The Birth of a New Era

In God's incredible plan and amazing providence, there is a through line from Jesus ruling in his eternal glory all the way back to the bitter weeping of this barren woman. The echoes of Hannah's prayer, her weeping, her vexation will reach all the way into eternity as we see Jesus ruling in the new heaven and new earth on the very throne that her son Samuel was tasked with establishing.

The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Please turn in your bibles to first Samuel

chapter one. First Samuel chapter one.

We begin the story of Samuel which is a story of how God established the throne of his Messiah, his Christ in Israel. Now I mentioned last time I preached a bit about narrative, about preaching narrative, how it's a little bit different than than what we've heard so far, but I wanna make you familiar with a few more, one more of the structural components of the narrative, and it'll make the stories work very smoothly in your mind and as you read the Old Testament. Of course, as I said, a narrative is a story, and stories are constructed along the following lines. So every story has a beginning. You have your setting, your characters, things like that.

It sets the tone, and then there's an incident which introduces a conflict. So the treasure is stolen. The kingdom is invaded. The boy discovers his destiny. Whatever it is, a situation changes with the incident, and then there's a conflict introduced, something to overcome.

There's a mission, and then after a while there's a resolution where the conflict is fixed, and then arising from that is a new state of affairs. There's a new normal. Now a classic example of this, and it is classic because it's based on the classic, is the first Star Wars film. You got Luke. He's a boy on Tatooine.

He's a farmer. He's cleaning droids, doing his chores. That's the beginning. We're introduced to that, and then what happens? Well, meets Obi Wan who calls him to a higher calling to fight the Empire and be a Jedi Knight.

Well, there's your incident. Right? Something changes, and of course this introduces a lot of conflict. Luke fighting the Empire throughout the movie, and the resolution is, of course, when Luke destroys the Death Star and the new state of affairs then as he continues to fight for the rebellion and now he has a a medal. He's a decorated war veteran, and there's his new normal.

That's how stories work. There's a big plot line and it always follows this pattern. But that beginning, incident, conflict, resolution, and new normal pattern, that actually happens all throughout the entire story in various scenes such that a story is actually a conglomeration of smaller stories. So consider staying with Star Wars here. Within that big story, we also have inside of that when Luke is captured on the Death Star.

At least he's on the Death Star and they're trying to leave. Well so there's the beginning. That's the setting. And then they discover that princess Leia is captured on the Death Star. Well, there's the incident.

This changes things because now they're gonna try to break her out, and conflict comes as a result. And then the resolution is they do break her out of prison, and they escape the Death Star. And there's the new state of affairs there. So that's how the story works. The big plot line follows these patterns, but then the little plot lines inside the story follow these same patterns.

We generally call them like scenes in a movie, and that actually moves on and on. A story is just a conglomeration of smaller stories, and it can move in a smaller and smaller amount. So consider this, a story within that story, and a death star is when Luke and his friends fall down into the trash compactor.

Okay. There's your beginning. There's your setting.

And then there's an incident. The walls start to close in. There's a conflict. They try to close or stop the walls from closing, and then the resolution where three p o shuts down all the garbage compactors on the detention level. So there you go.

A little story inside a bigger one inside a bigger one, and it's amazing when we start to realize that this is the way stories work, stories within stories. Now why did I bring it

up as an example? Because it's directly applicable to what we're gonna see here today.

This morning we're going to read an entire story with all these elements to it about the birth of Samuel, but this just happens as a smaller story starting off the larger story of Samuel, which is of course itself just a scene in the overall big picture of the bible. So as we read the story of Samuel's birth, understand this is the introduction to a larger narrative, which simply works as a scene in the metanarrative, the larger story of the Bible, really the gospel. Keep that in mind. Also before we get in, we need to understand in that plot line, we are right at the very beginning of a massive advancement in the plot of the Bible. There's about to be a plot twist, so to speak.

Samuel begins a monumental advancement in salvation history because it's in Samuel that we see the establishment of a kingship, of a throne in Israel. Now this is much more than simply a political change in Israel. This is a definitive movement of God towards his people. At the beginning of the Bible, God is reigning from heaven. At the end of the Bible, God is reigning from earth, and what we see here established in the throne of David, it functions like one of the steps that God uses in that movement towards his people and toward from heaven to earth.

Think of this. The throne that we're gonna see established in Samuel is the same one Jesus is sitting on in the book of Revelation when he's judging the entire world. The seat of David, the king of Israel, this dynasty established in David, is inherited by Christ who will rule from that throne forever. So this is one of the central advancements in God's saving purposes throughout history. And remember again how the big stories are made from smaller ones.

