The Nation Has No Clothes!

Happy Father's Day, if you're a father here. You are so essential for our culture and our world.

I was reading this morning a article that was saying that we're in the midst of a fatherhood crisis and even the states, like the state of Florida, is trying to mandate, trying to pass bills to encourage fathers to be involved with their kids.

And they acknowledge, rightly so, that they can't mandate character, but it just shows us the reality that fathers are influential in the lives of their families.

You are essential and there's great responsibility. So if you're a father here in the room today, step up to that.

Live up to that responsibility. Be a blessing to your families, to your children.

The call will go out today in the message. And so it is not out of place that I bring that in my intro.

It goes right along with what we're going to be talking about today. The title of my sermon is called, The Nation Has No Clothes.

And it comes from the children's fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen called

The Emperor Has No Clothes. And it's a story that begins with an emperor who is obsessed with his appearance.

He's also obsessed with extravagant clothing. And this emperor encounters these two con men that come to the kingdom and they tell the king, hey, we can make you some clothes that nobody else has.

These clothes are special clothes. In fact, they're so special that only people who are wise and intelligent can see them.

And the king just goes, ooh, he gets really excited. And he says, well, make me some of these clothes.

And so the con men, they go off for a while and the king is just waiting.

He's waiting for these clothes to be finished. And finally, finally, these two guys come back and they say, hey, here are your clothes.

And they look just like this. Here are your clothes. You should try them on. And he puts them on and he's like, how do

I look? And these two con men go, man, you are looking so good.

He goes, well, everybody needs to see this. Let's go outside so that my whole kingdom can see me in my fine new clothes.

So he goes out and parades in the streets. And all of the king's friends, they're like going, whoa, it looks good.

Because they can't admit that they can't see anything. They can't admit the reality, which is that the king has no clothes until a small, innocent boy points at the king and he starts to laugh.

And he squeals and he says, he doesn't have any clothes on. And the king kind of is a little bit embarrassed for a moment, but then he composes himself and he just keeps going on.

And everybody just keeps congratulating him. Now, the purpose of this story or the point of this story is that it teaches us that sometimes it takes courage to speak the truth, even if it goes against what everyone else believes.

And the story warns us about mindless conformity. It tells us that we need to be critical thinkers.

We need to be lovers of the truth, not like those who are fearful about being ridiculed or ostracized.

Now this morning, we're going to see King Saul get anointed as the king.

And I'm not saying that he's naked or he doesn't have clothes on. It's the nation of Israel believing the popular agenda, even though they can see through this story that their newly anointed king is not very kingly in his character.

They ignore all the red flags that this story tells us that they see.

Now, that doesn't apply to us in America, would it? Wait a second,

Barter, are you talking about Trump now? Or are you talking about Biden?

Or are you talking about RFK? Or the libertarian gay guy?

Take your pick. The answer is yes, it is yes. And this applies to us today as Christians, as the church.

So let's jump into 1 Samuel chapter 10, and we'll read and I'll kind of do some exposition as we go along.

This is just one nugget. There's several nuggets of truth that are right here in this text.

And so I hope that you're able to glean the one that the Lord needs you to see this morning. Verse 1, it says,

Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head, Saul's head, and kissed him, and said,

Has not the Lord appointed you to be prince over his people Israel? Now, remember that word in the

Hebrew is negid, right? It is not melech, it does not mean king. It is on purpose that it says prince there.

And you shall reign over the people of the Lord, and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies.

And this shall be a sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be again negid over his heritage.

So last week ended with Samuel telling Saul, hey, let your servant go on ahead a little bit, okay?

Let your servant go on ahead, I've got something to tell you. And when he goes on ahead,

I will reveal to you the message of the Lord. And this is the message from the

Lord. You're king. You're the new king. Now, the focus here on this part of this passage here is right on Samuel.

God is revealing the message to Samuel that you need to pour the flask of oil on Saul's head.

You need to kiss him. You need to tell him that God has anointed him to be the negid over his people, to be the prince over his people.

