Hard Mode Pt 2 - God Goes Ahead of Us

Sermon Manuscript

Jul 6

This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Hard Mode" series within 1 Samuel, exploring David’s trials and growth from the time he was anointed King until he took the throne. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708

Good morning church! What a joy to be together today! What an amazing holiday weekend to gather as well. There are few things as American or as honoring to the 250th anniversary of our nation than to gather to practice our faith in confidence and freedom yeah? Hopefully with all your fingers still intact. Any close calls yesterday?

If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to take a minute to consider our history and thank God for his grace in allowing you to experience the level of personal freedom under which you live. We don’t worship any one earthly nation and we know that all cultures will be celebrating Jesus in heaven, but at the same time, we would be fools to not realize and thank God for the truth that the vast majority of Christians in the world right now and throughout church history legitimately don’t have a context to understand the level of freedom we get to engage the gospel message. How good God is to us.

The Seasons of Obscurity

Having said that, today we’re continuing our Hard Mode series. We’ll be in 1 Samuel 16 if you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles. Note - on house Bibles. We’re taking time in our study of 1 Samuel to talk about how God uses trials and difficulty to train and forge us into the people who can engage his call on our lives. We’re looking at these series of narratives that deal with David’s life after he was anointed king, but before he actually took the throne. These stories tell us of years of David’s life when he clearly knew God’s call on him, but was still living in obscurity and difficulty.

I think that is such an important idea for us to zoom in on as believers because we’ve all had or will have a similar season in our own lives. You end up stuck in the job, the city, the school, the contract, the commitment that you can’t get out of, but it feels like its holing you away and sucking out your soul right? It can be crushing to look at your day to day life and wonder where you went wrong and why it seems like what you’re doing doesn’t really matter. These texts teach us a powerful truth about kingdom living. It is often in the hardship and in the insignificance of these seasons of life that God sanctifies us into the people who can actually fulfill the call of the Kingdom on our lives.

Today specifically we’re going to consider the reality that we are where we are in our lives at least in part because of God’s sovereign hand. My main point today will be simply this:

Main Point: God goes ahead of us.

And what I mean by that is that God sovereignly plans our steps and our ways. He is involved in our lives and he provides us these seasons of difficulty and trial. Now, don’t mishear me. The reality of God’s sovereignty and his provision in our lives does not somehow take away our personal responsibility or the consequences of the decisions we make, but it is true that God works through all our circumstances and there is no context where we might find ourselves that God has not gone there ahead of us.

I think the problem for many of us is that this is as troubling as it is comforting. If God is actually so good and he actually goes ahead of us, why do we so often end up in the weeds of obscurity and waiting and difficulty? Why do we end up with soul sucking seasons of being so unknown? I think that’s worth considering and I think our text today will actually help answer that question. Pray with me and lets jump into this.

1 Samuel 16:14-16

"14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him, 15 so Saul’s servants said to him, “You see that an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command your servants here in your presence to look for someone who knows how to play the lyre. Whenever the evil spirit from God comes on you, that person can play the lyre, and you will feel better.”

Ok, so remember where we are in this larger narrative of 1 Samuel. Israel has moved from being a loose confederation of tribes to being a united Monarchy. And Kings are supposed to be different in Israel. They are supposed to lead their people, not just in battle and not just in defense, but they are supposed to lead them in faithfulness. They are supposed to lead their people back to their true King, YHWH. Saul was the first king of Israel and while he started off strong and he did a lot of work to protect the Israelites from their many enemies, he ultimately could not fulfill this greater responsibility of leading Israel in faithfulness.

As his kingship continued, he grew farther and farther from the Lord. He struggled to accept and admit his own failures, much less actually repent of them and turn back to God. This eventually compounded into his own rejection of God and self glorifying as king. Because of this, God rejects Saul as King and sends his prophet Samuel to anoint a new King, David, in secret.

Samuel has done this act of subversive obedience, but Israel is now in this strange middle ground. Saul is still king. He still has the army, he still has the palace. He still has the job. But God has chosen another. And what we see in this is that the earthly trappings of the kingship actually weigh less than the spiritual calling and anointing. We talked about this last week, but this word anointing is connected to the idea of both God’s favor and God’s active involvement in the world. When Saul was anointed King, the Spirit of God dwelled within him and worked through him. Once God rejected Saul as king and anointed David, that anointing, that indwelling Spirit moved to David. And here we see a terrible side effect of this reality. The text tells us that when the Spirit of God left Saul he began to be tormented by an evil spirit. And to even ratchet that up a notch, the text tells us that God himself sent this evil Spirit to Saul.

