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Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Do you feel like you're on a religious treadmill? Do you feel like Christianity is just a system of rules and regulations?

I can do this, but I can't do that. Do you feel like your efforts to reach God, find God, and please God are futile? Do you feel like your faith is dead or alive? Today, Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through Scripture to answer these questions. Join us on Finding Purpose, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.net or connect with us on Facebook. Now let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious.

This is part two of a special two-part episode. Samuel had been Israel's leader as their prophet and priest. But see, Samuel had grown old and his sons did not walk in the ways of God. In 1 Samuel 8, verses 6 through 9, we read, but when the Israelites said, give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel. So he prayed to the Lord and the Lord told him, listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you they've rejected, but they've rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they're doing to you.

Now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do. And so God gave to Israel what they asked for, a king, and his name was Saul. In 1 Samuel chapter 9, we learned a little bit about Saul's beginning. 1 Samuel chapter 9 verse 1 states, there was a Benjaminite, a man of standing whose name was Kish. Kish was Saul's father. He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites, a head taller than any of the others. Then in verse 21, when Saul learns that Samuel is going to anoint him as the king of, he said, listen to what Saul says to Samuel, but am I not a Benjaminite from the smallest tribe of Israel? And is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin?

Why do you say such a thing to me? See Saul couldn't believe that God actually had chosen him to be the king. In chapter 10, Samuel anoints Saul and says, has not the Lord anointed you leader over his inheritance?

And then it says, and the Spirit of God came upon Saul and he prophesied. You see, Saul had a very good beginning. He was gifted physically. He was tall. He was impressive. In fact, the scriptures say that he was without equal. And yet in spite of all of these physical gifts, he remained humble.

He was chosen by God to be Israel's king and he received Samuel's blessing. And early on, he kept his focus on the Lord and he trusted God, but how quickly things would change. Let me ask you, have you had a good beginning? Were you born into a Christian family? Have you been brought up in a strong Bible believing church? Have you had the opportunity to sit under biblical teaching that sound?

Have you had a wonderful friend or mentor who's been able to guide you and encourage you in your walk with the Lord? Let me give you this warning. A good beginning does not guarantee finishing well.

Don't rest on your laws. Saul fell and so can we. On my first day at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary back in September of 1999, I was 45 years old. I couldn't believe I was back in school, first of all. But I found myself sitting in Binkley Chapel with about 2,000 other students and we were listening to Dr. Paige Patterson, who was the president of the seminary. And he was basically giving us a warning. You know what he was warning us? He basically warned us. He said, listen, just because you're coming to seminary and just because you're studying books about the Bible, don't let that replace your quiet time.

He said, coming to seminary does not take the place of your quiet time. And then he proceeded to share with us that during the course of his career, he had personally counseled about 300 ministers who had fallen into some egregious sexual sin and lost their position in ministry. You know what he shared with us? He said they all had one common denominator.

Do you know what it was? They all confessed to him that they had given up having their personal quiet time. You see, those ministers became distracted by the things of the world and they lost their focus. When a believer loses his focus on God, in your outline, he's vulnerable to any attack. Have you lost your focus on the Lord? Have you lost your focus?

To be honest about this one, have you become too attached to the things of the world? Don't lose your focus. Run the race to finish well. How do you do this?

You might ask. Here's how. You keep your eyes on Jesus every step of the way. Paul writes about this in Philippians chapter three, but he also, we read about this in Hebrews chapter 12 verses two and three, where the writer says, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men.

Why? So that you will not grow weary and lose heart. The writer tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus.

Now, how do you do that? Well, I think it begins in the morning. Jesus got up early in the morning and prayed.

Guess what we need to do? We need to get up a little early and pray in the morning and we need to open up God's word. That's how you keep your eyes on Jesus. You do it by studying God's word and through prayer.

Are you doing that? It takes discipline. Saul had a good beginning, but in the second stage of his life, he lost his focus and he turned away from God in disobedience. In Samuel's address to the Israelites, you can find this in 1 Samuel chapter 12, I want you to listen to what Samuel says to the entire nation of Israel.

He said, so he's addressing the nation of Israel. He says, but when you saw that Nahash, king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, no, we want a king to rule over us, even though the Lord your God was your king. Now here's the king you have chosen, the one you asked for. See the Lord has set a king over you.

If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you, follow the Lord your God, good. But listen, if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you as it was against your fathers. You see the Israelites really didn't trust God to protect them. That's why they wanted a king. And as a nation, they lost their focus. They turned away from God in disobedience.

You see when a believer falls into a pattern of disobedience, what you're doing is you in your outline, you're inviting God's judgment or his discipline. Do you know what later happened to the nation of Israel? You see Saul became Israel's king around 1050 BC. And because Israel had turned away from God, God raised up enemies to come and discipline his chosen ones. In 722 BC, the Assyrians came against the northern kingdom of Israel and defeated her.

