Introduction / Review:
4 Big Problems with Disobedience (1 Samuel 15:1-23)
- It is always Unacceptable . (1 Sam 15:1-9)
- It Grieves God and His people. (1 Sam 15:10-11)
Ephesians 4:30 - do not grieve the Holy Spirit
John 14:15 - If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
- It is a Gateway to more sin. (1 Sam 15:12-21)
- Exalt myself (1 Sam 15:12)
- Deceive myself (1 Sam 15:13,19)
- Shift Blame away from myself (1 Sam 15:15,21,24)
- Justify myself (1 Sam 15:15, 21)
- It is the same as Idolatry to God. (1 Sam 15:22-23)
The Disobedience Gateway Leads Me To:
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:29-00:31
1 Samuel 15.
00:33-00:45
We are doing a sermon series right now, if you're visiting with us, called "Bible Basics." "Bible Basics." And in this sermon series, we're looking at the Bible as a whole.
00:45-00:52
And along the way, we're going to meet some people that we need to know, and we're going to learn some lessons that we need to learn.
00:53-01:00
Just to get you caught up, we started this series looking at Abraham, And Abraham taught us what faith is. This is what faith looks like.
01:01-01:10
And then we saw Joseph taught us what it means to trust God, even when things look horrible, we can trust that God is at work.
01:10-01:15
And then we saw from the life of Moses, Moses taught us what it means to be dependent on the Lord.
01:16-01:24
And last week we studied the life of Joshua, and Joshua teaches us what it means to have courage.
01:25-01:58
So, continuing in the story of the Bible, as our little cartoon during the offering demonstrated, Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land, and when we get to the book of 1 Samuel, again, as mentioned in the video, when you get to the book of 1 Samuel, the Israelites, they start looking around at all the other nations, and they're like, "Hey, we want a king like them." And Israel was reminded, "Hey, you have a king. His name is God.
02:00-02:06
God was the king of Israel." And Israel said, "Not good enough.
02:07-02:19
We want to have a king like the other nations." And they were warned, actually, in 1 Samuel 8, they were warned, "Look, do you realize if you have a king, you're going to have some other things that come with the king, right?
02:20-02:24
Like taxes. You're going to have to pay taxes.
02:25-02:33
And you know the king's going to help himself to your kids, recruiting them, drafting them, bringing them in to work for him.
02:33-02:34
Is that what you want?
02:35-02:39
You want somebody else lording over you. Is that what you want?
02:39-02:44
And Israel says, "Yeah, we want a king." So God gave them a man named Saul.
02:44-02:49
Now, don't confuse this with Saul who became Paul in the New Testament.
02:51-02:56
This Saul from the Old Testament, actually the Bible says that he was the most handsome man in Israel.
02:57-02:57
Okay?
02:58-03:04
So if you're wondering what Saul looked like, the most handsome man in Israel, see this?
03:05-03:06
He looked nothing like this.
03:09-03:15
Tall, handsome, the Bible says, not making that up, 1 Samuel 9, but he was lacking something critical.
03:17-03:19
He just wouldn't obey God.
03:19-03:22
He just wouldn't obey God.
03:23-03:27
In chapter 13, he decides he's going to offer a sacrifice.
03:27-03:28
He's tired of waiting.
03:29-03:31
The king was not allowed to do that.
03:31-03:33
Only the priests were allowed to offer the sacrifice.
03:34-03:38
And when we get to chapter 15, what we're looking at today, this is the last straw.
03:41-03:47
Chapter 15 teaches us something very sobering about the terrible dangers of disobedience.
03:47-03:58
Today we're going to be talking about obedience, and actually, specifically, we're going to be talking about disobedience.
04:00-04:01
What is disobedience?
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The generic definition is this.
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It's unwillingness to comply with authority.
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That's disobedience.
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Unwillingness to comply.
04:09-04:15
It's not, "I accidentally did something wrong." That's not disobedience.
04:15-05:14
disobedience is refusal. You're told to do something directly, specifically, and you say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that." That is disobedience. And here's the problem, people, for all of us. Our problem is we have a natural, sinful, inclination to disobey. We all have that. We're born with that. That's called a sin nature. We all have that in us that as soon as someone, including God, tells us to do something, our natural inclination is to say, "I don't want to do that." You all have that. You're like, "No, I don't." Yes, you do. You all have that. I'll prove that. Let's say, after church, you decide you're going to go to the park, and you see this section of the park where there's a sign that says, "Keep off the grass." What do you want to do immediately upon seeing that sign?
