Seeing as God sees

I worked in retail many years ago, but in fact I actually worked at REI. I worked for a camping sporting goods kind of store. Part of—I have a very great love for the outdoors. I love to camp, mountain bike, go hiking. I spent some time in the woods yesterday actually on a hike, and it's just a great time. Really enjoy it.

As I was a young man and I was working this retail job, one day I was invited to sit in on an interview with my supervisor who was going to interview somebody for a job. So I sat in on the interview and this person knocked it out of the park, right? They had tons of camping and backpacking experience, very knowledgeable, kind of an older mature, seemed like they would be a good worker, do good things. So I thought this is great.

At the end of the interview, we thanked them, they went on their way, and then we sort of decompressed after the interview. My supervisor asked me, "What did you think about the candidate?"

I was like, "Well, I mean, I think they were great. They seemed like they fit the bill. They have great knowledge and they'll be able to carry out the duties of the job. I think they'll be responsible in carrying things out."

But then she asked me an interesting question. She said, "What did you really see behind the words? What did you notice about them?"

At the time, I didn't really understand what she meant. So she sort of prodded a little bit further. She said, "Did you notice that on a couple occasions about different employers that they sort of had off-handed remarks like, 'Oh, they were a mess,' or 'They didn't have their act together'? These sort of off-handed things. Did you notice the way that he carried himself in the interview? There were moments where he was very knowledgeable in a way that almost felt prideful—that of course he could do this job. I mean, he was a shoe-in as a candidate for this job."

Then she turned to me and said, "We can teach anyone to know camping goods and backpacking and how to sell these things. I can't teach people how to be nice, how to be a team player, how to show humility. I can't give that to them. They either have it or they don't. And there are some red flags in this person's life. I think we can easily find a hundred other candidates that will walk in here that are team players that do show good attitudes."

The conversation was striking and something that I carry even to this day in interviews that I go into about remembering to see deeper than what's on the surface.

Today we're going to look at the story where God calls Samuel to see deeper than what's on the outward appearance and the surface of things. He wants Samuel to look a little bit deeper at the situation and what's going on because ultimately God wants him to know that humans, as people, we tend to just see the surface of people. We tend to see the exterior and what they bring to the table and what they have to offer and all of the shine and the glimmer. We tend to see those things.

But like me in that interview, we tend not to look a little bit more carefully and closely at the heart of a person—at maybe the things that they say and what's underneath the words that they use, the mannerisms, the actions. Ultimately, God sees a heart in a way that we cannot see. But he does call us as followers of Jesus to see people differently maybe than the world values them or sees them. And to see this world and life and what it means to live a good life differently than maybe what the world around us says is to live a good life. What's valuable? What's true? What's noble?

So let's take a look today at our text. We're going to be reading from 1st Samuel chapter 16.

Scripture reading

1st Samuel chapter 16 begins:

"The Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you grieve over Saul since I have rejected him from being king of Israel?'"

Just note that we're picking up from chapter 15, which we looked at last week, where it ended essentially with Saul being the rejected king. Now, he was disobedient to God. He would not listen, as we talked about, to the instruction of God in his life. And so Samuel says, "You are now the rejected king. You've faked obedience. You've faked religiosity, you know, and to obey is better than sacrifice."

But Saul wouldn't listen to that. Saul kept rationalizing his actions. He wanted to look good on the outside for people, but inside he wasn't dealing with the issues that were going on in his heart. And so it says that Samuel went and left and he grieved over Saul. And so now the text is picking up right after that and it's just reminding us Samuel is still grieving over Saul. And so the Lord says:

"I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons."And Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me."And the Lord said, "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord,' and invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you should do, and you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you."Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and he came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him, trembling, and said, "Do you come peaceably?"And he said, "Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice." And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed before him."But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel, and he said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." And Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, "The Lord has not chosen these."Then Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?"And he said, "There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep."And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here." And he sent, and he brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and he had beautiful eyes and was handsome.And the Lord said, "Arise, anoint him, for this is he." Then Samuel took the horn of oil and he anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

This is God's word. Let's pray.

