공동체와 양육

How to Return to God (1Sam 7:2-17)

2009.07.19Rev. Eddie Byun

Being lost is a matter of relationship with God, not geography, and we return to him by turning away from sin with all our hearts rather than merely regretting it. Repentance means changing direction, putting away idols, and making Christ both Savior and Lord of everything.

We are lost when we do not know our relationship with God

When I was a child, I was separated from my mother in a grocery store and was terrified. I did not fear because I did not know the place. I feared because I did not know where my parent was. Spiritually, we are lost when we do not know our relationship with the God who made us. Augustine said our hearts are restless until they rest in God, and that emptiness is often a sign that we have wandered. God's invitation to come home is a love letter from his heart to us.

Regret does not restore us; repentance turns us back to God (2-3)

For twenty years, the people of Israel mourned and sought the Lord, but they only felt bad about their sin and did little else. Regret does not restore our relationship with God, because feeling bad without a change of life changes nothing. Many of us regret sin mostly when we get caught. Repentance is not a bad word or a brick to throw at people. It literally means changing one's mind and going in a different direction. Romans tells us it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance, so we should respond by turning from sin to him.

Return with all your heart, put away idols, and serve Him only (3)

Verse 3 calls us to return to the Lord with all our hearts, making God alone our God. We can discover what our hearts truly long for by looking at our daily lives, whether in our work, our money, or our time. We must rid ourselves of foreign gods, meaning anything we love or trust more than God. We are to commit ourselves fully to the Lord, a word that carries the sense of a marriage vow in which our heart's affection is fixed on him alone. Serving him means worshiping him, and Christ must be either everything or nothing in our lives.

Put away idols and fast to show that we hunger for God (4-6)

The Israelites finally put away their foreign gods and served the Lord alone, moving from twenty years of remorse to action. Samuel gathered Israel at Mizpah, where they drew water and poured it out before the Lord, fasted, and confessed that they had sinned against the Lord. Fasting expresses our hatred of sin and our choice to hunger for God even above what we need to live. Samuel was called Israel's leader after he led God's people back to God, and that is the primary role of spiritual leadership.

Rely on God through wrestling prayer and worship in battle (7-10)

When the Philistines came to attack, Israel was afraid, and this shows that opposition comes when we return to God. Israel asked Samuel not to stop crying out to the Lord, and prayer is sometimes resting but sometimes wrestling for a breakthrough. While Samuel offered the burnt offering in worship, the Lord thundered against the Philistines and threw them into a panic. There is power in worship. When we worship, God's presence draws near and the enemy is pushed away, so we should worship even when we are in battle.

Sin must be killed, and we remember God's grace (11-12)

The men of Israel pursued the Philistines, and the sacrifice showed how costly sin is, since the wages of sin is death. Sin is not a pet to be tamed but a poison that must be killed before it kills us. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, and Jesus alone breaks the power of sin. Samuel set up the stone named Ebenezer, the same name as the place of Israel's earlier defeat, to show that God turns places of defeat into victories. We should keep remembrance stones, such as a journal, to recall God's faithfulness.

Apply to Life

  • Let us return to the Lord with all our hearts today.
  • Let us examine our daily lives and put away the idols that we love or trust more than God.
  • Let us make Christ our everything, honoring him as Lord and not only as Savior.
  • Let us stop keeping sin as a pet and walk away from the things that lure us into temptation.
  • Let us wrestle in prayer and worship the Lord, even when we are in battle.

This summary was made automatically from the sermon's captions and may differ from the sermon.

← 영어 예배(English Service) 목록