And then guess what they did? They took all the Israelites away as slaves, and they were never heard from again. The northern kingdom of Israel consists of 10 of the tribes of Israel.

Those 10 tribes just disappeared. Later, the Babylonians came against the southern kingdom of Israel. The southern kingdom was known as Judah.

It consists of the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. This happened in 586 BC. And just like the Assyrians, the Babylonians took the Israelites away as slaves to Babylon where they were held captive for 70 years.

Do you know why this happened? This all happened because Israel as a nation lost its focus and turned away from God in disobedience. Can y'all think of another nation that's done the same thing? We have. And I believe that we are asking God to judge us. In fact, I wonder why God hasn't raised up enemies to come and defeat our nation.

Maybe that's what 9-1-1 was about. Maybe that is a shot across the bow that God is warning us as a nation that we need to not progress. We need to regress. We need to go back to our spiritual roots.

That's what we need to do as a nation. And what we need in this country, we need men of God who will stand up in the pulpits of America and proclaim this truth. But listen, in spite of Israel's rejection of God as their king, Samuel promised them that if their king would trust God and lead the people in obedience to God, that God would still bless them. But this is where Saul let his country down. You see, Saul was the king. He was not the prophet. The prophet was Samuel. In essence, the prophet Samuel was the mouthpiece of God and he spoke the word of God. And so the king was to listen to the word of God spoken by the prophet of God and then he was to lead the people in obedience to God.

But you see, Saul took his eyes off of God and he led his nation away from God in disobedience. Just recently, I received a shocking letter. It was heart-wrenching. It was a letter from Voice of the Martyrs. Anybody here familiar with Voice of the Martyrs? It's a wonderful ministry. It's a ministry that I've supported for years.

They do an incredible work around the world supporting the underground persecuted church. And Tom White has served as its president for the last, I don't know, five or ten years. The letter that I received informed me of Tom White's death. Apparently, he committed suicide.

Do you know why? Allegations were made to authorities several weeks ago that Tom had inappropriate contact with a very, very young girl. Rather than face those allegations and all the resulting fallout for his family and the ministry and himself, Tom appears to have chosen to take his own life. Now here is a man who spent 18 months in a Cuban prison because of his faith. Here's a man who had dedicated his life to serving the persecuted church around the world. And so my question is, what happened? How did he lose his focus? Well, sadly, this is not just an isolated case of a Christian leader who has fallen into egregious sin. History is filled with people who began the race with great success, but they failed to end well.

What happened? Somehow, they took their eyes off of the finish line. Remember David, the man God chose to replace Saul? David had a phenomenal beginning.

In fact, if there was ever a surefire candidate to finish well, it was David. In the first 10 chapters of 2 Samuel, David could do no wrong. He was never defeated on the battlefield. His judgments were always right. He began his reign in prayer and he always trusted God.

And the boundaries of his kingdom were increased from 6,000 square miles to 60,000 square miles. But that was the first 10 chapters. Steve Ferrara in his book, Finishing Strong, writes in chapter 11, David is shipwrecked and his life would never be quite the same again.

He writes, before the shipwreck with Bathsheba, all David knew was triumph. After, all he knew was heartbreak and trouble. Listen, in the Christian life, it's not how you start that matters, it's how you finish. Do you want to finish well?

So let me ask you, how are you doing? Have you taken your eyes off the Lord? Have you lost your focus?

Have you become too attracted to the things of this world? Do you really want to finish well? If you do, then you must stay focused. You must listen, you must keep your eyes focused on Jesus every step of the way.

And the only way that you can do that is by living day by day by the Spirit. Paul writes in Philippians 3, 13 through 14, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. This word strain, it comes from a Greek word that gives the picture of a runner straining every muscle to reach the finish line. I think of Secretariat. Do y'all remember what Secretariat did? First of all, he was voted as one of the 50 greatest athletes, even though he was not a human. In 1973, in the Belmont Stakes, if y'all can see the movie Secretariat, that didn't bring you to tears, something's wrong with you.

I'm on crap just thinking about it. He's coming around the track and he begins to separate himself from the other horses. He finishes, I believe it's like 41 lengths.

It's a record that has never even been approached. And they said that every quarter mile, he was increasing his pace, every quarter mile. So when he finished, when he busted through the finish line, that was the fastest quarter he ran in the whole race. See, that's the way we want to run the Christian life. We want to be increasing our pace as we approach the end. We want to bus through the finish line and fall in the arms of Jesus. And he says, well done. Do you want that for your life?

I do. You see, Saul had a good beginning, but then he turned away from God and disobedience. Here's what happened. In chapter 13, we learned that Saul decided to take matters into his own hands.

