Well, good morning, Englewood Baptist Church.
My name is not Pastor John. I'm Pastor Dylan, our student
pastor here at Inglewood Baptist Church.
And this was not planned. But Pastor John, as you know, if
you were here last week, had planned on sharing his testimony
this morning. And I promise you, there is no
place that he would rather be right now than right here.
But last night our pastors received a text message at about
7:30 that Pastor John had come down with a fever and had a
terrible cough. And then it progressed into
chills and full on flu symptoms. So that means he can't be here.
So here we are. But we did not show up this
morning to hear from Pastor John.
And you are not here this morning to hear from me.
We are all here this morning, hopefully to hear a word from
the Lord. And so last night whenever we
got that text, I immediately came straight up here to my
study. And whenever a pastor gets a
text last minute like that, that you always joke about having one
ready. And I've had a got a couple of
sermons that I've not preached here that I've preached in other
places. And so I broke those out and
laid those down and just got on my face before the Lord is like,
Lord, what do you, what do you want to say?
Because all of us as pastors, we've all got our kind of
routines that we go through whenever we're preparing a
message. We've kind of got these steps
that we take and some of us do it in different orders and
stuff. Everybody's kind of got their
own way. They go about preparing.
Most of the time that takes longer than a few hours.
But last night I was here and I had those two passages of
Scripture in front of me and I was praying, Lord, just what do
you want to say? Lord, what do you want to say to
me? What do you want to say to
Inglewood? Because while we didn't plan
this, God did. And so this was a surprise to
us. But God has a plan.
He knew Pastor John was going to be sick.
He knew we would be right here. All of us would be right here in
this place together this morning.
And so I desperately just wanted Lord speak.
And so this phrase just kept coming to mind over and over
again as I was praying. And it's speak, Lord, for your
servant is listening. And so I began to pray that out
loud verbally before the Lord thinking he's going to lead me
one of two directions in one of these two passages of Scripture.
And then it almost felt like the Holy Spirit said, dummy, just go
to that passage of Scripture. And so I flipped over to first
Samuel chapter 3, which is where we're going to be this morning.
So if you've got your Bible, go ahead and open it up to first
Samuel chapter 3. And if you're used to texting
notes to get or getting on the app and getting on the notes
section for sermon notes, those will not be there this morning.
Or they might still be there, but they're wrong.
They're Pastor John's because we didn't have time to get in and
change all that this morning. But the tech team did have time
to get in and add a title in, title slides in and the points.
So you guys will have that, but you will not have the passage of
Scripture on the screens in front of you.
So you will need your print Bible or your phone, whatever it
is that you use. And I also am going to be
reading from a different version than Pastor John normally does.
Normally Pastor John's reading from the English standard
version, but I'll be reading from the Christian standard
Bible. And so if you've got an English
standard version there in front of you, it may be a little bit
different. But so as I came to First Samuel
chapter 3 last night, it's a familiar passage to me because
at the end of last year, the beginning of this year, I was
studying the life of Samuel because on Wednesday nights and
the spring, our students, we walk through the life of Samuel.
And so this is a key moment in Samuel's life.
It's the call of Samuel. And then you've got that
favorite, that famous phrase that the Holy Spirit brought to
my mind and my heart that Eli tells Samuel, go back and and
say to the Lord when he calls to you, speak Lord, for your
servant is listening. And so the question that kept
popping up in my mind over and over again last night as I was
back in this passage of Scripture is, am I listening?
As Pastor Jordan just said, this is the last Sunday of 20252026
is right around the corner. And while New Year's Eve is just
another date on the calendar and nothing magical is going to
happen at midnight other than you got to write a different
date down on your checks, most of you probably don't even write
checks anymore. Teenagers probably don't even.
Know what a check is? But other than just having to
change your dates on things, nothing really magical has
changed. But it's a transition point in
the calendar that helps us to take a moment and take a step
back and to reflect on everything that has happened in
2025 and to look forward to what we hope God is going to do in
2020. 6. Both individually and then
corporately and as families. And so I hope that in this in
between season between Christmas and New Year's, where all of you
are trying to figure out what day of the week it is,
especially if you have kids at home and you're just praying for
the day that they go back to school.
There's kind of this weird low point where people are off work
and the excitement of Christmas is dying down some and then New
Year's is coming. And so I hope that you'll take
advantage of these days to really reflect on what the, what
your walk with the Lord has been like in 2025 and to look forward
to 2026 and to be able to say, man, there's some new
commitments that I need to make to the Lord to walk more
faithfully with him in 2026 than in 2025.
