Well, good morning, everyone. Glad to be here. It is an honor, as always, to be able to get to open the Word of God with you all here this morning as we continue our study in the book of 1 Samuel. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to chapter 9. We're going to be looking at the entirety of chapter 9 this morning. And before we do that, though, would you bow your heads with me and we're going to pray. Lord, we're so thankful for the gift of your word, your word that brings life. And as we turn to your word right now, I pray that you would speak to us, that you would open our hearts Open our eyes, Lord, that we would be receptive to hearing the movement of your Spirit in our myths. Lord, that you would convict us, challenge us, encourage us here this morning, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the great pastor, theologian, R.C. Sproul would often share an illustration taken straight out of the children's book, Alice in Wonderland. I don't know if any of you have read it or maybe heard him give this illustration before, but there's this moment where Alice comes to a fork in the road and she cannot decide which way to turn. And then she looks up in the tree and there's this Cheshire cat up in the tree and the cat can talk, of course, because it's a children's book. And she says, well, which way should I go? To the left or the right? And the cat says, well, where do you want to go? And that stumps her. She's like, well, I don't know. So then the cat says, of course, well, then it doesn't matter. If you don't know where you're going, it's hard to know which road it is that you should be on, this one or that one, if any road at all. And the more options there are, the more difficult the decision-making process can be. Which school should I go to? What career path should I pursue? Who should I marry? Where should we live? It can feel like God has some kind of secret blueprint or plan that he's got up there, he's keeping from us, and we don't have access to it. So we're left guessing at the best options, hoping that maybe we're at least close to the mark. But that's actually not the way God works at all. Not only did God create the world, but he sustains this world. He governs and rules over the world, not as an absent landlord, but as an active and engaged parent, right? Governing, guiding, providing for his people, leading and directing our steps, giving shape to the wild uncertainties of our lives, forming us into the people that he wants us to be. There isn't a moment of your life when his hand is not firmly on the wheel. God leads his people to accomplish his purposes. That's the main point of our message today. And we're gonna see this over and over again in 1 Samuel chapter nine as God works all kinds of circumstances. for the purpose of bringing this unknown young man Saul into the presence of the great prophet Samuel in order that he can then anoint him to be the next king, the first king of Israel. So, as we turn to our text, our first point today is look for God's guidance. Look for God's guidance. You know, last week we heard that the people wanted a king, and not just any king, if you remember from our message last week, not just any king, but we want a king like all the other nations around us. They coveted what they saw in the other nations and they demanded that God give them the same, kind of like a spoiled child at Christmas. It was a tantrum because they didn't get the same exact toy that they saw their brother or sister get. And so God says, fine, I will give you what you want. Not because he's sort of manipulated by their pressure and their complaints. but he's going to do this as a judgment on their evil and because he is still going to work through their sinfulness to accomplish his purposes. So that's a setup. So now here, at the beginning of chapter nine, the scene suddenly changes, and we move away from Samuel and Rama, and we go to the town of Gibeah, just a little bit further south, and this is the home of this young man named Saul. Now Saul apparently comes from a rich and a powerful family. His father, Kish, is described as being mighty or powerful. And Saul himself is described here in the text in the first few verses as handsome, strong, and he appears to be a good man, right? As the text says in verse two, he is significantly taller than anyone else around him. This is exactly then the kind of man that the people of Israel are looking for, tall, strong, handsome, powerful, from a strong family. He's like the star quarterback of the football team. He's the guy that every man wants to be and the man that every girl wants to date. Because although we know in our heads that looks aren't everything, like we say that all the time, but it's hard not to let appearances control our expectations. As a quick little example of that, every Easter, we spend a lot of time with our kids hard boiling, carefully hard boiling and decorating all these eggs. And we have all our kids and their cousins come over to the house and we've got food dye and vinegar and crayons all over the place. It's a chaotic mess. And then on Easter morning, we take these carefully, beautifully decorated eggs and then we have an egg cracking competition. It's kind of sad actually, because you spent all this time decorating them and now we're going to destroy them. But the goal is to see whose egg is the strongest. So anyway, one year I thought it would be really funny if I took one of the kids' eggs and I swapped it out for a raw egg. Right? This is stellar parenting, right? You should be taking notes. So the girls, Easter morning, the girls, they line up their eggs, and