Where Should We Look?

Excellent. Well, thank you, Brenna. Wasn't sure whether we're getting verse 11 there or not,

but we loved it. Folks, are we well? We're well. Great to see you tonight. Thank you so much for

coming. Let me invite you to turn back to 1 Samuel chapter 1. This is where we're going to be this

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

evening. And this quite magnificent book that I've loved studying over the last couple of weeks,

that is so much to teach us about what it means to be God's people living by faith and trusting

in who he is. So shall we pray? And then we'll get stuck into this book together.

From this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

You do not want to leave too, do you? Jesus asked the 12. Simon Peter answered him, Lord,

to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

And so it's to you, the truth speaking and life giving God that we look to tonight for words of

eternal life. And heavenly father, our good, good father, we ask you would come this evening and

guide us by your spirit. May we leave here with just a grander picture of who you are. And this is

our prayer made in Jesus's name. Amen. Amen. So the man on the screen, I've enjoyed reading about him

this week. John Swigert is his name. Anyone heard of John Swigert? A couple of people to my left here.

Okay, so you may not have heard, you may not know who he is, but you've definitely heard what he said.

Okay, so John Swigert is one of NASA's most celebrated astronauts. He's famous for two reasons.

Firstly, he was one of the three astronauts that made it back to Earth on Apollo 13.

Second of all, he was that astronaut that looked out of Apollo 13. He first spotted the burst oxygen

tank, which had made such a mess upon their service module. And he was the one that uttered the words,

Houston, we have a problem. That was Jack. I think for the purists out there, I think it was actually

Houston, we've had a problem, but Tom Hanks turned it around and Hollywood are always right,

aren't they? There we go. John Swigert. Houston, we have a problem. Words you've probably heard

in your life before. Words you've probably used in your life before. I think when I was a young

solicitor, I had a secretary whose surname was Houston. You can imagine my favorite joke when I

went to her with a bit of work that needed amended. Houston, we've got a problem. It's one of those

phrases, isn't it, that people use on a daily basis. And I was thinking about it this week. Why is that

one of the phrases that's made its way to our popular culture? Well, I wonder whether it's

because it captures something that we all know to be true. And it's that life is full of problems.

Full of problems. I think when I first became a Christian, this was one of the things that

so attracted me to Christianity that I read in the Bible and all I saw was people full of problems.

Right? Just people full of problems. Fill these pages of scripture. And we step in tonight to a

book that's full of problems. Begins roughly 1100 BC in Israel and it's full of problems.

Now, before we dive in tonight, if we're going to fully appreciate the context here, it's going to be

worth our while getting our heads and our hearts around the story so far in the Bible. This is God's

story of rescue. This looks something like this so far. We'll pick it up at Abraham. If you want to

go further back to creation, you're welcome to do that. He's a wee bit before. God has spoken to

Abraham. He declared to him that through him and through his offspring that God was going to bless

the nations. And God had said, Abraham, I want you to live by faith and not by sight. I want you to

go to the land that I will show you. That was Abraham. The story proceeds. We get his son, Isaac,

who fathers Jacob, who's got his 12 sons, one of which is Joseph. Joseph sold by his brothers into

slavery and who ends up in Egypt. And quite miraculously, they meant it for harm. God meant

it for goods. God raises up Joseph to be the top of Pharaoh's courts, to be the man who's in the right

place at the right time to rescue his people from famine and they make their way to Egypt for food.

So the people are in Egypt. A new Pharaoh arises in Egypt, doesn't know Joseph, doesn't care for

Joseph. And he sees the Israelites growing in number. And what he does is he turns them into

slaves. What does God do? He raises up Moses, this Hebrew boy from the rushes, brought into Pharaoh's

palace, brought up in Pharaoh's palace. And he is the one that God uses to lead his people through the

Red Sea and out of Egypt. They're rescued from something, for something. They're rescued for a

life of worshipping and living in relationship with the God who rescued them. Moses takes them to the

cusp of Canaan, the promised land. But God declares that it wasn't going to be Moses that was going to

take them in. It would be his assistant, Joshua. Joshua takes the reins. He leads the people into the

land. And although they don't drive entirely out their enemies, they have the land, they're in the

land. But Joshua dies and the nation spiritually spirals downwards because they take their eyes off

the God who had rescued them. And the problem is summed up in the very last sentence of the book of

Judges at verse 25. If you want to have it there, maybe just turn to it. It's on the screen as well.

