SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: If you are a guest, my name is Matt Passmore.
SPEAKER_01: I am filling in for our pastor who today is out at the Chaffee campus and they're having a big deal after church.
SPEAKER_01: He's never really got to stay through the end of greeting people on their way out the door.
SPEAKER_01: So he was staying today, so we kind of worked together, sat together, and kind of talked about how we're going to present this message.
SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Reading through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we went through half of Judges into half of Samuel with Ruth in between.
SPEAKER_01: What part of that do you pick out to preach on?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we went through some power.
SPEAKER_01: Ruth itself.
SPEAKER_01: Today's quiet time was David and Goliath.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's just, whoo, we can go, we there's all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: What about the part of Hannah crying out to the Lord, give me a son?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is just, we are reading through, and I will just tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: When you get caught up in it, man, it's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: If you are not doing the chronological Bible, you do not have to go back and catch up.
SPEAKER_01: Start with us.
SPEAKER_01: We're in Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Dive in with us, get into it, and start reading with us because it has been.
SPEAKER_01: We're studying in Sunday school, a lady in our Sunday school class just a second ago, who hardly ever says anything.
SPEAKER_01: She says, This is what I read this week.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna tell you, it's the whole Sunday school class was like.
SPEAKER_01: How did we miss that?
SPEAKER_01: How powerful that was.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord stirs.
SPEAKER_01: And I think more importantly, it's not the Bible chronological Bible reading we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: You know what it is?
SPEAKER_01: It's getting into God's word.
SPEAKER_01: You know, listen, we were singing this song, and and um the song just a second ago, I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered.
SPEAKER_01: I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered, and that's going with what we're preaching on today.
SPEAKER_01: Learning to hear from God.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know learning to hear from God takes work?
SPEAKER_01: It's not easy.
SPEAKER_01: If it was, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: This church would be full.
SPEAKER_01: I would go wherever I would go, and they'd go, man, that's a man of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of my title, but the way I carry myself.
SPEAKER_01: And so many times we get going, and listen, we want to hear from God, but we don't want to do sometimes what it takes to hear from God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I know in my own life there's times I've been going the wrong path, and the Lord like slaps me in the head and says, I need you to hear this, but there's other times in my life that I've kind of pulled away from him and I'm having a hard time hearing him, not because he left, because I'm the one going away.
SPEAKER_01: And so today we're gonna dive in.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be in 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll take your Bible, open it to with me to 1 Samuel chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk today about one of the greatest stories.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I say that every time I preach, every by every story in the Bible is great.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of my favorite, but um, and it just fell in here.
SPEAKER_01: But let's pray as we as we're about to dive into God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, I come before you now.
SPEAKER_01: Humbled, that I even get a chance, opportunity to speak your word today.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I ask you to help me not say anything that distracts from your word.
SPEAKER_01: I cry out to you as we sat here today, Lord, help us hear your word and what you have for each one of us in our own lives.
SPEAKER_01: Bless this time and your word.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the stories as I grow up, is as I grew up as a kid, my dad would every now and then tell a Bible story, and this was one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_01: So if I get into it and start acting like my dad, just bear with me.
SPEAKER_01: It takes me back to kid, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_01: We're in 1 Samuel 3, starting in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: The boy Samuel served the Lord in Eli's presence.
SPEAKER_01: In those days, the word of the Lord was rare, and prophetic visions were not widespread.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just stop there just for a second.
SPEAKER_01: As I read that, there is a word right there that just jumps out.
SPEAKER_01: The word rare.
SPEAKER_01: Now, yesterday I was doing burgers, and my wife does not like that's not the rare we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Rare.
SPEAKER_01: Not occurring very often.
SPEAKER_01: Very unusual.
SPEAKER_01: So think of the word rare right here.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read this again.
SPEAKER_01: In those days, the word of the Lord was rare.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a scary place to be?
SPEAKER_01: But we see this, what we've been learning.
