No Random Donkeys

We're gonna be in first Samuel chapters nine and ten. You can find that in the bibles on the pew. I think that's on page two thirty seven if you'll find that with me. And we're gonna read sections of this together. They'll also be on the screen if you wanna follow along. Up there we're gonna be in chapters nine and ten. It's our practice to read God's word aloud. You ready?

There was a prominent man of Benjamin named Kish, son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Bekorath, son of Aphiah, son of Benjamite. He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man. There was no one more impressive among the Israelites than he. He stood a head taller than anyone else. One day the donkeys of Saul's father Kish wandered off. Kish said to his son Saul, take one of the servants with you and go look for the donkeys. Saul and his servant went through the hill country of Ephraim and then through the region of Shalisha but they didn't find them. They went through the region of Sha'alim, nothing. Then they went through the Benjamite region but still didn't find them. When they came to the land of Zuf, Saul said to his servant who was with him, come on, let's go back or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and start worrying about us. Look, the servant said, there's a man of God in this city who is highly respected. Everything he says is sure to come true. Let's go there now. Maybe he'll tell us which way we should go. Suppose we do go, Saul said to his servant, what do we take the man? The food from our packs is gone and there's no gift to take the man of God. What do we have? The servant answered Saul, here I have a little silver. I'll give it to the man of God and he will tell us which way he should go. — 1 Samuel 9:1-8

So they went up toward the city. Saul and his servant were entering the city when they saw Samuel coming toward them on his way to the high place. Now the day before his arrival, the Lord had informed Samuel, at this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin. Anoint him ruler over my people. He will save them from the Philistines because I have seen the affliction of my people for their cry has come to me. When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him, here is the man I told you about. He will govern my people. Saul approached Samuel in the city gate and asked would you please tell me where the seer's house is? I'm the seer, Samuel answered. Go up ahead of me to the high place and eat with me today. When I send you off in the morning I'll tell you everything that's in your heart. As for the donkeys that wandered away from you three days ago, don't worry about them because they've been found. And who does all Israel desire but you and your father's family? — 1 Samuel 9:14-17

Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it out on Saul's head, kissed him and said, hasn't the Lord anointed ruler over his inheritance? — 1 Samuel 10:1

Samuel had all the tribes of Israel come forward and the tribe of Benjamin was selected. Then he had the tribe of Benjamin come forward by its clans and the Matriite was selected. Finally, Saul son of Kish was selected. But when they searched for him, they could not find him. They again inquired of the Lord, has the mind come here yet? The Lord replied, there he is hidden among the supplies. They ran and got him from there. When he stood among the people, he stood a head taller than anyone else. Samuel said to all the people, do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among the entire population. And all the people shouted, long live the king. — 1 Samuel 10:20-24

I wanna show you a picture and see if you recognize this photo. This is from 2007. This is a man giving a baby a bath. This man is Lionel Messi who you all might know as the reigning soccer star from Argentina. And in 2007 for a charity promotional event he gave this baby a bath. Now what's funny—this is the baby. His name is Lamin Yamal and he faced Messi this year in the world cup, Argentina versus Spain. Spain won by the way.

Here's my question. Did God have anything to do with that? Do you think about that? You know we tend to divide our life into two categories, two buckets. The things I control, the things I can't control.

So the things that you can control are your choices, your relationships, maybe your career, maybe how you're doing in school right now. But you have a whole bunch of things that you know you can't control—the weather, the politics, world history and events.

We tend to divide the world into two categories, but the Bible actually says there's a whole other category that we don't often think of: God's rule, God's governance, God's providence, God's control over all things. Providence is not just the capital of Rhode Island theologically. It's something else. Let me put up a definition.

Providence in our theological standard says this: "It is his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions"—including Lionel Messi and Lamini Yamal. That means God is in control. God not only possesses the ability to control all things, but he governs all things.

Sometimes we have a theology of big things versus little things—okay, God's in charge of world powers, but is God in charge of this Tuesday in my life? This passage is really helpful for us because there is no plan B from God's perspective. Even though we feel like regularly we're having a plan B day, 1 Samuel 9 through 10 is like a case study in providence. It pushes us to ask the question: What if not just the big things but the little things are also part of what God's doing?

Life often feels random to us. Things happen and we're always saying, "What? Why is this happening to me?" Saul in this passage thinks he's having a plan B day. God thinks he's having a "My Plan" day. That's what we're going to look at today as we think about God's providence.

I have four points, listed in the inside cover of your bulletin: God is working in the ordinary. God is working when you can't see it. God is working on you. God is working better than you asked for.

