Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Can't say it's a joy to be together.
[00:00:09] Feel like I'm locked into that now, but it is, it's wonderful to be with you guys.
[00:00:14] Good morning, church family.
[00:00:17] I love when we get to hang out. I love when we get to hang out. You guys, you guys are my favorite people. Seriously. It is such a, a joy and a privilege to share our life and pursue Christ together.
[00:00:30] We are continuing our series today in the book of First Samuel.
[00:00:35] So if you have a Bible with you, if you want to open it up to 1st Samuel chapter one, that's where we're going to be today. If you weren't here last week, we actually have a gift for you. We bought some copies of the csb. The translation we preach out of has these journal Bibles where individual books of the Bible you go through in one page of Scripture and one page is a journal page for you to write notes on. We have one of those for each of you. If you didn't grab one, I think there's a little pile of them over at the welcome table. That is our gift to you because our hope is that you would, you would engage in this book outside of Sunday morning, that you would dig in and take notes and put your prayers and your thoughts not just from Sunday sermons, but from your own time in the Word. And that we would be able to see what God is doing in our midst as a church family as we work our way through this. So first and Second Samuel is one book.
[00:01:29] We divide them up separately. And there's an interesting and simultaneously nerdy and boring historical reason for that. Just just in case you're curious. So we don't have to keep coming back to it or so you don't have to Google it. It's because of the size of scrolls, right? These books were written before there was such a thing as books. And scrolls came in standard lengths. And so books were divided up based on how they fit on scrolls. An interesting piece of trivia that goes along with that. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Mark is about half the size of Matthew, Luke and John because those were two scroll books and Mark was a one scroll book. That's how they used to store books back then. And some of the editing that went into finishing books had to do with making sure it fit on the appropriate amount of scrolls to save money.
[00:02:16] It's kind of a weird thing. So first and Second Samuel, one book originally, we're going to be going through them for a good amount of time. And last week we started out on our first series Our first small series within Samuel that we're calling faithful. We're talking about the faithfulness of God, and we're also talking about what it means for us as human beings pursuing a life of faith to actually hold on to that in the midst of a world that is so full of chaos and so full of suffering and so full of pain. One of the themes we will see in all of Samuel, but really especially in these first seven chapters, is just how easy it is to lose faith in the midst of suffering, in the midst of hardship, in the midst of pain. It's an easy thing. It's a natural thing.
[00:03:04] And what I think you guys will find as we dig through this is the beauty of the gospel reminds us that when we are faithless, he is faithful. We can rest in the faithfulness of our Lord, even when we're hurting, even when we're struggling. One of the things I love about studying Old Testament books is that when we get into them culturally and historically, they're so separate from us, they're so other from us. But a lot of times you get to pieces where you just go, that is so weird. I do not understand it at all.
[00:03:33] That's a lot of the Old Testament is you have to stop and do some work to really dig through the context. So praise the Lord that we have pastors that can walk alongside us and help us do that. Right. But what I think is so wonderful about the Old Testament books and studying them is that I find consistently when you do the work of actually cutting through kind of the fog of those historical and cultural differences, what you find is that our brothers and sisters who came before us are much more similar to us than they are different from us.
[00:04:03] The things that unite us together, the things that make us humanity, are much. There's many more of those than there is the cultural and historical differences. And when we cut through kind of the weeds of trying to understand stories like Hannah's that we're going to look at today, what we find is that human beings living in a sinful, broken world, chasing after God, have common experiences, and we'll find that it's very relatable. I think you will find that it's very relatable. As we dig through this.
[00:04:37] I think it's really interesting to think through this idea through the lens of faithfulness, because faith is hard, right? I mean, I know that's not the kind of thing we're probably supposed to say in a church context, but I think it's really important to be able to just Say that plainly. Faith is difficult in ancient Israel. It wasn't that different from us. They were struggling with faith just like many of us are. They struggled with sorrow, with doubt, with wavering in their commitment to the Lord. You have to remember as we dig through this, Samuel is set up right on the tail end of the era of the Judges. And I don't know how long it's been since you went through Judges and you read the Bible in a year plan or a Sunday school class or whatever, but Judges is a really interesting book in the Bible.
[00:05:26] See, historically, Judges is the part where Israel is like they've been called together under one covenant. And when Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt, they met with God in a very literal and physical sense. At Mount Sinai, God appeared to them in the form of fire and lightning and smoke. And he made a covenant with them through the prophet Moses. I will be your God, you will be my people. You will obey me and follow my laws. And because of that, and because of the sacrifice system, I will dwell among you. My holiness will be with you.
[00:05:58] Really intense, really intense.
[00:06:00] Judges picks up after the death of that generation of leaders.
[00:06:04] And what you find is that immediately Israel breaks faith and breaks covenant and they disintegrate as a society into different tribal affiliations. And generation by generation, as you move through the book of Judges, you find that Israel doesn't just stop being a set apart holy people, they start being worse than the surrounding pagan nations. And by the end of Judges, Judges ends with one of the most twisted stories in all of the Bible. It's actually pretty perverse and not good for mixed company.
[00:06:34] And it's shared on purpose to let us know Israel has fallen far.
[00:06:41] Israel has descended into evil. Israel is worse than the pagan nations who have no covenant relationship with God. And Judges ends by saying in that in those days there was no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
[00:06:55] And that's not meant to be this punk rock statement of how cool they were. That's meant to be this sorrowful statement, how lost they were.
[00:07:03] Right?
[00:07:04] So Samuel picks up in a time when those who are faithful to God are the minority.
[00:07:11] Those who have held the covenant, those who are seeking a life of glory and holiness and devotion to the Lord are not the loudest voice in their culture.
