Better Call Saul

Good morning. If you want to make your way back to your seat, we're glad to see you all here this morning, and those of you joining us virtually, we appreciate you being with us.

We're going to turn in our Bibles to page 239 and 240. We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 11 today. If you want to find that, it's our custom to read God's word aloud so you can follow along on the screen or in your Bibles.

Scripture Reading

Nahash the Ammonite came up and laid siege to Jabesh Gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to him, "Make a treaty with us and we will serve you." Nahash the Ammonite replied, "I'll make one with you on this condition: that I gouge out everyone's right eye and humiliate all Israel." "Don't do anything for us for seven days," the elders of Jabesh said to him, "and let us send messengers throughout the territory of Israel. If no one saves us, we will surrender to you."

When the messengers came to Gibeah, Saul's hometown, and told the terms to the people, all wept aloud. Just then Saul was coming in from the field behind his oxen. "What's the matter with the people? Why are they weeping?" Saul inquired, and they repeated to him the words of the men from Jabesh.

When Saul heard these words, the Spirit of God suddenly came powerfully on him and his anger burned furiously. He took a team of oxen, cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by messengers who said, "This is what will be done to the oxen of anyone who doesn't march behind Saul and Samuel." As a result, the terror of the Lord fell on the people and they went out united. Saul counted them at Bezek: there were 300,000 Israelites and 30,000 men from Judah.

He told the messengers who had come, "Tell this to the men of Jabesh Gilead: 'Deliverance will be yours tomorrow by the time the sun is hot.'" So the messengers told the men of Jabesh, and they rejoiced. Then the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, "Tomorrow we will come out and you can do whatever you want to us."

The next day, Saul organized the troops into three divisions. During the morning watch, they invaded the Ammonite camp and slaughtered them until the heat of day. There were survivors, but they were so scattered that no two of them were left together.

Afterward, the people said to Samuel, "Who said that Saul should not reign over us? Give us those men so that we can kill them." But Saul ordered, "No one will be executed this day, for today the Lord has provided deliverance to Israel."

Then Samuel said to the people, "Come, let's go to Gilgal so we can renew the kingship there." So all the people went to Gilgal, and there in the Lord's presence they made Saul king. There they sacrificed fellowship offerings in the Lord's presence, and Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

— 1 Samuel 11:1-15

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Kind of a gruesome story, I know. Let's start here. Imagine this week you go to the grocery store and somebody comes up to you that you don't know and says, "By the way, the Latin name for a wood duck is histrionicus." You have no idea what to do with that information. There has to be some story that explains why some random stranger would come up to you and say something as bizarre as that.

You could come up with a couple of plausible situations. Maybe number one: this person is mentally ill. They're just nuts. That's scenario one.

Or maybe scenario two: they were at the library yesterday, and somebody asked them what's the Latin name for a wood duck. They looked it up, saw someone who looked sort of like you, found you today, and told you. Or maybe option three: this is a spy with a rendezvous point—a trained assassin even—and that's the secret code.

Now you have to know the story to know how to respond. And if you have the wrong version of the story, you could respond very poorly. For example, if you think this is a trained spy and you need to kill that person before they kill you, and it's actually somebody who thought they saw you at the library, that's bad.

That's a ridiculous sermon illustration, but the point of today's sermon is this: Do you know what story you are in? Because if you don't understand the story that you're living out, you won't know how to live in that story. There are lots of versions of the story, but God is telling a particular story of humanity—in your life and in this world—and you need to know that story in order to interpret your story.

If you are taking notes, you can find my outline on the inside cover of your bulletin.

Today's passage is really a simple story. It's about how Saul goes from being anointed as a king to winning the popular vote. It's the whole thing. But there's another story that's being hyperlinked throughout this whole thing. If you're not aware of that, this just seems like a very boring, maybe a little bit gruesome story. There's a lot more going on here.

What's the story within the story? Here's the big picture of this entire book: God is looking for a partner. God comes looking for a partner in humanity to establish His kingdom here on earth. And it starts with a place, and there's an enemy, and there's a representative.

There's a place. First it's the Garden of Eden, later on it's going to be the promised land. That's where we are here. Then there's an enemy—there's a snake in the garden, then there's Satan and his forces and the enemies of God in the Promised Land. Then there's a representative. First it's Adam and Eve, then it's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then we get to Moses, and now we're getting to a king. God is still looking for the partner that's going to help God establish His kingdom on earth.

The question is now that we're into the monarchy: is the king that's just been anointed going to be the partner? We've already got some foreshadowing. I'm an English major, sorry, not sorry. There's foreshadowing, which means there are little hints that have been dotted through the book of First Samuel so far. One of those comes in chapter nine.

