Sermon Tone Analysis

I’m a great Tolkien fan, and have read /Lord of the Rings/ several times, and seen both the films.

I loved the second film as I followed the story through all the twists and turns as the various groups wind their way to Mordor, I was with them every step of the way.

But a friend of mine who’d never read the books, and hadn’t even seen the first film hated that same film.

He didn’t have a clue what was going on!

He had a vague idea who Frodo was, but as the story jumped about from character to character, he couldn’t remember who they all were, or what they were supposed to be doing.

Sometimes reading the Bible can be a little bit like that.

We can jump straight in to the middle of a book, and by the time we’ve worked out what’s supposed to be happening, the story is at its end, and we’ve missed the whole point.

So all we’re going to do today is to look at an overview of seven chapters of the book of Samuel.

To do so, let me take you back 3,000 years to a time when there were no churches, very little of the Bible, and Jesus was just a glimmer of a promise that few people put any hope in at all.

We’re going to the country of Israel.

Just like now it was a small nation surrounded by other countries who wanted nothing better than to crush Israel and take it’s land for themselves.

But Israel saw itself as being a bit special — I mean, what other countries could claim that almost from the beginning of time the God who made the whole universe had chosen them to be his special people, to care for them, to guide them, and to show them how to live.

The problem was that whilst Israel loved to boast about how special they were compared to the other nations, they actually hated being different.

It’s all very well going round telling everyone how special you are because God loves you, it’s quite a different matter living in a special way because you love God.

Perhaps that’s something you can identify with.

There’s lots of perks to being a Christian.

It’s wonderful, isn’t it, knowing that God is always there for us?

He’s always ready to help, always at the end of our prayer hotline whenever we need him.

But my first point today is that

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God’s people are holy people

Being different is great when it means that God loves us in a special way, but it looses it’s lustre when being different means ‘Be holy, for I am holy’.

It’s not quite as appealing when being different means not going to the parties which our friends seem to enjoy so much.

Or when it means always putting in our very best work, no matter how we feel.

Or when it means explaining to our friends the Bible says we mustn’t join them in so much of their pleasures.

That’s just how the Israelites felt 3,000 years ago.

Being different was great — as long as /they/ could decide when they could be different, and when they could be just the same as everyone else.

But in our story the Israelites will soon realise that if they want God’s blessing, they /must/ be different in the ways that he intends.

It’s a truth that still applies today: if you want to be a Christian, if you want the tremendous privilege of knowing God as your friend, then you cannot be like the world.

You must be distinct, you must be separate, you must be different.

When our story starts, Israel is not being very different at all.

In fact, if you were suddenly transported back in time, I reckon that you’d have a great deal of difficulty working out which of the nations was God’s special nation.

Now that’s not to say that there was no-one who dared to be different.

1 Samuel opens with the story of Hannah, who did live in the way the God intended.

She had her problems, but when she started to struggle she turned /towards/ God, and not /away/ from him, as you can see in [[chapter 1 and verses 10 and 11|Bible:1 Sam 1:10-11]].

Incidentally, we should also notice that in the beginning of [[chapter 2|Bible:1 Sam 2]], when things were good, she /praised God/, rather than becoming self-confident.

That’s part of being different, isn’t it?

I wonder whether you are like that.

When things get tough, is God your first port of call, or do you try all kinds of other solutions and only turn to him when things get really difficult?

And when things are going well, do you stop and give the praise to God? That’s what Hannah did.

That’s what people who are different do.

But sadly, Hannah was the exception, and not the rule.

You know a country is in trouble when it’s leaders behave worse than the people they are supposed to lead.

But that’s what Israel was like.

Look at [[chapter two and verse 12|Bible:1 Sam 2:12]], and we see Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s sons.

They’re priests, God’s representatives, charged with leading the people in their worship of God.

If anyone should dare to be different, it should be them.

But are they different?

