1 Samuel 8:1-9 Chameleon Christians

listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak 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 Filsak. 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. I 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 raise our voices in praise.

Can you imagine 12 ,000 people and just a little glimpse of what I think it's going to 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, 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 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 want to 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 going to 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 going to come back and carry on where we left off in 1

Samuel and just take that passage. And you're going to see as I read that text that there's some irony in what

I'm going to be preaching to you on a Sunday where some are going to 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 going to stand up here and they're going to 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 going to 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 going to stand up here and testify. And in our text, we're going to 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 going to see that even the prophet

Samuel, we're going to 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 going to 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 8.

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. That 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 8 verses 1 through 9. If you don't have a

Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible, I'd 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 8. 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. 1 Samuel 8, 1 through 9. When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.

The name of his firstborn 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 have rejected me from being king over them.

According to all the deeds that they have done from the day that I brought them 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.

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.

We are a people who are quick to reject your sovereignty, your rule and reign in our lives day by day.

Often, if we're honest, we want to be just like the nations. We want to be chameleons.

We want to blend in. We want to 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. 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 also keep your Bibles open to 1 Samuel chapter 8. You may have lost your place there.

And keeping it open there, I'm going to 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 priests.

I will let the priest raise him. Just only please give me a son. 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 want to 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 going to 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 going to be taken away from you and your two sons, your two wicked sons

Eli, are going to 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 5 and 6 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 7, 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 8 verse 1 where we're at today. And now we come to our text and we jump over according to chapter 8 we're going to 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 is never in 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 1. 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 descendancy.

We cannot assume spiritual descendancy. 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.

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. 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.

How many of you think 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.

An 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 want to key in on from verse 3 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?

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.

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 at best sign posts 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 or 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 3 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.

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 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 3, 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.

But he 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've 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 sons' 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 Hophne 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.

I think I missed that slide earlier. I probably just messed them up there. 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 going to be it mentions that Samuel is old and pretty soon he's going to be gone and his sons are going to 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. 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 5 and they said to him, behold.

When you see the word behold, just insert in there, check this out. It's like whoever is speaking, whoever is 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 kind of, 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.

Nervous laughter that happened this morning on the way here. My minivan was not a happy place. Some of you are actually working through that right now.

I've got a conversation to have on the way home. 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.

Certainly there is indeed a way that our kids reflect on us. 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.

The world saw that. That's kind of encouraging in one way. Do you see what I mean how that could be encouraging?

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 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. 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 5 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 want to 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 have never been asking in the first place that was wrong, that was sin. They should have just been satisfied with God as their king and rolled on and that would have 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.

You 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 ask 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 his 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.

They actually share the purpose in asking for a king. Why do they want a king according to 1

Samuel? To be just like everybody else.

To fit in. To be just like all the nations. To be like everybody else around them. Does that sound familiar you guys?

To blend in. To look like everybody else. But I want a smart phone just like everyone else.

I want to watch Game of Thrones like everybody else. I want to sit around and watch YouTube clips all day just like everybody else.

I want to have a nice house like everybody else. You can fill in the blank with what your everybody else is. Everybody in the room has it.

Everybody knows where you want to fit in. You know what you do intentionally to make others like you.

You might not even like Game of Thrones but you're going to watch it because people are going to talk about it at work. And you know that it's breaking your conscience.

And by the way, I don't like to pick out specific things. I think that Game of Thrones is beyond the line that I can actually say you ought not to be watching it.

And that's, you know, there's things where I'm very careful about giving a, now you're going to ask me for a list.

I'm not going to give it to you. Don, what are the recast approved shows? What are the recast approved movies?

You want to check through my iPhone for my music too? No, I'm not going to do that. But I can tell you pornography is not good.

I can tell you that that's not good for your soul. I don't care if you're a man you're a woman. I don't care where you're at. That is damaging to you.

And in all honesty, our culture will tell you it's not. But it is. Anyways, I didn't mean to get off on that.

That's not in my notes. But yeah, that's a thing. So, we want to fit in.

How many of you would just raise your hand and just confess, and I'm raising my hand my hand's already up here, that you like it when people like you.

You like that. Be honest. Some of you don't care. That's great. You are rocks. Some of you are just like,

I don't care what anybody thinks. I believe all of us and you give the right context, all of us want to be liked.