they're like this, one, two, three, and as the eggs collide, the one egg, raw egg, just explodes in my daughter's face. Laughter and hilarity ensues, right? No. Instead, there's this pause, and she bursts into tears. This is a great way to cultivate fear and anxiety in your children. I'm terrified, what's he gonna do next? She was expecting one thing based on the appearances and got something completely different and rather unpleasant instead. And something very similar is about to happen for the people of Israel. They're expecting to get, based on appearances, this amazing king like all the other nations around them. But as we're gonna find out in the chapters to come, they're going to get something completely different and rather unpleasant instead. Now they should have known this. We tend to idolize physical stature, but in the Bible's story, excessive height is often associated with God's enemies. Right, so when we were doing our study on the book of Deuteronomy several years ago, King Og of Bashan with this giant iron bed, right, taller than everybody else around him, enemy of God, the giant Anakim who caused the people so much fear they refused to enter the promised land. And in a few chapters, we're going to encounter the giant Goliath, enemy of God. And you compare all this with the descriptions of the suffering servant in Isaiah 52 and 53, who had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him, because despite all the common depictions that we see in TV and movies and art and everything else, people were not drawn to Jesus because of his beautiful eyes or his lustrous hair or his charismatic personality. They were drawn to Jesus because of who he is, not how he looks. But none of this silliness that the people are engaged in is going to catch God off guard. That's the reason that we have this long, meandering story here in chapter nine, is to make it crystal clear, it's not the people who are choosing Saul. God is the one who is anointing Saul and choosing him as to be king. The people, you never see a place where the people assemble, like this is our top three choices for king, and then they sort of vote to determine that Saul should be the one. God is the one who chooses and appoints Saul according to his plans and purposes. God remains firmly in charge of the situation, even though, even despite the sinful actions and attitudes of his people. Now something, we're gonna see this over and over again in chapter nine. I'm not gonna read the entire thing to you, but to make a long story short, Kish sends his son Saul to look for these lost donkeys, and they wander all over the place trying to find them. And then they run out of food, and then Saul, actually, he's ready to quit at this point. He's like, we're never gonna find these donkeys. I give up, we're going home. And then his servant realizes, wait a second, our search, our journey has brought us to the home of the great prophet Samuel. We should go ask God, this man of God, we should consult with him. Maybe he can tell us what to do. Now this may seem like a lot of extraneous detail, but these are like the dark clouds that you see looming on the horizon right before a summer storm comes rolling in. These are the minor notes in the passage that should warn us. Something is not right here about this man Saul. He is completely lost, wandering around in circles, lacking direction. Not only can he not find these missing donkeys, he seems to lose all interest in the task along the way. So whereas we read about the God who will leave the 99 in order to go look for the one, Saul seems to be only concerned with number one. Like, what am I feeling right now? Not only does Saul lack commitment, he's ill prepared for this journey. They run out of food, they run out of money. And like many of us, Saul seems reluctant to stop and ask for directions. It's his servant who eventually steps in and says, hey, maybe we should ask for help here. More specifically, and in a further indictment of Saul's sorry spiritual state, it's a servant who says, maybe we should ask for help, not just from some random person, maybe we should ask, I don't know, God for help in this? That's not Saul, that's his servant. And unlike his servant, Saul apparently doesn't even know who Samuel is. That's a shocking indictment. The man who's about to be king, he doesn't even know who Samuel is. But despite everything, God's rule is not threatened by Saul's incompetence and God's plans are not going to be thwarted by Saul's many failures. You know, I think sometimes we all feel a little bit like Saul, right? Somewhat lost, confused about where all of this is going, ill-prepared for the tasks that we're called to, uncertain about what's gonna happen next, battling constantly, battling this sort of imposter syndrome that sooner or later somebody is going to discover the real me, and they're gonna let everyone down. Someone's gonna see through the mask and catch a glimpse of the many insecurities and anxieties and doubts that are hiding below. Feeling the pressure constantly to be like David, but recognizing all too often I'm more like Saul. But although Saul's tragic story is already written, yours and mine is not, right? Because God still works through flawed people. And in Christ, in Christ, you are no longer doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes. You're not trapped in this cycle of generational curses, right? Failure is not inevitable. Cycles of sin, they can. They will be broken with the power of Christ at work in your life because in Christ you've been set free from the power of sin so that you can then be free to choose the path and embrace