Ok. I feel like we need to stop here for a second. First we have to talk about the idea that God is sending this suffering on Saul. That can be hard to wrap our minds around. But as we talked about a couple of weeks ago with God’s command regarding the Amalekites. There are times in Scripture where we see God exacting both his wrath and his justice against sin. God is the final judge of sin in this universe and praise be to God that he patiently gives us grace and time to repent and turn to him and experience forgiveness and redemption, but may this abundant and lavish grace never cause us to forget that God is ultimately just and he does not ignore sin. God is a just judge. And for whatever reason, God has brought this judgement upon Saul in this season. We don’t fully know why because the text does not tell us, but when the scripture clearly teaches us something like God’s just judgement of a specific sin, we have to be humble enough to let the Word of God inform our theology rather than letting our preconceptions inform our reading of scripture.

Spiritual Realities and Mental Health

Wow. Well that's hard enough, but then we have to actually talk about the nature of what Saul is experiencing here. It says an evil Spirit is coming upon him. Have you ever noticed that when the scripture talks about demonic spiritual activity it often looks like the person is having a mental health crisis? Anybody? So what do you do with that? Some people look at every instance of demonic activity in scripture and just say it was 1000’s of years ago they didn’t know what mental health was so they called it demons. Some people do the opposite and look at mental health treatments today and say don’t you guys read the Bible? There’s no such thing as mental health, it's all demons. So what do you do with this? If we set aside, for a moment, the reality of God’s judgement here, we still have to look at the actual method of judgement God is giving Saul… Is it a mental health crisis? Is it a demon? What’s actually going on?

Well I think it's good to point out a couple of truths here. The first is that the ancient near eastern world did not have a concept of mental health. Issues were physical or spiritual. And ALL of what we categorize today as mental health issues were seen as spiritual issues in these cultures. And in most contexts they were described as demonic possession or oppression. That’s simply a fact. It's also important to consider what I just said regarding Saul and God’s justice. We have to be willing to allow the scripture to inform our worldview. This text says directly that there is a spiritual aspect to what Saul is experiencing. He is being tormented by a demon.

So what are we left with? I think there is a reality that there must be some interaction between these two ideas in many of these texts and almost certainly in what we’ll read about Saul. I think mental health has always been a reality even before medical science advanced enough to identify it, but there's also a reality that medical science makes us biased to ignore spiritual realities and demonic oppression. The scripture describes demons who create or aggravate physical symptoms like deafness or epilepsy. So shouldn’t we assume that real demonic oppression could zone in on a victim’s underlying mental health issues and aggravate or worsen them?

There is a lot of complexity here and I want to be really clear on something. I’m not telling those of you in the room who are working through treatment for your mental health that you have a demon. And I’m sorry if anyone has ever put that burden upon you. Demons and demonic oppression are real, but we need not look under the rock of every mental and physical health issue for one. The Curse of sin and death is quite sufficient to create suffering in our lives without a demon’s help. You can and should get treatment for the health issues you struggle with.

Beyond this, If you’re in the room, and you’re in Christ, then the Spirit of God dwells within you and a demon cannot oppress you the way we often see in Scripture before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. You have a different relationship with the Spiritual realm. This isn’t saying that spiritual realities don’t exist and you should ignore them, quite the opposite, but it is a reminder that your spiritual state is defined and controlled primarily, as a Christian, by the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.

For the purposes of our text, I believe that Saul’s underlying mental health issues were whipped into a frenzy by this demonic possession. And regardless of how the ratios worked out between his mental health and spiritual state, this is a text of sorrow. God is judging Saul and Saul is suffering for it. God’s anointing of David is a beautiful thing and God’s provision for David is an encouraging thing, but Saul’s fall is a haunting reality that should give us pause. Its a thing to mourn. And we can exist in both places, as Daniel Tiger once said “you can feel more than one thing” We can celebrate the reality of God’s choosing and anointing of David while still mourning the judgement of Saul.

But look how our text sets up the scene. Saul’s experience is so bad that his attendants notice and want to do something about it. And look at their solution. Saul, you need a court musician. Let us find someone who can play you the Lyre. This english word we get in our bibles actually refers to a Hebrew Kinnor. A specific kind of lap harp that looked like this. Slide - kinnor. You should look it up on youtube today. It is beautiful and sounds like exactly what you are imagining for an ancient near eastern instrument.

Interestingly though, this is an instrument that was specifically associated with the treatment of spiritual issues. It was a culturally understood treatment for demonic oppression. This is interesting because we know that music can be used in engaging our mental health. It can be incredibly helpful to ground and help us sort and structure emotions. Is Sarah McAlevey here? Basically, Saul’s attendants are saying he needs a music therapist. Read on with me in this text and we’ll see how Saul reacts to being asked to find a Sarah McAlevey for his problems.

