Series, "Voices," Message 1 October 2, 2016 – Communitas Group Lesson
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(Series, "Voices," Message 1) October 2, 2016 – Communitas Group Lesson Mike McDaniel, Lead Pastor, Grace Point Church of Northwest Arkansas Icebreaker: Tell of a time when you believed you had a message from God and it worked out as you expected. Also tell of a time you thought you heard from God and it didn’t turn out as you expected. Transition: How hard is it for you to discern the God’s voice in your life? For some, everything is a “word from God” or they never hear from God. It should be something between these too extremes. Read: 1 Samuel 3 HEAD Questions (What was God saying in the text when it was first written?) 1. Why was Samuel unable to distinguish the voice of God? Why did he think it was Eli calling him? (Read 1 Samuel 3:7)? Why are some people today still unable to hear of the voice of God (read John 8:47)? 2. Why did Mike speculate that God had been speaking only “rarely” to the people in those times (Read 1 Samuel 3:1; Amos 8:11; Isaiah 59:2)? How does sin in our lives mute the voice of God? 3. Read 1 Samel 3:1 and 19-20. Contrast the twl different identities that Samuel had. Take a few moments and reflect. How does hearing the voice of God grow you up and give you a new identity? HEART Questions (What do I sense God is saying to me through this passage?) 1. Can you name the seven voices Mike mentioned that can influence us today? Can you think of other voices? Which voice do you hear the most as an adult (past, critics, parents, our times/culture, technology, Satan, or God) 2. Take a few moments and see if you can add up the amount of time you spend each day in personally pausing and listening for God’s voice. Is it ample time for you to hear God and process into your life what He has said to you? 3. Think back to the first time you can remember hearing God’s voice. What was that like? What did He say? How did you respond? 4 Is there anything heavy on your heart for which you are longing to hear and know God’s voice? Pause in your group time and pray and ask God’s illumination over those areas. HAND Questions (How is God transforming me through this passage?) 1. Identify a time that you will initially spend in silence and solitude with God every day for the next two months (until the end of the series at least). If you don’t know what to pray, simply pray what Eli told Samuel to pray: read v. 8-10. Then be still and be ready to write down what God says. You might plan to read a few verses each day during this time. Write down any thoughts that the Holy Spirit may speak through the Bible, prayer, other believers, your circumstances. 2. What is one thing you will do this week remove some of the clutter from your life that could be drowning out the voice of God? 3. Do you need help turning off some of the other voices in your life? Who can you talk to about such distracting and dominating voices? SCRIPTURAL BACKGROUND For centuries God had rarely visited His people with revelation (v. 1). Now He had one to whom He could entrust His message. He called the young lad Samuel. 1. The divine voice (3:1–10) 3:1–10. Though Samuel had been dedicated to the Levitical ministry at Shiloh and had undergone training in the things of the Lord, he had not yet been addressed by the direct revelation of God (v. 7). At last the time came for the Lord to fulfill His promise to remove Eli’s priesthood and establish another, so the divine silence was broken. While Samuel was reclining in the tabernacle (the meaning of the Heb. hêkāl, temple, v. 3) attending to the burning lamp, he heard the voice of the Lord, which he mistakenly took to be that of Eli. Finally Eli discerned that the lad was being addressed by the Lord so he advised him to submit himself to whatever the Lord would have him do. 2. The divine message (3:11–14) 3:11–14. The message consisted of the announcement that the promised removal of Eli’s family from the priesthood was about to occur. It was an announcement so shocking that it would cause the ears of the people to ring like hammer blows on a bell. The reason is explicitly stated—Eli’s sons were wicked, and though he knew it he failed to restrain them. Though the message was given right then to Eli through Samuel, Eli himself lived for a short time thereafter, and indeed the priesthood continued in his family for three more generations. This is clear from 14:3—Ahijah served as priest to King Saul. He is identified as the great-grandson of Eli through Phinehas and Ahitub. The prophecy to Samuel came to pass fully when Abiathar, son of Ahijah (the same as Ahimelech of 22:9–12), was apparently replaced by King David with Zadok after Abiathar sided with Adonijah against Solomon (1 Kings 1:7–8; 2:27, 35). Thus the time between prophecy and fulfillment was more than 130 years. Yet it did come to pass and the priesthood switched to Zadok, a descendant of Aaron’s son Eleazar, and it remained with his offspring throughout Israel’s subsequent history. 3. Samuel’s vindication (3:15–21) 3:15–21. This first act of Samuel as a prophet was recognized by Eli as having come from God. This was only the beginning of a public ministry as prophet, which would last through a lifetime and be recognized by all the people as a divine calling. The word of the Lord had been rare in those days (v. 1). Now, however, it would be common, for God had found a man to whom He could entrust it. The sign that Samuel was a spokesman for God was the fact that God let none of his words fall to the ground (v. 19), that is, everything he prophesied came to pass. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba (the northernmost and southernmost towns in Israel—a distance of about 150 miles) recognized that Samuel was … a prophet of the Lord. There was no clearer indication that a man was called to be a prophet than the fact that his predictive word invariably was fulfilled (Deut. 18:21–22). When it was understood that Samuel’s credentials as a prophet were established, a new era was under way. Revelation through priest and ephod was passing away, and revelation through prophets was beginning. (Merrill, Eugene H. “1 Samuel.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, edited by J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985.) 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