ILLUST> So, this past Thursday while I was actually in the middle of trying to write this message and to get it to all make sense I received a text from my youngest daughter Stella. Now, if you know Stella you know that it’s always a crap shoot as to what you are going to get when she texts you, her boyfriend was having surgery that morning so I just thought she was just probably giving me an update on that. When I looked down it said this. 3 years today since Craig left us. I love you dad! I had been in my office writing since about 630 in the morning and hadn’t connected the dots yet. When I read her message I began to cry. Craig McConnell was a part of the Ransomed Heart Team and my mentor for about 8 years. He was an extremely special man to a bunch of people, Stella included. When Leukemia took his life 3 years ago she was devastated. I was too. No other man has had such a profound impact on my life. His legacy is huge and it lives on in this place. He helped me learn how to listen to God, he helped me to see myself as God sees me. He taught what a deep loving relationship as a beloved son of God could really be and that who I am and who I am becoming is more important than anything that I will ever learn, know, or do. He helped me understand that this story, told in the 66 books of the Bible, is about God as my father, wanting to have a personal, deep, close, conversational relationship with me as his son. It is what it has always been about. If you think about it though, it’s hard if not impossible to have a close relationship with someone that you don’t really know and struggle to understand. That’s why we are doing this series.
So, as usual, but in this series particularly, we have a whole lot of ground to cover today. But before we jump back into it as always we want to pause and let you know how excited we are to have you here with us. That’s always true but especially true if you are brand new. Thanks for taking a chance on us with your weekend time this weekend. It means a lot to us that you are here. We really hope that you walk away from here today feeling like you were safe and welcome here regardless of what you believe or how your story and wanting to come back and do this all over again with us real soon. So a special welcome to you if you are new (to all of our online friends too) it is so good to have you with us.
So, as we jump back into this journey down Route 66 through the larger story contained in the 66 books of the Bible together today the part of the story that we are walking through, roughly 1000 years, is unpacked or addressed in one way or another in parts of 22 different books of the Old Testament. That can be confusing. So as we continue to work on clearing up the confusion let’s remember that we are not doing this for the sake of knowing more cool Bible information. If that happens great, but what we are after is the same thing we are looking for with every other series we do in this place. What we are after is transformation, this life change thing that we all come in here looking for every single week. As we jump back in what does what we are reading saying about God and about us? How does this story intersect with and apply to each of our stories as we sit here today? Hold on to those questions as we walk through this together.
If you brought a Bible today we are going to pick up where we left off in the story and start in 1 Samuel chapter 8 today. If you don’t have a Bible they are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the YouVersion app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So here we go, 1 Samuel 8 verse 4...
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’ 6 But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.
Okay, so last week Israel had no king. It makes sense that we start here but before we do have to mention something that we completely skipped over in the story, the book of Ruth. During the time of the Judges Ruth loses her husband, famine strikes the land, she moves away with mother in law. They have nothing. God rescues her and provides. Ruth gets married and gives birth to King David’s grandfather putting her in the bloodline of Jesus. When we get to 1st Samuel where we pick it up today we meet a man named Samuel who is a prophet. His two sons are evil and obviously not prepared to be in charge which leads to the elders of Israel coming to him and having the conversation that we just read. We want a king. Samuel prays and God says they are rejecting me as their king, so go ahead and give them a king. Before we talk more about that I want to pause for a moment and consider how this moment in the story may intersect with our stories as we sit here today. So, as we think about what’s happening here, here’s the question...
WHO OR WHAT IS REALLY KING IN/OF MY LIFE? Think about all that we have walked through since God started this great nation he is building called Israel. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt, tolerated their whining and forgave their sin, gave them food, water, and victory in the desert. Ultimately won the battles for them and gave them a land of their own. Every time that their sin led them to destruction he heard their cry raised up a deliverer or judge to deliver them and give them rest. That sounds like a pretty awesome king so what gives here? Here’s a thought. God alone is not enough. Before we come down too hard on them here it would probably be good for us to go ahead and admit this. He seldom is for us either.
ILLUST> There was a book that came out about 7 years ago that had a title that I thought was brilliant. It really caught my attention. The title was “Jesus + Nothing = Everything”. We could translate that Jesus = everything...or Jesus is all that I need. God is all that I need. A few years later the author who was a pastor of a big church had an affair, blew his life up, and crashed and burned in life and ministry. Obviously, I’m not judging him or condemning, that’s a part of my story 14 years ago too. I have nothing but grace, love, and compassion for him and all that he’s been through. I’m not pointing to his sin. I’m pointing to this. The formula that became the title to his book was one that ultimately didn’t work for him. That’s not judgment. It didn’t work for me either. Here’s what I am getting to. We say God is king of our lives but when push comes to shove the true formula tends to be more like this God + __________ = everything. I need God but things like power, money, fitness, prestige, sex, security, appearance is really right up there too. Yeah, we’ve got God in our lives and we would never really want to say this outloud but what we are feeling in the moment often screams that it is not enough.
