Well, good morning.
Good to be back with y'all.
I was gone last week.
I was with a team of people in Guatemala visiting and helping out our ministry partners there in Guatemala.
We had a great trip.
We were there for five days, and that rolled over into Sunday.
We're going to share more about that trip, show some pictures, videos next Sunday.
This morning we're going to continue our series that we're going through in this winter and this spring as we're studying 1st and 2nd Samuel.
First and 2nd Samuel are actually sort of one book, one long book, one long Netflix series.
Eli and Samuel, The Rise and Fall of King Saul, David and Goliath, just epic, epic stories.
So this morning I want to tell you several stories from 1 Samuel, chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
So we have a little bit of ground to cover.
Our first story is in chapter 3.
The people of God have not been hearing from God, but then God speaks.
Now remember in the Old Testament, they didn't have the Bible.
So God spoke through prophets.
The prophet then spoke to the people.
So God spoke to his people through these prophets.
So we have Eli and we have Samuel.
Our scripturing this morning is that story in chapter 3 that Samuel, the boy, is asleep in the temple.
He hears a voice.
He runs to the older guy, the priest, Eli.
You called me?
You know, and Eli's like, man, why'd you wake me up?
Go lay back down.
I was asleep.
Again, Samuel hears the voice.
No, no, no.
Eli says, No, no, no, go lay back down.
Finally, Eli realizes what's going on.
We get 1 Samuel 3:9.
Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, go lie down.
If he calls you, you shall say, Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.
So Samuel went and laid down in his place.
Point number one is this God initiates revelation.
We could say God initiates relationship with all of us.
He speaks to us, we listen and respond.
Well, good news.
Puppy Masterson has arrived to the Masterson house.
I know you're just waiting to hear about us here.
On Wednesday, Christy and I went and picked up our new Bernadoodle puppy.
This is Puppy Brock.
He is Brock Bowers Masterson, of course.
Brock was born on Thanksgiving week.
He was fed and cared for by his mama.
This is Mama Nikki.
Nikki is a 60-pound Bernice, beautiful, beautiful mountain dog.
Now I'm going to show you a picture of his dad.
True story.
Blaze is a mighty sixteen pounds.
He's a little fancy.
We will not be showing Brock a picture of his father at all.
So Brock was born, his mom feeds him, Brock sleeps with his brothers and sisters, and then one day we just show up.
We show up.
We had gone online, we'd researched, we emailed, we called, we had a phone conversation, we prepared a home for him, we bought a crate, bed, toys, and then we showed up, right?
We initiated relationship with Brock Bowers, the puppy.
He only received.
That's how we are with God.
We are the receivers of God initiating relationship with us.
Our spiritual practices, which are good and needed, are putting us in the position to receive.
God is always on the initiative to win over my heart and your heart and to speak to me and speak to you.
Our role is to live in a receiving posture.
So this 1 Samuel 3, Samuel is asleep, probably in the inner temple before dawn.
Samuel is awoken by that voice, runs to Eli.
See, the word of God came at last to a boy.
Not a capable, like 30-year-old guy with mental and intellectual and ability and prowess.
No, just a boy.
God chooses to speak through a child.
And Samuel receives a message for Eli, the priest, his mentor.
See, Eli's sons had blasphemed the Lord, and Eli did nothing about it.
So the message that Samuel receives is that Eli will no longer be the prophet.
Can you imagine being this boy?
And you have to go to your priest and your mentor and say, hey, by the way, you're no longer the guy.
1 Samuel 3, 15 through 18.
Samuel lay until morning.
Yeah, he did.
He's like, I'm scared to go and tell this message.
Samuel lay until morning.
Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
But Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son, and he said, Here I am.
And Eli said, What was it that he told you?
Do not hide it from me.
May God do so to you.
And more also, if you hide anything from me, all that he told you.
So Samuel told him everything, hid nothing from him.
And he said, It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.
Eli becomes a warning to us about taking responsibility for what's ours to be responsible for.
And Samuel becomes an example for us of how to live in a receiving posture before God.
How to live as Christians.
How do I live as a Christian?
Well, you live in a receiving posture.
That's what Samuel does.
He receives, he listens, he knows, and then he grows.
That's what it means to be a Christian, to walk with Jesus and grow.
That you're receiving, you're listening, you're knowing the Lord, and you're growing in the Lord.
For Samuel, after this first hearing, everything changed for Samuel.
Everything changed because he heard the Lord.
He didn't hear tradition, he didn't hear church, he didn't hear religion.
He actually heard the God who created him and loved him speak to the core.
That's what we're talking about.
We're talking about speaking.
We're not talking about like you're hearing things in your ears, you're hearing things in the core of who you are.
