Sermon Text: 1 Samuel 3: 1-20
This week’s theme became apparent right of the bat. Starting off with Psalm 139, it became evident that God knows each one of us very, very well. Now, as a human being, I know I’m capable of sinning which is against God who is righteous and just. Despite what we do, He loves us. And because He loves us and we know it, we desire to dedicate our lives to His service. And that gets us to the other theme for this Sunday that ties in with the 1 Samuel reading—it’s Dedication Sunday. We all are called by God to service. It may be to serve for a time on the Diaconate or the Session. It may be to help at the Food Bank. It may be to go and visit those who cannot get out to church. It may be to pray from your bed. And so, I’m going to begin this sermon with these words: “Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And yes, I think you’ll get the idea within the next few minutes. And I hope you will come away with the thought that it is a blessing that God knows me and loves me that much!
Have you ever asked yourself how many times you are photographed each day? When you walk into the bank, or return your cart to the corral in the parking lot, somewhere there is a camera marking your every move. Our world is full of cameras, on traffic light arms to catch “red light runners”, and on house fronts covering the doors in order to catch thieves. Yet David tells us in Psalm 139 that at every moment of the day, we are under a much higher scrutiny.
David wrote: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from far away. You are acquainted with all of my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue you know it completely. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.”
This is the most intimate knowledge. Parents know their children. But I discovered at my son Chad’s funeral some things he had done to help others that Jim and I had not known about. Spouses know each other, especially after many years of marriage—you can almost complete each other’s sentences. And yet, there are things in the past, before the “two became one” that may not ever be revealed. God is the only one who knows us from even before we were formed. At the bedside of a young patient dying this week, how do you tell them that God had her life already written out for her before her birth. It seems so tragic and cruel---and yet, we do not know the picture that God sees---the “what might have been otherwise” for the patient, for the family, and for all those whose lives she touched if things had been different. We just don’t know. We are asked to trust and believe. For we are not our own, are we?
In John 1, we read of Jesus finding and calling Philip to be his disciple. Philip ran to tell Nathanael. Nathanael’s first thought was: “You’ve got to be daft, man! This guy is from Nazareth! I’m guessing that is the equivalent to saying “he’s from the wrong side of the tracks.” Jesus hadn’t laid eyes on Nathanael and yet he told Nathanael where he had come from---that he had been sitting under the fig tree before Philip even came to him. That bit of knowledge---that without seeing him and yet knowing where he was and able to tell him about himself—“Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”---that took the doubt away and what was replaced was awe and worship: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” To know that we are known that well should make us in awe of our God. Sometimes I think sheep are smarter than we are. They accept that the shepherd will lead them and guide them to still waters and green pastures and so they follow. We are more like stubborn mules---I will go nowhere with you. Prove it to us, Lord, that you love us---every day!
1 Corinthians 6 comes at the “knowing us” from a different path: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Anyone who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body.” Wow! Despite the fact that we err and sin, because of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s enduring love, knowing the choices that we will make, He instills the Holy Spirit within us. That’s far more than entrusting us with the care of our children. That’s trusting us with Himself. We may allow our bodies to gain unnecessary weight, to clog skins pores with makeup, to inhale or intake in some form harmful substances. But when we come to the realization that our body is a temple, that our body is “holy ground”---it puts things in a different perspective, doesn’t it? And he trusts us with Himself, with his Holy Spirit!
And thrown in to our reading list was 1 Samuel 3 regarding the calling of Samuel by the Lord. You remember that Samuel’s mother Hannah had been distraught one day at the temple because she was not able to have a child. Eli the priest thought she had been drinking but Hannah was praying to the Lord making the vow that if she was granted a son, that the boy would be dedicated to the service of the Lord. She gave birth to Samuel whose name means “He listened”. When the boy was old enough, she took the boy to the temple: “So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” Samuel had been serving the priest Eli. One night, Samuel heard his name called and he went to Eli. But Eli had not called the boy. After three times of this, Eli caught on to the fact that God was calling the boy and Eli told Samuel what he was to do. When the Lord called Samuel again, Samuel rose up and said: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Now that speaks to us of dedication our lives to God’s service. We have members of our congregation who have agreed to serve on the Diaconate and the Session. We have a whole church family here who dedicates themselves to God’s service and should rejoice in the fact that God knows us and loves us and blesses us with the abilities we need to keep this church going, to keep us active in doing His work in the community, and that he blesses us with each other. And did God know Samuel and Eli? He knew what a great prophet Samuel would become. He also knew what Eli had allowed his sons to do.
Here are just a few other verses pertinent to our theme:
• Jeremiah 1: 5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
• Jeremiah 29: 11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Yes, even this for the young dying patient and her family. Her hope and bright future did not come entirely on this side of the veil. It is for her now.
• Ephesians 2: 10: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Yes, this ties in with our service to God.
• Does he love us? John 3: 16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• And why do we show our love? 1 John 4: 19: “We love because he first loved us.”
Our Daily Bread devotional for this morning was quite timely and appropo. It shared a “changed” version of “Jesus loves me!”: “Jesus knows me, this I love”.
Sing: “Jesus knows me, this I love, for the Bible tells me so! To his arms may we all go, trusting Him in every way. Yes, Jesus knows me! Still, Jesus loves me! How do I know this? ‘Cause the Bible tells me so.