Can You Hear Me Now?

We're gonna be in first Samuel again this morning. We're doing a series called After God's Own Heart. We're gonna read from first Samuel three to the beginning of chapter four and we're gonna skip over just a couple verses in the middle. So we're gonna read one through eleven and fifteen through chapter four verse one. It's our custom to read God's word aloud together. So you can find this in the bible in the pew page two thirty five or up on the screen behind me and we're gonna read God's word aloud. Would you join your voice with mine?

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. One day, Eli, whose eyesight was failing, was lying in his usual place. Before the lamp of God had gone out, Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was located. Then the Lord called Samuel and he answered, 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. 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 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, went to Eli and said, here I am, you called me. Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the boy. He told Samuel, go and lie down. If he calls you, say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his presence. The Lord came, stood there, and called out as before. Samuel, Samuel. Samuel responded, speak. The servant is listening. And then now down to verse 15. Samuel lay down until the morning then he opened the doors of the Lord's house. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli called to him and said, Samuel, my son. Here I am, answered Samuel. What was the message he gave you? Eli asked. Do not 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. Samuel grew. The Lord was with him and he fulfilled everything Samuel prophesied. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was a confirmed prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear in Shiloh because he revealed himself to Samuel by his word. And Samuel's words came to all Israel. — 1 Samuel 3:1-11, 15 - 4:1

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You may remember there was an old Verizon commercial from years ago that had the tagline, "Can you hear me now?" And it was about phone reception. It's a very common experience because we live in a state with mountains and a lot of countryside where you have lost signal or you've been talking to someone on the phone who's lost signal or maybe it was the Zoom years during COVID where you spent a lot of time on Zoom that you hated and there was a lot of like "who's talking and who can hear who?" and we interrupt each other. It was very annoying, right? There's a lot of "can you hear me now" moments during those years.

That's the question actually of this passage. Can you hear me now? God is still speaking but the question is who is listening? So here's my outline. This is on the front inside cover of your bulletin if you want to find these four points: A speaking God, a reception problem, a listening heart, and a failed priest. And that last one's a question mark.

One item of note. I got to visit this place, Shiloh, last year when I went to Israel on sabbatical and I got to visit the place. I don't have great pictures. It looks like a pile of brown rocks so I didn't put any of those up here for you but it's a fascinating place. Because when you read this passage it's confusing in first Samuel. It keeps using the language of temple and tabernacle interchangeably and it may seem like "where are we?" Well here's why. Archaeologists have discovered that at Shiloh there's a huge stone platform that was built. There was a permanent foundation that was actually built there for the tabernacle and that was the place of worship for Israel for the longest of any place. Longer than they worshiped in Solomon's temple, they worshiped at the tabernacle at Shiloh. And because it became permanent with that kind of foundation, the words are sort of interchangeable out here. But this is the tent of the tabernacle that was later replaced with the temple in Jerusalem.

A Speaking God

First, a speaking God. I don't know if you've noticed this but our God is far from silent. He has a lot to say. God speaks a lot.

God created by speaking and then God kept speaking. He didn't start the world and then walk away. He continues speaking. He gives them laws and prophets and words of wisdom and songs and laments and instructions. It's like he's interpreting the world and he keeps on interpreting himself and the world and who we are.

And then Jesus shows up and Jesus' primary ministry is one of teaching. Now he does do healing. He does do miracles and those are called in John's gospel signs, messianic signs, but clearly that's not the main point or he would have healed everybody and fixed everything. His main ministry was one of teaching. Parables, direct teaching, woes, answering questions, lots of dialogue.

And then after the resurrection, by God's power, he sends the Holy Spirit into the lives of believers. Jesus tells us the purpose of the Holy Spirit: he is going to reveal all truth to you. The Holy Spirit's job is to continue the speaking. Our God is a speaking God.

Now that sounds probably normal to you. Everybody in this room has probably multiple Bibles in your home. But in the world of the Bible—Samaria, Babylon, Egypt, later on Persia, Greece—this was far from normal. Gods did not speak, and not really to people. The gods of those surrounding cultures instead did lots of things. Lots of sex, lots of battles, lots of fighting, sometimes talking to people, mostly talking to each other. And so a God who's speaking, revealing, interpreting, this is a big deal. It's really different from anything around that.

God's Calling

Now here's what's fascinating. God not only speaks things into existence, he speaks in a sense people into existence. This is the idea of God's calling. God calling people to himself. Eleven times in these verses God is calling Samuel. He's calling him by name. Calling's a particular kind of speaking. It's personal. It's focused. It's you right now here.

God isn't continuing to do this. But listen to the problem in the passage.

In those days the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread. — 1 Samuel 3:1

It's not that God had stopped speaking. It's the people had stopped listening.

