40 Days in the Word: 1 Samuel | March 15 2026 (Part 5)

Turning your Bibles with me, would you?

2 First Samuel chapter 15 First Samuel 15 shouldn't be a

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

surprise to those who've been following along with us that

we're turning to this book again.

Hey, everybody. We are like halfway over halfway

through Lent. How's it feel?

It was pretty good. Yeah, it's very good.

Remember, Lent is this this 40 day period.

It's actually 46 days, but 40 days without the sun, days of

preparation for the celebration of Easter.

And the whole idea is for us to just have a clear idea of who

God is, to understand him more to to, to appreciate him more,

and in so doing, to humble ourselves, to root out the self

centeredness in our own lives so that we can see them more

clearly. I don't know how many of how

many have given up something for Lent.

It's not a prerequisite, but it can be.

I know for me, one of the things, well, the main thing

that I gave up was my evenings. So I wanted my, my commitment

was to get to bed by 9:30 every night and I just crashed and

burned on that. But I'm not giving up.

I'm just over halfway through and saying no, what, you know

what, I'm, I'm going back. I, I will, I will return to this

commitment to the Lord. And this is what Lent is.

This is the opportunity to continue to grow and go in the,

in the image of, of Christ. And, and it's not an

instantaneous, it doesn't happen overnight, so to speak.

And so we really want to, we want to press in and get closer

to the Lord. You know, most of the problems

that we run into are in our lives are really the result of

us not having a clear view of who God is, not appreciating who

God really is, and really an understanding of ourselves as

well. And this is what Scripture does

for us. It helps us to see God more

clearly and helps us to see ourselves more clearly so that

we can be in the midst of a very broken world.

Instruments in the Redeemer's hands that we can be used of God

to help bring restoration as opposed to continuing to kind of

reinforce this brokenness that we see in the world.

None of us gets it right all the time, but day after day, moment

by moment, we're growing in his in his likeness and and God

wants to wants to see that change happen in our lives.

All of this is happening in this one chapter of First Samuel.

This chapter, what we're gonna do is we're gonna read the whole

chapter. For those of you who have have

not been following along in First Samuel, it's well worth

getting, getting the full context.

It's hard to kind of break it up for those of you who have

already read it. So that was yesterday's reading.

If you're following along the journal, I don't think you're

going to mind hearing it again. Every time I read this, it just

keeps getting better and better. So let's pray and and we'll read

this scripture together. Father in Heaven, what a gift

you've given to us today. Just just breath and life and

the fact that we can be together this morning and freely worship

you. We thank you for it all, but

you've given us this precious word of yours, and we pray that

it would find a landing place in our hearts today.

Come and make yourself known through Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen. So we are so 1st 14 chapters is

really just describing this. What for Sam was about is this

transition from judgeship to kingship.

Israel being led by judges, basically leaders that God has

raised up versus kings. So the beginning of a mark

monarchy where kings will be passed on, kingship will be

passed on to the sons. The last judge who is Samuel is

going to anoint the first king who is Saul, And God's people

were crying out for a king which their motive was not right.

In doing so, Scripture says God reveals that it's actually a

rejection of Him, that they're looking for leadership from a

from a human being to guide them, as opposed to God's

anointed, anointed person and God himself.

And so Saul is established as as a king and he reigns for 42

years. And you actually starts off, OK.

He's on a pretty good trajectory to begin with.

But he is operating out of a place of fear, fear of people,

fear of the circumstances that are around him.

And he's panicking and he's not putting his trust in the Lord.

In fact, his son Jonathan has been reading along.

He's the one who is operating far, far more in in terms of

faith, trusting God for good things that we see Saul really

struggling in this regard. He's given instruction and he's

not following through on these instructions.

So he's rebuked and in the middle of this rebuke, we still

see God's gracious to him and gracious to his people.

It's incredible the patience that God shows.

But I don't know about you, but as I read this, really this

tragic life of soul, I've got a heart for this guy.