05:15-05:18
You want to be frolicking on that grass, don't you?
05:19-05:23
That wouldn't have crossed your mind in 10,000 years if that sign wasn't there.
05:24-05:28
You wouldn't have looked twice at that grass, but as soon as you see the sign, am I right?
05:29-05:32
As soon as you see the sign, you're like, "What's so special about that grass?
05:32-05:33
Nobody's going to tell me what to do.
05:33-05:42
I'm going to walk in, what is the grass police going to arrest me?" That's that rebellious disobedient spirit we have.
05:42-05:51
Or you walk by, maybe you're at the same park if you haven't been kicked out yet, and you see a bench is painted and there's a sign, "Do not touch wet paint." What do we do?
05:53-06:07
"Oh yeah, yeah." Why do we do that? Because we have something in us It's called a sin nature that we inherited that causes us to want to be rebellious.
06:08-06:10
We don't like people telling us what to do.
06:11-06:19
Okay, but as soon as we mention obedience, some are going to be real quick to say, "Oh, hang on, Pastor Jeff. I see where you're going with this.
06:20-06:26
I see where you're going with this, but we're not saved by being obedient." You realize that. You realize your obedience doesn't save you.
06:26-06:28
And that's absolutely true. That is correct.
06:30-06:33
Obedience is not the cause of salvation.
06:36-06:38
Obedience is the result of salvation.
06:40-06:40
Listen to this.
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A true, Holy Spirit filled Christian wants to obey.
06:49-06:52
This is an evidence that you are truly saved.
06:53-06:57
When the Holy Spirit changes your appetite, that's a mark.
06:57-06:59
None of us are perfect, okay?
06:59-07:01
We still live in this fallen flesh.
07:02-07:12
But an evidence of salvation is when the Holy Spirit changes your appetite, meaning you're no longer hungry for sin, but you hunger for the things of God.
07:12-07:14
That's an evidence of salvation.
07:16-07:17
You're hungry for the things of God.
07:18-07:30
That's why Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." It's a sign that the Holy Spirit, God Himself lives inside you because He changes your appetite.
07:30-07:34
I don't want to sin. Yeah, I do sin sometimes and I mess up, but I hate it.
07:35-07:38
I want to do the right thing. I want to serve Jesus Christ.
07:38-07:42
I want to obey, though I don't do it perfectly. That's the sign of a Christian.
07:45-07:50
Disobedience, for the Christian, disobedience will not make you lose your salvation.
07:50-07:54
You're not saved by obeying. You don't maintain your salvation by obeying.
07:54-07:58
Your salvation is based solely on the blood of Jesus Christ.
07:58-08:00
Receiving Him by faith.
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You didn't earn it, you can't keep it.
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It's a gift from God.
08:08-08:09
So why are we talking about this?
08:11-08:14
Because disobedience always has consequences, even for the Christian.
08:17-08:19
Even for the Christian.
08:20-08:22
Disobedience has consequences.
08:22-08:36
You see, when God says to do something in His Word, when God says, "Do this," what He's saying, parenthetically, is, "Do this for your own good." God's commands, His law, His rules, they're not arbitrary things.
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When God says, "Do this," He's saying, "Do this for your own good." And when God says, "Don't do this," He's saying, "I don't want you to hurt yourself." As James MacDonald has said.
08:50-08:54
But when you disobey, you always have to face the consequences.
08:54-08:58
So in your outline today, four big problems with disobedience.
09:00-09:04
Okay, so this sermon is going to be a sales pitch for obedience.
09:07-09:14
But looking at the life of Saul, it's going to be from the perspective of looking at the four big problems with disobedience.
09:14-09:17
Number one, write this down, four big problems with disobedience.
09:17-09:18
Number one, it is always unacceptable.
09:20-09:22
Disobedience is always unacceptable.
09:24-09:25
Look at verses 1-3.
09:26-09:39
"And Samuel said to Saul..." Now, Samuel was a prophet, he was a priest, he was a kingmaker, he was like last of the judges, major leader in the history of Israel.
09:40-09:43
And he was the one who anointed Saul, the first king, at the direction of the Lord.
09:44-09:49
"And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel.
09:50-09:54
Now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord.
09:55-10:04
Thus says the Lord of hosts, "I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt.
