Looking for the wrong kind of salvation

this morning's scripture reading is going to be coming from 1st Samuel chapter 28. 1st Samuel chapter 28 and I'm going to be reading from verses 2 to 20 this morning. Uh verses 3 to 20, excuse me. Uh now Samuel had died and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Rama, his own city. And Saul had put out the mediums and the necromancers out of the land. The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunam. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, and the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or Uram or by the prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, "Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her." And his servants said to him, "Behold, there is a medium at Endor." So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments, and went he and two men with him. And they came to to the woman by night. And he said, "Divine for me a spirit, and bring up for me whoever I shall ask shall name to you." And the woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done. Now he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death? But Saul swore to her, "By the Lord, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing." Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" And he said, "Bring up Samuel for me." And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul." The king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What do you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I see a god coming out of the earth." And he said to her, "What is his appearance?" And she said, "An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe." And Saul knew that it was Samuel. And he bowed his face to the ground, and he paid homage. And then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" And Saul answered,"I am in great distress, for the Philistines are waring against me, and God has turned away from me, and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams, and therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do." And Samuel said, "Then why do you ask me since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me. For the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David. Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalecch. Therefore, the Lord has done this thing to you this day. Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell at once full length on the ground filled with fear because of the words of Samuel and there was no strength in him for he had eaten nothing all day and all night. This is God's word. Just as we've been walking through Samuel, we took a break for Christmas. And so I kind of want to sort of reorient us once again. We reoriented last week as we looked at the life of David. But let's just remember a few things about Saul. Saul was from the tribe of Benjamite. He's just minding his business. Smallest tribe in all of Israel. And God comes along through the voice of Samuel one day because the people wanted a king. And so Samuel comes through the voice of the Lord and says, "Samuel, God has chosen you to be king." And Saul looks the part. Saul has everything like he has the height. He's got the looks, you know, he looks kingly. He's taller than everybody else. This is outwardly the kind of king that Israel could accept. It's the kind of king that really that Israel probably wanted. One that they could sort of showcase, you know, around to the other nations and say, "Look at our king. Look how tall he is. Look how good-looking he is." When other nations might visit or things like that, and when he led them out into battle, he looked like a champion in so many ways. But we begin to see that even though God called Saul to this role, there are cracks that are beginning to appear in Saul's foundation, in Saul's life. And we're beginning to see that he has this outward appearance of all that is qualified and needed for a king, for God's king. But internally, intrinsically in what he is and the way that he behaves and carries out his life, there are things that are missing. And we see this play out over the course of of Saul's life. There's most moments Saul forgets that God has given him the kingship, that he's called him, that he's graced this on his life, and that he will establish it and continue it. He's given him the prophet Samuel to make clear the word of the Lord to him. And yet so often we begin to see that Saul will look to his own hands and he wants to kind of establish his own kingship and he kind of wants to live his own way and make his own decisions and and every now and then call upon the Lord when he needs him. And at times he will start to obey God, but then when things look kind of shaky and he's not sure about what to do, he'll he'll abort and he'll actually turn back and usually trust his own instincts and his own plan. And this comes to a final day where Saul thinks, I've checked it. I've done what I need to do. I've obeyed the Lord. We've offered the sacrifices. All this stuff. And he doesn't realize that he's he's disobeyed the Lord. He's disobeyed the word of the Lord. And he rationalizes it. Well, you know, we we had to do that or I had to listen to the voice of the people because he's still thinking about how can I preserve