The Rise and Fall // Ego and Insecurity (Saul)

In 1 Samuel chapter 15 this morning, 1 Samuel chapter 15, and we are starting a brand new series today entitled The Rise and Fall.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention 1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

Uncovering the Secret Lives of Heroes.

What we're gonna do over the next three weeks in this mini-series is we're gonna highlight the first three kings in the nation of Israel.

The people that many thought were heroes.

But if you look behind the scenes at their secret lives, you'll find a lot of things that are far less than heroic.

In fact, even the first king, his name was Saul, who we're gonna talk about today.

He could even be called a villain.

How many of you in the room, you guys, you guys like superhero movies?

Superhero movie people, okay?

All right, right.

So me.

So Saul is like the guy in the superhero movie.

He starts off, and you're like, that's a good guy.

And then as the movie goes on, you're like, this guy.

This guy is a villain.

This is King Saul.

Now, what's interesting about this is King Saul had so many things going for him.

It's like, why would this guy end up being like a villain?

I mean, for starters, 1 Samuel chapter 9 tells us that he was the tallest and most handsome man in all of the land.

1 Samuel 9 · chapter mention

He basically was like Joe, you know, just gave from your time.

Not the tall, the handsome part.

Saul walked in the room, all the single ladies go, Who's that guy?

All the single guys are like, I don't know, but I don't like him.

This is King Saul.

King Saul, on top of this, he was chosen to be the king of all of Israel.

Saul had everything that so many of us think that we need to make us happy.

He had success, he had power, he had position, he had money, and he had influence.

Yet Saul was one of the most miserable men in all of scripture.

How is that the case?

Also, Saul destroyed the lives of countless people that were in his sphere of influence and under his leadership.

How is that even possible?

Well, the same way it's possible for you and for me to do the exact same thing.

Because Saul had two things that his life was driven by.

Saul's life was driven by ego and by insecurity.

And when our life is driven by ego actually, scratch that.

When our lives are just shaped by ego and insecurity, they they drop the joke ahead of me, okay?

It's supposed to be insecurity and ego are not your amigo.

They're not your amigo.

Because in our life, in our life, when we have insecurity or when we have ego, let me tell you, there's gonna be damaging effects to that.

And a lot of us can look at our lives, and we look at our lives have been affected by somebody else's ego.

If you really think about this, insecurity and ego are two sides to the same coin.

They come from a heart that's seeking significance and self-worth apart from God.

Here's a secret.

Well, it's not so much of a secret.

But all of us have a little bit of an ego.

In fact, how many would be honest enough to say, I have a little bit of an ego?

She thank you.

Oh, that's good.

If you didn't raise your hand, how many of you lack self-awareness?

And and we we have a little bit of insecurity.

Like even the most secure person in the room has a little bit of insecurity.

And this is what we're gonna see from King Saul's life.

We're gonna see the signs of ego and insecurity.

Like it's gonna be very clear what it looks like from King Saul's life.

But more important than that, we're gonna see what is the solution when ego gets too big in our life, when insecurity is creeping up in our life.

Now, to kick all this off, we're in 1 Samuel chapter 15.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

And what's happening is there was just a battle.

And King Saul was told by God to destroy everything.

What King Saul decided to do was that they were gonna kill everything except for the best looking sheep and the best looking goats and the best looking cattle, and they were gonna take those things home with them.

Oh, and one more thing.

They were gonna take the king, his name was King Agag.

Just have a moment here.

Can we just be thankful?

Our mothers did not name us Agag.

They took King Agag with them as well, just as like a trophy, right?

Like, hey, here's the trophy.

We beat you guys, your king is coming with us.

So that is where we get into today.

Oh, and one other thing.

There was a guy named Samuel.

Everybody say Samuel, ready?

He's the spokesperson from God to the entire nation.

Samuel is about to go and confront Saul about what has happened.

And in the confrontation, we begin to see number one, the signs of Saul's ego.

So let's pick this up in Psalm or 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse number 12.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

Hey, it's gonna be in God's house on a July 4th weekend.

It says this early in the morning.

Samuel apparently went to the 845 service.

Early in the morning, Samuel got up to confront Saul.

He's the king, the first king of Israel, most powerful man in the land.

But it was reported to Samuel, Saul went to Carmel, where he set up a monument for himself.

Safe to say, if you're setting up a monument for yourself, you got a little bit of an ego.

Here's what Saul wanted.

Saul wanted people to look at this monument and say, look how great Saul is.

Saul wanted to be honored and praised and recognized.

He could have built a monument for the leaders of his army, maybe his army?

Maybe God.

Saul's like, nope, I'm building a monument for me.

Everybody look at me.

So Saul goes on purpose to this place with the sole purpose of setting up a monument.

