Pentecost 3 - Listening

Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

1 Samuel 3:1–10 NIV

1 The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down. 6 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” “My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

6/2/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

Holy God, you search us out and know us better than we know ourselves. As Samuel looked to Eli for help to discern your voice, and as the disciples looked to Jesus for your wisdom on the Sabbath, so raise us up to be faithful servants who will hear Your Word and Your Voice with clarity and grace, We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Listening

Surprise!

Has God ever surprised You? Have you ever heard Him call your name out of the blue with a message made just for You? Maybe it was not a voice from the clouds. Maybe it came from a friend instead. Or maybe you heard God’s voice in something you read. We can find many things online that claim to be in Jesus’ name. It tickles our ears, tells us what we want to hear, and nudges us further down the path we’ve found. We can scroll down our phones or look through our books for the encouraging words that will make us let go of our momentary woes, pick up our mats, and keep walking again round and round the same path we’ve trod since we can’t remember when.

But... when was the last time God surprised you? When did He last pull you aside and whisper something new in your ear that changed how you viewed the great big world He made around you? A view with new vision, that spurred you to mission, not of fixing or making, or baking, or taking, or building, or planning, or teaching, or preaching, but the simple obedient faith like a child of following Jesus wherever He leads and learning to love everyone that He sees, and proving that love in our words and our deeds.

It is easier for us all to step back and do, to hand over our keys to somebody new without truly passing on the responsibility, the lessons we learned, the mistakes that we made, and the consequences we still face. It is easier to drop it all off at the next door post than to pick up and lead in the right way to go. We can let whatever happens happen and go with the flow, and look for the smiles and signs that it pleases the people we spend our days to serve. But that is not the straight and narrow road our Lord calls us to follow Him on as He takes us and shapes us into servant leaders of God. The first thing leaders need to learn is to recognize the voice of Jesus.

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Ignorance

Little Samuel was a miracle child, an answer to prayer for a mother who could not bear children, who wanted nothing more than to bear her husband a son. She spent her mother’s days in tearful prayer, and God heard her and answered with the birth of a boy. But a second miracle happened when Hannah kept her word and gave up her son to be raised by the Lord and His High priest named Eli, already a father of two sons who were not following the Law. They were using their status as priests of God to take for themselves whatever they wanted from the people they served.

So Samuel grew up without a mom and barely a dad, although Eli grew fond of the poor little lad, and Samuel did whatever he could to please the high priest until one night, God called him while everyone was asleep. No one knew the young boy or would call him at night when the whole house was dark but for one little light. So Samuel thought it was Eli who called, so he got up from his bed near the Ark of God, and he went over to Eli and asked what he needed. But Eli had been sleeping. He had not called for Samuel. So he sent him to bed, thinking he was mistaken. Perhaps it was all just a dream that he heard a voice call his name, but then Samuel heard it again, this time while he was still awake. He did not know who it could be, and no one else was there, so he went back to the priest, and Eli sent him again back to bed,

“It was not I that called you, “ he said.

A third time, God called out Samuel’s name and when he returned to Eli, the priest thought through this again. This priest had gone blind and lost some of his hearing, but he remembered the tales of back when the Lord made regular appearances and spoke to the people from heaven, from fire, and from the Ark of the Covenant. God called forth His prophets and spoke words of judgment. His Spirit led them through victories and punished their disobedience. It had been a long time since Eli had heard the voice of His Lord bringing forth His good Word.

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Preparation

So when Samuel returned, Eli knew it must be the voice of God calling the young boy to be, His prophet, His priest, and maybe a judge of the People of Israel, the people of God. Blind Eli passed his light to the young boy God called and told him who it must be that had called out his name three times in the dark now sleeping next to the Ark. Eli told Samuel the next time He heard God call out his name, to answer quick and sure:

“Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

That simple instruction was all Samuled needed to be introduced to God. And Samuel believed when God called him patiently again, a fourth and final time, this one dark holy night. God told the boy of the plans He had for Israel and for the man who raised him up in God’s own house, for the judgment was coming for Eli, the priest, because he turned a blind eye to the older sons who ran free and wild and served only themselves. They wouldn’t recognize the voice of God either when He called.