God is Working in the Ordinary

Israel had asked God for a king. That was our sermon last week. God begins preparing the king by sending him on a journey after chasing livestock. This is not anybody's plans. Saul is thinking, "Where are those stupid donkeys?" And God is thinking, "Where's my king?" That's what's happening here.

The key to this is verse 15:

Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel. — 1 Samuel 9:15

Did you hear that? The day before. Before Saul knew what was happening, God knew. Before Saul had made his plans, God was preparing Saul to be right where he wanted. Before Saul got lost, before the donkeys got lost, God had already planned a collision course with this prophet Samuel.

Think about how many things had to happen for Samuel and Saul to meet one another. Let's walk down the list: Donkeys had to get lost. Dad had to send Saul. Saul had to take a particular servant. They had to fail to find the donkeys. The servant had to remember, "Oh, there's a man of God here named Samuel." The servant had to have some money. They had to arrive at the city at the same time. The women had to be coming out to draw water. They had to know where Samuel was. And the first person Saul encounters as he goes into the city is Samuel.

Pull out any domino out of that domino chain and it doesn't happen.

When I was a senior in college, Susan and I were preparing to graduate and neither of us really had a clue what we were going to do after graduation. It was a bad economy. So when she said, "Hey, I think we should go do a summer with a mission project in the French Alps," I was like, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea." We were also testing out whether we should get married. We spent the summer in kind of monotonous jobs. She worked in the kitchen all summer. I mowed grass for the camp all summer.

One day I was cutting grass, going back and forth by the camp store, when the payphone started ringing. Now I don't speak French. The payphone keeps ringing and I'm doing my lines with the mower, back and forth. The payphone keeps ringing and ringing. Finally I just got annoyed and went up and picked it up. I thought about just hanging up but I answered it, and it was a pastor from Florida looking for Jeff Bradford.

He had called my college, talked to somebody in the placement office, found out I was interested in ministry, came up with my name, found out I was in France, called information, and made sure he got the camp. But they gave him the wrong number. They didn't give him the main number—they gave him the payphone number at the camp store. But I happened to be mowing the grass in the lines that moment, that afternoon.

That's what providence is like. I'm mowing grass. I'm not thinking about God and his plans for my life. Pull out any domino in that domino chain and I'm not your pastor. And there's so many more chapters to that story. This is what providence is like. God ordering and governing. And it looks like an ordinary day. It looks like a series of annoying events. The donkeys are missing. The donkeys were part of God's plan. This is what I want you to hear from this sermon. There are no meaningless Tuesdays.

You may think this about your life. You may think this week I'm paying bills. I'm going to the store. I'm going to class. I'm trying to get into college. Trying to graduate from college. I'm taking care of my kids. I'm trying to get by. And you may have absolutely zero idea of what God is doing—but that's the nature of providence. You see this scene, God sees the whole story. God is in charge of all it. There are no random donkeys and no meaningless Tuesdays.

A man's steps are from the Lord. How then can a man understand his way? — Proverbs 20:24

Notice that last question. How can anyone understand their way, their path? Notice providence doesn't mean your choices don't matter. All of Saul's choices here do matter. And yet God is sovereignly directing and positioning his guy to be in the right place at the right time to meet the prophet. So here's my question for you this morning. Can you pause for a moment and thank God for random donkeys? Because if you're an adult in this room I bet you have some random donkeys. That person who broke up with you. That job that didn't go anywhere. That medical condition that actually ended up kind of redirecting your path. That person who did you wrong. Graduation with no plans. At that time you're like stupid donkeys. You think your life is random but you never know what God is doing with donkeys, do you?

God Is Working When You Can't See It

The best book I know about providence is one written by a guy named John Flavel—not Nicholas Flamel. John Flavel was a long dead writer called The Mystery of Providence. And in that book he says some things that are really helpful for me. He says providence is like a Hebrew bible. Now, I'm doubting many of you have a Hebrew bible sitting around your house. But when you take your bible and open it up and I say, "Hey, where is Exodus?" you open it up right here at the front and you're like, think it's a couple books in and you flip over and you're like, there it is. There's Exodus. Because how does it read? Left to right, like an American alphabet, like an English alphabet. Not a Hebrew bible. If I handed you a Hebrew bible, I bet most of you couldn't find Exodus. Because you'd pick it up like this and you'd open it like this instead of like this. It's backwards. The whole thing's backwards. How you read it is backwards. You read it not left to right but right to left. You open it in the back from where we think.

Flavel says, this is how you read your life. What is God up to? You have to learn to read it backwards. Just like Hebrew. You have to look back at your life and say, wait. I thought that was randomness. That was God. I thought that was a random horrible thing that happened to me. God was at work in that. God is at work when you can't see it.

