God is My Name

• View transcript

  God is My Name

  Download transcript

  Good morning, friends. Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel. I'd like to introduce you to something called the Old Testament. You may have heard of it before. Um, when Punxsutawney Ashoff comes out in a new suit, that means 28 more weeks of consecutive exposition in a book. So that's the explanation for what I'm wearing this morning. You know, it's ready to go when it's winding down. I'll look a little more contemporary and the sermons will get shorter and a lot more illustrations, but for now, Old Testament with a bunch of names we don't know how to pronounce. Some of you wonder from time to time...not that I get emails about it or anything, but people ask, hey, how do you figure out what you're going to preach next? And, um, the answer is Mark Ikerd, who does so much around here, has built a Price is Right wheel. And so we put all 66 books on it, and usually Kurtis goes back, jumps up in the air as high as he can. Spins that thing down. That was a little extra jab, I know. And he gets that thing moving. And then wherever it lands, you know you got a 1 in 66 shot, 1.5%. odds. So here we are. That's why we ended up in 1 Samuel. Actually, through prayer and, uh, thinking about it and talking to people in congregation...they'll ask that time to time and I'll talk about what I've been reading and what they've been reading. And kind of an idea comes out of it. But I also will look back, as I did over the last couple months during the Christmas break. And I looked back at the last five years from when I arrived in fall 2019 till now. And, AI gave me a great graph. They really excel in making them look like hand-drawn, but that's a breakdown of where we've been for the last five years between, the about 210 times I've preached, um, 159 times we've been in a New Testament text. Um, so the remainder, you know, 24% or less has been in the Old Testament or a topical sermon, which those topical sermons, when I look back, were mostly like our values, which are New Testament texts. So heavily New Testament, I get it. But at least what you can draw from that is one, um, if you're new, here you come and you will hear the Word of God preached. That's the baseline. You will likely hear the New Testament preached. That's just how the chips have fallen. Uh, some of the time you'll hear the Old Testament or a topical sermon. And also most of the time, like it or not, you'll hear from me, about 77% of the time. We've had 274 sermons since I came, and it's about 77% of the time. So everything's three quarters of the time around here. You're going to get the same, mostly the same guy. Mostly the New Testament. Occasionally you'll get a Cowboys fan instead of a Steelers fan up here like Kurtis or John Krick. But most of the time here we are, stuck together. Stuck in the middle with you. You know, this is how we're going to do it. Back to that state of the art pie graph. One of the things that I love, other than pie all the time, is when I looked at that, it did make me think about jumping into the Old Testament and how, funny enough, though, two thirds of the time, or three quarters of the time I've been preaching from the New Testament, the Bible's actually broken down the opposite. You know, two thirds of your Bible is Old Testament, and some of you are like, why don't you like the Old Testament? And, well, probably a variety of reasons. I mean, a big chunk of the time we've spent has been looking at Jesus in the gospel of Mark over a year. I think we went through the gospel of Mark and, and then, um, you know, we wanted to look at how Paul explains the life and ministry of Jesus through some of the texts in the New Testament, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and others. But truly, and this isn't, I think, a cop out on it. Weirdly, when we asked that question, we want to be careful, even though we do get used to calling it Old Testament New Testament that we don't see the Bible as it really is, which is one story. And yes, I know you have to say like, why do you preach here? Why do you preach there? But truly, to understand the big picture of our redemption, of our salvation that we just sang about, that wonderful last song is the story of what? Genesis through revelation. That's how it breaks down. And you know, the way in which the Bible came to us, the canon, that is the 66 books. Yeah. The Old Testament was around by the time of Jesus, and that was the Bible he had. And then you have the New Testament comes when he comes preaching the gospel. And so that's written. And then all the epistles after that. So, you know, really it's just one continuous story, even though we look at it as an old and a New Testament and even why we call it that Sometimes gives ideas that one might be obsolete...as one theologian calls them the First and Second Testament, not the old and new, because, he says, old connotes unfortunate notions of antiquity and out of dateness. Oh, sure. I mean, 3000 years ago, some of the names we'll read right out of the gates in 1 Samuel do ring a little bit of antiquity. But I mean, let's be honest here, going 3000 years in the past versus 2000 years to the time of Paul, we're still going to antiquity. It's still a really different world. But he says it might suggest that the Old Testament is inferior, left behind by a dead person. The idea of calling it Old New Testament, even. Where does that come from? Uh, some see it in like a verse, like Hebrews 9:15. I'll just read it. For this reason Jesus is the is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death is taking place, whose death?, his death. So there