Unsung Heroes | Hannah's Fervency (August 5th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, you can take your seats and get your Bibles open, pens ready, get it open to 1 Samuel chapter 1.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

That's where we're gonna be going through today.

1 Samuel 1 down to 2 verse 10.

Fervency.

It's a great word.

It's maybe not one that we use all that often these days, but according to the dictionary, it means having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, feeling, or enthusiasm.

And maybe fervency describes some area of your life.

Like for perhaps maybe you are fervent about crossfit, okay, or you know, the ketogenic diet.

That's the new thing these days, right?

And and for you, it's you know, pour putting all of your chips into you know very strict eating and workout regimen, and your calendar and your schedule is has it been completely off-ended so that you're going to the gym enough and you're eating a certain way.

And man, I'm never gonna cheat, have another cheat meal ever again.

Maybe for you, you're super fervent about that.

Or maybe you fervently landscaped your backyard, right?

This past spring, and every night after work, you would be out there and you would be measuring and carrying stuff out and laying down stone or building that deck or putting in the pool or planting trees or whatever it was.

You're so fervent about that in the spring because you wanted to enjoy that this summer, right?

The nice weather back there on your brand new deck.

Okay, perhaps you're fervent about something like paying off debt.

Maybe it's because of the whole backyard project, I don't know, but uh you're channeling all of your effort and and again all of your energy and drive into making sure that you are paying off that uh credit card and not owing anybody anything.

And so uh you're restricting yourself in other areas so that you can get into a good place uh financially.

Well, listen, Hannah is an amazing example of fervency, and she faced immense personal turmoil in her life.

Yet in the midst of it, she fervently pursued the Lord, fervently.

She could have, at any point, given up on her faith, given up on the Lord.

She could have, you know, tried to unwisely, you know, try and figure out how to fix her problem in her own strength, in her flesh, uh, what have you.

But instead, what does she do?

Well, she she leans into God, right?

With with drive and this intensity and this focus.

For her, it was uh an incredibly hard, it was a brutal season of life for her, but but through it all, to no surprise, the Lord does some amazing things in her life and and through her.

Now, you and I, of course, we face, we face all kinds of trouble in this life.

We we know that.

That's that's not news to anybody here.

So the question really then is in those troubled times, will we, like Hannah, fervently pursue the Lord?

Will we go after him?

Will we double down?

Will we dig our cleats into the soil and go after the Lord with everything that we've got?

And through the power of his spirit, of course.

Well, this is where we're going.

These are the things we're gonna be getting into, diving into, but before we do that, uh join me as we pray.

God, we again come before you as your church.

And Lord, um, some of us, I know some of us in here are carrying in deep, deep, troubling things from our life that have been very difficult.

Maybe it's a day this week, maybe it's been this whole week, maybe it's been the last months or years, or who knows how long these things last, Lord.

Only you know.

And God, I pray that as we open up the scriptures and look into your word, Lord, I pray that you would uh speak into the lives of your people here today.

I pray that you would encourage us.

I pray that you would show us that that you are worth holding on to.

It is worth pressing into you and being fervent in prayer and and in all of these things, God.

Would you help your church here today, Lord?

We are weak, we are we are broken.

Even at our best, Lord, we're we're we're not as great as we often think that we are.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would humble ourselves here today, Lord.

And if not, that you would humble us and that you would have your way, Lord.

We pray that your spirit would do an amazing work, glorifying Christ this morning.

We pray this all in his name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, in troubled times, I will fervently pursue the Lord.

That's what we're talking about here today.

Here's the first one, first thing, considering that he's seen fit to have me in this position.

Okay, now if you've got your Bibles open again, hopefully you do.

Look at verse one here of 1 Samuel chapter 1.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

Okay, follow along with me as we go through this.

Okay, it says here there was uh a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim.

Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I'm really glad that they just shorten it to Rama later.

Okay, that's a little easier on me.

Okay, but it says that he's from this place of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah.

Okay, Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuf, an Ephraith.

Then it says that he had two wives.

Now, if you're thinking about this a little bit, you're probably making a little mental note here saying that's like less than ideal, right?

For him to have two wives.

That might set the stage for some of the trouble that's coming.

But keep going, it says the uh the name of one of them was was Hannah, and the name of the other Panina.

And Panaina had children, but Hannah had no children.

Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, he was the priest, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord.

