1 Samuel 3:1-21 Lessons from the Lord s Little Ones 6 Pastor Ron Koehler July 18, 2007

Transcription

1 1 Samuel 3:1-21 Lessons from the Lord s Little Ones 6 Pastor Ron Koehler July 18, 2007 In the name of our Savior Jesus, dear friends, The flames from the golden candelabra still flickered. Almost morning now, the olive oil candles, whose oil had been carefully measured and filled to burn through the night, would be going out soon. But they still cast a yellow glow on the couple pieces of furniture in the room and on its heavy curtain walls. Behind one of those curtains was a big golden box. The boy slept just outside the room where that priceless chest was kept tucked away from everyone. There was such history and treasure in the ornate chest and something even greater. It was quite an honor to keep watch over it and attend to the everyday needs of the building and grounds that housed it. It was equally a privilege to serve as personal assistant to the old man who worked there. This was precious work for the young boy who willingly carried out his daily duties. Locking the doors at sundown and opening up in the morning, filling the lamps in the evening, keeping watch near the precious gold box at night and helping the old man during the day there was plenty to keep this boy busy. And he gladly went about his work, always faithful, not just to the elderly overseer, but to owner of the building. In fact, as devoted as the boy was to the almost totally blind gentleman, he was even more dedicated to the one they both worked for. Let s listen as God tells us about שׁ מוּא ל (Shmoo-ale) or, as you know him Samuel, a boy who worked for God and shows us that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD. We have here 1. A REMINDER FOR KIDS 2. A REMINDER FOR PARENTS 3. A REMINDER FOR THE CHURCH The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 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. 4 Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, Here I am. 5 And he ran to Eli and said, Here I am; you called me. But Eli said, I did not call; go back and lie down. So he went and lay down. 6 Again the LORD called, Samuel! And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Here I am; you called me. My son, Eli said, I did not call; go back and lie down. 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Here I am; you called me. Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, Samuel! Samuel! Then Samuel said, Speak, for your servant is listening.

2 11 And the LORD said to Samuel: See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 12 At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family from beginning to end. 13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. 14 Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, The guilt of Eli s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. 15 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, 16 but Eli called him and said, Samuel, my son. Samuel answered, Here I am. 17 What was it he said to you? Eli asked. Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you. 18 So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes. 19 The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD. 21 The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. A REMINDER FOR KIDS Samuel s story should remind you young people that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD. A lot of times, this is a favorite story of you children. And it s easy to see why. Samuel is just a kid himself. A boy or a girl might wonder what it must have been like to live at the tabernacle. What would it be like to live here at church and take care of the kinds of things that were Samuel s responsibility? If it was you, would you like doing those things and would you be faithful in doing them like Samuel was? Those things make us curious, but there s a bigger one, isn t there? What if you were sleeping and you heard this (booming voice) [7:45 AM] Maya! or Erin! or Will! or Taylor! [10 AM] Ariana! or Danny! or Tiana or Nathaniel! Or Lucas Would you also think that it must be Eli calling you and needing something during the night? You probably wouldn t know it was God either, especially since Samuel lived at a time much like ours where God wasn t really speaking in that way to people. In a period of over 325 years or so, we hear of God speaking only a handful of times to his people that s how rare it was! So I think you wouldn t have expected either. Certainly Samuel wasn t expecting God to give him a message to speak; he wasn t expecting to be God s next prophet! And yet, that is what God called him to do. Samuel is called to serve the Lord as his prophet at 10 or 12 years old or so! Can you believe that?! Could you do it? Samuel s job wasn t an easy one. Here he was, just a kid, having to give Eli some bad news. That must have been pretty hard since Samuel grew up there with Eli. He was dedicated by his parents to serve the Lord with his life since he was about 4 years old. Can you imagine? Eli must have been like a dad to him in some ways. Plus, he was God s priest. But young Samuel was now God s spokesman. When Eli asked Samuel what God had told him, he repeated the message:

3 See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 12 At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family from beginning to end. 13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. 14 Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, The guilt of Eli s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. One of those few times God spoke in these hundreds of years had been recently when a man came to Eli and told him the same thing that Eli and his sons had disgraced God and his house and his sons would therefore die during an uproar in the tabernacle. Eli s family would feel the punishment for their sin. When Eli heard Samuel say the same thing, he knew that the Lord was using Samuel. This young boy was called to be a prophet of God a very specific and terribly important job that he would then do for the rest of his life. He started as a child who was willing to serve the Lord. So what about you children? Do you at least have the same attitude? Do you realize that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD? Do you want to serve your Savior Jesus? The pastors here at Grace were so happy when the boys we ve asked to read the Scripture lessons said yes right away. So far Jacob Hanson and Taylor Parra were willing to do that. We knew they were good at it, that they have the gifts to stand up here and read God s Word, so we asked and they said yes. Now not everyone has the same gifts, do they? Some people aren t too confident speaking in front of a lot of people, so that probably isn t what they ll do. But some of you kids sing and some play instruments and some like to serve the fellowship hour and some talk to their friends about Jesus and some run around in here after church cleaning up bulletins and things from time to time. There are lots of things that kids can do to serve God. And every child that wants to serve will want to serve for the right reasons because they have the gifts and the time and they love Jesus who lived for them and died on the cross to save them from sin and give them heaven. Serving to please your parents or to make the pastor happy or so that you can get a lot of attention are NOT proper reasons. Serving because you know that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD and because you love your Savior are the right reasons to serve. God is happy when you do that. A REMINDER FOR PARENTS Samuel s story should remind you parents that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD. This is a fascinating story from a parent perspective too. Some parents know what it s like to want to have children, but can t have them. They know what it s like to pray and pray and feel deep sorrow and anguish in their desire to have a baby. And some even know what it s like to finally be blessed with a child, even against all odds and doctors predictions. After going through all of that, how many parents would be willing to raise that child for just a few years, literally, and

