Trusting God in the Midst of Change

Highlights from 1 Samuel

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

February 19, 2023

Trusting God in the Midst of Change

10 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. ² 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?”’ ³ 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. ⁴ And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. ⁵ After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. ⁶ Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. ⁷ Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. 

The big theme of 1 Samuel is the importance of trusting God. Hannah prayed a heartfelt prayer asking God to give her a son and left with her heart at peace because she trusted that God had heard her cry and God gave her Samuel. When Samuel got old and Israel saw that his sons weren’t good men and would take Samuel’s place, they didn’t trust, they panicked. Taking matters into their own hands they demanded Saul give them a king.

In chapter 10 Samuel pulls Saul aside privately and anoints him to be king. Suddenly Saul has a very heavy weight on his shoulders. Being king doesn’t mean sitting on a throne telling people what to do, it means he’s the man God’s appointed and anointed to deliver his people from the Philistines. He’s going to carry the weight of real-time life and death battle decisions, the responsibility of inspiring courage in a demoralized people, the weight of leading through a difficult season.

It's a heavy weight and Saul didn’t ask for it, Saul didn’t want it, and didn’t see it coming. To encourage Saul, Samuel gives him three signs that this is from God.

The first sign, Samuel says, is that as you reach Rachel’s tomb, two men will meet you there and say your father’s donkeys have been found and he’s starting to worry about you now. Pretty exact! Then when you reach the great tree of Tabor three men on their way to worship in Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three goats, one carrying three loaves of bread, and one with a flask of wine. And one of them will offer you two loaves of bread. God makes it too exact for it to fall under “coincidence”. How long does it take to walk past a tomb? A tree? A few minutes? God had to align when Saul left where he was and the speed he travelled at with where these three men were coming from and the speed they were traveling at, and what they were carrying, so that they all got to that tree at precisely the same time. And what they would say and offer Saul when they met him.

God isn’t just a really good guesser. He knows everything and is sovereign over everything. I like to call

them divine appointments – those things that look “accidental” from our perspective but God planned and orchestrated them for His purposes.

God gave Saul these signs to help him trust God with the bigger things that are coming down the road. God gives us smaller signs that He is with us to help us trust Him with the bigger things when they come.

The third sign Samuel gives Saul is a double sign. He says as you come to Gibeah, under the shadow of a Philistine outpost, you will meet a procession of prophets and the Spirit of God will come upon you in power and you will be changed into a different person. God’s saying the old Saul can’t do this job, I’m going to make you a different person who can do the job.

God gives these signs to help Saul trust God in this crazy, unexpected, unwanted new season of life he was entering. Whatever season of life we’re in, whatever circumstances we may be facing, good or bad, wanted or unwanted, God wants us to learn to trust Him in it. Let’s talk about trusting God.

⁸ 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.”

1. Waiting is hard on our trust in God…and good for it!

Samuel says Saul, you’re gonna be the king of Israel. Now wait and watch God do it! Saul didn’t go on an “elect me king of Israel” tour. The process was all God and nothing Saul.

It’s a lot easier to trust God when we have some control of the situation. We might say, “well, we’re never really in control” and to a degree that’s true, but the fact is there are many situations where we do have some control. If we’re about to go on a long road trip, we ask God for traveling mercies but then we take the steering wheel and drive carefully. That’s the right thing to do, but I’m saying it’s easier to trust God for traveling mercies when we’re gripping the wheel. It’s easier to trust God to provide when our jobs are secure and there’s money in our savings account. It’s easier to trust God with the safety and salvation of our kids when they’re doing great and following Jesus.

But when we aren’t steering, when we don’t have a job prospect or any savings in the bank, when our kids are going down the wrong roads and seem far from God and there’s nothing we can do…except wait…it’s hard on our trust. And it’s good for our trust.

Actively trusting God while we wait refines our trust and makes it stronger. When we have no control and all we can do is wait for God to do it, we’re learning to pray to God. Learning to depend on God. Learning to believe that God can do what needs to be done. Learning both the power and the trustworthiness of our God. As the Apostle Paul wrote Timothy: I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. 2 Tim. 1:12

Paul is trusting (entrusted) and he is waiting (until that day). Waiting is hard on our trust in God…but it’s also good for it! When we don’t have control, we can better learn to trust in our God who does.

