Zach Peters' Podcast
A place for sermons, reflections, and general pondering on life and stuff.
Zach Peters' Podcast
1 Samuel 3 Part 2 (Processing the Word)
The word of God is essential for our spiritual vitality, but hearing and responding to it can be a challenging process requiring patience and humility.
• The word of God was rare in Samuel's time, creating a spiritual vacuum
• Samuel initially couldn't recognize God's voice, mistaking it for Eli's call
• Biblical figures like Gideon, David, and Peter all struggled with insecurity when hearing God
• The proper response is a servant's heart: "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening"
• God's word often challenges us with difficult truths that are uncomfortable but necessary
• Everyone has access to God's word through creation, the Holy Spirit, and scripture
• Spiritual growth is a marathon requiring perseverance, not a sprint with immediate results
• The word of God at work in our lives can transform us and impact others around us
Don't be discouraged by the struggle to understand God's voice. Keep taking steps forward in faith, approaching His word with a servant's heart.
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All right, if you recall, we are in 1 Samuel, chapter 3, and it was originally supposed to be one week. It's not one week anymore, it's at least two weeks, it might be three weeks, it might be four weeks, I don't know. At some point I will read through the scripture, I'll read through my notes and I'll realize I can't milk it anymore. There's nothing in here. There's not another sermon that I can bring out, but I'm excited. I like this. 1 and 2 Samuel are because I am a guy and 1 and 2 Samuel has the stories of all of David's battles and cool things like that. From a very early age I liked the book of Samuel and as I got older I realized it wasn't just about David and Goliath. There's lots of stuff in here and so I do like 1 Samuel and it's just one. I don't got enough time. If I could, I would go back to Acts right now. I could preach on some more of Acts. I just get distracted. But I do want to hang out here for a little bit and then we're going to go to a series on worship and at some point we will finish all the book of Acts. I have outlines for other sermons for Acts, and I'll just go ahead and tell you after you get past a certain point in Acts. It takes some skill to make good sermons on some of the things that Paul is going through, because it's not like he's necessarily always preaching. It's not like something clear is happening in the story. Now you have moments, but it's pretty hard to talk about preaching about Paul getting arrested again and again and again, because that's just what happens at the end of Paul's life he's just carried away from here to there. So we will do that one day, but as of today, 1 Samuel, chapter 3, we read it last week. Carrie, do you want to do this? Can you grab this? I'm not going to make you guys suffer through me doing this at the same time. Yeah, I should be honest, but there you go. Yeah, that's it right there. Last week he got like 90% of it as it went by, but let's read it again. You read it before and you should memorize this thing by the time we're done with this sermon series. Now. The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and you should memorize this theme by the time we're done with this sermon series. Now. The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent visions. We talked about that last week.
Speaker 1:At the time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel and he said here I am. And he ran to Eli and said here I am, for you called me. But he said I did not call. Lie down again. And so he went and lay down and the Lord called again Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said here I am, for you called me. But he said I did not call you. My son, lie down again Now.
Speaker 1:Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time and he rose and went to Eli and said here I am, for you called me. And then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say speak, lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place and the Lord came and stood calling, as at other times, samuel, samuel and Samuel said speak, for your servant hears. Then the Lord said to Samuel behold, I'm about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle, and on that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end, and I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. Forever, ever.
Speaker 1:Samuel lay until morning when he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Until 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, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you. So Samuel told him everything and had nothing from him. And he said it is the Lord, let him do what he seems good to him. And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
Speaker 1:And Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh. For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord. All right, this is week two. By the word of the Lord, all right, this is week two, looking at 1 Samuel, chapter 3.
Speaker 1:Last week we briefly talked about basically the word of the Lord, the word of the Lord and how, as it says in the beginning of the scripture, the word of the Lord was rare in those days. And so if you were Israel, as Amos points out, if you were not receiving the word of God, if you were not connected to his word, israel sort of fades and on a grander scale. That same experience extends to all of creation and to us. If you look back at Genesis, you realize that it's the word of God that is the centerpiece of creation and we saw in John that the word was a part of creation, a part of everything that it is. And then we see that the person of Jesus was the word. It wasn't just letters, it wasn't just noises. Jesus was the living word of God.
