Paul
Jesus Be The Center (Be my source, be my light)
Song Of Hope (Heaven Come Down)
Katie
Before a couple of announcements, prayer for the offering
Exciting news
VBS is just around the corner
July 9, 11, 13
www.vacationbibleschool.com/therockchurch
Need nursery school volunteers
Paul
Couple weeks ago Tim spoke about homelessness, last week the ministry about Crave Life from Kurt and Jessica
We want more of the good news of God moving in this body
Email me throughout the week at Paul@rock-church.com if you’ve got something
Communion Sunday today
Countless times we feel like prodigals, like we’ve tried His mercy and grace too many times
The Father's Love (How has the sinner been forgiven)
I Cry Out (I cry out for Your hand of mercy to heal me)
The table is open
Such Love (Tell me the story of)
Jesus Lover Of My Soul (Jesus I will never let you go)
Jon
Grace and peace to you
Several weeks ago we talked about grace and peace and how it’s not just words, they’re life-giving words
Ask Rob and Jill to come up and minister to us
Rob and Jill
Not a big fan of ritual and letting words loose their meaning
We should At least speaking these words to our daughters
Grace means God doing things
Peace means God
It really resonated with one of our daughters
Changed schools and it’s been a big adjustment
Pretty stressed
From that service on, when I walk her into school, we’ve been saying a short prayer asking for God to give our daughter grace and peace
God wasn’t holding back waiting for me
Somehow He let me be involved in the process of helping her through this
I told Jon and he said I’m going to make you say this to the church and I said it much better to him
Jon
A friend of mine got fired
As you go into the meeting, go in with grace and peace and speak grace and peace
It’s not a magic potion (gummi berry juice)
But there is power
Good work Rob, way to pull the cry card
They teach us that in seminary, how to draw the crowd in
Prayer
…
I also understand that change is very difficult
Is this really what we want
Giving things up that we think we really want
All kinds of emotions – everything from hurt and shame and defense mechanisms
Sometimes those mechanisms go something like this
You must think there’s something wrong with them, but there’s nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with you
Let’s just dismiss the growth pattern, settle in to who I am
I realized that X is just how I am, you’ll have to get used to it
We love to throw other people under the rug
Years ago in ministry I was talking to a girl who said:
I miss my suicidal thoughts – the value it gave me
She loved the attention it gave her
Tonight were going to look at a case study
Look at a king (Saul) and a prophet (Samuel)
1 Samuel 15:10-23
God came to Saul and gave him a list of things to do
God asked Saul to wipe out the Amalekites, take nothing in return. This is to be an act of justice.
They defeat them, then in verse 9
9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs – everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.
12 Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”
13 When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.”Â
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”
16 “Enough!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.”
“Tell me,” Saul replied.
17 Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”
20 “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king.” (1 Samuel 15:9-23 NIV)
[On the sheet]
Saul’s life didn’t end well
It could have
There is a lot of self-deception going on
Can we safely assume that maybe all of us are operating under some self-deception?
Is it safe to assume that we all have areas in our heart that need work?
If you say “I would never do what that person did”, look out
Be careful because you don’t know what can come out of your heart in the next ten years
There’s little things going on inside of us
There might be some twisted thinking
…
I believe that God will send people into your life to incite change
We’re practicing how to become better people
Saul was operating under self-deception
A misconception that is favorable …
In other words, others can see it but you can’t
In Saul’s position
Do I have people in our lives that are telling us no?
In Samuel’s position
1. Why am I doing this? To wound or to heal
Constructive or destructive
The friend who got fired preached a sermon at a church that had anonymous comment cards
One of them called him the mouthpiece of Satan
It struck me how easy it is to throw words at people
2. Am I the right person?
Does the recipient know how much I love them
Samuel weeps all night
3. Is this about me or about them?
Am I tearing them down to make myself better?
4. Do I have all the facts straight?
Saul and Samuel is a great picture of this interaction
Agonizing over the things you have to say
As Christians in this community
There’s no hocus pocus that magically makes everything better
Look at verse 15
Old art of blame shifting
Even kids know this one
Saul is in charge, he passed on the word of God
We’ve got to find a scapegoat
Someone else has to take the blame
You can either own it, face it, and grow from it
Or run away and go slide on the slide before all the other children
We are co-creators in this
It’s easy to spot the speck in someone else’s eye, but hard to miss the timber in your own eye
Look at verse 22
Safe to assume that we have some misconceptions about God
He doesn’t need our stuff, our songs, for us to get busier
What He wants and desires is us, our desires, our affections
What He will do with that is send people to speak truth and love into our lives
If you have people who agonize and weep over you, my encouragement to you is you better thank God almighty that they’re there
Don’t mistake the problem being pointed out as Him being disappointed in you
All of us are operating under some self-deception
Because of that, not being aware of it, that’s why we need others to speak into our lives
Are we letting others know they can speak into our lives?
Third thing in Saul’s life – be careful that you don’t dismiss it as a little problem
Little compromises don’t stay little
Saul didn’t wake up saying I’ve decided to disobey the Lord today
It’s a series of little compromises
Look at verse 20
What triggers self-deception
Verse 17
The problem is Saul still feels small and inadequate, so I want to do things that make me appear greater and with more honor
Verse 12
When a king takes another king into captivity, it says “winner winner chicken dinner” to all the other nations
Built a monument to build himself up
I desperately need everyone to see me as bigger than I am
Where are you trying to get attention and recognition?
Verse 23
Everybody’s bowing down to something saying make me feel loved
And we never get it there so we keep asking
I look at our community here and some of the things I see are:
I need to be the best parent on the planet
Cool, right, attractive, seen as spiritual, righteous, accepted by this clique
When anybody attacks your idol, you’re going to get really defensive
Saul said, I did obey the Lord
Little, subtle compromises
Can’t I let the other nations know how great I am
Can I assume I know whats going on in my heart? Probably not
That’s why God sends people into our lives
Do I have people like Samuel in my life?
Have I been approached by Samuel’s before and how did I respond?
Maybe I need to give my friends permission
Don’t call me the mouthpiece of Satan, but help me know how I need to change
Don’t ask yourself if you’re approachable, ask others
The best way to practice is in community