What we're gonna enter right now is the very beginning of the story of Samuel, the story that begins the whole thing. This is this is how it begins.

This is the birth of a new era. Let me pray then I'll start in verse one.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this. Thank you for communicating in these ways that we appreciate and understand. And I pray for a blessing over this time that we would really be able to enter into this, understand it, and and also draw the benefit of of encouragement for what

we learn about you and your people through this. Pray in Jesus name. Amen. Verse one. There was a certain man of Ramasaiim Zafim, of

the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkena, the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuf,

and Ephraimite. He had two wives. The name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Panina. And Panina had children, but Hannah had no children.

Okay, so here's our introduction. We have some characters introduced and already we're seeing a familiar pattern here. We see this pattern throughout the bible of a story beginning with a barren woman. Astute readers will notice how this is similar to the story of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was barren, that's in chapter 12 of Genesis, and Isaac and Rebecca with Rebecca being barren in Genesis 25.

Jacob and Rachel, Rachel being barren in Genesis 30, and Samson's mother also in the book of Judges was barren. So we see this already, this repeated and familiar element. A story beginning with a woman who cannot have children. Now in each of these cases in the past, God does something miraculous, and we see the birth of a child. We see the birth of an important character who moves the plot line forward.

So we have the beginning, and we also have the incident already, the struggle this woman has. Now we're gonna see it introduce some conflict, and as we enter into that, we're thinking, alright, I've seen this pattern before. What's God gonna do this time? It's always something big.

What's he gonna do this time? We'll see. Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were priests of the Lord.

On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, but to Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her though the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept

and would not eat. Okay. Well, the

conflict now is in full bloom. Hannah is not only battling sorrow and disappointment, and in that culture shame for not being able to have children, but also she has her rival, Peninnah, who provokes her as a result of this. Notice the repetition in this section. Hebrew narratives use repetition like a highlighter. When the author is writing something and he repeats it, it's saying, hey, pay attention to this.

This is a big part in the story. We have a couple examples here. What's he

drawing our attention to? Well firstly, it's that God is the one ultimately writing this story. We see

that God is the one who has closed Hannah's womb, And this is a theme that we're gonna see established and worked out all throughout Samuel is that God is the one writing these stories. It's amazing when you read the stories and how there's irony and coincidence that leads to big plot twists and you say this just seems like someone wrote this story. Well, it's true. God did write this story by ordaining it in history. God ordains everything that happens in this story.

He's in charge of everything. It's not fate. Fate doesn't determine what happens to these characters. Their own choices doesn't ultimately determine what happens to these characters, although they always do have consequences, but God is the one who writes the story from the largest to the smallest detail. He's a sovereign king of the universe and providentially directs all things where he would see them fit to be.

And we're gonna see the author of Samuel emphasize this over and over again, but we first see it here with the twofold mention of Hannah's barrenness from the Lord. Now she's doing nothing wrong. She's not being punished, and again we know it's not bad luck or fate, but for reasons unknown to her and to us so far as the audience, the Lord has closed her womb. Here is a massive hardship and emotional turmoil, a lifelong trial given to this woman by God. We think, but why would he do that?

What's he planning?

We know he's not the villain. God's actually

the only consistently good guy throughout the entire Bible, so we know he's working for good, but how? In my mind this is kind of similar to Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac. We see God acting in a way we don't understand. He calls Abraham to sacrifice his son. We don't know where the story's going.

We think, what? How's he gonna do that?

Well, we haven't been given the answer yet, so what do we do? We keep reading with the expectation

that God is going to be The repetition also directs our attention to Peninna's provocations of Hannah. She's the real villain in this setting, in this conflict. She's provoking Hannah grievously, and think about Hannah's situation here. She probably feels that God's against her, and then adding insult to injury, her husband's wife is mocking her about this very most sensitive topic in her life. What leads Panina to do this?

We don't exactly know. Maybe she's jealous because Hannah is the favorite. The narrative tells us that, that he loves Hannah, gives to her a double portion. We don't exactly know Panina's motivations. However, what we do know, and this is likely why the author has brought our attention to it, is that we've seen this pattern before.

Again, the husband who has two wives and who favors the barren wife. This reminds us of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah. Hagar produced children.

She was loved less, and she torments Sarah, the

other wife, who was barren, at least at the beginning of the story. It also repeats itself with Abraham's grandson Jacob, who favored Rachel, his wife,

who was barren, over his other wife Leah, who

could have children. Of course Rachel and Leah had a rivalrous relationship, and so as we sense the echoes of those stories in Hannah's story we wonder what will be the outcome. You see in both those situations Sarah and Rachel, they gave their handmaiden to their husband in order to bear children for them. Now with Sarah, this was a huge mistake. God had promised her that she would have children, and she wanted Hagar to do it for us.

