40 Days in the Word: 1 Samuel | Feb 15 2026 (Part 1)

Good morning everybody. Once you turn in your Bibles

with me to First Samuel. First Samuel, we are beginning a

new series today and and it's going to extend over the next 40

days. And I've been so looking forward

to this one. I've been reading through First

Samuel every year and every year God does.

You know, there's some, there's some, I mean, this was a

historical account, but there are some stories even when we

know the ending. I wanna read that again.

I wanna read that again. And First Samuel has been one of

those stories for me. There's so many life lessons

that God is I've, I've seen myself in every one of the

characters in this, in this book.

And God has shown me my heart and directed my affections in

ways that I and, and freshly every year.

And so I've been wanting to preach on this book for some

time for, for many years. And guys, the day has come.

It's been great. There's so much rich theology in

the book of First Samuel, but it's not like, hey, I'm going to

give you a bunch of textbook definitions of these theological

terms. It's this theology is taught

through the life of ordinary people.

And so it's really easy for us to identify with the truths of

God in how that has worked out in our lives.

If you have never read the book of her Samuel, I believe you're

in for a real treat. I think you're going to love it.

If you have read the book of her Samuel, I think that this study

that we're going to be working through is going to help you to

appreciate it more and more in a, in a, in a much deeper level.

There's something here for everybody.

So 40 days, I believe that this is gonna be a, a, this is an

opportunity for some extensive spiritual growth in each one of

our lives, if we're, if we're ready to receive it.

And we have, you know, Stan has referred to and I said last

week, these journals are here to help us to do that, to process

the word of God, to walk through the book of First Samuel just a

little bit every day, a little bit every day, just a, just a

few minutes every day. And there's some space in this

journal to reflect on what we've heard.

There is no spiritual discipline more effective in bringing

spiritual growth to your life than reflecting on Scripture.

Not just reading it, but reflecting on it.

And this tool will help us to do that together.

But, and here's the big but we cannot approach spiritual growth

casually. There is no middle ground when

we're seeking God for spiritual refreshment in in spiritual,

there's no middle ground for that.

I remember years ago, actually, it's just very shortly after

Gill and I became Christians, we were at this conference, massive

conference, thousands of people. And it was called the conference

was called Light the Fire. And it was really a, a

conference on, you know, renewing your spiritual passion

in Jesus from Jesus Christ. So we're at this conference in

the conference. Speaker, it's finished speaking.

And he was inviting people to come up front to be prayed for.

And the, the, the, the length of the line.

It was it was super long and we were sort of out in the back

somewhere and it was standing, standing around.

And this guy came up to me and says, see, are you in line?

And I didn't know if I was on line.

I was kind of unsure about it, said, yeah, I'm I'm not sure.

And he looked at me. It's funny looking.

Said you're either in the line or you're not in the line.

Like, what is it? And I thought, OK, I guess I'm

in the line, right? And so we're both inching

forward and all of a sudden this guy begins to shake any, any,

any falls in a I catch him as he's falling to the ground and

he's shaking on the ground. And I'm thinking, what on earth

is going on? And right in this moment, you

got to picture it, massive auditorium, thousands of people.

The conference speaker who's praying for people stops and

looks directly at me like, how would he see me?

And says, you know, in his microphone, you got to pray for

that guy. It's like, whoop me like pray

for this guy. Like what do you talk?

Like poor guy to have me pray for him, right.

And so I just started praying for him.

And it was obvious that God was touching this man like filling

him with his love and, and, and, and with his Holy Spirit.

And for about 1/2 an hour this guy was on the ground just

basking in the love of God and God up after.

And he was, he was encouraging me like he was on fire for Jesus

Christ. I took no, I I look at that and

I think, man, I did a poor job of ministry, you know, as a

brand new Christian to this guy. But I took away something that

has lasted and is I've been, I've been held on as a precious

experience that has changed my life and that is I can never be

I. The question is, John, are you

in line or not? Are you anticipating meeting

with God or not? Are you taking your spiritual

life casually or are you serious about this, about seeking the

Lord? There is no middle ground.