SPEAKER_01: We have seen this all through.
SPEAKER_01: As you're reading the Bible, the chronological Bible, we see this.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord would send a Moses to lead, and when Moses died, now we're into the judges, he would send a judge, and they would start following the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The judge would die, and then what would happen?
SPEAKER_01: They sought what they wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01: And then they would get so bad that what?
SPEAKER_01: They had no choice but to cry out to the Lord again.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord would send a judge.
SPEAKER_01: So we're on this cycle, right?
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I've seen.
SPEAKER_01: Each time the judge would pass away or move on, it's like the people would get eviler and eviler.
SPEAKER_01: They ended judges.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this, they ended the book of Judges with just perversion.
SPEAKER_01: And a civil war.
SPEAKER_01: Then we get into Samuel, and the first thing we see in Samuel is what?
SPEAKER_01: Not only are the people evil now, Eli, the high priest's sons, are what?
SPEAKER_01: Perverted.
SPEAKER_01: The temple itself is perverted.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of God, because what?
SPEAKER_01: Man has what?
SPEAKER_01: Turned for God and did things that they thought were right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: So this is where we're at.
SPEAKER_01: No wonder the Lord and his word was rare.
SPEAKER_01: But then we also look at the very first of that.
SPEAKER_01: It says, the boy Samuel served the Lord in Eli's presence.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Real quick, I want to tell you where Samuel came from.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel's mom, Hannah, was without a child, and she would go to the temple and pray yearly.
SPEAKER_01: She cried out to the Lord, please give me a son.
SPEAKER_01: She said, If you give me a son, I will give him back to you.
SPEAKER_01: Not only a promise, but a vow.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord gave her a son, and she did what the Lord said.
SPEAKER_01: Or she did what she said she would for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine this?
SPEAKER_01: At the age of three to five, she packs up her son Samuel, that the Lord she had cried out to, takes him to the temple, knocks on the door.
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't know, that's not in the Bible, but here's my son that I said I would give back to.
SPEAKER_01: Eli, the high priest, takes him in.
SPEAKER_01: And then read it again.
SPEAKER_01: Listen.
SPEAKER_01: The boy Samuel served the Lord in Eli's presence.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see later that almost Eli had given up on his sons, and he was training Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: So as we continue in verse 2, the day, one day, Eli, whose eyesight was failing, was lying in his usual place.
SPEAKER_01: So he's lying down.
SPEAKER_01: Why in the world would Scripture say whose eyesight was failing?
SPEAKER_01: What does that have to do with anything in the story?
SPEAKER_01: Think about it just for a second.
SPEAKER_01: What does that have to do with anything in the story?
SPEAKER_01: But then you think about it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: His eyesight, his physical eyesight was going.
SPEAKER_01: But think about this.
SPEAKER_01: When we go back up and we read about the word of the Lord was rare, we see a lot of times in the Bible when the leaders, remember, he's the high priest, are not following the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's word are rare.
SPEAKER_01: This goes back to, I think it's a picture of not only is he physically blind, he's spiritually blinded.
SPEAKER_01: He's so blinded that he, the Lord already warned him, needs to discipline his sons.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He won't do.
SPEAKER_01: And not the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 3, before the lamp of God had gone out, Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was located.
SPEAKER_01: The thing that pops out right there is the ark of God.
SPEAKER_01: What is the ark of God?
SPEAKER_01: It was his throne.
SPEAKER_01: It was their way of this is who God is.
SPEAKER_01: This the Ark of the covenant was where God rested.
SPEAKER_01: Now think about this.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Knock, knock.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my boy.
SPEAKER_01: Is now what?
SPEAKER_01: Sleeping where?
SPEAKER_01: About as close as you could get to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about that just for a second.
SPEAKER_01: His tasks in the temple that he was doing.
SPEAKER_01: He slept there because the lamp, the candle is on, and he needed to keep it.