4 then totally give that child over for full-time service to God s church? That s exactly what Hannah and Elkanah did with Samuel. Samuel was the answer to their prayers for a child and, as faithful people of God, they followed through on their promise to have their son serve the Lord with his life. You can read all about that in chapter 1 of Samuel and read Hannah s prayer of rejoicing in chapter 2. Parents, what do you do to encourage your child or children to serve the Lord? If you do very little of that, then you can take a lesson from Hannah and Elkanah. God would be pleased if you had their attitude and not that of Eli. As you heard, Eli was not a good father to his children and would therefore suffer consequences from the Lord. He did not discipline them for their sin and it brought shame upon the Lord and his house. His poor parenting and poor priesting led to his sons being terrible priests who did ungodly things. Their sinful misbehavior was damaging to all of God s people as the Philistines defeated them and stole the precious Ark of the Covenant. Just as then, God today expects those who serve as ministers to set an example in their household disciplining at appropriate times and in appropriate ways. They cannot be lax, nor can they be too strict. God even says that a man cannot serve as a pastor if he cannot manage his family well. But every parent has this kind of responsibility to God. If you re a parent, you know how tricky it can be. It is easy to sin and we sometimes suffer consequences for it in our own lives and in the lives of our children. God wants us to bring our children up to know their Savior and serve him. Parents need to know that a lifetime of service to God doesn t have to wait until their child is in the youth group and they need to raise money for a youth rally! It is best if we teach our children how to serve at a young age and we teach them the proper motivation for serving. And since children model the behavior of their parents, how important is it that we lead by example? If we sinfully complain when we have to usher or go to a meeting or put cookies out after church or teach or help with an event or clean up at church, what are we really teaching the little ones? And if serving the Lord and his people is something that brings us joy, would you deprive your children of that joy? Just watch for the happiness in the children as they serve and how they receive your thank you for serving and you ll see what I m talking about. Christ forgives our poor parenting and poor examples of service and encourages us to serve joyfully and teach our children to do the same. One last thing for parents to consider: I want you parents to really think about encouraging your son or daughter who might have the gifts to serve the Lord full-time as pastors, teachers or staff ministers. Think about Hannah and Elkanah s willingness to give up their son so that he could serve the Lord and his people really think about it and pray about it.

5 A REMINDER FOR THE CHURCH Finally, Samuel s story should remind all of us in the church that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD. I suppose we don t have exactly the same kinds of things for children to do here, but as we think about Samuel it s easy to see that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD and we would agree. I ve mentioned a number of things Grace kids do and certainly there are and can be even more things. But let s think about how we view children serving at our church for just a moment. I would pray that all of us want children to serve, but that s not always true. A man told me once that he didn t like the kids singing in church because it was distracting and no one was listening anyway, they were only watching them do silly things up in front. Not the attitude I would recommend and not the attitude that pleases our Lord! But we might do well to remember that when the kids are singing, as they will a few times this summer for this series, they are serving. The purpose is not to justify having a Sunday School or to make parents proud or to entertain us. They glorify the Lord with their music; they are serving our Savior Jesus and us. Listen to the words they sing and see if they don t remind us of God s love and his forgiveness of our sins and the promise of heaven. Considering all these things, when we talk about the children, should we really be talking about our kids simply as the future of the church? I ve never really embraced that phrase because aren t they the church of the present? Don t they serve now and worship now and learn now just like the adults? And do you adults not intend to be around or serving now that you re 27 or 43 or in your 60 s or over 70? That seems silly to me. If you ve got a few years left in you, aren t you both the present and the future of the church too? We are God s family, young and old, gathered here in this church around the Word and Sacraments. We all worship, we all learn, we all serve now and in the future for as long as the good Lord allows. Why don t we just recognize the service that all of us offer the Lord. That s what Eli did when he accepted Samuel s message. That s what all the people did as every word of prophecy Samuel spoke was carried out by God. It s good for the church to be reminded too that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD just like adults do. Dear Christian friends, we want to encourage that. Maybe the example of Samuel can encourage us to look at the service of children in a different light and move us to seek them out to serve Jesus along with us. Samuel s service as a boy and as he grew was a reflection of his love for God and a blessing for God s people. The example of how God used Samuel s service is a reminder for all of us that CHILDREN CAN SERVE THE LORD. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.