On the day when Alcanah sacrificed, here's what he would do: he would give portions to Peninah his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, okay, his sons and daughters too, but to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb.

And her rival, that's Panina, the other wife, it used to provoke her grievously, it says, 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.

So obviously, Hannah is in, she's in troubled times here, right?

This is not a walk in the park.

This is a very, very difficult season for her, right?

She has she has no children, which for women back in this day was considered like the greatest shame ever.

So this cut extremely deep for her.

And on top of that, she has to deal with this other wife.

What do you even call her?

Like wife-in-law?

I don't, I don't even know how you say that, but she has to deal with this other, this other woman, Panina's incessant um cruelty about it, right?

Constantly needling her and poking at that exposed nerve over and and over again, day by day, year by year, it says, to the point where Hannah is, I mean, she's a mess, right?

She just weeps constantly.

She won't eat, I don't know, can't eat, refuses to eat.

Now listen, I think it'd be very easy for us from uh maybe a certain angle to to look at this and to read this and get a sense of Hannah's situation here and think, man, you know, what an awful set of circumstances that have that have transpired against against this woman.

Okay, as as though this situation just happened to fall in her lap by random chance, by some you know, bad stroke of luck that she happened to stumble into.

Okay, but that's not at all what the text says, and that's not how life works.

Do you see this?

Okay, it lets us know here very clearly that God Himself sovereignly put her in this troubled time by design.

He does it.

Well, how do you know that, Pastor?

You know how can you how can you leap to that conclusion?

Well, I don't.

The scriptures tell us, take a look at verse 5.

It says there, the Lord had what?

Closed her womb.

Right?

The Lord did this.

Okay, verse 6 repeats it in case we didn't miss it.

It's like, heads up, this is what's happening, right?

It says the Lord had closed her womb again there in that verse.

Okay, so God, listen, understand this.

God has intentionally placed Hannah in this very specific position.

Okay, why?

Why does he do this?

Well, we don't know yet, right?

We haven't we haven't read, we haven't, we haven't gotten to that part yet.

Okay, but listen, understand this.

God is never, ever random.

Now, it it might feel random to you, right?

Because we don't see what God sees.

We're so short-sighted.

God sees it all, he sees the beginning from the end, right?

He's never random about everything anything.

He's he's not careless, he's not this you know, guy shooting from the hip or you know, throwing something against the wall in our lives and seeing what's fixed.

He's not like that.

He has somehow in his in his divine wisdom and in his love, he orchestrated and and allowed this entire predicament for some purpose that he wants to accomplish in her or through her, or likely both.

So listen, like this situation here that we are reading about in the scriptures, you can be, we can be certain that that whatever troubled time you might be in right now is an act of God's sovereign plan in your life.

Okay, He has seen fit to put you right where you are.

Okay, do you get that?

Listen, even, okay, even if your trouble is somewhat self-inflicted.

Okay, because maybe for you it's been it's been your own mistakes, your own foolishness that's got you into this into this situation.

It's been really bad spending habits, maybe, that's completely depleted your your savings or gotten you into a place where you can't pay your mortgage or what have you.

Maybe it's been sexual immorality that's caused marital chaos and all kinds of problems, and you're you're there, there's no intimacy with you and the Lord anymore, and there's huge problems coming out of that.

Well, listen, maybe maybe a big part of your troubled time is you dealing with the consequences of your sin, but understand this, even that, okay, even that is still happening under the umbrella of God's sovereignty.

You and I, we never act outside of the bounds of God's ultimate control over all things.

He'll work even with our stupidity, right?

Even with our foolishness and our sin, and he'll allow us to go further than we should and to do dumb things that we shouldn't do and disobey him.

He'll do that kind of thing.

Or in the case of Hannah, her situation, we don't see that's tied to any sin that she did.

This is this is just what God had for her.

This is just the season and the road that he had her to walk.

He actually caused this troubled time, he caused this trial that she was in.

He'll do that same thing in our lives as well to accomplish his greater purposes.

Okay, so listen, if if all of that is true, and we believe that it is, and you're going through some kind of difficulty and some hard time right now, dig into the Lord here.

And cling to the God who loves you enough to disrupt little old you and the way that you would do things to transform you.

Right?

That is an act of God's love.

Hold on a second, it doesn't feel that way right now.

It just feels painful.

It's it's super confusing.

I have no idea where this is going, and it's so uncomfortable, and this is like the worst situation ever.