SPEAKER_01: If it started to go out, he kept it burning.
SPEAKER_01: It represented what?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When it was burning, it represented the Lord, and his job was to what?
SPEAKER_01: Keep it burning.
SPEAKER_01: He was sitting in the Lord, as close as the Lord as you could get.
SPEAKER_01: Then let's continue in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord called Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: That's how my dad did it.
SPEAKER_01: And he answered, Here am I.
SPEAKER_01: He ran to Eli and said, Here am I, you called me.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't call you, Eli replied.
SPEAKER_01: Go back and lie down.
SPEAKER_01: So he went back and lied down.
SPEAKER_01: Once again the Lord called, Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, Here I am, you called me.
SPEAKER_01: I did not call you, my son, he replied.
SPEAKER_01: Go back and lie down.
SPEAKER_01: Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
SPEAKER_01: Stop there just for a second.
SPEAKER_01: How in the world could he be raised in a temple and God's word had not yet been revealed to him?
SPEAKER_01: Do you think it has anything to do with the blinded guy?
SPEAKER_01: How in the world is he sleeping next or as close as he can to the ark?
SPEAKER_01: And he had not yet heard from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And then once again, for the third time, the Lord called, Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: He got up.
SPEAKER_01: He went to Eli and said, Here I am, you called me.
SPEAKER_01: Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the boy.
SPEAKER_01: Took him a while, but he finally got it.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel said, or he said to Samuel, Go and lie down.
SPEAKER_01: If he calls you, say, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
SPEAKER_01: So Samuel went down, laid down in his place.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord came.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen this time.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord came and stood there.
SPEAKER_01: And called as before.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Two times this time.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel responded, Speak, for your servant is listening.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Just a quick little deal.
SPEAKER_01: Man, God is just.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't just call him once.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't just call him twice.
SPEAKER_01: He called him four times.
SPEAKER_01: And on the fourth time, what did he do?
SPEAKER_01: He made his presence known.
SPEAKER_01: The title of this lesson or this message was Learning to Hear from God.
SPEAKER_01: I think we can see in this passage right here that we read some things that we see that Samuel did on things we can get some things that we see that Samuel being willing to learn how to listen to God.
SPEAKER_01: I think the first lesson here we see.
SPEAKER_01: Focus the ears of your heart on hearing the Lord speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean by focus the ears of your heart?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been sometime in your life that you wanted the Lord to speak to you?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, please, I need an answer.
SPEAKER_01: My finances are struggling, I need an answer.
SPEAKER_01: The doctor gives me a report, Lord, I need an answer.
SPEAKER_01: I've got two job opportunities, which what is a blessing?
SPEAKER_01: Which one do you want me to take?
SPEAKER_01: When have you ever been there where, Lord, I need an answer?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm crying out to the Lord, that's what we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_01: The idea of situating ourselves to hear from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a few uh, how do we set ourselves up to hear from the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: I think the first one that we have to remember.
SPEAKER_01: We have the complete Bible, the inspired word of God, to study and to meditate.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what 2 Timothy 3.16 says.
SPEAKER_01: All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have a hard time hearing from God if you're not reading God's word.
SPEAKER_01: That is his number way to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: His inspired word that is left for us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the other day I had a guy come in my office, this has been a while back, but he's sitting in my office and he says, I just feel like the Lord is, I can't, not around.
SPEAKER_01: And he was struggling.
SPEAKER_01: He was broken, it wasn't prideful, he was crying, he was struggling because he's like, I do not hear the Lord, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_01: And I asked this question When was the last time you read your Bible?
SPEAKER_01: You know what he told me?
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time to read my Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Now, oh, if we're not careful, we can be in that same situation, so I'm not throwing him under.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, if you're not hearing from God, check on your Bible reading.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the number one way that the Lord speaks to us.
SPEAKER_01: I think another way that the Lord speaks to us is through people.
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs, we see it all the time about listening to wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is something in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Who is your mentor?
