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There are two people named Saul in the Bible, one in the New Testament, he
serves as a perfect example of the success that the Lord can make out of a
person's life. He later changes his name to Paul, and the other here in the Old
Testament, the first king of Israel. He served, serves us even today as a
perfect example of the mess that we can make of our own lives.

I want to welcome you to day two of week three of our look through 1 and 2
Samuel. We're going to look at chapter 13 today. These next couple of days we're
going to look at those things that messed up Saul's life.

Why he became a man with a troubled heart. There were choices he made that
caused this troubled heart. Samuel called this man to be king, and he gave him
hope of what he could be, but he could not follow in faithfulness.

And so Saul becomes the kind of person you'd never want to be, the man with the
troubled heart. He's given over to depression and anger and anxiety, and he goes
in his life from self-doubt to self-pity to self-destruction. I don't have to
live that kind of life.

You don't have to live that kind of life, and Saul lives as an example to us.
What made Saul into this kind of person? The reasons lie right on the surface of
his life.

His sinful actions, number one, his rebellious nature, and number two, his
jealous nature. We all have a little bit of Saul in us. We all struggle with our
sins.

So my prayers that may be looking into what got him into trouble will keep you
and I from getting into the same trouble and instead will help us to get out of
trouble, to not live with a troubled heart. Today and tomorrow we're going to
look at the sinful actions that express Saul's rebellious nature. Heart trouble
is guaranteed if we let our lives follow the pattern of Saul's life here.

Saul committed two major sins in his life, one in chapter 13 and one in chapter
15. We're going to look at the first today. With each of them we're going to
look at the attitude behind the sin, the excuses for the sin, the consequences
for the sin, and the whole reason is not to somehow judge Saul but to realize we
could all be Saul.

We could all follow in this same pattern. This serves as a warning, as an
example, as an encouragement to us to live a different kind of life. The first
sin in Saul's life, chapter 13, major sin, I'd call it his sinful sacrifice.

Beginning in verse 5 of chapter 13, "The Philistines assembled to fight Israel
with 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on
the seashore. They went up and they camped at Micmash, east of Beth-Avon. When
the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was
hard They hid in caves and thickets among the rocks and in pits and cisterns.

Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul
remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He
waited seven days, the time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal.

And Saul's men began to scatter. So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering and
the fellowship offering. " And Saul offered up the burnt offering.

Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived and Saul went out to
greet him. "What have you done? " asked Samuel.

Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, that you did not come at
the set time and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought,
'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal and I have not sought
the Lord's favor. ' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering. " "You
acted foolishly," Samuel said.

"You have not kept the command of the Lord. The Lord your God gave you. If you
had, you would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his
own heart and appointed him leader of his people because you have not kept the
Lord's command. " Now the Lord's command here was for Samuel to be the one
giving the offerings as the judge, as the priest, and Saul to be the one leading
the armies.

The Lord's command had been for him to wait for Samuel to come and give that
offering. And so he sins and then he makes excuse for that sin. Now the attitude
behind the sin is the "I'll do it myself" attitude.

Samuel wasn't there, the army was scattering, Saul had to do something. So faced
with a choice, his prideful attitude caused him to make the wrong choice. He
chose self-dependence, to depend on himself.

Self-dependence is the attitude that inevitably leads to a troubled heart. And
we all struggle with self-dependence, depending on ourselves, especially in
those moments when we go through what Saul went through here, when we have to
wait. He had to wait these seven days and it looks scarier and scarier and
scarier.

That's why waiting is one of the greatest tests of faith. That's why we fail
this test of faith so often in our lives. Waiting often leads us to depend on
ourselves.

But God is a kind and gracious God. He keeps letting us take the test again.
You're going to get to take this test many times in your life.

And there'll be times when you fail it, but there'll be other times when you
keep trusting. You will learn. I will learn through life.

Waiting is one of the things that develops faith, when I wait on the Lord
instead of depending on myself. So the attitude behind this sin is the same
attitude that's been behind the sin of mankind from the beginning, "I'll do it
myself. " Then there are the excuses for the sin.

And this really forms the center of what we want to look at here. Many of us
have troubled hearts because we have these excuses that have come into our lives
and they've so covered the sin in our lives, the pride in our lives, the
self-dependence in our lives that we can't even see it anymore. We have troubled
hearts and we don't know why.

God wants us to know why, but our excuse mechanism, it blocks our vision. And
this look at Saul, it can help us to clear our vision, to stop excusing away the
possibility of change in our lives. This look at Saul, it has the power to
remove the "yeah, but" from your life.

"Oh, I know God wants to work, but…" And then we have this excuse. What were
Saul's excuses for his sin? Well, there are three of them here.

First is the circumstances demanded it. He says the men were scattering. I had
to do it.

I had no other choice. He was forced into this action by the circumstances.
You're never going to change until you recognize that although you often cannot
control your circumstances, you can always control your response to those
circumstances.

And as long as you and I blame the circumstance for what we're doing, there's
going to be no change in our hearts. There's going to be no change in our lives.
That was Saul's first excuse.

His second excuse was, "You let me down. Samuel, you let me down. " He says,
"You did not come at the set time.

" Saul puts the blame squarely on Samuel. He tries to work this transfer of
accountability. You're never going to change.

I'm never going to change until you recognize that you and I alone are
ultimately responsible for our actions. I can't blame somebody else for what I
did. It doesn't matter whether they showed up when they should have or not.

I'm still the one who made the choice. And then there's a third choice, third
excuse. It's a very popular excuse for sin.

He said, "Well, the truth is I forced myself to do it. " He says, "I felt
compelled to offer the offering," in verse 12, "I didn't really want to. It was
hard, but I did what I had to do even though I knew that it was wrong.

" He's essentially saying here, "I didn't really want to do that sin, but the
circumstances I was in, the way I grew up, where we found ourselves, whatever
circumstances, it sort of forced me into this sin. " You're never going to
change. I'm never going to change until we realize that we do what we want to
do.

I did that thing because I wanted to do it. I said that thing because I wanted
to say it. And I can excuse it all day long and say, "Well, it wasn't my fault.

I was forced into it. I forced myself to do it, but the truth is we do what we
want to do. " And when you recognize that, when you're honest about that, then
you open the door to change in your life.

And the consequences for this sin are strong consequences. We read them. The
kingdom is ripped away from Saul.

All of our excuses don't change the fact sin has horrible consequences. Your
kingdom will not endure. As I read what happened with Saul here, he helps me to
understand that some of the excuses that I have in my life, they're blocking my
vision.

They're blocking your vision. They're keeping you trapped. And you and I, we can
see some ways to get out of that trap in his example by recognizing you can't
control your circumstances, but you can control your response.

Where have you been making an excuse? No matter what others do, you're
ultimately responsible for your actions. Where have you been blaming somebody
else?

You can blame all you want, but in the end, you usually do what you want to do.
Where have you been making an excuse? Now, the only way ultimately to get this
right is in our relationship with God.

So take a minute with me right now just to talk to him. And just in a personal
place of prayer, just say, "Father, I recognize that this sin that I've allowed
into my life, it can ruin my life, it can ruin my relationships, it can ruin my
heart. So Lord, I pray that I would move past the place of excuses to a place of
depending on you, and that I'd be honest enough to say that it all goes back to
me thinking I can do it myself.

Lord, I need you. I need to depend on you in a new way. I need you to teach me
how.

So today, I let go of my excuses. I confess my sin before you, and I ask you to
help me to live the new life you've given me to live. I ask it in Jesus' name,
amen.

" Well, tomorrow we're going to be encouraged together, learn together from
Saul's second major sin.