Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Learning to do the simplest thing spiritually is an essential ingredient to your spiritual maturity. When someone keeps their cool when everything's going on all over the place and they just keep going to Him, that's a mature person. That's a spiritually mature man or woman that continues to come back to the Lord in the midst of daily grind-type of circumstances from the big to the small.

Guest (Male): Maybe you feel like your life is so mundane and boring right now and you're left feeling insignificant. Could God possibly use someone like me? If that sounds at all familiar, you'll want to keep listening. Today on Abounding Grace, we'll learn that God often leads us in very normal, natural ways. Yes, He'll often use the mundane and simple things to accomplish His will. We just have to remain faithful through it all. Here to drive that home is Pastor Ed Taylor from 1 Samuel chapter 9.

Pastor Ed Taylor: How about Jesus' disciples? How did they learn the will of God for their lives? They were called to follow Him off fishing, collecting taxes, whatever the job required, wherever they were, that's where they were called from. When we read through the Bible, you'll find that some of the greatest work ever done through the people of God were done as they were doing their daily work faithfully, and God met them right there in that place and transformed their lives.

How does that speak to us today? How is God stirring us as a fellowship family in the days in which we live? I believe God is calling us to more faithfulness, a more steady faithfulness in our life. I believe God is calling us to enhance our witness for the Gospel of Jesus by being faithful, godly men and women in what we're doing. The model and the pattern of Scripture is that that is often a place where God will give you the desires of His heart for you in your life. He will speak His will into your life as you're faithful.

If you are unfaithful, if you are in a position of whatever it might be, just complaining or gossiping, upset about my life, upset at where I'm at, when we are unfaithful, not doing what we said we would do, it's very difficult to hear the will of God. You're going to be flipping through the pages going, "What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?" You're going to hear from heaven, "Be faithful."

Be faithful. I don't want to go look for the donkeys. Be faithful. Those donkeys are important to your dad. Just go find them. I'm much better than donkeys. No, just do what you're asked to do. Simplicity. It's in the simplicity and the obedience of doing what we're asked to do that the Lord so often speaks.

If you're taking notes, let me give you a few things to consider. It's all by way of repetition, I'm sure, but it's good for us to be reminded. Number one, God speaks to us as we are daily doing what we need to do. According to Genesis chapter 4, verse 27, it says, "He said, 'Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren.'" You'll recall he was given an impossible task to find a wife, and yet on the way, the Lord led him exactly where he needed to be.

Secondly, God leads us not only in the doing of it but in doing what is before us diligently. That's what we see with Saul here in chapter 9, verse 4. He passed through the mountains, they passed through the land, he passed through the land of the Benjamites. He's diligently looking. He's not just paying lip service. He didn't just go out. I used to do this growing up. I hated to brush my teeth as a kid. I just didn't want to do it. It would take a couple of minutes, but my parents would tell me, much like you parents probably do, to go in and brush your teeth.

I would turn the water on, I'd play with the toothbrush, I'd wet it, I'd squeeze the toothpaste without opening it just so if they went and checked on me, everything would look legit. I'd stay in there as long as it would take for someone to brush their teeth and then I'd go out and lie to my parents. "Did you brush your teeth?" "Oh yeah, no problem. Go check." What they should have done is say, "Come here, I'll check." For some reason, they never did. I would spend all this energy, all this precious energy, and then even be deceitful to get out of something that was actually good for me.

I wouldn't be diligent. That was a pattern of my life until I got saved. A pattern of my life was a lack of diligence and finding any way I could to get out of what was before me. That's not so with the Lord. The way of the Lord is to be diligent in what you're doing. Everything you do matters for the Kingdom of God because you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God and everything matters.

Do what is before you diligently. As he comes to the end of the land of Zuph, he says, "We've got to go back." He was diligently looking. He passed through and he passed through and he passed through, and for some time, he was searching and looking. This was no just one-verse, 30-second thing. This was some time. He was very diligent. We know that time passed because they ran out of provisions, and he began to worry that his dad would be concerned.

The words in verse 4 and 5 speak to us of everyday life with ups and downs, lefts and rights, concerns and worries. They were looking for animals, but we don't read of any frustration or anger or anything like that. We just see Saul being faithful. If he did have any of those things, he didn't express them to the people that were with him.

I believe one of the greatest tests in our spiritual lives is when God allows our agendas and our plans and our goals to be challenged with the mundane of everyday life. It looks like this: we've got great plans and great aspirations and great dreams, and we take the needed steps to do what we believe God wants us to do. We see the timing of what God wants us to do to be far sooner than what God has in store.

Instead of attaining what God has so far in the future, He's left us with this great aspiration. I want to work in this capacity. I want to be the CEO of a certain company. But instead, you're answering phones. Answering phones of complaining customers. You're sitting there with an MBA answering phones. Why? Because that's where you begin. You answer phones and you be the best phone answerer that you possibly can in Jesus' name, not just for a promotion. Your promotion and the things you're waiting for at work are going to come from the Lord. But really, as you're serving, you're serving the Lord.

