Do you know Anna Sorokin? Or perhaps you know her as Anna Delvey, the name she adopted when she came to New York City pretending to be a German heiress. I learned more about her story through watching the show Inventing Anna on Netflix. She wore the most expensive clothes, stayed at the most luxurious hotels, and went to the most exclusive clubs and parties—all without spending her own money.
For years she was able to fool many of New York City’s elite, but in 2018, it finally caught up to her. After defrauding friends, hotels, and banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, she was arrested and convicted of her crimes.
Anna’s desire to project a persona of power and elitism ruins her life. She became so enslaved to this desire that she was willing to defraud even those closest to her. She thought it would bring her happiness, but in the end, it led only to ruin.
The Anna in All of Us
When Anna is in court and her attorney gives his closing argument, he says, “There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us.” I think that’s true. We too can become enslaved to our own desires. We want to be validated and accepted, and so we try to project a certain brand to the world. But just like it led to Anna’s downfall, our desire to be accepted, left unchecked, doesn’t bring happiness—it just breeds anxiety and loneliness.
Our post never gets enough likes. There’s always someone who doesn’t like us. And a negative comment can always cut right through our happiness. This desire for acceptance can rule over us, and instead of bettering our life, it devours us.
When we choose to seek acceptance or prosperity outside of God, it always leads to disappointment. We think it will bring us happiness, but instead, we become slaves to our desires.
The same thing was happening to Israel in 1 Samuel 16, and in this story, God shows us the way to our deliverance.
Israel’s Folly
Israel had rejected the Lord as their King. They desired protection from their enemies and guidance on how to live. But instead of looking to the Lord, their true King, they sought these things in an earthly king.
And Samuel, their leader at the time, warned them. He told them that an earthly king would take advantage of them. He would take the best of their crops and the best of their cattle, and they would become his slaves (1 Samuel 8:10-18). But the people insisted, and so the Lord gave them Saul. But Saul had twice disobeyed the word of the Lord (1 Samuel 13:13; 15:10), and so the Lord rejected Saul as king.
Now, without a leader, Israel was in danger of descending into civil war and being conquered by their enemies. The people had hoped that Saul would bring them security and prosperity, but in the end, he brought only slavery, chaos, and death.
Our Little Kings
We’re no different than Israel.
Israel demanded a king so “that we also may be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20). How often do we, too, just want to be like all the nations? We don’t want to be the weird Christian, and so we compromise our faith, just a little, to try to fit in.
Israel demanded a king “that our king may judge us” (1 Samuel 8:20). How often do we, too, look outside of God for wisdom and morality? How do you define your best life? How do you spend your money? What do you do for entertainment? Do you look to God for guidance in these things, or does your lifestyle look more like your non-Christian neighbor?
Israel demanded a king “to go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:20). How often do we, too, look outside of God for security? We look instead to our career or our bank account.
These things we turn to become like little kings, people or things that we look to instead of looking to God. For Israel, it was Saul. For Anna Delvey, it was her desire for power and prestige.
But just like Samuel warned the Israelites, these little kings don’t make good rulers. When we make work our king, we become slaves to our work. When what we most desire in life is pleasure, our physical health, or ‘our best life,’ we become enslaved to these things.
Our choices lead to slavery and death. But in the very first verse of 1 Samuel 16, we see the way to freedom and life.
The God of New Beginnings
When the Lord rejects Saul as king, he sends Samuel to Jesse in Bethlehem, saying, “for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” (16:1).
God could have left the Israelites to their own devices. They had rejected him and chosen their own king. God would have been entirely justified in letting Israel be consumed by civil war and conquered by their enemies. This could have been the end of Israel. But our God is the God of new beginnings1. He doesn’t leave us to our own devices. He provides for us, even when we don’t deserve it, even when we outright reject him.
The Lord’s Choice for King
God provides a new, better king for Israel, but it isn’t the king they expected. They had chosen Saul, who is twice described as “taller than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:2; 10:23). It was a way to describe him as a natural choice for king. Even today, three thousand years later, we still seem to equate height with leadership. While only 14.5% of men in the US are six feet or taller, the majority of fortune 500 CEOs are over six feet tall2.
When Samuel meets Jesse’s sons, even he gets it wrong. He sees Eliab and thinks, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him” (16:6). Not only is he Jesse’s firstborn son. He was also apparently tall and maybe a good-looking or strong-looking guy. “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”” (1 Samuel 16:7)
The Lord had rejected Eliab and chosen “the youngest” of Jesse’s sons (1 Samuel 16:11). The word ‘youngest’ is significant. In Hebrew, it’s the same as the word for smallest. In contrast to Saul and Eliab, this boy is the smallest or youngest of Jesse’s sons. But this son was none other than king David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).
Here was a man who would not reject the word of the Lord, like Saul had. Here was a man who would not lead the people into sin, like Saul had (cf. 1 Samuel 13:33). Here was a man who would lead the people in God’s ways and save them from their enemies.
God didn’t leave his people with the king they deserved. He gave them the king they didn’t deserve. God didn’t leave them with the king they wanted. He gave them the king they needed. God didn’t leave them with the king they expected. He gave them the king he had chosen.
Jesus, Our King
And this king is only a shadow of the king who was to come. The people had rejected the Lord as their king, but one day God himself would be born a child from the line of David. One thousand years after Samuel anointed David in Bethlehem, this King was born in that same city.
And unlike Saul and unlike the Israelites, this King did not reject the word of the Lord. This King was the word of the Lord incarnate. Unlike Saul, this King did not disobey when his life was in danger. When the Lord sent Samuel to Bethlehem, he told him to take a sacrifice to protect himself from Saul. When the Father sent the Son to Bethlehem, he was that sacrifice. He was the sacrifice who did die a shameful, public death.
Like the Israelites rejected the Lord as their King, so Isaiah prophesied that this King would be “despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:3). And like no one expected the Lord to choose David, so Isaiah prophesied that this King would not be desired or esteemed but would be “as one from whom men hide their faces” (Isaiah 53:3). But this king is the one who would finally deliver God’s people.
There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us. Left to our own devices, our choices lead to ruin. When we reject the Lord as our king and follow after little kings, we become slaves to our sin and deserving of death. But Jesus is the King who was “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus is the King who delivers us from our slavery to sin and brings us fullness of life.
This is the King we don’t deserve. This is the King we didn’t expect. This is the King God has chosen. This is the King we need. Let us serve him with all our hearts.