Harbor Presbyterian Church - Uptown

11/09/2008
Harbor DT/UT
“Fixing Society, Step Five:  Love the One You’re With”
1Samuel 11:14—12:25

Introduction
So, there was an election this last week.  For some people, this election was the sign of great progress for our nation and our state.  For others, this election is proof that our nation is going the wrong way.  For most, it was a mixture of both. 

Election seasons destroy relationships and trust.  People who are getting to know each other all of a sudden can tell you just how awful a person you are because you didn’t vote the way they did.  How many of you passed judgment on other people because you assumed that there was no good reason for someone to vote differently from you?  How many of you vilified a candidate or a proposition, painting them in the worst possible light?

Did anyone change their position because of something they learned about an opposing view?  Or if you didn’t change your position on an issue, did you grow more comfortable with the other side because now you understand why people think differently?

This passage of Scripture is really helpful as a post-election text (actually it would have been a great pre-election text), because it shows us a way to have political dialogue with other people in a way that is helpful, loving, kind, and productive. 

This chapter wraps up a political disagreement that started in chapter 8.  Samuel has been the main political leader for decades, serving as a regional judge, but the people demand from him a king.  Samuel says, no, God is your king, and God tells Samuel to give the people a king. 

So here’s the scene:  we’ve got a spurned, offended, protesting Samuel and an excited people who are fired up that they finally have someone who will lead them into the good life. 

Sound familiar anyone?  Who can identify already?

In this chapter, we’ll see how to marry your faith and your politics, and how Christians ought to behave in the political process. 

I. Character and Relationship Mean Everything,
II. Watch What You Worship,
III. Messy Compromise Leads to a Unified Community.

 I. Character and Relationship Mean Everything (v1-5)

A. Samuel begins by focusing on his character demonstrated over his career.  He has been a righteous judge, a model leader.  Verse 3:  He hasn’t stolen anything, hasn’t cheated anyone, hasn’t oppressed anyone, he’s taken no bribes.  These are all ways of saying that Samuel hasn’t used his office for personal gain.  And it’s not just him saying this.  It’s confirmed by the people, the king, and God in verses 4-5.

B. Why is he saying this?  He wants the people to know that they don’t need a king.  But also because he wants to ensure that the people know his opinion isn’t self-serving.  He is saying what needs to be said for the good of the people, not for his own personal gain. 

C. This should cause us pause:  What motivates  you to argue for your political views?  Are you motivated by a concern for society?  Or are you being selfish?  Do your political views only serve yourself?  Do you have hidden motives?  Are you honest about why you believe what you believe?

D. Do you have a life that would lend credibility to your political views?  Your reputation, your character matters in political discussions.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that character matters anymore for candidates, but it is VITAL in having helpful dialogue with people over politics.

E. Samuel’s life defended his ability to speak out, because the people knew he wasn’t doing it to serve himself.  Does your life reflect a concern for people and the community?  Are your political views selfish and self-serving only?

F. I think you also see here the importance of real relationships.  These people knew Samuel for decades.  This is so important with political discussions.  Your character and relationship give you platform of trust to have people listen to you.

 II. Watch What You Worship (v6-17)

A. Samuel confronts the people:  The Ammonites attack (v12) and you demand a king.  Don’t you realize that to ask for a king is to say you don’t already have one?  God is your king.
1. You said, “We’ll have a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
2. God is saying, “What am I, chopped liver?”

B. What we see here is that the people were looking to the king to provide something God is supposed to provide. 
1. *Don’t we do this?  There’s concern already about Barak Obama that he won’t be able to deliver.  Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw said on Network Television,  “There are some fears that this man will not live up to expectations, no mortal man can live up to the expectations that people have for him.” 
2. This is a standard argument that conservatives make against Liberals—that they look to the government to do things it can’t.  But Liberals have a similar argument—that conservatives look to the invisible hand of free market capitalism to do things it can’t.
3. We’ve got to watch that our enthusiasm for a president or a proposition doesn’t become a necessity for our life.  If our happiness is dependent on an election, then we are destined to live rollercoaster lives. 

