Rejoice in the Lord

We are Beginning a new sermon series called “Be Holy.” Those of us that are followers of Jesus should strive to become more holy each and every day. We are going to allow 1 Samuel help us discover signs that show a greater reliance on God.

Today we focus on “rejoicing in the Lord.” Our scripture comes from 1 Samuel 2:1-10. The words will be on the screen.

2 And Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord.

My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.

2 “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.

3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

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

5 Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.

6 The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.

8 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.

9 “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.

10 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.”

Please pray with me…

We as followers Jesus should trust in the Lord and be willing to rely on God. Our scripture is about a woman who believed that God would succeed and do the impossible for her. He allows her to have a child. A child who she promised she would allow to serve him if God was willing to allow for her to conceive.

She receives an answer to her prayer and that answer leads Hannah to offer up this prayer or what is often called her song, to God. A prayer in which she praises God, thanks God, and can help us understand God and the way God works in us and around us.

The person who Hannah has given birth to is Samuel. He will end up serving within the Temple and at times offering prophecy that will not be a positive message to the current chief priest and his family. He will be a special conduit between God and his people.

One of the ways that we show that we are becoming more holy or closer to God is the way in which we respond in situations that we are in. Hannah could have decided that it was just a coincidence that she asked for a child, and she was able to conceive.

She could have chosen to not follow through with her promise to God and kept the child and raised the child on her own. That was not her response. Hannah was willing to give credit where credit was due.

She believed that her prayer was answered. She believed that she received what she received because of her willingness to follow God and believe that anything was possible for God. Therefore, she kept her promise and gave her child to the high priest.

How many times do we ask for something and when we receive it, we suddenly take credit for it. We choose to believe that what we asked for just happened without us giving credit where the credit is deserved.

Becoming more holy leads to us rejoicing to God for those ways that he has impacted our lives. It is when we become more holy that we begin to trust God, rely on God, and when he answers, rejoice in the Lord.

Hannah doesn’t just rejoice to God due to what he has done for her. She offers reasons why even if her prayer had not been answered that she and us should choose to rejoice in the Lord. She wants God to know she appreciates all he has done and continues to do not just for her but for humanity.

(Transition)

She begins by pointing out that our God is the holy one. It is because God is the Holy One that Jesus was needed. We find in scripture the close connection that God had with Adam and Eve. He chose them to be the keepers of the land and all that resided on the land.

They broke his trust and instead of living a life with God they were tricked into making the choice to desire more. They wanted to receive a greater understanding of what was happening around them than God wanted them to have. God wanted them to remain naïve. They wanted knowledge.

This choice leads them to eating from the tree of the “Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Eating from this tree leads them to be ashamed of their nakedness and eventually to them hiding from God when they hear him walking in the garden.

They have a brief interaction with God at this point. God clothes them and then leaves them. God couldn’t have the same relationship with them because they were now separated by sin. God couldn’t be close to them because he was the holy one. He was the perfect one who couldn’t be around their imperfection.

We have Moses being told he can’t see God because God is too holy. We have the people being afraid of God because God is the holy one and they must do all that they can to not offend him. The problem was that their best was never going to be good enough.

This is why we needed Jesus. We needed another holy person to walk the earth. A person without sin. A person who was as holy as Adam and Eve were before they made the decision to eat from the tree.

Jesus becomes the way in which we can once again reside with God. We aren’t residing with him here on earth but after death we are made holy. We that believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior become perfected in our faith to where we are able to reside with God in Heaven.

Our journey here on earth should include the desire to become more holy. The church calls it sanctification. It is us choosing that we want to become closer to God during our time on earth. It is us deciding we want our relationship with God to leave the superficial and to become personal.

We may not be able to reside with God here on earth but the saving grace he offers to us allows us to have God within us. We call him the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is how we become closer to God.

(Transition)

The language we use around that here is for us to be formed and developed. Formation involves us having God help us become more like him. It is us seeking for a closer relationship with him and desiring to get to know God better.

