1 Samuel 8:1-9 Chameleon Christians

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series in 1 Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.

As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here. Despite having been out a couple of weeks, it is just a joy to be back together with you again after a couple of weeks away. I had a good spring break in a warmer place with my family, which was awesome.

And then last week, I was down at a conference called Together for the Gospel in Louisville. Had the opportunity with a couple of guys from here and the leadership here at the church to go down there.

And with 12 ,000 pastors and lay leaders at the KFC Yum Center where the Louisville Cardinals play, an opportunity to just raise our voices in praise. Can you imagine 12 ,000 people? And it's just a little glimpse of what I think it's gonna be like on the new earth when we have praise to Jesus Christ together.

But if you've ever had an opportunity to go in here and to participate in worship with a lot of people, it's a pretty cool thing. But even just those opportunities away like that, you know, getting away to good weather or whatever, reminds me of how much I belong here.

I love you guys. I love being together in this place where God has called me and where God has called all of us together to be the body of Christ to one another. And so I'm glad to be back with you. I love this gathering of God's people.

And I would just point out to you what you probably already know to be obvious. I don't know if you noticed, and it's really funny what my next sentence is in my notes here. We're not super professional.

We're not super flashy. I would even suggest to you that among the churches around, we might not even be the most well-behaved church. Yeah, you can laugh about that. But we are a gathering of people who come together to grow in faith.

That is to understand what God desires of us and then to go out and seek to live his way and then to grow in community. That is an investment in others recognizing it isn't all about us. It isn't all about us coming in, sliding in the back, getting our Christian fix and then going on our way.

But God is bringing us together in community for a reason. And then lastly is to grow in service, that God has blessed us with an ability to bring something here. Many of us, unfortunately, would maybe take that for granted that God has something to, has given us some gift and people need us or whatever.

But there's a reality to that that is very vital and important is recognizing that people need us and we need others. And so we're growing in that way and we're seeking to worship God. Our mission statement as a church is to worship God and to seek more worshipers for his name.

That's what we wanna be doing. That's why we started a church here in Matawan was to genuinely worship him with our lives, not just in singing, not just a couple songs that we're gonna sing this morning, but with our entire beings to worship him.

And then the fact of the matter is our mission out in the world is to seek those who are not worshiping him and bring them in to show them who God is and then in that glory of a beautiful vision of God, see their hearts ignited in worship to him as well.

And so that's what we're standing for. And I hope that that goal resonates with you if you're calling this your church. Now, interestingly, I had originally planned to do a one-off message because we are obviously, many of you know, we're doing a parent and child dedication this morning.

But after a week away at a conference that emphasizes biblical expository preaching, that's one of the core values of this conference that we attended is the very style that I've adopted and believe is beneficial to the church and that's preaching through a book of the Bible and going through.

So instead of doing a one-off topical message, I decided before I even looked at the text that I was gonna come back and carry on where we left off in 1 Samuel and just take that passage. And you're gonna see as I read that text that there's some irony in what I'm gonna be preaching to you on a Sunday where some are gonna get up and testify that it is their desire to raise up godly children.

As much as is possible, as much as it's within their power, they're gonna stand up here and they're gonna say we want to do the things that God desires of us in leading our children into the gospel truth, into the understanding that Christ has died for them, that they need a Savior, that they're not gonna be able to be moral enough and good enough to please God, but they need a Savior and Jesus Christ is that Savior.

And that's what they're gonna stand up here and testify. And in our text, we're gonna see what all of us know to be true and don't want to be true, and that is that the Bible and God never offers a guarantee of the outcome of our parenting.

Did you know that? How many of you already knew that before I stated it? You knew it, but you didn't necessarily want it to be true, did you? I mean, there's a part of you that kind of wants to say, if I do the right things, if I do A, B, and C, then my kids will turn out fine.

How many of you kind of want that to be true? You're kind of like, yeah, if I could just do this, but do you really want that weight on your shoulders in another sense? Do you really think that you're up to that task?

I don't think I am. And Scripture is indicating that we're gonna see that even the prophet Samuel, we're gonna be looking in 1 Samuel, and he's got two books of the Bible named after him. How many of you have a book of the Bible named after you?