That word negid means you're under authority, has this idea of an authority under an authority.

You're not just the king, but you are the prince under the king, which is God. Saul is anointed king, and now he now from this point on reigns over God's people.

And notice there, it's not his people, it is the people of the Lord. And that through him, his purpose is that he is going to save the people from their surrounding enemies.

Remember last week, as Josh preached, he said that the

Lord had heard the cry of his people. And we had this discussion on Friday night, what does that mean?

It's almost like out of Judges when the people cried out in their distress because of their enemies, they would cry out,

God would hear them and send them a savior, send them someone who would set them free from their enemies.

And yet here we see God hearing the cry of his people saying, make us a king.

We don't want to be under your reign, we want a king that we can see. We want to be like the other nations.

And God goes, okay, I hear your cry, and I'm gonna give you that kind of person, but he's not gonna save you from your enemies.

His purpose will be that, but he's gonna let you down, he's gonna disappoint you. In fact, he will be killed by your enemies.

Then Samuel says, and look, Saul, this is not just from me, this anointing is not just from me, it is from the

Lord. And I'm gonna give you proof, I'm gonna give you signs so that you will know that this is true, that you're

God's representative to take care of his people. It's not just Samuel talking, this is straight from the

Lord. Now, again, the focus is on Samuel here.

And God is asking him to do something that maybe would be difficult for Samuel.

Samuel, the faithful leader of Israel, is now having to pass the torch onto somebody who he just spent the night with, had a lot of conversations with, and maybe a lot of red flags came up in that conversation going, this is who

I'm to pass the mantle onto. I've got questions,

Lord, but yet still he is obedient. His replacement is lacking.

He has lots of questions, but yet he is obedient. Verse 2, it says, when you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah.

And they will say to you, the donkeys that you... The donkeys are back. The donkeys that you went out to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you saying, what shall

I do about my son? Then you shall go from there farther and come to the

Oak of Tabor. There, three men are going up to God at Bethel, and they will meet you there.

One will be carrying three goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine.

And when they greet you, they will give you two loaves of bread, which you'll accept from their hand. So, Samuel says, here are the signs that are going to happen to you today, okay?

You're going to get near Rachel's tomb, which is just outside of Bethlehem. You're going to meet two guys. They're going to tell you that the donkeys are...Your

dad doesn't care about the donkeys anymore. He's wondering about you. He is saying, what shall

I do about my son? The second sign, you're going to go on from there. You're going to get to the

Oak of Tabor. There, three men are on their way to Bethel. One's carrying three goats, one carrying three loaves of bread.

The last one has a skin of wine. And they'll say hello to you and give you two of the loaves of bread, which you should accept from them.

The third sign, okay, says you will come to Gibbeth Elohim, which means hill of God.

And there is a Philistine outpost there. Now, notice that. It's very important.

This is actually Saul's hometown. So Saul knows that there's a

Philistine outpost there. Still, Samuel tells him, there's a Philistine outpost there. Who are the Philistines?

The enemies of God. They're the enemies of God's people. But it's an interesting piece of information he puts in there.

It's going to be important later. It says, when you get to the city, you'll meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, and they will be singing prophecies, playing music with harps and tambourines, flutes and lyres.

You can't miss these guys. Crazy prophet guys, making lots of music.

Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you. You will prophesy with them and be turned into a different man.

Literally, in the Hebrew, it means you will be turned to another man. Okay.

So I've always wondered what this is about, right? Have you ever wondered what this is about in the story?

Why the prophets? Why does Saul prophesy with the prophets? It's just a really weird thing in the story.

And so I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what's the point of this? If you know the story of Saul, you know that Saul will always act according to his own will, not according to the will of God.

So what does it mean that the Spirit of God is going to come upon him and he prophesies? What does it mean that he's going to be turned into a different kind of man?

So let's start right there. When the Spirit came upon people, or men, in the book of Judges, these men were equipped and empowered to accomplish the will of God and defeat

God's enemies, okay? Saul is not getting possessed here. He is not having his personality transformed.

