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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brandon-doll/who-do-you-want-to-be-like/
The Old Testament please to the book of 1st Samuel. 1st Samuel in chapter 8. My burden is right in line with our brethren this morning. 1st Sam Samuel chapter 8. Now the children of Israel here are seeking a king.
They're seeking a king. They want to be like the nations Because they envy the nations and they thought that God was Not good and a king would be better. We're just going to take a few readings now. Verse 7.
And the Lord said unto Samuel hearken unto the voice of the people and all that they say unto thee for they have not rejected thee But have rejected me That I should not reign over them According to all the works which they have done since the day I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day Wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods.
So do they also unto thee now therefore hearken unto their voice Albeit yet protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. In other words, he's going to tell him just exactly what the king is going to do all right.
Verse 10. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people and asked of him a king and He said this will be the manner of the king That shall reign over you. Now compare these things to what they had when God was there when the God was there reigning over them He will take.
Make a note of everything that the king takes. He will take your sons. And appoint them for himself for his chariots and to to be his horsemen and Some shall run before his chariots and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over 50 and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots.
And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers. And he will take Your fields and your vineyards your olive yards even the best of them and give them to his servants.
And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. And he will take your men servants and your maid servants and Your goodliest young men and your asses and put them to his work.
And he will take the tenth of your sheep. And he shall be his servants and he shall cry out in that day because your king Which he shall have chosen you and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and they said nay But we will have a king over us.
That we also may be like all nations and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people and rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord and the Lord said to Sam We'll hearken unto their voice make them a king.
And Samuel said unto the men of Israel go ye every man unto his city. New Testament, please for a verse. 1st John Chapter 3 verse 1 behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. That we should be called the sons of God.
Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not Beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear We shall be like him for we shall see him as He is and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.
Even as he is pure and the Lord of us to us the reading of his word. We just closed this morning by asking a question Who do you want to be like? Who do we as God's people want to be like we read of the nation and they wanted to be like the other nations.
That was their hearts desire. They were bent they were fixated on this this this thing called the king and They were willing to give up the presence of God and they were willing to give up the protection of God.
They were willing to give up the power of God that they might put their trust in a man that would rule over them. Someone that they could see. Someone that they could hear his voice audibly. This is what they wanted they wanted to be just like everyone else.
Who do you want to be like this morning, let's face it every one of us this morning in The fear of God as we search our own hearts in our own souls. Who do we want to be like I'd like to look at this is?
God's people in God's assembly. That's been the theme of the morning. If you haven't noticed they wanted to be like the nations. They wanted to be like everyone else and it's been my burden for Probably a couple months.
I hear a lot about culture in the assembly. I hear a lot about change in culture. And so things need to change and it's just what we've been reminded of we use our reasoning. Then we're going to change things because our culture is changing.
Can I remind our hearts this morning? That the world by wisdom knew not God and Neither will we. Neither will we? Who are you going to be like? Are we going to be like the nations? Are we going to be like him?
That's first John. That's what I want to get. This thing of cultural change scares me and I'm just a young man and Older brethren have seen it more more times over and over. It's nothing new. But it's ever real.
The change of culture the change of our thinking in our assemblies. Let me give you some things that our culture is right now right now. We are independent people. Independent. We have raised our young people to be independent.
And what did we get? We've got independent people. That's the nature of the world. The nature of God's assembly the culture of God's assembly will get it by the culture of our Lord Jesus Christ. We'll see in him how to behave.
We'll see in him how to think. We'll see in him how to worship God. We'll see in him how to be thankful and so on but this world. The culture of this world now, I'm not talking about so much the different places of The globe where maybe there are people down in South America in different places and those things.
But I want to focus on the attitudes tonight or today of the culture. We have an attitude of independence and people in assembly fellowship seek to act and own independent ways. We have an attitude of ungratefulness.
And gratefulness, this is the culture of the world. There is the attitude of unfaithfulness. The reality of the unfaithful culture of American society near the world. Society is unfaithful. Divorce rate 65 plus now.
Young people switch jobs every six months. We're unfaithful as a culture a worldly culture. We are untruthful. We're untruthful. Everything is about covering the liability. Covering our actions. Make sure there's no lawsuit.
Make sure that there's no repercussions. Live behind the safe nets of Organized lies. If I could put it that way just make sure you're covered. Untruthfulness. We live in an entitlement culture. We deserve everything and we're willing to do anything to get it.
That is the culture of our world. We live in a vain culture. Vanity emptiness vain. We live in a disrespectful culture. There is no respect for the authority of the law. For you schoolteachers, you know that there was there is no respect for the teacher in school.
I know a brother in assembly fellowship and his job at school is just to be an aide and he's six foot four. Two hundred and sixty pounds. You can't handle it. A four-year-old disrespectful culture. A selfish culture and Impatient culture.
What do you want to be like in the testimony where you're from? There's probably 20 different assemblies are more represented here today. If the Lord be not coming in 20 years, what do you want your assembly to be like?
Because it's starting now. They wanted to be Like the nation's. I was thrilled in my soul as my brother and we're teaching you the uniqueness of God's assembly. There is no place like it in this whole entire world and There's no place more despised by the devil than the local assembly.