Hagar bore Ishmael, and Ishmael gave rise to

the Ishmaelites who fought with Israel all throughout the Old Testament. So for her it was

a great mistake, and so the tension builds then as we as the reader see the similarities, and we wonder how will this story resolve? Is she gonna trust? Is Hannah gonna trust in her own cunning and her own ideas like Sarah did with the giving of her servant? Will God appear to her husband in a vision maybe? If she does give birth to a child, will this child be for good or for evil?

We don't know.

So again, we continue on. Verse eight. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do

you weep, and why do you not eat, and why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than 10 sons? I just thought that'd be a good moment to reflect on the timeless qualities of a clueless husband here. What what a stereotypical man. Right?

He's well meaning, but he's completely out of touch with his wife's heart and emotions. He's thinking he's gonna make things better, and of course, he's making them worse. But I think it's a bit funny, but it's also a great example of how the bible is such a real book. We don't read about mythical characters. We read about real people, real problems, and there's so many of these things.

And who hasn't been Elkanah before? I know I have been. There's so many of these things that are relatable. The bible is just characteristically human, and that's one the things I love about it, especially about the stories in the bible. Anyway, continuing on, maybe a caution there for men.

Verse nine, after they had eaten and drunk and Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. Notice how he just happens to be there. 10. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly, and she vowed a vow and said, oh Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor shall touch his head.

Here we see Hannah at the climax of her conflict, deeply distressed, weeping bitterly, but she's faithfully praying. Notice she does

not rely on the arm of the flesh giving her handmaiden to her husband like Sarah did or Rachel did. Rather, she's going directly to the Lord and pouring out her heart before the Lord. She consecrates her yet unborn son with a Nazarite vow saying that if God will but grant him to her, she will give him back to the Lord all the days of his life. Now we're gonna see situations like this all throughout the book of Samuel. There's a conflict, and there's two potential means of resolving this conflict.

There's a human means by human judgment, and there's a faithful means by entrusting oneself to the Lord. We're gonna see a lot of situations where there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death, and conversely where there is a way that entails entails entrusting oneself to God with their whole heart, not depending on their own understanding, but relying on him. And here in Hannah's conflict, the first one we see in the book, she is responding perfectly in her faithfulness. She's not going to the arm of the flesh. She is going directly to God.

Notice the emotive language here. Deeply distressed, weeping bitterly. Verse 16 will say she's speaking out of her great anxiety and vexation. I love this picture because it so perfectly captures what God always looks for and always encourages and always responds to throughout the Bible. That attitude that is, I am I'm in terrible trouble.

I can do nothing. I need you to deliver me. That's all God looks for, Old Testament and New Testament alike, we serve a God who is sensitive to those cries. Consider how he addresses Cain after Cain has killed Abel in Genesis four ten. What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. It's the cries of Israel that led God to deliver them from Egypt. Exodus three:seven, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because they're taskmasters. I know their suffering. The book of Judges coming just before

Samuel, over and

over again, you see in that book the pattern whenever Israel lets go and cries out for help, God responds and brings them salvation and saves them. We hear over and over again in the Psalms, in my distress I called upon the Lord to my God. I cried for help from his temple. He heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Think of it.

Even now, what is needed for salvation other than simply crying out to Jesus Christ for deliverance like blind Bartimaeus. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. That's the cry of faith. My enemies are too many. My conflict's too great.

My strength is too weak. Evils have encompassed me beyond measure. My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. Make haste to help me. It's from Psalms forty twelve to 13. The Lord responds to this, the humble heart, the contrite heart, the heart that fears him, this is all God requires. It's what brought salvation in the Old Testament.

It's what brings salvation in the New Testament announcer, Jesus Christ. And so we see then here the picture of a frustrated, confused, bitterly wounded, broken woman pouring out her heart before the Lord because he's closed her womb.

Now how is it that he will respond? Verse 12. As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth.

Hannah was speaking in her heart, only her lips moved and her voice was

not heard. Therefore, Eli took her to be a drunken woman.

And Eli said to her, how long will you go on being drunk? Put away your put your wine away from you. And before we get to know the answer to Hannah's prayer, we have the introduction of yet another character here, an important character. He's been mentioned twice so far. One says the father of Hofni and Phineas.

The other mentioning he was seated. They're gonna play a big role in chapter three. There's some troublemakers, but we haven't actually seen Eli do anything yet. He's just been mentioned. Now something that's very important to keep in mind to understand the way biblical narrative works is that we don't actually get a lot of details about the characters.

