Harbor Presbyterian Church: Carlsbad

1 Samuel 3:1-21 – “The Calling of Samuel”

Rev. Darin M. Stone

Harbor Presbyterian Church

October 12, 2008

 

Please turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 3.  We’re spending this fall making our way through the first 15 chapters of 1 Samuel and if you’ve been with us over the past couple of weeks, you’ll know that there as been nearly a complete absence of God-centeredness in Israel.  Their neglect of God is about to reap some pretty rough consequences.  And usually, when the people are going haywire, it’s due in large part to failure to acknowledge God in the lives of the church’s leaders.  So it’s time for new leadership, and in this passage, we’re going to see how God calls Samuel to this position for the sake of God’s people.  So let’s turn our attention to the reading of God’s word from 1 Samuel 3.

 

One of the great tragedies that was happening in Israel at this time – and that happens in our own day – is that the people and the leaders were approaching God with a sense of carelessness and triviality.  Back when I was in seminary, I had a classmate who was serving as the youth director at his church, and he decided to take his students from Jackson, Mississippi up to Akron, Ohio to this gi-normous Christian music festival.  So he asked me to go drive a bunch of these up there with him.  So at this festival, there’s this huge tent where they were selling what you would call “witness wear.”  It’s like 1000 different Christian T-shirts and key chains, and bumper stickers that were some of the most cheese-ball things that you had ever seen.  And what they do is take any kind of marketing slogan you could imagine.  One of the shirts I saw the other day said “God Wants You To Be Saved,” and the “You To Be” looks like the YouTube slogan.  I mean, is there anywhere on planet earth where that is really cool?  And folks, that kind of thing just makes Christianity not only look lame, but it lays it out there as just another product on the shelf.

 

What I want to suggest to you is that 21^st century evangelicalism can easily share a trait that was alive and well in 11^th century BC Israel.  And that is that we can easily find ourselves being remarkably casual in the ways in which we treat God and the things of God.  And when we do that, what happens is that we find it increasingly difficult to be aware of his holiness, his goodness, his truth, and his word, and we rob ourselves of living in a vital relationship with him.   

 

The parallel I see between our day and this passage is that there was a scarcity of the word and the influence of God.  You know, when you read the Old Testament, you’ll notice is that when God withdrawals his voice and his presence, he is subsequently withdrawing his blessings.  It’s a sign of a fracture in the relationship between God and his people. 

 

So instead of subjecting themselves to God, and his word, and seeking their satisfaction in him, the people were doing what was right in their own eyes.  If people wanted something, they went for it, with little if any regard for the long term affects upon their own souls and upon the broader community.  If they wanted to be promiscuous, they did it.  If they wanted to increase their profit margins, they did what they needed to do make sure that happened regardless of how that affected anyone else.  They were fundamentally greedy, and self-absorbed, and hedonistic, but they nevertheless expected God to bless them anyway.

 

The even more unfortunate thing is that all too often, the lifestyles that characterize the world characterize the church.  And the leadership of the church is by no means immune to this.  We read about this last week didn’t we?  About how things like greed and sexual scandal we part and parcel of the lives of Eli’s sons!  Those things were happening in the priesthood of Israel at the time.  I mean, this is a real Entertainment Tonight experience!  And the result was a scarcity of God’s special revelation of himself and his will to his people.

 

Now you may say, “Well, we have all of God’s word.  God’s word may have been rare then, but now we have all of it in the Bible, so there’s not much of a comparison here.”  But what I want to suggest to you is that even though we have all of God’s word, we are often unable to hear and process it.  And a significant reason why is due to the fact that God, and his presence, and his word to get silenced by all of the other noise we’ve allowed into our lives.

 

You know, what probably grieves me the most about what I too often see in my own life and see in the lives a lot of people who profess to follow Jesus is that the Christian life kind of becomes kind of like driving down I-5 between LA and Sacramento.  We’re just going through a bunch of nothingness without much thought and effort, smelling the cow aroma, and what we really pour your energy and affections into when we’re really engaged, is the weekend, and our vacation, and our stuff, and shopping, and clothes, and techno-gadgets, and football, and looking hot, and movies, and TV shows.  And we find ourselves taking all the things and all the stuff and turn them into God-substitutes.  And what’s utterly tragic is that those God-substitutes – however impersonal they may actually be – become the all-consuming reality of our lives.  We look to those things to give us vitality a stamp of approval for our existence. 

