1 Samuel 7:3-17 Only One Step

to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in First Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King.

Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody. It's great to hear the conversations and stuff that's going on, but if you could find your seats, we're gonna go ahead and get started.

I am Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and glad to welcome all of you together to this opportunity that we have to worship

God in this gathering here in Matawan, Michigan this morning. One of our goals here at Recast Church is that everyone would be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

That's our kind of the simple model here that we believe that everybody needs in order to be advancing in your relationship with God.

We don't define maturity as a line that you've crossed and oh, all of a sudden you're mature. Maturity is a process that you remain committed to of growing in your life, and so we believe that everybody here needs to trust

God more and more. That's a fundamental need that we all have in our core, the core of who we are, so we need to take in his word and trust him and believe him and listen to him, and then honor him in that, and then we all need to be connected with one another.

Despite the fact that we live in a society that's very isolated and isolating, I mean, even as much as we can be connected through social media, we're probably feeling more alone than ever.

We need face -to -face, real, genuine relationships with others who will call us out when we're going astray, who will encourage us when we're weak, who will lift us up, pray for us, intercede for us.

We need those connections and relationship with one another, and then lastly, we need an outlet for our gifts.

God has given each one in this room a gift, something that you have that others need, and others have something that you need, and so you've been put together in a way that you need to express your

God -given gifts, either to the body here in the church or outside in the community, but everybody has something that they can give, and so that's fundamentally what we believe is the growth model here at Recast.

But I believe that all of us have gone through times where we felt distant from God. Would anybody be willing to raise your hand and say, yes,

I have gone through seasons like that? I've felt that distance, I've been in that situation, and so we might be going through, some of you in the room might just, in all honesty, be going through a season like that right now, and nobody else around you knows it.

Maybe even your spouse doesn't know it. Maybe your friends, maybe your other acquaintances or relationships don't know that you're feeling that distance from God.

But during these times, during times like that, we often find that, if we're honest, other things creep in and take the place of God in our lives.

It can quickly devolve into us turning to other places to find satisfaction in things that cannot ever truly satisfy us.

And during those down times in our relationship with God, we're often tempted to ask the age -old question, a question

I think all of us face from time to time, and that is, God, where have you gone? Where are you? Have you left me here alone?

Or even just fundamentally, why do I feel so alone? God, if you're here, why am I feeling these feelings and these thoughts?

And so, before we come to worship God in song, I like to just dive into the text a little bit, just to tell us where we're going, to get our bearings on who

God is, and think through what we're gonna be studying together after we sing. But I like to start with God's word primarily because I believe that that prepares our hearts to worship him accurately.

And so that's why every Sunday morning, I go through a little introduction like this to the text. Our text this morning starts with the people of God in a funk, just like I've described.

They've been distant from God. They've spent 20 years. When we come to the first verse that we're looking at, 2

Samuel, or 1 Samuel 7, verse three, when we come to that text, they've spent 20 years in this funk of distance between them and God.

They've been lamenting a broken relationship with him. They've wandered away, according to the text that we're gonna read here in a moment, they've wandered away into the worship of idols.

I mean, pretty distant from the almighty God. And in our text, we find that sometimes it takes another person stepping up and pointing the way back to God for us to write our lives.

Hopefully you have some people in your life that are like that for you. You've had some people, or there's connections right now of people who will faithfully come to you and say, here's the way, here's the road, and highlight that pathway back.

In our text, we find that it takes another person from time to time. We need other people in our lives pointing us in the right direction.

And let me suggest to all of us that this is one of the only reasons, even here at Recast Church, that we have membership. Membership at Recast Church is a way to formalize the relationship in a way that acknowledges our own need for community, our need for a stronger connection with other believers in a formalizing that.

You see, I know my own heart, and I have a hunch that I know yours too, that you are like me and that you're prone to wander.

It doesn't take much to distract us, does it? It's very easy for us to just get knocked off course a little bit.

And I know that's in my heart. And so God has connected me in a vital way with the local church.

Sure, I'm a pastor, but at the same time, I'm made out of the same stuff as you. I need connection, I need relationship, I need others looking at my life and making sure that I'm staying on the right track as well.

Because I know that in my heart, without others, it is very natural. Sometimes I think God calls people into the pastor.

He calls them into ministry because he knows how prone they are. And he says, I know you need more accountability, so I'll call you to this role instead.

So I know that in my heart, I believe that to be true of you, and we need each other. And the beauty in our text is that we find that no matter how far away we might wander from God, in his grace, he's only ever one step away.

And that step is a specific step that's explained here. It's multiple, multiple facets to this one step, but it is simply this word, repentance.

Repentance is that one step back. It means turning away from our sin and turning toward the

Lord for his mercy and grace. And we're gonna see a beautiful example of that here in 1 Samuel 7, verses three through 17.

So if you're not already open there, please open your Bible or navigate in your device over to 1

Samuel, chapter seven, verses three through 17. If you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible, then take the

Bible from the seat in front of you, on that rack underneath. There should be one close to you, and it's page 132 that we're gonna be looking at.

So page 132, so you can follow along. And then if you don't have a Bible at home, you can take that Bible with you.

