Hearing the Call: Samuel's Journey of Faith

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

We're going to go right into our Bible study, so if you have your Bibles here this evening, turn with me to First Samuel, chapter three.

First Samuel, chapter three.

We've been in this study now for a few weeks, and we've been looking at the life of Samuel.

And we really saw before Samuel was born, his mother, Hannah, was faithful to the Lord and asking the Lord and trusting the Lord to provide for her a son.

And we know that Eli was used by God to prophesied that Hannah would have a child.

And so, sure enough, God kept his word as he always does, and Samuel was born to Hannah.

But if you remember, Hannah's promise to the Lord was, if you give me a son, I promise to dedicate him to the service of the Lord.

I promised to dedicate him to the tabernacle there with the high priest.

And that's exactly what she did.

And we read about that in First Samuel chapter one and two.

And in First Samuel chapter two, we saw Hannah's worship to God through a prayer and through a song.

And then we saw the contrast between Hannah's son Samuel and his righteousness and his obedience to God.

And then the other side of that, the evil sons of Eli, if you remember, Eli had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who essentially what they were doing is they were abusing their office.

They were really falling in two areas of sin.

One area of sin was pride and materialism.

They were stealing from the people that were coming to worship.

People were coming to worship, and they were giving their meat as an offering.

But Hophni and Phineas were saying, we want the meat the way that we want it, so that we can take it and eat it our way, that we can sell it and that we can make extra money on top of that.

And that's really a picture of all the spiritual leaders today that are abusing people, taking money from them, stealing from them, and really manipulating them.

And then there was another sin that they were committing.

They were essentially committing a fornication with women that were coming in looking to worship.

And so essentially, they were falling into the trap of pride.

They were falling into the trap of greed, and they were falling into the trap of lust and ultimately fornication.

And those are the really, the paths that we see today in the sin of spiritual leaders is that they go usually towards the love of money.

As the Bible says, the love of money is the root of all evil.

Not money, but the love of money.

And then we also know that the Bible says for specifically men in leadership to guard our hearts from those youthful lust.

And so that's what we saw in chapter two.

So I catch you up here to chapter three.

And now we're going to see Samuel and how God calls Samuel to more to prophesy and to serve the Lord.

And this is an exciting story of hearing how a young man, Samuel, hears the call of God and obeys the call of God.

And this should be a picture for all of us to follow in our lives as God calls us to do certain things.

And so here in verse 1 of 1st Samuel 3, it says, and the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.

Now, I want to just stop there because this is really awesome.

This is the third time it's emphasized in this book already that Samuel is ministering to the Lord.

And what a great testimony that is.

I. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I often think, like, what if someone was to write a story about my life?

If someone was to track me and follow me and look at what I'm doing in private and look at what I'm doing in public, would they say that I'm a minister of the Lord, or would they say something else?

But what we see here in this case is that the testimony of this young man Samuel was that he was ministering unto the Lord.

And it's important to note that it says that he was ministering unto the Lord even though he was serving others, even though he was serving Eli, even though he was helping others in their worship in the tabernacle, he ultimately was serving God.

And that's something that we have to understand in our own lives when we're serving, when we're called by God to do certain things for other people, is that ultimately the ultimate object of our service is the Lord.

And that's what we see here in verse number one.

And so just as God calls us to serve him, he called Samuel to serve him.

And Samuel was faithful to that.

So it says that he ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious in those days.

There was no open vision.

Now if you read verse one, there might seem a little confusing.

And you might say, what is he talking about here, but essentially what it's saying here is that the Word of the Lord at this point in time was, was rare for many people.

Now it's not rare that God was speaking.

It's rare for people in the fact that they weren't listening to the call of God.

And so the Word of the Lord that we're reading here in this case is, is obviously what they have before them and God guiding them through prophecies and through His Word.

And so the Word of the Lord being rare in those days essentially means this.

It wasn't that God was silent as much as the hardness of the hearts of the people there in Israel were there cold to it.

And therefore it was rare because they were not perceiving the Word of God.

They were not listening to the Word of God, they were not obeying the Word of God.

And that's sometimes what can happen in our culture today.

We could say, well, you know what, it seems like God's not speaking, but many times God is speaking through His Word.

But we're cold to it, we're hard hearted to it, we're distracted, and we're so busy with life that we miss out on the fact that God is calling us for something.

And so essentially what verse one is telling us is not that God was quiet as much as people were not listening to God and he was guiding and they were not following.