Well, you might be named after a book of the Bible, but it wasn't named for you. Samuel had two books of the Bible named after him, and we're gonna see that his children had serious flaws. Well, all of us have serious flaws.

We're all cut from the same cloth. But even more fundamental to this text than just identifying, it doesn't exist to tell us about Samuel's son's flaws. That's never quite the purpose of Scripture is just to say this person was bad, because that's kind of simple, that's kind of obvious.

But more fundamental in this text is a call for all of us to stand out from the culture around us. We are to stand out in our single-minded focus on our king. We are to stand out in our dependence upon the unseen God who guides and directs our lives.

We are to trust him above all human wisdom and above all human institutions and all governments and powers and authorities and even institutions like churches. But we will see in this text a huge shift among the people of Israel in 1 Samuel chapter eight.

Huge shift among the people away from the focus on being a distinct people for God. They want to be just like the nations and they're going to declare as much. We want to kind of blend in, God. We want to just fit in.

We want to be like everybody else around us. And they want to be chameleons in a world, think about this, they want to be chameleons and blend in in a world that is opposed to their God. Sounds a little bit like us from time to time.

So we're going to dig into that text here. I want to read it first. It's 1 Samuel chapter eight verses one through nine. If you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible, I would ask that you just take the Bible under the seat in front of you and you can find it real quick.

Page 132 in that Bible. 132, you're going to find 1 Samuel eight. And I do want everybody to have a copy of the word of God open in front of you so that you can just follow along. And as I often say, but I mean sincerely, it isn't just a rote statement for me.

I believe that what we're about to do is the most powerful thing that we may do today and that is take in God's word. He speaks through his word. His word has the power to change. I don't get up here, I don't have the power to change you.

Matter of fact, in speaking to as many people as we've got here, maybe 150 to 200 people in this room right now, I don't have the power to change any life in here. But the word of God is powerful. And you can walk away from here transformed because we've taken in God's word.

So I encourage you to pay attention, careful attention to these words that come from the Almighty this morning. First Samuel eight one through nine. When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.

The name of his first born son was Joel and the name of his second Abijah and they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you for they have not rejected you but they've rejected me from being king over them.

According to all the deeds that they have done from the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then obey their voice, only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. Your word that this cuts down to the heart of where we live and the things that we do and even in ancient texts like this, talking about an ancient people that are very foreign to us.

The principles and the truths come alive to us as we have an opportunity to think and meditate and analyze your word and see what it says for us here today. And we are a people who are quick to reject your sovereignty, your rule and reign in our lives day by day and often, if we're honest, we want to be just like the nations.

We wanna be chameleons, we wanna blend in. We wanna do things like others around us so that we can have the conversations with them and we can fit in and be liked. That's a reality in many of our lives.

And so Father, I pray that you would convict us and draw us deeper into you through this time that we have to worship you this morning. You are awesome, you are glorious, you are exalted and you indeed are the rightful king, the rightful ruler.

So I pray that we would come before your throne in joy and delight as a people saved and being saved out from our selfishness and from a world that rejects you. In Jesus' name, amen. You can go to be seated and I do ask that you go ahead and get comfortable.

If you need to get up and get more coffee in the back, I think there's more of that available and maybe some more juice as well. But I do ask that you'd also keep your Bibles open to 1 Samuel chapter eight.

You may have lost your place there and keeping it open there I'm gonna reference that text a few times throughout the message and that you can look in and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word and not just my own thoughts.

But to catch everybody up to speed, it's been a while. We've been out of 1 Samuel for a few weeks. I'm very thankful for Bill Smith filling in for me. I just am grateful for his faithfulness to the word and being willing to step in at a moment's notice and it's great for him.

I'm grateful for him being willing to do that. But we've been out of 1 Samuel for a few weeks so I just thought maybe starting with a short review might be helpful because not all of us are very familiar with the start of 1 Samuel.

Samuel was born to a mother who had tried for years to have children but was barren. She was unable to bear children and she pledged Samuel to the service of God before he was even conceived. So she said, God, if you'll give me a son, I will let him be raised in the tabernacle among the priest.

