’s got and that’s That’s not good. It doesn’t talk about his heart, his character, his sincere walk of God. It goes straight to external things. And then, as we read about this Chapter nine, which I’m going to summarize for you quickly, he seemed to be the kind of guy that you’ll see this manifested fully later in his life. But he seems to be given to fear, doesn’t always have a plan, not very decisive. Others kind of tell him what to do and prompt him along like his servants telling them they look. He it’s commissioned out by his father to find these donkeys and donkeys that there was like a hybrid of a truck and a tractor. It was a tool used around the agricultural farm but also got you places. And so some of their truck tractors roamed off donkeys, which were hard to get at that time. They’re expensive and he goes off of a servant to find them. He’s wandering around, and I think that you plan mapped this on a map. It’s not very strategic the way he’s moving around. He’s kind of just, you know, floundering and their servants like, Well, the seer was, The term for the judges is in that city over there. Let’s go up there. I have some money on me. Let’s go see if the seer can tell us if the donkeys got found at home with their down by the creek or if we should just go home. If our dad’s worried about us now, should we? You know, he’s kind of prompting along. Salt Sol goes and does it. He has some interactions with a young lady. Seems confused. He explains them a few more times, Um, and then he goes and meets Samuel. God told Samuel about what was about to happen. Samuel takes salt to the This’ll big festival, puts about a seat of prominence, gives him the choicest meat of the day. The entire festival has them quite talks to him privately on a roof at night because it’s cooler at night, spend the next morning, meets him before everyone else is up, anoints him quietly and tells him three things. Or so that are gonna happen later that day to give this Saul some shot of confidence about people giving them a gift on the way toe, Uh, worship at a Tabernacle and these oaks of tomorrow. And this third event that happens, they’re gonna boost his confidence. How the spirit Lord’s gonna come upon Saul, he’s gonna be in fills the spirit of God. He’s gonna have some more gusto in his life and just just a mundane situation. Not a lot of moving parts, just kind of like, if you read this story the king, you know, seeking talent acquisition thing of finding the King of Israel, You think we have more prompt pump and circumstance? More amazing, more showmanship. It’s kind of like a guy going out looking for a donkey and gets lost ish stumbles across the judge who quietly tells him what’s gonna happen, gives him a little pep talk and send him home. He goes home. It doesn’t tell anyone. It’s a very not what you would have expected kind of story. There’s so much Pagis Tree. There’s so much drama. There’s so much shock it off of the Nation of Israel, whole entire journey and their first King ever, you think would just be like lights out. Gangbusters. This is going to be impressive, was very mundane. And when we’re going through transitions in our life, we’re transitioning in our life. Our walk with God. We lose so much because we get lost in the mundane part of our life. Everyone’s a Christian on their wedding day and their their funeral day. I’m stereotyping, but funerals and weddings find a pastor gets, Um, council. Grab some verses. Pray. It’s all those days between the day you get married in the day you die on Monday. Monday’s the January that aren’t hopping that fast. We’re almost done team, you know, snowy, shoveling your car, scraping your car, warming your car up. I mean, there’s so much mundane parts of this human existence of your walk of God that we miss. We miss we miss God in the mundane part of our life when you’re transitioning and trials for where you are and where God’s calling you to. And that’s a trial on your soul. You’re like I need to be married. I need not this job. I need that job. That’s when I can really serve God at my full potential when I’m living in this city. When I’m in this position, when I’m doing this when I have this degree, when I have that baby, when when you lie to yourself about a future day when it things really matter. You write off today in the mundane Sunday afternoon where God can use you and walk in your life and God can speak to you and encourage you and build your faith up. But we get in trouble. We get lost in the wilderness that we get lost in the mundane nous of our life, and we waste so much of our life because your life is mundane. My life is mundane. Our lives are beautifully mundane. Most days you forget about pretty quickly. Yes, yes, you do, because most days aren’t much different than the previous day, and that’s great. And that’s that just makes us get so