Abounding Grace

Narrator: Here is the great lesson in front of us today on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: I believe it's time to be reminded for us that God will often work in very common, natural ways. So common and so natural we may miss the hand of God in them. We may miss the touch of the holy in the situation. We may miss the presence and the leading of the Holy Spirit because it's so common, so natural, like finding donkeys. The horses have got loose, go find the horses. The dog ran away, go get the dog. It runs away every time the fireworks go off or the car backfires. Go find the dog. And this is just very normal things.

Narrator: You know, we see it virtually every election. People have a tendency of looking and judging according to outward appearance. But really, the character and a proven track record should be the measure when it comes to determining who would be a good leader. This is certainly not a new problem, as we'll discover today on Abounding Grace. We take you to First Samuel chapter nine, which is the beginning of the historical record of Israel's first king. Saul had the looks but not the character. Here's Pastor Ed Taylor.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them, would you, to First Samuel chapter nine. As we grow in our understanding of the character and the nature of God, His love and His grace and His mercy even in the midst of our failure. Even when we have said things and done things, God's faithfulness is steady and true. Logic and facts and discouragement is what led the elders of Israel, the newer generation, to demand a king.

They surveyed the situation for what it was. They saw the facts. They saw what was happening in the life of Samuel. They came to him and said, "You're getting old, Samuel. And your sons don't walk in your ways. They're corrupt. They're thieves, unspiritual men." Then they look around and they see the other nations and perceive that the success perhaps of the other nations was because they had a king. And so because Samuel is getting old and there's no replacement for him and the sons couldn't take over, and the discouragement that they were being taken advantage of, the logic of seeing all these other nations—what do they do? They ask for a king.

There's no mention of prayer, there's no mention of fasting, there's no mention of seeking out other judges like these were the only options. In the whole nation, could there be anyone else that God could use to be a judge? Instead, they just have a request. "Give us a king." And Samuel's heartsick over it. He takes it personal. And anyone that has served within the capacity of God's kingdom knows that you get really close to the people that you serve. You get really close to the situations in their lives.

And when something comes up like this, it's very easy to get heartsick over it. He goes to God and he goes, "They're asking for a king." And God says, "Let me give you an insight, Samuel. This is what I've had to live with from the very beginning. This isn't new. Oh, and by the way, they're not rejecting you, Samuel. This isn't you. It's Me." And isn't that the case when we are dissatisfied with our present conditions, as difficult as they might be? That dissatisfaction can so easily transfer to a dissatisfaction with God where you're truly upset not only with your circumstances but with the God of your circumstances.

Surely the God of your circumstances would deliver you, because if you were the God of your circumstances, you would have never gone through that. And yet as we look through the history of our lives walking with Jesus, we realize and we recognize that the God of our circumstances, He works all things together for the good for those that love Him. He's able to make all grace abound to you and to me. He's able to empower us.

And even in our weakest moments, the Bible promises us—and how many of us have come to know this personally—that His strength is made perfect in weakness. How would we ever learn of the strength and the reliance upon God in the deepest places? We can't really say we use the word, "I was totally relying on the Lord." There's no way we could ever get to the place of totally, but I get what you're trying to say. As much as is possible and as much as is in you, you're relying upon the Lord. Why? Because as much as is possible and as much as is in you, you're weak and unable to follow through or to complete what's been before you.

And he's heartsick, but he's learning, Samuel is, that the rejection was of God. And with that in mind, we open up to a new chapter in verse one of chapter nine. "There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power. And he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul." If you like to write in your Bible, circle the word "Saul." You could write next to it "requested," "a requested one" or "asked for." That's what his name means. And it makes sense, doesn't it? That the king that they asked for would be Saul, whose name means asked for.

Just the work of God. This tall, good-looking, strong man, head and literally head and shoulders above the rest. It says there was not a more handsome person than he among all the children of Israel. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people. "Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. And Kish said to his son Saul, 'Please take one of the servants with you and arise and go look for the donkeys.'" So he passed through the mountains of Ephraim and through the land of Shalisha, but they did not find them. Then they passed through the land of Shaalim, and they were not there. Then he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they did not find them.

