1 Samuel: From Eli to David, Four Models for Serving

Introduction

This message from Marcos Vidal, preached at Iglesia Salem in Madrid, is part of a series on role models, under the theme "with unveiled face." Its title is "From Eli to David." Rather than looking at just two figures, like Paul and Timothy or Elijah and Elisha, he takes four leaders of Israel who passed the baton to one another: Eli, Samuel, Saul and David.

This passage is about change. "When God brings changes, it is always uncomfortable," the preacher says, but it is God who reveals what time it is, and it is up to us to recognize it and accept it. Those changes almost always come through people.

His model is Jesus. God's anointing rested on him, and yet he invested in others. In John 13 to 17, facing the cross, he still speaks to his disciples about joy, peace and unity. Marcos Vidal admits that his generation mostly understood that we had to be heroes for the Lord. But there comes a time when God asks you to invest in others, so that they in turn do what the Lord wants for them. To be blessed, and to be a blessing.

Outline of the Message

1. Eli, the One Who Guides

Eli is high priest at Shiloh and judged Israel for forty years. He descends from Aaron through Ithamar, and not through Eleazar as was customary. Flavius Josephus suggests that he took the place of a priest who was unable to serve, but the Bible does not say how that change came about.
Eli is not an example to follow. He is "a theorist": he knows his role, but his life does not match what he knows. He tolerates the seriously abusive behavior of his sons, keeps them in the ministry and does not purify the altar. He lacks zeal for the house of God and settles into spiritual complacency. He resembles the Pharisees of whom Jesus said: do what they say, but do not do what they do.
Yet in 1 Samuel 3:1-9, when "word from Yahweh was rare," Eli understands that it is God who is calling the boy. He tells him: "Go, lie down. It shall be, if he calls you, that you shall say, 'Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears.'" He had not forgotten that God speaks. In the same way, with Hannah, whom he first takes for a drunken woman, he ends up listening to her and guiding her.
A pastor whom Marcos Vidal admires once confided in him: the hardest thing is neither preaching nor teaching, it is being consistent every day with the faith you hold. We all struggle with consistency.
He remembers a math teacher at his evangelical school, under Franco, who would lose patience and let curses slip. A classmate from an atheist family called out: "Evangelicals don't swear, do they?" The teacher answered that there are two kinds of evangelicals, the good ones and the bad ones, and that he was one of the bad ones. Marcos Vidal was proud of him: that man knew how to say "Don't look at me, look at someone else."
Eli breaks two opposite mistakes: the pride of the one who thinks he is infallible because of his position, and the self-disqualification of the one who says "I'm surely not good enough for that." "Just because you haven't given everything doesn't mean God is finished with you."

2. Samuel, the One Who Obeys

When it is time to pass the baton, Samuel has to face rejection. The elders come to him at Ramah: "Behold, you are old, and your sons don't walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (1 Samuel 8:4-7).
The king is neither God's idea nor Samuel's. It is the answer to an unhealthy request from the people. God tells Samuel: "They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me." And yet everything moves forward, ordered and sustained by God.
The preacher pauses on a small phrase: "I don't have peace." We have sometimes turned God's peace into a kind of certificate guaranteeing that we are doing his will. Samuel did not have peace when he anointed Saul, nor when he went to anoint David: "How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me" (1 Samuel 16:2). God gives him clear instructions, and all Samuel has to do is obey.
Confronting someone, telling your children what they do not want to hear, opening your home to a group, joining in evangelism, inviting someone to watch The Chosen: none of this necessarily brings peace. God does not need your permission, and he is not obliged to make you feel peace.
His advice: "Forget God's peace before you obey his word." Peace comes after obedience. If everything God asks of you pleases you and matches your nature, "who is following whom? Who is obeying whom?" Often, "I don't have peace" means "I don't like this at all."
We see it in Moses, in Jeremiah, and in Jesus: "If it is possible, let this cup pass away from me" (Matthew 26:39). "God's will is not obliged to please me, but I am responsible for obeying what he tells me."

