SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the City Covenant podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.
SPEAKER_00: Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.
SPEAKER_01: Can everyone hear me okay?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there it is.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: Um, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, so glad you guys are here.
SPEAKER_01: Um great to see you this summer.
SPEAKER_01: Um my name is Asher.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't met all of you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Um so if you're new here and you um have been here the last couple weeks and I haven't, um I'm glad to meet you.
SPEAKER_01: Um hey, so we are doing this sermon series this summer on prayer.
SPEAKER_01: This is our our ninth week of it.
SPEAKER_01: We'll wrap it up in a right on Labor Day.
SPEAKER_01: Um and this morning we're looking at uh 1 Samuel 1.
SPEAKER_01: And um, so if you want to, if you have a Bible that you brought with you, you can turn over 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: If not, there's a pew Bible right in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna be looking at this story of a woman of a woman named Hannah, uh, this woman who has really moved to a place of of desperation, of longing, um, who who felt like the walls were caving in on her because she had no pathway forward.
SPEAKER_01: And it felt like, you know, in her heart, is God ever gonna do um what I need him to do the most?
SPEAKER_01: And and I I think probably for many, if not most of us in life, we've all experienced, maybe not Hannah's specific experience, but the the general experience of saying, God, are you ever going to do what I need you to do the most?
SPEAKER_01: And so um I want us to think about that when we hear this from 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at the from the second half of verse 7 um to verse 20 in the first chapter.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's go ahead and what we'll do is we'll read it and then we'll pray together, and then we're gonna look and we're gonna see Hannah's pain.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see this prayer that Hannah gives, and then we're gonna ultimately see this posture shift that happens um through prayer in Hannah's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's go ahead and read this and then we'll pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat.
SPEAKER_01: Her husband Elkanah would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't you eat?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you downhearted?
SPEAKER_01: Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?
SPEAKER_01: Once they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up.
SPEAKER_01: Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord's house.
SPEAKER_01: In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.
SPEAKER_01: She made a vow, saying, Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery and remember me, and forget not 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.
SPEAKER_01: And she kept on praying to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Eli observed her mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard.
SPEAKER_01: So Eli, the local priest, thought she was drunk.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to her, How long are you going to stay drunk?
SPEAKER_01: Put away your wine.
SPEAKER_01: Not so, my Lord, Hannah replied.
SPEAKER_01: I am a woman who is deeply troubled.
SPEAKER_01: I have not been drinking wine or beer.
SPEAKER_01: I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Do not take your servant for a wicked woman.
SPEAKER_01: I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.
SPEAKER_01: Eli answered, Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.
SPEAKER_01: She said, May your servant find favor in your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Then she went her way, and she ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
SPEAKER_01: Early the next morning they arose and they worshiped before the Lord, and they went back to their home at Ramah.
SPEAKER_01: Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.
SPEAKER_01: So in the course of time, Hannah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son.
SPEAKER_01: She named him Samuel, saying, Because I asked the Lord for him.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, thank you so much for stories like this.
SPEAKER_01: Stories that help us know that we are not alone in our anguish, in our suffering, in our pain.
SPEAKER_01: And God, not that we are just not alone because we have people like Hannah's story, Lord, but ultimately we're not alone because we have you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in the same way that you remembered Hannah, Lord, help us know and remember that you remember us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you you show us in Jesus that you remember us.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01: Um help us this morning to learn your word, help us to love Jesus more, and help us to know how much we are loved as we hear um here the rest of this time together.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name, pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna look at this in a few movements, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at this background, look at Hannah's pain, look at what it must have been like for a woman like this, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and then we will.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take that turn and we're gonna see the way that she prays in the midst of this, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so um I think we have to look and understand this story is something more than a woman who just says, I want to have a baby, God help me, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's not that simple.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there the the pressure and the weight on her is so thorough, is the the gravity of it is so intense, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because we have this woman who um has both circ personal circumstances, but also these wider cultural idols that put this incredible pressure on her, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um the the scriptures here say that she's not just kind of sad, right?
SPEAKER_01: She's not having a down day, she's devastated.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in her life that she's supposed to be able to do, all of her plans, all of her future seems to be tied up, and it's not gonna go where she thinks it could go or should go, right, or will go.
