CBFC Worship Service 4/26/2026

Thank you very much, Mr.

Andrew.

I uh remember the first time that uh we come and visited here, um we were sitting somewhere over here, and when we first walked in, um I the same, believe it was the same worship team that same today was here when we visited.

And uh it was pretty good.

And it was uh kind of a breath of fresh air because we felt like oh this is this is the place we want to worship.

And we decided that this is the place that that we wanted to be fed.

And it is an honor to be here with you this morning.

I am uh Brian Barr, and I know that you have heard my name from this pulpit before, because everybody picks on me.

They say I talk weird and I look weird, and praise God, my wife makes me look better.

I am the director at Camp Menelaan, and I will not talk very long about camp.

If you have ears to hear, you know that big things are happening at Camp Menelaan right now.

God has tremendously been blessing that place.

And for years it is, it has kind of hovered in a straight line, a little bouncy line, but man, for the last couple of years, God has straight line gave us an increase.

As of last night, about 8:30, there's 1,027 signed up for this summer.

And I know, I know there are bigger camps out there.

I know there are places that play funner games with kids, but I can guarantee you that there's not another place that loves the campers and are challenging and are thrilled about sharing the gospel with each kid and camper and person that comes onto that ground.

And God has blessed us for it.

It's huge.

Again, welcome to CBFC.

I know there's some new faces here, and we're so excited that you are with us either watching online or wherever you are.

Thank you for being with us this morning.

We have been going through the book of 1 Samuel, and it has been uh very good so far.

There have been uh some great teachings that have come out of it, and even if you just read it as a story, man, it reads as a pretty cool book.

I love it.

And uh this morning uh we are in 1 Samuel chapter 15.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

1 Samuel chapter 15, and we asked you to read that last week because it is a long chapter, and you don't want to hear me sit up here and read every single verse.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

Trust me.

I read worse than I talk.

And so I'm gonna give you a brief, here's what's happened so far, and then we're gonna kind of preach through uh this chapter, okay?

So in 1 Samuel, what we see is that God's people, the Israelites, they decided that they wanted a king.

That the way that God had been communicating with them in the past, essentially they decided that it wasn't good enough, that they wanted more.

They wanted to be like the rest of the world.

And so being the loving, kind, gracious God that he is, he allowed them to have free will.

He allowed them to have a king.

And so they chose Saul.

And Saul at first on the outside, he was okay.

But then the more that you read about Saul and you hear about Saul and you learn about Saul, you see that Saul was kind of rough.

Saul had some heart issues.

And so here we are.

Uh Saul has messed up and done good, and messed up and done good, and messed up and done good.

In fact, he's almost like the definition of the American Christian.

Checking the box, done good and messed up, and done good and messed up, and thought everything was okay.

And here we are in this chapter.

And boy, God spinks his honey.

There is a question that each of us, every single day of our lives, have to answer.

Every day, almost every single moment, we have to answer a question.

And this question is, will I obey God fully?

Or will I adjust his commands to fit what I want?

Because let's be honest, most people don't outright like reject God.

Most of us, we we don't outright like deny God, and and and most of us, for the most part, we we don't just say, no, that ain't right.

For the most part, we we just we redefine what obedience means.

Boy, we're in a generation right now that's really good at redefining, ain't we?

I mean, look at what they've done to the word compromise.

Whew! Compromise used to be a good thing.

Compromise used to meant, hey, you're on this side, I'm on this side, let's find common ground and meet in the middle, and we'll be okay.

That used to be compromise.

Compromise now is I'm right, you're wrong, come over here and believe what I'm saying.

We redefined words all the time, and I think what has really messed us up is we've redefined what obedience means.

I mean, here's what we say.

I'll follow God, but only on my terms.

I'll obey mostly.

Here's what I'll do something spiritual to make up for what I've done.

It'll be okay.

And that is exactly where Saul is in this chapter that we're talking about this morning.

That is the exact place that Saul is.

First slide here.

It's 1 Samuel.

This is like the wham-bam moment.

1 Samuel chapter 15, verses 22 and 23.

1 Samuel 15:22

This is like the purpose of the text.

This is God through Samuel telling Saul, he says, it is better, it is to obey is better than sacrifice.

And to heed is better than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination.

That means witchcraft, if you didn't know.

And arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

That verse, it's about Saul.

But this verse is about us.

God gave Saul a clear command.

Next slide.

In 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 3.

1 Samuel 15:3

This is God again directly speaking to Saul, like straight out.

Man, we beg for this sometimes.

Like God, speak to me.

Let me hear you clearly, like talk to me.