is a new covenant that took place starting at the death of Christ and moving forward for the redemption of sins committed under the first covenant. So prior to Christ and His death, there was what the writer of Hebrews is calling an old covenant...a First covenant. And those have been called may receive the promise of eternal life in him. And so I think that's even where the scribes, you know, when they put the Bibles together, you know, there was this idea of, let's call it an old and a new covenant or an old and a New Testament...testament being a witness. A witness to what?...one story. That's what pulls all this together. Whatever you think about whether we're in the old or the new, the main point in starting this new book, particularly in the old, is that we never forget the major point, the main point of the Bible, which is the plan of God and salvation through Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection. That's it. That's the plan that's moving everything in your Bible forward from Genesis to Revelation. The challenge before us today is we start this new book is how does 1 Samuel fit in? Where does it fit in? Where are we in the history of the world? Not just in the book of the Bible...the Bible is a book. And then this individual book, where are we in history? What's going on? And so we will jump into that today. Today will be more of a little bit of a lesson in both your Bible and the background, so that when we start into the narrative, I don't have to keep stopping and saying, and by the way, this is why we're here. You can just kind of get right into it. So today we will do a little bit differently, but we will still see what the text has for us. So let's just read the first two verses here. The non inspired title, the first book of Samuel put there by a scribe. But the inspired word and every word is authoritative, and every word is inerrant, and every word God wanted there in front of us. Even ones that I'm about to butcher the pronunciation of. So laugh at me while I read 1 Samuel 1:1-2.
  "Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim-zophim, from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph an Ephraimite. He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children." The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God. This word stands forever. Amen.
  Most of us don't know who Gilbert Stuart was, but we all have owned something that belonged to him. If you are in possession of a $1 bill. He was the American painter best known for his unfinished work called the Athenaeum Portrait that he painted of George Washington in 1796 and became the picture that you have on your dollar bill. I found interesting reading about this when Gilbert Stuart, the eccentric American painter, first met General Washington and he was struck by his commanding presence. Stuart had a way, when he was doing portraits for a living, to try to disarm the person he was going to paint, to loosen them up a bit. I'm sure some of you parents struggle the same in trying to get your kids to smile for family pictures each year. You do whatever you can to get them something. So this guy is trying to get the stoic George Washington to crack a smile or look relaxed, to which was not going to work. Washington a man of granite self-control. When he was retiring or departing from the presidency a British ambassador told him that he thought his face showed pleasure at being done with being the president, to which Washington grew indignant and responded, you are wrong. My countenance never betrays my feelings. My kind of guy. He believed this. He said this much about his facial expressions, or lack thereof. With me, it has always been a maxim, rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions. So here we are with Gilbert Stuart in his portrait session with George Washington, and he's trying to disarm him with personal anecdotes and irreverent wit. It's not working. So finally, Stewart says to Washington, you must let me forget that you are General Washington, and that I am Stewart, the painter. To which Washington responded dryly, you need not forget who you are and who I am. It sounds like a fun hang, doesn't it? I share that story to highlight the truth that with every story in the Bible, no matter who the person is, he or she, how important they are, where they factor in we too should have the mindset of George Washington, no matter who they are or we are. We need never forget who God is, because this is history or as we often say, His story. And that is what is always moving the plan of salvation along no matter what Johnny, come lately is brought into our purview. Now, why I brought this up in starting 1 Samuel, and maybe not when we did Daniel a while back and talked about the Old Testament, is because the name Samuel and even the names we started with, and the main characters of this story that you're familiar with, your mind goes to Samuel and Saul and David, of course. And even when we just read in 1 and 2 names and names, small characters or large, we read Samuel and then we look ahead to verse 20 and think, yeah, that's the guy. That's what 1 and 2 Samuel are about. Here's the guy that's going to establish the New Kingdom for the first time. So he's pretty important. And that caught my attention this week as I just studied his name by way of intro, that the name Samuel, even though you could you could read this for yourself in 1:20, it came about in due time after Hannah had conceived, she gave birth to a son and she named him Samuel, saying, because I have asked him of the Lord. And sometimes we hear that and think, oh, Samuel's name means I have asked of the Lord. And it doesn't