Pray Like Hannah

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, welcome and thank you for joining us in worship today.

I have a few announcements to mention before we begin this morning.

The men’s ministry will meet tonight at 6:00 with a focus on Galatians 5:13 and 14.

We’re in need of a few things to support some of our extended ministries. If you have some empty shoeboxes laying around, please bring them to the church office so they can be filled for Samaritan’s Purse.

We also need a utility shelf to store supplies for our children’s department.

And our Eggstravaganza is coming up soon. Yes, Easter is on its way. So if you have any plastic easter eggs or would like to donate some candy for that, please do so.

This coming Friday we’ll be showing the movie “Sabina: Tortured for Christ” at 7:00 here in the sanctuary. All are welcome to attend that.

There is also a church council meeting this coming Tuesday the 1st at 7:00. If you’re on the council, please try to attend.

And please return your baby bottles filled with spare change for Comfort Care Women’s Health no later than next Sunday.

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

I’m sure we’ve all seen the news this week about the suffering and injustice—and the extreme bravery—of the people of Ukraine.

Every war, no matter how just, is evil in its own way. The loss of innocent life, the destruction of cities and towns and families, the scars it leaves on those who manage to survive the fighting, and the fear and worry not just of that region of the world, but the entire world.

At this time I’d like us all to bow our heads in silent prayer for the people of Ukraine, for peace and for justice, and then I will close. Let’s pray.

Father, this morning we cry out to You. We cry out in our worry, our fear, our anger, over the decisions of a few that affect so many. We cry out over the loss of innocent life. We cry out over the violence, the killing, the suffering. We cry out, Father, to the one who can heal and bring peace.

We pray this morning for the people of Ukraine. We pray for the people of Russia. We pray for us all, Father, that you will bring healing and protection, and that your angels stand guard over us all. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.

Sermon

One of the hardest things we suffer through as Christians is when we go to God over and over again for something we that desperately want, only to have him constantly answer no.

We know that God is good, that He loves us, and that He only wants the very best for us. But boy it still hurts when He tells us no, doesn’t it?

We can understand that God knows much more than we do. That He sees much farther and deeper than we can. “My ways are not your ways,” he says in Isaiah, “and my thoughts are not your thoughts.”

We get that. And honestly, we want that in a God, don’t we? Deep down, we really don't want a God we can always understand. That’s not the sort of God who is worthy of worship.

Is a God whose ways are always clear and who always makes sense a God who is wiser than us? No. That’s just a God who is only as smart and as we are. And is that a God we can give our souls to? A God we can really trust?

It’s a question that’s always worth asking whenever our faith gets tested, because it seems as if when God either won’t give us something we want, or take away something we can’t bear, then that means He’s not listening to us at all.

And that's something we all experience. We all go through this at some point, and many of us go through it many times in the course of our lives.

It’s a crisis that even Jesus had to endure. He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane for God to spare him from the suffering he knew was waiting for him on the cross — prayed so deeply that he sweated blood — and God, His father, answered No.

The sorrow we feel over those unanswered prayers can be overwhelming.

It’s one thing when we ask God for something but know deep down that maybe it’s not the right thing.

It’s one thing when the things we pray to either receive or be taken away would cause us harm.

But what about when the thing we’re praying for is good, and God still seems to refuse?

What about when we want God to do something that will only be a blessing to us and to others, but God still seems silent?

What do we do with our sorrow then, and how do we use that sorrow to deepen our faith?

That’s what we’re going to talk about today, and for help in dealing with this problem that we all face, we’re going to look at the Old Testament and the story of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel.

Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah. There was a time when they were both young, both in love, and their whole lives were laid out in front of them.

Everything had been planned out and imagined in the most perfect way, just like we all start out our lives.

But as the years went on, a problem grew in their lives that neither one of them could face, and so it kept growing until it became a shadow cast over Hannah’s entire life.

Let’s read that story now in 1 Samuel 1:4-20:

On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb.

And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb.

So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her.

Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

After they had 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.

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.”

As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.

And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.”