1 Samuel 16:17-22

"17 Then Saul commanded his servants, “Find me someone who plays well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the young men answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is also a valiant man, a warrior, eloquent, handsome, and the Lord is with him.” 19 Then Saul dispatched messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a wineskin, and one young goat and sent them by his son David to Saul. 21 When David came to Saul and entered his service, Saul loved him very much, and David became his armor-bearer. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse: “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor with me.”

You ever had that friend who has a guy for every possible need you have? “Oh you need some tarps specifically cut to the shapes of your front landscaping? I know a guy who does that kind of thing.” Right? I’m telling you thats an important friend to have. When you find an “I Know a guy” guy, don’t let him go. Keep him paid with cheap beers and invites to watch sports at your house. But I digress.

In our text, Saul hears this request and he actually agrees. Remember that ancient Israel was a culture primarily built upon honor and shame. It was incredibly tricky dealing with men of authority because you had to maintain their honor while speaking to them. It would have been legitimately difficult as an attendant or servant of Saul to even acknowledge his issues, much less tell him how to fix it. Its an expression of how bad it was that Saul actually heeds their advice. This is admitting his weakness which is a pretty big no no for kings. And we’ll even see this in how the text plays out, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Saul, for whatever reason, is willing to acknowledge the problem and take his servant’s advice. Ok. yeah, find me someone.

And then it turns out one of Saul’s attendants is an “I know a guy” guy. He knows a guy. I’ve heard of this guys from Bethlehem who plays lyre. And look what he says: He’s also valiant, a warrior, and handsome. There’s a couple of interesting details its easy to miss in this text. First note that David is called handsome again. I think its worth noting that english is just a little more stunted in language like this, but while the handsome in last week’s text was more of a boyish handsomeness, like a look how cute he is, this word is specifically related to masculinity and maturity. Almost like saying he’s a manly man. This is important because it shows us that at least some time has passed since the anointing. David apparently went right back to tending sheep with no real change. But Now he’s grown up into a right proper man and God is ready to do something.

Notice also that the servant calls David a valiant warrior. As will be evident in next week’s text, David has never really fought before. This is another moment we can miss a little subtly to the meaning here. The Servant is basically saying he seems like the kind of guy who could eventually make a good warrior. Why include this detail for a potential court bard? Because Saul needs David close to give him treatments, but not so obvious that people know hes that sick that he needs him around all the time. The solution then is to potentially incorporate David into the service in some way so he has an excuse to be close to Saul for his real purpose of providing treatment.

Imagine Sarah got hired by a police officer who was nervous for his fellow cops to find out he has a music therapist so he requires her to go through police academy to become his partner. Right? And this is exactly how it works. Saul sends for David, Jesse sends him out, and Saul likes his playing. It works. So he conscripts David into kingly service and installs him as one of his armor bearers. Now this is interesting. We talked about this role a few weeks back with a story with Jonathan, but this was a unique role. When Israel was actively in war, these armor bearers had to be elite fighters as well as servants, but during the times of relative peace, they served more as personal body guards. So they needed to be around and ready, but weren’t necessarily working through the formal ranks of the military. Saul thinks he’s getting away with something here. He’s got this medical need and he’s able to get it taken care of without over broadcasting that he is. But we as the reader see the deeper story happening here.

The Divine Internship

God has set this up for David. This is divine providence.

And by the way, this particular providence probably seemed like a disaster to David and his family. Can you imagine the moment when that messenger showed up from Saul. Jesse, King Saul wants David to report to his palace now. That spike of fear that must have shot down his spine. Oh no! Saul found out. David is dead. But no. It’s actually a grace and a gift to both David and to Saul. Saul gets an experience of relief in the midst of his suffering, but David, David the shepherd who’s supposed to be king someday, gets assigned to follow the king around day in and day out. He gets to observe and learn first hand what the job entails. He couldn’t have designed a better internship for his coming kingship than being Saul’s armor bearer. God has gone ahead of him and snatched a blessing out of a seeming disaster.

Beloved, it's very similar to the cross. Think about it. The Cross seemed like a disaster, Jesus was betrayed, abandoned, and died, but it ended up being redemption. It was God’s plan and his provision all along. Just like how what seems like David’s failure is actually his redemption and preparation! Both of these truths are beautiful and I think this moment in the story invites us to step back and consider. If this is how the cross works, If this is how God works for David… What does that mean in your own story? What circumstance has God trusted you to that seems like a disaster, but might look different with a larger God sized perspective?

Beloved, do not lose this simple truth. God goes ahead of us. He does not abandon us to the waves of chance and our own determination. Instead, regardless of our circumstances, God numbers our steps. This is such an important truth. This isn’t saying youre a robot with no choices, but rather both when you make choices and when choices are made for you, in all of your life, God is big enough and God is loving enough that he doesn’t send you in blind. He goes ahead of you and he prepares the way.