And the question that has been haunting me since last night is
am I listening? And so that's really the
question that I want us to deal with together this morning is
are we listening to the voice of the.
Lord. As we walk through this story of
the call of Samuel in First Samuel chapter 3, we're going to
look at 10 truths that are going to help us, that we pull out
from this story, that are going to help us as we prepare for
2026. And so let me pray for us as we
look at God's Word together and also pray for Pastor John and
his family and all of the other ones that are dealing with this
crazy illness that's going. Around right now.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we've
already said, you know that we didn't plan this.
But Lord, we trust in your plan, and God, we trust that you have
a purpose and that you have all of us.
Here for a reason, and I believe that that reason is to worship
you and then for your church to be edified, to be built up to
hear a word from you. And so, Lord, thank you for
Pastor John, for his leadership. Lord, I just pray that you would
be with him right now. I know that he there's no place
he'd rather be than right here. And so, Lord, would you ease his
mind and his heart? Would you help him to rest?
Would you heal his body? Would you protect Miss Teresa,
Lord, and help her not to get ill as well?
And Lord, for the so many others that are sick in our
congregation, Lord, would you bring healing to them and to
their families? Lord, I know many of them still
have not celebrated Christmas yet because so many loved ones
have been sick. And So what would you be with
them and comfort them during these days?
But right now, Lord, I know that You would desire to speak to all
of us through Your word. And so I pray that you would do
just that, that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, that you would
illuminate our minds and our hearts to be able to hear Your
word and to respond to it in the way that you call us to in the
name of Jesus, Amen. So hopefully you're already
there in First Samuel chapter 3. We're going to jump in right
here at the beginning of the chapter with the first truth.
Parents, you cannot save your children, but you can put them
in the best position to succeed. These first couple of points
help us with some of the background information to help
set the stage for where Samuel and Eli are right now.
First Samuel chapter 3, starting in verse one, the boy Samuel
served the Lord in Eli's presence.
In those days, the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic
visions were not widespread. So Samuel is a young boy at this
point. Eli is the is the priest there
in the temple. And Eli, or I mean Samuel had a
really, really, really incredible mother by the name of
Hannah. And if we go back to the very
beginning of the book of First Samuel, we see that Hannah was
barren. She was not able to have
children, and she was death. She so desperately wanted
children. And every year when they would
go up to the temple, she would cry out before the Lord.
And there's an interaction in First Samuel chapter 1, starting
in verse 12 between her and Eli in the temple as she's crying
out before the Lord asking for this child.
And verse starting in verse 12, while she continued praying in
the Lord's presence, Eli watched her mouth.
Hannah was praying silently and though her lips were moving, her
voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk and he
said to her, how long are you going to be drunk?
Get rid of your wine. No, my Lord, Hannah replied, I'm
a woman with a broken heart. I haven't had any wine or beer.
I've been pouring out my heart before the Lord.
Don't think of me as a wicked woman.
I've been praying from the depths of my anguish and
resentment. Eli responded.
Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request that
you have made of him. Hannah was praying so
desperately before the Lord that Eli thought she was intoxicated.
But once Eli figured out what the situation was, he blessed
her and sent her on her way. And soon after, Hannah becomes
pregnant with her first son, Samuel.
And before too long, once Samuel is old enough to be weaned off
of his mother, she takes him back to the temple and gives him
to the Lord. She dedicates him there in the
temple and leaves Samuel there with Eli for Eli to be able to
take care of him and for him, for Samuel to be able to serve
the Lord and to grow up there in the temple under Eli's
leadership. And so Hannah takes the very one
thing that she prayed for, the most precious thing to her in
her life, and she gives it up. To the Lord.
And so, parents, if you're here this morning, many of you are
praying desperately for the salvation of your children.
Man, you so desperately want them to make that step of faith
and follow Jesus, but you can't do it for them.
You cannot save them, but you can put them in the best
position possible in order to be able to hear from the Lord.
You can decide that 2026 is going to be different dads.
You can take more ownership over the discipleship of your homes,
and you can take your faith seriously and begin to disciple
your family there in the home. And you can bring your kids here
to what Pastor John calls the core to come to worship and to
connect group and to midweek and to serve and to steward well.
And we can have our kids spend time with the Lord in His word,
and we can pray together as families.
We can put our children in positions to where they can hear
from the Lord. We need to put them in the best
position possible so that the Lord might speak to them and
change their hearts and their lives.
