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The following message for the moment is delivered by the Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. Today's message is entitled "Be Loyal to the Royal in You." Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the first book of Samuel, reading selected verses from

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chapters 9 and 10. "There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, and he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. Now the asses of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, 'Take one of the servants with you and arise, go and look for the asses.' When they came to the land of Zuth, the

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servant said to Saul, 'Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man that is held in honor. All that he says comes true. Let us go there, perhaps he can tell us about the journey on which we have set out.' Then Saul said to his servant, 'But if we go, what can we bring this man?' The servant answered Saul again,

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'Here, I have with me the fourth part of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way.' So they went up to the city. As they were entering the city, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place. Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel, 'Tomorrow

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about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel.' When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, 'Here is the man of whom I spoke to you.' Then Saul approached Samuel in the gate and said, 'Tell me where is the house of the seer?' Samuel answered Saul,

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'I am the seer. Go up before me to the high place, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your asses that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have been found. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel?

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Is it not for you and for all your father's house?' Saul answered, 'Am I not a Benjaminite from the least of the tribes of Israel? And is not my family the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then have you spoken to me in this way?' Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his

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head and kissed him and said, 'Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord, and you will save them from the hand of their enemies round about.' They returned home, and Saul's uncle said to him and to the servant, 'Where did you go?' And Saul said, 'To seek

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the asses.' And when we saw that they were not to be found, we went to Samuel. And Saul's uncle said, 'Pray tell me what Samuel said to you.' And Saul said to his uncle, 'He told us plainly that the asses had been found.' But about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything. Then Samuel

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brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near, man by man, and Saul the son of Tish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he

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could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, 'Did the man come hither?' And the Lord said, 'Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.' Then they ran and fetched him from there, and when he stood among the people he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upwards. And Samuel said to all

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the people, 'Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.' And all the people shouted, 'Long live the king!'" And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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We can sketch the story in just a few sentences. Saul is the son of a prosperous farmer named Kish. A flock of asses belonging to Kish become lost. Saul and a servant are sent to find them. They enlist the aid of Samuel, a noted prophet of the day. Samuel says, "Don't worry about the asses, they have already been

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found. What is more important is, Israel needs a king, and you are the one God has chosen." Saul says, "I could not possibly be the one." But nonetheless, he submits to Samuel's anointing him. Then to confirm that anointing, Samuel gathers all the tribes together, and by casting lots, which was a typical way of

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discerning the Lord's will in that time, he selected through the lots the tribe of Benjamin out of the twelve. And then using lots again, he selected the family of Kish out of all the tribe of Benjamin. And then he looked at each and every one by lot of the men who were part of that family, narrowing it down to one. And the

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one on whom the lot finally fell was Saul. And the people looked for him and could not find him. And they asked the Lord where he had gone, and the Lord said, "He has hidden in the baggage." Saul, you see, refused to be loyal to the royal in himself. Now God puts royalty in all humankind. We alone, of all the species

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on the face of the earth, are made in the image of God. We have dominion over all creation. We have immortal souls. We are able to laugh and to imagine and to converse with our Maker. There is a bit of heaven in our hearts, and that is true of all human beings. But at the same time, it must be observed that those who are

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faithful to God know this in a special way. They are called in Scripture a "royal priesthood." And to each one of these, God gives special gifts and talents. Saul is a successful young businessman. He has the gift of courage. He has the gift of a sense of responsibility. He has definite leadership skills. And now God calls Saul

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to use these gifts which God has given to him. And Saul says, "No." The Bible says, "Rekindle the gift of God that is in you." But Saul says, "No." The Bible says there are varieties of gifts, but the same God inspires them all in all. But Saul says, "No." He denies the fire of the divine in himself. He hides among the baggage. He is

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not loyal to the royal that is in him. And that, of course, is true of many people who go through life. They never really play the major role that God wishes them to play. Instead, they settle for some minor part or no part at all. And consequently, they never discover the truly heroic and the truly saintly in

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themselves. A young man who returned from the war had lost his right leg. He was taken to a veterans hospital in this country, and there a special artificial limb was prepared for him, but he refused to make any effort to use it. They thought that he might come out of his depression and begin to fight back if they let him

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go home and be encouraged by his family. But when he went home, his family only pitied him and pampered him, which made the situation even worse. So he was sent back to the hospital again. Once more, he did not cooperate. And a doctor walked into his room one day and he said, "Soldier, you won't help yourself and you

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won't let us help you. All right, let the God above you and the God that is in you help you get up out of that bed, put on that leg, and learn to walk." And in anger, the doctor turned and walked from the room. But the next day, the doctor saw the young man wearing the leg, stumbling along in the physical therapy section of

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the hospital. And in a few weeks, the young man had mastered the art of using that leg. And on the day that he was to leave the hospital, he came to the doctor's office and he said, "I want to thank you for your prescription." The doctor said, "I never gave you a prescription." And the young man said, "Oh

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yes, you did." He said, "I am a Christian, but I had forgotten that the God above me is also the God within me. I was so stupid and wrapped up in my own misery that I did not allow the God in me to do for me what he was willing to do. And you called that to my attention. And look, see how well I can walk." He was being loyal

