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September 16, 2026 | Josiah Gwyn delivers a teaching focused on 1 Samuel chapter 7, exploring Israel's spiritual condition, God's holiness, and the need for wholehearted devotion. He recounts the history leading to chapter 7, emphasizing lessons about idolatry, repentance, and mentoring within the Christian walk. The message challenges listeners to pursue God fully and consider practical obedience steps from the text.
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Thank you so much, Michael. Well, man, it is just an honor and a privilege to be able to stand before you all this evening and share with you a little bit about what the Lord has shown me and revealed to me in 1 Samuel chapter seven. Before we jump into the text and a little bit about what I feel the Lord has led me to share with you tonight, I wanna tell you a story. This is a story about a couple in the early 2000s up in Minnesota, and they were going through just this brutal winter. And so they got together, they started talking with each other, and they said, you know what, let's just get away from all the ice and the snow and the shoveling and just the cold. And they said, let's travel to Florida. Let's go to Florida for a few weeks, get away from all the cold up here in Minnesota, and we will ride it out until everything starts to warm back up. And so they start looking at hotels to book, and they realize there's an opportunity for them to book a couple of nights at the hotel that they spent their honeymoon in 20 years prior. But there was one little hiccup. One little hiccup. You see, when they got to book their flights down to Florida, they realized the plane was overbooked and they couldn't fly down on the same day. And so the husband, being the good and kind man that he was, he says, you know what, honey, don't worry. I'll fly down first. I'll make sure we get everything set, ready in the hotel, and then you'll come down on Friday and everything will be ready and prepared for you so it could be a nice, relaxing vacation away from the Minnesota cold. And so everything goes great. He packs, he travels down, he flies on down to Florida, gets everything ready, and after checking into the hotel, he realizes they have a computer room. And so he walks into the computer room, and he's like, you know what, hadn't thought about this, but I'm gonna go ahead and send an email to my wife to let her know everything's ready. And so he writes up this email, and he gets ready to hit send, but there's one little problem. He missed a letter in her email address, and it ends up going to the wrong person. And so instead of an email to his wife, who's about to fly down from Minnesota, he sends an email to a woman over in Houston, Texas. Now this lady's actually going through a really hard season in her life. Just earlier that day, she had buried her husband who happened to be a minister. And that evening, this lady gets on her computer to read the email, and she opens up her email inbox, and the first email she sees, she reads it and she faints. Her son, who was in the other room, runs into the room, he makes sure his mom is okay, and he looks at the computer screen, and he reads this email. This is what it says. To my loving wife, I have arrived. I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers down here now, and you're allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I've seen that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Oh. Looking forward to seeing you then. I hope your journey is as uneventful as mine. P.S., it sure is hot down here. Obviously, that was not an email intended for her, but I share that story with you because I think it demonstrates something really, really important, especially as we dive in and we study God's word, and that is that sometimes if we misunderstand a message, we will misunderstand its meaning entirely. If we don't understand the context in the message that we're reading, if we read it out of context, when we read that message, we might be thinking a loved one is sending us an email from the afterlife. And when we look at God's word, when it comes to reading and understanding the Bible, missing context can mean the difference between hearing the voice of the Lord and misunderstanding God entirely. As we're walking through the book of 1 Samuel with you all, right, Samuel was a man who learned to hear, to understand, and obey the voice of God. And our desire for you is to hear and understand and obey the voice of God, but also teach other men to do the exact same thing. So tonight, as I mentioned earlier, we're jumping ahead into 1 Samuel chapter seven. So if you've got your Bible, you can go ahead and open up there, 1 Samuel chapter seven. If you didn't bring a Bible, don't worry. I've got it printed out right there for you on that piece of paper. And so feel free to read along as we jump into the discussion groups. You can use that as your copy of God's word tonight. So, so far, we've gone through three weeks of 1 Samuel. The first week, Michael taught us. He taught specifically on Hannah's prayer and Samuel's birth from 1 Samuel chapter one. After that, we had Nathan Stanfield come up and teach on 1 Samuel two, focusing in on serving the Lord. And then two weeks ago, Ben Taylor talked from 1 Samuel chapter three, on which God calls Samuel. And each week, as we've walked through this book, our goal has not just been to come up here and to be, say, the experts, per se, and lecture you and tell you all the information there is to know about 1 Samuel. But instead, we've been trying to equip you with some tools