Speaker 1:And so, just on multiple levels, it is exceptionally imperative that we have the word of God in our life one way or another. And so just got to have the word of God, have to have the Word of God in our life one way or another, and so just got to have the Word of God. Have to have the Word of God. You can't live without it. You can sort of find your way through life without it if you want to, but it's not a good life, it's not a whole life, it's not a full life, it's a life of meaninglessness, if you're asking me. So you got to have the word of God in your life.
Speaker 1:And so in this today I don't know, I'm just looking at the scripture and Samuel receives this fresh word of God. Which is this great thing? It's a great thing that happens to him. And then, as God is trying to speak to him, as God is trying to give him this fresh word, we see that Samuel has this experience, trying to figure it all out. It's semi-hilarious because in my mind I'm picturing Benjamin. I'm picturing Colton a little bit older than what they are now, but I'm picturing them walking through this experience and just trying to figure out what in the world is happening. I'm picturing Benjamin yelling in his kid's monitor Dad, did you talk to me? Did you call me no? Son, go back to bed. Dad, did you call me? No, go back to bed. Did you call me? No? Go back to bed.
Speaker 1:And finally realizing, like this, there's this I don't know it could be an SNL skit in my mind. I've created an SNL skit in my mind for this experience, but what's happening here is that Samuel is just trying to work through hearing the voice of God and figuring out that it is the voice of God it's not Eli, but it's God and then listening to the voice of God which is different than hearing the voice of God and then finally actually doing something with the voice of God. This is a process that he's walking through in this story and can I tell you something? It's a process we still go through Every day. We are offered the chance and the opportunity to try to do something, to hear, to, listen to and act on the word of God in our life. Now I'll just go ahead and tell you here we go.
Speaker 1:Not always easy and from personal experience, it's a never-ending process. You're never done doing what Samuel is doing in the scripture. Now you might get better at it, right? You might develop some systems and some maturity to where it becomes easier for you to hear the voice of God and do something with it. Right, Because I do this every week when I prepare for a sermon. I'm listening to the voice of God in scripture and in prayer time and I'm doing something with it to communicate it to you guys. And by the nature of you guys being here, you're now in the process of hearing the voice of God and doing something with it. Hopefully, you've got your own personal time at some point in the week whenever you're doing this on your own, without me.
Speaker 1:But we all are on the journey of taking God's Word and doing something with it, listening it and hearing it, and it never ends. It's part of discipleship. And what we see in this scripture and what we realize is that Eli's sons failed to even hear the voice of God. They weren't even interested in it. And then Eli, who probably cares, wants to hear the voice of God, but he has access to the first five books of the Bible at this point and he fails to use what he does have in order to correct his sons. And so we have two failures to do something appropriate with the voice of God in the scripture. And then we have Samuel, who's on the other side, the beginning part, who is showing us the way, the proper way to respond to God. And so in the scripture there is just some innate insecurity and confusion in the process for Samuel. He's young, he's inexperienced, he's a kid and he's struggling and he's thinking he hears this voice, that he doesn't know who it is. And so his entire story, his entire experience, sort of informs me that in our life we might have some moments, whenever they might be insecure. We might be insecure and confused in the process of hearing God's voice. Right, we might be doing that.
Speaker 1:We have questions when we hear God's voice, when we read scripture, when we hear a sermon, when we hear a song, when we think the Holy Spirit might be saying something inside of us, and we think is this just me? Is this my own creation? Am I just talking inside my head, or is this God trying to lead me to do something? We have these questions that come up. Is this really God? Is this authentic? Can I trust what I'm hearing? Can I trust what I'm reading? Can I trust this pastor who's preaching to me right now? These are ultimately questions which are natural expressions of our God-given intellect. It's a gift that we have these questions. Don't be discouraged by questions. Right, it's just part of what we have in our brain that God gave us. But without diving into what is called apologetics, which is sort of like philosophical and ideological proofs that you can trust what Scripture says. God's Word is worth listening to. It is, but it's not always easy. It's not always easy. Raise your hand.