SPEAKER_01: And so I and it and I think probably for many of us that we have had these moments in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We've had these moments in our lives where we just looked and you have this aha moment and you say, It's not gonna happen, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm never gonna get the job, I'm never gonna get the spouse, I'm never gonna get the you know, college admissions, I'm never gonna get you fill in the blank, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what that is for you this morning, but I bet for each and every one of us, somewhere in the deep, deep parts of our heart, there's a part of us who said, There, I'm never gonna get what I need the very most, right?
SPEAKER_01: The challenge for Hannah in this, in the wider cultural piece that we're gonna explore in a second, is there is this good thing that Hannah wants so desperately, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it is to be able to be a mom.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge is throughout all of scripture, we see these things where um throughout from Genesis to Revelation, we see this current, recurrent theme where people will take uh a good thing and turn it into an ultimate thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: So within scriptures, we would call that an idol, right?
SPEAKER_01: When you you take something that you should take good pleasure in, but you make it so much that you say, if I have this, I have everything.
SPEAKER_01: If I don't have it, I have nothing, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so here we have Hannah kind of experiencing this moment of saying, if I can't do this, I have nothing.
SPEAKER_01: You might look then and say, why?
SPEAKER_01: Why is it she experiences such pressure in this?
SPEAKER_01: Why is it she's feeling like this?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: She is facing this dramatic pressure in the in the ancient Hebrew Near East, and here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because in her world, she's facing pressures both within her family system and her nation as a whole, right?
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_01: Is in her family in particular, there was so much pressure on women to have babies, and and it's because of this.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like there's some type of like university structure, it's not like there's a trade program where if you decided, you know, I really explored getting married, and but you know, I really just determined, you know, because I I fast-forwarded, you know, in my Back to the Future time car time machine, and I I went forward to when the Apostle Paul told um folks that if they could stay single, that'd even be better.
SPEAKER_01: So I just decided I'm gonna stay single and I'm gonna explore a career, right?
SPEAKER_01: No, that there is nothing like that for women in the ancient Near East.
SPEAKER_01: And so um what she's contributing in her family structure is that in a marriage situation is that she's gonna have these kids.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what happens that she needs to have kids because her family is utterly dependent on her having children.
SPEAKER_01: Because um in her world for families, every family functioned like a small business.
SPEAKER_01: And so the more kids you had, the more financial security you had, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't matter if you were if you were farmers, right, if you were like merchants, if you were shoe cobblers, whatever you did, the more kids you had means the more employees you had.
SPEAKER_01: So the more employees you have, you even though no one person is making that much money for your family, there's enough of them that they could work together and make a living as a family, right?
SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing.
SPEAKER_01: They just for today's current financial provision, you need to have a lot of kids, right?
SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing for her.
SPEAKER_01: The other thing though is looking and saying for toward the future, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um back then, only about four out of ten kids would reach adulthood.
SPEAKER_01: So there's no 401ks, there's no social social security, there's no retirement planning.
SPEAKER_01: The retirement plan is when you get old, your kids will take care of you.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't have kids, you could literally be at risk of starving to death, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so so here she is.
SPEAKER_01: She's looking and saying, for my family, I have all this incredible pressure, right?
SPEAKER_01: I have she has pressure for herself.
SPEAKER_01: And then if you feel like that's not enough, right, if you feel like that's enough, there's this incredible pressure actually for the whole nation.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because women had to have lots of kids.
SPEAKER_01: Because um if you didn't have lots of kids in your tribe, there could be some other tribe that's larger next to you.
SPEAKER_01: They come home and take over your tribe, right?
SPEAKER_01: So they come over, and because they're bigger, faster, stronger, there's more of them.
SPEAKER_01: They they can take you guys over.
SPEAKER_01: And so the challenge is you need more and more people in your group of people so that you can basically battle against others, right?
SPEAKER_01: So you won't get taken over.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this enormous, enormous pressure.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, that other one wasn't a word, right?
SPEAKER_01: So there's this enormous pressure on Hannah, right?
SPEAKER_01: And she's looking and saying, how can I possibly live if I don't do this?
SPEAKER_01: There's this nation on the line.
