There is a malady we suffer from in the western world that I call compassion overload. We are inundated with so many tragedies and so much suffering that we become paralyzed. There are 30 million people dying of AIDS in Africa. There are millions of people in various kinds of slavery throughout the world. Am I supposed to help those with AIDS, those in slavery, the starving children in India or the victims of the latest hurricane, tornado or tsunami? This compassion overload can be hard to sift through, but let me ask you this—is it easier to show compassion for a starving child in India or for a friend who has ruined his life from sinful choices? It’s easier to have sympathy for the starving child because they are suffering through no fault of their own, but it can be much harder to feel compassion for a grown man or woman who is suffering the natural consequence of their own choices. But God wants us to have both kinds of compassion. God wants us to grieve when we see the casualties of tsunamis and when we see the casualties of selfishness and sin.

Samuel was this kind of person. The end of chapter fifteen says, “Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him.” Saul had been God’s chosen and anointed king, but then he threw it all away. In the midst of his selfishness and sin, Samuel had great compassion on Saul. But eventually the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?” Samuel was in compassion overload and he was in danger of questioning the will of God. Saul has been rejected as king and that was final. Besides, the Lord had a new assignment for Samuel. “Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” According to God’s timetable, it was already time to anoint a new king. There was only one problem. The first king was still alive and sitting on the throne.

So Samuel asked the Lord, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.” Samuel’s question raises another question: what happened between chapters fifteen and sixteen? In the last chapter, Saul was hanging onto the robe of Samuel and begging Samuel to bless him, but in this chapter Saul is ready to kill the old prophet if necessary. The explanation is found in verse fourteen. “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” Saul had already become a functional atheist prior to this and now the only thing of any value he had left was taken from him—the Holy Spirit.

There are two ways to live life without the Holy Spirit. The first is, like Saul, to be a king or prominent figure in the Old Testament and then have God remove his Spirit from you. That is tragic because we know from this point forward Saul was all alone. But it is no less tragic when we attempt to live our lives in our own strength. Under the new covenant it is not possible for the Holy Spirit to be taken from us, but it is possible to live as if he doesn’t exist. Once in a while we hear a story about a poverty stricken man or woman who dies, only to discover that this person had plenty of money stuffed in a mattress or even millions of dollars sitting in a bank. Yet they lived their entire lives as if the money did not exist. We would call such a person a fool. But are we any less foolish when we live as if the riches and power of the Holy Spirit are not at our disposal? Before I preach every week, I pray something like this, “Lord, send your Spirit, because if your Spirit is not in this, it will fail miserably.” As a preacher, I have the daunting task of serving as a type of mouthpiece for the voice of God in your life. How arrogant it would be for me to think that my words will have any impact without the illumination, conviction and power of the Holy Spirit. But is it any less arrogant to try to love an unlovable person in your own strength. How can you show kindness to the person who treats you like dirt? How do you show gentleness to your children who are fighting and screaming? It is arrogant to think we can do these things alone. We may as well have the Holy Spirit taken from us if we are going to act as if he is not within us. Some Christians claim that the greatest manifestation of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues or a miraculous healing, but I say the greatest work of the Spirit is showing love when we don’t have any to give; being patient when we are too tired to be patient; stepping out in obedience when we lack the courage to act. These are the kind of things that make me jump up and down and rejoice in the Spirit’s work in the lives of Christians.

Our nation is in the middle of one of the most interesting political races for president that we have had in a long time, I can’t help but make the comparison between how our leaders are chosen and how they were chosen in Israel. It’s not looking so good for my candidate, but the Democrats have a different battle raging. It’s looking more and more like it will come down to the superdelegates. Will the superdelegates nominate the candidate in accordance with the popular vote, or will they, as they have the power to do, decide to nominate a different candidate. Before this year I had never even heard of superdelegates, and now they may decide the Democratic nominee. If you understand the prophet Samuel, you would have to say that he was the ultimate superdelegate! But unlike the average superdelegate in the U.S., Samuel did not appoint kings according to the popular vote of the people, but rather according to the sovereign choice of the Lord.

When Samuel anointed Saul, about the only qualification we were given was that Saul came from a prominent family and he was very tall. How did the tall, well to do king turn out? Not so good, right? Therefore it’s surprising to see that Samuel seems to have similar qualifications for leadership in mind for this son of Jesse. The moment Samuel saw Eliab, he thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” What was Eliab’s sole attribute? He was tall, just like Saul! You can’t really blame Samuel too much, because we would have no doubt made the same mistake. After all, the king of Israel was fundamentally a military leader. Recall that when the people first asked for a king they wanted someone who would go fight their battles. They said, “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Sam. 8:20)  So if I am going to choose a military leader, I am most likely to choose a guy like this. In the days when battles were won by hand to hand combat, I would choose the strongest looking guy in the bunch. I would choose a tall, muscular warrior every time. But the last tall king didn’t work out so well, so the Lord gave Samuel a different set of qualifications. “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” God looks at a guy like this muscle man and says, “I can’t use a man like that. He’s far too big and strong and therefore far too likely to depend upon his own strength.” Instead, God is more likely to choose a man like this one, Aditya Dev, known as the world’s smallest bodybuilder. I think God looks at a man like this and say, “Now there’s a guy I can use. He cannot pretend to rely on his own strength.”