Right? You don't often hear about their motivations or their internal dialogue. Usually not a lot of details about what they look like, but when you do get in details about characters, they're extra important for forming the role of that character throughout the entire narrative. Oftentimes, it's the first words or the first action a character takes or the place they're introduced that are remarkably informative about how that character's story is gonna play out in the end. A good for instance is a story of Gideon.

Gideon is hiding in a winepress, beating out wheat, making sure the Midianites won't find him at the beginning of the story. He's timid. He's a bit scared. Well, fear, timidity, hesitancy to obey God characterized Gideon throughout the entire narrative. God says to pull down the Asherah pole, and he does it at night.

He's a bit scared. He has to have the fleece sign once and then again before he's convinced, and then even the night before the big battle, he needs one more bit of encouragement before he's really willing to listen to the Lord. So that's an example of how his introduction gave us

a hint of how his story would play out. What I

think is really interesting is that we're all familiar with this in movies. This happens in movies all the time. If you've seen back to the future, I want you to consider the way they decide to introduce Doc. K. Here, you see the apartment.

It's disheveled plutonium underneath the bed. And as the camera pans, you see a number of inventions. They're clever, but they're all going wrong. Toaster's burning the toast. The automatic dog feeder is making a mess, and the amp that he has has an overload and blows Marty across the room.

And then you see Doc in person coming out of the DeLorean in the hazmat suit, stumbling around. He's excited and bewildered. He's brilliant, but he's harebrained. And this stays true of his character throughout the entire movie. He's the mad scientist whose inventions are always causing trouble.

The introduction is an accurate caricature of who he is throughout the entire movie and even throughout the entire series. And so we get that. We've seen that in movies, and it's really stunning to me how much the Hebrew narrative, how much the Bible works just like that. So Eli now, he's coming onto the scene. What do we see about Eli?

Well, he's making mistake. He's mistaken. It's interesting also, he's seated at the door post. He's in a passive position. He's not standing up and, you know, sacrificing at the altar or lighting candles.

He's just kind of seated there. We're gonna see later on that it's his passivity that gets him into big trouble. Also, know Eli is a judge from chapter four verse 18, but we have him here making a wrong judgment. He's showing bad judgment. So our introduction to the judge Eli is a wrong judgment that doesn't set very high hopes in our minds for him, and indeed we're going to see from him more passivity and more mistakes coming up foreshadowed here.

So there's Eli on the scene for us. Back to Hannah. But Hannah answered, no, my lord. I'm not. I am a woman troubled in spirit.

I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I've been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation. Then Eli answered, go in peace and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him. And she said, let your servant find favor in your eyes. Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord. Then they went back to their house in Rimma. And Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her. And in due time, Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel. For she

said, I have asked for him from the Lord.

The man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer the Lord the yearly sacrifice and pay his vows. This is a year later. But Hannah did not go up for she said to her husband, as soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever. Al Cana, her husband, said to her, do what seems best to you. Wait until you have weaned him, only may the Lord establish his word.

So the woman remained and nursed her son until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her along with a three year old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. And the child was young. Then they slaughtered the bull and they brought the child to Eli, and she said, Oh my Lord, as you live, my Lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence praying to the Lord, For this child I prayed and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord.

As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord. And he worshiped the Lord there. So God has listened. He's heard her prayer, granted her request. For Hannah then in this first story, the conflict is over.

The resolution has come. Panina, notice, is not mentioned again. Her barrenness is reversed. We'll see she goes on to have five more children, and Samuel is born, and keeping her vow, Hannah sends him to worship before and minister before the Lord at Shiloh, a conclusion to the first miniature story within the story of Samuel. Now there are some absolutely stunning details in this section, and it's just so characteristically the way God works.

So I wanna draw your attention back to verse 16 with Hannah praying before the Lord. Think about how real and how down to earth this is. This woman in visceral and emotional moment pouring out her soul to the God of the universe.

She's not a king. She's not even a queen. She's not even a patriarch like Abraham. She's an obscure woman of little account. Firstly, she is a woman,

and they simply did not hold a high place in the status of culture back then. It was a patriarchal culture, and men occupied a weightier place than women. Furthermore, the value that women did have at that time was largely derived from their ability to bear a male heir. This was a woman's power, a woman's influence. Oh, Hannah did not have that either, so we see her in pain, anxiety, frustration in her lowly position before the very God of the universe telling him how she feels, weeping bitterly before him.

Realize a lowly earthly king would not accept that. He would never let a barren woman come before him and speak out of her raw emotion. An earthly king wouldn't. But how does the God who created the stars with a word from his mouth, how does he respond? He answers her.

