Awakened to Grace

Chad Roberts: Welcome to Awakened to Grace. I'm Chad Roberts and I'm so glad you're joining me today. Have you heard about my partnership with Lifeway and the new book that I am about to release called Blind Faith: Seeing God Through Darkness? This book will release nationwide on March 10th, 2026. But you know, my friends, in the world of books, pre-orders are everything. They matter so much. Large chains and retail chains, they base their decisions upon pre-orders. So if you're someone that follows Awakened to Grace, if you're someone that we have spoken into your life, we help you grow spiritually, you could help me out so much by pre-ordering this book. It really goes a long way. I want to invite you to visit my website BlindFaithLaunch.com and help us launch this book successfully because friends, we have a great message of hope and we want to spread this message of hope as far and wide as we can. So I hope that you will support it because you are a big part of that. Go today to blindfaithlaunch.com, pre-order your book and help us make this launch a success.

Let's go to Hebrews 11 this morning. I hope that you received our communication that I will share session 19 of Hebrews 11 for the 9:30 and I will not be speaking for the 11. Angela Prim will have our 11:00 service. Our worship band will open with a worship set and then Angela is going to come and she's going to minister to us today. She's such a powerful, legendary voice in Gospel music. If you, just if you have never heard Angela, don't miss it. It's just fantastic. So, some of you have already told me you want to stay for the 11. If some of you stay for the 11, let's just be conscience, let's just be sensitive to the chairs and maybe some people will need to give up their seat. And you know, last Sunday was just run of the mill Sunday, nothing special. It wasn't Baptism Sunday, it wasn't child dedication, it was just a normal average Sunday. And do you know we had 700 between the two services last Sunday morning? Isn't that remarkable? So God's blessing us and so Angela will do the 11 and we'll do Hebrews 11, session 19 for this service.

Well, today I want to talk about Samuel. You can look in verse 32. We have already discussed in this series that we're calling Faith That Falters. We're talking about Gideon, we're talking about Barak, we're talking about Samson, we're talking about Jephthah, we've talked about King David, and now in week number six of this 19, really this 20-week series, we'll conclude it next week. We're going to look at the life of Samuel. And that is who the writer of Hebrews introduces us to next. Now, if you will briefly, go to 1 Samuel chapter 8. I'm only going to look at verses 1-3 this morning. And I just want to point your attention to a couple of principles today. Now, Samuel, it's difficult to find anything negative of the life, at least of the recorded life of Samuel. There wasn't anyone who ever lived that was perfect except the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there are only two people in the entire Bible that the Bible does not tell us anything negative about. Did you know that? Apart from the Lord Jesus. There are only two figures. Number one, Joseph. The Bible does not say anything negative about Joseph whatsoever. The second is Daniel. The Bible says nothing negative about Daniel. Other than that, whether it's King David, or whether it's Samson, whether it's Gideon, whether it's Jephthah, all these people that we've studied, the Bible shows us, it's like a good Clint Eastwood movie. We see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we saw some ugly last week with King David, didn't we? Well, Samuel is a little more difficult to pinpoint because Samuel did live an extraordinary life. He had an extraordinary birth. Samuel was the only man in the history of Israel who fulfilled three offices at one time. Simultaneously, Samuel was a prophet. Samuel was a priest and Samuel was a judge. Now, this is winding down, ending the era of the judges, which is what all of verse 32 has covered thus far. And when we come to the life of Samuel, you have to understand, Israel needed a godly man. And God used a godly woman to fulfill that need. Her name was Hannah. You can read the narrative in 1 Samuel chapter 1, and it's one of my favorite stories in all of the Bible because if anyone teaches us how to take hold of God, if anyone teaches us how to pray, breakthrough prayers, it was the mother of Samuel, it was Hannah. Hannah prayed and poured out her heart to the Lord in such a way that the Bible says her lips moved, but no words came out. It was John Bunyan who said, "It is better in prayer to have heart with no words than to have words with no heart." This is the way Hannah teaches us how to pray. And she prayed a breakthrough prayer that day and God gave her Samuel. Part of her vow was that the Lord would give her a son. She would give him back to the Lord. This was not a bargain with God as we saw with Jephthah. This was not Hannah negotiating. This was Hannah's desires coming into alignment with the will of God. Hannah wanted a son, God needed a man. And they converged. And so when Samuel came on the scene, as a little boy, once he'd been weaned, his mother fulfilled the promise and she went on to have many other children. But she took her firstborn, Samuel, to