Tell me something.

Which way do I need to go?

And here is this privileged man.

God speaks directly to him.

He says, now go.

Verse 3, now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them.

Do not spare them.

Put to death.

Men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

He's saying, wipe them off the face of the earth.

They are my enemies.

I'm going to use you to defeat my enemies.

Clearly, there's no gray area here.

This is a direct command from God.

Told him exactly what to do.

There's no confusion.

This is plain Hebrew.

Then in verse 9, check this out.

It says, But Saul and the army spared Agog.

And Agog was the king of the Amalekites.

And the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and the lambs, everything that was good.

They were unwilling to destroy completely.

But everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed.

They spared the king.

They kept the best animals.

Hear me.

This is called partial obedience.

Partial obedience.

Verse 15.

It says, Saul answered, the soldiers brought them from the Amalekites.

They spared the best of the sheep and the cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God.

But we totally destroyed the rest.

That's the wrong verse up there.

Did you hear what it said though?

It said they spared the best of the sheep.

This is Saul talking.

This is Saul justifying what he's done.

He said, look, we saved the best things.

We saved the best cattle and the best sheep.

We saved the best things.

But don't you worry.

We totally destroyed the rest of it, everything.

In fact, we saved it to sacrifice to you, Lord.

Look how good we are.

Don't you like that?

Do you hear what's going on right here?

Do you know what Saul is doing?

He's spiritualizing his disobedience.

That's what's happening right now.

He's making his sin okay.

He's softening the blow.

He's justifying it.

Well, it really don't affect everybody else, Lord, and I can probably use this for you.

So let's let's just work it out.

It'll be okay.

And now verse 24.

Verse 24.

This is all he says.

I was afraid of the people.

And so I gave in.

That's it.

That's why he disobeyed.

That is his heart posture right here.

He was afraid of the people, and so he gave in.

Look, obedience is still disobedience.

Partial obedience is still disobedience.

Because Saul here, what he's saying is, I obey mostly.

But in God's eyes, you read the entire Bible.

You can't get around it.

In God's eyes, mostly obedient is still disobedient.

Period.

Imagine, how many people have kids in here?

Can anybody want to raise their hand?

I know you might be ashamed of your child.

It's alright.

Yeah, look at look here.

Check this out.

I don't know if this ever happened to you.

But imagine telling your child to clean their room.

And what they do is they clean half of it up and shove part of it underneath their bed, and then the other part they put in their closet and close the door, and their room looks spotless.

It's beautiful.

Some of you got the middle children and bore them daughters.

Let the Lord love on you.

I understand.

I understand.

I get it.

But you walk in there, hypothetically, you walk in there, you see their room clean, but you start looking under their bed and you open their closet, and it's like Monica from France, her closet, just everything starts piling out of there, right?

And then you don't tell them, you don't tell them good job.

You can't tell them good job.

What do you tell them?

This is not what I asked you to do.

We do the same thing with God.

We obey, but only where it's comfortable.

We delay when it's hard.

And we ignore God when it costs us something.

Selective obedience.

Partial obedience is still disobedience.

And you cannot substitute obedience with spiritual activity.

Listen, it's not about performance.

It's not about trying to be good enough.

Saul's excuse, man, it sounds so spiritual.

I I was gonna, we saved it to sacrifice to you, Lord.

Look, I just stuffed it under my bed right here.

Look, it's right that we just saved it.

We're gonna use it later.

It'll be alright.

It's just like us.

I wash dishes.

I hate doing the silverware.

Hate it.

And so you know where?

I wash every dish in the house, but you know where that silverware is?

Sitting in the sink still this morning from last night.

I'm sorry.

It's just like that.

But Saul made these excuses.

He said, We kept the best to sacrifice to the Lord.

But God says in this very first verse that we read, he says, I didn't ask for sacrifice.

I asked for obedience.

You cannot replace obedience with activity.

Listen, you can sing, you can sing, you can serve, you can give.

You can show up every week and sit in your seats and still be living in disobedience.

In Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, this slide.

Matthew 7:21

This is Jesus talking.

Matthew 7, 21.

It says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

But only the one who, what is that word?

Does.

But only the one who does my will.

He does the will of the Father.

That's what Jesus says.

Did you catch that?

Not the ones who say it.

I'm so tired of these Christians with this lip service all the time.

Do something.

Show me your faith.

Don't just sit there and feel good.

I didn't say a bad word this week.

Oh boy, we're doing so good.

Do something about it.

God has given instructions not to make you feel good and bubbly.

He gave us instructions all throughout his word so that a kingdom will be built.