But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. 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 have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”

Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the LORD.”

And this is God’s word.

I can’t tell you how many times in my life that I’ve turned to this story for help. That's why I love the Old Testament. It’s filled with people from a completely different time and culture but who suffer and overcome completely human problems, and here is one that we all can recognize.

Here is a woman that life has left sorrowful, and yet Hannah doesn’t surrender. She’s broken when we meet her but healed when we leave her, and if there’s a more rewarding life than that, I don’t know what it is.

But how does Hannah do it? We’re going to look at three steps: What Hannah’s sorrow is, what Hannah does with that sorrow, and how that sorrow is transformed as a result.

First, what is the nature of Hannah’s sorrow? What’s the real cause of her problem? We see in these verses two reasons why she’s so unhappy.

First, she’s in a polygamous marriage. Hannah isn’t Elkanah’s only wife. She’s sharing her husband with another woman named Peninnah.

This is something that atheists love to point out when it comes to the Bible. They say here’s God’s word, talking about people having more than one spouse.

Isn’t that terrible? Isn’t that proof that book is just a bunch of old and out-of-date ideas that don’t apply to our modern world? Because we all know polygamy is wrong. It’s terrible. It’s even against the law.

But remember two things here: one is that the Bible is always honest. It never shies away from what people did and what the culture thought was okay at that time. That’s why all through the Old Testament, you see men with many wives.

But here’s what critics of the Bible often miss: in every place where polygamy is talked about in the Old Testament, there’s trouble. We see it with Solomon and his wives, David and his wives, Abraham with Sarah and Hagar, Jacob with Rachel and Leah.

And now we see it with Elkanah, Peninnah, and Hannah, because they’re miserable, and none of them were more miserable than Hannah.

We can tell a lot about who these three people were by their names. The Hebrews didn’t just name their children anything. A name carried meaning.

Hebrew men were usually named for something religious. That’s why Elkanah’s name means, “God is owner”.

But the Hebrew women were named for their inner qualities, something inside them that shined out above all the others.

Hannah’s name means “grace”, or “gracious”. She was a woman who had a natural kindness and the grace of God.

Penninah, on the other hand, means “a cornered gem”. A precious jewel, like a pearl or a ruby. Penninah had the looks, you see. She was beautiful.

You begin to see a problem here, don’t you? But here’s the biggest problem, and here’s why Elkanah ended up with two wives in the first place — Hannah couldn’t have children.

And worse, look at the end of verse 5. Not only was Hannah barren, God was the one who had closed her womb.

The Hebrews considered having children the greatest cultural good. The more children you had, the better things went for you economically. You depended on them to run the family business, whether it was farming or anything else.

The more children you had, the bigger and better your business could be.

That meant security for your future, because when you got old, your children could provide for you in the same way that you provided for them.

Having children was also good for the nation as a whole, because it meant more workers, a stronger national economy, and more soldiers to defend Israel in a dangerous world.

So if you were a woman at that time, your job was to have babies. It was the very best thing you could do for your family, your society, and your country.

If you were a woman and you had children, you were a hero. If you didn’t or couldn’t, you were an absolute failure.

That’s something we can’t really understand today, but the point isn’t that Hannah couldn’t have children. The point is that every culture puts an enormous amount of pressure on people to live up to society’s expectations.

Maybe in our culture we don’t need to have children to feel like we’re succeeding, that we’re fitting in. But don’t we feel like we need money? Don’t we feel pressured to have things? Looks? Accomplishments?

Every culture, no matter where or when it is, has expectations that only a few people can really meet.

But that doesn’t stop that culture from looking at you and saying, “You’re not rich enough, or you haven’t done enough, or you’re not good enough. You’re not measuring up.”

Every culture tries to make you fit, and Hannah didn’t fit. Penninah did. She had the looks and the kids. She had everything on the surface — except her husband’s love. Because if you look at verse 8, you’ll see that Elkanah’s heart belonged to Hannah alone.

So here’s the problem in a nutshell. Peninnah had the children but not the love. Hannah had the love but not the children. And Elkanah is stuck in the middle.