my kingship? How can I keep all the people around me happy so that I can continue to be king? And he doesn't even look or remember that it's God who established his kingship. And so, the Lord rejects Saul from being king. And this dramatic sort of scene that happens uh in 1st Samuel 15 and he begins to raise up David. And David is so successful. He wins the hearts of the people, but he also earns the envy of Saul. And Saul begins to be suspicious of David. And then the the we've been walking throughout David was on the run and Saul constantly chasing David and sometimes even looking like a fool in the ways that it was clear that he was unjust towards David. And he would he would sort of do this false repentance and then eventually he would kind of start pursuing David again. And in the meantime, he's made a whole bunch of bad decisions in his life. He got mad at the priest and he he suspected that they were on David's side. So, he just wiped out this whole side of the priesthood, this whole family line. Um, you know, he has he has uh begun to sort of reign his kingdom the way that he wants to. Doesn't inquire the Lord, doesn't seek the Lord. Uh he's kind of gone his own way. Saul's doing his own thing in his life. And we come here to this passage in this text today and we find that Saul life has been going along okay. David's left. He's in the land of the Philistines. My kingdom is established. Things are feeling pretty good. And then the Philistines show up at their border and a and an army comes. And Saul, like he always does, looks at his hands and he sees that he's incapable. He begins to feel his vulnerability. The text doesn't even tell us if it was a large army or a small army. We could imply certain things by it. But no matter what, Saul looks outside of himself and says, "I can't. I don't think I can do it. I don't think I have what I take." And his paranoia or uneasiness in his own life, begins to make him feel vulnerability. And so, he looks around for what to do. And what he would always do is go to Samuel. But we know from the beginning of the text, Samuel is dead. And it just kind of gives us also a clue about what's coming and reminds us that he's also put out all the necromancers and the mediums and the witches and so forth out of the land. And and he begins to inquire. There's obviously another line of priests and household that were still there. And he begins to try to inquire through that and through the urum and he may I'll go to sleep tonight. Maybe God will speak to me through dreams. And God is silent and Saul is alone. And Saul is afraid in his life. And so he begins, but he needs to know what to do. And why does he need to know what to do? Because that's how it works with God. For Saul, he needs to appease God to do, you know, to check that religious box. I offered the sacrifice or I did this command of the Lord, whatever he was calling me to do, and it made God happy. And now that he's happy, he'll bless me and give me the salvation. And I'm positioned now to win this battle. And God won't speak to him because he's treated God like a good luck charm, like a trinket, like this thing that he can sort of like a tool that he pulls off the shelf and can use when he needs to accomplish his purposes and his plans. And that's the way that he often looks at God and has looked at the go at God over the course of [snorts] this book. And yet God won't speak to him. And so Saul's even more desperate. And in this, he actually begins to to carve out this plan. Well, I will seek somebody else. And so he goes and tries to find a medium. All the mediums, as the text said, had been put out of the land. The uh and and yet there was this woman that still had this practice in her life that I guess through the grapevine people knew about. And uh and you know, it's important to note Saul is a pretty moral guy in many ways. I mean, he did good. This is following that Deuteronomy like that. He put these this witchcraft and all of this this paganess out of the land. He's trying to kind of establish a good moral nation in many ways. But in in when when push comes to shove and when Saul is desperate, he needs some sort of red phone to God. He needs some sort of lifeline to call up God so he knows what to do. And so he goes to the medium and what's he do? He says, "Bring up for me Samuel. I mean, maybe Samuel can tell me what to do. He used to tell me what to do." You know, and that's exactly what he does in the text here when when he calls up Samuel. even in the text, you know, because Samuel's like, "Why did you call me up?" And he says, "Well, I need for you to tell me what to do, what I should do." And so that's that's ultimately, you know, what he's looking to do is I need to figure out how to appease God, how to make him happy. So, how is Saul seeking salvation? How is he seeking salvation? He's seeking it ultimately by trying to check a religious box to appease God in his life. so that once he figures out what to do and how to do that that God will give him the victory that he needs. And yet Samuel reminds him, God has rejected you because you can't treat God that way and the game is up. You've done this over and over and over in the course of your life. And God is trying to send a message to you that he will not be