This gets right to the heart of it. What's the problem? Verse 25. And this is where the author

leaves us at the end of the book of Judges. Of course, Samuel, the main character in this, he's the

bridge between the time of the Judges and the time of the Kings. In those days, there was no king in

Israel. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Sounds very familiar to our world today,

doesn't it? Here we are, 1100 BC, and neither we have a problem. We've got a big problem. In fact,

we've got a problem that's got two aspects to it. We think about God's people here in the land.

Internally, they are marked by hostility. They are marked by individuality. And they are marked by

idolatry. Their hearts are a total mess. They are failing to be the people that God rescued them

for and called them to be. Internally, there's a problem. Externally, there's a problem because

the land that's supposed to be their home was full of their enemies. It is full of their enemies,

in particular, the Philistines. We journey on through this book, we're going to meet Goliath.

He's literally a big problem, isn't he? Constant thorn in the side for God's people throughout this book,

their enemies. And so the big question at this stage of God's rescue story is,

God's people look out and they survey the scene. The big question here is, where should they look?

Where should they look for a solution to their problem?

Well, do you know what this book is about? It's about a big God with a big plan to deal with a big

problem. And God's solution to this problem starts right here in chapter one. And it starts in the

most surprising of places. So we're just going to gallop through the verses tonight, and we're going

to try and draw some application from this. But more so, my prayer through all of this is that we

would leave here with a bigger picture of who our God is. You up for this? Okay, journey with me.

Verses one to eight. A desperate story. We're introduced to this man named Elkanah. Details in

the text. He's got two wives, which is not uncommon in this day. Probably Hannah was his first wife, and

because she was unable to have children and to continue the family line for inheritance reasons,

he takes Peninnah to be his second wife. Now, Ian, I love the way you said that name there.

I can't remember how you said it, but I'm going for Peninnah. That's it. And it's funny because her

name means something like prolific. That's what her name means. And when it comes to having children,

you can see it there in the text that she certainly seems to have lived up to that name.

But on the other hand, Hannah remains childless. And that, and we can feel it as we read their story,

can't we? That is a heartbreaking truth for Hannah. I can imagine it's the kind of thing when, when

somebody asks Hannah every year, Hannah, what would you like for your birthday? What would you like for

your birthday this year? Hannah sighs and says the same thing that she says every year. I would just

love a child of my own. You have that saying about people, don't we? That, that such and such wears their

heart on their sleeve. Hannah strikes me as a heart on sleeve kind of girl. One who wears her emotions

and leaves you in no doubt as to what she's thinking and feeling. This is Hannah.

There's something quite endearing about her here as we read about her in these opening verses, isn't there?

And Peninnah's clearly picked up on the fact that Hannah wears her heart on her sleeve. Peninnah sees

straight through to Hannah's weak spot and she's jealous of Hannah, most likely because it would

appear that her husband loves Hannah more than her. See, there's just problems everywhere here in this

book, isn't there? And that jealousy is echoed at verse six because she is referred to as Hannah's rival.

What's she doing? Constantly irritating her, constantly targeting the one thing in Hannah's life that she

knows that if she goes after it will cut right to Hannah's core. And so it goes on, verse seven,

and feel the weight of these words. It goes on year after year.

Year after year.

Here is this woman for whom the pain doesn't go away.

Here is this woman for whom the teasing doesn't stop. And here is this woman whose tears are her

constant companion.

And Elkanah's comforting words at verse eight, look what he says. I mean, the men do not come out well

in this chapter, do they? What does he say? Do I not mean more to you than 10 sons? Which you have

to say is genuine, but probably the least likely thing to help in this situation, is it not?

But I guess at this point in the story, and like all of us here this evening and all of us here in

life, Hannah's got a choice. Is she not, if you think about it? How is she going to respond to her painful

situation? One that doesn't seem to be resolving itself anytime soon. Where's she going to go?

Will she run from God? Or will she run to God? Will she choose the path of bitterness and coil up

inside? Or will she choose the narrow path of faith and trust in who her God is?

Well, as we move on to verses nine to 20, we see what Hannah does as we read the story of a

distressed servant. She's journeyed to the tabernacle at Shiloh, the very place where God's

presence was said to dwell. And what is she doing there? Look at it in the text. Is she doing a bit

of sightseeing? No. What is she doing there? She's praying. And look at how this scene is described

to us. And I hope this brings encouragement for you in your own prayer life tonight.