Are you serious?

This is God's love?

Yeah, it is God's love.

Because God promises to sanctify us, and sanctifying us is like rounding out the rough edges of our lives and putting us through the fires of trials and allowing our mistakes to burn us sometimes, to teach us and transform us and to glorify Christ in us.

So, hey, don't get don't get bitter about all this.

Hey, don't get bitter because life isn't going your way.

Hey, understand that that God never promises that it will.

Right?

Through the gospel, we learn a bunch of really, really central, foundational, important things for all of life about God and about us.

One of the main foundational things is that God is God and you are not, meaning he gets to call the shots.

He gets to determine what happens in the life of his followers, and he is doing it for our good.

We really don't have a right to be bitter here.

And if we are, and that is maybe our first reaction, bring this before God, lay this before him and allow him to begin to transform your heart and transform your understanding about this and get on board with him, about the trajectory that he's got you on.

Because listen, bitterness is never, ever gonna get you anywhere good.

Unfortunately, bitterness and bad moods and anger and negative attitudes, all of that becomes something that in our flesh, I think we kind of find some sick sense of comfort in that a little bit.

And we sort of like and embrace this bitterness, and we we like to camp out there and stay there and in some kind of twisted warped way.

We think that, no, I should be here, and this is this is right, I'm in the right position.

What you're doing in that moment is you're elevating yourself above God, and you're trying to dictate how your life should go.

You're essentially saying, I'm God, and and I don't like that you are God.

I want you below me doing what I want.

That's bitterness.

I would also say this in terms of don't go there.

Don't play the victim card.

Don't don't lay that down.

You know, God's out to get me, and you know, here we go again, and you know, you know, classic decisions, the way it always goes, and nothing ever goes my way, and you know, failure to see anything positive whatsoever, and everything is transpiring against you, it's all about you, and everything is so, so negative.

Listen, I am not surprised anymore, but I I I've noticed just how many believers throw down that victim card constantly, right?

Which reveals, I think, that that that you've you've totally lost perspective here on the myriad of ways that that God has shown you grace and maybe is continuing to show you grace in these moments and chooses to do that going forward.

Okay, you're you're not a victim here.

You're a new creation.

And understand that the purpose of your troubles, as dark as they are and as terrible as they are, is because God is making you new.

And this is the way that He does it.

Okay So remember, understand this the Lord has put you in this position for a reason.

Okay, so don't waste it.

Don't waste it, or guess what?

You're just gonna have to learn it again later.

Like that that's kind of a sickening feeling, don't you think?

Better to plug in now and hold on to the Lord and be and be fervent about these things and and pursue him.

There's there's no sense in complaining about this.

Listen, I understand.

It might only be pain right now.

There might not be any answers at this point, or or you can't possibly see how this would ever get good.

But believe, trust that God is God and He's working in you and through you to his glory.

Allow him in his moments, in these difficult times, to stir up a sense of fervency to towards him about it.

Alright, here's the second thing.

In troubled times I will fervently pursue the Lord, dealing honestly with my grief, as I pray like never before.

Okay, verse 8, take a look at this now.

It says, And El Kanah, 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 don't know about this, right?

Like I want to give El Cana like the benefit of the doubt here.

I I think he's he's trying to help, but but but he comes across pretty insensitive here, doesn't he?

Right?

He seems to really miss just how troubling this this really is for his wife.

He doesn't quite seem to get it.

But, anyways, keep going here.

Verse 9.

After they'd eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose.

Now, Eli, the priest, was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.

And she was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.

And she vowed a vow and said, O 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.

And she continued praying before the Lord, or as she did, 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 this to her, oh no, here we go, right?

How long will you go on being drunk?

Put your wine away from you.

All right, so again, not real sensitive.

He totally jumps to conclusions and just assumes the worst and assumes she's, I don't know, some kind of drunken crazy lady.

I don't know.

But keep going.

It says, but Hannah answered, No, my Lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit.

You see that there?

I have I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.

Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I've been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.

Then Eli answered, he he gets it now.

He says, Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.

Well, I mean, that's a lot, but but a ton of takeaway there for us from Hannah's example here.

As she's just so she's just so straight up about where she's at here and how this is affecting her.

And it's like she just backs the dump truck of her of her grief up and and just empties it out into the Lord's lap through this fervent, brokenhearted, agonizing, painful prayer.

