God is Great but Give Us a King, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Welcome back for another day of solid biblical teaching right here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. We're in a brand new, never before aired teaching series through the life of David.

So you've joined us at the perfect time today. You know, all earthly kings that we demand, whether a literal king or a metaphorical one like success, money or romance, those are not only going to let us down, they're actually going to enslave us. That's a really difficult lesson to learn. Today, Pastor J.D. teaches us that we too have to learn the hard lessons that Israel learned. And hopefully those lessons created us a desire for the only king that offers joy and freedom through surrender. As always, we're pointing to Jesus, even as we study in the Old Testament.

So let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in 1 Samuel Chapter 8. He actually told them that one day he would provide for them a king. The problem was not in their request. The problem was the motivation behind the request. Namely, that it came from a place of fear, not faith. As you see in this passage, God considered this a rejection of him. In the New Testament, James, the half brother of Jesus, calls it praying like an adulterer. James says, you have not because you ask not. He says, but sometimes you ask and still do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, you adulterous people. Sometimes you don't receive a blessing because you don't ask, but sometimes you don't receive it because you're praying like an adulterer. Now, what does that mean, praying like an adulterer? Well, think about adultery. Adultery is when one spouse finds certain delights in somebody else that he or she should find in their spouse. Spiritual adultery is when you find something in somebody or something else that you ought to be finding in God, like happiness or security.

You feel like without that thing in your life, life could not possibly be good. So you're looking to that thing for something that you ought to be getting from your spiritual spouse, which is God. So how do you pray like an adulterer?

Well, you ask God for certain things, believing that your life cannot be complete unless he gives them to you. Think of it in the marriage realm for a minute. Think of a wife saying to her husband, hey, when we got married 20 years ago, 10 years ago, you promised to fulfill my romantic and sexual needs. And the husband's like, yeah, I kind of like where this is going.

I like this conversation. And she says, well, here's what I need. And she then identifies a friend of yours and says, I need to sleep with him in order to feel romantically and sexually fulfilled. So I need you to arrange that. The husband says, that's not what I covenanted back to you those many years ago. I said that I would be those things for you.

Not that I would arrange them for you. In the same way, when you say to God, God, I need a spouse. I need this raise. I need to get into this school. I need this kind of success.

I need to look like this or my life has no joy or security. God says, why wouldn't you find those things in me? You're praying like an adulterer when you depend on an answer for something that you ought to be finding in God.

You see how that concept works? We ought to be able to say, like David is going to say, the Lord is my shepherd. Therefore, I have no needs.

As long as he's close by and he's always promised to be close by, by the way, I don't have any anxiety because he knows all that I need and he will take care of me. He is enough. So again, usually we reject God not by walking away from him. Usually we reject God by adding to him. You reject God not by subtracting him from your life. You reject God by adding something to him by saying, I need God plus this thing to be happy. God plus blank. What's after that plus sign in your life?

What's after that blank? That's what Israel does in this chapter. They say, God, you're not enough.

I need something else in addition to you. Watch what God says to them next. It's what we can expect from any king that we demand in addition to God. Verse nine, God then says to Samuel, obey their voice, only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. So Samuel said, verse 11, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and your female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves. Verse 18, and then that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

The key word in that whole warning that's repeated over and over throughout the verses is the word take. He will take your daughters. He will take the best of your fields.

He will take a tenth of your grain. He will take your servants and the best of your young men, even the best of your donkeys, and he'll take your flocks and you will be his slaves. That king is going to promise so much security, safety, national glory. But in reality, he is going to take, take, take from you.

And in the end, he's not going to make you secure. In fact, the king that they demanded, Saul, who we'll meet in the next chapter, so physically impressive, a great warrior, literally head and shoulders above everybody else. That king is going to die in a losing battle against the Philistines. In other words, he fails in the one thing they said they needed him for to lead them out in victory against the Philistines.

He was not a good source of identity and security. Friends, that's what happens with any king that we give our hearts to instead of God. Every king but God and slaves.

Whatever king you give your life to will take, take, take from you. I'm reading this other great book right now. I've got like five that I've been reading this summer that are amazing. This was by Arthur Brooks. It's called From Strength to Strength, Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. Arthur Brooks, who's not a pastor, he's an economist, says that when you've built your identity, when you get into your forties and you've built your identity on success, you are in for an increasingly miserable life in your fifties and sixties. Because he says you just can't go on succeeding at the same pace. As you age, he shows this in one of the chapters, physiologically, you lose part of your creative energy because your brain literally changes.