I will let the priest raise him. Just only please give me a son. And it says that even in one situation, she was in the tabernacle blubbering her eyes out. Technically, that's not exactly the words but that's the picture, the image that we have of her weeping so loudly and so, if I can use the word obnoxiously, that the actual priest, high priest, thought she was drunk.

She was just so beside herself there in the temple praying and asking for a son and God made good on that and for whatever reason, chose in that circumstance to give her a child and she made good on that promise.

So Samuel was raised in the tabernacle with the high priest who was a shady priest named Eli. He had two sons who were wicked priests, not necessarily the place you wanna send your son to be raised in context and once you understand the way that they were working and the things that they were doing there wasn't good but Samuel was given a prophecy.

His very first prophecy as a little boy, by the way, priests don't always receive prophecy. Those were two distinct offices in Israel. He's a combination thing, not very common for a person to be both priest and prophet and we're gonna see judge here as well and so he was kind of an amazing combination of different roles that God would have for a person at the right time, at the appointed time.

That's why the series is called Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Timely Prophet, the right guy at the right time but his very first prophecy given to Samuel was against his mentor, Eli. Now how many of you would love that role?

Like you'd love for the very first thing that God tells you is to go confront your boss or to go confront somebody who's a spiritual leader over the entire nation and it's like, that's what this little boy Samuel was given as his very first prophecy and he was told that he was to go to Eli and tell him the priesthood is gonna be taken away from you and your two sons, your two wicked sons, Eli, are gonna be killed on the same day.

Well that was exactly what happened and God made true on that promise and both of Eli's sons were killed by presumptuously taking the Ark of the Covenant into battle without even seeking God's advice first and the Ark of the Covenant was captured.

The two sons were killed on the same day and then equally on that same day, a runner came from the battlefield to report to Eli and told him your two sons have died and the Ark has been captured and at that point, Eli fell over, broke his neck and died.

So the high priest is gone, his two sons are gone and the sacred Ark of the Lord had been captured. Then you come to chapters five and six of 1 Samuel, the Ark is returned, there's some amazing story there about how that all took place and you can go back and review that or go back and listen to previous sermons that are all online and available or on the podcast and you can check that out.

And then chapter seven, the most recent one a few weeks ago that I preached, we saw Samuel reuniting the people under the worship of God and they won a dramatic battle against the Philistines and that leads us right up to chapter eight, verse one, where we're at today.

And now we come to our text and we jump over, according to chapter eight, we're gonna jump over a lot of Samuel's life. The reason we know we jump over a lot of his life is it tells us outright that he is old by the time that we get to this text and in his old age, he made the sons, he made his own sons judges over Israel.

He made them judges over Israel and to be clear, there was never any indication that the spiritual political authority of the judges in the Old Testament was ever meant to be passed down generationally.

There's never any indication that once a father was a judge, then his son would be judge and then his son would be judge and his son would be judge. It wasn't meant to be that way. It was God calling the right person at the right time with the right skills, with the right abilities to the role that he had intended for them.

Now, I don't see quite the level of criticism, though, in verse one. It's not like scripture is telling us that Samuel did something bad, but I think we can glean something from the way that this whole thing works out.

When a judge tries to pass that along to his children, it doesn't work that well. And one of the main things that we can draw out of this is that we cannot assume spiritual descendency. We cannot assume spiritual descendency.

In other words, there is no guarantee that the ministry, the power, the authority, or the calling of the father is passed along to the son. You can't take that for granted. You can't assume that that is reality.

It didn't work well for Eli when we saw his two wicked sons. It didn't work well even for the obvious chosen man of God, Samuel, in our text. So we see that Joel and Abijah were not cut out for this leadership.

They did not have the character qualities. They did not have the traits that you would look for in a spiritual leader. They had a flaw in their nature that ran counter to the assignment that they had been given.

They were enticed. They were, in their core, enticed by greed. We see it in the text. They turned aside for gain. They had a flaw in their character that wanted more and more and more. As men in places of authority, and I think we can look at the world around us and we can see how there's a lot of abuse of power that is pretty natural to human nature.