We want everybody to have a copy of God's word so that you can read it at home as well as here. But we're gonna go ahead and read this text in its entirety, 1

Samuel, chapter seven, starting in verse three all the way through the end of the chapter, verse 17. I believe that reading this is not a waste of our time.

I know you're capable of reading this on your own, but I think there's something powerful in the corporate reading of God's word that is beneficial to our hearts to actually see the text and to allow

God to speak here. When I'm speaking, I'm giving you my thoughts, I'm giving you my study on the word of God, but right now,

Recast, we have an opportunity to actually hear straight from the Almighty. 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

Ashtoreth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the

Philistines. So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreth and they served the Lord only.

Then Samuel said, gather all Israel at Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.

So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, we have sinned against the

Lord. And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the

Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines.

And the people of Israel said to Samuel, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us that he may save us from the hand of the

Philistines. So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord.

And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him. 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. And they were defeated before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the

Philistines and struck them as far as below Beth -char. And then

Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shenn and called its name Ebenezer for he said, till now the

Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel.

And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath.

And Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the

Amorites. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah.

And he judged Israel in all these places. Then he would return to Ramah for his home was there. And there also he judged

Israel. And he built there an altar to the Lord. Let's pray. Father, I rejoice and give you thanks that we have an opportunity to gather together in your name.

Father, a gathering similar to a gathering centuries and centuries ago there in Mizpah, a gathering of your people, a gathering to hear from you, a gathering to be restored to you.

And Father, I pray that that might be a reality in our midst here this morning, that we would be restored even from a week, not 20 years of distance from you.

God forbid that that's the case for anybody in the room. But if it is, Father, that today would be a day of restoration for each and every one of us here, regardless of how much we've wandered, regardless of how distant we are from you, all of us have some growth to do this morning.

So Father, I pray that you would meet us in this place, meet us in the opportunity that we have to worship you. Even now in singing,

Father, I pray that you would use the words to impact our mind and our hearts. Father, it is a wonderful thing that you've given us music.

It speaks to our emotions. And Father, I pray that we would worship you this morning in spirit and in truth, in the truth that you are a

God who is only ever one step away. You are right there ready for our repentance at any time, and eager to accept your children when they turn to you in faith.

So Father, I pray that you would meet us here in this place this morning, and allow us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, you can go to be seated, and I just wanna thank

Dave and the band for leading us in worship this morning. I just appreciate the effort and time that they put in. And then

I wanna encourage you to get comfortable. If at any time during the message, I know we just took a break and filled up on coffee and donuts, but if you need more, you can get up at any time during the message.

You're not gonna distract me. But I do also ask that you please keep your Bibles open to 1 Samuel 7, verses three through 17.

So you can see that the things that I'm saying are coming from the text. That's one of my goals, is to be sure that you guys are seeing that what

I'm saying is down here, but what God is saying is up here, and I wanna make sure that what I'm saying is tied to that.

And then one quick announcement. I don't know if anybody's missing your dinosaur, but this was up here, and so just an announcement.

If you're missing your dinosaur, it's right here. I don't know if somebody's trying to drop a hint about my age here or something, but this dinosaur was just here when

I got here this morning, I don't know. So come up and see me afterwards. But yeah, keep open to 1

Samuel 7 as we go through. Samuel has not been mentioned at all in the text of the Bible up through these last few chapters.

As a matter of fact, the last time he was mentioned in the book of 1 Samuel was way back in the very first verse of chapter four.

So chapter four, five, and six don't mention him except for that one first verse of chapter four.

So the focus for the last three chapters really has been on the Ark of the Covenant, and now suddenly he shows back up in verse three of chapter seven.

So where has Samuel been? We don't really know much about his life during this period of time when the

Ark was taken. We just know that the people are not consulting him. He's been declared a prophet, and the people don't turn to him to hear from the

Lord, but they're turning to their own wisdom during that phase and during that time. And so now when we come to our text, we know from last week that 20 years have now passed, and when we last saw

Samuel, he was a young boy, about 10 to 12 years old. So you can do the math, 20 years plus that age.

He's in his late 20s, early 30s, and he is recognized by the entire nation from north to south, it's said in the text, from Dan in the north, the northernmost town, to Beersheba, the southernmost town of Israel.

He is known and honored as a prophet. In other words, they know finally there is someone they can turn to to hear from the

Lord. Now the question has been over these 20 years, have they been turning to him? They have access to the word of God, in other words.

And I think you could see a little bit of a parallel in our lives in having access to God's word, and the question is, do you turn to it?

Are you going to God's word when it's accessible and available? We can turn to all different kinds of things, we can turn to our own wisdom, but man, we've got a privilege in having the word of God.

Israel, for 20 years, has had a person who can bring the word of God to bear on their circumstances and situations.

And so that's exactly where we find ourselves at the start of this text. And he's reintroduced to this text.

He's a full -blown prophet, priest, and king by the time that he's in his late 20s, early 30s.

He is a prophet in the sense that he can speak the words of God, trained and raised in the tabernacle. He's qualified to make sacrifices, and he's a judge over the nation.