We want to fit in. We want others to, we want to be able to relate to others in a way that they think we're kind of cool and, you know what

I'm talking about. But you see, in the text it says, this thing displeased

Samuel. This thing displeased Samuel, which is kind of interesting in what the text doesn't say.

It displeased Samuel but notice what's absent. It doesn't say this thing displeased God. I don't believe that this request for a king was ultimately displeasing to God because God was already displeased.

He was already frustrated and he's going to say so much in the text. He's going to say, welcome aboard Samuel.

You're just feeling a little bit of what I felt for centuries for my people. Catching you up to speed,

Samuel, on the way it feels to be rejected. Catching you up to speed on the way that my people have been treating me from day one, says the almighty

God. He's already displeased. Samuel became displeased in this text but God was already there.

Samuel went to the Lord with his concern and God told him obey the voice of the people. Let them have their way.

Do what they say. I told them that they can have a king and if they so choose them they can certainly have one and they've chosen and so let them have a king.

But this is not the point. That was not the point of the rejection of the almighty God by his people. It wasn't when they asked for a king.

Look at the end of verse seven and on into the entirety of verse eight at the very end of seven it says, for they have not rejected you but they have rejected me from being king over them according to all the deeds that they have done from the day

I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day. This isn't a new rejection. He says even when you go back into the times when they were in Egypt and I was winning their hearts through taking them through the

Red Sea and providing for them food in the desert and giving them all these things and coddling them and loving on them and they were rejecting me from day one.

Samuel was bothered by the way. He's feeling a bit rejected. Oh poor Samuel. So God clarifies.

I love it how God even in this context is kind of gentle with Samuel. Don't worry

Samuel. It's not really about you. This isn't about you. They've rejected me says the almighty from being their king.

They don't want to be a holy people. They don't want to stand out among the nations. They don't want to look like the jokers who worship an invisible

God. I mean the nations, I picture the nations looking at Israel and they're so distinct and they're so different.

They don't even bow to idols. How foolish can you be in the ancient world? Everybody knows you bow to idols.

Everybody knows you at least make some kind of a manifestation of your God so that everybody knows how powerful they are and fears them.

They don't even enjoy bacon. How weird can you get? They don't even have sexual immorality at their annual festivals of worship.

How backwards the nations would say God isn't taken off guard by the rejection of his people and them saying

I want to be more like the nations. It's been coming from the very beginning of his relationship with his chosen people from the day he brought them out of Egypt.

Consider their first stop, their first big stop along the way at Mount Sinai. Moses takes a little bit too long for the people up on the mountain and he comes back down and what are they doing?

They're worshiping a golden cow. Where did they get that idea? Did Aaron invent that idea?

Was Aaron like you know what? I think we're going to make a golden cow. I never thought about this before but let's do that and then we'll bow and we'll worship, dance around.

It's going to be super fun. And all the indications by the way is that even in that event there was sexual immorality going on.

A lot of people you know we leave that out of the Sunday school lesson but that was going on down there at this worship of the cow there.

Where did he get that idea? The nations. To be just like the nations.

Just like the others around them. I would suggest to you that holiness that is to be set apart.

Holiness is being set apart and it is difficult. Holiness defined as being set apart is distinct for the purposes of the almighty

God. To be holy like he is holy is to be different like he is different. And being distinct or different is uncomfortable for us.

Especially for sinful humanity. We want to blend in. We want to look like everybody else around us.

I think we can all testify to a time or a situation where you stood out and you didn't want to. Maybe you went to the opposing team's field decked out in your own team's gear.

Anybody ever been in that situation? You ever do that? Linda and I took Adam when he was younger. I should have asked

Adam for permission to use this but anyways. We went to this game over in Cleveland.

Tigers were playing Cleveland and we went with family over there. My wife's sister and her husband and to Progressive Field.

Any of you ever been there? It's fun to visit other ballparks and stuff. Three of us have been there. And you might have survived what we survived.

We were decked out in Tigers gear and throughout the entire game we were pelted by peanuts. And I don't mean people threw peanuts at us.

We were pelted by peanuts. I don't even know if Adam remembers this. But whenever I turned around to see where the peanuts were coming from my glare, and I do mean glare, was met by smirks of knowing smiles and laughter behind us.

Everybody knew who was throwing the peanuts but nobody was going to say a word. Do you know what I'm talking about? How many of you think that you might feel a little out of place?