Hey, oh that you and I would would do likewise in our suffering.

Not bottle it up like some of us tend to do, or you know, pretend we're okay, or or or run away from God, all those things.

No, instead that we would follow, really follow Hannah's model and her her blueprint here in in troubled times as we too process our grief and our anxiety and our and our heartbreak and despair about all these things.

Okay, so so let's learn to do this.

Let's look at a couple of things that that Hannah does and and try and apply them to our life as well.

Follow the the Hannah blueprint, if you want to call it that way.

We've got seven things for you here.

Okay, the first one here.

Unafraid to get messy.

Unafraid to get messy.

Do you notice some of the descriptive phrases and words that it uses here to show us just how painful this was for her?

It says that she was deeply distressed.

She wept bitterly.

She's troubled in spirit.

She said that she's pouring out her soul before the Lord.

She describes it as my great anxiety and vexation.

This wasn't just an everyday problem.

This wasn't a woman overreacting here to something minor and trite in her life.

This is something that's been going on, remember, for years.

And I love how she's she's at the point in her walk with the Lord where she's just pouring it out.

She's not hiding it.

She's not trying to pretend and act like everything's fine.

I think many of us try to approach life and handle life as though it should be this neat little package tied up in a bow.

And nothing negative or wrong should ever spill out.

And so, you know, we we have our perfect Instagram feed that shows what a you know what a perfect and flawless life we have.

We put on our best and we you know we come to church and we paint on the smile and and people ask how we're doing, and it's always, it's it's it's great and all things.

We're unwilling to get messy about things, but the reality is life is messy.

The church is messy.

We're all broken here, and and until we're willing to face that, very little is gonna get accomplished, very little is going to get done in our lives.

Do we understand that?

Hannah is so unafraid to get messy here, and I and I love that.

I think that's something that we can apply.

Absolutely.

Face your problems head on.

Are they scary?

Absolutely.

Do you know where to go with all of it?

Probably not, but be willing to get it all out there.

Which really leads us to the second thing here.

Willing to talk about it.

Willing to talk about it.

Okay, don't withdraw.

Are you wired that way?

Do you find it hard to trust people?

Do you find it hard to pray?

Do you realize that part of the reason you're in the troubled time that you're in is because God would love to grow you in those two areas?

Learn to just talk to somebody about what's going on.

Learn to talk to the Lord as well.

I think some of us are maybe predisposed to doing one of those two things.

Right?

We pray and we bring our problems before the Lord.

But hey, this is just this is just between me and God.

This is my my my faith, it's it's just personal.

I don't I don't really talk about that with uh with other people.

Others of us go the other way.

And we we share with with people.

Sometimes we're extremely unwise about that, and we're venting on Facebook.

That's not smart.

Right?

And and and and we do we talk to all kinds of people and we we we do all of that, but we never take it to the Lord.

Guess what?

As great as as people are and community are, guess what?

Those people can't get into your heart and and change you and transform you.

God got us to do that.

And so the Lord has set it up so that so that He would be the one, along with the church, godly people, together.

We can we can process some of these things.

Don't withdraw from it, be willing to talk to the Lord and and to people as as well.

Hannah absolutely does this.

Here's the third one in the Hannah blueprint, undeterred by unhelpful people.

You've seen this in Hannah.

Her own husband.

Pretty insensitive.

The priest misses it entirely.

And so what does she do?

Well, she packs that up, she packs it, she gets sick of it, she gives up on people, and she goes home and does it herself.

No, she doesn't.

She doesn't at all.

We don't see her snap on Elkanah.

We don't see her flip out and get angry at Eli, get angry at the church, so to speak, and and bail and get bitter about that.

No, she doesn't do any of that stuff.

She continues to engage and and dialogue with these individuals.

These people that were close to her, spiritual leader in her life.

She seems to understand, they don't get it, but I'm not going to hold it against them.

Don't be undeterred by unhelpful people.

So many people are have been injured by the church, and it's sad and it's and it's awful.

And I don't know if I can do this, but I apologize on behalf of pastors.

And if it was me that has done that to you, I I apologize even extra.

But listen, it's not a good excuse to withdraw from the church and bail on the Lord and and be under and be deterred by all of that and get bitter about it.

It's really not.

I'm going to tell you something that I've said before, and hopefully you can carry this with you, and it gives you some perspective.

The church is extremely imperfect.

