THE MAIN IDEA
Christ is our Helper when we are found in Christ.

HELP COMES WHEN WE RETURN TO THE LORD
Samuel tells us what it means to  return to the Lord. First, we must rid ourselves of idols. Idolatry is “treating anything as more  important than Jesus Christ for your meaning in life, for your happiness, for your security and  hope, or for your self-regard” (Tim Keller). We ought to examine our hearts every day and lay them down at the feet of our Lord. Second, we must commit ourselves to the Lord. Commitment  to Jesus and His church should be a conscientious effort, not based on our mood or our  convenience. Third, we must serve Jesus Christ and Him only. “God is most glorified in us when  we are most satisfied in Him” (John Piper). But being most satisfied in Christ is not natural for  us because of sin. We should not wait for our problems to become unbearable before we return to  the Lord. Instead, we should make every effort to align our thinking and behaving and even our  feeling to being most satisfied in Christ Jesus so that God may be most glorified in us. 

HELP COMES WHEN WE CRY OUT TO THE LORD
The problem for Israel was the  oppression of the Philistines. But after they returned to the Lord, God did not simply make their  problem disappear. God does not usually work like that. In fact, in our passage, the problem  facing the Israelites got worse. But there was no turning back for the Israelites, and so they called  on Samuel to intercede for them. Today, we don’t need priests like Samuel to sacrifice a burnt  offering to atone for our sins, because Jesus Christ has done that once for all (Hebrews 10:10). And because of Christ’s sacrifice, we have a direct line of communication with God through  prayer. We don’t need a Samuel to cry out to God on our behalf, although we should pray for  one another. And so, we ought to pray to God all the time, but especially when troubles come  and we feel like we are going to drown in them. Because of sin, troubles will come whether  someone is a believer or not. But the difference is that in Christ we are righteous, and the  righteous cry out to the Lord. And His promise is that He will always answer our prayers, and He  will always deliver us from our troubles because we are in Christ (Psalm 34:17). 

HELP COMES WHEN WE RESPOND TO THE LORD
After returning to the Lord, the  situation got worse! The Philistines were provoked into attacking them, and so Israel was afraid.  But even though they were afraid, they did not back down. Instead, they called on Samuel to  intercede for them. And not only did they not back down because of fear, the Israelites responded  by going out and fighting the battle. The Christian life is not a passive life of praying for help  and then just receiving help from the LORD. Oswald Chambers famously said, “We cannot do  what only God can do, and He will not do what we can.” Ultimately what matters is the help of  our Lord. Without His help, what hope could we have in this world? But we must also  understand that the body of Christ is at the center of God’s plan of salvation for the world in  Christ Jesus. And the body of Christ is never meant to be a passive body. And so God has told us  quite clearly in His word what it is that He would have us to do. The LORD would have us to fill  the earth with His glory of in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God worshiping, God-loving communities and families, which is the church. And we do that by  stepping into our relationship with Christ, stepping up to build up His church, and stepping out to bear witness to Jesus Christ in this world. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION

• Believers: What prayers has God answered with “yes”

• Nonbelievers: What prayers would you want God to answer for you?