And not only does he answer her, he begins to establish the very throne into which he will descend and be forever seated through her. Because remember, this woman's son, Samuel, is the kingmaker. He anoints David and establishes the Davidic kingship, the very throne of which Jesus will inhabit and rule for from eternity. Consider this through line of verses that I'm about to read to you. First Samuel one ten, she was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.

And then 20, and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She called his name Samuel. Now we jump into the future. 16 verse 13. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him, David, in the midst of his brothers.

That's Samuel anointing David king. And then second Samuel seven twelve, this is God speaking to David. I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Jumping forward to Luke one thirty two.

We hear this said to Mary. Jesus? The throne of his father David. Of his kingdom there will be no end. Jumping forward to Revelation twenty eleven, then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it and from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.

Then Jesus, reigning with authority from that very throne, definitively declares in Revelation twenty-two 16, I am the root and descendant of David, the bright and morning star. In God's incredible plan and amazing providence, there is a through line from Jesus ruling in his eternal glory all the way back to the bitter weeping of this barren woman. The echoes of Hannah's prayer, her weeping, her vexation will reach all the way into eternity as we see Jesus ruling in the new heaven and new earth on the very throne that her son Samuel was tasked with establishing, the son given to her because of her bitter weeping and her tears. Our response to that can only be, oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments.

How inscrutable his ways. And I love this so much because this shows us God's character, what he's like. This is not your generic God. The generic God says, Bring gold. Kill humans for me.

Give me human sacrifice. Maybe then I'll listen to something your king says. God's the opposite. He says, Come to me in your weakness. Come to me in your bitter vexation.

Come to me in your anxiety. And he comes down and listens to this woman with nothing to offer. Save the service for you unborn child. He comes down and hears her. God hears these prayers.

Not only does he hear her again, he begins the next stage, the next state of his plan to retain the entire world through her. This is not an exception for God. This is the norm. This is what he's like. He raises up the weak and lowers the mighty.

He exalts the humble and throws down the haughty. Two Corinthians twelve eighteen, His power is made perfect in weakness. First Corinthians one twenty seven, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lonely things of this world and the despised things, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are.

And why does God do this repeatedly? Why does he only give Gideon 300 men to fight? Why does he make a multitude come from Sarah, a barren woman? Why does God chose the least of the sons of Jesse, a boy, to defeat a giant and become a king? Well, he does it so that no one may boast before him.

That's what we hear in scripture. God uses the weak things of the world to accomplish his purposes, to show it's not by man's might or strength, but by God's spirit that these things come to pass. We see this as a central part of God's character all throughout the New Testament, and of course it is most fully and convincingly clearly shown and displayed in God's own self revelation of himself, Christ's crucifixion on the cross. Jesus Christ, the king, conquers death, not through strength but by dying himself. What seems to be weakness.

God's wisdom appears as worldly foolishness. His strength appears as worldly weakness. As Paul says in first Corinthians one twenty two, for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jew and Greek, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. This is our God.

This is one of the things that makes him so wonderful. Uses the weak. Uses the broken. Uses the faith that would seem to be foolishness. And so this is the very characteristic that

Hannah herself is going to point to then. At the beginning of chapter two,

and I'll read it for us now in closing, Hannah draws this attention to the fact that God is this one who uses the weak, who reverses the situation to show himself glorious, and again, it's amazing to think of how he does this all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament and chiefly in Jesus Christ. So I'll begin next time we preach with the same psalm because there's a lot that really sets the table for the rest of the book of Samuel through here, but as I read it now in closing, keep your ears open for that reversal element, how God changes things by exalting the humble and lowering the powerful. This is Samuel's song, or this is Hannah's song then that she wrote to praise the Lord as a result of giving her Samuel. And Hannah prayed and said, my heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord.

My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord for there is none beside you. There is no rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly. Let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who are full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who are hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to Sheol.

He raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts up the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit the sea of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lords, and on them he has set the world. He will guard his feet. He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness. For not by might shall man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces.

Against them, he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. I pray for us.

Lord, we thank you for this story, for the truth of what's going on here,

and what we can gather, that you are working all things out for good, that you hear our cries, that you hear us in our raw moments, our vexation, and

that you are so willing to respond to that humble heart and uplift it.

Let us maintain a heart like that before you. Let us not seek out the world's means of conquering and power. Let us trust you. Let us model ourselves after Jesus Christ our savior who, though he was in the same form of his God, did not consider himself, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but lowered himself and took on the form of a servant, and who being found in human form then lord himself further becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, he's been highly lifted up, the name above all names, that the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth to the glory of God the father.

Let us model ourselves, have the same mind that is in Christ and that this story calls us to this morning.

Thank you for it. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.