Everyone has a cell phone, right? In fact, if you DON'T - first of all, way to go; I respect the heck outta you! Secondly, raise your hand proudly. These things are now such a huge part of life, it's kinda scary. Now, for those who DO have a cell phone ,how many of you have had that cell phone that recently did an update? A little inconvenient, right? It seems like every time I turn around, my phone is telling me there's a new update available. And apparently, this update is going to make my phone faster, safer, smarter, and improve the quality of my life!

HOWEVER, when I do all the things you gotta do to get the update, when my phone restarts, everything pretty much looks the same - except they've moved three buttons and now I can't figure out how to set my alarm!

And it's not just our phones. Computers are constantly updating, too. You sit down at the computer to get some work done, and Windows announces that it's time for an update. And it doesn't ASK - it just tells you, "This may take a while." And suddenly what was working five minutes ago will be unavailable for the next 2 hours, it seems.

Software updates are only part of the problem. Every year, the companies that make these things announce that they've developed something even better. There's a new phone, a new computer, a new tv, a new smartwatch. And each new model comes with features that apparently make the one we bought last year hopelessly inadequate.

But wait - my phone was FINE yesterday. It made calls. It sent messages. It took pictures. It gave me directions. I could get online with it. So why do I NEED an upgrade? It's because they TELL me I need one. Did you know there's actually a term for the idea that products are designed or marketed with a limited useful lifespan. It's called planned obsolescence. We are living in a culture where products are more easily replaced than repaired, where newer models are constantly being introduced, EVEN IF THE OLD MODEL STILL WORKS.

Now I bring that up because if we're not careful, this upgrade mindset - the "I need the 2.0 or the 3.0" way of thinking - influences the way we think about everything, even our relationship with God. What do I mean?

The story we're looking at today has two interesting bookends. These bookends are two names. Now, names are funny things. Parents can spend an enormous amount of time deciding what to name a child. You want something you both like, something that sounds good with the last name, something meaningful, and preferably something the child won't spend the rest of his life having to explain or be teased about.

Every year the Social Security Administration releases a list of the most popular baby names in America. We don't have the official list for 2026 yet because, apparently, they insist on letting the year finish before they count all the babies. But the most recent list tells us that the most popular names for boys include Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, and Henry. For girls, it's Olivia, Charlotte, Emma, Amelia, and Sophia.

Those are good names. Solid names. Names you can imagine being used on a playground without feeling that you've made a horrible mistake.

Of course, choosing a name at times is complicated because of a bad experience one of the parents had. “How about Frank?” “Absolutely not." “Why not?” “I knew a Frank in high school.”

Apparently Frank did something so terrible in 1985 that the name is now permanently banned from the family bloodline! My daughter teaches first grade and refuses to name a child anything with an X in it. Why? Because names carry associations, memories. They carry history and experience.

In the Bible, names oftentimes carry meaning. Abraham's name tells a story. Isaac's name - "Laughter," reminds us of joy at the arrival of a long-awaited son. Jacob wrestles with God and becomes Israel. Jesus is given a name that means “Jehovah saves,” because, as the angel told Joseph, “He will save his people from their sins.” So at times a name doesn't merely identify you; sometimes a name tells a story, and again, the story we're looking at today is bookended by two names. One of them belongs to a baby. The other one belongs to a rock.

Now, neither one made the Social Security Administration's top ten. The baby is named Ichabod. The rock is named Ebenezer. Two very literary names, right? Unusual names for our time, for sure. But those two names tell us the whole story we're going to look at today.

I have a confession to make. I TEND to ignore the lights on my dashboard - probably because I can't tell you what half of these lights mean. And turns out lights can stay on for a long time before bad things happen - at least in my experience... 🙂Now, you probably know that there are certain lights on the dashboard of your car that you can ignore for a little while. The little light that tells you the windshield washer fluid is low? You can probably make it home. The light reminding you that it's time for an oil change? You probably don't need to pull over immediately. And because of that, I kind of operate with that same attitude for all lights.

People with more common sense than I have know that on the other hand, there are some lights that come on that you really shouldn't ignore. Oil pressure. Engine temperature. Brake warning. When one of those lights comes on, the smartest thing you can do is pay attention. But that's not what I do.

Now to my credit I've never done what I know some people do. There are some, if the light really bothers them, they just put a little piece of electrical tape over it. Problem solved!

You understand, right? HOWEVER - the issue was never the LIGHT, was it? In fact, you could even say that the light was actually an act of mercy. That little light was trying to tell you that something was wrong before something much worse happened. The warning wasn't there to ruin your day. The warning was there to save your engine—or perhaps even save your life.

And sometimes I wonder if we misunderstand the warnings of God in exactly the same way. We read a passage of Scripture and it makes us uncomfortable. Someone who loves us confronts us about something. Our conscience begins bothering us. The Holy Spirit presses upon an area of our lives that we would really rather leave alone. And our first reaction is sometimes, “I wish that feeling would go away.” But what if the warning itself is mercy? What if conviction is one of God's gifts? Because there comes a point when the warning light has been ignored for so long that the warning gives way to consequences.

And that's where we are when we come to 1 Samuel 3. We have been watching this story unfold in our series, The Rise of a King, and we have already seen that something is terribly wrong in Israel.