But you can't do it for him. So I challenge you this morning
to be like Hannah, maybe not literally.
Don't bring your child up here and leave him, please.
We will call CPS. But but dedicate your children
to the Lord and realize they're not yours.
They're a gift from the Lord that you have the responsibility
to steward. And so steward it well as we
lead into 2026 and trust the Lord to do what only He can do
in their heart and in their life.
That's what Hannah did. And then in the second part
there of First Samuel chapter 3 verse one that we just read. #2
when there is a lack of godly leadership, there is a lack of
the Lord's blessing. The second-half of verse one
there says in those days the word of the Lord was rare and
prophetic visions were not widespread.
You see, Eli's sons were not good people.
In fact, in First Samuel chapter 2 verse 12, it says Eli's sons
were wicked men, and they did not.
Respect the Lord. And then it goes into detail
about all of the different really abuses that Eli's sons
were doing in the way that in which they led, stealing from
the Lord, abusing people, abusing the sacrificial system.
They were just not good people. And so when there's a lack of
godly leadership, then there's then there's a lack of the
Lord's blessing. The way that the Lord used to
speak to people as he would talk to them through prophets, he
would come to a prophet, he would speak to them.
That prophet would then deliver God's message to the people.
But in these days, the book of Hebrews says in these last days,
he has spoken to us past tense by his Son.
And so us today wanting to hear a voice from the Lord, this is
where the Lord chooses to speak to us today through his word.
But in those days, there was not a prophetic vision or a
prophetic voice because there was a lack of godly leadership.
I am so blessed to be able to be a part of a wonder, wonderful
pastoral team that loves the Lord.
Well, here at Inglewood, you've got men of great character that
I get to serve alongside on a regular basis that are godly
leaders. But some churches, I'm afraid,
choose leaders based on charisma and not character, and every one
of us have the temptation to look for other leaders outside
of our church. To Paul Warren's Temp the the
Young preacher Timothy and Second Timothy chapter 4, he
says preach the word, be ready in season and out of season,
correct rebuke and courage with great patience and teaching.
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound
doctrine, but according to their own desires.
They will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an
itch to hear what they want to hear.
They will turn away from hearing the truth and turn aside to
myths. You see, in the digital age that
we live in, we have access to all kinds of teachers.
We have access through social media and through the Internet
to all kinds of people that will tell us anything and everything
that we want to hear. And so we have a temptation to
look for people that will just confirm what we already think
and what we already believe in our own minds and hearts.
And we'll begin to listen to them and to look to them more
than we look to the people that God has placed in our lives to
actually help shepherd us together as the body of Christ.
And so I challenge you this morning to think about what who
are you listening to? What leaders are you looking to
and listening to out there in the world?
Because it's a huge temptation for us just to be able to pull
up Instagram Reels or to be able to pull up Facebook Watch, or to
be able to pull up YouTube or TikTok or any of those things.
And to find people that claim to be pastors or preachers or
Christians and they're saying all kinds of things that are not
the voice of God. And so who is it that you are
listening to? Because if you're not following
godly leadership, there will not be blessing because the Lord has
called. US as a church, he's called us
pastors to help equip the Saints for the work of the ministry, to
equip you to be able to go out and to live out your faith among
the people that you live, work and play with.
And so without godly leadership, there's a lack of blessing #3 we
must position ourselves to hear from the Lord.
In first Samuel chapter 3, picking up where we left off in
verse 2, one day Eli whose eyesight was failing, was lying
in his usual place before the lamp of the Lord had gone out.
Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark
of God was located. Then the Lord called the Samuel
and and he answered him, Here I am.
He ran to Eli and said, here I am, you called me, I didn't
call. Eli replied, go back and lie
down. So he went and lay down South.
Samuel is a servant of the temple.
He's helping out Eli. So he has various jobs around
the temple, and part of his duties involve him having to
sleep close to the interior of the temple.
And so in those days, the ark of the Lord was where God's
presence resided. And so Samuel was in a position
where he was as close as he could possibly be to the Lord's
presence. He was in the best possible
place to be able to hear the voice of the Lord.
He was close in proximity to God's presence.
And so we have to be in a place where we must position ourselves
in proximity in order to be able to hear from the Lord.
Now, spatial proximity is not the only thing that is a factor
in order to be able to hear from the Lord.
Because I don't know about you, but whenever I travel on
airplanes, I'm real close to the person to my right and my left,
but I don't have a close intimate personal relationship
with them. So being able to hear from the
Lord is not just spatial proximity, it's not just walking
into church, it's not just opening your Bible in the
morning to be able to hear from the Lord.