Speaker 1:If you've heard of Gideon, heard of Gideon before, okay, if you know the story, gideon, israel's in a place in their existence where they don't have a king, they don't have a queen. Basically, what's happening in the book of Judges in particular is that you have this sort of I don't know. It sort of looks like a sound wave going like this, and that sound wave would represent sort of God's connection with the people of Israel and Israel's connection with the people of Israel, and sometimes up here in certain seasons they have a great connection. Sometimes down here they have no connection because they just sort of forget and they flounder and do whatever they want to do. Gideon represents one of those low spots to do. Gideon represents one of those low spots.
Speaker 1:And so what we have in that story is, as we enter, is that there is this guy, gideon, and he is threshing his wheat inside a wine press, which is crazy, not a lot of room. But then you find out through context that he is legitimately afraid that anyone would see that he has wheat, because what's happening is an enemy continually comes in and steals his food and steals other families' food, and so he's hiding. He's afraid. Right, they have an enemy that is consistently making them struggle. And then, while he's in that wine press hiding, just trying to get some wheat together, some grain together to make food, god speaks to him. God gives him some words right, we're talking about God's word and God speaks to Gideon and I'm going to shorten it up and paraphrasing it here. I'm not going to read the exact scripture, but basically it boils down to that God speaks to him and says I'm going to use you, gideon, as small as you are, as afraid as you are. You come from a nothing family. You come from a nothing clan, the lowest of the lowest. Basically, gideon says of himself I'm nobody, but I'm going to use you anyways to bring Israel back into right relationship with God. And God has to drag him through that because Gideon has some doubt. Gideon doesn't believe it, gideon can't believe that God's going to has to drag him through that because Gideon has some doubt. Gideon doesn't believe it. Gideon can't believe that God's going to use lowly him to do anything. And it's just this entire process where God is dragging him through to, this process of doing what God wants him to do. We ever had to be dragged through some stuff before God ever had to knock you over the head a couple times to get you to pay attention and listen to his word for your life. For Gideon, it wasn't just that he was stubborn, it's that he had some doubts and some insecurities that did not match what God was saying, didn't match the reality of his life, and so he had a hard time figuring it out and believing that.
Speaker 1:David, david we all know David and many stories of David. David at the beginning of sort of his introduction into the story of life and existence. In particular, in the book of Samuel, he is gifted some words for his life. He is anointed and basically prophesied over by Samuel that you're going to be king one day. All right, you're going to be king one day. Great words, right? How encouraging. But he's a teenager and so in between those words and sort of the culmination of those words, there's a lot of stuff in between.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when we are dealing with God's words, there's some stuff in between what God tells us and how we get there. There's a lot of stuff that happens before. David is actually king and he has to have some patience dealing with God's word. He has to have sort of some faith that God is going to do what he says he's going to do when we hear God's word, when we read some stuff in the Bible, to do what he says he's going to do when we hear God's word, when we read some stuff in the Bible, or whenever someone speaks a word over our life or when the Holy Spirit's telling you something about your life. Sometimes it's not going to happen immediately. Sometimes it's part of a process where you have to develop some patience and some faith that's going to carry you through. It's one thing to believe in the word of God that tells us there is hope for eternity. It's another thing to live like you, believe in that hope of eternity. So when we walk with God's word, there's a challenge there for us to actually hold on to that word before it seems like anything's happening. It's been so long. You get saved. I got saved when I was super young, so it's a little different for me. But there are certainly those moments where you're believing, you know the word of God about grace and mercy and his crucifixion and his resurrection and you believe. You believe those words. But sometimes you look at your life and you think Is this real? Am I really part of this process? It's tough. It's tough. Dealing with the Word of God can be tough and confusing sometimes.
Speaker 1:Peter, peter. So Peter is in this position where obviously he's the most vocal disciple. Jesus calls him a rock, the rock of the church. He's really important to the history of the church. But we look at Peter's life and we know that basically Jesus tells Peter, before Jesus is arrested and crucified hey, peter, I know you love me, but you're going to deny me three times. And of course Peter's like no way, I'm going to die with you when you go. I go. And Jesus tells him yeah, you will, but not right now.
Speaker 1:And then short story is Peter also gets crucified, just like Jesus was, but in the moment Peter's like no way. And of course we know that Peter does right. Peter's three times is confronted hey, you know, you're with this, you know Jesus, you're with him all the time. And three times Peter says absolutely not the final time. It says basically he cusses the person out who accuses him of basically you know Jesus. And then the rooster crows and then he looks at Jesus, jesus looks at him, and then Peter runs away and says he wept bitterly.