Now I want to give you a heads-up for our next time together when we study First Samuel. We're going to finish the chapter tonight, Lord willing. That's our goal. We're going to go through the whole chapter. But the next time we're together, we're just going to focus on the first few verses because in the first few verses here, I see a tremendous picture of how God leads and speaks to a person. And it may surprise you. So read ahead and do your own little Bible study and answer the question: how does God lead a person? How does God speak to His people? How does He do what He loves to do with us in leading and guiding? Because isn't that the question on your heart? "I want to follow God, but how does He lead?"

In these verses next time, I just finished the Bible study yesterday putting it together, that we're going to look at and answer the question: how does God lead a person? But sufficient for us now, we see the first king who will soon be king, Saul. We meet him as head and shoulders above the rest, handsome. He would have been the one you chose and you picked if you were looking for a nice, sturdy, handsome king. He was a man with many great qualities. One of them is we see that he was submissive to his father.

Now please don't get in your mind a kid here. We're not introduced to Saul as a kid. Many people believe he's about 40 years old at the time. Forty years old and his dad says, "My donkeys are lost. Can you go find them?" And Saul says, "Sure." Now I have yet to have a 40-year-old in my house. But for the kids that I do have in my house, when I ask them to do the dishes, I don't get this. Can you imagine what it would be like? "Hey kids, just want to let you know the donkeys ran away. Can you please go all throughout the country and look for my donkeys?" I mean, it's hard enough just to get the trash taken out. My donkeys?

But in Saul's relationship with his dad, and you'll see it unfold as we read through the scriptures here, you'll see it unfold as one that's submissive and loving. This was a good son. A son that had honorable characteristics. He wasn't a perfect young man, and we'll see many of his weaknesses as well throughout his life. And unfortunately, his weaknesses were character-related, which will always bring you down. The depth of a broken character. And yet here we have him looking for his dad's donkeys.

He was such a great-looking man that we find out later in chapter 10 that Samuel got carried away looking at him. Samuel had a problem. Samuel had a problem that I think that many of you and perhaps I do at times. We have a problem of looking at the outward and being impressed at the outward. Being impressed by what we see. Samuel, when he meets David, it's the same thing. He sees the older brother and he says, "Oh, this has got to be the one." And that's when God tells him, "Man looks at the outward, but God looks at the heart."

And here's the problem with that: we don't know someone's heart. We get glimpses of it, we get the possibilities of what's going on in someone's heart, but we don't know. Only God knows the heart, and He knows it thoroughly. He knows our hearts better than we do. And yet we often will judge a person on the outward and make many, many mistakes. By the way, just in case you didn't realize, a different take on that—we'll get into it when we get into First Samuel later—but that phrase, "Man looks at the outward and God looks at the heart," did you know that both sides are true? It is true that man looks at the outward.

It's true. That's why your life matters. That's why Paul would say, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." Why? Because the only way you can imitate Paul is by seeing him on the outward. And that's why it's important to recognize that as people watch your life, they're looking for an example. They're looking for someone to follow. They're looking for pieces in your life. They're looking at what it looks like. What does a believer look like? What does a pastor look like? What does a leader look like? And that's all they really have.

It's not okay to just kind of live however we want and go, "Well, you don't know my heart." No, I'll never know your heart. I'll never know your heart like God knows it. But I can tell a lot about you by the outward. By what you say, how you act, how you respond to difficulty. And how important it is for us to remember both sides of that. And we'll develop that in a study at another time. With Saul, we see all these outward characteristics, but nothing about his spiritual life because at this time, I don't believe he has much of a spiritual life.

There's no mention of a relationship with God. You see submission to his father, but you don't see a submission to his heavenly Father. And while I believe that he was a good son, I believe his parents—we make a grave mistake when we seek to raise good kids. Think about that. Last time somebody asked about your son or daughter and you go, "Hey, how's so-and-so doing?" "He's such a good kid." And that's probably a great description. He's such a good kid. And somewhere along the way, that became the goal in life for us as parents. Someone told us, "You should have good kids. I want to brag on my good kids and I want to talk about how good they are."

