MORE SUNDAY SCHOOL STORIES FOR GROWN UPS | God Calls Samuel | Ben Anderson

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Redeemer. If we haven't had a chance to meet before, my name is Ben Anderson, and I'm one of the pastors here. It's so great to spend a little time with you this morning. Hey, just a couple of quick things before we get into our sermon. First of all, and this one's really important to me. If you are a first-time guest with us this morning, I just want to give you a special welcome and let you know that we are so excited to get to know you as you get to know us. But if you are ready to be known, here's one of the best things you can do is swing by our welcome desk, which is available in the comments. There's gonna be someone there who would love to hear your story, get to know your name, and get you connected in in whatever way that you want to get connected, so don't miss out on that opportunity. Plus, uh, by the way, there's a special little gift there waiting for you. Uh, spoiler, it's a pair of socks. It's gonna be great. I know that doesn't make sense. Let me make sense of it for you, really quick. We're all about helping people walk in the way of the Redeemer. If you're going on a walk, what do you need? There you go. You got it. Okay, there we are. All right. One other thing. This is a special Sunday, like Isaac said, 110 years, and we're celebrating that with some ice cream. Don't worry, if you walked in, you thought, is it too late? It will still be out there. There's 110 toppings. I have a challenge I presented. No one's taken me up on it yet that I'm aware of. I need somebody bull of ice cream, all 110 toppings.

unknown 1:25

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

That's the only way to celebrate. So if someone can do that, I will give you a firm handshake to celebrate. That's a big, big deal. So don't miss out on that. But here's my hope, truly. In that moment, between bites of ice cream, I hope that you guys are making some great connections. Right? Meet a new face, reconnect with somebody you haven't seen in a while, and really build that environment where people are known and people are loved. Well, last summer, as we entered into the summer months, we launched a sermon series called Sunday School Stories for Grown Ups. We looked at all those classic stories that if you grew up in the church, you probably sat there with someone teaching you. Maybe it was a flannel graph, maybe a puppet show, right? Some great like 80s, 90s technology that we were using. And you heard these classic stories. In fact, maybe as you got older, maybe you were the one teaching those classic stories. Or maybe you didn't grow up in church, and so you didn't have that experience, but someone invited you to camp, someone invited you to vacation Bible school, maybe grandma who did go to church, when you went to her house, she would sit you down, she would open up that book, that kid's Bible, show you all the colorful pictures, and read you stories like Daniel and the Lion's Dead, David and Goliath, Noah's Ark, and so you started learning those stories. But here's the thing when it comes to those stories. We don't always get the whole story, right? We we have to make them kid friendly. But last year, as we had this conversation, many of you said that was my favorite series, and so we brought it back this year under the title More Sunday School Stories for Grown Ups. Which I know right now you guys are all marveled at my creativity. Like it's it's amazing. But here's the problem with those stories, right? When we get into them as grown-ups, when we open up our real, full adult, like the real Bibles, and we read these stories sometimes, they are shocking what we find. It's not quite what we remember. But it's a little bit jarring. Sometimes it's a little bit uncomfortable. In fact, my family, we had one of these experiences recently, specifically on August 13th, 2025. Now you might be thinking, how do you remember a date like that? Well, I will tell you, it was such an awkward moment. I took out my phone and I recorded it happening because I wanted to remember this moment. Here's what was going on. My wife was reading this kid's Bible to my kids, who at the time were three, six, and eight. Okay, so little kids reading this kid's story, and she does this faithfully, right, day in and day out. Well, all of a sudden, she's reading the story about David and Bathsheba. Now, if you're a church person right now, you've read the Bible before, you know that there's no way to make that story kids friendly. So I perk up, I pull up my phone, I was like, I want to see how this plays out. Start recording it. And so she's telling the story, and you can just see the kids like, what is happening? What is being communicated in this story? And they're asking all these questions. And I hear say these words. Well, it's kind of like if you're dad, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no. Like, we're just not gonna go there. You see, some of these stories are jarring. Like I said, they're uncomfortable. And the reason they are is because they're true.