Lord, I pray God that in this time give us just as we talked about last week, ears to hear, to really hear, but also give us eyes to see. Father, as we'll look at today, we pray that you give us clarity, that you open our hearts to hear from you. Speak to us through your word even now. Committed to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Intro

As we look at this text, seeing is something ultimately that the author really wants to emphasize. In fact, you can't always see it in the Hebrew because like I've talked about there's a range of meaning in words in Hebrew. Hebrew has lots of a degree of range. Hearing last week can be interpreted all sorts of ways: listening, commanding. Same with the word seeing and appearing and all sorts of ways that it gets translated in your English versions. But seven times in this text, the author uses—and sometimes very creatively in a way to emphasize the fact—that this passage ultimately has something about seeing in it.

And we see really the highlight of it right there where the Lord instructs Samuel to see differently. He says, "You're looking the wrong way at this guy. You're looking the wrong way at this situation. I need you to see like I see because I don't see like man sees. I see deeper. I see differently."

And so there's something about the way the author wants to highlight this to us and remind us that the Lord sees all. He sees differently. And as humans, we can value the wrong things about people and this world. We can value the good looks or the assertiveness or the exterior. And we can even spend our lives investing in the exterior of our lives, making this look good, but never really dealing with the state of our heart, never really sort of reflecting on what's going on inside of here.

And it's so important just for us personally in life to not just focus on the exterior and the polish and how we are received and thought of by the people around us because God is looking at our heart, and our heart reveals so much about the core of who we are. Is our heart dark? Is our heart selfish? What's in there? And it's so important to spend time doing that.

But we can also value, as we look out in the world, the wrong things. We don't oftentimes value the weak. You know, we don't value those who don't have many talents to bring to the table. We value people for what they have and the skills they have and the smarts and their abilities and all of those things. And sometimes we forget that people were just created in the image of God—that they have inherent value and dignity in themselves just for that. Even simple, humble, uneducated, poor people inherently have a value in their lives. So God calls us as believers to look at the world and at people and even ourselves differently than the way that the world around us tells us to look at things.

So today as we look at it, I want us to look at really the fact that God, as he looks in this, he sees three people. There are three people I'm going to highlight today from this passage, and we're just going to make observations and glean from this. I want us to look at a prophet, I want us to look at a king, and I want us to look at a boy in this passage. And we'll see what we can glean from each of these.

1. A Prophet Learning to See

The first one is a prophet who is really learning to see. We see there as the text picks up that Eliab shows up. He's the oldest. Samuel's there to appoint the next king of Israel. And Eliab has everything that a king needs. He's got the height, the stature. He leads over all of his siblings. You know, he's this big strong guy. And you can kind of sense that like Samuel is like already getting out the oil flask. He's ready just to make the anointing, right? He's already made the judgment call and that's where the Lord speaks in and wants to remind him that he needs to learn how to see differently.

So we see in verses 6 and 7 where it says when Samuel saw Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

What does that mean to look at the heart? What is it? What is God asking him to do? And ultimately what he's asking is he's saying look below the surface, just like my supervisor asked. Look, you need to see something different about this. You don't know him. You're just looking at the exterior qualities and you think this is what is needed for a king. But he may be corrupt. He may be selfish. Would that make him a good leader? You're making a judgment call that's not calling upon me who looks upon the heart. You don't know this guy.

And so often God is just asking him to trust and see things with God's lens on this. We've already had a wrong king, so to speak, that had all the exterior qualities, that had all that he needed to have for the position in terms of outward appearance. And we see though that inside he wouldn't listen to God. Inside he's always trusting his own judgments and he's doing what he wants to do and it corrupts him. He's more worried about what other people think about him than worried about what God thinks about him. We don't need a Saul 2.0, and so God wants Samuel to look differently, to not idolize or value him based on what he brings to the table.

We need to choose even today our leaders based upon character, based upon heart. We need to look more deeply than the resume and what's on the outward appearance in life. Particularly in the church when people want to serve or hold positions. Character. People want to make pastors pastors because they're good speakers. I've been in interviews for pastors before and a lot of times they never focus on character or like what do you believe? Do you believe, you know, like very fundamental things about the heart? But that's first and foremost very primary to see, to possess those things in our own lives.

God Sees Our Sorrow and Hopelessness

But you know, one thing about this is that Samuel also we have to remember is seen by God. Our text tells us that at the very beginning, Samuel is mourning. He's sorrowful. He's lamenting because he saw the potential in Saul. He saw all that Saul could be as a king. This was the first king of Israel, and he had the height and stature and all the great things. And if he could step in and be what God wanted him to be and to obey and to listen and to usher in this golden age of God's reign through his kingship, through him serving and obeying the Lord, it would be a golden age. Samuel had such hopes for Saul, but he just sees it crashing down and he has to be wondering because—you have to remember—Samuel has seen leadership failure before.

