Saul and Jonathan: decoration vs. devotion

So Lisa and I have um come to really appreciate a good coach story, a movie or a TV series. We just love a good We saw one recently called Stick. I don't know if any of you have seen this. It's pretty good. Um, it's a washedup uh PGA golfer who discovers a poor kid at a driving community driving range and decides that he's got some skills and coaches him up into the PGA and the whole thing. It was it's pretty good. Recommend it to you if you haven't seen it yet. But there's so many others all the way back to even stories like um Karate Kid. I I mean some of you probably that's way you know Mr. Miyagi coaches up Daniel to be this uh phenomenal um karate uh technician. Um remember the Titans was a true story about the integration of a high school in in Virginia where the coach was able to pull together not only the team but the town. Um there was the mir miracle which was about the 1980 miracle on ice hockey team. Um, Boys in the Boat was about the 1936 University of Washington crew team that went on to win the the Berlin Olympics. Coach Carter, Friday Night Lights, Hooers, there's so many of them, right? So many of them. But honestly, one of our favorites, maybe Ted Lasso. I don't know if uh you've had a chance to see Ted Lasso at all. We love Ted Lasso. Uh Ted Lasso is an American football coach that's hired to coach a professional British soccer team. He knows nothing of soccer at all. Um which was part of the design. I think the owner is actually um a woman who got the the the team in a divorce settlement has no interest in the team. It was her ex's baby. And so she's actually trying to sort of torpedo the whole team and hires this American football coach who comes and with just positivity and encouragement and humility ends up uniting this team and the whole everybody around them and they're all changed and everybody's better because Ted Lasso came to be the coach of this soccer team. A coach while never on the field has an enormous impact on the overall mindset and experience of the team. We had four have four sons. They're all grown. So we experienced coaches, innumerable coaches, and they were all the way from uh the demeaning screamer at one end, which was not a great experience for us uh to one who was so invested in one of our boys and his success as a man and a human being that helped us walk with him through some pretty difficult times. There's something almost pastoral, I think, about a good coach that uh is a leader who rallies a team around a larger common mission, identifying individual strengths and developing them and putting them to work. The ability to encourage and to put failure in perspective. It's very pastoral, isn't it? It's kind of why it reminded today's text reminds me of this We see two very different leaders today. The first of those is uh one we've been introduced to over the last several weeks, King Saul. King Saul was appointed in the wake of the Israelites demand of God that he would replace their current judge with the king so that they could be like the other nations and that this king would lead them to defeat their enemies. And God uh tells them at the time that this is a big deal um because he was to be their king and that they're actually asking for a man to take the place of what God was supposed to be for them. So Saul becomes this new king. He's wealthy and tall and handsome. But as we've seen so far, he's not a particularly good leader. He's indecisive, maybe even paranoid at times. He isn't a particularly strong follower of God and seems pretty selfserving. And we'll see a lot more of that today. And specifically his tendency to bring out the trappings of faith, what I call sort of a as a decoration uh as a way to validate himself to the people, not of any out of any real commitment to God himself. The person on the other side of this contrast is Jonathan. And Jonathan is actually the son of Saul. And we met him last week. He doesn't hold any particular formal position in the leadership of the of the people of God other than as son of the king. But unlike his father, he seems to have a vibrant walk with God. is fully aware of God's covenant promise to the people of God to defeat their enemies and give them possession of the land and his faith is one of true and authentic devotion. So there's the title of today's message, devotion versus decoration. And the contrast of these two men couldn't be any more stark. And it's presented in the context of another a story about another encounter with the enemy Philistines in chapter 14 of 1 Samuel. Both men are confronted with the exact same circumstances and yet both men respond very differently. Chapter 14's pretty long, so settle in. We're gonna Just kidding. Um Um So we won't be able to cover it all. We'll look at a few facets of this contrast and then try and bring it together at the end. Seeing the contrast um between these two men, I think, is probably the easiest part of looking at this text, answering the what does it say question. And I think this contrast is going to be relatively obvious. But then the next question, which is what does this mean to me, is maybe the harder question and the one we'll spend a little bit of time on the end. What is it that God wants us to hear out of this story? So, let me pray for us and we'll be looking at First Samuel chapter 14. Heavenly Father, we come today to gather around your word, your word that reveals you. Um, an almost incomprehensible idea that the very God of the universe would reveal himself to us and leave us his word that we might be able to see you daily. Uh my conviction is that no true encounter with you leaves us the same. And so it is my prayer that in this encounter today, we would be changed. That we would see you and leave here different than we came. And again, my conviction is is if that isn't happening, at least at some small level, there's virtually no point in being here. And so it is my prayer that you would reveal yourself today, that you would be made much of, and that we