It's imperfect.

There are gonna be unhelpful people.

People that maybe mean well, but but it comes across wrong.

It comes across harsh, or it seems like they they didn't care, and and that's not great, and and and and that and that's too bad, it really is.

But but us, as we're maybe the ones that have done that sometimes, hopefully we want to grow in that.

Hopefully we're willing to go to the person and apologize if our if our attitude wasn't great or our response was unhelpful.

Don't be deterred by unhelpful people.

Here's the fourth one.

Eyes resolutely on Christ.

Eyes resolutely on Christ.

This is so huge.

And you notice how Hannah, you know, she doesn't go through this troubled time and think, well, I'm so uncomfortable in this, and this is such misery and and so much vexation, and and instead of you know following the Lord in all of this, I'm gonna go and drown my sorrows in some other worldly pursuit to try and distract myself from my pain and self-medicate with some kind of thing and all of that.

She doesn't do any of that.

Do you do that?

Do you do that?

Or do you have your eyes resolutely on Jesus Christ?

That's the Hannah example here.

It says in verse 12 that she continued praying.

This was after some unhelpful advice maybe from from Eli and from Elkanah.

She doesn't give up.

She keeps going, her eyes are on the Lord.

I think sometimes, for maybe for you, it's Netflix or social media.

Your life is uncomfortable or painful, so you're just looking for something.

It's some kind of an escape.

I'm gonna drown my sorrows in a some kind of substance.

I'm going to invest in this shopping addiction that I've got just so that I can buy something, which makes me feel good for a little bit and kind of helps me forget about all the troubles of my life.

Listen, that's not I was resolutely on Christ.

But Hannah's word.

How about this?

Number five, unentitled attitude.

Hannah was extremely unentitled when she approached the Lord.

In verse 11, she says, Oh Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant, and then uses the word servant two more times after that.

Okay, she doesn't come before the Lord in prayer saying, Lord, you know, you owe me this.

This is the least you could be doing is is answer my cry.

Come on, I've got no children.

This other woman has has many, and so many other women have them as well, Lord.

I think sometimes we come to the Lord and we pray, but we maybe fail to recognize that some of it is that we we expect we expect the Lord to do what we want.

And in many ways, we even try to manipulate him and we start to play the performance game a little bit, and it's like, Lord, well, I've I've been going to church all the time, and I never miss, and I'm serving hard, and because of this, now you owe me the life that I want.

Now, you maybe for you, you're like, I've never thought that before ever, man.

Like, what are you talking about?

Well, maybe though, it is kind of the leaning or the bend of your heart as you pray.

Understand this, it seems like a harsh reality, but the reality is it's true.

It's this the Lord owes us nothing.

He owes us nothing.

He has already given us everything.

He's given us Jesus Christ.

Anything that we get on top of that is like a cherry on top.

So listen, let's let's be done with the entitled attitude and acting like God owes us this, and because that person had the comparison game, right?

That's deaf.

Right?

Because this person has it, therefore I should uh as well.

That's not true.

How about this?

Number six.

Bold enough to go for the big ass.

Hannah's bold.

She hasn't gotten so beat down in her spirit after the years of seeing nothing happen to be like, you know, it's just it's it's never happening.

I'm sure she had her moments.

But notice here how she's still bold.

She asks what her heart is is yearning for.

She desires a son.

That is a good thing.

There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

And so, in the thing that you're looking for, you've got to really ask, you know, in your troubled time, what is it that I really want?

And is this something that is that is of the Lord?

Is it?

If it is, I can ask boldly for this.

Understanding that the Lord may may respond in any number of ways, you know, as as he sees fit here.

But it's okay to ask for that.

If you're asking for something that is, you know, goes against the scriptures or or or or is for selfish reasons, then you gotta you gotta work through that.

And and maybe no wonder the Lord hasn't given you that thing.

But I love how she's bold, she hasn't lost that through this.

She goes for the big ask.

Here's the last thing here, and troubled times follow the Hannah blueprint.

Committed to God's glory, committed to the glory of God, no matter what.

You notice her vow there, she she asks for a son, but again, she's at the point now where she's not just like, I just want a son for myself and so that I can start a family, which is again an honorable and amazing thing.

But look where she's at.

She wants to have a son to give him back to the Lord so that she the so that so that her son could could follow and serve the Lord all the days of his life.

