1 Samuel 1:9-20 "Portraits of Faithfulness: Hannah"

1:00We don't like it as much anymore. We don't like this. That little hashtag seems to have changed the meaning of the sentence. It started out as saying, I have good news for you. Now it's saying, I have great news about me for everybody. That little hashtag is something that we tend to put on things in social media. We want to share it broadly that we are doing awesome at life and we want everyone to know about it.

1:23Earlier this semester, in discussions with the New Life College students, Caleb and I actually had a discussion. With the college students, and we said, Why do you not like hashtag blessed? And the New Life College students all said the same thing. They said, Oh, it's a humble brag. And I said, What's a humble brag? And they said, Well, a humble brag is when you say something that seems like it has the appearance of humility, but it's actually meant to make you look good. And that's actually correct. This hashtag blessed has that context. Instead of the word blessed, which means flourishing by the grace of God, hashtag blessed has a connotation of, I am winning at life and I want you to know about it.

2:02Right? Ironic that winning at life often only works if you let everybody else know about it along the way. So, what counts as winning at life? Sadly, in our Texan Christian subculture, we sometimes give the impression that winning at life is connected with the perfect little Christmas card. You think, well, what's the perfect Christmas card? I have a couple, they're beautiful, and here are their darling, successful children, right? That's the Christmas card life. And if we give that impression and say that's what counts as winning at life, it's not very kind.

2:45It's not very kind to people who are single. It's not very kind to people who do not have children. That's the impression that we give. Today, in 1 Samuel, we're going to be talking about a culture that has similar kinds of patterns where they say, Christmas card life. That's what we want. Or you know you're hashtag blessed if you have a decal on your car with the two little stick figures and then a bunch of children. That's how you know. If you have that car, that's hashtag blessed. Good. Now you may note, some of you may have seen this around, like the culture has pushed back and said, I don't like your car decal. I'm going to have my own car decal instead. So let's see what the. So here's the culture's car decal. They said, you keep your all-American family. I will keep my cash and my freedom. Thank you very much. And all the parents in the room say, yeah, I understand that.

3:32But I want you to see that both of these car decals are still kind of selling the same thing, which is like, what does it mean to have a hashtag blessed life? I don't know about you, but I am tired and tired of the hashtag blessed rat race. So we're going to try to do something better today. We're going to find a better way. I want you to open up your Bibles to 1 Samuel. This is what Tara just read. This is on page 225 in the black Bibles in front of you. We're pretty much going to be here in this passage, 1 Samuel 1 and 2, the entire time. So we'll camp out here.

4:05And I'm going to ask you to do something some of you may have not done before. I see some of you have Bibles, and your Bibles are very nice. And you say, I keep my Bible very nice. I don't scribble in it or mark in it or anything, so it looks pristine. Well, today, I am going to try to tell you to write some things in your Bible, to underline some things in your Bible. And you say, no, I don't want to. God loves a Bible that is marked up and falling apart from overuse.

4:29So if you're Never done that, let's have today be the day. So, if you just look one page to your left, you'll realize last week Alan preached to us out of the book of Ruth, right? And the last word of the book of Ruth is the word David. So, Ruth goes right into 1 and 2 Samuel. 1 and 2 Samuel are mostly about the story of David, right, as the period of the judges connects to the period of the kings. Let's make sure we have our timeline right.

5:00Moses guides the people out of Egypt. You have the Exodus, the people who wander in the wilderness, then with Joshua, they conquer the land, and then there is a period of the judges, where Israel has no king, and each person does what's right in their own eyes. That's the same time period as Ruth. And Samuel, we're going to find out, is Samuel is like the last of the judges. He provides a bridge between the time of the judges and the time of the first kings, like Saul and David. So that's where we are. This is about 1100 B.C., maybe a little bit later than that.

5:29And that's our context. And so for those of you who are taking notes, today as we go along, we're going to try to hit three very difficult questions. So here are the three difficult questions. Why polygamy? Ouch. Why infertility? Ouch. And why Hannah? Why Hannah? What's so special that we would spend a whole day with a sermon about this woman here in 1 Samuel 1 and 2 named Hannah? So let's go to the text. So look down in your passage in verse 2.

