Our Sermons

Bible Passage: 1 Samuel 3:1-10
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  January 17, 2021

“Have you found your calling? Have you figured out what God wants you to do with your life? Have you discovered the one perfect purpose he has for you? You need to find your calling.” …You know it was hard for me to say that to you without rolling my eyes. I think that many of us are tempted to roll our eyes when people talk about finding a calling. It’s this sort of lofty ideal that there is one right thing that you should be doing with your life and if you don’t see it, you miss out. You waste your life. You fail to be what God wants you to be. The idea that we need to “find a calling” is frustrating to me. I’m not cranky, I just don’t like it because I see the harm that it does. I see young people who feel anxious about every decision, every step they take because they aren’t sure if this is what they are meant to be doing. I see faithful people, living normal, God-pleasing lives, who feel like failures because they hear some so-called entrepreneur online talking about how they found their calling. I see people undergoing a mid-life crisis, not because they don’t love their families, not because they hate their jobs, but because they wonder if they missed their calling and wasted their life. There’s so much damage done by the concept of a calling in popular culture because instead of understanding what God actually says in his Word, many people will spend their whole life wishing for a life that God never told them to have.

God does have a purpose for you. Psalm 139 says that all the days of your life are written in his book. (Ps 139:16) But the Bible does not tell you to find our calling. Today I want to free you from that burden. Today we look at a biblical story of Samuel’s calling. And we will find out both what we can expect when it comes to God’s calling and how we respond in faith.

Our lesson begins: The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days. Prophetic vision was not common. Now it happened that Eli’s eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see. Once when Eli was lying down in his place 3 and God’s lamp had not yet gone out, Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s ark was. Samuel was, according to Josephus, a 12-year-old, but we aren’t sure. In any case, he is the young man whose mother Hannah had dedicated to full-time service at the tabernacle in Shiloh under Eli, the high priest. But things were not good at Shiloh. Hophni and Phineas were Eli’s two biological sons and they were abusing their position as priests. They were stealing the best portions of people’s offerings, even taking them by force. And worse, they were also sleeping with the women who served the tabernacle. And this was worse than it sounds. In Leviticus 18, sexual sins are described as an illicit “uncovering nakedness,” and the language here in 1 Samuel parallels the language used of approaches to the sanctuary. In other words, there is a conceptual link between the violation of these young women and the violation of the tabernacle. We get the impression that Hophni and Phineas violated these women and in God’s eyes, it was as if they were ripping down the curtains of his sacred space in the tabernacle. (A good reminder that in occurrences of rape or other great injustices our God may be silent but he is not unmoved. His heart is grieved and he will have justice in his own time.) Instead of guarding these dedicated women, the sons of Eli were treating them like the shrine prostitutes of Baal. 

As for Eli, he had failed to hold his sons responsible for their sins. He had tried to rebuke them, but he was weak and ineffective and didn’t address their violation of the young women. And in God’s eyes, failure to deal with high-handed sin is judged as a high-handed sin in and of itself. Also, though Eli did not abuse the priestly office in the way that his sons did, he did enjoy the fruit of his son’s corruption. He had become “very heavy” from feasting on the sacrificial meat. “Heavy” interestingly, is from the same Hebrew word as “glory” or “honor” (keved/kavod). In essence, Eli chose to honor himself over God. Eli glorified himself with the Lord’s food instead of glorifying God by offering food to him. Eli and his sons knew what God wanted them to do, but they treated his Word as if it wasn’t important. They didn’t value it. They didn’t listen to it. And in response, God had grown silent. What do you do when someone refuses to listen to you? Eventually, you stop talking to them. And that’s what’s going on here. “The word of the LORD was rare, prophetic vision was not common” (verse 1). 

I think this verse applies to our time too. It is a time when we have access, like never before, to the Word of God. You can pull out your phone right now and listen to someone read the Bible to you. You can even choose the accent! The Word of the Lord is rare today too, not because of access, but because of our attitude. People in our world today are drowning in information and yet starving for truth. God is calling, he is speaking, but few are listening. So many want to find their calling, but they don’t want to understand the revealed will of God! The first thing that we need to get down is really simple. If we are going to understand God’s purpose for us, we need to listen to him!  We need to treasure his Word and obey it. We need to trust his will (the Bible) over our own will.

You know that’s the thing that gets me about callings. People so often imagine their calling will be wonderful and fulfilling. But that’s not what I see in the Bible. God’s callings are not usually to the good life. God called Moses, he didn’t want to go! God called Jonah, he ran the other way! God called Jeremiah, he felt depressed and even betrayed. Can you imagine speaking with Job, the one whom God decided would suffer by losing his children, his wealth, and his health all in the same day, can you imagine saying to Job as the dogs lick the boils on his skin, “You just need to find your calling!” Or how about visiting the apostle Peter as he was crucified upside down for the sake of Christ. “Oh Peter, you just missed your calling!” Our modern idea of a calling is laughable when you compare it to the Bible. And I have another example here with Samuel.

The calling that young Samuel received was brutal. Do you know what Samuel was called to do? He was called to speak God’s word of judgment to Eli. He is told to go tell Eli that he and his sons are rejected as God’s priests and will all die on the same day. Imagine being a young child, mentored by someone since your mother weaned you, and now you must speak condemning words regarding his leadership and his children. I have talked to someone who, for the good of their family, had to confront and condemn a parent. That story was hard for me to listen to and how much more them to carry out. And yet they did so because they listened to the Word of God. God called them through his Word to protect the innocent and address the sin in their family. They didn’t want to do it. It was the last thing they wanted, but, in the end, they said, “not my will but yours be done.” 

Ultimately if we want to talk about callings, about listening to the Word of the Lord, we need to focus on Jesus, our Savior. Jesus was called by his Father to die for us. And he said, “not my will but yours be done.” For all the times we don’t listen to God’s Word, he listened. For all the times we have been dissatisfied with the life we have been given, Jesus accepted the life his Father wanted him to lead. For all the times we have dreamed of a better calling, Jesus fulfilled his calling and died as a criminal in our place that we might be forgiven and set free. He found his calling in suffering unjustly so that we might know the grace of God. Think about that, humanity refused to listen to God’s Word, but God loved us so much that the Word became flesh. God lived, died, rose again so that you would hear his forgiveness and love resound for eternity.

My friends, the truth is that you don’t need to find your calling, because you have already been called. In baptism, through water and the Word, the Spirit called you, by name, to be a redeemed child of God. And God calls you every day through that same Word to live as his child. God has allowed you to be in the place you are and he promises he has a purpose for you. The apostle Paul says that “in all things we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Ro 8:28) And as he says in Philippians: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Phil 2:12-13) You have resources and talents he wants to use for his glory. You have love and passion and time he will harness to enlarge his Kingdom. You have dear souls around you, your family and friends, to whom he wants to speak his Word. Following God’s call may not be easy, but remember that often doing what is most important is not comfortable or enjoyable. Remember that the One who calls you equips you. Remember that no one can mess up God’s plans and that includes you. Remember the love of Christ which has given you ears to hear. And remember that God does great things through people who listen when he calls. May we always respond like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” 

Amen.