 

And as we do that, Jesus ends up getting moved to the outer banks of our lives, and we end up essentially de-personalizing God.  Does that make sense?  Maybe Christian principles are part of your life, but when all the stuff becomes so consuming those principles become just a bunch of theological abstractions that become detached from the very personal nature of who God is.  In other words, the Truth Giver, is not personally known and enjoyed.  He sort of functions like an unmoved mover.  He becomes an “It.” Kind of like an inanimate object. 

 

Folks, if there is relatively little personal reflection upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, very little struggle to understand what it personally means to be a recipient of God’s holiness and justice and goodness and truth, then I can pretty much guarantee you that God will become de-personalized to you.  Your soul will dry up, and you will not enjoy him, and you will cease to consistently find yourself defined by him.  But you have to be defined by something, right?  So if it’s not going to be God, as he reveals himself in the Bible, then the source of your self-definition and the object of your deepest affections and energy is going to be something else.

 

So we’ll start buying into the idea – whether we admit it or not – that if we know four people on the face of the earth who have a nicer car that we have, we’re a bunch of losers.  If someone’s kids are smarter than our kids, then we’re lousy parents.  And God forbid someone should be more successful and a better parent than us.  We live in a narcissist’s paradise.  And to the degree that God becomes an inanimate object, we will become increasingly self-absorbed. 

 

I personally don’t care if your child is an honors student at the local elementary school.  I’m not entirely sure why that needs to be paraded all around town.  It’s just another way we spend our time and energy and resources trying to validate our existence to ourselves and to other people.  We are so prone to derive life from our parenting, and success, and body image, and health, and comfort.  But what happens if you fail?  Those life-giving things will come back to destroy you.  Your reason for existence will be completely undermined.

 

Folks, the word and the influence of God become marginalized in our lives when other things become ultimate to us and God subsequently becomes de-personalized.  But there is another way this happens too.  The word of God is diminished in the church when there is a failure in leadership.  This is one of the things we’ve noticed in the financial crisis, right?  Disaster strikes in a nation when politicians become corrupt and incompetent.  Disaster strikes in the financial markets when corporate greed and irresponsibility is allowed to flourish.  And in the church, disaster strikes when her leaders neglect God’s word and capitulate to the spirit of the age.

 

I think this is what we’re seeing in Eli and his sons and it’s why Samuel here is being called by God to give Eli words of judgment.  Eli’s sons were abusing their priestly office and Eli – who has authority over his sons both as the high priest and their father – is being negligent and passive.  He’s what we would call in modern terms an “enabler.”  Instead of restraining his sons from their evil behavior, for whatever reason – Conflict avoidance? Laziness?  Minimilization of evil? – for whatever reason, Eli facilitates it.

 

You see, God’s blessings have become ultimate to Eli and his sons rather than God himself.  In other words, God is a means to an end rather than an end himself.  So if the leaders in the church are seeking their own comfort, their own prosperity, and their own power; if they’re seeking to be cool, or seeking to have their back scratched by both those both within and outside of their congregations, then they’re seeking their own glory.  But the bad news moment of the day is that God doesn’t share his glory with anyone else.  And if that’s what’s happening at the highest levels of leadership in the covenant community, just imagine what’s going on with the people themselves! 

 

Let me tell you a story about this.  A number of years back, there was a pastor back in the Midwest who led a major change in the way the church has been done in the United States and North America, and even around the world.  He was going to start a new church, but before he did that, he did a survey and he found out that just about everyone he polled in his city either thought that church was boring or irrelevant.  So he decided to start a church that was “not your grandmother’s church.”  That’s kind of the slogan.  It was supposed to be fun and exciting, that didn’t make demands upon the people, that didn’t challenge them very much, and that really had the felt-needs of the people as the church’s frame of reference. 

 

So he was spelling out his plan to another well-known pastor-theologian by the name of R.C. Sproul.  And this is what Dr. Sproul said back to him.  He said, “When I look in my Bible and people encounter God, I see some of them tremble, I see some of them weep, and I see some of them die. But I never find any place in my Bible where people encounter God and go, “‘Ho-hum, that was kind of boring…”  So he said, “Could it be that the reason people find church boring and irrelevant is that they come to church and either God was not there because His word was not honored and preached, His praises were not sung, He was not the focus of what was going on?  Or, could it be that they came there and the reason they were bored is because they weren’t looking for God?  They were looking for something else.”

 

Now here’s the kicker.  That church about nine or ten months ago completed a landmark research study to explore the effectiveness of its ministry philosophy.  And guess what it found?  That in the midst of huge numbers at the church, there was virtually no significant spiritual growth happening amongst people who regularly go to that church.

