I Just Can't Wait to Be King

Good morning, CTK. Good morning. If you guys could please find your seats. I love this church. I love how deep friendships form so quickly and this time of gospel hospitality is one where a lot of talking happens. It's a beautiful thing. And I'm really glad to be here this morning.

For those I haven't met, my name is Paul Deschamps. My family and I have been a part of this church for a long time and in my new official capacity, I am the church planter and organizing pastor for City North Church up in Rolesville, North Carolina. Now if you've been on 401 after 3:30 p.m. north of 540, I know some of you think that's Virginia but it's not. It's really not that far away. 401 is getting pretty busy and that's because there's a lot of really exciting things happening in Rolesville and in Northeast Wake County as new houses, new schools, new businesses, new neighbors are popping up but not a lot of new churches.

We're really excited to be doing the work to establish a new church up there to share the gospel and the beauty and the hope of Jesus with our friends and neighbors. Now here's one thing that I love about church planting: it's not just what I'm doing. That's not my story but it's your story as well. As long as I've been a part of CTK, church planting has been a vision of this church. Part of what we're doing is the fruit of a lot of years of work, a lot of groundwork to plant and establish new churches. And churches who plant churches make a powerful statement about Jesus because we believe that Jesus and his kingdom is not defined by one building but it is growing, it is spreading, and it is expanding. This is your work as much as it is mine.

So this morning I'm here not so much to give you an update on what we're doing but to invite you to something. On Sunday, October 18, we have a slide right up here. Sunday, October 18 at 5:45 to 7:15 p.m. in the upstairs conference room over at the fellowship hall we're gonna have an evening together where I get to spend some time giving you a detailed update on what we're doing with City North Church. I can pique your curiosity and I can invite your questions.

Questions like: What would it be like if I came and joined this church? What if I helped plant it? Perhaps to some of you that's a burden that God's put on your heart. Maybe it's like, how do we help send you? What does it look like for us to be a participating church to care and send this baby daughter church out of the mother church? You guys are our parents and we want you to be the proud parents that carry our picture around and tell the story about what we're doing.

And most importantly, maybe your questions are like: how can I be praying for Paul, for his family, for City North Church and for the work that's happening up there? We need your participation in all three areas. Pull out your phones. You can scan the QR code. It'll just take you to a registration page. It's not a sign up to be a part of a church plant, but it is a loving way to let me know that you're coming so that I can know how much free food to buy.

I'm gonna stop talking about that. I hope we'll see you there. Now we're gonna turn our attention to God's word. If you would turn with me, you can grab your pew bibles or it's gonna be on the screen behind me. We're gonna be in 1 Samuel. We're gonna continue the series in 1 Samuel this morning and we're gonna be in chapter eight and we're gonna read verses 1 through 22 together. Would you join your voices with mine as we read God's word aloud together?

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. His firstborn son's name was Joel and his second was Abijah. They were both judges in Beersheba. However, his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned toward dishonest profit, took bribes, and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, "Look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore, appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have." When they said, "Give us a king to judge us," Samuel considered their demand wrong. So he prayed to the Lord. But the Lord told him, "Listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you. They have rejected me as their king." — 1 Samuel 8:1-7

They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, abandoning me and worshiping other gods. Listen to them, but solemnly warn them and tell them about the customary rights of the king who will reign over them.

Samuel told all the Lord's words to people who were asking him for a king. He said, these are the rights of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and put them to use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties to plow his ground and reap his harvest or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots. He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants. He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best cattle and your donkeys and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves can become his servants.

When that day comes you will cry out because of the king you've chosen for yourselves but the Lord won't answer you on that day.

The people refused to listen to Samuel. No, they said, we must have a king over us. Then we'll be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us, go out before us, and fight our battles. Samuel listened to all the people's words and then repeated them to the Lord. Listen to them, the Lord told Samuel. Appoint a king for them. Then Samuel told the men of Israel, each of you go back to your city.