So nobody was happy. But if we dig deeper, you see Hannah’s real sorrow wasn’t that she couldn’t have children. It was that she wanted a child so that she could feel valued — valued by herself, her husband, and her society.

She can’t accomplish the one thing she wants out of life. That’s her sorrow. So what does Hannah do with that sorrow?

The setting for this scripture is in the town of Shiloh. That’s where the tabernacle was. Every year, Elkanah would take his entire family there to worship, and there would be a fellowship meal that went along with bringing an offering to God.

Verse 5 tells us that Elkanah gave a double portion to Hannah because he loved her. Do you think Peninnah liked that? No. That must have upset her terribly. She’s thinking, “I’m beautiful, I’ve given birth to all these children, what more do I have to do for my husband to love me?”

According to verse 4, Peninnah had all of her sons and daughters there — she’d given birth many times, which was like a knife through Hannah’s heart.

This was a hard time for Hannah, these trips to the tabernacle. And Peninnah only made things worse, because verse 7 says that she would provoke Hannah. The Hebrew word there for “provoke” means to be angry and to grieve. Peninnah is being a bully, in other words. Again, likely because of her own pain.

All of this comes to a head during this particular fellowship meal. This is where Hannah reaches a point where she just can’t handle things anymore. But in order to get a good handle on what Hannah does, it’s important for us to talk about what she doesn’t do.

All through this story, Hannah’s hearing two voices. There’s the voice of Peninnah that represents what the culture says Hannah should be and how she’s a failure.

Then there’s the voice of her husband saying that as long as he loves her most, everything should be fine.

Each of those voices is saying to her, “Here’s how you find a happy life.” One is to have children, the other is to depend on your husband’s love.

But Hannah’s not giving in to either of those voices. As sad as she is, she still knows that anything she builds her life on other than God is going to fail.

That’s why she refuses to build her life on what the world says she should be, and she refuses to build her life on her husband’s love.

So that's what Hannah doesn’t do. Now look what she does.

There’s a tiny phrase tucked away at the beginning of verse 9 that’s easy to miss, but it means everything. After they’d eaten and drunk, what happens?

Two words: Hannah rose. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but in the Hebrew it’s extremely important. It’s an expression. You know how we say somebody “put their foot down”? That’s what it means.

Hannah stood up. She took charge. She decided she was going to do something and wasn’t going to just let life happen to her anymore.

She can’t enjoy this feast, not with Peninnah and all of those children there. Hannah did that out of duty.

But she can’t do it anymore. She’s had enough. There’s only so much polite smiling and fake laughing she can do before all of that sorrow finally overcomes her.

We’re all adults here, and we all know that part of being an adult is putting on a mask that keeps what we’re really feeling buried deep down so we can get on with the business of living. Suck it up, right? That’s what we’re supposed to do. Deal with it. Grow up.

The problem with that is we can’t suck it up for long. Sooner or later, all of the grief and disappointment and frustration inside us has to come out.

We can’t keep those things bottled up for long. They leak out, and if we’re not careful, they leak out onto the people we love most. If we’re not careful, they leak out and lead us to sin.

Hannah can’t wear that mask anymore. She’s finished, so she stands.

She’s going to trade the fake sort of worship of having this meal with the real worship of going to the temple to face God in all of her brokenness. Hannah wants to do something radical. So what does she do? She prays.

And here is where we get to the real turning point of Hannah’s life. Here is where all of that sorrow she’s carried for years finally gets laid to rest. It’s not simply that Hannah prays. It’s how she prays.

Look at verse 10. How does Hannah pray? She was deeply distressed, and she prayed bitterly.

Because of her barrenness, because of her pain, because the one thing she wanted in life, the one thing that would make her life worth something, the one thing she desired, had been kept from her. Hannah’s life was bitter without children. She had no pleasure, no peace.

Now listen, because this is important. Here’s what happens so often: something in our lives affects us deeply. We need to either get something from God or have God take something away.

