TGP: To Obey is Better
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Introduction:
Do you like earing leftovers? Why or why not?
What does it mean to give someone our leftovers?
How does it make you feel when someone you love is giving you what’s left instead of their full attention?
Main Point:
Our obedience to God must be complete.
Christ Connection:
Though the sacrificial system was instated to reveal God’s holiness, provide a temporary method of forgiveness of sin,, and help people worship God, it also revealed people’s hearts. When Jesus came, people who put their faith in Him revealed tender hearts willing to believe He was the Son of God and the Messiah. Those who rejected Jesus as Lord rejected God as well.
Context:
The Amalekites (Esau’s nomadic descendants)
Raided in the wilderness
God to Moses “I will blot our the memory of Amalek” (Deut. 25:19)
Given opportunity to repent
“Divine war”
God’s command to Saul (and his disobedience)
Haman in Esther (likely a descendent of King Agag)
Partial obedience is disobedience. (1 Samuel 15:1-3, 7-9)
1 And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord.
“Now therefore”
Doubly important
The command to “listen”
2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt.
Our God remembers.
3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”
A troubling passage
God’s patience towards Amalek
God’s judgement
7 And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.
This sounds good so far!
8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.
Saul spares Agag
This is a problem
“… devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.”
Probably hyperbole
Amalekites are present in 27:8 and 30:1-20
9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
Selective obedience
Not “mercy”
A status boost
Bragging rights
He needs to be replaced as king
How did Saul disobey God’s instructions? Why did it matter?
God’s goal: humanity’s redemption
What Saul did cost lives
Why do we hold on to things God has commanded us to destroy?
Living in two worlds
Read verse 9. What does it look like for us to give God only the “worthless and unwanted things?”
Giving God the leftovers
God demands even more of us
Partial obedience is disobedience
We can’t hide our sin from God (1 Samuel 15:10-15, 22-23
10 The word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.
The regret of God
Similar to Genesis 6.
Regret = Deep grief
Disobedience = back turned
Samuel is angry at Saul
12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.”
Saul’s self-deception
13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”
More self-deception
14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?”
God commanded him to slaughter all of the livestock
15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”
Sault shifts blame
22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
Obedience matters most
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
Mutually rejection
Read verse 14. What was the evidence of Saul’s disobedience?
The sound of cattle
The sin of apathy
How do you react when you’re confronted with your own sin? How is it kind of God to convict you?
The HS’s conviction is God’s kindness
Best response is repentance
What do verses 22-23 help you understand about pretending to be something you’re not?
God’s omniscience
Living authentically
Wrap-Up
In what areas of your life are you justifying disobedience? How can you seek accountability?
Don’t run from God