mean that. Samuel, when pronounced in the Hebrew language, sounds like the verb...he has heard. So she names him Samuel because it sounds like one thing, but it actually means something else which is written in my margin. And you have it in your book. The name Samuel meant...God is his name. And there's a world of difference between the way you now look at this book with all these names, all these characters, as Samuel is going to play an important role in Israel moving from a theocracy, as in, God is the one who calls all the shots for the people. There have been mediators throughout the history of Israel who God raises up and then does away with. Good guys...Moses, the most humble man ever, a mediator, one who led them out of the promised land, passed the torch to Joshua, which then after Joshua dies, judges. Judges are brought along to try to get Israel out of the regular visit to the ditch they found themselves in. And in that transition from theocracy of God is in charge, and he's reigning and ruling to a monarchy. Now we're going to have a king by way of the people's desire. Samuel isn't really the guy, just because the book has been named after him. Scribes did that. How did we get names of the books of the Bible? They didn't come with titles. The scribes, back when the canon was assembled, would either see the first phrase in Hebrew and turn that into the title. Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning...that phrase is what the word means...beginnings or origins or Genesis in Hebrew. And so in our English Bible we have that name. It's just the phrase itself in the Book of Samuel. The phrase isn't what the scribes went with. They looked at 1 and 2 Samuel as one unit and said, you know who really is making this kingdom thing happen when this guy Samuel comes on the scene. So let's call the book Samuel. He's a big deal. And then David's going to be a big deal. But the big deal, actually, and what I hope for the rest of the time we are in this study, is that when you hear the name Samuel, you will hear...God is my name. Because that's a good, humbling reminder 24/7 to us who's actually running the show, isn't it? When somebody like a Washington, a person of prominence and importance, has to say, by the way, blank is my name, did you forget that? Did you forget who's in charge here? As we make our way through this book may it never escape us that though there are very significant characters in the story, Samuel, the final judge and the first significant prophet, Saul, Israel's first king, David, Israel's foremost king. There is a name that the author of this whole book and all of history doesn't want you to forget...God, that's my name. That's what's moving the plan along in this story to the arrival of my Son.
  So let's take that title...God is his name and let it speak for itself. As we dive into this dark time in the history of Israel, where, looking at today three things...His word, his plan, and his man, as in His Word at this time was seldom heard. His plan seems lost...the plan of redemption. The plan of God having a people for his own possession to bring glory to his name amongst the nations. That seems like the light is out. And then who would be the leader? I mean, he's had some great ones. And then the book of Judges just shows us there has been nobody that they can count on.
  So let's start with God is my name, and I have a word is our entry into this book. God has a word. Even though first name of three. Verse one....His word has been rare. That's how I want to paint the backdrop here. We know God speaks right from the beginning of the Bible and all throughout. And if God doesn't speak, if God doesn't reveal himself to his creation, what are we? We're nothing. We're nothing. If he doesn't reveal himself to his creation. The high point of creation, you and I, created in his image. If he doesn't speak, we're no different than worms. We don't know why we're here. We don't know what we're doing. God has to speak. So it's significant that in the beginning, look back at 1 Samuel 3:1 again, in those days, and we talk about our lives that way, a period of time, not just one day, but in the days around before Samuel was born. And as he's a young kid...those days, it was rare to hear from God. And what days are these? For those of you who haven't already looked this up on your phone. These are the days, uh, 11th century BC, pre kingdom, Israel is united, if you want to call it that, in that they are these tribes. They understand themselves and identify themselves as those 12 tribes, the called people of God. But there's no real central leadership anymore. And you can see that in the book of Judges. They don't have one person at the helm leading them out of the darkness that they find themselves in. And we know this because, Judges 21:25, end of that book, in those days. Just as in the days we're beginning 1 Samuel. God's not saying much. Why? Why is there silence? Well, because in those days, there was no king in Israel. There's nobody to lead. Judges 21:25, Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And therein is the problem. What's the mark of a godless society, a secular society? Man, is the measure of all things, right? We do what's right in our own eyes. We're rational creatures, great intellects. Look at all the things we can make. Look at all the things we could do with our hands. Look at our brilliance. So we're just going to do what's right in our own eyes because we get it. Why do we need help? Why do we need a God to ask? So that's how dark it is then. And so, as Samuel begins, I know there's Ruth in between. And I'll explain that in just a minute. But in this time period, the