[00:07:21] I don't know if that relates to anyone in the space right now.
[00:07:25] To be in a culture where it seems like the majority of your neighbors are not pursuing holiness and not pursuing the Lord, where it seems like your nation is going down the drain.
[00:07:35] That's where Israel is when we pick up first Samuel and we're introduced to this man, Elkanah.
[00:07:42] And Elkanah is presented to us as this faithful man. And we're going to dig into his story and specifically the story of his wife Hannah. But what I want you to hear today, my main point today for us is simply going to be this.
[00:07:56] Redemption comes through surrender.
[00:08:01] And the reason that's going to be our point today is this.
[00:08:04] It is common for us just as much for as for ancient Israel to struggle with faith in times of suffering, in times of uncertainty, in times of disunity, in times of hardship.
[00:08:16] And we started this thought last week. As we continue it today, we're going to see that we worship a God who is faithful in the midst of the chaos of life and the hurts of life.
[00:08:26] When our faithfulness wavers, God does not.
[00:08:30] In fact, God's faithfulness is stronger than our circumstances. In fact, we worship a God who knows how to redeem suffering in despair.
[00:08:41] And then when we come to him with our real self, our real heart in real confession and real surrender, the Lord brings redemption to our suffering through that surrender.
[00:08:53] It's such a counterintuitive idea.
[00:08:57] Most of us, our default when life gets hard, when we're hurt, when we're betrayed, when we're suffering, when we're despaired, our default is to grasp everything we can with as tight of hands as possible, to maintain as much control as possible over our life and our circumstances.
[00:09:15] That's where many of us go immediately when life becomes painful.
[00:09:21] But the invitation of our God is to go against that inclination and to respond to doubt and hurt and suffering through surrender.
[00:09:33] To actually open our hands to the Lord and realize and acknowledge that we don't control our circumstances and that our circumstances are not what in fact gives our life meaning or gives us joy or gives us freedom.
[00:09:47] When we hand over our real hearts, our real desires, our control to the Lord, we find gospel rest, we find contentment. We find the redemption of the Lord.
[00:10:00] So first Samuel, Chapter one.
[00:10:02] I'm going to pray for us and then we'll work our way back into this story we started next week. Lord, we need you this morning.
[00:10:11] We need you to be our discipler. We need you to be our teacher, Holy Spirit. We ask that you would speak truth to our hearts today. For those of us who came into this space today hurting, anxious, sorrowful, doubting, struggling, Lord, for those of us who came into this place today on a spiritual high, feeling like everything is going our way, Lord, I pray that you would meet us both in the way our heart needs.
[00:10:35] Holy Spirit, I pray in your grace that you would reveal to us our lack of control.
[00:10:41] You would reveal to us the insufficiency of our idols, and that we would see your grace, your invitation, and life to be found in you, Jesus, we need you to do this work. Father, we need you to be the one who disciples us today. So we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:10:58] If you don't have a Bible with you today, I mean, we have little ones to give away to you. But also, we really believe in the importance of access to God's word. So if you came here today and you don't own a Bible Bible, I'd encourage you to take one of our pew Bibles and keep it or talk to one of the pastors and we'll give you a nicer one. First Samuel, chapter one. We started this story last week. We were introduced to Elkanah, this holy man in an unholy time who is a Levite living in his community, doing his best to actually raise up a family who loves the Lord. We were told several things about him that, in the historical context, lead us to believe he is a wealthy, successful man who genuinely loves his God. And one of the ways that comes out is that he partakes in an annual personal pilgrimage to engage in a Thanksgiving offering where he just offers up freely sacrifices to the Lord in celebration and thanksgiving. And you have to remember, guys, like, all of this is rooted in the context of the Sinai covenant, right? The covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai. One of the most important facets of that is found in Deuteronomy 28, where Moses outlines very specifically the blessings and the curses of the covenant. This is a concrete way ancient Israel understood their relationship to God. If you are walking in holiness and obedience, you receive the blessings of God. And that means material success, that means national success, that means family success.
[00:12:25] And if you break covenant and you walk out of relationship with God, God says all the blessings turn to curses.
[00:12:32] The cities fail, the crops fail, marriages fail.
[00:12:35] All the blessings turn to curses when you break covenant. And so we're introduced to this guy Elkanah, who's living in a time of covenant unfaithfulness. But he himself is presented as a faithful and godly man, and we see God's blessing on him. He is wealthy, he has a large family, all these different things. But there's one broken piece to the story.
[00:12:57] See, Elkanah has two wives, and one of them's name is Hannah. And Hannah is barren, which in this day carried significant, significant theological significance.
[00:13:10] Now, before I go any further into the story, I have to pause here and give a caveat, because I think this is incredibly important. I've spoken this before, but I want to make sure I say this again. As we talk about this, I completely understand the reality that many of us in this room have struggled with infertility, right?
[00:13:30] It can be painful. It can be shameful. It can be isolating. And I'm sure in a room this size, there are some of you who have experienced that struggle and never talked about it publicly or how it's affected you.
[00:13:42] And if that's you in this room, I want you to hear this. There's going to be a temptation for you in these first three or four chapters of First Samuel to copy and paste this story onto your life.
[00:13:55] I want you to hear this directly from me.
[00:13:59] That is not the case.
[00:14:01] It's not how it works. It's not the way to apply this text. There is gospel truth in this story and in this text that speaks to your whole life and specifically speaks to the issue of fertility.
[00:14:17] But it doesn't involve copying and pasting Hannah's story onto you.
[00:14:21] If you do that, it will leave you in a place of sorrow and guilt and shame. It's not what this text means. So I'm going to ask you to trust me in that, because I'm going to have to speak really bluntly about the reality of infertility and barrenness and how it speaks into this story. It's key to this story.