So this is unique in the case that Samuel, a young man, was following God, verse 2.

And it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax them that he could not see.

And air, the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord where the ark of the covenant was.

And Samuel was laid down to sleep.

And so we know that this is in the evening, we know that they're going to sleep.

And so this is in the case of Eli, he's physically going to sleep.

But I would actually venture to say that Eli at this point of his life, because of his sons and because the way he was leading, he might have been even been spiritually asleep.

And so he comes here and he goes to sleep and says that before the Lamb of God went out in the tabernacle.

So this is essentially saying basically they're turning the lights off, they're going to bed, and we're going to see that God speaks to Samuel in this case.

And at first Samuel is going to think that this is Eli speaking, but we, we know that eventually he finds out that it's God.

Speaking to him.

So verse 4.

But the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, here am I.

And so Samuel here hears an audible voice.

It seems like he hears an audible voice, and his response is, here I am.

I'm here.

I'm ready.

What do you want?

And he ran unto Eli and said, here am I.

So.

So obviously we see that first point.

Samuel thinks that it's Eli calling out to him.

And he says, here am I, for thou called us me.

And he said, I called not lie down again.

And he went and lay down.

And so obviously Eli's confused.

Eli's like, go back to sleep.

What are you doing?

I didn't call you.

And, you know, I heard this story so many times and didn't really resonate to me until I had kids.

I don't know of any of you that have had kids, have come and knocked on your door and said that they heard something or try to wake you up in the middle of the night.

Eli's probably frustrated.

Eli's saying, hey, I'm trying to sleep here.

Go back to sleep.

And obviously Samuel's trying to be obedient.

Samuel's trying to do what he always does in obedience to God and obedience to his mom by following Eli.

So he says, eli's calling for me.

I'm going to go help him.

That's.

That's his whole point.

And so again he lays down in verse six, and the Lord called yet again Samuel.

And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, here am I, for thou didst call me.

And he answered, I called not my son.

Lie down again.

So this happens again.

And so Samuel was obedient.

We know that through his testimony.

And so as God is calling him, he's going to Eli thinking Eli might need help.

But this often, sometimes is how God calls us.

God calls us.

And maybe we're not perceptive to what he's saying in our life, through other people.

And oftentimes when God's calling us, we might think that it's something else.

It might be a circumstance, it might be an open door, it might be a closed door.

But at this point in time, Samuel didn't know that it was the Lord.

Yet eventually he's going to find out through Eli's guidance here.

And so verse seven, it says, now, Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him.

So we see at this point in time, he hasn't had this experience before.

He has not had God call out to him.

Verse 8.

And the Lord called Samuel again.

The third time.

And he arose and went to Eli and said, here am I, for thou didst call me.

And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child.

And so, even though Eli had a lot of problems in his life, even though Eli wasn't a good father, even though Eli was getting up in age and probably spiritually apathetic at this point, we know that, at least through some experience, Eli perceived that the Lord had called Samuel.

And so he gives him some advice.

Verse 9.

Therefore, Eli said unto Samuel, go lie down.

And it shall be if he called thee, that thou shalt say, speak, Lord, for thy servant here.

So Samuel went and laid down in his place.

And so Eli does give Samuel good advice.

This is God.

When God calls you, you listen.

And so what he says here is good advice.

And I think that we can take some lessons from this.

And so when God is calling us in our life through many different circumstances, maybe through it's a passage of scripture, maybe through a circumstance, maybe through an open door, maybe through giving us conviction, maybe through giving us comfort, there's some steps that I think we need to take to hear the voice of God in our life.

Now, I need to be clear here.

I don't believe that in every situation that God is audibly speaking to all of us at all times.

But we know that God can speak through various means.

So when God speaks to us, I mean, some of the times that God's spoken to me the loudest has been through Bible study.

I've been reading and I've been struggling with something.

I've been thinking about something, I've been praying about something.

And God reveals this truth to me right there from Scripture.

It almost like jumps off the page for me.

And the reality is, is that there is a way that we can respond properly to God.

And the first step would be to make ourselves available to God, right?

He says, go lie down.

Be ready, listen.

And I think that sometimes we're so busy with life, we're so caught up in the to and fro of work and.

And home and hobbies and just all the distractions of this world, our world is so loud right now that a lot of times we're not even available to hear God's call in our life.