It takes more than that, but it's certainly not less than
that. And so in 2026, why don't we
commit to be in the Lord's presence more frequently?
Why don't we commit to be around the Lord's people more
frequently? To be here for worship, to be in
a connect group, to be here for midweek, to serve alongside
others in the body of Christ and to steward His resources well.
And then to spend time with Him and His Word in our homes.
To open up His Word, to read His Word, to study His Word, to
meditate on His Word, to be in a the best possible position, to
be able to hear from Him. But even though Samuel was as
close as he could possibly be to the presence of the Lord, and
the Lord began to call out to him, he didn't recognize the
Lord's voice #4 I want us to ask ourselves, do we recognize the
Lord's voice? Do we recognize the Lord's
voice? Going back to verse four in
first Samuel 3. Then the Lord called Samuel and
he answered, here I am. And he ran to Eli and said, Here
I am, you called me. I didn't call, Eli replied, Go
back and lie down. So he went and lay down.
Once again the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel got up, went to Eli and said, Here I am.
You called me. I didn't call my son, he
replied. Go back and lie down.
Now Samuel did not yet know or did not yet know the Lord,
because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
Once again, for the third time, the Lord.
Called Samuel. He got up and went to Eli and
said, here I am, you called me. The Lord called out to Samuel
multiple times over and over and over again.
But when Samuel heard someone calling his name, he just
immediately thought, hey, Eli must have woken up and he needs
something from me, so I need to go check with him.
And so Samuel would go and he would check with Eli and Eli's
like, no man, you're crazy. Go back to sleep and he'd go
back to sleep and then he would hear again his name being
called. He would go check in with Eli
because God's Word tells us that he did not yet know the.
Lord. Samuel didn't yet know the Lord,
and so he didn't recognize his voice.
I think many of us say that we would desire to hear from the
Lord, but maybe the Lord has been calling and we just don't
recognize his voice. Jesus uses an analogy, A
metaphor, a parable In John chapter 10, starting in verse
24, the Jews surrounded him and asked, How long are you going to
keep us in suspense if you were the Messiah?
Tell us plainly, they wanted to know, Are you the Christ?
Are you the one that God has anointed to bring salvation to
his people? Are you the one?
Just tell us. And Jesus says in verse 25, I
did tell you, and you don't believe.
Jesus answered them. The works that I do in my
Father's name testify about me, but you don't believe because
you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and
they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of
my hand. Jesus gives them a picture that
they will be familiar with of a shepherd and his sheep and a
certain flock of sheep would know and listen to.
The voice of their shepherd. And if another shepherd came
around to try to to try to give the sheep commands or to try to
move them in one way or another, they would not listen to that
shepherd because they would be looking for the voice of their
shepherd, and they would know the voice of their shepherd
well. We live in a digital age where
we've got voices of all kinds coming at us at all times, and
sometimes if we're not closely walking with the Lord, we can be
deceived and we can think the voice of another is the voice of
our Shepherd. And we can begin to follow
things that are not true and that are not the word of the
Lord, and they're not His voice. And So what about you?
Do you recognize the voice of your shepherd?
If the Lord was calling to you right now, asking you to do
something through His Word by the nudging of His Holy Spirit,
would you know that it was of the Lord?
Some of you may be here this morning and He's not your
shepherd. You have never come to a place
in your life where you have recognized that you are a
Sinner, that you have committed an offence before God and that
you are separated from Him, and that you desperately need that
relationship to be restored. And that the only way that it
can be restored is because God gave us His best gift in Jesus,
His one and only Son lived a perfect life and offered His
perfect life up on the cross as a sacrifice for our.
Sins, He paid the debt that we owed.
He died in our place so that if we would believe and trust in
him, if we would repent, turn from the way that we're living
our life, believe in Him that He would save us.
Some of you, this morning God is calling you to salvation.
Some of you God is calling to himself to come and take a hold
of a new shepherd, to stop living your life your own way,
and to submit to Jesus. But some of you are here this
morning and the Lord, and you already know the Lord.
You are his sheep, but you strayed and you don't recognize
His voice like you used to. And He's calling to you to take
another, another step of obedience, but you don't
recognize His voice. But the good news is number 5,
the Lord is persistent in His pursuit of us.
You see, when he was calling out to Samuel, he didn't just call
one time. And when Samuel walked away and
went to Eli and didn't recognize the Lord's voice, that the Lord
just washed his hands of it and gave up and step back and didn't
call again. No, again and again and again
and again. The.