 

Folks, I want to suggest to you that the presence, and the power, and the word of God is so often rare in the church is due at least in part to the fact that we often make God-substitutes ultimate rather than God himself and because of that, he becomes de-personalized to us.  We manufacture him to fit our own imaginations and to give us what we have already decided we want.  And we make him so that he won’t even challenge our presuppositions as much as other people do. 

 

But we also lose our sensitivity to God when the leaders in the church cater to that mindset.  And even a casual student of church history discovers that when the culture rather than the Bible becomes the standard by which we live our lives and “do church” so to speak, pretty soon, essential gospel truths become up for reconsideration, and in a few more years, those gospel truths become fundamentally denied. 

 

It seems like that kind of thing was going on in Samuel’s day, but still we see God as being unbelievably kind and faithful to his people, don’t we?  I just want to show you two ways in which this is the case.

 

The first thing we see that God does is that he raises up godly leaders.  Even in the midst of perilous times when unfaithfulness in the church and in the leadership seems to run deep, God does not abandon his people.  He raises up men to lead his church to their Savior. 

 

Now just as a sidebar comment, do you see how utterly kind and gracious God is to Samuel here?  Apparently God’s voice was so crystal clear to Samuel that he thought it was Eli three times!  But God doesn’t beat up Samuel does he?  He’s patient.  He gives Samuel and he gives us time to understand him.  God isn’t sitting there checking his watch and tapping his foot at us.  He is patient and gentle. 

 

You know, if you try to make a plant grow taller and faster by pulling on the roots, guess what’s going to happen!  You’re going to kill it.  But if you’re patient and tender, that plant will grow just fine. So I think that if it’s our own tendency to be impatient with people (which is really born out of a feeling that God is impatient with us), then we need to be reminded of the tenderness and the patience with which God treats us. 

 

But when Samuel finally does respond to God’s call, we see that he is called to function as a prophet.  Notice the first thing that Samuel is called to do.  He’s called to prophetically speak God’s word to Eli.  Samuel’s call was to listen to God and to proclaim God’s word to his people. 

 

That’s the task of the elders (who are the ministers and overseers of the church).  That’s the task of ministers of the gospel.  The task of ministers of the gospel is to serve as God’s mouthpiece so that people would encounter God himself, and in encountering God, would turn from their sin and turn to Christ through faith.  That’s why they pay us the big bucks!  The primary responsibility of men who are called to oversee the church is to present the word of God to the people of God. 

 

And let me tell you.  This is not an easy task for a few reasons.  One is that ministers of the gospel are notorious for being conflict avoiders.  A lot of pastors do not want to ruffle anyone’s feathers, so we don’t want to say and address issues that may be a bit controversial or make you feel uncomfortable.  It can be our tendency to, as the apostle Paul says, “to say what people’s itching ears want to hear.”   Many pastors have an insatiable lust for approval. 

 

I so badly want for you to like my sermons.  I really want you to be engaged, and to laugh, and I want to say something profound that makes you respect me and think that I have a devout spiritual life and deep theological insights.  I have to battle that issue before I begin to study a sermon passage, while I’m preparing it, while I’m preaching it, and after I finish preaching it. 

 

Every preacher, worth his weight in salt, battles that issue.  But if I or any other preacher decides to accommodate the word of God to fit our own imaginations of him, or if we come to the pulpit and try to show off our coolness, or we let the cultural fads – most of which will all be out of date 50 years from now anyway – if we let those fads be the grid through which we understand and preach, then woe to us!  Preaching the gospel isn’t cool.  It’s never been cool.  People throughout history – Christians throughout the world today – do not suffer imprisonment, and torture and death because it’s cool.  It just isn’t now and never will be.  The word of God pierces the heart like a double-edged sword.  If you come here or to any other church Sunday after Sunday and you don’t somewhat regularly feel a sense of conviction and just a little uncomfortable then you can be pretty sure that you’re hearing a profoundly diluted version of the word of God.  Does that make sense?  But I promise you that preachers battle that issue constantly.

Now a lot of preachers know this is an issue.  They see the car gradually swerving into the left lane, so they grab the wheel and crank it as far to the right as they possibly can.  So you go to church feeling like you better wear the full armor of God because that preacher is going to throw every condemning piece of ammunition possible at you.  Because grace is so cheap in the American church these days, it is the temptation of many of us to hurl tomatoes at the church and the world and come off as bitter and angry.  And the people feel beaten down.  Paul says that God’s word us useful for correction and reproof, but it is also useful for encouraging and building up.  There’s a tension in God’s word and preachers have the difficult task of afflicting the comfortable, and comforting the afflicted.

