21 Days of Prayer // Praying Through your Pain

We're gonna be in 1 Samuel chapter number one this morning, and I want to ask you a question to open up the message.

Have you ever experienced mental or emotional pain?

If you're a 49ers fan, not if you're a Broncos fan though, but if you're a 49ers fan, you are experiencing experiencing it right now.

You ever experienced mental or emotional pain in such a way that it actually affects your physical health.

Maybe nothing shows up on WebMD, but everything hurts anyway.

Maybe you've had a hard time sleeping or hard time eating.

Maybe your body just hurts.

It was mental pain.

It was emotional pain.

You've been there.

Maybe some of you are there right now.

And the reason why I bring this up is because we're gonna read an account of an incredible woman that experienced this kind of emotional pain.

In fact, her pain was so deep that she couldn't even eat.

And this is how this woman describes herself.

And maybe you've been there before.

This is how she described herself.

She says this.

She says, I am a woman with a broken heart.

Now, this word broken heart here isn't just like, oh, I had a bad day.

Things are difficult.

My football team lost.

No, this word broken heart, this is what this means.

It means severely distressed in spirit.

This isn't just circumstantial, like she had a bad day.

This is she had a season.

She had an ongoing heartache that left her so severely distressed, she's having physical symptoms.

Who's this woman that I'm referring to?

Well, she's a remarkable woman.

She's a woman of dignity, a woman of prayer.

The woman's name?

Hannah.

In fact, can we all say Hannah on three, one, two, three?

This is why you need to know that name in your mind and your heart.

Because what we're gonna examine about Hannah today is this is that Hannah prayed through her pain and God heard her prayer.

Amen.

That's right.

Hannah prayed through her pain and God heard her prayer.

And today, as we are gonna examine this remarkable woman, I want this woman to be lodged in your mind and lodged in your heart.

Of what do we do when we have seasons of pain?

Because how she handled her season, well, it changed everything else.

You say, What was this woman's pain that left her with a broken heart?

Let's read about it.

It's in 1 Samuel chapter number one.

And if you're ready, would you say amen?

Amen.

Teddy's ready.

Let's go.

1 Samuel chapter 1.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

It says this.

It says, There was a man from Ramatham Zophim.

What a name.

In the hill country of Ephraim, his name was El Cana.

Do you remember El Kanah?

El Kanah, first important character in the story, El Kanahnah.

El Kanah, son of Jerihim, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zeth in Ephraimite.

And you can be thankful that you don't have to pronounce those names up here in front of a room filled with people.

And in case you're wondering, I pronounced them exactly perfectly.

I just come on.

Yes, thank you.

You guys all know.

Because you know how to pronounce all these names.

Okana.

We learn about him, and we learned something else about him in verse number two.

It says, he had two wives.

Sir, stop.

There's all these videos and things, and people like, oh, the Bible's pro-polygamy, blah, blah.

Okay, okay, okay.

Hold on.

Explanation in scripture does not mean affirmation.

Okay, when you're studying scripture, if we can get that on the screen, explanation does not mean affirmation.

What's happening here is Samuel, all that's happening is just explaining the situation.

Just explaining it.

So Elkanah has two wives, explaining the nature of the situation.

His first, the first name, if we can go back to verse two, the first named Hannah.

Hannah, second important character.

The woman that had the broken heart.

And the second, Panini like the sandwich.

No, I'm just kidding.

It was Panina.

Panina had children.

And the next four words give us the reason why Hannah's heart was broken.

But Hannah was childless.

You see, in this culture, in this society here, a woman's complete value and worth was based on if she could have children or not.

That was the reality.

When a young girl would grow up, her dream was to have children.

That was everything in this society.

And for a woman not to be able to have children, that literally was the worst thing that could ever happen to them.

For a few reasons.

Some of them were practical.

First of all, it's an agrarian society, so everybody does farming.

So if you want to have more workers on your field to be able to harvest more crops and to be able to work the crops so you can get more money, you just need to have more boys.

Another thing is in this society, there was no retirement plans.

No 401ks, no Social Security.

Your kids were your retirement plan.