that you can read God's word, no matter where you are, 1 Samuel or not, and understand and hear the voice of the Lord for yourself. And so we've been asking three questions of each text. And I wanna ask, is there any A-plus men here in this room who remember the three questions we're asking of each chapter that we're studying through 1 Samuel? Anybody remember those questions? You can yell them out. Here we go, you give me the first one. Oh, yeah, that's perfect. You give me number two. What does the Bible have to say about people is the second. That's right, so we learned, what does the Bible have to say about God? What do we learn about man? And then there's one more question. What's the last one? It's the tricky one. What you got, Nick? What do we need to obey? What do we need to obey? That's right. And so as we walk through these questions, we're gonna do the exact same thing today. But before we jump into some discussion with you guys, I want to summarize for you what hell has happened in 1 Samuel chapter four through six. Because let me tell you, a whole lot has happened. And so if you want to kind of skip through your Bible and follow along with me, you can. If you just want to listen, that is perfectly fine. So chapter four, 1 Samuel. Shortly after Samuel is appointed the prophet of Israel, Israel goes into battle against the Philistines, right? And so they go to battle against the Philistines and guess what happens to the Israelites? Do they win or do they lose? They lose. But a couple thousand men die. And so they go back mourning the loss of the battle and they say, you know what? Let's talk to our elders and let's see what happened. What can we do to gain the upper hand against the Philistines? So they go back and the elders are like, what you guys need to do is you need to go get the Ark of the Covenant and take it out to battle with you. So the Israelites, they rally. It talks about how they let out a war cry so loud and so enthusiastic and so strong that the Philistines feel the ground shaking and they're filled with fear. And so the Israelites now with this new energy and this new excitement and this new passion to go out and fight the Philistines, go out to the Philistines with the Ark of God, following them and with them and guess what happens? They lose again. What is going on? What has happened? Except this time, thousands of more people die and guess what? The Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant. So that is chapter four. Well, chapter five follows that up and we learn all about what has happened with the Philistines now that they are in possession of this Ark of God. And so what happens is first, the Philistines bring it to the city of Ashkon, I believe. Let me see here. Let me look at my notes. Ashdod, that's it. They bring it to the city of Ashdod and guess what? They take the Ark and they put it in kind of like their temple room and it's sitting right up beside one of their gods named Dagon. Anybody here familiar with the story of the Ark and the God of Dagon? Yes, right? So the Philistines, they put the Ark in there, they go to sleep, they wake up the next day and what happened to Dagon? He fell over on his face and like, okay, well, I don't know what happened. Maybe the ground shook a little bit. Let me pick up my God and put him back on his pedal stool. And so they put him back. They go throughout their day as usual and then the next day they wake up and what's happened? He's fallen over again and his hands are gone and his head's off. And so after that, the Lord begins to afflict the people of Ashdod with tumors and sickness and several of them die. And so they're like, you know what? We need to get this Ark of the Covenant away from us and so guess what they do? They just send it to the next city over. They're like, hey, people of, what is it? Is it Gath or Ekron? People of Gath, right? They send it over to Gath and like, hey, you guys deal with this thing. Well, guess what happens? Pretty much the same people, the same thing. They get tumors, they're afflicted, they're miserable and they're like, you know what? We don't want it in Gath. Let's send it over to Ekron. And guess what happens? The same thing. The Lord afflicts them with tumors and sickness and several of the men die and they're like, okay, we're done with this Ark thing. I don't know what the Israelites have done to it, but it is absolutely bad for us to have this in our possession. So what do they do? They go and they talk to some of their Philistine priests. They talk with the Philistine priests and the priests are like, hey, the God of Israel is punishing you and you need to send the Ark back to the land of Israel. And so, and they say, don't send it back empty. Send with it these gold tumors and gold mice. And so they listened to their priest, they send it back. They put it on a cart behind two cows and it says that the cows go and they literally just go straight back to the land of Israel.