In chapter nine we read these things about Saul. He might as well be introduced to us as Mr. Israel. We're told he's good looking. He's a head taller than any other Israelite. This guy could run for public office in America and probably win. We like attractive presidents. This is an attractive man. If I was choosing an actor to play Saul, I would choose Hugh Jackman—big voice, commanding presence. You want the chiseled good looks and the voice. The Greatest Showman. That's who we want for this.

But there's some funny hints in the text before this that tell us maybe this isn't as good a picture as it seems. In chapter nine verse two, the Hebrew word that's given about Saul is the word tov. You probably don't use a lot of Hebrew regularly, but tov means pleasing, good. He's good looking. But that's a hyperlink. And that goes back to another story in the Bible. Then later on that same chapter, Samuel says of Saul:

He's desirable. He's the desired one of all of Israel. — 1 Samuel 9

Now those two words, tov and the desired one, are hyperlinks back to another story where a woman is in a garden and she sees a fruit that's both tov and highly desired. If you're a Hebrew reader at this point, you're like, "Oh, I know this story." The forbidden fruit was tov and highly desired. Saul is tov and highly desired. Was it good when she picked that fruit? No. Was it good when they picked Saul? No. That's the same implication.

And then this is what plays out. It's a little foreshadowing of what's happening now in this passage. The people of God wanted a king like all the nations, and God gives them one. He gives them a king. And yet he's not a king after God's own heart. We'll see that coming. But what we're being hinted at already is that this is not maybe the ideal partner that God is looking for in a king. But Saul isn't just the forbidden fruit. He's also potentially God's partner in being the king. Let's see what he does.

The Enemy in the Garden

There's a problem with this New Eden in chapter 11. This New Eden, this promised land, there's an enemy there. And we're introduced to him here. His name is Nahash. Nahash in Hebrew means snake. Now my little brother played with GI Joe's growing up. If you know GI Joe's, the enemy of GI Joe and all the people is Cobra Command and the bad guy is Snake Eyes. So for the rest of the sermon, I'm going to call Nahash Snake Eyes, just so we know what we're talking about here.

So Snake Eyes is in the garden and he's coming and he's threatening God's people. And what does he threaten them with? He's going to take out their right eye. Gross, nobody wants to think about this on a Sunday morning. Really, pastor guy, we got to talk about gouging out right eyes? Yes, we do. He's coming and he's saying, "I'm going to take out your right eye if you don't serve me," which is also a hyperlink. Because back in Genesis three, the snake comes and says:

If you will only do what I tell you, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. You will see. — Genesis 3

Again, there's a threat around seeing. Supposed to be reading all of this into this passage. So what is the representative God supposed to do now in this new garden? Well, Genesis 3:15 tells us, let's put this up here:

He will crush your head and you will strike His heel. — Genesis 3:15

This is the curse that's set over the snake. So the new representative, the king of Israel is supposed to come now in this moment, pull out the sword and crush the head of the snake. And will he do it? That's what's being set up for you in Genesis into First Samuel 11. You all tracking with me with snake eyes? I know there's a lot for a Sunday morning. Okay? You all are doing really well.

So here's what's happening. Will he do it? And this is what's fascinating. So the spirit of God comes and empowers Saul:

The spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words. — 1 Samuel 11:6

Now I want you to think about this. The spirit of God is not like Saul discovered way back in the closet of his life he had some latent leadership ability. This is a power up. Okay, the Spirit of God comes on him and it's a power up. It's an intensifier for him to lead God's people.

But here's the problem: when New Testament people, when the church reads this, we think Holy Spirit like we experience the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament after the resurrection of Jesus, we read this in First Corinthians 15, the Spirit of God is poured out on the life of a believer. When you believe in Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit as a permanent possession. The third member of the Trinity indwells your life and he doesn't leave. That's not the way it worked in the Old Testament.

And so I got to separate a little bit here because it's not like the spirit comes on Saul and he receives the permanent possession of the Holy Spirit. This is like Super Mario or a video game and you get a temporary power up. He's got some extra juice for doing the thing, but then it goes away. So what happens when a person whose heart is not transformed by God receives the power up? What happens when a person's character, which we've hinted at already, is kind of off, gets the power up and intensifier? What's on the inside is magnified outwardly, and that's what's going to happen in this passage. It shows off what's on the inside.

So here's the outcome, and I don't want to steal Saul's thunder. He wins. Right? Yay, he wins. He crushes the snake. Nahush and his people are destroyed in this battle. But this is what I want us to see. He sort of wins in a snaky way. He wins in a snaky way.

Let's look at this. So first, he appeals to authority outside of himself. He comes in to gather the people, to muster the people. He says anybody who's really with us is with Saul and Samuel. Now Samuel's not here. This is like, okay, some of y'all are younger kids in a family and you had your older siblings say they came in and say you got to do this and you're like I ain't doing that. And you're like well mom said, and you know that's the ultimate throwdown, right? Mom said, I'm appealing to a higher authority. Not I'm an oldest child. That's a great oldest child trick. We've all been using it really well. That's what Saul's doing here. Mom said. Samuel's not really mom, but Samuel's not there. That's the first thing.

