Sunday School Lesson 10.5.2009

Love Dare Moment

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love Dare says that love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those pillars are patience and kindness.
Patience is one area I need a lot of help with.
For me, it is not a natural response.
When I choose to be patient, I respond in a positive way to a negative situation.
I am slow to anger.

Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps me settle down and begin extending mercy to those around me.
Truth is, I don’t like being around myself when I am impatient. It usually causes me to overreact in angry, foolish and regrettable ways.
Patience helps us give our spouse permission to be human.
I need more patience.

Kindness is love in action.
If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize a negative circumstance, kindness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance.
Four parts of kindness
Gentleness- sensitive, tender
Helpfulness- meet the needs of the moment
Willingness- agreeable
Initiative- thinks ahead, first to greet, smile, serve, forgive- don’t wait for your spouse to be kind first


Carry Out God-Given Instructions

1 Samuel 13:1-15:35
Introduction
True or false- Most people give little thought to pleasing God or to basing their actions on the principles and commands in God’s word.
Most adults, including a lot of Christians adhere to a form of situational ethics whereby they act based on what “feels right” or what “everyone else is doing”
Other Christians desire to please God but struggle to obey Him.
The struggle becomes even greater when we are in a stressful situation or when obedience puts in a uncomfortable situation.
God expects us to obey Him boldly and fully.

Today we are looking at the life of King Saul in his early years.
We will see him as we ourselves tend to be.
There will be moments when he wants to do the right thing and serve God and be obedient.
But Saul fails to be the king God was looking for.
Saul, as we will we see, starts out right, but is not fully obedient.
Hopefully we will see what caused Saul to be disobedient and use it to help us to avoid making the same bad decisions.

1 Sam 13:2-14

2 Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes.
3 Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" 4 So all Israel heard the news: "Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines." And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.
5 The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven. 6 When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. 7 Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear.
8 He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. 9 So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings." And Saul offered up the burnt offering. 10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.
11 "What have you done?" asked Samuel.
Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, 12 I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."
13 "You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command."



If you remember two weeks ago, the Israelites defeated the Philistines under the leadership of Samuel.
Even though the Philistines greatly outnumbered them and were advancing toward them, Samuel offered a sacrifice to the Lord and prayed for their deliverance.
God heard Samuel prayers and defeated the Philistines.

The hostilities between the two nations rose up again when Jonathan, Saul’s son, attacked a Philistine outpost.
The Philistines had a impressive army.
Overwhelming numerical superiority.
Soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore
They gathered forces preparing to attack Israel in retaliation.

What was the Israelite soldiers response?
They ran, hid in caves and thickets.
Crossed the river.
The ones that didn’t run were quaking with fear.
Things were desperate for King Saul.
Samuel had instructed Saul to go to Gilgal and wait seven days.
Samuel would then offer a sacrifice and give him further instructions from God

Was Saul obedient?
Yes, initially.
Do you think Saul intended to be obedient to God totally?
Yes.
What happened?

Saul let fear and impatience get the best of him
Every day he waited, more and more soldiers ran away.
Every day he waited, more and more Philistines mobilized.
The situation was hopeless from his perspective.
Was Samuel late?
No, he showed up right when he said he would on the seventh day.


What did Saul do that was so wrong?
He wanted God’s blessing and help in the battle.
He had done everything God had said to do up to this point.
He was disobedient to God.
God told him to WAIT until Samuel arrived for further instructions.
NEVER instructed him to offer sacrifices.
Reserved only for the priest.
He knew better.

Look at his response when challenged by Samuel.
Its everyone else’s fault.
You were late.
The soldiers deserted me.
The Philistines were about to attack.
We need that sacrifice!!!
I forced myself to do it!!!!

What about us?
Its easy to trust God and follow His commands when things are going right. (easy to show patience and kindness when there is no conflict)
But when things start going bad beyond our control, trusting God becomes more difficult.
Last week it was easy for Saul to be victorious with 300,000 men. Little harder this week with 600 men!
We have to be on our guard or these fearful, chaotic situations will cloud our judgment and prompt us to make foolish decisions and disobey God’s commands.

Saul’s foolish decision was based on the fact that He didn’t understand God.
He was more worried about the consequence of not sacrificing more than he trusted in the God to who the sacrifice was given.
Saul placed his faith in the ritual to get God’s blessing versus being obedient to the God of the ritual.
Samuel talks about this in chapter 15.

1 Sam 15:1-9
15:1 Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"
4 So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim — two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men from Judah. 5 Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. 6 Then he said to the Kenites, "Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.
7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs — everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.


God delivered the Israelites from the Philistines due to the faith of Saul’s son Jonathan.
Now Samuel has instructed Saul to attack and completely destroy the Amalekites.
They were under the judgment of God for attacking the Israelites as they left Egypt and headed to the promise land.
Is Saul obedient?
Partially


What did Saul do?
First, he spared Agag, the king.
He spared the best of the animals and of everything else
If God calls something condemned and commands it to be destroyed, how is it the best?
He gladly destroyed the worthless, undesirable things.

Do you think Saul planned on fully obeying the Lord when he went into battle?
Yes
So what happened?
Saul redefined obedience.
Saul was happy to be obedience when it was suitable to him.
It didn’t make any sense for him to destroy something that they could use for other purposes.
They were greedy.

Saul was obedient to God in almost every area.
Saul either lied to Samuel about the purpose of keeping the livestock, or rationalized a reason for keeping it (we will use them for sacrifices!)
It didn’t make sense to Saul to destroy perfectly good livestock. He didn’t see the harm.

God is not calling us to go out and completely destroy a people.
He is calling us to do something even harder.
Col 3:5

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.



We are to completely destroy (put to death) anything that is within that is worldly.
But you say, that is so extreme.
That doesn’t make any sense.
People believe we can select the portions of God’s instructions that they will carry out.
We believe God should appreciate what little we do.
A lot of us call doing part of what God wants is obedience

God expects us to be obedient.
He expects us to be fully obedient.
He defines obedience – not us.

1 Sam 15:20-23

20 "But I did obey the LORD," Saul said. "I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal."
22 But Samuel replied:

"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king."


Saul was still trying to justify his disobedience.
Samuel reminds Saul and us that God is much more interested in obedience than he is rituals.
What is the analogy today?
Church attendance, tithing, serving for show or out of obligation- mean very little if done for the wrong motives or you are living in sin.
Carrying out worship practices can never substitute for carrying out Gods’ commands.
Conclusion
Can you identify with Saul today?
I sure can.
I make mistakes and disobey God all the time.
I certainly do it more when I am in a stressful situation or scared.
I am probably worse than Saul about redefining obedience when it is convenient for me.
Then I go to church on Sunday, look spiritual, and think that everything is OK.
God help us.