How To Change Spiritual Numbness

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Lord, we say we do believe these things because you have made us believe them.

We didn't believe them because we looked upon you and we uh evaluated you, graded you.

Uh we looked upon these and Holy Spirit, you made us think what's true about you.

And so we just say yes, all the things you promised.

That we forget, that we doubt, say, we believe, help our unbelief.

Holy Spirit, this morning, would you do that?

Would you lay a thick layer of belief concrete in us where we can lay all our fears on them and they don't fall, they're safe in you.

We would say, yep, I don't know how.

But somehow, because he's faithful to himself, he's making a way.

And I and what I'm doing, even though it didn't feel this way all the time, I'm actually walking through parted seas.

So, Holy Spirit, we just want to experience this this morning, where everything you say about you is true, and it's our delight to experience it.

Amen.

Please be seated.

My name is Blake Hardcastle.

I'm the equipping pastor at Grand Parkway, and it's my joy this morning to uh speak to you uh about how to change spiritual numbness.

That's what we're talking about.

So how to change spiritual numbness.

And so you know what physical numbness is.

This is where you uh fall asleep and you wake up and then you can't use your arm.

You know, it's you can't even, you know, it's it's a tingly, your arm's asleep.

And so then you you need to, well, you don't just give up, like, oh my arm's asleep, can't use it anymore.

Guess I'm guess I'm left-handed Blake now.

No, you you move this.

Okay, let me go over here.

Oh no, that makes it worse.

That's more pressure.

And you, you know, it's not like uh you go, hey, let's go Max Bench right now.

You you you can't use this thing.

That's physical numbness.

Spiritual numbness is similar to where a person becomes numb to the voice of God and the activity of God, and they're useless in the kingdom.

So the text this morning, we've got a people who have become numb to God because the shepherds became numb to him.

And God does something, you know what?

I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna move Israel around, I'm gonna shake this up, I'm gonna recirculate what the truth is.

So join me today.

Let's read this text.

We are in uh 1 Samuel chapter 3.

1 Samuel 3 · chapter mention

And you may think, oh, this is a cute story about a little boy.

Uh part of that, but in it is God's saying, I'm I'm riding in for judgment.

So join me.

1 Samuel 3.

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

Pay attention to that.

There were no frequent visions.

At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had be grown dim so that he could not see, was laying down in his own place, and the lamp of God had not gone out, and Samuel was laying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark was.

So we have a blind guy who's blind to the spirit, and we have Samuel, and somehow he sleeps in church.

And the Lord called to him and said, uh, Samuel, and he said, Here I am.

And he ran to Eli and said, Here I am, you called me.

But he said, I didn't call you, go lie down again.

And so he went and lay down again.

And the Lord called again, Samuel.

Samuel rose and went to Eli and said, Hey, here I am, you called me.

He said, I didn't call you, my son.

Go lay down again.

Now Samuel, pay attention to this, did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

And so the Lord called to Samuel again a third time, and he rose and went to Eli and said, Here I am, you called for me.

And Eli perceived that it was the Lord that was calling the boy.

Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go lie down, and if he calls to you, you shall say, Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.

So Samuel went and lay down in his place, and the Lord came and stood, calling at other times, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel said, Speak, for your servant hears.

Then the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I'm about to do a thing in Israel, at which the two ears of everyone who hears will tingle.

On that day I will fulfill against Eli and all that I've spoken concerning his house from beginning to end, and I will declare to him that I'm about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.

Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.

So Samuel lay till morning.

He probably didn't go back to sleep.

And then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.

Yeah, of course he was afraid.

And Eli said to Samuel, Samuel, my son, and he said, Here I am.

You said, What was it that he told you?

Don't hide it from me.

May God do to you.

So even more if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.

So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing.

And he said, It is of the Lord.

Let him do what seems good to him.

So this morning I want to speak to you about uh from this text, we're gonna look at four things that's in the text.