Not later, not in heaven, but right now.

That's what it is.

That's why he keeps talking about in these last days.

And he talks about the kingdom.

It's right now.

It don't wait.

Jesus got in people's faces and said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

You can experience this now.

Whoa, it's 1051, Andrew.

I'm hurrying.

The ones who do it.

Matthew chapter 15, verse 8.

Matthew 15:8

Jesus says, these people, talking about the religious Pharisees, those religious people, he says, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

That's Saul in this situation right now.

That's what religion does.

And if we're honest, sometimes that is us.

You see, rebellion is a heart issue.

God even says rebellion is like witchcraft and arrogance is like idolatry.

That sounds so extreme, doesn't it?

To be sure, my sin is not like witchcraft.

No way.

I don't have some big pop cauldron that I'm sitting here stirring.

It ain't like that.

I'm not like that.

Are you like you got a cauldron?

I got a nice pop.

That I can stir some soup up in.

It seems so harsh.

It seems so crazy to think.

Rebellion is like witchcraft.

It's so extreme until you understand what he's saying.

Rebellion is not just breaking a rule.

Rebellion is actually saying, I will decide what I obey.

It's like treating God's word as this buffet.

I like mash taters.

It's for the sinners.

You know what I'm talking about?

It's like piling your plate up with the good stuff.

That other stuff, boy, you can feed that to the dogs.

You know what that is?

That's self-rule.

Think of this.

Think of a throne.

Think of your life having a throne.

Okay?

Think of your life having a throne.

Every single day someone has to sit on the throne.

I'm not talking about the pot.

I'm talking about the throne.

Where the king rules, where the ruler is.

And either God sits on the throne or you sit on the throne.

You see, Ellot and Elsie, they love getting in my front seat of my truck and driving back and forth to camp.

Kate hates that.

They love like they've always loved it since they were little, little.

I don't know if your kids like that.

They love sitting in my front seat.

Now they've gotten bigger.

And they don't hardly fit in my front seat anymore without like squishing in.

It's the cutest thing.

I love it.

And they're they're understanding now that they're a little too big for that to like squish in.

Let me tell you, on the throne of your life, there's no squishing in beside each other.

There's no shared seat.

It's either God sitting on the throne or you sitting on the throne.

Matthew chapter 15 verse 19.

Matthew 15:19

Yikes.

Says, out of the heart comes evil thoughts.

This is not just behavior here.

In a few weeks, we're gonna hear about uh David on the rooftop.

It's not about seeing the woman bathing.

It's about staring at her and acting on that.

Out of the heart comes evil thoughts.

This is not just behavior, it's a heart problem.

And God won't surrender and he doesn't want performance.

Listen, most people, man, we're not trying to be evil.

In fact, we we do a good job of hating evil.

Mostly.

Most people they're just trying to be good enough.

There was this man, and he served at church every single week faithfully.

He didn't miss.

He loved coming to church and he loved volunteering.

He tithed his money.

He showed up, but for many years, God had been nudging him and God had been telling him, just forgive your father.

Just forgive your father.

Like over and over again, he heard that stirring in his heart.

Like, just just forgive your father.

And he refused.

And one day, one day in his prayer room, he was sitting down and he was talking to God and he said, God, look at all that I've done.

God, look at all that I've done for you.

Like, I mean, I've volunteered and I've given up all this money and I've done all these things.

God, this was for you.

And then deep in his heart, he felt, he felt God nudging.

Why won't you give me the one thing that I asked?

That's Saul.

That's Matthew 7.

And that's us.

We're so good at holding on to that one thing.

So what do we do with this?

As it is 1058.

Let's go into a little application, okay?

What do we do with this?

Firstly, you gotta identify.

Like, where are you partially obeying God?

And to answer this question, you have to be really real with yourself.

Where am I partially obeying God?

To answer this question, you've really got to be honest, not just with yourself, but but with God.

Where am I partially obeying God?

What has He clearly told you that you've delayed or avoided or adjusted?

Some of you know what I'm talking about.

Identify where you're holding back.

Number two is stop justifying.

Stop justifying.

There's no more excuses, no more.

Well, it's not that bad.

No more, I'll get to it later.

We are so good at so many things, and the reason why so many marriages fail is because the man says to his wife, You can have all this, but this is mine.

So many marriages fail, and relationships fail because the wives say you can have all of this, but not this.

But this is mine.

And we have to stop justifying that.

We have to realize that man, I'm so tired of of the the the self-help books and all the self-help podcasts.

Holy smokes, there's just so many.

You gotta treat yourself like this, and you gotta do this for yourself like this.