pandered to that way. He will not be seen that way. He will not be understood that way. And the game is up for you, Saul. God told you a long time ago. He warned you time and time again. And now the Lord will not speak to you. And all of this delayed judgment is now going to come to fruition. You're going to die and your sons are going to die. And all of Israel is going to experience this crushing defeat. And Saul is crushed because the salvation that he sought in this is not available because he wanted to seek it by his own means. Because Saul ultimately wants to check that box, use God the way he wants. But watch this. So that he can live his life the way he wants to. God doesn't intervene and start to speak into the rest of my life. He's just there when I need him. So we've we're looking at how Saul is seeking salvation. And then we're going to look in just a second here at why does he seek salvation this way? And then we're going to look at why this won't work. So, we just looked at how Saul is seeking that salvation. But why does Saul seek salvation that way? What is he doing? Well, Saul ultimately sees salvation as transactional. He sees it as an exchange. I did this and therefore you owe me something in return. Salvation, God, because I made that sacrifice or I obeyed this word over here. I got it. I got in position for it and now I need you to give me those things. But ultimately Saul sees it as transactional because he still wants to live and establish his kingship his way. I mean we can do this right. We want to we want to check the religious boxes in our life. We want to sort of sing the songs and live a good life and do things and and practice a form of religion. practice a form of being moral and being good and being nice and clean and tidy people in our life and yet maybe not give over all the pieces of our life and our heart to God so that we can still live comfortably the way that we want to live but then we get from God what we need from God. And so that's that's often times the way that we can turn um Christianity into religion and into this legalistic sort of view of God and the way that the Christian faith operates. But that's not how God will be treated in this. We see Samuel and we see Saul do this. One of the the places he does this is in 1st Samuel uh chapter 13. uh there's this uh battle that is forming and we actually see where he's supposed to wait seven days for Samuel to come and to offer the sacrifice and the idea is that when he offers the sacrifice you know that he'll you know the salvation comes or he'll get another word Samuel will get another word from the Lord and say okay now do this muster your troops this way and he'll figure out how to work through this process that's the way that Saul views it but Samuel doesn't show up and Saul starts to get kind of uneasy crazy about it. He starts to look back at his own hands. How can I establish his kingship? Well, I still need that that tool. I still need that God to help and bless me and to give me the salvation I seek. And he offers it. But look at what he says to Samuel. So, he offers the sacrifice and Samuel looks at him. He says, "What have you done? What have you done? Why did you offer it? I told you to wait. This is the word of the Lord. Wait. Wait on me. Wait for me to come." And this is his his excuse to Samuel. says, "I said now, the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord, so I forced myself and offered the burnt offering." And Samuel said to Saul, "You have done foolishly, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart." See, Saul's heart isn't for God. You know, Saul would call himself religious. Saul would say, "I believe in God." He would think of himself as a as a as a follower of God in that category in that camp. He's not a a pagan king. He's not against God. He's not wicked or evil. He does all the things. But note what he says right there. I have not sought the favor of the Lord. I can't go into battle without seeking the favor of the Lord. And you're not here to do it. And I need God to come into this thing. I need to get I need to position myself and bow a certain way and offer a sacrifice a certain way so that I get that favor so that then he will bless me and then I'll be successful. And then once that's done, I can continue to go about my merry way. And God begins to spot and begins to call out in Saul's life, that's a wrong view of me. That's a wrong way to treat me. That's a wrong Your heart isn't for me, Saul. Your heart is for you. You want to be your own king. You don't want me to be king who ultimately establishes you as a prince over the people. You want to be your own kind of king and do your own thing. And Saul never wants to to bow that or reconcile that. He wants to live the way he wants to live and maintain his own kingship and only call on God when he needs him. And that's why he follows the law. He follows the law and he tries to live a moral good life so that he can get something from God. Um, as I was prepping for this sermon, one thing that that came sort of to me mentally was something that Luther, Martin Luther said. Martin Luther was a reformer um 500 years ago. And he uh wrote a commentary on the book of Romans. And one of the things that he said in the preface to his