Either we are or we not. And so my encouragement to each

one of us as we hop into, hop into, as we dive into Lent is

that we take this as an opportunity to meet with the

living God and to seek him, immerse ourselves in His Word

and allow him to bring about the changes, reveal himself and

bring about the changes in her life that we really needed.

Now many Christians approach it was listening to some statistics

last week. They're kind of dismal on

regular, daily Bible reading among Christians.

Very often as Christians, what we do is we look at the Bible as

something that's a difficult book to read.

First Samuel, you're gonna love it.

You're gonna love it. It's a great inter.

There are some books that are more difficult than others, but

this is a great, great one to start in.

But we often think of the Bible as, you know, it's the

foundation of our faith, and that's great.

But it's sort of like a reference textbook that's on the

side. And we can go to it if we have

to. If we really have to, we can go

to it. But we just know it's there.

And it's very comforting that the Bible is there.

The Scriptures themselves teach us a very different way to look

at the Bible, that we were to meditate on it day and night,

that we're to hide the word in our heart that we were to look

to it daily in order to, for God to encourage us.

Because as we read the scriptures, all scripture is God

breathed. God is speaking to us.

His word is alive and active and it's moving in our hearts.

And so we need to open ourselves up to that to, to allow him to

encourage us on a daily basis and give us the perspective that

we need. So I'm calling each one of us to

an act of faith to step into this these next 40 days, which

are starting on Wednesday. OK, so Wednesday is sort of the

official beginning of Lent this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.

In fact, you know, as a staff, every morning we we pray before

we start our day. And on Wednesday we want to

invite everybody, anybody that wants to come to join us from

between 9:00 and 10:00. And we're just going to dedicate

ourselves for these next 40 days.

So if you want it, I know many of us are working, you can't

make it. But if you are available between

9:00 and 10:00, come and join us.

And we're gonna, we're gonna pray, we're gonna worship and,

and dedicate ourselves to the Lord.

But right now, as we start into this message series, let's

dedicate ourselves to the Lord, shall we?

Father in heaven, thank you for the gift of this day.

Thank you for blue Sky in the midst of the winter.

What a gift. But Lord, you are the greatest

gift and we pray that you would visit us this morning through

the reading of the Word. Thank you for the book of First

Sam and we pray Lord, that we would receive all that you would

have for us to receive through it in this season of our life.

In Jesus name we pray, Amen. I'm so eager to just jump right

in. But just a few introductory

remarks. First of all, time frame, like

human history time frame. This is about these events are

being described about 1000 BC, thousand years before before

Christ. And the context is the book of

the end of the book of Judges. Anybody remember we went through

the book of judges? It was such an uplifting series,

but it ends with this verse. Verse 21, Chapter 21, Verse 25.

In those days, Israel had no king.

Everyone did as they saw fit. It was a dark era in Israel's

history. It was like the Wild West.

People were just doing what they wanted to do, right?

No king, no, no, no one leader to kind of unify the nation.

And so three main characters in this in the book of first

Samuel, Samuel himself who's a prophet, Saul who was the first

king and then David right after and David will carry into a

second Samuel. Now the in the Hebrew Bible when

it was originally written, this was all one book.

First and second Samuel were all one book.

In fact, kings and 1st and 2nd kings were all one book all

originally, but it was split up afterwards.

So we're just going to look at First Samuel, but I'm hoping

that through this series, you're gonna be inspired to keep

reading because it's a continuation when we get into

Second Samuel. But through these three main

characters, Samuel, Saul and David, that sequence points to

sort of the theme of this book because there is the

introduction. This is where we we see that the

the introduction of a kingship kind of a monarchy moving from a

theocracy to a monarchy where God had been up to this point

raising up leaders by his spirit for a particular times and

places where it was needed to Now a king who was going to be

in so the King's sons would be would, would, would succeed.

And so that seat would always be would always be occupied.