10:05-10:11
Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have.
10:12-10:22
Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." Stop there for a second.
10:24-10:26
What's up with this Amalek people?
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They were wicked, horrible, nasty people.
10:32-10:42
And what they're most noted for in Scripture is, we talked about when Moses went to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, These Amalekites attacked Israel.
10:44-10:54
And if you want to see how fired up God was about that, Exodus 17 chronicles this, and when you get to Exodus 17.14, God says, "Hey, write this down.
10:55-10:57
I'm going to wipe those people off the map.
10:58-11:00
Those people are not even going to be a memory, okay?
11:01-11:09
They're going to be gone, obliterated." God was so fired up that they attacked His people as they were leaving Egypt.
11:11-11:17
So, Samuel comes and says, "Listen to the words of the Lord." In verse 3.
11:18-11:25
Now see, sometimes when I talk to people, they're like, "Pastor Jeff, the Bible's really hard to understand." Okay, let's look at verse 3.
11:26-11:28
See if we can do a little interpretation here.
11:29-11:35
"Now God tells Saul, 'Go and strike Amalek.'" We already talked about who that is, right?
11:35-11:43
and devote to destruction all that they have, do not spare them." Is there any ambiguity here?
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What do you think that means?
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Or, what does that mean to you?
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What does it mean to everybody? What does it mean?
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What does it mean?
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Yeah, kill them, wipe them out, right?
11:58-12:00
Any other synonyms you want to shout out?
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Obliterate them, okay?
12:06-12:09
Are we pretty clear about what this says?
12:11-12:11
Okay.
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I'm glad you are, because we're about to find out that somebody wasn't clear on this.
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It says, "So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Tilaim, 200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah.
12:26-12:30
And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley.
12:30-12:38
Then Saul said to the Kenites, "Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them.
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For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt." Okay, so there's this group of people, the Kenites, that were sort of in the mix here, and Saul's like, "Hey, the boom is being lowered.
12:50-12:55
So you might want to find the exit, because we don't want to accidentally strike you guys down.
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You guys have been super cool to Israel, The Amalekites not so much, so pack up, get running.
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It says, "So the Canaanites departed "from among the Amalekites, "and Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah "as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.
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"And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, Uh-oh.
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"And devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.
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But Saul and the people spared a gag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatted calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them." Uh-oh.
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"All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction." Somebody's reading along with us here and they're going, "Well, Saul kind of obeyed.
13:59-14:07
He kind of obeyed, didn't he?" Partial obedience is total disobedience.
14:10-14:12
Partial obedience is total disobedience.
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Look, you don't get away with this anywhere else, right?
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I want you to think about your workplace, okay?
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Just think about your workplace.
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If your boss says to you, I need this report on my desk by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
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And Friday rolls around, and you come into his office and the report is like 75% done.
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Is your boss going to be like, kudos?
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Is that going to work for your boss?
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Is your boss gonna say, "Well, you did most of the report, and you were within a couple of days of the death." Is your boss gonna applaud you for that?
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You're gonna say, "But it's mostly done, man." You see the point?
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Partial obedience isn't good enough.
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If that ain't gonna fly for your boss, why do you think it's gonna fly from the Almighty Holy God?
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Or maybe at home, you say to your kids, "Hey, I need you to finish your homework before you watch TV, okay?
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Are those instructions clear finish your homework then you can watch TV and 10 minutes later You know little Ralphie or whatever is watching TV. You're like Did you do all your homework in 10 minutes like no I did my I did my math assignment Did you do your English spelling and no I didn't I didn't I didn't do that, but I did I did the one assignment for sure parents How's that working out for you?
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Is that gonna work?
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But he did one of his assignments.
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No, no, no, look.
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You knew what I said to do, and you chose to do your own thing.
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That's not acceptable.
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And that's where we're going to start here in the message.
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Look, you have no excuse.
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Saul did not have an excuse.
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It was pretty clear what the instructions were.
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"Devote to destruction all they have, do not spare them, and then he gives the list." God's Word could not be more clear.
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And it's not complicated.
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God's Word is not complicated.
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God's not asking you to do things like plot a parabola on an X-Y axis.
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Do you guys know what that is?
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I went all through high school, through calculus class, and I still don't know what that is.
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God's not asking you to do that.
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His commands... He says things like this, "Love your spouse." "Give to His church." "Reach the lost." Let me know when this gets confusing.