Speaker 1:And then, in John in particular, the next time we see Peter, right, they've not really had an interaction until that point, until Jesus shows up on the shore and says hey, come have breakfast with me. They realize it's Jesus. And then it's this cool moment where Peter and Jesus they're having breakfast and then Jesus confronts Peter with some words Do you love me? Jesus asked Peter and Peter says yes. And then again later Jesus says Peter, do you love me? And again Peter says yeah, of course. And then again Jesus says do you love me? And finally Peter's like yes, yes I don't know what else I can say yes, I love you. And then Jesus says okay, feed my sheep.
Speaker 1:And what we have there if you read it and I encourage you to go find that scripture and read it is that you can sense Peter's insecurity and his uncomfortableness and his failure, his sense of letdown to this person, because he knows that three times he denied he knew Jesus and now three times Jesus has asked him do you love me? And so there's this insecurity there, and yet Jesus gives him a word for his life that's full of purpose. Sometimes we have moments like that as well, where we are just full of our own failure. We're full of our own insecurities. We know we have let Jesus down, we know we have done the wrong thing. And so God gives us a word, a purpose for our life, and we've got to get over ourselves and feed his sheep. And your purpose is not going to be the same as Peter's, but we are given a word from God one way or another for our lives that gives us purpose. But you've got to get over yourself and you've got to believe that grace and mercy is there for you and you've got to hold on to his word. But hearing his word and experiencing word. It's a process, it's a struggle. Samuel is dealing with that process right now and for the first time he is sort of recognizing what's happening.
Speaker 1:Comes a point when Samuel finally has some clarity about the voice of God. Eli finally realizes what's happening, what's going on, and he sort of offers Samuel instructions on how to respond to the voice of God. David had to respond, right, gideon had to respond, peter had to respond, paul had to respond, we have to respond. Countless others in scripture heard the voice of God, hear the voice of God, and then you do something with it. You wrestle with questions, you wrestle with doubt, fear, insecurity, and you have to respond or you ignore it and you keep moving on in your life, but God is always there knocking, hello, hello, samuel, samuel, samuel. But at some point we make a choice to respond and Samuel does respond. Eli gives him some instructions. Here I am, lord, your servant.
Speaker 1:Hears Now that word servant. This is a word that the woke community would not appreciate, right, because there's a lot of negative connotations with the word servant, not just in America but a lot of places. Because, well, ultimately it's a different society we live in, so we don't really use that word like that anymore and so it's just a negative word. But I've got to go ahead and tell you if you can cut through sort of the cultural baggage that this word contains. This is the proper attitude that we need to have in relation to Christ. We are servants of God. Samuel responds to the word of God with a proper attitude of service Service.
Speaker 1:Paul points out the power of a servant's heart when using the right context. In Philippians, philippians 2, verses 4-8, says this one of my favorite verses, by the way Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who, though he was God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. If our Savior serves probably means we ought to serve as well. It ought to be our attitude, it ought to be our default setting when it comes to dealing with people, dealing with life, dealing with spouses, dealing with friends, dealing with people, dealing with life, dealing with spouses, dealing with friends, dealing with coworkers, workmates, dealing with church. We serve first because Christ served us, and without his service we don't have grace and mercy. Right, this is a beautiful thing. Here I am. Lord, your servant is listening.
Speaker 1:Service Sacrifice. Right, it's a humbling experience to consider yourself a servant. It's a sacrifice of self. You've got to put yourself second. You've got to put things that you want behind you. It's a bit of surrender and it takes some trust. But it's through that trust and through that surrender that we gain access to doing something with the Word of God that is being offered to us. And in that process we get joy, we get hope, we get peace, we get transformation of attitude. We are delivered from pain and from problems and from sin and from bad habits. But it starts with approaching God with the right attitude. Lord, I'm going to serve you. I'm going to serve you.