Now the people ask for a king, and we're going to get into that

in later chapters. God's people, people in general,

we all need leaders. We all need a leader.

So the request for someone to lead us is a good request.

But the fact that they asked for a king, the reason their

motivation was we want to be like all the other nations.

We want to have a king, and that was problematic and we'll get

into that later. But this is that the

establishment of kingship is what this book is all about and

ultimately is going to point to. It's setting up the conditions

for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to enter into this

world. Jesus Christ, who is going to

bring the real leadership that we need and restoration.

So super dark time in Israel's history, spiritual limbo.

You can call it the priests at that time, these guys, Hoffman

Phineas, who were the, the, the, the, the chief priests sons here

they are still as priests. They're stealing meat that was

supposed to be offered, offered to God and sacrifice.

They're sleeping with women who are serving at the entrance to

the tent of meeting to the church.

And it was pretty dark time. We're going to get into that

next week, actually. But everyone at that time

thought, OK, these are our leaders operating like this.

And whenever your leaders are acting like that, it's very easy

to say, well, maybe this is OK then.

And that was the climate of the time.

It was just a super dark time. God could be seen nowhere, but

as we see in First Samuel, God is at work, right?

I'm still waiting. God is still working.

I heard that from somebody this morning.

And so this first chapter that we're gonna look at today is all

about the birth of Samuel. That's going to signal a change

in the climate. And the focus is on Hannah,

Samuel's mother. But the real focus is on Hannahs

God, who is revealed in this. So let's take a look.

We're looking we're we're at First Samuel Chapter 1 and we'll

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

start at verse one. Everybody with me.

Are we good? Thank you, Lord, speak to us.

We pray there was a certain man from Ramathaim in a zoophyte

from the Hill Country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah,

son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tahu, the son

of Zuf, an Ephraimite challenge just getting through the 1st we

got this is the hardest, hardest part of the whole book is the

first verse. What is significant about this?

Very little is significant about this and and that's the point.

There's a certain man who is he? No one really knows.

He's he, he's he's, he's from a Levite tribe.

So we know that there's priesthood in his background,

but that's about it. And he's from the Hill Country

of Ephraim. It's like the middle of nowhere

and nobody in the middle of nowhere.

But this is where God is going to work.

Verse 2 He had two wives, one was called Hannah and the other

Panina. Penina had children but Hannah

had none. So interesting. 2 wives.

It's in the Bible. Does that mean it's right to

have two wives? To have multiple wives?

No, the the Bible is very clear that it was a marriage has to be

between a man and a woman exclusively.

Now why were there? Why do we see examples like

this? Well in the Bible?

The Bible just tells us how it is.

This is how life was at that time.

It's not prescriptive saying this is how it should be.

It's descriptive. It's just reporting what is OK.

So this is this is how it is right now.

Now, um, and I, I should just say this, every time polygamy is

referred to, whenever there's multiple wives in a home

situation in Scripture, you will never find one that's spoken of

positively. It's always a nightmare and it's

an absolute nightmare here as well.

Hannah is the first wife and Hannah can't bear children.

And so it was very common for a husband to get to find a second

wife who would produce an error for him, for the family, for the

for his name to continue. So this was the kind of

situation. Now you can just picture the

kind of tension that was going to be happening in the home

here. And we'll get into the beauty of

it, the horror of it, in these verses.

Verse three-year after year this man went up from his town to

worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where

Hophni and Phineas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the

Lord. Whenever the day came for El

Cana to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife

Penina, and to all her sons and daughters.

But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her and

the Lord had closed her womb because the Lord had closed her

womb. Sorry, because the Lord had

closed Hannahs room womb, her rival kept provoking her in

order to irritate her. This went on year after year.

Whenever Hannah went up to the House of the Lord, her rival

provoked her till she wept and would not eat.

Her husband Elkanah would say to her, Hannah, why are you

weeping? Why don't you eat?

Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than

ten sons? Let's just pause there enough to

talk about. So every year they go to Shiloh.

This is where the House of the Lord was.