[00:14:39] And if you find yourself tempted to think that I am speaking about you when I speak about Hannah, please, please step back from that.
[00:14:47] That's not what's going on here. We need to allow this story to speak on its own terms, which means putting it in its historical context, in its covenantal context.
[00:14:57] I know that might be painful and difficult for some of you, but I'm going to ask you to do it with me. Okay? We cool with that?
[00:15:03] Okay. Let's keep going.
[00:15:06] We find in the stories that Hannah endures literal years of sorrow and struggle regarding her barrenness.
[00:15:12] To make matters worse, Elkanah's other wife, Penaniah, has plenty of children, and she openly mocks and provokes Hannah each year when their family heads to Shiloh for this Thanksgiving sacrifice, for this time of worship and celebration. She takes that as an opportunity to provoke and mock Hannah. They are there to celebrate God's faithfulness to their family and the way that his covenant Blessings fall upon them, and they see that in every facet of their life, except in Hannah.
[00:15:43] And so this time of annual celebration for her becomes a dreaded time of sorrow, a time when she is mocked, a time when she suffers. And even when her husband tries to comfort her and be like, don't you know I love you? Like, aren't I enough for you? Like, it actually makes it worse for her.
[00:16:02] And so as we got into this story last week, what we found was that after years of this experience, at some point Hannah finally cracked.
[00:16:13] Now, I don't know about you, but that idea is incredibly relatable to me.
[00:16:18] Sometimes we have some area of doubt, some area of suffering or sorrow. Maybe it's our mental health, a broken relationship, an addictive struggle, a health issue. And we've hashed out the same prayer, the same desire, the same sorrow to God so many times the Lord, why won't you fix this, God? Why can't I have freedom here? God, will you please just do this in my life? And we hash through the same prayer. And at some point, you finally just hit a breaking point.
[00:16:47] It snaps.
[00:16:49] This is what Hannah experiences in 1st Samuel 1. She runs away from her family in the middle of the feast, and she hides in the tabernacle and weeps out her prayers to God, the text says, in bitterness and in anguish.
[00:17:04] It's such a hard scene to read because for Hannah, it seemed like that's real.
[00:17:09] Been there, been there.
[00:17:13] In this moment. We talked about this last week. Something legitimately changes with him.
[00:17:18] She brings her true heart to God. She surrenders something to him. And this time, instead of just asking for his favor and asking for a child, she makes a vow to God, if you give me a child, I will give him straight back to you.
[00:17:33] She's taken this thing that she thinks will fix her life and fix her problems, and she's opened her hand and opened her heart. Heart and released it to God. And it does. Something changes, something fundamental in her. Our text last week ended with the priest Eli, who initially thought she was drunk, blessing her. May God grant you your request.
[00:17:55] And she walks away at peace. This is where we pick up today. Picking up straight in the middle of the narrative. We're in 1st Samuel 1, starting in verse 19, we read this the next morning.
[00:18:07] So, like, immediately the next morning, Elkanah and Hannah got up early to worship before the Lord. Afterward, they returned home to Ramah, and there Elkamah was intimate with his wife, Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth To a son. She named him Samuel because she said, I have requested him from the Lord.
[00:18:29] So much is packed into these short few sentences.
[00:18:33] Notice, right? Like we're. We're picking up in the middle of the narrative as it's moving, right? Like, Hannah is still sitting in the tabernacle, wiping tears and snot off her face. And we jump back in, and it goes. She's able to walk back to her family and finish out the evening. And the next morning, Elkanah takes her with him to go and worship the Lord. And, guys, this is. This is a picture. It's supposed to be a picture for us of the kindness and actually the holiness of Elkanah.
[00:19:01] He knows this time is difficult for Hannah. He knows this is a time of suffering for her. And so in the morning, he takes her with him to go and worship before the Lord because it's important for him, for his family, for his wife, even in her sorrow to see the Lord, to meet with the Lord, knowing full well how painful it is for her. I gotta tell you guys, I love that part of this text.
[00:19:28] That's such an important truth for here, that you can worship the Lord even in the midst of sorrow, even in the midst of difficulty and pain, when your circumstances are not as you would desire them to be, even when that one thing seems to not change after years and years of prayer and trying harder, you can still walk in real worship and real joy. Amen.
[00:19:57] There's truth in that. Some of us. I just got to say this, like, I feel like some of us are here today, this morning, for that truth that you don't have to be conquered by your circumstances and your sorrow. Even when your circumstances don't change and life is painful, you can show up and worship the Lord. And in worship, you can find so much joy. You can reconnect with Him. You can find the peace you desire for your heart.
[00:20:27] Anyway, after this worship, they go back home and, man, isn't that how it is?
[00:20:34] We have these moments in our story that are profound, that are spiritual moments of real sorrow, of real spiritual breakthrough. And then you go back to real life, right? Like, no one at your job cares about that breakthrough you had with the Lord. You still have to show up to work and get your stuff done, right? Kids still have to get up and go to school and all those different things.
[00:20:54] And that's what Hannah experiences.
[00:20:57] She has this powerful moment of breakthrough, of worship, of connection, of surrender.
[00:21:03] And then she goes back home to all the mundane things waiting for her. And the text tells us Something interesting here, right? Like, she goes home and they continue on in their regular life, which includes their sex life.
[00:21:16] And the text says, God remembered Hannah. This is a relatively common phrase in the Old Testament. It doesn't mean that God forgot something and remembered it later. Like, it's a way of them saying God is giving his focus to something, that he's paying specific attention to something or someone in this text. And I think this is significant, guys, in this text, this phrase is telling us that God, Yahweh, the Lord of armies, as Hannah called her, the creator of the universe, the one who is sustaining reality, that God remembers and considers and thinks of sweet Hannah, one woman going through one difficult experience in all of time and space and history.