It's a bunch of baloney because what is created is a selfish generation that's all about themselves.

It is created Christians but not disciples.

We're good Christians.

Do you know in scripture there's nowhere that it defines what a Christian is?

That was actually a derogatory term.

That was that was like saying bad things about somebody.

You can't find the real definition of what Christian is, but it spells out exactly what a disciple is.

And yet we ignore that.

We're good Christians, we're terrible disciples.

No more excuses.

Just say yes, Lord.

Stop battling the fight of I'm trying not to do this, I'm trying not to do this, stop, stop battling.

That is dumb.

Just don't do it.

Surprise! We want to read books about it, and we want to go to these seminars and all these like meetings and things about well, you probably shouldn't do that.

No, scripture is clear.

Commands, don't do that.

Jesus asked, do you want to be healed?

There was this man at Bassadia, at the pool of Bassadia, and he was crippled.

He'd been there for like 38 years.

And he'd come up, Jesus, come up, and he asked this question, man.

It's so hard to answer.

Do you want to be healed?

Absolutely.

And Jesus healed that man and he rolled up his mat and he put it under his arm and he walked away.

And what does Jesus say?

Go and sin.

How much?

No more.

Or these things will happen all over again.

And guess what happens to our relationships with our kids and our wives and our husbands and our workmates and the people that are sitting beside of us in our pews?

Like, guess what happens?

Guess what happens?

We do the same stupid things over and over and over again.

And we expect the same, we expect something different to happen.

What was that?

Uh you said that.

That's why it popped in my head.

What is that?

What the definition of Yeah.

Just plain dumb.

Eleven oh four.

Here we go.

There are people here, and you and you love God.

You love God.

You believe in Him.

You even serve Him.

But there's this area of your life where you're saying, not that, Lord.

That feels too good.

That's just too hard to stop.

God, you can have everything, but God, not that.

And God is saying through 1 Samuel chapter 15, in the interactions with Saul, he's saying, that is the very thing that I'm asking for.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

You've been offering sacrifice, and God is demanding obedience.

Listen to this verse again.

It says to obey is better than sacrifice.

And Jesus said, Only the one who does the will of my Father.

Right now, no excuses.

What is that one thing?

What is that one thing that God has been asking of you that you've been resisting?

Today there's no more negotiating.

Real quick, let me tie this chapter up nice and neat, because here it comes.

If you read the end of 1 Samuel chapter 15, it's not all rainbows and unicorn poops.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

Let me tell you something.

God gets what he wants one way or the other.

And if you don't do it, guess what?

He's raising up a generation that will.

And so Samuel took out his sword and sliced up the King Agog.

Like, sliced him up, like little bits and pieces.

Like little chicken nuggets.

You know, we walk into tractor supply and we see the little chicks out there.

They're so cute.

I just imagine Saul in godly anger just sliced him up.

Like had fun, like ninja dropping the fruit on your screen of your phone.

He sliced him up.

Sent Saul on his way.

We don't know what's going on with Saul.

And Samuel went in the opposite direction.

You know, if we exegete that a little bit and we bring it into 2026, here's the warning.

We read it in Revelation with the churches.

We read it here.

We hear it from the words of Jesus.

God gets what he wants, and he will remove your lampstand.

There is, and I'm not trying to scare you.

Hell is real.

And good people go there every day.

We love the grace of Jesus.

We don't talk about the wrath of God.

God is not looking for people who impress Him with sacrifice.

He is looking for people who will surrender in obedience.

Will you pray with me?

God, there's that one thing.

For some, there's even many things.

But for most of us, God, there's that one thing that we just keep holding on to.

God, I pray that you'll prick our hearts.

You'll challenge our minds to let go of that fight.

God, I pray that this morning, God, that your people that are sitting in these chairs, God, have heard your word and been moved by your spirit to go out, God, and to do it.

To not just say, Lord, Lord, but to live it out every day, God.

Help us to do that.

God, you have given us the power of your spirit, God.

You have given us such great power.

God, you sent Jesus out of the earth to send your spirit here to dwell inside of us, God, and we often miss the power that we have over Satan.

So, God, help us to resist the devil so he will flee from us.

God, thank you for allowing us to be in your kingdom and to help you build your kingdom.

God, help our will not be done but yours.

God, I pray if there is someone in here this morning that's never heard about your beautiful son that you sent and die, to die on the cross for for our sins, God.

I pray if someone has never heard that before, God, I pray that that they they they will come to your son.

God, I pray they they leave whatever it is that's holding them back, God, to accept your salvation that you've offered.

God, move our hearts.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.