Uh what does God do?

Uh, how do we change spiritual numbness?

The first one is this you need to believe that God speaks to his people.

Yeah, you need if you don't believe God speaks, there's no changing of this numbness.

Now, where do you get this?

I mean, God's speaking to Samuel.

Uh, Eli doesn't recognize this.

Where do you get this?

This is where we use all the Bible to interpret the Bible.

And so uh where we see this, it's it's not, you mean do you really think it's just a few people God wants to speak to?

Do you really think it's just Samuel, some prophets, maybe a pastor?

Look at this in uh John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

Jesus speaking to disciples said, These are the things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you.

But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all the things and bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you.

So, what God means uh when he says the Holy Spirit's gonna teach you, how's he gonna do this?

I mean, he's gonna communicate to you somehow.

It's not just gonna be osmosis and you wake up knowing stuff.

Here's something you should be thinking about.

Uh, who in my life around me do I think is the most sensitive to God?

Because that'll be the person you're tempted to drift towards them rather than to drift towards God.

Let them speak to you from God versus you hear from God directly.

So here's let me give you three ways that God speaks to us.

There's more than this, but here's three big ones.

Um, the first one's the Holy Spirit, as we just said here.

He speaks to us from the Spirit.

What is this like?

Well, I mean, the Holy Spirit does it.

So sometimes you've heard Neil talk about clear as a bell, the Spirit said.

Sometimes it is kind of an inner audible dialogue.

Other times it may be like I'm not hearing words, but I'm I'm thinking things that aren't from me alone.

And it's hard for me to tell because now the spirit's been living in me, and so based on like my voice, but it's nothing that comes from my flesh.

Or maybe it's a profound impression where I've got a uh a substantial amount of peace moving in this direction versus that direction.

This God wants to speak to you through the spirit, and being spiritually numb is kind of like either having your fingers in your ears or just build of a wax where I'm not hearing God.

And so I need uh I need someone else to speak to me for him, or I just actually I don't listen to God.

Uh the scripture is a second way God speaks to us, his word.

Uh in the text said that uh that the uh the Lord the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

If the word of the Lord is rare in your life, this is this is not good.

This is the condition for numbness.

Uh every page of the Bible God speaks on.

Sometimes you will say, hey, you're preaching, and just pick anything.

And so I can feel ominous, like, okay, I gotta pick a good one.

But really, every page of scripture, God speaks.

And so in here, I could have picked this text, I could have moved over 10 pages, picked this text.

There's no place in the Bible where you could read and go, ah, there's nothing here.

No, it's just West Texas, flat, windy, nothing.

No terrain, no water.

When do most people feel their need to hear from God?

It's usually when they need to make a decision.

That's usually when uh, okay, God, I I I need you to speak to me.

I need to know what to do, I need to know uh what job or what city or what school or what person.

And um sometimes the reason why we don't hear God speak or or we're numb to the scripture is we simply just go too fast.

We just we just go way too fast.

We try to be efficient.

Okay, God, here we got five minutes for you.

Be profound, be amazing.

Let me give you one example.

This is a scripture you probably many of you know.

This is James 5.

If any of you lacks wisdom, that's the condition of God.

I need you to speak.

Say something.

Give me a sign.

I don't care who you say it through.

If any of you lacks wisdom, and and that's everyone in this room, none of us here is wise enough to go, I got it.

I can do it all on my own all the time.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God.

And here's where we go too fast.

Who gives, what's the text say?

Not stingy, not only on Thursdays, who gives generously?

So when you slow down, all right, God, I want you to speak to me through the word.

You need to let the feel what he's saying in here.

Him saying, I give wisdom generously.

So I want I want I want to try and paint for you a picture of generosity, like obscene, obscure, uh just overgenerous.

So picture that you are at a seven-year-old birthday party.

Okay, seven years old cake and all the birthday party stuff.

But then there's the party favorite gift you get to take home with you.