16:55-17:13
"Tell the truth." "Flee from sexual immorality." The point simply here is, when we disobey, we can't say, "Yeah, I didn't understand." "I just didn't understand what the command was here." Disobedience is always unacceptable because the command is clear.
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Secondly, the second big problem with disobedience is it grieves God and His people.
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It grieves God and His people. Look at verses 10 and 11.
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It says, "The word of the Lord came to Samuel, 'I regret that I have made Saul king.
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He has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.' Samuel was angry and he cried to the Lord all night.
17:38-17:40
Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning.
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And it was told Samuel, "Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal." Let's stop there.
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First I want you to see that God regrets making Saul king.
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Like, wait a minute.
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If God knows everything, and He knows the past, present, and future, How can God do something that He regrets doing?
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That is a really good question, and that's a whole other sermon.
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But here's what you need to know about this, for sure.
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This is telling us that God feels. Okay? God feels.
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When God chose Saul, and obviously Saul wasn't working out, God wasn't like, "Eh, that didn't work. Let's try the next guy." This is an emotional thing.
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That when God called Saul, apparently, there were very high hopes for him.
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And the Lord is grieved. He's like, "He's just not listening.
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He's just not listening. No matter what I tell him to do, he just does whatever he wants to do." God feels, and God was grieving the fact that Saul insisted on disobedience.
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Do you notice there, Samuel felt it too.
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It says, "Samuel was angry and he cried to the Lord all night." I just insert here that our sin has an emotional impact on those who love us and are behind us.
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In the church, listen, when you sin, it hurts all of us.
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It does.
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And I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I've had as a pastor over the last 20 years because someone has persisted in sin.
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And I see the damage they're doing to themselves.
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And I see the damage they're doing to their family.
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And I see the damage that they're doing to their testimony.
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And many nights I've laid there tossing and turning, just grieving.
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But honestly, my and your grief, as hard as it can be sometimes, that's secondary to the point here.
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The point here is, disobedience grieves God.
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Right?
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Unless you think this is just an Old Testament thing.
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Ephesians 4:30 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." If you look at the context of that passage, He's telling you to stop sinning.
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Replace sin with acts of righteousness.
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Instead of stealing, you should give.
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Instead of lying, tell the truth.
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The context of this passage is stop sinning, stop sinning, stop-- why?
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Because your disobedience grieves the Holy Spirit.
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Your walk with Jesus Christ is about a love relationship.
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It's not about keeping the rules, keeping the check marks, earning your way.
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It's a love relationship.
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But understand, when you choose to disobey the loving instruction of the Lord, you're grieving the very One who died for you, and wants what is best for you, which is walking in the Spirit and according to the Word of God.
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Jesus put it this way in John 14, 15.
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Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." And I promise you, if I stood at the back door, and you left the church single file, and I stopped you, and I said, "Before you leave, you've just got to answer one question.
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Do you love Jesus Christ?" I imagine 100% of the people in here would say, "Yeah, I love Jesus Christ." And that is certainly the right answer. That's the Sunday School answer.
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But understand, there's an objective test here.
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It's an objective test.
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If you keep His commandments, that's evidence that you love Him.
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And the inverse is true too.
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If you don't really love Jesus Christ, you're not going to keep His commandments.
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Or we could say, if you choose not to keep His commandments, if you choose disobedience, what you're proving is what?
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"I don't really love Jesus Christ." That's an objective test, people.
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Understand, choosing disobedience is choosing to grieve the heart of God.
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Number three, another big problem with disobedience, is it is a gateway to more sin.
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Disobedience is a gateway to more sin.
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Pick up at verse 12 again, down through verse 21.
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"Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning." Okay, this is after Samuel was agonizing all night, angry, praying all night, crying out to the Lord.
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Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning.
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And it was told Samuel, "Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal." He said, "What?" Verse 13, "And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, 'Blessed be you to the Lord!
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I have performed the commandment of the Lord!' And Samuel said, 'What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear." Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, where the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God.
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And the rest we've devoted to destruction." And Samuel said to Saul, "Stop.
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I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night." And he said to him, "Speak." Samuel said, "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?
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The Lord anointed you king over Israel.
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And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, 'Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?
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Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?
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And Saul said to Samuel, "I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
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I've gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me.
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I brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I've devoted the Amalekites to destruction.
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But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal." There's a lot going on here, but what I want you to see here is choosing to disobey in an area of your life.