Father, thank you for your word. There's nothing like it. We thank you that you are a God who listens and a God who speaks and a God who draws near to us. We pray that you would speak to us this morning through your word. Prepare our hearts to hear what you have prepared and send your spirit to sow it deep into us so we can be changed to be more like you. We pray this in your name, Amen.

Personal Story

When you're a kid everybody asks you the same question. What do you want to be when you grow up? Some kids say a doctor. Some kids say a firefighter. Some say an astronaut.

I have this book that was mine when I was seven years old. This is my book about me by me, myself with a little help from Doctor Seuss. And inside you can see when I grew up I wanted to be a sailor. Now more importantly, because there wasn't an option on the page to select, really I wanted to be a pirate. It's true. And truth be told I spent a good chunk of my life trying to shipwreck myself.

I grew up in a Christian home. I was the first baby to be baptized in a little church plant in Frederick, Maryland called New Hope Church. My dad's still a member there to this day. I grew up knowing about Jesus. I grew up knowing the stories. I grew up knowing prayers. I could recite catechisms and I hated it. I did not like the church. I did not like having to go. Our church was small. It was old. It was boring. It was, in my expert teenage opinion, stupid. Church was the worst part of my week.

So I did like a lot of kids do. I went looking for the good life. I chose the partying route, sneaking out, breaking curfew, breaking pretty much every single rule that my parents had. I wanted to be in control of life. I thought that I knew how to live it best and no one was going to tell me what to do. It's real pirate energy there.

And then at 19 I got my shot. I moved out of my house. I moved to London with a study abroad program and it was the furthest I'd ever been from home and it was also the furthest I had ever been from God. I walked away from the faith, and I got a job working as a bartender in a pub and I got exactly what I asked for.

The Central Question

That's a good question. What if you got exactly what you asked for? That's really what this passage is about this morning.

Israel comes to our good old friend Samuel and they're pretty unkind. They're like, you're old now. But they come with this request. Give us a king like the nations. God warns them, Samuel warns them and then God says yes. And it's one of the most frightening yeses in the Bible.

I think here's why this matters for us this morning. Every one of us has a prayer that sounds something like this. Maybe if we don't even say it out loud we say, Lord if you would just give me fill in the blank and then I'll be okay. For 19 year old me it was freedom and autonomy. But what goes in your blank? There's a lot of good things that we try and fit in there.

But the problem that this passage exposes, it's not the good things that we're trying to fit in there. The problem is our own hearts. The problem's us. See we, like the Israelites, think we know what kind of king we need.

And so we take good things and we make them ultimate things and we try and crown them as king of our life. And every king that we crown as king has a cost and it takes from us. So here's the big idea for this morning: The kings we choose will take our lives, but the king who chose us gave his.

This passage shows us three tragedies that we're going to trace as points. The tragic desire—the things that we ask for. The tragic direction—where it leads us. And then a tragic taste—what it leaves us with.

Point One: Tragic Desire

Let's start with what Israel wants. As we enter into this passage, Samuel's old and he's been faithful his whole life. His sons, it tells us, not so much. The text says they turned towards dishonest profit, they took bribes and they perverted justice. And so the elders show up and they say basically, "Samuel, you're old, your boys are crooked and we need a new plan." And honestly, fair point. That's actually good wisdom right there. But the real problem was the solution that they offer.

If we look at verses five and twenty combined, they say things like this:

Appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have. Our king will judge us, will go out before us and fight our battles.

Let's be clear about something: wanting a king isn't the sin. If we look back in our Bibles, the idea of kingship is something that's been God's idea all along. He's been weaving it through the stories that we know that have built us up to this point. And if you turn to Deuteronomy 17, you'll actually get to read the rules and provisions that God lays out for what kind of king Israel should install once they're in the promised land. But it's not this kind of king. They want a king like all the nations. They want to be like everybody else. They want a man to give them what only God has been able to give them.

And here's the irony. If you flip back literally one chapter in First Samuel, you'll read the story of the Philistines attack. Samuel cries out to the Lord. The Lord thunders from heaven and throws the Philistines into panic and Samuel sets up the stone of remembrance that says the Lord has helped us to this point. What a faithful and hopeful response! What hopeful words! And yet just one chapter later, here we are: "We need a king to fight our battles." What? That's never been the case. Why now? God just fought your battle. You can still go look at the memorial and remember it.