silence of God is a form of his discipline and chastening. Now we remember that...that's one way God works to try to bring some sense to a rebellious child, a wayward son or daughter. We learned that a few weeks ago when we talked about God's discipline, that when we just are insistent on ignoring the call to wisdom, God is going to discipline us. Chasten us to what?...get our attention because we're doing this so we may need to fall flat on our face to finally wake up and get our fingers out of our ears. We heard this in Proverbs 1. Wisdom has been has been calling out to listen, to listen, to listen. And they won't...these scoffers. So Proverbs 1:27, when your dread comes like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind. When distress and anguish come upon you, then you will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Why? Because they hated knowledge, and they did not choose the fear of the Lord. They're just looking for a bailout. They hate the knowledge of God. That hasn't changed. They're just trying to get out of the dire situation they're in. We see humanity work that way. Pushed to a certain point subgroups of people or individuals are going to spurn knowledge, spurn correction, go their own way, and then when really it tanks, then they turn and ask for help. They put their hand out. But when you're right in your own eyes, when that's the disposition of your heart, our sinful hearts, we're going to just keep saying, I can grin and bear it and solve it on my own, because I'm the measure of all things. So that's the state we find Israel in. God has a word, but he's not giving it to them at this point. The word is rare because of the resistance to God...rebelling against him. And that we pick up at the end of Judges. Now, I said I was going to return to, well, I mean, even the order of the books of my Bible. Why does it have Judges then Ruth, then Samuel? Well, truly, if you could take Ruth and lift it up, you could back Samuel into Judges. Because they connect. The time periods would overlap. That time period of 1050 BC, that 100 years, we'll say, from 1100 to 1000 David's arrival. And he's being raised up and the downfall of Israel itself going back to 1100. Samuel and Judges make a nice connection, but above it would be the story of Ruth. Because if you look at the beginning of 1 Samuel, there's a certain man and he's a nobody from Nowheresville. So what's the big deal? Well, Ruth starts in the same way it comes about in the days when the judges governed. Okay, so we're in the book of judges, and there's just another certain man of Bethlehem. So we're just getting these stories stacked on top of each other that actually, if we could put a timeline together, would layer with another story of a nobody from nowhere. Judges 17 now there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. So follow me when I'm just trying to give you like, what's going on in the history of Israel in this general time frame of Judges 17, Ruth 1, and Samuel 1. I'm not saying they're all in all on the same day, but those days, a period of time, it's getting really bad in Israel.  Judges 17 to 21...go read it later. You'll understand why I say that. It finally bottoms out. It's awful. The rebellion that leads to some of the most heinous acts committed by the people of God...so-called people of God. All the while, Ruth starts. See God's writing this story over here. Here's all this spiral of sin that we see often in the book of Judges happening. And it's going down and going further and further. And then we have Ruth, and there's this family that's affected by all that's going on. And yet somebody very important is going to come from this line. And then simultaneously, when it comes to just having leadership in the in the nation of Israel, has God given up on them? Is he still going to speak? Does he still have a plan? Does he have a man? You see that start in Samuel. So that's how all of those fit together. You can go study that on your own this week. But what we see in the cycle of sin in the book of Judges go all the way back to Judges 2. This kind of summarizes what Israel did after Joshua dies brings them into the Promised Land. Joshua 2:10, all that generation who came across the river to the Promised Land, there arose a generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. Verse 11, then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served or worshiped the baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers. And we're just talking one generation later. That should be, um, sad if you're a parent or grandparent here to think that you could have been part of that first group of people who finally made it to the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering, your own parents didn't make it in. Moses didn't make it in. Joshua gets you in the book of Joshua...conquest. No good promise of the Lord failed to come to pass, and your kids were raised to know that and see that. And you pass off the scene and they forget it...how sad. And how quickly we forget. And that forgetting doesn't just lead to like, oh, oops. It leads to the whole spiral of sin in the book of Judges over and over. This is the pattern that sons of Israel do evil in the sight of the Lord. They go after other gods. Verse 14, the anger of the Lord burns against Israel. He gives them in the hand of plunderers and others. And then they cry out to the Lord when they're distressed, and he raises up, 2:16, judges for them. And so you could just see this pattern. Judges 3:9. It starts there when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer. That's a name for a judge. So not like Judge Judy or Supreme Court judges in robes doing nothing. No. These judges are out with weapons and leading charges, William Wallace style. That's a judge. Military power...also diplomacy, both domestically and foreign. They are at the front line. And God raises these judges up. So sons of Israel, cry to the Lord. The Lord raises up a deliverer for the sons of Israel. Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. The spirit of the Lord is on him, and when he judges Israel, things go well, but then spiral back into sin. 3:15, when the sons of Israel cry out to the Lord, he raises up another deliverer, Ehud, and so on and so forth, 4:3, 6:7, 10:10...this is what Israel does. They get going. They're good for a while. They forget God. They rebel. They're given over to some conquering nations around them, that they should have kept their foot on their necks and never been conquered by. And because they do what's right in their own eyes, they follow after their gods, just as it was said about them going all the way back to Deuteronomy. And they cry out pseudo-superficial repentance...2 Corinthians 7 style in the New Testament. They're sorry for the situation they find themselves in. It's just surface level. And so they feign repentance. But it's not godly sorrow, it's worldly sorrow. Man...woe is me. My situation stinks. God, can you do something? You know, I was going through my Rolodex. You know that I was going scrolling through my phone. I found your number. Are you there for me? This is what Israel did in the book of Judges. And finally, God's patience wore so thin. I mean, as thin as the Eagles chance to beat the Kansas City refs today. That's how thin God's...sometimes you're falling asleep on me. I just bring you back in. So it's quiet in Israel. End of Judges. I said I was going to explain that thing about the Bible. So Jesus's Bible, by the way, was called the Tanakh and it stood for the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim, and they were words for the law, the prophets, and the writings. And so it's the same content. It's not any different than what you have, but it's a threefold division that even Josephus at the end of the first century highlights. This is the way the Old Testament was laid out that Jesus would have read from, and Jesus himself in Luke 24:44, when he's revealing himself through the Word of God to his disciples in his reappearance, says all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. If you look on the Tanakh and see under the prophets the Nevi'im, you see that Samuel is preceded by Judges. Ruth is saved later for the writings. Not sure why that is, but listed under the prophets you have Judges going right into the Book of Samuel. So that's why when I wanted to mash these stories together for you today, to show you I wasn't just kind of shooting from the hip there. If you would have been with Jesus and he unrolls the scroll, what he would have read from is the Tanakh. And that's how the Old Testament was summarized. Some of the books again combined Samuel into one, kings into one. Some uncovered were just 22 books, not 39. Because, uh, the Hebrews loved numbers, and there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And so one book for all kinds of stuff going on there. All I wanted you to see one and be amazed by is we have the same Old Testament Jesus did. We just have it in a different order. None of the content is different. So that's mind blowing to me that everything Jesus learned growing up, going to the temple, being taught, you get to learn too. You're not playing from behind. In fact, you're playing from ahead because you have the New Testament to go with it. I mean, that's why God has a word for us. He always does. If we would just have ears to hear. So right out of the gate, when we look at this story. And as bleak as it seems, and as dark as it is coming from Judges into the start of this story, God does have a word, but he has it for those who wholeheartedly want to seek him, who want to hear from him, just like Hannah did right at the beginning. Like Samuel's going to do. Like David's going to do, but not like Saul, who we learn on a few occasions in this story, chapter 14 and chapter 28, it says he calls out to God and God doesn't answer him. And therein lies the difference...God sees not as we see, right? If you want a theme for 1 Samuel, things aren't always as they appear to be. How do we know that? 1 Samuel 16:7. Samuel thinks he spotted the anointed king and God says, no, you don't see as I see, if I had to say, what's a big picture to learn coming into this book is that when you read through this story, the thing that keeps Israel tripping over itself is they just don't see the way God can see. And they stay in their ignorance because they don't have a word from him. They don't ask from him. They think they could figure it out. Seeing is the way that they've always seen. And Samuel teaches us no, things aren't always as they appear. For the person of faith things would look really dark in chapter one, and yet they would not stop crying out to God like Hannah, saying I want to hear from you. So that's the first thing we learn in this book. God has a word question for you how is God's Word in your life today? Is it rare? Are you wanting to hear from God today, or do you just have to admit, you know, Adam, as we were reading through that cycle of sin pattern in the Book of Judges, I feel my life more resonates with that. Because I get out of the ditch, I get going down the path again and I just I don't know why, but I just do what's right in my own eyes. If I'm just being dead honest. If that's you today, the only thing that saves you from that, redeems you from that, delivers you from that is to call out to God and His Word. Look to his word. Quit trying to be wise in your own eyes. Proverbs says there's more hope for a fool than for a person who does that. And you see it on display, don't you, right in front of you. But it's not too late because God does have a word. He's there. He has you here. He has his word being preached to you right now. You have a Bible in front of you, and it's exactly what you need all the time. Every time.