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The big problem with disobedience is disobedience is a gateway to more sin.
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It's a gateway to more sin. When you choose to disobey, you will selfishly make compromises in other ways too, because...
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why not?
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We've already committed ourselves to doing what we want to do, so let's just Just ride that train, right? Just ride that train.
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It just becomes easier to sin when sin becomes acceptable in your mind.
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It's just easier to do it.
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Jot these things down.
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The disobedience gateway leads me to - these are all from the text here, and they're going to show up in your life, by the way.
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The disobedience gateway leads me to, first of all, exalt myself.
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It said, verse 12, "Saul went and built a monument to himself." On the scale of one to 10, how obnoxious is that?
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11, right, Mike?
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11.
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He built a monument to himself?
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A gag was not just the name of the king, a gag was what I had when I read that.
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Like, seriously?
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He built a monument to himself.
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We have a tendency, when we choose to disobey, we start to exalt ourselves.
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Why is that?
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Because we're like dogs, that's why.
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We're like dogs.
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What do you mean we're like dogs?
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Funny thing about dogs, if you have a dog, you know this is true, but if your dog doesn't recognize you as the pack leader, who does the dog think is the pack leader?
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Himself, right?
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If He doesn't recognize you as the pack leader, He starts to think I'm the pack leader.
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And you know what, we're like that.
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If we don't recognize God as being God, we start to think, who's God?
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We start to think, I'm calling the shots.
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I'm in charge.
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My word is rule.
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We're dogs.
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We're dogs, you're loved.
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It's true, you have a tendency to exalt yourself.
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Secondly, the disobedience gateway leads me to deceive myself.
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Do you see that twice?
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Verse 13 and verse 19.
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When Samuel comes to Saul, Saul's like, "I have performed! I have obeyed!" That is killer, man. You're just lying to yourself.
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You are lying to yourself! Do you see that?
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"Hey, Saul, what's going on?" "Just obeying the Lord!" Samuel's like, "Really? Why do I hear sheep?" where's the sound of the cattle coming from?
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Because, you know, it's funny, that sheep sounds like it's saying, "You didn't obey the Lord!" But he was deceiving himself, thinking he was deceiving other people.
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I've obeyed the Lord.
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The disobedience gateway leads me to letter C, shift blame away from myself.
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You surely saw that, right?
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Verse 15, verse 21, again, down in verse 24, it comes up again, we didn't get there, but you can read that on your own.
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Notice that when Saul was called to the carpet, Sam was like, "Why do I hear sheep?" And he's like, "Oh, you know what?
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It was the people.
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It was the people.
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They wanted." Sam, you know how people are, right?
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And they wanted.
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They, they, the people, but the people wanted.
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And hold on a second here, Saul.
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Verse 9 says, "You were there." It wasn't like this happened and Saul found out about it after the fact.
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He was there.
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And by the way, there's another big problem with this scenario, Saul.
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You're the stinking king of Israel!
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You're in charge!
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So why are you saying it's the people's fault?
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You know why he did that?
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It's because that's also part of the whole human nature thing, right?
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As soon as we get caught with sin, we immediately look for someone to blame.
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We immediately look for someone to blame.
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Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, right?
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God's like, "Adam, what have you done?" And Adam's like, "Oh yeah, God, the woman you gave me, she gave me." Dan talked about that in a sermon earlier this year. Adam blamed everybody he knew.
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"Oh, it's the woman's fault, God, it's your fault, you brought her here, things were fine until you showed up and just saying, you know?" We have a tendency to do that, don't we?
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We've all done it.
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Guys, have you ever done this?
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You lose your temper, you just completely lose your temper, and you're screaming, and you put a hole in something, or you throw something just in this fit of anger, and somebody's like, "Dude, calm down." And what do we say?
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"She makes me so mad, she just makes me so mad." What are we doing?
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It's not my fault that I acted like an idiot.
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I'm blaming the person that made me angry. No, no, no.
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We shift blame away from ourselves.
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That also ties back into the self-deception thing, right? If I can shift blame away from myself, it's not my problem, not my fault.
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That was certainly solved.
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Then letter D.
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Disobedience gateway leads me to justify myself.