the temple, to the priest whose name was Eli and she gave him to the Lord. And Samuel, from a child on, lived in the temple and grew up under the tutelage of the priest Eli, the high priest. Well, what's fascinating about Samuel's childhood is that as a boy, he heard the voice of God. The story goes that when Samuel went to bed one night, he's lying down and they had just went to bed, and he hears a voice. Well, he goes into the High Priest's chambers to Eli and he goes, "Yes, sir, you called." And Eli said, "No, I did not call you. Go back to bed." Samuel goes back and he hears the voice once again. He responds to Eli once again, and Eli said, "No, I did not call you." And Eli perceived, he knew, "Oh, it's the Lord speaking to this young boy." And so he tells Samuel, the next time you hear that voice, here's what you are to say: "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." Friends, I don't know a greater prayer that you can incorporate into your own prayer life than "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." Amen. And as a little boy, when he heard that voice the third time, Samuel, for the really the first time, dialogued with God. And he said, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." What a special thing. Some of you today, like Samuel, from childhood, you have sensed the presence of God with you. Some of you, like Samuel, from childhood, you've heard the voice of God in your life. But what did it take for Samuel to really know, to really recognize God's voice? It took an older, a seasoned believer who knew the voice of God to help young Samuel detect it. There's many of you listening today where God has been with you throughout your whole life and you are just now recognizing it. God has been speaking to you all along, but you're just now becoming aware of it. And some of you, even listening right now, are a little confused going, "Is God speaking to me?" Listen to this seasoned believer. I believe he is. And what are you to do? You are to say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." Amen. There's many people that God's speaking to today, they just don't recognize his voice. There are many ways that God is speaking today, but people they don't want to be discipled. They don't want to be mentored. They don't want to come alongside a seasoned believer and say, "Teach me how to follow God." Brothers, sisters, if that's something you've lacked in your life, and it doesn't matter today if you're listening and you're 12 years old, it doesn't matter if you're listening today and you're 72 years old. If you've never been discipled, you've never been mentored, I don't care where you're at in that spectrum, I don't care how long you've been a Christian, I don't care if you're just starting out, or if you've been a Christian longer than the years you can count. You need to commit yourself to discipleship. You need to humble yourself today at Samuel and say, "Lord, I want to not only hear your voice, I want to recognize your voice, I want to detect your voice, and when you speak, I want to listen." Can we say amen to that today? Are you sensitive to the voice of God? Well, Samuel goes on and for the rest of his life, he would hone that skill of hearing God. So but in this series, I believe what the author of Hebrews is helping us understand is that sometimes our faith falters. And where Samuel faltered, and I want you to look at it in verses 1-3 of chapter 8, 1 Samuel. When Samuel had grown old, now he had done well throughout his whole life. He walked with God his entire life. But when Samuel had grown old, he took his two sons, the oldest was Joel, the second was Abijah. It'll be a great name for a little boy if anybody's looking for a name. Abijah. That's, I mean, he wouldn't be able to spell it, but it's a good name. Joel and Abijah, and what were the problems with Joel and Abijah? They didn't walk in the ways of their father. They were corrupt, they were perverse, they were crooked. They were after gain, not after God. They were not godly men. But in error, what Samuel did is Samuel overlooked the sins of his adult children. And Samuel appointed them as judges over Israel. There are many listening today who your children are not walking with God. I say this carefully because although my children are young right now and I am raising them in the fear of the Lord, and they are growing up in a pastor's home, that is absolutely no guarantee that my children will walk with God. I don't know the choices that they will make in their adulthood. Many of you have suffered that pain that Samuel suffered. Your adult children do not walk with the Lord. Or your adult grandchildren do not walk with God. Well, what I want you to see today is Samuel mishandled it. Rather than, rather than standing firm against the sins of his sons, he turned a blind eye and a deaf ear. He instead appointed them into leadership. Well, Samuel had to have known that his children were not godly for everyone else in Israel knew it. And the elders come to him and they said, "Give us a king." And I want you to think about this, Samuel's negligence in this matter forever changed the trajectory of Israel. Forever? He overlooked the sins of his sons. What is my point today? If you are someone that you have adult children that are not living right, you have adult children that are running