Exactly – Not There and About

Do exactly as He says

Well, thank you very much. Very grateful to Denise. Thank you, too, for the worship team and the great job they did. And welcome and thank you for being here. It’s great to see you all. And if you don’t know who I am. My name is Steve, Steve Ansell and I’ve been at the church for many years and I’m grateful to have an opportunity to share God’s word today. When Pastor Kyle, who’s enjoying some vacation, well earned, said to me, Hey, would you like to give God’s word on the 10th? I sort of thought to myself, well, I wonder what I should preach about. And it was like the Lord said to me, Well, what am I teaching you? And I guess I paused for a minute and said, Well, I guess, what is God teaching me? And I really felt that He was teaching me the word ‘exactly’. So you can see the title of today’s sermon is ‘Exactly’, not there and about, and I’ll share with you what I mean. But where this came from is, I mean, listening to the Old Testament while I drive to work. And it seems to me that God over and over and over again said to the people of Israel, do exactly what I want. And when he did say that and they did exactly what he wanted, he wanted blessing and he was pleased with them. But when they kind of did what he wanted or generally didn’t do what he wanted, that really brought about his anger, his frustration with them. And you can see in today’s portion of scripture that Denise read for us, we’re going to focus in on that because Saul was asked to do something very specific, in fact it was God’s judgment. And he kind of did it. There and abouts, sort of. Not exactly. And I guess what I wanted to say to you, as we think about God’s word today, if you forget everything else, if you take a nap off to this, that’s okay, just remember the word. Exactly. Because that’s really what we’re going to be talking about.

So I want to start us off and illustrate the importance of ‘exactly’ using the immune system. So a lot of us, another thing I’ve been learning while I’ve been going through the last few years is that infections are a thing. In case you hadn’t noticed. And it’s really important that your body knows how to exactly take care of the invader, of whatever kind. So this is what you really need if your immune system is going to work well. When you take that pizza that’s been in the fridge for a very long period of time and decide that it’s probably okay and try it out, your body is going to need to notice what came along with the pizza, which wasn’t good for you. And so pretty much your immune system needs to say, Hey, I remember you and take out what is now a threat to your life.

So the key question is, how does it do that? Well, it’s actually got a very intricate system that I’m going to share with you. As you can tell, I like this stuff, so I’ll be happy to share it with you in more detail if you want details afterwards. But the most important thing is that you have cells in your body called dendritic cells. These are cells that call them antigen presenting cells. In other words, something comes into your body. Everything that’s around those cells take it and gobble it up. They kind of test it out. And as they kind of eat on it, if you like, they check it out and they go, Yep, this is fine. Or No, this is a threat to the body. And if it goes, this isn’t so good, it spends a little time breaking it down into little particles so that it can actually check it out in kind of greater detail. Then it gets to the point where it says, no, hold on. This is actually hazardous to me. And so I need to alert the immune system how to fight back. So the first thing it does is it talks to T cells. And T cells are the hand-to-hand combat part of your immune system. And it does what’s called antigen presentation. So you can see it’s showing the T cell what’s going on. T cells then go and talk to B cells. B cells are kind of like the artillery, if you like, of your immune system. And while they’re sharing back and forth, those B cells, they’re pink, they turn into what are called plasma cells. Now, the reason you probably never heard of a plasma cell, but you will have heard what they do next. Plasma cells make antibodies. So with all of COVID swirling around, you hear about the fact that if you get it, you should get antibodies. Well, antibodies are the missiles that take out what’s dangerous to your system. So your plasma cell now goes, I’m ready to fight. I’ve recognized what is a threat to me and it starts to make antibodies. But the first antibody it makes is called an IgM antibody. It’s a quick and dirty antibody. It’s kind of big and it sticks to many things. It’s good when it sticks to whatever the threat is, but it’s bad if it sticks to other things too. So what happens then is the B cells, the T cells and the plasma cells go back and do a little more talking and they say we’re getting more intelligent about what the threat is to our body, and they refine what they are actually using as far as this antibody is concerned. Then they make what are called IgG antibodies. These are laser missiles. This just locks on, goes right to what is the threat and takes it out.