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to the royal in himself. Now, interestingly enough, when you examine the excuses which Saul uses to justify his refusal to accept his call from God, you discover that they are the same excuses that are commonly used by people in our own day. For example, Saul said that he didn't have what it would take to be

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king. In chapter 9, he points out that he comes from a very small tribe and also from a very inconspicuous family. In other words, he suggests that his environment makes it impossible for him to do what the Lord wants him to do. Now, whenever we blame our present behavior on our background, on the environment of

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yesterday, we're lying to ourselves. There's a mathematician on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley who tells this story on himself. When he was doing his graduate study at Stanford University, he went in to take a mathematics test one day. He'd made a mistake as to when the test was to begin

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and so he got there late. All the other students were at work. He found his test on the desk which was his. There was the test of questions and then there were two other questions, problems, that were written on the blackboard at the front of the room. Well, of course, the other students finished before he did, but at

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long last he finished the mimeographed part of the test and began work on the two problems on the board and the time ran out. So he took his paper up and he gave it to the professor and he explained that he had gotten there late, that it was not really his fault, circumstances having conspired against

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him, and he said, "Would you mind if I took these two problems on the board home and worked on them over the weekend?" And the professor laughed and said, "Okay, go ahead." So he took them home and he worked on them as hard as he'd ever worked on anything in his life. One of the problems he could make no headway

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on at all. The other problem he solved and on Monday morning he slid his answer under the door to the professor's office. Later that day there was a knock at his door and when he answered the door there was his teacher standing with flushed and excited face and the teacher said, "You came in late so you did not know

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that those two problems that I put on the board at the front of the room were meant to illustrate to the class that there are some mathematical problems which are so difficult that not even Einstein could solve them. You have solved one of them. I am utterly amazed and I have already made arrangements to

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present your paper to the International Institute of Mathematicians." And then this young man went on to be graduated and was hired immediately to one of the most conspicuous mathematics department in all the world, the department of the University of California at Berkeley. He took that job as his very first job and

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he's never stopped climbing. When he tells this story however he goes on to say this, "If I had known that those two problems on the board were unsolvable I would never have made any effort to try to solve them. Because I didn't know it, I made the effort and I solved one which no one had ever solved before." Now when a

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person refuses to take on that to which God calls them on the grounds of their yesterdays, in other words, when they argue that because of their yesterdays it's impossible for them to take up their task for today, when they talk like that they are stopping themselves even before they start. And that argument that

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your environment, your yesterdays, automatically determines your future is balderdash. Harry Levinson, who's professor of psychiatry at the Meninger Clinic, says that one's view of oneself is the most important ingredient in whether one succeeds or fails. Now the second excuse which Saul uses is, "I am

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unworthy of this honor which God is offering me." Now that sounds very humble, but the fact of the matter is that Saul was really afraid of failing and perhaps even afraid of succeeding, because when you succeed people expect more and more of you, and he perhaps was terrified of those expectations. God offers him a

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banner and out of his fear he hides with the baggage. There was a large banquet being held in a major hotel in Chicago and the speaker for this banquet was a member of the president's cabinet, and during the course of the banquet before the evening's address and program, this speaker signaled to a nearby waiter and

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he said to the waiter, "May I please have an additional two pats of butter?" and the waiter said, "I'm sorry, we only give one pat per person." And the man looked at him and said, "Do you realize who I am? I am a member of the president's cabinet. I am the featured speaker of the evening. I am being paid $25,000 to make this

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address. I was flown out here in a private plane and I will be flown back to the Capitol in a private plane. This is who I am and I am asking you for two pats of butter." And the waiter looked at him and said, "Well sir, do you know who I am?" And the speaker said, "No I don't." And the waiter said, "I am the guy who is in

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charge of the butter." We are not all called to be superstars, members of the president's cabinet making speeches for $25,000 a crack, but there are certain skills and excellencies put into us by God and what we should be concerned about is only how God judges our use of those things, not the judgment of any

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other person or group of persons. Another excuse which Saul presents is this, "My past failures make my future success very unlikely." Now as we look at the life of Saul across the next few weeks together, we're going to see that he is a man who makes many mistakes, but

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his difficulty is that he multiplies his mistakes and thus turns them into even greater miseries. He insists consistently on focusing on his failures and that's the reason why his story ends with his pathetic act of suicide described in the 31st chapter of this book. Now we should have a sense of our sin. We should be

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aware of our failures from yesterday. This is what leads us to repentance. This is what leads us to mature in the things of Christ. This is the process of sanctification. We should remember these things, but we are not to be obsessed by them, for when we are obsessed by them, then they become instruments of tragedy.