You might feel a little uncomfortable. You might feel like you stand out. And we won. Yes. And those jerks over there, those

Cleveland Indian fans, who are they? Who do they think they are? I felt a little out of place in that context.

Haven't been back since. They're not getting my money. Linda's been back.

She likes peanuts. I think I actually did eat a couple.

There came a point where I was just like, I'm hungry. They're throwing food at me. This could work out. None of that is in my notes,

I guarantee it. Holiness calls us to stand out in ways that are uncomfortable.

That's the point. That's what I'm trying to get at. And obviously to stand out for the Tigers is not really worth sacrificing yourself for.

At the end of the day, that's not that big of a deal. But it's even beyond just standing out for the externals.

Do you ever think about it this way? We are those who cannot prove in a genuinely scientific way the things that we base our lives on.

And we might feel that strain even internally at times. But when you go back through the

Old Testament, you see even external ways that the people were called to stand out. And a lot of times we get bogged down in these

Old Testament rules because we don't understand how vital it was to God that his people looked different than others around them.

So you encounter rules like don't wear clothing that's two different kinds of fabrics.

And we go, is there something sinful about weaving polyester and cotton together? Like, oh no, is that sinful? It was distinction.

That's the point of it. Was to stand out to look different than the world around you.

That's what a lot of those civil laws are about in the Old Testament. And the Israelites chose the act of asking for a king in our text.

This is so much more than just enacting a permission from the Old Testament law. This is a manifesto of liberation from the holy demands of God.

That's what they're doing in our text. We are now hereby liberating ourselves from our king.

We want to do things like the nations. And the Lord told Samuel to let them have their way with only one caveat here in the end of our text in verse 9.

Share with them exactly what they are signing up for. And we're going to take a look at all of that next week.

We're going to see Samuel spell out in detail what they're signing up for. You want a king? Let me tell you what that looks like.

It looks like a sinful man ruling over you. That's what it's going to be. But suffice to say here at the end of the text that when we seek to depart from God's authority so that we can look like just everybody else around us, he may willingly let us have our own way.

But we just might find that our own way is not as great as we thought it was going to be. It might not be all that we thought at the beginning.

So the main point I want to drive home from this text today is that whether it is in your home, whether you are raising kids or you're single or you're a student or you're an empty nester, wherever you are at in life, those who have come to know, if you have come to know

Jesus Christ for salvation, you are called to live a holy life of following his rule and reign.

Now don't get that reversed. Don't get that backwards. Anyone here who is not in Christ, don't you hear me saying, go live better.

It's only once you're in Christ that the calling shifts to walk in holiness.

I would suggest you can't walk in holiness. You can't be distinct like God without him in your life, without coming to have your sins washed away and forgiveness granted for you.

God does call his people, his children, those he loves to stand out and to look different.

He's calling each and every one of us to that. And if we're honest in our hearts, we often just want to blend in.

We want to be chameleon Christians. Right? Just fit in. And so a final question that might be good for each one of us to ask ourselves this morning is simply this, in what way is

God asking me to stand out for him? I think only you can answer that. I can't answer that for you.

I could give you some suggestions and if you're kind of stuck on this one and you need some help, I'd love to sit down over a cup of coffee or something and meet you in my office and talk about it.

But maybe you've been hiding your faith in Jesus from a coworker or a neighbor for fear of what they might think.

Just thinking, well once we're friends, then we'll do this friendship evangelism thing. And then once we're friends and we've gotten to know each other really well, like maybe a year or five, then

I'll share the gospel. And you know what? Often that friendship never gets there. Do you know what I'm talking about? We had this big thing, how many of you have heard friendship evangelism?

Back in the 80s it was a big thing. I think friendly evangelism is a good thing, but often friendship evangelism was heavy on friendship and not any evangelism.

I'm just waiting until the right time comes for me to ruin this relationship with the gospel. Do you know what

I'm talking about? And often that's what reality was in the late 80s and early 90s.

I'm never going to get there because now I'm too tight with this person and how could I share something so vital and central to my life that I've been hiding from them for so long.

And so maybe that's where you're at is you need to take seriously the calling to share with those around you.

But you don't want to stand out, right? You need to get over that. Maybe it's a parenting decision that you need to make and you and your spouse are even on the same page about it, but man, the culture says that's weird.

