My name is Andrew Evans, I'm one of the pastors here at Church of
the Resurrection. It's great to be with you this
morning. Great to be worshipping with
you. We are continuing our series
looking at the story of First Samuel, the story of Saul
Primary. I guess at this point it's, it's
the, the story of King Saul then later becomes the story of King
David. So let me encourage you to turn
in your Bibles to that, to chapter 14.
It's on page 221 of the Pew Bible in front of you.
This is a long chapter. It's like 4.
Well, it's, I think it's over 50 verses in total.
We will, we're actually going to look at the four first 46
verses. We read the first third and we
will actually read the next 2/3 as we're going through it.
So we've got a lot to cover. Let's get started.
Before we get started, let me pray.
Father, I praise You for Your Word, how it challenges us and
comforts us. Pray that you would meet us this
morning in Your Word by Your Spirit, so that we would know
You more clearly, love You more dearly, and follow You more
nearly every day. I pray this in the name of our
King Jesus, Amen. Now some of you might know that
for a brief time after when I first came to this city, I
worked as a reporter. I was a pretty bad reporter,
frankly, but our boss assigned everybody a, an assignment to to
buy and read this autobiography by, I believe by, by at that
point, the deceased reporter Robert Novak title was the
Prince of Darkness, sort of captures the vibe of reporting
frankly. And we, the, the assignment was
to read it and to learn about how to be a really good
reporter, learn from him, from his first person account, how he
went about his work. And this is so often why we read
autobiographies, isn't it? We want to learn first hand how
somebody got through, got through life, navigated the
different trials and things. And then we can learn from their
successes and from their failures.
Maybe, maybe we find inspiration in their focus, in their
determination. Maybe we we learn they're like
tactics for negotiation or something like that, or how to
how to manage A-Team, things like that.
Whatever we want is we want to learn from their life story.
Now, autobiographies aren't new. You could trace them back to the
4th century, 5th century AD, but they are everywhere today, it
seems. It seems like every prominent
person writes an autobiography. Or maybe they pay somebody to
write an autobiography. Maybe some of you have been paid
to write an autobiography. The number one non fiction book
right now on the New York Times bestseller list is not You know,
how to Live Longer. But it is Kenny Chesney's
autobiography that is the right reaction.
That's right. Deeply, deeply meaningful.
I'm sure Kenny Chesney's great. He's fine.
And I think that frankly, if we we're getting really off track
here, I think that if we needed to, every one of us in this
room, if we really had to, we could probably write our own
autobiography. Maybe we don't want to.
Maybe we realize we need to live a few more years, but if we
really needed to, we could write our own autobiography.
I think there are a couple assumptions under assumptions
underlying our our understanding of autobiographies.
And these assumptions, I think are really telling.
The 1st is that we can understand life or our life as a
story. It's a narrative that begins
somewhere that that's going somewhere that that has a sort
of narrative arc. And we can capture this in a
book and the book is sort of comprehensible.
We can understand it. There's a story that we can see
in the world and in our lives. I think this is exactly right.
We naturally think this way, right?
We naturally think about our lives in terms of stories.
But the second assumption is that my life is its own story.
My life has a has a discreet narrative arc, and my life can
be captured between the covers of a book.
Now, I think that these assumptions undergird what we
could call an autobiography mindset.
And I think this mindset is really pervasive today.
You've probably heard the phrase, I love that for your
story. Now, probably most of the time
it's a joke, right? Sometimes it's serious,
sometimes it's serious, but underlying it are the same
assumptions that allow us to write autobiographies at all.
My life has a story. I'm writing it right now with my
choices and my decisions. My life is going somewhere and,
and I'm actively discerning that story and I really want my life
to have a happy ending. And I suspect that all of us to
1° or another have this autobiography mindset.
How many times are we invited to to think about our story?
I was at the Apple Store the other day and they were talking
about pictures and like how you can use it to tell your story.
Like, look, I just want to take a picture, but it's about your
story. It's just everywhere.
We're just sort of swimming in these cultural waters.
What is your story? Are you writing your story?
What? What direction is your story
going now? Our passage meets us in this
autobiography mindset, and it challenges it.