frivolous. with our time Christians and this season, the transitions in your life, your walk of God during the mundane is your walk of God, not just during the crisis, when someone’s sick or someone’s in trouble or someone’s dying or someone can’t pay the rent or it’s It’s the mundane Monday’s that define who you really are with God, who your Walk With God really is. Saul wasn’t seeing God on the mundane. Samuel was in tune of God and the mundane. It is amazing how much of our life just slips by us like I’ve lost myself in these notes again to services in a row. I’ve lost myself in my notes again. But the mundane times with God those obscure parts of your life is when we desperately need God. When you obey God in a mundane oh step of obedience or service or action is just critical, and God uses those moments. I was reflecting about some mundane, normal things that happened in people’s lives near and dear to me. My wife had a lady share the gospel for on the plane when she was a teenage girl before she was a Christian, which is very impactful in her life. And that dramatically changed my wife’s life, my life, many of your life. My four kids lives because the Christian was, oh, beating in a mundane act of obedience That’s huge, obeying God, just chatting. You know, this college girl was talking to a little teenage girl about God, and faith in Christianity shared the gospel of my wife. That’s that’s a simple thing that some of us would do and forget about. But it meant the world to someone else obeying God and simple, mundane things of shoveling a neighbor’s snow or something trivial and simple that you think no one’s gonna member and you’re not. Remember God remembers, and God uses that people’s lives profound ways. Don’t waste the mundane parts of your life Christians as we transition in trials and learn how to walk of God through the mundane things we see here to the next section, picking up in verse 10. And then we see all the Nation of Israel. 1st 10. This all goes home doesn’t tell anyone about his convo, Samuel, that Samuel says you will be appointed to future King Samuel calls all the elders in Verse 17, Chapter 10 verse 17 and then versus 18 19, he uses judgment language lining them up, calling each tribe out, warning them again about all the unintended consequences of raising up a king prematurely is this judgment language versus 18 and 19. There’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to blame but yourself. And then they cast lots and lots boiled down the Klan. Then they go to a tribe. Then they go to a family. Then they go to a son. They go to Saul and then Samuel, and they were like, Where is he? And they acquired the Lord. Lord said, Yes, he’s here and he’s off hiding off by the luggage by all that, which is scholars. Things like the military gear, because they’re building up their army to see if they should rally to attack the Phillies states because they’re getting close and dangerous. He’s handing off with the luggage, is what the passage says. That’s an awkward coronation of your new king. Where is he? He’s hiding over in the luggage like think of like way don’t have kings in America. Where is the new CEO, who is on the parking lot hiding behind a car? You know he’s afraid of the company. I mean, isn’t that kind of like That’s awkward? And so they run and grab him, bring him around, say, Long live the King. That’s just that’s awkward and obviously a group of people which I don’t disagree for, like critical when they’re like, Who is this cat? That’s our king. Tall, dark, handsome, scared of us. That’s not a good combination here. Long live the king. What a what an interesting, awkward, disjointed part of your Bible. First Samuel 10. And then we see at the end of end of chapter 10, this comes to our third point. So we go from council, we go toe mundane. When you’re transitions and you’re in trials, you are going to face the last verse of Chapter 10. Where is it? In my Bible, I gotta flip the page. Sorry, guys, but some wicked men said, How can this guy save us? They despise him and did not bring him a gift. But Saul said, nothing there is. There is going to be people who do not like what God is doing who do not like the transition that’s occurring. And their critics of salt. I was reading about some leadership principles. There’s 10% of people are gonna be early adapters that love change. They love transitions. They love shaking things up. They love it. We’re doing something. They’re thrilled you’re doing something else. They’re thrilled. They’re just excited for change. That’s 10% of a room. The temperature of the room is gonna very much not like change. They’re gonna be critical. They don’t like how it’s done. They don’t like change. They like how things used to be. And then 80% of the room will probably be OK. If what you’re doing is long to explain why and what you’re doing