The Problem of a Speaking God

If you're here this morning and you're exploring Christianity, I want to tell you that the fact that we have a speaking God is kind of a problem. You may be kind of annoyed. As you investigate the Christian faith, you may be a progressive, liberal, and you're like, I don't really like what the Bible has to say about sexuality. You might be a conservative and you're like, I don't really like what the Bible has to say about loving the stranger and the immigrant. I don't want to do that. And let me tell you, nobody likes what God has to say about how we use our money.

You know, if you're investigating Christianity and there are parts of what God says that you don't like, guess what? You're in great company. That's most Christians. Most Christians have things that we're like, I'd rather God not have said this in his word.

I would rather also on a personal level, God nudges us internally to go and make things right with a friend, go and ask for forgiveness, go and confront someone. It would be a lot easier to do what Jefferson did.

Thomas Jefferson famously took the Bible and cut out the parts he didn't like. You can see this in the Smithsonian in D.C. today. Go see the Jeffersonian Bible. A lot of us would like to do this.

Our God is a speaking God and that's problematic, but it's one of the signs. Actually, we have a God that's a real God. You know, it's one of the tropes of science fiction. This is in The Wizard of Oz. This is in Watchmen. This is in one of the Matrix movies where we sort of create a god that is a projection of what we want. We want a bigger version of ourselves who agrees with us in every way and doesn't ever tell us anything we don't want to hear.

Now you know you have a fake God when he never contradicts you. You don't have a real God when God tells you things either in his word or by the internal work of his spirit in you that you're like, ugh, no thanks. That's actually a sign that you're interacting with the real God.

Hope in the Darkness

But there was hope. There's hope then. There's hope now.

Even though the word of the Lord was rare in those days, before the lamp of God had gone out. — 1 Samuel 3:3

Now First Samuel—I've got to tell you, I'm so excited to preach this series because this is master storytelling. I mean, nobody tells a story like the Hebrews. And this is not just a detail. Yes, it tells you middle of the night, sometime toward the early morning, the priests light the lamps and then they go to bed in the tabernacle. So this is probably toward early morning, but it's telling you something else, because this is never just physically what's going on. It's also metaphorical. It looks like all hope is lost. The priest can't hear. He's not hearing from God anymore, Eli.

His sons are failed priests and yet the lamp of God hadn't gone out yet. God still has plans. That's kind of what we're being hinted at here. God is still speaking in other words. And I want you to hear this this morning. Are you aware of this? That God is speaking to you. God is talking to you. God has something to say to you all the time. He's speaking in his creation. He's speaking in his word. He's speaking when his people gather. He's speaking of course in the preaching of the word but he's speaking all the time by the power of his spirit in the lives of people. God is talking so much even today. Do we have ears to hear?

A Reception Problem

This is my second point, a reception problem. The details here, again, rich in symbolism. Verse two.

Eli whose eyesight was failing.

Here's the head priest and he's losing his vision. And we've seen this already, his moral vision. Last week we looked at how he failed to see and speak into the lives of his two sons, Hophni and Phineas. And he knows what they're doing is wrong but he kind of turns a blind eye. Get all the play on words here? Turns a blind eye to it. His moral vision is failing. He sees Hannah come in and she's praying and weeping in the tabernacle, crying out to God. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. She's pouring her heart out and he's like she's drunk. Like the priest, something's wrong with his moral vision. Something's wrong here with his hearing, his reception. This is a statement about receivers.

Now I just want to remind you, you can be a person who's around the things of God a lot and not be tuned in. It is, boy, you want to talk about a problem for me. It's easy to be like oh I know the God stuff and it's all easy to be around the God things every week and have a heart that isn't listening to him. You can hear sermons and not hear God. You can sing worship songs and not hear God. You can listen to podcasts and not hear God. You can read the Bible and never let the Bible read your life. You can serve in the church and your heart grows cold. Anybody with me? Do I have a witness this morning? Right, we know this. Maybe it's us.

We have Bibles everywhere. We've got podcasts. We've got Bible studies. We've got more Biblical stuff than any culture ever. I mean you could never exhaust what's on the internet. But the problem is, is it with the signal or the receiver? Eli can't see. Samuel doesn't know how to hear yet. That's verse seven.

Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord because the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him.

Now that doesn't necessarily mean we put this in categories like Samuel's an unbeliever. No, Samuel had been raised in a home where he'd been taught about God. He'd been around the temple. I can't say definitively where Samuel is saved or not saved but this is a statement about learning to hear his call. God's call on his life. God's call to him as a prophet. Here's the irony. Eli can't see. Samuel can't hear yet.

