Shattering the Silence: Hearing from God
1 Samuel 3:1-18
November 25, 2001
This Thanksgiving we went to Tulsa to spend time with some of our family who lives there and we had opportunity to meet up with a cousin of mine whom we haven¡¦t heard from in more than 5 years. We quickly got caught up mentioning how long it had been which of course led to an extensive conversation about other people I haven¡¦t heard from. One of my cousins there graduated in the same high school class that I did, and we visited about a number of our peers all of whom he had been in contact with. I think the funniest thing I learned was that two of my friends were asked to speak at career day at our high school in a time when neither of them were employed I think they were in the ¡§learn from the mistakes of others¡¨ booth.
You can just imagine how this conversation went. It started with the question, ¡§have you heard from so and so?¡¨ As Brandon completed one bio and the laughs died down, the transitional question to fill the silence was, ¡§well have you heard from so-and-so?¡¨ What was most interesting to me was that there were very few people that Brandon had not heard from. AS a matter of fact, we probably discussed 25 people, some of whom had been detained by authorities and other who should have been detained, he knew something about 20 of them and I only had information on 1 of them.
I was impressed with how he had heard from so many of my acquaintances, and felt a little shamed by his contact. So pretty soon I found myself involved in a conversation about how he had heard from so many people. The difference was effort. When he travels back to South Carolina, he looks them up. When he calls one he gets numbers for the others. On one occasion he chased down a rumor that one of our friends was in Charlotte, North Carolina. He took a chance and called information, got a number called his house and had a wonderful conversation with our friend¡¦s wife who had no clue who he was. He made the effort, he¡¦s got the scoop.
Our conversation was a very timely one for me because I have been intending to ask you a very similar question today. ¡§Have you heard from God lately?¡¨
I hear lots of people in conversation asking how to hear from God. They think they are hearing him but they are not sure, or they are interested in hearing from him but they don¡¦t. What we all need to understand is that hearing from God is much like hearing from old friends. It takes E for effort.
Hear ye, hear ye! You don¡¦t earn the right to hear from God. Your responsibility is to put yourself in the right situation to hear from him and then in his grace and mercy he will shatter the silence and speak.
Today we are going to look at one of my favorite people in the entire Bible. His name is Samuel. If you don¡¦t know much about him, his story unfolds for us in the book of 1 Samuel. He is the only man in scripture to hold the offices of prophet, judge, and priest. He is also one of the few heroes of our faith whose story is chronicled literally from beginning to end. The scripture tells the story of the unusual circumstances surrounding his conception and how he was promised to God. His life is then traced from childhood to old age and ultimately to death. But what is perhaps most unique about Samuel, is that the scripture opens the door of his prayer closet and gives us a glimpse at how he first heard God¡¦s voice and learned to recognize his call. By looking at Samuel¡¦s life we are going learn that hearing from God comes from intimacy with God, cultivated through discipline, or a little effort.
Turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 3:1-19 (READ).
I want you to see that there are three disciplines that we can engage in that will invite God to shatter the silence.
First, shattering the silence requires the discipline of service.
To shatter the silence, you must render service to the Lord. What is service? It is dutiful engagement in what is right. Now this is very important to understand because we are talking about hearing from God personally.
We have said this before, but it is absolutely imperative to make mention of it again in this context today, there are some things that you do not need special or personal instruction from the Lord. Should you be generous? No question. Should you pray? No question. Should you attend church on a regular basis? No question. The Bible is very clear here.
For example, to the issue of generosity, the Bible says the earth is the Lord¡¦s and everything in it. What you have is not yours, you are just managing it for God. Should you pray? The Bible says pray without ceasing. Should you be a dependable member of a church family? The Bible says that we are not to forsake the assembling together and it teaches us that we are equipped to make a difference in and for our church family by the gracious gifting of the Holy Spirit. Those things are clear and they provide opportunities or building blocks for your relationship with God.
Before God shatters the silence and begins to speak directly to you about other matters, you have got to commit yourself to service in these matters. That is you need to be dutifully engaged in what is right. If you aren¡¦t getting the fundamentals down, God isn¡¦t going to give you assignments in other areas because he can¡¦t trust you with this simple, self-denial service stuff.
Samuel¡¦s life demonstrates this reality. Look at the sore thumb verse in this passage. Did you notice it? It¡¦s verse 7. Look at it one more time¡K ¡§Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord.¡¨ If you were really paying attention to the verses I read then that passage of scripture should jump right off the page because it is preceded in verse 1 with the fact that the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord under Eli.
As a matter of fact if you turn back to 1 Samuel 1:28 you read that as soon as Samuel was dropped off at the temple, where he was to live and work, that he worshipped the Lord. 1 Samuel 2:18 says, ¡§¡§But Samuel was ministering before the Lord¡Xa boy wearing a linen ephod.¡¨ In other words Samuel was a part of the altar guild. He was an integral part of the liturgy of the worship service. When people came into the temple to offer their sacrifices to the Lord, Samuel was there to assist them because it was part of his service to the Lord.
So the evidence sufficiently communicates that the boy Samuel did worship the Lord and serve him prior to knowing him. In other words Samuel had an understanding of the very clear expectations of God, but he did not know him in an intimate relationship. Why was that? Verse 7 says, ¡§The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to Samuel.¡¨ Samuel did not know God because God had never personally spoken to Samuel giving him direction apart from what was written in the book of the Law of Moses. He knew what he had to do in executing worship but nothing more.
