Affections / 1 Samuel 8:4-9 / Deuteronomy 17:14-20

A Fire in the Bones

Man, I cannot tell you how good it is to be back with you this week. To those who might be with us both here as well as over at Fig Garden this weekend, welcome. My name is Brad. If you’re wondering who this guy standing up here is, I’ve been hanging out here for a long time. Somebody called me today because I’ve been out for our summer teaching series for a number of weeks, and they asked, “Hey, are you excited to get back up?” I said, man, there is a fire in my bones that, even sixteen years into being a pastor here at The Well Community Church, still burns brightly in me. I am thankful to have the privilege to do life with you and to share the Word with you. I’m thankful to have the opportunity to point one another lovingly to the most important thing in the history of the planet: the work of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.

We are going to get there today, but we are going to get there the long way. If you have your Bibles—and I hope you do—turn to 1 Samuel chapter 3. We are on the tail end of what is arguably one of the strongest summer teaching series we have ever had. Years ago, we launched a summer teaching series to give younger communicators in our context who didn’t have the chance to teach very often an opportunity to step up and share. It is one thing to share in other contexts, but to stand up here, there is a weight of a thousand years on your shoulders as a communicator.

Somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago, “Do you get nervous teaching?” I said, well, there is nervous, and then there is the weight of responsibility. I don’t get nervous being in front of people, but I understand we are opening the very Word of God. It is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. As a man of God who stands to handle the Word of God, we are called to be diligent to show ourselves approved unto God as workmen who need not be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. So I feel that responsibility.

In our summer teaching series, you had people stepping up who aren’t used to carrying that load every week. This summer covered seventy gatherings with nine different communicators: our teaching team representative Mike Sladen; our lead team representative Chris Schultz; campus pastors Josh Holly, Joe Boudrego of Fig Garden fame, and Mark Snee; Mike Sierasone, our worship leader from Fig; Chris Howard; our student pastors Nick Ferguson and Kaio Yoshikawa; and our pastoral intern Eric Lewellen, who taught for the first time from this stage. It was fantastic—arguably the deepest bench from a teaching standpoint we have ever had. It was so fun for me to sit where you’re sitting, take notes, and sit under good biblical teaching from various voices.

Part of the goal of a summer series is that you hear one communicator teach the Word, then another, and another. They are all different, but the Bible is the exact same. The hope is that you can go to any church on the planet, and if they teach the Word of God, you can learn and sit under the authority of the Scriptures. Whether you prefer the communicator or not isn’t the point. In a preference-driven culture, we often say, “Oh, I like this guy or that guy.” I hope this summer you realized the hero of the story is Jesus, and the focal point is the Word of God.

The Story of the Kings

What I would like to do is take the heavy lifting that has been done this summer and make a few observations to tie it all together. When you watch these kings, you see a king begin his reign and you think, I like this guy. Maybe there’s a chance he won’t mess it up. And then, all of a sudden, you see it coming. You know that moment. You say, No! And then it’s a train wreck. Or you see a guy start out and you think, I don’t know about this guy, but then you see God move in his life, and he ends up doing incredible things. There are profound life lessons we can learn from each of these kings.

For those who haven’t been with us all summer, let me give a little background context. There comes a point in time when the people of God ask for a king. Initially, there is a United Kingdom. There are only three kings in your Old Testament who serve over the United Kingdom—the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the Northern Kingdom of Israel together: Saul, David, and Solomon. Under Solomon’s son, the kingdom divides.

The Northern Kingdom was led initially by Jeroboam, and nineteen kings followed him. The Northern Kingdom is called the Kingdom of Israel in your Bible. Its story is literally bad to worse. There is not a single good king in the North. There is not a blip of awesome in the North. It is awful and keeps getting worse until 722 BC, when the Assyrian Empire conquers and destroys them. The Assyrians intermarried native women with Assyrian men in the city of Samaria, which is why there is such intense racial tension regarding Samaria in the New Testament—they weren’t considered fully Jewish. The Northern Kingdom was wiped off the map. This summer we covered northern kings like Ahab and Jehu.