6:00It says, Elkanah had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Panina. And Panina had children, but Hannah had no children. And already, now we've got to stop. Now we have a problem. So, some of you who've grown up in the church, some of you may have said, like, hey, I know you're only one man, one woman. That's marriage, that's how it's supposed to work. But, like, what is the deal with the Old Testament? A lot of otherwise faithful people in the Old Testament have multiple wives. Are we just? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Will somebody please explain why polygamy shows up in the Old Testament so much? Okay, today is your day. Today is the day we're actually going to talk about it. Why does polygamy show up in the Old Testament, right? There are multiple characters in the Old Testament, people like Abraham or Jacob or David or Solomon, right? All of these, we would say, like, yeah, Abraham, good. But yet, Abraham has multiple wives. So, what's the deal?

6:53So, first thing is to remember that even if the Bible describes something happening, that doesn't mean that the Bible approves of it, right? Just because the Bible says this happened doesn't mean that's good. And so, the context is that in the ancient Near East, polygamy was very common. Men having multiple wives, it was very common, but that doesn't mean the Bible approves of it. In fact, if you want to know what is God's view of marriage, what's God's view of marriage? Jesus makes it very clear. Jesus in Matthew 19, 4, he quotes Genesis, and Jesus says, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. You may have heard that verse read at a wedding, and well, you should. God's view of marriage is one man, one woman committed to each other for life. And whenever we try to change God's view of marriage, we always mess it up. We always make things worse.

7:56The pattern in the Bible, if you're wondering, what is the author of 1 Samuel trying to tell me? If you're reading along, we hit verse 2 and you see two wives, you say, oh, polygamy. When you see polygamy in the Bible, expect trouble. Polygamy? Trouble's coming. Why does polygamy happen? In David's case, I think lust may have been involved, right? So lust can be associated with polygamy. In Solomon's case, Solomon would make marriage alliances. He marries Pharaoh's daughter in order to form a military alliance, so he's after maybe political power.

8:28But sadly, one of the most common reasons that people in the Bible fall into this pattern of polygamy is infertility. Abraham says, Sarah can't have a baby, so what are we going to do? What about God's promise? Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll marry Sarah's handmaid, Hagar. Jacob does something similar later on, has similar problems with handmaids. And so what you should see is polygamy, which seems very foreign to us, very unusual to us. Polygamy happens because people are trying to rationalize. The culture's view of marriage over God's.

9:03When you phrase it that way, people trying to rationalize the culture's view of marriage over God's, you see that we actually do face that same challenge. Whenever we depart from God's view of marriage, trouble is sure to come. This particular passage shows us one more reason that polygamy is particularly terrible, and that is that polygamy introduces comparison and competition into a place that does not belong, which is marriage. Look here in verse 3. This will be on the screen as well. Now, this man, Elkanah, used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophne and Phineas, were priests to the Lord. And on the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Penina, 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 you can imagine what life is like for Hannah. In her society, a woman's ability to have children, particularly sons, was often, that was like her social status marker. Sons meant farmers and soldiers, helped the nation flourish. And that's what a woman would be judged on. And on top of that, she lives with Penina, who has multiple children, and provokes her and irritates her day in and day out. So now imagine Hannah's Christmas card, right? You have Christmas. Christmas card, Elkana in the middle, Panina, all her children, and then Hannah, and that's it on this side. Some of you may have experienced something similar in the last few days. You may have just had a Christmas that did not fit very nicely into a Christmas card.

10:45Hannah has to put up with this not just at Christmas, but all the time, right? Polygamy for her meant competition. The Bible calls Panina her rival. And some of you may have seen this, right? Whenever you have a competition and your rival is winning, your rival may do something that really hurts, which is point at the scoreboard. Say, scoreboard, scoreboard, look at the score. Look who's winning. Look who's losing. So I want you to imagine what it would be like to live with someone who is constantly pointing out the score, constantly poking at you and showing you all the ways that you don't measure up, constantly poking you and reminding you like everybody else is doing better than you. I don't know if you're doing as well. Where do you stack up?