And that judgeship is something that we've got to get our minds around and understand it from an Old Testament perspective, because a judge sits in a courtroom and hears cases.

That might be the mindset that we have if we only look at that word through our English lens or our American lens, but a judge was a spiritual and religious and political leader all rolled up into one.

He was the one who gave the guidance and the counsel from God to the leadership about what direction that they should go, and even had some military things going on there, too.

So somewhere during this 20 years of distance between God and his people, though, we see here in verse three, it seems like the people begin to show signs of a desire to return to the

Lord. You can see that in the way that verse three is put together. So look at the Bible with me for a second.

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, that if is kind of like he sees some signs in his culture that there's a desire to return to the

Lord. And if that's indeed what you're doing, if I'm understanding and seeing the circumstances right, and I'm seeing my nation correctly, then it looks to me, says

Samuel, like you want to return to the Lord. And if that is indeed your heart, he says, then there's some things that I want you to do.

If indeed you desire this return. So in verse three, Samuel, the prophet, is speaking to his cultural context, his situation, the people all around him, with a prophetic call to them.

If you want to return to the Lord, then here's what you need to do. And speaking to all the people, by the way, probably looks like a prophetic speaking tour.

It doesn't indicate that he called all the people together during this 20 years, but he's going around and speaking, and he's trying to win the heart of the nation back to God.

And so he's going around, and we'll see at the end of the text, an actual route that he would take every year in his ministry as a prophet, priest, and judge to the nation, and people would gather together in those towns, they'd travel from other towns to come and hear, hey, we heard

Samuel's on his route, and he's on his way here, and they would gather together, and they would hear him. And he's telling all of them, if you indeed want to return to the

Lord with all your heart, then there are three things that you need to do. And these are spelled out in verse three. And I want to point out that the fundamental starting point, by the way, in returning to the

Lord is the desire to return to the Lord. Now, that sounds like a given, that sounds kind of like, duh, of course, you have to have that desire, but it is fundamental.

Some of us maybe don't even, we don't acknowledge that the heart has to be engaged for it. So we might have the tendency in our minds to think, well, if I just do the right things, then

I can return to the Lord. Returning to the Lord looks like doing A, B, and C, but the heart must be engaged first.

And the people needed to ask themselves, do I really want to come back to the Lord? Do I really want him?

And that's a question that all of us have to ask. All of us, I would encourage you, even where you sit right now, to ask yourself the question, do

I want the Lord? Do I want him in all that that implies for my life, all that that means in regard to his holiness, all that it means in terms of what he may or may not call me to change about my behavior, do

I want him in my heart? Do I want him with all of my being, or is there some things that I'd kind of like to hold back from him?

God doesn't become half the Lord of people's lives. He wants all of you, and so are you willing to yield that over to him?

That's a question that we need to, each one of us, fundamentally ask at the start, because the first and foremost thing is, in your heart, do you want him?

But merely wanting to return is not enough. Have you ever been through a season where you wanted it, but you didn't quite have the gumption to do the things?

Do you know what I'm talking about? So it's not enough to just want it. That's a start, but there's also some other things that need to come along with that, and that's where we get into the middle of verse three.

Samuel gives some active instructions to the people. If you want to return, if your heart is engaged and you're genuinely saying, yes, you've got me,

Samuel, you've got me, Don, you've got me, Lord, I want to be with you, I want to connect with you,

I want to love you, I want to honor you, I want to be yours completely, then step one, put away, he says, the foreign gods.

Stop worshiping other things, step one. Step two, direct your heart to me, says the

Lord. Direct your heart to me. We'll talk a little bit about what that direct means here in a second, and the third step is serve him alone.

Put away the obstacles, put away the foreign gods, direct, instruct, wrestle your heart to the ground and make it behold the

Almighty God. It's something that each one of us needs to do. Our hearts are wayward, our hearts are wild, they are eager to run the opposite direction and they need to be broken before the

Lord. They need to be broken like a horse needs to be broken in order to be ridden. Do you know what I'm talking about? Anybody acknowledge that your heart is a bit wild?

You've got a tendency to buck and to kick and to not want to be guided, not want to be directed, and so we need to direct our heart to him and then serve him alone.

This is one of the most clear and direct teachings about repentance and spelling that out in detail in the entire

Old Testament. This is the cycle of repentance that is needed for any sinful human, that's all of us, to come into a relationship with the

Almighty God. We need this pattern of repentance in our lives. And it begins in the heart with a desire to get right with God.

It then moves to putting away the things that are in the way of our worship. The foreign gods in this context, there's all different kinds of things that we might worship that are not

God. And then once those things have been removed, we must then direct our hearts, think again, command, instruct, subdue, wrestle to the ground, and place our attention on the

Lord. And then once our hearts are wrestled to the ground and forced to behold the Lord, then we can serve him alone.

Then we can serve him alone. And then, further the text says to the nation of Israel, and then he will deliver you.

Then the deliverance, the salvation of God will be yours. In this context, they needed deliverance in an outward sense.

We all acknowledge that we need deliverance in a different way. We need multiple levels of deliverance. Some of us are going through hardships and difficulties, but don't miss the idea of the big picture salvation that is your fundamental need.