And what and and and you can you can pick.

You're either gonna be the seven-year-old or you're gonna be the parent.

You pick which one you want to be in this scenario, okay?

And the take-home gift is a new bike and a puppy, and a day at the spa.

So the mom and dad get a spa, the kid gets the puppy and a bike.

Maybe they've been thinking no one does this.

I don't know.

I then I don't know if anybody does it.

This is how God does wisdom.

He's not stingy with it.

You may think I because you haven't heard him, that he doesn't talk.

Or he doesn't talk a lot, or isn't or just you know, plays riddles.

He's more generous than that.

He's more generous than if you had got a bike.

If you had a seven-year-old and they came home with a puppy and a bike, I mean, part of you might think, okay, listen, what can we sell this for?

Uh yeah, you're definitely not that now.

You gave me this puppy.

You actually just gave me an expensive responsibility.

Uh this is how God gives wisdom.

And keep keep reading.

Here's why we go too fast.

Generously to all, how?

Without reproach.

The way he gives wisdom isn't, oh, oh, now you want to know.

Now you're finally, yeah.

Once it's been hard, now, okay, now you want to know.

He doesn't do that.

That's reproach.

Reproach is look, how many times do I got to tell you?

Look, I'm not gonna answer this for you.

Use your resources.

That's reproach.

That's how you speak to yourself.

The text says he doesn't do it that way.

And keep reading, and it will be given to him.

So no, but you just gotta go slower through the scripture.

When we say things I believe, we get to believe them by letting ourselves absorb them.

We have a rate of absorption where we just go too fast sometimes.

Here's a third way that God speaks to us, and that's through the church.

Let me read a text here.

Uh Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And so, did you come in here today thinking, okay, Lord, you lead me to who do you want me to give a word of encouragement to or a word of correction to?

But was anybody thinking, okay, I'm I got my eyes peeled, I got my heart open.

God, who do you want to use me to speak a word to?

If you weren't thinking that, you're not, you're not on track with Colossians.

Well, this let me read it again.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching it and admonishing another.

That's not just me up here.

That's you.

It's in the halls, that's in the conversation before or after, maybe it's in the Bible study.

I mean, at the very least, this is what should be happening in our community groups.

Where someone says something, and the second or third response or question is moving toward speaking this way to one another.

This happened a couple years ago in the group I lead.

And uh so one person shared something that was pretty vulnerable, and not something personally ever shared before.

Not and basically it was I'm convicted about this, I don't think it's ever gonna change, and I'm convicted about that.

And someone else in the group spoke a word that was both uh teaching and correction.

They said, you know, I think the fact that you actually just said that out loud, I think this indicates that actually the spirit actually is already working on you.

You had never shared this with us before.

That that's a word of the word of correction is not like now it says here in Ezekiel, you're gonna this is how we're supposed to speak to one another.

And it's the and so I look, I'm going to a community group today that's not my own.

This is what I want to hear.

Now don't not go to your community group because you think, hey, I'm not uh I don't want to be there after Blake believes.

Jenny's coming too, so it'll be fine.

Um it says we should sing psalms and hymn spiritual songs.

Sometimes, uh, as you sit on the side over here, sometimes we sing a song like I believe, and I just kind of have my head kind of turn and pan the room.

And and the spirit will arrest me by seeing someone or a couple who I know some of the backstory of their pain.

And then they say, I still believe you're already made a way.

That is teaching and instructive to me.

Now, let's go back to our text here.

It says that the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

Uh think about who doesn't want God to talk?

Like, who doesn't who wants God to stay silent?

It's the person who they want to play God.

If there's an area of your life where like, eh, I'm not interested in God speaking to this, you really may be indicating that you want to still be God.

You still want to try and manipulate and control.

Who does want God to speak?

It's those who know I have a I I need a power bigger than me.

I need a I need a reality bigger than me, I need a hope bigger than me.

So you ask yourself, is there any area of your life where you don't want God to speak to?