Now I don't know what you like to do for exercise. I really enjoy swimming. Took me several years to get into swimming but I've learned that one essential piece of equipment for me is ear plugs. I have a really hard time with getting water in my ears and it drives me crazy. You know if you've had swimmer's ear before it can range from being mildly annoying to really painful and you have to do the hop up and down thing. Or if it gets bad you have to put the little rubbing alcohol in your ears and it's supposed to help it evaporate.

And the problem though is like swimmer's ear, it's blocking. It's keeping you from hearing. I wonder in the church if we don't have swimmer's heart. See here's the difference. It's kind of a bad analogy because for Samuel it was something on the outside going in that keeps me from hearing. For Eli it was something on the inside that was keeping him from hearing. His own heart. He had a reception problem because of what was on the inside of him that made him not want to hear from God.

And I wonder sometimes if we have a swimmer's heart when it comes to hearing from God. Let me give you some for instances. What does this look like in a person's life? It can look like the spirit is pushing me on some sin issue in my life and I don't want to hear him. It can look like resentment that's building bitterness toward God, toward other people that's growing over time. Sometimes it's just busyness and noise and we're so we have so many voices and sounds. We don't have time to listen to God. There could be a conviction that you have that you're sure of that you're not allowing God to speak to. You're like I've closed down this part of my life, thank you very much. Is there some area of your life where you've been like I'm gonna obey you in every area except for this one right here?

Right, sometimes God isn't hard to hear. It's that we don't want to listen to him. So this is point three: How do you develop a listening heart? How do you become a person who wants to hear from God? If God is speaking all the time and the problem is not on his end, it's a reception issue on our end, how do you develop a listening heart?

Well I have three applications for you.

Attentive

First is this: attentive. Put yourself in a place to listen. Again, no extra details in this story. Notice in the tabernacle where's Eli sleeping, where's Samuel sleeping? Eli's somewhere back in his own quarters and it locates Samuel by the ark of the covenant. And we're gonna talk about the ark a lot over the next couple weeks. But this is that box. Two and a half feet, two and a half feet, four feet covered in gold that is supposed to represent the throne of God. Samuel's sleeping by the throne of God. He's sleeping by the ark. I mean, kind of a great night light I think. Thanks for chuckling at my terrible jokes. But he's in the right place to listen. He's in the place to listen.

And here's my question: Are you sleeping near the ark in your life? Are you creating space for God to speak to you? Is there room? Are you making yourself attentive to God in some area of your life? Carving out time, scheduling time, giving him that focused attention.

We mentioned Journeymates earlier in the service. Journeymates, which we're hosting this week, was really helpful to me. I was a participant in Journeymates for probably six, seven years here in Raleigh. And it's just these regular times of having a morning to give to the Lord is open time. That's all really it is. Blocking off time in your schedule, interacting with his word, prayer, in silence, giving God space. Sleeping near the ark for me. And I tell you I had some resistance to that. That's kind of embarrassing as a pastor. But learning to hear from God, wanting to hear from God—we're so distracted. It's so hard for us to do this.

God wants us to cultivate attentiveness, listening hearts. Samuel didn't wake up one morning and suddenly turn into a full grown adult Samuel, awesome prophet. It was spending time listening. You have to learn how to do this. Learning to listen to God is like learning to ride a bike or an instrument, a foreign language. You know, we had a kid here, I remember him trying out instruments and he was so frustrated because he was not good immediately. I'm like yeah, you're terrible. You know, it sounds like someone's choking a goose in our house. That's called the trombone, right. You know, someone's killing a cat. That's called a violin, right. You know, nobody does that. Nobody's naturally good at any of those things. You have to practice it. You have to learn how to do these things.

Available

Second: available. Here's what's fascinating. Verses eight through ten, three times Samuel responds with the same Hebrew word: "Here I am." In Hebrew it's hineini. H-I-N-E-N-I. And it's more than locating yourself in the room. It's more than like hey I'm right over here. You don't see me? It means I'm available. Here I am. I'm present. I am ready.

Think about how often this happens in scripture. God comes to Abraham and Abraham says "Here I am," I'm available. God comes to Jacob and Jacob says "Here I am," I'm available. Took a little rustling but he got there. Isaiah, "Here I am." I'm available. Moses, "Here I am." I'm available. Samuel, "Here I am." I'm available.

And Jesus—Jesus doesn't just embody this. He doesn't just say this. He embodies it. And of course he didn't speak Hebrew. He spoke Aramaic. He didn't say hanani in the same way. But his whole life was a hanani prayer. I am available to you God. I am here to do your will. The Garden of Gethsemane, "Not my will but yours be done." Hebrews 10 tells us,

"Behold I've come to do your will, oh Lord."

The words in Jesus' heart: Here I am. This is what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is not somebody who's a master of all the religious stuff or knows all the theology. It's a person who's saying, I'm available. Hanani, here I am. I am here for you. Tell me what you want to tell me.