as long as you do it well, they’ll follow you. And I’ve been in Nebraska a little bit. I’ve been came here when I was 18. I’m 36. I think from my math that’s about half my life, right? That’s half my life. And so I consider myself a local 18 years, some of you shaking your heads 18 years. I think I’m a local now, okay? And so if some of you were funny, if you were, if you were in a different part of our country critical spirit, criticism, critique loud, opinionated, outspoken against people and leaders. That’s kind of culturally normal for part of our country in the Northeast. It’s kind of normal up there. Does that make sense? Our culture and Lincoln, Nebraska were kind of nice. We’re polite, were Midwest nice and were nasty. Nice. That’s how we are not this room. You guys were great, but we But we you are. You are. But but in our culture, you gotta know your city. And so our critics in our city, they’re not vocally talking about you. Usually they’re silencing you out there cynically talking about you. They’re critical, cynical critics. That’s us. If you’re different country, they’ll meet you in the lobby and say, That’s a terrible idea. Don’t do that. What are you doing? But in Nebraska, nice. We’ll just smile to your face and you know, you get what I’m saying. We’re different. That’s our city. That’s our culture. If you’re new to Lincoln, that’s that’s Lincoln Midwest for you. Um, I wish knowing your critics on face value would be kind of like this photo in this newspaper ad. This is obviously a joke, but I think this is funny. Your nemesis wanted nemesis. 5 ft eight kayaking books, Conversations by day. Anyway, it goes on. It’s funny, but I thought it was funny. But this, you know, I wish you would just see Oh, that’s that person to critic. But when you’re transitioning in life and that’s a trial and you’re walking with God, you better believe it. You’re gonna face critics. People who do not agree. If you reading your Bible, you being sexually pure. You attending church so often you go into small groups, you being in the establishment group. You praying, You studying the Bible, Not just, you know, your your degree you’re getting you’re gonna have critics, armchair quarterbacks or riel people in your life that air cynical, critical trying to sabotage you As you step out and walk in faith of God, you’re gonna have it. And now let’s look at how Saul handles this. Let’s finish out the last chapter of our morning eso Chapter nine. It transitions then from that scene ending Sara Nation, Sara ending ceremony with Saul with all the tribes. Some people’s hearts are warmed to him and go home with him and are like I’m assuming some of the founding members of his administration. Some of his future military leaders. The other group of people don’t like them. They’re critical of him. They go to Chapter 11, the enemies, the Ameri. It’s Goto, one of the fringe towns, and they start building, see Gramps around the town. I learned this book tow guy in first service, and I don’t think I’m gonna get it back. But it was like Bible machines. It was really cool. Some of things. Biblical machines. It was awesome. I gotta call him and get it back. But they build a siege around a city and they start starving the city out and they start building siege ramps and machines of war to attack that city. So the city is getting hungry and starving. Eventually, they don’t have so much. They only have so much reserves, and eventually they at that critical breaking point. So the leaders of the city like, hey, terms of surrender. Let’s talk white flag here. Thank. And then the leader, King of the Emirates is so evil and proud. They he says, I don’t care. I’m gonna cut out all your men’s right eyes. That’s just evil is like, even if you surrender. I’m gonna cut out all the men’s right eyes in your city. That’s just diabolical. Evil. And so the leaders of the city like bad news bears. Let’s stall. That’s not gonna go home well at the home team. And they say, Let us send some representatives out to the tribes and see if any wants to defend us and come to our defense. If no one does well, we’ll surrender to you. The king is so evil and so proud he lets them send out out through the siege out through the you know, the blockade sends out people messengers to the different tribes of Israel. And when Saul hears of this, he gets righteous indignation, anger, hearing about this injustice being done to this, this fellow tribe in Israel, he cuts up his oxen and sends out the oxen to the different tribes elders of the Nation of Israel, and says, This will be your oxen. If you don’t come behind Samuel and Saul and meet me here at this time in this place, we’re going to war. And so the nation of Israel gets what they the holy fear of God dread fell over the nation of Israel. All their tribes seem to have a strong showing. They had 330,000 soldiers