It’s almost a lock and key analogy. It’s exactly matched up. Note the word, ‘exactly’ matched up. Your immune system needs to go from there and abouts to exactly for that to actually clear the infection. If at any point along this process it fails to do that or it gets stuck or it only does some of it, your life is a threat. It needs to have all of that process happen. It needs to be ‘exactly’. So that brings us to the whole thing of our key verse. So again, if you’ve been napping up to now. Hopefully you just had the word ‘exactly’. What I’m hoping that we’ll look for, look to the future here as we go through, the rest of the scripture is recognized that as ‘exactly’ matters for us in our physical health; ‘exactly’ matters to us in our spiritual health. And that’s really what we’re going to focus on today.

You heard was read about Saul and Samuel’s interactions. God is calling for us to follow him in exact obedience, doing exactly what He wants us to do. Not ‘there in abouts’. So the key verse that I hope that we will remember, and if you again at this time are looking for key things to write down, this is what I think is the crux of what I’ve been learning in my life and I pray will be something that you learn in yours. “Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).

So we need a little context here. So you might have listened to the story. You heard the story about these folks called the Amalekites and the Amalekites are told by the Prophet Samuel to go and totally destroy the Amalekites. So the question is, why are the Amalekites so annoying to God and why does God want them gone? So cast your mind back to where the Amalekites came from. So firstly, these were descendants of Esau. So you might remember Jacob and Esau, twins that came out and kind of tussled from the day of birth pretty much all the way through. Jacob was the guy that took away Esau’s birthright, then conned his dad, Isaac, by making out that he was really Esau and got the blessing. So these two folks were in total combat, if you like, their entire lives. And beyond that, the Amalekites spent a lot of time targeting, trying to kill the Israelites. I mean, a highlight for you is three times in Scripture where the Bible tells us about their Amalekites. and every time they were attacking or doing something that was actually opposing God’s people, the Israelites. The first is here you can see the story that is right as the Israelites came out of Egypt, they traveling now to the promised land. They’re traveling through the desert.

They’re thirsty. They in fact, they’re crying out for water. Moses gives them water by putting out a stop over the rock. And the water comes running out, but they are really in pretty tough shape. And then out of nowhere, the Amalekites attack them. And the picture you can see there is the picture of Moses. So in the battle, Moses needs to raise his hands. And while his hands are up, battle is going in the direction of the Israelites. Needless to say, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t kept keep my hands up that long. But after a while he gets kind of tired. He puts his arms down and the battle starts to go in the direction of the Amalekites. So then two of his colleagues, Aaron and Hur, put him down on a rock. They keep his arms up, then make sure that they continue through the battle. And you can see that eventually the battle is won because of the fact that God intervenes on their behalf. But again, notice here, Joshua overcomes the Amalekites with the sword.

Second part of context that’s really important takes us on to the story of Gideon. So you might remember Gideon, kind of a hesitant leader. First he had gods telling him, I promise, I will be with you. So he said, please, if you’re calling me, I’ll put down my little fleece here. And if it’s got water on it, then and everything else is dry, I’ll believe you. Then he says, Can we do that again, please? Let’s have it the other way around and God does it. And then right at the end He goes, okay, I will lead the people, and I will at this stage it was against the Midianites. What I’ll show you in a second is that it wasn’t just the Midianites, because guess who was also part of the battle; it was the Amalekites. But interestingly, remember the story of God saying to many people, we just need a few. Eventually they were down to 300. And God gave them the battle. But I think the important thing I want to point out, just to give you the context, is the Midianites, the Amalekites and all these other Eastern people, there were just more than locusts and was more than the sands of the sea. There were so many coming against the people of Israel. But again, the Amalekites are part of the force. That is a risk to the people of Israel. Furthermore, I just wanted to remind that one other time when the Amalekites came against the people of Israel was around the time of the Prophet Deborah, and she took the people of Israel out against Sisera and his army. You might remember this story. God gave them the victory and in fact he runs away, hides in the tents, and a lady called Jael drives a tent peg right through his head.

