Not A Coincidence | 1 Samuel

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Thank you for tuning in to the New Vision Podcast. Our prayer is that this message builds your faith, brings clarity, and gives you hope. Enjoy the message.

Kevin (0:17)

I love going to the movies. If you, if I haven't got to share that with you, it's just something that I really enjoyed doing. I was talking with Ronnie about it and talking about different kinds of movies that I really like to go and see. And one type of movie that really, that I love being in are the ones that like, you got something to figure out, right? There's a villain, there's something that's going to happen. You're trying to figure out the whodunit, putting the pieces all together. I like to do that beforehand, and I like to get credit for it if it's only with Mel, because I lean over and I'm like, hey, I think this is who it is. And if it's, you know, later we find out it's not, I just changed my mind, you know, to make it to where I get it right. But one of my favorite movies that show you things that you might have missed as the twist is unfolded is Ocean's 11, 12, 13, right? Like at the very end, when things are successful, they go back and show you the pieces that you may have missed. The things that were happening in the background that no one knew about except for them. Things that maybe were dismissed as coincidence or just not very important at the time. I love to see how all of those things work out. And another set of movies that I love to see, because I love after movie credits. I love those scenes at the end that you sit and wait those extra 10 minutes. And sometimes we wait those extra minutes and we're let down, right? We see a scene that's like two seconds long, and we're like, that makes no sense. That was silly. I shouldn't have wasted my time. Other times, we're waiting and then, like, when other people leave, I like to sit there and be like, oh, they just don't know. They're going to miss out on this part. And for Marvel, Marvel's been doing it from the very beginning. And we're going to discover in December, some of the things that we have dismissed or think didn't matter, we're going to find out that it did. And if you're like, I don't watch movies, I have no idea what you're talking about, the Marvel movies, Avengers Doomsday comes out in December. There's lots of things that are going to tie in together. So if you want to watch that and know what's going on, start at the very beginning with Captain America, I don't know, but jump in. It's going to be great. And I tell you all of those things, we start off kind of light so that I can say this. What if I told you that your life is a lot more like the movies than you think? See, there are things happening in the background of your life, of your story that you have no idea about. There's things coming around the corner that you haven't seen yet, and you actually have no idea that they're waiting for you, but it's already been put there. It's set up just for you. There's also parts of your story, there are things happening in your world right now that don't make any sense to you. And I wonder if it's some of those things that aren't making sense, that those are actually God working behind the scenes. Today we're going to continue our study of 1 Samuel, and as we do, we are going to discover that some things are not a coincidence. So if you're taking notes, that's the title of my message this morning as we get ready to jump into chapter 9 of 1 Samuel. Let's pray together. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for the time we get to spend together. God, you are so good. It is so refreshing to be in your house with your people and in your presence. God, I pray that being here this morning changes us, that whatever we came in needing from you, Lord, would you meet that need and then some, whether it's rest or peace or wisdom or life change, whatever it is, God, would you do something incredible because we spent time in your presence today? Would you speak to right where we are, knowing what we need, knowing what lies ahead of us? And Lord, would you anoint me to communicate your word to your people, anoint me to do it in a way that is clear, so that we hear your voice much more than mine. In Jesus' name, amen. So as we've been walking through 1 Samuel last week, as we went through chapter 8, we started talking about how the nation of Israel asked for a king like all of the other nations had. And at first, like that request doesn't seem like that big a deal, but we learn that their request for a king was actually them rejecting God's leadership for them. And at the end of chapter 8, God gave them what they wanted. He's going to give them a king, and today we're going to meet the king that he's going to give them. Chapter 9, verse 1, lots of fun names in this one. There was a wealthy influential man named Kish from the tribe of Benjamin. He was the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Bekorath, son of Afiah, of the tribe of Benjamin. His son, Saul, was the most handsome man in Israel. Head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the land. Now I always wonder when I get to that particular verse, when it starts talking about Saul, was there some kind of Mr. Israel competition that he won? Like, how do you know that he was taller than everybody else? How do you know that he was the most handsome man in all of Israel? Like, there had to be some kind of contest that we didn't know. But he apparently won. I don't know if he was walking around with the sash, like most handsome man or something like that. But when we meet Saul, knowing what we know about 1 Samuel 8, and there's going to be a king, this is the guy. And I got to be honest, man, I like what I'm hearing. I like what I'm reading. He comes from a family that has money and influence and the physical features. Like, in chapter 8, the people asked for someone who would lead them into battle. Who wouldn't follow this handsome, tall warrior? And he wasn't just a little taller than everyone else, head and shoulders taller than everyone else. There are some scholars that believe that Saul would have been a little bit under seven feet tall.