1. "When we consider huge historical events, like the founding of a nation or the ending of a war, we often think that the people at the center of those events somehow read the moment and then seized control. But the truth is, in those pivotal moments, those protagonists knew very little and they could control even less."

2. "Sometimes life is like pinball. All these things are happening, all these things are banging around and you just get one little flipper to whack. Sometimes it's worse. Life is a game of pinball and you're the ball."

3. "Israel's rejection does not paralyze Yahweh's providence. Although Yahweh sees Israel's idolatry and her cry for a king, he also hears her distress and her cry for relief. Israel's stupidity cannot wither Yahweh's compassions."

4. "In his providential oversight of every detail of our lives, God mixes mercy and judgment like a master pharmacist. He dispenses medicine we need even when we neither know what we need nor want it."

5. "God wisely inflicts temporary pain in order to produce something both permanent and precious. Are you going through a trial that leaves you thinking, what on earth is God doing in my life? Here's one thing God is doing when his providence just doesn't seem to make sense. He's testing you. He's refining you."

6. "The design of God's hand is often hidden behind dark clouds. But the depth of his heart is always wide open to you in Christ."

7. "God's providence is written in invisible ink. There is a meaning, there is a message, but he has not promised to give any of us the solution that will reveal it until we see his face in glory."

8. "False humility keeps your eyes fixed on yourself. True humility fixes your eyes on God. False humility makes you more concerned with what you can't do than with what God can do through you. False humility is ultimately a form of being self-absorbed and even self-reliant."

9. "False humility is a refusal to believe that God can make his power perfect in your weakness. It's a refusal to believe that God can use weak, imperfect, sinful people like you and me to accomplish his purposes."

10. "Sometimes getting what you want is a judgment."

Observation Questions

1. According to 1 Samuel 9:1-2, what qualities and characteristics did Saul possess that made him appear to be a good candidate for leadership in Israel?

2. In 1 Samuel 9:15-16, what did the Lord reveal to Samuel the day before Saul arrived, and what specific purpose did God state for anointing Saul?

3. What three signs did Samuel tell Saul would happen to confirm that God had chosen him as king (1 Samuel 10:2-6)?

4. According to 1 Samuel 10:9-10, what happened to Saul after he turned to leave Samuel, and how did the people who knew him respond when they witnessed this change?

5. In 1 Samuel 10:20-22, how was Saul publicly selected as king, and where was he found when the people went looking for him after he was chosen?

6. What were the two different responses to Saul's selection as king described in 1 Samuel 10:26-27?

Interpretation Questions

1. Throughout 1 Samuel 9, Saul appears ignorant of what God is orchestrating in his life—from losing donkeys to meeting Samuel at the precise moment. What does this narrative teach us about the nature of God's providence and how He works through ordinary circumstances?

2. In 1 Samuel 9:16, God says He is appointing Saul to "save my people from the hand of the Philistines" because "their cry has come to me." Given that Israel's request for a king was described as rejecting God in chapter 8, how can God's appointment of Saul be understood as both an act of judgment and an act of mercy?

3. What is the significance of the Spirit "rushing upon" Saul in 1 Samuel 10:10, and how does this differ from the Spirit's permanent indwelling of believers under the new covenant? What was the purpose of this empowerment?

4. When Saul hid among the baggage after being selected by lot (1 Samuel 10:22), why might this be understood as culpable unbelief rather than commendable humility, given all that God had already done to confirm Saul's calling?

5. In 1 Samuel 10:25, Samuel writes down "the rights and duties of the kingship" and lays it before the Lord. What does this action reveal about the relationship between Israel's human king and God's ultimate authority?

Application Questions

1. Saul had no idea that his search for lost donkeys would lead to becoming king. When you reflect on your own life, what "small" circumstances has God used to bring about significant outcomes? How does recognizing God's providence in the past help you trust Him with current uncertainties?

2. The sermon identified several wrong responses to God's hidden providence: doubting His sovereignty, doubting His goodness, growing impatient, or trying to guess the future. Which of these temptations do you struggle with most, and what specific step could you take this week to respond with faith instead?

3. Saul was given clear signs and the Spirit's empowerment, yet he still hid from his calling. Is there an area of service, obedience, or responsibility that God has clearly called you to, but you find yourself "hiding" from it? What would it look like to step forward in the courage of faith?

4. The sermon distinguished between false humility (self-focused, fixated on limitations) and true humility (God-focused, trusting what He can do through us). How can you practically cultivate true humility this week in a specific relationship or responsibility?

5. God provided Saul with multiple supports to strengthen his faith—prophetic words, confirming signs, and the Spirit's presence. What "supports for faith" has God given you (Scripture, community, answered prayers, transformed lives), and how can you more intentionally rely on them when doubts arise?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 2:23-25 — This passage, which the sermon notes is directly echoed in 1 Samuel 9:16, shows God hearing His people's cry and remembering His covenant, demonstrating that God's response to Saul's anointing follows His pattern of mercy toward His suffering people.