And some of you in the room, you're hoping your kids will strike at rich and they'll be your retirement plan.

Socially in this society, the more children a woman had, the more socially she was considered blessed.

Without kids, you were seen as like, is there something wrong with you?

What?

How come she doesn't have any kids?

Did she do something wrong?

Guys, there was social stigma.

There was uh there was all these different factors that came into play.

The reason why it was so important for women to have children in this society.

And Hannah was childless.

Hannah couldn't have children.

On top of this, the other wife, Panina, she had children.

Verse number three.

The story goes on, and we learn more about what happens.

This man, this man was the first character, El Cana.

He would go up from his town every year to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of armies at Shiloh.

This is God.

This is Yahweh.

Where Eli's two sons, Hopni and Phineas, were the Lord's priests.

Whenever El Cana offered a sacrifice, he always gave portions of the meat to his wife Penina and to each of her sons.

Plural and daughters.

Plural.

He gave them food.

He gave a portion to them.

Verse number five.

I find verse number five kind of funny.

But he gave a double portion to Hannah.

For he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving.

So Phil Kenna's like, Panina, you get one scoop of mashed potatoes?

Hannah?

You get two.

Okay, bro.

Like however you want to show your love, that's great.

That's literally what happened here.

He gave her double portion.

It's also, also, also, also, also really important to notice that in this verse, it says the Lord had kept her from conceiving.

This wasn't because of something Hannah had done.

It wasn't as if God's disciplining her.

It wasn't as if there's consequences because of something that's no, no, no.

This is something the Lord had done.

And here's why I bring this up.

Because some of us are in situations or we have been in situations, and it's not your fault.

It's nothing that you have done.

Are any of you like me and you're really hard on yourself sometimes?

Oh my goodness.

I one time, one time a therapist called me overly responsible.

You take responsibility for things you shouldn't even take responsibility for, and you blame yourself.

And sometimes what can happen is we can take on things and we can say, This was my fault, this was this, woe is me, this is that.

When there are certain situations, just like here in 1 Samuel chapter number 1, where maybe the Lord has you in a trial.

This was nothing that Hannah had done.

This was not her fault.

And to make matters worse, look at what the other woman does.

Her rival, verse number six, would taunt her severely.

Now in Hebrew, taunt her severely literally means to roar or to thunder.

And it's the only place in the Bible where we see this phrase mentioned.

Would roar, would thunder just to provoke her.

Have you ever known somebody that maybe they did things just to just to provoke you?

If you have a brother or sister, they do things, they did things just to provoke you.

And some of you were like me, you were that brother.

My mom, we'd be driving somewhere, and and my mom would say, me and my sister, we'd mess with each other, and she would say, Don't cross over the line.

No, no, I gotta say, there's like a it's like a bench type thing, almost like a bucket seat, and there was like a line in the middle of the back seat, and I would always sit on this side behind the driver.

My sister would sit on this side behind the passenger, and my mom would say, Don't cross the line.

This is what I'm gonna do.

That was so bad.

I'd put my hand right up next to the line.

Now I knew I don't want to cross the line because I'm not trying to get a spanking when I get home.

Yeah, it's okay.

My mom spanked me.

She didn't abuse me, she spanked me, okay?

Right close to that line.

And this is why I did it because I knew it'd get under my sister's skin.

Anybody else ever do that to a sibling?

I'm the only one that did that kind of stuff to a sibling.

Here, Panino would provoke Hannah, but she would provoke her at the place that was her deepest pain and hurt and sorrow.

Hey Hannah, you want to go to my kids' baseball game?

Because I know you don't have any kids' baseball games to go to.

Hey Hannah, do you mind doing the dishes tonight?

I'm really tired.

I've been playing with my kids all day.

This right here, this isn't just little random things that Panini would throw out.

This was strategic.

She would provoke her, taunt her severely.

And this wasn't a one-time thing.

Look verse number seven.

Year after year, she went up to the Lord's house.

Her rival taunted her in this way, and Hannah would weep and would not eat.

Can you blame Hannah?

And this is another sermon for another time, but Hannah's in a significant amount of pain, but yet she still goes to the Lord's house.