I remember one of the most convicting messages that my pastor preached back when I was in church in Florida, was he preached a message on, are you ready to be called by God?

Are you prepared to go?

If God called you right now, would you be ready to go?

Or would you say, I gotta take care of this, I gotta take care of this.

I gotta take care of this.

Well, there's passages in scripture that talk about that.

Remember, Jesus says, you can't be the type of person that says, I gotta go do this, I gotta go do that.

I gotta be ready to go.

So the first step would be to make yourself available for God to speak.

What does that mean?

Well, biblically speaking, the Bible says to be still and know that he is God.

There's some times in our life where we need to be still.

We need to be open, we need to clear our minds, we need to clear our hearts.

We need to set up a situation in which God can speak to us.

Now, what does that look like for.

For many of us, that might look like just a personal, private time with God every single day.

It might look like a personal, private prayer time.

It might look like a personal, private, a Bible study.

It might look just like a situation where we can remove distractions from our lives and so that we can hear from God.

But then the second step would be this.

Not to be presumptuous about God speaking.

Don't, don't get ahead of God.

Don't, don't insert things there that aren't there.

And that's what he says.

He says if he calls you a kid, basically, we're not going to get ahead of ourselves.

And I think that too.

Another problem with many of us when we're thinking about God's direction in our life, and I know I've been here, is that I've said, lord, okay, I'm going to go do this.

I, I, I, I know you probably want me to do this, so I'm going to go do this and then I hope you bless it later.

That's sometimes the problem is that we get ahead of God's plan in our life.

We become presumptuous.

We assume that God wants us to do something without going and seeking him and waiting for him to specifically call us.

And then we see at the very end of this, he says to, he says essentially to perceive the word of God to respond to the word of God.

And so he says, if he does do this to you, just say, speak, Lord, here am I, here am I.

Speak, Lord, at the end of verse 9, for thy servant heareth.

And so I would say that another step that we could take is to respond to the Word of God.

When God does show us something from his Word.

When God does give us a teaching, be willing and ready to respond to that in obedience.

Because there's a few different ways that we can respond to the preaching of the Word of God.

There's a few different ways that we can respond to Bible study.

One way to respond is to look at it and not believe it, or to hear it preached and not believe it.

I mean, I don't know about you guys, but there's times in my life where I've heard a hard truth from Scripture and it's been difficult for me to apply.

But at the same time, we have to understand and recognize that if this is the word of God, which we believe it is, and when it says something, it doesn't matter how I feel about it.

The reality is, is that I have to obey it no matter what the cost might be.

So one response is to reject it.

The second response is to receive it, right?

Like, okay, that's great.

Or to say Amen in a church service and even come forward and kneel at the steps and pray and go, wow, that really captivated my heart.

But then go outside of the doors and just let it go back to the way that it used to be.

That speaks to this idea of like, well, I agree with it, but I'm not going to follow it.

Well, we really, truly don't agree with it.

Sometimes we'll mentally adhere to a biblical teaching, but we don't apply it to our lives.

And so it would be the process of seeing it, hearing it, believing it, trusting in it, and then living it.

So to respond to the Word of God and then ultimately to humble ourselves.

And that's what he says at the end of verse nine.

He says, for thy servant heareth.

So Samuel's position would be to say, lord, I'm your servant.

Whatever you want from me.

So we make ourselves available.

We don't get ahead of ourselves.

We don't get ahead of the Lord.

We respond to his word with obedience.

And we humble ourselves before the Lord to say, lord, whatever you want me to do, I will do.

And so we have to listen to the Lord.

You know, for example, we're trying to teach our children to listen to us.

And oftentimes our children hear us, but they don't listen to us.

And you guys know what I mean by that?

Like, they're, They're.

We say something like, hey, go do this.

And they, okay, but it's.

It's not heard or heated and heating would be that they hear it and they do it.

And ultimately what we see here in this case is that God is speaking to Samuel.

And Eli's advice is, Samuel, humble yourself, hear it, do it.

And so Samuel went and laid down in his places.

So Samuel follows in obedience.

And so we have to hear the word of God.

We have to apply those truths that God has given us.

And we have to understand that what God's call is for our life is truly the only call that will bring satisfaction and sufficiency to our life.

And so let's see in verse number 10 what God's me message is for Samuel.

And so verse nine is essentially the wisdom that Eli gives to Samuel in verse 10.

And the Lord came.

So the Lord does come and speak to Samuel.