C. The people thought that the king was the key to their happiness.  What is the key to yours?  Maybe it’s not a political leader.  Maybe it’s a relationship that you can’t live without.  Maybe it’s a job, or children?  Maybe it’s that you can’t be happy unless people act in the way you want them to, or accept you.

D. Sin is building your life on something that isn’t God.  Usually it’s something good that God has created for us to enjoy—like sex, or friendship, or the desire to be right.  But we want the thing with the God who provided the thing.  That’s backward and it leads us to the same problem that the people had—they wanted a king to the point that they were willing to ignore God to get it.  What is that for you?

E. Samuel tells the people what we need to hear.  He tells them to remember the past.  This reminds us of chapter 7 and the memorials of God’s great works. 

F. Don’t you remember?  Whenever you needed help, you called to God and he rescued you—every time.
1. The Greatest Empire in the world:  Egpyt.  God reduced them to rubble. 
2. Then for hundreds of years, over and over again, whenever you’ve asked God for help, he’s raised up leaders to rescue you.  The problem never was that you didn’t have a leader, it was that you wandered away from God and didn’t want to come back to him.
3. We need to do the same thing.  When you are struggling because you are building your life/your happiness on something that isn’t God, you need to remember God’s goodness, that he has provided for you in thousands of ways.  If you aren’t a Christian yet, or if you’re not used to recognizing God’s presence in your life, think about the “coincidences,” the events that have worked out for you, think about the people that God has brought into your life and realize that he is there, and he has been there for you.

G. This is one way to understand the message of the Bible.  If there is something in your life that you can’t live without to be happy, then that thing has become your king.  And I, along with Samuel, am inviting you to give that thing up as king, recognize that in a sense you are worshiping that, and it’s not good for you. V21—don’t turn away after useless idols.  They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.  They can’t really deliver happiness, and when life falls apart, they can’t rescue you like God can.

 III. Messy Compromise Leads to a Unified Community (v14-25)

A. You’d expect at the end of this speech Samuel would say—down with the king!  But that’s not what he does.  He doesn’t force people to give up the king.  In verse 14 he says that life can still work out for everyone.  Here’s the key:  you need to serve the Lord, you need to worship the Lord.  If you follow him, Good!

B. This word “good” at the end of verse 14—means life will be as it should be.  Joy, happiness, significance, security, blessing.  EVEN WITH THE KING! 

C. This is Samuel’s resolution.  He disagreed with the king, he was right to disagree with the king, but he was willing to reach out into the broken situation and say, “Hope is not lost.  We can still make the best of this situation… but we and the king need to honor God.”

D. Samuel is following the words of an older song:  “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with!”
1. This is powerful because for so many people, if things don’t turn out the way they want them, they simply complain.  They detach and complain.  They say, “Well, until we get rid of the IRS, nothing will ever change.” 
2. Samuel works out a solution to fix the broken situation that they are in.  He says that even in the messed up situation of a human king, if people honor God, things can still work out for blessing.  He enters into the messy compromise and begins to work good.

E. Now the opposite is also true.  V15—if the people or the king don’t honor God—then you can be sure things will get worse.  Things will go wrong and the nation will fall apart. 

F. What we see then is that the king doesn’t actually make things better.  The people still need to honor and follow God, and so does the king.  There’s no change there.  BUT, if the people stop following God, then having a king will end up making things much worse. 

G. In this Messy Compromise, here’s what happens:
1. The people realize and admit that they’ve been wrong.  V19.  It’s safe for them to admit it because they know that Samuel cares for them.  They know he’s not going to destroy them.  When you learn how to dialogue like this, with love and understanding, you’ll find people will be open and honest when they realize they are wrong.  You help them not to become defensive.
2. And the people ask Samuel for help.  V19—please pray for us!  Again, this shows the relationship that Samuel had with the people.  They knew that Samuel cared for them, wanted the best for them, and so they went to him for help.
3. What’s amazing is that so many people who are detached and complain, when someone comes to them and says they’ve been wrong, they grab them and pull them out, and tell them to be detached and complain.  But what does Samuel do? 
4. Samuel’s response is—absolutely I will help you.   V23—I’m in.  I will pray for you, I will teach you what is good and what is right.  Samuel doesn’t shun them or guilt them.  He rolls up his sleeves—into the Messy Compromise of an non-ideal situation with a human king, and he begins to talk with them about how to turn the non-ideal situation into one that will honor God and usher in a blessed life.