It does not mean that Saul is converted or that Saul is somehow in union with Christ, as the

New Testament talks about. That's not the intent of the language here. The intent of the language here is to hearken back to Judges.

It means that the Spirit is going to come upon him to gift him, to enable him to be the king that Israel has asked for in leading them into battle, okay?

God's going to equip him. Saul is allowed to function in the role of the prophet along with the other prophets.

So the Spirit is going to come upon him, and now he's able to prophesy. Why is he able to prophesy?

What do prophets do? The role of the prophet is to know the will of God and communicate it to the people.

So in this story, this part of the story, Saul is going to figure out what the will of God is, and he's going to hear it coming out of his own mouth among other prophets who are going to confirm it.

That's the purpose of what's happening here. So that's very important to understand as we see what

Samuel says to him next. In verse 7, he says, when you see these signs, when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

That is huge. Saul, when all this stuff happens, you're going to know what

God wants you to do and what your hand finds to do, what your purpose is right there, do it because God is with you.

And then he says, then go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I'm coming down to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings or sacrifice peace offerings.

And when these things happen, do what your hand finds to do. Now why is

Samuel so vague here? I think he's vague because he knows that God is going to reveal this to him when he gets to that point.

When he gets to that point where he begins to prophesy, he's going to know what God wills for him to do.

The town is called the Hill of God. There's a Philistine outpost. Remember the purpose that Samuel said that Saul was to do as God's Nagid over his people, to rule over them and defeat their enemies.

So what is he supposed to do? He's supposed to attack

God's enemies. I believe this is Saul's David and Goliath moment where God is going to demonstrate, here's your king.

And everybody's going to go, whoa, all Saul has to do is obey.

Now, it's interesting that the phrase, the exact phrase, the

Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you comes from Samuel, comes from the story of Samson in Judges 14 and 15, okay?

The Spirit of God is going to rush upon him and give him, ensure that he has the ability to do what

God is asking him to do. It's not like God isn't behind Saul here.

He is. He wants him to be the king that he should be, but he just doesn't do it.

So the focus here is on Saul, and we begin to see now a contrast between Samuel and Saul.

It says in verse 9 that when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart.

Literally, here, it means that God turned him another heart.

It is the same language as before about being a different man. The words are almost exact, except for it's now giving him a different heart.

Now, in our Western world, we associate heart with our emotions, our feelings.

But in the ancient world, this word was associated with the thoughts in our heads, the things that we think.

So it could be a change of mind happens here. So Samuel is telling

Saul all these things, and Saul's like, uh -huh, uh -huh, uh -huh, uh -huh. And then as soon as he turns, not just his body is changing, but his whole mind is changing right here.

And I look at this and I go, is this a negative change? Every commentary

I look at says that it's a positive change, that there's some type of inward change in Saul, and he becomes a moral person.

He becomes a better man. But I remember from the Scriptures when God changes or hardens the heart of Pharaoh.

And I wonder, is that what's happening here? Here's a good example. I often go to Gil's commentary as a

Puritan. I love John Gil. He says, God gave him another heart, not in a moral or spiritual sense, not a new heart, not a new spirit as in conversion, but in a civil sense, a right heart, a heart filled for government, filled with wisdom and prudence to rule the people with courage and magnanimity to protect and defend them against their enemies and to fight for them, a heart not taken up with the affairs of husbandry, with the care of his father's donkeys, looking after herds.

Now he's filled with the concern for civil welfare of Israel and with the schemes and contrivances for their good with warm resolutions to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies.

But I just don't see it, okay? The text is so vague in the original about this turning that we need to look to the context.

And so we need to wait here and put that, what we decide, on hold until we see what happens in the story so we can tell what kind of change is that happens.

Perhaps it's just a, hmm, that's a, you know, I was against the idea, but now, you know, maybe let's give it a go.

Let's see what happens. Maybe it's that. There are so many assumptions in this text, assumptions about Saul's conversion, how he's changed inwardly, whether he's being humble or being a coward.

