Study Guide
I'm Listening
What if the voice of God didn't have to feel foreign but familiar? At Newbreak, we believe God’s invitation isn’t just for a select few—He wants to speak directly to every heart that’s willing to listen. Ready to discover what could happen when you finally hear what He’s saying to you today? Listen in as Newbreak Church gives us practical encouragement to hear God's voice today and every day!
Newbreak’s Sermon Study Guide is an in-house resource that serves sermon-based Life Groups and/or individuals who want to reflect further on how the message contributes to their spiritual formation.
Read 1 Samuel 3:1-9 (CSB)
Position yourself wisely to hear God more clearly.
Before we jump into David’s story, it’s important to understand the historical backdrop and meet an important figure who played a key role in David’s life. This week’s study paints the picture of what life in Israel was like leading up to David’s arrival. Israel was living in a period known as “the Judges.”
This several hundred-year epoch of time was the textbook definition of insanity, with each generation failing to learn from the previous one, falling into the exact same cycle: Relaxed obedience to God’s ways... Rebellion against God... Ruin and turmoil from surrounding enemies... Desperate cries out to God for help... Rescue from God’s mighty hand... and shortly after the celebration ends, the cycle repeats.
By the time we step into the history as recorded in the book we call “1 Samuel,”the atmosphere feels heavy, hopeless, and void of godly leadership. The nation’s spiritual leaders, men like Hophni and Phinehas, were corrupt to the core—priests who treated God’s offerings with contempt and exploited the people for their own gain (1 Samuel 2:12-36).
In 1 Samuel 1, we are introduced to Samuel, a special boy who was dedicated to the Lord by his mother as a baby. In 1 Samuel 3, Samuel, now a young man, was living in the house of the Lord. It was here, in the darkness of night, that God began to call to Samuel while he was lying in the temple of the Lord (vs.3-4). Since Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord (vs.7), Samuel thought it was Eli the high priest calling to him. After two more times of God calling Samuel, Eli realized that it was the Lord who was trying to get Samuel’s attention and encouraged him to open himself up to God’s voice (8-9).
It’s important for each of us to learn how to discern the voice of God. For Samuel, he was young in his faith journey and didn’t yet know God’s voice when speaking to him. Eli gave him the best advice he could receive: “speak, for your servant is listening.” Hearing the voice of God in our lives begins with an openness and desire to hear God speak. God speaks to us in a variety of ways:
- HIS WORD: 2 TIMOTHY 3:16
- HIS SPIRIT: JOHN 14:26
- HIS PEOPLE: PROVERBS 11:14
- HIS CREATION: ROMANS 1:20
As God persists in speaking, we must persist in listening. This discipline requires us to create space and time in our life for God to speak. It also challenges us to quiet the cacophony of sounds in our lives (our stress, our fears, our busyness) so that we can distance what his gentle and quiet voice is speaking to our hearts.
Read 1 Samuel 3:10-21 (CSB)
When God speaks, we must respond.
Once Samuel realized it was God’s voice speaking to him, he faced a choice: Would he open himself up to God, or close himself off and live on his own terms? We might think the answer to that question is easy. “If God spoke to me like He spoke to Samuel, I’d drop everything and do what He said!” But the truth is that Samuel—just like us—had to make a real decision to respond to God’s call or not.
In verses 11–14, God told Samuel that He was about to judge Eli and his family for their wickedness. Eli’s sons had openly disobeyed God, and Eli had let it continue. Now God’s judgment was coming. That was a hard message to deliver, but Samuel didn’t shrink back from sharing what God had told him (vv.17–18). Samuel could have allowed fear of Eli’s response to stop him from sharing the message but he didn’t! Instead, he learned at an early stage to not allow fear of man to control how obedient he was to God’s calling on his life.
Whenever God speaks to us—about our lives, our jobs, our finances, our comfort, or our willingness to give ourselves in any way—we face the same choice: Will we respond with an open and obedient heart, or will we close ourselves off to His plans? This was an important lesson for Samuel to learn early in life, and it set the stage for his role as a prophet and leader of Israel (vv.18–21). As Samuel grew, so did his influence. His obedience in this moment became the foundation for a lifetime of following God into the unknown and living an adventure of faith.
And the same is true for us. When we choose to obey and do what the Lord asks, the adventure of faith takes off. Once you say “yes” to God, you never know where He will lead you!
Current Sermon Series
In this series, we’ll journey through the remarkable life of David — shepherd, poet, warrior, king, and wholehearted worshiper of God. From humble beginnings in obscurity to the heights of leading a nation, David’s story is one of both triumphs and trials. We’ll see him dodge javelins hurled by a jealous king, hide in caves as a fugitive, and stand boldly before giants like Goliath — and through it all, God’s faithfulness shaping a man after His own heart and showing us what He can do through a willing life.