would leave as your people different than we came in Jesus name. Amen. So like I said, chapter 14, 54 verses. I'll restrain myself from reading you the whole thing. We're going to look uh at some select verses and we're going to start with verses 1 and two. But I want to give us a little bit of context from last week. The Israelites had come upon the Philistines, the their sort of nemesis, their enemies that they've uh will battle many times. Uh it said that the Israelites, last week we said that the Israelites were numbered of 3,000. Two of a thousand of those were being commanded by Saul and a thousand of them were being commanded by Jonathan. And it it said last week that the Philistines were numbered like the sand on the seashore. So here you are with your little 3,000 men and your enemy is arrayed before you as the sand on the seashore with and it said that they had chariots and horsemen. Saul and Jonathan were really the only Israelites that it appears had actual proper weapons and armor. Um, the rest of them, the other 2,998 were carrying what essentially amounted to garden tools. So there you are, 3,000 armed with garden tools against uh the enemy who was numbered as the sand on the seashore. And by the time we get to chapter 14, the number of Israelites had actually dwindled. Some uh some had actually, you know, said, "I'm out. This is scary. I'm going home." Some actually just said, "I'm going to go over to the Philistines because that appears to be the winning side. So, I'm going to go over to the Philistines side." So, here's Saul and his dwindling force. And he um feels like he needs to get sort of God on his side. So he calls for um the priest to come and um he gets impatient, gets out in front of the priest Samuel and sacrifices himself and in that his own kingdom, his kingship is cursed and will be shortlived. So there's the predecessor, there's the context to where we pick up today in verses 1 and two says this. One day, Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side." But he he did not tell his father. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Giba in the pomegranate cave at Migron. The people who were with him were about 600 men. So, here are the Israelites confronted by an overwhelming force. and Jonathan and Saul respond very differently. Again, I think the contrast is is that they're both confronted with the same set of circumstances and yet they both respond very differently to those circumstances. We're not provided a great deal of detail about what's sort of going on in their head or or any conversations that they had had with God. So, we do have to do a little bit of inferring here. But Saul is sitting in a cave and in that sitting he does not appear to be taking any particular action. We're not provided any expectation or explanation of what he's actually waiting for. From a human perspective, it may be understandable at some level that he was hesitant to move. He'd just come off of a a fairly stinging defeat and then a rebuke to his own leadership because he had failed to wait on Samuel. But my impression is is that in this waiting there's not a lot of dig diligent seeking. There's not a lot of prayer. There's not a lot of that. He he just is kind of uh indecisive and foundering. And his indecision, doubt, and lack of clear direction is left him passive and inactive. And then this is contrasted against Jonathan's response. He sees the same enemy, looks at the armor bearer and says, "Let's go." Again, not much behindthe-scenes narration. We see no specific direction from God or promise um behind this move, but at least a far more intimate understanding of the character of God on the promises of the to of God to the people. The people of God are confronted by an enemy and he cannot see a scenario in which sitting still is the right answer. And so Jonathan decides to take action and he sees it as the only appropriate response. We will see in the next section that his decision to move isn't prideful or or reckless, but bold and based on God's character, not his own. So, the second facet we'll pick up in verse six here in a second. But Jonathan and his armor bearer approached the Philistine outpost, which is in this narrow path between two rocky crags. Now I crag is not a word I use a great deal but I get the impression that it's these sort of walls and there's this Philistine garrison sort of in between them. These walls are named the one on the left on one side is is named Bozes which means slippery and the one on the other side is named Senna which means thorny. So, you get this picture, I think, that we've got this these two walls, this little area in between, and there's this Philistine garrison, and there's no place for them to go cuz it's slippery on one side and thorny on the other. And Jonathan verse six said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the garrison of the uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. So again, what I see with no specific promise uh from God is a young man compelled by faith and his own personal knowledge of God, God's promises, and God's power. Jonathan devises this plan where as they are become identified to the Philistines that the Philistines invite them up that they will go and attack and he tells his armor bearer one I'll go through first and you come after me and make sure they're all finished off. So this is the plan if they come if they call us up. Um and uh again my sense of it is that while there's a great deal of faith here, there's also this realization that if they have any chance against this garrison, the small group, that it's going to be right here where they have no place to go.  