I listened to even to a couple sermons that I completely disagreed with just to hear their point of view, but I just couldn't get there.

And maybe, maybe you'll see what I'm talking about. All these signs came to pass that day.

That's the end of verse 9. Verse 10, when they came to Gebeah, behold, a group of prophets met him, and the

Spirit of God rushed upon him. He prophesied among them. And then when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to another, what has come over this son of Kish?

Is Saul among the prophets? And a man of the place answered, and who is their father?

Speaking about the prophets. Who's the father of these prophets? Therefore it became a proverb, is

Saul among the prophets? And when he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place. So the writer adds these three rhetorical questions to show the absurdity of Saul prophesying.

He is literally given a gift that is so out of his character that people will make a proverb out of it.

They will make...they will say, Saul among the prophets, saying...and

they'll say, what in the world's happened to this son of Kish? What's happening? Has he lost his mind?

This is way beyond surreal here. Now, understand when people refer to a person in the

Old Testament as being the son of somebody, it often becomes derogatory instead of using their first name.

So when they say son of Kish, it could be in a derogatory term here.

We see Saul referring to David as the son of Jesse over and over again. Why does he say David?

Because he doesn't like him, right? The second thing that they're going to say is Saul among the prophets, and this is a statement of disbelief.

This is like saying, no way, no way, all right? Like if somebody said to you this afternoon, hey, it's going to snow tomorrow, you'd be like, yeah, no.

We use phrases like redonkulous or what have you been smoking, right?

So that's the same kind of thing. This is not painting

Saul doing this in a positive way. It's mocking him. And the third question, who is their father or who is their teacher questioning the prophets who accepted

Saul into their group, saying, if these guys were really true prophets, why are they inviting this imposter among them?

There's that much disbelief. Now Saul has many prophetic moments in his kingship.

It's not just here. It's in chapter 18. It's in chapter 19, and we'll look at those when we get there.

What's interesting is David does not have this prophetic moments in his kingship.

So why? Why is Saul giving this prophetic gift throughout his kingship?

And I think what the writer is doing and what God may be doing is that Saul has made a parody here of Samuel.

Samuel is the prophetic leader that Israel needs, who hears from God and obeys even when he may not have wanted to.

Saul is the worthless prophetic leader that Israel wants, who will only obey when he wants.

The prophetic gift is wasted on Saul. It doesn't help him. It's actually an indictment against him.

Saul's prophesying becomes a common proverb of mockery among the people, okay?

So you need to see that here. So to summarize everything to this point, everything happens just like Samuel says.

But when he prophesies, Saul doesn't do what his hand finds for him to do.

Even though God is with him, he doesn't do it. He says to himself, maybe he says to himself, whoa, that was weird.

Samuel then told him that you're to go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I'm coming to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offering.

Seven days you shall wait until I come to you and show you what you shall do. But he simply goes up to the high place and has a conversation with his uncle.

Saul fails the first test of his kingship, which is obedience. Now disobedience is not just doing what we're clearly told not to do, right?

Somebody says, don't do that, and you do it. That's disobedience. But disobedience is also not doing what you're clearly told to do, not doing what we're told not to do bad, you know, go to jail, but not doing what you're told to do.

I often think that we see that as optional. What do

I mean there? It's like knowing that God has asked us to be generous and to give, and yet withholding that gift and not giving to the

Lord to support your church. That would be that kind of disobedience. Not proclaiming the gospel to people who have never heard when you know that they are headed towards judgment.

Not praying for your pastor, not praying for your friends, not praying for your family, not praying for your enemies, right?

That's even harder. Not regularly gathering with a local body of believers, forsaking the gathering.

We know that these are things we should do. Not forgiving as we've been forgiven, right? Not discipling or disciplining our children, right?

Never telling them no, never leading them spiritually. These are things that we go, well, you know, we have a lot of excuses.

And I'm sure Saul had a lot of excuses for not doing what God clearly told him to do.

This establishes a pattern that we'll see played out in Saul's life of disobedience to the will of God.

