Booming today. I love it. As as we've talked about before, we're a little bit emptier today. Caleb and Esther, now Wintermute got married this weekend out in McBride, BC. And so all of those who went to that wedding are returning. So, thank you for being the faithful remnant that's been here this week. Before we get into this, I want to tell a story about this guy named Charles Blondon. Now Charles Blondon was a French guy born in the 1800s and from the age of five onwards he trained to become an acrobat.
He did you know trapze and other things that acrobats do but one of his marquee and staple performances was the tightroppe walk. And he did this several times but he just walking a tightroppe wasn't enough. He decided to add more danger to his act every single time. Sometimes he would ride on the over the wire with a bike. Sometimes he would do it blindfolded. All of these things. And he walked over large and major areas including the Edgebaston Reservoir in Birmingham and crossing the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh.
And sometimes he would increase the performance or increase the performance by doing all these other tasks. But he wasn't satisfied. So he traveled from Europe to America in order to cross Niagara Falls. And so he took an 1100 ft rope, put it between the two sides, and everyone looking at it thought, "This is an impossible task. Charles, what are you doing?" Charles then proceeded to cross it seven times. The first time effortless, effortlessly normally, then blindfolded, then in a sack, then on stilts, then carrying his manager on his back, then sitting down midway, cooking an omelette and eating it, and then finally with a wheelbarrow in front of him.
And as he got to the solid ground after doing the performance with the wheelbarrow, he arrived to much fanfare and cheering and he called out to the crowd, "Who believes that I could do this feat with someone in the wheelbarrow?" And a man put up his hand and said, "I believe I believe that you could do it." Charles, without missing a beat, said, "Then sir, your seat is right here in the wheelbarrow." The man, realizing the hot water that he was in, politely declined. He could say that he believed all he wanted but his belief was not demonstrated by his actions.
In the same way we can say that we have faith all we want but our faith must be demonstrated by our obedience. Obedience is something that can be touchy to talk about but it is a critical aspect of the Christian walk. The Bible gives us many instructions as to what we are are to obey and how we are to do it. But it doesn't just leave us with instructions. It actually gives us models and examples of people who have done this well.
And so if you've just if you're just joining us for the first time today, we've been walking through a summer sermon series called Shadow of Shadow Cloud of Witnesses, not Shadow of Witnesses, Cloud of Witnesses, where we're walking through Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 is also known as the Hall of Faith. And we've looked at many different men and women who have demonstrated great faith. And today we're going to look at another man who I would argue gives us one of the best examples of what a life of obedience looks like.
Today we're going to be looking at Samuel. And so we find Samuel's sto or Samuel's name tucked in with many other faithful servants of God in Hebrews 11:32. I'm going to be reading 32 and 33 for you here. So it says this, "And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Bareric, Samson, Jeepa, of David, and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, and stopped the mouths of lions."
Samuel's story is found in the book of the Bible that's main named after him and specifically the first one first Samuel. Now, we're not going to cover every single story of his life because if I did that, we'd be here till next Tuesday. So, we're not going to do that. So, we're going to look and I'm going to give you an overview of his life. If you've never heard of Samuel or maybe you have heard of him and you don't really know, this is the Sparks Note version of his life. So Samuel was born at a time in Israel's history that was to put it lightly really really bad.
The people were evil and sinful and they did what was right in their own eyes which led to wickedness and sin reigned mightily in the land of Egypt. Samuel was born to a woman woman named Hannah who desperately desired a child but couldn't have one. Broken, she cried out to God, saying that if the Lord gave her a child, she would dedicate him to the temple where he would serve his whole life.
The Lord heard her cries and she bore a child and named him Samuel. And being a woman of faith, she followed through on her vow and gave Ta Samuel to the temple where he did end up serving as a boy and eventually as a priest. We jump ahead to when Samuel is a young boy. He's serving in the temple at some age, young boy, and he's serving under the priest Eli. Now, Eli's not a very good priest. So Samuel is sitting there, and at this point, there hasn't been a lot of messages or words from the Lord.