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Justify myself verse 15 verse 21. Did you see that? He's like Sam was like, what have you done? And he's like, oh, you know the people took it because we wanted to sacrifice First of all, that wasn't true. Okay, that wasn't true So he was trying to justify himself like look. Okay. Look I didn't exactly do what God said. Okay, maybe that's true, but We did it for the right reason "Huh? Huh? Huh?" Expecting Samuel was going to be like, "Oh, it was for sacrifice.
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I didn't know that. Sorry to bother you, Your Highness." That wasn't the case.
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And Samuel knew that because verse 19, you've got to circle this in your Bible, Samuel says, "Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?
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Why did you pounce on the spoil?" The Hebrew word "pounce on" could also be translated "swoop on" and it's an interesting picture.
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And if you were at the Wexford block party, you would have seen this word picture played out.
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Like if you're at the block party, did you see that candy cannon thing they had?
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There was like 70 pounds of candy.
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[BOOM]
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Like, did you see? How many people saw the candy cannon?
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Okay, amazing.
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All right, now how many people saw the children running to get the candy after the candy cannon went off?
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Did you see the kids?
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It wasn't like the candy can went off and they were waiting for instruction from mom, and mom was like, "Okay, let me get my starboard." It was when the candy hit the ground, the kids swooped in like a pack of hyenas on a carcass, grabbing... My kids were there too, I'm not criticizing, my kids were doing it too.
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Alright, I was doing it too.
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They were swooping, grabbing as much candy as they could.
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That's the Hebrew picture here for this word.
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Why did you pounce on it?
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It wasn't like, "We are going to take these animals as a sacrifice to the Lord." When the Amalekites were defeated, it's like, "Let's get as much stuff as we can." Like a greedy frenzy.
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Even if it was true that they intended to sacrifice - it wasn't true - but even if it was true that they were going to sacrifice these animals, it's still not acceptable.
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Because God was quite clear in the command, wasn't He?
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One choice to disobey seldom leads to just one act of disobedience.
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Disobedience is a gateway to more sin.
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Finally, this isn't last and least, this is one of these last and most important, okay?
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Here's the biggest problem with disobedience.
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It's the same as idolatry to God.
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It's the same as idolatry to God.
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Look at verse 22.
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Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
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Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." See that? Obedience is better than a worship ceremony, than a worship service.
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Church, better than coming to church, better than taking communion, better than being baptized, better than volunteering in an outreach event, better than going on a mission trip, is the act of simple obedience to the Word of God.
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That's better than all of those things in the eyes of God.
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Look at verse 23.
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This will be our last verse for today.
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He says, "For rebellion is as the sin of divination." Like, what's divination?
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Divination is seeking direction in life, ignoring the will and wisdom of God.
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Divination is like witchcraft, like consulting a medium, or a tarot card reader, or all these ways through the occult, you seek direction in life.
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You don't care about God's will, you don't care about God's wisdom, we're going through occultic means for the will of God.
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I wish there was a way I could communicate the weight of such a statement as this.
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It would almost be like if you came to church today, and I got up to speak, and I didn't even bring my Bible.
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I didn't bring my Bible at all.
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I said, you know what church, since God has put me in a position to shepherd this church, I want to make the best decisions for this church.
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So I hired the psychic that has the place up on Route 19 here.
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I hired that psychic.
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and she's here, and she's going to give us wisdom for our church and the direction we should go.
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How would you feel about that?
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Rich says you're fired.
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But I did it for good reasons, Rich.
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I want direction for our church.
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I saw some people literally cringing as I was giving that scenario.
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Or how about this one?
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What if I didn't bring my Bible to church, I said, "I just set up a table and I brought in a Ouija board." And I said, "We're going to light some candles, and we're going to get a few people up here, and we're going to seek the spirits for direction for this church, what we should be doing as a church.
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How would you feel about that?" Okay, show of hands, who here does not have the authority to fire me?
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Is there anybody that does not have the authority?
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Just one, okay.
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Apparently I didn't see that in the job description.
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You need to preach every week and provide vision and direction for our ministry leaders, and literally anybody can fire you.
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But you see the point here, right?
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You see the point.
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Just as disgusted as you would be, and you should be, if we were seeking direction through witchcraft, The Lord says disobedience is the exact same thing in his eyes.
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How is that the same thing?
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Because with disobedience, you see, God is saying one thing, but I've decided instead of consulting this, what I'm going to do is consult another source for direction, and that other source is what?
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It's me. I'm the other source.
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and I've decided that I'm going to go with this source, my wisdom, my will over God." That's why he goes on to say, "And presumption is as iniquity and idolatry." Okay, so it's even worse than that.
