Lean Not to Your Own Understanding

Are you often impatient with God? Do you fear that waiting around makes things worse? Do you feel compelled to act, even without hearing a Word from the Lord? Well this message is for you. 

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Our scripture today comes from the book of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament. 1 Samuel chapter 13 verses 8 through 14. And I'm going to be reading from the New International Version, and this is what it says 1 Samuel chapter 13 verses 8 through 14. 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 offerings. 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, and that they did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, 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 have done a foolish thing, Samuel said. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. If you had, he 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 ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command, the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. And our scripture lesson, from our scripture lesson today, we get our title of our sermon, which is lean not to your own understanding. Lean not to your own understanding. A lot of times in this life we make terrible mistakes. Not because we intended to, but because the circumstances at the time squeezed us. The people around us pressured us, or perhaps we felt pressure from them. And then sometimes our own impatience, ouch, our own fears and arrogance have pushed us. And so right now many of us are praying for one thing or another, and wondering at the same time, do I keep waiting on God or do I act based on my own skill, knowledge, and common sense? This story of King Saul in 1 Samuel 13, verses 8 through 14 gives us a real life scenario of what decisions we need to make and the outcome of our choices. So we have a king who was not God's will for Israel, but God desired to bless him anyway. So, first of all, know that some things we bring upon ourselves because we are out of the will of God. But great God is gracious and merciful. And he doesn't, he knows what we need, even though sometimes we don't do the right thing. But here we see King Saul was in a hard place. He had picked a fight with the Philistines, and then he was incapable of handling the situation. Now he wanted to call on God for help. We have no record of him asking God for wisdom regarding going to war with the Philistines beforehand, but now he was in trouble, and he did like we always do. He called on God for help and to have mercy on him and his men. So we ask, well, what was wrong with that? Well, let us dig deeper into this story, and we will see three very important things that we need to remember as we apply these events to our own lives. The first thing is that our spiritual character is revealed when we are under pressure. That is who we are daily, how much we pray to God, how much we read His Word and apply it to our lives. When we are pressured, then the real us, our spiritual life, will come out and it will be on display. Do you ask God for wisdom and guidance every day? Do you inquire of his Holy Spirit what you should do? Do you repeat the promises of God that He has already given to us in Scripture? Do you know these scriptures? Can you say the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want? Will you say though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil? How about I will the Lord says I will never leave you nor forsake you? Do you repeat that we are more than conquerors? Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world? Do you say no weapon formed against me shall prosper? And forget not all his benefits, who forgives all our iniquities, who heals all our diseases. I don't know about you, but when I start repeating those mighty words of God, it strengthens me and empowers me from my inward parts and causes me to gain courage and strength and trust in the Lord. But if you don't know those things, how can you say them? So it is that our spiritual character is revealed when we're under pressure. And then we can stand on the promises of God when we know these things. We don't let the world squeeze us into disobedience. But we can be like Michelle Obama. When they go low, we go high, high on the promises of Almighty God who can do all things. Saul's spiritual character was revealed whenever he was under pressure because he kept making improper decisions. And if you read further into the book of 1 Samuel, you will see that in chapter 15, Paul again was reminded by Samuel the prophet. Excuse me, Saul was reminded by Samuel the prophet that he had disobeyed God and that he was rejected as king. So let us go to the second thing that we learn from this passage of about King Saul. And that second thing is don't allow fear or impatience to drive you to disobedience. Don't allow those things to happen. Remember Pilate when he was dealing with Jesus before the crucifixion, he feared losing his position of authority. So even though he didn't find any fault with Jesus, he turned him over to be crucified because he feared what would happen to him. Remember, Sarah as an old woman had the promise that she would become the father of a son who would be blessed of God to be the father of many nations, but she was impatient with God. And so she tried to take matters into her own hand by giving s by giving her husband Abraham her hand maiden Hagar, and we know the mess that that made. Remember Adam, who didn't want to disappoint his wife Eve? So he took the fruit and he ate of it in spite of knowing better, knowing what God was telling him to do. What about Saul, fearing losing all his men and losing the battle? He became impatient when Samuel did not come at the appointed time. And then there's Job's wife, who was tired of Job waiting on God to heal him, and told Job to curse God and die. These are all times when we know that God has our back, but we fear and we are impatient, and so we choose to go our own way. Remember, our sermon topic today is lean not to your own understanding. Lean not to your own understanding. Sometimes we just want God to act and we want him to do it right now. We don't want to wait on him. We fear that he will be too late. So we take matters into our own hands. And don't you know that we can't handle it like God can? God is creative and he has resources that we don't even know about. The lesson for today, July 10, 2026, in our daily bread talks about God watching over us, and it recounts the story of 2 Kings chapter 6, where Elisha's servant came outside early in the morning to see that their place of abode was surrounded by the enemy army of King the King of Aram. And the servant was alarmed, but when Elisha prayed for his servant's eyes to be opened, the servant saw that all around the army in the hills were full of God's angels and his horses and chariots of fire. And Elisha declared to him that those who are with us are more than those who are against us. And that's how it is when we are on the Lord's side. No matter what it looks like in the natural, we need to open our spiritual eyes. That's why we declare that we walk by faith and not by sight. Because God has our back, even though we can't see it in the natural. And then finally, this passage about King Saul teaches us don't