Focus: 1 Samuel 1-15
A weird lesson from Dave Ramsey - Dave Ramsey has made me weird. I am not in debt and have a budget so that my wife and I manage our money instead of it controlling us. God’s people are weird, too. They aim to be married for life, are willing to make sacrifices for others, and have a set of values that make them the friend you always wanted to have. That makes them weird in an age where people justify bad behavior by saying that “everyone else is doing it”. The story of Samuel and Saul is about a time when everyone wanted to live just like the people around them and God’s battle to make them different. God wanted them to be a moral and godly people who would lead others to a better life.
- Sadly, Israel was just like everyone else 1 Sam 2:22 Our story begins at the end of the time of the judges. The priests were wicked and stole from the Lord. The people had forgotten the lessons of the Exodus. It had grave consequences. The ark was captured by the Philistines and the nation struggled. Even today, when God’s people forget their God, they face the consequences. God wants his people to be different and not like everyone else.
- God calls them to be different 1 Samuel 7:3 God had prepared a leader who would bring His people back to Him. His name was Samuel. People came to see that Samuel spoke for God and so, in desperation, the people finally came to Samuel for help against the Philistines. Samuel laid their sins before them and made them put away their false gods and their evil ways. When the sins are great, we must return to the Lord and confess. If we want our nation, our community and our own lives to be restored, we must throw ourselves on God’s mercy and follow Him.
- Even after years of peace, the people want to be like everyone else 1 Samuel 2:22 As Samuel gets old, the people look for a successor. Yet instead of asking God to raise up another Godly prophet, they seek a worldly solution to their problems. They want a king just like everyone else has around them. They are rejecting the ways of the Lord and seeking to be just like everyone else. They want to put their trust in a strong king and his army instead of trusting the Lord to protect them against all their enemies.
- God looks for a king who will be different 1 Sam 13:14 God leads them to a man who looks kingly and strong named Saul. Things were good for a while and Saul follows the Lord. Yet, there is danger when men lead. Pride begins to enter Saul and he begins to think that he doesn’t need God. He gets impatient and decides to take on battles without the Lord. In the end, the Lord must reject Saul. He is leading the people to be just like their neighbors. God wants his leaders and people to be God centered and trust God can do all things.
God wants something better for His people. Our constant struggle is that the culture tells us to take the easy way, the fun way, or the way of the crowd. It wants us to be miserable like them serving our emotions and passions instead of living in God’s wisdom. Yet, to have that better life, we have to live differently than the world. That is why I believe that weird is wonderful. It is wonderful to have a loving wife and children with who attend church virtually every Sunday. It is nice to be someone who greets the waitress with a smile and who helps their friends and neighbors. Think of how it would change our community if every person loved their spouse, were honest and hardworking and who went out of their way to help one another. It pays to be weird.
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