3. Saul, the One Who Clings

Saul is a leader who cannot stand the growth of others. When the women sing, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands," he becomes irritated, eyes David with suspicion and throws his spear to pin him to the wall (1 Samuel 18:7-12).
His tragedy is not only that he lost the kingdom: he lets bitterness take root, and fear rules his conduct. "Saul was afraid of David, because Yahweh was with him, and was departed from Saul."
His identity was in the kingdom. If he stopped being king, he lost everything. Samuel, by contrast, can anoint Saul and then David, and keeps serving until the end of his days, because his identity is not in his position.
At the beginning, Saul was humble: he had hidden, and Samuel had to look for him. Once he was king, he clings to his place and leaves room for no one. When God does something new, he cannot rejoice in it. He sees it as a personal threat.
The lesson: "When what I do for Christ becomes my identity, more important than who I am in him, I have a problem." You sing, you play an instrument, you serve with the children, at the welcome desk, on the sound team, you visit the sick: why do you do it? "I do it out of love for Jesus. I do it because he saved me and my life belongs to him." If you stop, you are no less in his eyes.
Paul shows this with the body (1 Corinthians 12). Marcos Vidal imagines a meeting of the members: the foot wants to be the head, it admires the eyes, the eyes envy the mouth. If everyone gets what they want, there is no body anymore. Each member has its function, with no superiority or inferiority. You need to understand the value of the place God has entrusted to you and serve faithfully there.

4. David, the One Who Waits

In 1 Samuel 24 and 26, David has two chances to kill Saul and speed up his arrival on the throne. His men urge him on: "Behold, the day of which Yahweh said to you, 'Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand.'" David answers: "Yahweh forbid that I should stretch out my hand against Yahweh's anointed!" (1 Samuel 26:11)
Yet David's reign was God's will: a king after his heart, what the people needed. Precisely for that reason, David knows he does not need to destroy Saul: all he has to do is wait for God.
"Woe to the one who does not know how to wait," and who goes off to battle because he has the anointing, talent or a vision. Even Jesus did not step into the arena until John gave the signal and the Father's voice said: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
Even when you know that God has something prepared for you, that does not give you the right to destroy the one who still occupies the place you are called to. When a person in authority over you has shortcomings, you have to decide what kind of servant you want to be.

5. God Draws His Line Through Imperfect People

None of these men had perfect circumstances. Samuel knew failure: he anointed a king who turned out to be a fiasco. People could have said to him: "What voice did you hear?" But he got back up and anointed David.
David, the great model, had the episode with Bathsheba, Uriah the Hittite and Nathan. The Bible does not hide it, and yet it calls him a man after God's own heart.
Maybe you have not been the father, the teacher or the leader you wanted to be. You can still look to Jesus. "We are not more Christian because we have reached some form of perfection." And even with what is still to be transformed, God wants to use you to guide and help others.
When God tells Abraham "Walk before me, and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1), and when Jesus says "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48), it is not about walking without mistakes, but about an unbroken relationship with God, exposed to his light in order to be transformed.
Father, mother, child, grandparent, at the height of professional success or laid off, with or without a home, with or without citizenship: no one is outside this calling. "But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Key Takeaways

Eli did not have his house in order, but he knew how to guide Samuel to listen to God. God is not finished with you.
God's peace is not a certificate you need beforehand: it comes after obedience.
When what you do for Christ becomes your identity, you end up clinging to your place and seeing others as a threat.
Knowing that God has prepared something for you does not give you the right to force the timing or to bring down the one who is in place.
God uses imperfect people to bless others. Being a model means staying exposed to his light.

Personal Application

Do you disqualify yourself by telling yourself you are not good enough to guide someone toward God?
Is there something God has asked of you that you keep putting off because "you don't have peace"? Is it really a lack of peace, or simply that you do not like it?
Why do you serve in church? What would be left of your identity if you stopped tomorrow?
How do you react when God makes someone else grow beside you?
Faced with the shortcomings of a person in authority over you, what kind of servant do you decide to be?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What can we learn from Eli, a priest who is not an example to follow?

Marcos Vidal acknowledges that Eli did not manage to put his own house in order. Yet he knew how to guide the young Samuel to listen to God: "Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears." This breaks two mistakes: the pride of the one who thinks he is infallible, and the disqualification of the one who thinks he will never be good enough.

Do we have to wait to feel peace before obeying God?

For Marcos Vidal, no. Samuel did not feel peace when he anointed Saul, nor when he went to anoint David. What God asks does not have to give us peace first: God's peace comes after obedience. Often, "I don't have peace" means "I don't like this."

Why did David refuse to kill Saul?

In 1 Samuel 24 and 26, David has two chances to kill Saul, and his men push him to do it. He answers that he will not lay a hand on Yahweh's anointed. Even when you know that God has prepared something for you, that does not give you the right to destroy the one who still occupies the place: you have to wait for God's timing.