[00:22:07] The Lord gives her his attention.
[00:22:10] That's powerful.
[00:22:12] And notice after a while, she conceived and had a son.
[00:22:19] It wasn't instantaneous.
[00:22:21] It wasn't right. When they went back to their normal life, it was after a while. This is such a hard and, I think, necessary truth of the gospel.
[00:22:30] Last week we talked about how Hannah surrendered her desires to God and he gave her peace that was supernatural, that was beyond her circumstances. That's powerful and true. God does that for us. But how easy is it to fall into a sort of distorted prosperity gospel where we believe, okay, if I can be spiritual enough, if I can be mature enough, if I can come to God with just the right prayer of humility and surrender, then he'll give me the thing I want, right?
[00:23:02] It makes me think of my kids last night in Halloween candy.
[00:23:07] Because I don't know about you guys who have kids, but in my house and went like this. We got Halloween candy Friday night, and by midnight, they had eaten one third of it, right? And then they got up Saturday morning and they ate the second third of it.
[00:23:20] And then we got after lunch and they were like, I guess more of that sweet, sweet candy. And we said, no, you're going to die if you eat more candy.
[00:23:28] And my child, at least one of them, all four of them, interpreted that as this. Okay, I've got to convince father to give me more candy. And so for the rest of the day, I had these sort of conversations. Hey, Dad, I have a nice. My little sister all day long.
[00:23:43] Cool. Sweet. So can I have more candy?
[00:23:46] No. No, you definitely can't. Okay, okay, I get it. What if I clean my room? That's not how it works, right? Like that. That was my interactions all yesterday evening. Some of you are like, we're late. Relate. Some of you are like, my kids don't end up with candy after Saturday because I took it all. And that's fine. That's fine.
[00:24:04] But the point is this.
[00:24:06] It's easy. It's easy to slip into this false prosperity gospel where we think the real key here is to say the right things to God, to show him how contrite and humble and open handed I am. Then he'll give me what I want.
[00:24:23] But that's not what actual surrender is.
[00:24:27] That's not what it means to come to the Lord with humility. It means to actually release the desire and trust God.
[00:24:34] Beloved, in these moments when the supernatural peace of God is so important and so necessary to us, when life is so chaotic and so painful that we need God's supernatural intervention to give us peace, Oftentimes, oftentimes it's because our circumstances aren't changing in the way we want them to.
[00:25:03] We've come to God, we've had the spiritual breakthrough. Lord, I'm holding on to control. I'm making this aspect of my life into an idol. I see it, I release it to you. And then we're just ready for God to go, cool, you saw it. Now I'll give you what you want.
[00:25:19] But oftentimes that's just the beginning of the season.
[00:25:24] Oftentimes those circumstances don't change and life remains painful and that illness doesn't get better and that relationship doesn't magically fix itself and that marriage doesn't instantaneously become wonderful.
[00:25:38] Oftentimes the circumstances linger and life is painful.
[00:25:43] And in those moments you need the Holy Spirit's supernatural intervention to give you peace.
[00:25:50] It's important to continue to come back to him with your genuine heart, with your real surrender and beloved. You need to know something. There's no expectation here for you to be some kind of super Christian who's able to figure this out and fix it, right? It's easy when we read stories in scripture that are, that are summaries of a long complex life where we're getting just snippets and scenes out of a real person living their real life to go, oh my gosh, Hannah was so holy. She was suffering for years and years and years. Then she went to church and she prayed once and then she was just serenely accepting of her difficult circumstances for years to come. Wow, I fall short of that. Yeah, so does Hannah. Like, you gotta know, guys, we're getting the highlight reel.
[00:26:37] This is something she suffered through and endured for years.
[00:26:41] And even after that spiritual breakthrough, her circumstances didn't change.
[00:26:46] You don't Think that she struggled with doubt and sorrow and hurt and anger moving forward.
[00:26:54] You don't think she had to re up that prayer of surrender as she went through life?
[00:27:01] Beloved, that's what it means to be sinful, broken humans, working our way through this life, doing our best to connect to the Lord. We are bad at this.
[00:27:11] And you need to know something. You, beloved, you are allowed to be weak and immature and to struggle in your faith.
[00:27:22] You're allowed to be bad at this.
[00:27:25] In fact, Christ himself in the Sermon on the Mount, he opened the Sermon on the Mount by saying, the kingdom of God is for the people who are bad at this.
[00:27:35] It's for those who are weak and poor in spirit.
[00:27:40] And Christ himself came to the Apostle Paul in comfort. And do you know what he said to him in the midst of his suffering?
[00:27:47] My grace is made perfect in your weakness. My strength is magnified in your weakness.
[00:27:53] Beloved, you are allowed to be bad at face.
[00:27:58] You are allowed to struggle through painful circumstances. It is not expected that when you have a moment of spiritual breakthrough that you have matured to the heavenly realms and you will never struggle again.
[00:28:10] The Lord is gracious and patient with you.
[00:28:14] He knows you are weak.
[00:28:16] He's strong in your weakness.
[00:28:19] And you may have to re up that prayer of confession and surrender on a weekly, on a daily, on an hourly basis, when the season demands it.
[00:28:30] And that's okay.
[00:28:32] You are allowed to our dark moments. They really aren't forever.
[00:28:42] The Lord remembered Hannah and gave her his attention. And he did open her womb.
[00:28:48] She conceived and bore a son.
[00:28:50] Now, again, it's really important here to remember the cultural aspect of this text.