SPEAKER_01: So she's facing that internal pressure that's really, in many ways, that's a pressure from the outside, right?
SPEAKER_01: This isn't just some internal thing that she needs to go to counseling for, right?
SPEAKER_01: And work through it, right?
SPEAKER_01: This isn't going away.
SPEAKER_01: This is everyone around her is saying, This is true.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you got you gotta do the work here, Hannah, right?
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I'm trying my best.
SPEAKER_01: So then here's what also happens.
SPEAKER_01: You you might have noticed this weird thing.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of prayer, in the midst of her going to the temple, um, right, right at the very beginning, you might have noticed this, where it said, um, whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her um till she wept and would not eat.
SPEAKER_01: So you might wonder, um, who's this rival?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Who's this rival?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Because we a few verses before you would know.
SPEAKER_01: Um, her rival is her husband's other wife, right?
SPEAKER_01: So add in adding insult to injury, um, she's also competing for the like the love, the affection, the commitment of this guy who she's supposed to have a covenant relationship with, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so, um, and and then this is a guy, his name's Elkona, and Elkana isn't what I would say has like a really high EQ, right?
SPEAKER_01: His emotional intelligence is a little low.
SPEAKER_01: So remember, he says this thing where he says, Oh my goodness, but honey, um, I know you can't have you know any babies, but aren't I like enough for you?
SPEAKER_01: Also, just a little background information that we can't forget.
SPEAKER_01: When he says, Aren't I enough for you?
SPEAKER_01: She only gets half of him, right?
SPEAKER_01: So, like, is he saying, I mean, I've given myself to you.
SPEAKER_01: And your rival, who's really making your life horrible.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, honey, aren't I enough?
SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be reasonable to say, no, you're not enough, Alkana, right?
SPEAKER_01: For a lot of reasons.
SPEAKER_01: So, so things are hard.
SPEAKER_01: Robert Alter actually says, he's this guy some of you guys have heard about before.
SPEAKER_01: He used to be at the University of Berkeley.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he wrote a time, he's a Jewish guy, I think he's actually an atheist, but um really intelligent on understanding the Hebrew scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And he would say, as you look through all of the Hebrew scriptures, as you look through all of the Hebrew scriptures, there is not a single instance of a polygamous relationship where it results in anything other than total disaster and unhappiness for the family, right?
SPEAKER_01: So this is what within narrative theology, we would say this is actually, even though we see polygamy happening in the Old Testament, through narrative theology, we would say this is God actually saying his big plan is not for polygamy, because every time it happens, it works out very poorly, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's just a little extra, you know, for you guys.
SPEAKER_01: So this is Hannah in this polygamous relationship with a husband who's not really there for her.
SPEAKER_01: You know, she feels like she can't do the things that she needs to be able to do the most, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is this isn't this is not Hannah.
SPEAKER_01: She's not having a bad day, she's not having a bad week, she's not having a bad month or a bad year, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is something that's on repeat.
SPEAKER_01: It's just happening again and again and again for her, right?
SPEAKER_01: This unrelenting feeling of the walls closing in on her because there's nothing she can do to change.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so some of you guys have experienced that in prayer in your life, where you look and say, I'm utterly helpless to change the thing that needs to be changed the most.
SPEAKER_01: And so what's she do?
SPEAKER_01: She prays.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That that's the that's the right answer, right?
SPEAKER_01: When you look and say, there's nothing I can actually do to change.
SPEAKER_01: Only God can change it.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what she does.
SPEAKER_01: She comes to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what she says: she says, Lord Almighty, if you only look on your servant's misery and remember me, remember that word of remember.
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget your servant, but give her a son, and then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will be ever be used on his head.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go backwards in the prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you guys might have a question about the whole haircut situation.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's the thing about her saying, I'll give him to you, and he'll never get a haircut.
SPEAKER_01: So what she is like virtually for sure referring to is she's making for her son this thing called a Nazarite vow.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a group of people who are priests um in ancient Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Those folks, to be a priest in the temple, you have to be um of the tribe of Levi, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so you have to be a Levite.
SPEAKER_01: And and so the thing is, Hannah evidently is not from the tribe of Levi.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, there's another group of people who help at the temple, though.
SPEAKER_01: These folks are not are called Nazarites.