Then he turned around and went down to Gilgal.

And Samuel, verse number 13, has something to say to him.

It says, Samuel came and said to him, May the Lord bless you.

Or Saul said, Saul said, May the Lord bless you.

I have carried out the Lord's instructions.

Do you read the beginning of 1 Samuel 15?

Instructions, don't bring any cattle, don't bring any goats, don't bring anything.

So Samuel replies, Then what is the sound of the sheep?

The goats.

And cattle I hear.

Saul is trying to lie while he's surrounded by the evidence.

It'd be like if you told your family, I didn't buy any Amazon, any Amazon packages at all.

Well, on the front door, right on the porch there, you got like five Amazon boxes.

The evidence is all around you.

This is what happened here.

Saul's like, I obeyed the Lord's instructions.

Samuel's like, actually.

So Saul answered in response, verse 15.

The troops brought them from the Amalekites.

Hold on.

Who was the leader of the troops?

Who told the troops what to do?

It was Saul.

They brought them from the Amalekites.

They spared the best sheep, the goats and cattle, in order to offer a sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we destroyed.

Can I just stop for a second and say it's really interesting to me how Saul spiritualized his disobedience?

King Saul says, Hey, we did this to offer a sacrifice to God.

God's like, I just wanted your obedience.

And it's really easy, and this is a whole other sermon.

It's really easy to say, God, but I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

Like, look at these sacrifices I'm making for you.

When God says, I just want your obedience.

And in the text, what Saul says is Saul's like, hey, the troops did it, and they did it because they wanted to sacrifice to you.

And Saul could not admit that he was wrong.

And rather than reflecting in this moment, and rather than Saul saying, you know what, Samuel, I own this one.

I messed up.

He deflected.

He blamed the troops.

And the thing about ego is ego loves praise, but it does not like being held accountable.

See, our ego like wants the credit, but it doesn't like being corrected when we're wrong.

And here's a here's an uncomfortable question that we could ask ourselves when it comes to how we're doing in this area of our ego and humility.

And I just gotta warn you guys, it's really uncomfortable.

The question is when is the last time that we genuinely admitted that we were wrong?

Not I messed up because of well, if they wouldn't have, if you wouldn't have, then I wouldn't.

When is the last time we said I'm wrong?

I shouldn't have said that.

I handled that situation wrongly.

Would you please forgive me?

And here's another question that kind of can kind of help us understand kind of where we are with our egos.

Is how do we respond when we're corrected?

How do we respond when somebody kind of calls out our junk a little bit?

What Saul did in the text is Saul immediately blamed and he immediately denied.

You know, it's really easy, especially in like the Christian world, to love the idea of people speaking into our lives.

I want people to speak into my life until they actually speak into our life.

And then they're being negative, and then they're being judgmental, and then they don't understand me.

We really like the idea of accountability until we're held accountable.

And then we're like, I need to go to a different church.

I need to be in a different group.

I need to be around different people that are actually loving.

Saul, Saul was loved enough by Samuel for Samuel to tell him the truth.

And and suddenly when people can hold us uh accountable, sometimes we can feel like negativity or this or that.

Or sometimes, if you're like me, I can get defensive.

A few months ago, Cody and Edgar and myself, we were having, like we often do, just a really honest conversation.

And I asked them, I said, hey, I want to be a better leader, a better pastor, a better f follower of Jesus.

I said, Hey, is there something in my life, like talk to me, that I can improve?

And one of them said something way too fast.

One of them said, I got something for you.

Me?

He said, You can get defensive.

And then gave me an example, an uncomfortably clear example of me getting defensive.

And in that moment, I got defensive about him telling me that I was defensive.

Which in hindsight kind of strengthened his point.

And you know I got defensive?

Ego insecurity.

Ego blames.

Humility admits, ego resists, humility repents.

Ego explains away.

Humility takes ownership.

And in this text, Saul refused to take ownership, and he refused to be humble, and ego continued to drive his life.

And unfortunately for Saul, it only got worse.

It says in verse number 16 of 1 Samuel 15, it says, Stop, exclaimed Samuel.

Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.

Tell me, he replied, which Saul, be careful what you ask for.

Samuel continued, although you once considered yourself unimportant, you consider yourself humble.

Haven't you become the leader of the tribes of Israel?

The Lord anointed you king over Israel.

The only reason why you're where you are is because of God.

And then sent you on a mission.

God sent you on a mission and said, Go and completely destroy the sinful Amalekites.

Fight against them until you've annihilated them.

So why didn't you obey the Lord?

Why did you rush on the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord's sight?

Now look at verse number 20.

Look at verse number 20.

Look at the denial we're about to see.

Verse number 20 says this.

