Heart of Kings - Saul 07: Samuel Steps Down

1 Samuel 12, 19 through 25.

And all the people said to Samuel, Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil to ask for ourselves a king.

And Samuel said to the people, Do not be afraid, you have done all this evil.

Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.

Do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way.

Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you.

But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Let's pray before we get into our text.

Father, I thank you for times of celebration like this morning.

And I pray that you would use your word to help move us in that direction.

That you might use your word shared together as a church on Sunday mornings to be like an engine that drives our families and our work lives and all that you have called us to.

Father, I pray that you would use this word to work in our hearts that we might see more clearly who you are, the irresistible grace that you offer.

Father, I lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we are in the midst of our series moving through the book of 1 Samuel.

The series is called Heart of Kings, and we're looking at three different leaders of Israel in that moment in time when it moved from a sort of loose collection of tribes to becoming a kingdom.

We have moved through the portion on Samuel, and last week we saw di we saw Saul selected as king.

But we're gonna take one step back into Samuel this morning.

So you may have thought we're out of Samuel and we're into Saul, but what we're seeing this morning is when Saul was moved into the position of king, it is now Samuel's turn to step down from the position of leadership that he was in.

And so what we're looking at this morning is the story of Samuel stepping down and what his final words were to the people of Israel from the position of judge over them, which he had held for nearly his entire life.

You see, last week we saw the kingship established under Saul.

Saul was anointed by Samuel, and although reluctantly at first, God allows him to defeat the Philistines, and therefore all the people rally around Saul as their true God-selected king.

And when that happens, we might think, okay, the kingdom is established now in an irrevocable way.

And in a sense, it really has been.

The kingdom has been established by God.

And yet, we remember that the thing that established the kingdom was the people's rejection of God as their king.

When they came to God and said, we desire an earthly king, ultimately what was at the heart of that was a rejection of God as their king.

So what we see is this sin of the people that has now fundamentally altered the world.

Now they live under a king named Saul, who, as we'll see moving forward, is not the best, and they live with the effects of this sin that they committed now firmly established in the world.

So oftentimes we find ourselves in situations exactly like this, where our sin was not something we committed in a closet and then could repent of in a closet.

But instead, it has deeply affected the relationships that we are a part of.

And so now we find ourselves living with the real effects of our sin established in our personal histories and relationships.

And so now we have to find out how is it that we move on?

How do we recover when our sin has deeply stained the world and the relationships that we take part in?

That's the position that the Israelites find themselves in this morning.

And that's precisely what Samuel speaks to.

How is it that when your sin has been made deeply real in your life, you move forward and recover with the Lord?

So we're gonna see two steps to this that Samuel provides, the people of Israel.

He brings them to repentance, but that's not necessarily the step we're most interested in this morning.

This morning we're interested in that second step where he leads them towards recovery.

So he describes to them here, now that you've repented of your sin and recognized it as sin, here's how you move forward in this sin-stained world with the Lord.

So let's begin with how Samuel draws them to repentance.

In 1 Samuel 12, 19, Samuel says, And all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die.

For we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.

So you might think, we believe in a sovereign God, and therefore when we see the kingdom established, then it must not have been really sinful for them to have desired a king, because ultimately God did establish it.

So there must be some sense in which this is what God wanted.

So is this something that we can retroactively look back at and say, well, it seemed wrong at the time, but now we know this isn't necessarily wrong.

That's not the way that Samuel treats it, and that's not the way the people respond to it.

The king is already established when Samuel's talking now, and yet he brings them to a recognition of this fact that this thing that God established, your intentions for establishing it were wrong.

And this is a deep sin that is taking place in your heart.

So how does Samuel bring them to that type of space?

The first thing that Samuel, well, I'll say this, Samuel brings them to that type of space, not by reminding them primarily of the depth of their sin, but by reminding them primarily of the depth of God's faithfulness towards them throughout history.

What is it that ultimately forces them into this repentance?

It's when they see we've rejected a God who has been completely faithful to us.

It's God's kindness and patience that draw us towards repentance.

And so that's what Samuel puts on display.

Firstly, by bringing them to a recognition of his own leadership, the one who's stepping down.

Here's what Samuel says, 1 Samuel 12, 3 through 4.

He says, Here I am.

Testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed.

Whose ox have I taken?

Whose donkey have I taken?

Who have I defrauded?

Whom have I oppressed, or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it?

Testify against me, and I will restore it to you.