He saw it as a boy. He saw the high priest of Israel who wouldn't obey the Lord, who wouldn't listen to the Lord, and he saw all of the havoc and destruction and sorrow and oppression that came upon his people because a leader wouldn't listen to the Lord. And I think Samuel has to be wondering again, is this round two? Are we going to deal with this all over again as a nation, as a people?

And so there's probably within Samuel a bit of hopelessness, but God sees Samuel. And in a way, God wants to bring comfort and hope into the life of Samuel. And so, he doesn't just leave Samuel in his sorrow. God could have anointed David long after this because David's not going to become king probably for another 14 to 17 years in his life. It's going to be a long time. He could have waited. He could have deferred. But he wants to give Samuel a glimpse of what is to come to remind him, as we've been studying in this text, that God is at work. He's at work behind the scenes in the lives of people in ways that we cannot always see.

And so we're invited to see with a different lens: the lens of faith, the lens of trust, the lens of hope. And so in the midst of all of his mourning, he says, "Get up. I still have a plan. Samuel, I am still at work. And I want you to go anoint the next king that I have chosen. And this king won't just be another guy." Because we've already known and seen in the text from prior chapters, he will have a heart after me. There will be something about his heart that is different. And I am choosing him and I will set him up.

And so Samuel all of a sudden finds comfort in the midst of his grief. And maybe that's an important point to pause on and just remember even in our own lives that God sees you. He sees your heart. He sees what you carry in your heart. Sometimes he sees the brokenness, the things we don't really want anybody to see, but he also sees the sorrow. He sees the fear, the anxiety, the stress. And he wants you to trust him, to remember that the Bible reminds us constantly that God is working and he's working for good.

And time and time again, we have seen in scripture where we cannot always see how everything unfolds, but we get a glimpse, a moment of hope where we begin to see the pieces come together. One of those, for example, is in the book of Genesis. You know, we have Joseph who was driven by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. All of these crazy things happen. And after all these years go by, he becomes second in command over Egypt. And he says, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, and God used it for his plan."

And so sometimes when we feel hopeless or we carry sorrow, the Lord sees you and he wants you to be honest with him, to bring that to him, to talk to him, but also to trust him, to trust that he knows what he's doing, that he's working a good plan.

2. A King Who Cannot See

Secondly, we see a king who cannot see. Verse 1 had reminded us that Saul, it says, "The Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you mourn for Saul since I have rejected him as king over Israel?'" And this phrase we remember all the way back into chapter 15 where we studied last week that Saul was a rejected king because he wouldn't listen to the Lord. He wouldn't obey the Lord. Constantly the Lord had rebuked him on several occasions. Even in chapter 13 and 14, we've been studying sort of Saul just not getting it, not listening, not being obedient, not stepping into the man that God has called him to be.

He always trusts his own instincts. He thinks like, "Oh, things are happening, things are shaking, I got..." and he just always grows in fear and anxiety and he tries with all his might to take hold of that, to listen to other people, to sort of play the politics in the nation of Israel. And yet at the end of the day, God's like, "Listen to me. Follow me, Saul." Saul won't. He won't. And he keeps trusting his own instincts. And finally, God says, "You can't be the man I want you to be. So, you can't be my king. I'm not choosing you. I'm rejecting you."

Now, Saul has brought this upon himself. And he could see if he wanted to see, if he would listen to the voice of God. But because he disobeyed and won't listen to God, he becomes a king that cannot see. And we find in 1st Samuel chapter 15, verse 20, it says, "And Saul said to Samuel"—this is pointing back to something he says. Samuel confronts him and says, "You didn't listen to God. You didn't do what he said. What are you doing?" He tries to call him out on it. And what does he say back to him? Saul says to Samuel, "I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I've devoted the Amalekites to destruction."

Meanwhile, he just sort of ignores the fact that this pagan king wasn't supposed to live, right? And all the sheep and everything were supposed to be destroyed in the first place, not sacrificed. He modified the plan of God so that he could people-please the people around him. He modified it. He changed the instructions of God so that he could play into the favor of the people because he cared more about what they thought than about what God thought about him. This is who Saul is: constantly trying to play and not listen to the command of God, not admitting his guilt and his fault. And even when he does, he really is more just trying to go through the motions of that, like, "Okay, okay, I did mess up. I did mess up. But make me look good in front of people. Come with me so we can kind of make a show in front of everybody else."

