Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Introduction

You know having a baby is not like scheduling an oil change.

That might seem like an odd comparison, but often people approach young couples with questions about when they are going to “start a family” as if all they have to do is circle a date on the calendar and clear their schedule.

Some couples spend a long time hoping for the arrival a child, and other couples get surprised by one.

Rachel and I have had both of those experiences.

Shortly after we were married we began to get the questions about how long we were going to wait until having kids.

It is a natural question for people to ask, but also kind of ridiculous because it is not like it is something that we have complete control over, and early in our marriage we never really worried much about it.

At times other people seemed much more worried than us.

They offered to help us with the math, as if we couldn’t figure out how old we would be when our child was 18, I am not great at math but I figured we would be 18 years older than when we started.

We did enjoy 6 wonderful years of marriage together before Rachel started to feel a little funny, so we headed over to the jiffy lube to get an oil change and on the way back… we stopped at the hospital to confirm our suspicions.

We weren’t really planning on it.

I couldn’t really say that we were longing for it, but we were good with it.

And the closer and closer we got to the due date the more excited we became about the next 18 years of our life.

We weren’t really planning on it.

I couldn’t really say that we were longing for it, but we were good with it.

And the closer and closer we got to the due date the more excited we became about the next 18 years of our life.

Many of you know this part of our story, but some of you may not.

We experienced complications with that pregnancy so that on Sept 19th, 12 years ago our oldest son James was born into heaven.

It was the most difficult and life shaping experience of my life.

My faith was tested in this time more than any other, but our family, Church and friends came around us with great love and support and although I wouldn’t want anyone to ever have to go through that, I am grateful for what I learned through it.

But one of the things that we were cautioned about is to not rush into the desire to have another child.

Too late.

This time we were longing.

We had already begun forming in our minds what life with children would look like and we wanted to begin painting that picture right away.

But we were forced to learn...again...that while God is always working, he doesn’t always work on our time table.

So we waited.

We longed.

We yearned.

We prayed.

We were patient.

We were impatient.

We knew it would happen, We thought it might not happen.

We wondered if it would ever happen...but then, but two years later on Sept 12th, we got to meet our beautiful daughter Chara.

Tension

I took us down the path of our journey in order to help us better understand the journey of a woman who lived more than 3,000 years ago.

Her name was Hannah, and she desperately longed to be a mother.

It her day it was the desire of every woman to be able to give her husband a child, and she seemed unable to do so.

On top of this, as was common in that day, her husband had another wife and this other woman was able to do what Hannah was not.

When this other woman asked something like “When are you going to start a family” is not a loving inquiry but a harsh, hurtful and mocking kind of way.

To the point that Hannah would weep so uncontrollably that she would not eat and her husband, who loved her, would become very worried over her.

The Bible is clear that children are a blessing from the Lord so Hannah went right to the source in her very good desire.

She prayed and waited.

She payed and longed.

She prayed and yearned.

She had trouble eating an In her prayers, she promised God that if He would bless her with a child that she would fully give that child in the service of the LORD and still she waited.

This rivalry would be exasperated every year when her husband faithfully led the family on the long journey to the tabernacle in the city of Shiloh.

At the point of their annual sacrifice there would be a decided difference between what was offered on behalf of the wife who had children and Hannah who did not.

Knowing that children are a blessing from the Lord, this crushed Hannah every year.

On one such visit Hannah vowed to the LORD that if he would bless her with a son, then she would dedicate him to the service of the LORD all the days of his life.

A vow like this was a serious pledge, and the LORD heard her prayer, but He was not the only one.

Hannah desperately desired to be a mother.

It was a huge part of the identity of a woman in those day to be able to give her husband a child and

She was praying so earnestly, passionately and soulfully that when Eli the Priest heard her, He thought she was drunk and rebuked her.

Makes you wonder how it had been since he came to the LORD in earnest prayer.

After learning of his mistake and her true reason for carrying on so, Eli turned instead and blessed her and asked God to answer her prayer.

And God did.

God fulfilled the request of her vow, and gave Hannah a son, but now Hannah is faced with her side of the vow.

You might have heard the saying, “Be careful what you wish for” well that is even more true when it comes to vows.

She longed for so long to be given a son, how will she be able to give him up as promised?

Will she trust that the God who gave her this son, will provide a life for him that is just as good or even better than anything she had dreamed up for the next 18 years?

It is the life of Hannah’s son that our story is wrapped around this morning so turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Samuel chapter 1, p. 225 in the Bibles in the chairs, I’ll pray and we will begin our study into the Kingdom of Israel together.

huge part of the identity of a woman in those day to be able to give her husband a child and

enough to know that whatever path He has for her son is so much better than what she

>>>>>

All of us at some point will live with a burning desire for some good thing, but we should know that asking the LORD or it might not bring the blessings into our lives like we thought it would…it may be even better!

listening and obeying God’s word

Truth

Last week we began another season of the Gospel Project and we looked at the beautiful short story of the book of Ruth, whose setting is the time of the Judges when “there was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes”, but the book of Ruth ends with the foreshadowing of a genealogy.

A genealogy that leads from her son to the birth of a great King.

This is what the next section of the Bible is all about.

In the original Hebrew the next four books of the Bible were actually 4 chapters of one long book.

The ancient Hebrew alphabet had no vowels, only consonants, so what was just long in Hebrew was crazy long when the Old Testament was translated into Greek.

So they divided up what was once called 1,2,3 and 4th reign into 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings.

The over arching theme of these four books remains the same - these books tell us the story of the first earthly Kings of Israel.

In the time of the Judges there was no earthly leadership structure for the whole nation of Israel.

They didn’t really need one because they were to be centered on the law of God.

If each of the tribes would follow the law of God then this would fulfill God’s promise to make the people of Israel great and a light to the entire world.

But the tribes didn’t follow God, they rebelled against Him, and God worked through these Judges to set things straight.

But these Judges only “judged” over certain regions and tribes.

Often times two different Judges were operating in different regions of the promised land at the same time.

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In the original Hebrew these next four books of the Bible were actually 4 chapters of one long book.

I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but the ancient Hebrew alphabet had no vowels, only consonants.

That made anything you wrote down much shorter, so when these ancient books were translated into Greek it made the books much longer.

So they devided up what was once called 1,2,3 and 4th reign into 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and Second Kings.

The themes of the books remains the same - these are the narrative events surrounding the establishment and execution of the Monarchy in Israel.

are the narrative events surrounding the establishment and execution of the Monarchy in Israel.

These book

In the time of the Judges there was no centralized leadership structure for the whole nation of Israel.

Each tribe was called to follow the law of God and this would fulfill God’s promise to make the people of Israel great and a light to the entire world.

But they didn’t follow God, they rebelled against Him, and God worked through these Judges to set things straight.

But these Judges only “judged” over certain tribes or regions.

Often times two different Judges were operating in different regions of the land of Canaan at the same time.

But the establishment of a King over the entire nation of Israel would centralize the governance of the nation to one person.

That is a lot of responsibility for one person.

So this person would need be appointed and established by someone who was fully devoted to the LORD.

This is where the story of the long awaited son of Hannah comes in.

Where...

This is what makes these next four books so significant in the life of the people of Israel.

To establish a King over the entire nation of Israel would centralize the governance of every one of the 12 tribes under one human person.