Because…

Everything needs a motive, a reason, a driving force; a “because”.

I clean my teeth because I don’t want them to fall out. I talk to people because I enjoy community. I eat food because I’m no good on an empty stomach.

We’ll usually only do something if it’s worth it; if the value of the result at least matches the effort we might expend.

Where does that then leave us in relation to God? What “because” could we possibly offer him?

“He rescued me because he delights in me.” – 2 Samuel 22:20

Wow.

In God’s eyes, our value is worth any effort. And it is value that stems solely from who we are, from who he made us to be. He delights in us. He loves us. That’s why he rescued us to be with him (Romans 5:8).

Again, wow.

David & Goliath: A Different Slant

We haven’t had a 1 Samuel entry for a little while, but fear not: today sees the end to this drought! We’re about halfway through the book now and we’re just about to meet its most famour character: David, son of Jesse. In 1 Sam 16, God sends Samuel to go find a new king to anoint and he promptly heads to Jesse’s house in Bethlehem. This chapter is a classic example of how God’s way of viewing people is completely different to how we often do it – “People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (v.7) – but more on that in a second.

Jump forward to the next chapter and we find one of the most memorable stories in the Old Testament: David & Goliath. Everyone knows this story, church background or not. It’s so popular because it tells of how man can overcome the odds – look at pretty much any Hollywood movie and you’ll see that that’s something we love to imagine ourselves doing. And you can. Because God can strengthen you in any situation. And he has made you an overcomer. There is no giant in your life so big that he cannot defeat it.

But I’d like to draw your attention to another lesson from this whole section of the story. If you look back to 1 Sam 16, notice how when Samuel asks Jesse to bring out all his sons, the father doesn’t even include David initially – it is only after all the others have been passed over that David gets a call, the “last resort”. Similarly, in 1 Sam 17 :28 when David heads to the front with supplies, one of his brothers dismisses him, asking why he wasn’t doing the only task he was fit for: looking after “those few sheep in the desert“.

David’s biggest challenge wasn’t Goliath – it was having a family, a father in particular, who didn’t believe in him. But thankfully, he hadn’t fallen into the trap of agreeing with their doubts – he had made a connection with his heavenly Father by which he believed what God had to say about him: that he was a champion. Unlike Saul, he didn’t need the affirmation of people because he found enough of it in God.

And the result? He started doing ordinary things in extra-ordinary ways. He didn’t just move sheep around; he killed lions to look after them. He didn’t just take his brothers lunch; he stuck around and won the war. He was a giant-killer before he met Goliath and he continued to be one afterwards. And not only that, he went on to raise up a whole new generation of giant-killers in the form of his “mighty men” (look it up).

So what am I saying? Believe what God says about you rather than looking for human affirmation – you’ll change the world. Actually.

And a classic Bill Johnson quote to finish:
“I cannot afford to have a thought in my head about me that He doesn’t have in His.”

Knowledge is Power

We’re back on the 1 Samuel train. Israel’s to-and-fro with the nations around them continues into chapter 15 of our current book of choice. However, it is with Saul individually that this post is concerned. Within 1 Sam 15 we see final confirmation of God’s decision to remove Saul from the position of king – once more he disobeys a direct command from God and Samuel is sent to give him the bad news. It is in looking at the reasons behind Saul’s disobedience that we can take some lessons about how we are to be faithful in our service to God.

IMPORTANT: It’s vital that we all remember that God didn’t reject Saul as a person, he just rejected him as king.

Ok, let’s get into this – have a read of 1 Samuel 15. (I did on talk on this whole subject the other week at summer reach – you can listen here if you so desire.)

Once more, I think there are two main things we can take away…

1. Saul had religion and not relationship.

Check out verse 15, where Saul says to Samuel “…But they are going to sacrifice them to the Lord your God“. He does this again in verse 21 and 30, refers to God as “yours” rather than his own. Rather than having his own relationship with God, Saul just lived through someone else’s – in this case, Samuel. He very much believed in God, but he didn’t know him and so was happy to dine out on other people’s breakthroughs (Notice how obvious Samuel’s relationship with God is in verse 16.) The problem was, this meant that Saul missed what it was that God really wanted from him as shown by vv.20-23: he valued sacrifice (religious duty) over obedience (the evidence of genuine, loving relationship).