And we do what we should with that need, we do as good Christians do — we take that need right to God.

But God says No.

So we ask again, only to hear No again. And that goes on and on, sometimes for years.

How many times do you think Hannah prayed for a son before this day? How many other tears do you think she shed to God over this problem?

Or let me say it in a different way. How many prayers have you sent to God for something that you still don’t have? Something you need. Something you want with all your heart. Something that’s good, and can only be a blessing.

You see? Too many people look at this story and say it’s just about a woman who couldn’t have a child, but that’s not true because Hannah is all of us.

Maybe not all of us are barren in the way she was, but all of us experience times when our lives feel barren.

Times when nothing seems to be born out of our work, or our service, or our relationships.

Times when we feel like we don’t measure up. Times when we’re afraid we don’t matter at all.

And what can happen after all those times of going to God and either hearing Him say No or hearing only silence?

We can say, “Well, if you won’t want anything to do with me, God, then I don’t want anything to do with you.”

We stop walking forward in our faith because we don’t understand what God is doing.

And then we drift away from our faith because we start doubting God’s love.

And then finally we walk away because we start thinking that maybe He was never there at all.

Hannah doesn’t do that. Instead she puts herself right in the position to obtain the blessing she’s always wanted, not by hiding her feelings from God, but by pouring them out to him.

All of that bitterness, every bit of that sorrow, every tear she had left, poured out to God. She didn’t run away from Him, she ran as fast and hard as she could toward him. So much so that Eli the priest thought she was drunk.

She tells Eli in verses 15 and 16 that she’s been pouring our her soul before the Lord — not just her heart, but her soul — and that she’s been speaking out of her “great anxiety and vexation.”

Do you see? God was all Hannah had. He was all Hannah ever had.

So she poured out everything. She held nothing back. Hannah knew the one thing that mattered here, and it’s the last words of verse 5: God had closed her womb. And if God had closed it, then only He could open it again.

That’s how Hannah got to a place where she could receive her blessing. But how does she actually get it? Look at verse 11:

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.”

First, notice here that Hannah doesn’t ask for many children. Peninnah has many children, but Hannah only asks for one, a son.

And notice too how many times in verse 11 that Hannah calls herself God’s servant.

She’s pouring out her heart and asking for this one thing, but Hannah’s also reminding herself that she is God’s servant first.

So whatever God answers, even if it’s No again, won’t affect what’s the most important in her life, which is her relationship with her Lord.

So we’ve seen how we’re supposed to act when God says No — we need to keep going to him, and never hide.

And we’ve seen how we’re supposed to look at our lives as Christians — we’re God’s servants first. That means always seeking His will instead of our own and always accepting whatever He brings into our lives as what is best for us.

That’s not as hard as it might seem. When we’re servants to the world or to other people, we live in misery. We’re never happy.

But what did Jesus say about being his servant? “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Now we see how we’re supposed to think about all those things we feel like we can’t live without. The things we want most of all in life. And it’s right there at the end of verse 11.

Hannah prays that if God gives her a son, “then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

Now, what does this mean? There were men called Levites whose only job was to help the priests in and around the tabernacle. That was their calling, their trade, their career.

They lived near or in the tabernacle and took care of everything. If you were born into that tribe, that was your job.

The Levites couldn’t own land. They couldn’t have farms or businesses. They’re entire lives revolved around service to God.

A Nazarite was a voluntary Levite — someone who wasn’t born into the Levite tribe but still did Levite work. And the sign that you were a Nazarite was that your hair was never cut.

Hannah says to God, “If you give me a son, I will make him a Nazarite. She makes a promise — the first part of verse 11 says “she vowed a vow” — and that promise was this: give me a son, God, and I will give that son right back to you. Not just for a few years, but for his entire life.

So, now, what becomes of Hannah’s sorrow after this? Look at the end of verse 18: “Then the woman” — meaning Hannah — “went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.”

What’s happened here? It’s a change, no doubt about that. Hannah has just undergone a huge change in her life, but most importantly in her heart. But what is that change, and what’s behind it?