How many of you knew that? Power has a tendency to corrupt, and it has a tendency to accentuate flaws in us that were already there. I don't believe that power produces the flaws. I think power just highlights the flaws.

Do you know what I mean? It gives an avenue to abuse or to use or to do whatever we want, and so that's the thing that is going on here is that abuse of the power and the authority that is going on by Joel and Abijah.

They weren't cut out for this. As men in places of authority, they abused that. So I think that, in a sense, what you get is a picture of Joel and Abijah like this. If you wanted to encroach on the field of a neighbor, say, for example, you wanted to grow a little bit more grain this year than last year, so you just pushed your plows a little bit further past the marking stone into your neighbor's field and sowed grain there, and then that neighbor, how many of you think that that neighbor might get a little upset?

The neighbor might go, hey, this is my area. He takes him to court, goes before the political ruling body, which would be headed up by Joel or Abijah, and for the right price, Abijah would make sure that things went your way, and now you've obtained more property.

Unjust system, you see that? But that's the way that they were rolling there, because they liked the money more than they liked integrity. They liked the money and the more and the more more than they wanted to honor their God or even their fellow Israelites.

If you wanted all those parking tickets to go away or to get out of a DUI that kind of was plaguing you from the past or something that you're trying to get your license back or something, Joel could hook you up for the right price.

For the right price, he could make those parking tickets go away and all of that. But there are two observations I wanna key in on from verse three here. Joel and Abijah didn't, it says in the text, didn't walk in the ways of their father.

They didn't walk in their father's ways. This implies that they knew the way of their father and that those ways were a standard lived out before them. What these three families that we just saw step up here, they stepped up here this morning to say, we will seek to instruct in both words and actions the right ways, primarily in the gospel.

We will seek to honor God by showing the gospel and living out the gospel to our children. Not flawlessly, not perfectly, but in as much as it's in their power to do so with the help and assistance of the church and the guidance of the word, to seek to honor God in that.

But as anyone who's ever been raised by parents, how many of you were raised by parents in here? That's kind of a trick question. Most all of us. It's a child's choice whether or not to walk in the ways of their parents.

Did you know that? It's a child's choice whether or not to walk in the ways of their parents. So first we see in this text a principle about parenting or leading or guiding others. Some of you are in here and you're not parents and so you might not even be married and you're like, this obviously doesn't apply to me or I don't have children.

No, it's a great principle that applies over a whole host of leadership options and opportunities that you might have. And that is that all we can do is show them the way. All that we have within our power and within our authority by the grace of God and the guidance of his spirit in our lives is to show them the way.

We are not the masters of outcomes. As much as we'd like to be, and how many of you have a boss that would like you to be the master of outcomes? Right, you know what I'm talking about. I mean, there's some pressures on us to think that we can control the way that an event goes and we can hedge it around and we can parent in just such a way and we can go to enough conferences and we can do enough to eventually produce the right children, right?

A part of us believes that and it's not true. We are not the captains of the fate of our children. God forbid that anybody here would think that or that you're the captain of the fate of anyone who is under your charge.

All you can do is show them the right way. We are a best signposts pointing the way. And my question for you today, an honest question for everybody here to answer in your heart, what are you pointing to?

What way are you pointing? I would suggest to you that everybody here is a sign. Everybody here has an arrow in your life pointing towards something as ultimate and the question is, what is it? What do others who follow you throughout the day or who observe you, who are under your leadership or who live with you, what would they say your life points to?

And that can be convicting and ought to be convicting, I think, to all of us. Because all of us are pointing towards something. We see that Samuel was actually pointing away from greed. It's implied by the text.

But the second observation from verse three before we move on to that is to highlight the clutches of greed that we see in Joel and Abijah. These two young men, they were given political, spiritual and social power.

The word judge is not just in a court of law. Our mind turns to a judge who sits on a bench and judges those who bring cases to them. This is so much more of a larger, big picture kind of leadership position here.

Political, spiritual, social power, even military power often was given to the judges over Israel. And these two guys, Joel and Abijah, abused that power for their own personal gain with injustice in their society.

