Listen to God

Introduction

Teaching a Bible study. Teaching Children’s church/working in the nursery. Telling a stranger about the Gospel. Moving across the country to a small town in the South to serve a congregation? Go to Costa Rica on a short-term mission trip. How easy is it to follow someone when they are asking you to do something you like or don’t mind doing? How does your attitude change about the task when it is something you don’t like, maybe don’t feel confident or comfortable. How much work do you put into trying to get out of it? What if it is God telling you to do a certain task? What happens if you only do some of what God has commanded you to do? Is it good enough? Or does he require more from us?

Sin Condition: Today we are going to look at listening to God’s commands and what it looks like when we place ourselves over God and try to interpret or fulfill the command so it is good enough. We will also look at how when we do sin, we try to justify our rebellion. To Do this, we will look at an episode between God, the prophet Samuel and Saul, the first king of Israel.

Read Verses: Turn to or find 1 Samuel 15 in your Bibles and we will read verses 1-3 and then we will read verses 7-11. This will set the story for us and as we go through the outline, we will cover the rest of the chapter to see how the story ends.

Main Idea: God desires a man or a woman after his own heart that will obediently follow His Commands. When God gives us commands, he desires us to obey the commands, and he also desires us to repent when we violate the commands because God requires the command to be fulfilled.

Transition Statement: In order for us to do what God wants, we have to hear and know what God actually commands us to do.

I. God Gives Commands (1 Sam 15:1-3)

Explanation: God relays his command to Saul through the prophet Samuel. God wants Saul to eradicate the Amalekites, one of Israel’s oldest enemies because they performed a needless attacking on the slow, tired and weary Israelites as they travelled from Egypt to the promised land. God wanted the Amalekites wiped out once and for all. The command is a very straight forward command: Go attack the Amalekites, completely destroy them. In case the charge to completely destroy them is ambiguous, God clarifies his instruction, “Do not spare them. Kill men and women, infants, and nursing babies, oxen and sheep, camels, and donkeys” (Verse 3). The command is very explicit and does not leave a lot of room for interpretation.

To back up a bit, Saul is anointed King of Israel in chapter 9 after Israel requests an earthly king so they could be like other nations. God Instructs Samuel anoint Saul and then he is publicly chosen by a drawing of lots, in 1 Samuel 10.

Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin, and the writer of 1 Samuel 9, verse 2 says “Saul was an impressive young man, there was no one more impressive among the Israelites than he. He stood a head taller than anyone else.” (All verses are from the CSB unless otherwise noted). Tall, good looking and he proves to be an effective leader in battle by rallying the Israelites and defeating the Ammonites in chapter 11. The end of Chapter 14 recaps Saul’s reign where he defeats a lot of the Israelites’ enemies and he grows his army by enlisting any strong or valiant men (14:52).

However, in the short time Saul ruled he had already failed to follow instructions two different times already. So what Saul does in the next section pertaining to following God’s command is no surprise.

Illustration: How many instructions do you give or receive in a day. We expect our children or grandchildren to carry out our instructions, our bosses also expect the same from us as employees. When we lived to Georgia, we stopped at a drive-thru to order lunch or dinner. We wanted to order two chicken nugget happy meals with sweet teas, a number four and a number One both with fries and sweet teas. Pretty simple and the numbers make ordering fairly straight forward.

I am from Pennsylvania and talk sort of fast and when you are from somewhere different, you are the one with the funny accent, so it took four tries of me talking into the speaker to order our meals. We have all been there, sometimes it takes a considerable amount of effort to order your food and occasionally you still do not get what ordered. It is easy to misunderstand someone when they tell you something, it is important to be clear in our instructions and more importantly it is important to understand the commands or instructions that are given to us, especially ones given to us by God.

Argument: But, you say, God does not talk to me. He doesn’t even use a prophet to relay messages to me. How do I know if he wants me to teach a class or go on a mission trip? Or talk to my neighbor about the Gospel. The answer is even if he does not talk to you verbally or audibly, He still speaks to us through his written word.