He hates it. The world hates it. The flesh hates it. Who do you want to be like? Now I want to go down this List and I want to look at what a local assembly can be like. And should be like because we want to be like him.
What's our Lord to be Lord? We want him to reign. We want him to win our battles. We want him to fight our wars. We want him to guide us. We want him to direct us. We are entirely shut up and dependent upon him because.
That's the position that we've been given. I Need just to wander and need just to stray in our thinking these people forgot that they were gods we do people. They forgot that they come out of Egypt and now all of a sudden I was a process of time goes now.
There's long for the things of Egypt, but they want to be like the nation's and everything they saw God do. And nothing you ever see God do anything. Back at home and in our meetings Stan had to go home and local brother.
We're sharing and one brother said to me one night He did a fine job. They did a hell of a great job. He said you ever preach the gospel this brother doesn't preach a lot and you see a guy whose face and it never leaves you.
So yeah. He said that happened to me tonight. So, what do you mean? Well that visitor was out. And he looked me in the eye and he said he was just listening for his life. He said That changed me. That changed me.
God spoke to that brother. He was speaking to the visitor to take a moment and just look back in your life. At God working. What does that mean to you? I'll go back to Salvation's Day. And we'll go back to the time when we realized our sin and God showed us what we deserve.
And he showed us that Christ had died for our sin and there was no doubt in our mind. And we loved him and we wanted to serve him and now something has changed. We want to be like them. Who do you want to be like today?
So we've got an ungrateful culture. The assembly is a thankful place. We're a thankful place. We are a thankful people and the moment we stop worshipping if we were going downhill very very fast. We stop being thankful for what God has given us.
When was the last time you thank God for your overseers the last time? You thank God for your assembly and thankful committed people. Now as we go down this list, you're going to think of people that come to your mind.
When the word independent is mentioned in the word ungrateful, but I don't want you to think about them. I Want to see want you to see like I've seen in me. The percentage of visits in me the unfaithfulness in the culture.
Are you committed to your assembly? You'll be as committed to your assembly as you are committed to your Lord, they're inseparable. You cannot be genuinely committed to God's assembly and not be genuinely committed to communion with God and in worshipping God.
It's hypocrisy. To pretend that we are and we're committed to the assembly and we're never committed to the Lord in our private life. Are you committed are we committed to our families. You notice what the king took he took the sons.
He took the daughters. He took the lands. He took the vineyard. He took the olive Grove whatever it was called. He took everything good and give him nothing in return. Are you committed to God's assembly and in a different way?
Are you at every meeting if at all possible? That's commitment to gather in the Lord's presence to meet with the Lord if you're coming for the brethren, you've missed it. If you've come into so the elders don't come and give you a visit you've missed it.
What you're missing is this the presence of the Lord and the glory of God in his own assembly. To hear God's voice and to be to draw near to the living and the true God. This isn't playing church in God's assembly, this is the presence of God.
Who do you want to be like an entitlement culture? I deserve it. What do you deserve your brother today? Dear sister, what do you deserve? It's not a gospel meeting, but we can use the chart. Can't we this is what we deserve and we have been delivered by God's matchless grace.
Someone says all but I don't feel loved in God's assembly. God didn't push you into the assembly to be loved. He put you to love. He didn't bring you into his assembly so that you could be served. He brought you in to serve.
He didn't bring you into God's assembly. He didn't save you that you would be pampered in this life. He sent you to be a sacrifice. Can you see the difference between? Him and Them. I want to be like the vein versus the real.
I think of our Lord Jesus Christ and all of the reality. Nothing vain about him engaged with the situation around him engaged with heaven. Nothing vain about him. Nothing vain. Who do you want to be like disrespectful?
No reverence. That's our world. Is that our assembly? You see what we are in our private life in the presence of God and what we are in our assembly life in the present of God presence of God. Needs to be the same and his face answers to face.
We know we're not the same. I want to be like you see we read in John. If we're going to be like him, I've got a little boy and if you've got kids. It's amazing to it's scary in the whole nine yards if they want to be like you.
It was the last time your brother and your sister when in the presence of God you told God I want to be like him. I want to be like Jesus be like LeBron James. I don't want to be like Bill Gates. I want to be like him.
Did you know that you can be like him? You can be like him. Yes, we can learn about him. We conform to his image and God that is God's will. He is seeking us to cook seeking to conform us to the image of His son.
Do you want to be like him? You see that's a hard question to answer sometimes. Because that's a pricey question price. Are you willing to pay? To be like him because the other way is going to cost you to God's assembly the person of Christ.
The presence of God. There's nothing like it. Nothing can be compared to the scriptural gathering of God's people and all of its simplicity and all of its truthfulness and all of its Realness now vanity and all of its thankfulness and all of its fellowship and all of its committedness.
God help us this morning. To value what we've been given. We've been given so great salvation. We've been given the Lord Jesus Christ. Who do you want to be like today? Today. Not tomorrow. Today they said give us a king and after all God had done for them.
The miracle after miracle limit thrilled them and yet they wanted to be like the nations. God help us to appreciate what we have today and that we might live in the good of it and bring him honor and glory.
And become more like him.