[00:28:56] If you're in this room and you've struggled in prayer around your infertility, please don't mishear me. This text is not saying God will remove your infertility if you pray in the right way, with the right humility.
[00:29:10] Some of you have given God your real and genuine and heartfelt prayer around this particular struggle. And it just hasn't gone away.
[00:29:18] And if that's you, I'm sorry.
[00:29:21] You're not alone. And you need not walk through that suffering in shame or in secret because your Lord loves you, your church family loves you. We will walk with you.
[00:29:32] Don't mishear me.
[00:29:34] As difficult as it is, we have to remember that this text is in the context of signer.
[00:29:39] God's movement to bless Hannah's fertility was an expression of covenant blessing.
[00:29:45] By opening Hannah's womb, God is letting her know that he is pleased with her and she is Included in the covenant blessings of Israel. This is a moment of answered prayer. Yes. Yes.
[00:29:55] Hannah longed for a child. Right. But you need to know, for the author writing this, for the original audience reading it, much more, this would have felt like an act of spiritual redemption, of being assured of her place in the covenant community.
[00:30:12] And notice the moment when she names her son.
[00:30:14] This, by the way, is a long term play on words that we'll come back to several times over the course of this book. That doesn't make its way into English, but I think it's interesting enough that we need to know about it and put a pin in it. Notice she names her son Samuel because she asked the Lord for him. Right. And we're used to kind of reading biblical names and like realizing that the ancient Israelites used Hebrew phrases in their names that kind of mushed phrases together and made them into names. Right. That's actually not what's happening here. Samuel doesn't mean asked from God. That's not what Samuel means. Samuel means the Lord is God. That's what Samuel means. The Lord, he is God. What Hannah is saying here in Samuel's name, the Lord is God, is that she's praising and affirming God.
[00:31:00] That name is, is rooted in her gratitude and thanksgiving for giving her a son and affirming her inclusion in his covenant.
[00:31:10] Now, there is a hint of the play on words here that we're going to come back to. We'll see it a little bit in this text and we'll see it several times throughout. Samuel, it goes like this. There is a Hebrew name that does directly mean asked of God.
[00:31:23] And it's a familiar name. It's the name Saul.
[00:31:27] So if you know where the book is going, a little bit of a spoiler alert.
[00:31:31] Saul means asked of God. And the phrase in Hebrew is Saul.
[00:31:36] And it has a kind of a nuanced meaning we're going to come back to. So put a pin in that and read on with me. In our text, verse 21, when Elkanah and all his household went to make the annual sacrifice and his vow offering to the Lord, Hannah did not go and explained to her husband, after the child is weaned, I'll take him to appear in the Lord's presence and to stay there permanently.
[00:31:57] Her husband Elkanah replied, do what you think is best and stay here until you've weaned him. May the Lord confirm your word. So Hannah stayed there and nursed her son until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him with her to Shiloh, as well as a three year old bull, half a bushel of flour and a clay jar of wine. Though the boy was still young, she took him to the Lord's house at Shiloh. Then they slaughtered the bull and brought the boy to Eli. And so now we're going to get to a part of the story that will probably just honestly feel distasteful to some of us. But it's vitally important to fully understand the narrative. Remember, Hannah has vowed to dedicate Samuel to the service of the Lord.
[00:32:37] That was the vow she made in her prayer, her sorrow. She released the desire for a son and said, I vow to give him to you now that God gives her this long awaited son. You can imagine a mama who struggled for a child for a long time having second thoughts.
[00:32:55] But no, she is committed to her vow.
[00:32:58] Well, in that case, you might imagine that she might want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Right? Just be like, let's just get through this. But no, Hannah cares for Samuel.
[00:33:08] And when the time rolls around for their annual pilgrimage to Shiloh, Hannah actually pulls back.
[00:33:14] She won't go to Shiloh with Samuel until he's weaned.
[00:33:18] Now, this is the part where the story just gets a little weird for us modern readers. But it is important. You have to remember this is the day before specifically prepared baby foods. Right. That was not. There was no Gerber in this day, which means the standard norm in Jewish culture for children to be weaned was around three and a half.
[00:33:36] So let's sit with that for a moment. Okay? Yep. All right. Besides the sheer strangeness of thinking of a child breastfeeding her three year old, can we stop for a moment and consider how much attachment a mother and a child undergo in three years?
[00:33:53] Right.
[00:33:55] I mean, mamas in the room. Think of your oldest at 3.
[00:33:59] What would it take for you to give them up?
[00:34:02] Right?
[00:34:03] Some of you are going. That depends on the day and the amount of tantrums they'd had in the last 24 hours. Hey, look, I get you. I get you, but you get what I'm saying.
[00:34:13] There's something in the idea of Hannah giving up her son at three that just seems inherently cruel to our modern sensibilities. Right. Like, isn't that traumatic?
[00:34:24] But this is where you must take a moment to step back and consider this text in its historical context. Once again, it's really important to understand here the author is presenting Hannah keeping her vow as an image of how faithful and holy she Is this is being presented as a sacred thing, not a cruel thing, not even a sorrowful thing.
[00:34:46] It's a picture of Hannah's devotion. And don't get me wrong, it's incredibly difficult and painful.
[00:34:53] But it's important to remember this book is assuming that you as the reader, will see this act of Hannah as a difficult and painful thing that is ultimately sacred and beautiful.
[00:35:04] And we see this in her interaction with Elkanah. Their thanksgiving offering pilgrimage was an annual celebration. But Hannah doesn't join the family until after the child is weaned. And then she goes alone with just Samuel and an offering of her own. And the text tells us something really interesting that would be easy to miss. You see, there's this tradition built into the worship of ancient Israel. Because the firstborn of Egypt died in the plagues, the firstborn of Israel were spared. God declares that to Israel at Sinai that all firstborn belong to him.