That's when it always begins. And he decided to serve not just as king, but also as prophet. You see, the Philistines had assembled their army against Israel and they way outnumber the Israelites. And so the Israelite army was quaking in fear and a number of the soldiers were deserting.

They were actually leaving the battlefield. Now Samuel was on his way to the battlefield because they always, before they entered battle, they would worship God. And so Samuel was coming to offer the burnt offering before the troops went on the battlefield. And Saul knew this. You see, the prophet was the only one who could offer the burnt offering based on God's command.

The king was not to do that. That was a job for the prophet. But Saul grew impatient. Samuel was just a little bit late. And so Saul decided to offer the burnt offering himself. You see, he took his eyes off of God. And after he offered the burnt offering, clearly going against God's command, Samuel arrives.

And here's what Samuel said to him in verse 13 of chapter 13. You acted foolishly, Saul. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. If you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

See, that's the legacy he would have had. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people because you have not kept the Lord's commands. You see, when you try to live this life in your own strength and focus mostly on yourself, constantly putting your needs first, I can promise you, you will lose sight of God.

And you will find yourself in disobedience. We see this all through Scripture. Adam lost his focus and because of his disobedience, sin and death entered the world. Moses lost his focus. And because of his disobedience, he never was allowed to enter the promised land. Samson lost his focus. Because of his disobedience, he lost his eyesight and he perished with the Philistines.

And David lost his focus. And because of his disobedience, the sword never departed from his family. In your outline, understand that when you lose your focus on God, you will fall into disobedience. And disobedience invites God's discipline. That's what Hebrews 12 is all about. It's about God's discipline. God disciplines those whom he loves. He wants us to be conformed into the likeness of his son.

And so if you step out of the boundary lines that God is establishing in Scripture, you can expect his discipline. In 1 Samuel chapter 15 verses 10 and 11, we read, then the word of the Lord came to Samuel. And God said to Samuel, I am grieved that I've made Saul king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.

In chapter 15, we learned that Saul actually went out and set up a monument in his own honor as he continued to disobey God and he grew exceedingly proud. In verse 26, Samuel said to Saul, you have rejected the word of the Lord, therefore the Lord has rejected you as king of Israel. In chapter 16 and following, we learn about David, the man after God's own heart who would become the king of Israel.

You know the story. God chose David to succeed Saul and Saul became very jealous of David and tried to kill him the rest of his life. In 1 Samuel chapter 18 verses 28 and 29, it says, when Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michael loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him and he remained his enemy the rest of his days. Saul's life is really a picture of Romans 1 which gives you the downward spiral of sin where you actually just drift further and further away from God. As a Christian, you can never lose your relationship with God. Once you've been born into God's family, you can never lose that but you can lose your fellowship with God. This is what happens when you lose your focus and you begin to live a life of disobedience. You see, when you lose your focus on God and his purpose for your life and when you stop worshiping him as your savior, you will turn away from God and your life will be marked by disobedience.

Sadly, I know from experience. When I look back at my college years and not just my college years but that was the most stark example I could think of. I look back at those years because I began, I had actually a good beginning spiritually. I read my Bible almost every night from about age 12 to 15. Probably exaggerating a little bit but I remember reading it often and I prayed I think every night before I went to bed on my knees and then I went to Chapel Hill and I just kind of put God on the back shelf. See, I began to, I lost my focus. I took my eyes off of Jesus who had been my friend and my Lord and my savior and I began to pursue the things of the world and I just lost my focus and my life became more and more one of disobedience and I look back and I know that many of the things I did must have really grieved the Lord.

I'm so thankful he didn't take his hands off of me. You see, now when I look back at those years, I refer to those years as my locust years. Y'all know what locust years are? Those are years in the wilderness. See, when locusts come into a field, they strip the field of everything in sight including all of its nourishment.

That's what happened to me. My life became marked by one act of disobedience followed by another and spiritually I wasted away to nothing but this is what I love about the Bible. It tells us about how God is a God of grace and mercy and he's the God of second, third, fourth, infinite chances. He just wants us to repent and come back to him. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Joel chapter 2 verse 11, 13 and 25 which says this, even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning, rend your heart, return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and he relents from sinning calamity. And then it says this, the Lord will repay you for the years the locust have eaten. Do you know what that means? It means when you come back to him and you confess your sins and you acknowledge how egregious your sins are, God will wipe the slate clean and he will restore those years to you as if you never lived them, as if you never sinned.

I know that. When I think about what I did, I'm amazed that I can lay my head down on my pillow at night with a clear conscience, with absolutely zero guilt. I should have tremendous guilt. See, he just lifted the guilt away from me and washed my sin and he washed my guilt all away. Do you need to have the guilt washed away from your life?

