Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Alright, it’s good to be back with all of you this evening again.

If any of you are new tonight, welcome and we’re glad to have you.

My name is Cody and I serve as the worship and college pastor here at Coram Deo and if you need anything at all tonight, feel free to find any of us with a nametag and we would be happy to help you.

If you are a regular attender but you missed last week, let me fill you in a little bit.

Last week we started our spring teaching series on King David.

We kicked it off, and we did it a bit differently.

We had a live recording of our discipleship podcast “Centered, Committed, Confident.”

And we spent time focusing on how to practically go about understanding a reading the Old Testament.

If you’re looking for that podcast and noticed that it’s not up yet…then good eye.

That podcast will actually be released next Thursday morning.

That’s our release schedule for the most part…Thursday mornings at 6am it gets released to Apple and Spotify.

So if you want to catch it that way, it’ll be up in a week.

Or…if you guys didn’t know…a video of each message is actually uploaded to YouTube every single week…and the podcast recording has already been uploaded.

So you can always go to YouTube and search “Coram Deo College” and find it there as well.

Anyway…that’s what we did last week.

We started the King David series, not actually reading about King David yet....and…this week we are also going to not be talking about David yet…but here’s why...

Tonight we are going to be spending time learning about King Saul

King Saul Title Slide

And the reason for this…is King Saul and King David overlap and interact a lot…and you can’t ever fully understand King David, without knowing a bit about Saul.

So were are going to spend tonight, looking at just a few snippets of Saul’s life…to set up our time focusing on David....AND to learn a few things about God as new testament Christians going back and reading the OT.

So, let’s get our bibles out…and I want you to turn to the book of 1 Samuel.

We are going to be spending a majority of our time in this series in 1 and 2 Samuel.

Yes, there are other books that contain things about David....but I wanted to choose one place to root ourselves and I felt 1 and 2 Samuel was a great place to do that.

So turn to 1 Samuel and let me give you just a brief history of Israel leading up to where we are in the history of the world in 1 Sam.

Creation - Beginning of History

Abraham - probably around 2050 B.C. - Start of God’s people and promise

Jacob - around 1900 BC - Named Israel

~1800-1400 BC - Israel in Egypt and eventually enslaved

~1400’s - Moses leads the israelites out of Egypt, they travel in the desert for 40 years…and then finally…reach the promised land in 1406 BC.

~1100 - Judges

Finally…1040 BC…Samuel, the last Judge is on the scene…and this book is named after him.

It’s Samuel that ushered the transition from Judges to Kings

And if you’re looking at 1 Samuel with me, we are just going to skim the pages so you can see where we are landing the plan in Israels history.

You’ll see the first 7 chapters or so…it sets up Samuel...

And then we get to chapter 8.

And in Chapter 8…we see Israel demand a King.

So things…not going well.

They people of God refuse to listen to their God-Given ruler....and they don’t want to be a nation under God…they want to be a nation like other nations…a nation under a king.

And God…in his graciousness and mercy to his people…doesn’t discipline them for rejecting God, but rather grants their request.

Keep that in mind, I want to show you a few other passages before we get to our first point tonight.

So the people of Israel demand a King…and that leads us to King Saul…the first king of Israel…Let’s keep looking through 1 Samuel.

Things to note: Saul shows up on the scene in 1 Samuel 9 and what we are told is that he was the most handsome and the tallest of the Israelites…so yeah…he stood out.

Another thing..the Lord chooses Saul through Samuel in 9:15

There again, a concept about God and his people…and him listening to them....more on that in a second..So God is the one who chooses Saul…and here, just like in Chapter 8…we see God say that he is doing it because of his people…We also see this exact same concept in 1 Samuel 10.

I told you that we are going to learn some things through the story of King Saul…and here’s the first one.

I just showed you several times scripture lists that God’s people were rejecting God by wanting a King instead of him…but cried out to God anyways.

And God…acknowledging that they were rejecting him…still grants them their request.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the passage in the New Testament, in the book of Romans, where Paul talks about the love of God.

I’m going to read it to you…I just want you to listen to it.

Guys…what this is saying, is that for those who are elect…that is those who are chosen and belong to God…those who have sincerely and authentically declared Christ as both Savior and Lord....for those people…God’s.

Love.

Never.

Leaves.

And right here, in the story of King Saul…we already get to see that amazing truth pointed out.

The entirety of King Saul’s reign, begins with this simple fact…that for those who belong to God…nothing…separates them from his love.

Including…the times they reject him, desiring the things of this world…desiring to be like other people, instead of like people of God.

That’s what the people of Israel were doing…they were God’s chosen people, defined by knowing him and being in covenant with him…and yet they were wanting something of this world rather than him.

And yet…instead of rejecting them back…God continued to work through their sin…for their good and his glory.

He continued to work through their sin, because nothing, absolutely nothing, separates God from those whom he loves.

Even…their own desire to reject him.

That’s the first point we can clearly see about God in the story of King Saul.

But from this exact same spot of the story…we see another point…and it’s another point also found in the book of Romans…and that is.

God works all things for good.

Maybe you’re familiar with this passage in Romans and you’re thinking “Cody, how exactly does this relate to King Saul?

What does all things for good have to do with God appointing a king to Israel?”

Well let me explain this to you.

Israel rejected God and wanted a king.

God allowed Samuel to appoint a King.

You would think that Israel rejecting God’s rule would have some major consequences for them…and it does as we will see a lot in this series.

BUT, you know what also comes from this decision?

King David.

And who descends from King David?

Jesus.

And what does Jesus do?

Save God’s elect once and for all.

So do you see what I’m saying here?

What we see about God in the appointment of King Saul, is that God is a God who is so sovereign, so transcendent, so mighty, and so holy…that he can take all things that happen through us and to us…he can take all those things…and work it for our good and his glory.

Just like he took his own people rejecting him and demanding a king, and turned it into the way he was going to redeem those very people, through a king who’s throne would last forever.

Without Israel demanding an Israelite King, there would be no desire for a messianic king.

So, for those in Christ these points are great news, sin is not the end.

The wage is no longer our death but Christ’s.

Now to be clear, there are still disciplines and consequences.

Just like how Israel’s demand for a King would ultimately lead to their life rather than death, it still had some immediate consequences of going through many of the things we are about to study.

So that’s two encouragements we learn about God and relationship with him in the story of King Saul.

But there’s one more point I want to hit tonight that I think covers King Saul well...

I want you to think of this as two encouragements and a caution.

I gave you the two encouragements, now here’s the caution.

Good intentions are not Godly actions.

Let’s move forward a little bit in the story so I can show you what I mean.

So, then Saul defeats some enemies of God…which causes the people of Israel to all the more confirm his kingship.

Samuel retires.

He steps down as the role of Judge…but continues to play the role of priest and prophet for a while yet.

Then we get to chapter 13, look there starting in verse 8.

What do we see here?

Saul was waiting for Samuel to make the sacrifices for the peace offering after battle…and Samuel isn’t showing up.

So Saul, fearing losing the following of his people…sacrifices to the Lord.

What’s the good intention here?

That Israel would have a united people and that offerings would be given to God.