2. Judges 14:5-6, 19; 15:14-15 — These passages describe the Spirit "rushing upon" Samson for specific tasks of deliverance, providing the Old Testament background for understanding how the Spirit's temporary empowerment of Saul differed from new covenant regeneration.

3. 1 Peter 1:3-9 — This passage explains how God uses trials to refine and test believers' faith, producing something "more precious than gold," directly supporting the sermon's teaching on God's purpose in difficult providences.

4. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 — This passage outlines God's original instructions for kingship in Israel, showing that the king was always meant to be under God's Word and authority, which illuminates why Samuel wrote down the rights and duties of kingship.

5. Philippians 2:12-13 — This passage teaches that God works in believers both to will and to work for His good pleasure, supporting the sermon's principle that God provides the strength for the tasks He assigns His people.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: Who Controls the Story of Your Life?

II. Point One: The Ignorant King (1 Samuel 9:1-21)

III. Point Two: The Anointed King (1 Samuel 9:22–10:16)

IV. Point Three: The Authorized King (1 Samuel 10:17-27)

V. Conclusion: Jesus Is the King We All Need

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Let me tell you what I wish I had known when I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story. So said General George Washington, according to Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton, whose run in DC ends tonight. When we consider huge historical events, like the founding of a nation or the ending of a war, we often think that the people at the center of those events somehow read the moment and then seized control. They took over.

It's as if the car of history were driverless until Washington or Churchill took the wheel. But the truth is, in those pivotal moments, those protagonists knew very little and they could control even less. They did their best, they played their sometimes heroic part, but they had no idea how the story would end. They couldn't read the end of the story that they were living in the middle of.

What about in your life? Who's in control? Who's writing the story that you're living? And what are they saying? Is there a message or a meaning to it?

Speaking of control, are there any fans here of the game pinball? You know, arcade game, the big box thing, only two buttons on the sides, the little paddles that flick the ball and you're just trying to rack up as many points as you can. I've never been the biggest fan of pinball. It gives you so little influence, so little control. You just whack the ball and it goes wherever it wants to.

Sometimes, life is like pinball. All these things are happening, all these things are banging around and you just get one little flipper to whack.

Sometimes it's worse. Life is a game of pinball and you're the ball. You're getting banged, smashed, bounced into stuff, bright lights are flashing around you, you have no idea what it means, and eventually gravity just pulls you all the way down. This morning, we continue our study of the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel with chapters 9 and 10. Passage begins on page 231 of the Pew Bibles.

Our passage narrates a massive historical event. It's something on the order of the founding of a nation. What is it? In brief, in 1 Samuel 9:10, the prophet Samuel appoints Saul as Israel's first king. But King Saul is not much like a conquering general.

He's much more like a pinball getting whacked around.

So the question for you and for our passage is this: who's in control? Who's writing this story? And what message are they sending? We'll consider the story of Saul's rise to kingship in three parts. Point one: the Ignorant King.

The Ignorant King. We meet this ignorant king in chapter 9, verses 1 to 21. Look first at verses 1 and 2.

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphia, a Benjaminite. A man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people.

Saul is a tall, good-looking guy from a strong family. If you're judging by appearance and pedigree, he's a good candidate for leadership. This is what psychologists call the halo effect. That people are more likely to approve of and more likely to follow somebody who's tall and good-looking compared to the alternative. And that's regardless of their fitness for the job.

The people wanted a king, so the Lord gave them someone who looked every inch a king. They wanted a military head, so God gave them someone who could stand up at the head of the troops and everybody would know who's in charge.

Verses three to four really start our story by sending Saul off on a quest. Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, 'Take one of the young men with you and arise. Go and look for the donkeys.' and he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalisha, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there.

Then they passed through the land of Benjamin, but they did not find them. For an ancient farming family, losing some donkeys is losing a valuable and a crucial asset. It's like losing a pickup truck or in modern city terms, losing several months worth of paychecks all at once. So this is a big deal. Saul's father entrusted it to him and Saul demonstrates a good kind of obedience and honor to his father by going off in quest of his donkeys.

This is a good sign so far about Saul's character. And he also takes one of his servants along and he goes looking for the donkeys but he doesn't find them. By verse 5, Saul is ready to give up. Look at verses 5 to 10. When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, 'Come, let us go back.

Lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us. But he that is the servant said to him, 'Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man who has held in honor all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go.' Then Saul said to his servant, 'But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone and there is no present to bring to the man of God.