So if ever you thought the Bible is not packed with super action, packed and pretty gruesome stuff, it’s right in the Bible. But again, who was part of that whole picture? The Amalekites. So it’s with that background of who the Amalekites are and how often they came against the people of Israel, that God then brings this judgment on them. So twice, he says. Firstly, in Exodus 17, he says to Moses writes on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it. Because I will completely blot out the name of Malek from under heaven. Moses built an altar called it The Lord is My Banner, and said ‘because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation’. The second time it comes up in Deuteronomy, it says, But remember what the Ammonites did to you along the way as you came out of Egypt, when you were weary and worn out, they attacked you. Those who were lagging behind, they had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives rest from His enemies, when you go into the land that you are about to possess as inheritance, I will blot out the name of Amalekites from under heaven. Do not forget. So clearly God saw the Amalekites as an enemy of Israel that needed to be destroyed. So what is God supposed to do? So this is where our story comes.

Samuel comes to Saul and he says, you need to go and obliterate the Amalekites. Every single one of them. And you can see it gets down to the details of you need to kill every person. You need to kill all their stuff. It all needs to be obliterated. Now you might go, Wow, that’s kind of rough. And it’s right in the Bible, really. But I think what’s important, the word destroy here is almost like the same word for a sacrifice. This is something that is completely consecrated to God. God is meting out judgment, and Saul is the person who is giving the judgment. So it’s a heavy burden. This is a big deal. This is something that’s not just a suggestion. God is actually now sending a powerful message to the Amalekites. So what does soul actually do? So he started strong. He got all his troops together. There were a lot of them. They went out and fought against the Amalekites and they did that. They totally destroyed them. But you can see in the second verse there, they captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everybody else. But now things get a little wobbly. Instead of killing Agag, just like God asked, they spared his life. And instead of obliterating everything, and you might remember the previous verse, got down to the camels and everything needed to be destroyed.

They kept the good stuff. All this stuff. That kind of was kind of rubbish. Nobody wanted it anyway. Happy to obliterate that. The good stuff. They kept that. So I wanted to pause there for a second. God said, I need you to do exactly this. Saul said, I’ll kind of do that, sort of thereabouts. Not exactly what God had in mind. So how did God feel about that and what did Samuel say in response? So I think it’s very easy, very interesting to see. God says, I am sorry that I made Samuel King. And I think it’s very interesting, he says, because he has refused to obey my command. So he’s not cutting Saul slack here by going, well, he tried hard. He just misinterpreted what I heard, what I said. I wasn’t very clear about what I really wanted. He kind of did it. It was close, but not quite. He feels that God is saying well, God is saying that he refused to do what I asked. You can also see in the last verse there, things get a little more wobbly because now Saul is setting up a monument to himself on the way down to Gilgal. I think the other thing that’s really interesting and we’ll talk about this a little bit more in just a second. Samuel doesn’t. Samuel goes to talk to Saul, says to him that really God is unhappy, is mad at him for what he’s done. But Saul doesn’t really see it that way. You can see Saul cheerfully kind of greeting Samuel, saying to him, I’ve carried out the Lord’s command, and then I love Samuel. He gets a little kind of psycho here. He sort of says, Hmm, but I’m hearing some bleating sounds. Yeah, and I’m hearing some lowing sounds here. That doesn’t really sound like absolute destruction to me. You can still see Saul kind of pushing back and going, No, no, I kind of did it. We just took the stuff. And we were about to do some worshiping and sacrifices here. And Samuel says stop. Let me tell you exactly what God thinks about this. So you can see again in the second verse here that Samuel says, you know, you feel so little about yourself. Why didn’t you not obey the law? Why did you go ahead and grab the plunder? And Saul still says, but I did, I did obey the Lord. I carried out the pledge of the mission. I did sort of what he wanted me to do.

