The Gospel According to Samuel: Hannah's Song (1 Samuel 2:1-10)

Hello, friends, this is Pastor Creighton.

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Father, you are rich in mercy.

Wherever we find ourselves this morning, I pray that by your word and Holy Spirit we would find good reason to rejoice in your salvation.

It's in Christ our Lord's name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

The question is, is there any reason to rejoice when we're brought low?

Do you know what it's like to be brought low?

To find yourself in a place of desperation, hopelessness, despair, seeing no way out or no pleasant future for yourself?

Is there any reason to praise God when we find ourselves in those places?

Or do we take up the invitation of Job's wife?

You remember when Job faces his calamity, what's his wife's advice?

Curse God and die.

God clearly hasn't held up his end of the bargain.

Why would you give him the praise that he wants?

See, I think it's intuitive in a way.

I mean, it sounds quite shocking, but it's intuitive.

If we have a transactional relationship with God, then we give him the praise that he wants when he gives us the security and blessings that we want.

So when we find ourselves in a hopeless and despairing place, well, we find ourselves with less and less reason, perhaps, to give that praise and rejoicing to God.

Is there any reason for us to rejoice when we are brought low?

See, Hannah we meet in 1 Samuel chapter 1, and we meet Hannah in a very lowly place.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

In verse 8, her heart is sad, in verse 15, she is troubled in spirit.

And why is that?

Because Hannah has no children, because the Lord has closed her womb.

Do you know what it's like to be brought low like Hannah?

Maybe you know what it's like in your own history.

Maybe you know that pain of infertility having walked that road with others, friends, and family.

But maybe there's other sources of being brought low.

Maybe it has other names.

Maybe we know what it's like to get that pink slip, or to hear that diagnosis, or to experience the loneliness and anxiety that comes with a pandemic that just doesn't seem to end?

When we're brought low, do we have reason for rejoicing?

How about when we see the wicked prosper?

What about when we can't find security for ourselves in the midst of distress?

Do we have reason for rejoicing?

See, I think there is.

And I think that's the remarkable thing about Hannah's trust in the Lord.

Even when we're brought low, even in Hannah's low place, she finds reason to sing to the Lord.

This is Hannah's prayer in chapter 2.

It's structured like a song.

Hannah's singing this prayer of rejoicing to the Lord.

And at first reading, we might think that Hannah is singing this prayer of rejoicing after the fact.

See, in verse 20 of chapter 1, Hannah conceives and bears Samuel by a special grace of God.

At first reading, it's tempting to hear Hannah's song in chapter 2 and think this is a sort of thanks God for giving me what I want.

Let me give you a little something that you'd like.

But let's consider a couple of things what we know to be true about Hannah.

Hannah has journeyed with her husband El Canaf to the tabernacle year after year to worship and to sacrifice in verse 3.

And when Eli the priest meets Hannah, she is pouring out her heart in the midst of her distress before the Lord.

Hannah is no fair weather worshiper, in season and out of season.

In places of despair and in places of rejoicing, she is always coming to the Lord in the context of worship and praise.

And Hannah's rejoicing here in chapter two doesn't reflect a change in her fortune, her external circumstances.

Thanks God for all these great things happening around me.

Rather, the source of her trust, the source of her rejoicing is God's unchanging character and purposes in verse 2.

In verse 2, Hannah says this that there is none holy like the Lord.

There is none besides you, there is no rock like our God.

Hannah recognizes that in season and out of season, whatever the circumstances of life may be, God remains completely holy.

He remains utterly unique, and he remains supremely strong.

He is a rock in whom we can trust.

These affirmations are true regardless of our present circumstances.

So Hannah finds reason to rejoice in every season because God's unchanging character and purposes remain steadfast.

And when we're brought low, God is still working his salvation.

And that's reason to rejoice.

How do we see that?

How does Hannah see that working out in her situation?

I want to suggest we see two ways that Hannah recognizes God is always working his salvation in and out of every circumstance of life.

First, Hannah recognizes that God is the providential reverser.

And the second thing Hannah recognizes is that God is the sovereign kingmaker.

So for those of us who know what it's like to be brought low, there's good news for us to be found in Samuel this morning.

God is purposefully working his salvation.

And that's reason to rejoice.