commentary is he talks about the law and about the relationship with the law. He said you follow the law not because you love God and you want to honor him and live and say what are the what's the instruction guide for how I please you are you what are you like what makes you happy what and to figure out that the heart of that the spirit of that and Luther says we don't we don't do that before Christ you know what we do you know why we keep the law either fear of punishment or desire for gain I keep the law so that at the end of the day I don't go to hell God's not going to punish me. Or I did what I was supposed to do. I followed the rules. I was a good person. I obeyed the rules. Give me the reward. Give me heaven. Give me this thing because I did what I was supposed to do. Do you see the works based righteousness that's built into it? Do you see the transactional nature and the relationship of it? That is how Saul understands the law. This is how under he understands what it means to live as a godly person in the Old Testament. But did you know that even the Old Testament doesn't have this understanding? If you look at the book of Deuteronomy, which is the king's book, in fact, the king would have every king of Israel was supposed to transcribe the law. And most theologians believe it was the book of Deuteronomy that the king would sit down and actually write out so that he would learn the law as he wrote the book. And that in the book of Deuteronomy, several we find several things that begin to help us understand the nature of God. And one of them is the fact that God repeatedly says in there, I did not choose you because you were great or because you were more righteous than the nations around you. You weren't. Not because of your your size or your grand none of that. I chose you because I loved you. I chose you because I chose you because that's what I do. And I chose you to keep my promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob because I'm a God of covenant. That's why I chose you. It was not based upon your works or anything that you did. And what God asks for the people, what does he ask for them in Deuteronomy 6? He says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your mind, your soul, your strength." Love from that. Understand the grace and the work. I already called you. I already did the work. I already loved you regardless of your you didn't earn it. You didn't even deserve it. And that realization flips everything on its head. It's it's ultimately the gospel in the Old Testament. God saved us. He drew us out of slavery, out of bondage, out of Egypt, out of our own sin. And he called us and he said, "You're my son, O Israel. You are my people. And I'm going to bless you and I'm going to prosper you. I'm calling you into life with me." And everything from that becomes response. Even the Christian life is a response to the work that Christ has done for us. But Saul has it all backwards. He still is looking at the transactional nature of it. He's still looking and saying, "What do I need to do so that I can earn this and forgets the fact that God called him and he didn't deserve it. He hadn't earned it. It wasn't cuz you were tall, Saul. God chose you because he chose you. Can you trust and look to him? Not so that he gives you something, but because you already have it. You already have it. And if you would just live before him and love him and walk that out and let him into your life and your kingship, it would change everything, Saul. And you know what? You'd learn to trust me because I've already did the work long before you ever were looking to me. I was looking at you and I was calling you to myself. And it changes everything about that. But Saul is lost in this. And I want you to understand to I want to be gracious to Saul. My my my my goal here today is not to kick Saul. Saul is doing nothing different than what the culture and the lands and the peoples of his time period did. This is how it worked in the ancient near east. You had a god and that god uh revealed himself in small ways and that god would bless you. you would look to that God to uh to you would you would offer your sacrifices and you'd go through these ceremonial practices to to to this God in in allegiance and devotion to him. And if you did those things, if you followed those rules, then that God would bless you. He'd protect your borders. He'd protect you from your enemies. He'd he'd uh he'd he'd cause the rains to come so your crops would all sprout and grow and get big. He would uh he would cause you to be abundant in a fertility sense like you would have lots of children because that was really important as you can imagine in an agricultural world or in a shephering world having lots of laborers in your family is super helpful and and and you would gather more sheep and more crops and everything would abound and that God would ensure that I did something and therefore he blesses me out of that And Saul looks and understands God through that kind of lens. And we I think in some ways we should have a little bit of a of a gentle sympathy for Saul in understanding he's fallen to a trap of his day and his age of understanding and knowing God through the lens of his culture and of the nations and the lands around him. And