rationalize your sin. Don't give excuses and try to justify why we do the wrong that we do. And don't blame others. Deuteronomy twelve gave specific laws of worship, including where and how to do burnt offerings. And King Saul, no doubt, as a good Jew, knew these rules, but he chose to disobey even though he knew them. Just like Adam tried to rationalize his sin besides by telling God, you know, Lord, that woman you gave me, she gave me that fruit, and I ate it. There he was, blaming God and blaming Eve. And there was Samuel saying that there was Saul, excuse me, saying to Samuel, Well, you said you were gonna come, and when you didn't come after the days that you were there, I decided that I didn't want to go to war without a sacrifice to look to the Lord. So I did the sacrifice myself. But right is right and wrong is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. Blaming others doesn't help. We know we have a man in office who loves to blame everybody else. Rationalizing is simply making excuses for our sin. It's not what we should do. And we see that Saul made excuses in 1 Samuel chapter 13, and again in chapter 15, when he had brought back King Agag of the Amalekites, and he said to Samuel, I destroyed all the people, all the Amalekites, like like God told me to. And I just kept the best sheep and oxen for the people. And look, I presented God with a with a burnt offering of the best sheep and oxen. But Samuel's answer to Saul was obedience is better than sacrifice. What should we have done or what should we do when we when we sin against God? We should do like David. Tell God, Lord, unto you and only you have I sinned. We should repent, admit that we're wrong, confess our sin, and turn from our wicked ways. But when Saul arrogantly tried to excuse himself, it cost him his kingdom. So we know what's going to happen eventually to those in power that keep blaming others and arrogantly try to excuse their wrongdoings and all that they do to sin against God. It's going to cost them. What does disobedience cost? It costs us a lot. So today, let's remember that our spiritual character is revealed when we're under pressure. So each and every day we should be sending up timber, we should be growing our faith, we should be reading God's word, praying and asking God to grow us up. We know that fear, impatience, and arrogance drive us to disobedience. So let us try to put on the whole armor of God, that we can fight against those things. And we know that excuses and rationalization of our sin will not help us. Proverbs three, five, and six says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That means don't look around and assess the situation and try to take charge of it. But it says, lean not to your own understanding. Don't take matters into your own hands, but in all your ways acknowledge Him. Ask, seek, knock, pray to God, ask Him for wisdom and help. And He will direct your path. God has many creative ways to bring His people help and resources. Let's remember some of the ways God did it in the Bible. Once in the Old Testament, the Hebrew people of God were surrounded by nine hundred iron chariots of the enemy. But God caused it to rain, and their chariots got stuck in mud in Mount Tabor and were no good. Remember when the walls of Jericho miraculously collapsed after the people were marching around it for so many days as God told them to, and praying and praising God, the most surf fortified city in the world at that time. The walls just fell down and collapsed. God parted the Red Sea so that his people walked through on dry land, and he again did it for the Jordan River at a time when it was overflowing during the season when it overflowed, but God parted it so his people could pass on dry ground. Remember when King Jehoshaphat was surrounded by the enemy, armies, and overpowered, but God confused the enemy, and they killed themselves, fought against themselves and killed themselves right then and right there. Remember when God told the widow woman who had nothing in her house, she says, but a little bit of oil. He told her to go gather, you and your sons gather as many vessels as you can and fill them with oil, and then sell the oil and pay off your debts and live in comfort for the rest of your life. All the different creative ways that God can help us. Jesus took a boy's lunch, two fish and five loaves of bread, and fed five thousand people, men, women, and children. God can do anything. He is our creator, he is our Almighty, He is our wheel in the middle of the wheel. He is whatever we need Him to be. Over and over and over again, God supplies our needs in ways that we can never even imagine. And I'm sure you have stories of your own where God made a way. Out of no way. I know I do. Look at all that is going on in our world today. Should we be worried? Should we take matters in our own hands? Should we stand back and shake our heads and and wiggle our thumbs? Should we lean to our own understanding? No. What should we do though? We should lean on the everlasting arms of God, standing on the promises that He's already given us. Pray for others and for God to interfere in the affairs of this world. Pray for guidance and wisdom to show us how we can be salt and light in this world. How we can use our resources and our platforms to be change agents. We should be obedient to God's word. Not allowing the world's pressures to consume us. Not allowing fear and impatience to drive us. Not making excuses for our own bad decisions and mess ups. But praying that God will forgive us as we know He will and turn us around. Trust God. Be obedient. Admit our mistakes. And God will direct our path. God bless you. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how it uplifts us and encourages us and reminds us, Lord, that you're not a man that you should lie. But if you are our creator, our God Almighty, who can do anything but fail. We thank you, Lord, for all the creative ways that you've been with us, that you've helped us, that you've supplied all our needs according to your riches and glory. And we know that you will never leave us nor forsake us. And that you have not given out of all your resources, Lord, that you have more and more, that your riches supply, your rich supplier goes untapped and unused, and that it goes on and on and on and will never give out. And we just say thank you, Lord, for who you are. We realize that we are the creator and that we don't know it all. And that's why we stand in need of you, our Savior. So we plead the blood of Jesus over our lives and over the lives of our loved ones each and every day. We thank you for what you have done, what you will do, what you're doing right now in our lives, is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We thank you today, everybody, for all that have joined us. We thank you for your participation in our worship service. We thank you for your faith and your obedience to the Lord, to be salt and light, to be his hands and feet in this world. Thank you and know that God is continuing to keep you and to keep you uplifted each and every day. Now unto him who's able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the Alwise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and forevermore. Let us all say amen. Now go and be great for God and go to church on Sunday. God bless you.