What do we have? The servant answered Saul again, Here I have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way. Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, 'Come, let us go to the seer.' for today's prophet was formerly called a seer. And Saul said to his servant, 'Well said, come, let us go. So they went to the city where the man of God was.

Saul accepts his failure and he wants to head home so he doesn't needlessly worry his dad. But his servant is more resourceful. The servant knows of a prophet. They can ask for help. Okay, well, but what about the customary gift you would give to the prophet as an honorarium, you know, to recognize his services?

Aren't they out of money? Well, no, not quite. Quarter shekel of silver left. The picture here resembles a couple of P.G. Woodhouse's fictional creations, Bertie Wooster and his butler, Jeeves.

Bertie is a young nobleman. He has all kinds of money and family resources, but he always gets into trouble and he has no idea what to do. Jeeves is nearly omnipotent, nearly omnipresent, and he always rescues Bertie from his troubles. So despite Saul's compelling appearance and his good background and his seeming humility, obedience to his dad, he's not coming across as prime leadership material in terms of his natural gifts. The servant's kind of having to lead him around by the hand.

Now, Saul and his servant head toward the city to try to meet the prophet and then verses 11 to 14 tell us who they met on the way.

As they went up the hill to the city, they met young women coming out to draw water and said to them, 'Is the seer here?' They answered, 'He is. Behold, he's just ahead of you. Hurry. He has come just now to the city because the people have a sacrifice today on the high place. As soon as you enter the city, you will find him before he goes up to the high place to eat.

For the people will not eat until he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice. Afterward, those who are invited will eat. Now go up, for you will meet him immediately. So they went up to the city. As they were entering the city, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place.

For background here, we need to remember that at this point in Israel's history, there was no centralized sanctuary. There was no one place only where the people were meant to offer sacrifices. There had been a sanctuary at Shiloh, but it got destroyed, probably relocated to Bethel, and it just hadn't yet been all consolidated to be consolidated into one place. So Samuel and these people aren't doing anything wrong by having a sacrifice and then a meal. It's just that Samuel as the prophet has to preside over the whole thing.

The people will follow his instructions, make sure it all goes according to plan. They'll await the prophet's word before they eat. So that's the kind of timing going on here. They're not going to go until he gets there, but Samuel's on his way. So Saul and servant, you better hurry.

And you might be thinking, Why do we need all this detail? If they're in such a hurry, why are these ladies telling them so much stuff? Shouldn't they just get on their way? Like, just say, oh, there he is, going to the city, he'll be fine. Why does it take so long here to kind of get to the next step in the story?

I think there's probably a couple reasons why the narrative is pausing here. One is to build suspense. What on earth is happening? Saul still has no idea. No clue.

He's just like the pinball getting pushed around the pinball table. But another reason for building up this suspense and for for sort of lingering over this incident is that this meeting women at a well sets up certain expectations. Earlier in scripture, in Israel's history, a number of Israel's patriarchs met women at wells who would become wives. So that would be Abraham's servant found a wife for Isaac at a well. Jacob met Rachel at a well.

So what's this meeting here about? Well, it's not Saul finding a wife, but as one Bible scholar put it, the man searching for donkeys found a kingdom. The young man at the well married Israel. The feast to come is a wedding feast between Saul and Israel. Again, at this point, Saul has no idea about any of this.

He's still trying to find his donkeys and he's still trying to find the prophet who can help him. But God is directing every single one of his steps so that what he finds is far better than what he was looking for. Verse 15 gives us a little flashback and it finally pulls back the curtain so that we can learn what's really going on here. Look at verses 15 to 17. Now, the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel, 'Tomorrow about this time I will send 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 have seen my people, because their cry has come to me. When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, Here is the man of whom I spoke to you. He it is who shall restrain my people.

This takes us back just one day before the events that are going on here. And so God has told Samuel in advance that Saul's gonna come and he's going to anoint him king over Israel. Look at the specific language the Lord uses in verse 16, He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines, for I have seen my people because their cry has come up to me. This is a direct echo of Exodus 2:24-25 when the Lord hears his people groaning under their oppression and he says, Now's the time to act. But wait a minute.

If you were here last week when we studied chapters 7 and 8, you'll remember that Israel's request for a king amounted to rejecting God. He was the one who was fighting their battles and doing a fine job of it. And they said, that's not enough for us. We want a human king, thanks very much. So how can God say, that he is appointing Saul king to save them?

How can this be an act of mercy and grace? Isn't God giving them a king an act of judgment against their sin? The answer is all of the above. Yes to both.

As Dale Ralph Davis put it, Israel's rejection does not paralyze Yahweh's providence. Although Yahweh sees Israel's idolatry and her cry for a king, he also hears her distress and her cry for relief. Israel's stupidity cannot wither Yahweh's compassions. So Saul, being appointed as king, is both deliverance and disaster. It's both punishment and provision.