Is there an area you say, you can speak to all this?

But I'm not I'm not interested in what you want to say here.

Or inversely, is there an area you've given up he'll ever speak to?

Is there an area he's given up he'll ever see a word to?

What's ironic is in the text here in verse three, the the lamp of God not going out, Samuel's lying out of the temple where the ark of the Lord is.

I was just paint the picture here.

I don't know if you've ever uh played hide and go seek in the church at night.

I don't know if we do that anymore.

I don't want to know.

I don't know why I don't want to, I just don't want to know.

Uh I remember you know uh playing uh hide and go seek in church, and when a church is quiet and dark and it's night, it's weird.

I don't know why.

I don't know what I think can get me.

I just think things can get me.

I don't know why.

Uh it feels different.

And so Samuel sleeps there, that's his bedroom, and it says just a little again where the Bible winks at us, where the ark of the ark of God was.

The ark is this box wherein it is this jar of manna, which is hey, remember that I provided for you.

And there's a staff, remember that I protected you in the in the the tablets, the the Ten Commandments.

Remember, we made an agreement.

You'll be my people, I'll be your God, and this is how we do it.

And it's still there.

Everyone's numb to it.

Let's keep going.

Second thing we must see here.

Number two is that God must reveal himself.

So we see this is this is uh chapter verses four through on.

Uh, God speaks to Samuel, he says, goes to Eli, here I am.

God speaks to him again, goes to Eli again.

And then verse 7.

Now Samuel did not know the Lord, for the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

God must reveal himself.

It it's uh you can't glean a bunch of facts or get or get kind of secondhand or third hand exposure to God.

He has to expose himself to the person personally.

So we don't get to control revelation.

We get to control that.

This is why parents who uh often parents will I'm gonna try and parent better than my parents did.

And uh, if there's new parents in here, uh kind of a uh typical thought is okay, uh, I'm gonna be, I might not be the best ever, but I'm gonna be way above average.

I'm gonna read these books and we're gonna do all the right things.

And look, I'm not saying anything against that.

It is good to uh for your kids to learn scripture, it is good uh for them to uh be in church, it is good for them a sense of the Bible's true and God's the boss of us.

It's good for them to be reality, hey, as for me in my house, my parents think we're gonna serve the Lord.

That's a good thing.

What almost always happens if later on that kid uh turns away from those things and starts living like a prodigal, there's two things that happen and they go in this order.

Number one, the parents begin to blame themselves.

It was me.

I I did too much of or too little of.

And you begin to kind of do the life history math problem.

Okay, what should we have done different?

And then eventually you come to the conclusion, oh, no, I did plenty.

It usually comes with you compare your parents to you.

Oh, I destroyed what my parents ever did.

They didn't, you know, I was a Gen X kid.

I was a latchkey kid since I was six years old.

Uh, you know, I walked home in first grade.

Um, so you know, my kids always had a parent at home.

This you got way more than I ever got.

So first we need to blame ourselves.

Second thing is once we kind of evaluate, oh, I think I did a good enough job, then we begin to be mad at God.

Hey, I did all this, I put the input in.

This is the output I should be getting.

And what we're missing in this equation is God has to reveal himself.

And all along, what all that's needed is to pray, would you reveal yourself to her?

Would you reveal yourself to him?

In such a way that life is completely altered, that they are a completely different person.

Let me give you an example like this.

Uh hearing about the Grand Canyon versus being at the Grand Canyon are two different things.

Let me show you a picture.

This is a picture of the Grand Canyon.

And to some of you who are, I don't want to say afraid of heights, I will say you accurately feel heights.

You're thinking, is this before this guy died?

Now I'll say, I don't know how many, you can Google it later.

People die doing what this guy did.

Now I can walk up to this picture.

Here I go.

Anybody worried I'm gonna follow?

No?

Okay, I'm getting closer.

I'm glad to the edge, I almost can touch it.