Right, right back, and they go to the land of Beth Shemesh is what happens at the end of chapter six. Well, guess what happens in Beth Shemesh? It's a Levite town, they see the Ark of the Covenant return, they rejoice, they celebrate, they offer a burnt offering from the cows that brought the Ark to them, and they're having a great time, and then guess what? Some of the guys get a little curious, and they're like, hey, what's inside this thing anyway? And so they decide they want to look inside the Ark, and the Lord strikes 70-plus men of them dead. Now, fun fact, this is just a little tidbit for you, if you're reading the NASB, it's like 20,000-plus men, most of the other translations say 70, a little disputed, but it was a lot of people died because they peered into the Ark of the Covenant. And so then they're like, well, who can withstand the glory of the Lord? So what do they do? They send it off to Kiriath-Jerom. They're like, hey, we don't want the Ark here, we just lost a bunch of people, they're grieving, they're mourning, and then that brings us to chapter seven, where a young man named Eleazar is now put in charge of caring for the Ark. And so what I want you to do is go ahead and get your copy of God's Word, turn to 1 Samuel chapter seven, and I want to give you a little bit of context for what in the world is going on here in 1 Samuel to help you better understand, interpret, and make sense of all that's about to happen in 1 Samuel chapter 11, verses one through 11. If you have one of the pieces of paper, you can actually flip that over on the back, and I've got all these notes written down for you, so you can have those. I'm gonna run through them really, really quickly. So here's a couple of the contexts for what's going on with the Israelites. So here we go. Israel's former prophet and his sons are dead. Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas passed away in the war that they lost against the Philistines. I forgot to mention when the Ark of the Covenant got captured, Benjamite runs back, reports to Eli. He falls down, he breaks his neck because he was fat. The Philistines, they have defeated Israel, or sorry, the Philistines have defeated Israel, and rules over the Israelites now. The Ark of the Covenant was captured. Three Philistine cities were afflicted by God, Ashgabat, Gath, and Ekron, we just talked about that. But then the Ark is returned to Israel, but remains away from the center of the nation. Just remember that, and a lot of scholars actually believe that the Ark of the Covenant was not returned back to the center of Israel until the kingship of David. So over 70 years, the Ark remains at the outskirts of the Israelite territory. Because of their curiosity, 70-plus men died because they looked into the Ark. And then I want to remind you guys that 1 Samuel is a historical narrative, right? So it is recounting the events of the past, and the attendant audience of this book would be Israelites who are reading this some 10, 20, 30, 40, 200 years later, right? And so as they read this, what we're reading about was meant to be read by later generations so that they too could learn about God through the history of their people. And so I want you to take that into consideration as we're reading this, because understanding that context, that this was meant to be a story or recounting of what God has done so that they might believe in the principles from this text as we study 1 Samuel chapter seven. So here's what I've got for you today. This is your first discussion time. Go ahead, take 1 Samuel chapter seven. I want you to discuss this question. What does this passage say about God, right? That is what we have been discussing every time. And I want to add a little bit to that. What is God revealing about himself to these later generations of Israelites? So go ahead, take some time. I'll give you about seven minutes at your tables and talk about these two questions amongst yourselves. And then we'll come back and discuss them in just a minute. All right, let's go ahead and bring it back in. There we go. All right, fellas, I want to hear from some of you guys. Upon reading this, what were some of the things that you discussed with your table about what this passage says about God? What did we learn about God from 1 Samuel seven? Just go ahead and just raise a hand and I'll call on you. What you got? He's holy and jealous. Ooh, I like that. That's good. What else? That's right. Mm-hmm. That's exactly right. He doesn't change. All the way in the back here. That's right. Mm. That's right. Yeah, it looks different, but it's the same thing. Anybody else? What you got? That's right. That's right, that's good. Last one. That's right. Yes, that's right. That's right. And that should be an encouragement to all of us, right? Like, no matter how far or long we might drift or sway from God, the moment we're ready to return, God has always been there waiting for us. And that's encouraging. These are a few things I wrote down. I didn't write down everything. Everything y'all had to say was spot on. And one is God requires our whole heart, right? God requires our whole heart. Listen to these two verses. One from Isaiah and the other one from Psalm. Isaiah 42, eight says this. I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Right, God will not tolerate us worshiping other idols and he will not give his glory to anything else. And then Psalm 51, many of you might be familiar with this passage, the prayer of David after Nathan confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba. He says in 51, 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. You see, God is not drawn to people who can't decide if they want him or not. Does God love these people? Yes, but he despises a heart that can't choose if it wants God or if it does not want God. You see, have you ever been on the highway, driving down say I-40 and been behind somebody who can't decide what lane they wanna be in or what exit they need to take? Right, they're just going all over the place and you're just trying to stay right there. Right, you are not drawn to these people. When I see someone driving that way, I get off my brakes, I slow down and I give them all the space that they need because that person is not a person that I want to be around. As a