When the kingdom divided, there was also the Southern Kingdom: the Kingdom of Judah, led first by Rehoboam. There were also nineteen kings in the Southern Kingdom. A couple were okay, most were awful, and one or two were awesome. If you want to be encouraged by consistently godly living, don’t read the story of the kings, because by and large, they were not solid leaders. A key date to remember for the Southern Kingdom is 586 BC, when the Babylonian Empire deported them. Unlike Assyria, Babylon put them on metaphorical U-Hauls and took them into exile. That is where Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego enter the story.

Demanding an Earthly King

The original request from the people of God to have a king was an assault upon the character of God. From the beginning all the way to 1 Samuel, God was their King. We know that term as a theocracy. The first-century historian Josephus coined the term to describe the people of God living under God’s direct rule.

The people of God began to look around, and it wasn’t because God had a bad track record. If you read the biblical narrative from Genesis to 1 Samuel, God was doing pretty well. Read the story of the Exodus: God decimated the Egyptians, dismantled their pagan religion, ruined their economy, destroyed Pharaoh’s military, and parted the Red Sea. God was doing great. It wasn’t as if God was a bad king. But when they entered the Promised Land, they looked around at the Edomites, Midianites, Philistines, and Moabites. They saw their kings and thought, Have you seen their king? He’s jacked, strong, has a great beard—that guy looks like he could hurt someone. They forgot about the God who humiliated the most powerful army on earth, and they wanted an impressive warrior instead.

Following the conquest, Israel entered the darkest time in the Bible: the book of Judges. It is awful, and it gets progressively worse. By the end, people are doing unspeakable things. The recurring theme of Judges is that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. God was diminishing in their hearts. They looked around at foreign kings, and their affections were drawn away.

That brings us to 1 Samuel. Samuel is the final theocratic leader, serving as prophet, priest, and judge. In chapter 4, the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant—the golden chest containing Aaron’s rod, a jar of manna, and the Ten Commandments, which represented the presence of God. God struck the Philistine cities with severe affliction until they begged to send the Ark back. But the Israelites looked around and thought, Our greatest religious artifact was taken. Who is going to deliver us? They were no longer just coveting a king; they were desperate for one.

1 Samuel 8:4-6 (NASB)

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; and they said to him, ‘Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.’ But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the LORD.

They did not want a godly king. They wanted an MMA fighter who could out-squat the king of Moab and beat up the king of Edom. They wanted a ruler “like all the nations.” This was a tragic rejection of God’s rule. But notice how God comforts Samuel.

1 Samuel 8:6-9 (NASB)

But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the LORD. The LORD said to Samuel, ’Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. ’Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day– in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods– so they are doing to you also. ‘Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.’

God was saying, “Samuel, that’s what it feels like to be Me. I have been faithful, cared for them, and delivered them, and now they are throwing it in My face.” God tells Samuel to warn them about the natural consequences of having an earthly king.

As a parent, have you ever introduced your kids to natural consequences? When it’s freezing outside and you tell your four-year-old to grab a jacket, and they say, “No, I’m good,” you let them walk outside. Then they are freezing. I love seeing kids come to church with no shoes because their parents said, “I told them to put shoes on, they wouldn’t, so here they are with no shoes.” That is natural consequences.

God told Israel what having an earthly king would mean: the king would take their sons for his army, their daughters for his kitchens, the best of their fields, vineyards, orchards, and wealth for his own benefit. And when they finally cried out because of the king they chose, God would not answer them. Yet the people refused to listen and insisted on having a king.

The True Calling of a King

The concept of an earthly king was not entirely unbiblical. In Deuteronomy 17, God had already laid out instructions for the kind of king they should have.

Deuteronomy 17:14-20 (NASB)

’When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, [one] from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. ’Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ ’He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. ’Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. ’It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

God said that when the day came that they asked for a king, they had to let God choose him. And that king was not to be about himself. He was not to accumulate horses, multiply wives, or amass silver and gold. His primary calling was to transcribe a copy of the Law for himself in the presence of the priests, keep it with him, and read it all the days of his life so that he would learn to fear the Lord and not turn aside.