God hasn't spoken through a prophet or anything in a very long time. And so, the Lord calls out to Samuel saying, "Samuel, Samuel." And Samuel gets up and goes to Eli and says, "Hey, you called me." Eli says, "No, I didn't." As Samuel goes back to bed and we rinse, wash, repeat three times. On the last time, Eli finally does something right in his life and figures out that the Lord is trying to call Samuel. Sam, he says, "Samuel, when you hear the Lord call, say,"Lord, speak for your servant hears." Samuel does this and this marks the beginning of his service, not only as a priest, but as a prophet of God.
Samuel was a very transitional character in the Bible. He is the last of the judges. If you know anything about the book of judges, it's this very icky, gross time in the history of the of the people of Israel. A very tumultuous time amongst a very tumultuous people. And during this time, oh, and then he transitions into the first of the prophets. So, he's the last judge and the first of the prophets. And during this time, the people decided that they didn't want God to rule over them anymore. They didn't want the judges.
They didn't want God. Instead, they wanted a king like the other nations. They looked at the strong, the tall kings of the other nations surrounding them and decided they wanted to be like them. God commanded Samuel to listen to the people and they he told him to anoint Saul, the king who the people wanted. Samuel obeyed, rebuking the people for their pride and selfishness and asking for a king, and then anointed Saul over the people just as the Lord commanded. Samuel's life would then be a mixed bag of rebuking the people, rebuking Saul and cleaning up his messes that he makes as the people's wicked king, and then also praying for and leading the people of Israel, as well as obeying God.
In all of this, Samuel ends the major actions of his ministry by anointing the king that God desired, that being David, to take over when Saul is gone. Now, that's a lot to take in and I I don't I don't expect you to memorize the whole point of or the whole entirety of Samuel's life. That's not the point of this. But we are going to go through this sermon and focus in on a few s stories that really highlight Samuel's obedience to the Lord and how we should do the same.
So, Samuel demonstrates obedience in several different ways. One of the first ways is that Samuel demonstrates reverent obedience. The word reverence means honor or respect felt or shown. It's a complicated way to say it. A simpler way to say it would be to stand in awe of something. So in order to obey God, we need to stand in awe of God first. And we do that by learning about who he is. A knowledge of God is required to be in awe of God.
Samuel no doubt had a great idea of who God was. He spoke with him. He served him. Everything like that. But even more than that, his mother Hannah had a full rich and deep knowledge of who God was. Let's turn to 1st Samuel 2. In this story, Hannah and her husband Elcana are just dropping off Samuel at the temple to serve for the rest of his life. And before they leave to go home, sa Hannah offers up this prayer.
And this prayer gives us an idea of how much she knew the Lord. It's known as Hannah's song. And I'm going to read verses 1 to 10 of 1st Samuel 2. It says this, "And Hannah prayed and said, 'My heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God.
Talk no more so very proudly. Let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to shol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich.
He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash sheep to make them sit with princes and inherit the seat of honor. For the pillars of pill, the pillars of the earth are the lords, and on them he has set the world. He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness. For not by might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces. Against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. In this we see very clearly that she has an excellent knowledge of who the Lord is telling us about his holiness in verse two his how he's all knowing in verse three his power in verse four his power over death in verse 6 and his sovereignty all over all in verses seven and 8 and on and on we could go. Hannah knew who her God was. And so what did she do?
She obeyed him, giving Samuel up to the temple because of the vow that she had made. Hannah obeyed because she knew who God was. And if we want to be obedient servants of the Lord, we need to do the same. Obedience always begins with a knowledge of the Lord. And that knowledge is only found in the scriptures, not in spiritualism or visions or meditations or anything else.
Second Peter 1:3 lays it out very simply for us. In this book is everything everything that we need for life and godliness, including what we need to know about him. And if you dig and study and really dig into the word, it does not take long to find yourself overwhelmed with the immensity of who God is. Genesis tells us that he is the creator of all things.
Malachi tells us that he is unchanging. Revelation tells us that he is the beginning and the end. God is so grand that he is beyond all units of measurement. He is so powerful that no force on earth can stop him. He is so holy that one day every single knee will bow. And his love is so limitless that it breaches human understanding. And this God loves you. Romans 5:8 lays it out real simple and real beautiful.