11:25Can you imagine living with someone like that? Some of you may be saying, I think I do live with someone like that. Let's see them. They're here. So, thank you. So it's the all-new I panina, right? So we took panina and we said we're going to have panina in our pocket, in our purse, in our house, every day. Not just Hannah's going to have panina, but we're all going to have panina. This little reminder all the time of like, everybody's doing better than you. Look, they're hashtag blessed. Are you? I don't know. And so I find it's kind of horrifying to think that of all the characters in the Bible, we're like, this is Panina. We're going to make a robotic clone of her and put it in all of our houses. I Panina is actually worse than Panina. So I want you to think, Panina tells, Panina tells Hannah, you uses fertility as a metric for Hannah's worth, something that Hannah is not in control of. I Panina is worse because I Panina will find the way in which you don't stack up and make you feel inferior. Right? She has many different scoreboards, many different ways in which to see where do you stack up, try to find some way to make you feel inferior or less than, something that does not actually reflect your worth.

12:44So why do we do this? Why do we torture ourselves and torture others in this constant game of comparison? I've been recently reading a book called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, which basically catalogs what smartphones have done to teenagers in the last 10 years. And he quotes the social psychologist Susan Fisk from Princeton, and Susan says that humans are comparison machines. That is what we do. We compare. She says, we all have a sociometer trying to say, like, where exactly do I rank? Where do I stack up? If you're familiar, you may have seen this kind of obsession with rankings show up for not only college football, but it shows up in your average middle school, in your average high school. It shows up. On university campuses. I'm a professor at Texas AM, and I'm telling you, I have seen my fellow professors make themselves miserable trying to get their score a little higher.

13:44I recently read some work from New York Times columnist David Brooks, who I'm happy to report became a Christian in the last few years. In fact, David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times just a few days ago called How I Found Faith on a Crowded Subway Car. David Brooks writes of our tendency to make, to use actually family, to use family as a barometer, as a way of keeping score. He says, educated American parents practice concerted cultivation, ferrying their kids from one supervised, skill-building, resume-enhancing activity to another. It turns out that if you put parents in a highly competitive status race, they will go completely bonkers trying to hone their kids into little avatars of success. That sounds like College Station, I would say.

14:37I think the Bible gives us even more insight here. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we play the comparison game? There's a simple reason. It's because we're sinful. When Susan Fisk says that we are comparison machines, the Bible says, yes, that's called idolatry. It's saying, I'm staking my value on what I have, how I look. What I can do and what other people think of me. If you're staking your value on those things, then it is an idol. And even non-Christians can recognize idols in their lives when you actually point it out.

15:13This brings us to our next question. This is a much harder question, which is why infertility? In this particular passage, the reason that Hannah is being compared, the reason that she is so distressed and weeps bitterly, is because of infertility. If you look at verse 6, it says, Her arrival 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.

15:43Some of you may recognize this biblical pattern. So Hannah is the more loved but less fertile wife. What other story in the Bible does that sound like? It sounds like Jacob and Leah and Rachel. You're ready for this soap opera? Jacob loves Rachel. Jacob gets tricked into marrying Leah. Then he marries Rachel. Polygamy. Trouble coming. The soap opera continues. And Rachel is not able to have children for a very long time. She grieves bitterly. Eventually, Rachel does have a son named Joseph, who instantly becomes the favorite. And then Rachel actually has one more son named Benjamin. And Rachel dies in childbirth. And Jacob buries her. Her in a tomb not far from Bethlehem, and that tomb stands to this day. My mother actually got to go and visit the tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem a couple of years ago. I think we have a picture of it. I hope you can see this. This is the tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem.

16:48What you can see here is this is exactly what my mother describes. She said, if you go to the tomb of Rachel, what you will see are scores of women there for one reason. They're there to pray for God to give them a baby. So I want you to see that Hannah would have seen herself in exactly this situation. Your heart should go out to these women. That situation of Hannah saying, I am like Rachel. I mean, exactly in Rachel's situation, Lord, give me a baby like you gave to Rachel.