But God names what's really going on. In verse seven, he tells Samuel:

They have not rejected you. They are not rejecting your leadership. They are rejecting me as their king.

And that's the heart of this whole chapter. They're not just asking for a new king. They're asking to be the king. So when you get to pick the rules, well, guess who's really in charge? This is Simba in the Lion King. You know the song when he's a little kid and he has all the rules and he doesn't like it: "I just can't wait to be king." That's a tragic desire.

It's not just Israel's. If we're honest about ourselves, we know that our hearts are idol factories. It never shuts down. It never takes a day off. It just keeps producing new kings. New king after new king. And around here we don't usually reject God out loud. We're too polite for that, I think. We like to keep him around. He can be pretty useful sometimes while we crown something else.

A lot of times we make it sound like a prayer: "Lord, just give me the job and I'll be okay. Lord, if you could just give me that marriage—the one that I really want to have—then I'd be alright. God, I just want kids that don't embarrass me. If you could just give me enough money in the bank that I can sleep at night without anxiety."

None of these are bad desires. But listen to what they start to whisper. They start to tell you what you deserve. You deserve comfort. You deserve security. You deserve more passion in your life. You deserve a legacy. You deserve a break. You deserve respect.

And here's how a good thing becomes an ultimate thing and climbs onto the throne: what begins as a want becomes a need. Need becomes a deserve. "I need this and after the day I've had, I deserve this." Deserve becomes do. And there you are at midnight scrolling reels on your phone, snapping at your kids, spending money that you don't have, going for the extra drink, but you feel like you need to pour because you deserve it.

Want becomes need, need becomes deserve, deserve becomes do. And every step of the way begins with I. This is what I need. This is what I want. This is what I deserve.

So Israel says, "Give us a king so we can be like everybody else." Well, how about this? "You know what, God? We don't think we need you anymore. You don't know what's best for me. Only we do. Only I do."

I'll take it from here. And just like that, boom. It's coronation day. That's the moment that the desire takes the throne. And you know this isn't just something that we do personally. Churches do this too. I didn't just grow out of this as a 19 year old. I still struggle with this every day. As a new church plant it's really easy for me to play the comparison game. I want to be like all the other churches. We'd love to have a million bucks and a building and 200 people and amazing kids programming and a fog machine. Should we have a fog machine? I think we probably should, right?

Look, we're not free from this temptation. It's so tempting to try and plant a church out of our own gifts, out of our own wisdom, out of our own ability and our own strength and know how and we forget to allow God to go before us and fight our battles. We forget to turn back and remember, look at what everything God's done before. Can we trust him with tomorrow?

One of the many things that I love about this church, about Christ the King, is the name. It's on the building. Christ the King. That's not branding. That's a confession. That is a declaration of faith. Here we believe that Christ is king. He is risen. He is reigning on his throne and yet counterfeit kings still come. And every counterfeit king comes with a cost. And when we follow it leads us in a tragic direction.

The Cost of the Counterfeit King

Let's look at verse 11. Samuel says, okay so you want a king. These are the rights of the king who will reign over you.

He'll take your sons and he will take your daughters and he will take your best fields and he will take a tenth of your grain and he will take your male servants and he will take all of your property. He will take your flocks. — 1 Samuel 8:11

Six times. It's like a drum cadence. You can hear it like the executioner's drum coming. Take, take, take, take, take, take. It's not just the taking. Look at the direction that that list goes. It starts with your kids, then it's your land, and then it's the stuff that you grow on your land, then it's your profit, then it's you.

And you yourselves can become his servants. — 1 Samuel 8:17

Another translation that word's rendered as his slaves. Starts with what you have, ends with who you are. You belong fully to this king. They think they're getting a king who's gonna serve them. Samuel says no. That's not how this works. You're gonna get a king and you will serve him.