unknown 4:45

Right?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

These aren't fairy tales, these are real stories with real people in a real history, and most importantly, with a real God who weaves himself into these narratives for our benefit. Well, today we're gonna start off once again by entering into a story that maybe you heard in Sunday school. The story of a young man by the name of Samuel. And when you were told the story, maybe it sounded something like this. Samuel lived in this beautiful big tent where the people worshiped God, and one night he was snuggled into his bed. And he heard his name being called. Samuel. Samuel. And he woke up, and Samuel was a very obedient boy, and so he ran to Eli, who was watching over him, said, Eli, what can I do for you? And Eli is like, I didn't call for you, buddy. You can go back to bed. And so he wanders back to his bed, falls asleep. Here's his name again, Samuel. Wakes up, ever obedient, runs off to Eli. Eli, what can I do for you? How can I serve you? How can I help you? And Eli says, Buddy, I didn't I didn't call you. You can go back to bed. Happens again, runs back to Eli. This time Eli figures it out. Like God is doing something here. And so he tells him, Samuel, when you go back to bed, this time if you hear your name again, remember these words. Say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. And so Samuel goes back to bed. This time he's he can't sleep. He's so excited. I mean, he's trying to remember this phrase. Am I saying it correctly? Speak, Lord. Practicing it, practicing it, practicing it. All of a sudden he hears the name Samuel. He says the words Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. And in that moment, the God of heaven speaks to Samuel.

unknown 6:32

Right?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

This is the story that we tell our kids. This is a story that you read in one of those books somewhere along the way. And kind of the basic moral of that story that we teach is be a good listener, especially when it comes to God. I mean, what parent in the room doesn't want their child to be a good listener? I mean, you go to school, if you're a good listener, you do better in school. If you go into the sports field, you listen to your coach, you get more playing time, you get better in your craft.