About who you are, about how the world works.
I can remember being in college when that first began to happen for me.
It wasn't about church, it wasn't about tradition, it was about God actually beginning to speak to the core of who I am.
And I couldn't get enough of this.
To hear what is true about me and the world, to hear truth and grace for my anxious, weary, needy, sinful heart, I couldn't get enough.
So I phone called Desiring God.
It's just pre-internet.
Phone called John Piper's ministry.
Hey, I need some sermons.
Sent me those binders of tapes.
Y'all remember the binders of sermon tapes you get?
You pop the tape out.
Called Passion, Louis Giglios, send me some more sermons, send me sermon, those binders with the sermon tapes.
I go to the UGA business library computer lab.
We had free printouts.
You couldn't believe it.
I went in there and just print out theological documents, like just stacks, and they'd hand it over to me like I'm not sure you're supposed to be printing out theological documents in the business lab.
But here you go.
It's free.
I couldn't get enough because I had heard something.
I wasn't special.
I'd heard something.
God had initiated something.
You know the moment.
You can remember the season as a Christian when you begin to hear from the Lord in the core of who you are about what is true about you, what's true about your relationships, what's true about the world.
From this point on, Samuel has changed.
It's not a growth by effort, it's a growth by receiving what's true.
Second story, 1 Samuel 4.
Israel carries this ark into battle.
Now remember, the Old Testament, the ark is a symbol of God's presence.
But they don't really care for God, these people.
They just want a victory.
They don't want to lose.
So they're religious.
They want to do certain things to get certain things from God.
And God allows them to be defeated.
And the ark is taken.
1 Samuel 4, 10 and 11.
So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home.
And there was a very great slaughter, for 30,000 foot soldiers of Israel fell, and the ark of God was captured.
And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, died.
So Eli's two boys, they died.
Point number two is this God blesses us because he is gracious.
Not because we're religious.
Not because we earn it.
God decides to be gracious and bless us out of his own initiative to us.
The Israelites thought they were going to get this battle secured by what they did.
We're going to carry the ark in, we'll get the victory.
They could control God by their actions, but they never really cared about God.
Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher, he said this: To love God for what he is is the noblest of all affections.
To love him for what he gives is a lower form of grace.
Now that doesn't mean we don't love God for what he gives us, it just means there's an even greater spirituality, and that is to love God himself.
Here's how we paraphrase Spurgeon's teaching.
We are too prone to treat God as a reservoir rather than a fountain.
Coming to him only when we need supply instead of dwelling in him as our joy.
It's okay to come to him for needs, but the greater spirituality is that he actually is your joy, which means this, and this is what Spurgeon taught.
Using God treats him as a means to comfort, success, or relief.
And that's what the Israelites were doing.
Enjoying God is a fruit of grace, loving him for himself, even when gifts are withheld.
You see how that's the greater spirituality?
Because what that means is that when the gifts come, you say, Praise God, thank you, God, so much.
It's amazing.
And when gifts are withheld, you say, Well, God, I still have you.
You're still my joy.
Now, back to the story in that defeat, Eli loses both his sons.
The shock of all the news is too much for him.
He falls off his chair, breaks his neck, and dies.
End of story.
All right, third story.
1 Samuel 5.
The ark is in pagan territory.
The Philistines take this ark, they place it next to their created God, Dagon.
Here's an image of a statue of Dagon.
They created this god, made up God, their chief god of fertility and grain.
So they set the ark next to this statue they have, and the statue falls over next to the ark and breaks.
1 Samuel 5, 4 through 7.
But when they rose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord.
The head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold.
Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.
This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashdod to this day.
The hand of the Lord was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.
And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our God.
They said, We gotta get we got rid of this.
This is horrible.
And point number three is this all of our idols will fall, just like Dagon.
All of our idols will fall, but God remains faithful to provide.
Dagon is no different than any of the idols we have today.
Money, sex, power, acceptance, the next thing we want that suddenly is gonna make us whole or forgiven or okay.
Idols always promise, but never deliver.
They just don't have the power to give us that.
The best teaching on idolatry that I have found comes from Saturday Night Live with Adam Sandler.
We've watched this before because it's priceless on how idols work.
They're always promising, they just don't have the power to deliver.
Sandler runs a travel tour company for trips to Italy, and he is brutally honest about what these trips actually have the power to do.
Let's watch about two minutes.
We always remind our customers if you're sad now, you might still feel sad there, okay?
You understand that makes sense?
Our tours will take you to the most beautiful places on earth.
Hike the cliffs of the Amafi coast, fish with the nets in Torento.
Do this, I don't know.
But remember, you're still gonna be you on vacation.