matter of fact, we're usually repulsed by these people who are waffle and can't decide. Right, if I'm driving on the highway and I got somebody riding my bumper, you wanna know one great way to get rid of them? Just start veering off the road a little bit. You know, just start acting like, you know what? I don't really know what I'm doing with this thing. Stop, speed up, stop, speed up. And they'll just be like, you know what? This guy obviously doesn't know how to drive. I'm gonna give him his space and get away. But the same thing, it's similar with God. Right, God is not attracted to people whose hearts are divided. He's not drawn to people who can't decide whether they want him or not, or they want God and they want everything else at the same time. You see, God is also not going to compete for our attention. Right, God's not gonna try to outshine the things that we might turn to instead of him. No, if God can't have your whole heart, then he will have none of your heart. I'll say that one more time. If God can't have your whole heart, then he will have none of your heart. And so God requires our whole heart. And the second thing I got from this passage, God desires to save his people. Right at the end of verse three, we see the end of a process that Samuel gives to the people to describe for them how it is that they can turn to God with their whole heart. In this verse, Samuel describes three actions that they can take. We'll dive into those in just a second. But these actions demonstrate whether or not their heart is wholly over and given to God. And the result is what? That God will deliver them from the hand of the Philistines. See, this tells me, just as my brother said here, that God has been waiting to save Israel for 20 years. But the only reason he hadn't was because of their idolatrous heart. God is not holding out and was not holding out on Israel, and God is not holding out on any of us. His presence in our lives is only limited by our willingness to give him our whole heart. So let me ask you this, how much of your heart does God have? Does he have most of it? Does he have some of it? None of it? Or all of it? Because God requires your whole heart. And now that moves us to our next question.
Or as we continue to explore and we see, what do we learn about God? We also look and we see, what do we learn about people? Right, what do we learn about man? And what does this passage reveal about what we're like? What Israel's like, but also what we're like. And so I wanna turn it right back to your groups. I wanna give you guys a little bit more time to discuss and ask this question. What do we learn about people from 1 Samuel? You're gonna read the exact same verses, but this time with a different question. Go ahead, take a few minutes to discuss that at your groups. All right, fellas, let's go ahead and bring it back. Go ahead and finish up what you're sharing. All righty, just like last time, I wanna be able to hear from some of you guys. What does 1 Samuel 7 say about people or what do we learn about people? Yes, sir. People want to be fence straddlers. Explain that a little bit. That's right, absolutely. Yes. No, they didn't. Yep. It didn't work, absolutely not. That's right. What else, what do we learn about people? What you got, Noble? Mm, that's good. The only time we look up was when we're flat on our backs. Yes, sir. Not everybody's friendly. Okay, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. People don't know what they don't know. That's right, that's right. Often, our own ignorance keeps us ignorant. What you got? They were afraid of the Philistines. That's a really good point. They feared the Philistines, but not God, wow. Anybody else got any juicy nuggets? That's good. You know, we were talking about faith among people where it's really weak for the most part. Yeah. A lot of times when things go wrong, you don't realize the faith. It's like you said, you don't have the fear of God and that's what, in my opinion, it is the light's gift. That's right, that's right. Their faith got weak. Yes, it did. They started turning to other gods. Maybe gods that weren't as holy, right? Gods that wouldn't, if they violated the covenant, wouldn't wipe them out. So they were afraid of them. What you got, brother, in the back? Yeah. They wanted something they could see, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. We're constantly striving for a God that we can see instead of a God that we can trust. So here's a few things that I drew out of this. One was it's possible to want God and not pursue God. It's possible to want God and not pursue God. Let me tell you what I mean. So right there at the end of verse two, we see, it talks about how the Ark of the Covenant was in the land for 20 years. It says, and then the people lamented after God. Right, so as I read that, I was like, you know, like that's a really weird way to say, like they desired God. And so I started digging a little bit in that word. And the Hebrew only occurs right here in this passage. And there's a little bit of debate as far as what does it mean? And so there were kind of two sides of the camp. So were the people lamenting after God for 20 years? Or was it that after 20 years that they began to lament after God? Whatever it was, I think it's a little bit unclear, but what we do know, and what I can say confidently, is that it shows that the people wanted God back in their lives. They wanted God back in their lives. But get this, though they wanted God, they didn't do anything to pursue God. You see that? They were sad that God wasn't in their lives. They were sad that the Ark of