But I think, again, the important point I would make is that God was asking for an absolute obedience. And you can see the obedience here is sort of. This is our key verse. So I just want us again to remind ourselves, God sends this mission through Samuel to Saul, to say, I need you to obliterate the Amalekites. So Saul does kind of what he was supposed to, but not all of what he was supposed to. So Samuel says, What is more pleasing to the Lord, your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of Ram’s. Now, I want us to look at the next few verses, because we’re going to expand on that in just a few minutes here. It’s interesting. God says rebellion is as simple as witchcraft and stubbornness, as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have a rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. You might go, wow, that’s kind of harsh. God is really not happy here. I guess what I want to show is what we see in this next verse is that it’s really important for us to realize that God wants us to do what he says. Exactly right. Back to our analogy in the beginning. So before we get into that, you might be going, okay, I’m not sure this applies to me really that much, but I might say to you, I felt very challenged about this and this is something the Lord has been laying on my heart. Do we kind of sometimes bargain with God? Do we sometimes kind of say, well, because I’m doing this, then that over there doesn’t matter quite as much, kind of there and about if I’m doing what God wants me to do, doesn’t it all kind of even out and end up being okay? Some things compensate for others.

You know, sometimes we can think that if we come to church on Sundays, then it doesn’t really matter how we live in the week because going to church counterbalances that. Or maybe because I read the Bible every day or listen to it driving to work like I do, the fact that I don’t actually obey it doesn’t matter because I’m listening to it and that kind of counterbalances and it’s okay. Or God says to me, I really want you to share with that neighbor. But I say sort of one or two nice things that sort of seem okay that gives God some kind of glory. But I don’t actually share about what He wants me to share about. But somehow that’s okay. It’s close enough. It’s there in abouts. It’s pretty good. I think we need to see that partial obedience isn’t obedience at all. So that’s really the main point that I want us to see is our first main lesson to take away from this: partial obedience, there and about, sort of not quite, but close. God’s not interested in that. God wants absolute obedience because partial obedience is really just disobedience. So we’re going to talk about three different ways in which that’s true. And I want you to see that Samuel says to Saul, it’s rebellion, it’s stubbornness, and in fact, it’s rejection of God’s word.

So the first point here is. Disobedience is rebellion against God. And interestingly, Samuel actually says it’s the same as witchcraft. So you might go, wow, where do they get that from when he talks about that? And the word here is really divination. So divination is really getting a sense of the future from someone that isn’t God. And I think this, again, is where the soul is falling into a really sinful situation. And there’s a risk that we might. The first thing that we should learn is that when you are saying, I am not going to actually obey God, I’ll just do sort of what He wants me to do. That’s pretty much us saying God doesn’t know at all. He’s not the absolute source of wisdom. There are other ways in which we can get the right information. And this takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Because you might remember Satan was very quick to do exactly that when he was talking to Adam, the first thing he said. But did God really say that? I’m not sure that’s the whole story, because in fact, actually, God knows that if you ate the fruit, not only would you know everything, but you might even live forever. Always putting an extra little spin if there is more. There is another source of wisdom. So disobedience, it can be pretty much like divination. And that’s what Samuel is saying. It’s a soul.

Second thing that he says is that disobedience is stubbornness toward God, and it’s the same as idolatry. And you might go, wow, that’s also pretty heavy. Well, first thing we said was that when we say that, we are saying, God is not really the only source of wisdom. Now we might be looking around and say, what are the other choices? And many times the other choices are what I think is wise. And now it’s a case of, well, I might actually like my version of what wisdom looks like way better than God’s. So in actual fact, I will set myself up as more important than God. And in fact, I am now becoming the final authority on everything. Again, the whole little saying that says if God is not or Jesus is not Lord of all, well, he’s really not Lord at all. Because again, if I put myself as being the final authority on things, that really is a form of idolatry.

Finally, Samuel is saying, well, it’s complete rejection of God’s word. Again, the whole thing of firstly, not only is God no longer the source of the wisdom, I find other sources and I think actually mine are better. And then I pretty much go, well, in which case I’m not actually interested in doing what God had in mind. I’m going to do what I have in mind. So you might say, well, where’s the application in that? I think it’s really important for us to take a minute and look at our own hearts and say, well, are we looking for other sources of wisdom or are there other things? When situations happen, when God asks us to do something, when we know God wants us to do something? Do we spend more time thinking about it? Well, I’m sure there are better other ways. Do we start to really think we know better? God doesn’t know the whole story. I’ve got a much better idea of how that could or should be. And then eventually do we just go? Well, in which case my idea really is the best and I’m not doing what God wants. So they’re not good enough. God wants us to be absolutely obedient.

