“…(L)et us respond to David’s testimony, and recall our own: Have we had the opportunity to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good!’ If so, let us remember and bless the Lord at all times, praise him continually and boast in the Lord to one another.”
Israel Needs God's Covenantal Law (1 Samuel 21)
“The commandments of the Law were perfectly designed by God to teach his people the definition of love. But it was their constant predisposition to keep the external elements of the law without understanding its purpose. Though keeping the law was a serious thing, with a death sentence for rebellion, love and compassion always trumped the external trappings of the law.”
Israel Needs God's Covenantal Love (1 Samuel 20)
“There must have been at least a moment—after Saul’s gaslighting—where Jonathan felt as though he had betrayed his father and dishonored his mother. And he would certainly have had some desire to claim the comfort, control and glory of royalty for himself. Any one of these emotions could have motivated him to break his commitment to David and obey his father’s edict. Looking to the end of the story, we know that Jonathan’s loyalty to God’s people not only cost him in his relationship with his own father and king, but that he suffered lifelong separation from David as well. He did not get an immediate reward of happy fellowship to replace the family relationships, position and glory that such covenant love had cost him…”
Israel Needs an Obedient King (1 Samuel 18-19)
Tune in as Pastor Josh preaches from the extended narrative in 1 Samuel 18-19, which is bookended the removal of royal robes:
“In this context, the robes represent everything that we desire as humans: control, comfort, and glory. These are things that are uniquely possessed by the king of Israel…Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory are unable to genuinely love the people of God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will find themselves in opposition to the people of God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will find themselves in opposition to God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will lose it all anyway…”
Israel Needs a Humble Warrior King (1 Samuel 17)
“This is not a story about God’s people winning the battle. This is about the one who will go out before us and fight our battles. This is about the Lord of hosts, the God of armies who, through his anointed king, defeated the enemy of His people, prefiguring Christ Jesus, who doesn’t just help us to win the battles of life, but first he goes out before us, alone, to win the war. Only then does he call us to follow him in his victory. Like the Israelites, we are blessed to be a part of the clean-up action. Driving out the last remnant of our enemies — sin, death, and Satan — all who have already been wholly defeated by Christ…”
God Gives Israel a Humble King (1 Samuel 16)
Israel Needs a Faithful King (1 Samuel 15) (Pt 2)
“Saul foolishly sought God’s favor with sacrifices gained through disobedience; an act that belittles God and treats him as not-holy. Such presumption reframes Saul’s partial obedience as total rebellion. We are not immune to such folly. Sin always wants to hide itself from discovery, and so we, like Saul, are prone to relabelling our failures to obey as partial obedience and then calling them a success. This happens when we fail to share the gospel and call it wisdom, because we might lose influence. We disobey God by cheating on our taxes, and then say that it is so that we can give more and be more generous…There are many such examples where we are prone to sanitizing our sin and calling it a win. We disobey and call it love. We disobey and call it wisdom. Like Saul, we trust our own motives, trust our own wisdom. We disobey and then take a victory lap announcing our success in obedience….”
Israel Needs a Faithful King (1 Samuel 15) (Pt 1)
“Because of Saul’s unfaithfulness, God will give his kingdom to another; ‘a man after his own heart’ to whom He will grant an eternal covenant and promise an eternal kingdom. God’s response to human failure, time and again, is to establish and renew covenant with his people on the basis of God’s own faithfulness. This is the awesome mercy of God.”….Why was Saul rejected while David was accepted? The author emphasizes their similarities, not their differences. The story of David is not that God has finally found a better human who would be a better king. It is a story of God’s grace.”
Israel Needs a Wise King (1 Samuel 14) (Pt 2)
“I, like Saul, am my own worst enemy. I give myself the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my own thoughts and intentions. We naturally trust in our own plans, sometimes even to the extent that we fail to seek God’s timeless instruction in his word, and fail to seek the timely leading of his Holy Spirit. Like Saul, we add to God’s word what we think are pious behaviors. We can add to the list of observances, and teach others to do the same. Or we prohibit ourselves activities and pleasures which God has not restricted. Such activities make us feel spiritual, but are the seeds of man-made religion and the fruit of pride…
But like Saul, there is a greater King above me. Christ our perfect King has already won the victory on our behalf, and teaches us to walk in it through obedience. His favor is already ours, expressed in his victory over sin and death on our behalf. He has rescued us from ourselves; slavery to our own sin and the oppression of our own man-made religions. Christ has established our victory and set before us a path of continual triumph and joy (no matter what circumstance and suffering come our way). And our Great King makes no foolish oaths to my detriment; no well-intended but stupid rules. All of his commands are good, leading to my greatest pleasure and abundant life.”
Israel Needs a Wise King (1 Samuel 14) (Pt 1)
“Jonathan takes half of Israel’s armory - the One Sword he has - and sneaks out with his young ‘armor bearer’ — You know, he’s carrying all the sling-shots and sharpened sticks; maybe a club — And Jonathan, then, presents the dumbest plan in military history: first they will intentionally give up the element of surprise: ‘we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them.’ Then, they would not fight if the Philistines were foolish enough to abandon their position of strategic superiority on the hilltop, and then exhaust themselves coming down to them. But, he would attack if the Philistines invited them to scale the sheer rock wall to fight them outnumbered and exhausted. The brilliance of Jonathan’s strategy is that it is so absurd that if it did succeed it could only be because ‘the Lord has given them into our hands’.…The victory was brought about by Yahweh, not by Saul and his pitifully tiny and under equipped army, not even by Jonathan or anyone else, though many joined in for the mop-up action. As in the case of David’s fight with Goliath the battle is the Lord's…”