  Second, God has a plan. The plan of salvation is what the Word is about all the time. We have a have a word from God when we look at the Word, the Bible. And what is that word trying to tell us? It's trying to tell us going all the way back to Genesis 3:15, when sin enters the scene and God pronounces a curse on Satan, the serpent, and says, look, you're going to strike at the heel of a son of Man, and you'll bite him and you'll damage him, but he will crush your head. And there is the promise. There is the looking forward from Genesis 3:15 to the culmination of the return of Christ in the future, to rule and reign forever...end of revelation. All of that is the plan of God and salvation. It's a plan of deliverance, redemption. As we already saw, a Judge. Again, a judge who has come to judge the living and the dead once and for all. That's this plan of salvation that's found all throughout the Word of God. So it's a plan of God our Father to save his children and in the darkest of times, when things seem hopeless and people are helpless with enemies around them and idolatry within them, it seems bad. But we have to remember we don't always see what God can see, and he's still working his plan in your life. You got to believe that. If you have the Word, His word tells you his plan. If you believe that God has a plan for every last detail in your life, as insignificant as the opening of 1 Samuel seems, things aren't always as they appear. You have to see with eyes of faith, and what you see in his word is he's got a plan working. Now that plan has a name, big picture name in all of history in the Bible. And it's called God's providence. It's providence. It's a beautiful word. It's one of the most solid truths we need to have in our faith. That we can trust God's hand in every detail of our lives. And here's what's so amazing about Providence? It's that God works through the natural law, the everyday life to bring all things happening in your life and your life and your life and my life. He's working them all in the same direction for his glory, and, as his children, our good. Providence leaves miracles in the dust, in my opinion. Because for God to do a miracle, boom! One time done over with...not a big deal for God.  A huge deal for us, and we get fascinated by miracles, miracles, miracles. Come on church. Give it up for miracles. Let's go. Give me some more money right here. Come on. You want to see a miracle today? Pay up. Providence. Providence. You can rest your head on Providence. Because He's working within everyday life and details and pulling it all together for his sovereign purposes. That's how he runs this universe. I'm not saying there's no miracles. There are. They're awesome. But do you want to live your life on that roller coaster of waiting for the next big thing to come by? Or do you want to start saying, you know what I want to see? I want to see through the Word of God and in the plan of salvation how providence is taking this terrible situation I'm in. This detail that I think is awful, and he's still doing something with that, or else is he in control and is he good? Without providence, I have no hope. Who's running the ship? I remember listening to a favorite preacher of mine, John MacArthur. He was being interviewed a few years ago in the aftermath of the shutdown, Covid lockdown, all that stuff where churches were trying to figure out. We were trying to figure out what to do here. We didn't know what was around the next corner, and he was asked in the aftermath of it, how do you view all those unknowns? And really, it was a larger question. You've been in ministry 50 plus years. How do you deal with all the unknowns? Does it stress you out? Does it wear you down? And this was his response I loved it. He said, "My favorite place to be is in a situation that has challenges and I don't know the way out. Because then I can just be faithful, not try to orchestrate things and let God do what he will do." Is that how you see Providence in your life? Quit trying to manipulate the process to get the outcome you think in your own thinking is the right thing. That's what you're doing. You see the thing you want, and you may slap verses on it and have some idea of it. But when's the last time you brought it back to the Word of God under the plan of his salvation. And looked at it through that exclusive lens. All the other ancillary things, all the other pieces of the puzzle aside, you put that in the middle and say, God, if that's what I'm on this planet for. Your gospel to go forth. Your salvation to reach people, me to be changed by it, can I quit stop trying to take all the pieces and pull them together that only you can do. Because I trust your providence. And I'm going to quit trying to orchestrate it and manipulate it. That's not faith. That's not what he wants us to do. He wants us to trust him in all the details because he's sovereign over them all. And just be faithful. And you learn like a man in his 80s can then say, I have seen the faithfulness of the Lord time and time again in situation after situation and challenge after challenge and he's been faithful. So do you trust the providence of God this morning and his plan for you?  