So, friends, we dive in this morning to a new series, which I'm calling the gospel according to Samuel.

I'm calling it that partly because I couldn't think of a catchier name, no matter how hard I tried, but mostly because I think there is good news for us to be found in Samuel.

There is gospel news to be found in this book and every other book and page of God's word in Scripture.

There's good news because through the book of Samuel, we see God purposefully working his salvation through figures like Samuel and King Saul and King David.

First and 2 Samuel speak to God's providential, sovereign work of salvation in every circumstance of the nation Israel and in every circumstance of our life as God's people.

1 and 2 Samuel is actually one book.

This division, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, has less to do with writing a sequel, because the first one was so successful, and more to do with length of parchment and scrolls in which these were written.

This is one unified story.

And it's called Samuel because he's the first major figure that we meet in the narrative.

In salvation history, this book of Samuel follows Ruth, which we studied last fall, and we discovered in Ruth similarly that God works his sovereign saving providence through very unexpected and meager circumstances.

Ruth takes place at the same time as the book of Judges.

And if you're familiar with the book of Judges, you know just what a brutal and difficult book this is to read.

There's a refrain towards the end of the book of Judges, and it goes like this.

See, without an order, a moral order amongst God's people, there was accelerating and increasing cycles of violence and oppression and chaos.

Maybe we know a little bit what that's like in our own worlds.

The book of Judges, towards the end, anticipates that saving work that's God that God is going to do in and through the office of the king.

And here we see the kingdom established in this book of Samuel through Samuel's ministry and as he establishes Saul and David.

I love 1st and 2 Samuel because they're full of some of the most famous Sunday school stories, right?

Who doesn't love David and Goliath, right?

That's a classic.

But every famous Sunday school story that we'll encounter, and we'll just encounter a couple of episodes as we read along, has one hero, and that hero is God.

God is the hero of every single story.

And where the human hero falls short, we see the grace and mercy and sovereignty of our Lord shine forward.

And Hannah's song here is no accident.

Where we find it right here at the beginning of the book, it echoes through the rest of 1 and 2 Samuel, introducing, as it were, these major themes of God's providential reversals and God's sovereign saving purposes worked out through the king.

It's 1 and 2 Samuel, and this passage in particular that gives us reason to rejoice always, in every circumstance of life, because our unchanging God is working his salvation.

How do we see that?

How does Hannah give reason to rejoice?

Well, Hannah understands that God is the providential reverser.

It's hard to rejoice when we see the wicked prosper, isn't it?

When the bad guys get away with it, when we see yet another politician get away with that scandal.

Or we see another multi-billionaire found not guilty, of course.

And we see the innocent and the marginalized oppressed and exploited again and again.

See, the Bible has no naive view of social justice and what it means to live in the fabric of an order that is corrupted by sin and oppression.

The Bible isn't naive enough to just say, do good and you'll get ahead, do bad and you won't.

The Bible is willing to enter into that tension that we live in, where evil sometimes seems to prosper and the good seems to suffer.

Here Hannah understands that over all of this, God is working out his providential reversals in history.

Let's look at verses four to the first half of verse eight here.

Hannah gives us a sequence of reversals, like rapid fire.

The bows of the mighty are broken, and the feeble bind on strength.

There's those who are full who've hired themselves out for bread, the hungry have ceased to hunger.

The barren have borne seven, and she who has many children is forlorn.

Maybe that image has a particular significance for Hannah, who's conceived Samuel and will go on to conceive five other children.

The Lord kills and brings to life.

He brings down to Sheol the place of the dead and raises up.

The Lord makes poor and makes rich.

He brings low, he exalts, he raises up the poor from the dust, he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.

All these reversals suggest to us that God exercises total providence over all creation.

At the extremes of the moral order of our society, the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, God is still at work.

And in everything in between, God is working out his providential salvation in history according to his wisdom and his grace.

The same is true for Hannah's own life.

She's experienced a remarkable reversal in her own fortune and circumstance.

But she sees beyond her own circumstances and recognized that this is the kind of work that God does in the whole nation of Israel.

Thus, she doesn't just use, uh, when she used my enemies, she doesn't use the singular for enemies.

She has a rival in the previous chapter, Panina, I think that's how her name is pronounced.