Application: God gives us His commands through his written word.

During Saul’s time, God communicated verbally as the written word was being captured. But that does note and that God’s written word is any less authoritative it is just a different medium to transmit it. We do not have to guess what God wants from us has made it his intention clear

He wants us to Love Him with all of our Heart, mind, soul and strength This s Deuteronomy 6:5, and Jesus quotes it in Mark 12, when he is asked what the greatest commandment is. How do we do this? By being obedient 2 John 1; 6 says “This is love: that we walk according to his commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: that you walk in love.” He wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When you are obedient to God you are acting as a person after God’s own heart. This is a distinction that David earns very early on. The psalms that David writes pour out aids love for God and how David loves God and wants to remain obedient to Him.

3. The great commission in Matthew 28:19, is also a command to Go and Make disciples or all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded of you

All of these actions have one thing in common, they make you focus on someone other than you; God, your neighbor, and other nations or people. Martin Luther said that if you can obey the first commandment, “Thus you can easily understand what and how much this commandment requires, namely, that man's entire heart and all his confidence be placed in God alone, and in no one else. For to have God, you can easily perceive, is not to lay hold of Him with our hands or to put Him in a bag [as money], or to lock Him in a chest [as silver vessels]. But to apprehend Him means when the heart lays hold of Him and clings to Him. But to cling to Him with the heart is nothing else than to trust in Him entirely. For this reason He wishes to turn us away from everything else that exists outside of Him, and to draw us to Himself, namely, because He is the only eternal good.[1] He is the only eternal Good. And he draws us toward Him.

Christ Connection: Hebrews 10:19-24 says 19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus— 20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)— 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works.

We can have confidence because Jesus has given his life and we can enter God’s presence through the blood of Christ, We have been washed clean from our sins.

Transition Statement: God knows that His commands are simple but we are still incapable of always following through and following them. And we see that Saul Takes the command, as simple as it was and tries to add his own spin to it.

II. God Desires you to Obey the Command(s) (1 Sam 15:4-9)

Explanation: Saul exiles his instructions and sets to gathering his army. Like any good commander, he takes count of his troops and probably makes a battle plan based on that information. He plans to ambush the Amalekites in a wadi near their city. So far so Good, Saul seems ready to carry out God’s instruction. On his way to the Amalekite city, he comes across a tribe or clan of people called the Kenites, whom he warns about the impending battle. The Kenites are thought to be distant cousins of the tribe of Judah, Moses’ father in law was also thoughts descend from the Tribe of the Kenites which is mentioned in Judges 1:16 They have always been allies of Israel and so they are looked on with Favor by Saul and God because they showed the Israelites kindness during the Exodus which is the reason Saul gives for their escape in 1 Samuel 15:6

The Amalekites on the other hand showed the Israelites treachery and deceit. Amalek is a grandson of Esau and so he is descended from that line. In Exodus 17, the Amaleks attack he Israelites as they flee Egypt into the promised land. A battle ensued the next day with Joshua leading the fight and Moses, Aaron and Hur on the mountain top raising Moses’ staff which brought the victory, which was really God sealing the victory. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 gives more detail in saying the Amalekites attacked the Israelites stragglers from behind and they did not fear God. There was no reason to attack because he Israelites were nowhere near the Amalekite territory. God said after the battle “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven (Exod. 17:14). No, the day to fulfill that promise is at hand and Saul is the one that will lead this effort.

The battle begins, it is supposedly a large battlefield with a lot of troops. However, Saul does not follow the instructions and takes King Agag of Amalek alive. And not only that, the troops take the “best of the sheep, goats, cattle and choice animals as well as the young rams and the best of everything else” (1 Sam. 15:9).

If we listened to Samuel’s Command from God, he said destroy EVERYTHING. And he actually listed out the animals as examples. It is here that the sin is committed.