Lord called out to Samuel. He was persistent in his pursuit
of Samuel, just as he was persistent in his pursuit of
Samuel. He's persistent in his pursuit
of. US.
The Lord loves us, He cares for us.
If you're here and you don't have a relationship with God
through Jesus, He is pursuing after you.
He wants to save you. He wants a relationship with
you. In fact, in building on the
shepherd parable that Jesus that we just read from Jesus again in
Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 2, he goes back to that
shepherding analogy. The Pharisees were complaining
that Jesus was spending too much time with people that were
unsightly and that were evil. And so Jesus answered them in
this way in Luke 15, three, He told them this parable.
What man among you who has 100 sheep and loses one of them does
not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one
until he finds it. When he is found it, he joyfully
puts it on his shoulders, coming home and coming home he calls
his friends and neighbors saying to them, Rejoice with me because
I found my lost sheep. I tell you.
In the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over 1 Sinner
who repents than over 99 righteous people who don't need
repentance. You see?
Jesus is that Good Shepherd, and all of us at one time in our
lives or another, we're like lost sheep who'd gone astray,
desperately in need for the shepherd to come and find us, to
save us, and to bring us home. And if you're here this morning
and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, he is
like the Good Shepherd who is persistently pursuing after you.
He's calling to you and wants a relationship with you, but
you've got to respond to him. And then you may be here and
you, you may have already chosen to follow the Lord.
And I said, man, I've been a church member for decades, been
a follower of Jesus since I was a kid.
But maybe you're dealing with sin in your life.
Maybe there's a sin issue that just keeps coming back up that's
caused you to drift in your relationship with the Lord.
Or maybe you're running from him, and maybe you're too
ashamed to even be here this morning.
But man, I want to tell you that you're Good Shepherd loves you,
and He cares for you, and He's also pursuing after you, and He
wants you to come back to Him. And so listen to his call to
return to Him this morning. And oftentimes, number six, the
Lord uses others to help us hear from him.
The Lord is in the habit of using other people as
messengers. In first Samuel chapter 3,
starting in verse 8 once again for the third time the Lord
called Samuel. He got up and went to Eli and
said, here I am, you called me. Then Eli understood that the
Lord was calling the boy, so he told Samuel go and lie down if
he calls to. You say speak, Lord, for your
servant is listening. So Samuel went down and lay in
his place. See, I wonder if Eli had not
been present, would Samuel have ever recognized the voice of the
Lord? You see, this interaction
happens multiple times of the Lord calling out to Samuel,
Samuel running to Eli thinking it's Eli, and then Eli telling
him to go back. And it's back and forth, back
and forth, back and forth, until finally Eli recognizes what's
going on. Man, the Lord is trying to speak
to this young man. So he gives him instructions on
to go back, to lie in this place, to wait until the voice
calls out again, and then to say, speak Lord, your servant,
He's listening. You see, God uses people
strategically. He desires to use you.
In Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, some of the last
words that Jesus ever said in the Great Commission when Jesus
is talking to his disciples, he said, Jesus came there and said
to them, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on
earth. Go there for and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
everything that I've commanded you and remember I'm with you
always until the end of the age. Jesus is called and commissioned
us as followers of Him to go and make more followers of Him.
It's our responsibility to go take the good news of Jesus, to
take God's Word and to proclaim it to those in our lives and to
proclaim it to the ends of the earth.
And so God wants to use you in the lives of the people around
you to help them hear from him. And so are you going to take the
responsibility that God has given you to go and make
disciples and actually do something about it in 2026 and
not just think, man, that's somebody else's job, man, the
pastors of the staff are going to handle that or our
missionaries are going to handle that.
I've just got to get up and go to work and just try to make it.
You know, God desires to use all of us to make disciples who love
God, love others, and join God's mission.
That's our vision here in Inglewood Baptist Church.
That's what we want to see. We want to see all of us making
disciples, disciples making disciples.
And so God wants to use us in the lives of others in 2026 to
help them hear from the Lord. But #7 we must respond to the
Lord's call. You see, we don't have the power
to make anyone respond to the word of the Lord.
It's our job to be faithful, to teach in the proclaim it.
But God by the power of His Holy Spirit is the one that's got to
do the work in the minds and hearts of others in order to
help them to respond to Him. You see in first Samuel chapter
3 verse 10, the Lord came and stood there again and called as
before. Samuel, Samuel, Samuel
responded, speak for your servant is listening.
Samuel responded to the call of the Lord.