I would encourage a serious self-assessment for every one of us in this room to consider your own dance, your personal dance with greed, with this sin. It's a very rare person in our culture who has not had some dalliance with what I would say is almost an institutionalized American sin.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Do we not hold greed high? Do we not accentuate the more culture? Apple isn't putting out last year's model next year. They're adding more because they expect that you want, what?

They know you want more, more, more. And our entire, you know, so there is no foolproof political system. Did you know that? There is no economic system that is 100%. Capitalism is driven, I think, off of a human nature that understands that we're fallen, but even sometimes takes that into account and produces off of it, right?

I mean, I can't think of a better system, and at the same time, I just recognize that a lot of capitalism leads towards greed in the human heart. It accentuates that, it identifies that. The commercials that you watch, the things that are advertised, the companies and the way that they produce, a lot of it does come down to accentuating greed in our hearts.

I'm not anti-capitalism in the least, but I just point out that the world around us is saturated with greed. It's a part and parcel of our world around us. So my question to you is, simply this morning, what is your price?

How much would it take for you to sacrifice what is right and true? What is your price? By implication, in verse three, Samuel stuck to what God says. He could not be bought, but his sons did not follow in the ways of their father, and they had a price for every potential wicked deed.

Anybody comes to them and says, I want this, I want your judgments to go this way, I want your leadership to lead in this direction, how much are you willing to offer for it? Or will you pay me for it?

But there's a little difference between Samuel's sons and Eli's sons. There's not much difference in the outcome and the way that that looks in the end, so those of you who are here for Eli's sons and the preaching and the sermon on that might go, now, Eli was judged for the way, did you know that?

Eli was judged for the way that he dealt with his sons, and now you got Samuel who's got wicked sons, and what's the difference? Well, it's very clear in the text of 1 Samuel early on that Eli benefited from his son's wickedness.

It actually says that he grew fat off of the offerings that they were stealing. So in other words, he's actually benefiting from it, and then he kind of kid gloves it on the side and says, oh, you guys, stop it, but he's still eating the steak.

He's still taking from what they did, what was in accordance with their father. Samuel, it said emphatically that they were rejecting the way of their father in this disobedience. Do you see the difference?

They are going against dad here, but Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's sons, were kind of sharing with dad, and he was kind of liking that a bit. So there's a difference there. We know very little, by the way, about the relationship.

We don't see a whole lot in the relationship between Joel and Abijah and their dad. We know that he appointed them to be judges in the very far south in Beersheba, and I think I missed that slide earlier.

I probably just messed them up up there, but yeah, in Beersheba in the very far south, that's where they were appointed as judges, but we don't see a whole lot. There's not a lot of detail about the inner workings of that relationship.

So with Samuel aging and his greedy sons coming close to the highest level of authority in the land of Israel, the natural thing is gonna be, it mentions that Samuel is old, and pretty soon he's gonna be gone, and his sons are gonna be in the position of authority, and so the elders of Israel, the leadership and the older guys who are in the ruling class of Israel, they come together, and they preemptively seek to get ahead of the dangers they see brewing, but once again, instead of asking what the Lord might desire, they come up with their own plans.

Now they had done that before when they took the Ark of the Covenant into battle. They didn't seek the Lord on it, and it didn't end well for them, but now they come again to Samuel, and instead of coming to seek God's guidance, what do they do first?

Come up with their own plan. Does that sound familiar to anybody in the room? If all else fails, trust God, right? Isn't that often how we operate in life? After I've tried everything, and I've tried everything within my power, then I'll pray, then I'll talk to God, then I'll ask Him what He thinks if I can't figure it out on my own.

That's no way to live according to Scripture. It does not go well, and they come to Samuel, and they say, check this out, whenever you see the word behold in the text, you can see that in verse five, and they said to him, behold, when you see the word behold, just insert in there, check this out.

It's like whoever's speaking, whoever's saying behold, wants you to pay special attention to what comes next, so he says, check this out. In other words, the elders come to Samuel, and they say, open your eyes, bruh.