See, I'm not scared, and you're not scared.

But if I were at this place and that's the edge, I'd be like, okay, lay.

Hey, shh.

No one breathe.

I'm walking towards the edge.

Uh, if you've been to the Grand Canyon, you know, shouldn't there be railings everywhere?

And you know, if there's ever a time you don't put up with kids running around and pushing each other, it's like, no, no pushing.

I will beat you and lock you in a car, and everyone will say, Yeah, good job.

Yes.

And so there's one thing about hearing about the Grand Canyon, seeing pictures about it, and another thing about being there.

Like if we you know, if we were to walk there, I don't know, I don't know why we would do this.

Some of you like, oh, it could be amazing.

But if we had to walk out to this little, it looks like there's a path, maybe a goat can and and walk to the edge, this would feel different.

This would feel dangerous.

Here's the thing God is far more dangerous than the Grand Canyon.

And spiritual numbness is when we get close to him and we don't feel it's dangerous.

You should you should read your Bible on the regular.

You should have a time.

So whatever's your best time of day, morning, night, I don't care when, where you open the Bible and go, okay, I need a harness, I need steel-toe boots, I need FE clothing, I need because I'm about to get near someone who's dangerous.

Not evil, but who's dangerous.

Someone who is far bigger than me.

And we we typically we experience something like the Grand Canyon.

Uh, for God to reveal Himself means you have had some experience with Him where you're God and I'm not, and there's no denying it any longer.

Your way, not only is the best way, it's the you're the only one who can do everything you want.

I have to keep remember relearning this all the time.

But there's a sense where God, because you are so dangerous and so threatened, and it's kind of like it's dangerous, but but I I can't keep away from it.

I want to get near it.

So I'm just asking you, has God revealed himself to you?

And then what evidence, how do you know this?

What evidence would you remind yourself of or tell someone close to you, yes, this is how I know God has actually revealed himself to me?

I haven't just heard about him.

I'm not just really familiar with him, but I've had an experience with him.

Second thing is, is there someone you turn to before you turn to God?

Where you've kind of exchanged them, and it's not fair to them, where I'll go to this person first before I'll go to God.

Third thing we see in the text.

This is this.

Remember that God is patient, but he's not a pushover.

This is where verse 11.

The Lord says to Samuel, and let's just say, so this is Samuel.

He he now is being uh he's now knowing the Lord, God's revealing himself to him, and it really is like, hey, here's you got a brand new job.

You've gone from being the um one of the servants in the temple, you know, trimming the wicks and this blind guy who's cranky, you know, doing whatever he wants, um, to now this is him becoming a prophet.

And in his rest of his life, he's a prophet of Israel.

And so his first day in the job is not like, all right, come to orientation.

We're gonna have some safety videos, we're gonna have some um, you know, history of the organization, we'll have some light snacks, you know.

There's none of that.

There's not even like, hey, we're gonna give you a uh your your first assignment's gonna be like a break-in assignment.

No, this is okay, you're you're now a prophet, and here's the thing.

I want you to fire your CEO and his rotten kids.

And the fact that it works on that, I want you to pronounce doom upon them.

There's no way he went back to sleep.

I mean, you you might know what it's like to get woke up in the night with what assaults you.

So he's sleeping.

God says to him, I'm gonna do a thing in Israel that will make the two ears of everyone tingle.

This line is what makes him like, ooh, I want to preach this text.

So I'm gonna do it tingle.

This is where uh I think this word is like um uh shuddering or shocking.

It's one of these things where something happens and and you ask someone, where were you when?

Where it's less such an impression that you won't forget this.

So, for example, Gen Xer, here we go.

Where were you when President Reagan got shot?

Some of you might not know it was a President Reagan.

There was, he was a great guy.

President Reagan was shot.

I was in third grade and I was at recess, and recess ended early, and we came in, and somehow they told us.

I I just remember thinking like okay, but you killed Recon.