It is here that we see the contrast between God’s will and our sin.

Illustration: With all of our remodeling going on in our church, there is a lot of room for things to not be done completely accurate and we could just go into the “its close enough mode”. But what is really close enough to the original instruction given to them contractor? Are you willing to live with the doors that mostly work? How much trouble is it worth over time to deal with the problems? So what do we do? We have two choices, we pay the cost to make sure the job gets done right or we pay the cost to do it over again because it was done wrong. In other words, it is an ounce of prevention or a pound of cure. We are going to talk about dealing with it after the problem or sin is committed in the next section, so for this section, let’s talk about how to not be like Saul, because in a sense that is what the writer is doing here because this book is partially about comparing and contrasting Saul and David.

Argumentation: Saul killed everybody but one guy. It is one person. What’s the big deal? I mean it sounds like he killed everybody else, so why not spare the king?

Here is why? In his sermon called a jealous God, Spurgeon says “Sin is a deliberate treason against the Majesty of God, an assault upon His crown, an insult offered to his throne.[2] (See email with link)

Application: Kill sin before it kills you

This is a paraphrase of John Owen’s quote of “be killing sin or it be killing you.”

Paul tells the Colossians in the third chapter of his letter, to “therefore put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. (Col. 3:5) This is exactly the sin of Saul here. He was an idol to himself and he was greedy). Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient, which we will see later in the chapter.

The question you may have is how do I kill sin? First and foremost it is with the help of the Holy Spirit. Because as Paul says in verse 10. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the creator.

Saul relied on himself to interpret the command and he failed.

1. To kill sin, you must die to yourself.

Saul committed the sin, because he had a heart for himself, not others, especially God. He did what he wanted and not what God wanted.

2. To Kill sin, as John Owen says “you must take away all that inclines entices, impels, to evil, rebels, opposes fight against God.”[3]

We have to get rid of all the things that tempt us. If it is friends that lead you down the wrong path a little easier. But the external is only part of it. You must take care of the internal sins or lusts because they are what leads you to the external actions.

3. The final step is to replace the old self and desires with new ones. God told Jeremiah that in the New Covenant, the hearts of stone would be replaced with hearts of flesh. God does heart surgery on us when he saves us. If medical shows are to be believed, transplant boards will not give you a new organ if you it is going to get destroyed by your body because the disease is still inside. Treating the disease and performing rehab therapy is the way to get better and have a healthier lifestyle. You must create new, healthy habits and passions, first and ore most is obeying God. If the cheesecake is making you fat stop eating the cheesecake, and start exercising.

Christ Connection: Christ was sacrificed for our sins because there is no other way for us to be reconciled with God. He was buried and resurrected again on the third day.

We are resurrected from the dead when we are made alive in Christ. We are not trapped by our old life anymore. He did not die so we could keep sinning, that is antinomianism. He died to show “His righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

Transition Statement: Inevitably, just like Saul and no matter how much you replace the old self, we will never be able to be completely perfect during our earthly lives. For this reason, when we sin, we must repent of our transgressions.

III. God Desires you to Repent when you Violate the Command(s) (1 Sam 15:10-30)

Explanation: The sin has been committed and in verses 10 and 11 “Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, 11 “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions.” So, Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night.”

God tells Samuel what Saul did and Saul spends all night agonizing over what Saul did. In the morning Samuel confronts Saul about what happened. It is a rather lengthy exchange as Samuel tries to Get Saul to admit to his sin and repent of what he did by disobeying God and letting the king and other animals live.

Here are the highlights from the conversation

Listening--In verses 13-14 Saul said, “May the Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.” 14 Samuel replied, “Then what is this sound of sheep, goats, and cattle I hear?” Saul repeats back that he has indeed carried out the Lord’s instruction, meaning he had heard the instruction. But then Samuel replies then why do I hear the voices or sounds, of all the animals. Voice and sound are the same Hebrew word, and it may seem strange for us to say the voices of the animals but that is what it is.