But she uses my enemies, plural, which suggests she's talking about the nations of the, or the enemies of the nation of Israel.

She sees in her small story an example of God's micro-salvation that speaks to God's macro salvation he's accomplishing in the life of the people of God.

So she gives him thanks and praise, and she recognizes that he is the one at work in the life of his people to reverse fortunes in accordance with his moral order.

This is not just a mischief God likes to do, or an indiscriminate reversal, as though God is a little like the Greek fates and just likes to mess with people's lives.

Oh, you're doing well, let's take you down a notch.

No, this is very purposeful.

This is God's sovereign work.

And it's suggested to us because of the last verse of, or last part of verse 8.

Why does God do all of this?

Why is God about this providential reversal?

And it says, the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

This might be a bit of an unfamiliar image to us, but the idea is that God has a very purposeful order to his creation.

When we build a house, we have to do it orderly.

We have to lay a solid foundation if that house is going to, well, if that house is going to stand.

So too God has made a good creation.

And for Hannah, she recognizes God has set creation, as it were, on a solid foundation, on solid pillars.

It is well ordered, it is well structured.

God in his strength has established it such, and he works to see creation fulfill that order.

We can see that in Psalm 24.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

He has founded it, which is a similar expression to placing it on those pillars.

He has put it upon the seas and established it on the rivers.

See, this reversal, this providential reversal of God is a matter of not indulgence, not messing with people, it's a matter of justice.

The self-exalting and oppressive proud and arrogant will be brought low, while the lowly, those who rely upon God's grace and exalt not themselves or their own status, but exalt the Lord, will be raised up.

This is all grounded in God's sovereign, saving providence.

He has ordered creation such, and he is at work in creation to call forth that order.

And I think this is important for us as Christians to consider, especially in a moment like ours where we are so often consumed with conversations about power and justice and authority and how these things are rightly used.

See, I think in these conversations, we can often see it as we can have a particular narrative where we understand that the best thing we can do is try and destabilize power.

We can try and undermine narrative, or we can it can breed a certain kind of cynicism and bitterness towards the world around us, and it can leave us with very little hope that things will actually improve.

See, I think Christians recognize in the midst of this conversation that God has in fact established a moral order to creation around us.

In our society, God is at work calling forth a rightly ordered society.

And he's purposed authorities with carrying that out.

But we know that authorities fall short, and we know that there are those with power who exploit that power.

And when that happens, we ought not to throw our hands and grow cynical.

Rather, we recognize that in accordance with God's wisdom and purpose, he performs justice against oppressors.

He works that out in history.

And so we can trust him to do that.

This doesn't call us to a sort of K Sarah Sarah attitude.

Whatever will be, will be.

Rather, we're called to be very purposeful agents of justice in God's creation.

Hannah knows this to be true of the law.

She knows that the law, like James recognizes too, calls us to love our neighbor, to exercise ourselves for the well-being of others.

We're called to be active agents even within God's ordered creation.

So when we're brought low, when we find ourselves without, when we find ourselves lowly, like Hannah, we can still rejoice.

God is working his salvation through providential reversal.

He in his wisdom will bring about true justice.

And our trust needs to replace our own self-reliance.

See, I think this is what this means for us.

There is no room for arrogance or pride in Christian attitudes.

I see this in verse 3.

Here's how Hannah introduces this section of reversals.

Hannah says, Talk no more so very proudly.

Let not arrogance come from your mouth.

Hannah is saying, stated positively, lose the arrogance, lose the pride, lose the self-sufficiency, lose the self-reliance, practice humility.

Humility isn't thinking less of self, it's not fostering low self-esteem.

Humility is rather thinking of the self less in favor of the well-being of others.

So Christians practice humility to see ourselves rightly and to recognize our need to continually rely on God and strive for true justice in our communities.

The final word we recognize always belongs to God, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.

What a comforting thought it is to know that evil and oppression will not be left unanswered, that God will answer oppression in his time and his wisdom.

See, if that's true, we always have reason to rejoice, because despite all circumstances, God is at work, providentially working his salvation in the midst of our distress.

That gives us reason to rejoice.

Hannah sees a second reason to rejoice here.

God is the providential reverser, but God is also the sovereign kingmaker.

He raises up a savior for his people when they are helpless to save themselves from distress.