Your kids are not like you. They're not like you. They don't live like you do. They notice that. There's something refreshing that my wife pointed out in this. My wife gets to hear this sermon about seven times each week, so we talk about it at lunch, and we work through things, and she kinda, once in a while, she comes up with an idea like this or something, and it just helps me to see things from a different perspective, but she pointed out something this week as we were talking.

People around the nation notice the disparity between the father and the sons. Now, if we're honest, often, many of you might admit that you are worried about your reputation being tied up with your kids.

Anybody ever feel an inkling of that? Just maybe a smidge of like, if my kids go this way, then that reflects poorly on me, so you guys better line up, and you smile at church, and you guys act right, and nobody here would do that, but I'm sure that there's other churches where that happens.

But yeah, nervous laughter that happened this morning on the way here. My minivan was not a happy place, right? Like, some of you are actually like working through that right now. I've got a conversation to have on the way home, but I think we all know what that's like.

We worry about our reputations being tied up in our kids, and the way that they act, and the way that it reflects on us, and certainly there is indeed a way that our kids reflect on us. I mean, one of the hardest things is seeing your own sins replicated in your kids.

You guys know what I'm talking about on that? One of the hardest things is seeing them act just like me. That's not good. But there are times when a son or a daughter just chooses a pathway different from their parents.

Mom and dad might be godly, they might be seeking to raise their child up in the way, but the kids choose a different direction. In this passage, the community saw that. The elders saw that. They knew Samuel was set apart for God's work.

They weren't even questioning his spiritual authority in this. They weren't questioning God's call on Samuel, but they saw that Joel and Abijah, their greed ran counter to, against the grain of the integrity of their father.

And the world saw that. That's kind of encouraging in one way. Do you see what I mean, how that could be encouraging? Like, many in the world can see the difference. They see the disparity in that. Now, that might not be the most encouraging of parenting lessons, but since we're all aware of the obvious reality that we cannot control the outcome of our parenting, let me just encourage every parent in the room to focus on the things, and every leader in the room to focus on the things that you can do something about.

Since you can't master the outcome, what you can do is focus on your integrity, your honesty, your connection to the Almighty God, your fulfilling the calling that he has placed on you. Let it at least be said of you, should one of your children, God forbid, decide to go off into dishonest gain or whatever thing might, whatever personality flaw might entice them, let it at least be said they didn't walk in the way of their parents.

Let it at least be said that way. Like, I mean, do what you can in the best of your ability to honor God in the integrity of raising up your children or leading others in godliness. But the elders have gathered with concern for the future, and the solution is a pivotal solution in verse five that really is the remainder of the text that everything, a lot hinges on this, even historically, globally, in world history, a lot hinges on what they ask for, what their idea is to present to Samuel.

We don't want your boys to lead us, they say, so appoint for us a king to judge us. Appoint for us a king just like the nations. Appoint for us a king just like the nations. Now, I wanna be clear about this because I think a lot of Sunday school curriculums got this wrong, and so it's likely that many of us in this room have a fuzzy notion that it was wrong for the Israelites to ask for a king.

They should've never been asking in the first place that was wrong, that was sin. They should've just been satisfied with God as their king and rolled on, and that would've been okay. That was the way that it was meant to be, and how dare they reject God as their king and accept another king.

But according to the Old Testament law in Deuteronomy 17, 14 and 15, we read this, and the quote will be up there. Don't need to turn there. Deuteronomy 17, 14, 15, if you're taking notes, though. "'When you come to the land that the Lord, "'your God, is giving you, and you possess it "'and dwell in it, and then say, "'I will set a king over me.'".

Now, this is centuries before this request for a king. This is centuries before they asked for a king, that this was written. Deuteronomy, "'I will set a king over me, "'like all the nations that were around me, "'and you may indeed set a king over you "'whom the Lord, your God, will choose.

"'One from among your brothers, "'you shall set as king over you. "'You may not put a foreigner over you "'who is not your brother.'". Were they allowed by Old Testament law to have a king? Absolutely, it's written right there in the law.

In the law of Israel, they were told that you can indeed have a king. It was permissible for them to ask for a king. But notice that the people of God do not reference the law of God in asking for a king, but they give an ulterior motive.