a different future. There's hope now because the good shepherd himself promises to lead you beside quiet waters, right, and restore your soul. He is with you. He will lead you. His rod and his staff, they will comfort you. Jesus himself is the good shepherd. Listen to his voice, turn to him for help, and he will help you find your way out of the wilderness and into the place of rest. Well, talking of rest and direction, our second point here is obey God's direction. Now for me, college was kind of a mixed bag. I was not a Christian. I really had no clue what I was trying to do with my life. I went into college starting, I'm gonna be pre-med, well pre-vet actually, but it's the same classes. But biology was a nightmare. Chemistry was a failure. I failed out of chemistry completely. So I switched majors, ended up taking five years. I finally figured out I'm going to be an English major. I'm going to teach English. So I applied to all these PhD programs in English. I get rejected from all of them, except for two. One of those came back and said, well, actually, we're not going to let you into our PhD program, but we've got this new Maserati program. You can come into that. The other one ghosted me. So with no other options, I'm like, I guess Chicago, here I come. So I commit to coming up here to Chicago. A few weeks later, the other PhD program comes back and says, hey, we'd love to have you be a part of our program. Too late, I'm already headed up here. And although it was super confusing at the time, this proved to be a life-changing decision for me, because it was up here in Chicago that I met the woman who would then become my wife. She shared the gospel with me. We got married. Started my life on an entirely different direction, right? The fact that I'm a pastor and I'm preaching up here today, in some sense traces this path all the way back to failing chemistry freshman year of college. That's crazy, right? But what if I graduated in four years instead of five? Would I still have met my wife and come to faith in Christ? What if I had gotten that letter from the other school and ended up going to Georgia State instead of coming up here to Chicago? Would I even be here today? Like we run these what if scenarios through our heads all the time as we look back on our life and although it can sometimes seem like luck or fate or chance, the Bible is clear, no part of your life is random. No part of your journey or mine is happening by accident. And we see this right here in chapter nine. The donkeys, they don't just happen to escape. Like, whoops, I don't know what happened there. I don't know how that happened. And Saul and his servant didn't just happen to end up in the hometown of Samuel, right? God orchestrated all of these events in order to lead Saul to Samuel specifically so that he would then be anointed by King. And that's not just like my interpretation, my take on this situation. Look at the text. Look at verses 15 through 17. Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel, tomorrow, about this time, I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I've seen my people because a cry has come to me. This is like the little key that unlocks the passage, the word from God that highlights his sovereign hand guiding all the events that unfold around us. God is super clear here, nothing happened by chance. He says, I will send to you this man from the land of Benjamin. It's not just a prediction about what will happen, but he's clearly saying, I am the one making this happen. It's his hand, God's hand that has set in motion this entire sequence of events leading to this meeting. What if they'd gone in a different direction? Well, they didn't because God's who's the one who's leading him to the land of Zuf. And Saul was ready to give up and go home. What if the servant hadn't spoken out? God's the one who prompts the servant to say, wait a second, before we leave, let's talk to this man of God. But what if they had rejected the idea of visiting this man of God when Saul's like, hey, I'm a little short, I don't have anything, I'm not ready for this. But then the servant, he finds in his pocket the money that they need to give to the seer. God is equally the one who then controls the timing of these events as well. So in the following verses, just as they arrive at the city, they just happen to bump into women going out for water at just that exact moment. What if they had arrived just a few minutes earlier, a few minutes later, but they didn't? They came on that day, the day that Samuel was in the city. And finally, in verse 14, it's just as they enter the city that Samuel is coming out directly towards them. It's incredible. So a few weeks ago, we saw like these, God used these two milk cows, right, to lead the ark back to Israel. And here he uses a bunch of donkeys to lead Saul to Samuel. Now you may be thinking to yourself, sure, it's hard to argue with the fact that God is clearly orchestrating things here for Saul and Samuel, but this is like big stuff. This is about the leadership of the kingdom of Israel. This is kings and prophets. My life, way less important than that. But the story of the Bible says otherwise. God is sovereign over all of creation. There are no lesser and greater pieces in God's eyes. Psalm 103 verse 19 says, the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over the important parts, over some parts, over the special people, the tall people, the kings, the rulers. No, he says his kingdom rules over all of that. So you can flip a coin a hundred times, a thousand times, however many times you want, and God will always determine the result, whether it's a king flipping the coin or a kid. I mean, the book of Proverbs speaks extensively to this, right? The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord is the one who establishes his steps. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. And on and on, over and over and again in God's word. There's this pattern. We plan a purpose, but it's the Lord who is the one who determines the results. And the part that I think is hard for us is that this is true even in the midst of pain and suffering. God is still in control. All right, so when Joseph's brothers plotted against him, their plan was initially murder, right, before they later agree, well, we'll just sell him into slavery instead. And God works through all that evil to bring blessing to his people. Or when the sailors tossed Jonah into the stormy water, they did so knowing, we're surely, we're sending him to his death. Forgive us, God, for casting this man into the water. But God uses their evil actions to accomplish his eternal purpose, leading Jonah back to Nineveh so that he can preach repentance. and what Pilate and Herod and the religious leaders intended for evil in the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. God intended for our good, for the salvation of all mankind. And if each of these cases, the Bible holds these people morally responsible for their freely chosen actions. And yet, at the same time, God somehow works through all this evil to bring about his glorious and good and great promises. Though I often pray for safety and healing and protection and provision for my family, protection from accidents, illnesses, injuries, I don't want to see anyone near and dear to me to get hurt or to be in suffering or pain. But as and when it does come, I can also take comfort knowing that none of this takes God by surprise. And he is always working out his plans, even in the middle of our suffering. Moreover, he promises that he will walk through that fire with us, meaning he will strengthen us, he will sustain us, he will carry us, he will help us to endure whatever pain comes our way. So as we go through the flood, the waters will not overwhelm us. Our Heavenly Father, He's not just a landscape doing a little pruning here and there to keep things looking ship shape. He's actively governing and directing all the areas, all the events of human history towards a specific goal. And not just at the big picture level, but in all the little incidents of our lives. It's incredible. And our calling then is simply to obey His directions, to go where He leads, to listen where He speaks, to do what He calls us to do, trusting in His sustaining grace to see us through it all. Well, as we talk about trust, that brings us to a third and final point here from this passage, and that's to trust in God's provision. I don't know about you, maybe you've had that experience of going to a party and you introduce yourself to someone for the first time, and then they rather awkwardly respond, well, actually, we have already met before. And it's like, oh, yes, right. That's kind of the situation that we're going to see here with Saul and Samuel. Because for three days Saul has been looking for his lost donkeys without any progress. And now with help from his servant, young women from the town, he's shifted gears and now he's looking for the prophet Samuel instead. Meanwhile, Samuel has been told by God that the man he's supposed to anoint as king is about to enter into the city. And then as Samuel is walking down the street, it's as if God shines a spotlight on Saul and says, look, here's the man, this is the guy. And then look at verse 18. Then Saul approaches Samuel in the gate and said, tell me, where's the house of the seer? And Samuel answers Saul, I'm the seer. It's like, oh, right, I knew that. Of course, you're the seer. But actually, before Saul can say anything else, Samuel then tells him what to do next. He says, go up before me to the high place, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have been found. Now we know that Saul's reign as king is going to be rocky and end in disaster. But hold on to that thought for right now because in this moment, things are actually looking pretty good for Saul, right? Him and his servant were out of food and now they've been invited to a feast. The lost donkeys that were leading him on this quest have now been found. God is providing for them in amazing ways. And now on top of all of that, the prophet Samuel is offering Saul even more incredible news. That's this cryptic saying at the end of verse 20. And he says, and for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father's house? It's just a very convoluted way of saying, look, all the wealth of Israel, all that is desirable, it's all coming to you. into your house, your family. Now considering Saul didn't even know who Samuel was until a few minutes before, this is a shocking revelation to say the least, which is perhaps why Saul is so deferential in his reply. He essentially says, look, who am I that such an honor should be bestowed upon me? Saul doesn't even know that he's in the running to be king, right? So this is totally out of the blue for him. And honestly, if you think about it, if someone came up to you on the street and said something similar to you, you'd be pretty shocked also. But at the same time, Think about this. If you've been born again, if you have put your trust in Jesus, if you've been made alive in Christ, then that very same question should be on your lips also. Who am I that such an honor would be bestowed upon me? That I should be considered a child of God. That I should be