SPEAKER_01: These are folks who they never eat, or excuse me, they they never drink alcohol, they never get a haircut.
SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of things with them.
SPEAKER_01: But really, what she's saying is, I will give him to you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: If you give me the gift of a child, I won't even keep him, God.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give him back to you, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he'll be like this full-time, you know, I'm gonna give him, he's gonna become, you know, uh uh in full-time ministry, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, would you just give me a son and um and he'll be a Nazarite, right?
SPEAKER_01: And she says, because I'm I'm miserable, right?
SPEAKER_01: She says, Remember me.
SPEAKER_01: So she makes him this offer, and so she ultimately says, Um, why?
SPEAKER_01: Why does she need this the most?
SPEAKER_01: Because the thing is, if she says, I'll get a son, but he won't even be able to help me, you look and say she won't enjoy all of the benefits of being a mom, right?
SPEAKER_01: In this world, right?
SPEAKER_01: She won't actually have the financial security that a kid would give her.
SPEAKER_01: She won't have the um, she won't she won't be able to, you know, when all the other kids are hanging around.
SPEAKER_01: He he won't be there, he'll be at the temple, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and fast forward, you can read in the story.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happened, right?
SPEAKER_01: And um, oh, sorry, if you didn't know she was gonna get pregnant later.
SPEAKER_01: That that's in the next chapter.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so she's not gonna receive that.
SPEAKER_01: So why is it that she says, God, but please just answer my prayer?
SPEAKER_01: It's because that tells her God does see me.
SPEAKER_01: That says, God, I'm not alone.
SPEAKER_01: God, you must remember me.
SPEAKER_01: If you answer my prayer, it would at least help me know that I'm not alone in all this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not carrying the burden alone anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You you know, when you you pray, you think sometimes like it's just gonna be in an instant, God's gonna give you what you want.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And and somehow also in this prayer, um, maybe in your heart, when you pray and and you just long for something so much, you feel like not only is God gonna give you um everything, the the deepest needs of your heart, but also like all the people around you are gonna somehow like lift you up on their shoulders and parade you around in like the Christmas story or something, right?
SPEAKER_01: That this is our our big longing is somehow everything gets fixed and we become the hero of the story.
SPEAKER_01: And and the thing is for Hannah, that's not what she's getting.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, she's got this husband who doesn't get her.
SPEAKER_01: She's at you know, the Jewish equivalent of church.
SPEAKER_01: She's praying, she's what the language is that she's pouring out her soul, and they're the local pastor that misses it.
SPEAKER_01: There's this gal who's in deep prayer, and all he can see is from across the room is hey, this gal showed up to church drunk.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So he misses it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine how utterly alone she'll feel.
SPEAKER_01: But then Eli then does realize his error, which is kind of an amazing moment.
SPEAKER_01: Eli realizes his error and says, Okay, well, God be with you.
SPEAKER_01: And and and she um in the midst of her prayer somehow has this incredible strength that now she can even speak honestly to Eli about it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: What's what's happening here is that she is now having a heart change in the midst of her time of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: She's not somehow dressing up prayer and she's not making it fake, right?
SPEAKER_01: She's not saying everything is actually okay.
SPEAKER_01: She's still um, she's still longing for motherhood so much.
SPEAKER_01: But she know now, she now knows something is that God's with her.
SPEAKER_01: So in this book, The Hiding Place, and some of you guys have been to the Netherlands and actually been to this house, um, but in the book, The Hiding Place, Corey Tenboom tells this story of her family's experience during the Nazi occupation, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and her family, they were a Christian, deeply devout Christian family, and they hid Jewish people from the Nazis.
SPEAKER_01: And then they eventually, though, got arrested and they were sent to concentration camps.
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's this moment in the story where Corey is so wildly overwhelmed by what lies ahead.
SPEAKER_01: But she had this sister named Betsy who would always remind her that no matter what was happening, they could trust God.
SPEAKER_01: And and even when they they don't understand what he's doing, right?
SPEAKER_01: And her her sister, Betsy, keeps finding reasons that they could even thank God in all of these circumstances, even when it seems like there's nothing good left.