we in so many ways can do that same exact thing. We can look through our cultural lens and our understanding of who God is and we actually wind up creating an idol, a lesser God. Not the God of holiness, not the God of grace, not the God who established and sought us out first. And we can have this sort of lesser view. We begin to view God like Saul did as like the other gods of the nations around him. and to see through that sort of lens and we can become so guilty in our own lives slowly of falling into that religious checkbox. We can try to be moral people. Saul put the necromancers and the mediums out of the land. He tried to be a good person. Saul's a moral person. you know, in many ways he's he's he's a you know, there's a there's an academic term that sociologists label called um moral therapeutic deism. Don't worry about it's a big word. But like and it's in a sense that where Saul is moral and his belief is that God will kind of give him these goods if he obeys. When he needs him, he can look to God, but he's a deist because God's only there when he needs him. Otherwise, God leaves him alone and lets him live his life the way he wants. And this has constantly been what Saul plays out. And that's the way it worked in the culture and the lands around him. And so you and I can fall into that same trap in our lives. That's why sociologists have labeled it because they see that trend over and over in the lives of people. I followed the rules. I read my Bible. I went to church. Followed the rules that God said. And we wouldn't say this outright, but somewhere slowly in our heart, it doesn't become this relationship and this response to God that's filled with life and with joy. It's one of where I did I understood that I need to do these sorts of things because that's what God expects of me. And we wouldn't outright say, I need the reward. Give me, give me, give me. But we would expect it. And we would expect it not because of God's grace alone, but maybe because we are a good person, maybe because we've done what we need to do. And that way can make us begin to view God in a deistic way. A way where like I come to God for my spiritual goods and he supplies those things from me, but I still kind of live my life the way I want. And it's not sinful. I'm not in some sort of great huge sin in my life, but I live the way that I look around the culture around me and say, how what does it mean to live good? How can I be comfortable? What value system should I have? And slowly what begins to happen in our lives is that we close off so many areas and corners and crevices of our life to God and we don't actually allow him to speak into those and to reshape those in our lives. And what I mean by that is is that sometimes we can go to church, read our Bibles, check the spiritual box, and think that's all there is. That's all the growth that I need in Jesus. And then it just stops there. God is infinitely deep and he's infinitely rich in what we can know and understand about him. And there is always more that we can press in, experience the awe and the intimacy and the grandeur of who God is. And it will transform everything about our lives as we constantly recalibrate and understand the gospel. I didn't deserve it and I didn't earn it. And we come to God and say this this sense of awe, this sense of gratitude, this sense of joy, this sense of wonder, and we return to our first love because you can so easily lose it in your life. And when that becomes rebirth, think about how you just if you can just remember coming to faith. I'll do anything. And it's not because you want to earn it. You just want to worship. It's worship. You know, I I'll reorient my calendar. I'll reorient my priorities. I'll reorient my finances. What can I do? What would you like of me? Not what can I do so that I appease you. That's what Saul wants. What can I do in worship to you? What can I do in gratitude to you? And this is what Saul never gets. This is what Saul never occurs to him in his life is that God works that way. I want all of you, Saul. That's what I want. It's not about appeasing me. I want you to come to me. And yet Saul never seems to understand that. And so, why won't it work? Why won't this transactional way work for Saul? Why won't it work for any of us? Why does God want more of this? And it won't work because God doesn't work that way. God doesn't just want us to fill the check boxes. He wants our heart. He wants our life. He wants Saul's life. He doesn't want Saul to rule and reign apart from him. See all the mess it's gotten Saul into. Yeah, you did some good things, Saul, but you also were a train wreck. You lived in jealousy. You lived in pride. You built monuments to yourself. You began to think, I did this and so I need to be through my own hands establish and continue this. And we can do it in our own lives. We can feel like my success came by me. I did it. You know, my the money I have came by me. The kind of life I live came by me. And we have no understanding that it's always by the grace of God. I've said this before. If you were born on a mountain in Tibet in the 13th century, you would be born poor. You would die poor. There would be no changing. There is no American dream. It's the grace of God that put you where you