He fails to be the Nagid of God's people, and he really proves himself to be the Melech, like all the nations.

Saul's uncle says to him and to his servant, where'd you guys go? And he said, to seek the donkeys.

And when we saw that you were not able to be found, when they were not able to be found, we went to Samuel.

And this perks up his ears. So Saul's uncle said, please tell me what Samuel said to you. I've heard about him.

And Saul said to his uncle, he told us plainly that the donkeys had been found. But the matter of the kingdom of which

Samuel had spoken a lot, he didn't say anything.

Okay? So Saul's back in his hometown. He runs into his uncle, who's probably heard people saying, what's come over the son of Kish, right?

His uncle says, oh, you met Samuel. Okay, well, maybe that explains it.

What did he say to you? And Saul says something about the donkeys. He doesn't say anything about the anointing, the signs, the prophesying.

Why doesn't he say, I'm going to be king of Israel. I'm a young, inexperienced man with no hireable skills, except that I'm good -looking and tall.

And I just got promoted to the highest and best -paying job in the whole nation. You would think that he would be excited to tell his uncle about the news, unless maybe he doesn't want to be king.

Some, again, and maybe he realizes, maybe there's shame associated with that because he knows he's just failed.

Some people say that Saul is being humble here. Some say he's being a coward. I'll leave that up to you.

Verse 17, now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mitzvah.

Okay? Now the focus goes from Saul back to Samuel. Remember, Mitzvah is where Samuel cried out to the

Lord, and the Lord defeated the Philistines thundering from the heavens with such a mighty sound that it threw them into confusion, right?

Samuel may be standing next to the stone that he set up called Ebenezer, which means, thus far the

Lord has helped us. Now I began to think about that in this context.

And I was like, why didn't he say, like, the Lord's always going to help us, or remember the

Lord has helped us? He said, till now the Lord has helped us, which makes me think that this is more than just a reminder, but a witness condemning the people who would be faithless from this point forward, and God would refuse to help them.

Remember the warning from the last chapter about the king that they will want. He's going to take from you.

He's going to take from you. He's going to take from you. You will be his slave. Then you'll cry out to God because of the king that you wanted.

And he says, I'm not going to answer. So he's standing beside a stone that says, up till now the

Lord has helped us. Samuel's location, choosing this location for the meeting, also may be a little bit of a rebuke.

Can you see that? And then he said to the people of Israel, thus says the Lord, the

God of Israel, I brought you up out of Egypt, this is what Josh read to us, and I delivered you from the hands of the

Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you, but today you have rejected your

God, the God who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses. And you've said to him, set over us a king, set a king over us.

Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord tribes by tribes, by your tribes and by your thousands.

Now maybe that just seems really harsh. Today you've rejected your God. It seems like a bit of an overstatement when all they would have wanted was to be a nation like the other nations.

But James 4, 4 comes to mind. It says, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And after the rebuke,

Samuel starts drawing lots. Okay, now this, for the people, they would go, uh -oh, somebody's in trouble.

Somebody's going to get a beating, right? So Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.

He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans and the clans of the Matrites was taken by lot.

And then Saul, son of Kish, was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the

Lord, is there a man still to come? And the Lord said, or have you changed your mind? Maybe there's a different guy.

And the Lord said, behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage. They ran and took him from there.

And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. And Samuel said to the people, do you see him who the

Lord has chosen? There is none like him among the people. And all the people said, long live the king.

Or they said, let him live long. Okay, so what's the deal with the raffle?

Why do I say that somebody, that they're nervous about Samuel calling for a lot?

So a lot is like a raffle, right? It is random selection. The tribes would come forward, they would write their name, the name of their clan on a stone, and then they would choose out of the bucket and this is the one that they chose.

Then they would have all of that clan come forward and put their family names on stones in a bucket, right?

And they would draw it out and they would get to the person, they got to Saul, son of Kish.

Okay. Now, the last time that this had happened for Israel was when they were looking for Achan, and Achan was chosen, and Achan was killed and his family and his livestock were all burned, okay?