She the the Lord has done such a deep work in her heart at this point, where where she she's kind of done serving her own interests, even.

And she's like, God, what whatever you want, that's that's what I want.

I actually desire this, and this is my vow.

If you do this, this is what I will do.

She's no longer about her own thing.

It's about God's glory.

She's committed to that.

Okay, and all of these things.

We see a godly woman who just deals so honestly with her grief and her misery, and and she prays like I'm sure she just never prayed before, right?

That's what these difficult seasons do.

They let they draw these these these yearnings and these and these groans out to the Lord in this in these hard times.

Listen, realize that that God's plan is to do the exact same thing in you and I.

Because just like how it drew Hannah closer to God here, we see this, and and she grew spiritually stronger, and and and her worship became uh more intimate and more fervent than ever.

Again, he's doing likewise in us.

And that's really what this final thing gets at here.

In troubled times, I will fervently pursue the Lord, gaining strength as I praise him throughout the process.

Look at verse 18.

Verse 18 says, And she said, so she's speaking to Eli here, let your servant find favor in your eyes.

Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

Okay, so she's now filled with this insurance through the encouragement of Eli that God has indeed heard her cry.

And so she, you know, eats food now.

It says that she's no longer sad, and you see that she's filled with the this peace, and she's starting to gain this inner spiritual strength as she finds faith in the Lord.

You know, verse 19 continues, or it says there, and they they rose early in the morning and and worshiped before the Lord.

How great is that! Okay, notice how Hannah doesn't just worship after she gets her response and her favorable answer to her prayers.

Okay, she's been brought to the place now where she's she's genuinely able to praise the Lord even during her troubles, right?

Her season's not over yet.

You know, she she doesn't have Samuel.

We know that's coming.

Okay, but but that's evidence of the Spirit's sanctifying work in a person.

A growing desire and an ability now to worship God no matter what, no matter how this thing goes, whether whether I get that thing that my heart is burning for uh or not.

And the more trouble that you and I face, and the more fervent we are at pursuing the Lord, guess what?

The stronger we become.

The stronger we start to get spiritually, because we we've learned that, we're learning that God is good all the time.

He's worthy of our of our praise no matter what is happening or or not happening.

Understand that there is immense spiritual strength and stability that you gain and you get to you get to experience and you get to enjoy as God does that in you.

Now keep going here in verse 19, the last part of it.

It says, Then they went back to their house at Rama, and Elkanah knew his wife knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her, and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son.

She called his name Samuel, for she said, I have asked for him from the Lord.

Alright, so next what ends up happening in the story, so great, right?

The Lord comes through and she has the son that uh she's always wanted, and and so what happens here in the next few verses is Al Cannah and his family, it's that time of year again.

They make plans to go back to Shiloh and offer sacrifices and and and worship uh the Lord there and to be able to fulfill the vow.

And what they do as a couple is they they agree that that Hannah's gonna stay back and wait until Samuel has been weaned, and then she will join the rest of her family uh up there at Shiloh to fulfill her vow.

They agree on that.

Now pick it up in verse 26, jump down.

It says, and she said, uh, O my Lord, this is in front of Eli now, oh my Lord, as you live, my Lord, I am the woman who is 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, or literally it means given him over to the Lord.

As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.

And he worshipped the Lord there.

Now, chapter two, take a look.

And Hannah prayed.

Now, this is often called Hannah's song.

It's how she expresses her praise and her worship to the Lord.

And many would say that this is uh likely the foundation of Mary's magnificat in the Gospels, which is which is pretty cool.

But here's what it says here.

She says, My heart exalts in the Lord.

My horn, okay, which is a symbol of strength, it's 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 besides you.

There is no rock like our God.

Talk no more so very proudly.

Now 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 but the feeble bind on strength.

Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.

The baron has borne seven.

You think that's pretty personal for her?

Right?

Seven kind of symbolizing perfection.

We see that number sometimes in scripture.

We actually know verse 21 tells us later in chapter two that she ends up having actually six children.

So the Lord opens her womb even further and she has more kids.

Okay, it says the baron has borne seven, but but she who has bore uh has many children is forlorn or desolate.

The Lord kills and brings to life.

He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

Okay, all this is God's sovereignty, right?

She's she's leaning into the Lord's sovereignty again.

It continues.

The Lord makes poor and makes rich.

He brings low and 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.

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

He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a 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.