But I did.

You did.

I did obey the Lord.

I went on the mission the Lord gave me.

I brought back King Agag of Amalekites.

The beginning of 1 Samuel 15.

He was told not to do that.

And I completely destroyed the Amalekites.

No, you didn't.

Saul is an all-out denial.

It's so interesting.

When we have denial in our lives, we point to everything that we do and all the good things that we do.

And we are blinded to all these other things over here that are so obvious to everybody else.

It's like when you tell your kid, hey, talk at it, go clean your room.

So go in the room, they shove everything in the closet.

And you're like, hey, did you clean your room?

I put everything in the closet.

I'm good.

That's not what asked you.

Did you actually clean up your room?

What do they do?

They focus on everything that they did do that took them a minute to do and just throw everything, right?

Saul lived in denial.

He says, look what I did do over here.

He couldn't admit that he was wrong.

And the reason he couldn't do this is because of his ego.

And underneath his ego was insecurity.

Because we get to a place a few chapters later in chapter 18 where insecurity is really brought to the surface because there's a new kid on the block.

His name is David.

David.

Which we're going to talk all about him next week.

And what we're going to learn from David is how do we handle our mistakes in life when we all make mistakes?

What do we do when we have mistakes?

David's the new kid on the block.

David had just killed a giant.

Anybody remember what the name of the giant was?

Goliath.

Yeah, yeah.

So now David has just killed Goliath, and now he's the cool kid in school.

Like people ain't trying to take pictures with Saul anymore.

They're trying to take pictures with David.

Everybody wants to buy David's merchandise now.

Everybody's following David's social media account.

Saul, now you're a has been.

And Saul, his insecurity creeps up to the surface.

This is what it says in verse 6 of Samuel 18.

It says, as the troops were coming back, they were coming back from David killing Goliath.

David was returning from killing the Philistine.

The women came out from all the cities of the Israel of Israel to meet King Saul.

They are singing, they're dancing with tambourines, with shouts of joy, and with three stringed instruments.

See, Saul is used to this happening, but for him, watch what happens, verse number six, or verse number seven.

As they danced, the women saying, Saul has killed his thousands, but David is tens of thousands.

Ooh.

Verse 8, Saul was furious, and he resented the song.

They credited tens of thousands to David, he complained, but they only credited me with thousands.

What more can he have but the kingdom?

So Saul watched David jealously from that day forward.

And Saul's ego was revealed through the insecurity right here.

Saul's insecurity caused him to feel threatened by David.

See, Saul had spent most of his life up to this point as king getting all the honor, all the praise, all the recognition.

Now, David, the new kid on the block, is getting all the praise, all the honor, all the recognition.

And Saul's insecurity is like I'm the king.

What are they doing?

In fact, Saul's insecurity drove him to such a place where he wanted David to die.

It says in 1 Samuel chapter 18, 25, a few verses later, Saul intended.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

Saul intended to cause David's death at the hands of the Philistines.

Saul spends the rest of his life, he's the king, chasing after David, obsessing over another man.

Imagine this, imagine this.

Saul is king of Israel.

He's been blessed by God.

He has opportunities that few people ever have.

He lives in a palace.

He's got everything he can ever dream of.

But he spends his life, the rest of his life, obsessing over another person.

And here's what insecurity does, and does this to all of us.

Insecurity stills your ability to enjoy the gifts that God's given you.

Insecurity causes me to be so concerned with other people's opinions, so concerned with my shortcomings, so concerned with what I don't have, that I can't enjoy the gifts that are right in front of me that God has given me.

And my ego and insecurity really.

Really are is they really are like a light, like the check engine light in our car that reveals that something deeper is going on.

I don't know if you guys are like me, but I hate when my check engine light comes on in the car.

Because I'm like, ugh, like what's the problem?

Well, I don't know what the problem is because the check engine light doesn't tell you what the problem is.

I'm like, is my engine about to blow, or is it like some little leak or something?

That like, I don't know, you know, like, or is my gas tank a little like not tight?

And it's like, tell me what the problem is.

Doesn't do that.

Now, what I can do when my when the check engine light comes on is I can say, I got an idea.

I'm gonna take out the check engine light.

Some of y'all have done that.

I'm will take it out.

I'm what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try to fix the thing that's telling me that there's a problem rather than actually fixing the problem.

And our insecurity, when it creeps up in our ego, friend, that's not your problem.

It reveals that there is a problem.

And here's what we're gonna see, and here's where we're gonna land the plane this morning is we're gonna see the solution to our ego when it's creeping up, when it's getting big, into our insecurity.

Because it's easy for me to read the life of Saul, for you to read the life of Saul, and we're like, this guy was such a knucklehead.