Proverbs 5:21
"For a man’s ways are before the Lord’s eyes, and he considers all his paths."

God knows and God is actively involved. Its worth asking here where is God going ahead of your story in ways you don’t want to acknowledge or don’t want? Think of your circumstances today. What aspects of your life do you like and what parts do you not like? That job, the stage of life you’re at with your kids, that boss who just doesn’t appreciate you, your anxiety about what’s next in life, whatever it may be, do you know that God has gone into this space ahead of you and prepared it for you? God is working through your job, your stress, your kids, your boss… but behind this idea is the deeper question. why? Why is he doing this?

Because God uses our circumstances to prepare us for his good future for us. Even our hard circumstances. Even the circumstances you don’t like. God is working in all of it. And he’s doing it for a reason. God is training you up. He’s sanctifying you and preparing you for the call he’s put on your life. That is true right now. Whatever your life looks like today, whether you love it, hate it, or it depends on the day. You are where you are because God went ahead of you and God is not wasting this season. He is preparing you.

I could remind you right now of the famous verse in James 1 and I probably should where James challenges us:

"2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."

And this text is powerful, but I think Paul’s simpler words and actually more helpful. In Ephesians 2, in that famous gospel passage he says right at the end:

"8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do."

Each and every one of us has amazing world in this world that God has called us to. He didn’t vacuum your soul straight to heaven when you got saved, instead he left you here. And it wasn’t just to twiddle your thumbs, it was to be about the work of the kingdom. And God doesn’t leave you on your own to obey this calling. He goes ahead of you and works your circumstances such that you can be sanctified and prepared for the good work he has for you. And here’s the thing beloved, it is good work that God is calling you to. Look at this last verse of our text with me.

1 Samuel 16:23

"23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would pick up his lyre and play, and Saul would then be relieved, feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."

You see this text shows this perfect example of how God went ahead of David to work through his circumstances. Through no plan of his own, David goes from tending the sheep to tending the king and a front row seat to literally all the duties and skills he’ll have to learn to do the job he’s being called to. Thats amazing by itself, but I think its also really important to note that even in this season, God is working through David to serve Saul. Right?

God’s gift to David is also God’s grace to Saul. It’s kind of still a sorrow, Saul is suffering and without the Spirit of God, but David’s presence is a grace none the less. David is a means of grace from God to Saul. God provides Saul relief and kindness through David.

I love that. I love that because it reminds us that our circumstances are never wasted. They’re never wasted in the long run of our life because God is working in them to prepare us for the call he’s put in our lives, but they’re also not wasted because your immediate context needs the grace of Jesus and you get to be a part of that. Even if it feels smaller or less significant than the big thing you believe God to have called to. The thing God has put in front of you today is the one that needs your faithfulness.

Beloved, God uses us to better our circumstances. This doesn’t mean that if you’re godly enough you can just assume that will make your circumstances easier, no it means that even in whatever you're facing today, God can bring about life change. He is working through you even now.

Lessons from Jet's Pizza

The reality is that you can never fully know or imagine what God is doing in your midst. I will never forget the season of life I spent delivering pizza for Jets in Chesterfield. You never know that God is actually doing. At the time this job was the only way for us to have enough money to have stability and buy a house and put in roots, and that stability opened the door to say yes to Red Tree pastorate, that created a growing boldness in evangelism and a heart for the spiritually hurting.

One night at Jets I had a conversation about Colorado and how drugs and nature fall short to find meaning. Later I remember closing with a long conversation with a manager about his failed marriage and being a workaholic. I remember a conversation about christian sexual ethics and how to feel loved in a church that seems like it rejects you. All of these relationships began to birth a vision in me for the kind of church that is safe to come exactly as you are and find healing and freedom. What God would eventually plant as Immanuel Fellowship was in part born during prayer sessions while washing dishes and honest conversations while prepping vegetables and late nights delivering pizzas.

I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore. I hate doing dishes. But I’m not too good for it and God used it to form me and to prepare me. And God used me in that season to be a part of his grace working in this world, even when all I wanted was a full time paycheck at the church I was working at, God was doing kingdom things in me and through me.

Beloved, that is how hard mode works. We shouldn’t fight it. We shouldn’t hide from it. God uses it. He uses it for you and he uses it for the needs of the world. He goes ahead of you. He prepares the way. And you can trust the work is doing, even when your circumstances seem terrible. Insignificant, painful, slow, difficult, soul sucking…. But God ordained.

What might God prepare in you today? What might he do through you 20 years from now with what he’s doing with you today? And even better, beloved, what might he be doing through you right now in your unpleasant season?