Israel has rejected God but God hasn't rejected his people. They don't deserve it, but he's still going to deliver them, and now he's going to do it through the king they asked for. Even in judgment, God remembers mercy. In the hymn, the sands of time are sinking, we sing, With mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove. In his providential oversight of every detail of our lives.

God mixes mercy and judgment like a master pharmacist. He dispenses medicine we need even when we neither know what we need nor want it. That's why Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:6-7, Now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is refined by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. God wisely inflicts temporary pain in order to produce something both permanent and precious.

Are you going through a trial that leaves you thinking, what on earth is God doing in my life?

Here's a There's one thing God is doing when his providence just doesn't seem to make sense. He's testing you. He's trying you. He's refining you. That's one of his goals.

He's got 10,000 other ones about which you may know very few. But what God is doing is refining you, testing you, purifying you, in order in the end to deliver to you an even greater eternal reward. That's what he's about in hard and seemingly nonsensical providences in your life if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. So Saul, at this point, still has no idea what's happening, but Samuel does and then they finally meet in verses 18 to 21.

Then Saul approached Samuel in the gate and said, 'Tell me where is the house of the seer?' Samuel answered Saul, 'I am the seer. 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. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father's house?

Saul answered, Am I not a Benjamite, from the least of the tribes of Israel? And is not my clan the humblest of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then have you spoken to me in this way?

Saul doesn't know who Samuel is. But Samuel knows who Saul is. Not only that, but he knows about the lost donkeys without Saul telling him. And then Samuel makes this cryptic comment saying that everything valuable in Israel is somehow stored up for Saul and for his family. We know that sounds a lot like kingship, but it's tough to know what Saul would have known, how he would have made any kind of sense of that, except that it's some sort of exaltation, some sort of honor.

So, Saul then objects based on his allegedly humble origins. Through the disastrous events at the end of Judges, the tribe of Benjamin was decimated in terms of its population. So he's telling the truth when he says he's from a small tribe. But it's tough to know exactly is this right here in Saul, false humility, stress testing, what he's hearing from the prophet? I'm honestly not 100% sure.

I think his posture gets a little clearer as the passage goes on. But in any case, Saul objects, but Samuel's not going to let that stop him. So Saul has finally discovered that something is up, but he still doesn't know what. He's about to find out, but at this moment he's still the ignorant king. He's still in the dark about what God is doing to him and what God intends to do through him.

This whole 21 verse section is like a narrative treatise on God's providence. The passage doesn't use that word, but the concept is everywhere. In other words, that God wisely, lovingly, ordains all the circumstances of his people's lives in order to accomplish his purposes in ways we could never engineer or even dream of. God wisely, lovingly, ordains even the smallest circumstances to serve his grand saving purposes. Think about Saul's trip across the pinball table.

So far. Lost donkeys, can't find them, scrappy servant, money in the bag, Samuel's in the city, they meet people who tell them what to do, then they meet right when Saul enters the very gate of the city. The timing could not have been ordained any more precisely. Samuel's the first person Saul meets when he shows up. As Spurgeon said, On how small an incident the greatest results may hinge.

The pivots of history are microscopic. Hence, it is most important for us to learn that the smallest trifles are as much arranged by the God of Providence as the most startling events. The other day, Kristen was teaching our two oldest kids about God's providence and talking about God ordaining the circumstances of her own childhood. So she was born on the San Francisco Peninsula, moved across the region to the East Bay when she was eight, moved across town when she was 10-11, which meant she went to a different school, which meant it fed into a different high school, and that's how she met me. So if she'd never moved across the bay or never moved houses within her hometown, she wouldn't have gone to Amador Valley High School, didn't go to Amador Valley High School, you don't meet me.

And then the kids said, and we wouldn't exist.

Think about how much the most significant events in your life hinge on things over which you have little or more often no control. But God is in control. When you reflect on and wrestle with God's providence, in what ways are you tempted to go wrong? Some of us struggle with doubting God's sovereignty, that he really is in charge, or doubting God's goodness, that he really loves us and he really intends to work good through the hard circumstances he's putting us in. Often we dig in and look for answers that we can never find instead of simply trusting God, trusting his heart toward us.

The design of God's hand is often hidden behind dark clouds. But the depth of his heart is always wide open to you in Christ. We so often grow impatient, tired of waiting. Come on, God, if you're doing something in my life, how about you do it already? Let's go, we got things to do.

But God doesn't work to deadlines, least of all the deadlines we set him.

Sometimes we try to make up for our lack of knowledge of what God is doing in our present by guessing at and aiming for the future. Fill in the blank, in five years I hope to be.