  Well, that plan has a key player. He has a man. God is his name. And it's his man of his choosing. One that 1 Peter 1:10-11 said, going back to the time of Samuel, these prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come made careful searches and inquiries. They were trying to know, who is this man? Who's the one that's going to make this plan happen? 1 Peter 1:11 they were seeking to know what person or time. Here's what's mind blowing about this. The Spirit of Christ within them was indicating, as he predicted, the sufferings of Christ and glories to follow. So it was the Spirit of Christ leading the prophets and writers of the Old Testament along, prophesying about him, putting it in their minds to say, I'm coming. And you don't fully understand that if you went up to a person in the Old Testament and said, hey man, tell me your testimony. This is what we do. And they're like, well, I'm yeah, I'm a person of faith in God. And the story of my life is that we were under oppression and we needed deliverance. And God raised up this mediator to deliver us from this oppression and bring us into the promises of his grace, that if we would just walk by faith and thereby listen and obey, he would bless us. And you would say, yeah, sorry, that doesn't pass my test. You didn't use the name Jesus. So are you a Christian or not? And they say, Christian, what say you? We're saved by grace through faith, friends. All throughout, cover to cover. But what they didn't have, what we have is looking back to the man of God's own choosing is Christ. This is the man he has planned. It's not a temporary deliverer. As impressive as Samson is in Samuel or Gideon or go on down the list. Why this leads right up to here is because we get a picture of all these failed deliverers. And why do they fail? Because of the idols in their own heart, not the circumstances around them. They blow it because of what's in them, not what's around them. That's why we can't get behind them and say, that's my salvation. No, Christ is our salvation because he, unlike the pathetic priest Eli or petulant King Saul, or passionate David, which has its highs and its lows, none of them could be the perfect what?...prophet, priest and king that we need...only Christ. He alone is the man for God's plan as we learn from God's Word. And even Samuel is going to lead us to see that. Not that every week I just have to tack on at the end. Oh, by the way, I just preached this dry and dusty history of the ancient Near East with these characters you might remember from your childhood, but now that I've done that, let me tell you about Jesus. So, John 3:16. That's not how we're going to preach 1 Samuel, as in, here's this story. And then, fast forward to this. I hope you get saved today. If you're already saved, hope you found some good moral examples or avoid the bad ones. That's not preaching God's Word as a unit. It's seeing where does the hope of a Messiah of one to come fit right into where we are right now in this text? That's what the Word of God offers to us. Why do I believe that? Because of Romans 15:4 when Paul writes for whatever was written in earlier times, was written for our instruction. Whose the our?...Christians in the time of Paul. He's saying that story from 1000 BC was written for you and me.  It wasn't written for them. By the time it was written, they're dead. It happened so the God could move forward the plan of redemption to the Messiah. But it was written, he says. Romans 15:4 for our instruction. Okay, good. So we just need to know the facts, right? If we get on jeopardy! No. Here's the "so that" so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. That's awesome. Everything that God wanted to include in 1 Samuel, that we're going to get to see so that you would persevere in your faith, Christian. And have hope in Jesus Christ and not lose hope even when you're like, wait, what does this story have to do with today? I guess you're going to have to come back and see. But I will disappoint you on the front end. It's not going to be reduced down to just simplistic truisms. Good things like pray, like Hannah. You know, hopefully you can hear from God like little boy Samuel did. And of course, our favorite slay your giants like David, right? I mean, come on now. Those are all examples of faith to follow, but none of them are what?...objects of faith to save. That's the difference. That's the man God has. Yes, we have examples to follow, but only one object of faith. If you are not in Christ this morning. I hope you understand that whatever familiarity you have with the Bible and with the church, and