Week 23: 1 Samuel 1 – 12 and Proverbs 1 – 10

“But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” 1 Samuel 8:19-20

This plea from Israel revealed precisely where their collective heart was at.  They felt that they were lacking.  They were deeply insecure as a nation.  They felt vulnerable and inferior to their enemies and were sizing themselves up next to those around them.  They did not feel good about who they were and cried out for something to change.

The trouble was, Israel was looking everywhere but to God to diagnose their sense of deflatedness.  God was not the source of their identity and security.  Rather, they looked for their sense of “ok-ness” from themselves and those around them.  The truth was, God had already given them an identity.  They were His people and He was their God.  But they rejected that reality.  God knew this to be true and we saw it in His response to Samuel:

“…they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  1 Samuel 8:7

In all their naval gazing, they had forgotten the innumerable times that God had been victorious on their behalf.  They forgot the ways that God had cared for them so personally and perfectly.  They forgot how God had shown His covenant love towards them.  In turn, they forgot the covenant they had made with God to be faithful to Him.  God was no longer the one by whom and with whom they were identified.  They were not looking to Him to define who they were and how they should live, so they had to look elsewhere.  They looked horizontally, and they compared themselves to everyone else around them.  In their own estimation, they came up lacking and insufficient, in need of someone to make “Israel great again.”  In truth, they were God’s chosen people; His treasured people; His covenant people.  Unfortunately, the truth was not their reality.

Perhaps this theme has jumped off the pages of 1 Samuel to me because it not only revealed Israel’s heart, but it exposed mine as well!  Israel’s insecurity and proposed solution to the problem (a king who would fight their battles) could be relabeled with one word.  PRIDE.  The issue of pride has been popping up all around me and conviction has taken hold.  (Apparently, I am oblivious to the depth and self-deception of my pride!)

My pastor has been teaching out of James chapter 3, comparing pride and humility, or wisdom from below and wisdom from above.  He challenged us to take an honest look at ourselves and notice if there were weeds that had grown up in the soil of our hearts that are choking out the abundant fruit that the Holy Spirit desires to bring forth through us.  Immediately, I felt the twinge of conviction.  Pride and an obsession with my own opinion of myself have done just that.  In a few specific areas, my own verdict of myself and the perceived verdict of other people have been what have shaped my decisions, my values and my devotion.

This past week, we have also seen the contrast between pride and humility, or folly and wisdom, in the book of Proverbs.  Stated in many different ways, the message of Proverbs consistently states that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10)   The fear of the LORD recognizes that God’s opinion is what matters, not my own.  The fear of the LORD submits to the judgement of God alone, rather than that of any human being.  The fear of the LORD does not look horizontally in order to be validated or vindicated, judged or justified.  It considers God alone and humbly submits to His Kingship.

And then, to really drive the point home, this week I re-read one of my favorite little books called, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, by Timothy Keller.

This short book (an essay really) is based off of a passage in 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7.  In this passage, Paul described the Gospel transformation he experienced concerning his own pride and ego.  He declared that it was of no consequence to him if he was judged by any human opinion.  Nor, did he concern himself with his own judgement of himself.  “It is the LORD who judges me,” he conceded.  It is from this very premise that he is exhorted the church at Corinth to not be boastful or take pride over one another (comparing themselves to each other).  Comparing ourselves only leads to an inferiority or superiority complex, which are two sides of the same coin: PRIDE.  It is an obsession with defining ourselves based on our own standard or the standards of those around us, rather than God’s.  It is an empty pursuit.  It is a fruitless aim.  It is not God’s desire for us.

Tim Keller says, “The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time… In his book Sickness Unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard says it is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God. Spiritual pride is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God.”

Even as believers in Jesus, those who are justified before God in Christ and who have been given a completely new identity as His beloved people, it is so easy to look to someone or something else to define who we are.  We allow ourselves or others to decree the verdict on our worth when in fact the verdict has already been decreed!  Because of Jesus’ death on our behalf, we are no longer even in the courtroom.  He took our place, taking all of our guilt upon Himself and He suffered the consequences that we deserve.  His perfectly clean record is what we get instead!  How can this be!?

I love how Tim Keller ends The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness:

“All I can tell you is that we have to re-live the gospel every time we pray. We have to re-live it every time we go to church. We have to re-live the gospel on the spot and ask ourselves what we are doing in the courtroom. We should not be there. The court is adjourned.  Like Paul, we can say, I don’t care what you think.  I don’t even care what I think.  I only care about what the LORD thinks.  And He has said, ‘Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,’ (Romans 8:1) and you are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.  Live out of that.”