SPEAKER_01: When Samuel got called and didn't know what to do, what did he do?
SPEAKER_01: He ran to his mentor.
SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget when I was uh growing up, I was uh 16 years old, and um, I was at camp, and I was being a boy at camp.
SPEAKER_01: I was there to have a good time.
SPEAKER_01: And I had a relationship with our student pastor, and my student pastor comes to me and he goes, Hey, you're uh I'm very disappointed in you.
SPEAKER_01: We come to camp to have a good time, but we are here to listen to the Lord speak, and you are distracting everybody around you.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was hard to hear.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was ticked.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't just mad.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, who in the world gave you the right to tell me what I should do at camp?
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: I was just I was angry because I thought, but you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I knew he was right.
SPEAKER_01: Thursday night at camp is when the Lord called me that year to special service.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what that was at the time, but if it wasn't for my mentor calling me out, pointing me the way I should go, the Lord could have still called, I'm not saying that, but do you see where I'm going with this?
SPEAKER_01: The idea of being able to because of him focus on the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: How many of those people do you have in your life that I read scripture, I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what does this say?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm going through this hard time.
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
SPEAKER_01: Because we live in a culture right now, it's easy to do.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm having a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Let me see what Google says.
SPEAKER_01: What are people saying on Instagram about that?
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of times we'll go to a counselor, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: God's word is never spoken about.
SPEAKER_01: If we're getting counsel, please, I beg you, make sure your counselor is in God's word.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Then we also see, I think, another way that we can hear from uh that uh that God uses as we set up to hear from him, and that is prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Praying for wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to him.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of us that do a lot of praying.
SPEAKER_01: And if we're not careful, a lot of our praying is, Lord, help so-and-so get better, help so-and-so get better, help so-and-so get better, help so-and-so get better.
SPEAKER_01: And there is nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_01: But there is a time where we cry out, Lord, give me wisdom to be who you've called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: In men's discipleship, we're talking about the guy leading, it was talking about his prayer life, and he said this.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I've trained myself that when I get an email or a text that I don't know how to respond to, you've been there?
SPEAKER_01: Like some complaint or whatever, he says, Before I reply, Lord, give me wisdom as I speak back into this.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'll have a big meeting or a counseling session, and before I go into the door, I do what?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, give me wisdom to tell the people what they need to hear, what I need to encourage.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think sometimes we do time praying, but there's we lack a lot of crying out to the Lord to what?
SPEAKER_01: Give us wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: And I also think a lot of time in our prayer, myself included, that I'm doing a drive-by prayer service.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling God everything I want him to know, and then when I'm done, I'm done praying.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's gotta be times in our life where we set still during our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: How did the Lord call Samuel in the quiet and the steel?
SPEAKER_01: We can get so busy that what?
SPEAKER_01: We're telling all the God things we think he should know, and then we don't take time to what?
SPEAKER_01: Give him a chance to talk back.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, lesson number two.
SPEAKER_01: So the first one is focus the ears of our heart on hearing the Lord speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: The second one is Present yourself as a listener to hear from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, those sound a lot alike.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let me tell you my point of lesson two.
SPEAKER_01: My wife is the greatest multitasker of anyone I ever known.
SPEAKER_01: She can have five tasks going on and they're all getting done.
SPEAKER_01: The other day I call her on the phone.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking to her, and I can tell she's doing other tasks.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking to her on the phone, and I know she's not listening to me.
SPEAKER_01: And so I say something bizarre.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, You're not listening to me, are you?
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, if you look at that, she was hearing me, but she wasn't listening to me.
SPEAKER_01: I think we, there's a, there's a, we see in Samuel, the first three times, he had no idea the Lord was calling on him.
SPEAKER_01: And then on the fourth time, what did he say?
SPEAKER_01: Think about how hard what he said was.
SPEAKER_01: Speak, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your servant is listening.
SPEAKER_01: He heard him for three times, but it wasn't until he was ready to what?