Do we ever do that? Do we ever just go through the motions: rocking up to church, reading our bibles, maybe doing some outreach here and there, happy that someone else will be chasing after God and telling us what’s actually on his heart? Do we ever offer God sacrifices before (or even instead of) showing him love? (Hosea 6:6 ; Matthew 7:21-23)

2. Saul was a people-pleaser and not a God-pleaser.

Verse 24 shows us that the reason Saul disobeyed God was because he was “afraid of the people and did what they demanded“. However, the reason behind the reason is shown a few verses earlier…

1 Sam 15:17-18:
“And Samuel told him, “Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord has anointed you king of Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’“

Saul had confidence issues. Those same things that were holding him back in Chapter 10 are still kicking around: Saul felt like a fraud and sought to compensate by getting people to like him and affirm him. It was a classic case of mis-placed security. So not only did Saul not know God, he did not know who he was in God either – the Lord had called him to greatness, but he wasn’t living in it.

God has called us to greatness – he calls us his sons and his daughters, co-heirs with Christ, royalty. He has given us power and authority to usher in His rule and reign. And if God calls you to shine, then you shine! That is obedience, that is faithfulness.

And how do we do that? Simple – we do what Saul didn’t: we get to know God for ourselves and, as a result, get to know who we are in God.

2 Peter 1:3-4:
“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.“

Outposts

Hope you’re enjoying the series so far! We’re jumping forward a few chapters to 1 Samuel 14, where we find an episode with Jonathan (Saul’s son) and his armour bearer. Phil preached on this passage a couple of weeks back – it was great, you can listen here.

Essentially it’s a lesson in how one person + God = a majority. Jonathan, frustrated that his army wasn’t making much headway against the Philistines, decided to go and make something happen. He spotted an enemy outpost and was stirred to go and attack – to take some ground for his kingdom. On paper it was a ridiculous idea, 2 men versus at least 20, but Jonathan was convinced by one truth about God:

1 Sam 14:6:
““Let’s go across to the outpost of those pagans”, Jonathan said to his armour bearer. “Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win the battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!““

This the kind of trust in God that we need to have if we want to start raiding outposts of our own. We have to know that we know that we know that, for God, worldly circumstances and limitations are of no hindrance – the impossible is logical.

This story also gives us two keys as to how we can a foster a similar daring attitude within our communities.

1. Jonathan had someone supporting him.

1 Sam 14:7:
““Do what you think is best,” the armour bearer replied. “I’m with you completely, whatever you decide.”“

Put yourself in the armour bearer’s shoes – he must have been bricking it! Regardless of any doubts he might have had, he agreed that Jonathan’s theology of God’s omnipotence was correct and so sought about encouraging him to pursue what the Lord had put on his heart. Not only that, he was prepared to go into battle with Jonathan as well. We saw in the last post (‘Developing Champions’) how we need to call the potential out of people who may not have recognised it yet. But we also need to back up those who are already leading the charge – and nothing says that better than “Go for it. I’m with you.” Maybe try that next time someone asks you to go treasure hunting!!

2. Listen to God, and wait for the right time to attack.

Jonathan didn’t just go charging into the fight without the first thought about what might happen. No, he was very calculated and his calculation was this: “I need to see if God’s in this before I do anything else.”

1 Sam 14:8-10:
““All right then,” Jonathan told him. “We will cross over and let them see us. If they say to us, ‘Stay where you are or we’ll kill you,’ then we will stop and not go up to them. But if they say, ‘Come on up and fight,’ then we will go up. That will be the Lord’s sign that he will help us defeat them.”“

Jesus’ over-arching principle in ministry was exactly the same: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” (John 5:19). So should ours be! For reasons we can never try or want to explain, God releases certain things at certain times. We have to be aware of this fact and so, upon starting our ‘advance’, must recognise that sometimes God says ‘Go’ and sometimes he says, ‘No’. We just need to be obedient to whichever one it may be!