Can you see any of yourself in the soul?

I his struggle is something that I can completely identify with

on so many levels. So I have a heart for him, but

we're going to, we're going to jump into chapter 15 and Lord

willing, we're gonna see more of who God is and more of who we

are through the interaction in this chapter.

So First Samuel, Chapter 15, Everybody with me.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

You got it, great, Samuel said to Saul.

I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people,

Israel. So listen now to the message

from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty

says. I will punish the Amalekites for

what they did to Israel when they wailed, waylaid them as

they came up from Egypt. 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, heavy

stuff. So Saul summoned the men and

mustered them at Tulam. 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 from

Judah. Saul went to the city of Amalek

and said an ambush in the ravine.

Then he said to the Kenites, Go away, leave the Amalekite, so

that I do not destroy you along with them.

For you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up

out of Egypt. So the Kenites moved away from

the Amalekites. Then Saul attacked the

Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the

eastern border of Egypt. He took egg, Egg, king of the

Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with

the sword. But Saul and the army spared

Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and

lambs, everything that was good. These they were unwilling to

destroy completely, but everything that was despised and

weak they totally destroyed. Then the word of the Lord came

to Samuel. I regret that I have made Saul

king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out

my instructions. Samuel was angry, and he cried

out to the Lord all that night. Early in the morning Samuel got

up and went to meet Saul, but he was told Saul has gone to

Carmel. There he has set up a monument

in his own honor, and his turn to gone on down to Gilgal.

When Samuel reached him, Saul said, the Lord bless you.

I've carried out the Lord's instructions, but Samuel said.

What then is this bleeding of sheep in my ears?

What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?

Saul answered. The soldiers brought them from

the Malachites. They spared the best of the

sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we

totally destroyed the rest. Enough, Samuel said to Saul.

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

Tell me, Saul replied. Samuel said Although you were

once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the

tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over

Israel, and he sent you on a mission saying go and completely

destroy those wicked people. The Amalekites wage war against

them until you have wiped them out.

Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the

plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?

But I did obey the Lord Salsa. I went on the mission the Lord

assigned me. I completely destroyed the

Amalekites and brought back Agag, their king.

The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the

best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to

the Lord your God at Gilgal. But, Samuel replied, Does the

Lord delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in

obeying the Lord? To obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of Rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance like

the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the

word of the Lord, he has rejected you as King.

Then Saul said to Samuel, I've sinned.

I have violated the Lord's command in your instructions.

I was afraid of the men, and so I gave in to them.

Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I

may worship the Lord. But Samuel said to him, I will

not go back with you. You have rejected the word of

the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over

Israel. As Samuel turned to leave, Saul

caught hold of the hem of his robe and a tour.

Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the Kingdom of Israel from

you today and has given it to one of your neighbors to 1

better than you. He who is the glory of Israel

does not lie or change his mind, for He is not a human being that

he should change his mind. His decision was clear.

Was final. Verse 30, Saul replied.

I have sinned, but please honor me before the elders of my

people and before Israel. Come back with me, so that I may

worship the Lord your God. So Samuel went back with Saul,

and Saul worshipped the Lord. Then Samuel said, Bring me egg,

Egg, king of the Amalekites. Egi came to him in chains, and

he thought, surely the bitterness of death is passed.

But Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so

will your mother be childless among women.

And Samuel put a gig to death before the Lord at Gilgal.

Then Samuel left for Rama, but Saul went up to his home in

Gibeah of Saul until the until the day Samuel died, he did not

go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourn for him.

And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Want to take a look at how the Lord is being revealed in this

chapter as well as to be looking at how you know what, what we

can learn from Saul and then how what this reveals about

ourselves as well. So let's just take a look at it

first. First, we're gonna look at the

Lord's faithfulness, God's safeness, because we see a great

contrast between God's faithfulness and man's

faithfulness here. Soul is instructed.

He's commanded to totally destroy the Amalekites.

Now. To modern ears this is horrific,

and it is horrific if you think about it.