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We all fail and we all fail a great number of times, but regardless of how many times we have failed yesterday, that does not fix forever what our future is going to be. I know a fellow who was trying to get rid of an old garbage can. It was a rusty old thing, had holes in it, and he put it out on the curb empty,

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figuring the garbage men would take it away, and the next morning it was still there. So he thought, "All right, I'll put it out in the alley and maybe the trash collectors will get it there." And so he put it empty out in the alley and the next morning he went out and the can was still there. So he jumped up and down on

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the can and smashed it flat and left it there again to be picked up. And the next morning he went out and discovered that one of the trash men had carefully bent it back into shape again and put it where he had left it. And he thought to himself, "How in the world am I going to get rid of this can? These guys aren't

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Rhodes scholars. I ought to be able to get past them somehow." And then he had an idea. He chained the can to the ground and that very night it was stolen. Now here was a fellow, you see, who did not allow his failures to stop his future. Princely people have persistence in them. Those who will know the thrones of

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heaven have tenacity within their hearts. And notice the last reason which Saul uses to justify his hiding among the baggage. He says he is satisfied with life and really doesn't seek any more. We see this note repeatedly in Saul's life. We're going to talk about it when we talk about his conflict with the

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Amalekites and the experience with Goliath and his deep and profound separation from David. He's a man, you see, who is satisfied and wants nothing more. And Viktor Frankl, the founder of the Logotherapy School of Psychiatric Study, has written that "the is in our lives must never catch up with the ought."

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That's another way of saying that life is like riding a bicycle. As soon as you stop pedaling, it'll fall over. I have a friend who derives great delight out of teasing people. The first time I saw him do this was when he got on an elevator together. There were quite a number of people on the elevator and instead of

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turning around and looking at the back the doors where they had closed behind him, he stood and faced everybody in the car with a big grin on his face. Made everybody very uncomfortable. And then he said, "I imagine you are wondering why I have summoned you here." I was with him on one occasion when he got off the

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elevator on the third floor, having done what I just described, ran up to the fourth floor, pressed the button, and when the door on the elevator opened, he looked in at the people and said, "You've been talking about me, haven't you?" I was with him on one occasion when he called up information on the telephone and gave

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them a number. I was also with him when he called the IRS and demanded an audit. He loves to get people turned upside down. His latest device, and he reported this to me not too long ago, is when he goes into a hotel and he travels a great deal, when he gets to the room, you know, in order to let you know that that room

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bathroom has been carefully sanitized and cleaned, they put a kind of paper ribbon across the top of the toilet on which are the words "For Your Protection." Now what he does is he very carefully slides that off and puts it in a drawer and then he goes about using the room in a normal way and when he is done, just

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before he leaves the room, he carefully slides the paper back on again. By Thursday of the week, the maid is absolutely beside herself because the whole room is messed up but the ribbon has never been broken. Now I'm not suggesting this morning or calling you to that kind of thing, but I am saying

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that when we settle for what we've got, when we settle for that which is too small, we say goodbye to that which is can be far more splendid. We are not to capitulate to our environment, we are not to surrender to either the possibility of failure or success, we are not to fall on our knees before our

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sins but rather before our Savior, and we are always to do the best that we can which is better than what we are doing now. And when we do that, marvelous things happen. I doubt if you've ever heard of Gino Calabresi. Gino Calabresi was dying of cancer. He was very near death. His wife sat by his bed all day holding his

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right hand. He would occasionally drift off into unconsciousness or sleep and then waken again, but every time he wakened his wife was still holding to his right hand. One time he came out of a semi-coma and saw that his wife was still holding on to his hand but that she was so exhausted

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that she had put her head down on the edge of the bed and fallen asleep. So using his left hand, not disturbing her by moving his right hand, he reached over to the table beside his bed and took an envelope from a get-well card and a stub of pencil and writing with his left hand, which was very difficult because he was

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right-handed. He scribbled some words and then he laid aside the pencil, took the piece of paper in his hand, and put it over his heart. Later his wife wakened and when she wakened she found that her beloved Gino had died. But she saw this paper in his hand and so she took it and read what he had scribbled upon it. Words

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which have been made into a song, loved by many people and known by many people in many languages throughout all the Western world. This is what Gino wrote. "Softly, I will leave you softly, for my heart would break if you should wake and see me go. So I leave you softly, long before you miss me, long before your arms

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can beg me stay for one more hour or one more day. After all the years, I cannot bear the tears to fall so softly as I leave you there." Softly. There was a man who in pain behaved like a prince. There was a man who at death already cleaned his diadem. Each of us has within us 200 bones and 500 muscles and 700 miles of

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nerves. Our hearts beat 36 million times a day. We have a hundred million light receptors in our eyes and 600 million air sacs in our lungs and we have a brain which weighs about three times as much as a human brain. And which has the capacity to contain the sum total of all human knowledge with

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some space left over. But none of these things are as important as the fact that God has put within us a soul that is true of all of us. And because it's true, we have great possibilities. Dreams we haven't even dreamed yet. We must not be our own worst enemies. For we are loved of God and in Christ all things are

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possible. We are called never to hide among the baggage. Children of God, we are summoned to the purple. Let us be loyal to the royal that God has put in our hearts. Let us pray.

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We thank thee our Father that we are gifted by thee. We apologize if we have not sought out our gifts and pledge ourselves to do so. And we promise that we will seek to develop those gifts and to use them as you would have us use them. God, drive us from the baggage and hand us the banner that we may enter

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glory, unashamed, part of that royal priesthood which is forever and forever. Amen.