But I believe, and I would propose to you today, whether you're a parent or not, whether you have influence as a grandparent, as an aunt and uncle, that the goal of raising a good kid is the wrong goal. It's shooting too low. Because it's possible to raise a good kid and not produce a godly kid. That's possible. It's possible to come to the conclusion, "I have a good son. He's a good son." "How's his relationship with God?" "Well, we need to pray for him."

And I'm not talking about those times when kids have to figure it out and now they're not living their parents' faith. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this low-level goal of raising good kids. I would suggest to you today, parents and grandparents, that you shoot at raising godly kids. Because when you get a godly kid, good comes along with it. You get a good kid, godly doesn't always follow. But when you raise a godly child, one that fears God, that respects His word, that leans upon and depends upon the Holy Spirit, that when tough times come, he seeks out God's will, desiring to know. When you raise a godly kid, good follows. It's automatic. It's automatic.

And it's never too late to pour into your children, no matter what their age, a desire of godliness. You know why I think parents shoot for the good more than the godly? It's because in their own lives as parents, they don't shoot for godly. It's a great sacrifice. It requires much in our lives to really decide in your life that you want to be a godly man and a godly woman, which thus will make you a godly mom and a godly dad. Godly, to where God is, where you are depending upon God's word to define your life.

Where when you have questions, you really want to search out the heart of God, His character, and His nature. Because I have found that godly parents have a better chance of producing godly kids, which then will get you what? Good kids. And you'll probably be a pretty good parent too. But it does require sacrifice and hard decisions. It does require us as parents to really decide what to say yes for and what to say no for. It really does require us to measure. We can't just look at Saul and he's head and shoulder and look at him, look at him. Saul could have turned around and go, "This has got to be the guy. Look at him. He has the looks. This is a good son. He's even submitting to his dad, going looking for the donkeys. He'll go search high and low."

But as we read here, very early on, there's no mention of his spiritual life. There's no mention of Saul following Dad because it was the godly thing to do or the right thing to do before God. The Bible says this in Proverbs chapter 22, verse 6, for us to "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he won't depart from it." In Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4, it says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord." Oh, how we desire that.

And I know many of you are waiting on your kids to come back to Him or waiting on your kids to make godly decisions. And I would say continue to pray for them, continue to seek God's best for them. Verse five now: "When they had come to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, 'Come, let us return, lest my father cease caring about the donkeys and become worried about us.'" "And he said to him, 'Look now, there's a city in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man. And all that he says surely comes to pass. Let's go there. Perhaps he can show us the way that we should go.'" Now that was a good decision. There's a hint of godly dependence there.

"And then Saul said to his servant, 'But look, if we go, what shall we bring the man? For the bread in our vessels is all gone, and there's no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have?' And the servant answered Saul again and said, 'Look, I have here at one hand one-fourth of a shekel of silver. I'll give that to the man of God to tell us our way.'" Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he spoke thus: "Come, let us go to the seer," for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer. Then verse 10: "Saul said to his servant, 'Well said. Come, let us go.' And so they went to the city where the man of God was."

So Saul came from a good home where he knew that his prolonged absence would have a negative effect on his dad. I mean, not only is he not bellyaching about the donkeys, but he's worried about Dad. "I've been gone for a long time." We could tell that he's been gone for a long time because earlier it talked about all the cities that he passed through, and now as they're thinking about going to this next city, they've run out of all their provisions.

So for whatever time that they planned to be gone, they've run out of everything. And they've extended their time to the point where now Dad's not going to care about the donkeys anymore. "Where's my boy? What happened to him?" And Saul was sensitive to that. He grew up in a home that had a loving atmosphere to it. That had a sense of caring for one another. And if you have come from a godly home with loving parents with lots of security and love, continue to thank God for it. What a gift that is. And what a heritage that God has given to you through your parents.

