Sermon Tone Analysis

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Text:  1 Sameuel 7
Title:  Setting Up an Ebenezer
 
Textual Theme, Goal, Need:
Theme:  God helps those who commit themselves fully to him.
Goal:  to encourage the people of God to commit themselves fully to him.
Need:  Israel had turned to the false gods of Ashtereths and Baals.
Sermon Theme, Goal, Need:
Theme:  God helps those who commit themselves fully to him.
Goal: to encourage the people of God to commit themselves fully to him.
Need:  We often try to do the work of God while still bowing down to other things in our lives.
Textual Outline:
 
Textual Notes:
 
 
Sermon Outline:
 
 
Sermon in Oral Style:
 
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
          Christians are confused individuals.
We hold on to truths that are steady and unchanging.
We believe in a God that is forever and unchanging.
*But we change.*
Our culture changes.
Our world changes.
Changing, finite people trying to hold on to a eternal and unchanging God.
It’s a recipe for serious confusion.
That’s probably why it always tends to be easier to look out for ourselves first of all.
You have a major decision to make.
You pick the one that makes you feel the best.
Should I get a new car?
Should I get a new job?
Should I get a new husband?
*Its much easier to put ourselves first because if we do, we can’t go wrong.*
“I did it because its what I felt like doing.”
I think Woody Allen sums up the idea the best when he told everyone why he was okay marrying his ex wife’s adopted daughter.
*He said.
The heart wants what it wants.
You can’t fault a person for just following their own heart can you?*
 
          *It is so much simpler to follow your own heart than it is to try to follow the heart of God.*
We all deal with that problem.
We all tend to stumble into that trap that we hear in cheesy movies all the time.
“Just follow your heart.”
Following your own heart and having a happy ending is something made for the movies and it only happens in the movies.
Its dangerous when we start falling for that line of thinking.
The passage we are going to look at this morning is one that deals with the right path to follow.
We are going to start at 1 Samuel 7:2.
It says, 
 
*“/2/**It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord.**
**/3/**And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, 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.”**
**/4/**So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.**
**/5/**Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the Lord for you.”**
**/6/**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 of Israel at Mizpah.** **/7/**When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them.
And when the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines.**
**/8/**They said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.”**
**/9/**Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it up as a whole burnt offering to the Lord.
He cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.**
**/10/**While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle.
But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites.**
**/11/**The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car.** **/12/**Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen.
He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the Lord helped us.”**
**/13/**So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again.
Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines.**
**/14/**The towns from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to her, and Israel delivered the neighboring territory from the power of the Philistines.
And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.**
**/15/**Samuel continued as judge over Israel all the days of his life.**
**/16/**From year to year he went on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all those places.**
**/17/**But he always went back to Ramah, where his home was, and there he also judged Israel.
And he built an altar there to the Lord.*
God’s people in this passage hadn’t been following God alone.
They were living like the people all around them.
They had the same idols.
They were holding the same feasts and festivals.
*They were looking for direction in life, but not from the only living God that can give direction in life.*
They were wandering away, prostituting their hearts away.
Breaking their commitment to the only true God.
The God who chose them and rescued them when things were hopeless.
*God’s people were looking elsewhere for direction in life.
IT doesn’t make much sense.*
Samuel comes as God’s rescue party to the people.
Instead of watching them crash and burn following the wrong direction and the wrong gods, God in heaven sends Samuel to them.
*He reminds them, listen to this, he reminds them that it takes returning to have the right direction in life.*
He says, *“If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, 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.”*
My son, Cory is two years old right now.
He just learned how to play the game Candy Land.
But he doesn’t have the game all figured out yet.
He knows he is supposed to try and make it to the Candy Castle at the top of the board.
He knows his colors and how many spots he is allowed to move.
But there are times in the game was the path twists and turns all over the place, that he forgets which direction he needs to be going to get to the candy castle.
*We never really grow up completely when it comes to giving our lives to Christ.*
We know what we can look forward to.
Not a candy castle but a the new creation with Jesus Christ.
Eternal life.
We get excited about that goal, but we lose the direction along the way.
We forget that we need to keep walking toward that reward.
If we have never been walking the walking Christ told us to, then we need to turn.
Turn around.
For most of us we have already felt the call of God in our lives.
We have already had a time where we have turned to follow the path that leads to eternal life.
We have walked toward the candy castle for quite some time, but now we are heading back to spend some time with Plump in the Gingerbread forest.
Seriously.
We have turned away from that goal in our life, to reach the city of God, to spend eternity with God.
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