Says here Romans 5:8, "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It is this love that drives us to obey the Lord. It's this love that serves as the fuel that fuels us to obey his commands. Commands like we find in Matthew 22 37-38. This or 22 sorry not two for Matthew 22 37-38 which reads this and he said to him you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind this is the great and first commandment out of this commandment flows and bleeds everything else because you know when you realize that someone loves you and like really loves you not because they need to but they choose to love you.
It is so much easier to love them in return. There are so many times when I look back on things that my parents did for me when I was a kid. A lot of things I didn't agree with. A lot of no, you can't do this. A lot of that's stupid. Joe, stop. And all of that was them loving me because they knew what was best for me. And now being an adult and looking at it and seeing it, I can say, "Man, wow, my parents really loved me. They loved me enough to be hard on me."
And all that has done is fueled me to love them more. It is the same with our heavenly father. When we realize that the absurd magnitude with which he loves us, it is the least that we can do to love him back. 1 John 4:19 lays it out pretty clearly. It says we love because he first loved us. So this is the why. This is why we obey because obedience is the outworking of our love for God.
Keeping his commands is the proof or the evidence that we love God. So if you are in this room and you don't keep the commands of God and you would call yourself a Christian, we really need to take a long look at our hearts and ask ourselves, where is my love for God? Jesus tells us clear as day in John 14:15 when he says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
Proper obedience is reverent obedience. But not only does our obedience stem from our knowledge of God and our love for him, it starts there. But it also comes from our faith in him. If you've gotten to know me at all over the last year or so, you would know that I absolutely love escape rooms. I love them. I've done far too many this year alone, but I love the puzzles. I love being challenged. I love the fun that they bring, the creativity, and the second reason I love them is because they give a myriad of sermon illustrations.
So, I'm going to use one of those today. I do most of these escape rooms with my brother-in-law, Levi, because he's an enabler and fuels my addiction. So, I we did this one a couple months back where in one portion of the escape room, Levi was in the lower section solving puzzles and I was in an in the upper section doing the very important role of standing in front of a box. And in this box there was a lever and buttons and wires. And Levi had to do all the hard work and solve a bunch of puzzles down there which tells me which button to press, which wires to put together, and which lever to do up and down.
And so I could have tried to just guess. I could have pressed the buttons and turned the lever and there was like 1900 wires to try and put together and it would have would have done nothing. We wouldn't have gone anywhere. We wouldn't have been able to open the next door. I was completely reliant on Levi who was the one who was able to solve the puzzles. I was completely reliant on his puzzle solving ability. I in order to obey rightly, it requires us to have full obedience on the one who has the answers.
Proper obedience is reliant obedience. Samuel demonstrates this reliant obedience in another one of his stories. So, if you'll turn with me to 1st Samuel 12. This passage is essentially Samuel's very dramatic retirement speech. And when I am done working, I want to go out like this because it's a good one. We're going to be reading 1st Samuel 12 13 to the end of the chapter.
It says this, this is Samuel speaking. And now, behold, the king who you have who whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked, behold, the Lord has set a king over you. If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandments of the Lord, if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord with follow the Lord your God, it will be well. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandments of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.
Now therefore, stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord that he may send thunder and rain, and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord in asking yourselves for a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, "Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die.
For we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king." And Samuel said to people, "Do not be afraid. You have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that could not profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it is pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.
Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king." So Samuel rebukes the people and then he's bold enough to say, "Also, just so you know that you are wicked and sinful, it's going to rain.
It's going to rain and thunder like you've never seen it before." But Samuel has no way of sending rain. He can't sing a little song, play the flute, and do a little dance, and it's going to rain all of a sudden. He is completely reliant on the Lord to send the rain. And we see that in verse 18. It says, "So Samuel called upon who?" The Lord. And who? The Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. But this this isn't here so that we can marvel at Samuel and his great boldness.
No, this is here so that we can marvel at the God who actually made it possible. Because look at why Samuel does this, why he makes this move. It says in verse 14, "If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, if both you and your king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well." And then he doubles down again in verse 20. And Samuel said to the people, "Do not be afraid, for you have done all this all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart."