Developing Champions

We’re back in 1 Samuel – chapters 9 and 10 to be precise. (Click on ‘Samuel’ in the tag cloud to have little catch-up if you need to.)

The state of play is this: Israel has asked for a king and God has picked one out for them, and an attractive one at that (1 Sam 9:2). The job now for Samuel is to go and let Saul know the good news and anoint him for the task of leading the people. The thing is, while Saul might have the physical appearance of a king, inside he is timid and afraid, and presumes that he doesn’t have what it takes to fulfill his calling.

Now would be a good time to read 1 Samuel 9-10.

Here’s the message: Samuel, under God’s guidance, recognises the destiny within Saul and sets about calling it out of him – eventually releasing him into his God-given role.

First off, having told Saul he is to be king, Samuel then gives him three signs to look out for that will confirm his message. Upon seeing these signs we read that “God gave him (Saul) a new heart” (1 Sam 10:9) and that “then, the Spirit of God came powerfully upon Saul, and he, too, began to prophesy” (v10b). A good start – Saul has a semi-private confirmation but is still not yet ready to publicly declare who he is going to be (v16).

The rubber hits the road when Samuel calls all Israel together to formally announce who would be king. Now Saul knows it’s going to be him – the prophet has told him so and God has confirmed it with an obvious outpouring of His Spirit – but where do we find the would-be ruler?… “And the Lord replied, “He is hiding among the baggage.”” (v22). Saul still needed some encouragement! He found it in Samuel:

“Then Samuel said to all the people, “This is the man the Lord has chosen as your king. No one in all Israel is like him!” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!””

Saul was a classic diamond in the rough. He was a champion, but just didn’t know it yet. He needed the affirmation and encouragement of both God and man in order to have sufficient confidence to walk in his destiny. And do you what? I think we’re all like that. Everyone you know and, indeed, every person you walk past on the street is God’s cherished son or daughter – someone with a unique identity and a special purpose, regardless of how might you perceive them or how they might perceive themselves. They’re champions; maybe you’re the Samuel who needs to call it out of them?

Isaiah 45:3:
“And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness – secret riches. I will do this so you know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.”

Long Live The King?

1 Samuel 8. I love this chapter and could go to town telling you about everything I like about it, but will try and keep this brief.

So here’s the craic: Samuel has been combining the role of judge, priest and leader of the armed forces, and as such has been God’s de facto agent for leading Israel – he’s the voice of authority. As Samuel got older, he started to devolve some power to his sons – Joel and Abijah – but they were “not like their father, for they were greedy for money.” (verse 5). The result was this: Israel asked for a king.

Now this might not sound like a big deal, but it was. Even with leaders such as Moses, Joshua, and the all Judges, Israel was still very much a theocracy – they were ruled by God. And it was this characteristic that marked them out as the Lord’s chosen people. So by asking for a king they were rejecting God and abandoning their allegiance to him in favour of one of their own. Verse 7: “…the Lord replied, “for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer.”“

Here’s the bit of the passage that always strikes me:

1 Samuel 8:19-20:
“But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. “Even so, we still want a king,” they said. “We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle.”“

The key phrase being “we want to be like the nations around us.” Israel was the most privileged people group on the entire planet, despite their extremely chequered history and lowly standing. But they were prepared to give it up for that most elusive and fragile of things: worldly acceptance. They looked around and saw that they stood out, and rather than embracing that chose to conform to the norm instead of living as a community set apart for God and transformed by his favour. Now read Romans 12.

What about us?

Do we live with God as our commander-in-chief or do we want to be like the nation(s) around us? Have we swapped our authority as sons and daughters of God for submission to ‘worldly’ systems and mind-sets? Are we conformed or transformed? Something to think about…

What’s in a Word?

In case you missed the post last week (‘Summer School’), we’re going to do a bit of a tour through 1 (and maybe 2) Samuel over the remainder of the summer weeks.

A couple of things struck me about Chapter 3, but mainly it was the recurring theme of words in the passage that I’m going to comment on. (Pretty pertinent considering the last post about Chapter 1.)