Because Achan had done something, he had been disobedient. No, well, there's a connection there because Saul had just been disobedient, right?

So the nation of Israel, they were coming into the land, they were defeated. They're like, why are we being defeated over and over again?

Well, God had given them this instruction when they defeated this city that they were to dedicate it all to the

Lord. They were to destroy everything, but Achan decided, you know what, I'm going to keep this silver, I'm going to keep this gold, and this jacket is nice.

And so I'm going to take that, I'm going to bury it under my tent, right? And so they were looking for who has disobeyed what

God asked us to do. They drew lots and they found Achan. Achan. So they draw the lots, and this isn't just random selection though, right?

If God's people are doing this, Proverbs 16 .33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from the

Lord, right? God is still sovereign over random chance. But they get to Saul, son of Kish, come on down.

Nobody can find him. Where is he? How embarrassing is it for his family at this point?

They're like, I don't... The people are going, where's your son? I don't know. Where is he? And then God has to reveal, he is hiding among the baggage.

And this doesn't seem to be someone who wants to be king again. Is he being humble or is he being a coward?

Saul fails the second test, which is a test of courage. And now the story focuses back on Saul.

They bring him forward and all the people see him. And they hear

Samuel say, this is the one God has chosen. And they just lose it.

They just... They get so excited. They're cheering. They're like, man, look at our king.

Look how good looking he looks. Man, I can't wait to take him and parade him among the other nations so they can see our king.

They go, whoa, look at your king. He looks so good looking. He must be a really good king. It reminds me of the emperor parading himself naked.

The nation is naked and they're exposing themselves thinking that they are wise.

And it just brings back to that story that it's so easy to go along, to get along in our culture.

That's what we see that's happening. So to finish up, then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship.

He wrote them in a book and laid it before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his own home.

And Saul finally obeys Samuel because he goes home.

And it seems a little anticlimactic here, but it says, with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched.

But some worthless fellow said, how can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no present, but he held his peace.

He held his peace. That's how the end of this chapter, this is how the chapter ends,

Saul holding his peace. So it's weird though, right? And this made me scratch my head a little bit.

So if Samuel got all the people together and he rebukes them because they asked for a king, right?

And then they still go along with it. So they're not good.

But then you've got these other guys and it calls them wicked men, sons of Belial, sons of the devil.

And they reject Saul saying, he can't save us. And I go, God, what do you want from these people?

It's like, they don't choose you. They want Saul and you say, well, that's bad. And then these guys who reject

Saul and say he can't save us, which is true, they're bad. That just seems like a double standard.

God, why are you doing that? I believe the reason why this is here and it's bookended at the end of this chapter to reflect what happens at the beginning of the chapter where Samuel obeys the

Lord, even though he doesn't want to. God is anointing Saul and what he desires from his people is repentance and obedience.

And he doesn't get it from the people. He doesn't even get it from the guys who get it right and know that Saul can't save us.

They're still wicked because they don't repent. Now, Saul in this moment, surrounded by men of valor, should have...all

he had to do was just do what Samuel does. If I just do what Samuel does. What did

Samuel just do? He rebuked the people. He rebuked them. I believe

Saul should have rebuked these wicked men, but he holds his peace.

He's passive. He does not take responsibility or initiative. Now, how does

Saul fail in this chapter? Well, he's disobedient. He's a coward. He's passive. These are the three tests that we see here in this passage.

And here's my fear and here's what I've been rolling over in my head this week.

Saul is a masculine man, right? We saw that last week. And the people are attracted to his physical appearance, but he lacks character.

He's masculine on the outside, but not on the inside. And the people are warned twice.

Their leaders are warned, and the people are then summarily rebuked.

And God is saying, judgment is coming to you. And it's like they don't even hear.

They don't even hear what Samuel has to say because this is the man, this man, Saul, is the desire of the nations.

This is what they want. Now, allow me to rant a little bit. The evangelical church today is often accused of being too feminine.

I think it's largely a reaction to the disappearance of men who attend church.

And there's this fear, how do we get the men to come back to church?