considered an heir to the kingdom. Who in the world am I? We may rightly look at Saul or David and say, well, look, I'm no king. God provided a throne and a kingdom and all kinds of blessings for them. All I have is a pile of bills and laundry and a huge to-do list. And yes, all the mundane realities of life don't magically melt away when you become a Christian, but what you've inherited as a child of God is something of far greater value than anything any earthly kingdom could ever offer you. Solomon, of all people, was perhaps best positioned to comment on this, right? He's accumulated all the wealth that is possibly imagined in life. All these wives, all the pleasure, all the great experiences you could imagine. And yet in the end, his verdict, It's meaningless. You can't take any of this with you when you go. Pleasure is temporary and ephemeral. What's yours today may end up in someone else's hands tomorrow. Just watch the chaos that generally unfolds after someone dies and you see so many family members fighting over their stuff. It's awful. But it's not just spiritual blessings that God promises us. He provides for us in very concrete ways as well, just as he does here for Saul. He gives us food to eat, air to breathe, homes to live in, friends and families to share it all with. Even if he doesn't seem to answer all our prayers, and as Pastor Michael noted last week, that's often a good thing, he does answer many of them, so many of them, more than we often deserve. And not so that we can then bask in the glory of all these possessions that we have, but so that we might bask in the glory of God and his goodness. That we might take what he has given us and in turn share those good gifts with those around us. That we might be as generous to others as God has been to us. But the flip side of this is a question What do we do when it seems like God is not actually providing for us, when the healing doesn't come, when the bills go to collections, when the job opportunities dry up, when the savings are all gone? Fatalism says, well, whatever will be will be. It is what it is. But that's not faith, that's hopelessness. And we should be careful not to let our hearts drift too far in that direction because the road that will slowly lead you further and further away from God. But perhaps Job's attitude seems far more instructive here when he says, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Job sees his suffering as an opportunity to press more deeply into faith. He reaffirms that God is the one who is providentially at work in all aspects of our lives. And his attitude is one of worship, at least initially, right? He has absolutely no clue why all these things are happening to him, nor to his friends. The whole thing is a mystery that God never explains fully to Job. but Joe praises God nonetheless, even without any clear answers or explanations. Because in the end, what do any of us have that was not given to us by God? Right, as Jesus says in Matthew 6, your heavenly Father feeds and cares for the birds of the air. How much more precious are each of us to God than they? So why get anxious? Remember, Jesus was talking to a crowd of people living in far greater poverty than anyone in this room. People who might die simply from getting a cut on their hand that would get infected. Their lives were far more fragile than any of ours, and yet the message from Jesus was the same. Why worry when you know that your Father loves you and cares for you? He clothes the lilies at the field that are here today and gone tomorrow. Don't you think He cares far more for you, made as you are in the image of God? It's incredible, we see over and over again, God providing for flawed, broken, imperfect, and frequently sinful people, even Saul. And I'm confident that he will give each of us exactly what we need to accomplish exactly what he has called us to do every time without fail because our God is a God who provides. And so as we wrap all this up, what we see in 1 Samuel 9 is that God is at work guiding, leading, directing our steps even when we don't see it or recognize it. For me, that's incredibly comforting because it gives me confidence to act, to make decisions, to move forward knowing that the weight of the world is not on my shoulders. It's on God's. It's not about me after all. This is a confusing and a chaotic world in which we live in, right? Like Alice, we can sometimes find ourselves stuck at those forks in the road saying, I have no idea which path I'm supposed to be going down. But in those moments, Jesus helps us zoom out and see the big picture. And he simply says, follow me. Leave everything else behind. Don't look back, don't second guess. Take my yoke upon your shoulders. Pick up your cross, follow me. Because he ultimately is the way. And everything else is secondary. And when we follow in his footsteps, everything else will eventually fall into place. So I wanna close this morning reading from Colossians chapter two. And the encouragement that Paul gives us there in verses six and seven. He says, therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Walk in the way of Christ and he will lead your steps in the way that he wants us to go. Would you pray with me? Lord, we're so thankful for this reminder that we have, even in the midst of the sinful, broken mess of Saul's life, that you are still sovereignly in control of all events and circumstances in our lives. And Lord, we pray that you would sustain us through your spirit this week and help us to walk in your ways, rooted and built up in Christ and established in the faith. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.