Why Preach 1 Samuel?
Why Preach 1 Samuel?
This week we begin our sermon series in the book of I Samuel. Clocking in at thirty-one chapters, it’s not a small book of the Bible. It will take us from now until May to complete it. The book of 1 Samuel is full of stories and characters that will be familiar to those who have been immersed in the story of Scripture. Hannah, Samuel, Saul, David, and Jonathan leap off the page and give us truly memorable moments. But 1 Samuel isn’t just a book detailing the stories of larger-than-life heroes and antiheroes, it’s a book about God. Baked into the story of the birth of the Kingdom of Israel is a story about the beginnings of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Why spend twenty-seven weeks in this piece of history? Let me give you at least three reasons:
I SAMUEL WILL SHOW US THE POWER OF GOD’S STORY.
God is a story-telling God. He always has been. Narrative composes nearly half of the contents of the Scripture. Stories are for everyone: you don’t have to be well educated to understand a story, but neither is a good story ever too low or simple for the most highbrowed among us. The reason stories are so compelling is because master storytellers know that stories are not just recitations of the facts. Stories are not meant to be observed only, they are meant to be immersive.
God is the ultimate storyteller, and no one puts it better than him. His stories are not just anecdotes for us to live up to, neither are they simply revealing a set of principles or truths to believe: his narrative is calling us, as Eugene Peterson puts it, to “live into” his story, “being led not to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s.” In other words, spending weeks and weeks in the narrative of Scripture forces us to wrestle with child-like faith. The stories of 1 Samuel are not very dense. They leave a lot of room for imagination by not telling us too much. This sparse quality actually leaves room for faith: it allows us to sit in the realities of life and trust God when answers are not as clear as we would like. 1 Samuel won’t be subjected to the same dissection of a Pauline epistle or to the same philosophical introspection of the wisdom literature. It calls us to simply open up, like a child, and be awed that our God is a God of history and a God of people and a God of story.
Getting swept up in God’s story is an incredible thing, because it always pulls us towards Jesus Christ, the center of God’s story. 1 Samuel is no different. Again and again, we will see how each and every piece of this narrative is magnetically tied to the person and work of Jesus. That’s power.
I SAMUEL WILL WARN US OF THE TRAGEDY OF SIN
If 1 Samuel is a literary work, it’s genre closely resembles that of a tragedy. Think Macbeth or King Lear: 1 Samuel is at its core the tragedy of King Saul. Every protagonist in a tragedy has what is called a “tragic flaw”, some sort of error, shortcoming, or even sin that brings about their downfall. In 1 Samuel we see the quick rise of king Saul. Blessed by Samuel the prophet, all the people look up to him and revere him and his military prowess. But Saul has no zeal for God’s commands, and that turns out to be his undoing. The book begins with the miraculous birth of Samuel, but ends with the self-inflicted carnal death of Saul.
The characters in 1 Samuel are complex and nuanced, because all are haunted by sin. The power of tragedy is that it leaves room for hope: it shows us where not to look. As we journey through this book, we will be blessed by warnings and conviction that pull us away from our foolishness and towards faithfulness. As we are shocked and dismayed by the reality of tragedy, our hearts will warm to the promise of deliverance. When David appears on the scene, we begin to see a picture of a story of a king that ends much differently than Lear or Saul. On the outside, it seems a tragedy that David’s death ends with his family in turmoil, just as it is a tragedy that Saul’s death ends with in abrupt self-destruction. But beneath the surface, God is doing something in David’s family that will end in marriage, not in death. So the tragedy of Saul points us to the comedy of Christ, whose end at the cross appears outwardly tragic but with secret power in his resurrection really ends in hopeful triumph and feasting.
I SAMUEL WILL TEACH US WHO IS REALLY KING
If the flaw of Saul is his failure to obey, the flaw of the people of Israel is their failure to submit. The story of 1 Samuel is a story of the birth of a kingdom. Instead of being content with God ruling over them, the people of God desired an earthly king just like the rest of the nations. Since the discipline and instruction of the Lord often comes in unique ways, God gives the people what they want. He anoints a king to rule over them, but it doesn’t go exactly like they planned. In His Fatherly wisdom, God is teaching a lesson about who really rules. Any king who fails to place God’s throne above his own is doomed for failure.
Our world longs for leadership in a similar way to the Israelites. We want a just and good king to make things right (or a president, or a CEO, etc.). 1 Samuel is a masterclass lesson in learning to submit with humility to the one who really reigns over all things. God is our true king, and trusting in him leads us to victory over Philistines and pornography, over enemies outside and enemies inside alike. Our time in 1 Samuel will pave the way in our hearts to long for Jesus to reign and rule in our hearts and in our world.
In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel the prophet tells the people of Israel to “behold their king”. The people got what they asked for in King Saul, but not what they needed. When Jesus was presented by Pilate to the people of Israel to be crucified, Pilate said “behold your king.” This time, the people got what they wanted, and what they needed: even while they crucified the King, he solidified the security of his kingdom. By the time we are done in this book, my prayer is we learn to see that in Jesus, we have a king who submitted to the unjust will of the people in order to save them by submitting to the will of God. If Christ is our king, we get what we want and what we need. He is the true king: the storyteller and the story, the servant and the master, the obedient son and the conquering warrior.
In 1 Samuel, let’s behold the King of Kings.