[00:35:38] And Israel felt this in two specific ways. The first one was that the whole tribe of Levi was set apart from the rest of Israel to serve in the priesthood and to serve in the tabernacle and to represent the firstborn sons given over to the service of the Lord. But secondly, beyond that, every single firstborn, whether it was from crops or children, there was a sacrifice ritual they went through with children. The firstborn son, eight days after their birth, you offered a specific redemption offering. And that was a goat or a ram, or if you were poor, it was a pigeon. You guys might remember Mary and Joseph, when Jesus was born, eight days later, went to the temple and offered the redemption sacrifice of a pigeon because they were poor for Jesus, right? Like this was a normal part of the culture. But Hannah breaks this tradition.
[00:36:30] She doesn't take him to his dedication offering. She keeps him until his weaned. Now, to her watching family, this is a likely assumed just because, well, Samuel's dedicated the Lord. She doesn't have to take him and offer a redemption offering because he's going to go be actually literally given over to the Lord as the firstborn. But then she does something really weird.
[00:36:53] After he's weaned, Hannah takes Samuel down to Shiloh with a huge thanksgiving offering, a bull.
[00:37:01] The most, the most gracious, the most lavish offering that existed in that day was to offer up a bull.
[00:37:09] And she takes a bull. She takes the normal firstborn redemption offering, and she dramatically goes above and beyond it, turning it into a thanksgiving offer.
[00:37:21] Why is this?
[00:37:23] Well, there's real significance here. Hannah is making a major statement here to herself, to her Family, to the priesthood, to God himself.
[00:37:32] By doing her redemption offering over and above and turning it into this extravagant thanksgiving offering, Hannah is making sure everyone around knows she is not fulfilling this vow out of obligation.
[00:37:47] She is doing this out of gratitude.
[00:37:50] She wants to fulfill this vow.
[00:37:54] She is thankful to the Lord. She is worshiping the Lord. He opened her womb and gave her a son. And she is gladly and joyfully fulfilling her vow to the Lord.
[00:38:08] She has redeemed her son like every faithful Israelite mother. And in the complete freedom and thanksgiving of that offering, she then presents him to the high priest, Eli, I don't have to do this. I want to do this. I made this vow. Here he is.
[00:38:27] It's powerful.
[00:38:28] Hannah's truly a changed woman. She's truly surrendered this desire of her heart to the Lord. And look how the text leans out today.
[00:38:38] Please, my Lord, she said, as surely as you live, my Lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this boy. And since the Lord gave me what I asked, gave me him, I asked for, I will now give the boy the Lord. For as long as he lives. He is given to the Lord, and then he worshiped the Lord there.
[00:38:57] If you allow this text to sit in its own historical and cultural context, this is an absolutely beautiful moment.
[00:39:07] She finds Eli, the very same priest who saw her and fought her sorrow and tears were drunkenness. And she shows him, samuel, remember, it's been several years at this point. So she reminds him, do you remember me?
[00:39:22] Do you remember my tears and my sorrow and your blessing?
[00:39:26] If you remember, she never actually told Eli what she was praying for.
[00:39:31] She was praying silently.
[00:39:34] And when this accusation comes up about him thinking she's drunk, he just, like, apologizes and blesses her, and she leaves. He never. She never told the priest what she was actually praying for. And so now she tells him, I prayed for this son and God gave him, so here he is.
[00:39:53] And I remember that play on words I told you about. It comes into the story again. Remember I said, asked of God, is this Hebrew name Saul? It's this Hebrew phrase, Saul.
[00:40:03] Now, I am not a Hebrew scholar, right? Take what I say in this with a grain of salt, because I just use Logos to help me.
[00:40:11] But I read Hebrew scholars.
[00:40:14] This particular phrase is interesting because the word loaded with many similar but different meanings. Saul can mean that something has been asked for.
[00:40:21] It can also mean something has been begged for. It can also mean it's been formally requested. But this is where it's weird.
[00:40:28] It can also mean it's been loaned to someone else or dedicated to someone else?
[00:40:34] It all depends on how the word is conjugated and the context of the conversation within which it's being used.
[00:40:42] It's the word Hannah used in reference to naming Saul. I begged God for this boy, and he gave him to me.
[00:40:48] And so now Hannah uses the word three times.
[00:40:52] The Lord granted me the son. The Lord gave me the son. The Lord loaned me the son, and so now I am loaning him back to him.
[00:41:02] In fact, he is loaned to the Lord as long as he lives. Some of your English translations say that he is loaned to the Lord as long as he lives. So why am I making a big deal out of this?
[00:41:14] Well, Hannah uses the word intentionally. The way she switches it around, it's a play on words, but I think it's a really beautiful one. She's saying, look, this is my son.
[00:41:26] God gave him to me. I begged for him, and God gave him to me, and I am loaning him back to the Lord. I go, okay, well, hold on now. And she goes, but I'm loaning him back forever mine.
[00:41:42] But I am putting him in the service of the Lord. I am taking the desire of my heart, and I am releasing it at the altar of God. A very literal, in a very practical and very impactful way is a powerful statement of her surrender. She wanted a son for so many reasons.
[00:42:01] He could redeem her shame.
[00:42:03] He could show God's favor on her. He could add to her family. He could take care of her in her old age. He could secure her place in the world.
[00:42:11] Nothing else could fill that gap.
[00:42:14] Nothing else could make her who she longed to be in this world. Even her beloved husband couldn't fill the hole left in her heart. Aren't I enough for you, Hannah? No, he wasn't.
