We often sing a chorus: “The greatest thing in all my life—is loving You, knowing You, serving You…”. Those are precious words if they are authentic, and they are. And if the Bible ends with those who know, love, and serve the Lord doing so forever—and it does. Then the most crucial element in our life is learning, loving, and serving the Lord! So the most extraordinary way we could invest our lives and live them well would be serving God.
But then the opposite would also be true. The worst way to live and the most tremendous waste of life would be to live for anything but serving the Lord!
We have been considering David, the greatest servant in the Bible. His life is recorded more completely than any other, so we know more about how he served the Lord than any other biblical character.
God’s Word often teaches us through contrasts. This morning, I’d like you to join me in looking at one of the sharpest in the Bible—the comparison of David and Saul. It is also one of the most sobering.
How NOT to serve the Lord
In God’s Word, we have the amazing record of David’s life—which shows him serving God all his days—and the equally amazing record of Saul’s life, which shows him not serving God all his days. This proximity of ‘how to serve’ and ‘how not to serve’ is very insightful.
I Samuel 17 is the record of the boy who stood all alone for God and saw the reality of what God can do through a person who is entirely His—David had the heart to stand.
1st Samuel 16 is the record of the boy who would grow into the man after God’s own heart—David was a servant who loved and served God. But what happens in the chapter before all that? What precipitated Samuel’s anointing of David?
1st Samuel 15 tells us that David was chosen because of King Saul’s unwillingness to serve the Lord. Remember that this book, the Bible, is God’s Word—and is also supernaturally engineered by God. The Spirit of God planned every word, every verse, and every chapter of every book. No place, person or event just happened to get included. The lord has master-planned this book, engineering it to point to Christ in every way possible.
This morning, may I challenge you about how NOT to serve God? That is exactly what we see when we start in 1 Samuel 15. This chapter captures why God picked David and why God rejected Saul. If you ever want to be sure that you are on God’s Team and stay there, be sure you understand this chapter.
DSS-06 – Saul – How NOT to Serve God (060205AM)
Join the LAND OF THE BOOK channel to access weekly video releases over the next year totaling 50+ EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS featuring weekly in-depth Bible Study lessons with John & Bonnie. Clips are taken at just one of the places where we are taking our virtual journey through all the Lands of the Bible & Great Museums of the Bible on the Paul’s Life & Letters Course. Plus all the assigned HOLY LAND, Paul’s Life & Letters Course STUDY RESOURCES, and John’s two most loved books–David’s Spiritual Secret & Living Hope for the End of Days at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVK6dN-9kLDnQhYBFuES09A/join
Follow Discover the Book Ministries to stay up to date:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/discoverthebook/
DTBM Academy Courses:
https://dtbma.com/Default.aspx
Purchase John’s Books, Mp3 & DVD resources:
E-Books: https://tinyurl.com/y3wbhlxy
Here are links to our Amazon Pages–
https://www.amazon.com/shop/dtbm
Donate to the ministry: https://dtbm.org/donations/partnership/
For more of Dr. John Barnett’s Bible teaching messages, go to: https://dtbm.org/
https://youtu.be/s6ny1EEtrPc