Men, women and children, all the livestock, everything is

completely demolished. And it's stuff like this that we

read in the Bible that can really turn us off.

A lot of people won't even touch the Bible, won't even go to the

Old Testament because of situations like this.

They think, man, this is, you know, what kind of a God would

do that? And for those who have remained

faithful, there is this wrestling match going on in our

mind. How am I gonna justify this?

Somehow we can minimize it. There are books that are written

that that describe will actually total destruction of of of a

group of people isn't really total destruction.

It's just it's partial destruction.

And that actually may be true, but I think it's missing the

point that's that's going on here as well.

Some have said, well, God never really said that.

That's just kind of human beings interpreting what he said.

But it says very clearly this is what God had said.

So if that's not the case, somehow God's character is being

maligned through Scripture. And as well, other ways that

we've tried to understand this grapple with it is that, well,

this is the Old Testament God, but we're now we're talking

about the New Testament. I worship the New Testament God,

but the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament.

It is God. And so I, I believe to be

faithful to Scripture, we need to embrace this as it actually

stands in the Word. And there's a reason for that

because there are things like God's thoughts are so much

higher than our thoughts, His ways higher than our ways.

We don't always understand. And you know when we when it

comes to embracing the truth, it makes all of us uncomfortable in

some ways because we don't think like he thinks God is a holy

God, a holy God. Verse 2 says this is what the

Lord Almighty says. I will punish the Amalekites for

what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came

up from Egypt. What God is commanding Saul to

do is actually in accordance with His promise that God

promised His people that he was going to remove the Amalekites

from the face of the earth for their resistance to God's

redeeming work and bringing his people out of Egypt that they

were a wicked people. So this is a sign of God's

faithfulness in what he's doing. It's kind of we we, we need to

kind of make a make a shift in the way that we're thinking

verse 18. It refers to the Amalekites is a

is a very wicked people and God has given them 300 years by this

time to turn from Him, but they still have not.

So in Exodus 34 we read about the Lord's character.

This is actually consistent with God's character.

This is the Lord the Lord. This is God's speaking, the Lord

the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger,

abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love

to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

He punishes the children and their children for the sin of

the parents to the third and 4th generations.

Again, as we referred to earlier, that this is not, this

is not punishing children for the sins of the parents, but

actually the children who are following in the sinful

behaviors of their parents. No one gets away with anything.

And this is the message not just of the Old Testament.

This is the message of the New Testament as well.

Jesus actually is quoting Isaiah 61 verse one to two, but he was

sent. He refers to it to himself.

He has sent me to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the

day of vengeance of our God. Both of those things.

Both of those things. The day, the year of the Lord's

favor and the day of vengeance of a God.

What kind of a good God would allow injustice in wickedness to

continue to stand? He's extremely patient, but

there's a point in which he says enough is enough.

If this is, if this is an area of challenge for you.

In fact, even if it isn't, if you just want to continue to to

educate yourself on this, one book that I would highly

recommend is RC Sproul's book, The Holiness of God.

The Holiness of God. He speaks about God as being a

God of perfect justice. There is not a flaw in God's

righteousness. He's a God of perfect justice,

and even the slightest bit of disobedience from human beings

is actually a sign of our rebellion against God.

It's actually what would be considered like it's it's for us

to be saying I have a better way.

I'm turning away from your rule and I'm following my own way,

which makes it very clear that no one in this world is

innocent. There isn't an innocent person

on the planet. We're all sinful.

We've all turned from God. In other words, we all deserve

what the Amalekites would initially be getting.

Every single one of us. That's a hard concept to

understand, but as soon as we get that, life becomes so much

richer because we realize I'm actually living right now and

breathing because of the mercy of God.

That if God was that, that if I really got what I deserved, I

wouldn't be here anymore. I'd be done.