Early on in my own life in the ministry, I had great aspirations to teach the Bible. Oh Lord, I love You so much and I love the Bible, and I know I've only read it for a couple of days, but I'm ready. A little bit of an exaggeration, but certainly reflecting my heart. I'm so ready. I'm taking classes and I'm preparing, and I really do believe there's a calling on my life without understanding any of what that means truly.

Where did God send me? You want to be a big man of God, Ed? Yes, sir, Lord. You want to serve Me with all your heart? I want to serve You with all of my heart. I'm all in. I was all in for the world, and Lord, I'm all in for You. You have that little dialogue with God. I'll do anything for You, Lord. I'm ready to go to the farthest heights with You, Lord. Where did God send me? To the nursery. Because He had a plan of preparation in my heart and my life. He wanted to teach me at a very young age in my walk with Jesus what it meant to do things diligently, to disrupt my plans and my agendas and my goals because they meant nothing.

That, too, has been a pattern of my life throughout walking with Jesus. Even in the planting of this church and God bringing us to Aurora came right after one of the greatest disappointments and discouragements in ministry that I've ever had. So much so, I doubted my own calling and I doubted my own heart. I doubted everything. In all that, God didn't want to raise any doubts in me; He just wanted me. He didn't want me to do anything for Him. He just wanted a relationship. Once that was settled, things began to move. He didn't want someone that's going to aspire to big things; He just wanted someone that would be faithful with what was before them.

Saul has such great potential here. He responded with care and concern for his dad. Not only did he faithfully obey his dad, but he's concerned about his dad. He realizes that the donkeys are important, but his father is more important. He makes a wise decision. Can you imagine? It will take some imagination with this to consider going out, walking on foot or on horseback, looking for donkeys.

At what point are you going to get upset? Is it when you were asked? Some of you are like, "I'm not looking for donkeys," and it starts right there. "I can't believe it, Dad. You always ask me, and you never ask my brother." Maybe that's you. That's where your frustration level is. Or when you start looking for the donkeys and about three miles into it, your horse gets a flat hoof? "What am I going to do now? I didn't even bring a spare. Now this is stupid."

Maybe you just get so frustrated and you're like, "I can't believe these donkeys. Why is Dad sending me? He could have hired somebody. He's got hired hands." You can see the level of frustration. This is no one-day event. Even in the midst of potential frustration, the heart of Saul is concerned about his dad. A faithful son.

Not only did he diligently do what was before him, but thirdly, he was also spiritually dependent. Instead of being overwhelmed by the situation, Saul asks for help. He says in verse 6, "Look now, there is in this city a man of God. He's an honorable man. All that he says surely comes to pass. So let us go there. Perhaps he can show us the way that we should go." Not only was he faithful daily, not only did he do what he was asked, not only did he do it diligently, but he did it spiritually. He depended on God. He's like, "This problem requires wisdom from God."

Those of you that are going to study Samuel with us to the end, you're going to find that King Saul will greatly disappoint you. You look at the potential he has here, you look at the characteristics that God has to work with, you look at what God can mold from a faithful man like this, you'll be greatly disappointed to find out how the story ends. I encourage you to read ahead. It could be something that the Lord would have for you to warn you, those of you with great potential outwardly. He looks so good. He's looking to God in the midst of frustration, in the midst of his difficulty.

Learning how to do the simplest things spiritually is an essential ingredient to your spiritual maturity. When someone keeps their cool when everything's going on all over the place and they just keep going to Him, that's a mature person. That's a spiritually mature man or woman that continues to come back to the Lord in the midst of daily grind-type of circumstances from the big to the small.

I think of you faithful moms who day by day are all over the place with your kids, the house, the level of volume. I think of you school teachers here at the school and also those of you that are out in the public school system, in the room with those kids all day. It's so funny because whenever I'm here, the kids always want to talk to me. I'm walking through and they're making eye contact with me, and I always get them in trouble because they're supposed to be walking through the hallway like this.

I'm like, "Hey, how are you doing?" and they're trying to keep it cool because with 20 kids, even with 10 kids, when they start going, they start going, bouncing off the hallway. So I'm sorry if your kids got a black checkmark or whatever because of Pastor Ed walking through and saying hi to them and playing with them.

But teachers, moms, the mundane. I think of all of you that go to work daily. You don't know what a day will bring in your job. I think of those of you that are delivering and filing and answering phones, taking care of your patients. So many things are happening here that you guys do day after day after day, and I want to be reminded today that the Lord speaks through those things. That is the microphone of the Lord.

How will you ever meet Samuel if you're not faithful to look for the donkeys? How will you ever meet what God has for you in the future unless you're faithful today and you're faithful in a way that honors God? I can think of the thousands of places God has you and how you not only do it, but you do it diligently. You do it under great pressure and stress. You do it in a way that some days you just want to give up, some days you just want to quit, some days you just want to walk away, but you say, "No, this is where God has me. This is God's will for my life and I'm going to embrace it in Jesus' name."