Um and they are in fact invited up to meet the Philistines. Um as the Philistines mock them and say, "Oh, look who's coming out of their cave." and he invites Jonathan and his armor bearer up. I think they fully think that this is going to be a good chance to um make fun and then kill Jonathan and his armor bearer. But in this confrontation, Jonathan and his armor bearer kill 20 Philistine guards, which in turn throws the entire uh Philistine army into confusion. And then to just add a bit of God authored um um drama to this whole scene, God sort of drops an earthquake in the middle of it just to sort of increase the chaos and the Philistine army begins to disperse. So Saul's back in his cave now watching all this chaos ensue and this Philistine army beginning to break up. And we pick up then in verse 17 and says this. Then Saul said to the people who were with him, "Count and see who was gone from us. And when they had counted, behold Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there." So Saul said to Aha, that he was the priest at the time, "Bring the ark of God here. For the ark of God went at that time with the people of Israel." Now while Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines increased more and more. So Saul said to the priest, "Withdraw your hand." Then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and went into battle. And behold, every Philistine sword was against his fellow and there was great confusion. So as this great confusion is happening amongst the Philistines, stall Saul asked for the ark, which is the mercy seat. It's the dwelling place of God. It was normally inside the tabernacle, but would go with them as they traveled. They brought it to the here to the battlefield. Um, and it's an interesting choice to me that he would trot out the ark again. Back in chapter 4, the Israelites were confronted with the Philistines. And having been defeated once, they decide that the problem is that they don't have God on their side. So they bring out the ark and say, "For sure, our lucky charm here, our magic, you know, lamp that we rub, God will do what we need him to do if we bring the ark into battle." Well, didn't work. And not only were they defeated soundly, but the Philistines carried off the ark. They get it back later, but they carried the ark off. And it seems like there's something similar going on here. Saul's kind of looking at this large force and he says, "Hey, bring out the ark again. You know, we need this God kind of thing to be added to our uh to our to our effort here." Um, seems like there's something similar here. Like I said, without his own conviction to move, let's get the ark. And as the priest is doing his thing, Saul's watching the Philistine confusion continue to grow. And I have this sense that he's watching this and he thinks, if I don't move, I'm going to lose my window to participate in this great defeat amongst the Philistines. So he actually turns to the to the uh the priest and says, "Hang on, never mind." Um what's it say here? It actually says, "Withdraw your hand." Means kind of stop what you're doing. Never mind. Um we're going to go. Um, but again it feels almost like the arc was there until the point in which he felt like he had enough confidence to go on his own. Um, I'm inferring again, but um it's like as soon as he kind of had the confidence, he said, "I don't need all this religious stuff anymore. we're going to we're going to go. And he is a leader that is led by circumstances, not by faith. And he brings God to bear almost as this last ditch effort. Certainly better than never seeking God or following God. But it doesn't seem as it comes from this a place of of of deep faith or conviction, but it is sort of spiritual window dressing, if you will. Well, I remember years ago being on a new car lot with my wife, deciding whether to pull the trigger on a new car I desperately wanted. And I looked at Lisa and I said, "Let's pray." And we did right there in the parking lot. You know, there's something about that that's okay. you trying to pray for direction and all that, but I can assure you that the days and weeks leading up to the trip to the car lot, there was no prayer and that by the time I got to this point, I'd already made a decision. I really just wanted God to validate the decision that I was had already made. That's kind of what I feel like is going on here with Saul and that maybe we should be pursuing a more lifestyle of faith rather than circumstances. And we'll talk more about that at the end. Picking up uh verse 23 um says this. So Saul saved Israel that Sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry. The Lord that's kind of important. Sorry. So the Lord saved Israel that day, and the battle passed be uh beyond Beth Aan, and the men of Israel had been hardpressed that day. So Saul laid an oath on the people, saying, "Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my enemies." So none of the people had tasted food. I'm struck by these two different characterizations. In verse 23 and 24, it says, "The Lord saved Israel that day." And then it said that the men of Israel were hardpressed that day. I'm not 100% sure how to put these things together, how to understand these. And I I suppose both could be true, right? Hard day, but we won. Okay, so maybe that's what's going on. But it feels almost to me like it's two different conclusions based on which lens you happen to be looking at the circumstances through. If I can speculate a bit more, again, you've lived with my speculations up to this point, so we'll just keep speculating that maybe Jonathan was the one that had the lens of the salvation of God and that Saul was the lens of we've been hardpressed today. Either way, Saul declares an oath, a fast that no one could eat anything. Again, an interesting response. They've been hardpressed fighting all day, and he says the appropriate response here is that none of us should eat. Why would he do this? Again, we can only speculate. Ancient soldiers, the the army did not provide food for the soldiers. The soldiers were responsible for finding their own food and it was normally in the spoils of your defeated enemies. So, is it possible that Saul was concerned that they would be running off after food and lose sight of the mission in front of them, which was to defeat the Philistines? Possible. If that was in fact the case, why the oath, right? Why this