And stood and called, as at other times, samuel, Samuel.

Then Samuel answered, speak for thy servant here.

And so he follows through with this wise advice.

And he says, lord, I'm ready.

Speak to me.

I want to respond to you.

I'm humbling myself before you.

And the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle.

And so God is about to tell Samuel what he's going to tell him in way of prophecy.

And so this seems to be something that's a large, huge announcement to Samuel here.

And Samuel is going to be trusted with this.

And so God's message to Samuel is that there's going to be coming judgment upon specifically Eli in his house.

And so verse number 12.

In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I've spoken concerning his house.

When I begin, I will also make an end.

So what he is doing here is he's warning Samuel that there's going to be judgment, but also he's going to tell Samuel that he has to convey this verse 13.

For I have told him that I will judge his house for every.

For forever, for the iniquity which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.

So again we see a reiteration of Eli's sin.

Eli did a great job as a dad, and then his children went off in rebellion.

And God's judging Eli just because his children are bad?

No, he's judging Eli in his house because, as we see here, verse 13, he says his sons made themselves vile.

And you remember there were some terrible things that his sons were doing.

But then what's the problem?

Well, the iniquity in Eli was that there was never going to be any discipline there.

He.

He says that essentially you restrain them not.

And so this is a strong warning that if we do not raise our children well, and, and in many cases this might not apply to everybody.

But what he says Here for Eli is that there's consequences to how we raise our children.

And in this case, there's severe consequences.

Verse 14.

And therefore I've sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice, nor offering forever.

And Samuel lay unto the morning and opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and Samuel feared to show Eli the vision.

So understandably, think.

Put yourself in Samuel's shoes for a second.

Okay?

Samuel's a young boy.

We don't know exactly how old he is, but it's evident that he's young.

And Eli is very old and very mature and considered to be the spiritual leader of Israel.

And God comes and speaks to Samuel and say, samuel gonna judge Eli.

And actually, I'm telling you to tell him this.

Samuel has a lot of fear because Samuel's like, man, I'm going to have to confront someone with the truth sometimes.

The hardest thing to do sometimes is to confront people with the truth of God because of the fear of what might happen when we do that.

And so says Samuel feared to show Eli the vision.

And so God had a message.

And I think the lesson that we can learn from this is that sometimes God is going to give us a call or a message that is not.

Not going to be easy to impart and to live out in our lives.

I wish that everything that God called us to do was easy and, and it is easy if we give ourselves over to him.

But ultimately, as a human being, there's going to be a lot of difficulties with following God's call for our life.

I remember very vividly there was a point in my life that I said the very overwhelming yet reassuring words of, like, lord, I'm going to trust you.

Wherever you want me to go, I'm going to go.

And I knew that saying that was saying that he could send me to another continent.

He could send me to a ministry that I do not even know what I would do.

And.

And where did he call me?

Well, he called me to Delaware, which after this weekend, it's.

It's been a real struggle to deal with the cold and the snow.

Okay.

It's like for a Florida boy, that's a struggle.

But.

But the reality is, is we often think of, like, circumstantial things, like, it's a different place.

It's.

It's.

It's different culture, it's different food, it's different whatever.

But.

But at the end of the day, some of the most difficult things that God calls Us to do is just live in the truth and proclaim the truth to others around us.

And Samuel has a challenge here.

And that challenge is that I have to live godly.

I have to live in truth even when others around me are not.

And so the word of God comes to Samuel, and he recognizes that God is judging sin.

Eli knew of his sin.

Eli understood that he was walking in rebellion to the Lord.

But ultimately doesn't make it any easier for this to be coming to pass in the life of Eli and his sons.

And so Samuel is now going to tell Eli the truth, which.

Which is sometimes difficult.

So it says here that Samuel waits until the morning and we see a young man in his bed struggling to come to grips with what God told him.

But ultimately, in verse 16, then Eli called Samuel and said, samuel, my son.

And he answered, here am I.

So we see a reiteration of that phrase.

Here am I.

He's.

He's open, he's ready, he's obedient.

And so Eli probably wasn't the greatest boss, he probably wasn't the greatest parent, but still Samuel allowed for him to have respect because he was his elder.

And verse 17 and he said, what is the thing that the Lord has said unto thee?

So Eli's curious.

I pray thee hide it not from.

From me.

God do so to thee, and more also if thou hide anything from me of all the things that he said.