I'd be finished. But I'm living under the mercy

of God, so God is always operating in either in, in, in,

in. He's always operating in perfect

justice. Now, if we think of the most

horrific act of divine vengeance, we don't find it in

the Old Testament. We can look at the flood, we can

look at everything, but it's actually in Jesus Christ, who is

the only innocent person that ever walked this planet.

And yet he was nailed to a cross and this was God's Father's will

for him. And yet, even though horrific as

that was, it was the most beautiful day.

That's why we call Good Friday good is because in the most

horrific act of God's vengeance, His wrath against our sin, the

only innocent person in the world was nailed to a cross.

So that you and I who deserve that cross could get off Scott

free. That is the perfect justice of

God. He loves us, He is for us, He is

not against us, and He is communicating again and again

and again over in Scripture and multiple different arrays that

He is good and that He can be trusted, and that if we will

turn from our wickedness, we will be saved and we will be

healed. This is the faithfulness of God,

and this should be a great comfort to us, that God deals

with injustice, He deals with sin and wickedness.

This should give us great comfort.

He is faithful. Now let's contrast this with

Saul's faithfulness, because in the surface it sounds like Saul

is being obedient. He is being faithful to the call

that is given even says, you know, I did obey the Lord even

though he's being called onto the carpet for it. 1st 13 He

said, You know, when Samuel reached him, Saul said, the Lord

bless you, I've carried out the Lord's instructions.

But Samuel said, what then is the bleeding of sheep in my

ears? What is this lowing of cattle

that I hear? Obviously Saul did not follow

through fully on the command. He was not faithful to the

command that God had given to him.

He had deceived himself. Saul calls him on it and then he

says verse 20, but I did obey the Lord.

I went on the mission the Lord assign me.

I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back.

I gagged their king, the soldiers.

The soldiers took the sheep. He's kind of passing the blame a

little bit. The soldiers took the sheep or

blender. The best of what is devoted to

God in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal

sounds sounds great, sounds religious, sounds spiritual and

yet it is disobedience. And have you ever heard the

phrase that 99% obedience is actually 100% disobedience?

Might sound harsh, but it's very, very clear if if, if we

don't obey fully, it's called disobedience.

And soul is being called on this, you know, in fact, Samuel

himself, by the end, he's the one that actually finishes the

mission. He kills egg egg for Saul.

Saul can't even do it. And it's interesting that when

we get to chapter 30 of of Samuel, the end, Saul is killed

by an Amalekite. All comes back on us.

All comes back on us. So here we see.

I mean, when I read this, the first first, I remember the

first actually not even the first time.

Many times reading this, I'm thinking I can totally identify

this song like he's he's showing some humanity and not killing

the king. You know, he's he's he, he's

even spared all of these the best in order to to worship the

Lord. And yet it's called sin because

he wasn't willing to follow the Lord's instructions.

The word of God was given to him, and he interpreted it in a

way to serve himself. And I think, man, I do that.

I do that. Why did he keep the king alive?

Probably to probably due to some sort of political dealings of,

of, of some sort to try to, you know, to, to win favour or, or

whatever. And why do you keep all, all the

sheep as plunder? I mean, all of it.

It's just in, in, in the last analysis, it's greed.

And this was controlling him. But another factor that's

pointed out here that Saul actually admits when he's when

he's brought onto the carpet. In verse 24, Saul said to

Samuel, I've sinned. I violated the Lord's command in

your instructions. I was afraid of the men, and so

I gave in to them. There was a fear of human

beings. It was a fear of what are people

gonna think of me? There's a fear that maybe they

would topple me, that maybe they would replace me.

And his fear of them eclipsed his fear of God.

And in verse 23, this is called rebellion.

It's called arrogance. All of these things are are kind

of wrapped up in the fear, in the fear of man.

And this has been a a powerful passage to me.

Isaiah chapter 51. This is God speaking to the

Isaiah 51 · chapter mention

Israelites, and he says, who are you that you fear?

Mere mortals, human beings who are but grass that you forget

the Lord, your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and

who lays the foundations of the earth.