SPEAKER_01: Even to the point where, like at one point, Betsy is over here in the concentration camp, thanking God for the fleas, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it reaches this moment, it feels like of absurdity, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because she's thanking God for fleas because she says, because there's fleas in our housing in our concentration camp, the the guards, the Nazi guards, won't come in to the place where we're at, so we can keep doing our secret Bible studies in prayer groups, right?
SPEAKER_01: So she's over here thanking God for fleas.
SPEAKER_01: The the reason I tell you this connected, right, to uh our story today is because what we're seeing is not Hannah dressing it up.
SPEAKER_01: Corey Tenbroom's sister did not dress it up.
SPEAKER_01: She didn't say, Well, there's no fleas.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just let's stuff it, let's act like the fleas aren't here.
SPEAKER_01: She said, No, it turns out even in the midst of the fleas, Betsy said, God is still with us, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even in the midst of my infertility, God is still with me.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Hannah ends up being able to say.
SPEAKER_01: And it is still so difficult for her, but she knows God is with her.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Something changed, and that's where we're gonna see Hannah's posture shift.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It her posture shifted, and it wasn't because somehow now her husband understood her, right?
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that all of a sudden she got the answer to prayer she was looking for.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's instead that God changed something in her heart.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, guys, God sometimes changes us before he changes our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God changes the situation.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes he changes us before he changes the situation.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes he changes us even when the situation never changes.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, I just want to tell you this as a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Don't assume that just because your circumstances haven't changed, that God isn't listening to you.
SPEAKER_01: What we see in Scripture is actually a lot of times things, prayer taking either a really long time, and sometimes immediately God says yes, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God actually just flat out says no, and sometimes God says slow, like this is gonna take a long time.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in the when we're in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: We don't understand any of it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's actually part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_01: And that does not, though, mean that there is an absence of God in the midst of this, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God's answer to us is to give us enough grace just to be able to keep walking, just to keep moving.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Even though we we feel like it's still dark, it's still cloudy, we still feel mostly like we can't see anything in front of us, but he just gives you in prayer just enough strength just to take a couple more steps.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's what God does for us in prayer, right?
SPEAKER_01: Here we see in this moment, because I don't want you fast-forwarding in the story, okay?
SPEAKER_01: What we see where she's at in this moment is her circumstances haven't changed.
SPEAKER_01: Yet something in her heart has changed.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys remember that movie, Apollo 13?
SPEAKER_01: So in Apollo 13, it was originally a moon mission, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So they're going to a moon mission.
SPEAKER_01: There was an explosion on the on the shuttle, though, and so as a result, the whole goal had to shift.
SPEAKER_01: The original goal was to get these um American astronauts onto the moon.
SPEAKER_01: And then something changed.
SPEAKER_01: They said, okay, that's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: The original goal, the original place that we thought we were going, isn't gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
SPEAKER_01: There's something else that we can do instead, and there's something vitally important, and it's to get these folks home.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The initial goal wasn't gonna happen as we hoped for.
SPEAKER_01: And there's something new, though, that we have to focus on instead.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They they couldn't go back, right?
SPEAKER_01: The astronauts couldn't go back and repair everything.
SPEAKER_01: They can't have an unexplosion.
SPEAKER_01: But what they could do is say, let's get the guys home.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Hannah prays and says, God, this is what my life must look like.
SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of her prayer, something changed, and here's what it was.
SPEAKER_01: Because earlier on in the story, it says that she she couldn't even eat.
SPEAKER_01: She was so sad.
SPEAKER_01: And then after the prayer, it says she went and got something to eat, and basically it was um no longer just so incredibly downcast.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, what we all have to notice was it wasn't that all of a sudden now she'd become pregnant.
SPEAKER_01: It was in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: She somehow knew now God was with her.
SPEAKER_01: He she wasn't alone.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That all of her time as a married woman, she'd been saying, God, will you remember me?
SPEAKER_01: And then somehow in the midst of it, God changed her heart and says, I do see you, Hannah.
SPEAKER_01: I do remember you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: She thought her story was about a woman wanting a child.
SPEAKER_01: But God was doing something much bigger, right?
SPEAKER_01: Later on, it turns out she thought her story was all about just her having a kid.