Or you could try to read signals from God in the moment as if he's the running back you're the defensive end, he jukes left and you try to figure out, is that the way he's going or do I have to, you know, he's faking me out. How can I make the tackle on God's providence? It's not how the Lord works with us. What's the antidote to all of these? Something very simple but often hard: faith.

Trusting God's character and promises. Believe God farther than you can explain him. God's providence is written in invisible ink. There is a meaning, there is a message, but he has not promised to give any of us the solution that will reveal it until we see his face in glory.

When you're as ignorant as Saul, about what God is doing in your life. What can you do? Trust him. Point two, the anointed king. The anointed king.

This will take us from chapter 9 verse 22 to chapter 10 verse 16. We'll see first how Samuel anoints Saul and then how God himself provides a very different kind of anointing. The story continues with the sacrificial banquet in verses 22 to 24. Then Samuel took Saul and his young man and brought them into the hall and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited, who were about thirty persons. And Samuel said to the cook, 'Bring the portion I gave you, of which I said to you, 'Put it aside.' so the cook took up the leg and what was on it and set them before Saul.

And Samuel said, See, what was kept is set before you. Eat, because it was kept for you until the hour appointed, that you might eat with the guests. So Saul ate with Samuel that day.

Samuel Usher saw into the banquet, sits him at the head of the table, and then here's the real giveaway. He instructs the cook to bring out what he had him set aside beforehand. Aha. Saul is walking into some kind of divinely prepared situation. Only now does he learn that Samuel's been planning ahead for his arrival.

Only now does Saul begin to realize that he is on a divinely constructed conveyor belt towards some honored destination, but he still doesn't even know what that destination is. He gets one step closer in verses 25 to 27. And when they came down from the high place into the city, a bed was spread for Saul on the roof, and he lay down to sleep. Then at the break of dawn, Samuel called to Saul on the roof, 'Up, that I may send you on your way.' so Saul arose, and both he and Samuel went out into the streets. As they were going down to the outskirts of the city, Samuel said to Saul, 'Tell the servant to pass on before us, and when he has passed on, stop here yourself for a while that I may make known to you the Word of God.

You might have as little idea what God is doing in your life as Saul did, but the same source is writing the script. The same source is in charge of how your story is unfolding just as much as Saul's. Now, you quite likely, almost certainly, I think it's pretty safe to say, have not had specific prophetic revelations given by an authorized prophet of God to tell you exactly what's going to happen in your life. But you've been given in God's word a sufficient storehouse of wisdom for understanding exactly what God requires of you and exactly how he'll enable you to do that. For your whole life or until Jesus comes back, whichever happens first.

Finally, we get to the main action. The whole passage has been leading up to chapter 10, verse 1. Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, 'Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies and this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. We'll get to the sign in a minute.

But Samuel smearing oil on Saul's head is a sign in the present that God himself has chosen him as king. In fact, Samuel even says it's not me who is anointing you, it's the Lord. The Lord has anointed you, king over Israel. The Hebrew word for anoint is mashach, which is where we get our English word Messiah from. It means anointed one.

As the first king of Israel, Saul was anointed into office. And so was Jesus into the office of Messiah by being anointed with the Holy Spirit. Then Samuel assures Saul, you shall reign over the people of Israel and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. His point is to encourage Saul, to remind Saul that he is going to have God's God's authorization, God's equipping, God's provision, His protection and His presence. Samuel is assuring Saul that this is God's will and God will be with him.

He's saying that God has appointed him to a heavy task but the strength that God supplies will be enough. It's like when Jesus commands all of us to make disciples of all nations and then he says, Behold, I'm with you always. To the end of the age. In the rest of verse 1, all the way through verse 8, Samuel provides more specific assurance for Saul that God has in fact chosen him. God has authorized him and God is going to empower him to rule.

This assurance takes the form of three signs that Samuel is predicting and that will soon be fulfilled. We got the heading at the end of verse 1. Now look at verses 2 to 8.

When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, 'The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, 'What shall I do about my son?' Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. After that you shall come to Gibeah of Elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you'll meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them prophesying.

Then the spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do for God is with you. Then go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I'm coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait until I come to you and show you. What you shall do.

Three events are going to happen to Saul in quick succession, just like there were three delays in finding the donkeys. First, he'll meet two men by Rachel's tomb, then three men going up to Bethel, then a whole company of prophets prophesying. Not only that, but Saul himself is going to prophesy. The point of these signs is to confirm to Saul that this is from the Lord and the Lord will be with him, so he should take up his office in the courage that faith produces. Paul talks about the obedience of faith in Romans 1:5.

Here we can talk about the courage of faith as what these signs are meant to inspire in Saul. God knows that our faith needs help. He knows our faith needs support. He knows we're prone to forget, to slip, to fainting, be. And so, God graciously offers us many supports for our faith that help and hold up and buttress our faith from many different directions.

