Real People , Real Problems A Study Of 1 Samuel Part 5, " Needful Things" Series

Real people- Real problems

A study of 1 Samuel

Part 5

“Needful things”

Today as we continue with our study of 1 Samuel called Real People – Real problems

We are going to address a common problem in the world today

Needs vs. wants

But more specifically

Wants that we get ----That are not good for us

I am going to us two illustrations this morning

Neither of them are religious in nature

And to quite honest

Most pastors would run from them like nest full of yelowjackets

First is a song from the Rolling Stones

----Called------ you can’t always get what you want-----

In this song

The band sings

You can’t always get what you want

But you get what you need

In a spiritual way

This song hits the nail on the head

God promises to give us what we need

Remember from our study of Philippians

Philippians 4:19 parphase

“God will provide for you needs according to his glorious riches”

We have learned that God will provide for our needs

What do we need?

Redemption- God provided that through his son Jesus

Love

Mercy

Peace

I could go on and on

God promises us these things when we accept Jesus as savior

And when we pour ourselves out before him as we saw last week from Samuel

And when we give our bodies as a living sacrifice as Paul taught in Romans

But never promises to give us what we want

But

Sometimes we do get what we want

Even when it is not good for us

I want to use an illustration here that is extremely out of the park on church illustrations

But

I do believe that God can and will use everything at his disposal to get his message out

And I as your Pastor have vowed to preach his message using whatever it takes to get the message out in a way that is understandable

So

Hang on tight

If you are going to write a note about my use of worldly things in my sermons

Please sign it, I don’t and won’t address anonymous notes

Novel writer Stephen King- I know I never thought that name would come up in a sermon

Wrote a book titled “Needful things”

In his book

A shop is opened in a small town

It is a kind of antique shop

The proprietor we learn later is Old Slick himself

And in his shop

He offers people things that they want

Or feel they need

But he skews their vision

In order to make those things attractive to only them

And they must give up something in order to get them

Everyone else can see that what they are setting their hearts on

Are not only nasty and ratty

They can see that they not good for them

But in some cases lead to destruction

We face similar wants in our lives as well

Listen

God promises to give us our needs

And sometimes he gives us our wants to bless us

But

Sometimes he gives us our wants even when they are not good for us

We will look at some of the reasons later in the sermon

But for now

Please open your bibles to 1 Samuel Chapter 8

While you are turning their let me once again recap a bit

Last week we saw how Samuel gave the people instructions on knowing God better

He told them to get rid of their little “g” gods

Gather together and pray

Pour theriselves out before the Lord

This means give their all to him

Fast- give up something for a period to get closer to God

And to confess their sins

The advice of Samuel to the people was sound advice

And they experienced a time of restored relationship with God

As a result

Chapter 7 ends saying

That Samuel was made Judge over Israel for the rest of his days

Eventually Samuel got old as we all will if we live long enough

And he allowed his sons

Joel and Abi-jah to pick up some of his slack

And they were a lot like Hophni and Phinneous

Eli’s wicked sons from our earlier study

And so now the people once again started looking over the fence at what they thought were greener pastures

1 Samuel 8:1-22

“As Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel. Joel and Abi-jah, his oldest sons, held court in Beersheba. But they were not like their father, for they were greedy for money. They accepted bribes and perverted justice.

Finally all the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel.

“Look” they told him, “you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have