The goal of a king had nothing to do with military prowess or economic power. His job was simple: set your sights on God, raise your affections to God, and stay close to Him. If the king walked with God in obedience, God brought blessing. If the king turned away, it brought chaos.

Deuteronomy 28:36-37 (NASB)

’The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. ’You shall become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the people where the LORD drives you.

In short, the king’s job was to live in relationship with God and keep his heart tethered to the Lord. As Proverbs cautions, we must guard our hearts with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

We saw this throughout our series on the kings. When a king’s heart belonged fully to God, God blessed him. When Hezekiah faced the Assyrian army, God delivered them by destroying 185,000 Assyrian soldiers overnight. But when a king like Ahab married Jezebel and chased idols, it was disaster. When their hearts were led astray, chaos followed. That is the backdrop of the entire Old Testament narrative.

The Drift of the Heart

King after king slowly drifted away. As you read their stories, you want to shout, No! Don’t go that way! You see where it leads. It is easy to look at these kings and think, What was wrong with that guy? How could he let his heart drift like that?

Then you realize: he didn’t set out to end up there. His heart belonged to the Lord, and then it became a little less devoted, and a little less, and a little less. Soon his head was on a swivel, his desires were wandering, and before long, he was in full rebellion. It is the proverbial frog in the kettle. Nobody intends to blow up their life. I have never met a Christian walking intimately with the Lord who said, “My goal six months from now is to destroy my marriage, ruin my legacy with my kids, dishonor God, and lose my job.” Nobody says that. But the principle remains: when you stay connected to the Lord, you experience His blessing, and when your heart begins to drift, disaster follows.

How many of us, if we’re honest, feel a distance between ourselves and the Lord right now? Does His Word feel stale in your life? Do you find that your affections are no longer set on Christ alone, but other things have become ultimate to you? When good things become ultimate things, they steal your affections. Our hearts, like the hearts of these kings, are prone to wander.

All behavior is merely a symptom of where your heart rests. When we disconnect from the Lord, the works of the flesh begin to manifest.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NASB)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21 (NASB)

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul lists these things so that none of us feel left out. When you take inventory of your life, do you see any of these present? On a bad day, our natural reaction is to say, “I’ve got to clean up my life. I need new software, an accountability partner, moral fences, and fewer social media apps.” Those practical steps are fine, but they only treat the symptom.

What every one of those kings needed to do—and what we need to do—is stop and realize, My heart is not set on Christ. I need to return to Jesus. When you come back to Jesus, the mountain-sized issues in your life shrink. In the light of His grace, mercy, and love, His Spirit works in you, and His Word transforms you.

Raising Our Affections to Christ

We have a distinct advantage over the Old Testament kings. In the Old Testament, David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God… and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” But Paul tells us in Ephesians that when we hear the Gospel and believe, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Through the cross of Jesus Christ, we are saved from shame, guilt, and judgment. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are reconciled to God.

Romans 7:24-25 (NASB)

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

John 15:5 (NASB)

’I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

My challenge to you is simple: Where do your affections lie? If you find that your heart has drifted from the Lord, I invite you back into intimacy with God. Delight in His presence. Rest in His grace. Abide in the Vine.

Take inventory of your heart. If there is anything competing with pure devotion to Christ, repent of it and make Jesus your chief aim. We have seen the examples of men who paid the “dumb tax” in the Old Testament by letting the flesh drive their lives into chaos. Let us learn from them, turn from the flesh, and raise our affections to Jesus Christ our King.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You that You have not merely called us to moral behavior, but You have called us to humble ourselves and embrace Jesus as our King. We know that the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—is produced naturally as our affections are fixed on You. Lord, as we battle the temptations of this world, raise our sights and our hearts to belong to You alone. If there are idols in our lives, identify them and remove them. If we are holding onto good things with too tight a fist, pry our hands open. May our families, careers, hobbies, and private moments belong entirely to You. Let nothing be ultimate except Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.