I mean, why are we we're missing eight minutes of recess?

Like, okay, I I I think I shall I feel bad for this recess?

I don't know what it means.

I'm third grade, I don't know what this means.

Um, you know, fast forward to middle school and the space shuttle explodes.

Where were you when?

He says, I'm gonna make all of Israel have a moment where where were you when God shook us all up from our spiritual numbness?

Where were you when this happened?

So let me ask you, how does God get your attention?

Is there a pattern to how you respond to him?

Does he have to have some part of your life where like your arm falls asleep and it's it's pins and needles, like, oh my gosh, I can't sleep through this?

What does he have to do to get your attention?

What does he do to stir your heart up to listen to him?

Where you call out, okay, speak, Lord, I'm listening.

Verse 13 says, I'm gonna punish the house of Eli.

Now, why was he gonna do this?

This they say, this seemed pretty harsh.

Uh, why he did this is so Eli is the main guy in charge of the temple, and he's got these two rotten kids who don't know the Lord.

They they are all they know is themselves.

And so here's why they're rotten.

Uh the people would come to worship, and it wasn't like you did this every week.

It was where you come and you bring your offering, your sacrifice.

Okay, God, I've I've we've we've purchased or we've traded for this animal, we've had this thing slaughtered, and now we're gonna fulfill your commands, and uh and this is gonna the the best parts are gonna be for the Lord.

They're gonna be boiled, and then the fat's gonna be burned in the aroma, and then I'll go, okay, God, yes, you're pleased with me.

And what these rotten kids were doing is they're like, hey, hey, let's take this fork, let's jam it in this pot, and and they're gonna hit the biggest, joistest piece of meat and bring this meat out, or let's take it off the grill before all the fat's burned up.

And so this would be like uh you have your mortgage payment, and so you got your taxes set aside, and then it's tax time, and someone's gone in, your mortgage company's gone in, and they've taken your tax money, and the tax people say, Hey, where's our tax money?

And you go, they took it, and they don't care.

So the people feel like, is God not?

I'm coming to worship God.

Is God still angry with me?

Is God not gonna because of their stealing?

And so here's the thing: you you rejoice in this today.

If this is all you get today, you rejoice in this.

You serve a God who doesn't let the shepherds continue to hurt the sheep.

Now I grieve every time there's a pastor who they're they've fallen out of the ministry, they're kicked out of the ministry.

I grieve and I rejoice.

Because they should not be allowed to keep stealing from the sheep.

So not only were they stealing offerings, there were girls like like Samuel serving the temple, and they were abusing these girls.

These are people you say, oh yeah, these guys need to die.

And you can read for yourself this week.

Go to Samuel 1 Samuel 4 and 5.

Ooh, God is not messing around.

God is patient, but he is not a pushover.

And so and sometimes you may think, because God has been slow to enact a consequence on my numbness towards him, you may think he's uninterested in that.

He's patient, but he's not a pushover.

So Eli was a prophet and he had Eli had met with the prophet, and he actually told him in chapter two, uh, you need to get this straightened out.

This is wrong.

And Eli he well, let me just say this has God ever said something to you that you're dragging your feet and obeying?

Has God already communicated something to you in various ways, and you're just kicking the can down the road.

You're slow.

I'll get to that eventually.

Don't delay any longer.

He's patient, but he's not a pushover.

And he may just be again to twist and stir circumstances where now you have to.

Don't wait until you have to.

Let me give you three obstacles to hearing God.

There's more than three, but give you these three.

First one is sin.

Okay, this is yes, like we got it, Blake.

It's sin.

This is what Eli is doing.

This fact, chapter two, verse 29.

Um, this is what God says to Eli.

Why then do you scorn my sacrifices, my offerings that I've commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by the fattening and the choices person.

So here's the problem.

He's honoring his sons above God.

Anytime we take something and we esteem it, we honor it, we treasure it, we long for it, we we root for it more than we root for God.