And now we remember. If we remember Israel's history, remember these people cried out in slavery and God heard their cry and freed them from their slavery and led them out. And they're sitting here going we want to go back. We don't want Pharaoh. That guy was kind of a jerk. We got a better idea. But it's the same thing.

Any Hamilton fans in here? A few of you. So King George is my favorite part of the show. He's basically the jilted ex boyfriend of the American colonies as he's presented. And he struts out on the stage with the crown and the robes and everything like that. And he sings these sweet little breakup songs. The ones that are like, "You say the price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay." And thank you. I've been practicing. We laugh like it's a hilarious break in the tension in the show because he sings these love songs but love is a threat. That's every false king. He sounds like he loves you. He sounds like he's on your side but try and walk away and here comes the fully armed battalion to remind you of his love, right?

Samuel's king, King George, they're singing the same song. You're mine.

The Wake of Rebellion

And we remember how I wanted to be a pirate, captain of my own ship headed for freedom. But the life that I chose, it took from me. It was, I thought it was life giving but it was wrecking my body. It was draining my bank account. I thought I'd found community but the people around me mostly just wanted to use me for access to the party. I lost touch with real friends. I had strained relationships with family and I left a wake of relational wreckage that took years to clean up.

Because every false king sends a bill. Maybe your story isn't so dramatic as mine but I bet you got something in there. That thing that helps you unwind, maybe it's the drink, maybe it's the show, maybe it's doom scrolling, maybe it starts as relief at the end of a hard day. And it takes your evening, and then it takes your honesty, and then you start counting and then you start hiding the count. And then it takes the people at home who need you to be present.

Or maybe it's not your sense of rebellion because you've always been the good one. But maybe it's your quiet time, your perfect attendance, your right answers in small groups. Then it takes your need for grace and then it takes your honesty and then you start keeping score and then you start keeping everyone else's score. And then it takes the people around you who needed mercy, not a measuring stick.

And then worst of all, it takes Jesus because good people don't need a savior. They've got a résumé for that. Idols promise freedom. They produce slaves.

And I know this feels heavy but guess what? Samuel's not done yet. He doesn't just tell them what their king will cost. He tells them how it's gonna feel. You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you open up your credit card bill and it's way more than you expected it was gonna be? Well Samuel says, buckle up buddy. It's bill time.

When that day comes you will cry out because of the king you've chosen for yourselves, but the Lord won't answer you on that day. — 1 Samuel 8:18

You will cry out and heaven will be quiet. I think that's the scariest verse in this whole chapter.

How does Israel respond to that challenge? Nah. We just need a king. Just give us a king. It's gonna be fine. And so God says to Samuel, listen to them. Give them what they want. Appoint a king for them. And then he does and Samuel sends everybody home. And that my friends is a really uncomfortable pause at the end of this chapter.

You know I think sometimes the scariest things that God can do is give us what we insist on. The apostle Paul, he says the same thing in Romans one. People claim to be wise and become fools. They exchange the truth for a lie and God gives them up to the desires of their hearts. Sometimes judgment looks like yes and Israel gets a taste first.

You know if we turn the page in chapter nine, here comes King Saul. He's tall. He's handsome. He's like quite literally and figuratively head and shoulders above everybody else. He looks exactly like a king. He acts exactly like a king. Spoiler alert, it doesn't go well. That's a tragic taste. That's a bitter thing to eat.

The bitterest thing in the world is getting what you wanted and finding out that it can't save you. You know my time in London was a tragic taste. I had exactly what I asked for. I was bitter. I was sad and I was lonely. A lot of us have experienced similar things. Maybe you made the team that you wanted to try out for. You got the grades that you worked so hard to earn and you're already anxious about next season, the next test, next semester. You get the job that you've been trying to get or the promotion that you've strived to earn and you're already anxious about who's coming for you. How do you protect what's mine? You get to have a piece of control and still you can't sleep at night.

Look, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, can I say this gently to you? If you experience this ache, this anxiety, this is like a warning light on the dashboard of your heart. This is a symptom that you are choosing the wrong kings. You are choosing the kings that will not answer you when you cry out for them because they can only take from you. Your heart is longing for something so much more.