Speaker 1:Samuel approached God's word with a heart and attitude of service. There's also a part of Samuel's process where God is speaking to him. God is sharing his words with him, and they're not pleasant. He's not receiving a pleasant message. It's not like God shows up. Right, this is the first message that has been received in Israel in quite some time and it ain't good news for Eli. And so this young, not even a teenager, this kid receives this hard word from God and he's got to do something with it. And there was always, and you can tell he's afraid. He's like hiding in his room in the mornings, like I'm trying to avoid Eli, like it's like listening around the corner and Eli's blind, so Samuel's probably tiptoeing around everywhere, like if he doesn't hear me he'll probably think I'm out doing something different right now. But he receives a hard word Sometimes. The word of God is not easy, it's not hard, it's not rainbows and sunshine A lot of times.
Speaker 1:I was talking about this last night with someone and talking about a particular pastor that I had a lot of great respect for. But over the years, because I've been listening to them for so long, their sermons used to be 45 minutes, right, and it was full of scripture and full of like I don't know, just meat. And now his scriptures were he doesn't preach anymore for like 22 minutes of like wham bam, feel good about yourself now, get out of here, right. But that's not what the Word of God is all the time. It's encouraging, it's hopeful, but there are some moments, and all of you in here are probably mature enough to know that the Word of God is going to challenge you. It's going to challenge you.
Speaker 1:The wisdom of God's Word to help our lives in practical ways is often attached to difficult things, difficult things to hear, to experience. It's going to talk about our bad habits. It's going to talk about our bad attitudes, our personalities, our very nature and how we do things the wrong way and think things the wrong way, say things at the wrong time, and we have anger issues, we have greed, we have lust, we have pride. We got all this stuff and Scripture, god's Word, is full of correction for that and it's exceptionally uncomfortable. Raise your hand if you like being corrected. That's right. Nobody's ever going to raise their hand to that question, unless they're a liar, in which case they need to be corrected. Okay, no one likes to be corrected, but sometimes God's Word is exactly that. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be hard to hear. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be hard to hear. It's going to challenge us. We're going to walk out of some services angry. I can't believe.
Speaker 1:He said that I'm not like that, that's not me. And then you sit there on your drive. I'm like, oh man, that is me. I've been there before, like I've walked out of a sermon that was. I'm like that. And then I'm sitting there thinking about it. I'm like, oh shoot, he's right, like I get it, I get it. Listen, it's not comfortable when Tara has to pull me aside and be like hey, that was not right. Right, and I've got to trust Tara because I have a relationship with her. She's me and I'm her. So I've got to listen to her wisdom and she's got to listen to mine. But no one likes it. No one likes it.
Speaker 1:But part of the process as we struggle with God's Word is the struggle to deal with hard words and difficult things. Sometimes the Word is not necessarily a challenge for us personally, but it's God's Word guides us into some pretty strange and hard places, like if we're listening to God's Word, he doesn't want us to be comfortable, right, god knows, but by the nature of man and how we do things, that if we get comfortable we get a little, I don't know. We get a little lazy sometimes, and so sometimes God's Word drags us to places that we don't want to go. Hey, just look at the life of Paul. Paul is consistently trying to follow God's Word and over and over again, paul is arrested, paul is chased by a mob, paul is almost stoned to death. Paul is stripped and beaten naked and he's dragged before this person, dragged before this person. All because Paul is following very difficult words of God, but he followed it anyways.
Speaker 1:God's word, it is uplifting, it is great, it is hopeful, it brings peace, it brings mercy, joy, all of these wonderful things in our life, and it lifts you up. But also it is hard sometimes. It is, it absolutely is, but it's part of the process and it's okay. The fact of the matter is, every person who lives has an opportunity and a chance to respond to God's word. Whether they know a Christian, whether they show up in church, whether they ever open up a Bible, god's word is consistently sort of at work around us.