That's an idol.

And he's patient, but he's not a pushover.

And we can do it with anything.

We can do it with kids, we can do it with accomplishments, we can do it with romance, a thousand things.

And so don't honor them above God.

And so, how do you know if sin is why you're not hearing God?

How do you know, how do you know if sin is why you're becoming numb to God?

Uh here's one two ways.

One, you become jealous when other people hear them and you don't.

Not jealous and like, oh, me too, jealous and like, why them?

Don't you know they're a dirty, rotten scandal like me?

Why would you speak to them and not me?

You're to bring them down and you know, and say this out loud in your heart.

The other is uh is uh you actually fear what God might say.

See if if if sin's the reason you become numb to him, is uh this would give Eli credit.

Say it.

I think he has a sense of it's bad.

Say it if it's bad.

Samuel, I hope it's double bad on you.

Say it, don't hide it from me.

Here's how you know if sin is the reason you're numb to God, you don't want him to say it.

You just want to keep on without hearing of it.

Two more things.

Second thing is inexperience.

This is Samuel's case.

He is not familiar with God.

God has not yet revealed himself to him until we get to verse 7.

Verse 8.

And so uh it may be that you come to a room like this with some regularity and uh and and you things happen to you physically, right?

Maybe you're you got like a something in your chest.

It gets tight or you feel nervous, you feel and sometimes this this tightness, nervous, anxiousness, sometimes this is God uh saying your name.

And sometimes using your body to get to you.

A third way we uh we don't hear God is we just expectations.

Do you expect to hear from him?

You should come to this building, come in this room, and you should expect to hear from God.

You should you should have a something you write things down on.

You should not trust your brain.

If all you're doing is thinking you remember it, you don't expect to hear from him.

You don't.

If you expected to hear from God, you would not want to miss it.

You would not want to forget it, you would not want to misremember.

You should expect to hear from him.

You should expect to hear from him in your own personal time.

You should expect to hear from him uh not just with churchy stuff, not just Christian stuff.

You should expect to hear from him from your unsaved K your unsaved coworker who says something to you.

You should expect to hear from him and all the God speak, I'm listening.

Use everything in this world to be knowing and unknowing your mouthpiece.

Sometimes expectation is oh, I'm paying attention now.

I'm I'm I'm not numb now.

Here's a fourth thing we see in the text.

And one more thing, and then we're done.

Uh accept that the Lord does what he wants.

This is how we change spiritual numbness.

We get this in the last part of the text.

Eli says to Samuel, Samuel, my son, says, Here I am.

I hope you slept in that day.

What has he told you?

Don't hide it from me.

God would do more to you if you hide it from me.

So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing.

And he, Eli said, It's of the Lord.

Let him do what seems good to him.

Now, this let him, I don't want you to misunderstand this.

Like, this isn't let him like you're at the airport and the TAC agent, okay, give me your boarding pass, give me your ID, let me check, let me check, boop, scan the thing.

Okay, I'm letting you go through.

That's not the kind of let him we're talking about here.

This is let him, like if there's a uh a massive wild, angry rhinoceros, but just charging at you, but Eli's like, let him go, get out of the way, let him go.

Or you're gonna get squashed and killed.

And as this rhinoceros get closer, you say, Wait a minute, there's someone riding this thing.

And Jesus is riding this thing.

But it looks like Jesus, he's actually going to slay me.

Come get up.

And he gets closer, he power slides this thing.

He says, Hey, hop on.

I'm here to get you.

See, sometimes what we think is calamity is his way of rescuing.

What we think is destruction is his way of I'm shaking this thing up, I'm here to get you out of this.

I'm here to save you from yourself.

That's where we see this in the text in the Bible.

It says 2 Corinthians 9.

They're right.

Look, indeed, we felt that we had received a sentence of death.

But that was to make us not rely on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead.

You never have to ultimately fear what God will speak to you.

