The Religion of the Experts

A sermon preached by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, April 18, 2004

Ours is a country in which we have become very acquainted with many religions.  The ones that come to mind very quickly, of course are Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam.  If I were going to describe the favorite religion of the United States of America, I might be inclined to call it Expertism.  Everybody depends upon experts.  It is a nation of expert seeking. 

Talk shows when something happens bring in the experts.  If you have a health crisis, a special health problem, you are sent to a specialist who is apt to send you to another specialist; experts, experts.  Experts on the family, on child bearing, on child rearing, on parents, on teenagers, marriage, money, retirement, on the economy, on legal matters, on physical fitness, on nutrition. 

They’re now analyzing are the experts the number of carbohydrates we consume everyday.  They done quit preaching and gone to meddling!  Carbs are the nutritional enemy du jour.  What guilt producers these are!  Be honest with me.  All of you who are over 40, have you really enjoyed a dessert lately? 

Now you see, all of this Expertism as a secular religion in our country goes cross grain against what the gospel is about.  Because, as far as the gospel is concerned and as far as the New Testament is concerned, they’re aren’t any experts.  We’re all only beginners when it comes to really understanding what God is about in our lives.  Anybody here who would like to stand up and say, “I have achieved all I ever want to achieve spiritually?”  You see, it’s like Henry Nouwen who wrote so many books on prayer and is thought to be a spiritual giant of the last century.  He wrote a little book and he summed it up at the end by saying, “We will never be anything but beginners.” 

Spiritually speaking we’re rookies.  I am and you are.  And if we get out of that we’re going to become Pharisees; putting other people and what they believe through some kind of a filter.  But here’s the problem: in the religion of Expertism, those who serve you, like the preacher, the minister of music, and others, are looked upon as the experts.  Now, if you were to ask any one of us, we would deny that. But the truth is, we are looked upon as being the professionals.  As being the ones who know how.  Well, I’m going to try to tear that apart.  I think we have had a parable before us this morning that would suggest this is not the case. 

Thirty-one of our people are about the high and holy task of leading us in spiritual obedience.  They are looking at various areas of the church life and not a one of them is a religious vocational person.  They’re all laypersons; some are retired, but they’re now lay persons.  Now, if that’s true and we’ve had laypersons act out in front of us that they’re really aren’t any experts.  Is there a scriptural basis for that? 

I’m going to turn and look at that story of Samuel.  If you’ve been raised in a Sunday school you’ve heard this story many times.  Hopefully, you’ll see it through some dimensions that you may have overlooked.  There are three characters in the story.  But the situation is described as, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare and there were not many visions.”  Another way to translate that is – the people had no vision.  Without a vision, the people perished.  With a vision, people flourish.  It was a day, you see, when Israel was enjoying putting down roots and being relatively peaceful.  They were no longer in bondage in Egypt.  They were no longer trekking across the desert to the land of promise.  They were not involved of the conquest of the land that God gave to Abraham.  The 12 tribes had each been given their plot of territory, just like the 13 colonies when we settled in America.  Now they’re ready to just kind of be themselves, be at peace and you know what they did?  They delegated religion to the professionals.  Like Eli.

Verse 2, “One night Eli whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see,” it happened way back then too friends!  For all of you, okay?  “He was lying down in his usual place and the lamp of God had not yet gone out.” 

Let me tell you about the lamp of God.  In Exodus, Moses was commanded by God to put a lamp in the Holy place near the veil that separated the Holy place from the Holy of Holies.  Near the sacrificial altar and that was to be lit in the evening and burned all through the night until daylight as a symbol to the fact that God does not sleep and that the light of God can be seen anytime of the day.  And the lamp of God was not yet gone out so it was early morning.  Samuel was lying down in the Temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was and the Lord called to Samuel. 

Let’s talk about Eli before we get to Samuel.  Eli was a good priest.  He was a professional.  He was an expert.  Ask him anything about the temple and he could have told you, anything about sacrifice and he could have told you, anything about the tabernacle and he could have told you.  He could have told you what it meant and how it symbolized. 

Let me ask you a question.  Why didn’t God go to Eli and give him the message? The professional.  Why didn’t he go to the one who knew everything about the tabernacle?  Hmmm…that’s God.  You see, you can look through the Bible and you’re going to find that the professionals don’t play a very big role, not the experts, the laypersons. Like these that were before you this day.  Moses, Abraham, were herdsman.  David was a Shepherd King.  Isaiah was a statesman.  A tender of sycamore trees is the way they described Amos.  In the New Testament, Peter, James and John and Andrew were fisherman.  Matthew a tax collector. Later on, you will find that Barnabas was in real estate.  The Apostle Paul had Rabbinical training, but he earned his living by tent making.  I can make a case for the fact that any major turn God’s going to make, he’s going to do it through laypersons, not through the experts.

Now I love to preach.  I hope it shows.  But I’m going to tell you something.  Faith can’t be done for anybody but the person singularly who is involved in it.  You can’t do faith for another person.  I can’t “faith it” for you.  For me, yes. Not for you.  That’s the way God made it.  In an expert nation, with the religion of Expertism, we are used to taking things to an expert to get our answers, but in Biblical spirituality, you go to God to get your answers and you get with other people who are part of God’s work and you pray together.  But ultimately, the answer has to come to you and through you.  That’s what happens in the story of Samuel.