How is Hannah praying? Is she praying loudly? Well, she's praying silently, isn't she?

No voice, no sound, but her lips are moving. She's praying silently. She's not praying for show.

She's not praying so that people will look at her. She's praying for an audience of one.

And look at verse 15, how Hannah describes to Eli, this priest who's working at the temple,

who thinks that Hannah is drunk. What has she been doing? What does she describe herself as been doing?

I am a woman troubled in spirit. And so what you've witnessed is not me losing the plot.

What you've witnessed is me pouring out my soul before the Lord.

Friends, is that not just a wonderful little description right there of what true gritty prayer

is? Let me ask you, when was the last time that you poured your soul out before the Lord?

Here is this humble woman of faith. Here is one with a pure but broken heart. What is she doing?

She is running to the Lord. She is not running away from the Lord with her problems and her pain.

Do you not just love moments like this in the Bible? Love moments like this in the Bible.

Is it not incredible that our God would love us so much that he would give us this

in our own language to understand? Surely this is written here, not just as a description of what

happened. Surely this is written by our loving Heavenly Father as an invitation.

An invitation. As if to say, do you read about Hannah? Do you see what Hannah did?

To a people living in a world full of problems, do you see Hannah? Do you see what she felt? Do you see

what she did? I want you to approach me like that. It's okay to approach me like that.

How good is this God? How good is this God that he would invite us to pray to him? We have no right to

his ear. And yet in his grace, he would hear us. Here is Hannah pouring out her soul before the Lord.

And she prays to him as whom? The Lord of hosts. Interestingly, the first time this name of God is

used in the Bible. And it's the name of God that captures something of his unparalleled greatness.

The fact that he is the God of heaven's armies, the fact that he is the God of unending resources.

Some of your translations might say they are the Lord Almighty. This is who Hannah runs to with her

big problem. Living in a world of big problems. She runs to this God because she knows that this God

can do something about it. And with tears in her eyes, Hannah runs to this God because she knows

that in this God, she has someone near enough to lovingly care about her problem. And in this God,

she has someone big enough to be in sovereign control of her problem.

And like any good Olympic gymnast taking to the rings, friends, it's so important in our Christian

walks that we know and we grasp both of those rings of truth. He's close enough, near enough to care

and love us. And he's big enough to hold our world and our lives in his hands.

Hannah's gripping both rings. This is Hannah's God. And I think she's rightly held up here. Remember,

at this point in history, in the God's rescue story, she's held up here to every reader who would

read these words as a wonderful example of what it means to suffer well, to wait well on the Lord

and to live by faith and not by sight. Isn't it amazing that in this period of God's rescue story,

who are the two people that are held up to us mainly as examples? Ruth and Hannah.

Hannah. Isn't it incredible? Ruth and Hannah. One, an outsider, seeing who God is, grafted in,

puts their trust in him. And here is one of God's people here trusting in who he is. Ruth and Hannah.

Trusting in the Lord because of who he is, not simply because it makes sense. As the children's

song goes, and we sing it often with our girls, and believe you me, it speaks way more to me every

night than it does to them, that our God is our great big God, and he holds our world and our lives

in his hands. This is Hannah's God. And so as we read this tonight, we have to ask ourselves,

not just is this our God, but to remind ourselves that this is our God. This is him.

Hannah's got nowhere else to run. Here she is on her knees because she's out of resources,

and she pours it out before the Lord. And friends, that doesn't always mean that if we

do that, everything is going to turn out the way that we want. I think we'll do well to remember here

that what's happened with Hannah here is happening at a very unique point in God's story of rescue.

But how often is it the case in life that when we find ourselves on our knees declaring,

God, there's no solution on the horizon? God, I've looked and there is no hero in my heart.

And I'm on my knees before you, God, saying I've got nothing left but you.

How often is that the time when God moves and shows us who he is, and we're left declaring that,

God, you are enough for me? Because there's nothing to do with us. It's all to do with him.

Dale Elf Davis, he's a wonderful Old Testament commentator. He puts it like this.

God's tendency is to make our total inability his starting point.

Our hopelessness and our helplessness are no barrier to his work. Indeed, our utter incapacity

is often the prop that he delights to use for his next act. Hannah's got nothing. She's got

absolutely nothing. And she pours out her soul before the Lord.