And then again in verse 24, he says, "Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things we have done, he has done for you." He is doing this so that the people obey the Lord because so the people will demonstrate the faith that they claim to have in their God. Because friends, we cannot be truly obedient if the only thing that we have faith in is ourselves and our own strength. Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."
We need to have faith in the God who was mighty mighty to save. Not in ourselves, the ones who need saving. You can have all the faith in the world. But at the end of the day, you need someone to push the wheelbarrow, but the p the best part of all of this is that we can trust he will always follow through on what he has promised. Our reliance on God will never ever be in vain.
1 Thessalonians 4 in verse or sorry 1 Thessalonians 5, you don't have to turn there. We're going to be going to a few passages here. 5:4 says, "He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it." And in the very easy to remember Monsters, Inc. Verse numbers 23:19. It says this, "God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. He has said, "And will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?"
If we look at the scripture, we will see over and over how God has proved his faithfulness to his people. Samuel brings this up in that 1st Samuel 12 passage at the end of verse 24. He says, "Fear the Lord and serve him with all your heart for consider the great things that he has done for you." He says, "Look at what he has done. That's why you can trust." When I was a kid, nine, 10 years old, the Wii had just come out, the Nintendo Wii.
And my dad was a big fan of old like like old game systems and specifically the original Super Mario Brothers games. And so the first thing he downloaded was Super Mario Brothers 3. He downloaded that and we played that at nauseium. And there was one level where I always got stuck. I could not get past it. It was so frustrating. It was one of the water worlds. I remember it so specifically. And I would get to this level and I would take the controller and immediately hand it to my dad.
And I be, "Dad, you do it." And the reason was is because I had watched him play through the game and do this level over and over and over again. I could trust that he could be reliable because I'd watched him do it. I'd watched him be reliable. In the same way, we have the scripture so that we can see the reliability of our God and trust in it. This does however require us to put our pride to the side and understand that we need to trust God fully, not anything in oursel, 100% God, 0% us.
This means putting our aside our desire for glory and for credit. Allowing God to work submitting our will to his just as Isaiah 55 talks about. But I have zero doubt in my mind. Zero that there are plenty of people in this room who would look at those two first two categories and say, "Yeah, I I think I'm there. You know, I understand who the Lord Lord is.
I love God and I want to know more about him and I am I revere him and I rely on God. I do every once in a while. I I rely on God when it gets hard but when it's easy I don't need him. May that not be so with us brothers and sisters. Our obedience must be consistent and relentless. Proper obedience is relentless obedience.
Samuel is the poster child for this kind of relentless obedience because he was obedient to the Lord his entire life without fail whether it was at his calling or in his service to the Lord or in the rebuke of the people. So, we're going to look at two spec two only two specific stories that highlight this. The first of these stories being in chapter 15 of 1st Samuel. I'm going to give you kind of an overview of what's going on in this chapter because there is a lot to unpack here. Essentially, the Lord calls to Saul the king and says, "I need you to go and wipe out the Amalachites."
The Amalachites are this evil and wicked people who have sinned against the Lord and against Israel. And the Lord says you need to wipe them out. Devote them to destruction. That means kill everything that's alive. Destroy everything. Take none hostage. Wipe them out. And so Saul says, "Okay, I'll go do it." And so he goes and doesn't do it. And he saves the king, leaves him alive, and all of the animals which he was also supposed to slaughter, and takes all of them back.
Then Samuel guided by the Lord goes and confronts Saul. He hears all the sheep bleeding and all the oxen making oxen sounds and says and says, "What is this I hear?" And then Saul has the audacity to say, "It wasn't my fault. Blame the people." And then he's like, "Oh, but wait, but wait. We we save them so that we might sacrifice to the Lord. We're not greedy. We're doing it for the Lord's sake." Samuel then demonstrates his how much he understands the importance of obedience in verse 22.
It says, "Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen the fat of rams." It is clear here that Samuel understands this. Saul clearly didn't. So Samuel ends up having to finish what Saul couldn't. He takes the king and he hacks him to pieces. This is a visceral display of the seriousness of what Saul is treating as something light and unimportant.