They said, You have not defrauded us or oppressed us, or taken anything from any man's hand.

This is the leader that they are asking to step down.

I'm gonna take a sip of water.

My mouth's kind of dry this morning.

Marco Rubio.

Never let it down.

So Samuel has been their leader, and he brings them face to face with the faithfulness with which he is led.

And what he's doing is he's drawing a comparison between the warning that the people had received about what it would mean to live under a king.

And the whole warning basically consisted of when you establish this earthly human king, he's going to take from you for his stockpiles, he's going to take from your sons for his army, he's going to take from your wives for your servants, your children will live completely under him.

And Samuel is saying, look at the way that I have led you.

I've taken nothing from you.

I've laid my life down in service to you.

I've never taken a bribe that justice might be twisted.

Instead, I have lived in complete faithfulness in my service to God's calling to you.

It's an amazing thing to stand up and say at the end of his life of ministry.

Samuel's leadership was totally unlike an earthly king.

And from that position where he says, Look at how I've served you, then he brings them face to face with God's faithfulness to them.

Now therefore, stand still, that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers.

So first look at just the way that he introduces God.

He says, The Lord is witness.

The Lord, which one are you talking about?

The one who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

I think that in our culture, if we were to consider how we would clarify the Lord, we would probably describe these very ethereal attributes.

And we'd say something like, the Lord, who's omnipotent, omnibenevolent, who's omnipresent.

That's not the way they related to the Lord.

They said, The Lord, remember the tangible grace that He has shown us?

He's the one who established Moses, who gave us the law, that we might no longer be tossed about by the way the world is, but that we might be able to conform ourselves to who we were created to be.

He gave us Aaron, who established the priesthood, that we might be able to have someone who intercedes between us and the Lord, that we might be able to come to him and ask for his help and ask for forgiveness when we disobey the law that Moses has given us.

He frees us from Egypt.

He is the one who came and when we were the weakest, he was strong for us.

And before we had any law to obey him with, he rescued us from out from under our oppressors.

This is just the introduction of the Lord.

God's faithfulness to this people had been particular and great, something that was in their very history and identity.

Now, Samuel repeats this to them like a creed.

This is built into who you're talking about when you're talking about the Lord.

It's established in the heart of this people.

And he moves on to recount the deeds of the Lord's righteousness towards them.

And he explains in detail their rescue from Egypt.

And he explains how they were given this promised land of Canaan that they move into.

But then when they moved into that promised land, they rejected the Lord.

And under their rejection of the Lord, they become occupied by the surrounding city-states, the Philistines, the Ammonites.

And in that occupation, they cry out to the Lord, and the Lord constantly sends judges to represent God's justice for his people to rescue them once again and bring them back.

And Samuel reminds them of the judges that were sent to them, and then he reminds them that he was also sent to them.

Samuel himself as the last judge to bring them to this time of peace.

And he says, That is the Lord who you rejected.

The Lord who you rejected is the one who rescued you repeatedly.

Who, when you abandoned him consistently, every time that you called for his rescue after having abandoned him, he was faithful to you.

What Samuel is saying is this God that you have been faithless towards has never forsaken you.

The covenant that he has made with you has never fallen flat.

His steadfast love never ceases.

And that's what Samuel displays to them.

And he says, to bring this really to a point, to make this tangible in a way that's helpful, Samuel does something which I've tried it unsuccessfully.

He says, So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day.

And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.

And all the people said to Samuel, that verse that we began with, pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.

Isn't that when sin becomes meaningful?

It's not when it is an impersonal disagreement.

It's not when sin is this sort of ethereal law that exists in universal principles, and then when we violate that, we need to offer some vague atonement and repentance.

That's not the story that Samuel is telling.

He's saying, look at your history.

Look at your very life, these tangible expressions of God's grace that you have rejected in a tangible rejection.

When we see that God has been so faithful to us, when you can say, God has been so faithful to me, and then you see your sin in light of that, that's what draws you towards a real repentance.

And so, what do we do then?

What do we do when we've been drawn towards this real repentance, and it has become clear that the ways that we have lived have infected our relationships, have blinded us by greed or by pride, have hidden us through people pleasing or appeasement.

What do we do when we find ourselves in that type of a position?

Well, that's the advice that Samuel offers next.

Here's what Samuel says to the people, standing face to face with the sin that they have committed that have changed the world irrevocably.

He says in 1 Samuel 12, 20, and Samuel said to the people, do not be afraid.

That's a good place to start.