17:24This is a hard topic to discuss because infertility is not theoretical, it is here with us, it has affected our church. When I was a teenager, I foolishly thought that infertility was really uncommon. I think people talked so much about teenage pregnancy that I thought, well, I guess infertility isn't a thing. It doesn't happen. That is wrong. Infertility is very common. The other reason you might not realize that infertility is common is because in our broad society, we usually don't talk about it. People suffer silently.

18:01One thing, one immediate application, New Year's Day is just a few days away. For those of you in life groups here at New Life, let us resolve that couples who are going through infertility, couples who have suffered miscarriages, that they will not suffer silently, but that we will weep with them in our life groups, that we will pray without ceasing with them in our life groups. We are not going to be the kind of church where people do not share their hurts. The stereotype of church is that you show up to church and you say, hi, I'm doing great. Hashtag blessed. Not here. Not here.

18:40We have to face the fact that hurt, like what many people in our church are going through, including infertility, including miscarriages, are common and are not meant to be suffered silently. This question, why infertility, is really hard because you may say, like, Lord, why do we have to deal with this? Why is this happening? Why are you allowing someone like Hannah to cry out and weep day in and day out? So here's a hard truth. The Bible does not promise us children.

19:14But the Bible does promise that God cares. If you have wept over this issue, what you're weeping over is not merely the thing that you're going through. It's not merely the hurt, the lost life that you're going through. To, it's weeping, saying, God, do you care? What I want to tell you, Pastor Chris prayed this exact thing just a few minutes ago. Whenever we think of the cross, the cross is the ultimate reminder that if you're praying and weeping, you're saying, God, do you care? the cross tells you he does care. We don't know why God allows infertility, but we do know that he cares for sure. And those of you who are ready to write in your Bibles, I'm going to give you something to write.

19:57Write out next to this passage, God hears. God hears the hannahs of the world. I do have an answer to prayer to share, and I hesitate to share this because, like I said, God does not promise or guarantee us children. But this whole question of infertility has affected my own extended family. When my mom, so my mom prayed for my brother and his wife to have a baby when she was at Rachel's tomb. And if you had asked me a year ago, like, is it going to happen? I would have been like, man, I don't know. I wasn't really praying full of faith at that moment. What I didn't know is that a year ago, they were already pregnant. And a few months ago, a baby boy was born. And appropriately, his name is Samuel. No, I don't call him Samuel. I call him Samwise because that's how I roll.

21:00That name Samuel is very appropriate. I think you would agree. And the name Samuel can mean name of God, or it can mean God hears. That's the promise that comes from this passage. So let's turn to our final question. Why, Hannah? Why are we spending a whole day talking about this lady? What's so unusual? What's so special about her? So let's see how Hannah responds to infertility. In verse 10, she says, it says, she was deeply distressed, prayed to the Lord, 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. I want you to see some of these verbs. She weeps. She prays. And then she makes this promise here to give. Now, when you first read this, it may seem like, Hannah, are you like bargaining with God? What's going on? I don't think that's what's going on. This shows that Hannah is praying with open hands. Instead of praying, God, give me this thing that's mine, she's praying, God, give me this thing that's yours.

22:13That's the pattern. She weeps, she prays, and she gives. Now, there's another character here that Tara read just about a moment ago, and that's the priest Eli. He does not recognize this pattern. I'm just going to tell you now, like, this is not the world's greatest priest. So this priest is serving in the house of the Lord. He sees a woman. She is speaking, apparently, to nobody. And he's like, you know what? There's only one explanation for that. She's drunk. That's the only possible explanation. So he gets on her case and he tells her, go home, you're drunk. Some of you may remember this was like an internet meme for a while. You'll be like, go home, you're drunk. And they have all these things. Right, here's an example. You're like, go home, shark, you're drunk.