the Covenant was far away, but they didn't change anything in their lives. They still worshiped idols. They still served the other gods. They still turned their back on God and never once offered a sacrifice to him. It's as I was reading this, the Lord really began to peel back some of the layers of my heart, or he began to expose some things that I was wrestling with and that I wrestled with sometimes. He says, Josiah, you know, sometimes, sometimes you want me, but you don't pursue me. Sometimes you're sad that I'm not there, but you're not actively pursuing my presence. And then he began meddling around. He put his finger on a sore spot. He said, you know what, Josiah, sometimes you can throw pity parties for yourself. You walk around feeling sorry for yourself. Right in. And God began to show me and he began to tell me, he said, whenever you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, right, you are not pursuing me. You want me to intervene, but you are not seeking my face. I don't have your whole heart, if you will. And you may or may not be like me. You might be very different from me and you've never felt sorry for yourself a day in your life, or you may be a lot like me. And it's pretty easy to get humdrum and down and you're just like, man, like I wish things were better. I heard a quote this past week and a man said, you know, life might never be okay, but we could be okay in life. So life might never be okay, but we could be okay in life. And what he was saying was that the circumstances of life are outside of your control. But if we pursue God, then we chase after God, no matter what comes our way, it can be okay. It will be okay. And so as the Lord was poking around in my heart, right, he kind of began to show me, sometimes I can look a lot like this guy. Anybody know who this guy is? Right, this is Eeyore. I don't know anybody who throws a better pity party than Eeyore. Right, as a matter of fact, here's some good quotes from Eeyore. Good morning, Pooh Bear. And if it's a good morning, which I doubt. And then I'd look on the bright side if I could find it. Do you guys like to be around people with attitude like this? Are you drawn to people who like to feel sorry for themselves? I'm not either. And guess what? God is not drawn to people who just walk around feeling sorry for themselves. You know what I mean? Like God is not drawn to you because you're sad. Right, God is not drawn to you because you feel bad. God is not drawn to you because you are the victim of everything that's happened in life. God did not come to deliver Israel until they began to turn and pursue him. And so don't feel sorry for yourself. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to mourn. I'm not saying those things are bad. But if those things become the source of our comfort and God is not, or we expect God to come in and begin to, oh, it's okay, and coddle us. He's not gonna coddle us. You can throw a pity party all you want and guess who's not coming? God's not showing up. And so you might desire God, but if you're not pursuing him, guess what? You're gonna be like Israel. Sad but unchanged. You might desire God, but if you're not pursuing God, you will be sad but unchanged. So don't get stuck wanting God but never knowing God. Yes, sir. I think that God is not drawn to people I think that bewailing or bemoaning after God is looking at him as a third person. Okay. In other words, I wanna see God, I wanna see God, I wanna see God. Looking for him as a second person to say, I want to see you. Hmm, that's a good point. And that is the essence of prayer and the way you are praying with him. That's the way I think of it. That's right. So I see a difference here in terms of
Israel's relationship to God, where they're talking about him rather than talking to him. That's a good point. We're talking about God, talking about how we want God, but not talking to God. Really good. Really good. Well, this is the second thing that I drew from this passage. Sometimes we need a spiritual mentor to help us, right? Sometimes we need a spiritual mentor to help us. And that is where Samuel comes in because the people begin to lament after God. And guess what? Even in their inaction, he comes to give them direction and to help them know what steps to take to return to God. Any of you ever been stuck? You know, you felt like, you know what, I'm in this season and I'm in a rut. I don't know how to get myself out, right? You're in a truck. You're trying to go up a hill. It's been rainy. And you're like, you know what? I buried my tires all the way down to the axle. I need some help to get out. Israel needed some help to get out. But sometimes it's okay to need someone, a brother in Christ, someone to speak life into you, to encourage you, to help get you back on track. And sometimes that's exactly what we need. I also say sometimes that's exactly what we need to be for somebody else. There's a mentor in my life. Him and I have been good friends for several years now. And I really appreciate him in my life because he's a type of person who one, knows me well enough to know when I'm down, but also loves me enough to tell me the truth. A good mentor is someone not who just tells you what you want to hear, but tells you what you need to hear. Even if it stings a little bit. Even if it hurts a little bit. And they're there to walk with you through the hard seasons, through the hard years, to encourage you, to build you up, to remind you of what's true so that you don't start believing lies. And I think it's so great because a mentor is someone who, when you don't know the way, it's great to