This is potent stuff. Who are you like?

Who do you think you are that you would fear mere mortals and

forget me? You see, fearing people isn't

the first step. It actually begins with

forgetting God. The reason why we fear other

humans and their opinions and being accepted by them and and

and fearing judgment by them is because we've forgotten the God

who has made us who set everything into position.

As soon as we forget God, we fall prey to the fear of man.

And we forget God because we're arrogant, because I think I

don't need you in this moment. I, I, I forgotten for this

moment just how great you are. Suddenly I have been raised

above you. As soon as we forget God, it's

it's it's a sign that we have that are their pride is filled

our heart. We don't usually think of it

that way, but this is how Scripture speaks of it and we

need to recognize we need to. That's why we continually need

to be reading Scripture to have our eyes opened and our minds

blown by the by the size of God, by the holiness of God, the

righteousness of God, and to humble ourselves a right before

Him. So let's talk about our

faithfulness. I think I have already talked

about that. Sorry I didn't advance that

slide, but how often are we compromising our faithfulness to

God through our fear of other people?

One of the one of the books recommending some books here,

but another one that I found very, very helpful by Ed Welch.

It's called When people are big and God is small.

It's a, it's a, it's a great book if, if you really wrestle

over fear of people, if you're a people pleaser, if, if the

opinions of others mean an awful lot to you, that is a great book

to read. He'll point you back to

Scripture and help you see the immensity of God for who He

really is. We can be easily deceived.

We can be so easily deceived to think that we're obeying God,

and yet we're not fully obeying God.

First, John chapter 2 says we know that we have come to know

John 2 · chapter mention

him, that is to know God if we keep his commands.

Whoever says I know him but does not do what he commands is a

liar and the truth is not in that person.

What's he saying? He's saying that when we lose

sight of who God is, when we fail to truly know Him, that's

when we fall off the map when it comes to obeying the commands.

But when we have a right conception of God, it brings us

to that place of acknowledging, I need to, I, I need to take his

word seriously. And that's something that Saul

didn't do. He didn't take the word of the

Lord seriously. He exalted himself over God

himself. Our faithfulness is critical and

none of us are gonna get it right all the time, but the more

that we see God for who He is and our great need of Him and to

see ourselves a right in relation to Him, we will be.

We will grow in our faithfulness to God and obeying his commands.

Let's move on. Let's let's look at God's

regret. One last feature, God's God's

regret, verse 10 and 11. Then the word of the Lord came

to Samuel, and this is God speaking.

I regret that I have made Saul king because he has turned away

from me and has not carried out my instructions.

And then drop down to verse 35 at the very end it says and the

Lord regretted that he had made made Saul king over Israel.

It's interesting to, to think of God regretting something and,

and we can think about it in a, in a lot of different ways, but

it's good for us to, to, to, to kind of grapple with this.

The word nahem, the Hebrew word, has a pretty broad semantic

range. It can.

It can mean mean, on the one end, repentance, the desire to

change one's mind all the way down to feeling grieved or

sorrowful over something that is done.

And depending on the context in which we see that word will

determine what the definition is.

That's how that's how language works.

Now, the reason why we're we're even talking about God's regret

is because in Scripture is particularly in chapter 15,

we're getting this contrast that's happening between God's

regret and and Saul's regret. And we're seeing what true

regret should look like. So here we have, you know, some

translations even say that God repented of that he made Saul

king. That's one way to interpret that

word. But actually regret is far more

clear here that well. Well, look, if you look back on

verse 29, this kind of makes it makes it very clear what what's

being spoken of. Verse 29, it says that he who is

the glory of Israel Speaking of the Lord does not lie or change

his mind for he is not a human being that he should change his

mind. So we're not talking about a

repentance. And so and like, OK, I've done

something wrong and now I'm going to change my mind.

Like that's not God. God is sovereign.

He's due, He's operating to perfection in absolutely

everything that he is doing, but he is grieving.