As we looked at last week, he's more concerned with what everybody sees on the outside than dealing with the issues of his heart on the inside. And so he's a rejected king because he wants to look good on the outside, but doesn't want to be part of God's plan.

Staying in the Pocket: A Football Analogy

And one of the ways—since it's football season, I thought I would include maybe kind of a... you know, constantly you see this sometimes in an incredibly talented quarterback. You'll have a quarterback that he's like a dual threat, right? For those of you who know football, right? He can run, he can pass, he just got all this talent in him. But every now and then—and you have a great offensive coach and he knows all the plans, everything, and he will tell him like, "You got to execute the play. Execute the plan." And it's like a game of chess many times.

But during the midst of this, you do have athletes sometimes that will abort the plan. They'll modify in the midst of it. Instead of waiting in the pocket—wait, wait, wait, wait, that guy's going to get open if you just let the play unfold—he freaks out, panics too fast, and jumps out of the pocket and tries to call an audible. And oftentimes he gets sacked in the backfield. He's talented, so sometimes he breaks free and gets 20 yards. But this is the difference between a football player that takes a team to 9-3 and a team to 12-0.

Sometimes what the offensive coordinator and the coach want him to do is stay in. Stick with the plan. Let it unfold long enough. And in that same way, God has called Saul: "Let the play unfold. Be obedient to that. Don't freak out and jump out of it." And just like the football player, he cannot see because when you freak out, you miss what is going to happen downfield if you'll just hang in there a little bit longer. So we have a king who cannot see, and so God rejects.

The Restlessness of Walking Away

We see in verse 14 what begins to play out:

"Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul's attendants said to him, 'See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre, which is a harp, and he will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.'"

So, the Spirit of God leaves Saul. He's rejected him. Saul has gone his own way. And God says—and this is how it works in life oftentimes—we want to go our own way, and God says, "Okay, I'm not going to arm wrestle you." God always wants to woo us to himself. He wants to call us and draw. He wants us to experience life in him. But if we just keep doing it, we're not slaves. We're not robots. God's not just going to be like, "I'm going to force you." And in this mystery of free will, we have this ability to say, "I'm not going to do it."

And that's what Saul has done. And he's gone his own way. But the consequence of that is that this evil spirit comes and it torments Saul. It causes this restlessness in him. And we don't know all of what it is, but I think we can see just in life from observations. I can see it even in my own life—moments where I rejected God or I went my own way. I did my own thing and it created this sort of agitation and unsettling and restlessness in my life.

I talked about him last week—St. Augustine lived in the late 300s, early 400s. St. Augustine had this famous quote where he said, "The heart is constantly restless until it finds its rest in You, O Lord."

And we see in Saul and in our own lives that oftentimes we reject God. We do our own thing. Life is going fine, but there's always this stirring within us sometimes that begins to come up, and we're constantly trying to fill that thing. Fill it with money, fill it with pleasure, fill it with all these... we're trying to address it with all these things in life. We feel this fear, this anxiety. Let me put some of this in here to deal with that, to cope with it.

And Augustine is reminding us, as scripture reminds us: why not just come to God? He's really ultimately the source of peace and of hope. He gives meaning to the human story—who we are, why we're broken, and what we need in order to live the good life that he's called us to, to be restored and healed and begin to experience that agitation going away. But we only find it when we turn to him. We find that the other things are sugar highs. They can't really give us sustenance that fills the deep voids in our heart.

Ironically, C.S. Lewis talks about this idea oftentimes within his book Mere Christianity. He talks about the idea that so many of the things that are deep within us actually point to God. Why do we long for a better world? What is the concept of better? Why do we have some sort of concept of better? I mean, if this is just a rock spinning in this universe that naturalistically created it and there's absolutely no meaning to anything, even to us—we came from inorganic matter and just bam came up and it's just random processes—we mean nothing. We have no value. Then why do we deep down feel that we have value? Why do we feel that there is right and that there is wrong? Why do we have these standards in us? Are these just societal things, or do fundamentally we feel like some things are wrong? Why do we have these longings for the world to be better? Where did that come from?

