KING OF THE KINGDOM

AARON WOJCIK PROMOTIONAL ARM DIRECTOR

Samuel, the prophet, is an old man He’s tired He’s been representing God to the people for a long time, and to be honest, he’s sick of these people. Even his own sons, the judges of Israel, are a disappointment. Everyone knows that a well placed bribe can get you any outcome you want with them Now he’s hearing rumblings from the people about a king. But Israel has no king. They’ve never needed one. God told them in the beginning that they would be His people and He would be their God But now they want a king

Samuel took the people’s request to God and I can imagine that he was pretty bent out of shape about the whole thing. But God said that it wasn’t Samuel or his greedy sons that the people were rejecting It was Him I wonder if Samuel was surprised when God said to give them what they wanted. God then gave Samuel a warning to pass on to the people. He would give them a king – and everything that went with it A king will rule over them and take them into battle like they wanted, but he would also take things from them. Their sons and daughters. Their money. And he wouldn’t just take because it was what was best for everyone He would take because he could That’s what earthly kings do Even with God’s warning, the people wanted their king (or more accurately a king defined by the world).

But a kingdom must have a king The Israelites had a king, but they didn’t acknowledge him as king because of what it looked like (or didn’t look like). When Jesus explained the Kingdom of God, he painted the picture of a kingdom that was the opposite of an earthly kingdom in almost every way The Israelites wanted someone to lead them into battle. Someone who looked “kingly”. They wanted a big flashy warrior type…someone like Saul. And that’s what they got

The truth is that God gave us a choice of which king we serve, just like he allowed the Israelites to have the king that they desired. Their idea of what a king should be was defined by the neighboring nations What king are you looking for? Who defines what your king and kingdom look like?

It’s an age old issue that we are pulled between the cares of this world and the eternal purpose of the Kingdom of God Jesus had many who said they wanted to follow him, but were unable to walk away from wealth or family or positions We still struggle with those same obstacles today. Many of us would like to have priorities centered around eternal Kingdom agendas, but we find that we are more likely to devote our time to earthly pursuits

We say we follow Christ as our king, but we are confused when what he provides doesn’t look like what our neighbor has We want to trust in God as a provider, but most of our worries consist of how we can make enough money It’s difficult to be confident that you are in the will of God if you ’ re constantly looking to others to show you what that looks like. God was always present with the Israelites, however, they didn’t see him because they were looking to have kings that others around them had