She still chooses to worship the Lord in the midst of her pain.

She goes to the Lord's house where she she would weep.

And her husband in verse number eight says, This, Hannah, why are you crying?

El Canna would ask her that.

Why won't you eat?

Why are you troubled?

Which good job, El Kanah.

Paying attention, listening to her being there, but then El Kana asked this question Am I not better to you than ten sons?

You gotta love the confidence of the clueless husband here.

Am I not better than ten sons?

That's the wrong thing to say in that moment, brother Elkanah.

On one occasion, verse 9, Hannah got up after they ate and drank at Shiloh.

The priest Eli was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord's temple, deeply hurt, deeply hurt.

Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears.

Making a vow, she pleaded, Lord of armies, if you will take notice of your servant's affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.

Now, this is a big deal.

This is something that Hannah is offer offering her son to be what's called a Nazirite.

And what a Nazarite vow would be, a Nazirite vow would be where somebody would be set apart for service in the temple.

Hannah here, it's important to know, Hannah here is not bartering with God.

Has he ever bartered with God before?

If you do this for me, I'll do this for you.

If you let the 49ers win, then I'll come to church tomorrow.

Hannah here is not bartering with God because by her saying that I will set him apart as a Nazirite, all the benefits, some of the things we mentioned earlier, she would not have those because she would, her son would be working in the temple.

He would not be able to work in the field, he would not be able to work and do these things for her.

He would be dedicated to the Lord's service.

So really, this is a prayer that says, Lord, if you give them to me, he's yours.

He's yours.

And verse 12, as she's continuing praying in the Lord's presence, Eli thought she was drunk.

Eli the priest, and said to her, verse number 14, How long are you going to be drunk?

Get rid of your wine.

Which that shows us.

Eli must have seen some interesting things at the temple.

No, my Lord, verse 15, Hannah replied, I'm a woman with a broken heart.

I haven't had any wine or beer.

I've been pouring out my heart before the Lord.

Don't think of me as a wicked woman.

I've been praying from the depth of my anguish.

My anguish and my resentment.

Now, real quick, resentment, this isn't bitterness here.

This is a deep grief caused from prolonged frustration.

Hannah's carrying this grief in her heart, in her soul.

For years, she's dreamed.

I'm gonna be a mom.

For years, she just believes it's gonna happen.

She's praying.

Then every month, every little jab that Panina makes at her prolongs the grief.

She was filled with anguish.

And Eli responded to her, Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you've made of him.

May your servant find favor with you, she replied.

Then Hannah went on her way and she ate and no longer looked despondent.

The next morning, El Kanah and Hannah got up early to worship before the Lord.

Afterward, they returned home to Rama.

Then El Cana was intimate with his wife Hannah.

In case you're wondering what that means, it means they got it on.

In case you're wondering what that means, just ask Pastor Edgar and he'll tell you.

And if he doesn't know, Pastor Cody does.

And the Lord remembered her.

Verse 20 After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son and named him Samuel.

Because she said, I requested from the Lord.

And here's one of the powerful inspirational things that we learn from the life of Hannah is that Hannah prayed from a place of honest pain.

Hannah prayed from a place of honest pain.

Notice the words that are used to describe Hannah's life.

Deeply hurt.

Broken heart.

Anguish.

Resentment.

This is how.

Hannah feels this is real.

And in this moment, Hannah takes these emotions and she makes a decision.

A decision that can change the trajectory of lives.

We live in a world that, no surprise to anybody, is very broken.

We live in a world that's very different than God designed us to live in.

And because of this, the question is not, will we ever experience mental or emotional pain?

The question is what do we do when we experience mental or emotional pain?

See, some of us in the room, we are professionals.

Did you know you're a professional?

Some of you are.

You are a professional, emotional denier, or emotional suppressor.

Somebody asks you, How are you doing?

Blessed and highly favored, brother, everything's great.

When you know, those are not two words to describe you.

Some of us we have an emotion, and immediately we're like, that's uncomfortable.

Suppressing that one.

I'm putting that one like all the way at like the bottom of my big toe so it can never come up again.

We just like stuff, stuff, stuff.