So basically, Eli is under the assumption that Samuel's going to hide it from him, but Samuel's not.

Verse 18.

And Samuel told him every wit and hid nothing from him.

And he said, it is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good.

And so Samuel tells him everything.

And that'd be hard.

It's hard.

It's the.

The message of judgment is hard.

That's often why in churches we only hear a portion of the gospel, because there's parts of the gospel that are easy for most people to hear.

It's not.

Most people don't get upset with the fact that we tell people that God loves them.

Like, that's a.

Like a reasonable five.

Because all of us think like, well, I'm a pretty lovable person.

So, like, the fact that God loves me is a good thing.

And we should always tell people that God loves them because he does.

God is love.

For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son.

But there's more to the gospel message than just God loves you.

Because, yes, God loves you.

But if we leave it at the fact that just God Loves everybody.

The problem with that is, then why would I need to change?

Like, if God loves me the way that I am in my sin, when why do I need to change?

And then that's when we bring in the full message of the gospel, that there is judgment to sin.

For the wages of sin is death.

We know for all have sinned to come short of the glory of God, there is none good.

No, not one part of telling the whole message of the gospel is a message of judgment.

Yes, it's a message of love.

Yes, it's a message of hope.

But it's also a message that, hey, if you don't listen to this, if you don't believe in what God has to say, that there is punishment to this, there is a payment for sin.

Now, the greatest news ever told us that Jesus loved us enough to give that sacrifice for us so that we don't have to face the payment for sin, that we don't have to face judgment.

But I would venture to say that many people are afraid to mention the judgment because it's an offensive peace.

It's an offensive state.

And the Bible says that Jesus is a stumbling block.

He's a rock for those, for those that believe, he's the sure foundation which we can build off of.

That's what first Peter tells us.

But for people that don't believe in Jesus and think that they're good people, Jesus, the Bible says it's a rock of offense.

Because I can say all day in this world, hey, I believe in a God.

And most people say, okay, that's you.

That's your good thing.

You know, I believe in God, you believe in a God.

We all believe in some God, and we're okay.

But where we preach the full gospel is that it's only through Jesus.

Only through Jesus.

So then that, that does offend because not everyone believes in Jesus.

And so we can't be afraid to preach the whole message.

And that's what Samuel does here.

Samuel says, I'm going to preach the whole message.

I love how it says it there says in Samuel, told him every wit, meaning every little thing.

And I think for us as Christians, we can find a place in our life where we can use the sermon.

We can still speak the truth in love, but we need to tell people the full story.

I, I often think about when I was a kid and my parents would ask me something.

You know, we all know that we could tell a partial truth.

You ever, you ever had someone tell you like a part of the story, but they didn't tell you the whole story.

Well, omission to a truth is in many ways a lie because we're leaving out a certain point.

And so what we do with the gospel is we tell people the whole story.

And that's what Samuel did.

He told him the whole story.

And so Eli's response is.

Is interesting here.

Many commentators argue on whether or not Eli is responding in a respectful, godly manner, or what some people would call fatalistic response, like, well, God's going to judge me.

Then I guess that's what's going to happen.

But nonetheless, he says, let God do what he sees fit.

Ultimately, we should submit ourselves to God's correction conviction in our life.

But at the same time, it's not about just resigning to judgment.

It's about seeing where God leads us to change.

So, so what does that mean?

That means this.

When I'm reading Scripture and I find a place, by the way, 2nd Timothy 3.

16 says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof.

Reproof is telling us that we're wrong.

And then it says for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

So there's.

If we're reading the Bible enough and we're reading the Bible the right way, we should find places where we're like, man, I'm wrong.

I need to change.

There's one way to read scripture like this, okay, I'm reading and it says something, and I realize that there is a sin in my life.

And.

And I go, well, yep, I'm a failure in that.

But okay, that's just me.

That's not the right way to read.

The right way to read it is this.

I see this passage of Scripture, the Holy Spirit's convicting my heart.

Where do I need to fix this?

God's going to lead me to walk in righteousness, therefore I need to get this right.

And so Samuel's response is this, well, God's going to do what he's going to do.

And that's true.

But a lot of times there are people that just resign to the fact that God is going to judge them and they go, well, that's okay.

I guess that's just what I'll have to face.

But the Bible gives us opportunities to repent.

And I would encourage you to find that place of repentance in your life and find it frequently.

Repented.

I used to think that repentance was like a nasty word.

Like, oh, man, I got to repent.