Eli the priest blesses her. And she returns home, comes together with her husband Elkanah. And

naturally, but miraculously, she conceives and Samuel is born. The boy whose name means,

and you might see it there in one of your footnotes, the Lord has heard. The Lord has heard.

So there she is, pictured her. She's a new mum. The baby that she's wanted all her life is in her

arms. Samuel, I'm sure he had a lovely smile. There he is smiling at her. The question that

I wonder whether we're supposed to ask it as we read this text is, what is Hannah going to do next?

With the thing she's wanted all her life in her hands, what's she going to do next?

Well, verses 21 to 28 show us a dedicated soul. Now, some commentators reckon that Samuel,

little Samuel, he could have been anywhere between three and five years old when this episode at the

tabernacle takes place. Now, when you did the maths there, and given that Hannah was pregnant for nine

months, this could be anything up to almost six years between the time when Hannah first vowed to

God that if she was to have a child, then that child would be his between that moment and this

moment at the tabernacle. That's a serious amount of time. And so after all these happy years,

will Hannah stand by that vow and offer up to God with open arms the most precious thing to her in life?

Presumably, she could have quite easily tried to forget about that original vow. I mean,

it happened quite a few years ago. Or even she might have even tried to negotiate terms with God.

You know, you can have him on every second Wednesday or every third Friday. Do you know what I mean?

But Hannah does what Abraham did with Isaac before her, and she is willingly obedient.

And there are clues in the text there, if you look with me, to indicate to us that Hannah

goes, verse 25, to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and she goes there not begrudgingly, she goes there

excitedly. Two potential clues in the text. Her sacrifice, if you do the maths, would appear to be

more than what she was required to give under the Old Testament law. And probably more so as she speaks

to Eli, she exclaims, oh my Lord. Do you see it in the text there? Exclamation mark.

My master, as if to indicate, I've been waiting forward to this moment for years.

I had the privilege of marrying a couple in here yesterday,

and it came to that part when I was reading them the vows, and I asked them the question,

Mark, will you take Erica to be your wife?

And he took me aback. I don't know why he took me aback, but the volume that he said I will with.

I will. Oof.

I said to her, Erica, will you take Mark to be your husband?

Yes. Yes, I will. She didn't say it. I will. I will.

And it struck me at that moment, these are not words that this couple thought about the morning of

the wedding. These are words that this couple have been wanting to say for years.

Probably even since they first met.

Great anticipation with these words.

Yes, I will.

I think that's the kind of excited anticipation here with Hannah.

Hannah's saying to Eli, do you remember that woman who was here all those years ago?

Do you remember that woman that you thought was drunk?

Do you remember that woman that you blessed the vow that she made?

Well, that woman was me.

It was me.

And let me tell you how good the Lord has been to me.

I asked for this child and here he is.

And I'm here in this house of the Lord to say that Samuel is the Lord's.

Now, Hannah's heart here is full.

It's brimming, isn't it, with thankfulness to what God has done for her.

And brimming with thankfulness.

But I think even more so, Hannah's heart is delighted in who this God is.

You get the impression that Hannah dedicates Samuel in great anticipation of all that the Lord will do through this child.

Not just for her, but for her people as God fulfills his good purposes to rescue them, judge their enemies and bless the nations.

And how will we do it through somehow this child?

And so verses 1 to 10 of chapter 2, we hear the prayer of a delighted spirit.

We're told that Hannah said these words.

I love her translation sometimes.

I don't imagine Hannah said these words monotone, do you?

I think she probably sang these words.

Here is a prayer that's full of volume and praise.

And it's a prayer that reveals to us the God that Hannah knows.

And I think it's one of these points in Scripture where we have to ask ourselves, as we see the contours of Hannah's God expanded, expanded, God is blowing our minds.

The question we have to ask as a reader, is this the God that we know?

Is this our God?

Is this our God?

And flip the question, this is our God.

Who is this God?

She opens her prayer by declaring that he is the incomparable one.

There's none beside him.

No one is his match.

No one is his equal.

You'll notice she says it three times at verse 2 as if to underscore the point.

There's none holy like him.

There's none beside him.

There's no rock.

There's no sure defence.

There's no place of safety.

Like, and notice the poor noun, our God.

He is the God, verse 6, who gives and holds life.