Don't get that conflated with the small picture salvations that you need. So, you might be going through an economic crisis, you might be going through health problems, you might be going through all kinds of issues with family, broken relationships.

How many of you know you need God's hand in those circumstances? But don't conflate that with your biggest issue.

The biggest thing that you need is salvation from your sins. Not salvation from the sins of others, or the circumstances, or the problems in your life.

The fundamental thing that each person needs in this room, I know what it is already. You need to be saved from your sin to come in humility before the

Lord and trust in Him. That is the ultimate deliverance. Obviously, there's times when the battle is pressed.

How many of you know that if you're Israel, you want deliverance from the real Philistines? Not the metaphorical

Philistines. I mean, you need that too, but don't make this a metaphor.

They're really pressed in battle, they're subjugated, and there's problems. Apparently, over these 20 years, the

Philistines have conquered part of Israel. They've subjugated whole villages and towns, and we're gonna see that Israel has to win them back.

So they've lost people to the Philistines. They've lost villages and territory, and power and authority that was over certain territories have been given over to the

Philistines. So Samuel is calling the people back to God and into an exclusive worship relationship with Him again.

He says, Yahweh is our God, and let's get back. If you indeed want to worship Him, and you indeed want to have a heart for Him, then repent and turn back and push these other gods away.

And we would do well to identify whether or not we are close to Him right now. Are you close to God?

Have you allowed other things to crowd out your attention to God in your life? Put away the idols in your life that are preventing you from worshiping

God alone, and then direct your heart to Him. And I would suggest that the best way to arrest our attention from the world and to direct our hearts to God and away from the things that would so easily draw us away from God, how many of you would acknowledge that there's things that draw your attention away?

You acknowledge that there's stuff that gets in the way and clouds your relationship with God.

And I suggest to you that the thing that helps us the most is spending a concerted effort in training our heart through His word.

How does a person direct their heart to God? See Him as He's revealed Himself. Let Him speak what is true of Him.

How are you gonna wrestle your wayward heart? A lot of us raised our hand and said, my heart is wild and it needs to be tamed.

And what is it that tames your heart? The right vision of the Almighty God. The right vision of His holiness and His justice and His grace and His mercy.

All of the things that indeed are not like us are the things that challenge us to bow our knee before Him.

And how are we gonna bow our knee before Him unless we know Him? And once you behold Him and once you draw near to Him and once you see

Him through His word as He's revealed, then our hearts begin to be broken, to be tamed in light of how awesome and glorious and majestic He is.

His word is the place where the values of this world are challenged.

Now how many of you would say, at my workplace, the values of this world are not challenged that much? Your workplace is fueled by, your coworkers are often fueled by the values of this world.

Our media, the entertainment that we take in, the music that we listen to, is often fueled by the values of this world.

Where do you go to get a reprieve from that? Where do you go to hear what is indeed true? What is right?

Where are you challenged to believe something other than what your culture is telling you? The word of God.

It's the place where the idols of this world are exposed as foolish. You can talk with people out in the world and they will actually express value in the things that trouble you.

They will express value in the sins that encumber you and entangle you. Do you know what I'm talking about? Any of you have a friend that tends to lead you down the wrong road?

Anybody, yeah? Nobody wants to admit that because they might be sitting next to you. I don't know. Don't make me raise my hand on that one.

But I think we all know someone who, when we're around them, it might be family, it might be a coworker, it might be a neighbor, but they have a tendency to bring you down with them.

And they have the values of this world. And if we only listen to their voices and we don't expose ourselves to the word of God and we don't direct our heart here, we will listen to those voices and the things that are foolish begin to make sense.

The worldly things that really are of no value begin to be the most important things that we talk about or the things that we look forward to in the day.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Maybe this is just for me, but I think that all of us have something that drags us down in this way.

And then the truth is we cannot serve God fully. I mean, we can direct our hearts to Him, but we cannot serve

Him fully without a renewed relationship with Him in our hearts. We need heart change first and then comes service to Him.

It's interesting to me to kind of study a little bit the worship of Ashtoreth. She's mentioned here. She was the goddess daughter of Asherah.

You'll hear Asherah and Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth, the daughter of Asherah and Baal in the pantheon of Canaanite gods.

And Ashtoreth worship became an insidious, hard habit to break in Canaanite culture.

So all throughout the Middle East, Ashtoreth was worshiped. And people kind of liked to worship her. And many of our idols are like Ashtoreth.

They're kind of fun. There's fun involved in the worship of idols. There's fun involved in the world out there.

There's entertainment to it. The worship of Ashtoreth involved all kinds of promiscuity. Hooking up with temple prostitutes was a routine part of the worship of Ashtoreth.

She was the Canaanite goddess of fertility. So getting busy in the temple during the growing season was supposed to ensure a good crop, win -win, right?

Have any of you ever wondered what frat boys came up with these pagan religions?

I kind of wonder who in the world was inventing this stuff, right? It's very clear that it would grab a hold of an entire culture very quickly.

Probably not too far off of some of the sexual immorals of our culture and where we live. But God was at work in Israel.

And the people put away the Baals. And they put away Ashtoreth. And they determined to serve the

Lord only. A big step. A right step, a good step.