PRACTICE:
How do you actually do this?  I’ve tried to be practical as we’ve understood this chapter, but how do we learn to bring our Christianity into our politics in a way that will build unity in the church and bring blessing to our city?

 1. You need to understand other perspectives, and foster REAL dialogue.
There needs to be understanding, sympathy, and respect for the other side that did not exist before.  Then people will rise to the level of disagreement rather than simply denouncing one another.  This happens when each side has learned to represent the other’s argument in its strongest and most positive form.  Only then is it safe and fair to disagree with it.  That achieves civility in a pluralistic society, which is no small thing.”  Reason for God, Keller, introduction.

Find people who disagree with you and learn what it is that moves them to hold their position.  Over the last month, I’ve been in environments where if you weren’t voting for Barak Obama, then you probably aren’t a real Christian.  I’ve also been in environments where if you weren’t voting for John McCain, then you probably aren’t a real Christian.  Denouncing the other side doesn’t help, understanding it does. 

Can I just say that when it comes to evaluating the almost any decision that is made at the national level, you and I probably have 10% of the information we’d need to actually make the decision ourselves.  That means if we know 10 facts about a decision, there are probably 90 facts that we don’t have that we’d need to have in order to really evaluate the decision.  Was it wise to go to war with Iraq?  Was it wise to pass a $700Billion dollar bailout for the US financial system?   Be careful of how sure you are when you answer.

Now I don’t say this to discourage evaluation and thinking through national issues, but let this give you pause and humility.  And maybe you shouldn’t hold your opinions so tightly so that you cannot hear and appreciate other answers that maybe are based on a different 10% of the available facts.

 2. You need to understand that both Conservatives and Liberals reflect God’s kingdom. 
Who is broken, individual people or society?  Both are.  Conservatives focus on individual sins, Liberals focus on societal sins. 

In the church—conservatives say that the gospel brings renewed people, liberals say that gospel brings a renewed city.  Who is right?  Both are!

Is the kingdom of God here and now?  Or is the kingdom of God something in the future?  It’s both!

We actually need both conservatives and liberals to fully manifest the breadth and the depth of God’s vision for the city.
 
As you gain understanding, Learn how to give credit to what is right in the other party.

 3. Understand that both Conservatives and Liberals have weaknesses in their policies.
Liberal policies can be abused by people who don’t want to work. 
Conservative policies can be abused by people who don’t want to share.

Conservative policies tend to promote smaller government, where many people fall through the cracks and are severely disadvantaged. 
Liberal policies tend to promote larger government, where programs are not run effectively or efficiently and lack real accountability.

As you gain understanding, get good at admitting your party’s weaknesses.

The last thing you need to do to put this into practice is
 4. You need to connect to the heart of God. 
The reason Samuel didn’t run away, or wash his hands of the people, or throw rocks at them was because he knew God.  Samuel had God’s heart and God doesn’t abandon his people.  

V22—For the sake of his great name, the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.”

Do you know what this verse means?
It means that God’s reputation is on the line when we fail.  God doesn’t fly off the handle when we make bad decisions, or when we ignore him.  God draws near to us and works in us and with us to ask, “So where can we go from here?  How can we turn this around?”  

For proof of this, look to the cross of Jesus Christ.  When we’ve failed, when we’ve rejected God as our king, when we’ve used the political process to lie, divide, and vilify, God came near to turn us around.  He died for our sins.  With Jesus, the tension in 1Samuel 12 is fully resolved.  Because in Jesus, we get a human king who is also divine.  In his death, Jesus led us into battle, and in his resurrection, he brings us back to God.  When you believe in him, your heart touches his and you become like him—able to love others and understand them so that you can foster the kind of dialogue that will promote unity in the midst of diversity in our city.