unknown 6:55

Right?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

To be a good listener is so important, especially when it comes to God, because any of us who are grown-ups, any of us who have lived life and really reflected on our life, what have we learned? That when I don't listen to God, and when I do it my own way, life tends to go poorly. And when I listen to God and I do what He wants me to do, life tends to go better, right? We want good listeners, we want our kids to be good listeners, and we need to be good listeners. But if that's the only story or version of the story that we know, we don't know the whole story. Because as we begin to unpack some of the other things happening in this story, it's jarring, it's uncomfortable. In fact, as I share some of these things this morning, it's gonna make me squirm a little bit. So let's unpack this. We're gonna look at four different characters in this story, starting with Hannah. And this is what the Bible says. In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly, and she made a vow, saying, Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery and remember me and not forget your servant, but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head. So this sets up the whole story. Before there's Samuel, there's Hannah, which will become ultimately his mother, but she's in deep anguish. Her life is not going the way that she wants it to go. Now, what's happening on behind the scenes? Well, she's married to a man who has two wives. And that's already tension enough, isn't it? I mean, does he love her more? Does he love me more? Is he spending too much time with her and not enough time with me? I mean, there's there's reason to have a little bit of anguish. But actually, it's so much worse. As we read in the biblical narrative and this truth gets revealed to us, we see there's more going on. You see, the other lady can have kids, and Hannah can't have kids. And she actually uses that to poke at her, to tease her, to hurt her with. In fact, the Bible refers to them as rivals, that sets up kind of like the relational dynamic of these two. And this is why Hannah finds herself in this torment. Which, by the way, the Bible references people marrying multiple, having multiple wives many, many times, but every single time that it mentions it, it's never positive. Right? It always goes poorly. And this is another one of those examples. It always leads to a big mess. So here we see Hannah, she's in the tabernacle and she's praying a prayer of desperation. Now, this probably is not the first time that she has prayed this prayer, right? She's probably prayed this time and time and time and time again. So it wasn't the first time, but this is the most intense time. In fact, in the Bible, as we unveil some more details of this, we we realize that when Eli comes up to her, he thinks she's drunk. I mean, that's how intense this prayer is, that she's crying out to God, God help me. God, give me what I want, give me what I I need. In fact, what does she do? She she makes a deal with God. If you give me a son, I will give him back to you. I just want the honor of being a mom. I just need this, God. But I'll give the son to you. And God gives her the son. And then we live this moment of what is she going to do? I mean, she has her precious child. She doesn't know if she'll ever have more kids. I mean, this might be the only child that she has. Can she really give him away? I mean, if she gives them away at a young age, there will be no major memories that she gets to build with this child. This child might not even remember her. And if she sends this child off to serve God in the tabernacle, do they even have people to watch over him and care for him well? I mean, is this even wise? You see, there are a lot of reasons that Hannah could create in her mind that she shouldn't do this. In fact, a lot of these reasons are valid. I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't follow through on my promise, but what does she do? She takes Samuel about the age of three, somewhere in the range of three to five years old, and presents him to God, and he begins to serve at the tabernacle, which means he's gonna have no major memories, maybe no memories, of his mom in those early years. But what's the truth here? What's the challenge for our lives? Well, I think I might say it like this listen to God, even when it seems like he's not listening to you. And some of you get this, right? This is tough. You felt this in the past, maybe you're feeling this right now. You've been crying out to God, crying out to God, crying out to God, and you feel like he's not listening to me. Maybe you've been battling through addiction and you've been praying for years that you could overcome that. Maybe your marriage has never been ideal and you've been praying and praying and hoping and hoping. Maybe there's a recent diagnosis and you've been praying for better tests, results, and it just hasn't come, right? You're you're praying to God and it feels like he's not listening. You've heard nothing in response, right? You're experiencing no benefit. And sometimes when we have these experiences, we get to the point that we think, well, if God's not gonna listen to me, well, then I'm not gonna listen to him. And if you're there, right? If this is what you're feeling today, can I just say this? Don't give up on God. He's always listening to you. See, it just doesn't always come on our timetable. The response isn't always what we want. Sometimes it's a yes and we celebrate those things and we remember those things and we hold on to those things of God's faithfulness. But sometimes he says no and we mourn those things. And sometimes he says, just wait, keep praying and keep listening. The other day I was coaching my son's baseball team, a bunch of seven-year-olds, a lot of fun. And and one of the dads came over and he was super excited. He's like, I gotta tell you something. He's like, My mother-in-law, who has been an addict for 40 years, just got baptized last Sunday. And so he started telling me more of the story, and he said, for three years, three years ago, God challenged me to pray for her on a consistent basis. And so for three years, six days of the week, I prayed for her and I prayed for her and I prayed for her and I prayed for her. He said, You know what happened after two years? She got two first degree felony charges. I have to imagine that he felt like, God, I'm crying out to you and you are not paying attention to me whatsoever. But in year three, there would be the breakthrough. She would get into treatment, she started battling through this lifetime battle with sobriety, and ultimately he got to roll up his sleeves and baptize her into Christ as she gave her life to Jesus Christ. Hannah in this moment is wrestling with this thing that we wrestle with. God, I'm gonna listen to you. I'm gonna follow you, even when sometimes I don't know where this is gonna go. I don't know if you are paying attention to me whatsoever. Let's keep unpacking these stories. We're gonna move on to Eli's sons. This is what the Bible says about them. This is really fun. Eli's sons were scoundrels, they had no regard for our Lord. Now, the scoundrels come from the Hebrew word Beliah, which means wicked or absolutely evil, which gives us some insight into these guys. Now, why does the Bible refer to them that way? Well, they were priests, right? So they should be serving the Lord, setting the example, teaching biblical truth to people. That was their job, but instead they were stealing from God and they were sleeping with the women of the tabernacle. I mean, that's pretty evil stuff. That's really gross stuff. But we still see it sometimes in our modern day, don't we, in churches? We'll have pastors who get caught embezzling money. We'll have pastors who commit adultery, right, sleeping with people within the church. In fact, I was at a church serving our church a number of years ago, and this lady came up to me at our welcome desk. I was standing there, and she looked at me and said, How long before our lead pastor has an affair? And I was like, Oh. Like she said, like, how long? Like, when is this gonna happen? She didn't say, It, you know, what would we do if this happened? How do we protect against this happening? I mean, in her mind, it was just a matter of time. Like, that's how she saw the world. Now, why does this stuff take place? Why do people fall into these traps? Well, sometimes it's guardrails, right? They don't have the proper guardrails in place, they're overly confident. I would never fall into this, and so they don't have those things in place to protect them from falling into temptation and sin. But the other reality is pastors are just like everybody, right? We all feel this tug. This is the way I want to do it. This is the way the world wants me to do it.