Because their hearts were engaged. And we'll see that they did so from their hearts according to verse six as we walk through this passage.

You begin to see, I mean, when I first was reading this I was like, are they authentic? Are they real? Or are they just trying to use

God again? Remember back in chapter four, they just used God for their own means and thought that they could take him into battle and he would fight on their behalf and of course they'd defeat the

Philistines. Because they took the ark with them. So is this another ploy? Is this another pretend use of God?

But we actually see that there's indication that their hearts are indeed genuinely engaged here in wanting to honor

God. This was not just merely an external attempt to display, external display to try to manipulate him.

But Samuel gathered all the people at Mizpah in the central hills of Israel to offer prayer.

So all the people gather in that central hill region. Samuel proves himself to be a spiritual leader as he gathers the entire nation to pray, to make an offering and to judge the nation there to give spiritual guidance and direction and even political oversight to them.

And in verse six, they draw water and they pour it out before the Lord. A kind of strange and unclear method of worship.

But I think that after reading up about it and trying to figure it out, because it doesn't appear much in other scriptures, this idea of drawing water out of a well and then just pouring it out on the ground.

But how many of you know that once you pour water on the ground, what would be really hard would be to put that water back in the jar?

Do you know what I'm talking about? If you pour water out of a cup on the ground, how easy would it be to get that back in here?

The idea is a wholehearted devotion to God that says I'm pouring out my heart,

I'm pouring out everything to you in a way that's not gonna take it back. It's all yours. We see that in one other mention of this idea of pouring out like water is

Lamentations 2, 19, where the people in distress are told to pour out your hearts like water to the

Lord. Now, it probably was a symbol of complete and utter surrender to him.

A way of saying all of my heart is yours, just like this water in the jar that I'm pouring out and I'm not gonna take it back, it's yours.

I pour out my life to you and if this is indeed the case and I'm understanding this text right, then it shows how genuine and authentic this turn to the

Lord really is among the people. Now further, they fasted before the Lord and that also shows the depth of the repentance going on among the people, to go without food in order to honor

God and to allow themselves to be shown to be subject to him. Look at verse six to see what they openly declare to be true of themselves.

They in humility declare we have sinned against Yahweh. We have sinned against the

Lord. And I would suggest to you that confession and admitting wrong is a clear sign of repentance.

It's a fundamental part of repentance is admitting that what we have done is sin before the

Almighty. It's very important. When we admit that we have sinned, we humble ourselves before God.

God doesn't seem to have any room. I don't know if you notice this is a theme throughout scripture, how much you've read, how much you know about God. He doesn't seem to have any room for the self -confident or the spiritually arrogant, especially among fallen humanity.

You know, if we know ourselves like God knows us, if we have the right assessment of ourselves, there is no room for that kind of spiritual or religious arrogance, no room for it at all.

We also see the flip side to be true. Grace upon grace throughout scripture is poured down on any who humble themselves and admit their sin.

You see, those who stand before God in the end, Jesus talked about it this way. He said that there are those in the end who will say, look at all that we did in your name.

Didn't we cast out demons? Didn't we do these great things? Didn't we, didn't we, didn't we do for you?

And he's gonna say, I didn't even know you. Sure, you did all these things, but I didn't know you.

I didn't have your heart. You didn't even come to me and give me your heart. You tried to do all of these things and at the end of the day, it was just to make yourself better, but I didn't know you.

But the humble who come to him on that day based on the work that he has done for us, the work that he's done for us on the cross, they are the ones who will be welcomed into his eternal kingdom.

So Samuel judged the people. And this is not, again, some legal bench where he heard cases that they had against one another and adjudicated between what was right and wrong.

The office of judge in the book of Judges in the time of Judges in here in 1 Samuel was one of spiritual and political leadership, as I said.

And when it says that Samuel judged Israel, it means he spiritually led them. He rebuked them, he instructed them, and he gave spiritual counsel to the entire nation.

But the same thing that often happens in our lives happens here. I don't know if you've noticed this. Have you ever had a dark time or a difficulty and then you started to make steps and your motivation was in the right place and you started to take steps to get right with God, and then what happened?

It's like the floodgates of hell opened against you. Have you been there? Have you ever seen that?

You're like, and you're like, God, I'm just trying to take small steps here. I'm trying to get back in relationship with you.

And then boom, it's like the enemies surround and everything seems to come crashing down around you.

And you're like, God, is this what I get for trying to come back to you? Is this the way it's gonna go? Well, we see that here in the text.

The enemy catches wind of the good that's going on. All of the people of Israel gathered in one place at Nisba up in the highlands in the center of Israel.

And so the Philistines heard of it. They gathered and they muster a force to come pick a fight with Israel.

And Israel was struck with fear of the Philistines here in this place. They're trying to get right with God. They're casting off their idols.

They're pouring out water, pouring out their hearts before the Lord. Samuel is praying for the people.

He's offering sacrifices for the people. And the Philistines gather. And the Israelites, with a restored relationship with God now, as opposed to in chapter four, now they turn to the prophet.

