Sermon Tone Analysis

*'Leadership that Works' (1 Samuel 7:2-17)*

 

/doomed from the beginning/

The trouble with the New Year’s resolution I made last January is that I can’t even remember what it is.

Fat chance about keeping my promise because I simply wasn’t serious about changing in the first place.

I know I need to change but such is the frivolous nature of New Year’s resolutions that I was doomed to failure even before I started.

I want to change but I don’t know how to change.

Today we move into 1 Samuel 7 and we move a step closer to Israel asking Samuel for a king.

The people want a king to rule over them and protect them from their enemies.

The people want to be like all the other nations around them.

In light of this chapters 4 to 6 make an important point: Israel don't need a leader to defeat their enemies.

Eli is gone along with his sons – there is no mention of Samuel although he's there in the background – and yet what happens in chapters 4-6 are that Israel's enemies are beaten  into submission.

No leader in sight but the Philistines are forced to honour the god of Israel.

The people of Israel didn't even have to lift are finger and their enemies are beaten into submission.

The obvious lesson is that God has no need of a human leader to deal with his people's enemies.

God can care for his people and bring honour to his name without human leadership.

The true leader of Israel is God  - the God that Hannah knew and he is well able to deal with the threats of the Philistines.

/the meaning of repentance/

/            emotional repentance (7:2)/

Chapter 7:2 tells us that the ark was in possession of the Philistines for some twenty years which gave the people plenty of time to consider their situation.

After twenty years the ark eventually comes home and ‘all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord’.

The reason why Israel are lamenting is perhaps earlier explained in 6:19, ‘The people mourned because of the heavy blow the Lord had dealt them’.

Israel had had enough suffering and misfortune.

Sadly, that might be like us, only when we suffer do we seek the Lord.

And the people mourn.

Repentance often begins with grief and sobs and tears of sorrow.

The overwhelming conviction that one sits hopelessly dependent upon God and his mercy.

And it is emotional and it is sobering to realise that my life is heading the wrong way and it needs a complete change of direction.

And yet people can be moved without being changed and I suspect herein lies the reason why many people apparently backslide in their faith – they although they were moved they were never changed.

/tangible repentance (7:3; Matt 10:37-38)/

Samuel’s preaching counters any sort of frothy repentance.

When Israel start mourning its certainly the moment Samuel has been waiting for.

He says to them in verse 3, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts (despite the emotion Samuel is unsure whether they really mean it), then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines’.

Samuel presses Israel to go beyond an emotional response to their misfortunes.

Repentance is much more than tears and saying ‘sorry’ – it is returning to the Lord with all your heart.

This is tangible repentance.

When the Bible calls on us to repent it means ‘return to God’ which assumes of course that we’ve been away from God because he’s not been at the centre of our lives.

Here’s Samuel’s first point to Israel: if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign god’s amongst you.

This is tangible repentance.

Samuel is doing no more than repeating the first commandment, ‘“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me’.

And some time later Jesus says, ‘“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me’ (Matt 10:37-38).

It is an ongoing need not just of the individual, but also of the church, to practice continual repentance for sin pushes us back toward the gods of this world and repentance forces us back to the one, true God.

 

/            difficult repentance (7:3-4)/

Tangible repentance is also difficult repentance.

Samuel tells Israel that it takes effort to repent and serve the Lord.

There is no way that Israel and us can have God on the sideline of our lives.

God cannot be one item on the shopping list we call our lives.

Our hearts must be firmly set toward him.

Our lives must be fully given to his service.

Anything else is not repentance.

See how hard this was for Israel!

The Ashtoreths were the goddesses of futility and love and war.

The female equivalent of the Baal gods.

And Israel was caught up in the Canaanite lifestyle and it was very seductive.

The Canaanite religion said you can worship by expressing your sexuality in the most lucid of ways – and all in the name of Baal and Asherah, and so your crops will grow!

The Canaanites found this mix of religion and sex very attractive and Israel joined the fray and how hard it is to untangle yourself from a lifestyle such as this.

And we may say how silly Israel was to adopt the religion of the people around them after all that God had done for them over hundreds of years.

And yet this also is our stumbling.

How hard it is for us to untangle ourselves from the gods of this world.

How tempting it is to have a foot in both camps – bow down to Yahweh and choose our 21st century gods of which sexuality is well and truly one.

I’ve lost count of the number of Christians I know that that practice sexual immorality and pretend its all OK.

Our culture applies enormous pressure to our desire to be holy.

‘Have your God’, they say, ‘and have ours as well’.

The seductiveness of material possessions.

Looking after self all the time.

More money in the bank.

Infatuation with self-improvement and self-gratification.

Relegating church to an optional extra – only if time allows.

‘Work a bit harder – earn more money – live as you please because your God is one of the boys’.

The post-modern genie castes its spell and the temptation is to abandon the authority of scripture and deny truth that binds and we confuse our own voice for the voice of God.

And holiness and bible study and evangelism and prayer are shunned as burdensome and unnecessary.

How hard it is for us to untangle ourselves from the gods of this world.

If you are repenting and returning to the Lord you must continually be ridding yourself of the old Australian ways – you must rid yourself of your self-made gods - you must turn your back on Australian idols and return your heart to the Lord.

Anything else is simply not enough – and it is simply not Christian.

Here must our desire be: ‘The dearest idol I have known, Whatever that idol be, Help me to tear it from Thy throne, And worship only Thee’.

Repentance – emotional, tangible and difficult.

This is why Samuel is cautious, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts […] rid yourselves and commit yourselves [and repentance comes with a promise] and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines’.

The merciful hand of God who will save you from your greatest enemy.

Israel’s response comes in verse 4, ‘So the Israelites put away their Baal’s and Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only’.

Genuine repentance is the proper preparation for God’s mercy.

How this happened is the subject of the next few verses.

/the Mizpah Convention/

/            Israel repent of their sins (7:5-6)/

Samuel assembles all the people at Mizpah – the Mizpah convention.

The details of Israel’s repentance are spelt out.

Samuel promises he will intercede for the people who are assembled there.

Verse 5, ‘Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the Lord for you”.

When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord.

On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.”

And Samuel was leader (or judge) of Israel at Mizpah’.

Unlike the situation in chapter 4, Israel dangle by the mercy of Yahweh.

The first thing they do is draw water and pour it out before the Lord – a sign of cleansing.

They accompany the action with fasting and confession and they say, ‘we have sinned against the Lord’.

It looks like real repentance is happening.

Dale Ralph Davis points out that ‘at the heart of Israel’s experience of mercy stands her own helplessness and utter lack of resources; prayer is her only recourse’.

Churches sometimes can be a bit too clever.

We can muster together programs and strategies and shape intricate ways forward – and all this thinking does have its place – but we can be so blind to our true spiritual condition.

We need to open our eyes and see the church that we really are – our leaders need to look hard at who they really are.

And the inevitable response is repentance and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God.

It is incumbent upon churches to admit their utter hopelessness and dependence on God.