are. It's the grace of God that gave you the mental aptitude and the relationships and the moments and the the opening and the opportunities and all of these things that worked out in your life. Saul doesn't understand that. And so, he keeps trying to come to God, get what he needs from God, but not giving his whole heart, his whole kingship, his whole life to God. just living that moralistic therapeutic deism in his life, seeing God as dispensing these spiritual goods. And one of the places that that we see this play out is in first uh Samuel 15. Did I put that in the slides? First Okay, so 1st Samuel 15, there's this dramatic moment that happens in the text where Saul has disobeyed the word of the Lord once again. He's a he's he's uh he's off he's kept some of the the the the animals because the people wanted them because as I' taught this text I said it's basically a steak dinner. You offer your portion to the God and then you get the rest of the meat for yourself. And so it's like the the men want this. Let us have the spoils. God said take all that and wipe it out. This is this is I'm going to purge the land of the Amalachites. Eat their people and their their crops and their their herds, everything. I want to obliterate and blot it out from history. And Saul says, 'Oh, the men the men wanted the animals to live and I kind of I needed to endure my kingship and and so I I I still we offered them to God. We offered the sacrifices to God. And Samuel looks at him and says, "The Lord doesn't take pleasure in sacrifices and burnt offerings. To obey is better than sacrifice." Not a kind of obedience that checks the box, but obedience that comes to God and just says, "I'm just going to honor and do what you've asked of me as a response to all of you. You made me king. I don't need to look to these people to to to establish and to maintain my kingship. I need to honor you and receive and continue and maintain that blessing in my life. Not as a trinket, not as a tool I pull off the shelf, but because you called me to this and I want to live the way that you called me to live. But Saul never understands that God ultimately just wants a kind of heartfelt obedience that is a response to what God has already done for him. He wants obedience over sacrifice. He wants his whole life over his obligatory checking of the religious boxes in his life. But Saul just wants to maintain his own autonomy and see God from afar is only existing for his salvation when he needs God and needs to wield him and use him for his purpose. And furthermore, Saul because this won't work because of this. Saul doesn't understand true repentance. You can have a sorrow, this is Corinthians, that's not godly sorrow. It's only godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Saul doesn't have a godly sorrow. He never seems to care that he's offended God. Even in 1st Samuel 15, he's more worried about looks, even after he's rebuked by Samuel. Offer the sacrifices with me, Samuel. Come with me to this great feast so that in the honor of the in the eyes of the people, I am honored. That's what he says. Even after he sinned, he wants to be honored by the eyes of people. Saul needs the affirmation and the love not of the God of heaven, but of people. He loves them more than he loves God. He fears them more than he fears God. And so Saul never understands true repentance in his life. And if you number one can't understand your own sin or you and God will not offer you that kind of salvation on your own terms. You begin to realize this huge gap that you'll never be able to cross. This huge void. My own sin, my own failure, my own inability, my own incapability. And God's salvation's over here. And I have no ability to get it. And if you don't understand repentance and grace, grace through that. If you don't understand that relationship and that bridge, what's it create? Dispondency, despair. And that's what Saul feels and senses in this text. He has no category for repentance. He can't see it that he should just come to God with everything and repent before the Lord, plead before him. Not that God would get him salvation all of a sudden. The judgment of God still may come. Just like in life, sometimes we still reap what we sow, but he would experience the grace of God in that moment. And that God would operate in some way to redeem that moment. That even if Saul dies, he would not lose everything because he would have gained something that day. And yet Saul doesn't understand that. So how's it how how should it work? Well, the gospel tells us first that we are incredibly incapable of saving ourselves. And we should never never forget that. And if you don't get that, you'll often you'll often live your life with autonomy. You'll often kind of do like Saul. I live how I want to live and I'll only call on God when I need something from him. And I'll look to him and live my life believing he'll bless me at the end. But it's based upon my works and keeping in line with him. But in Jesus Christ, we begin to see number one our deep flaws. We see his deep love which we do not deserve. And we begin to see a grace, a grace beyond our own deserving. And the gospel does not simply offer us better answers. It calls us to worship and to response and to love and to joy because