It challenges it not by by asking if our lives are in fact
a narrative, but it asks us this question, Whose story am I in?
Am I the star of my own story, or is there something else,
maybe something bigger going on in my life?
So we'll we'll look at this question by looking at 3
characters in our story. We'll look first at Jonathan,
and then we'll read the middle part of the of the passage and
look at Saul. And then finally we'll read the
last third and look at the people of Israel, those 3
characters. That's where we're headed.
So at the start of our story, at the start of our passage, Israel
is in a really bad spot. This seems to be sort of a
recurring theme in this book. Chapter 13.
King Saul, he mustered his troops.
Jonathan won a victory over the Philistines.
But this victory over the Philistines seems to have just
sort of kicked the hornet's nest.
And the Philistines, they're now swarming across the land and
striking fear into the hearts of Israel. 80% of Saul's troops
have abandoned him. Saul presumptuously, prematurely
offers a sacrifice to God. And this is the first of three
mistakes that he makes in that chapter, this chapter, and the
next chapter that we'll look at next week.
And as a result, God promises that he will take the Kingdom
away from Saul. At the end of chapter 13, we
learn of these Philistine raiding parties that are sort of
spreading out across the land like Hornets, just sort of
swarming. And we also learned of this
embargo that the Philistines have on weapons, on metal
weapons. The people of Israel, Gods
chosen people are outnumbered, they're weak and they're I'll
equipped. And it's into this bleak scene
at the beginning of chapter 14 that Jonathan steps Prince of
Israel. In this first verse, he, he
tells us, he invites his armor bearer to join him in going over
to the Philistines. We don't know exactly what he's
going to do, right? But we know that he leaves
secretly. He traverses this rocky terrain.
And then in verse 6, Jonathan clarifies what he's up to.
Look there with me, he says to his armor bearer.
Lieutenant, come, let us go over to the Garrison of the
uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will
work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by
many or by few. Jonathan wants to save Israel.
He knows that Israel is in a really bad spot and he need and
that they need help against the Philistines.
But notice here how he sees himself in relation to God.
He himself is not Israel's savior, not strictly speaking.
He is working for the Lord. He is an agent for God's
purposes. Who will save?
It will be the Lord. And the Lord can save with
either a big army or just two people out on a secret mission.
And Jonathan out loud here is wondering, maybe God will work
through me. Jonathan here is putting himself
forward for God to use. He's not presumptuous.
He's not assuming that God will work through him.
He's not trying to force God's hand here.
Perhaps God will work through him.
Perhaps God won't work through him.
But Jonathan here is acting out of a confidence that God will
save his people. And he's looking around for how
God could be at work. He's he's trusting God is at
work. Where is he at work?
He's looking around for that. And I think we actually see this
in this little epithet that he uses of the Philistines.
He calls them the uncircumcised. Feels kind of like a throwaway
word in a way. But I don't think we are to
simply read this as the Jewish way of saying those dirty dogs
over there. That's not that's not what what
he's saying. I don't think it's there's
something, there's a lot more going on here.
Circumcision was the covenant sign of God's people, the
covenant sign of God's promises that he made to God's people.
It's analogous to baptism today. Hebrew boys wore God's promises
on themselves, just like all of us who have been baptized are
wearing God's promises on ourselves now.
And God promised that his people would grow and spread and be a
blessing to the world. Nothing will destroy God's
people, not then and not now. God had promised that
generations before and given them the sign of circumcision to
help them remember that. Jonathan knows this.
He knows that God has chosen his people.
He knows that he's made these promises to them, that he will
not abandon his promises. All Jonathan is called to do now
is to look around and to see where God is at work, because he
must be at work. In other words, Jonathan is in
God's story. He's searching for his own part
in the bigger story of God's salvation of his people.
He's not focused on his own story.
God is central. God is the main character.
God, in fact, is informing every part of Jonathan's life.
And the result is this kind of beautiful, humble courage, isn't
it? He's not presuming of God, but
he eagerly steps out into the world to see where God is at
work and what role God is calling him to In that.
And in this way, Jonathan here is a model of faith for us.
He's living all of his life before the presence of God.
And the result is that he gets to participate in God's
salvation. He goes up on this apparently
hopeless mission, discerns how God is directing him there, then
defeats a score of the Philistines.