You have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord.

But serve the Lord with all your heart.

Do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

So the first thing Samuel does is he says, Don't be afraid.

Don't keep running.

Don't keep turning away from the Lord.

And then he puts these sort of barriers where he's like, don't, he's, it's like he's saying, I know what your heart's gonna want to do right now.

You're going to stand in this terrible sin before this holy God, and you're gonna say, I gotta hide myself and I gotta figure out a way to get myself out of this.

And Samuel's saying, don't.

Don't be afraid and run.

Stay right where you are.

You recognize the sin in you and you recognize the holiness in God.

This is a good place to be.

Don't try and get yourself out of this by turning to another empty thing that won't justify you and it won't help you.

When our sin becomes real in the world, we often turn to the very thing that got us into it to get us out of it.

I found in, I found myself twisting and contorting to be this like people pleaser and appeasing uh someone in the situation, and it violated a relationship that I'm committed to.

So I'm just gonna try and I'm gonna try and people please my way out of it again, even more.

It doesn't work.

We're trapped in that same cycle.

And it works with arrogance as well.

You know, I I found myself pridefully getting into this situation, but if I could just find something that would really validate me, and you know what, I'm so close, if I could just drive this thing through, then I will have gotten myself out.

Samuel is saying, don't turn to those empty things.

He's saying don't be afraid, so you don't run and hide, and don't try and get yourself out of this.

You need to stand in the confidence of the grace of the Lord, depending only upon his grace that you might be saved.

And then Samuel provides us the reason.

He gives us what's the what's your motivation going to be for uh uh for serving the Lord with all your heart now?

Even though you've been exposed as this sinful thing and you want to run away, what's gonna be your motivation for standing there and saying, you know what?

I'm gonna stay with the Lord, I'm going to continue serving him, I'm gonna give him my whole heart, even though it's been exposed as nasty.

He says this, this is the reason.

Why would you do that?

For, because, for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

This is the reason that Samuel calls the people to continue serving the Lord with their whole hearts.

The reason is God will remain faithful.

How can you stand before him, having your sin just exposed, and not be afraid and not run and try and get yourself out of it?

But how do you turn towards him?

It's when you remember that the Lord won't forsake his people.

Why?

Because he thinks we're so great.

That's not what it says.

If that's what it said, imagine how fickle your confidence would be.

Imagine how fearfully you'd live.

Each time it was exposed the depth of sin in your heart, you would have to fearfully run away from the Lord.

But he says, the Lord will not forsake his people for his name's sake.

For some reason, it pleased the Lord to glorify his name by rescuing us in grace alone.

Samuel continues.

He says, Not only is the Lord going to be really faithful, but look, I'll stick around too.

He says this, moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.

I'll instruct you in the good and the right way, only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart.

For consider what great things he has done for you.

Saying, Remember the Lord's faithfulness, don't be afraid, don't run away.

What's the way forward?

After our sin has really changed the world and after it's irrevocably caused harm, the way forward is to commit ourselves to the Lord, remain in his grace.

It is not to strategize our way out of it.

It's always the same way.

Samuel continues, and he offers this one final warning, which actually Which acts as this one final barrier to protect the people's hearts.

And he says, but if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.

So now, all that confidence and the pure grace of the Lord that you stand on, does it feel a little shaky?

But look, it look, just turn to the Lord and serve him.

It's pleased his name.

The Lord will not forsake his people.

In the Bible, it's said, Samuel writes, Thus spoke the Lord.

The Lord will not forsake his people.

Like three sentences later.

But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.

This is a pickle.

Do we just pick one?

This is why the Old Testament's so hard to read, right?

Because we see this incredible grace demonstrated by the Lord, and then we see a warning like this that follows up with it.

Let's follow Israel's history.

The next king they get is Saul, not great.

David, good guy, great heart.

Solomon, lateral move, and it all gets worse from there.

Until ultimately they spiral, just in the book of Kings, it starts to look just like the book of Judges.

It's the spiral downward until God sweeps them away.

And they're exiled in Assyria and Babylon.

They have no land or people or nation, no home.

So which verse was fulfilled?

If they disobey, both you and your king will be swept away, and they were.

They did, and they were.

So then you might ask yourself, has God rejected his people?

What does this mean for us?

Paul in the last, well, that's not the last chapter.

I just sold myself out in where I stopped reading Romans.

Paul in Romans 11 says this in Romans 11, 1, verses 5, 1 and 5 through 6.

