"Its Hard to Get Sunlight Where You Live"

“It’s Hard to Get Sunlight Where You Live”

(1 Samuel 18:6-9)

Some people just can’t be happy. No matter what God has blessed them with materially or what He has allowed them to achieve in life, they still have a hard time being happy. This lack of happiness is not a mere momentary season of discontent; rather it masks a rage that does not mind destroying all that they have built.

I know that it sounds strange, but it seems that the sun just doesn’t shine on some people. They live in a state of perpetual spiritual darkness. In the dark, there is always some mess going on just beneath the surface. Consider Israel’s first King, Saul.

Saul had it made. He was rich before he became King (1 Samuel 9:2). He was also handsome (1 Samuel 10:23-24). He was mighty in battle (1 Samuel 14:47-48). To top it off, he was anointed by the prophet Samuel after being handpicked by God to be Israel’s first King (1 Samuel 9:15-17).

Having reached the pinnacle of life, Saul should have had a sense of satisfaction; at the very least some feeling of accomplishment. We too, spend our time in this life accomplishing “things,” only to find that the “things” don’t bring the satisfaction that they promised. We are still in the dark, just now with our “things.”

Your “thing” could be another degree, it could be a husband, it could be a new home, it could be an induction into a sorority or fraternity or some type of business society or association, but once accomplished or completed, there is still no sunlight. For some of us, it is hard to get sunlight where we live. Consider the following three points.

1. Don’t allow people to keep you where there is no light.

a. Biblically speaking, darkness is a symbol of sin and spiritual death (1 John 1:5-6; Ephesians 5:8-11; John 3:19-20).

b. God’s people are called by God to come out of the darkness (1 Peter 2:9).

c. We can seem as if we are doing well like Saul, but all the emotional sins (e.g., bitterness, envy, jealousy, hatred, unforgiveness) live in the darkness of the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

d. Bitterness, envy, jealousy, hatred, and unforgiveness all live in dark places (Romans 13:12-13; Ephesians 5:11; Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5-8).

e. When David wanted to fight Goliath, Saul told him in 1 Samuel 17:33 (my paraphrase) “you are only a boy.”

f. Yet the King would come to hate the teenaged boy because of his success in battle (1 Samuel 18:8-11).

2. Don’t let people invite you into their darkness.

a. Saul’s son, Jonathan, didn’t hate David. Jonathan loved David (1 Samuel 18:3).

b. Saul commanded Jonathan to kill David (1 Samuel 19:1).

c. Jonathan refused to be invited into his father’s darkness (1 Samuel 19:2).

3. The works of darkness must be refused.

a. Jonathan confronted his father, calling the action against David “sin” in 1 Samuel 19:5.

b. Jonathan’s loyalty was both remembered and commended in 2 Samuel 1:17-27.

“Christ First, Christ Only, Christ Always”