The fluid intelligence part is what they call it. The fluid intelligence, which is where the creative energy comes from, it begins to lessen. And so because you don't have the same energy and creativity that you had in your twenties and thirties, you start battling the irrelevance and boredom and frustration.

Let's just admit it right here in this room. Some of us are success addicts. Success makes you feel valuable.

It makes you feel like you're worth something. That's why you work all the time. Not that you just love work, you love success. Your spouse complains about how much you work, but the truth is you need to work. Because only when you're contributing do you feel like you have any value.

It's only when you're working that you feel like you've got control. But then as you age, you run into a problem. Your creativity and your relevance start to fade.

People start to look away from you to others and you don't know what to do. So you just run harder and harder on that treadmill, trying desperately to hold on to what you feel like you're losing, and you die unhappy. Dr. Brooks talks about people who have achieved their lifelong dream. In fact, accomplished something so significant that you would think they could just sit back from that point and just rest feeling like, man, well, my card is punched. That was a bigger success than I ever dreamed of. Now I can just enjoy the fruits of it.

It just never works like that. Dr. Brooks tells the story of Charles Darwin. For good or for bad, his contribution was monumental. And you'd think that after an accomplishment like that, after you just changed the trajectory of science and the modern world, you could just say, I'm out, you know?

Well, it was a great run. But Darwin died a miserable man wanting desperately to accomplish something more and very frustrated that he was no longer at the forefront of the scientific revolution. That's because serving success as your king enslaves, it works like any other drug. It gives you a hit, but when that hit wears off, you're left with feelings of loneliness and isolation.

So you've got to medicate those feelings with another hit, which creates more feelings of loneliness and isolation, and down and down the spiral grows. When you give your heart to the pursuit of success as your king, it takes, takes, takes, and never fully delivers what it promises. Addiction to money and slaves.

We used to be the only people saying this. Now I feel like this is the theme of every other Netflix documentary. Obtaining money does not satisfy your craving for it. It's like the Jewish philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, used to say, wealth and fame are like seawater.

The more we drink of them, the thirstier we become. Romance is that way. I think of the woman of the well in John 4, who's had five husbands and still feels starved for love, still searching for the security and that sense of specialness that comes from being loved. Jesus shows her in John 4 that just like she drank water every day from the physical well only to get thirsty again, so she was drinking from this well of romance to satisfy the deepest needs of her soul, and that's just left her thirsty also. In fact, I would say that some of you know this firsthand, you are serial daters.

You cannot be happy or feel complete or significant if you're not dating. All kings take, take, take, and they never satisfy. So God says, well, some things you can only learn the hard way. You're going to give yourself to this king, and he's not going to give you what you're looking for, but to see what you're looking, what you're going to find is that the arms that you're searching for and that romantic partner, those arms that would make you feel safe and significant, those weren't the arms of a lover that you were craving.

Those were my arms. You yearn for a king, but it was actually me that you were yearning for. Before I show you how God responds to their rejection, I want to highlight one thing in particular that Samuel warns against because I think this is as relevant in our day as it was in his. He specifically warns them about putting too much hope in human governments. Human governments have always been a powerful temptation, competing for our trust and our hope.

Now let me be clear so you don't misunderstand me. Government is good. God ordained government to fulfill certain essential roles in our society, the protection of the weak, promotion of the common good, the preservation of justice, the defense of freedom. But human governments of any variety tend to say, put your hope in me. I can ensure your peace, your prosperity, and your happiness.

I can bring utopia. And then they call for absolute allegiance. Now, some forms of government wear this as a totalizing impulse on their sleeve. They want you to give up more and more real estate of your life to them. They say, I'll be your educator. I'll be your healthcare. I'll be your moral compass. I'll be your guarantee, your prosperity. I'll take care of you in old age. I'll just take care of you from womb to the tomb.

Just trust in me. But God never designed human governments to fulfill all those roles. And Christians are rightfully wary of government systems and leaders that want to take everything from you and creating you absolute dependence on them. But other government systems are more subtle. And if you look closely, though, you're going to find that they all tend to over-promise and over-demand.

Conservatives and liberals in our country disagree on a lot of things. But one thing they agree on is that the only way to ensure power, protection, and prosperity is for them to be in power. I'm not trying to say they're all equal or that they're all equally bad.

Some government forms are inherently more oppressive than others. I'm just saying they all over-promise and over-demand, and then they under-deliver. So Samuel says, don't put your trust in or give absolute allegiance to any of them.