The word that is translated ¡§been revealed,¡¨ literally means that the word had not been uncovered to Samuel. Yes he had a good idea that God was God and should be revered and awed, but God had not uncovered himself to Samuel for intimate knowledge and understanding.
The other day I came home and was greeted with the most wonderful aroma. I knew that whatever it was that I smelled was good. I knew that it was familiar, and I knew that I should be excited about it. But I just couldn¡¦t put my finger on what it was. So I went over to the counter where the crock-pot was and I lifted the lid and I tasted the most delightful beef stew. I had an idea that it was going to be good, but after it had been uncovered I tasted it and really knew it.
Psalm 34:8 says, ¡§Taste and see that the Lord is good.¡¨ Samuel knew about God. He knew that the Lord was worthy of service. But at this point in his young pilgrimage with the Lord, God had not yet shattered the silence by uncovering himself to Samuel.
AS a matter of fact the uncovering was rare in those days, but God chose Samuel because Samuel demonstrated faithfulness to God even before he knew him intimately. He served God because he knew it must be good, in a time when everyone else was serving themselves.
Second, shattering the silence means that you practice the discipline of solitude.
What an irony it is that in order to shatter the silence, you must discipline yourself to spend time in the silence of solitude. It is no small coincidence that the Bible leads us to believe that Samuel was alone in the temple when the word of the Lord came to him. With a very small number of notable exceptions, like Saul on the Road to Tarsus and the handwriting on the wall, the word of the Lord has come and still comes in the silence of solitude.
I want you just for a moment to enter this scene with me for a few moments.
„« Why was Samuel there? His mother dedicated him to the Lord.
„« Who was Samuel¡¦s friend? An old man.
„« How old was Samuel? 12 years at best.
„« Where was he? In a church by himself. Have you ever been in a church by yourself at night? It can kind of freak you out.
„« There were no other 12-year-olds in the temple at this time. He had no one to play with.
„« There was no radio playing, no television to watch, he didn¡¦t have any comic books to read. There was literally nothing to take his mind off of the deafening silence of his lonely circumstances. He was alone in a quiet church with just his thoughts.
Samuel was experiencing the epitome of solitude, and that is when God spoke.
There are essentially two ways to enter into solitude. By choice and by circumstance. Samuel¡¦s circumstances shut out the voices that competed for his attention and enabled him to hear the voice of God.
Many people say that Christianity is the religion for weaklings. I would submit to you that it is in weakness that many hear from God. It is true that when people have problems they turn to God, but it is also true that most of these problems have driven them into solitude. A time of searching and listening. For Samuel it was in his loneliness that God spoke.
What we need to do is determine that we are going to hear from God not only in circumstantial solitude, but by solitude of choice. We need to recognize the pattern that God speaks in solitude and we need practice the discipline so we can hear from God regularly, on the good days and the bad.
Solitude is one of the necessary but also most difficult disciplines. It means time with God in the absence of books, newspapers, magazines, television, or phone calls. Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and him alone. If we don¡¦t push back the things that crowd our schedule then we are effectively shutting out the word of God from our lives. There are competing distractions from the outside. But we also have to recognize that there are competing distractions from the inside.
Solitude doesn¡¦t mean that we shut out all of our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings, and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distractions, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, we will find that our inner distractions manifest themselves in full force. And if we are honest we will admit that this is really the reason that we fail to sit down in solitude because we don¡¦t have the heart or the desire to confront these challenges.
But it is only in solitude that we can really deal with these challenges. It is here that we bring up the skeletons in our closet for spring-cleaning. It is here that God will speak healing, encouragement, or direction in our lives. If we want to hear from God, we have got to have the courage to practice the discipline of solitude.
Third, if we want God to shatter the silence, it requires our surrender.
Surrender is when you wave the white flag of your will and give it to someone else. Surrender to God says, nevertheless Lord, not my will but your will be done.
Samuel¡¦s life was characterized by surrender. Samuel was one hundred percent surrendered to the will of those who were in authority to him. He surrendered to his mother¡¦s wishes, he surrendered to Eli¡¦s wishes. Four times in this passage we hear Samuel say the words here I am, and when he responds to the Lord, he says speak Lord for you servant is listening. Those statements denote someone who is ready and willing to do whatever needs to be done, regardless of the difficulty.
True to form, Samuel demonstrates his complete surrender in handling the message of the Lord. The words the Lord spoke to Samuel were not easy to swallow, and they certainly were not easy to repeat. God basically told him that he was planning on executing judgement on Eli¡¦s family forever because Eli failed to discipline his sons and they turned out to be a really sorry lot.
The scripture says that Samuel was afraid to tell Eli what God said to him, but Samuel was surrendered to God, and to the wishes of Eli and he completed the task.
Now that is surrender. Surrender says, I¡¦m yours Lord, everything I am, and everything I¡¦ve got. Samuel was not going to let his personal preferences or comfort prevent him from doing what was right.
God knew that about Samuel so he spoke with him.
Samuel served, he practiced solitude, and he was surrendered to the Lord. So God spoke to him.
What was the result? Verse 19 says that, the result of God¡¦s speaking to Samuel was that God did not let any of his words fall to the ground. In other words God gave him success in what God had called him to do.
Here is the truth. If you pay the price to hear from God, he will speak. And hearing from God can and will elevate you to significance in his kingdom.