And what we see here is that God who has feelings, sometimes you

can read through Scripture and think, oh man, you know this,

this is such a cold thing. They think of the God of the

universe. He's cold, He's mechanical, He

does his own thing, but he's got a heart.

He has more feelings than you do.

We've been made in His image, so He is at least what we are, if

not more. He is grieved.

His heart is in pain watching the sin of soul being played

out. Now we think, well, why would

why would he be grieved when he knew this was gonna happen all

along? Well, this is it.

Just, it just shows that how, how much of a heart that God has

as he sees it being played out, even though he knows exactly

what's going on and what's gonna happen.

It breaks his heart to see those who are operating on their own

apart from God and doing damage to other people grieves the

heart of God. And we need to see that just how

how is to see his heart in Genesis chapter, Genesis chapter

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

6, and this was after the after the just before the flood.

It says the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the

earth and his heart was deeply troubled.

It's not him saying, you know, if I had to do it all over

again, I never would have made people in the 1st place.

And we've seen the wickedness of humanity, and his heart is

broken over. He's suffering pain, the kind of

pain that Saul should have been experiencing, but he had.

You see, God was far more human than Saul, and we see this

contrast going on here. Even Samuel is experiencing the

pain. He's crying out all night before

the Lord. He's he's angered, he's grieving

over what Saul has done. Not because he doesn't like

Saul. He loves Saul.

You anointed Saul as king. He had a heart for Saul, but he

was grieving over Saul's sin. Why?

Because he was feeling what God was feeling.

And so much of what it means to be a Christian is to be feeling

in this broken world what God feels and respond accordingly.

So let's look at Saul's regret. Verse 24 says, Then Samuel said

to. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have

sinned. I violated the Lord's command in

your instructions. I was afraid of the men, and so

I gave into them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin

and come back with me so that I may worship the Lord here.

He has some regret. He says He acknowledged that he

has sinned, but is it true repentance?

Has he changed his mind? There's a lot of indications

here that he has not. If we were to, yeah, it's kind

of moving through it. I've sinned, I've violated.

I was afraid of this. Now I beg you, forgive my sin

and come back with me so that I may worship the Lord.

And then down to verse 30, Saul replied, I have sinned, but

please honor me before the elders of my people, before

Israel. Come back with me so that I may

worship the Lord your God. It's kind of like, yeah, I

sinned, but can you do this? And when someone gives you,

makes an apology, apologizes for something and then they say, but

I'm really sorry, but I'm really sorry that it now can you kind

of moving quickly off of that? It's a sign.

Are you really sorry? Are you really feeling the

gravity, the weight of how you have hurt me?

Saul is not feeling that right now.

That's interesting just in his language knowledge that his sin

verse 25 Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me so

that I may worship the Lord. He he still concerned about

worshipping the Lord with his people.

It's still a still a a fear of man.

Come, come back with me so that the elders will see that we're

still, we're still tight, we're still OK.

But this one word gets me. Actually, it's more than one

word. But now, I beg you, forgive my

sin, He's asking. He's asking Samuel to forgive

his sin. Nowhere in here do we hear him

asking God to forgive him. In other words, he's he's trying

to reconcile things with Samuel, but he's not reconciling it

first with the Lord. There's a disconnect there that

can verse 30 he says I've sinned, but please honor me

before the elders of my people and before Israel come back with

me so that I may worship the Lord your God, not my God, not

our God, but your God, Samuel's God.

Like the the where is the relationship?

It's not there, or if it was, it's severely broken and it

hasn't been reconciled. So I think about that in

relation to say someone like David who is being referred to

here. David is gonna be coming in the

in the in the next chapter. Now David, if you recall, he's a

guy that sinned greatly, but there was a difference in the

way that he repented than Saul. Remember Psalm 51?

Absolutely gorgeous song this was.

This was after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and this

is what he says. Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love, according to your great

compassion. Blot out my transgressions, wash

away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I

know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me against

you. You only have I sinned and done

what is evil in your sight, so that you are right in your

verdict and justified when you judge.