So here you've got Hannah, with the same type of fervency that she brought all of her pain and her anguish uh into the Lord.

See, she's now crying out to him, but it but it's a with a very different attitude.

It's rejoicing, it's it's praise, it is it is worship, expressing her gratitude uh to the Lord for who he is and and what he has done.

She's exulting in the strength of his might, magnifying how how good and just he is to work and move in the lives of uh of his creation, however he sees fit.

And and as Hannah does this, and listen, as as you and I, as we do this too, both during our trouble, in the middle of all of that muck, and also after our trouble's over, right, our our praise reminds us, it acts as a reminder, okay, uh, to our souls of the immeasurable power and strength of our God.

Right?

Which of course leads to what?

Greater confidence in him.

And is that not what we're looking for in the middle of trouble and difficulty?

We feel so frail and exposed and unprotected.

That's part of the reason why we go through trials.

We go through difficulties.

Because the Lord's helping us learn to lean to him and see the strength that comes from him, worship him as you go through, praise him, remind yourself of the gospel, of theology, of who the Lord is.

Because that inner strength and fortitude will come as we do that.

And again, that's the thing that we so desperately crave in the middle of deep pain and in troubled times.

Now you might be thinking, okay, I I can see how you know it's you can praise the Lord after the troubled time is over.

But uh, hey, guess what, man?

A little harder to do that in the middle of it.

Right?

Before God comes through, and I see that.

I would I would agree, yeah, it's it is tougher, right?

It is a little bit tougher, but but listen, it's not impossible.

It's not impossible at all.

And here's listen, this is amazing.

Something awesome that you can really um look to here to light up your praise here, no matter where you're at in the process of your trouble.

Right?

You might be in the thick of it right now, or perhaps you're looking at it in your rear view mirror.

And this incredible thing here is found in the last two lines of verse 10.

Take a look at that again.

It says, the Lord will judge the ends of the earth, he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.

And now that word anointed is also translated Messiah.

And it's actually the first time that this word has been used in the Bible in this way.

And so, what is this?

This is a very clear reference to the ultimate king that God would raise up.

Who is that?

Jesus Christ, right, who would come and deliver his people from our worst.

Trouble and our our worst pain ever, our our sin.

Now, Hannah and Israel understand this.

When this was being penned, and as she was praying this or singing this, what is she doing?

She's looking ahead to that day.

You know, and I'm not sure how much she understood about you know all of the prophecy of all of that, but obviously to some degree she did.

But what about us?

Well, we on the other hand are looking not ahead to that day, but but back to that event, the cross, which means that you and I have this unparalleled benefit of knowing how all of this played out.

Which means that you and I can now rejoice knowing that we have a Savior who came and conquered sin and death, our greatest trouble ever, who rescues us from the wrath of God, who delivers us from the eternal torment of hell forever, and who ushers us into his kingdom of grace and forgiveness and new life and hope of eternity forever in the new heaven and new earth.

This is the ultimate hope and strength for a believer, and it is found in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, something you and I that we can glorify in and glory in no matter what is happening in life.

You're dragging in the worst day ever right now.

You can glory in the gospel.

You can remind yourself that as bad as things get, you have salvation.

God has saved you from death.

He has rescued you from sin.

That's not like just simply a Sunday school thing that you learn that's up here.

That's something that should impact your heart.

That's something that should cause you to sing.

That's something that should affect your perspective when you're going through difficulty.

The Lord is awesome, and the gospel tells us so.

We have so much to rejoice in no matter what's going on.

Do you do that?

Do you think through the gospel?

Do you do you preach it to yourself?

Do you remind yourself that as as bad as this is, as difficult as my situation is going, and all I can really see is that it's gonna get worse.

It might be a disease, it might be some relationship that's that's over, it is it is done.

Well, guess what?

Your ultimate, ultimate place is in heaven, it is in glory with Jesus Christ, where there will be no more of this pain, no more of this sin, no more of these consequences, it will it will all be taken away forever.

What does that end up doing?

It gives us perspective, it gives us that eternal perspective, and it reminds us that as as challenging as things are right now, this is temporary.

And I don't say that to you in some trite type of way, as though I don't understand what it means to go through difficulty.

But the reality is, the reality is that we're all headed for clear skies, and it's because of Jesus Christ.

Allow that to fire up your fervency in the middle of your challenge, in the middle of your trouble.

Allow that to be the fuel that lights up your praise.