[00:42:26] Hannah obviously loved Elkanah, but he was not enough to fill this void. She needed a son until she surrendered her heart to God.
[00:42:39] And suddenly, when Hannah connected herself to the real lover of her soul, suddenly he was enough.
[00:42:50] Suddenly she could have real peace in the midst of her suffering.
[00:42:54] And in that reality, when God actually granted her the desire of her heart, she could joyfully and with complete conviction give it back.
[00:43:06] Thank you, Lord. But you know, I now know I don't actually need this.
[00:43:13] As the bride says in the Song of Songs, I have found the one my soul loves.
[00:43:20] Hannah has found her true love, her true security, her true identity. And in that, she could release all else.
[00:43:31] And the Lord honored this.
[00:43:33] He took care of Samuel Our text closes by saying he worshiped the Lord there. This is a quick and short way of saying Samuel was fulfilled and taken care of.
[00:43:44] He was connected to the Lord, just like his mother.
[00:43:47] Love this story.
[00:43:49] It's such a powerful story that digs straight at the heart of what it means to be a human on this earth.
[00:43:56] Right?
[00:43:57] All of us face the brokenness of the curse. We find that we ourselves are broken and lacking. Right?
[00:44:06] I mean, that is attached to the core of the gospel story. Even though God made all things good and perfect, sin is distorted and broken all of reality, you and me included, right?
[00:44:16] We walk through life being affected by the sin of the world, contributing to the sin of the world. Every single one of us has these moments where we. We look at ourselves and we see what is missing, what is, what is weak, what is lacking. And we think, if only, if only I have this. If only I had that degree. If only I made this much money. If only I could marry this kind of person.
[00:44:40] If I hit this number on a scale, if I break this addiction, if I had this breakthrough in my mental health.
[00:44:49] I know for a fact you can fill in your own blank here, because I know I can.
[00:44:54] Beloved, we are all of us weak and broken in desperate need to cover and hide our deficiencies with anything we can.
[00:45:02] We are our spiritual parents cutting fig leaves to desperately cover our shame and our lack. But we fool no one, least of all our Creator.
[00:45:12] But this is the beautiful truth that Hannah brings to light for us this morning.
[00:45:17] We don't have to.
[00:45:20] We don't have to cover our own shame. We don't have to make up for our own lack because we can't fix our own deficiency.
[00:45:30] Whatever idol, and by the way, let's call it what it is, whatever idol that you believe in your heart of hearts will fix what is lacking in you. You need to know it is incapable of doing so.
[00:45:45] Even the good things, when we turn them into idols, fail.
[00:45:50] That child, that spouse, that friend, beloved, they can't carry the weight of your sin.
[00:45:58] That job, that money, that degree can't carry the weight of your sin.
[00:46:06] Even freedom from that addiction or that habitual sin, it can't set you free in and of itself.
[00:46:13] You'll still be you.
[00:46:15] You'll still have your own weaknesses. How many addicts break out of one deadly trap only to find their hearts are the same and fall into another?
[00:46:25] You can't fix yourself.
[00:46:27] And, beloved, your idol can't fix you.
[00:46:30] If you try and take an idol and shove it into the place of Fixing and giving your life meaning. You will destroy whatever it was because it can't carry the weight.
[00:46:41] But praise be to God that Jesus is sufficient to meet the needs of your heart today, beloved.
[00:46:49] He is.
[00:46:50] God is not content to leave us in this position. So he sent us himself. He stepped into our mess. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He earned eternity. And through his death and resurrection and ascension and eventual return, he makes a way for you and for me to have our hearts really get what they need.
[00:47:08] Redemption.
[00:47:10] He redeems what is broken in our hearts. It always was, always is, and always will be. Jesus who is enough for you, beloved, it is only Jesus who is enough for you. The thing you desire in life so much, beloved, if you put the weight of your redemption on it, not only will it not work, you will crush it.
[00:47:32] You'll destroy it.
[00:47:34] If you take a good thing and make it into an idol, you will break it.
[00:47:41] You want to have a terrible marriage?
[00:47:44] Lean into your marriage for your salvation will destroy your marriage.
[00:47:48] You want to be a terrible parent?
[00:47:51] Trust your kids to fix what's broken in. You will destroy your relationship with them.
[00:47:57] Go down the line.
[00:47:59] When you take beautiful good things, gifts from the Lord, and you make them into idols and you ask them to do the thing that only Christ can do, they can't do it.
[00:48:07] And it harms you and harms them.
[00:48:10] It's unfair.
[00:48:12] But hear this.
[00:48:13] It's unnecessary because you have access to Christ because Jesus loves you and loves, longs to fill the void in your heart, to forgive you your sin, to redeem what is broken in you.
[00:48:31] Jesus is enough.
[00:48:35] You guys. Here's the thing. When we realize that truth, when we walk in that reality, like Hannah, we can be empowered by the Holy Spirit to find our own satisfaction in Christ and to hand him over those idols that we think we so desperately need, we've hit through like several practical applications. We've walked through this text. But let me just remind us of them really quick as we land out.
[00:48:59] You may be stuck in the slough of your circumstances for a while, and your raw and real prayer to God of submission may need to be on repeat for months or years.
[00:49:09] Because oftentimes our circumstances don't change or they don't change quickly.
[00:49:15] And so you need to be okay with the fact that you're spiritually weak and you have to return to Christ continually. Don't give up. This is called waiting upon the Lord. And it's a beautiful thing.
[00:49:25] It's a gift to wait upon the Lord because God uses Those circumstances to sanctify us, to draw us to him, to sharpen us.
[00:49:35] So if you were in that place where you're just like, I keep praying and nothing is changing, I'm sorry.
[00:49:41] But keep the faith.