And so for us, for you and your life, if the Lord is calling out
to you, you have to take a step of action and respond to
whatever it is that He's calling you to.
Whether he's calling you to repent and believe and be
baptized, or whether you've already made that step and maybe
he's calling you to a new area of service in 2026, or maybe
he's calling you to go on a mission trip somewhere in 2026.
The Uganda mission trip applications closed today and
next Sunday we've got an information meeting for some
more mission trips at 3:00 right here in this room.
And so maybe for some of you, he's calling you to go on
mission in 2026 somewhere. Or maybe there's somebody in
this room that he's calling into vocational ministry.
Or maybe he's just calling you to take whatever that next step
of obedience is to him. You see in Acts chapter 2, when
Peter preaches this incredible sermon at Pentecost, after he's
done preaching to thousands of people, listen to the way that
they respond in verse 37. Of Acts chapter 2.
When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to
Peter and to the rest of the apostles Brothers, what should
we do? Peter replied.
Repent and be baptized, each one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive
the gift. Of the Holy Spirit, See, Peter
told them. They've been pierced to the
heart. They had heard the message, they
had heard God calling them. But now it was their turn to do
something, to respond to God's call to repent, to turn from
doing things their own way, to turn from living their life for
themselves, to turn to living for the Lord and following Him
and believing and trusting in Him and submitting to His
lordship over their lives. But we've got to be careful
because #8 sometimes the word from the Lord will be difficult.
Actually, I wish I would have put oftentimes the word from the
Lord will be difficult because Samuel's here now where he's
gone back and forth with Eli and the Lord calling out to him
again and again, and he hasn't recognized the Lord's voice.
Well, now he's here, he's laying down, he hears the Lord's voice
again. He says speak, your servant is
listening, but now he doesn't know what to.
Expect he doesn't know what it is that God wants to communicate
to him. And so I would imagine there's
an ounce of fear and maybe some excitement knowing that, hey
God, God wants to speak to me. He wants to tell me something.
He's calling out to me. What might that be?
Well, let's look first Samuel chapter 3 starting in verse 11.
Look at the Lord's response. The Lord said to Samuel, I'm
about to do something in Israel that will cause everyone who
hears. About it, to shudder on that
day, I'll carry out against Eli everything I said about his
family from beginning to end. I told him that I'm going to
judge his family forever because of the iniquity that he knows
about his. Sons are cursing God, and He has
not stopped them. Therefore, I have sworn to Eli's
family. The iniquity of Eli's family
will never be wiped out by either sacrifice or offering.
Samuel lay down until the morning.
Then he opened the doors of the Lord's house.
He was afraid to tell Eli the vision.
No kidding. The message that God had for
Samuel was a message of judgment against his boss, his mentor,
the one who had been helping to raise him.
You see, we talked about Eli's sons all the way back at the
beginning and how evil they were.
And now God has proclaimed a judgment upon Eli and his family
because Eli has let this go on and has not done anything about
it. And so here's young Samuel with
a message of judgment from the Lord.
And now fear in his heart, he's afraid of communicating to Eli
what God has said to him. And so instead of going to see
Eli, he just lays back down where he's at and he waits till
in the morning. And he just does his normal
duties the next morning to open the temple up like always, and
thinks, hey, maybe Eli will just forget about all this.
Because sometimes we say we want to hear a voice from the Lord,
but really what we want is for the Lord to give us what we
want. Man, there's so many people in
this world that claim to follow Jesus but are just trying to use
Jesus as a get out of hell free card and just live their life
whatever way they want to live their life.
Well, that is not what following Jesus looks like.
Listen to what Jesus told his followers in Matthew chapter 16
starting in verse 24. Then Jesus said to his
disciples, If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny
himself. Take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life because of me will find it.
For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet
loses his life? Or what will anyone give in
exchange for his life? What Jesus tells his followers
is, hey, if you're going to come up after me, you've got to deny
yourself. You've got to take up the cross
and instrument of. Death every day.
You've got to deny yourself, you've got to die to the flesh,
you've got to die to your old self and choose to do things
Jesus's way instead of choosing to do things your own way each
and every day. If you're going to follow me, is
that what your walk with Jesus looks?
Like what is your so-called relationship with the Lord?
Only change your plans for Sunday morning because in 2026
and I want to see a group of people that are sold out for
following Jesus that man. We're taking our faith
seriously, and we're not afraid of a difficult word from the
Lord that's going to make us uncomfortable because as our
culture consistently drifts away from what we would call
Judeo-christian moral values, which is arguable how deep that
ever ran anyways, the more you live for Jesus and follow Him,
the more countercultural your life is going to be.