No, it wasn't like a temple structure.

This was that the House of Lord really was still the tent of

meeting. It was it was a tent.

Now there might have been a structure around it, but

essentially it's the tent where the Ark of the Covenant, which

was a symbol of the presence of God, was, was kept.

And so they would go up and they would offer sacrifices.

And these sacrifices weren't sacrifices for sin.

The animals that were sacrificed were called fellowship

offerings, fellowship sacrifices.

So in other words, they would, they would, they would sacrifice

an animal and a third of the animal would be burnt as a, as a

burnt offering to God just as a sacrifice that way.

And the other third is given to the priests to, to, to ensure

that the, that the, that the priests are supported and their

ministry. And then the other third was the

portion that they ate as a family.

And it was like a having a BBQ, right?

Like the, the, this is what the fellowship offering was.

And he gave a double portion to Hannah because he loved her.

And he was moved with compassion because of the fact that the

Lord had closed her womb. But here we have Panina and

verse 6. Because the Lord had closed

Hannah's womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to

irritate her. Interesting response.

One, it invoked compassion, but to the other, hey, I'm gonna lay

into this woman and make her life more miserable.

That was Panini's role is an awful lot of shame and still

today, but particularly in this period for someone who is every

woman who is barren, who's had had trouble burying, burying a

child, incredible amount of shame.

It was almost like this is God's judgment on me and Panina just

dug in, dug in, dug in. Just rubbed it in Hannah's face.

And I would imagine because of Ocanas affection for Hannah,

that just stirred the pot for Panina as well.

She was jealous, right? And so there's this war going on

in the household. So Hannah, heavy spirit, she's

distressed, she's weeping, she's not eating.

All of these things are happening for Hannah and she's,

you know, where's she going to turn?

She's got Paninos mocking her El Cana.

You know, he's, he's trying to be sympathetic, but he just

doesn't get it. Like, don't you have me?

Aren't I better than ten sons? Is like, seriously, dude?

Like, that is poor ministry there, right?

And then later on, we're going to find out that the clergy

couldn't even understand what, what she was going through.

It is such a difficult place to be in.

I know like my mom, my mother, she had trouble having kids and

she miscarried many, many times. Now, she, that's something that

she never spoke about very often, but I know because of her

deep longing to have children, it was incredibly painful to

her. So she ended up adopting me and

after that ended up having a couple of children of, of, of

her own. I mean, I was her own, but by

natural means. And it's a, it's an, it's an.

I mean, it's hard to identify if that hasn't been you, but there

is so many emotions that will run through the heart of a woman

who's having a challenge, challenges bearing children,

feeling shame, feeling judged, feeling alone.

All those longings not being met and I would just say if that's

if that if that's you here today, the Lord loves you and

you are very dear to his heart and he is gonna draw near to you

in this particular season. And if you are walking alongside

of someone who's having trouble hearing children, wants children

and is suffering that pain just though it's very difficult to

identify, just realize that it's not just something that people

get over. It's easy gonna move forward.

It's gonna move past this. This is something that just

sticks with and so have an incredible amount of compassion.

Love them, pray for them, encourage them.

Hannah was getting none of that in her household.

So we got an opportunity to do things differently here now.

Although Hannah could not draw comfort from this as we looked

through Scripture, she's not the only one who had trouble bearing

children. We look at Sarah and we look at

Rebecca and Rachel and then Manoah's wife who bore Samson

and then Elizabeth later on. There were a lot of women

throughout Scripture who had trouble bearing children, and

God used every single one of them for something powerful

where he was starting a new beginning.

He was He was bringing a new chapter in redemptive history

through these women who are having trouble.

And so this is, you know, I, I think it, I think it tells us

something. The God, the kind of God who

made all this from nothing, is a God who starts with nothing.

This is, this is how he operates in our lives when it feels like

nothing is happening. This is where God does his

finest work. When our inability, absolute

incapacity to make something happen.

When we realize that and we turn to the Lord, that's the

beginning of when God works in powerful ways.