[00:49:44] Continue on.
[00:49:45] Be honest with the Lord. Be honest with your church. Let your friends, your family hold you up and keep you on your feet and keep you on the path. Because waiting on the Lord is not wasted.
[00:49:57] It's a wonderful time in the same vase, same vein. When you find yourself waiting upon the Lord, one of the best responses is worship.
[00:50:05] When we pursue the Lord in the midst of our pain and unmet desires, worship can help us break through to the revelation that God is truly what we need.
[00:50:15] Worship can help us break through to the kind of surrender where we actually hand over our desires and our idols.
[00:50:22] And lastly, this part is so true and so necessary for us, is the redemption of Christ requires us to surrender.
[00:50:31] Requires us to surrender. We have to surrender our own hearts, our own desires. We have to approach the Lord with open hands to trust him and hear this church receive life as he gives it to us.
[00:50:47] In this surrender of our own desires, our own plan for our lives, we find the redemption of Christ.
[00:50:52] And don't get it twisted, beloved.
[00:50:55] Surrender is painful.
[00:50:57] It means, like Hannah, holding the real desires of your heart with the kind of open hands that just says, I don't have to have this.
[00:51:08] It means being willing to say, this desire may never be fulfilled in this life in a very real way. You may never get married, or your marriage may never be what you long for it to be, or your spouse may never actually change or grow in that area, or you may never be the family with the Instagram worthy vacations, or you may never hit that number on the scale, or you may never find full healing in that illness before you come to heaven. You might not have any of those things, or you might have them.
[00:51:44] But beloved, if you have Christ, regardless, you have enough.
[00:51:50] If you surrender your heart and life to Jesus, you'll find such love, such safety, such grace that whether you have those desires or not, you'll be fine.
[00:52:03] And you'll find that those desires simply matter less.
[00:52:07] Band if you want to come back up.
[00:52:09] One of my all time favorite hymns opens with this line.
[00:52:13] Take the world, but give me Jesus.
[00:52:16] All its joys are but a name.
[00:52:20] Beloved, you will not find life and satisfaction in the longings of this world.
[00:52:25] You won't.
[00:52:27] You won't.
[00:52:28] The best things, the most beautiful and lasting things this world has to offer are not sufficient to Fill the need of your heart.
[00:52:41] Joy is but their name, but Christ, but Jesus, the lover of your soul. Your true desire, beloved, to surrender him.
[00:52:51] It may not make your circumstances immediately change, but it will bring you life. It will bring you hope. It will bring you the redemption you actually long for. In Christ, no sorrow, no suffering is wasted. It is redeemed for eternity. Beloved, as I land us out, I'm going to invite us to take a minute of reflection.
[00:53:13] So Kim and I have two biological children and the two kids that we had biologically, my wife Kim, she, she, she bore those kids naturally, no medicine, she just went for full beast mode and got him out of here. I don't know if any of you in the room have experienced natural childbirth, but my role in that experience surprisingly is incredibly limited.
[00:53:36] On the coach, can I confess something to you? This is inappropriate because we're in a serious moment, but I have to confess this to you. When Millie was born, I was five vocational, working four different jobs and I worked two eight hour shifts that day. And Kim told me she was going into labor and I told her she wasn't. And I told her to go back to dad.
[00:53:56] That's awful.
[00:53:57] That's bad. You don't got pro tip for those of you who don't have kids yet, don't tell your wife that.
[00:54:05] Anyway, I was wrong. She was in labor and we went to the hospital and we had the kids, she had the kids.
[00:54:12] I coached.
[00:54:14] And one of the things I was coached to coach because I went to the class and they told me how is to be with her in the moment of contractions and to encourage her to receive them, accept them.
[00:54:28] Right.
[00:54:30] From what I've been told, they're pretty terrible. I haven't experienced them, but I've been told they're pretty rough.
[00:54:36] But the reality is that's the only way to get to the baby, to hold them off, to push them away, to diminish them, is to slow down the reception of your child.
[00:54:49] And the healthy thing, the best thing, is to surrender to them, to receive them, to ride them out.
[00:54:57] Because each contraction means one step closer to holding your baby.
[00:55:02] And my wife is super tough, did that.
[00:55:06] And I remember seeing her strengthy as she surrendered to that experience and received that pyramid that suffered, that we might be with our child.
[00:55:17] What a beautiful thing.
[00:55:19] What powerful because I share that today. Because this, to surrender to Christ will likely not be terribly picturesque.
[00:55:31] It will likely involve blood and sweat and sorrow.
[00:55:35] But it's worth.
[00:55:37] We worship a God who knows how to redeem the greatest suffering for his own glory and for our redemption.
[00:55:44] Beloved, take a few minutes to meet with the Lord as your heart needs to in prayer. If you can do that in your seat, I'd encourage you to. If you want to get in a posture of prayer and get on your knees or come to the altar, whatever that looks like for you, I'd encourage you to do that.
[00:55:58] And when you have met with the Lord, when you have considered maybe what it means for you to open your hands to him, to surrender, to receive the life he's handing you with its ups and its downs, for those of you who are in the room, who are in Christ, and you want to respond through communion, I'd encourage you to do that.
[00:56:17] When we take communion, we are reminded that it is most often through suffering that redemption comes about, that Christ Himself is no stranger to suffering, to sorrow.
[00:56:30] In fact. Was his body broken and his blood poured out that bought our redemption?
[00:56:36] Yes. We worship a God who knows how to redeem suffering.
[00:56:40] He knows what to do with it.
[00:56:43] So if you're in this room and you're a follower of Christ, when you have met with him and you feel ready, I would invite you to come forward and receive the elements, proclaim the sufficiency of Christ.