Second, Saul wins the battle in a snake eyes kind of way. First, listen, he threatens God's people. Your oxen are gonna be like this, cut up in little pieces if you don't follow me. He threatens them. Who else threatens? Who else threatened God's people in this passage? You can answer. Snake eyes. Right. Snake eyes threatened. Here's Saul threatening.

Second, he threatens bodily mutilation. You've got to pluck out your right eye. Who else is threatening bodily mutilation on a cow? Parurochsin. Saul is doing the same thing.

And finally he leverages fear. Snake Eyes uses fear to intimidate the people. Now Saul's doing exactly the same thing. Do you see what he's doing? Saul has defeated the serpent, but he's done so in a way that the serpent hasn't really been defeated in Saul. There's something wrong on the inside.

The Real Test of Leadership

You know, this is the real test of a leader in every age, isn't it? What does a person do with power? Over a family, over an organization, over an institution, over a business, over a classroom? What does a person do when they are given authority? What comes up and out of them in their character? Are they a person who actually reflects what God is like or reflects what the world is like?

See, this is the test of this king. It's not whether he can win the battle, but what kind of a person is revealed as he goes to fight this battle? What Saul needed is true change, not just empowerment.

Now time out. We're in a moment in America where I think we're all beginning to realize how much character matters.

I've been a pastor a long time, studied a lot on the history of Christianity in America. I've never heard one sermon about character. I can name only one book that's been written in the last years about character. But if you go back to the seventeen hundreds, you know what most of their sermons were about? Virtue, cultivation of character. We're in a time we're beginning to realize like character kind of matters. And it matters at the lowest levels and the highest levels and all the levels in between.

And this passage is asking, is empowerment without character really valuable? Here's the temptation for Saul and for us, to become the thing you're fighting. So fellow nerds, anybody read Red Rising series? This is the question behind Darrow of Lycos, is he going to become the thing he's against? So that's my millennials and below. Right? So let me get my dude Gen Xers. So Anakin Skywalker, is he going to become the thing he's against? Or let's go the dark knight, is Harvey Dent going to become the thing he's against? Right? Like there's a way which you can in fighting the enemy become like the enemy. And that's the problem. That's the problem of Saul. That's the challenge for us.

He shows us this is the best human king we got. Head and shoulders above everyone else. He's Tov. He's the desired one. And yet there's something wrong. His story points us, of course, to another story, the story of Jesus. See, we need a king who can fight the serpent without becoming the serpent. We need a king who can defeat the serpent by being something that Saul could never imagine.

This story progresses from Saul to David, and even David, a man after God's own heart, he's not the guy. Right, all the way down the road we get to a thousand years after the story in Galilee where a man baptized comes up out of the Jordan River and goes out into the wilderness where he faces the serpent in three rounds of testing. Three rounds of testing where his character is being put to the test and the temptations that come at Jesus from the serpent are: are you gonna take shortcuts to power? Are you gonna make these things happen and receive the glory and the honor and the power through a shortcut? Are you gonna do the hard thing?

And Jesus does something that Saul could never imagine. He defeats the serpent not by winning but by being wounded and killed. Right? It's the death of Jesus that is the surprising ending to the gospels. Nobody saw it coming. The disciples were scratching their head. How could this be what God had in mind for crushing the serpent's head?

And this is why we live now in this overlap of the ages between the age that has come and the age to come. Jesus has come. He has mortally wounded the serpent, and yet this is what it's like to be a human. You fight the serpent every day, don't you? And there will be a day when the serpent and all his rule will be eradicated forever, when he and all of his powers will be thrown by Jesus at a second coming and with judgment into the lake of fire and his rule be no more. But we live in this weird in between time, don't we?

Something has happened of a definitive nature. Colossians tells us that he led Satan and his minions in a triumphal possession. He disarmed the authorities and powers and yet he's not done yet. We're in this in between moment. And this is where our story fits into this story, and you gotta know the story that you're living.

The Pay Dirt

If you've been hanging in with me with all my weird Hebrew stuff, here's where we're going. You've gotta learn the right story or you live the wrong outcomes. To be human is to face the snake. That's life in this world. We are surrounded by the brokenness of this world and the failed promises and the things that don't work and the injustices and evil. Are you not? You're so aware of this.

And it's really easy to get confused about what are we supposed to be doing here. Is my job to crush the serpent? Is Jesus really on the throne of the world? What is going on? The real king has come. He's the one, he's the only one who can crush the head of the serpent. That has been done. It's not your job to make Jesus win. It's not your job to make sure that Christianity in America wins. Jesus has won at the cross. Jesus is gonna win in the future when he returns.