Actually, they’re worse than everybody else: verse [[17|Bible:1 Sam 2:17]] /‘The sin of these young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they treated the Lord’s offering with contempt’./

It was no surprise that the future God had planned for Israel did not include a future for Hophni and Phinehas, as the end of chapter two makes plain.

God will not be mocked.

He wanted his people to be different, and those who refuse cannot be part of his plans.

By the end of chapter four, Hophni, Phinehas and his wife, and their father Eli would all die on the same day.

Worse than the death of these leaders’ of Israel was the loss of the ark of God.

This ark was not a boat full of thousands of animals, but a small intricately carved box, that had been with Israel since the days of Moses.

God had asked for it to be made, and the presence of the ark was supposed to show God’s presence with his people.

The capture of the ark by the Philistines, and the death of God’s appointed judge was a sure sign that God was no longer with his people Israel.

No other nation had an ark.

No other nation had God’s presence with them.

Israel had wanted to live in just the same way as everyone else, and now their wish was granted.

God had left them.

Just as they wanted, they were now just the same as everybody else.

But, even before this happened, there was a silver lining to this very dark cloud.

The silver lining came in the form of a young boy, probably not much older than most of you.

His name was Samuel, he was Hannah’s son, and God had called him to be a prophet; as [[chapter 4 and verse 1|Bible:1 Sam 4:1]] says, ‘Samuel revealed the word of the Lord to all Israel’.

To cut a long story a little bit shorter, when the ark was with the Philistines, God was there too.

You can read the story in chapters six and seven.

The problem for them was that his presence didn’t bring blessing, but punishment.

The Philistines thought that God would treat them just like he treated the Israelites, but they had forgotten that God’s people were different.

They thought they had defeated Israel’s God, but seven months of bubonic plague showed them that God was still in control.

The ark was returned to Israel, and God showed the nations that Israel /was/ different, even if Israel didn’t seem to recognise that itself.

But as well as being holy people,

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God’s people are satisfied people

The way that this is explained in 1 Samuel is to show that those who were not God’s people were /dis/satisfied.

You see, it was twenty years later, when Samuel was middle-aged, that Israel finally sat up and took notice that things were not as they ought to be.

It wasn’t what you might call a Damascus road conversion, but if you look at [[chapter seven|Bible:1 Sam 7]], you’ll see that ‘/All of Israel longed for the Lord.

Samuel said to the house of Israel, “If you are really turning to the Lord with all your hearts, remove from among you the foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth.

Give your hearts to the Lord and serve only him.

Then he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.”

So the people of Israel removed the Baals and images of Ashtoreth.

They served only the Lord.’/

The Israelites had learnt some vital lessons.

They learnt that they couldn’t be happy without God.

They’d experimented with all the different religions round about them.

They’d worshipped the foreign gods, and Baal and Ashtoreth.

These gods didn’t demand very much: the odd sacrifice here and there, and plenty of pleasures along the way.

If you wanted to be a good Baal worshipper, it was important that you slept with as many people as possible.

Everyone was told that that would please the gods and to be honest, they didn’t require much convincing.

They ignored God’s commands that sex is reserved for marriage between one man and one woman.

They lusted after one another, and instead of looking to God for comfort, the men of Israel sought pleasure in the arms of their women.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, and I’d be shocked if many of you here are not currently making exactly the same mistake that the Israelites made three thousand years ago.

I’m sure that there are people here today, who are more interested in their relationships with other people, than their relationship with God.

I’m not necessarily thinking of sexual relationships here, though that may be true for some.

But my point is more that if this church is anything like a typical evangelical church, then some of you are more interested in what your friends think of you, than what God thinks of you.

I know this sounds incredibly rude, but I cannot begin to tell you how stupid that is.

I know, because sometimes I am that stupid too.

We only need to ask the question: what matters more?

God’s opinion, or the opinion of your friends?

Now this problem effects different people in different ways.

Perhaps I can speak, just for a moment, particularly to those you are younger.

Perhaps there are some young people here who are more interested in one particular relationship than with God.