Sermon Tone Analysis

What do we do when the people we look up to most in the faith fall short?

This is a question that I have had to ask myself several times.

If you are like me you have had leaders in your life that you’ve looked up to.

Men and women who in your eyes could do no wrong.

Maybe they are parents or pastors or maybe Sunday school teachers or celebrities.

You hold them up to this standard of excellence and then they prove themselves to be regular people with flaws and failures.

It can be especially difficult when we see someone we look up to as a spiritual leader fall short because it feels almost as if our faith falls with them.

This topic is one that I am kinda sensitive about.

I have had pastors and role models in my life that have hurt me very deeply.

Sometimes it was because they had some kind of moral failure that affected me personally and sometimes it was because I had put them up to a level that wasn’t healthy for me to do .

Their fault, my fault, either way it can be a difficult thing to process when it happens.

How do I respond when the person I looked to as an example of how I should live doesn’t live up to my expectations?

How can my faith recover from such a blow?

Saul was thirty years old when he began his reign in Israel.

He would reign for the next 42 years.

While he was serving as king Saul would end up going to war against the Philistines.

Saul called his armies to meet him in Gilgal and when they arrived they found the Philistines were a far larger force than they anticipated.

It says they had three thousand chariots, six thousand horseman, and troops as numerous as the sands on the seashore.

Israel was so scared they began hiding in thickets, caves, some hid in wells and behind rocks, some even crossed back over the Jordan river into Gad and Gilead.

Samuel was supposed to come and offer a burnt offering on behalf of the people before they went into battle, and so Saul waited seven days and when his men began to desert him Saul took matters into his own hands and sacrificed to the Lord in Samuel’s place.

Immediately after Saul did this, Samuel arrived at the camp.

“What have you done?”

Saul knew better than to offer the sacrifice in Samuel’s place.

Although he was king of Isreal he was not qualified to fill the role of priest.

But Saul, rather than owning up to his mistake, blames it on Samuel.

“If you hadn’t taken so long to come here I wouldn’t have had to do it.

I was forced to do it”

This mistake of Saul’s comes from a mindset that if we were honest with ourselves we all struggle with.

As Saul sat there day after day he began to think can I really trust that God’s way is the best way?

And as the tension grew and his men grew more and more restless Saul comes to the conclusion that he will just take matters into his own hands.

This kind of thinking is known as contempt.

What is contempt?

Contempt: The feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn or disregard for something that should be taken into account.

Saul regards the Lord in contempt in his actions.

He disregards what God has said and moves forward with his own plan thinking I’ll just ask for forgiveness later.

He had no regard for the consequences of his actions and no regard for what God’s will might have been in that moment.

So Samuel tells him this in verse 13-15

Saul had scorn towards God’s heart, but God would rise up a king that would pursue the desires of God’s heart.

This again plays into the central theme of the book of Samuel.

God opposes the proud, and he exalts the humble.

Think about your walk with Christ.

How often would you say that you think about what God would want you to do in a situation rather than what you want to do?

We tend to think a lot like Saul.

We say I don’t want to wait on God’s timing so I’m going to do it myself.

Doing it the way God would have me feels awkward and difficult and doing it my way seems much easier.

If we are honest, God’s will for our life is an afterthought or something reserved only for really big decisions as long as it fits in with our own plans for our lives.

What would it look like if we lived as men and women after God’s own heart.

What would it look like if we said our lives are not our own, we have been bought at a price (that price being Jesus’ death) and so I won’t live my life for myself but my life now exists to glorify God in everything I do?

I’m gonna say that again because I think it is an important question to ask.

If, because of what Christ has done, I now belong to Him.

Meaning that this life which I once live for myself I now live for Him who for my sake died and rose again.

If that is true, how does that influence every thought, every action, every word, every dream, every goal, every plan?

For some it might mean answering the call to go overseas as a missionary, for some it might mean using our talents and abilities for His Kingdom, it might mean growing in our understanding of the word so that we can serve as Sunday school teachers.

It might mean showing kindness and compassion towards others.

It might mean being respectful and kind with our words rather than sarcastic and harsh.

It might mean being a friend to someone that doesn’t have one or being generous with our time and money.

It means asking God what He thinks you should do and then saying yes to whatever it is He is calling you to.

Israel was totally dependent on God for victory in this battle and Saul had just shrugged it off as if he could do it himself.

How dependent were the Israelites on God for victory you ask? Well you see Israel had no blacksmiths.

That seems like an important thing to have right?

So why don’t they have any?

Well the Philistines knew that Israel might try to fight them so they charged so little at their smithing shops that Israel just went to them for whatever they needed.

Chapter thirteen closes by telling us Saul and his son Jonathan are the only two people in the entire Israelite army that have swords.

Not a single sword or spear could be found in the hands of the soldiers.

Crazy right?

How are the Israelites going to fight against this force?

Well while Saul napped under a pomegranate tree his son Jonathan and his attendant snuck into a Philistine camp, and as they are going Jonathan says this, “There is nothing that can defeat the Lord.

Lets go and do this knowing that if its God’s will He will protect us.”

And as they go, almost like a bunch of meerkats, the Israelite army begins to poke their heads up out from their hiding spots.

Jonathan calls for them to follow him, and one by one Jonathan goes through this field taking out each of the Philistine soldiers.

Jonathan took out twenty-five men in a half acre field.

A half-acre field is not that big of an area.

Its like maybe the size of the grass field out here where we play kickball.

But Jonathan showed incredible faith and the Lord delivered Israel despite Saul’s contempt.

As the men tracked the Philistines back into the woods, Saul commanded that if any soldier eat before evening, before Saul could take vengeance against his enemies, they would be cursed.

Pause for a second.

Who does this victory belong to, God or Saul?

Saul rushed the sacrifice and now he is putting harsh commands on the army causing them to get exhausted all so that he can get vengeance against the Philistines.

By the time evening came the men are so worn out and exhausted they came back to all the animals the Philistines had left and they killed them and ate them raw on the ground.

Eating animals with blood in it was against the Jewish dietary laws.

Imagine the sight.

Here are all these dirty tired men crowded around these animals as they eat them raw.

What a sight.

That doesn’t sound like a men’s ministry event I would ever want to go to.

Jonathan also, not knowing the command Saul put on the people, used his staff to eat some honey on the ground violating the command of his father.

All these things came to together at a crossroads.

Saul sought the Lord’s guidance to determine whether he should continue the attack or wait but the Lord did not answer.

Saul confused as to why God does not answer asks why God will not answer.

Is it because Jonathan and I have sinned or because the people have sinned?

It was not the people who sinned.

Okay was it me or Jonathan?

Jonathan told his father that he had eaten honey and was willing to die for what he had done, and Saul the loving father he was, was ready to kill him.

He said, may God punish me severely if you do not die.

And the people watching are like, what’s wrong with you two?

Does Jonathan need to die?

He is the one that acted faithfully, trusted the Lord and led us to victory by God’s hand.

So Jonathan was redeemed by the people and we are all left to sit back and wonder what is wrong with Saul?

Here is this guy who is perfectly fit to be king.

He’s tall, he’s strong, he’s handsome.

But dude has some major character flaws.