Pastor Tim Patoka
Midweek Advent 2020 God’s Servants Listen to His Word 1 Samuel 3:1-10 1) God Speaks to Us in His Word 2) Listen to God as His Willing Servant
If you had a choice about how to learn something, what would you choose? Say you wanted to learn about the daily life of civilians who lived during World War II. Would you prefer to listen to a history teacher who has done lots of research talk about this or would you prefer to read a first-hand account like The Diary of Anne Frank? Or say you wanted to learn about the legendary frontiersman Wyatt Earp. Would you buy up all the biographies and movies you could at the gift shop in Tombstone or would you prefer the autobiography he never wrote to people’s chagrin? I’m guessing, in both cases, you would choose the second option. You would prefer to read the words of those who actually went through what you want to learn because they have a sense of authenticity and can give information that only they know about. We listen to people who have something to say. And that becomes all the more true depending on who is speaking and how exclusive their information is. But no one can surpass our God and his Word. God has used both spoken and written forms to speak his Word to us in the past as he tells us about the promise of the Christ. And, as his servants who are just as willing to listen as young Samuel was, we listen to his Word so that we may again review and rejoice in this blessed promise of the Christ during this Advent season. 1) God Speaks to Us in His Word God has used a few ways to give his Word to believers over the years. While somewhat uncommon in Old Testament times, God certainly did this by directly speaking his Word to hand-selected people like Abraham, Moses, and Samuel. In addition to God’s spoken Word, they also had his written Word. Although they had not yet lived through much of the Old Testament Scriptures by Samuel’s time, they did have what had already happened there in Shiloh where Eli and Samuel lived alongside the tabernacle and its furnishings. In our New Testament times, it hasn’t been God’s practice to give his Word to us in spoken form. But that doesn’t mean he’s left us hanging! We have far more of his written Word than Samuel ever did as recorded for us in our Bibles. In this written Word, we have God’s own Word because it comes directly from him and tells us exclusive information that only God could know. But do we always recognize it as such? Might we perhaps be unfamiliar with portions of God’s Word so that when we hear it, we fail to recognize it as we should? This was young Samuel’s problem even though it wasn’t necessarily his fault. Samuel didn’t recognize the Lord’s spoken Word because, as told to us, “Now Samuel had not yet experienced the Lord’s presence, that is, the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” (1 Samuel 3:7) 1