22:55I have like 20 of these, by the way. I know some of you are like, you cannot put that on the screen at church. I can, because verse 14 literally says, go home, you're drunk. And so that's a. Now, and I'll tell you, if I was praying and someone told me, go home, you're drunk, I would not be very gracious. But Hannah is gracious. Hannah's gracious to Eli. So she responds in verse 15. Hannah answered, No, my Lord, I'm a woman troubled in spirit. I've drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I've 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.

23:31So look at these words. Think about these words. Look in the passage. The words used to describe Hannah. She is distressed. She's weeping bitterly. She's troubled in spirit. She's pouring out her soul. She says she's anxious and vexed. That does not sound like blessed. It doesn't. But then you should think, wait a minute, does the Bible ever describe someone who is poor in spirit as blessed? Yes. Jesus does it. He says, Blessed are those who mourn.

23:59It may not. Be the way we normally think of as blessed, but Jesus says that Hannah, who's poor in spirit, who is mourning, that she is blessed. Verse 17, Eli answers, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you've 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. Now, notice her prayer has not been answered yet, but she walks away. Her face is no longer sad. She's walking away full of hope before her prayer is answered. So she's trusting in God. She's still grieving, but doing so in hope. In 1st Thessalonians 4:13, Paul talks about funerals, and he says, We don't mourn like those who have no hope. I think we can apply that concept to virtually any life difficulty you're going to face. We don't face infertility like those who have no hope. That is where Hannah is. She's saying, Yes, I mourn, yes, I grieve, yes, I weep, but I don't face infertility like those who have no hope, because she does have a hope in the Lord. And sure enough, in verse 20, Hannah conceives and bears a son whom she names Samuel. And Samuel means, you don't remember? God hears. Yes, good. Samuel means God hears. And so now Hannah's on the scoreboard. Now, Operation Christmas card is a go.

25:15Wait a minute. Surprise. No. Hannah does something that really does not make any sense in a scoreboard-obsessed world. She says she's going to give this child back to the Lord. Do you remember earlier there was that weird phrase in the verse that said that the Lord? Like, no razor shall touch his head. You may think, like, that sounds like Samson. That's right. Samson was a Nazarite, and what Hannah is saying is she's going to give Samuel over to the Lord as a Nazarite. That means when he's three or four years old, he will go and serve in the house of the Lord. And all of the benefits that she would have gotten, all the social benefits she would have gotten from having a son, she does not get. And you would think, like, Hannah, what are you doing? Like, Christmas card, hashtag blessed. Like, what are we doing? And Hannah would say to that, I'm not keeping score.

26:06I'm not asking for a baby because I'm keeping score. I'm not asking for a baby because I'm trying to meet societal expectations. She says, I love my boy Samuel, not because I'm trying to match societal expectations for myself, but because Samuel is a gift from the Lord, and he will be devoted to God all of his life. We're going to do something unusual now. I want you to drop down to chapter 2. Chapter 2. All right, I know you do this because I do this. Do you ever read? You're reading a passage. Story, story, story, got it, got it, got it. And then you see that, look at the beginning of chapter 2. You see how it's indented? Like, this is a verse. This is a song. Hannah actually proclaims a song. And you think, well, that's not part of the story, so I'm going to skip it. We're not skipping it today. I want you to read with me. I want you to read, track exactly with me and see what Hannah sings. And I apologize that my male voice can't do this justice. Read along with me, word for word, in chapter 2, and a praise and says, My heart exults in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord, my mouth derise my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God. Talk no more so proudly. Let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who are full have hired themselves out for bread. But those who are hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich, he brings low, and he exalts. 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 him he has set the world. 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. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, and 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.

28:24I kind of would have expected, I would have expected a little more baby-related discussion in this psalm. But it's not there. There's like one line about the baron having children. So, what is this song? What is she talking about? Not a lot of baby talk. Instead, there's a lot of talk about God's greatness, how he saves his people from danger, and how the lowly will be lifted up, and the high and mighty will be brought down, which is effectively flipping the scoreboard.