They seem to be getting things right. Back in chapter four, when the Philistines threatened to attack the people of Israel, came up with their own strategy, their own plan to try to force

God to fight for them. And it didn't work. But now, in humility, they turn to the prophet of God and ask him to cry out to the

Lord, our God, for us. Please, Samuel, cry out to God on our behalf.

And what a precious phrase here in this text. Do you see it there? Our God, our

God. They're casting off the idols. They're pushing them away. And they are now calling

Yahweh once again. They're saying, seek the face of our God. Intercede for us,

Samuel. It's a precious phrase. The people of Israel are back in the trust of their God. And right away, they're being forced to trust him for his deliverance.

Right away, their faith is being tested. Immediately, they are just, I mean, they're still on their faces before God, repenting.

And the battle lines are being drawn up. So Samuel took a young lamb, offered it as a whole burnt offering.

This is not a barbecue like we've talked about in the past. This is the whole thing being burned. This is a certain type of offering. And he cried out to the

Lord on behalf of his people. And it says, these beautiful words, and the Lord answered him.

The Lord answered him. The people are coming back to their God. They're repenting, they're turning, and God hears.

Samuel intercedes for the people, and God listens. We find here in our text a very clear example of intercession.

Intercession being one person praying for others. One person standing in the gap for another person.

Recast, we need intercession. We need to be intercessors for one another.

It just simply means to go to the Lord on the behalf of another. In a sense, it's only, by the way, because Christ has removed our sin, and he's removed and torn the curtain in two between the most holy place and us, that we could ever intercede for someone else.

Especially without a sacrifice. You realize that otherwise, we would be carrying lambs around with us, we'd be carrying goats around with us, just to talk with him.

Just to talk with him for ourselves, let alone for others. But because Christ has died and paid the price, he has made access to the

Father clear for you and I. And so we have the freedom to come to the Father on behalf of others.

What a privilege that we often overlook. The opportunity to pray for each other.

Parents, let me just encourage you, intercede for your children. Pray for them in ways that they don't know how to pray for themselves.

Children, intercede for your parents. We should intercede on behalf of those who are married.

We should intercede on behalf of those who are single. We should intercede for those who are attempting to endure wealth, as well as praying for those and interceding for those who are trying to endure poverty.

We should intercede for those who are going through seasons of doubt. We should intercede for those who are the special target of the enemy because their faith is strong.

We should intercede on behalf of those who are lost in the worship of self. And we should intercede for those who are sacrificing much to reach others.

Cry out to the Lord on behalf of each other, recast. Cry out to the Lord for one another.

Pray for one another. And a drama unfolds at the start of verse 10. I think it's funny, sometimes when

I'm reading it, I'm like, oh, the drama, and then literally like three words in and the drama's resolved. You see that in verse 10?

It's like, oh my goodness, what's gonna happen? Oh, that's what happens. It's like, it's super quick. As Samuel, at the moment that Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the

Philistines drew near to attack, but the Lord, but the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day and threw them into confusion and they were defeated before Israel.

End of story, right? I think it's like, oh, the drama, just as the knife is being laid to the lamb's throat, just at the moment where the sacrifice is being made, the victory is won.

See a pattern in God's plan? Where is the victory won?

The victory is won when the lamb is slain. It's the place of victory, like that's when it all comes together, is at that moment, just as he's about to place the offering on the fire, just as it's getting ready to be burned, they say, this is the time to attack.

We've got him now, says the enemy. We've got him right where we want him. And God's like, no,

I got you right where I want you. And he takes it back to him. The Lord, in this situation, chose to reward his people for returning to him.

He brought this thunderous sound. Some people, you know, I mean, I don't know whether you need a thunderstorm there or not.

Very well, often God uses real life events and real natural things to accomplish his end.

So maybe there was a thunderstorm that struck and they all ran for cover and were retreating. But whatever the cause, we know that it's

God that's orchestrating it. And in their chaotic retreat, Israel was able to counterattack and defeat the

Philistines soundly. So Samuel raised up a rock there in that place and called it Ebenezer, which means the rock of help, the stone of our help, because he could trace the hand of God and the help that Israel had received down through the ages.

He basically raises up the rock and says, never once did we ever walk alone. You were with us all the way.

Even in the course of, he's basically saying, you were our help all along. Even for these 20 years where we've gone astray, where we've been worshiping idols,

I can see your hand, I can see you guiding, I can see you directing, I can see you bringing us back to yourself. And this event brought

Israel into a season of peace. The text is clear. Israel won back a lot of territory that the Philistines had conquered.

The Philistines were not able to settle in Israelite territory again. There were battles. There's gonna be battles that still ensue, but we're gonna see that God grants

Israel increasing victory over the Philistines over the ministry and life of Samuel. And Samuel continued to spiritually lead the people.

He had a speaking tour he would embark on every year that led him from Ramah to Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah and back to Ramah.

And he built an altar at his hometown there and people could come there and make sacrifices. And that's where our text ends.

So I think you can see in the text as we go through 1 Samuel, Samuel has grown a lot since we last encountered him in chapter four.

And in our text we see he was blessed by God to lead a national revival back to the

Lord Almighty. He was a voice that his generation needed saying, hey, I know the way.