religious declaration of a fast? Why was that important? Why couldn't he just say, "Look, everyone, I know you're hungry. We've got a job to do. Can you hang on a little bit longer? We'll get some food when we're done." He could have done that, but he didn't. He declared this oath, this fast while his army is starving. It feels to me again like some some kind of religious trappings to try and earn the favor of God through self-denial. Picking up in verse 25, it says, "Now when all the people had come to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground. And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was dropping, but not one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath." But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath. So he put out the tip of a staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth and his eyes became bright. Then one of the people said, "Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, "Cursed be the man who eats the food this day." And the people were faint. Then Jonathan said, "My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted the a little of this honey. How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies that they had found. For now the defeat among the Philistines has not been great. So meanwhile again unaware of the oath, Jonathan tastes some honey that's literally dropping from the trees onto the ground. Kind of reminds me a little somehow of the original characterization of the of the promised land that it would be flowing with milk and honey. Here it is. They walk into this forest and the honey's literally dropping out of the trees onto the ground. When Jonathan saw a supernatural provision, Saul makes it something to be denied. I couldn't help but remember a story when the disciples were walking through a field on the Sabbath and they're hungry and they grab some grain that had been grown along the side of the road and they eat it and the Pharisees come up and what do they say? You've done something bad because you ate on the Sabbath. And Jesus' correction to them was that they've misunderstood the intent of the Sabbath and what was intended by God as provision, not denial. That it was to be a remembrance um not merely sacrifice and obedience. And feels similar here that that we roll out these religious trappings in an attempt to earn the fa favor of God and in them miss the spiritual intent of the fast as one of dependence and provision and somehow use it uh in some way to try and bend the will of God to your intent. This passage goes on to tell of the defeat of the Philistines that day and that the people were so faint that at the end of the battle they pounce on the spoil and they end up eating the Philistine livestock with the blood which was specifically prohibited by Jewish law. And I believe that they were honestly so hungry that it didn't occur to them to take the time to prepare the food carefully and they just ate it without doing what they were supposed to do. So people did sin. That's for there's no doubt about that. But to me it was a sin that was created by an atmosphere of poor leadership by Saul who had declared this fast this oath unnecessarily. Verses 36 and 37. I'm sorry. Then Saul said, "Let us uh go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning light. Let us not leave a man of them." And they said, 'd do whatever seems good to you.' But the priest said, 'Let us draw near to God here. And Saul inquired of God, "Shall I go down after the Philistines, will you give them into the hand of Israel?" But he, God, did not answer him on that day. So, we're introduced again to this priest. His name is Ahijah, and he is the one that Saul appointed to be priest after Eli. If you remember back to the beginning of the book, Eli was the priest. He had these two sons. They did not do the right things. They did evil things. And in that, the entire line of Eli was cursed by God because of the faithfulness, faithlessness, and disobedience of his sons. So, Ahijah is identified um not only as one of the descendants of Eli, but he's also identified as the nephew of Kabad. Icabad was a man that was born during that story we talked about um with the ark the previous story of the ark um and they during this defeat of the Philistines and means glory departed. So he is the descendant of a disqualified priest whose name is glory departed. So, we're going to bring him in. This seems like a mistake. Maybe an interesting characterization of a priest whose job it is to mediate between God and people. So, Saul trots out Ahijah in response to God's silence to try and figure out what they should do. And the priests of the day had this thing called Urim and Thumin. We we don't fully understand what these are, but they're some kind of lots that they would cast in order to try and discern the will of God. And they seem they seem to disappear later during the time of the prophets because the prophets were then fulfilling this role of of u revealing the intent of of God and his and so forth. So, um, Saul says to the priest, "I'm going to put all the people over there, and I'm going to put me and Jonathan over here, and I want you to cast lots, and I want you to cast lots to determine whose fault it was that God remained silent. It did not speak." Now again, we don't know exactly, but it seems to me that like Saul's hoping that it's going to fall to the people and that Saul can go, "Look, not my fault. It's your fault. God was silent." This would sort of cover Saul. But unfortunately, he's a castle and it falls to Saul and Jonathan. Okay, so now we got a problem. So what are we going to do now? So the pro the reason in theory in Saul's mind that God has remained silent has something to do with Saul and Jonathan. So so Saul says well cast him again between me and Jonathan and we'll see to whom it falls and this time it falls to Jonathan. And we pick up in verse 43. Then Saul says to Jonathan tell me what you have done. And Jonathan told him, "I tasted a little honey with the tip of my staff