you've heard stories. I mean, at least you know you. Oh, I've heard that like whenever a bad team plays a good team, it's a David and Goliath story or whatever. Uh, yeah. But I hope you understand what I mean when I'm saying the object of faith is what matters. Because that's what saves us. What we put our faith in, who we put our faith in. We put our faith in our Savior, Christ. And yes, we will learn lessons in things not being as they always appear. We may think a certain character is going to go this way and they go that way. And we can relate to them. And it's helpful for us. It helps. God uses his word. It's living and active side of it that useful for our instruction in every way that we learn in Timothy. It's going to open us up and reflect and say, yeah, I could see myself in that. That's an example. But the object of my faith will never be David or Samuel or Hannah. It's Christ. Nor are we fitting into that. We're not our own Savior. We're not the man or the woman in terms of a story. We're not the main character. We think we are, don't we? Some of us struggle with that more than others. We've lived through a generational shift in our culture that infects the church, that ingrains in us, that we're the main character. So we're always just taking this back to me. I remember hanging with an old friend, uh, a couple months back, catching up on the West Coast, and he's always been a few steps ahead of me in life by age and then in ministry and raising kids. And so I when I get together with them, ask them, hey, how's it going?...life, ministry, parenting and what can you clue me in on as I've got coming down the pipe? Kids going to be teenagers soon. You've raised them. Give me some wisdom. And I'll never forget his answer was so simple and true. He just said, Adam, you come to realize you're not the main character anymore. That'll preach in a lot of different ways, I hope. I am uniquely, I think, uniquely in a position to know what it's like to not be a main character if we're going to talk my failed career, not just as a failed actor, I was actually a failed extra. I mean, it was one thing to fail at trying to be an actor. A-list B list, C-list D list. And then when you're Z-list and you even fail at being an extra, I understand this you're not the main character. I was literally told on a set when I tried to give myself a line. You're not supposed to speak. It was one of those comedies where it was kind of spontaneous. I just thought I would join in and make it, and they shut it down. So I understand from life being shut down.
  But in so many ways, we have to come back to that truth. It's, you come to realize you're not the main character anymore, and that's okay, actually. We absolutely have to know that about our salvation. It's Christ alone, but we have to understand it relationally. How are you going to fit in and prosper in a church is not you thinking you're the main character? They're starting here, moving out everywhere. We're all just given different gifts to be used for the common good. 1 Corinthians 12 and every single body part eye, ear, foot, hand is needed. It was just all side characters. We all have that, you know, role we play, but that helps in parenting. That helps everywhere, doesn't it? Because the moment you start to read your own headlines, I'm the main character head of this home. You're not the main character. Those kids will be gone. They'll be their own. Raise them to see who the main character is.  Humble yourself under the what?...the might hand of God and those who are humbled he will exalt, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled. And you see that here in this story. So I pray that as we get into this, we will see amazing and exciting stories of faith written for our good and growth...ass Romans 14:5 said, our instruction. But we never, every time we open this up and say turn to Samuel, we hear, God is my name, Remember that. It's good for you.
  Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for its goodness to us. We thank you that you are so merciful to save. And it cost you your Son. You were both just and having the law and saying, this is the standard. This is who I am, Holy and righteous. But I'll send my Son as the justifier. And you demonstrated your love for us, and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And that's beyond what we can understand. But I pray as we take these truths today that your Word and your plan and your man, your Son, your only begotten son, we put those things together in our hearts in order to lift them in worship now. We praise you and love you in Jesus’name. Amen.