Speaker 1:Psalms 19, verse 1,. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork Meaning. If we think about this at all times, god's words, which he used to create, are visible at all times for people. At all times, people have an obligation and a chance to respond to God's word just by looking at the way the world works. John, chapter 16, verses 7 through 8, says this nevertheless, I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away. This is Jesus talking to his disciples, for if I do not go away, the helper, which is the Holy Spirit, will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him, the Holy Spirit, to you and when he, the Holy Spirit comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment Pretty much meaning.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit, when he shows up, is God's voice at work in our hearts and in our minds Before we even have an inkling of who Jesus is. The Holy Spirit's already at work, whispering the word of God in our life one way or another. Now, people can ignore it, absolutely they can. But the Holy Spirit's there, speaking his word into lives and there is a chance to respond. 1 Timothy 2, verse 3-6,. This is good and is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Testimony is just a fancy way for somebody's words about something that happened. Once again, it is God's will that everybody receives the word that Jesus Christ can save them. So, one way or another, whether they step in church or not, whether they have a Christian friend who talks to them or not, or not, whether they have a Christian friend who talks to them or not, there is a chance for people to respond and hear and walk through a process of hearing God's voice, just like Samuel is doing here. One way or another, it is available for us to hear. God's word is there and we have to do something with it, have to Don't be discouraged because you're having a hard time figuring it out when you do hear it, because we all have those seasons.
Speaker 1:We all have those seasons where it doesn't make a whole lot of sense what God says for your life. In this moment, I don't want to do this. I don't want to give this up. I don't want to change. I don't want to be different. I want to keep being who, I want to be right, and God's word continually pours into us and it's saying no, no, no, give me this, give me this bad habit, give me this dream that you have for your life, that you're holding on to right. Give it to me and let me do something with it. You let go of it and you focus on something else for a while. That's part of it too.
Speaker 1:This is tough. It's discouraging. It's hard because we also have doubts. Is this really God? Like I said, is this really God? Are the words on this page that I'm reading right now, or on my phone screen right now, these things we call Holy Scripture? Is it really trustworthy? Does it really apply to my life, even though some of it's almost 8,000 years old, is it really there? Don't give up. Don't give up because it's a tough word. Don't give up because it's a tough word. Don't give up because you don't want to walk into this situation. Don't give up because you're having a hard time being a servant and sacrificing your own desires to serve God. Don't give up in your life because it seems like you're not making an advancement.
Speaker 1:It's a marathon, not a sprint, which, again, I've talked about this before. I find that annoying because I hate distance running, hate distance running. Give me a sprint any day of the week. It's done, it's over with max effort results right there. But the bible doesn't describe our relationship with God as a sprint. It is literally describes it as a marathon, as a race. We are in a race and so one step doesn't mean that the race is over. It means that you're one step closer to the race being over. And there's a lot of steps in a marathon, a whole lot of steps. So don't be discouraged whenever things take a little time in your life. Don't be discouraged whenever you're not seeing the results in your own life of discipleship. Just keep taking the steps and don't give up.
Speaker 1:The Word of God at work in Samuel's life radically changes an entire nation. I'm not saying the Word of God at work in your life is going to change the nation. Maybe it does, maybe it can, but I know for sure it'll change your life. I know for a fact I don't have to be a prophet to tell you that the Word of God at work in your life will change your life. I know for a fact I don't have to be a prophet to tell you that the Word of God at work in your life will change your life. I don't have to tell you that at some point in your life. The Word of God at work in your life can change a family member, can change a friend, can change a co-worker, can change a random stranger. Let the Word of God do something in your life. Struggle with this process, dive into the process of doing something when God speaks to you. And again, maybe God's not going to speak to you like he speaks to Samuel, but we've got a really awesome book called the Bible. That is legitimately the living word of God available to us. And, yes, sometimes it's not going to offer you some like Lego set instruction instructions for your life, but there is stuff there that will help you. Amen, all minds clear. We're good. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your word.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your word, lord. Thank you for your word that is life-changing. Thank you for your word that is living. Thank you for your word, lord. Thank you for your word that is life-changing. Thank you for your word that is living. Thank you for your word that is always, always applicable to our life, lord, and thank you for your word that is, I don't know, just grants us light. Lord, thank you so much for your word.
Speaker 1:I pray that we would take your word seriously. I pray that we would struggle and take joy in the struggle of figuring out what your word might mean for our life today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and I just pray that you would just help us in the process, give us guidance, let us have the correct attitude, let us come to your word with a servant's heart and to say here I am Lord, I'm listening, I'm listening. What do you need, lord? We love you and we thank you for this day. I pray that you bless us, god. I pray for every person attached to this place. I pray that you would bless them and help them and lift them up and that you would just encourage them right now, wherever they might be. In Jesus Christ's name, I pray and we all said amen.