And C.S. Lewis points to the fact that those longings, that desire, that almost vision for something better, is because God wired it in us when he created us for that kind of world. And until we step into God's realm and understand his healing and what he offers, then we can't really receive and walk and begin to find what we were created for, what he made us for—for himself.

And Saul can't see that. So he goes his own way. And in blindness, he misses his potential. He misses what God has called him to be.

3. A Boy Chosen by God

Ironically, Saul sees David, and it's recorded in the text, as we read earlier, that the Spirit of God had fallen on David. David carried the presence of God with him, and Saul needs a lyre player or a harp player. So David comes in, and as he sits there and plays—actually, I'll just read it really quick. It says:

"And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, 'Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.' And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him."

There's something familiar about the Spirit in David for Saul. There's something that maybe he longs for and wants in his own heart that David has that he doesn't. And there's something about David that comforts.

But the sad thing about Saul is that, you know, and and we can see this in our own lives. We can come into the fringe of Christianity. We can come into the church and we can sing the songs, hang out with the people, hear the word, but those are just the periphery. God calls us to step into a life of obedience and relationship with him. Otherwise, like Saul, we're just sort of tasting something familiar, something we long for without actually receiving it fully into our lives. Saul cannot see. And David right here serves as a witness, a witness of something that Saul could be, but Saul cannot see it. Not even the witness of David calling him. Finally, we see a boy who sees God. No, sorry, excuse me. We find a boy who God sees. Uh God chooses an unlikely candidate. Verse 11 and 12, it says that then Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" And he said, and this is really just almost comical, guys, in some ways if you really think about it. You know, he's trying to anoint everybody, right? He's he's going, I mean, he's looking for the anointed one. They're all going through. Jesse's brought all his sons and Samuel says to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" And he says, "Oh, oh yeah. Oh, I forgot about that." Right? And all of a sudden, it's like, you know, a kind of a comical moment in this where like he literally forgets one of his kids like, "Oh yeah, that guy. Yeah, he's out in the field." Um, and you know, it's like he almost doesn't even offer to get him. He's like, "Well, he's he's keeping the sheep. I mean, he's busy, right?" And like, you know, Samuel sort of, you know, throws down the the the harsh words where he's like, "Bring him here. We ain't going to sit until you get him here. So he says, Samuel says to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" And he said, "There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here." And he sent and brought him. Now he was ruddy and he was had beautiful eyes and he was handsome. And the Lord said, "Arise and anoint for this is he." God here really chooses an unlikely candidate though in in many ways. David and especially in like this sort of culture that they live in, the youngest is not the most important by any means. He's the least important. So we have the youngest. We have also the forgotten. Like his family doesn't even remember. Like they're supposed to put everybody there for the sacrifice and they're like, "Oh yeah, that guy, we forgot about him." So it's almost like he's like, you know, Cinderella or something just sort of forgotten upstairs in or in the dungeon or something like that. He's also given, and this is pretty typical for his time and place, he's been given the most um medial job, watch the sheep, right? You go out there in the field, you know, we're going to do our thing, we do more important things. You're the youngest, so this is what you get as a result of that. You get to go out in the field and watch the sheep. And you have to kind of think like Samuel is choosing the next king of Israel, military hero, going to lead the kingdom of Israel. Oh, we got a shepherd boy. Let's choose him. He's the youngest. He's a nobody. And yet, isn't that how God often works? Because God isn't looking for the outward qualities or the resume or any of those things. He's looking at the character of the heart. He's looking at the character of the heart. Just like my former supervisor, you can teach people how to sell camping goods. You can't put the right heart in them. David can learn all the other things that he needs, but he first and foremost needs to have the right heart. And God sees that. Now, I wanted to take sort of David and I wanted to set him up and I wanted to say like David is awesome. And I wanted to pull out all these attributes like, well, he's humble, you know, and and he and he plays the harp and so he's probably a good worship leader and and all these characteristics that we might be able to glean and that we do know about David as we move forward throughout the book. But that's not what the text gives us here. We just see a very unlikely candidate that God has chosen. And I think that's probably the most honest way to see is that God sees something that that we cannot see in this. But what we can glean from this is like I've said is that before calling the right heart is needed. That the spirit of God then through that rushes on David and begins to equip him for the thing that he's called him for. And we're going to begin to see David throughout the rest of the book begin to to operate in that blessing and that power that God has put on him. So here's a few things we can see. God sees authenticity. Authenticity over what is counterfeit. He sees authenticity over what is counterfeit. He knows deep down in the heart. You can fake it to the people around you. You can fake your spirituality to the people around you. But you can't fake it before God. And one day you will stand before God. And what will he say? God values character over competency. We might say formation growing in him over skill. that we can also see that God works through willing and submitted vessels. That's it. Are they willing and able to come? Do they have the right heart and character? Because everything else that they need, I'll give them because God equips those whom he calls. And maybe in some sort of odd way as it seems to work out that sometimes the people that are just simple and humble and not always but maybe there's something about David that even though we see he's unlikely and he's a simple shepherd boy that maybe in a way because his heart is after God because it reflects something about God because it loves God maybe he sees in more ways than we actually realize in ways that we're going to see as the text continues to unfold in the coming weeks.