You can sort of picture this in a movie.
And God then uses that defeat to throw the entire rest of the
Philistines into the into confusion.
Verse 15 says that the earthquaked there was literally
a panic from God spreading among the Philistines.
Jonathan is participating in something bigger than himself,
and the result is something that's so much bigger than him.
Friends, what an exciting way to live.
What an exciting way to live. Do you live this way?
Do you live looking for how God is at work in the world,
bringing salvation to His people wherever they are?
Are you living with this humble courage that's the inevitable
result of looking first at God and not at yourself?
Or are you trying to write your own autobiography?
Do you see yourself as part of God's story before your own
story? Jonathan here is inviting us to
view our lives in this way. Saul, though, is a different
story. So let's read this next section.
It'll be verses 16 through 30 to see what kind of story Saul is
writing. And the Watchmen of Saul and
Gibeah Benjamin looked and behold, the multitude was
dispersing here and there. Then Saul said to the people who
were with him, count and see who is gone from us.
And when they had count, and behold, Jonathan and his armor
bearer, we're not there. So Saul said to Ahijah, bring
the ark of God here. For the ark of God went at that
time with the people of Israel. Now while Saul was talking to
the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines
increased more and more. So Saul said to the priest,
Withdraw your hand. Then Saul and all the people who
were with him rallied and went into the battle.
And behold, every Philistine's sword was against his fellow.
And there was very great confusion.
Now the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines before that
time, and who had gone up with them into the camp, even, they
also turned to be with the Israelites who were with Saul
and Jonathan. Likewise, when all the men of
Israel who had hidden themselves in the Hill Country of Ephraim
heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they too followed hard
after them in the battle. So the Lord saved Israel that
day, and the battle passed beyond Beth Haven, and the men
of Israel had been hard pressed that day.
So Saul had laid an oath on the people, saying, cursed to be the
man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my
enemies. So none of the people had tasted
food. Now when all the people came to
the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground.
And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was
dropping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the
people feared the oath. But Jonathan had not heard his
father charge the people with the oath.
So he put out the tip of his staff that was in his hand and
dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand into his mouth and
his eyes became bright. Then one of the people said,
Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying
cursed be the man who eats food this day.
And the people were were faint. Then Jonathan said, My father
has troubled the lamb. See how my eyes have become
bright because I tasted a little of this honey.
How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the
spoil of their enemies that they found.
For now the defeat among the Philistines has not been great.
The word of the Lord. So Saul, here's the commotion
caused by Jonathan's attack and he musters his army to see who
might be missing. He figures out that his son is
gone with his armor bearer. And so he then goes to consult
with God. The reference to the ark here is
likely a a reference to the ephod, which is kind of a, a
holy vest that the priest would wear.
And then they could use that to discern God's will and function
kind of like a mobile ark, you could say.
And so Saul here calls the priest to consult with God.
Now, I think at this point we should have questions about
Saul. Why is Saul only now consulting
with God? Things have been dire for a
while now. Shouldn't Saul have been praying
to God, seeking his face, seeking his counsel perpetually,
particularly since he is Israel's king?
But then the battle grows louder, and Saul tells the
priest to withdraw his hand from the holy vest.
There's no time to consult with God now.
We got to go. So Saul rallies the army, they
head into battle, and they defeat the Philistines.
Now, the reality is that sometimes we have to make quick
decisions that don't allow for a lot of time of discernment or
prayer. That's just, you know, we've all
been in those situations, right? It's precisely in these
situations, though, that it's so important that we have been
cultivating a constant communion with the Lord.
Saul wasn't doing that. He goes to pray and then he
withdraws his prayer and he acts based on his own wisdom.
And the difference here with Jonathan is Stark, isn't it?
Jonathan is actively searching for where God might be at work.
His father doesn't even think he has time to pray.
And the result is that Saul makes perhaps his his biggest
mistake to date. And the narrator tells us in
verse 23 that the Lord saved Israel that day.
But in the very next verse, we see where Saul's focus is the
salt. The soldiers had been fighting
hard all day, and Saul then lays an oath on them.
Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening and I am
avenged on my enemies. His focus is myopically on
himself, isn't it? He must be avenged on his
enemies. Forget that it was the Lord who
saved. Forget that Israel is God's
people, that these are ultimately God's enemies.
Saul must be avenged on his enemies.
Whose story is Saul writing? His own.
Who's the main character in his story?
He is. What role does God play in his
story? A shrinking one, apparently.
If Jonathan is part of God's story, God is only part of
Saul's story. Saul here I think is is a
classic example of this autobiography mindset.
He's so focused on his needs, on his circumstances, his problems,
that he cannot attend to what God is doing.
It's like Saul's life is a puzzle.
God is just one piece that he fits in when he can.
But the reality is that God isn't a part of the puzzle of
our lives at all. God is the table that the puzzle
is laying on in the 1st place. Without him, we do not exist,
our lives do not have any support, any coherence at all.
Augustine's Confessions is considered to be the first
autobiography in the West, written around 400 AD.
But there is a really big difference between The
Confessions and The Prince of Darkness or Kenny Chesney's
autobiography. If our autobiographies are
written in the first person, you know what I did, what I felt,
what I experienced, This funny story that happened to me, his
was written in the second person.
His entire autobiography is a prayer, and he's praying to God,
searching for how God has been at work in his life even before
he ever realized it. In his writing, he's discovering
who he is in relation to God, how God is at work, how God has
been at work to draw him to himself.
This is true of us as well, whether we realize it or not.
God is the one holding our lives in His hands, and so we should
live our lives in the second person, always looking for how
God is at work, how you Lord are at work, always thinking about
ourselves, not in reference to my story, but in reference to
him. And a quick way to do this is to
think about when do you pray? Do we pray like Saul, only
offering up prayers, quick prayers, you know, short prayers
that we drop off in the middle of crisis?
Or are we, like Jonathan, living all of our life in the presence
of God? Are you talking to God
throughout the day? Are you wondering when you see a
traffic jam? God, what are you doing here?
It could be God, what are you doing here?
Or God, you know, how are you? How are you at work even here?
Are you offering little praises to God when you see a
particularly glorious fall tree? Are you orienting yourself all
the time to God and what he is doing, how he is at work?
I'm not talking about performative spirituality.
I'm not talking about walking around saying praise the Lord
all the time. That's what the Pharisees did.
There's not necessarily something wrong with that if
it's deeper than performance. But I'm not talking about
performance here. I'm talking about a real, deep,
abiding sense that you were going through all of your life
in the presence of God, seeking His face, curious about His
action in the world. Of course, this does mean
spending focused time with Him in prayer and study, but it
means more than that as well. It means focusing our attention
not on ourselves and on our story, but on God and what He is
doing, the story that he is writing in the world.
The result of of Saul's autobiography autobiography
Mindset, is catastrophic. Saul is so focused on himself
that he can't see how tired his army is.
The land is literally flowing with honey.
This is what God promised, and yet the people can't partake of
the blessings of the land. Jonathan inadvertently puts
himself under a curse. Saul is so focused on himself
that he cannot bless his people, and he ends up cursing his son.
So that's Saul. Let's now look at the final
section of the story and think about God's people.
Verses 31 to 50 to 46. They stroke down the Philistines
that day from Mick Mash to Ajalan, and the people were very
faint. The people pounced on the spoil
and took sheep and oxen and calves and slaughtered them on
the ground, and the people ate them with the blood.
Then they told Saul, behold, the people are sinning against the
Lord by eating with the blood. And he said, you have dealt
treacherously. Roll a great stone to me here.
And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and
say to them, Let every man bring his ox or his sheep and
slaughter them here, and eat, and do not sin against the Lord
by eating with the blood. So every one of the people
brought his ox with him that night, and they slaughtered them
there. And Saul built an altar to the
Lord. It was the first altar that he
built to the Lord. Then Saul said, Let us go down
after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the
morning light. Let us not leave a man of them.
And they said, do whatever seems good to you.
But the priest said, let's draw near to God here.
And Saul inquired of God, shall I go down after the Philistines?
Will you give them into the hand of Israel?
But he did not answer him that day.
And Saul said, Come here, all you leaders of the people, and
know and see how this sin has arisen today.