It's also because of marketing strategies that I learned about that target women so the church looks more like a

Lifeway bookstore, right? Because that's the target audience. The women in our culture are the ones who are gonna spend money on Christian merchandise.

They're also, for the church, the ones who are gonna be committed and actually make the ministries happen.

We are volunteer -driven. We need women in our church, so let's market towards them.

But here's what I'm afraid of. What I'm afraid of, and we've seen it before, is the overcorrection to satisfy the accusation of an effeminate church.

I'm afraid that it's gonna result in the church missing the biblical principle that we see in this passage, right?

The biblical principle that we see in this passage is that Saul, even though he's manly, it's not enough.

He's manly on the outside, but that's not enough. We see Samuel being the one who is manly, actually, but he's old.

He's...on the outside, he is not what people desire. And here's what

I mean specifically, because I go to Reformed conferences, right?

That's why I'm sometimes in Austin and areas like that. The Reformed movement, this is our vibe.

This is the thing that kind of...this is our look, okay? Godly men are trying to be godly with beards, really long beards.

In fact, the longer the beard, the better, okay? Godly men are trying to set themselves apart by working out, having tattoos.

Maybe they cuss a little bit, you know, but that's okay, not too much. They tease each other in a jocular way.

They drink beer or whiskey. They smoke cigars. They're outdoorsy, you know, maybe sporty.

They like sports. Anything that's manly in its activity, that's what they're trying to do in their hobbies.

And let me say this, please hear me say this, our world, especially in the middle of Pride Month, our world needs to see men who look manly, okay?

I will not deny that. But men who are outwardly manly...I

mean, in this way, men who are outwardly manly do speak to our culture. They do.

This is what a man is. That's what it's saying to our culture. It's saying, not that, this is what a man is.

But we were given a tragic example in Mars Hill, where leadership desired to put on that manly exterior, but they were spiritually void on the inside.

And it caused great damage. And it's like, do we even remember that?

Because I see us headed in that direction. And I'm asking the question, are we doomed to repeat that dumpster fire in our churches?

Because the point of the passage, again, is that a manly exterior is not enough. This passage calls men to go further.

It cranks up the difficulty level. Because God will not bless the nation through a

Saul kind of masculinity. It's not gonna happen. Like I said,

Samuel, in the passage, actually is the only righteous one. He is the only one who obeys.

Even in his old age, he puts Saul to shame. It makes

Saul a mockery in this passage. Because the fruit of God's leadership, mantle that He gives on men is to be a blessing, not in a toxic way, but it makes men a blessing for their families, for their churches, and even for the nation.

But it requires faithfulness, it requires courage, it requires action, and even more, our physical strength, our youth, drinking coffee black, these things, they do matter because it demonstrates

God's creation design for men. But if we are to fight against being effeminate only outwardly in our church and not think that fighting it internally, and we don't think about fighting that effeminism internally, we're gonna look good but be a big disappointment.

We're gonna be totally ineffective and potentially very destructive. So we need to think, okay?

Today I'm hoping that this causes you to think. I want you to think about how you would define biblical masculinity.

Think about that. And think on your own. Think critically, with your Bible in your hand, okay?

I just listened to a podcast yesterday, and it was... I'm not gonna tell you the name of it, but it was supposed to be a

Christian podcast about biblical masculinity, and they spent the whole podcast talking about what you should wear if you wanna look manly, but they said nothing about who you should be as a man.

Skinny jeans? Ride out. I learned that from the podcast, right? So we need to think for ourselves.

What qualities would you put in that definition? Now there are a lot of things that we do in the church that our culture deems feminine, right?

But are not necessarily feminine, like singing.

When did singing become feminine? Men used to march into battle singing songs.

Men used to row in galleys singing songs. Men used to do hard work together singing songs.

But man, I'm not coming to church because all they do is sing songs. Maybe we need to redefine biblical masculinity for our culture by saying, no,

I'm a man who loves to sing songs. Or how about prayer?