If you stand where you are, and then you get on a plane to Italy, and Italy will be the same statue from before.
Just in a new place.
Does that make sense?
There's a lot of vacation you can do.
Help you unwind, see some different-looking squirrels, but it cannot fix deeper issues like how you behave in group settings or your general baseline move.
That's a job for incremental lifestyle changes sustained over time.
I want to be very clear about what we can do for you.
We can take you on a hike, we cannot turn you into someone who likes hypo.
We can take you to the Italian Riviera, we cannot make you feel comfortable in a boating school.
We can provide the zipline, we cannot give you the ability to say we and mean it.
You're not your sister.
We can provide you with a wine-tasting tour of Tuscany.
We cannot change why you drink.
Or the closer you become when you do, okay?
I'm sorry, but it's true.
And our friendly tour guides are happy to take your picture.
But remember, the pictures you're in are gonna have you in them.
And if you don't like how you look back home, it's not gonna get any better on a gondola.
It's just brutally true, and we laugh because it's true, right?
We've all done it.
The same sad you in your house.
If you got on an airplane and go somewhere else, it's still the same you.
Idols just don't have the power.
They don't have the power to change our inner issues, right?
An idol always works like this.
If I get blank, then I can be whole or victorious or enough.
But the idol doesn't have the power to deliver you.
The idol falls like Dagon.
That's why this story of Dagon falling is such a great metaphor for us, just to see how these things in the world that make great promises to us, but they can't deliver, how they fall.
But we remember Jesus' words, John 4, 13 and 14.
He's speaking these words to a woman who's tried to find wholeness in other places.
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
So the Philistines have this ark, it's causing bad stuff, so they move it around, but the bad stuff keeps happening.
After seven months, they've had enough.
And they think, we gotta just send this thing back.
We've had enough.
Take it, please, take it back.
1 Samuel 7, 3 and 4.
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 would deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only.
The idols were falling.
So Samuel called the people to repent, to surrender their pointless ways to joy, turn to the Lord.
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.
They were defeated before Israel.
And the men of Israel went out from Metzpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them as far below Betkar.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Metzpah and Sheen, and called its name Ebenezer.
You know, we sing that song, we sing a song every once in a while that has the word Ebenezer in it.
We forget what it means.
The word Ebenezer means stone of help.
And this is about how we live out the Christian life.
It's our last point.
We live in God's grace remembered, not our strength celebrated.
What we said when we started the church 13 years ago is we said, we want to be a church that people leave thinking more of the Christ, less of the Christian.
That we live our Christian lives in God's grace remembered, not our strength celebrated.
The Ebenezer stone stands as a testimony to grace that the Lord helps us, not because we're strong, but because he delights to help us.
That he delights to help you and care for you, have relationship with you.
He initiates that.
He pursues you, moves toward you.
This word Ebenezer is not a new word.
Back in chapter 4, 1 Samuel 4, Ebenezer was the site where Israel was defeated by the Philistines, where the Philistines took the ark.
By placing the stone here, Samuel's saying something really profound.
He's saying that the place of shame, where you were defeated, where you did not trust the Lord, that very place of shame, that weakness is not the end of our story.
Because God wants relationship with us.
That He comes into that very place to forgive, to redeem, and to transform.
That in our very places of shame, we can have Ebenezer's, we can have God's grace remembered.
And yet the problem in all these stories is the same.
The problem is that God is holy.
It's a holiness like fire.
You know, you have like a campfire and you throw a leaf in, it consumes the leaf.
You throw a little piece of trash in, it consumes the trash.
Like God's holiness is like that.
Fire just consumes anything you throw in.
But God also wants to be near his people.
He also wants to be near you.
And this is the reason and the greatness of Jesus.
That holiness of God is fully met in Jesus, and God can have relationship with us.
Paul explains it to us in Romans.
I close with this.
Romans 3, 23 through 26.
This is the message translation, so it's a paraphrasing.
Out of sheer generosity, he put us in right standing with himself, a pure gift.
He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be.
And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin.
Having faith in him sets us in the clear.
God decided on this course of action and full view of the public to set the world in the clear with himself to the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.
This is not only clear, but it's now.
This is the current history.
God sets things right, he also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the Ebenezer stone that in our very place of weakness, shame, lack of trust, you show up.
That your grace is enough, your provision of Jesus is enough, that the idols will fall, they can't deliver.
And that you provide.
Help us to not just enjoy your gifts, but to enjoy you.
Help revive in us a spirituality that's in love with you, that receives your love for us.
Help us to enjoy you.
Help us to trust more in the gift of Jesus.
Think more of the Christ, less of the Christian, live more in grace remembered, less in our strength celebrated.
In Jesus' name we pray.