It may seem like the death sentence, being trampled by a rhinoceros.

But he's coming to rescue you.

He's coming to rescue you from yourself.

This is what we like to do at Grand Park.

We like to look at the text, take some observations.

We don't want to go too fast.

Remember, I said we we go too fast and we miss it.

So we're gonna take some minutes, let this sink in.

In fact, let God speak to you.

There's some uh Lindsay's gonna come and play just so it's not super silent and awkward.

But there'll be some questions on the screen.

You and do you have to read all of them?

Read one or two and just land there.

Holy Spirit speak to me through this.

Let's pray.

God, would you right now uh land on us in a way where a Holy Spirit just brewed on us and we feel what you want us to feel, we think what you want us to think.

We don't fear, we engage you.

Let's pray together.

Holy Spirit, we say speak, we're listening.

And we say, we want to say do it gently, but use everything at your disposal to get us to hear from you, to get us what's most needed.

And we know you have to you don't have to crash every dream of ours.

In fact, you want to use these to speak to us.

And so we say, we wave our hands.

Here I am.

We don't want to hide any longer.

Here I am.

Get your glory through me.

Amen.

We want you to be aware of uh what's going on in life of our church, and so we have a video.

Do we have a video?

We got a video.

Yes, of course we do.

Enjoy the video.

Here's what's happening at Graham Parkway Baptist Church.

Our next men's breakfast is Monday, May 6th.

Our speaker will be Matt Barnhill.

Matt is a trusted and respected counselor known for his thought-provoking insights.

Good morning, Graham Parkway.

My name is Steve with my wife Sabrina and our four boys, and we are your missionaries serving in the city of Lyon in a beautiful country called France.

I'm giving you a little update because we were sent out to church plan.

And so we've been a part of all the different steps of putting in place new churches around the city of Lyon.

But an opportunity has presented itself, and that's why I want you guys to listen closely.

And that opportunity is we are going to be running a weekend camp for kids and youth in one of our outreaches in the city of Boul.

We're gonna take the kids out of the city to a campsite about an hour and a half outside, where you, if you want to be a part of this team, can come and run the weekend for these kids.

You'll be in charge of running different activities, crafts, sports.

So I don't know if you enjoy that.

And also cleaning, doing the meals.

If you like flipping some hamburgers or uh doing all kinds of different fun American foods, we wanna just party with these kids who have not heard the gospel and just keep loving them.

And so I'm I'm asking, is there some of you that would like to come and be a part of that event?

Now, there will be other things also involved during the week: distribution, prayer walking, getting to see all the church plants.

So, in one sense, also understanding what we're doing here, and that way you can come back and share it with um your different groups in the church.

Now, the dates are the 6th through the 13th of October, 2025.

If you're interested, please, we'd love to have you come and serve.

Just know that from church planning, we go to families now to individuals.

This is an opportunity that we have to impact the community in the city of Holmes.

For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.

If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors or elders at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

Uh we we want you to be interested.

We want the bright people going.

That means an indelible pressure from the spirit.

This is for me to go.

Uh Neil said before, if if it's God's will, if He's if He's determining this, he'll find a way to make it happen.

He'll find a way to pay for all everything needs to.

Uh, this if you're a visitor, I want to welcome you.

I know Lindsay before.

Uh, it it uh if this is one of your first times here and you haven't we don't know about you yet and you want us to know about you, text uh what do we text you?

Text and welcome this number, and that'll let us know okay, you were here and you want us to, you're ready for us to reach out.

Uh, the rest of you, if this is the day you you worship God through giving, um, this is where the little boxes in the corner, that's where you take care of that.

Let's stand up and be dismissed.

We'd like to close our service by speaking a blessing.

Somebody speak a blessing over you.

The God of the universe, like the one and only God of the universe, sacrifice his son so we can speak to you in every way imaginable.

And it would be wild and dangerous and really.

So listen.

Enjoy, obey.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.