show up for the battle. Saul. Why is it is like the highlight of his his This is the highlight of his life here. They broke up into three different Army camps. They send messages back to the guys who went to the main state that’s getting under siege. That bull attack in the morning. Tell them tomorrow noon you’ll come out. You’ll surrender. So they attack all early morning into around noon ish, and they completely annihilate. This is opposing army to destroy him. It’s epic. You read about it. And then at the end of Chapter 11, we see in Verse 12 afterwards, after this huge pinnacle of like national pride, That’s my king. You know, people are pumped. They re coronate him the way you would have thought I was going down the first time. A huge support army. He’s in his prime, crushing it. We go toe Chapter 11, verse 12. Afterwards, the people said to Samuel, who said that Saul should not reign over us. Give us those men so we can kill them. Oh, there’s 12 13. But Saul ordered. No one will be executed this day. For today. The Lord has provided deliverance in Israel. What a what an interesting, wild way. But think Saul had critics. Jesus had critics. You better believe you’re gonna have critics if you think 100% of people are gonna be behind you 100% of the time. That’s a fairy tale. That’s a lie. I don’t believe that lie. You better make sure God is behind you and godly wise people got your corner, too. Be bold in. Don’t expect the cynics and the critics that 10% always support in a firm. Everything you say everything you post everything you dio men and women probably posting things, they’re gonna move the needle. Anyways, you should talk to people, men and women critics. They sabotage many people’s lives. And many people are scared to death of critics terrified of offending someone just petrified. This youngest generation that’s in high school and college right now. Their biggest fear, I think, is that they’re gonna offend someone. That’s their biggest fear. The Gospels, offensive men and women. The gospel is the power of God. It’s foolishness and offensive to people who are not being saved by it. Look at first Samuel 10. As we close, they got to conclude sometime. Let’s conclude here, Um, these notes are not working for me first. Samuel 10. 17. This is what the Lord had said. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I brought Israel out of Egypt. I rescued you from the power of the Egyptians and all the kingdoms that were opposing you. But today you’ve rejected your God who saves you from all the troubles and afflictions. We’re just like the nation of Israel. We do terrible trades daily and weekly in our lives and the mundane part of your life. You’re changing God, a relationship of God for a sin for a vice, your trading fearing God for fearing man. We do terrible trades all the time, as Christians most of us do. We need to learn that in the mundane parts God is watching. And he’s pleased if you or your sinning when the critics of their God is watching and he’s pleased a few or you’re sinning by pleasing the critics when it comes to counsel or lack thereof. Council or too much man wisdom council. God is watching, and he’s pleased. If you men and women, we can learn a lot from the nation of Israel in the 21st century. Today, God gave us many examples of kings who have fallen and broken kings. But we have a perfect king, a God who is a giver who gave us everything for us so we can have courage to face the critics. We could have courage and conviction to stand on God. The council we can we can have a courageous, mundane life is the transition in our life men and women. But trust me, many women, it is. It is juices way or it’s there’s no other way. There’s not like a hybrid model between Give me some of Jesus Way and some of what the culture says his way. It’s It’s one way or the other. God lays the high bar up there for us. We have to be reading that word. We have to be reading the Bible and really understanding what it means. Let’s pray. Let’s do that as a comes up. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you for I thank you for being in our lives. God, you’re better. You’re such a good god. You’re better than we deserve. Obviously, we don’t deserve almost everything that we get. We don’t. It’s all from the generous nous of you. God. I thank you for caring about us and having an intimate relationship of us. I think that you’re the perfect king who made no mistakes, who reigns fairly. Who wants to redeem his people, not just from Egypt but from the sins of our lives. Lord, you want to redeem us from help and give us new life in your sons and your son’s blood. People come to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I pray they repent and yielded their sin and grab on to you and ask questions, Lord and reach out, Get help. We pray and commit this time to induce his name