And it's not that we just suppress emotions or or deny our emotions maybe to other people, but like to ourselves.

Like we're good at saying we're okay when we're really not okay.

Or maybe, maybe you don't deny, maybe you don't suppress.

Maybe your MO is just being busy all the time.

I go here, I go there, I go.

Because if I just go, go, go, I don't have to feel.

I get it.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Your MO is that you have learned that there is some incredible medications out there that really help when you have pain and emotional difficulty.

One of the medications is alcohol.

One of the medications might be shopping.

One of the medications might actually be prescription drugs.

Maybe it's just scrolling on your phone, something to ease the pain.

And can I just say, I get it?

Because it's hard.

And while it's easy to suppress or deny, while it's easy just to stay busy, because I mean there's a lot to do.

While it's easy to medicate ourselves and get home, be like, I'm just gonna have one glass, which turns into two or three or four, or I don't even know how many.

I want you to see what Hannah did.

This is what Hannah did.

It says this I've been pouring out my heart before the Lord.

Hannah took her very real emotional pain and she poured it out before God.

Hannah says, God, here's where I'm at.

I'm telling you everything.

And I gotta say about these prayers, they probably weren't Instagram caption type of prayers.

There was no filter on them, there was no graphic, there was no pretty sunset.

They were raw and real and vulnerable.

And can I just say we need more of that type of prayer in our life?

We need more pour out prayers and fewer performance prayers.

You know, the performance prayers, it's like, okay, I need to pray just the right way because, like, this is how you pray.

I need to say, if I can use the old King James English, the the and the thou, and this is how I perform.

Guys, prayer is not about performance.

Prayer is about pouring out your heart before the Lord.

The best prayers have nothing to do with the specific words that you say and everything to do with the heart that you bring before God.

And if you are honest before God, if you pour out your heart before God, then those are beautiful prayers.

And I'm talking to some people that you have carried with you pain and you have carried with you sorrow.

And you can pour out your heart before God.

God is not, when you pour out your heart, God's not like, oof, they got problems.

God's not like, I can't believe they they're going through that.

Uh Holy Spirit, go help them.

No, no.

God wants to hear your heart, He's not afraid of your prayers.

And Hannah is doing something here.

He's it's called lamenting.

What is lamenting?

Lamenting is an honest prayer and pain to God that leads to trusting God.

Lamenting prayers aren't about sounding spiritual, they're about pouring out your hearts.

And in these 21 days of prayer that we're in, some of us just need to learn how to lament and pour out our heart before God.

Who are you hiding from?

What's it benefiting you just to suppress and deny?

We have a father that wants to hear our heart.

We have this example of Hannah that just says, Hey, I'm pouring myself out.

It's also interesting in the text, Hannah, Hannah let somebody else minister to her.

So Hannah let Eli minister to her in the temple during this pain.

What Hannah could have done is Hannah could have said, Okay, I'm going through this hardship.

I'm gonna go isolate myself over here.

And uh when things get better, then I'm gonna go be around people and then I'm gonna go to the temple.

But in the meantime, I'm just gonna stay here and do me, and I'm gonna work on my problems right now.

Because I just I don't I don't need anybody.

Because being around people's hard, being around people's difficult.

I'm gonna I'm gonna stay here.

Hannah.

This is a bold move.

Hanna goes to the temple.

She prays publicly, she worships publicly, and then Eli comes and ministers to her in her need.

And rather than her saying, no, Eli, I'm good.

Don't talk to me.

I'm fine.

Hannah opens up her heart a little bit to Eli and lets Eli minister to her.

Can I say that is exactly what the church is about?

The church is about people ministering to people.

The church is not a one-hour show on Sunday morning.

You can go to Las Vegas and hear a one-hour show and watch.

Church is a participation activity.

Church is not a spectator sport.

Church is like, we are all a part of this together because we are better than me.

This is why we got groups starting up in a week from now.

Why?

Because we want you to be in community with each other and be in proximity with other people that can minister to you.

This is why we have people available at the prayer and next steps banners.

Why?

So you can just say, hey, will you pray for me?

People ministering to each other.

That is what the church is supposed to be.