that was in his hand. Here I am. I will die." And Saul said, "Go and do so to me, and more also. You shall surely die, Jonathan." Then the people said to Saul, "Shall Jonathan die, who has worked this great salvation in Israel? Far from it. As the Lord lives, there shall be not one hair on his head shall fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day." So the people ransom Jonathan so that he did not die. I wish I could believe that Saul's primary concern was to root out any unfaithfulness amongst the people of God. You know what we have seen as a king who is prone to bringing religious trappings in order to justify his own actions. Here in particular, he has brought out a questionable priest of his own appointment to use lots to attempt to lay blame on anyone but himself up to and including putting to death his own son. But the people actually seem to be better able to discern the will of God than Saul himself and save Jonathan. My sense of it here is that Saul's primary concern is to save face and to aortion blame on someone other than himself. Yet somehow in pursuing uh that what he accomplishes is in fact exactly the opposite. The chapter closes with this verse or nearly closes with this verse chap verse 52. It says there was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul. And when Saul saw Saul saw any strong man or valiant m man, he attached him to himself. Saul is in search of success and power and favor in any place other than God himself. And God is his decoration that is brought to bear whenever it seems necessary, whenever it serves himself. Jonathan is a man, in contrast, who has a lifestyle of intimacy with God, can discern the will of God because he knows God and the promises of God and his character, not because he's cast lots. The text seems reasonably clear here, I think, that Saul's a good leader. He is I'm sorry. Saul is not a good leader. He is fearful, lacking confidence, and sees God as a tool to be wielded to accomplish his own purposes. Jonathan on the other hand as a man of great faith, a faith that compels him to action. Okay. So, what do we do with this? I think it can be easy when we look at a passage like this and assume that God's message for us is be like Jonathan, don't be like Saul. And I think there's some of that there. I mean, if we're going to emulate somebody in this passage, let's emulate Jonathan. It's desire to be cult cultivate ourselves to be people of faith and action. I think that's legitimate. But I think maybe there's more to this text. There's always challenges for me when it comes to understanding where we put oursel in Old Testament narratives. So let me try to put this in a larger context of the narrative of all of scripture. The general arc of scripture is that the Old Testament's intent is to point us to Jesus. The law of God is unable to save us. Not because the law itself is defective, but because we are a sinful people. As a sinful people, the law cannot save us because we cannot follow it. The law highlights the holiness of God and the sinful sinfulness of man and points us ultimately not to the failure of the law but to the need of a savior. It is intended to point us to this need to wait for and anticipate a savior. This is why the failure of the Pharisees was so great because they missed the arrival of the Messiah because they were looking to the law to provide the one thing it could not do. Salvation and forgiveness. The law is only capable of condemning. The Old Testament points us to the failure of the kingdom led by sinful men. Abraham, Moses, Saul, and even David reveal the failure of men to lead well on the need for a real king, a new king, a better king, to lead us into true salvation, into a true relationship with God, the only one who could truly fulfill the promise of God, to gather to himself a people of his own possession from every tribe and nation and tongue. So in the context of this larger narrative, the best place I think for us to put our feet is in the shoes of the people, the Israelites who are honestly in some respects bit players in this narrative. But they are called they are c but if they are called to anything in the story, it's to discern between godly and ungodly leadership and to follow hard after those who lead us to him. Rather than the wealthy, the tall, the handsome, the shiny new thing, we are to follow those who desire, whose desire it is to see our best and not their own. Those who display an intimate faith of their own, and we should settle for no less than that. I think that the other warning here is to those who are in leadership in the kingdom of God. And whose glory are we to seek? What type of leader are we to become when a fear and inaction unable to see beyond the circumstances of the world? Or are we to be people of audacious faith taking seriously the command of God to go and make disciples? Can I tell you where the battle of the kingdom often rages the heaviest? It's in church planning and on the mission field. It really is the tip of the spear when it comes to the expanding kingdom of God. And the enemy in many respects can be most active there and can feel like uh you're in a cave staring out with a handful of people staring out at an enemy that outnumbers the sand of the seashore. And we need leaders with intimate walks with God with audacious faith undeterred by circumstances. I serve with these kind of people. So friends, I would encourage all of you to be more like Jonathan than Saul for sure. But the larger lesson here, I think, is that we're to see our savior in this story, who is not only better than Saul, but even better than Jonathan, the only one who can truly save. And there is no appropriate response to that other than to fall on our face in repentance. than like Isaiah be raised and sent. The other larger lesson I think is for us to be discerning about the leadership we choose to follow. Is it wealthy and tall and handsome and the shiny new thing but lacks depth and faith? Or should we follow those who follow hard after God? Pray with me.