Removing Distractions to Embrace True Obedience to God

If you guys have your Bibles, you want to open to 1 Samuel chapter 15.

We've been walking through this series on Old Testament battles, and to be honest with you, this is probably the one that, not necessarily a battle, but I guess it is.

One thing I want to say about what Michael said, I've been in Southern Baptist churches a long time, and I have never heard that song sung like that in a Southern Baptist Church.

How many Southern Baptists? You got to be honest here this morning? Southern Baptists can't lie, all right? Have you ever heard that song sung that way in a Southern Baptist Church? Nope, Oregon piano, right?

Yeah, so yeah, he tried to play what's that? That's what I'm saying. Oh man, I don't count. Now I have heard the southern twang or the country twang in a Southern Baptist Church, right?

But anyways, it's great to be with you guys. I'm glad that you're here. We are looking at 1 Samuel chapter 15.

Have you ever done something halfway and then realized that you wished you would have done it the right way?

Okay, this is a moment of honesty. How many of the men in the room don't like instructions? Right, quite often my wife will go to, you know, Walmart or Target, yeah, that's Target. You know, we'd like to be fancy, Tarjay. Or Ikea or order something off of Amazon, and it never fails. It comes in like a thousand pieces, right?

It comes in a thousand pieces, and it comes in a box, and she either shows up with it in her car and it barely fit in the car, or it comes in the mail, right? Amazon, now you get them in the mail, you go out to the door and you bring it in, you open it up and it's like a thousand pieces.

And she was like, "Have you found the instructions?" I'm like, "I don't need instructions." Right? Guys don't need instructions, come on.

And so it never fails, I start to put it together, I'm like, "Oh yeah, this must go here, and this must go here, and it must be here." And then I realize, I get down to the last piece and I put it together backwards, right?

And now you gotta take it apart, and now she's like, "Now are you gonna read the instructions?" And it's quite often that that happens, but the reality of it is, is that sometimes that's how we go about life.

We've been given an instruction manual, we've been given an instruction manual to help us be able to navigate life, but so many times we don't want to get out the instruction manual and actually begin to read it and learn it so that we kind of understand how to walk through things in life.

We just kind of want to sometimes figure it out on our own, and what happens is we realize that we've done it the wrong way, or we've even done it halfway.

We've done it halfway, and we're gonna actually see that in the scripture today as we learn about Saul.

Okay, so 1 Samuel chapter 15, there's a lot of scripture reading this morning, and so you guys just bear with me. I think there's a lot in this passage.

We're actually gonna go through the whole chapter 15, which there's some 33 verses in this chapter. Actually, I think there's 34. And we're gonna read through the majority of them.

1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 1 says, "Samuel said to Saul, 'I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel, so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

So essentially what's happening right here is God is giving instruction to Samuel, who was at the time the spiritual leader of the Israelites, and Saul, who was the military leader of the Israelites.

And it's really interesting because this is God's vengeance. There's a passage in Scripture, and I believe it says, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." Because God actually says to us that we're not supposed to take revenge on people, that God will be the one who takes revenge on people who do things against Him.

And so here we have God actually fulfilling that, because the Amalekites had, years and years before, I believe it was almost like 400 years prior to the Israelites coming out of Egypt, had attacked the Israelites.

And so we find that God is fulfilling His promise of revenge on the Amalekites.

Verse 4 says, "So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 from Judah. Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. Then he said to the Kenites, 'Go away, leave the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you along with them, for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.' So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs. Everything that was good they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed."

Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: "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. 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."

When Samuel reached him, Saul said, "The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions."

But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?"

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."

"Enough!" Samuel said to Saul. "Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night."

"Tell me," Saul replied.

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. 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.'

Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?"

"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. 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."

And I'm gonna stop there for a minute. We're gonna finish out the chapter in just a minute, but I wanted to first give you a couple thoughts.

You see, the Amalekites committed a terrible sin against Israel when the nation was weak and vulnerable. The Amalekites attacked the weakest and most vulnerable of the nation out of violence and greed.

And this was years prior to this point. God hates it when the strong take cruel advantage over the weak, especially when the weak are His people.

And so, what I wanted to be able to say to you as we look at these first 22 verses this morning is this: that partial obedience is complete disobedience.

Partial obedience is complete disobedience. Saul's arrogance got in the way. It's almost pride. In his arrogance in this moment, got in the way, and we just read about that.

It was his pride that got in the way, and it led him to this place of self-deception. Remember, he said, "But I did obey the Lord." He thought that what he had done, he didn't completely do what God had told him to do.

He said, "Hey, well, I did this. I killed the people. I saved Agag. We saved some of the cattle." But he began to justify his own sin.

But let's be honest, if we were in that situation, we probably would feel like we did the right thing. I mean, if we read the story and we begin to understand, well, it was kind of nice of Saul not to kill everybody, huh?

I mean, he saved Agag. He must have been kind of nice as a king. He saved all the good animals. You know, you could have taken those good animals and you could have actually used them to benefit the community, the Israelites.

But the thing was, that wasn't what God said to do. And so we have to understand the difference between the things that God calls us to and our own justifications of things, because here's what's happening in today's culture: we're taking the Bible and we're twisting it into what we want it to be so that it can justify our own behavior.

And we have to be careful that that arrogance doesn't lead to self-deception. I wrote this down: "Pride and disobedience makes us blind."