To be human is to face the snake, but the problem—the battlefield for us is not primarily about controlling what's going on out there. The battle is about who you're becoming when you engage the battle. Conservative Christians have fallen off on one of two poles when we think about the battle. So there's a whole group of conservative Christians who are like all the bad people are out there.

All the baddies are out there, and we need to win the culture war, and it's all on the line, and we better fix what's going on out there. There's a whole other group of conservative Christians who've spiritualized everything like, oh no, it's all in here. The battle's all inside of me. The Bible presents us with a lot bigger challenge. The Bible's in here as we go out there. It's both. There's a battle inside of me. There's a battle that's outside these walls. Both are true.

When we are particularly tempted to think the battles are out there—you know, politics, culture wars, institutions, other people's beliefs and sins—we forget that character matters in us. And when we over-spiritualize everything and it's all about just what's on the inside of me, we just consign the rest of it. Like, it doesn't really matter. But Saul serves us as a warning. Watch the inside, watch the outside.

Do you have any idea how fierce the fighting is in the battle that we're in? The battle of belief means that you have to believe the gospel every day. Why does Saul become serpent-like? Because he doesn't really believe that God can be trusted. He doesn't really believe that God has a plan and knows what he's doing. He's tempted to fix things for himself. We'll see that in the next couple weeks. He doesn't trust the king. This is the big difference between Saul and David. One's not really better than the other. One just trusts the story and the other one doesn't.

Two Battles for Today

So two battles for you this morning I want to call you to. Number one, the battle to get up every morning and believe that Jesus is really the king. Now here's why you got to do this. Because every day the world gives you thousands of reasons to not believe that. You open up your phone, you just scroll, and it just looks like chaos and evil, doesn't it? We live in a dark time. And it's tempting. You read the news, you scroll social media, you see what's happening in your family, your church, your country, your city, and slowly you begin to think, Jesus isn't fixing this. Somebody's got to do something. I better do something. Right? And that's the battle of belief.

Jesus really is the king, friends. He really is. He's won. The reality is he's building his kingdom on earth, and he's coming back. And that is really true. I don't have to make Jesus win because if I don't believe that Jesus is king, I'm gonna think that this is up to me. I gotta fix this.

Battle number two is not to become the serpent while fighting the serpent. See, this is what you and I do. We experience someone's anger and we become angry. We experience someone's pride and we become arrogant and proud. You experience someone's manipulation, you become controlling. You care about truth, but you begin to treat people you disagree with as your enemy. You want to defend what's good and somewhere along the way you stop looking like the king you're defending. You see the need to confront somebody else's sin and you enjoy humiliating them. You fight injustice and you become self-righteous. You care so much about winning the argument. You exaggerate, you manipulate, you misrepresent. You exercise authority and become controlling. Right? The battle is not to become the serpent while fighting the serpent. To not become this.

If I believe Jesus is king, I don't have to manipulate. If I believe Jesus is king, I don't have to control. If I believe Jesus is king, I don't have to avenge. If I believe Jesus is in charge, I don't have to bully people. Do you see this is the battle line for us in here and out there?

The Story We're In

What story are you in? Do you know? The king has come. He's crushed the head of the serpent and he is coming back to put everything right. And so my call to you: hang in, flock. Hang in, friends. It is a hard moment. It's a day when it's easy to be discouraged all the time or feel like I gotta go fight somebody. And neither of those is right.

So this week, don't just ask what am I fighting? Ask what am I becoming? What's all this doing to me on the inside? And lastly, go tell the story. People need the story. And it may sound as crazy to them as somebody coming up to you randomly in the supermarket and saying, "The common name of the wild duck is histrionicus, histrionicus, histrionicus." That may sound insane to your friends and neighbors, the people that you're in school with, the people you're in class with, the people you share an office with. But it's the story that makes sense of all the stories. And it's the only one that gives us a sense of peace, a purpose, and a direction to this whole world. So tell them the story even if it seems crazy.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. There is nothing like your word. Lord, help us to live into the story that you are telling in this world.

We thank you that there is a true king on the throne of the universe. And we know that one day His majesty and rule will be evident to everyone, and all that is wrong will be made right. And Lord, we can't wait for that day. We're so weary, many of us.

Lord, help us to remember the story. Lord, give us a sense of purpose as a church. Help us to link arms for a battle that we're fighting together. Lord, there are days when it's really hard to believe. Lord, help us to believe for one another. There are moments where we're deeply discouraged. Help us to encourage one another.

Father, we pray that you would help us to be a part of your kingdom agenda in this city. Lord, we wanna see as in heaven on earth. Lord, we wanna see more of that. Lord, we pray for your work in your way through your people.

And lastly, Lord, we pray that you would make us in the type of people whose lives not only tell the story but reflect the story in our character. And we pray these things in his name.