And for those of us who do call Christ our king, the silence in verse 18 is not the end of the story. God is not cruel. He's not bitter. God is not spiteful. God is not petty. But when he lets you taste how bitter your idols are it's not rejection. It's a loving father's discipline.

He does this because he loves you. — Hebrews 12:6

Disappointment is a mercy if it sends you running back to the true king. Because God isn't losing control of this story. Out of this terrible request he's gonna bring a shepherd boy named David and from David's line another king.

So is there a king? We leave this passage. Is there a king who gives instead of takes? Is there one out there who will answer when we cry out? And there is. And his name is Jesus and he is everything the world's kings are not.

Samuel said, he'll take your sons. God gave his son. Samuel says, he will take your fields. Jesus though he was rich became poor so that we could inherit the kingdom of heaven. Samuel says, you yourselves will become his servants but Jesus, the king of heaven, he emptied himself of all of his glory and took the form of a servant and obeyed that all the way to death itself.

Israel wanted a king to fight their battles but Jesus went out before us and fought the one battle that we could never win against sin and death and hell and he won it.

And Samuel said, you will cry out and the Lord won't answer. Listen to Jesus hanging on the cross.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Heaven was silent in that moment. The true king cried out and on Friday the father didn't answer. Why? So that when we cry out in repentance under the weight of everything that we've crowned as an ultimate king in our life, he will answer you. And his answer is because of Jesus I forgive you. Because of Jesus, I love you.

The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. — Mark 10

CTK, false kings take but the true king he gives. Now in conclusion, if you'll allow me a few minutes, can I finish my story?

The whole time I was in London I wasn't crying out, but people were. My parents were crying out for me. They were praying with their church family. They were praying with their community group. My dad would call me up and he would tell me things like, hey you should go out and explore other world religions. Go see what Buddhists have to offer. Go see what Muslims have to offer. And that sounds like a crazy thing but my dad had a faith that God was the one true God and Jesus is the one true king and in searching for empty things that would lead me home.

He tried to mail me my bible and it I left it in a box on the floor of my room until one night I came home and I spilled a beer all over it and cleaned up the mess and I threw that bible in a nightstand drawer and I didn't look at it again until I got home from London.

Came home at Christmas break and one night I was sitting alone in my room at my parents' house. I don't know why, but for some reason I pulled out that bible. And I flipped it open and it opened to the gospel of John. And it wasn't like this thing where I really wanted to read the gospel of John and I was curious. No. This section of my bible was glued shut from dried beer. And so I decided I was gonna separate the pages. And so I did slowly, painstakingly. I peeled the pages apart and as I read the pages I read every word. The job was done. I had spent the whole night reading the entire gospel of John.

Man, when I got to the part in John 19 where Jesus says it's finished, so was I. It was done. Jesus was the king of my life. And for the next twenty five years, for the last twenty five years since that moment, he stayed on the throne. Counterfeit gods have tried to come and attack it but Jesus is the king of my life because he pursued me and he loved me in my worst.

So what if you got exactly what you asked for? I didn't. I should have. But God in his mercy he didn't leave me there. He offered me a new life in his name.

And so ask yourself something this morning. Who is my king? What is that king doing to me? And does he offer the same kind of life that Jesus offers me?

See, CTK, you don't dethrone a king by trying harder. You cannot white knuckle your way out of serving an idol. Idols don't get driven out by willpower. They get driven out when you find a greater love and there is no greater love than Jesus.

And so maybe it's time to trade in that old prayer. Lord just give me blank and then I'll be okay. And maybe swap in this one. Lord, thank you. Thank you for giving me your son. I'm gonna be okay today because you've gone before me. I'll be back tomorrow.

CTK, taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him. Let's celebrate his goodness and give thanks for his never ending love.

Let me pray.

Jesus Christ our king, our Lord and our savior, We repent of the silly and fickle and worldly things that we try to put on your throne and that we try to follow instead of you. Please forgive us. We thank you that you have loved us so much that you came in and you stood in our place and you took our judgment and that you offer us life in your name. Amen.