2. Trust God to take us from a bad place to a good place when we turn to Him

¹⁷ Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah. ¹⁸ 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.’ ¹⁹ 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.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.” 1 Sam. 10:17-19

God reminds the people that they’re here because they rejected their God. It was a bad thing that got them to this place but God is ready to do good to them even though they rejected His rule over them.

This is a foreshadowing of Jesus, the true King, who advanced his kingdom through rejection. Psalm 118 says the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. The religious leaders and Jewish crowds rejected Jesus as their Messiah and hung him on a cross and their rejection became the means by which Jesus saved us!

If someone dies rejecting Jesus, there is no hope for their soul. They will enter a Christless eternity. But right until that last breath if someone turns to Christ, it doesn’t matter where their sin has brought them. It doesn’t matter how far from God you are, how deep into darkness you’ve wandered, how messed up your life has gotten, God can get you to a good place from where you are when you come as you are to Christ and believe.

There are times when we’re in a bad place because we rejected God’s will. We disobeyed His word and we are reaping the consequences but it’s never too late. No matter where we are, we can get to God’s best for our lives from here when we come ready to trust and obey.

I love the story of the thief on the cross. How he could have regretted his life and all the missed opportunities. Whatever harm he had done, there was no way to go back and undo it. He couldn’t make things right with his wife or his kids. He couldn’t make amends for what he stole. He has hours, if that, to live, and he can’t do anything – he’s nailed to a cross. Yet Jesus not only promised him paradise that very day, but Jesus took his life and redeemed it to glorify God through the ages – and we talk about him to this very day!

3. Trust God to enable and empower us to do whatever He calls us to do

²⁰ Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. ²¹ 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. ²² 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.” Vv. 20-22

With all the Israelites present they drew lots until they got to Saul son of Kish. But he wasn’t there, he was hiding in the baggage!

Some people think he was hiding because he knew he would be chosen and he was too humble to be there when it happened. Maybe Saul was humble at this point in time – as happens with so many leaders pride would be his downfall in the end. But I don’t think he’s hiding in the luggage out of humility.

I think he’s hiding because he didn’t want what God was giving him! I think he felt inadequate to be king. He felt inadequate to do and be what God had called him to do and be. That’s why God told him he would turn him into a different man! God would makehim able to do what God called him to do.

Have you ever felt inadequate for what God has called you to do? That’s a great place to trust God! At the Breaking the Silence seminar last week, Faith Ingraham shared how she hated public speaking. And yet, God was giving her a ministry that required public speaking so she had to trust God to enable her to do what He was calling her to do.

If God is calling you to do something you don’t feel adequate or able to do, don’t hide in the baggage, God will find you there! His assignment will find you there! Go to God and tell Him, “God, I’m not able to do this! But I trust that if You’re asking this of me, You can empower and enable me to do it.”

This is also true when God has us in a season we don’t feel adequate for. We might be in a winter season of our souls and we long for spring, but the winter drags on. Things seem dead, bleak, hopeless. I think sometimes trusting God in a difficult season can be the hardest place to trust Him but it can be the very place where our roots of faith go deeper and grow stronger.

Take walks and pour out your heart to God honestly. But stir in your soul a psalm-like “yet will I praise Him, yet will I trust Him” upward bend. You might want to journal your journey in this season, trusting this season will be a testimony of God’s faithfulness and goodness. It is well with my soul.

4. Trusting God means listening to what God says more than we listen to what men say

I want to cover this a bit quickly because this part of the story continues into the next chapter but listen to what people are saying about Saul:

And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. ²⁴ 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!”…

²⁷ 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.

Some people said “he’s amazing!” Some said, “he’s useless.” Some praised him, some despised him. Eventually what people think will be Saul’s downfall, but here in early days he does pretty well as we’ll see.

How we deal with praise and criticism is so important and I think we’ll have the chance to unpack that a bit more as we go on with Saul’s story, but listening too much too either can really mess us up. When we’re doing well, praise can go to our head. When we’re failing, criticism can go to our heart.

What’s important is what God says about you and what He says goes to our head, heart, and to the depths of our soul. Hear that through the filter of the gospel and what Jesus

our King came to do for us.

• You are my child – I have adopted you (Eph. 1:5)
• “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. Jer. 313
• Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Rom. 8:39