from God. This is what I want to say to you today pastorally. Do you pray for your children? Absolutely. Do you speak into their life? Absolutely. Are you ever unkind and lose your patience? Oh, you should not. And isn't it odd how we lose our patience with family before we do anybody else? Isn't that 100% true? And if you're living with the frustration and the tensions of adult children that are not following God, just let me encourage you with this. Don't be so accommodating. Don't be so fast to bail out of trouble. Don't make it easy for your children to keep running from God. When I read the story of the prodigal son and the father, one of the things I always think, what maybe could have been different in that story is when the son came and said, "Give me my inheritance," what if the father had said, "No." And there are many godly people, there are many good parents, many godly parents that bankroll the sins of their children. Don't bankroll their sins. Don't be so accommodating. Am I saying be unkind? No. Am I saying shut the door on them? No. But what I am saying is don't make it easy for them to keep rebelling against the Lord. Samuel made it easy. He appointed them to leadership. What a falter in his faith. And as a result, it changed the course of the nation forever. And this is where the pivotal time came where the judges faded away. The people, not Samuel, the people selected Saul as king. And the course of history was changed. Now, God did not write Samuel off. God would go on to use Samuel extraordinarily. Samuel could hear the Lord so well that when God told him, "Saul, I have rejected. And I'm going to raise up a new king." He goes to Jesse's house, who has multiple sons, 12 if I'm not mistaken. He goes to Jesse's house and they line all the boys up and he can so hear the Lord. He would go from the oldest to the youngest and the Lord would say, "No." So much so that he went through the line twice. And finally, he looks at Jesse and he goes, "Are these all of your sons? There's no one else?" And Jesse goes, "Ah. There is another one." How many of you were middle children? You know that feeling. And he goes, "I've got David, but he's in the shepherd field." Jesse, I can imagine the look on his face. I can imagine all of his brothers looking at each other like, "What? Why would even, why would David even need to be here? There's not even a reason for him to be here if you're talking a king?" And they go and they bring David in and the Lord speaks to Samuel. That same sensitivity, that same hearing that he heard the Lord as a boy in the temple, he hears the Lord say, "Anoint David king over Israel." Remarkable. But in between those two great milestones, he made a great mistake. He appointed his sinful adult children to leadership. It may be that your faith is so solid today, it might be that you are pleasing the Lord in so many areas, but when it comes to dealing with family, when it comes to accommodating your children, when it comes to bailing them out, you are making the same mistake that Samuel made. Samuel should have stepped back and said, "When you get right with God, then we'll talk." Unfortunately, many parents need to have that conversation with their children. To say, "I love you, I'm for you. I'm not against you, God is for you. He's not against you. But until you get things right with God, this is as far as I can go." Let's bow our heads today. Lord, we don't want to make mistakes as we see in scripture. You've recorded these things for our benefit. And Lord, I know that there are parents here today who, they're in the same boat as Samuel. They know you, they love you, they walk with you. But their children don't. God, would you have extra grace over those families today? God, will you help those families and God, will you encourage those parents today to not give up, to not write off their children because that's not what we're saying today. But also to not make it easy for them to continue in their rebellion. Fill these parents today who are in this tension, who's living out this frustration. Fill them with grace and truth. Because that's what our children need. They need grace because they're not perfect, they will fail, they will make mistakes. They need our grace. But they also need truth. It's easy to give them grace. It's so difficult to give them truth. Samuel failed. Help us not to fail. Let us learn from him. Thank you, God, that you use flawed people. You take people who had a miraculous birth like Samuel, who had remarkable experiences with God as he did as a child, who lived right his whole life, and when he became an old man, he still lived right. And yet he was flawed. Wow. I thank you, God, that there are no perfect people. That's why we need your grace, and that's why we need your strength. God, families today that's navigating prodigal children. Families that's navigating wayward sons and daughters and grandchildren. Just give extra measures of grace. Fill them with truth. Fill them with strength. And help them in the name of the Lord Jesus. And everyone said, "Amen." Amen.

Chad Roberts: Did you know that I'm a pastor, husband, and father of four who suddenly went blind in 2018? Today I teach people how life is not random, but it is actually orchestrated by God for a great purpose. Learn more about my story and Awakened to Grace at ChadRoberts.org.