28:54As we read through that, did any of you say, hey, wait a minute, this kind of sounds familiar. I feel like I've read something not exactly like this, but something really similar, like recently, like very recently. Across the centuries, a similar song, another female voice in a different language, echoes back something very similar to Hannah's song. Read with me on the screen. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. And holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

29:59He has helped his servants. Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Who is this? It's Mary. Across the centuries, Mary says, that's how I want to pray. I want to pray like Hannah. I want to praise like Hannah. This passage we just read is the Magnificat, the original Christmas Carol from Luke chapter 1. Alan read it on Tuesday night here on Christmas Eve. So you may say, Mary, okay, Mary, you have a socially unacceptable, inconvenient, but miraculous and amazing pregnancy. One that does not fit very neatly on a Christmas card, which is ironic because your situation is literally Christmas.

30:47So, in your not-so-Christmas card situation, Mary, who do you look to? Who's your hero? Who do you want to emulate in the way you tell your story? And Mary says, it's Hannah. Mary looks back across the centuries and says, to Hannah, you and me, sister. If you think I'm making this up, look at this. 1 Samuel 2:26. Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with men. Luke 2:52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Do you see what I mean? Hannah says, Mary says, How do I tell my story? I'm going to tell my story like Hannah. Hannah understands Christmas.

31:31That idea of looking at someone in the Bible and saying, you and me, sister, I think it's very healthy. Because Hannah is not just a story. She's not just like an encyclopedia entry or words in a book. Hannah is your sister in the faith. She had real hurts and pains and tears just like you. And that feeling of saying, you and me, sister, some of you may need to write that in your Bibles today. Hannah's song is powerful because she says, I don't keep score. She says there's only one thing that matters in this world, and that is God's kingdom. Her dream is not to have a Christmas card family, but to have a boy who hears from God, speaks for God, and stands up to kings. And Mary says, yes, that. That's what I want. Of course, Mary's son would do all that and more. Mary's son would die and rise again for you and for me.

32:26For some of you here in the room, I think we have to be honest that you have been keeping score. You may pursue money, success, and experiences that count as hashtag blessed. You may be even basing your score on your family. You may even be basing your score on going to church. That's a socially acceptable thing to do that raises your score up. If you find yourself comparing your score to others and saying, like, how do I get myself higher? How can I be more so? Hashtag blessed, repent of it.

33:02Repent of following the world's view of what counts as the good life. Part of what it means to follow Jesus is to embrace Jesus' vision of the good life. And Jesus says, sometimes the good life means being poor in spirit. For some of you, I suspect some of you have had, especially in this holiday season, some seasons of anxiety, distress, anger, mourning, weeping. And because of our weird hashtag blessed culture, you may think, like, if I feel like that, I can't even pray. I can't even go to the Lord's Supper. I hope you learned from our passage today that if you feel that way, you are in good company. Here's an encouragement. This is from Martin Luther. He's talking about the Lord's Supper. He says, if you feel that you're unfit, weak, and lacking in faith, where will you obtain strength but here? Do you mean to wait until you've grown pure and strong? And you'll never come. God did not intend the Lord's Supper to be poison and torture to frighten us. The Lord's Supper welcomes those who perceive their frailties and feel that they are not pious, yet would like to be. So if you have been in a season of weeping and mourning and trouble and feeling like something is wrong with you, you are in the right place. So do what Hannah did and pour your soul. Soul out to the Lord. Please pray with me.

34:36Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would be with us here in this church, here in this room. I pray that you would mold us into a body where each member of the body hurts with the other members and cares for the other members. I pray that as we enter into this time of the Lord's Supper, that those who are struggling in their faith, who feel like you're far away, that they will find hope and healing here, that they will indeed feel communion with you and with your saints. I thank you for Hannah and the example that she is to us. I thank you that she doesn't have it all together, but that you change the world to women like Hannah. I pray that this room would be full of Hannah's.

35:26I pray that we would learn to pray with open hands like she did. Lord, I would confess that we do buy into this culture of flourishing so that others may see is the way to go. I pray that you would cure us of that and help us to see what it means to be blessed through your eyes. In your name I pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas.

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