And this might be a little more obscure for us to see, because when we're in distress or when we fall into difficult circumstances, probably our first thought isn't, where's Queen Elizabeth?

She'll come and save me.

Probably that's not our first thought.

We need to understand what it is that Hannah knows to be true of God's established kingship, this office of the king that God is at work establishing amongst his people.

See, verses 9 and 10 again reflect God's sovereign character, his providential reordering of all creation.

But she says a remarkable thing in the last part of chapter 10, or pardon me, of verse 10.

She says, the Lord will give strength to his king and exalt the horn, which is a symbol of his strength.

He will exalt the horn of his anointed, which is the word for which we get the word Messiah.

And this is the first time in the Bible the word Messiah is used in relationship with the office of king.

So it's a remarkable thing for Hannah to say.

She lives in a time where there is no king in Israel, but I'm convinced she knows God's promises that he will be at work to establish a king.

We see that in Genesis 49, Deuteronomy 17.

And Hannah knows that when God establishes his king, when he strengthens his king, this Messiah king will accomplish the just accomplish God's justice within the structure of God's moral order for creation.

See, for Hannah, there is hope for those who are brought low.

Justice is not far off.

God will raise up a Savior to accomplish the salvation and security that we cannot accomplish for ourselves.

He will raise up a king for his people who will defend them, who will lead them, and who will save them.

But this office is grounded in God's own authority as the King of Kings.

That's why Hannah says the Lord will judge the ends of the world.

While God raises up a king for his people, God alone remains the King of kings and sovereign over all creations.

So when we're brought low, there's good news for us.

God is the one who raises up a Savior King to defend us, lead us, and save us.

He may find us helpless, but he doesn't leave us helpless.

Maybe we can start to hear how Henna's song echoes through the rest of the book of Samuel.

We can start to hear how it echoes through the lives of Samuel the prophet who establishes first Saul and then David as the king and as a sort of anointed national.

Savior for God's people.

But perhaps we can hear how Hannah's song echoes far past 1st and 2 Samuel, right through the history of salvation in the Old Testament and right into the Gospels, where her song begins to harmonize with the song of another young woman who, like Hannah, is unable to bear children apart from a special grace of God.

See, it's in Mary's Magnificat, we start to hear the true melody emerge, and we start to see the true Savior and the true Savior King to which Hannah's song points.

In Christ, we meet our completely holy, utterly unique, supremely strong God, who is brought low like us, so that he may work his salvation among us and for us.

In Christ, we meet the providential reverser.

Where Hannah sings that the Lord makes poor and makes rich, he raises up the poor from the dust, so sings Jesus' own mother, that he though he, the Lord, has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.

God is at work in Christ to establish his right moral order.

And thus the Apostle Paul can write to the Corinthian church, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

In Christ, God is at work to restore the fortunes of his people.

We who are spiritually impoverished, apart from grace, are made rich by a heavenly inheritance through the mercy of God in Christ.

Thus, even when we are brought low, we can sing with Mary and Hannah that our souls magnify the Lord and our spirits rejoice in God our Savior.

In Christ, we meet the great providential reverser, and we meet the exalted Savior King.

My kingdom is not of this world, Jesus says to Pilate.

It's a kingdom in which God's justice is being fully realized in a renewed and restored creation, where God's people are defended, led, and saved by their Savior King, who will be hailed through all eternity as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jesus is the Savior King who accomplishes the salvation of the Lord through his cross and resurrection in such a way that we cannot accomplish for ourselves.

So do you find yourself brought low today?

Do we find ourselves struggling to find hope or security in the midst of our present circumstances?

Is there reason for us to rejoice even when we're brought low?

See, it's not that there's any guarantee that we won't be brought low.

Hannah still had to go through her very difficult chapter of life.

There's no guarantees of prosperity or material blessing, but we are guaranteed that God's character is unchanging.

He remains completely holy, utterly unique, and supremely strong.

God remains the providential reverser.

That though the wicked may seem to prosper, God is at work to restore the moral order of his creation.

And God remains the sovereign king maker who works salvation for his people through a Savior King in such a way that they cannot save themselves.

So, friends, there is reason for us to rejoice.

God is at work in our worlds.

So may our hearts exalt in the Lord at all times and rejoice in his salvation always.

Amen.