The more things are not going to be easy for you, the more people
are going to be hostile towards you.
So what are you going to do with it?
Do you really want to hear a word from the Lord?
Do you really want to hear His voice?
His odds are what He's got to say is going to involve you
being uncomfortable and involve you doing something difficult.
But He promises, as we read in Matthew chapter 28, that He will
be with us always and that we don't do any of this on our own
power, but we do it by the power of His Holy Spirit living inside
of us. And so if you're here this
morning, you don't know Jesus, man, and He's calling you to
come to him. It's not going to be easy.
Your life is not magically going to get easier.
In fact, your life, the your relationships around you make it
make it more difficult. It may get harder.
Jesus tells us that because the world hated him, it's going to
hate us. And if you're here and you're a
follower of Jesus and you're like, man, I just, I want to
hear a word from the Lord. I want to, I want to know him.
I want to be able to hear his voice.
Maybe whatever he's calling you to next is going to be a big
change, man. Maybe it's going to be
difficult. Maybe it's going to involve
giving up some of the things that you've been holding on to
so tightly. Are you ready for that?
Samuel was #9 We must speak the word of the Lord with boldness.
Well, Eli didn't forget soon as Samuel opens up the temple the
next morning in First Samuel chapter 3 starting in verse 16.
But Eli called him and said, Samuel, my son, here I am,
answered Samuel. What was the message he gave
you? Eli asked.
Don't hide it from me, May God punish.
You and do so severely if you hide anything from me that he
told you so. Samuel told him everything and
did not hide anything from him. Eli responded.
He is the Lord, let him do what he thinks is good.
Eli backed Samuel into a corner where he had two, really two
choices to make. Either lie to his mentor, to the
priest of God, or to tell him the truth, to boldly proclaim
God's word with clarity and completely.
And that's exactly what Samuel did.
You see, as the culture continually drifts away from the
Lord and gets more and more crazy out there, it's going to
be more difficult. We're going to need more
boldness. So we've talked time and time
again over the over the last months about a situation
overseas where one of our M's was put into prison for sharing
his faith. The Apostle Paul was no stranger
to a prison cell, and as Paul is writing here towards the end of
Ephesians chapter 6, he tells them not to pray that he would
be released from prison, but to pray also for me in verse 19,
that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make
known with boldness the. Mystery of the Gospel.
For this I am an ambassador in chains.
Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.
And if you're a follower of Jesus here in this room, and God
has called you to talk to other people about your faith, He's
called you to make disciples. He's taught, He's called you to
proclaim the gospel to others. And so when you do that, when
you live your life for Jesus, and when you tell other people
about Jesus, there's going to be persecution.
They might not throw you in a prison cell, but man, they may
treat you differently. You may not get invited to all
the places that you want to be invited to.
You may not get the promotion you want.
But you. Are called to be bold.
And So what are you going to do in 2026?
Are we going to value our comfort more than we value
obedience to Jesus? Because that's really what the
deciding factor is going to be about, whether we're going to
stand on God's Word with boldness or not.
And this world desperately needs us to stand on God's Word with
boldness, not to hide and just be in a corner and to just never
leave this room, but to go out in the places that God has
called you to be in and to live boldly for Him.
Lastly #10 the Lord will bless obedience.
Now that blessing may not look like what you're imagining it
imagining it to look like. The Lord never promises us that
we're going to have financial peace and security and and
material blessings from Him if we're obedient to Him.
But there are all kinds of other blessings that come along with
being obedient to Jesus for Samuel in first Samuel chapter
3, starting in 19, Samuel grew. The Lord was with him and he
fulfilled everything that Samuel prophesied all Israel from Dan
the Beersheba knew that Samuel was a confirmed prophet of the
Lord. The Lord continued to appear in
Shiloh because there he revealed himself to Samuel by his word.
See the rest of Samuel's life, Samuel was a great example of
faithfulness and of boldness and what it looked like to be a man
of integrity and to follow Jesus faithfully.
God blessed him. God was with him.
God used him an incredible and mighty ways.
But Samuel's life wasn't easy. God never promises us that our
life is going to be easy. You see, I hope 2026 for myself
and for my family and for Englewood and for all of you is
the best year yet. And what I mean by that is that
we're the most faithful to the Lord that we've ever been.
See, I told you at the very beginning that there were kind
of a couple of passages of Scripture that I thought the
Lord was going to lead to this morning.