It is only pride which keeps us relying on our own strength. I know we all have some bad days, but sometimes it’s the good days that get us in trouble. When we have a good day, we’re kind of like Mr. Dev here. When things seem to go our way, we flex our muscles and think, “Man, I’m good today. Work was a breeze. The kids are all obeying me. Oil filters were on sale at Walmart. And to top it all off, when I got home I opened my refund check from the IRS. Look at me flex my muscles!” But what we don’t realize is that, like Mr. Dev, someone was holding us up all day. The mighty powerful arm of the Lord was the source of our strength, but in our pride we don’t take notice. When we take credit for a good day or for any good thing, we may as well brag about how good we are at breathing. “Hey guys, come over here at watch this! Watch how my powerful lungs suck in the air around me. See that! Now watch carefully as I exhale. Isn’t that a work of art!?” We are not so foolish to take credit for every breath we take, so why do we get al happy with ourselves when we do a good job? We are puny little people whose only claim to fame is that we are being held up by the Almighty arm of the Lord. As Paul said, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness,” and also “Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’”

This is the kind of man that God had in mind when he chose from among the sons of Jesse. This is what was happening in verses 6-9. “Lord, is Eliab to be king?”  “No, he’s too tall.”  “Lord, is it Abinadab?”  “No, too strong.”  “Shammah?”  “No, too proud.” Three more sons of Jesse and passed by in front of Samuel and for all six the Lord said to Samuel, “He’s not the one.” Samuel may have been confused by this point because the Lord had sent him to anoint a king. He was probably thinking, “God, am I your superdelegate or not? I’m standing here holding this horn of oil just like you told me, but there is no son of Jesse for me to anoint.” Samuel was certain that he had heard the voice of God correctly, so he asked the most logical question, “Are these all the sons you have?”

We should give credit to the author of this story for the way that he developed this story keeps us on the edge of our seats. Unbeknownst to him, Samuel’s entire life had been prepared for this one moment. Samuel was the prophet of God, the Lord’s superdelegate and anointer of kings. The book of Ruth and the first fifteen chapters of 1 Samuel all anticipated the coming of David, yet the author skillfully leads us to this very point. David is not even named until the thirteenth verse of this story. Up until this point, the name of the new king was not that important. Samuel did not need to know David’s name. The only question that mattered to him was this—where is God’s chosen man?

I believe that this is the question that we need to ask of one another. When we look at our children, we should ask ourselves, “Where is God’s chosen man. Where is God’s chosen woman?” We need to see our kids as future men and women of God. When you look at your son, ask yourself, “Do I see a future David waiting to arise form within him?” When you look at your daughter, ask yourself, “Am I able to see a future woman of God like Ruth within her?”  The same goes for husbands and wives. Men, what can we do to love our wives so that they can develop into women like Ruth? Maybe you were lucky enough to marry a Ruth, but most wives need to be loved into becoming a Ruth. Women, what can you do to serve your husband so that he can become a David? Maybe you were lucky enough to marry a David, but most men need to be served into becoming a David.

This very day, the Lord is passing to and fro around the earth looking for men like David and women like Ruth. I believe that the Spirit of God is hovering over Viroqua looking for men like David and women like Ruth. I believe that the Almighty anointer of kings dwells within our church and is waiting to lay his hand upon his choice man and his choice woman—his chosen son and his chosen daughter. That day in Bethlehem, God was looking for his chosen man, but he did not find him among the first six sons of Jesse, so Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”  “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is tending the sheep.” Do you see the powerful irony in this story? When God goes looking for his chosen man, he doesn’t look in the halls of palaces and kings, he looks in the sheep pen. When God goes looking for his chosen man and his chosen woman, he does not look in the corner office of the CEO. He doesn’t look among the Olympic gold medalists and Super Bowl ring bearers. When God looks for his chosen people, he doesn’t choose from among the leading candidates in the Democratic or Republican party. The Sovereign Lord chooses his men and women from the sheep pens of life.

Listen to how the Psalmist puts it. “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance. And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” (Psalm 78:70-72) One commentator nails it on the head when he writes, David was no ruthless, ambitious man determined to seize power. He was God’s own choice, even when he was a young lad doing a humble task.^[i]  This ought to give us hope, because if you are in a sheep pen, you are in a good place! But don’t misunderstand—it’s not the sheep pen that causes God to want to choose us—but it’s the humility with which we live in the sheep pen. It’s not the mere fact of living in a sheep pen but living with faithfulness in the sheep pen. The first step is knowing that we are in the sheep pen. The second step is living with contentment in the sheep pen even though there are times we would rather be in a palace. The third step is waiting patiently while God molds us into a David or a Ruth.

Rich Maurer

February 24, 2008