I skipped a big middle part.

We might ask, has God rejected his people?

So Paul thankfully starts off a verse and he says, I asked then, has God rejected his people?

Okay, good, we can get an answer.

He says, by no means.

With an exclamation point, by no means.

And he says, for I myself, Paul's a Christian at this point.

He says, for I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

So he says, look, I'm of the people who just sinned against God and their king was swept away.

And yet, brought in by Christ, I haven't been rejected.

God saved us.

He tells the story in these in-between verses of Elijah, who gets to this moment in his ministry where he feels so crushed and he's so despairing.

And he comes to the Lord and he says, God, I'm the only one who's following you.

And the Lord says, That's actually not true.

I've saved for myself a remnant, a remnant, and there's about 7,000 of you.

So congratulations, only one.

And so Paul, drawing on that principle, he says, So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

How do these come together?

God had established with his people under Moses and under Aaron a covenant.

And ultimately, it is a covenant that is based on works.

It is a covenant that says, if you obey me, if you stay close to me, if you stay faithful with me, you will be blessed.

You'll be close to me.

And I will never leave you or forsake you.

But if you abandon me, then I will be forced to turn from you as well.

And yet he makes these same promises.

But I will never leave you or forsake you.

Well, as we look forward, we see a new king that God selects.

And this new king is Jesus, who looks at this covenant of works that God has established and he sees our failings in it.

And Jesus takes on every aspect of that covenant.

Jesus perfectly upholds the law.

So that there is not a sin that he ever commits.

There is nothing for which he should ever be punished.

He lives it perfectly.

All the blessings we read of in Deuteronomy that we hope for our children, Jesus is the only one who deserved them.

All the punishment that we deserved.

Well, Jesus fulfills that part of the covenant as well.

For these sins that he didn't commit, the death and the casting away and the being swept away, Jesus takes on himself.

So that on the cross he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It's because he was being forsaken by God.

And yet, in his sinlessness, he is resurrected that he might unite us to himself.

So how does God fulfill his graciousness and uphold this covenant that he has established in Christ by grace?

And so where are we?

When we see in our own lives the way that our sin has deeply corrupted, things that we are really in the midst of, really deeply experiencing, feeling the effects of daily, right?

There's still phone calls you have to make.

There's still emails you have to send.

There's still conversations you have to have.

Your sin is still infecting the world.

But in Christ, what is our advice that we receive from the Lord?

I think it would be about the same as the advice that Samuel provided.

Only fear the Lord, serve him faithfully with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you.

What greater things do we know that have been done for us in Christ?

That might give us new hearts, that we might be shaped to seek after him.

That's how we move forward.

We see the amazing work of Christ that unites us to him and changes us.

Okay, so with that, I'll take one question and then we'll wrap up.

Samuel says, Don't be afraid and only fear the Lord.

Yeah, great question.

So I think that the best clarity that's brought to this is in 1 John, where John says, perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment.

And so there is a type of fear that I think we can sort of read back into Scripture, where if we're fearing God, if we see ourselves as in Christ and we're fearing God, but we're fearing a punishment from God, then that's a misplaced fear.

Because we see that God accomplishes that punishment in Christ.

Does God discipline us?

Yes.

Does he bring us through difficult things to refine us?

Yes.

But that is not punishment.

That's the way that a loving father treats a son that he would never abandon.

And so, how does a loving son treat a father who he knows is loving towards him and would never abandon him?

He fears him.

He fears what he says.

When he gives advice, he says, I'm kind of scared to violate it because it's usually pretty good.

And so we have these two types of fear in Scripture: one cast out by perfect love and one upheld by perfect love.

Great question.

All right.

Now let's take communion.

Communion symbolizes us all coming to the same table because we are a family together.

We're one body together, meant to uphold, like this engine that runs the smaller families that we're all a part of.

So we come to the table, let's remember that it's by grace alone that we approach.

By grace alone that Jesus changes our hearts.

By grace alone that we could have a hope that with changed hearts we could move forward in the fear of the Lord.

So with that, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the fulfillment of the covenant.

We thank you that even Samuel's stepping down would be something that so blesses the church even to this day.

Lord, would you open our eyes to see what great things you have accomplished for us?

That our hearts might be changed, and that a true fear would settle into us that says, How could I possibly violate what such a loving God has called us to?

That your law would no longer be burdensome when we see you that way.

Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts through your word.

Lift us up in Jesus' name.

Amen.