Fearless: Samuel

Fearless: Samuel

Young Samuel became a fearless man because he practiced three habits in his early life

1. He was available
     "Speak Lord for your servant is listening"
Does anybody remember the Y2K scare?  There actually was a scare even high level pentagon officials were saying they were not quite ready if embedded chips do not function properly anymore.  was a scare and so my family stockpiled just to make sure we had everything available that we would need.  It might have been a bit excessive, but we had a five car garage full of supplies that just now are all being used up ten years later.  Like I said it was a five car garage full of supplies.  That is pretty funny and you laugh, I do to now, but say something had happened?  We would have been ready, and we would have had stuff available for our needs.  Samuel had that same readiness and availability to serve God and he shows it in his first encounter with God where he says, "Speak Lord for your servant is listening".  Are you available for what the Lord would have you do?

2. He listened to the Lord
     "Your servant is Listening"
"So Samuel lay down until morning. Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. But Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli." (1 Samuel 3:15 NASB).  This was a difficult message that God gave Samuel to deliver, but he listened and lay down in the temple until morning just in case God might give him some other message.  We go on a Houseboat Camp every year with our youth ministry and toward the end of the week we are able to have a 3 hour alone time with God.  I love this because it gives me a chance to listen to God during three hour solo time.  I hardly ever get that chance just to listen to God for an extended period of time.  What is God saying to you and are you listening?  Maybe you need to turn some stuff off and be quiet and just listen to God.

3. He delivered a dangerous message (even though it was a message of judgement)
If God called me to go to the Pope and deliver a message that he was disobedient to God and his children are scoundrels and they are going to die, and the Pope will eventually die after seeing his children die and he will fall backwards and land on his head and die! Wow I don't know if I could deliver a message like that if God asked me to.  Can you deliver a dangerous message?  1 Corinthians 1:23 says, "but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness."  Our message is not safe you have to stumble over Christ or you may not have received Christ at all.  If you have not stumbled or dealt with the foolishness of our message you may only have received moralism.  "Be good and God will like you".  That is NOT the gospel!  Jesus is good for you! receive His goodness and righteousness! 

Close: "Thus Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fail. All Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord." (1 Samuel 3:19-20 NASB)  Will you as a young person grow in fearlessness or will you strive to be liked and accepted?  If you are available, if you listen to God, and if you are willing to deliver a dangerous message you will grow as Samuel did and God will "be with you and, let none of your words fail".