At the end of verse 8, he is the God who sets and who holds the world in motion.

Hannah's God is incomparable.

There's none like him.

Hannah's God is huge.

Friends, how often is our view of God small?

I found myself updating a few apps on my computer this week.

I'm sure you've had that joyful process at some point in your life.

And you know how it is, don't you, that on your computer you've got these little icons on your desktop.

And behind them you've got your kind of big panorama picture.

And if you haven't changed it in a while, it's something like the Grand Canyon or something like that.

But if you're like me, it's kind of a picture of me and my family.

That's what the backdrop looks like.

Like, I was reading these verses this week and it made me think that when it comes to my life,

how often is God just like another little icon in there?

Family.

I'd like to click on the family one now and again.

There's the church one.

There's the sports one.

There's the friends one.

And it's just a big picture of me and my family in the background.

Do you see how Hannah's God here, this God, our God,

challenges us to make it the other way around?

It needs to be the other way around.

That God is not just another icon in our lives that we click on now and again

and do our Sunday thing and maybe once during the week.

We're challenged to make God the panorama, the background of our lives.

Because knowing the truth about who God is,

it really, really matters in the trenches of life.

Remember early last year, a little girl, Grace,

the doctors found a small hole in her heart.

She had an operation to get it filled.

And that is a scary moment for any parent.

And we praise God that we live in a country that by his common grace,

we can have access to that level of health care at that speed.

And we can have access to one of the country's best surgeons to operate on her.

I mean, that is God's common grace to all of us that live in this country.

But the surgeon comes and he talks it out with me about what's going on.

I love it.

He speaks to Alex in medical terms and he speaks to me in layman's terms.

I love that.

But he's talking to me and in the back of my mind, having read verses like this,

as good as he was, if he nailed it, that wasn't why grace survived.

As bad as he was, I mean, if he had an off day, that wasn't the reason that grace was going to die.

Her hands were in the Lord, her times rather, were in the hands of this God.

Every heartbeat, every breath in her lungs is a gift from God.

His, her times, her life is in the hands of this God.

My times and my life are in the hands of this God.

Now, that doesn't make it easy.

That doesn't make life smooth.

But it does mean that there's an immense assurance and comfort in knowing how big this God is.

And we might not be Hannah, but friends, we've got Hannah as God.

And what is this God too?

There's two big themes that jump out of our prayer.

We'll rattle through these quickly.

Two big truths about this God.

Firstly, he is the God who rescues.

Follow with me.

Just look at the topsy-turvy nature of God's kingdom here.

Her God will strengthen the feeble.

Her God will feed the hungry.

Her God is the one who gives life.

Her God is the one who raises up.

Her God is the one who will make rich.

Her God is the one who will exalt.

Her God is the one who will guard.

And her God is the one who will win the battle for his people.

Her God is the God who will one day act to completely reverse the fortunes of those who trust in him.

He is the God who rescues his people.

This is who he is.

And the flip side of that is that he is the God who judges.

Her God will humble the proud.

Her God will shut the mouths of those who have spoken arrogantly against him.

Because her God knows the hearts and deeds of all.

Her God will break the bow.

Her God will make the fool go hungry.

Her God will kill.

Her God will bring down to shale.

Her God will cut off the wicked.

Her God will break his enemies to pieces.

Her God will judge everyone in his holiness.

And his enemies will not be able to stand when this God comes to judge.

And hell will be as bad for his enemies as heaven will be good for his people.

That's Hannah's God.

The God who rescues his people and judges his enemies.

This is Hannah's God.

Verse 10.

God's big plan.

To deal with the big problem.

It centers on his king.

Through his anointed.

Or Messiah is the word means here.

Again, that's the first time that word Messiah is used here in scripture.

The king that God would give his people.

Deuteronomy 17 is key for the rest of this book.

But it's something you might want to go home and think about later.

The king that God had made provision for for his people when they would be in the land.

Now, of course, God was meant to be the king of his people.

But he knew the sinful hearts of his people.

That when they were in the land, they would look around at the other nations that had kings and think,

We want a king as well.

So God made provision for that.

And he said, When you go into the land and when you go for a king,

This is the kind of king that you want to go for.

A God who's going to lead you in obedience to the word of the Lord.

That's the kind of king you want to go for.

And what happens, and we'll see it in a few weeks,

Is the people look to appoint a king.