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He says that disobedience is idolatry.
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What's idolatry?
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That's the mother of all sins.
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We have two choices in front of us, who we're going to obey, who we're going to follow, who we're going to trust.
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In this corner we have Almighty, Sovereign, Wise God, and in this corner we have me, and I choose me.
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That's idolatry.
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It sort of puts disobedience into perspective, doesn't it?
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That disobedience is not, "Whoops!" Or, "Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes." "Oh, you know, Pastor Jeff, nobody's perfect." God says, "No, no, no, it's idolatry." When you know the Word of God and you choose to do your own thing anyways, God says it's like you're bowing down to another God.
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And there's consequences for Saul, right?
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Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.
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God took the crown that God gave Saul, because Saul just wouldn't heed the Word of God.
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And your disobedience is always going to bring consequences down on your own head.
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So church, I can sell you on all the reasons to obey God.
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And there are so many reasons to obey God.
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His Word is for our own good and for His glory.
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Obedience to God actually blesses other people.
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Obedience to God is our way of expressing love to Jesus Christ.
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We can look at Saul and see more motivation to obey, because, here it is, because of the alternative.
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Disobedience is unacceptable.
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Disobedience grieves God.
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Disobedience brings more sin, more problems.
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Disobedience is the same as idolatry.
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That's even more motivation to obey.
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Some would say, "Well, Saul's replacement, David, he sinned too." bad. Yes, he did. Yet he was still called a man after God's own heart. So what's the difference?
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The difference is your attitude towards your sin. That makes the difference.
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The difference is what you do with it. God obviously knows that none of us can obey perfectly.
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What He is looking at is the attitude of your heart when it comes to obedience.
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I'd like you to bow your heads with me, please, as the worship team makes their way up.
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Bow your heads.
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I'd like you to examine your life right now.
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Examine your life right now, and ask, "Are there any areas of disobedience in your life?" Are there any areas of your life that you're saying right now, "It is so clear what God wants me to do, and I am doing the opposite"?
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Do you have any areas of your life like, "I know this is wrong, I know this activity I'm involved in is wrong, this relationship I'm involved in is wrong, I know that this lifestyle I'm living right now is wrong. I know it's wrong according to God's Word.
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The question is what are you going to do with that today?
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Are you going to be like Saul and just make an excuse for it?
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Are you going to try to justify it?
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Or is today the day that you're saying, "You know what? Yeah, that is wrong.
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God says that's idolatry.
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So I'm done with it.
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God says I need to take idols and smash them to the ground.
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And obliterate them.
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That's what I do with idols.
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And that's what I'm doing with this sin today.
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Father in heaven, as we bow ourselves before you, I ask that your Holy Spirit loudly and clearly communicate to our hearts of disobedience that we've allowed to creep in, that we've presumptuously permitted into our lives.
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Whatever the case, Father, I ask today, if there's somebody here who doesn't know You, I ask that You would change their heart.
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Only You have the power to do that.
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Father, if there's somebody here who does know You, but has been living in disobedience to You, I ask, Father, that you would radically amplify that desire, that appetite for righteousness that you've put in us by the power of your Holy Spirit.
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Sometimes, Father, to our shame, even as Christ followers, we start to go back to old habits and old thought patterns and old sins and start to make excuses for old appetites.
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I pray, Father, that you would increase our appetite for the things of God.
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Father, let us be disgusted and sickened by our sin.
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Let us savor the goodness that comes from your glory and grace.
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Father, increase our faith.
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Let us be motivated by a love for Jesus Christ.
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Let us be motivated by a trust that Your ways are for our good.
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Let Your name be mightily glorified through decisions that are being made here today.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
WHOLE GROUP
Read 1 Samuel 15:1-23
What place does obedience have in the life of a Christian, since a Christian is not saved by obedience (or "stays saved" by obedience)? How would you respond to someone who says, "Christians aren't called to obey, we are saved by grace!"?
Why is disobedience like divination (1 Sam 15:23)? Like idolatry? Does this change the way you view your own sin?
Why do you think disobedience grieves God? See Ephesians 4:30.
Share a time you did something wrong and blamed someone else? Why is that such a "natural" inclination?
BREAKOUT
Do you have any area of disobedience in your life right now? How does Saul's story motivate you to change? How will you go after turning your disobedience into obedience?
Pray for one another.