And if you happen to have not come from a home like that, it begins with you. What a joy that God is now going to give to you to perhaps remedy some of the things and some of the pains and lack of love and security that you grew up without. But here is evidence of this loving, godly home. This 40-year-old man really, truly caring about his dad. Verse 11: "They went up to the hill of the city and met the young women going out to draw water and said to them, 'Is the seer here?' And they answered them and said, 'Yes, there he is, just ahead of you. Hurry now, for today he came to this city because there's a sacrifice of the people today on the high place.'"

"And as soon as you come into the city, you will surely find him before he goes up to the high place to eat. For the people will not eat until he comes because he must bless the sacrifice. Afterward, those who are invited will eat. Now therefore go up, for about this time you will find him.' And so they went up to the city. As they were coming into the city, there was Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place." They arrive at just the right time to catch Samuel before he goes up for the sacrifice because people were waiting because they wouldn't eat before he blessed it.

By the way, verse 13, if you've ever wondered, verse 13 is one of the sources, one of the biblical sources for the tradition of blessing your food before you eat. If you've ever wondered, "Why do we do that?" and you pray before, because it was very customary for the ancient Jews to thank God after the meal. And here is a place where there is also a tradition of blessing, and you remember Jesus did the same thing at the last meal, last Passover meal where he took the bread and blessed it, then he distributed it. Verse 13 here is one of the hints of the biblical tradition.

Now I find it interesting that a very normal event brought Saul and Samuel together: the loss of Kish's donkeys. Now of course the donkeys were valuable. They were important. And later somebody finds them and returns them to Kish, Saul's dad. But who could have predicted that Israel's first king would be called to the throne while searching for donkeys? Have you ever looked at something in your life and you just see the end result and you go, "Who could have ever predicted that this would have happened in my life this way, with this outcome?" Who could have ever predicted the path of your life and where you have been and how you have arrived?

I mean, just look at your own salvation experience. Who could have ever predicted where you grew up and the home you came from and that over there, and that failure and that situation that today you are a born-again man, a born-again woman, serving God with the heart to grow by grace? I mean, who could have predicted that first king, the very first king, hooks up with Samuel looking for donkeys? I mean, it's one of those things where you say, "You know, if you, 'Hey Saul, you ever thought about being king?' 'King of what?' 'Oh, you know, the king of Israel.'

And then you lay this whole thing out to him and then say, 'Oh, by the way, while you're out looking for your dad's donkeys, you're going to run out of food, you're going to just think about how your dad is thinking about you and worried about you, and then you're going to think about this one guy in this one city and then you go up and boom, right when you get there, boom, he's right there.' And you're like, 'Come on, I'm going back to bed. That was a bad dream. I had bad pizza last night. That ain't going to happen.'"

And yet this is the case. We find with David, he was out with the sheep. We find how God over and over again works in very unusual ways. But if Saul had not obeyed his father and listened to his servant, the story may have been different. The name of the king might be someone different today, but that wasn't the will of God. I believe it's time to be reminded for us that God will often work in very common natural ways. So common and so natural we may miss the hand of God in them. We may miss the touch of the holy in the situation. We may miss the presence and the leading of the Holy Spirit because it's so common, so natural, like finding donkeys. The horses have got loose, go find the horses. The dog ran away, go get the dog. It runs away every time the fireworks go off or the car backfires. Go find the dog. And this is just very normal things.

Narrator: That is Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace, explaining that God often works in very common and natural ways. He'll elaborate on that next time. Our message today is titled "God Uses the Natural to do Supernatural Things." You can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com, 1place.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And another way to listen to Pastor Ed's teachings is through the Calvary Church app. You know, there's a tragic and growing crisis facing the church concerning the ministry of counseling.

An increasing number of churches and church leaders are forsaking God's way of counseling and turning to man's ways. "How to Counsel God's Way" by Bob Hoekstra calls God's people to return to Jesus as our Wonderful Counselor. Whether you're in a position to give counseling or wanting to receive it, this book can be very helpful and a valuable addition to your library. When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of "How to Counsel God's Way." Give us a call at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store.

You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com. And thank you in advance for helping us reach people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ here on the radio and online. Glad you've taken time out for our study in First Samuel. Join Pastor Ed each day as we continue to learn how to live by God's abounding grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado here in Aurora.