 

So what does that mean for you?  It means a number of things, but one of the things it means is that you need to pray for and encourage your pastors and elders.  The task of overseeing the church, protecting her from false teaching, protecting her from radical sin, holding firm to the word of God, figuring out the best and wisest ways to bring that word to bear upon God’s people and to reach out to those who have yet to receive Christ as he is offered in the gospel; that’s not as easy as it may sound.

 

You know, the very first ministerial task that Samuel had here was to go to Eli – his much older mentor – and say, “Yeah, God said that you and your sons are under God’s condemnation and there is no possibility of forgiveness for you.”  I kind of doubt Samuel was saying, “Oh God!  I’m so thankful you asked me to deliver that message!”  Verse 15 says that, “Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.”  Yeah!  No kidding!  But that is very often the task of the overseers of Christ’s church; to proclaim a message that could cause him to lose friends, or to unsettle people.  It’s always easier to avoid that message. 

 

So pray for us.  Encourage us to keep on track.  God raises up leaders in the church as sign of his goodness to us.  That’s one way he shows grace to the church. 

 

But the second way he shows forth his goodness and faithfulness to us is by speaking.  The good news is that God speaks and when he speaks, his words don’t fall to the ground.  Folks, your God is not silent.  He doesn’t speak to people through these kind of mystical experiences or anything like that, but he speaks through his word and according to his word.  He speaks through affirmations and propositions and stories that exist in his word.  The Holy Spirit is constantly working, making that word understandable, and applicable, and a vital reality in our lives. 

 

Samuel’s task was to speak what God has specially and authoritatively revealed to all the people and because the word that Samuel spoke was not Samuel’s words but God’s words, those words did not fall to the ground.  In other words, they always had – and continue to have – their affect. 

 

You know, our words very often fall to the ground.  When God says “Let there be light,” there’s light.  When we say let there be light, we have to go turn it on!  God’s words are always effectual.  Does that make sense?  So when Jesus says that, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through me,” that word will have an effect.  Because what he’s saying is that if you are to truly enjoy God, if you are to know that you can stand confidently before God the Father, then Jesus’ word must break your pride, it must humble you, it must drive you to the end of yourself and from going your own way, living according to the truth you have created for yourself, and from deriving life from things that God has created rather and instead, begin deriving your life and self-definition from Jesus.  And if you reject that word, it will crush you.  You will personally experience the consequences of seeking life and God’s eternal blessing apart from Jesus Christ.  So there is no escaping God’s word. 

 

So if God’s word doesn’t fall to the ground, if it doesn’t return void, if as Jesus says, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” then why not strive to ground our whole lives on the word of God?  Why not retune what you’re listening to in this life?  If you do that, you’re not going to be an aimless wonderer.  You’re going to be grounded in something transcendent and unchanging because God himself is transcendent and unchanging. 

 

Folks, it’s impossible to follow Jesus if his word is not traversing through your veins because the only way that we know Jesus is through his word.  In fact the word of God was so deeply woven into the fabric of Jesus’ earthly life that whenever he was tempted, whenever  he was challenged, whenever we was physically and emotionally and spiritually suffering, Scripture was coming out of his mouth. 

 

Folks, is that the case for you?  Listen.  Whenever you’re experiencing pain, whenever you’re experiencing trial, or hardship, and when you’re at the end of your rope, whatever it is that’s inside of you comes out.  So what comes out of you when you experience that kind of pressure?  God says in Psalm 1 that when the pressure comes, the one who delights in, and reflects upon, and struggles to understand what it personally means to be a recipient of God’s holiness and justice and goodness and truth, is like a deeply rooted tree that cannot be shaken by the storms of life.  Does that characterize you?  Or are you like the other person in Psalm 1 who spiritually and emotionally blown all over the place when all heck breaks loose? 

 

Folks, as we get ready to come to this table, we should remember that Augustine called the Lord’s Supper a “visible word” because it visually signifies and seals what Jesus has revealed about himself in his word.  It’s a word of grace.  It’s a word that says that Jesus, in all his beauty and perfection and goodness and truth came, suffered, and died so that through faith in him we might live, and enjoy his blessings, and receive his promises.  That’s a good word – a promise – that belongs to all who look to him in faith.  Let us turn to him now in prayer.

 

 

 

 

 

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