Here's just a few you can think of a ton more. You can look at his faithfulness to his own promises over millennia as recorded in Scripture. You can think about specifically hundreds of New Testament fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies. Or the death and resurrection of Christ as the hinge of God's perfect plan of salvation, the grand central station through which all of those promises run. Or more personally, you can think about the way God's Word is shown again and again to be superior to all human wisdom.

It not only explains our problems better, it explains who we are both as human beings, as creatures, as those made in God's image, and as those who are fallen beyond all hope of self-repair. Not only that, but Scripture doesn't just diagnose, it prescribes It gives us solutions that are far more lasting, far more transforming, that get to the heart of the matter over against any worldly effort at self-reform. Or you could think about how you've seen God work in other people's lives, put on a five-year replay and think about someone you were involved with, maybe trying to help them or maybe unwittingly being hurt by them. But think about what God has done in five years. Think about how much you've seen how many people grow in conformity to the character of Christ over a five-year period.

God is powerfully at work. God is authenticating his word by using it to transform the lives of his people. What would you add to that list? What reinforcements has God provided for your faith? And how has he worked to strengthen your faith when you've been Doubting.

If you're here this morning and you are not a follower of Jesus, you don't understand yourself to be a Christian, don't think you're a Christian, we're very glad you're here, you're welcome at any of our services. I hope that one element of this passage that's maybe intriguing to you is that God is not asking Saul and he's not asking us for a blind leap into the dark. Faith is not the disabling of rational faculties, it does take trust. It does take commitment. Nobody can be argued into the kingdom of God.

But at the same time, God graciously condescends to give us reason after reason after reason to trust him, to take him at his word. I would submit to you that the more you bring your reason to bear on the scriptures and on who God has revealed himself to be, the more you will find them compelling, coherent, self-consistent, surprisingly fitting together in all sorts of ways. Now, when you look toward the end of this little section, verses 7 and 8, it's important to see how these two verses fit together.

Verses 7 and 8, Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. Then go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait until I come to you and show you what you shall do. Verse seven says that once all these authenticating signs take place, Saul is to do whatever is in his power. That's what that idiom means.

And if you look ahead to chapter 11, the point is he's gonna muster Israel for a decisive military victory. There's gonna be a very clear task he has to do as king, and God's gonna enable him to do it. But verse eight is about what happens after. Verse eight says he's supposed to wait. He's supposed to play the decisive military hero one day and then sit patiently and submissively and wait for God's prophet.

Just sit there. Samuel will come and Samuel will tell him what to do. Two very different tasks, two very different speeds. Will Saul submit to God's rule in the form of obeying God's prophet? Will he both act as God commands and wait as God commands?

Both acting and waiting are a test. Both show what's in your heart. If you'll only act and not wait, you're not trusting God's word.

Then in verses 9 to 13, everything Samuel said would happen did happen. Look at verses 9 to 13.

When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day. When they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met him and the Spirit of God rushed upon him and he prophesied among them. And when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, 'What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?

And a man of the place answered, and who is their father? Therefore it became a proverb, Is Saul also among the prophets? When he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place. The whole point of Saul prophesying is to show that God has poured out his Spirit on him. God has brought about a change in Saul in keeping with his change in office.

What kind of change? We'll get to that in a second. In verse 11, the proverb asking, Is Saul also among the prophets? is simply registering surprise. It doesn't mean that Saul was like the worst kid in Sunday school and you never think he would become a prophet.

You know, it just means, this is different, this is new, this is a change, how did this happen? It's just saying, God did something, who knows? Now, the big question, as I mentioned in this section, is this: what happened when the Spirit came upon Saul? Three verses we need to look at closely. First, back in verse 6: Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.

Then verses 9 and 10: When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day. When they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met him and the Spirit of God rushed upon him and he prophesied among them. Does all this mean that the Spirit right here and right now converted Saul? That this is Saul being born again?

You might almost think of it from the language of he became another man, he was given a new heart. It almost sounds like it, but I don't think that's what's going on here. One key is the phrase rushed upon, the Spirit rushed upon him. Earlier in Scripture, the only times that the Holy Spirit is said to have rushed upon someone are with the judge Samson in Judges 14 to 15. Judges 14 and 15 use that phrase three times.

Each time the Spirit granted Samson extraordinary strength and he delivered Israel from their military enemies. So the phrase is also used shortly after our passage in chapter 11 verse 6 and the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words and his anger was greatly kindled and then he starts taking this decisive action to muster Israel for battle. But then a similar phrase shows up twice more in 1 Samuel. First, In chapter 16, verse 13, when David is anointed king to replace Saul, it says, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. It seems there is a handoff of the Spirit's ministry.