Part of our formation should be developing a better understanding of God. We do this by spending time studying the word of God and allowing God the time to help us understand what he wants us to know about him.

It is through being formed and developed by God that we are able to have a greater understanding of the gifts that God has given us and how God desires for us to use those gifts to serve him and those around us.

We become the hands and feet of Jesus. Hannah speaks of God raising up the poor. Poor seems to be used in two ways within scripture. Poor as in lacking resources and poor as in lacking an understanding of God.

We as the church and as individuals can help those around us in both of these ways. We can be there for those around us financially, emotionally, and spiritually. We can be the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus to those around us.

God lifts up the needy. It is my belief that God sees a need and has those that are following him help out the need. God could fix what ails those around us on his own, but God would prefer that we help him be the solution.

We have a God that wants to be in a relationship with us and wants us to be willing to join with him in serving those in our communities. We can become a representation of Jesus to those we meet.

(Transition)

Growing in our trust of God should lead us to ask for ways that we can assist him. We should not only be willing to listen for God to answer but we should be willing individually and as a church to ask for God to place those in need before us.

This can be scary because we don’t know what this will mean to us individually or as a church. We are putting God in charge of the possibilities and telling him that what he desires from us is what we will be willing to do.

This is often easier said than done. We will often be pushed out of our comfort zone when we become connected to God in such a way that we want him to lead us into situations. We have to be willing to respond if we ask.

This will mean that we will often be pushed out of our comfort zone because what we will be able to accomplish will only be accomplished with help from God. We will have to be willing to trust in and rely on God for us to be able to serve those around us as God desires from us.

We will be able to see how Samuel lived out these traits and helped those around him live out these traits in the weeks to come. We will get to see what it should look like as we make the choice to become more holy.

We will examine the importance of speaking and listening to God. How we should choose to follow God. This will often mean that we will have to trust and rely on God. These next few weeks will show us the ways that we show our love for God and show we are becoming closer to God.

(Transition)

A question that you may want to ask yourself as a follower of Jesus is “Where have I seen God at work in my life or in the life of those around me today?” A willingness to ask this question each day can lead us to be looking for God at work in us and through us.

This should lead us to where we find Hannah in today’s text, rejoicing in the Lord. We need to decide not just on Sunday but every day to rejoice in the ways that God has impacted us and allowed us to impact those around us.

We can view what happens around us as happenstance or we can believe that those times when things fell into place or the events that happened around us were from God. It is through asking the question “Where have I seen God at work today?” that can lead us to be open to all the ways God is at work around us.

(Transition)

Hannah ends her prayer by reminding us that God is the creator of all and judge of all. We have been created by God. It is why God desires to be as close to us as we are willing to be to him. God loves his creation too much to make them be closely connected to him.

This point can bring us to our first reading. There may be times in God’s creation when something so extraordinary occurs that it will lead us to rejoice in the Lord. Elizabeth didn’t ask or expect to have the reaction she did to Mary.

I am sure that she was happy to see Mary, but she did not expect the Holy Spirit to enter into her through her soon-to-be baby John meeting the Savior of the world while he was also in the womb.

There will be times when we will see something either through a human interaction or through looking around God’s creation that will lead us to rejoice in the Lord. We will become overwhelmed with what God has done in the world.

(Transition)

We began with Hannah, but we end with Mary. After seeing the reaction from Elizabeth, Mary rejoices that the Lord has chosen her and what the Lord will do through her child. The words she begins with are words for us to focus on today.

We should be humbled in the knowledge that our God wants to be in a relationship with us. We should rejoice that our God loves us so much that he saves us, resides within us, and desires to live with us forever.

Mary calls herself a servant. We are also servants of God. We are to view him as our Lord and follow him and do what he desires for us to do for him and for those around us. We then, after we see what he has done, should praise him, thank him and rejoice in the Lord.