I got to go back.

And I used to Think that repentance meant I'm never going to sin again.

Because the Bible, the Bible speaks of repentance.

And I used to hear people say, are you repentant of your sins?

And I'm like, I am, but what I just sometimes keep sinning.

What's the problem?

Well, we know that we're still dealing with the old man.

Well, repentance, what repentance means is recognizing that we're wrong and then turning away from it, turning our desires away from that sin.

And it doesn't mean that we're perfect.

It just means that we're turning away from that path of sin in our life.

And the Bible says in first, or, excuse me, First John 1:9, to confess our sins.

If, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just, to preach, forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So what does that word confess mean?

I think I've explained this before to you, but biblically speaking, what Eli's proper response should have been is confessing to God, living that humble, repentant spirit, and hopefully just saying, you know, at this point in time, this is all I can do.

But what is confession?

Well, the Greek word for confession is a word.

It's two words put together.

The Greek word is homo logeo, Homo meaning the same, logeo meaning word.

Essentially, what that means is to have the same word as God.

Meaning what I'm saying about my sin is the same thing that God's saying about my sin.

That it's evil, that it's wrong, that it's.

That it's something that I need to change.

And so biblically speaking, Eli's proper response should have been confession and repentance, which leads to revival.

But we know that that's not necessarily the case.

So he says, let him do what seemeth him.

Good.

Then let's go to verse 19.

We're going to finish up the chapter, verse 19, 20 and 21.

So this was a huge step in Samuel's life.

There, There is a gap here from verse 18 to verse 19.

And we don't know what happens here other than the fact that Samuel matures.

But there are, There are certain pieces in our life that I believe are those capstone moments that bring us to a place of spiritual maturity.

I remember growing up, what it meant to be a man varied on who you talked.

You know, for some people, being a man meant you got to be burly, you got to be strong, you got to be, you know, don't show your emotions, you know, rub Dirt in your wounds and just go for it, Never cry, never do any of that.

But I realized later on that biblically speaking, and really practically speaking, being a man essentially means doing what's right.

Essentially, it means taking responsibility.

It means to live soberly.

It means to live in a way of leadership.

And so sometimes being mature in our lives means that we do things and we learn things that are difficult.

And for Samuel, this was a huge difficult piece for him to overcome that God would speak to him and tell him, your mentor, your leader, your spiritual high priest here in this case is going to face judgment.

Samuel had to be the one that brought that message.

But through that came maturity.

Through that came growth.

And so we see in verse 19, and Samuel grew and the Lord was with him.

And I love that praise because I. I know that for all of us, hopefully we desire to grow in the Lord.

And we know in this case it's talking about Samuel physically growing, but I think even more so, it's talking about him spiritually growing.

And for us to spiritually grow, we must, as it says here, have the Lord with us.

Now the Lord is with us in a sense that if we're saved, he's with us.

The Bible says that he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.

We're indwelled by the Spirit, but oftentimes we can live our lives like God is not with us.

And so it's a recognition that God is with us, and then it's walking alongside of him and allowing him to guide us.

So verse 19, Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and did let none of his words fall to the ground.

And I just.

I love the way that that's phrased, because this means that all of Samuel's prophecies came to pass.

Why?

Because he was obedient to God.

As God spoke to him, he received it and he believed it, and he proclaimed it.

And that's exactly how we should live our lives.

And so ultimately, Samuel grows in the Lord.

He grows in his perception of the word of God, and he grows in his prophetic nature of preaching the truth.

Verse 20.

And all Israel, from Dan, even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be the prophet of the Lord.

So essentially what happens here is that because of his testimony, there's confirmation that God is using him.

It's confirmation that God's power is resting upon Samuel.

So this is the testimony.

So those two cities are really significant.

Why?

Because Dan is the northernmost city in Israel at the time, and Beersheba was the southernmost.

So it would be like, you know, saying today, like the most northern city of America to the most southern city of America, talking about everybody knowing of the testimony of the Lord through the life of Samuel.

Verse 21.

And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh.

For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel and Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

And so obviously the.

The truth of God is being worked out through Samuel's life.

And we know that God appears to Samuel here, and the Lord is revealing himself by his Word.

And so whenever God is moving, what's going to happen is that he's going to reveal himself.

How does he reveal himself?

He always reveals himself through His Word.

So if we want to see God's power working in our midst, if we want to see revival, if we want to see growth, if we want to see fruit, what do we do?