The poor miracle boy, born by God’s intervention, and left for the Lord to raise with the intention to make Samuel His prophet to lead all His people out of lawless behavior and back to that promise that came with their land, which God said they would lose if they disobeyed His commands. But it took a blind priest who failed as a father to have one last chance to raise up another one, a third son, who knew nothing about leading except to recognize God’s voice and to listen and heed it.

“Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

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Listening

Who are you responsible for? Who do you lead? What yoke do you carry on your shoulders today? Who is counting on you to pass on that light to carry on forward, deep into the nights so that when God calls their name they will recognize His voice?

Do you know the sound of His voice?

Do you follow where He leads? Or do you make your best guess and ask forgiveness for misdeeds because you follow a fool who claimed ignorance was bliss? Our lack of understanding causes us to miss those moments when God speaks into our lives, calls us by name, picks us up, brushes us off, and puts our feet on sound ground again. The moment you stop listening to God when you pray, if you let the noise of the world block your ears and your eyes, and become blind and deaf like that old priest Eli, that is the moment you will leave the Lord’s way, and anyone near you might be led astray. We can shift the blame on our children and grandchildren we lead claiming it is their choice whether they are faithful or not. But can we truly blame them for making poor choices, when they cannot pick God out from all of the voices of imperfect people that push them and prod, lying voices who pretend to speak out for God?

No. In all of this, we have only one saving grace. That if we have seen Jesus, we know God’s own face, we recognize His voice, and we know what He said in His Word, which will put all the scoffers to bed until God calls them all out by name in the night, and they recognize the voice they always sought to fight against hearing and heeding and following so they know who they are and they know which way to go.

So we stay in the Bible, keep reading God’s Word, and we pray every day, every chance that we get, and we check with each other to make sure we’re on track, that the people of God have not forgotten God’s voice. Without ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing in you and me, we cannot make a faithful choice. We cannot follow God’s powerful voice if we do not know for ourselves.

The greatest gift we can share is a testimony of what God is doing in us. I was blind but now I see, I was deaf but now I hear. I was lost but now I’m found. I was lame, but now I leap, and I have Jesus to thank for all that I have and it is Jesus who leads me wherever we go. He leads and I follow because He knows the way, and I know His voice as I continue to pray:

“Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”

I will tell you what then next I heard and we can check it with His Holy Word, to make sure it does not contradict Who He is and you can help me make sure I don’t misunderstand or mistake some other voice or project my own plans into what I thought that God spoke to me. We can hold each other to the truth together. And we will pass on that light to those that we lead when we share what we heard from the Lord when we said,

“Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”

And then one day they’ll join us, and we will all hear the voice of our God who rests but does not sleep, who calls out across the deep, every day and all night, to bring everyone home, from the fathers who failed us and mothers who left us alone, and to heal our brokenness as we forgive the sins that trap us in bitterness again and again because God will provide, and not just our food. He will give us the grace that we need to be good, and love one another in overfilled heaps, so that no one will find themselves lost in the deep and hungry darkness that threatens to swallow us whole. Instead, we will know the voice of our King when He calls out to the world for His servants to bring their harvest of spiritual fruit to His table, and there together we will all come to Jesus’s table, to be filled with His grace and carry all we are able back out to the world which does not know His voice until He returns and the whole world is gathered and every knee bows and everyone looks to Jesus and says:

“Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”

Brothers and sisters are you ready to pray, are you ready to hear God’s voice speak to you today?

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, Your precious Son, our Lord Jesus, taught us that we cannot live on bread alone but that we live on every word that comes from Your mouth. Some of us are starving for Your Word today, Lord. They need to hear Your voice and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is You. Call their names in a way that they cannot deny, and tell them exactly what You want them to hear today. Be it good news or bad, we need to hear it because our lives depend upon it. Some are struggling to follow what You have given them, and face hard decisions, and may not know how to go through with them. Speak to them again, Lord, today and show them where You are going ahead of them, preparing their way. Every one of us needs to hear from You, Lord. The world tries to pull us away from You and distract us with sin and temptation. It tries to make us blind and deaf to You. Call out our names again through the darkness and noise and help us all to remember Your voice so we can share it with others who do not know You yet and encourage those who are still struggling. We are here today to be reminded that we are Yours before anything else in this world. Speak, Lord, Your servants are listening.

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