God's providence can seem very messy to us but it's not messy to him. He knows exactly what he's doing. You know, we're like, God what are you doing? You have to learn to read backwards. When God brings us through a really difficult situation, some of you can think of these things now. You're like, I can remember this really bad time in my life and that turned out pretty good. But let's be honest, not all the time can you look at the bad things and figure out the why. Isn't that what's hard for us? You look at the things that happened to you and you're like, I can't think of any good reason that God would do this.

And the reality is that the second point that Flavel makes is really important. It's not wrong for us to try to figure out God's providence. But the bible doesn't promise that you're gonna understand it. Rather it only promises that you can trust the God who governs it in all things. That's a really important distinction.

Faith doesn't mean you're gonna be able to always say, "I can see what God is doing" or "that makes sense to me." Faith doesn't mean saying "I know why you did this." But it says "I know the character of the one in charge of all things." Providence doesn't mean that every painful thing's gonna make sense or add up in your view of math.

But it also doesn't mean that God has let go of the steering wheel of the universe and it's all crazy time, chaos. God is at work even in the small things. So here's my request of you today. Would you pull out your bulletin? There's lots of white space on that bulletin. And I'm gonna ask you to do some homework this week. I want you to draw a timeline. Let's put a picture of one of these up here. I want you to draw a life timeline. On the left hand side, not Hebrew way, on the left hand side American way, you're gonna put your childhood to the present on the right. And you can draw this ups and downs. The times that were really good, the times that were really bad. And then I want you to go home later today. And I want you to mark the events where you can read it backwards and you're like, no random donkeys. God was right there. And I want you to, in a different color pen, just put a little crosses at different places where you can now see God met me here. God was at work. God changed my direction. God met me at this place and moved me. And I want you to put this somewhere you're gonna see it. I want you to put this somewhere, on your dashboard, on your mirror, in your bible, in your planner, somewhere you're gonna see this.

Because I can guarantee in the next couple days you're gonna have what feels like a plan b day to you or plan C day to you or plan D day to you or a plan XYZ day. And you're like, things are crashing and my life feels chaotic and God feels nowhere and you're gonna need to remember something. God is at work. He's at work in the ordinary. He's at work when you can't see it.

God Works in You as He Works His Plan

Number three, God doesn't work on you when he's working his plan. There's something else happening in this story. Not only is God working in Saul's story, God is working on Saul in his story. Because what happens as Saul's story unfolds here is God begins to reveal things about Saul's own character. And if you've read ahead, if you know what's gonna happen, it's one of the saddest stories in the bible, you can see what's happening. But already here God is exposing things in Saul even as he's taking him through these paces of this journey. And this is what God is up to in your life. You want to know what God is doing in your life? God sovereignly working in your life is also revealing things inside of you, in your character that need to change, that need to be matured, that need to be sanctified.

So let's look at a couple of these in Saul. What does God reveal in Saul? It's all going up language. So this whole passage, if you read it, it has all these upwards. So, God takes Saul up to the city. He takes him up to the high place, up to the head of the table. We read and didn't read that section. Saul gives Samuel the... Samuel gives Saul the place of honor, up to the roof where he anoints him king, up to kingship. Everything is moving up. This is the ascent of Saul. And what is God doing? Three things he's... In this passage. First, he reveals Saul's passivity. So what's funny about the first part of this is there's kind of a question. Saul and servant are going out to look for donkeys. Who's leading? It ain't Saul. Servant is leading. The servant's like, hey, let's go over here. So the servant's like, hey, let's go ask the seer. I mean Samuel. And he... Saul doesn't even seem to know who that is. And then Saul's like, well what are we gonna do for money? And the servant's like, got money. Just don't worry about it. Come with me. And what's revealed is a passivity in Saul.

Now another scene in this passage. There's a private anointing and then Saul... Samuel brings all the tribes of Israel together to find like who's gonna be the king. And they end up pulling out all these clans and pulling out the family and then pulling out. They're like Saul's gonna be king. Where is he? We can't find him. And God's like he's right there. And the people are like where is he? They're like he's like right there. And they're like where is he? He's like with the luggage. Right. What's being revealed in Saul is a lot of fear.

The events of our lives oftentimes reveal in us character issues that God wants to deal with. There's also one good portrait here. When Samuel comes to anoint Saul, Saul's like, who am I that you should anoint me? I'm just a Benjamite. I'm from the lowly clan. We've done a lot of bad stuff in our history. Don't know if you read the history, Samuel. He's like, there's a little bit of humility there in Saul.