We infuse every element of our lives, every element of our church, every element of our culture with the Word of God.

The Word of God is powerful.

And we see that there, that God revealed himself to Samuel and Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

And so we don't grow by tactics.

We don't grow through manipulation.

We don't grow through controlling people.

We grow through the power of God resting in our lives, through the power of the Spirit, through the power of the Word.

So Samuel, though he's not perfect, we know that nobody was perfect except for Jesus Christ walking this earth.

But Samuel was an obedient prophet of the Lord, and he has to do a lot of brave things in his life.

Know what's.

What Samuel has to do.

He confronts Saul, which we're going to talk about later on.

He obviously anoints Saul, Saul and David.

And Samuel is one of those heroes of scripture that oftentimes gets overlooked, but we see just his obedience and.

And I think it all goes back.

If we could summarize Samuel's success, we could see it there in chapter three, when God calls out to him, his response is, here am I, here am I, Lord, Speak your servant here.

And I think if we want to take any lesson from Samuel, if we want to take any lesson from Samuel's life, and we could take a lot of lessons, but what I would say is this.

We should say when God teaches us something from his Word, when he's guiding us by the Spirit, Lord, here am I.

Wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, wherever I can be used, I'm available.

I'm your servant.

And when we do that, it doesn't mean that God's going to always give us the most attractive position.

He's not going to always give us the easiest jobs.

He's not going to always give us the praise of man, which actually we don't want the praise of man, biblically speaking, because the Bible says that if we get the praise now, we.

We don't receive the praise later.

So let's.

Let's say in this case, like, to be great in the eyes of God means to humble ourselves before the people of this earth and say, lord, whatever you want me to do.

And sometimes God calls you to do things that are notable.

Sometimes God calls you to do things that are rewarding.

Sometimes that calls you to do things that can be a challenge and maybe even cause fear in your life.

But what I will say is this.

All of us should respond to the Lord by saying, lord, here am I.

And I would tell you that if you honestly do that, God is going to answer that prayer.

He's going to say, okay, here's what I need you to do.

Then the question is, is, are we willing to take the call in our life?

Not all of us are called to vocational ministry.

Okay, that.

That was the lot that God laid out for me.

But for many of us, it might not be like a missionary or a pastor, but what it is, is that God would have a ministry for you within the context of the gospel, some way, some shape, some.

Some form within the capacity that God has called you in your spiritual gifts.

And so what I would challenge you to do is the first step after faith, and your first step in growth is saying, lord, what do you want from me?

How would you want to use me?

And maybe we could be like Samuel and say, here am I, Lord.

Lord, send me.

Here am I. I'm available.

Here am I.

Whatever you want from me, I'm your servant.

And so I would encourage you guys to think about that here.

When it comes to your life, you might say, well, how do I know?

How do I know what God's calling me to?

I have no idea where to even start.

The first place to start is by growing in your relationship with me.

Prayer, Bible study, following his word, looking for opportunities.

You know, when we're thinking about service.

And I don't want to go down another rabbit trail.

But one of the many great pieces of advice that I received that really helped me was that I didn't know where God would have me.

I'm like, lord, where.

Where do you want me to serve?

And I went to my pastor at the time And I said, pastor, I don't know where you want me to serve.

I don't know where God wants me to serve.

He says, well, how about this?

He says, just start serving everywhere and immediately you'll start realizing where you feel like God's calling you to serve and where you don't need to serve.

So I remember I was trying to do everything.

I was in the media team.

I was working behind the scenes.

I was where I was trying to find opportunities to teach.

And very quickly, by the way, you guys might not know this about me, but I was working in the nursery, I was working.

I did game time with the kids.

And there I really realized very early that I love children, but the little children, I'm not necessarily.

That's not my calling, so to speak.

Okay, I love working with kids, but.

But again, I just knew that that's not necessarily something that I have a strong draw to.

And the truth is, is that God will eventually, as you start serving, God will reveal to you where he has you and where you feel fit and where he's going to effectively use you.

And so there's no shame in saying that's not my calling.

But at the same time, there is shame in saying, well, I could never be used that way because immediately we're getting ahead of God and saying, God, you.

I would never do that.

Like, never say never.

Never say never when it comes to ministry, because God can call you and use you in many ways that you might never, never expect.

And I would encourage you to pray about that.

And so may we all be like Samuel and say, lord, here am I.

Send me.

All right.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.