SPEAKER_01: Listen that he called out, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
SPEAKER_01: A heart willing to listen and obey is the key to hearing from God.
SPEAKER_01: Then it takes us to lesson three.
SPEAKER_01: Lesson three.
SPEAKER_01: Commit to respond to what the Lord says to you.
SPEAKER_01: James 1.22.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what it says.
SPEAKER_01: And if you got a pen, write James 1.22 down.
SPEAKER_01: Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself, but do what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that one more time.
SPEAKER_01: Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself, but do what it says.
SPEAKER_01: How simple is that?
SPEAKER_01: But how hard is that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the crazy thing about Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Once the Lord calls him and he says, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He gets some bad news.
SPEAKER_01: God tells him, I'm about to kill Eli's sons.
SPEAKER_01: Eli's gonna be gone.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine getting that word?
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, I'm gonna go back to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: He wakes up in the morning, the Bible says, you can read it, he goes about his normal duties, opening doors, cleaning stuff, making sure it was ready, and then here it comes.
SPEAKER_01: Eli.
SPEAKER_01: So, what did God tell you last night?
SPEAKER_01: Samuel at that moment could have been just like Eli and said, This.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: He said you're doing a good job.
SPEAKER_01: Keep up the good work.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't know what God said.
SPEAKER_01: You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: Probably one of the hardest things he ever did.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: He confronted the high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, if you read with what he told Eli, Eli could have put Samuel to death.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we don't realize the power of what was said and what was done right there, but he said exactly what the Lord told him to say.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what Eli said?
SPEAKER_01: Who, by the way, the Lord was rare at this moment, in his life even.
SPEAKER_01: He said, the Lord will do what his Lord wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: He knew.
SPEAKER_01: When I was um, before I got into the ministry, I taught school for seven years.
SPEAKER_01: And I loved every minute of it.
SPEAKER_01: I loved to get up in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna go make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I really truly loved coaching.
SPEAKER_01: I'd finally got into the high school.
SPEAKER_01: I was the head baseball coach at Lawton High, coaching football.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was having a ball.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord started stirring in me.
SPEAKER_01: I had this lady from my previous church.
SPEAKER_01: I was doing student ministry, FCA.
SPEAKER_01: I had a lady from my previous church.
SPEAKER_01: She called me and she says, We're looking for a children's pastor.
SPEAKER_01: And in my mind I chuckled.
SPEAKER_01: Children, she goes, We're looking for a children's pastor, and your name came up.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the Lord has gifted you in some ways to do this.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm not interested.
SPEAKER_01: And then she said this.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you pray about it?
SPEAKER_01: I kind of laughed, talked to my wife.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Why don't you pray about it?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Lord was already stirring in some things.
SPEAKER_01: So my dad told me growing up, my dad's a pastor, and anytime I have a big decision in life, he says, Hey, I think it's you need to fast over that.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget, deep down I was like, I really don't want to fast.
SPEAKER_01: I really just want to say no and just continue what I was doing.
SPEAKER_01: But I needed to know for sure what direction the Lord wanted me to do to go.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how my dad encouraged me to fast.
SPEAKER_01: Right, wrong, or indifferent, this is the way my dad encouraged me.
SPEAKER_01: That I would start off with a cry to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I am not going to eat until you give me an answer.
SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you this in my fasting, the Lord never answered on the first day.
SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes he wants to know, is it real?
SPEAKER_01: So day one went on, day two went on, day three went on, and I'm getting panicked.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what it did.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of my meals, lunch, or breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I would take find time to just read my Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Just kept reading what I was reading.
SPEAKER_01: My dad said, the one thing you want to do is manipulate God's word, just keep reading where you're reading.
SPEAKER_01: So I was just reading through that, stopping there.
SPEAKER_01: And then I was told this when you felt hungry, it reminds you to pray.
SPEAKER_01: By the third day, I was praying all day long.