He wants to continue to show us that we can, we can trust Him.

And there's some bleak times in our lives, things that hey, man,

that there's that this problem is completely out of my control

and I can't do anything about it.

He wants us to turn to him and to find that he's the one that

can bring in even as is Rob Preacher number of weeks ago New

beginnings out of some very lament filled seasons.

This is the God that we served. Now, when we're in the middle of

all of this, when in the middle of it, it's really hard to get

that perspective. It really is.

And that's why immersing ourselves in this book is so

important, because it reminds us again and again and again this

is the kind of God who got his, and I can trust him in this

particular season of my life. OK, we gotta keep going.

Verse 9. Once, when they had finished

eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up.

Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of

the Lord's house. In her deep anguish, Hannah

prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.

And she made a vow. Seen.

Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servants misery and

Remember Me and not forget your servant, but give her a son,

then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life,

and no razor will ever be used on his head.

As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth.

Hannah was praying in her heart and her lips were moving, but

her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and

said to her, How long are you going to stay drunk?

Put away your wine. Not so, my Lord, Anna replied.

I'm a woman who is deeply troubled.

I have not been drinking wine or beer.

I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.

Do not take your servant for a wicked woman.

I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.

Great anguish and grief. I think this is worth just

pausing for a minute in her great anguish and grief, in the

midst of her frustration, in the midst of what seems to be

unanswered. She was she.

She was driven to God in prayer. There was no middle ground for

Hannah. She was going for it for the

Lord, right? Wasn't wasn't standing off.

She was moving close to God. In verse 15, she explains to to

Eli the priest. I was pouring out my soul to the

Lord. Now the the the new

international version is my soul to the Lord.

The word there penny is probably a better translation of it is

before the Lord and some of your translations will have maybe the

ESV as before the Lord. I was pouring out my soul before

the Lord. There's a difference between

doing it point of her soul to the Lord and pouring out her

soul before the Lord before is. This gives us this idea that I'm

doing it in front of him and he is here.

This is a face to face interaction and and in fact, the

word literally means face when I'm praying too.

There can be distance there. I'm praying.

God is up there somewhere and I'm praying to him and hopefully

my prayers are gonna get there. For Hannah was completely

different. I am before the Lord.

I am in His presence and I'm pouring out my heart before Him

right now. Someone 42 verse 2.

We see so many examples in the Psalms.

But Salma says. I pour out before him my

complaint. Before him, I tell my trouble.

This is so instructive for us, and I think that we can learn so

much from Hannah in the way that she approaches the the Lord,

just completely unloading all of the heaviness of her heart onto

the Lord. You and I were meant for that.

A song that GAIL introduced to me not long ago by Will Will

Reagan. You heard that.

Lay it all down. That's one to look up.

Lay it all down. I'll sing a little bit to you

because you just can't just say it right.

Bring you worry, grief and pain. Every cause you have for shame.

Lay it all down. Lay it all down when you cares

have buried you and there's nothing left to lay it all down.

Lay it all down at the feet of Jesus.

And there's this chorus. Just lay it all down.

Lay it all down little. If you need to be laying down

some stuff before the Lord, I encourage you.

Even if you don't like the song, play it once just to inspire

you. There is a burden bearer in the

heart of God, and He wants to meet us at every single point.

We can lay it all before Him. There is a habit that I learned

way back in in well, some of my last years had been a painting

contractor when things were getting big in the business in

the sense of risky for my employees and I was a little bit

stretched. I was, I was stressed and

stretched thinking about what are all the possibilities, What

if this happens? What if this happens?

What if this happens and I had my quiet times on site?

I would get there early, sit on a paint barrel, open up my Bible

and meet with the Lord. And it was in those moments

where I could hear God. It was like God was asking me,

John, how are you? And I would just pour out my

heart, you know, a loving friend every once in a while will ask

you how are you right? Isn't that how are you and and

leave. But you know, how are you

really? How are you?

God wants to hear us pour out our hearts to Him.

