1 Samuel 7:2-12 Return to God

1 Samuel 7:2–12 ESV

2 From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. 3 And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only. 5 Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.” 6 So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. 7 Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. 8 And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” 9 So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him. 10 As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. 11 And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car. 12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”

When we get saved we know who Jesus is and we know what is expected of us. We don’t have an issue following God at that point. We know that we are sinners and we know that we need Him to save us and that only by the power of God can we be saved. We surrender to Jesus and we are saved and then we start to follow God. We have no issue admitting that we are sinners at this point. God brought us to the point that we need Him and we know it. Along the way though something happens. We start out strong. We want to be different and for a time we are.

How is your relationship with God today? Are you walking with Him closely? Are you walking with Him at all? Maybe you have plateaued or maybe you have even slid backwards from where you once were with God. Maybe something happened at some point and you lost your way. There are many things that could happen to get in the way of our relationship with God but in the interest of time we will examine three of them. These are the three that I think most often times cause us to be distant from God if not just plain living a sinful life.

The first thing that gets in the way is us. We get in our own way. We want so badly to please God that we forget what really pleases God. We start trying to do all the stuff and say all the things so that God will be pleased with us. We forget that God loved us first. We could do nothing to earn His love when we started and we can’t do nothing now to earn it either.

We get so caught up in trying to serve God and doing what we think will please God instead of just focusing on God and what we know pleases Him…loving Him and seeking Him. We try to earn our way into the grace of God instead of doing it through faith and trust. We begin to try harder and harder to get it right and the harder we try the more wrong we get it. It’s like we are swimming against the tide.

My story about the struggle I been having in my service to God that bled into my walk with the Lord, not how I fixed it but what it looked like.

The second thing that happens is we get tired of trying and then we walk away. We turn away from God we say that’s it I got nothing left and we just turn our backs and walk away. We just can’t take another set back or another failure and that’s it… we just quit. What we don’t see is the setbacks and the failures is God’s way of directing us and keeping us from making the wrong decisions and being in the wrong place but we view it from the me angle. What I want and what I am willing to do for God and what I want my relationship with God to be and how I want to serve God.

I used to always tell the kids before you quit remember why you started. Now that’s easy to say but it is hard as all get out to actually do. The reason we get tired is because we are at war but we go with an empty gun. We have again view this as a war instead of guidance. We are not really fighting against evil we are fighting against God’s will in our lives. We aren’t prayed up and read up and studied up so that we understand the fight…when it comes is not ours..it is not ours to start with the battle belongs to the Lord. We want to fight our battles and win the war and be the hero. The issue is that this leaves no room for the God’s glory in our lives. We are not being obedient or humble. Refer back to the first issue. We want to be able to earn what God so graciously gives us by His grace and mercy. Instead of being still and hearing God speak to our hearts.

I want to win the fight and when I can’t seem to overcome the enemy and I can’t get life to go right I quit. I get beat down and I just give up and walk away. “After all if God loved me He would not let me suffer like this…He would not let me go through that….He would not put me in the fire…He would give me an easy life of service to Him…..” None of this is promised church none of that. He said I will never leave nor forsake you and He hasn’t. God didn’t leave us we left God.

The third thing that happens is we judge our walk by someone else’s walk. Man did you know that First Baptist Amite is on fire right now. They are baptizing folks left and right. Man people are getting saved and God is just working there in that church. If I was so inclined as a preacher I could look at that and say what am I doing wrong that this is not happening at my church. I want to see a lot of folks baptized and saved.

“I want my life to look like their life looks.…I want the walk that so and so has…I want to be so full of the Holy Spirit that when a mosquito bites me it flies off singing there is power in the blood…”

The trouble with that line of thought is my walk is not theirs and theirs is not mine. I get out of whack and suddenly I have no walk to speak of because I am too busy trying to hard, I am getting beat down from the fight, I start to look around and wonder what it is that is so all fired good about serving God.…I took my eyes off God. I am looking at someone here instead of someone there that loves me. I am looking to others instead of the cross for direction. I have fallen out of grace. Now how do I get back?

This passage of Scripture right here this morning tell us what it looks like to want to be back in the grace of my God. The first step is to put away whatever it is that I have made an idol out of. Whatever it is that I am serving more than my God has got to go. Whether that is faith by works…whether that is someone….a job…a life that I think I want….whatever it is has got to go that is step one….Look with me at verse 3 1 Samuel 7:3

1 Samuel 7:3 ESV

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

The first step is to turn from the sin and repent. I have to tell God look I have become so self centered with wanting to serve you I have made that an idol. I have put service above obedience. I have stopped listening and took off running trying to do enough to get you to love me and I know in my heart that you loved me before I loved you. I want to put anything out of the way that is stopping me from the relationship I desire to have with you…I just want you God…..You are my God and I only want to love you and be obedient to your voice. I am going to only serve you.

Go back to the altar at the moment of your salvation and remember what it looks like to surrender your heart to God. Go back where you started from. That is what I had to do in my life and in my ministry. Fall in love with God all over again. Cry out to Him and just fall on His grace and mercy.

The second step is to pray. Get on your face before God and just pour out your heart to Him. Tell Him how much you love Him and how sorry you are that you walked away from Him. Tell Him you’re sorry for just up and quitting when it got hard. Tell Him that you are His and you have returned to His love and you desire to know Him more and that He is all that matters.

You can never walk so far away that God cannot be where you are. I don’t care how far you have gone my God loves you church. The God that forgave you the first time just wants you to come home. Ask someone to pray with you about what you are walking through. You don’t have to do it alone. If you don’t have a prayer partner… call me please let me be in prayer with you. Let me pray for you and with you so that you can come back to God.

The last step is to not just be repentant about the consequences of your sin. You should be crying out to God asking forgiveness for the sin that drove you away not because of the situation that sin put you in. It has to come from a repentant heart a heart that is broken because you have sinned against God…whether that be from convincing yourself you could earn God’s grace…whether that be walking away from God…whether that is putting something before God…don’t just be sad that you are in the situation be sad that you sinned against the one that loved you even when you didn’t deserve it.

Samuel said the only way to return to God is with your whole heart. You can’t just get in a bind and say well if I go back to God He will fix this so let me go repent. Save the prayer folks that ain’t gonna work. If I am going to be repentant and turn back to God it has to be all the way.

Go back where you first knew that God loved you back to the beginning where you first got saved and remember that you did not deserve it then and you don’t now and that is what makes it so special that God loves us that much. You have to mean it.

Here is the good news this morning. In this story we see where the people say we want to return to God and Samuel calls them together and he is offering a sin offering on their behalf when the Philistine army arrives at the door. They are coming in strength to deal with this great gathering of God’s people. The people did not look at the enemy they looked instead to God. They said “Don’t stop praying for us keep asking God to save us.” Look at verse 8 1Samuel 7:8

1 Samuel 7:8 ESV

And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.”

They did not look any longer at the situation they just looked to God. When you turn all the way back to God and you go back to the beginning God will not fail to be there. He not only stopped the attack he gave his people victory. That same victory waits for you today. If you have fallen down…… If you have back slid..……If you have walked away…today is the day that God is calling you back to Him.

You have not gone to far…you have not failed so badly that my God will abandon you…you have not sinned so bad that God won’t forgive you…if you seek the walk you once had it is there for you to have.…all you have to do is ask for it.

Invitation….