Here are the verses in question:

“The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.” (v.1)

“Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” (v.7)

“And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle…”” (v.11f – God’s actual words)

“The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.” (v. 21)

To me it looks like this: words are the active ingredient.

Verse 1 speaks of “those days”; those days for Israel were bad ones – they were subject to their Philistine neighbours in many areas and their religious system was crumbling under immoral and irreverant leadership. What is noted about this time in summary?… The absence of words from God. Similarly, verse 7 equates Samuel’s lack of knowledge of God with his lack of exposure to His word. The implication being that it would the revealing of God to Samuel through a word that would initiate the boy’s relationship with his creator.

Then in verse 11 (after some to-and-fro!) Samuel gets his word – God literally speaks right to him. The content? That everything is going to change; that the current system (represented by Eli) was to be replaced. The final appearence of ‘word’ comes in verse 19 when the success of Samuel’s words is used to show that God was with him and that ultimately he would be the one to lead Israel into this new era.

The absence of a word highlights some kind of lack with regard to God. The emergence of one heralds the invasion of God into a situation. And the continued presence of a word bears witness to the authenticity of the work that God is enacting. The word is the active ingredient – when God speaks, things change.

So what’s the message? Get a word of God for your life. Get a promise from Him. It will flush out any of the deadwood in your current ‘systems’, and it will open up greater knowledge of God which will sustain you as your pursue God-given destiny.

2 Peter 1:3:
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.“

Summer School

The books of 1 & 2 Samuel are really cool, a great place to start if you want to do a bit more Old Testament reading but aren’t in the mood for a detailed description of how to kill and burn animals. They’ve got everything you’d need for a great blockbuster – miracles, wars, governmental reform, adultery, giants, rebellion. But more than that, there’s some great wisdom contained in these books so we’re going to devote a number of posts over the coming weeks to pick out some of them.

First off, chapter 1. I’m sure most of you have heard of Hannah. She was Elkanah’s wife and was getting mocked for not being able to have kids. But she cried out to God who blessed her with a son, Samuel, who would go on to lead Israel and oversee the transfer of the nation from the judges system into a monarchy – first with Saul and then, more importantly, with David. Give that chapter a read then come back. Banning Liebscher draws the following conclusion from this episode:

He sees Hannah as a prophetic picture of the mandate on our lives. We, like Hannah, are to birth moves of  God (cf. Samuel) that will establish the reign of Jesus (cf. Davidic Kingdom – Jesus was ‘of the line of David’). So we can learn some lessons from 1 Samuel 1 about how to go about that…

First, Hannah had to pass the test of whether or not her husband was good enough (vv. 9-10). She desperately wanted a son, but as that became increasingly unlikely Elkanah (understandably) tried to comfort her by encouraging her to appreciate what she already had -  namely him. For us it’s the same question: are we satisfied with simply good church or do we truly long for that move of God that will establish the reign of Jesus above all things? Do we long for revival?

Hannah had that longing. She loved Elkanah, but was consumed with her vision for a son. Here comes step two: Hannah had faith. That’s why she was praying. She knew two things: 1) that the only way her dream was going to happen was if God got involved and 2) that God listens to the prayers of his people. Even before Jesus uttered the words, she believed John 15:7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” Our call is to get join Hannah in that realm of faith; something we do by intimacy – abiding in Him, and letting his words abide in us.

This leads us onto the third point: the importance of the prophetic. To put it simply, getting a word from God. This was the kicker for Hannah. In verse 10 she is inconsolable, but have a look at her response following Eli’s prophetic declaration in verse 17: “She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.” (v.18). Hannah got a breakthrough – but it wasn’t a child, it was a prophetic word. And because she knew how to carry the prophetic (as opposed to just receiveing it) that was good enough for her – she allowed God’s word to abide in her. She had faith. And just look what happened on the back of it…

So there you go: get hungry, get a word of God for your life, learn how to let it abide in you, and have faith that as you align yourself with God in prayer he will surely answer you and bring his plans to completion (Philippians 1:6)