Come to him. He'll restore the years the locust have eaten. You see, all Saul had to do was repent at any time during his life and the Lord would have restored him. So let me ask you, are you in the midst of your locust years? Have you turned away from God? Are you living in disobedience?

Is your life shipwrecked? You return to the Lord and he restored the year as the locusts have eaten. See, Saul had a good beginning but then he lost his focus and he turned away from God in disobedience and unfortunately he never returned to the Lord in repentance and so the third stage of Saul's life ends in tragedy. As we have seen in 1 Samuel chapter 31, Saul's life definitely came to a tragic end as God lifted his hand of protection and blessing and basically the Spirit lifts all.

I want you to understand something there. This is one thing that's different about the New Testament, the Old Testament. The Spirit of God would come upon believers in the Old Testament. It wasn't until Jesus came down on the cross and ascended into heaven that he sent his Spirit to indwell us. Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, he becomes a deposit that guarantees your salvation and so when you sin, the Holy Spirit doesn't leave you but you grieve him and it feels like he's left you but he hasn't.

You can never lose your relationship. You can have that assurance of salvation but look at how Saul's life ended. Saul's army was slaughtered by the Philistines. His sons were killed on the battlefield right in front of him.

He saw his sons die and then Saul committed suicide and then he was humiliated in death as the enemy literally mutilated his body and then the Israelites abandoned their towns and fled and the Philistines came in and occupied them. You see, Saul's sin not only resulted in his own destruction but it brought destruction to his family and to his nation and that's what's happening to our nation, I believe. You see, when you turn away from God, it will not just affect your life but also the lives of people around you. See, the Bible tells us that sin leads to death and results in separation from God. Listen, sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay and sin will cost you more than you want to pay.

So the question remains that we're going to answer here. How could a life that began so good and so tragically? Well, just look at our world.

Our world began good. In fact, when God created the world, he said it is good but Adam and Eve lost their focus and turned away from God in disobedience and we've been doing the same thing ever since. You see, when Charles tempered and lost his focus, he began to question God. He couldn't understand how an all-powerful and good God could allow evil to go and check in the world and so he came to the conclusion that God must not exist. Lee Strobel, who wrote the book, The Case for Faith, which I recommend everyone read, he actually went to visit Templeton shortly before he died to see, you know, what caused him to turn away from his faith and so when he met with Templeton, Templeton was 83 years old and suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's. So when they sat down for this interview, the first thing Templeton did was apologize. He said, he said, my mind is not what it used to be and then he said to Mr. Strobel, I guess you want me to explain, I went from believing to agnosticism.

You know what happened? Templeton saw, it's either on television or on a magazine, a picture of a African woman holding her dead child in her arms. That country was going through a famine and here's what he said. He said, when he looked at that woman who had this look that was just forlorn, she just devastated. Templeton said at that moment, is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring creator when all this woman needed was rain? You see what his problem was?

He looked at the problem and took his eyes off the one who has the solution. During the interview, Strobel got around to asking him about his view of Jesus and essentially Templeton believed he was just a great man. In fact, he said Jesus was the greatest human being who has ever lived. But at one point during the interview, apparently Templeton wailed up with tears and thinking about Jesus. You can almost see him remembering the days when he was preaching about Jesus. He said to Strobel, he said, you know, I miss him. Templeton died in 2001, shortly after Strobel met with him. You see, just like Saul, Templeton stopped looking to God.

He lost his focus, he turned away from God and his life came to a tragic end. So here's my question for us this morning. How can we avoid making the same mistake?

Well, here's how. In your outline, keep your eyes on Jesus. Follow in his footsteps.

Don't get caught up in the things of the world and run to win the prize. In Hebrews chapter 11, and I'm going to ask Scott and his team to come on back up here. In Hebrews chapter 11, it's filled with the names of people who finished well. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and even Moses. Moses finished well. You see, all of these men had one thing in common.

Do you know what it was? They had taken their eyes off of this world and they were focusing on the world to come. Let me ask you this morning, which world are you focused on? This world, which is going to last maybe 75 or 80 years for most of us, or the world that's going to last forever?

Are you focused on the dot or are you focused on the line? Listen to what the right of Hebrews says about these people of faith who were focused on the world to come. All these people were still living by faith when they died and they did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they've been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. Do you know why? It's because he's prepared a city for them.

It's because they've remained faithful. William Sucker said, the body has two eyes. Two eyes, but the soul must have but one.

If you want to finish well, then you must keep that one eye trained on the finish line. Being a Christian is not about being religious, but about having a dynamic, alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Pastor Russ Andrews, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources at findingpurpose.net or connect to Finding Purpose on Facebook. Pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him and over 300 other local triangle men to study God's Word together every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in downtown Raleigh. Find out more at findingpurpose.net.