When I really dig deep and take a hard and honest look behind the curtain who or what is really king in my life? Who or what is my confidence really in? God has shown up in the past, but where is he now and what has he done for me lately? What is he doing in my current circumstances? Can I trust Him to be king? Yes, I want God in my life but my real confidence, comfort, and security actually comes more from this. For Israel it’s God + a king. For most of us, even those of us who have been doing this church thing for a long time when we are honest it’s God + something else too. I’m telling you, years have passed but the story is the same. This story is our story. Alright, let’s keep moving.
ILLUST> So God has Samuel anoint Saul the first king of Israel. Unfortunately, Saul demonstrates that he is insecure and that trusting and obeying God can be a challenge for him. This problem that God has been fighting all along in the story with the pagan influence of other cultures influencing his people continues. Let’s be honest, it still continues. So finally, God has had enough and tells Samuel to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the future king.
So, I want to slow the story down here and drop in a little deeper. There is something very important for all of us here that we will continue to see throughout the story. Samuel runs through all of Jesse’s sons before getting to David who they had to send for. When he finally sees David he thinks surely he can’t be the one. God says you look at the outside appearance I look at the heart, he’s the one. So Samuel anoints him as the future king. Shortly after that Israel is at war with the Philistines who have a giant named Goliath on their side. All the Israelite troops are terrified and no one will fight him. David shows up to bring his soldier brothers food and agrees to go out and fight the giant. King Saul tries to put his armor on him, David says he doesn’t need it and heads out to fight the giant. As Goliath moves toward David he tells him that he is going to rip him apart and feed him to the animals. Let’s pick up David’s response in 1 Samuel 17 beginning with verse 46...
This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.’
Who is David’s confidence in? God. Who is fighting the battle? God is. It is why he doesn’t need the armor or even a sword. Yeah, he’s got his slingshot but big deal, it’s clear from the story that most importantly he has God and God is enough for him. So he wins the battle ultimately Saul dies in battle and David becomes King. His kingship is off to a great start in fact so much so that God tells him this in 2 Samuel 7. Let’s pick it up in verse 11...
"The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: 12 when your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever... 16 Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever.”’
So just as we saw last week when God made a covenant with Abraham God makes a covenant with David here. God’s plan is to build his Kingdom, to carry on this rescue mission, redeeming all of his creation to what it once was through David and his family now too. Think about it. It doesn’t get much better than that. And then just about 4 chapters later David sleeps with his General’s wife. He finds out she is pregnant and brings her husband home from battle to sleep with her so that the pregnancy makes sense. His general refuses to sleep with her so David has him killed in battle. So now, God’s chosen, anointed king, is not only an adulterer, he’s a murderer too. David takes Bathsheba in to be his wife she has the baby and God sends a prophet Nathan to confront him. David ultimately confesses and repents and God forgives him. There will definitely be consequences as a result of what he’s done, but check this out, two things here. First, I think this moment is what David describes in Psalm 34:18 when he says God is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in Spirit. Second, despite all that David has done, God never breaks his covenant with David. That’s why I believe that it’s so important that we stop here in the story for a minute. One of the major takeaways from this part of the story for both David and for us is this…
EVEN WHEN WE DON’T CHOOSE GOD, GOD NEVER STOPS CHOOSING US. ILLUST> Sometimes our church experience fogs our ability to see that or to really believe it. This Sunday Stacy and I are celebrating 35 years of marriage. I’ve said it many times, Jesus and Stacy are the real heroes in the story. For the past 14 years since I blew up our lives and ministry back in North Carolina my primary focus has been on the healing, redemption, and restoration of the hearts of Stacy and my girls that I crushed 14 years ago. I am so thankful for all that God has done there. When I look at my own heart journey I realize how much I have struggled with the point that I just made. It has been hard for me not to believe that in that moment that I choose something else other than God’s way that God stopped choosing me. I have been told that I am outside the grace of God. I have been told that God has given up on me, that my calling was gone, that I would never be in ministry again. There were some that suggested that not only would I never be in ministry again, if I ever were God would not bless it. I carried that message for a long time. Every time that things got hard here at DCC I believed I was the problem. Listen, this isn’t a license to sin but you need to hear this. God shows us over and over again in this story that even when we don’t choose him, he never stops choosing us. Nothing that we have ever done or could ever do, nothing that has been done to us or will ever be done to us changes that. 1,000 years later in the story in Acts 13:22 God makes it clear that David remains a man after his own heart.
So as we continue on in the story David’s son dies and he and Bathsheba have a second son Solomon who becomes the next King of Israel. Solomon actually gets to oversee the building of the temple in Jerusalem and Israel reaches the pinnacle of one powerful united kingdom under Solomon as King in about 950 or so BC. Solomon, despite being the wisest man on earth at the time, decides that God’s commandments are optional when it comes to women, horses, and gold and silver. Some of his pagan wives and concubines even bring in worship of their own gods. There it is again in the story. You can’t trust God. It’s a God+ life that you are really looking for. It becomes somewhat of a mess, Solomon dies and his son Rehoboam succeeds him as king. The problem is there’s another guy Jeroboam who thinks he should be king. Rehoboam gets confronted on lowering taxes and he instead raises them. 10 tribes peace out under Jeroboam’s leadership and one united kingdom becomes two. Judah or the Southern Kingdom under Rehoboam’s rule which is the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and the remaining 10 tribes under the rule of Jeroboam called Israel or the Northern Kingdom. Let’s take look at a map so you can see this.