I want to help you. I want you to think about what God is doing in you as we read the book backwards. What is God doing in your life? What is He revealing in you about your character? Three tests. Number one, let's put this up here. Can you be faithful with what God is giving you today? Here's what I find when I talk to people. Everybody wants to know the ten year plan, the twenty year plan.

God very rarely gives us the twenty year plan. He gives us Tuesday. Go find the donkeys. The next thing. And can you be faithful with just what's right in front of you that God has put across your path? And trust him for what's to come. There's a certain amount of faith—trusting God, you know what you're doing even when I don't. Get that?

Second Test: Can You Depend on God?

Sometimes we think humility means refusing what God is giving us. Like, "Oh, I'm not really qualified. I'm not really good enough. I can't really serve in that way. I can't lead in that way. Somebody else should do this." We're kind of whiny about it sometimes because we think it's humility.

But Saul's response here is actually kind of healthy. "Who am I that you're doing this?" But okay, I'm gonna step into this. He recognizes he doesn't pretend he's sufficient. He recognizes that he's not really qualified for this. "I'm not enough, but God is."

Test Number Three: Can You Remain Dependent When God Makes You Successful?

A lot of times I think success is a much harder test for us often even than failure. You can handle the wilderness—can you handle the platform? You can handle failure that drives you toward God. Can you handle success that makes you think a lot of yourself? A lot of people fail at that moment because we can't handle when God makes things actually work well for us.

What's being revealed in you, in your life right now? God is at work not just in the big picture of your journey, but revealing what's on the inside of you and your character. We're gonna talk a lot about character in the next couple of weeks. It's highly undervalued in our culture, and it's really important.

God Is Working Better Than You Ask For

All things work together for the good of those who love God who are called according to His purpose. — Romans 8:28

Some of you all may be allergic to that because it's been used like a band-aid on your life over a gaping wound. And yet there is so much truth in that verse that's demonstrated in this passage. There's a little wordplay, a little pun here in the book of First Samuel. There are two names that mean almost the same thing: Samuel and Saul.

Samuel means "God heard." It refers to Hannah's prayer where she prayed and asked for a baby and God heard her and gave her a baby. Saul's name means "asked for"—as in, this is the king that Israel asked for. There's this kind of collision course happening here with Samuel and Saul. It's a wordplay and we're supposed to get it, be kind of in on the joke of this because this is exactly who they've asked for. It's gonna be revealed over the next chapters—not such a great guy. But God, just like we read in Romans 8:28, is working for the better of even what they asked for.

They're like, "This is what we need. We need a king like the nations." God is like, "I'm not gonna just answer that prayer. I'm working beyond Saul to David, down the road the kingship that ends in Jesus." God is answering that prayer—that asked-for prayer—in ways that they could never imagine.

I know that some of you are struggling this day with believing in the goodness of God. Because you look at your life as it is at this moment, in the middle of your story, on this particular Sunday and this particular fall, and it doesn't look like it's headed toward a good outcome. And if you need something to cling to this morning, can I remind you that we can look in the Bible and see how these things add up? Even when your timeline doesn't look like it adds up. But it's not done yet.

The ultimate picture for us of God who is at work for good in the details, better than what we ask for, is not Saul and some donkeys. It's, of course, Jesus and a cross. The cross is the ultimate meaningless Tuesday, or better—terrible Friday. The disciples looked at that Friday and thought, "This is the worst thing that has happened to us." And from their perspective, it was. And of course, God was accomplishing the greatest good imaginable. But on that day, at that moment, everything seemed like a failure and a betrayal and injustice. Like everything is going wrong and the universe is careening off course. And of course, we know the rest of the story—that God is at work for our salvation and the resurrection of His people. The ultimate good, not just of human history, but of all of the universe. God is working on that day. They saw failure; God is accomplishing salvation.

This week you may have a Tuesday that feels meaningless. Some of us are feeling like a Friday that feels terrible. We are at the bottom of the barrel. Well, that God...

That the cross tells us God with apparent hiddenness is not God's absence. Just because we can't see what he's doing from our perspective doesn't mean he's abandoned his people. He's up to the best of the best.

So this week, make your timeline, look backward, name the places where you can see God's faithfulness, and then keep it for your next plan B day. You can look back at Jesus and know what God is like. You don't have to know where the story's going. You don't have to understand the donkeys that cross your path this week, but you can trust the author of the story.

You can trust that there are no meaningless Tuesdays. There are no random donkeys, and there is no moment in your life where God has stopped working.

In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Let's pray together.

Lord, this is a hard word for us because we look at the timeline and we do the math and it just doesn't add up. Lord, we pray for faith today to trust you, that you who are the author of all things are truly up to good for your people. We pray this in Jesus name.