Follow this. Go this way. So I want us all to consider how the Holy Spirit might want to use this passage in your week, this week in your life.

What does he wanna do in you? And this is where I give applications, but my number one hope in prayer every week is that you listen to the

Spirit. You listen to what he desires of you. It may be one of these applications that God has pressed on my heart this week, but it may be something different.

Don't get stymied by the structure that I put on this. Listen to the Spirit and what does he say to you?

He knows where you live. He knows what you're going through. He knows your family. He knows where you're working. He knows your circumstances.

And my trust is that when you encounter the word, the Spirit can take it and either encourage you or convict you or redirect you.

But this is what I got here. The first is a little bit of a longer application, but I believe that this text should cause each and every one of us to take an honest assessment of our own relationship to God.

I think that that's fundamental to this text is recognizing when we encounter a text where the people have wandered for 20 years away from God, now they're being reconciled, now they're repenting, now they're turning, they're pouring out water like pouring out their hearts before the

Lord. And I think there's different kinds of people that are even in this room this morning. I think some of us are distant from God and you know why.

So if this is your category, think it through. Maybe you don't even want to be close with Him. Maybe you've been rejecting

Him and avoiding Him. Maybe you were even drug here this morning. Maybe you don't even know what in the world you're doing here.

But let me just encourage anyone here who is in that state that He loves you, He is full of grace and mercy for anyone who will come to Him.

And maybe that's why you're here. Maybe you're here because He wants you to hear a message of forgiveness.

He wants you to hear a message of hope this morning. So let me encourage you to stop running from Him, stop rejecting

Him. No matter what you have done or even how much in the depth of your heart you really deeply are fearing

Him, come to Him and He will willingly grant forgiveness to any. Second category of people is some are here and you need to cast off the other things that call your heart to worship them.

You've got hurdles in your life and maybe you don't even want to admit it and you're like, oh, don't talk about that right now because I've got things in my life that I need to give up that I know

I don't want to, it's gonna be uncomfortable, it's gonna be too hard. Don, just skip this one. It might be entertainment.

It could be your relationship to sex or to work or to the worship of money or even the worship of family.

Oftentimes, by the way, the things that grab our attention from God are often good things. Have you noticed that?

It's good things that are warped, good things that are corrupted or that are changed. Are you in a place in your life where you need something to go in order to worship

God with your whole heart and maybe you feel like putting your hands in your ears at this point and going, la, la, la, la,

I'm not listening, I'm not listening because you don't, you know what He's gonna say. You know what He wants you to give up and you don't have the strength.

You're just like, I don't have the power. I'd love to talk with you and maybe we can work through a plan to get past those hurdles.

I love the process of smashing idols. I'd love to help you with that. Some of us have cleared out the other gods.

You're at a different stage. You've cleared out the other gods but you're distant because you've not directed your heart to Him. So how many of you know that it's one thing to clear out the bad, it's another thing to institute the good?

Do you know what I'm talking about? So some of you are like a clean slate now. You're like, I've accepted Christ as my Savior, my heart has been changed and I'm not worshiping other things but I just kind of feel like I'm just riding the waves, just going with the flow.

Maybe you need a redirection in your heart and to you I would recommend that you begin to seriously take in God's word.

Study it, listen to it, read it, memorize it but take in God's word to know

Him better and that you will find will direct your heart towards worshiping Him more and more, towards getting on the right pathway.

And some of you desire to return to Him. You've forsaken the other gods. You've directed your heart to Him and the last step then is right in front of you.

It's a clear step. Now serve Him. Now take that next step and serve

Him. This usually entails figuring out how God has designed you and identifying the needs around you and lo and behold, often in my life, no matter where I've lived, no matter what circumstance, no matter what town or what church

I've attended, every single time that I've been involved in a different church, I've been able to find where the needs connect up with my gifts and I believe that's true for every single person in this room.

It might be out in the community. It might be here in this church. It might be with hospitality.

Maybe you're more behind the scenes and you'd like to come in and fold stuff for the office. Maybe it's greeting.

Maybe you're more of an upfront person and you wouldn't mind, you're like, hey, how come Nathan always gets to do the announcements? How come

Haley's, I'd love to do something like that. I mean, maybe that's you and everybody has a different gift and a different set of skills but I believe that God has a reason for you to be here and that you can get plugged in and find fulfillment in serving the

Lord through those things. All of that, by the way, was just one application. So it's all about taking an honest assessment of your life.

Where are you at? Don't leave here without an answer to that question this morning. It's fundamental to honoring the text that we're studying together.

Where are you at in your relationship with the Almighty God? The second thing is to turn to the

Lord and his people when the Philistines show up to fight. How many of you have some Philistines in your life? Now I'm speaking metaphorically.

Hopefully they're not literally showing up at your door. Okay, I mean, that'd be awkward. I think they've kind of gone away now.

There are no Philistines. So let me know if you're seeing Philistines around. We'll talk, we'll get some help.

The people of God depend on one another. We need each other and that's part of what it means to be a church and without that, we're playing church but we're not the church if we're not leaning on one another.