So the story of these two kings and all that follow them make up the books of 1st and 2nd Kings. From about 960-722 BC Israel remains a divided Kingdom. There are 39 different kings mentioned during this time period. 20 in the north and 19 in the south. Each king is given a report card by God. Not a single one of the kings in the north receives a passing grade. By 722BC God has had enough. Assyria attacks the Northern Kingdom and takes the surviving people and spreads them throughout the Assyrian empire to render them divided and powerless. The 10 tribes disappear. Out of the 19 kings in the Southern Kingdom about 5 or so get a passing score. This is probably why God allows Judah to remain in power in Jerusalem for another 150 or so years. Finally their kings lead them down a road of disobedience and God judges them. But now it is Babylon not Assyria ruling the world kingdom. Babylon doesn’t disperse people they take all of the smart/leader types to Babylon and integrate them into their culture. This is what we refer to in church world as exile. So in 586 BC Babylon invades Judah, destroys Jerusalem and the temple, takes the cream of the crop into exile and leaves the rest.
Daniel and his buddies are a part of the group that get taken into exile in Babylon. So the story that we mentioned last week and sang about again today Another in the fire standing next to me that happens during this exile in Babylon. Daniel getting thrown into the lion’s den does too. The book of Daniel is a deeper look into what is happening in exile. We get a lot more color and insight into what was happening and God’s messages to his people through these books we call the prophets. I want to throw a chart up to help you see this. This is where the Old Testament gets really confusing. The prophets are not a continuation of the story. They add more insight to particular moments in the story. Micah, Isaiah, Nahum, Zephaniah and Habakkuk were all prophets to Judah the Southern Kingdom before the exile. Actually there is some evidence to suggest that Micah was a prophet to both Kingdoms. Amos, Jonah, and Hosea were prophets to the Northern Kingdom coming down the stretch before it was destroyed. One interesting thing about Jonah. Jonah is the first example of God sending a prophet to people who were not his people. He shows his heart for rescue of all people in this compassion for the people of Ninevah. Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Obadiah are bringing God’s message to his people while they are in exile and Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi bring it after the exile is over.
So in 516 BC Persia nows controls the world and King Cyrus takes the throne. Persia has yet a different way of handling conquered nations. They allow people to return to their homeland. God’s people are allowed to return. When they return Jerusalem is an absolute mess. We see hope disappear as God’s people struggle to see Him in their present circumstances. Is God still with them? Are his promises still true? Can they trust Him? That message and theme...you can’t trust God continues on in the story. The narrative contained in the books of Haggai, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah is the part of the story that helps us understand what the return from exile in 516 BC was really like. The people find a mess in 516 BC, rebuild the temple around 515 BC, rebuild the wall around Jerusalem in about 440BC. Ultimately, the book of Malachi ends with this. Chapter 4 verse 1…
Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. 3 Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,’ says the LordAlmighty.
That’s a big promise. There is a renewal of hope in God’s people because of this promise then God goes fairly silent for the next 400 years. The Persians rule until about 330BC then the Greeks for the next 200 years. Finally, the people of Israel revolt and enjoy Independence for about 80 years until 63 BC when General Pompei of Rome rides into Jerusalem and conquers Israel. Rome would become the most powerful, brutal, and most oppressive empire to ever rule in Jerusalem over Israel. We will pick it up there next week.
As we leave the story God’s people are hoping for the day that he promises at the end of the book of Malachi. I think it is important that we recognize that hope in the midst of our own hopelessness looks different for us than it did for God’s people 2500 or so years ago. Here’s the point…
EVERYTHING CHANGES WHEN GOD STEPS INTO THE STORY. The story is no longer about what God will one day do. Our hope today is all about what God has already done for me and for you. Hope comes to life for every single one of us as Jesus enters the story. Jesus came to give us hope for someday and hope for today too. He came to forgive us, love us, care for us, heal us, redeem us, restore us. He is close to us when we are brokenhearted. He came to heal our broken hearts and set our captive hearts free. God is not only with us, his Spirit lives in us. Hope looks different for us. Regardless of what we are facing or going through in our lives hope now lives in us. The story doesn’t end at the cross. If it did there really would be no hope. The grave couldn’t hold Jesus. He died so that we could be forgiven, he rose again so that we could be free. If he can overcome death what is there in our lives and stories that he can’t overcome. Hope takes on a whole new meaning for us because of Jesus. We can’t stop the story here. Let me pray for us and then let’s stand up together and celebrate the rest of this story, the rest of our story.