And one of those passages is one of my favorite passages of
Scripture, Psalm 1. And I want to read that to you
this morning as we get ready to close.
Psalm One says this. How happy, or depending on your
translation, how blessed is the one who does not walk in the
advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or
sit in the company of mockers. Instead, his delight is in the
Lord's instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.
He's like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its
fruit in its season, and it's leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not like this.
Instead, they're like the chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor
the sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the Lord
watches over the way of the righteous.
But the way of the wicked leads to ruin.
You want to have a blessed, You want to have a happy 2026.
You want to be fulfilled. You want to be content.
You want to have joy in your life.
Are you listening for the voice of the Lord?
Because in God's Word, in Psalm one, it tells us how to have a
happy life. Don't walk in the advice of the
wicked. Don't stand in the pathway with
sinners. Don't sit in the company of
mockers. Instead, delight yourself and
the instruction of the Lord. Meditate on it day and night.
And if we love God's Word, if we're seeking desperately to
hear from Him and to respond to Him in obedience, then we'll be
like a tree firmly planted beside all of the nourishment
that we will ever need, and we'll grow up and be who God has
called us to be. And so I want to do something
with you this morning that I do with our students often.
I want to ask you to bow your head and close your eyes.
I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell our students.
There is nothing mystical that happens just because your eyes
are closed. But we are very distracted
people, and sometimes it helps us focus.
If we'll just take a moment, we'll close our eyes.
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to have a
conversation with the Lord. I want you to begin a
conversation with the Lord right now.
Maybe this is the first time you're ever talking to the Lord.
I want you to call out to Him, and I want you to look back and
think about your walk with Him in 2025.
Can your walk with the Lord in 2025 be defined by you regularly
listening to the voice of the Lord?
Or have you been distracted by other voices and maybe even the
voice of your own heart that's leading you astray?
Are you truly listening for the voice of the Lord?
And I want you in your conversation with him, to repeat
the words that Eli told Samuel to say.
Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.
And as we get ready to sing this final song, I want you to spend
some moments in reflection. And I want you to ask the Lord
to speak to you. What is it that the Lord is
calling you to this morning and in 2026?
And maybe the Lord is calling you to to take the next step of
faith or obedience right now. And maybe he's calling you to
salvation. Maybe he's calling you to give
your life to him, or maybe you've already given your life
to him. Maybe he's calling you to take
the next step of obedience through baptism or through
church membership. Or maybe he's calling you to a
new area of service. Or maybe he's calling you to go
on mission. Or maybe he's just calling you
to just be more faithful, to be that bold witness in the places
that he's placed you in. Speak glory.
Your servant is listening, and then as the Holy Spirit moves on
your mind and heart, I don't want you to take that away from
from here without doing anything about it.
I'm going to pray here in just a second that the Lord would give
you boldness and courage to act on whatever it is that He's
calling you to. There's going to be pastors down
here in the front, as well as some volunteers in our Next
Steps room that would love to be able to have a conversation with
you about what it looks like to follow Jesus or to take whatever
that next step is of obedience for you.
Or maybe you just need to make these stairs an altar.
And maybe you just need to come up here this morning and spend
some time in prayer with the Lord, crying out to him, laying
2025 at his feet and asking Him to help you be more intentional
in 2026. To listen for His voice, to hear
it, to respond in obedience to it.
Let me pray for you, Heavenly Father, Thank you so much.
As we've already said, Lord, we didn't plan this.
We actually could have had no idea that we would be here right
now in this place like this. But Lord, I believe that you're
sovereign over everything. I believe that nothing catches
you by surprise or off guard. So I believe you wanted me and
you wanted us to be able to hear from First Samuel chapter 3 this
morning. For whatever reason, Lord, only
you know. And so, Lord, I pray that
collectively we can say, speak, Lord, for your servants are
listening and then all around this room and online that you
through the power of your Holy Spirit are speaking and nudging
the hearts and the minds of these people to take whatever
the next step of obedience is for them.
And Lord, it's my prayer that you would give them the boldness
and the courage this morning to come talk to a pastor, to go
talk to someone in the Next steps room, or maybe just to
come here and to lay at the altar and to cry out to you.
But Lord, for all of us, help 2026 to be the year for all of
us. That marks the year that we
sought your voice more than any other, that we were more bold
and more obedient to You than we ever have been, and that we pray
that you would bless that and that You would use us in only
ways that you can imagine. So Lord, help us to respond to
You, in fact faith and obedience this morning in Jesus name,
Amen.