You see the difference? We can send royally.

What do we do after we've blown it?

Because all of us do. Do we brush it aside?

Like how? How do you and I deal?

So we're talking now about our regrets, FYI.

How do we deal with our regrets? How do we deal with them?

Do we brush them aside and move on, or do we relive them and

just kind of live under kind of being crushed by what we've

done? I shouldn't have done that.

I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done that.

I'm better than that. I'm better than that.

Or do we turn to the Lord and ask Him?

Forgive me. You know, part of the pride that

I have with not and not turning to God and repenting is that I

think I could have done it better.

I could have done it better and I will do it better.

And so until I do, I'm not saying anything to God, but to

acknowledge in that moment I'm weak.

But in you, I'm strong and I have offended you more than I've

offended anybody else. You, you against you, you only

have I sinned, David says. That is the difference between

David and Saul. That is why David is going to be

installed as king and Saul is going to be removed.

He failed to acknowledge God is king and so God is gonna reject

him as king over his people. But God's got an answer to it

all, and this is where it all kind of converges.

He's got an answer to his regrets and to our regrets.

Verse 22, that question that Samuel asks, you know, does the

Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in

obeying the Lord? It's almost like if you have to,

you know, to obey is better than sacrifice.

If you gotta choose one of the other obedience or or a kind of

a ritual sacrifice, choose obedience.

But and that's and that's important for us to realize

because we don't always get it right, but God himself has

provided both perfectly. He is completely consistent in

both regards to his to the person of Jesus Christ that He

has. Jesus came in perfect obedience

and offers His life as the perfect sacrifice, all for our

sake. He's holy.

He is holy Last Scripture, Hebrews 10.

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away

sins. Talking about the ritual

sacrifices, it's impossible. It's an acknowledgment that I

have sinned. But the blood of goats and

animals, they they can never remove sin from us.

It requires a human being to take the place of another human

being for that sin to be forgiven.

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said sacrifice and

offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me with

burnt offerings and sin offerings.

You were not pleased then I said.

Here I am. It is written about me in the

scroll. I have come to do your will, my

God, and by that will we have been made wholly through the

sacrifice of the Body of Jesus Christ, once for all.

That's what he has done for us. So I ponder that and I think,

OK, God himself is made allowance, provision for me in

my sin, in his perfect holiness, he has stooped down to my level.

He's become a human being. He is lived out a life of

obedience that I have and and faithfulness that I've failed to

do. And he has dealt with everyone

of his own regrets and mine as well.

All of the brokenness in my life and in the world he's looked

after through his death. And I think of Saul, who has

remained on the outside. He's remained isolated.

I mean, the chapter ends and him and Samuel separate.

Samuel was the word like he was. It was through Samuel that the

word of God was given, got his instructions, his comfort, his

encouragement. And now they're separated and

Saul is completely alone, and he does not turn to the Lord.

But we have an opportunity to live differently.

We can turn to Him and fully acknowledge His Holiness and

fully repent of our sinfulness and know that we will be

embraced and loved and forgiven and healed and strengthened to

live this life. Let us be a people that are

clinging to God. Working on that relationship is

our number one priority and living in a way that is going to

magnify his great name in this world.

Let's pray, Lord, because you are awesome.

We are in awe of who you are, who you have revealed yourself

to be in human history and in the pages of Scripture.

Now we humble ourselves before you and ask God that you would

forgive us for our sins, Lord, that you would forgive us for

seeing you as small and others big Lord, for for exalting

ourselves in our own judgment over you.

In fact, judging your judgments, not taking seriously your

commands, but is your people, we confess that's not right.

Lord, would You give us every grace that we would step into a

life of obedience and faithfulness towards You in

these coming days. Use this season of Lent to help

us to see you more clearly and to humble ourselves more fully

before you, that your great name may be revealed through our

lives in this broken world. We pray this in Jesus name,

Amen.