And the times when we push back the most from this is often the time we need it the most.

The time when we want to withdraw and not show up is the times we need to show up the most.

The times when we don't want to ask somebody to pray for us, even though we're going through it, are the times we need to ask somebody the most because God has designed the body for us to build one another up.

But for that to happen, for that to happen, we have to understand this is how God has designed the church to be.

All of us together, all of us ministering to each other.

And Hannah prayed in her honest pain to God.

She let somebody minister to her, and then something incredible happened in verse number 11.

God heard the prayer that she prayed.

At the end of the text, we see that she had a son, but verse 11, we see she prayed this prayer.

And I want us to acknowledge and look at this mighty prayer that she prayed.

It says in uh verse number, verse number 11, this she said, Lord of armies, if you will take notice of your servant's affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son.

I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.

Let's get granular.

Let's look at what she said.

The first thing she did was she acknowledged God's greatness, Lord of armies.

So in her pain, she remembered, God, you are all powerful.

God, your power has not waned.

You are the Lord of armies.

She acknowledges her place.

She says, your servant.

Hannah doesn't come before God saying, God, like, look what I do.

Like you owe me this.

You ever?

Maybe you wouldn't say it because it's kind of ugly.

But have you ever thought God owes this to me?

Have you ever thought, God, I do all these things for you?

God, I did this.

God, I'm trying to be a good parent, a good thing.

Like, you owe this to me.

And when that happens, it just shows that we have a very moralistic view of God and we don't understand fully the gospel and the implications of the gospel.

Think about this.

The gospel shows us that there's nothing we can do to get God's righteousness or get God's favor, which is why Jesus had to come and die on the cross for our sin.

So because Jesus Christ came and died on the cross for our sin, now we have and we put our faith in him.

Now we have all of God's grace and we have all of God's mercy, not because of anything that we've done, but because Jesus died in our place on our behalf.

So I don't come before God and say, God, look at my righteousness.

Because apart from Christ, I have no righteousness.

I come before God through Christ based on his righteousness because of what he's done for me on the cross.

So because I realize that, I come before him, not saying, God, you owe me, but me coming before him, saying, God, I am your servant.

I serve whether you give me Samuel or you don't give me Samuel.

I serve no matter what happens, because this is who I am.

Hannah acknowledged that she was a servant, and then Hannah asked boldly.

She persevered through her pain.

She poured herself out before God, and God gave her a son named Samuel.

And Samuel was gonna be used to shape the history of the nation of Israel.

Samuel was gonna end up being a judge, the last judge, which is like an acting president.

He was gonna end up being a prophet, he's gonna be a mouthpiece of God to King David, to an entire nation.

This is who this mighty man would be, Samuel.

And Samuel came about because a woman prayed through her pain.

A broken-hearted woman poured herself out before God.

And here's the invitation today.

It's very simple.

Have more pour-out prayers and less performance prayers.

Have more pour-out prayers and less performance prayers.

I want to illustrate this and we'll be done.

If this bottle represents Hannah's life and our lives, and this water represents the pain and the emotional difficulty that we feel, we have a choice.

We can keep it in and we can bottle it up.

We can say, I'm not opening this up, I don't even want to go there.

Or this is what we can do.

We can open ourselves up.

Sometimes it's hard to do this.

And we can come before God and we can pour out our pain right to God.

And we can say, God, I am going through this.

Life is so hard, I'm giving you this pain.

And when Panina comes and provokes, and there's more pain, I'm giving this to you.

And until we will be people that will be willing to pour out our pain before God and pour out our lives before God, we will never truly learn what it means to pray.

And maybe when we pour out our hearts to the Lord, maybe God won't always change our circumstances, but God is near the brokenhearted and he will always meet his children in their pain.

Amen.

So today, in the last couple moments that we have, would you just take a moment and pour out your heart to God?

Can we just have a moment where maybe something we've been bottling up, we just unscrew the cap.

Maybe it's something small, maybe it's something big.

We just say, Lord, I'm just I'm just gonna take this to the cross and I'm gonna pour it out before you.

And when we do that, when we learn we can be honest before God, we are learning how to pray.