How are you? How are you?

How are you? Check.

How are you, Ryan? How are you?

How are you, John? Answering that question honestly

before God is a powerful way to start the day because it makes

us aware of what we're going through and what we're bringing

into our day. There's so much going on in the

background of our lives, in the background of our minds and our

hearts that we're bringing into our day that will affect the way

that we treat other people, will affect the way that we plan our

day and walk out our day. And in fact, we'll affect the

way that we read this book and we don't even know it.

And when we're aware of it, when we know what we're bringing into

the scriptures as we read, it's kind of like when we think was

David Paulson that said that when we bring our real life to

scripture, Scripture comes to life for us.

God wants to meet us where we are, not where we think we

should be from a religious standpoint, but where we are.

This this journal will help us to do that.

In fact, one of the there are spaces for writing and the first

one is before you even start reading is get ready.

What am I facing, What am I feeling and just jot down a few

just to be aware. This is especially good for

guys. I don't know about you guys, but

I'm just totally out of touch with my feelings and my

emotions. I need help in this in this way,

but just to think about that and to write those down and just

jotting those things down just to be aware of it to be bringing

that before God and allowing him then to speak to us in his word.

Powerful exercise. Anyway, I leave that little

habit with you. But but the Lord allowed Hanna

to do this. He opened up this space for her.

Come, I wanna bury your burdens. Pour it out to me.

The Lord knew everything that she was going through and He was

gonna minister to her. And so she makes this vow.

Interesting Valley, Where are we here?

She means this well. So this is version 11.

Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery

and Remember Me, and not forget your servant, but give me give

her a son. Then I will give him to the Lord

for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on

his head. I don't know.

Probably a large portion of humanity have made vows to God,

like God. If you, if you were up there,

you know, if you can Get Me Out of this, you know, this bind

that I'm in, I will. I will then serve you all my

days, right? And then we forget about it once

we're out of the bind, right? It's just the natural.

So God has heard a lot of vowels that are spoken, but this one,

this one's a different. She's not just this, not just

general thing. Yeah.

If you do this for me, then yeah, I'm going to love you

more. Whatever.

No, I'm going to give you my son.

She was serious, right? And, you know, no razor is ever

going to be used on his head, which is kind of part of a

Nazarite vow, which is kind of like if someone has this, the

guy has this long hair, you know, OK, that that's a

Nazarite. That guy's been consecrated.

Like he has totally been given up his purposes for the Lord.

So before, before before Sammy was born.

Poor guy. His mom is determined his

hairstyle for the rest of his life, right?

So he would have had a lot of hair, but she was serious, so

serious. And so she's in this zone with

God at this point. And then Eli, the priest sees

her praying and she's not even aware that he's watching.

And she, he thinks she's drunk. She must have been a mess.

I don't know what that would have looked like, but you know.

And then she explains to him what was really going on and he

realizes, OK, I'm I'm mistaken. So now where I'm here verse 17,

Eli answered after he's been after she explained it to him.

Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you've

asked him, she said. May your servant find favor in

your eyes. Then she went her way and ate.

Something in her face was no longer downcast.

Early in the morning they arose and worship before the Lord and

then went back to their home in Rama.

El Cana made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered

her. So in the course of time, Hannah

became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

She named him Samuel, saying Because I asked the Lord for

him, she receives a blessing from the priest and that was

confirmation to her that God had heard her prayer and all of a

sudden everything changed for her.

The circumstances hadn't changed yet, but her approach to life,

it completely changed. No longer downcast, beginning to

eat, she becomes pregnant. She has a boy and named him

Samuel. No, we want to just be careful

that we don't read this in a way that we take it as God's

promising that he is going to. Every time that we pray that,

you know, a bearing woman is gonna be the things are gonna

change that will suddenly bear or that any trouble that we

might have that that's gonna be lifted.