The idea of hearing and listening to God is a central theme in Samuel. Hannah cries out to God to hear her, in fact Samuel means “I have asked for him from the Lord” (1 Sam. 1:20). Samuel hears God calling to him when he is in Eli’s house as a small boy and in chapter 3 it says that the word of the Lord was rare (v. 1).

Basically, Samuel is saying you really didn’t listen to the command given to you. The idea of listening is brought up in verse 19 as well.

2. Samuel tries to justify what happened, but in doing so, he blames the people. In verse 15 and 21. And he also says that they grabbed the best animals for a sacrifice to God which was not true. Saul also said he did obey God’s voice and command. But yet here we are with extra animals and the King of the Amalekites. No, you did not obey. Samuel keeps pressing Saul until finally repents.

Here is the application section of the text: You can completely repent of your sins. But there will be consequences

A. Saul Repents in verse 24, Saul answered Samuel, “I have sinned. I have transgressed the Lord’s command and your words. Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them. 25 Now therefore, please forgive my sin and return with me so I can worship the Lord.”

Saul finally owns his sin at least somewhat and so he knows that he must repent. He has confessed with his mouth what he has done.

Bottom Line, if you commit a sin. Admit it. to God, to the person you have sinned against.

B. The consequence is that the Kingdom was ripped from Saul like the robe in verse 27 and 28. Now there will be consequences to our sinning. We saw the consequences of Abram and how it affected Egypt when he lied about his wife. Be prepared for hardship, some heartache and some punishment. But also be prepare for Grace. Because when you repent of what you did God offers you Grace because God has a Hesed Love that we have been talking about for the past few weeks.

Illustration: This is a little bit graphic, but I think this is how we should look at sins in our lives. “Don Wyman was out cutting down a tree when something happened and it fell on him, breaking his leg and trapping him. He was alone in the Pennsylvania woods and shouted loudly and frantically for help, but no one was around. He tried to dig himself out from underneath the tree, but hit a big rock. So, he was faced with two choice, lie there and slowly bleed to death or amputate his own leg. He decided to use his chainsaw pull rope as a tourniquet and his pocket knife to remove his leg. After freeing himself he was able to make his way to his bulldozer and then his truck and drove to a farmer’s house. Once there they called for an ambulance and got medical help.

Don Wyman’s leg was dear to him but as he lay bleeding to death beneath the oak tree, he recognized that keeping his leg might cost him his life. We too have things dear to us—sinful pleasures, lusts, and activities—that we do not want to give up. Losing them would be like amputating our own leg or gouging out an eye. Jesus said that we must be willing to repent of even the most precious sins if we want to inherit eternal life.”[4]

Argument: Why is God so demanding? Why is it so hard to listen to Him? Because he expects, demands and requires absolutely Holiness.

Christ Connection: Jesus tells us to repent, but that is because he has made the way to forgiveness accessible through his life and death. He makes it possible for dead men to be resurrected and want to be reborn. We must be reborn of the spirit if we are to be made new. As Nicodemus points out, we cannot go back into the womb to be reborn, something else must happen. The spirit must help us to change to motivate us to repent of our sins. To finally decide that losing the leg is far better than losing our life.

Transition Statement God’s commands cannot go unfulfilled however. Especially because this whole section is part of God’s redemptive History Plan, and right now, God is working his way to the Arrival o David who is another protype of Christ.

IV. God’s Requires the Command is Fulfilled (1 Sam 15:31-35)

Explanation: Samuel and Saul will separate and never see each other again. But before that Samuel had to complete the work that Saul was unable to do. And so Samuel calls for Agag and depending on your version Agag either knew what was going to happen to him as far as being killed finally or he thought maybe he was going to be set free. The phrasing for he came trembling can be translated as trembling or cheerfully. I think that perhaps that he was coming up in pride and assumed he was going to be let go.

Samuel hacks Agag to pieces, perhaps to make sure that he did not just run him through but he was completely destroyed.

