#4 - God Gives Us a Better Story
1st Samuel 16:10-13 (4-9) - Victory Fellowship
March 19, 2023 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
4th Sunday of Lent
I. We Connect With Stories
Though Jesus was known to quote Scripture from time to time, his primary way of teaching was through story. When Jesus wanted to convey a hard to explain spiritual truth, he didn’t preach a three-point sermon; he told a story. We connect to stories. Stories get our attention in a way that a formula or definition cannot.
We have talked about some of the elements of a good story in the first few weeks of the God Story. A good Introduction is where you learn important information about the main character.
We talked about the Suspension of Disbelief where you ask the reader to suspend their logic and critical faculties to believe the fantastic.
We looked last week at the Rising Action, a critical time in the story where the protagonist faces conflicts and obstacles.
Video. A. Where the Story Gets Going
This week we learn that any good story or play or movie must have a clear Inciting Incident. The Inciting Incident is the moment in a script that kicks the story into motion. It occurs after the set up. Everything that follows the Inciting Incident should be a result of the Inciting Incident. It is where a story really gets going.
It is that moment in the script where the protagonist’s world is turned upside down, and he/she must then set about resolving the change in circumstances that the incident has brought about. It is generally a clear and defined moment that is easily identifiable.
Think about the plane crash in the film Cast Away.
Or when Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in The Hunger Games.
B. Recap
Our story began with the author and main character creating and writing the story into existence. We hear of his love for Creation and his desire not to be a far-off and aloof God - but one who is involved in what He made.
In fact God is one who speaks to His creation because God desires relationship with the created. (Thread #1: God speaks because God desires relationship.)
But God’s creation, the man and woman, choose their own way, betraying the trust of their God. And yet God continues to hold out the promise to them and those that come after.
He gives a laughable dream to an old man named Abraham, and keeps that promise by giving him a son at the age of one hundred.
(Thread #2: When God makes a promise, God keeps it.)
And Abraham’s lineage did become a great nation. The promise was kept, but this did not keep them from hardship and suffering, even slavery. We talked about last week how this people was delivered from slavery and led out into the wilderness, and even in that wandering time, that transition time, God provided all that they needed.
This was Thread #3: God will provide all that you need for the journey.
II. An Unlikely Choice
This wandering people did make it to the Promised Land. They were a people who were centered on one common thing, the God they served. Their connection was not based on physical boundaries or human leader, only their God.
A. Give us a King!
And then they did something surprising, something unnecessary—they asked for a king. They saw other nations had kings, and they did not.
Samuel told them all the pitfalls of having a man be the leader, and yet they still cried out for a human king (1 Samuel 8:19-20).
The first king was Saul, and sure enough he ended up getting a big head and wanting power and glory for himself. And so in the story we read this morning, God tells Samuel to go and anoint another king.
B. Is There Another Son?
This is where we are introduced to David, who would become a great King. Samuel is told to go to the family of Jesse, who had eight sons. When Samuel gets there he sees the sons, strong attractive men. But as each son comes before Samuel—seven sons come before him—God says not that one, not that one, and not that one.
Samuel asks, “Are these all the sons you have?” (1 Samuel 16:11) Jesse answers, there is the youngest; he is tending the sheep. Samuel says, “Get him we will not sit down until he gets here.”
David, the youngest with the most humble of jobs, is brought before Samuel. The Lord speaks and says, “He is the one.”
David is one of the main characters of the story. He gets a lot of print, and this is his Inciting Incident. This is the “everything has changed moment,” the “there’s no going back now” part of the story. Everything that follows in his life comes from this moment. At this moment David is given, if not a new story, a better story.
III. God Gives Us a Better Story
David was unsuspecting, undeserving, caught by surprise, the least of his brothers, but chosen by God.
This is Thread #4 that we see all throughout the story; we’ve seen it already, and we will see it again. Thread #4: God calls the unlikely and gives them a better story.
Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, Esther, David, the list goes on and on. God calls the unlikely and gives them a better story. And here’s what David does: despite all his faults, despite some terrible things he does, despite some obvious pride and arrogance, he embraces the better story.
Something clicked in his mind, and for some reason he went for it.
He would be the one to slay a giant with a small stone; he would play his harp for the king who would try to kill him; he would be a hunted fugitive on the run; he would fight bravely in battles; he would murder and commit adultery, and eventually be a good and faithful king.
But that moment of “Come quick to the house! The great Samuel is here, and he wants to see you!” running in from the fields and arriving out of breath, covered in dust and standing before his father and seven older brothers, and the voice of God (maybe audible only to Samuel, perhaps to all) saying, “He is the one, the next king,” and standing there with oil dripping off his brow—that moment changed David’s life forever. Unlikely, yes, but he believed the hope of a better story.
A. Our New Story Can Be a Better Story
The Inciting Incident is a doorway through which you cannot return.
You’re fired. - Will you marry me? - I’m pregnant. – You’re hired -They’re not coming back. - It’s cancer.
Whatever it is, you are thrust into the story whether you meant to or not—a new story. What this story tells us is that whatever hand life has dealt us, whatever story we think we are destined to, God has a better story for us, and if you consider yourself unlikely or unwanted then you are precisely who God wants to talk to.
Jesus was big on this. It’s a thread that runs throughout: He gives a blind man a new story, a woman who had a bleeding problem a new story, tax collectors, fisherman, the demon-possessed, and prostitutes, a new story, a new story, and a new story. He called them out and gave them a new story.
B. We Help Others Find the Better Story
Sometimes we forget who is writing the story for us. God has not written a story for you that includes abuse and misuse. Unlikely though you may be, he has written for you a better story.
We need to remind one another of that fact. God can use each of us to help others find the better story. You can help others walk through the doorway to connect with Jesus. It is a doorway they will never want to walk back through.
PRAYER
SONG: Loving My Jesus
1st Samuel 16:4-13 NLT
4 So Samuel did as the LORD instructed. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town came trembling to meet him. “What’s wrong?” they asked. “Do you come in peace?” 5 “Yes,” Samuel replied. “I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Purify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then Samuel performed the purification rite for Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice, too. 6 When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!” 7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 8 Then Jesse told his son Abinadab to step forward and walk in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “This is not the one the LORD has chosen.”9 Next Jesse summoned Shimea, but Samuel said, “Neither is this the one the LORD has chosen.” 10 In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” 11 Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.” “Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.” 12 So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes. And the LORD said, “This is the one; anoint him.” 13 So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.
