I Samuel 18-20: Kings and Kingdoms Week 12

Jealousy. It’s been around since the beginning of time. One could argue that was the root of the original sin with Adam and Eve in the garden—being possessive over what God had told them they couldn’t have. This emotion is what eventually led Cain to murder his brother Abel. We see the caution in the 10 commandments to not covet something that is not yours. Covet means to desire something you don’t have—that’s jealousy! And we see this taking place over and over throughout the Old Testament, with the historical books and the kings who were fighting for rulership. We see this in the prophetic period as Israel kept wandering from God in pursuit of false gods—again, desiring something they weren’t allowed to have. We see this in the New Testament era as well, even with the Pharisees and religious leaders who were envious of Jesus and the following he had, not wanting him to take power from themselves. Later on in Roman Catholic ideology the concept of the 7 Deadly Sins arose, one of which is envy. The fact is clear—human beings struggle with jealousy! . . .It starts inside—love of self is what fuels jealousy. And this becomes a problem when we make a decision inside—a decision that changes everything on the outside. It is the decision that we are going to live for ourselves. We are going to live for what we want, choose our way, and make ourselves the king of our own kingdom. We see this displayed so very clearly for us today through the life of Saul. Saul determined he was going to stop living for God and was going to start living for himself. And we see so very clearly how this internal desire didn’t just stay inside, it affect all those around him. Saul’s decision to live for himself controlled every decision he made and affected many of those around him. Saul experienced what I’ve heard called a clash of kingdoms. Everything went well for Saul as long as he was king of his own life domain, but the minute someone didn’t give him what he wanted—his personal kingdom clashed with that of someone else, there was utter chaos. We can learn a lot from studying this part in the life of King Saul. From our text this morning, chapters 18-20 of I Samuel, we see how the choice to live for ourselves affects all those around us. And we will learn how to avoid this choice at all costs. We see the big idea for us today from this section of Scripture:Big Idea: When you are living for self, you cannot be living for God