Rest or React?
The Long Road Home - Part 4
Sunday, October 31, 2021
1 Samuel 13:1-14, 15:16-29, Psalm 40:1-17
Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—
empty rituals just for show?
He wants you to listen to him!
Plain listening is the thing,
not staging a lavish religious production.1 Samuel 15:22 (The Message)
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
King Saul was ready for battle. His army was prepared, and the favor of the Lord was on his side. There was only one thing left to do… wait.
Saul understood that a ritual sacrifice must be made to the Lord before the battle began, and he waited seven days for the prophet Samuel to come and do just that. Apparently, Pastor Samuel was on vacation, or at least that’s how it must have seemed to the soldiers.
They grew restless and began to fall away. The longer they waited, the more they feared an attack from their enemy. They began to lose faith in their king and Saul knew it.
And so, he did what most any of us would have done. He took matters into his own hands. He had seen Samuel perform the ceremony. He knew the right words, the right actions, he could do the ritual as well as any prophet or priest. After all, he was God’s chosen king.
This act of disobedience was the beginning of the end of Saul’s reign. To us it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Why does it matter who makes the sacrifice? God is still being honored.
Samuel’s response in chapter 15 says it all… “Plain listening is the thing, not staging lavish religious production.”
How often do we find ourselves going through the motion of our religious rituals… going to church, praying, reading our bibles, etc. and thinking that is enough for God? Too often we forget why we do those things in the first place. Our religious practices are not end goals. They are not chores or tasks we simply need to get accomplished.
The purpose of rituals and spiritual practices is to help us stay in tune with God’s voice. They serve as a tether, so that no matter how far away we may drift from God in our daily routines, we always have practices built in to remind us of what’s most important.
So the next time you are doing some religious practice, ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it just something to check of the “good Christian” to-do list? Or is it about something more. If churches and bibles and all of our liturgies and rituals faded away, would you still be able to listen, to trust and to wait upon the Lord?