For the as the Lord lives, who saves Israel, though it be
Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.
But there was not a man among all the people who answered him.
Then he said to all Israel, you shall be on one side, and I and
Jonathan my son will be on the other.
And the people said to Saul, Do what seems good to you.
Therefore Saul said, O Lord God of Israel, why have you not
answered your servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in
Jonathan my son, O Lord God of Israel, give Urim.
But if his guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim.
Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped.
Then Saul said, cast a lot between me and my son Jonathan,
and Jonathan was taken. Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell
me what you have done. And Jonathan told him, I tasted
a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand.
Here I am, I will die, and Saul said, God, do so to me, and more
also you shall surely die, Jonathan.
Then the people said to Saul, shall Jonathan die who has
worked this great salvation in Israel?
Far from it. As the Lord lives there shall
not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked
with God this day. So the people ransomed Jonathan
so that he did not die. Then Saul went up from pursuing
the Philistines, and the Philistines went to their own
place, the word of the Lord. If Jonathan and Saul and Saul
show us two different approaches to our story, the character of
the people here shows us what happens when God's people lack a
leader who was attentive to God. Verses 21 and 22, we saw how the
the how God's people found new courage when God saved Israel.
The turncoats returned to Israel.
Verse 21, the hiding cowards emerged with strength in verse
22. And this is all because God
saved Israel that day. Verse 23, you could say that
because of God's action they were becoming like Jonathan, but
the result of Saul's self-centered leadership is that
the people become very faint. This is verse 31, the second
time that that's repeated in this story.
Not only are they not able to completely defeat the
Philistines, but they're so hungry that they jump on the
Philistines animals and eat them with the blood, which the Mosaic
Law explicitly forbids. There's just swinging wildly
right from newfound courage to faint weakness to lawbreakers,
all in the span of hours, and all because their king is doing
just such a bad job. But Saul continues his myopic
self centeredness, doesn't he? He proposes that his famished
army now March through the night to pursue the Philistines.
But the priest, probably in kind of a good political move,
proposes, hey, why don't we stop and consult with God about this?
And here the story reaches its highest point of tension.
God doesn't answer. Saul assumes it's because
somebody has sinned, and he finds out through this sort of
casting of lots that Jonathan unwittingly broke Saul's rash
vow. Jonathan agrees to die, but the
people then step in to save him. The people have to step in to
save their Savior from their king.
It's just all so backwards. A king should save his people.
A king should lay down his life. But Saul here is proving that he
is just not that kind of king, is he?
He is the center of his own story.
And the result is that the people are left leaderless,
swinging wildly from courage to weakness to sin to desperate
defiance of their king. If God is only part of the
King's story, then the people are left searching for a story.
They need a better king, a leader like Jonathan, who is
gladly finding his part in God's bigger story.
Only then, when they find that leader, will they find their
meaning. Will they find their direction?
Only what then? Will they be able to fully feast
in the land of milk and honey? Now, this is the penultimate
sermon in our series looking at First Samuel.
We'll finish it next week on the final Sunday of Ordinary Time
and then Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Yes, Thanksgiving is that close. We will be an Advent and we will
be preparing for Christmas. The story of Saul really feels
like it's ending on a downer. It doesn't get any better next
week, guys, and it doesn't seem like it fits with this season
that we're moving into, of, of Thanksgiving and good cheer and
parties. Saul seemed like such a
promising king, but he's ending so badly.
We're disappointed with him, but his story also calls us to look
for the greater king. We see how badly things are
going there and how much is that like things that are happening
here? We long for leadership that can
just keep the government open, feed the poor, protect the
vulnerable, pursue peace around the world.
Sometimes we might even think that we found such leadership
and our leaders might succeed for a time, kind of like Saul.
But at the end of the day, we will always be disappointed.
If our hope is in earthly leaders, we will continue to
swing wildly, just like Israel. We need a faithful king to come,
just like Israel did. So all story here is pointing
us. It's preparing us for Advent by
pointing us to our need for Christmas.
We don't need presents and lights and parties.
We don't need good cheer. We need a king.
We need a king who loves the Lord and who is focused squarely
on him. It's only by the coming of our
King that we can find our place in God's story.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, his Son, our King.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Amen.