The second thing I just wanted us to focus on, and this takes us now to the second scripture that we read, is why should we obey God? And I think the important thing here is that we really want to obey God, because if we don’t truly honor God, we will not truly honor God if we’re not doing exactly what he says. So I just want to remind you of the scripture. John tells us if someone claims I know God but doesn’t obey God’s commands, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s Word truly show how much they completely love Him. That is how we will know that we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. So I think from that scripture, again, why should we obey God? Because partial obedience is really disobedience. So the challenge then is will, why obey God? And three things I want us to take away from this. The first thing is that we can be sure that we know him. If we obey his commands, we will have assurance of our relationship with God and that we know Him if we find and we are obeying his commands. And I think the important word here is obey. And it’s interesting, this word in the Greek language (and I’m not a great Greek scholar), but as I understand it, it’s a word of nurturing. It’s to carefully pay attention, take care of God. Observe. It’s not just a one and done thing. It’s not just I did what God said. Exactly. It’s actually that I’m carefully studying to know what God wants. I’m looking to see how I would please him, careful to do what he desires for me. It’s an obedience with a desire to please, not just keeping the letter of the law. The second thing that I think we can learn from this is it really will allow us to match up our words with our deeds. So again, it says Those who obey God’s words will show how completely they love him. I like this word ‘completely’. How completely they love him. And the reason I like it is because, again, it’s got some interesting connotations. It’s to make something perfect. It’s to want to do more to render something full. It’s like to top something off. So I know about you, but I like coffee and I like cappuccinos. So there’s topping off thing. I totally get it. If I watch them make a cappuccino, they’ll go to get the espresso. They’re going to put it in the cup, they’re going to froth the milk, and then they’re going to pull the milk in on the top. And in fact, they may even hold back some of the froth and then put that right on the top. To top it off, you can see that it makes that a perfect cappuccino. And in fact, if they’re really good, they’re going to give you some cappuccino. Art right in the top truly topped off. So if we want to have our words match our deeds, we want to obey God to show him how completely topped off, how exactly, we love him. It’s the cream on the crop or the cream on the top, as it were. Third thing I want us to learn is they’ll be evidence that we are abiding in him. This is how we know that we are living in him if we obey him.

And again, most of you would know it would abide. Probably heard sermons on the word abide. But the challenge I have is what does abide look like? And I actually was thinking about this yesterday while I was watering the lawn, watering some of the flowers. And we’ve got one of these plants where the plant usually is one of these things that grows down low. But we want to put it up on a nice big bowl. So it kind of looks pretty fancy. And so they take a different plant and they graft the one into the other so that instead of it now being down low, it’s up high so that you can see it really nicely. What is interesting, so I was looking to see, well, where does it graft in? And actually, you know, it’s kind of hard to see because they’re all kind of grown into each other. It’s very difficult to see where the one plant starts and the other one ends, as it were. Again. I see that abiding coming into the fall when I’m thinking about that picture because if we are going to be in Christ, it needs to be something that is so grafted in, it’s difficult to tell where the one starts and the other ends. We want to be unified with Christ. And it’s interesting, this verse on this word is actually a present infinitive, which means it’s an ongoing thing, it’s a keeping on kind of word. It’s not just a one and done. It’s not just a burst. It’s something that happens on a continuous basis. So we want evidence that we are abiding in him. That’s the evidence that we obey him. So as we kind of move toward the end here, the next question is, well, how do we know what God wants us to do? If we want to obey him, if we know that obeying him, we’re ready to show him that we love him and we want to do his will.