of what God has done for us. Saul keeps looking for what to do instead of seeing a God who calls him to lay his life down and to worship him, to seek him, and to see his failures and to confess those and to be honest with God. And when we're honest with God, that's the gateway to to grace. You can't experience God's grace until you're just honest enough to say, "I messed up, God. I failed." But Saul always has an excuse. He's always pointing to the reasons that he's in the predicament and why he had to do what he had to do. And even in this moment when he's come to a medium, he's gone against his own character and his own law in the land so that he can get what he needs by any means necessary. Saul keeps looking for what to do and he's crushed by it. And if we do not experience true repentance in our own lives over and over and over, we begin to view God as that trinket. And we will not experience the power and the life change and the transformation and the worship and the joy and the overflow that he calls us to day after day and day in our lives. So what do we do with this? Um, what do we make of this? Well, we live in response to that grace over and over and we're always plumbing the depths of what that reality means, what that what that means for our lives. And I I don't have all the answers to tell you how it plays out in living color. We come to God and he begins to put things in our heart and our life if we just come to him. And as we practice that rhythm of repentance and the receiving of God's grace, our heart is constantly renewed in that. And we begin to find that he invites us into ways and says, "Take off your shoes because the ground's holy. Lay aside this. Give in this way. Open up your life or your calendar or your time or your priorities to the ways that the things that I think are important, the ways that my word points you to." And begin to just follow the spirit of God's leading in our lives. If you've never understood this this fact that God saves and God offers us salvation and it's through grace alone. If it's always been I need to appease and and I and I I know about the grace but I've really just lived in a way that I want to check the boxes so that God will save me. If you've never truly understood that that it was only by grace. It wasn't because you were good. It wasn't because you went to church. It wasn't because you were born in a Christian household or any of those things. None of that. It was just because God loved you. Like he said, "I chose you, oh Israel. I chose you." And when we begin to understand that it wasn't anything that we brought to the table, it changes everything. And we find that our life when we understand that we have nothing to bring, nothing to give. And everything about our life just becomes a response, a response to that that has already happened. And he offers out our hand through Christ. He offers out his hand to us and says, "Receive. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. He will give you life. He will give you the salvation. But it's not something you've earned. And this is different than every other religion on the planet. Every other religion on the planet says do therefore you will earn. But only God says you're already accepted. You're already loved. Now receive it and walk in it and obey. Obey because of the joy of all that I've done to you and live in that and it changes everything about the way that we live our lives. If you've been following Jesus for a long time, take care that you don't fall back into allowing the world or the culture or the land around you to define the normaly of what it means to live a normal life or to live the Christian life. There is more. There are greater depths and we constantly need to be renewed. Our lens needs to be re-calibrated so that we do not fall into the transactional nature. Paul said, "Run, run the race that's set before you." And so, we are called to run. And it is an act of endurance. And it is a time when sometimes we have to wake up again and see how the Lord is calling us to take up our cross and to follow him. But we can also see the ways that God has graced our lives already. And it challenges us to open up our lives to him yet again and allow him to direct to steer our lives. Saul Saul tried to be good and yet maintain his own life and his own kingship and only led him to moments when he realized that he couldn't be a king alone. And then he was vulnerable and in need of salvation outside of himself. And in the end, if Saul would just lay aside his kingship, would lay aside his autonomy, would lay aside all those things about the religion in his life, and he'd actually just repent and be honest with God and saying, "I have nothing to offer, nothing to give, and I'm in great need here," he'd actually find what it means to be the kind of man and the kind of king that God's called him to be. And you know, in this life, it's never too late. He may lose his kingship. He may die that day on the battlefield, but it could have been different. Could have been different. Instead, he grasps his kingship, trying to play religious games with God, holding on to both, and he's going to lose everything. And Jesus said, "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for me will find it." Let's pray.