You look at situations we have all the time and we say, "How could God possibly use this? How could God use this?" And yet He can and He will. The thing I'm encouraged about Saul here is that Saul has no idea what's up ahead. He's went looking for donkeys and he has no idea he's going to be anointed king. You just don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, should God bring tomorrow. You just don't know.

You could delay the blessing, you could delay the experience, you could delay even hearing from the Lord by not being faithful, by not being diligent, and by not being spiritual. Saul here is living faithfully, diligently, spiritually, but he'll be anointed king not many days from now. So often when someone's just doing it right, they end up with what we often refer to as a divine appointment. God just hooks up a situation and you're like, "Wow, how did that happen?" You don't even need to explain how it happened. You were just faithfully following the Lord. As you're faithfully following the Lord, He's set it up in such a way to enjoy and to be blessed. You're entirely unaware, but God just shows up.

You may have found in your life a frustration or a question of why God has placed you in a certain place or a certain position or a certain situation or even something that's seemingly so insignificant, a small thing. Looking for donkeys, filing papers. But Jesus said you did something faithfully. He looks at that and He says, "You're doing it faithfully. You're faithful unto the Lord. You're taking care of the kids and you're fixing that clutch and you're delivering that package and you're taking care of those pets and you're mending a wound and you're teaching and you're washing and you're waiting."

The Lord has rewards up ahead. If you're here today and you have the feeling that what you're doing is a waste, you're mistaken. Now, of course, if what you're doing is in the realm of sin or any of that, that's a waste. But just in the daily everyday life, which every one of us has, what you're doing is not a waste, even if you may feel that way. It's a feeling that comes up, and those feelings will really determine the direction of our life.

I want something more. But the Bible says not to despise the days of small things. The Bible says to be faithful with what's before you. That's God's will for your life in this moment. What you're doing is not a waste. If you're doing it diligently, spiritually, committedly, daily, one day you'll find out that God has a purpose for it. One day you'll understand that sacrifice you made. One day you'll understand why God was steering you in that direction.

Just wait for it. One day God will reveal His overall purposes to your heart. He'll show you why He's chosen you and why He's chosen to use your life through what you can see as mundane and insignificant. In the midst of it is where God says, "I was training you and equipping you," as He takes you from place to place, perhaps even from a place of employment to place of employment, house to house, apartment to apartment. The daily life is God speaks through the daily life.

It's so encouraging to me when you and I learn that the issue in life isn't what we see that we're doing seems to be so fruitless, but it's doing life diligently, consistently, and spiritually. There's great freedom there where you just know that you know God has you here and you're going to be faithful to it. I'm not comparing myself with anyone else, I'm not looking down on myself because of what I do, or maybe society looks down on what you do, but God doesn't.

Maybe it's not highly favored, but often God will use the not highly favored and He will exalt them. The Bible says that those of us that will humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God, He says that He'll lift you up. It's so opposite. Jesus said if you want to be the greatest in the Kingdom, you've got to be the least. It's the flip side of how this society we live in operates. The greatest are the greatest and we step on the least to get there. That's not the way of Jesus.

Jesus is teaching us that if you really want to make it and you really want to progress and you really want to move to the top, then choose the bottom. The way up in the Kingdom of God is down. It's in those places of faithfulness that God reveals Himself in a powerful way when you and I just live faithfully daily. One day, God will reveal, "This is what I'm doing. This is how your life matters in My plan and My agenda and My calendar and My purposes."

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 25, "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." So sometimes things don't make sense. God is doing a work, but from our perspective, we're like, "That doesn't make any sense." I know, because God does things differently. In Isaiah chapter 55, the Bible will tell us that God's ways are not man's ways. They're not our ways. His thoughts not our thoughts.

How important it is for us to grasp this. Lord, help us. Speak to us. That faithful daily responsibility you have, let it be done with the glory of God like you're doing it for Jesus. You know why? Because you are. Your life matters and what you're doing is not a waste. Embrace it. Come to that place where you say, "Lord, here I am, send me. I'm attentive to You even in the everyday grind, the mundane."

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace, we've been encouraged that God will lead us through our faithfulness in everyday life. This is part of Pastor Ed Taylor's series in 1 Samuel. 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 counsel 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. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store. You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com.

Pastor Ed, as you were speaking about how the Lord leads and speaks to us, I'm sure this has hit home for a lot of folks. We just scratched the surface, as you said. Would you pray for that listener right now that's been searching for God's will and needed this encouragement to be faithful with what's before them?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Yes, I would love to pray for them. Father, for that woman, that man, that boy, that girl that's wrestling with the future. I think of the young adults, God, that are looking to their future and it's overwhelming. I pray, God, that You would give them wisdom and encouragement and strength and direction that as they seek You, You will be found, saith the Lord. As they experience Your will day by day, moment by moment, encourage and overwhelm them with a sense of Your love and Your purpose in their lives. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Thanks again, Pastor Ed. Glad you've taken time out for our study in 1 Samuel. Join Pastor Ed each day as we continue to learn how to live by God's abounding grace.