Sermon Tone Analysis

TEXT:             1 Samuel 8:1-22

 

E.T.S.:             Samuel experienced a series of personal and professional disappointments in fulfilling his ministry.

THESIS:         Trusting God in spite of disappointments can lead us into greater service to God.

 

PURPOSE:     M.O.

Supportive

                        S.O.

Seek God, and trust Him, when disappointments strike.

TITLE:            Dealing With Disappointment

 

 

 

OUTLINE

 

Introduction.

Opportunities often come in disguise.

E.T.S. Samuel couldn’t have been more disappointed.

Yet God was in charge in spite of them all.

THESIS.

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Disappointment over age (8:1a).

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Disappointment in children (8:1b-3).

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Disappointment in people (8:4-20)

 

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Disappointment in God (8:21-22)

 

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God was ready to do a new thing.

(8:7).

\\ \\

 

Conclusion.

Disappointments can be opportunities in disguise.

Trust in God when we’re at the end of our rope can be a new beginning.

THESIS.

*DEALING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT*

*1 Samuel 8:1-22*

 

 

Opportunities often come in disguise.

Kay Arthur tells how bitterly disappointed she was when she contracted a heart infection that caused her to have to leave the mission field in Mexico.

“I felt like a failure,” she wrote.

“Depression set in until I cried, ‘Father, whatever you want.’”

She continued: “It would be several years before I’d see how He’d use those formative years of study in Mexico to prepare me to write inductive Bible studies that would eventually reach fifty-two countries.”

“My disappointments aren’t over,” Kay admits.

“Pains and trials are almost constant companions, but never enemies.

They drive me into His sovereign arms.

There He takes my disappointments and works everything together for good.”

God took Kay Arthur’s disappointment and turned it into a blessing for the world.

Experiencing disappointment is one of life’s trials we would rather not experience.

Yet at some time or the other we all will experience it.

Life disappoints us.

People disappoint us, even those closest to us.

We even disappoint ourselves.

Like Kay Arthur, Samuel experienced a series of personal and professional disappointments in fulfilling his ministry as a judge of Israel.

What seemed devastating to Samuel, God used to bless the entire world.

God was in control in spite of Samuel’s disappointments.

What were the disappointments Samuel experienced in his personal life and in his ministry?

(1) Chapter eight, verse one, tells us that Samuel had to deal with the disappointments brought on by old age.

(2) Verses 1b-3 tell us that Samuel was disappointed in his two sons, Joel and Abijah, who he had appointed priests and judges to serve in Beersheba.

(3) Verses 4-20 tell us Samuel was disappointed with the Israelites.

(4) Finally, Samuel was disappointed at God for agreeing to let the people have their way.

Samuel dealt with these disappointments as one whose life was controlled by God.

Rather than turn from God in bitterness, Samuel turned to God in prayer (cf., v. 6b).

By doing so, Samuel unknowingly participated in events that literally changed the course of history.

We can learn to deal with our disappointments in life by considering Samuel’s own struggle with disappointment.

We learn from Samuel that trusting God in spite of disappointments can lead us into greater service to God.

 

*Disappointment over age (8:1a)*

Samuel was an old man when the people came to him and asked for a human king to rule over them.

At the stage of life when many of us would be sitting back in our easy chair, reminiscing about past events, Samuel was about to begin the most significant part of his life and ministry.

Unlike some of us who long to retire, but circumstance and~/or necessity prevents it, Samuel was about to become involved in a scenario he could never have imagined.

His people were about to reject God’s direct rule as King over them, and his rule as judge.

His own ego took a direct blow, and so did his passion for God’s kingly rule.

You can imagine Samuel thinking, “Well, now you are trying to move me out to pasture.

Well I will show you!” Yet he did not do that.

In spite of his own feelings, instead of lashing out in anger, or taking it personally that the people actually said to his face that “You are old,” Samuel took the matter to God in prayer.

By doing this, Samuel revealed a high level of /self-control/.

Through prayer Samuel let go of his frustrations and grabbed hold of God.

He was not ready to be put out to pasture, and neither was God.

God needed him more now than He ever had before.

George Matheson, the blind poet and hymn writer, wrote that, “The cure for age is interest and enthusiasm and work.

Life’s evening will take its character from the day which had preceded it.”

Yes, Samuel was old, but he was not “put-out-to-pasture old!”

He was a lot like Pearl Buck, who said, “I have learned so much since I was seventy.”

Overcoming disappointments associated with old age is not easy.

But just like God was about to use Samuel to change history, so God can use us for His glory when we turn to Him in prayerful faith, practice self-control, and do not let old age dampen our interest and enthusiasm for life and serving God.

 

*Disappointment in children (8:1b-3)*

Samuel’s two sons, Joel and Abijah, were classic PKs (preacher’s kids).

Samuel, no doubt exercising his power, had appointed his sons as priests and judges at Beersheba, which was the most southern district of Israel.

As the writer of the Books of Samuel put it, “…his sons did not walk in his ways.

They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.”

It’s not unusual for a sterling leader to have children who lack integrity.

But the problem is not limited to leaders.

It happens to parents from every walk of life.

Instead of earning the power and authority they possessed as leaders, as their dad had done (read chapter twelve for Samuel’s defense of his own integrity), Joel and Abijah thought they deserved it by being sons of THE GREAT SAMUEL.

Apparently, they gave in to the temptation to use their power and authority for their own advantage.

In the process, the people lost all faith in them as dispensers of true justice.

It’s interesting how much Joel and Abijah were like Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas.

(You can read about them in chapter 2, verses 12ff.)

Kenneth Chapin has written that, “…religion that moved from vitality to form to farce were the children of Eli and Samuel.”

God laid the blame for Hophni and Phinehas’s sins at the feet of their father, Eli, and eventually judged him and his sons.

Was Samuel to blame for his sons’ sins?

Had Samuel been so busy carrying out his ministry that he pretty much ignored them?

Did he possess the “Cats in the Cradle” syndrome, as Harry Chapin sung it in his song?

The text does not tell us.

We have every reason to believe that Samuel was a good father, and that Joel and Abijah simply chose to go their own way, and not God’s way, which was Samuel’s way.

Anyway, God is not wishy-washy when it comes to judgment.

He does not judge one person for a sin and let another get away with it.

Had Samuel been guilty like Eli, he would have been judged as Eli was.

Surely Samuel was disappointed with his sons.

What self-respecting father would not be?

After all, he found himself in this situation partly because of them.

The elders had said to him, “Your sons do not walk in your ways.”

That’s the nice way of saying, “You are old and are going to die, and your sons are not fit to fill your shoes.