What gives you a sense of security?

What gives you a sense of security?

Is it money? Money in the bank, investments, property? 

For me, sometimes it hard to tell how much I’ve come to depend on money for security. The Bible promotes storing provision for future needs, and, at the same time, warns against looking to the stores of money or food or property as our hope or our security. 

I find it to be a very fine line between biblical wisdom and false dependance in my own heart. 

I remember when we were first married and we had little or no money. Some days we filled up our car with gas using the change jar because it would be a few days before we had enough money in the checking account. 

But we weren’t afraid. At least that's not how I remember it. I didn’t put my security in money back then. But I think the temptation back then was to put my security in our talents and abilities to figure it out as we went along. And there was a certain youthful naiveté. 

This security question is important to God. 

He wants us and calls us to depend on him and find our security in him all the time, even if we have money and talent or a strong family that can help take care of us. 

Why he wants that—why it’s so important to him—and why it should be important to us is really the subject of this weekend's sermon. 

The people of Israel demand a king in 1 Samuel 8. That's our passage for the service. 

The problem God has with demanding a king is often misunderstood. He has no problem with the request itself. 

The problem for God is found this question of in whom or what we place our security. 

What gives you a sense of security? The God who designed you, who made you in his image, and who loves you dearly, wants you to get this right.

Come to the weekend service and bring a friend who needs assurance of God's care.

If you want to hear from God...

If we want to hear from God, we need to learn to discern his voice.

God speaks primarily through his Word, the Scripture, but the words are just ink on a page or helpful information until God speaks to our hearts, aiming for transformation.

One way we learn to discern God's voice is through others. We learn from those who listen well.

That's what happens in 1 Samuel 3. Eli helps Samuel discern God's voice.

In reality, a lot of people try to go it alone in their faith. It takes a certain measure of self awareness and emotional intelligence to recognize that we need others in order to listen well to God. That we can't trust ourselves. 

Reflection is also required because life is loud. And busy. We have to stop to listen. 

And we don't stop and listen unless we expect God to speak. Expectation matters. 

But we can also detect a pattern in the Bible--God expects us to act on what we hear and share it with others or he goes quiet. 

Samuel proves faithful and God continues to speak to him throughout his life. For the first time since Moses, he is a prophet over all Israel. 

Larry Osborne calls this pattern "The Dimmer Switch Principle": If we obey the light we have, God gives us more. If we disobey, he gives us less.

No one today is a prophet in the way Samuel served as a prophet over Israel, but God still speaks to us, and he wants us to do what he says and share what he says with others. 

So we share it at home, with our friends, as families, in our schools, and in our workplaces. 

We have been entrusted with his message. 

Promised Land - Week 13 from Five Oaks Church on Vimeo.