None of them is your ultimate king. That's why I often say that Christians should not primarily identify with the elephant or donkey, but with the lamb. Because our salvation didn't come through governments or Congress or kings. It came through a suffering savior.

Our hope didn't come riding in on the wings of Air Force One. It came cradled in a manger. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. To learn more about this ministry, visit jdgreer.com. Before we return to our teaching, I want to take a moment to remind you about an amazing resource that we offer our listeners. If you have questions about life or theology or the Bible, you won't want to miss Pastor J.D. 's Ask the Pastor podcast. In each episode, Pastor J.D. answers real questions submitted by listeners just like you with biblical wisdom and practical advice. I'm certain he's addressed maybe your most thought-about question already, so give it a try and see.

The best part? It's completely free. You can access Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greer by visiting jdgreer.com slash podcasts or by searching for it on your favorite podcast platform. Listen on your drive to vacation or when you're out for a beautiful evening walk. And for those of you who are visual learners, it's also available on YouTube, so you can subscribe today and be alerted each time a new episode is available.

Don't miss out on this great resource by subscribing to the podcast today. Now, let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.E. Verse 18. And in that day, Samuel says, You're going to cry out because of your king that you've chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the other nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. The Lord said to Samuel, Obey their voice and make them a king. Like I said, we're going to meet Saul in the next chapter, and it's not going to go well.

Sometimes the only way God can break our enslavement to an idol is to give it to us. So in the next chapter, God gives Israel exactly what they're asking for. Like I said, he's going to be impressive. He's going to be good looking. He's going to be tall. He's going to be smart. He's going to be eloquent. He's going to be a great warrior.

Literally head and shoulders above everybody else. Maybe the saddest phrase in the whole book of 1 Samuel occurs in the next chapter. It says, And all of Israel's hearts went out towards Saul. They wanted so much from him, like we do with any God, but he is going to disappoint them bitterly. He is going to take, take, take, just like Samuel predicted. He's going to extort the people for his own benefit. He's going to prioritize preservation of his position over the best interests of the people.

He's going to fail them whenever it really counts. But tucked into what looks like a curse, verse 18 of chapter eight. Well, tucked into that, it's a beautiful little promise.

You've got to kind of read it through the right lens to see it, but it's there. And in that day, you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves. Lord won't answer you in that day. See, in one sense, that was true. Israel had to learn some hard lessons through Saul. They chose a king and that king left them broken and defeated and disappointed. But in another much more profound sense, God pulled back from this threat when God gave them a king of his choosing.

You see that? You see through all of this, God created them a desire for a better king, not a king that they would choose, but one that God would choose for him, his king, a king after his own heart. And the first iteration of that is going to be David. But David is not the ultimate fulfillment of this promise.

The ultimate fulfillment is going to be God himself in human form, Jesus. Jesus was the king that God had wanted them to have all along. You see, Jesus was a king utterly unlike Saul. Of Jesus, it was said, even the son of man did not come to be served. He came to serve and to give his life, not take life, but give his life as a ransom for many. The Jewish people in Jesus's day, just like the Jews in Samuel's day, just like Christians in our day rejected Jesus as king, but unlike Saul who murderously oppressed those who opposed him, Jesus bore in his body patiently and redemptively their rejection.

Jesus willingly would go to the cross under their treason, bearing their shame and their suffering. No other king has ever done that. He took my sin and my sorrow.

He made them his very own. He bore my burden to Calvary and then he suffered and died alone. I wounded him. I rebelled against him, but through his wounds, he gave me life and peace. I love how Tim Keller says that. He says, Jesus is the only king. That if you obtain him, will satisfy you.

And if you fail him, will forgive you. You see, every other king says, please me, obey me, serve me, obtain me and I'll give you happiness. Money says, find me, I'll make you happy. Marriage says, find me, I'll make you feel special. Family and success and fame say, find me, I'll make you feel secure. Those same kings will say to you, but if you disappoint me, if you fail to obtain me, I'll make you miserable. Money says, if you end up in poverty, your life is going to be terrible. Marriage says, you fail to obtain me, you're going to be lonely and vulnerable your whole life.

You're not going to matter to anybody. Jesus is the only king who, if you obtain him, will satisfy you. And if you fail him, will forgive you.

He's the only one you're truly safe with, so you can trust in him. A story I heard when I was a teenager. It was told to me as a true story.