SPEAKER_01: What she didn't realize was the kid that she would have one day, this little kid named Samuel, he would become a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel would anoint this man, David, to become the king, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then David's kingdom would eventually become part of God's massive covenant story.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually from David's line would come Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Hannah is seeing one chapter in her prayer.
SPEAKER_01: God is seeing the whole book.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, we so frequently in prayer, we have this tiny little lens we can see, and God can see everything and beyond.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That is one of the greatest mysteries in prayer in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We pray from our little story, but God answers from inside his great story.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Hannah's story is pointing toward a God whose salvation always seems to arrive through weakness and suffering.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: You have a woman who can't have kids.
SPEAKER_01: And then later on, you have a young virgin, and then a baby in the manger, and then a crucified Messiah, right?
SPEAKER_01: Weakness, suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe Israel, just maybe, Israel would have been able to see Jesus as the Messiah more easily if rather than only seeing Jesus as four fathers, they also saw Jesus as four mothers, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to understand the idea of a suffering servant when you actually see a bunch of men who actually seem like everything's working out okay.
SPEAKER_01: If you those are the four fathers.
SPEAKER_01: The four mothers, we see these stories of women who God was working through through all of Israel's history, right?
SPEAKER_01: You have women like Leah, right?
SPEAKER_01: Leah, who was unloved, but then from her had Judah.
SPEAKER_01: And from Judah, eventually, we get to Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: We have women like Ruth, whose husband died, and she had to travel to a foreign land as a widow, not knowing if she had any real future or hope, but she did it because she wanted to be able to be a blessing to Naomi, and she wanted to be able to go to Israel to be able to trust in Israel's God.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We had a woman like Bathsheba, who was looked down upon so much that later on, by the time of Jesus, even Matthew doesn't want to write her name in the genealogy, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then we got Mary, right?
SPEAKER_01: Who throughout her whole life, people must have always whispered and said, Tell me more about the Immaculate Conception again, Mary.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe as life went on and we saw more in her community, saw more and more and more about Jesus, maybe eventually in Mary's life, they were able to start coming around and saying, hold on, maybe for with how exceptional Jesus is, maybe this exceptional pregnancy that you told us about was true.
SPEAKER_01: But she lived a big part of her life with a story, with people probably questioning her.
SPEAKER_01: And we get Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Born out of weakness, pain, suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, God specializes in bringing life out of places where life doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, God doesn't just simply answer a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just give this gift of one child, he gives himself as a gift.
SPEAKER_01: Hannah wanted a son.
SPEAKER_01: So God gave her Samuel, but but Samuel wasn't the final answer, right?
SPEAKER_01: Samuel pointed toward David, David pointed toward the promised king.
SPEAKER_01: The promised king is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Hannah gave God her beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: God gives us his beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: You know, as we're closing down, I want you to think about this.
SPEAKER_01: That when we look, so much of the time we think that the gospel is pray hard and God will give you your Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is pour out your soul before the Lord because the Lord is present with you in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Bring him the real thing, bring him the grief, bring him the longing, bring him the anger, bring him the unanswered questions, and then trust him with a part of the story you can't see.
SPEAKER_01: Because friends, we we might not know what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You might not understand why you're waiting.
SPEAKER_01: You you might not even see how one little story fits into God's larger story.
SPEAKER_01: But we know who the story belongs to.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, that's enough to get up, to eat, to keep walking.
SPEAKER_01: Because just like Hannah, God remembers us.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, thank you for your goodness to us.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your kindness.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for your grace.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, just like with Hannah, we come here this morning and we have a lot of different troubles.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we have such weakness, we have such suffering, and at times we confess that it can feel like it's all meaningless, like it's all senseless, like there's no future or a hope.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we thank you that little by little, with these stories, that we see more and more of your revelation throughout scripture, and we we get to see Jesus more clearly because of it.
SPEAKER_01: And God, as we see your son Jesus, more clearly and where the story climax is, we actually realize we we find ourselves in that story.
SPEAKER_01: So Lord, would you help us remember that we're not forgotten, that you remember us on the darkest nights, in the coldest storms.
SPEAKER_01: God, would you be with us?
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name, pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_00: Please join us in person for community worship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We are located at 512 South Bernard Street, Spokane, Washington, 99204.