That's not what this is saying, but what it is telling us is

that believing prayer is very important and that we need to

trust that no matter what. So in other words, we need to

trust that God is always at work, that he's going to hear us

and it is going to respond. But it may not be in the way

that we anticipate. But He was completely in charge,

ridiculously in charge. God is using every difficult

circumstance to bring about something beautiful.

Now, that's a tough thing to understand, right?

But if you think about it with Hannah, right, If she had not

been mocked by Penina if and provoked and irritated and

shamed and all that stuff, would she really been driven to prayer

to for the kind of fervent prayer that she prayed and would

she not make should have, would she have made that vow into

release Samuel at a very young age to the Lord to minister that

Samuel could be that figure in in in Israelite history and

actually human history where everything would turn around.

In the midst of these dark days, something beautiful will take

place. Probably not, but God used all

those circumstances in Hannahs life to bring to to use her in a

way that would be good for her, very good for her, but so good

for the nation. So she's gonna offer in verse 21

to 28, you know, Samuel was weaned.

So probably around age 3 or 4, Samuel was given over to

minister at the House of the Lord and Shiloh.

Like I've got a grandchild who's four years old.

That doesn't sound like responsible parenting to me.

We'll, we'll, we'll talk a bit more about that next week.

But this was, this was the Lord in the midst, in the midst of it

all. And so she breaks into song in

verse 2. And we're not going to look at

this in any great depth. But this is not a song of

Thanksgiving that God gave me a child as much as this is a song.

This is a ham of praise and worship to the God who is

sovereign, who doesn't just answer prayer, but he's got a

plan and he's bringing about this incredible plan.

Same thing a Luke chapter 1, Mary's Magnificat, her song that

Luke 1 · chapter mention

she breaks out in as well as is is very similar to this one.

In the first few verses, she's just describing her situation

and the relief that God gave to her.

But in the next second part of the of this song, she's just

talking about she, she just knows the big picture.

She's just talking about the Lord.

Just listen to this and starting in verse 6, he says the Lord.

She says the Lord brings death and makes alive.

He brings down to the grave and raises up the Lord sends poverty

and wealth. He humbles and he exalts.

He raises the poor from the dust, lifts the needy from the

ash heap. He seats them with Princess, and

has them inherit a thrown of honor for the foundations of the

earth of the Lords. On them he has set the world.

And then a few few lines down it says it is not by strength that

one prevails. She she knew what happened to

her is just the way that God works.

He takes our are are horrible circumstances in the places

where we experience roadblocks and we're confused and we're

completely have no control and we have we're completely

incapable of making a change. And he uses that as a starting

place to do something powerful. This is the God that we serve.

So we look at Chapter 1 and we think, OK, big deal, Hannah now

now has a child and Panina eats crow and Elkana finally has some

peace in his household, Right? Big deal.

No, it's a huge deal because this is a little microcosm of

how God works. He brings His saving grace into

our lives again and again and again.

He lifts up the weary, the downtrodden.

He lifts. This is what he does.

This is, this is what he does. When we turn to Him, he lifts us

up. And every time that God gets us

out of a pickle, moves us through a very difficult season,

that's a picture. It's a little sample of the big

thing that he's doing in restoring this world.

When he sent his son, the King of Kings, who's gonna truly

accomplish this work? He's going to finish it all for

us. And she actually refers to this,

I'm sure unknowingly at the end of the song when she says he

will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his

anointed. That a word anointed is Messiah

is Christ the first time it enters into the scriptures.

Looking forward to a king in the line of David.

She doesn't even know what's going on here.

Who is going to come to this earth and truly restore us all

the brokenness in this world? And it's going to begin with

each one of us, one step at a time, one life at a time, one

year at a time. And it all starts with Samuel,

and that's we're going to be looking at picking up next week.

So Lord, we thank you for the feast that you give to us in

your word. And Lord, there's just so much

here. I I pray Lord, you being the

great. You're the one who does the

triage, Lord, that you would minister to each one of us where

we need it the most. Encourage us in our faith, move

us forward, and we commit ourselves to You over these next

40 days. Speak Lord, your servants are

listening in Jesus name, OK?