ALIAS: Justice – 1 Samuel 14 (Sermon Notes)
We are born with an acute sense of justice – children have a very clear and definite picture about what’s right, wrong, yours and mine. Jill Greenberg a few years ago exploited this and made a lot of money doing it. She was a photographer in the LA area who would set up her studio, give a child a lollipop, focus her camera and then have her assistant take away the lollipop. The children would cry and she would take their picture. [From: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/24/entertainment/et-kids24?pg=1]
A major task of parents is to move our sense of justice out so that it includes everyone and not just ourselves. Bill Moyers explains what this increased justice looks like. “Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.” Saul however does not seem to have outgrown this sense of acute and juvenile justice.
1. I am naturally self-centered and impatient. (1 Samuel 14:1-23)
- Jonathan starts with the Lord in mind and God grants him great success.
- Saul neglects to wait on the Lord. (1 Samuel 14:19-20) It seems that he is engaged in a competition with his son (1 Samuel 20:30-34). His sense of justice dictates that he be in the middle of this fight.
- Saul wants to get in the battle with or without the Lord’s direction. Jonathan’s very first words were entreating the Lord. Saul cuts God off mid sentence by telling the priest to withdraw his hand from the ephod.
- At least Saul let God start talking. We are often too busy to even ask! We feel so confident in who we are and what we’re doing that we don’t stop to ask God.
- We carry on in our lives without a word from God and eventually interpret God’s silence as his agreement with us.
2. I tend to order my world and my faith from my point of view. (1 Samuel 14:24-35)
- Saul makes a rash oath (1 Samuel 14:24,29) endangering the troops by threatening them against taking a lunch break.
- I’m always concerned when we start assigning spiritual consequences and spiritual motives to people. We say, “They’re not doing this for God,” or “They’ve given into the devil.” I have a hard enough time guessing my own motives, much less someone else’s.
- I’m more concerned when we start passing judgment for God on people. Saul here is using the same word that God used to curse the serpent and the same word used in Deuteronomy 27 about the curses on idol makers.
- Saul leads his troops into temptation by causing a hunger so severe they violate their kosher laws. (1 Sauel 14:31-35)
- Saul here is so intent on “avenging himself” that he neglects his troops. Worse than that he reorders God’s priorities to help him.
- We order, reorder, and invent God in our likeness to suit our needs. Christians have done this to justify Crusades, slavery, even subjugating women and abusing children.
- We use guilt today in this way. We use it on our spouses, children anyone we can. We proof-text to prove our points and in turn make God into our own image. We change God’s heart to match our own and never realize that it’s our heart God needs to change.
3. I need God’s help and a community of faith to move beyond “ME” and into healthy relationships. (1 Samuel 14:36-46)
- God does not speak to Saul – apparently for his rash oath. Saul has literally taken God’s name in vain and so God is silent because Saul has already done too much talking.
- As such, Saul would execute his son to save face before his people. Thankfully the men with Saul had more sense than he did.
- The victory that Jonathan started was ended by Saul’s sin (1 Samuel 14:46)
- It’s so easy to become self-absorbed, particularly today when we all need to be sensitive, when we all have needs and we all deserve so much more than we get. Madison Avenue loves to sell things to us this way, but we all need someone to bring us back to reality.
- How do we as believing “adults” act out of self-righteousness? Silent treatment, hold a grudge, won’t cooperate, won’t forgive, spread rumors, bad attitude, act out aggressively or violently, withhold affection.
- You see it every time a marriage ends because he’s not meeting my needs and I have a right to be happy. Every time a student cheats because they have a right to pass the class. Every time a man moves his family because his employer isn’t treating him the way he deserves.
- Thankfully God loves you as you are, and he loves you enough not to leave you there. Sometimes our conversion comes through community. It did for Saul and it can for us we need only to surrender to the Lord and the love of the people of faith.
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