The Spirit is no longer with Saul; the Spirit has now rushed upon David. Also relevant, sadly, is in 1 Samuel 18:10 where a harmful or evil Spirit rushes upon Saul and torments him. So the Spirit came upon Saul to equip him for the task of fighting God's battles as Israel's king. And then when God decided to appoint another king in his place, the Spirit left. The model of the Spirit's work here on Saul is not new covenant believer but old covenant judge.

The Spirit did not take up permanent residence in Saul or renew his affections in a Godward direction. Instead, the spirit's work on Sol is more like getting a superstar in the Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers. You touch the star, you become invincible, you can rush against any of your enemies, you're untouchable. The little music plays in the background, but it only lasts for 30 seconds. When the star wears off, no more special powers.

The Spirit didn't change Saul within. The change the Spirit worked was temporary. But there's still a principle here. There's still an analogy for us to think about. God provides the strength for the work He calls His people to do.

God lifted Saul up to this huge task and God gave him what he needed to do it. God gives the resources for the jobs He assigns us. Philippians 2:12-13, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work according to his good pleasure. Or 1 Peter 4:10-11 as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

So Saul's equipped for his task. He's got God's presence with him, God on his side. And the story finally resolves in verses 14 to 16. Now that Saul has been anointed king and anointed by the Spirit, he comes home. Saul's uncle said to him and to his servant, Where did you go?

And he said, To seek the donkeys. And when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel. And Saul's uncle said, Please tell me what Samuel said to you. And Saul said to his uncle, He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found but about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken. He did not tell him anything.

Saul's silence about the kingship is hard to read. Silences often are. It might be that he's being deliberately evasive. I think it's more likely that he's simply waiting his turn. After all, a king has to be recognized by the people or he's nothing.

And Samuel's anointing was totally private. So imagine Saul walks back home and just says, yeah, you know, I became king of Israel out of my little trip. How's that going to go over? So I think Saul has legitimate reasons to kind of wait patiently for God to further fulfill his purposes. Here.

Samuel's anointing took place in private but that's about to change. So point three, the authorized king. The authorized king. We see God publicly authorizing Saul through the assembly that Samuel calls in verses 17 to 27, the end of our passage.

Look first at verses 17 to 19. Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah, and he said to the people of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, 'Set a king over us. Samuel's prophetic rebuke repeats key themes from chapters 7 and 8. By asking for a king, the people have rejected the God who, doesn't this sting?

saves you from all your calamities and your distresses. He reminds them just how unnecessary their request was. Even in the process of fulfilling it. Nevertheless, mixing mercy and judgment, God appoints a king for them and he's going to have the king appointed by lot in order to show that this king really is his choice. Lots were basically just kind of a two stones.

It would be kind of a yes or a no. So understanding here that God's working through the prophet, that Samuel's presiding over this, it's going to be a divinely ordained series of yeses and nos that leads them to God's choice. That's the point here. So, verses 19 to 22, we see God administer this choice. End of verse 19, Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.

Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot. And Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, 'Is there a man still to come?' and the Lord said, 'Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.' Saul was selected by God himself, but now he's hiding from his task.

I don't think we're meant to see this as real humility, but false humility and unbelief. God's prophet has already told him the job is his. God's prophet has already given him three signs. In advance to confirm that God has chosen him for this. God's prophet, or rather not prophet, God's Spirit has come upon him to authenticate that this is really what's happening.

God's Spirit has turned him into a different person. So at this point, hiding in the baggage is not commendable humility but culpable unbelief. If God says you're king, time to show up. If God authenticates his word three times over, time to believe it. If God gives you his Spirit in a supernatural manifestation of power, it's time to trust that he will sustain you.

That raises a question for us in our own lives. How can you tell true humility from false? Here are a few tools to help with that. False humility keeps your eyes fixed on yourself. True humility fixes your eyes on God.

False humility makes you more concerned with what you can't do than with what God can do through you. False humility is ultimately a form of being self-absorbed and even self-reliant. True humility rightly recognizes not only your limits as a creature, not only your failures as a sinner, It also recognizes how much greater God is than you. True humility sees how much more God can do to you and in you and through you than you can do yourself. As I said, false humility is a form of unbelief.

It's a refusal to believe that God can make his power perfect in your weakness. It's a refusal to believe that God can use weak, imperfect, sinful people like you and me to accomplish his purposes. False humility looks at your limits and wrongly concludes that God is limited by them. The opposite of this kind of false humility is what I called a minute ago, the courage of faith. The courage of faith teaches you to stretch yourself out toward greater and greater goals.

And the courage of faith produces a growth in godliness that makes you progressively more worthy of those grades. Goals. What's the opposite of false humility? It's a desire to do great things for God's sake combined with the spirit-wrought virtue that enables your character to measure up to those great things.