Let’s talk about little old Samuel.  He wound up in the temple because his mother as childless and in that day and time that was just a humiliation beyond imagination.  She prayed and she prayed and finally God answered her prayer and she dedicated to her firstborn, she later had other children, she dedicated her firstborn to the Lord and took him to the temple where he grew up. 

You know, there’s an “about” in Samuel’s life, just like there is in yours and mine.  It says in verse 7, “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord.”  Whoops!  That’s huge.  I mean, he’s grown up in the temple.  He knows everything about that temple.  He knows every place things are put.  What they mean.  Eli has doubtless told him, this, this, this, this and it said, “Samuel did not know the Lord.” 

There’s a great deal of difference between knowing about what the Lord is doing and knowing the Lord.  There’s a great chasm there.  Ask yourself, is my knowledge about Christianity mainly about what we believe, about what has happened, about what we’re doing? Or is your relationship with God so personal you realize it isn’t about God, it is God.  And that God as He came in Jesus Christ the Lord is opening up, that’s my job by the way, to open things up so that the faithing that’s going on inside of you as you’re doing faith has the possibility of taking root and letting the Holy Spirit come in. 

Samuel hears something he thinks is Eli.  Twice he goes into Eli and says, “Here I am.”  “I didn’t call you.” The third time Eli does a very interesting thing.  He turns from an expert, are you ready for this – to an equipper. 

Eli says to Samuel, “The next time you hear that here’s what you answer, “Speak Lord” (this is verse 9). Eli told Samuel, “go and lie down and if he calls you say, ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.’” 

Well the Lord came and he spoke and the Lord and Samuel connected.  For the first time.  Like these young men who were baptized this morning.  There’s a difference between knowing about the Bible and knowing about Jesus and connecting with Jesus and all of the sudden being one with the Savior.

Now let’s talk about God.  He’s the third person in the story.  Don’t miss this.  Samuel doesn’t seek out God; God seeks out Samuel.  God in the Bible is the great initiator.  He’s the one who invades, is the one who comes, is the one who communicates, what a great difference Biblical faith is from for example Buddhism or Hinduism where it is basically a human being trying to find his way to God or Nirvana or whatever.  It’s just descriptive, not critical, it’s to make a distinction. 

You see, in the scripture, we believe God is the God who is continually coming.  He’s knocking on the door, trying to find an opening and he comes to Samuel and he calls him by name.  Are you willing to accept the fact that the Lord knows your name?  The scripture says, “The Lord knoweth those who are His and He calls them by name.” “Samuel, Samuel.”

The Lord’s calling you by name right now.  What’s He telling you?  Are you listening?  You say, well, you know, I’ve been away from the church a long time.  Besides that, I wasn’t raised in a religious home, my parents seldom went, I wasn’t ever into religion, I know I’m empty and I need something, but I don’t have any background for it.  I have a story to tell you.

Some weeks ago I told you about George Mueller.  He lived in the 1800’s.  He was an incredible man.  He studied eventually in the school of theology.  Almost self-taught, he learned six languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and English.  Anybody here speak all six of those?  So he was a remarkable guy, right?  But his real heart wasn’t in linguistics; his real heart was in children and especially the children of the poor. 

He started day schools for the poor children and orphanages for those who were deserving.  By 1885, there were 2,000 children every single weekday who were cared for, educated, under the care of Christian teachers and the amazing thing, he never took up an offering, never had a pledge campaign.  Never took up an offering?  Obviously he wasn’t a Baptist!  As a matter of fact, he never ever asked anybody for money.  He prayed about it.  A need would come up and he would get down on his knees and he would pray and he would believe God would answer it and the need would be answered. 

Now, I’ve always looked at George Mueller as kind of a different league than I am and then reading some of his writings I came across a quote that has come to mean so much to me.  As a matter of fact, I read it sometime ago.  He said, “The first and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.  The first thing to be concerned about is not how much I might serve the Lord, not even how much I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished.” 

That makes all kinds of sense to me and it probably will to you if you think about it.  Whatever your vocation, whatever your job, homemaker, school teacher, businessperson, professional person, when your heart is happy inside, when your heart is happy in the Lord, your vocation is probably a privilege.  But when it’s not, it’s a drudgery, a duty.  “No wonder,” he said, “this is the first thing that has to happen.”

Well, I used that some weeks ago and the next week one of our finest came up to me and said, “My girls heard your sermon and they’ve been reading about George Mueller and they have a question.”  I said, “Okay, what is that?”  “Why did you leave out the best part?”  Wow, they were listening!  “Why did you leave out the best part?”  I said, “Well, hmmm, I didn’t know I did.  Tell me what the best part is.”  She said, “You don’t know?”  I said, “I’m sorry.”  “George Mueller,” she said, “started from being a criminal.  He started from prison.”  I said, “I didn’t know that.”  You see, I hadn’t read the biography, I had read his writings and all of the sudden it just overwhelmed me. 

How like God!  He takes something that is just incredibly difficult like being a criminal and someone transforms them, turns them into a guiding light for the poor in London.  Almost two centuries later, He comes and speaks to this preacher who finds out he started from a jail cell. 

Friend, I don’t care where you’re starting from, here’s the question.  The Lord is coming to you, are you listening? That’s what it’s all about.  He knows your name.  He knows where he wants to take you.  He wants to write a script for your life that is so much more exciting than the one you could write.  Are you listening?