On the surface, it looks like Hannah’s bargaining with God, doesn’t it? God, if you give me this, then I’ll be at peace.

But let’s look at that a minute. If Hannah was bargaining with God, she would have started with the prayer, then gotten pregnant, then found peace. Right?

But that’s not what happened at all. What happened was prayer, then peace, then pregnancy. And when she says that she’ll make the child a Nazarite, what’s Hannah doing?

When it came to a woman of that time and place having children, what were the social and emotional benefits we talked about?

Having a child would make a woman fit in, right? But if God gives Hannah what she’s asking for, she still wouldn’t fit in, because her son would have to live and work at the tabernacle.

A son was supposed to learn his father’s trade, but Hannah’s son wouldn’t do that. Again, because he would be a Nazarite. He couldn’t learn Elkanah's trade, and couldn’t inherit land.

A son would fill a woman’s life with richness, and affection, but Hannah wouldn’t have that either because her son wouldn’t live with her.

Here’s Hannah’s prayer, here’s the change that finally happened in her heart. She’s saying, “Lord, all my life I’ve wanted to have a child for me. But now I want to have a child for You.”

Do you see? She’s redirecting her desire for a son. For years, it was all about her. Now, it’s all about her God. She’s going to give the thing she wants most to Him.

“Give me what I want,” she says, “And I’ll give it right back to You, Lord. Because I trust you. Because for as much as I want a son, I want You more.”

And that prayer, the prayer that pours out our wants and needs and desires before God while knowing that God is always first, that God is all that matters, is the prayer that moves mountains.

That is the prayer that makes miracles happen, because that is the kind of prayer that goes beyond just pouring out troubles.

It’s taking those troubles and making them into an offering for God. It’s knowing that whatever we truly give to God will be repaid in a way that blesses us beyond understanding.

It’s handing what we cherish the most over to Him with a faith that says, “I know you’ll take care of this, Father. And no matter what you answer, I know it will be for my own peace and joy.”

If Hannah was asking for a son for herself, the peace she had after her prayer wouldn’t have been possible.

But if she’s asking for a child for God, peace was the only thing she could feel. And God said okay.

That was the heart of Hannah’s prayer. The one thing she cherished most was to be a mother, and a son would make her a mother, and so the only person who could keep safe what Hannah cherished most was God.

Not her, but Him. Because Hannah knew God would love her and her child more than she could ever love anyone or anything.

If you want to keep safe those things you love most in life, the very worst thing you can do is keep them to yourself. Give them over to God. He can do what you can’t.

I’ve heard people say that prayer isn’t about asking for God to change things, but asking Him to change us. And I’ve heard that prayer isn’t about looking for a fix to our circumstances, but fixing us to better endure our circumstances.

Honestly, I don't know how a lot of that works. But I do know this — Hannah didn’t think about any of that on the day she stood up and went to the tabernacle. She just emptied out her heart and gave everything to God, and that’s what real prayer is.

That’s all God wants us to do. Give it all to Him, and then turn around and give it all to Him again. And then let Him handle it, trusting that He will, whatever it is.

I know this, too: there is something about the makeup of the world and how God fashioned things that give us part of the responsibility for how life turns out. We’re not supposed to just sit on the sidelines. We have a say in the things that happen.

That's why prayer is so important — even when it feels like God isn’t there, He is. Even when life feels barren, He’s planting seeds. And even when it feels like nothing at all is happening, everything is happening just beyond your sight.

Let’s pray:

Father our lives are filled with what we think are so many needs, but in truth all we need is you. We need your love, we need your presence, we need your forgiveness and grace. We need all these things, Father, and yet the only way we can truly receive these things is if we give you all that we’re carrying. Our worries. Our fears. Our wants. Our everything. So teach us to give up those things, to surrender them, so that we can gain you. Teach us that everything the world tells us we should want is in fact found in abundance in you. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.

Benediction:

Now may the strength of God sustain us; may the power of God preserve us; may the hands of God protect us; may the way of God direct us; may the love of God go with us this day and forever.