I want to say in this be like David, start seeing start being like him, but that doesn't seem right for this text because we don't know much about David. We know something about God and we know something about what God is calling us and how God is calling us to see and to value things differently, but we don't know much about who David is. Uh we do know that ultimately sight comes from God. It's not from external conformity and let me try to get all the rules and get everything right and and do the right prayers and all those things. It comes when we come to God. when we come with who we are and say, "I got nothing. And you know what? I I've got all this baggage and things in my life and I don't see. I don't think I really do see, but here I am because I believe that you have the words of life." I'm going to read a passage from John chapter nine. Jesus reveals God. He is God and he's the revelation of seeing who God is through his life. God put him and said, "This is who I am." He shows us and Jesus gives that kind of life. In John chapter nine, there's a story right here. And Jesus said to a man that he just healed, "Do you believe in the son of man?" And he answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe him?" And Jesus said to him, "You have seen him and he is here speaking to you." And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into the world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and they said to him, "Are we also blind?" And Jesus said to them, "If you are blind, you would have no guilt. But now you say we see, and your guilt remains." God always turns the tables. If you think on the outside, I'm going to bring what I have to the table. I've got all the qualifications and the merit and everything and God and I see. I understand. I know. That's oftentimes the ones that are blind because it's all about them and their claims and they can't see the irony of it. Saul thinks he sees. He thinks he sees just fine and he's always rationalizing his life over and over again, pointing to other people as the fault instead of himself. He thinks he sees, but he's blind. So, how does Saul or anyone else find sight? They find it in Christ who came to give sight to the blind, to open the eyes of the blind. And through him and what he taught all of life and all of the world makes sense. And it's only when we come to the end of ourselves, when we come and bow before him, that all of a sudden something spiritually begins to awaken in us. And we are given eyes to see God and what who he who he called us to be and who he created us and his grace and his offering to us only when we bow the knee to him. When we say he is Lord just as this man who had been healed by Christ said it to Jesus. And so through that we begin to find the life and his spirit fills us and it empowers us and it begins to grow us so that not only do we see but we continue to see better and better. We learn more about who God is. Do you see?

Are your eyes fixed on the outside? the shine, the glimmer, the Instagram post, all of who you are out here, but what's going on on the inside? Are you listening or looking at what maybe God is trying to point in your own heart and say, "I want to deal with that. Not so I can condemn you, but so I can heal you. So that you can see life rightly as I called you, as I made you to be. Do you define yourself by what others think of you or what God thinks about you? Do you know your pasture? Do you see where God maybe has put you in life and where that can be a calling in itself but also a place where he is preparing you for whatever he has for you. One day we will stand before God. Everyone. Everyone. And will we stand on our own merit? what we've done and all the qualities we possess or will we stand on Christ's merit on what he has done for us and just the fact that we trusted that we received that and that changed everything about our life.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found. was blind but now I see. Let's pray.

Lord, open the eyes of our heart. Open our eyes to see once again to behold all of the good promises that we have in you. your beauty, your truth, your grace, the deep things that we long for that we so desperately need and that we often forget over and over and how you like a shepherd call us back. You lead us and if we will trust you will lead us by still waters. You will give us the things that we really need that we cannot get even though we try with our own hands to get it. if we will just but come to you and find that you supply. There is nothing else like that in this world and it's given freely by grace. It's a gift. So I pray once and again, Father, we would continue to trust you and that you would continue to give us eyes to see you more and more because it will change how we see this world around us, how we see ourselves and even the people around us. We pray that you would help us, you would grow us, give us ears to hear and eyes to see in Jesus name. Amen.