unknown 16:29

Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

This on one side, and then the other side, it's the way God wants me to do it. And we feel this constant tug of war, and sometimes we're over here, and sometimes we're in this space. And this is what happens in these moments, right? This is what happens to us. In fact, to help you remember it, maybe you can remember it this way: listen to God. Even when you don't want to. You see, there are a lot of challenging teachings in the Bible, aren't there, right? The Bible talks about all sorts of things: sexuality, money, how we use our body well, how we speak, how how we live out marriage. There's a lot of challenging stuff in there. But as we encounter those things, what we need to remember is this that the invitation to follow Christ is just that, right? An invitation to follow Christ. Which means as a Christian, if we're just sitting on our hands, doing whatever we want to do, just waiting for heaven to come, we have some problems. Because at best we're just missing out on the benefit that Christ wants to offer us, and at worst, we're completely missing out on Christ. Completely. You should, you see, we should be a people wanting to become more like Christ. When we open up our Bibles, we should expect to be challenged in the way that we think, in the way that we act, and the way that we live. And we should want that for our benefit. We should want to walk in a church and have the pastor say something that makes us squirm just a little bit, maybe on the inside. Like, oh yeah, I need to get better at that. I need, I need to walk in a different way in my path in life, right? That's what we should want. In fact, if you're in a church that all they're doing is affirming everything about you, guess what's true to that church? It's not Christ sitting on the throne, it's you sitting on the throne in a church like that. This is what Eli's sons were doing. They were putting themselves on the throne. They were the most important people in their lives, in their stories. They were the kings, not God. I mean, these were the people who are supposed to be leading the people towards God, but instead they they were messing everything up. Well, let's move on to Eli. Some of his stories recorded in 1 Samuel 2. It says, Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, This is what the Lord says, Did I not clearly reveal myself to your ancestors' family when they were there in Egypt under Pharaoh? I chose your ancestor out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear an epot in my presence. I also gave your ancestors' family all the food offerings presented by the Israelites. Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel? You see, on paper, uh Eli was a very impressive person. He was the high priest, he held the role of a judge at that point in time. The Bible says he was empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's an impressive stuff, but he had a fatal flaw. And the fatal flaw was this he didn't lead his family well. And we don't know why. Maybe he hated confrontation, maybe he just wanted to be best friends with his kids, right? Maybe he was scared of them. Maybe you want people to like him. And maybe you know somebody like this. Maybe you battle with this as a parent, right? You you want your kids to like you, you want your kids to be your best friend, but the problem, of course, if we do that, and you know this, if we live our lives, just make our kids like us for them to be our best friend, guess what? They will not be the type of people that other people want to be friends with. You see, if you are a good parent, or if you are a good friend, you will deliver truth and sometimes hard truth. Here's a way to hold on to it this morning. Listen to God. Even when you look like the bad guy, here's my warning. If you are living God's truth, if you are speaking God's truth, guess what will happen? You'll upset people. Because the truth hurts. And when you share God's truth, it's only a matter of time before somebody gets upset. In fact, you know this because in everyday life and the basic things of life, this is true. If someone comes up to you, probably your wife, and says, Does this dress make me look fat? Or you go to her and say, Do these sunglasses make me look silly? Right? We all have these things that happen and we're stuck in these this moment of do I tell the truth or do I make them happy? But what happens if I make them happy? They walk out the door wearing those silly sunglasses or wearing that dress or whatever is happening, right? We've told them your haircut is the best haircut. And then all their friends make fun of them at school. Like you know, just those things. Because everyone else can see it. And if we truly love them, we we will tell them the truth in those moments. But there is an art and there is a way to tell the truth, right? We have to do it in love. In fact, it has to be motivated by love. In fact, I would say for it to be effective in people's lives, they have to know that we love them before we even share. That truth. Now, the Bible's filled with loving truth. In fact, the Bible says it this way that all scripture is God-breed. It's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, right, right ways of living. Or if you attend here, you might have heard it said this way: walking in the way of the Redeemer, right ways of walking, becoming more like our Redeemer. And we can have all the truth that we want. But if we aren't delivering that truth in love, the people who receive it won't think that we have their best interest in mind. So we have to love them and deliver it with love so that they understand that we're doing it for them. But that doesn't mean that we don't do it. In fact, if you truly love somebody, you will tell them the truth because that is their best interest in mind. Let's get to our final character. We're going to go back to Samuel and get the rest of the story. This is what it says the Lord came and stood there calling, as at the other time. Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, Speak, for your servant is listening. And the Lord said to Samuel, See, I'm about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family from the beginning to the end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about, his sons blaspheming God, and he failed to restrain them. Now, this is the part we never tell our kids. It's the thing that God told this young boy to say. Now imagine this moment. Samuel's sitting there, he's woken up, he is waiting to hear from God, he's really excited, and God says, You're gonna go to this guy who's basically played a dad in your life, who's been raising you and loving you and caring for you, and you're gonna tell him that God is going to punish him. Now, what is the level of punishment? Well, there's gonna be a bunch of death in the family, and he's gonna rip away the priesthood from this family, which means Eli's legacy is going to be impacted in this moment. And God always fulfills his promises, so what happens as we read through the rest of the Bible? Well, this all comes true. The two sons, Eli's sons, they go into battle, they bring the Ark of the Covenant with like a good luck charm. They lose the battle, they're both killed, Ark of the Covenant is stolen. When the messenger comes back to tell Eli what has taken place, well, he falls over backwards, he breaks his neck, and he dies. One of the son's wives is pregnant, she's giving birth at the time. When she hears the news, she gives birth to the son, and then she dies. As we fast forward through time, Eli's family is still a part of the priesthood. But they upset King Saul. King Saul basically gets rid of all of them at this point in time, except for one. One lives on, begins to serve King David, who followed King Saul. But when King David died and King Solomon took over, his son, this priest turned on King Solomon, and King Solomon ripped away the priesthood, fulfilling Christ's prophecy in that moment. What are we seeing in the life of Samuel? This young boy who most scholars say about 12 years old at this point in time. Sometimes listening to God, if we're going to listen to God, we have to do it even when it's hard. Imagine how hard this was. I mean, he was probably bantering with God a little bit if he was given leeway to do that. God, isn't this a little bit too harsh? I mean, Eli's a good guy, he's been watching over me, caring for me, he's doing all these things, he's the high priest. I mean, it's not his fault what his sons do. Maybe Samuel said, I'm too young to deliver this message, you're gonna have to pick somebody else. And in this moment, Samuel is at a crossroads. Is he going to listen to God like his mom listened to God? Even when she felt like God wasn't listening to her, even when it was incredibly hard. Was he going to listen that way or was he going to listen like Eli? I'll listen most of the time, but in some areas, I'm just not gonna listen because it's inconvenient or it's hard or it's difficult, or I don't want people to look down on me or think I'm the bad guy. What does Samuel do? This scared little boy goes to this person who's been like a father to him and tells him what God told him to tell to Eli and what happens next. It says the Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground, and all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. This happened not just because he heard God, it's because he listened to God. And that's a big difference. There's a big difference between hearing God and listening to God. In 1911, there were 26 women who felt like God was speaking to them. That God wanted them to build a church in Fridley, Minnesota. And for three years they raised money. And they sacrificed and they did bake sales, they did everything they could to get money so they could buy a little plot of land. And in 1914, they started digging out the foundation to build this church. And on June 15th, 1916, this church was built, and the people were inside having their first worship experience. Because these women listened and these women sacrificed. And after that first service, after praising God and having this amazing moment in their building, which is now our chapel, if you ever want to take a look at that, they came together and they had ice cream. That's not true, but that would be really convenient. Really convenient for today. But this is what is true. None of this would have happened if they wouldn't have faithfully listened to God. Even when it's hard, even when there was naysayers, right? Even when they had doubts, even if it felt like God wasn't listening. I mean, this went on for years and years and years. What did he ever provide? But they listened and we get to experience the benefit. And I hope that we are a people over the next 110 years that listen to God and get to hand this church off to that next generation who can continue to listen to God and make an impact in the community. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for these special moments to gather. These moments that started 110 years ago in this church, where people have come to be challenged, to hear, to listen, to act, and to simply walk in the way of the Redeemer. And Lord, I do pray that we become a people. We become a people we're celebrating. People who are faithful to you, people who make an impact for you, people who who leave a legacy to hand on to the next generation, of people who live out the mission, to invite people to walk in the way of the Redeemer, to change their life, to change their eternity. I pray this all in Christ's mighty name. Amen.