have a friend who does. When you don't know the way, it's great to have a friend who does. And so you might be here, you might need a mentor, or you might be here, you might need to be a mentor. But sometimes we need a spiritual mentor to help keep us on track. And now we want to turn back to our last question for the evening. And so I want to give it back to your tables. And this question is, what do we need to obey? We've learned about God, we've learned about man. Now, what actions might we need to take based on 1 Samuel 7? Go ahead, take five minutes at your tables, discuss amongst yourselves. We'll come right back. All right, fellas, let's go ahead and bring it back in. I want to hear from y'all. Here we go. What do we need to obey? What do we need to obey? Yes. Be a little more specific. That's right. Amen. That's good. Anybody got something to follow that up? What'd you got? What do we need to obey? Sermon on the Mount. That's right. That's right. It's good stuff. What else? Mm. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's good. That's good. Anybody else? What do we need to obey? Yeah. That's right. Mm-hmm. He just takes them right back to God's Word, which they know, but they've forgotten, or they knew at one point. What else? Anybody else? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. He's the emergency button. That's good. That's good. Well, I'll share with you guys a few things that I wrote down. One, we need to put away all idols. Right, I believe Samuel gives us three very easy to follow commands right there in verses four and following. Right, he instructs the people of Israel to put away the idols. Now, what is an idol, you might say? And I wrote down this. Anything that interferes with your relationship with God. Amen. An idol is anything that interferes with your relationship with God. Now, I don't think very many of us have erected idols in our homes. I'm not gonna, I don't know. What do you do in your house? Right, but a lot of the times, idolatry in the 21st century does not look the same as it did way back before the first century. Right, idols for us are those things that distract us, or those things that pull us away. It could be good things, it could be bad things. It could be college football, right? Does college football interfere with our relationship with God? It could be leisure. Does it interfere with our relationship with God? It could be family. I love my family, but I cannot allow my family to interfere with my relationship with God. It could be other friendships. It could be sinful habits. But the first thing that we need to obey is put away anything that is an idol in our life, anything that interferes with our relationship with God. Next thing, direct our heart to God. You might say, well, what's that? One is cleaning up the house, getting all the bad stuff out. Next, it's replacing it with all the right things. So what does it look like to direct our heart to God? Start doing the things that draw you closer to God. Start doing the things that draw you closer to God. But if you're not praying, man, you pray. You start speaking to God. If you're not reading your Bible, you've got to get in and read God's word. But if you're not spending time with the Lord, rather you direct your life to him. You begin to listen. You begin to obey what God has shown you. There are some other habits, some other disciplines that you can practice. One that I really enjoy is journaling. If you really want to know about journaling, talk to Michael Pritchard. He is the best journaler I know. Other things like fasting, we saw the people of Israel fasted, where they took time away from things that they need to be with the one that they need. All of these things that you can practice to direct your heart to God. And lastly, serve God only. Serve God only. I think, I forget who said this, but an author once said to live your life for an audience of one. Is everything in your life directed and under the umbrella that all of it's done to and for the Lord? But it doesn't mean that we don't do things for the people. It doesn't mean that we don't serve and love our families, our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters, our city. What it does mean is that all of it's done under the larger umbrella of saying, I am doing this because of my love for God. And I believe those are the three clearest things that this passage has to say to us to obey. Put away idols, direct our heart to God, and serve God only. And so what are some potential next steps? I wanna give you guys what's a potential next step for you. And so here are a few things that I saw in this passage that you might see and identify as a potential next step for you to take. The first one is this. Start pursuing God, not just wanting him. I don't know where you are in your walk with the Lord. And you feel like you're distant from God. You're talking about God, but not to God. You're mourning and you're sad that God's not in your life, but you have not done anything to change how you're pursuing God. Then start pursuing him. Well, how do you do that? You get in his word. You be among his people. You start praying. You start listening. You start obeying. You get a mentor. All of those things. And that kind of takes us to our next one. Find a mentor to assist you in your journey. If you're like, you know what? I'm at a stage in my life where I feel like I just need someone to walk with me through this. This is your next step. Pray about who God might bring into your life to be a mentor to you. I understand it can be really scary and hard to go up to someone and say, hey, will you be my mentor? Right, getting rejected, it's kind of sad. It's like, hey, will you spiritually invest in me? I'm like, sorry, I don't have time. That's hard. But before you do that.