I cannot verify that. It might be a legend, but either way, it's a good story that illustrated for me why Jesus deserved my trust. It was a story, again, told to me is true of a Viking king that lived in like 1100 AD, rather small kingdom. And he had the reputation among his people of being the fairest king that ever lived and the most loving king that ever lived. And people adored him.

It was a happy country because of his leadership. One day he came out to give an address to the people and he said, hey, money's being taken from the treasury. Somebody's stealing from me. He says, you know that I've promised to take care of you and even if you have a need, if you'll come to me, I'll do my best to meet him.

But stealing from me, that's sabotage. So he gave the people the warning and the invitation that he would help. A week passed by, he came out and said, someone continues to steal money. Even after my warning and my offer of help, they continued to embezzle money for me. He said, I'm going to have to give a punishment. And the punishment in those days was 10 lashes with the whip. And he said, whoever it is that's stealing, just stop. Another week passed by, money continued to be stolen. So the king came out a third time and he said, I'm going to double this penalty because I'm not getting your attention. Somebody needs to stop this.

You're sabotaging the kingdom. I'm going to double the penalty to 20 lashes. Again, money continued to be stolen. So he came out a fourth time and he said, this breaks my heart, but I'm going to double this penalty again to 40 lashes, which was essentially the death penalty. Two days, according to the story, after the king gave this final version of the punishment, two days after he had given that decree that caught the thief red-handed was the king's mother.

She'd been stealing little by little every day. Everybody wondered like, what's the king going to do? I mean, he's fair and he's loving. If he just let his mom off, that wouldn't be fair because if it had been somebody else, he would have given them the punishment. So the fair thing to do is to give his mom the punishment, but he's the most loving king we've ever known.

How could the most loving king kill his own mom? So the day came for her to be tried and she was sentenced to the punishment. They took her out to where they administered those kinds of punishments and they tied her up and the guard took the whip and he prepared to administer that first blow of the 40. And the king said, stop. And the king walked in front of the guard, said, give me just a second.

The king walked over and he took his mom and he looked her in the eyes, told her he loved her and then grabbed her and held her very tight. Then he looked back at the guard. He said, now hit her. And the guard said, I can't because if I try to hit her, I'm gonna hit you. He said, I'm telling you to do your best to strike her.

I'm not moving. And according to the story, the king stood there and absorbed all 40 lashes on behalf of his mother. I used to tell my kids, I'm like, isn't that the kind of king you'd wanna serve? Isn't that the kind of king that you'd want to trust your life to? That's a king that you would know would always be faithful to you. That's a king who was so committed to his people that even when we turned our backs on him, he absorbed the penalty of himself into himself, a king about whom that you and I could say, like David learned to say, the Lord is my shepherd.

I have no needs. As long as that shepherd is close by, I'm good because if he was wounded for my transgressions, if he took my penalty in my place, I can trust him with my day-to-day needs. You see where we're going with this? I've quoted a lot of philosophers and a lot of historians this weekend, maybe more than usual.

So let me close with one more. Will Smith, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air himself, okay? A few months ago, I read his biography. In it, he said this. He said, I have done hundreds of interviews and I've been asked thousands of questions. The single greatest question I've ever been asked was by my 15-year-old son who had started going to church with his grandmother. And he said, he asked me one day after he came home from church, he said, Dad, what do you worship? Dismissively, I told him, of course I worship God, son. And then my son asked me the second greatest question I've ever been asked.

Dad, are you sure? Are you sure that Jesus is your king? Is there anything else this morning that you demand of him?

Something about which you were sitting there saying, God, you're great and all, but unless you give me this, marriage, money, success, position, a great looking body, health, I can't be happy. What other king have you given your heart to? What other husband, spiritual husband have you given your heart to because that king is going to come in like a computer virus and he's gonna take over everything. Every king but God enslaves.

Whatever king you give your life to will take, take, take from you. If you missed any part of today's teaching or would like to catch up on this series through The Life of David, you can always do that at jdgrier.com. Along with many great free resources, we also have an exciting featured resource that we launched this week for all of our gospel partners and anyone who gives generously to support this ministry.

It's a study through The Life of David in 2 Samuel and it makes a great addition to the teaching that we'll be hearing on David for the next several weeks. To get your copy, you can give now by calling us at 866-335-5220 or you can always give online at jdgrier.com. While you're on the website, be sure to sign up for our email list. This is to get ministry updates and blog posts from Pastor JD delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life throughout your week. Sign up when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us tomorrow for a brand new teaching titled Better Not Call Saul. Don't miss it Friday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.