In our text, they turned to Samuel for intercession. They fell on their faces together before the

Lord. When the enemy came, they leaned on each other. Too often, our first line of defense is our own wisdom.

And so answer this question in this second application. How long does it take you to include someone else in your distress?

How many of you would say that in the last year, be honest, raise your hand if in the last year you've gone through distress?

Go ahead and raise your hand, I wanna see that. So you've gone through some distress, you've gone through some difficulty and how long has it taken you, how long does it take you to include another in your distress?

How long does it take you to open up your heart to someone else? I would suggest to you that the answer to that question is a good measure, boy, this is gonna be a rebuke, of either your sinful confidence or your arrogance and pride.

How long does it take you, the longer that it takes you to include others in your hardship, in your distress, in your pain is a measure of how well you think you can handle it or how proud you are and you don't want anybody to know that someone like you struggles.

There might be other reasons and I mean, granted, come and talk with me if you're like, darn, I felt like that was unfair and you think that there's something else that's going on there,

I'd love to hear it but I see that in my own life. Well, pastors don't struggle, pastors don't go through distress, pastors just ride up here on the clouds.

Right, Linda? You're supposed to nod, yeah, okay, all right.

Yeah, we got that down. We talked about that earlier. So, I mean, how do you include others?

Are you turning to others? Go to the Lord, of course, but also lean on his people when fear strikes your heart.

That's why he's given us to each other and that leads to the third application, be a safe place for people to come to lean on.

That's maybe partly why we don't do it sometimes is we've been burned before. Maybe that's the third one that's unfair.

Maybe you've been so burned, you've shared your heart, you've come to somebody else and you've said, I'm going through a hardship and they're like, get over it.

I think all of us have probably had that happen to some degree. So, be a person who intercedes for others, who when somebody comes to you in distress and comes to you in hardship, you genuinely intercede, you cry out to the

Lord on their behalf. Please, recast, let's stop lying to one another and saying, I'll be praying for you.

When someone shares something tough that they're going through, isn't that the patent Christian response? Isn't that the way you end the conversation?

I'll be praying for you. Don't lie. Really pray for them.

Really lift them up. If you're going to, don't say it if you're not gonna do it, but if you're gonna do it, say it and give that encouragement and then literally cry out to the

Lord on behalf of others. Intercede for one another. Who needs you?

Who do you already know? Who's already sharing their distress with you? Who needs you to cry out to the Lord on their behalf?

Get a name in your mind and then lay it out before the Lord. And lastly,

Samuel points the way to a restored relationship with God here in our text. My hope is that everyone here has the confidence to be able to point others to that same way.

That you understand, you grasp what the way, the real way is to a restored relationship with God and then you can in turn point others in that direction.

We come to communion each week to point to the way. The way to a restored relationship with our

Heavenly Father is found in this mysterious thing that we do each week called communion.

There's a reason in the text that Samuel offered a young male lamb without blemish.

By the way, I know it doesn't say in the text that it was male and without blemish, but that's the rules of the whole burnt offering.

I believe fully that he followed those rules and therefore he would have presented a young male lamb without blemish.

That sacrifice there at Mizpah was meant to be a symbol, a pointer, a forecast to the substitute for the sins of all people.

It's a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of you and me. So we can put away idols, we can attempt to redirect our own hearts, we can serve the

Lord, but without a sacrifice to cover our sins, it is all just religious effort. Those are good things, would you agree with me?

Those are good things to do, but they are not sufficient things for our salvation.

We needed a sacrifice to cover our sins. So Jesus came to die for our sins.

And our trust in that glorious good news is the faith that saves us. So if you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and your hope is placed in that glorious sacrifice that he made 2 ,000 years ago, then please come to one of the tables in the back as Dave comes and leads us in a song and take a cracker to remember his body that was broken for you and take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for you.

We do this often because we need the regular reminder that our hope is in him and not in us.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your sacrifice, your grace, your mercy that is poured out on us, that you are our help all through the seasons of life and even through the darkest points,

Father, the hard times, the times where we feel distant from you. You're always there. You're just one step away.

And so, Father, I pray that you would give us all the strength and the power to be able to yield everything to you, to pour out our hearts like water.

Father, even we depend on you to assess our own hearts rightly. Father, right now,

I'm convinced that there's a war going on in some of us to lie to ourselves, to be deceived and think that we're doing better than we are or to push aside the notions of the things that you want us to give up for you.

So, Father, I pray that you would help us to see those things correctly, to see the things that really are hindering our worship of you, to really see what you're calling us to do this morning.

And, Father, I thank you that even in all of that process, everything is covered by the blood of your son, Jesus. It's not up to us to figure it out, not up to us to determine our own motives.

And, Father, I thank you that it's all on you. And you have saved us. So, as we come to communion,

Father, I pray that you would bless us with joy, with peace, with contentment in you, not contentment in ourselves, not contentment merely in our circumstances, but most vitally, contentment in what you have provided for us, salvation and forgiveness through Jesus.

And, Father, if there's anybody here who hasn't started down that road with you, I pray that you would give them boldness to come and talk with me, or talk to Dave, or talk to a member of the band about how they can be made right and brought into this process of loving you and being forgiven by you.