This guy had so many issues, and be blinded to the fact that so many times in our lives we wrestle with some of these same things.

What's the solution to our ego?

Here's the solution to our ego: it's the cross.

It's the cross.

One of the things that's very easy for us as Jesus followers, as we've been following Jesus for a while or been around church for a while, is to forget about the power of the cross and to forget about what the cross means and what the cross declares over our lives.

Think about this.

Jesus died on the cross because you are not good enough.

Jesus died on the cross because we don't have our lives together.

Jesus died on the cross because we are sinners in need of a savior.

So the same sin that my ego wants to deny is the same sin that Jesus already died for.

And when I see the cross and the fact that I needed a savior and I'm not self-sufficient, and I don't have myself together as much as I think I do, you know what it does?

It humbles me.

The solution to my ego is the cross because no matter how much you accomplish in your life, no matter how much money you have or where you're at in your career, you still needed the cross.

Like Jesus still needed to come and die for you.

It's not like Jesus just died for the church, people.

I'm good, I don't need it.

No, friend, Jesus died for the whole world.

And the solution for my ego and your ego is to get a fresh glimpse of the cross.

And the solution to our ego is to embrace the gospel.

So not just the cross, but the gospel is the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus.

Because in the gospel, here's what we see: we see the care and the compassion that God has for us.

I want to show you guys a verse in Isaiah, and this might be the most important 90 seconds of this entire message.

Because in this verse, it shows the care and compassion that God has for his children.

It says in Isaiah 49, it says, Can a woman forget her nursing child or lack compassion for the child of her womb?

The answer is obvious, absolutely not.

But God says, even if these forget, yet I will not forget you.

God says the care and compassion that He has for you is deeper than that of a nursing mom for her child.

That's how much care and compassion God has for you.

And maybe you were raised in a church environment where God was an angry judge out to get you.

Can I just say you have a wrong view of God because God is a loving father that cares about you and has compassion for you and knows right where you are and wants to walk with you in your sorrows and your troubles and your depression, and he cares for your heart.

And what the gospel says is when Jesus came and died on the cross for us, he didn't die for us because we're junk.

He valued us so much.

Here's what Tim Keller says about the gospel.

He says, the gospel's this you are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe.

Yet at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared.

You see, for the Jesus follower, humility and confidence come from the exact same place.

The gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I feel like I'm not enough, I don't start trying harder and doing more.

This is what I do.

I run to the sufficiency of Jesus and who he says that I am.

Confidence.

When I feel like I don't measure up, and I'm not where I thought I would be at this place in my life.

So because of that, I feel like I'm worthless, I don't have value.

I remember what the gospel declares about me that I am a child of God.

Confidence.

When I feel that I'm in bondage to all of these things around me and this mindset and this issue, I remember that Jesus says, whom the Son sets free, they are free indeed.

Confidence.

Confidence.

But the gospel also produces humility.

Because when I get a little too big for my britches, because I think I'm somebody, the gospel, the cross reminds me that actually the only reason why I'm anything is because Jesus came and died for me.

Humility.

The only reason why I have breath in my lungs is because the God of grace allows me to have breath in my lungs.

That's humbling.

The gospel gives us confidence, and the gospel gives us humility, and followers of Jesus should be the most confident and humble people in the room.

We shouldn't be filled with pride.

We shouldn't be woe is me.

No, no, no.

We should be people that know who God says that we are, but also because of who God says that we are, we're not self-absorbed, we're not filled with ego.

We can love other people well.

And this is why we say here that the gospel doesn't just save us, it shapes us, it strengthens us, and guides us.

Confidence, humility, the cross, the gospel, it is the solution to my ego and your ego and my insecurity and your insecurity.

So here's the two questions that I want us to reflect on, and we're done.

Where in your life does your ego need to be reminded of the cross?

Does your ego need to be reminded of the cross?

Have you found yourself lately blame shifting, deflecting, getting defensive, looking at other people, and subconsciously thinking, I'm better than those people?

Remember the cross.

But also, does your insecurity need to embrace what the gospel says about you?

Are you finding yourself in life, finding your value in what other people think about you, and how quote unquote successful you are, on how good your kids are, on where you live, on what you drive, on all these other outward metrics that we run to to find security.

Hey, if you were doing those things, hey, will you embrace what the gospel says about you?

You are a child of God.

The rise of King Saul happened because of God's blessing on Saul's life.

That was the rise.

But the fall happened in his life.

And it got a lot worse.

We ain't got time to talk about it, a lot worse.

Because of his ego, because of his insecurity.

And if it happened to King Saul, the tallest and most handsome man in the entire land, you know it's like it happened to me.

And you.

Let's have a word of prayer and let's pray about this together.