How do we know his will? What is his will? Well, I think there are really three things, three ways in which we know his will. The first is maybe you just know he said it to you again. Maybe you felt like you’ve been sent on a mission for God. I’ve just looked across the audience, some that have been on the mission field. Maybe you felt the Lord is sending me to the mission field and I just know it. God has put it in my heart. I heard him say it to me. I just know. And that’s how I’m going to know to do his will. I can certainly think of myself at a time when I just felt the Lord wanted me to do something. I got into a plane. I fly quite a lot and I never talk to people. I have noise canceling headphones. I put those on right away and I turn into turn up my eighties rock and I’m not talking to anybody. Well, it turned out I was getting on the plane and this gent got on next to me, and I just felt the Lord saying to me, engage with him. And so he and I got to chatting and the plane actually took a while to push back from the gate. We were a bit delayed or whatever, but for more than an hour we just had an opportunity to talk about Jesus. And again, I can’t say he suddenly came to know the Lord and prayed the sinner’s prayer or anything like that. But I really felt the Lord said to me, Do it. And that was a time where it was important to be obedient. Sometimes life circumstances require obedience. You know, many of you know that I’ve lived in Rochester for 27 years, but I came here from another place and originally I was going to come to Texas. And I’m very grateful I came to Minnesota. Things have worked out for me really well in Minnesota, but everything was set for me to go to Texas. I’ve never failed an exam in my life, but I failed the exam that required that I was required to take. To be able to come to the US but couldn’t go to Texas. And the opportunity went away and I retook the exam and did remarkably better.

I think I don’t know what happened the previous time, but clearly it was because God wanted me to come to Minnesota and that’s how I ended up here. But sometimes circumstances lead us and point us and God says, Obey me because this is where I want you to go. But many times I think the most important thing is scripture tells us and there is a lot in the Bible that God tells us to do that we really need to be doing and reading God’s word to know that is really important. And Paul tells us this in Second Timothy. He says, All Scripture is inspired by God and useful to teach us what is true and make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people for every good work. So I guess the challenge that I have for you is: I have for myself is in his word, through the circumstances that are in our lives and through times when he just points us, God is saying to me, to us, to me, obey me, do what I say. That’s really the challenge for us. Are we reading his scriptures? Do we know his word? And are we doing what he said? Exactly. Not just there and abouts. So I will tell you this much that exactly takes on new meaning when you build IKEA furniture.

So I don’t know about you, but you go to IKEA and IKEA hs these fantastic things that you can buy and they look really good. And then you go to the checkout and they come in a box like this big and it doesn’t look anything like what I just purchased. And you open it up and there are a boatload of instructions and things that you have to do. Now you have a choice. You could obey the instructions or you could wing it. So you could tell that you can see: here’s a picture of Brad and me assembling IKEA furniture when he was in college. The picture on the right is not what we got. We just want to say because we follow the instructions. But that’s what you most likely would get if you just do it there in a box, you end up with this wobbly thing that no one’s actually going to use. You’ve got a bunch of extra screws and brackets and stuff that didn’t really go anywhere and no one actually can use the final product. God-like, God rejected. Saul, you would reject that table. Notably on the far side is Brad and me building the IKEA furniture and those that know, you know me would say I’m no extra special handyman, but pay attention that Brad is reading the instructions. Exactly. And he’s telling me exactly that bracket. He goes with bracket B and screw number four goes with bracket number five. And if you follow the instructions, it goes much better for you. To my point, if you forgot everything and you just woke up now. Exactly. God calls us to do exactly what he has in mind. But I want us to take away one more message. And that is God doesn’t want us just to do what he says exactly, because he’s some kind of mean taskmaster or boss. And he sort of says, get it done. Exactly. This is the God who sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for us. And so my challenge to myself as it is to you, as I want to obey God because I love him. He’s done so much for me. I want to do exactly what he says because of how much he sacrificed for me. Jesus says this in John Chapter 14. If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. The person who loves my crew, who knows my commands and keeps them. That’s the person who loves me. The person who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him and make myself plain to him. My challenge to you as it is to myself is: Am I doing exactly what God wanted me to do or just there in abouts? Kind of. Sort of. Because if I really love Jesus, I will do as he asks me exactly what He wants me to do.