They look in all the wrong places.

Don't even consult God.

And God will say, They've rejected me as their king.

I was challenged this week as I read those verses to think about how

Often do I just fail to neglect God when I'm making big decisions in life.

To ask for his help.

God, would you help me?

Because I do not have the answers to these questions.

And I do not trust my own judgment.

I need your help.

But here's the God who Hannah is praying for.

Hannah is praying for God's king.

She's praying that God will strengthen this king and give him success.

Now surely the question has got to be at this point in the book,

And the question that we'll carry all the way through.

Who is this king?

There's a little set of hills in South Lanarkshire in Glasgow called the Lothar Hills.

If you go there, you'll find a little, little trickle of water.

And if you follow that little trickle of water,

After a while you'll see that trickle of water turn into a stream.

And if you continue following that stream,

You'll watch it grow and grow and grow.

And eventually you'll get to the River Clyde.

And if you keep on following the River Clyde,

After some time, eventually you're going to hit the Atlantic Ocean.

Something small.

Growing into something big.

But when it comes to the story of God's king,

With Hannah at the house of the Lord,

Praying for God's king.

Friends, right here we're at the Lothar Hills.

At the end of this book, we'll get there.

I'm not sure when we're getting there, but we'll get there.

By the end of 2 Samuel,

Remember the 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, the other one book.

2 Samuel chapter 22.

2 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

Who have we got?

We've got David.

Israel's second, Israel's most celebrated king.

The man who is described as being a man after God's own heart.

And where is he?

He's at the house of the Lord.

And what is he doing?

He's praying.

God's king praying in God's house.

Get to that point, we're at the Clyde.

But as great as King David was, as a king, he wasn't perfect.

I mean, we'll see him fall in some spectacular ways.

He's not the king who would bring this kind of lasting rescue and judgment

That Hannah's praying for and talking about here.

There's a greater king in view.

Because you can't help but think,

And I wonder if you thought of it as you read of Hannah's experience

And Hannah's song.

You can't help but compare it and think about Mary.

And think about her magnificat, her experience, but also the magnificat,

The song of praise that she offers to God in Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

If you compare the two, they are remarkably similar.

Except where Hannah's was a miraculous yet natural conception,

Mary's was a miraculous yet supernatural conception.

Because no man was going to be the answer to this king.

Jesus, the God-man, willing and able to be the king that God's people need.

And what happens?

We see Gabriel proclaim to Mary about the child to be born to her,

He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.

And he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever.

And his kingdom will never end.

God's king.

Friends, here is a book full of problems.

Life's full of problems.

But whether in 1100 BC or whether in 2018 AD,

Friends, our biggest problem by far is the separation that we have from our creator God

because of our sin against him.

Well, God's got a big plan to deal with that big problem.

And Hannah would say to us tonight,

Don't look anywhere else.

Look to God.

Trust in him.

And look to this big God.

And particularly look to his exalted and risen King Jesus

as the one who is the big answer to our big problem.

And so as we finish tonight and as we embark on the rest of this book together,

it's to Jesus that we look.

The king who grants forgiveness.

The king who gives us life.

The king who makes us right with God.

The king who turns orphans into sons and daughters of the living God.

The king who is ascended.

The king who is speaking for us as we were singing earlier at the right hand of the father.

And the king who will one day gloriously return.

And take us home to be with him.

Where all wrongs will be righted.

This is God's king.

Why don't we pray?

And perhaps just in the silence now,

having seen who this God is,

why don't we just pause just for a minute,

just as we embark on another busy week.

And let's just leave just a minute or so

for us to do what Hannah did at the beginning of this episode.

And to pour our souls out before the Lord.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

Lord, we would be in the dark if you had not first revealed yourself to us.

Father, thank you that you are the God who has first loved us.

And thank you so much that you hear our prayers.

Not because we're worthy of being heard,

but because you are so gracious.

And in the Lord Jesus, we have a king.

And we have a brother.

Who is at your right hand interceding for us, your people.

Thank you tonight that we see in chapter one,

that you are a big God with a big plan to deal with a big problem.

And so it's to you we look tonight.

Father, would you help us to know that you are the God who isn't here enough

to care and to love us in our problems.

And that you are the God who is big enough to be in sovereign control of our problems.

So Father, we thank you for this evening.

We love you and we trust you.

Help us to know you ever so close this week, we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.