And even next even so in the next chapter we see another display of Samuel's obedience. God is done with Saul and says, "I'm going to anoint a new king." and Samuel, you're going to do it." And Samuel ends up going, even though he knows if he gets caught doing this, it's over for him. He can get killed for treason in this. But he goes anyway because he understands the importance of obeying. But even further, he goes to this family and he knows that the Lord's going to show him which one of these sons is going to be the next king.
So he goes to the oldest, the tallest, the strongest. And the Lord he Samuel says, "This is clearly the one." And the Lord says, "No, it's not him." And he goes to the next, also strong and buff. No, not him. Also strong and buff. No, no, no, no, no. To the youngest son, David, who is this small little shepherd boy. But that is the king that God wanted. And Samuel anoints him because he understands his obedience to God. Samuel never took a day off from his obedience.
He was obedient in the easiest of days and also in the hardest of days of his life too. No matter what circumstance he found himself in, he was obedient to the Lord to what he commanded. Because friends, obedience is not optional. It wasn't optional for Samuel and it's not optional for us either. And you know why? Because it wasn't optional for Jesus either. The only son of God was perfectly obedient to the father.
And that is the reason why anyone who's sitting here and has put their faith in Jesus Christ can stand as free people. Philippians 2:8, as Mary read for us so wonderfully this morning, says it so clearly. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross. Christ was perfectly obedient his entire life, even though he knew the world hated him for it.
He was obedient to the father, even though he knew the Pharisees would persecute him for it. He was obedient even though he knew the Romans would beat him almost to death for it. And he was obedient even though he knew he knew he was going to be killed for it. Isaiah 50:7 puts it in such wonderful language. It says that the Lord's servant Jesus will set his face like flint. That means that his will was more solid than steel. It was immovable. Nothing could change his convictions. And so he moved forward with a resolute determination towards that cross.
And why did he do it? Because he loves you to obey. And it's because he loves you. And he looked at that cross and saw every single way that you would fail, every single way that you would sin, every single time you would turn your back on him and be like, "No, God, I don't want you." And he said, "It's still worth it to obey and die to save a hopeless people." That is love.
Oh, how deep the Father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure that he would give his only son to make this wretch his treasure. Hebrews 12:2 says, "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross." It struck me as I was reading this voice that that joy is you to obey his father and to save his people. That brought him joy.
Joy that was more worth it than death, more worth it than suffering. Everlasting joy. Jesus never took a day off from obeying the father. He was the definition of relentless obedience. Never once did he say to God, "You know what? I just don't feel it today. I think I would rather just do what's easy. I'm tired." Jesus never ceased to obey. So then, why should we?
Why do we give ourselves a pass? I've been there. I've said to myself, "I'm not obeying right now, but it's okay. I'll get there eventually. I'll get there when it's easy. I'll get there when I have energy. I'll get there. No, obey today. Every day, every minute. Paul says that we are to imitate Christ in his example. And so, if we are to do that, then we don't have the option to not obey, just as Jesus didn't.
We need to decide to obey the Lord. We need to decide every day to get into the wheelbarrow. And this obedience is not to make us miserable. He is not a celestial buzzkill. He is not calling you to obey because he wants to make your life boring or difficult, but because he knows what's best for us. Like a loving parent, he calls us to obey so that we can reap the rewards that come with that obedience. God commands or God says promises to bless those who obey him.
As Psalm 128:1, and to prosper those who keep his commands, as Joshua 1:8 says, we are able to fully enjoy the glory and the majesty and the power and the blessing of the Lord when we are walking in match step with his commands just as Samuel did. So, I want to leave you with this question. What's your view like? Are you on the solid ground on the sidelines barely getting a glimpse of the falls saying that you saying that you believe but refusing to trust the one who holds you?
Or are you out on the line in front of the full majesty of the falls from your comfortable seat in the wheelbarrow? Dear God, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you so much that you are a reliable God who we can trust in. Lord, help us to obey you. Give us the strength to obey relentlessly. Give us minds that we can study and help us revere you more and more. Lord, you are our only source of strength and our only source of joy.
And Lord, we are so thankful that you modeled that to us first. Lord, help us to love you relentlessly in return. Thank you so much for your grace and mercy. I pray that we would grow to know know that more and more each day. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. >> Please stand.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