God had made sure the task was complete but someone else had to do it. Because Saul was now removed from his tasking. God has essentially fired Saul, but he will still rule for many years until Saul dies in battle at the end of 1 Samuel. But In chapter 16, God will anoint David as the next King, because David is integral to God’s redemptive plan to bring about the Messiah.

Illustration: Sometimes when you hire people you think they will do a good job and then you find out their skills were not what you needed or wanted. And so, you have to find someone else to come in and fix the job that was messed up and possibly left undone.

Argument: How do I know I am the person or how do I know that I will not get passed over or passed by if I make a mistake?

Application: God will make His will complete

What does this mean for us? It means that even if you make a mistake, God will get you where he needs you to be.

Paul was against Jesus for a few years and all of a sudden, HE met The Lord on the Road to Damascus. Peter denied Jesus three times, but he was restored on the beach after the resurrection. These were two of the giants of the New Testament church.

Kevin DeYoung wrote a great book called Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will that can help you navigate what God wants you to do with your life.

1. Seek first his Kingdom and His righteousness. DeYoung says “the most important decision we face is the daily decision to live for Christ and Die to self”[5]

2. We can stop worrying that we will miss the bus on God’s will.

Ephesians 1:11-12 says “In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, 12 so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

We put our trust in God because he holds the future for us, for our family members and for the world. It is not on our shoulders to make everything happen.

Christ Connection: Christ acts in the same way as Samuel here. God uses Samuel to compete the task of wiping out the Amalekites. Like Saul, Adam could not be completely obedient to God. The Father then Sent His Son to ensure the job was complete. God knows that we are all related to Adam in the sense of original sin. That Adam’s sin was transmitted to each of us. So it took Christ’s perfect obedience to the father. In his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when the time had come to fulfill his task, Jesus says “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you gave him authority over all flesh so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. (John 17:1-4).

Transition Statement: When we obey God, we glorify Him. We are more like Christ when we exercise our freewill to align with God’s will instead of our own. It is not an easy thing to do, but it is a simple concept to grasp once you are changed by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Reiteration of the Main Idea: God desires you and me to obey Him, out of love and trust and faith. Listening to His voice and words instead of ourselves is the best way to do that. When we make a mistake, he expects us to trust him enough to come to him and repent of our sin, to admit we were rebellious. And we must realize that His commands and decrees will be and must be fulfilled.

That idea has comfort for us because no matter what we do, we can’t mess up god’s plan. Our sin, Adam’s sin, actually furthers His plan because it brings Glory to God because he is glorified in our restoration to Him through Jesus.

Faith appeal: Saul makes the comment to Samuel that “I may bow before the Lord your God.” Even at the end of the episode, Saul seems to have not accepted Yahweh as His Lord. He did not obey because he did not recognize God as his Lord. But if you are an unbeliever right now, you can make that distinction and make God the Lord of your life. Romans 10:9 says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

If you are a Christian, we are called to obey, because sometimes even though we took that step of initial acceptance, God requires more of us to advance His kingdom. When we use the abilities God has given us, we will be rewarded with, first and foremost, God’s all -satisfying presence and knowing that you eventually hear, “well done my good and faithful servant.”

For both groups, How are you going to respond to God when he asks you to do something this week? With obedience or with resistance? Are you prepared for the consequences of both?

[1] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, Translated by F. Bente and WHT Dau, http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/catechism/web/cat-03.html. (Accessed March 7, 2019).

[2] “Charles Spurgeon on Sin” http://christian-quotes.ochristian.com/christian-quotes_ochristian.cgi?find=Christian-quotes-by-Charles+Spurgeon-on-Sin. (Accessed March 7, 2019).

[3] John Owen. The Mortification of Sin. The Life and Works of John Owen (55-in-1). (Classic Christian ebooks), Kindle edition.

[4] Craig Brian Larson, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 449.

[5] Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will. (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 61.