And what I find really interesting is not only did Saul say, "I did what He said," right? That's what he said. He deceived himself into thinking that he had done what God had asked him to do.

But then he said, "The people did it." Well, the people did that when I think we're sitting there talking to Samuel, realizing that he knew that he had not done the right thing.

Then Samuel wasn't... He wasn't... He was right in saying, "Well, the people," well, the people did this, but they were following his leadership.

And the problem was the problem with Saul's arrogance was that he was more concerned about what the people thought than what God thought.

And how often do we do that? We're more concerned about what's going on. I think I said that a few weeks ago. If you grew up in the South, a lot of times you're more gracious than truthful.

You're more gracious than truthful. And people from the North, you're more truthful without grace, is that right? I'm not sure about the people out West or the people from California. I don't know what they do. I only know North and South. We've been fighting all these years.

And so, understanding that partial obedience is complete disobedience.

Okay, let's keep reading. So, look at verse 22. "But Samuel replied..." Right? This is after he's had this conversation with Saul. Saul's trying to defend that he has done the right thing.

Samuel continues to say, "Partial obedience is complete disobedience." Samuel continues to say that arrogance is like the evil of idolatry.

He's comparing arrogance with idolatry. Because you have rejected the word, he has rejected you as king.

Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, but please honor me before the elders." Really? That's what you care about? You honor me before the elders and my people and before Israel?

"Come back with me so that I may worship the Lord your God." So Samuel went back with Saul and Saul worshiped the Lord.

Then Samuel said, "Bring me Agag, king of the Amalekites." Agag came to him in chains, and he thought, "Surely the bitterness of death is past."

But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women." And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal.

Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul. Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again. Though Samuel mourned for him, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Man, that's just not a feel-good message here. But I think what God is trying to teach us through this passage is this: that worship of God without obedience is empty.

Worship of God without obedience is empty. One could make a thousand sacrifices for God, work a thousand hours for God's service, or give millions of dollars to his work, but all these sacrifices mean little if there is not a surrendered heart to God shown by simple obedience.

The other part that we see is that God punishes the disobedient. God punishes disobedience, and disobedience requires repentance.

I think that we see that in Saul. If we want to pick out one good thing in this, Saul's heart did come to a place of repentance.

So the challenge for us would be, when we begin to recognize and not be self-deceived, because I believe there's always that moment where all of a sudden all the truth and all the reality of things and the way that we've lived and the things that we've done, they kind of come to the surface, and you're like, "Oh crap, I messed it up."

And how often do we just kind of come to that place, but then we can keep living the way that we've lived before? It's almost like we create a pattern, and it's hard to break.

I believe, listen, I believe there are some patterns in some families that need to be broken, because we do the same thing our parents did, we do the same thing that our grandparents did, we did the same thing, and it becomes a generational thing.

And sometimes we're so entrenched in it that we can't get out. And maybe what God is trying to say is, break the cycle, come to a place of confession and repentance, like pure repentance.

Because see, what God is doing is He's showing us through this passage, and then on into the Psalms, and on into the life of David, because remember, after Saul was taken out as king, now God is raising up David to become king.

Why? Because he says, he is a man after my own heart. Did David mess up? Absolutely, he failed many times. But he had a heart for the things of God.

And Saul just was too arrogant to see those things, because even after he repented, he still began to kind of backtrack.

So coming to a place of repentance, but we've become a culture that likes to justify or hide the things that aren't in obedience with God's word.

And when we walk in disobedience and we're unrepentant, I believe that God strips His blessing. I believe God strips the blessing away.

So I didn't want to end it on a bad note. Is this obedience comes from a heart that genuinely desires to love God?

And so what we have to do is we have to reflect on who we are in our relationship with Jesus and say, "Does my heart truly desire to know God, to serve God, and to love Him?"

You see, we have to position our heart to know Him. We have to position our heart to hear from Him.

Right? It was really easy. It was actually very simple for Saul because what God did was He spoke to Samuel and Samuel showed up and told him.

Now it can be a little more complicated for us because not all the time does God send me to tell you what to do.

Actually, to be honest with you, He doesn't because He wants that direct relationship with you.

And one of the most difficult, I would say probably one of the most difficult things in a while in a relationship with Jesus is hearing what He's saying.

But the problem is we don't position our heart. We don't position our heart to listen. We don't position our heart to know Him.

And let's be honest, we're a lot more distracted these days than we've ever been. Saul didn't take the time to fully understand what God had made clear to him because his arrogance and his self-deception got in the way.

So, Psalm 139 says, and this comes from the heart of David, it comes from a man who God said, "He is a man after my own heart."

It says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me. And know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting."

So, the call for this morning is Psalm 139. Search me, O God.

Would you close your eyes with me for just a moment?

To be honest with you, this is probably the most difficult time right now. The scripture says in John 10:10 that the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

But I have come that you might have life and have it to the fullest. And that came from the mouth of Jesus.

And so, your battle right now, your battle right now is, God, what are you saying to me? God, where's my heart truly at?

Is my heart truly after the things of God? Am I just going through the motions? Am I just going through the motions?

Do I just show up on Sunday and pat myself on the back? Do I even listen?

You can even get your Bible out on a daily basis and read it and you'd just be going through the motions.

Take 10 minutes at the end of your day and pray and you'd just be going through the motions.

I catch myself sometimes at dinner time because we pray on a regular basis at dinner time. I'm like, what am I really saying?