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South Bay SDA Church

Alan Parker

A Matter of the Heart

Today we're going to be talking a little bit about the ordination that we just saw.

And you know, thinking about that ordination reminded me of some things that had gone on in my life when I first became a Christian.

I remember 1 year things were going particularly well.

Any of you have years where everything just seems to be flying along smoothly?

I remember I'd just been appointed to the Student Youth Council that we called a prefects out of like 1, 500 students.

There were about 25 that were part of the student leadership, and I was 1 of those 25.

And then I'd just gone and preached my very first evangelistic series.

I was racing go-karts, and I'd been doing particularly well that year.

I remember telling 1 of my friends, I said, look, my name's Parker, and I've just become a preacher, and I'm a prefect, and then they just appointed me to be president of our brand new youth club at the church.

And I said, if you put all those Ps together, the next thing is P for perfect.

And after he had finished gagging, he said, well, P might be for pride.

And I was still thinking of those words when I was on my motorcycle traveling in to school, I had 2 motorcycles, I had just built up 1 motorcycle and I was on the smaller motorcycle.

And I was just singing songs so excited about how my life was going.

And then I saw a car dart across the road, and there was no time to really react.

Try to swing in towards the curb, see if I could get past it, hoping the car would break.

I T-boned the hood of the car, and I flew over.

Unfortunately, I was wearing a helmet because I rolled and there was still scratch marks on my helmet afterwards.

I rolled a perfect roll, gymnastic roll, but unfortunately, the motorcycle followed me, flipped over the hood of the car and landed on my leg.

And so they pulled the motorcycle off and there was some foreign lady there.

I was like, no, something is wrong with my leg.

Now fortunately, I was such a wise accident maker, I'd done it right outside a hospital.

The problem was this was in Africa and that hospital had no ambulances.

So we had to wait for the main city hospital to send an ambulance.

I had to wait 6 hours because they couldn't find a doctor who could come and give me painkillers.

And so the pain's getting worse, and I'm like, God, why are You doing this?

And then it's like my friend's words came back to me, pride cometh before a fall.

He helped me in that moment to realize in that 3 months that I had to lie in that hospital room, He helped me to realize what was going on in my heart.

And today, that's what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about what is going on in our hearts.

And I want to do it through the perspective of what was going on in Israel when they were looking for a king.

So turn with me to 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 8, 1 Samuel chapter 8, just a few books into your Bible, 1 Samuel 8 and verses 3, sorry, verse 4.

And they come to Samuel and they say, all of the elders of Israel, 1 Samuel 8 and verse 4, and they gather together and they came to Samuel at Ramah, and they said to him, look, you've grown old, your sons do not walk in your ways.

Then in verse 5, it continues, now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.

So here they say, look, we don't like your sons, we want a king.

Now if you were looking for a leader, maybe of a church, maybe a leader of your society, maybe a president, what would you be looking for?

Well, they wanted a king like the other nations.

And indeed, there were 2 kings with remarkably different trajectories that came into Israel at that time.

And Saul was not somebody that we remember fondly.

He was somebody who did not live a long life.

He was somebody who went down in ignominy.

And the other king became somebody who became the forerunner of the Messiah.

So here, 2 kings, both get ordained, both get anointed to being king, but very different paths.

And what would you be looking for if you were looking for a king?" Well, let's see the first king, Saul, and Yerah tells us in 1 Samuel 9 verse 2 that Kish had a son, and he was a choice and handsome son.

And I said to my wife, you know, I don't think people use those words to describe me.

And he was choice and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome person than he among all the sons of Israel.

From his shoulders and ups, he was taller than any of the people." And so they just say, wow, this guy, he's incredible.

He was the kind of person they were looking for.

If you were going to pick somebody, have you ever played this game when you were kids where they would go down, each team captain would pick somebody to play on the team?

And you know, wasn't it always terrible to get picked last?

He was the person who was at the front of the line.

You know, he was popular, he was well-known, he was like Arnold Schwartz's name, or Kevin Hartthrob, or Leonardo DiCapucino.

I mean, he was just 1 of those guys who was...you looked at him and you said, man, this guy is a winner.

Now, he didn't feel that way about himself.

But when people started looking at him and admiring him that way, it started to do something to him.

And he was like, you know, maybe there is something special about me after all.

And so, if you wanted to do the king thing, you were going to pick Saul.

He was somebody who you could look up to, literally.

He was somebody who seemed to have warlike skills.

And so, this is what the people wanted, somebody tall, somebody strong.

Even when Samuel introduces him in the next chapter, Samuel said to all the people, look, look at this man that the Lord has chosen.

Look, there is none like Him among all the people.

And everyone goes, well, long live the King!

This was exactly what they were looking for.

If you wanted to do the king thing, this was your man.

You see, this was what people wanted, someone tall, someone strong.

But it didn't always work out well, did it?

I mean, by the time you get to chapter 13, the story has begun to change.

Yes, Saul in his own way has been a pretty remarkable guy.

He's gone out and he's conquered some of the other nations.

He's gone out and the people of Israel have rallied behind him.

And so now he says, look, let's go out and tackle the Philistines.

And so the people were summoned to Saul at Gigal.

Now if you look at 1 Samuel 13, it says in verse 5 that the Philistines said, all right, you want to fight?

And they brought together what in those days was a pretty remarkable army, 30, 000 chariots, 6, 000 horsemen.

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A Matter of the Heart

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