Are you hanani? Are you available to God?

Obedient

And the last one is obedient. And this is where the story gets really uncomfortable. Because there's a difference between—and we know this, particularly you who are teachers and you who are parents—you know the difference between hearing and listening? You could tell the kid was in earshot but did they listen to you? It's very different.

In the Bible, listening, hearing and obeying are the same word. To listen to God is to do what he says. It's not just I'm available but I'm following through. This is where the story kind of hits the road because immediately God tests this "I'm available to you." He tells Samuel, I want you to go and essentially tell Eli the words of judgment.

Now we skipped over that in our reading but God says I'm gonna bring judgment on the house of Eli and Eli the next morning is like hey what did God tell you? Don't hide it from me. And Samuel is forced to confront his mentor. He's forced to confront this man who's the priest of God in Israel. This is a big deal and he's a little boy. But he's forced to be obedient in this moment to follow through and tell him the uncomfortable truth.

I think sometimes we're like, hey, I wanna hear from God. Isn't it really something you wanna hear that's like comforting? Yes? We want comforting words from God. We want God to remind us like, I just love you so much. Yes, I wanna hear that. I wish you could do this. No, thank you God. Like, yes, we want God to speak but we want God to speak in certain categories. Thank you very much. And not so much in others. Not hey go confront your friend. Hey go stand up for what's really unpopular but it's really right at work. You know, go do something really hard to forgive someone. Anybody really excited about those words from God?

But the call here is I'm attentive, I'm available and I'm obedient. That's what it means to listen to God. Question, do you have a reception problem? Do you have a listening problem. I have good news for you.

God's Call to Listen

Psalm 40 is a prayer for people who have a reception problem. Psalm 40 helps us with this prayer to God and I wanna put verse six.

You open my ears to listen. — Psalm 40:6

Literally in Hebrew that says, you dig out my ears. Kinda gross. Right? Like it's meant to be disgusting. You dig out my ears. Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase The Message, he puts it this way. I love this. He says this, God come swinging, swing a pickaxe. Come dig my ears in my granite blockhead so that I can hear, really hear what you have to say to me.

That's a good prayer. Like bring out the excavator. Dig out my ears. I want to hear from you. Ask God. If this morning you're like, ugh, hate these kind of sermons. I wanna encourage you to ask God to give you a Hanani heart. I'm available. Speak Lord, your servant is listening. Speak.

One more thing. This is just a little aside. This is not a big deal. But I want you to notice the failed priest. And I put a little question mark on the end of that one because what a mess. Right? Eli, what a disaster. I mean, failed father, failed priest. He just doesn't get anything right. He's kind of a mess and yet Eli connects the dots for Samuel. He tells Samuel this is what's going on. He realizes this is what's going on. That's God talking to you. Maybe the one time Eli gets something right in these passages. But this is what's fascinating to me. That's a paradox. Right? I mean, here's this. God even uses Eli. And this morning if you are sitting here and you're just like thanks for a lot of guilt this morning pastor. You know, all you're doing is highlighting all the ways I've been a failure to listen. And my life is filled with the consequences of that in broken relationships and messy disaster situations that have followed me because I haven't listened. God uses Eli. God can even use you. And I want you to have hope this morning walking out of here that I don't know your story. I know some of your stories. But hearing this, God has use for you.

God Knows Your Name

Last thing by way of closing. I think that psychologists tell us the most soothing word you can hear is someone that you love saying your name. That does something deep inside of us. And you know it's been a wonder this year as we have a one year old granddaughter watching her learn to recognize when we're saying her name, Collins. And I remember when she started turning her head and she knew her name. And this is one of the most intimate moments in the Bible when God comes and says Samuel, Samuel.

I know some of you here have lost people and you wish you could just recapture them saying your name. Just hear that again. Someone who deeply loves you and knows you saying your name. And this is all over the pages of our Bible where God comes and calls people by name.

Jesus knows his sheep and he calls them by name. — John 10

After his resurrection there are three of these appearances where God shows up to Simon Peter. Jesus shows up to Simon Peter and says Simon, Simon. Shows up to Mary, Mary, Mary. Shows up to Thomas and he calls them by name. And I just wanna remind you of this this morning. God knows your name. God's calling your name.

There's an old hymn that goes like this, softly and tenderly Jesus is calling. Speak word. Your servants are listening. In the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, amen.

Let's pray together. Father, would you give us this morning what only you can give us, which is attentive hearts, available hearts, obedient hearts. Lord, you know the inner resistance in each of us and you know the outer busyness, the clouds out and blocks out and the reception.

And Lord, we ask this morning that you would keep speaking, keep calling our names, help us to be hearers. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.