Let's just pray and ask God to bring someone into your life that could be a mentor to you. Find a mentee to pour into, right? Maybe you're someone who's been walking with the Lord for a long time and you were at a place in your journey where you're like, you know what? The Lord has blessed me and has given me so much. It is overflowing and it's spilling out. And your next step is to pray about who might God bring into your life to pour into. I wanna encourage you guys, I thought about this. I am a millennial and a lot of people, a lot of young men my age are really looking for mentors and people to pour into them. But you wanna know something, a crazy stat that I read a few months ago? One of the most used cases for AI is counseling. So young men are now going onto Google and inputting all of the things that they're struggling with into a search bar so that it might counsel them and walk beside them and be with them in their struggles. Can you just think about that? Right, they need a mentor and they're relying on a robot to teach them. But guess what, a robot can't hear from God. A robot can't obey God. A robot can't know God. And so I wanna encourage you, if you're in a stage in your life where you're like, you know what? I can pour into somebody. I can sit down with someone, open up God's word and ask them, what does it say about God? What does it say about man? What do we need to obey? I wanna encourage you, pray about who God might bring into your life to pour into. Because there's a generation of people who are seeking connection or seeking a mentor and they're going to all the wrong places for it. And lastly, you might say, you know what, Josiah? I'm on the fence. How do I know if I'm ready to mentor somebody? How do I know if I can do that? Right, I don't have all the books of the Bible memorized or sometimes I have to use the table of contents. I've only got a few verses memorized and the ones that everybody knows. How do I know if I'm ready to invest in someone else? I've got two and a half questions for you. Here's the first one. How do I know if I'm ready to be a mentor? Are you pursuing God? Pretty simple, are you? Can you look back on your life and say, yes, I am pursuing God. This is what Paul has to say to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter two. He says, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men. I say men who are pursuing God who will be able to teach others also. If you're pursuing God, I would say, hey, you're on track to be qualified to mentor somebody. Are you familiar with hearing and obeying God's voice? If you know what it's like to know and to hear and obey God's voice, then I think you could teach somebody else to do the exact same thing. Does it mean that you have to be perfect? No, or else we could all go home right now. I'm not saying perfect, but I'm saying you can look back on your life and you can see a pattern of pursuing, hearing, and obeying God and growing over weeks, months, years, and decades. And this is the last one. I think this was pretty easy. I've seen all of you do it. Can you have a conversation? Are you able to talk to somebody? If you can hold a conversation, you can talk to somebody, then I think you could be a mentor to someone because it's that easy. It's not about coming in with all the knowledge. It's not about coming in with all the information, knowing how to answer all the hard questions. No, I don't know all those things. You don't know all those things. And guess what? There's always somebody out there that knows something that you don't. Somebody might know more about something that you don't know about, but I want to flip that around. There's always somebody out there that doesn't know something that you do. And so you can teach them. You can mentor them. You can pour into them. As I want to wrap up our evening, just kind of with this. This is kind of my summary of 1 Samuel chapter seven for you all. And then we'll pray and be dismissed. This is it. God desires to be with you and to deliver you, but he will not share the spotlight with anyone else and he is not coming to your pity party. So pursue God wholeheartedly. He will deliver you and he will be with you. Pursue God wholeheartedly. He will deliver you and he will be with you. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. I thank you for these men. And God, I do pray that your word would go forward in their hearts and their lives, God, and that anyone in this room, Lord, who felt ministered to by this message would not do so because of me, Lord, but that they would recognize that it was your word spoken. Lord, and I pray that you would use it to change lives. I pray that the men in this room would be encouraged and strengthened and emboldened to go out and to make a difference, to pour into the next generation, God, to be mentored and to have someone pour into them so that as they learn to hear and obey the voice of God, they might also teach someone else to do the same. Lord, I do pray for anyone here who might be walking through a hard season or a tough season, that your grace, your mercy, your comfort would be with them. And God, I pray that we would continue to be strengthened by the power of your spirit and that we might overflow with hope for the Holy Spirit of hope and grace lives in each and every one of us. So God, I pray for your blessing upon the men here in this room, that you'd keep them, watch over them, all in Jesus' name, amen.