I don't want to be that weird. But you know that that's what God desires of you. Maybe it's stepping back from Netflix or something, some kind of media or some kind of entertainment and that would require you to be left out of some conversations that you've cherished.

You've liked the relationships that those kinds of things can give. It was funny because just yesterday

I was at the food pantry and I was talking with a couple of our teens and I was able to talk a little bit knowingly about a video game called

Fortnite. Any of you ever even heard of it? I was able to talk knowingly about it and I was kind of proud that I was able to talk about it.

And then I was like, wait a minute. Hold off just a second. I'm preaching this today about just the...

And I was like, yeah, I can fit in. I can fit in with teens. I know some of the stuff. What?

Is that what this is about? I mean, at the end of the day, it's not that it's a sin to play the game and I actually kind of enjoy games from time to time, but it's kind of one of those...

Depends on your heart, right? Is the goal of your heart to just make everybody like you? Make everybody think you're cool or you're hip or you...

By the way, I don't think for a second that those teens thought I was hip because they're like, you're still 45, dude.

But for some of you, it might be taking a first step. Some of you, the distinction from the world could begin today.

Today could be the day of a fresh start for you. You're not in with Jesus. And you know that in your heart and you're sitting here and there's some sense of conviction of knowing that there's something different out there for you.

You know that in your heart and you're kind of sitting here and just saying, you know, I don't really understand a whole lot of what

Don is up there talking on about, but I know this. I don't have that sense of distinction from the world.

I don't even understand why I would value that. You need a new heart. You need a new heart change and that's only provided through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice for us.

And we're going to come to communion here. And we're going to do this each week to remember the king of all kings.

The king over all kings. The people of Israel in our text were asking for their very first king.

Their very first human king. And we're going to read about him disappointing. Oh, he disappoints so much.

The second king, well, better, but he still disappoints. The third king, disappointing. The fourth king turns into a fourth and fifth king because they divide the kingdom.

It just gets uglier and uglier and uglier as you read through the book of 1 Kings and you just see this denigration.

People are sacrificing their own children on fires. Just kind of what in the world in just a couple generations and things just are torn apart.

But the promise that comes out of this line of kings is that one will be born out of this line that will not disappoint.

He won't disappoint at all. And even in the sinful motives of the people rejecting God as their king and saying they wanted to become more like the nations,

God will turn that on its head and provide for them the ultimate king who is both

God and man. And he came to sacrifice himself on the cross and that's why we come to communion.

So each week we take a cracker to remember his body broken for us that he is our only hope. And where we deserve punishment, he took that for us.

And anybody by faith can have that forgiveness granted to them. And then we take a little cup of juice to remember his blood shed for us.

By the way, this is a weird thing. I don't know if you notice how distinct that is from the world. The early church was accused of cannibalism because they thought that we were really literally taking flesh and blood.

And the early cultures and the Roman culture didn't get it. They're like this church thing is whack.

Just the fact that we do that. This little cup, what is that about? Is this like snack time? Or they just couldn't wait until lunch or whatever?

It's a unique thing. And if you're all in with Christ, I'd ask you to come to one of the tables in the back at your leisure during this next song and just thank

God. This is a remembrance of what he has done for you. And thank him in your heart for the forgiveness that you have that is only available to you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

That's why the cross is such a big deal. That's why the cross is back here. It's one of the first things that we put up on our walls here because it's so central and foundational to who we are.

Recast Church, God has called us to be a unique people. We are to stand out in a culture that is heading away from the hope of the gospel.

We are to be distinct, unique, different, sometimes even weird. Let's assess our own lives and consider if we in our own lives are saying to God, I want to be just like the nations.

Father, I thank you so much for your grace and your mercy. I thank you that you are so quick to forgive any wandering or lost child who would come back to you.

I thank you for the hope that we have found in Jesus Christ that is revealed to us through scripture from beginning to end that that is the hope that a king is coming who will not disappoint.

And his name is Jesus Christ. And we look forward to the day that he will come into his kingdom. And I ask that you would, through recast, bring more worshipers into that eternal kingdom where forgiveness and hope and the absence of sin reigns and rules because you are holy.

So Father, I pray that we practice for that. Practice for that eternal kingdom under the leadership of your great and glorious son,

Jesus Christ. That we would walk in his ways. That we wouldn't fear looking weird to the world around us and that you would give us bold witnesses for you.