So the Lord now has to give, like, a special voiceover on the PA system to tell Israel where to find Saul. He tells them where to find them. They find him. Then verses 23 and 24, he's presented before them. Then they ran and took him from there.

And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. And Samuel said to all the people, Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people. And all the people shouted, Long live the king.

When the people find Saul, they like what they see. God is the one who has appointed him, but he has tailored his choice of a king to fit exactly what the people of Israel were looking for. You want a king who will fight your battles? Here's a nice tall one. You want a king your eyes can see, unlike having to trust in me?

Well, I'll give you a king who's nice to look at. God chose, but he tailored it to their eyes. Choice. They got what they wanted but was it good for them? Just like Melody read to us earlier in the service about God giving people over to their desires.

Sometimes getting what you want is a judgment. In this public ceremony, Saul is officially chosen, authorized, and acclaimed as king. It's like a coronation. But that's not the only kind of authorizing going on. So look at verse 25 for another aspect of authority.

Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. What Samuel writes here is the law that's meant to govern Saul's kingship. Saul's not only in authority over the people, he's also under God's authority. His kingship is subject to God's far greater kingship.

And God spells out what that's to look like in his word. That's why Samuel writes this document down, symbolically deposits it in God's presence as a reminder that even with this new king, who's really in charge of the people is their covenant Lord. God's word is supreme over the king. So we can ask, by what means Is God's Word supreme over our life as a church? One way we publicly submit to God's Word is simply by reading it out loud and all listening.

Another way we publicly submit to God's Word is by having sermon series that just drive us through books of the Bible where we're treating the agenda of the text as the agenda of the sermon. Another way our church submits to God's Word, which might seem counterintuitive to some, is by having a statement of faith and a church covenant. The Statement of Faith and Church Covenant are just summaries. They're distillations of what scripture teaches about what we're to believe and what scripture teaches about how we're to live together as a church. They're just documents that are useful for teaching and accountability and for everyone being able to say, this is what I believe and this is how I am going to live together as a member of this church.

Sometimes critics of such documents will portray them as instruments of control of the many by the few. It's not at all how they work. This is instruments of accountability of every member to every member. These are tools by which the whole church body can help each other submit to God's Word and what we believe and how we live. At this point, the assembly is complete and everybody goes home.

Verse 25 to the end of the chapter. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went ten men of valor whose hearts God had touched. But some worthless fellows said, How can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no present, but he held his peace.

Now, where have you heard this before? God touches the hearts of some, and they attach themselves to the king. But others scoff, others mock, others look at him and say, what kind of savior is that?

The people rejected God, some of them rejected his king. They all need a king who will rise to the task of delivering God's people, but will they get one? Remains to be seen. Is there a man still to come?

Who's the king they need? Who's the king they're gonna get? Jesus is the king we all need. You might not think you need a king. You might think your entire political philosophy is predicated on the rejection of a monarchy, so what could a king possibly have to do with you?

Very different kind of king. What we need is a king who's perfectly righteous and holy. What we need is a king who's also perfectly merciful and is willing to forgive all the ways we've rebelled against him. What we need is a king who can not only rule but can sacrifice himself to turn us all from rebels into beloved children and citizens of his kingdom. We need a king who not only shows us what to do but does it for us.

We need a king who not only does it for us but who then gave everything for us. That's what Jesus has done. That's what he did in living a perfect life for us, dying on the cross for us to pay the penalty for our sins, rising again on the third day to be enthroned in heaven at that ultimate coronation of a rule that will never end. Is there a man still to come? Yes, there was, yes, there has been, and he will come again.

There is a man still to come. If you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have only as long as this life to repent and trust in him. You have only as long as this life and you have no idea how long that's going to be. To believe in him and come to a right relationship with God. So I would encourage you to make this your highest priority this afternoon, figuring out who Jesus is, what he's done, why you need him and how you can get him.

Talk to anybody around you, talk to any of the staff members at the doors. We'd be delighted to talk to you about that.

Back to the questions we asked earlier. At the beginning about control, pinball, who's in charge of your life, who's writing your story. In the midst of all the uncertainties and zigzags and things you have no control over, is there anything that you can be absolutely confident in?

Here and now, so much as cloudy, so much is hidden, so much is delayed. You often have to glimpse God's purposes by squinting through a distance like sunlight hidden behind dark clouds. But one day, what's now hidden will be revealed, what's now clouded will shine brightly for all to see. One day, Christ will come back to earth to rescue us and reign over us. And the sight will be glorious.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that we would trust in and submit to your sovereign goodness in how you ordain all the circumstances of our lives. And we pray that we would trust in Jesus, the King you've sent to rescue us far better than any merely human king ever could. Father, we pray that we would acclaim Him as King, that we would delight to honor Him, and that our lives and how we speak and act would glorify Him and declare His supremacy. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.