Prayer takes a lot of courage. Standing up, speaking to the

Lord on behalf of other people. Maybe that's for your family. Man, that is what we need to do.

That's what Samuel does. Doing or saying the hard thing, even when it's not easy, even in your family when it's not easy.

Sometimes it's the hardest place to say the hard thing is right with those people that you're with every day.

And not doing it because you're a jerk or you're playing the devil's advocate, but because you're being obedient to God.

You're not trying to get attention, but you're taking a stand on your biblical convictions. That's what it means to be a man.

So the call today goes out on Father's Day to every man. We need biblical masculine men at CBC, right here in this church.

Men who will lead as elders, who will stand up, who will rise to the place of eldership.

Men who will take up the responsibility and the brotherhood, because there is a brotherhood that is there.

And I wish that some of you men could see that brotherhood and know what it's like to be a part of the leadership of a church, where men are holding each other accountable, where men are looking at each other,

Josh and I are going to do this this week, and just evaluate one another as elders. Say, hey, where are you struggling?

Where do you need to grow? How can I pray for you? How can we continue to be faithful to the

Lord? You're not a part of that. Well, you'd say, but Bart, that's hard.

I don't know if I'm called to be an elder. Okay, well, let's talk about that. It is hard work to be an elder, but Josh and I are engaged in that hard work.

We're pursuing men to raise them up. That is the vision of this church, to raise up qualified men to be elders and to send them out to plant churches.

That's part of the vision of this church, and I was reminded of that this week as we met together as elders and deacons.

What's the vision? That's what Hal Laney said. Let's start off this meeting saying, what's the vision? What are we aiming for?

And I go, have we been...the thought came into my head, are we sliding a little bit away from that?

Have we stopped raising up the men who are here? Because maybe we just need to wait for some pre -made elders just to show up, right?

Or are we really raising you up? Now, there are some men who are here who are pursuing discipleship, and I want to commend you men who are doing that, and you know who you are.

You are investing your time. You're saying, hey, you know what? Maybe I'm five or 10 years out from ever being in church leadership, but you know what?

I realize I've got some work to do, and I'm willing to sit down and have somebody pour into my life.

And if you're not doing that, why? Why? What are you waiting for?

That is the purpose and vision of our church. Are you distracted?

Maybe you heard the call and just put it down. I'll admit it's been a while since it's clearly been put out there from us.

So maybe you're hearing it and going, oh yeah, yeah, that's it. But I fear that sometimes men just hide among the baggage.

They disqualify themselves and they just go, you know what? I just can't do that. I don't know if I can do that.

I say, you know what? You should start working on the process.

I'm just going to say that. Like I said, maybe it takes a long time for you to get there, but are you doing something?

And we're not lowering the bar here. I'm going to say this is a rigorous activity.

Being a man who has doctrinal depth is hard to achieve, but it is required to know where you stand and to be obedient when you're called to fight so that the church stays true, so this church stays orthodox, right?

So that we stay orthodox to God's will and to God's word. And man,

I'm going to say it's going to challenge you. It's going to really challenge you. But hey, let's get started.

Let's start working on it today, right? Josh and I want you to succeed, right?

But you got to want it. You got to own it. You got to get started. It's going to take obedience. It's going to take courage.

It's going to take initiative. It's going to take everything that Saul didn't have. That's what the call is today.

Lastly, a bit of motivation, a bit of urgency, maybe a bit of conviction.

You know, as I look at the world and realize that the influence of this world on our children is suffocating, it is overwhelming, it is a deluge, it's like a flood that is hitting them in the face.

And it is fighting to erase the concept of gender in our society.

I think about the young men in the room. I think about Woodrow. I think about Xavier. I think about Rice.

I think about my grandson, Beau. I think about River. I think about Noah. I think about them.

And as they mature, I see a fight. I see a fight that needs to be fought so that they will know what

God expects of them as men. Man, they need examples, and it's going to take a ton of intentionality from the men of CBC, men who are striving, pushing relentlessly, pursuing manhood, who are more than Saul.

Men of valor, touched by God, and built like Samuel.