SPEAKER_01: Mind you, during that time I was out mowing yards, and so it gave me a lot of time to, you know, in the summer to and I'm praying.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm crying out to the Lord, Lord, can you please, Lord, shut this down, really is what I was praying.
SPEAKER_01: But Lord, I'm willing to listen to you.
SPEAKER_01: And as I was reading through in the book in the book of Proverbs, it talked about being around wise people and in the coaching.
SPEAKER_01: I was just, and as soon as I read this passage of Scripture, I knew the Lord called me to be that children's pastor.
SPEAKER_01: So I apply at the church, I interview, I get the job.
SPEAKER_01: Now, right now I have two jobs.
SPEAKER_01: I have the children's pastor's job, I still have my teaching job.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you in education, it was like August the 1st.
SPEAKER_01: School started in about two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: So I went to the church and I'm like, man, I'm struggling with this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be disloyal.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I knew this.
SPEAKER_01: I knew if I was going to be the children's pastor God wanted me to be, I was gonna have to give up coaching because I would give too much energy to coaching and it would hurt this.
SPEAKER_01: I knew it.
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't know at this time what I should do.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm still crying out to the Lord, I'm still struggling with it.
SPEAKER_01: Lisa and I was praying through it, but I went in to talk to the principal.
SPEAKER_01: Brand new principal.
SPEAKER_01: I get an appointment with him, I go in to talk to him, I sit down.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I don't even know what I want to tell this guy.
SPEAKER_01: I start him hawing around.
SPEAKER_01: He stops me and he looks at me and he says, It sounds to me like the Lord's calling you into ministry.
SPEAKER_01: You need to resign now and do what God's called you to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm in a public school.
SPEAKER_01: You know what he tells me?
SPEAKER_01: Twenty years ago, the Lord called him to college ministry, he said no, and he kept teaching, and he has dreaded it.
SPEAKER_01: He has been, it has been something that has really bothered him his whole life, and he says, Don't be like me.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I walked out to my car, sat in my car, and just weeped because I needed that.
SPEAKER_01: Not only had the Lord given me a Bible promise, but the Lord, I'm listening the Lord set it up where I needed to hear that, and that day I resigned with confidence, knowing that the Lord had called me to something different.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when we get real before the Lord and we are willing to hear, listen, and obey, the Lord does great things.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will give you what you need when you're that serious.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the sad thing is I've only been that serious about four or five times in my life, and I am convicted of that today.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're sitting there today with a decision, I have no idea what to do, how to do it.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you today this.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll set aside to hear, listen, and obey, the Lord will speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: It might not be what you want to hear, but the Lord will be there to walk with you through it and show you how big he is.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you're going through.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if you're in a spot in your own life that the Lord's word is rare.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens.
SPEAKER_01: But we see in Scripture the only way to hear from the Lord is to draw close to him.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll bow your heads as we're going to set up to pray today.
SPEAKER_01: With your eyes closed, I do want to say this.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what 1 Samuel 3, 19 says.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel grew, the Lord was with him, and he was faithful.
SPEAKER_01: Everything he was fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, let me read that again.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel grew, the Lord was with him, and he fulfilled everything that Samuel prophesied.
SPEAKER_01: All the Lord's wanting to do is have a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, we come before you now, broken, humbled, but what a picture of your love and your faithfulness and your calling on our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we see that through Samuel's life and him's willingness to follow you, that he made a difference amongst everyone he was around.
SPEAKER_01: Help us be a church that wants that relationship and wants to hear from you and wants to do and respond to what you say.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, if there's someone in this room that is struggling with just the calling you're having on their life of salvation, Lord, I ask you to give them the courage to hear your voice today.
SPEAKER_01: If someone's struggling with a decision they need to make, Lord, I ask you to give them the courage to hear your voice today and do it.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, as we sing this last song, we want to give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, come fill this place.
SPEAKER_01: Break us to want to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.