Hannah’s Hope

Today on Summit Life with JD Greer. All of us are searching for identity and security and happiness. Where have you felt judged and insufficient by this culture? Where are you inwardly roaring? Maybe like Hannah, it's not even a standard you signed up for.

You didn't even want to compete. It just kind of happened to you. You don't like it, but you still feel the weight of it.

It feels crushing. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today we're beginning a new teaching series following the life of David, Israel's greatest king. A king who began his life as an obscure shepherd boy, but became a warrior who brought rival nations to their knees. A king described as a man after God's own heart, but also a king whose personal sins devastated not only his own family, but the nation itself.

In triumph and in tragedy, this king points forward to a greater king to come. And this week we see hints of that king long before David arrives in the story of an overlooked woman named Hannah. So grab your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Samuel and let's jump in. Here's Pastor JD. 1 Samuel, if you got your Bible, if you have it, take it out, begin to find the book of 1 Samuel.

It's in your Old Testament. This weekend, we are beginning a new series through 1 and 2 Samuel on the life of King David. 1 Samuel chapter one is where we're going to be today. In his recent book, The Second Mountain, New York Times journalist David Brooks talks about the frustration that a lot of young adults are feeling now as they launch out into the world. They leave college feeling empowered, but many of them, he says, still feel clueless regarding the most basic question of all, and that is what makes a life significant? What is it that I should be living for? In fact, David Brooks writes this and I quote, he says, many young people, many young people graduate into limbo, plagued by uncertainty.

They want to know what specifically they should be doing with their lives. And so he said, as a culture, we hand them the great empty box of freedom. Freedom, we say, is what leads to happiness. But after a few months, they put down that empty box because freedom has to be for something to mean something.

What they crave now is not more freedom, they crave direction. And so we hand them another big box of nothing, the box of possibility. Oh, your future is limitless, we tell them.

You can do anything that you set your mind to. Be audacious, dream big, the sky's the limit. But this mantra doesn't help them for very long either. After all, if you don't know what your life is for, how does it help to be told that your future is limitless? And so we then hand them the big empty box of authenticity. Oh, just look inside yourself, find your true inner passion.

You are amazing, a snowflake, a sunbeam, a skittle, find your truth. This is useless too because the you that we tell them to consult for life's answers is the very thing that has not been formed yet and they're searching for. So they put down that empty box and they say, what cause will give meaning and direction to my life? At this point, we hand them the emptiest box of all, the box of autonomy. Define your own values.

Nobody else can tell you what's right or wrong for you. Discover your story, find your truth. How is it, David Brooks asked, how is it that in regards to the biggest question of all, where can I find significance that the most advanced country on earth has nothing to say? I share that because I cannot think of a better setup for our study of the life of David. To say that David's life is significant in the Bible would be a massive understatement. We have more biographical material on David than any other person in the Bible except Jesus. Outside of the narratives of his life, outside of 1st and 2nd Samuel, David gets brought up 241 other times in the Bible, 182 more in the Old Testament and 59 more in the New. To the Jewish people, David was more than a historical figure, he was an icon. He was a symbol of Israel's past greatness and her future hope. David's story is just fantastic.

I mean, it has all the elements of an epic five season Netflix drama that you would binge watch. He begins his life as an obscure shepherd boy. He's the runt of Jesse's seven sons. And yet through this stunning act of massive courage, he defeats a massive giant Goliath and gets propelled to becomes his nation's most celebrated warrior. From there, he goes on to become Israel's greatest King. In addition to being a great statesman and a warrior, he's also a poet. He's Israel's most prolific songwriter.

He is the ultimate Renaissance man. He's the Nicolas Cage of ancient Israel. God describes David as a man after my own heart, which you would not say about Nicolas Cage, but he's a man after God's own heart. Yet David's personal sins devastate not only his own life, it also devastates the nation itself. It's a fascinating story.

For us, however, this story is more than just the interesting biographical account of a great man. David's story, and the reason we're going to spend several weeks in it, is David's story lays down for us the pattern of salvation. I'm going to show you how David creates a silhouette that the Messiah, Jesus, is one day going to step right into. You see, David's story occurs at a time when Israel is demanding a king.

Up until this point, you see, God had been Israel's king, but now Israel wants an earthly king, a king they can touch so that they can be like the other nations, a king who will give them a sense of national pride, a king who will guarantee, they believe, guarantee them security, and a king who will guarantee them prosperity. And see, that's where David's story connects to you, because you see, we're all searching for those same three things that Israel was searching for in a king. In fact, write these down.

Write these down. Identity, security, and happiness. These are the things that all of us are searching for, not just when we leave college, but from the time that we were born into the world. Identity, each of us is looking for something to give us a sense of self-worth, to give us a sense of significance, to set us apart from others. So let me ask you, what is that for you? Let's just kind of take a minute to think about that. What is it that gives you a sense of value?

Is it how smart you are, how pretty you are, how much money you have, how healthy and intact your family is? I feel like this is the theme of almost all the Marvel movies, is at some point the superhero loses his superpower, his or her superpower, and then they don't know who they are anymore. So you got what, Spider-Man can't sling a web, and Thor loses his hammer, and Iron Man comes up against machines that are superior to him, and Black Panther loses his first fight, and all of a sudden I don't know who I am anymore. And I got to come back, because without my power, what significance is there about me at all? And a lot of us are like that. It's not about superpowers, but we're like, hey, what is it that makes me me?

What makes me significant? Are you the kind of person who gains value by always comparing yourself to others? I mean, let's just be honest. Are you the kind of person who your whole day can get ruined by catching a glimpse of a friend on Instagram who looks better than you, has more friends than you, having a better time than you? Y'all, we always say this is a problem for teenagers, but let's be honest. Some lady you know posts a picture on Instagram of the brownies she just made, but you're not looking at those brownies.

You're looking behind those brownies at those unbelievable countertops, and the amazing designer kitchen behind, and you are wondering, why don't I have a kitchen like that? Or how about this? Are you the kind of person whose self-worth is on the line in every competition? It doesn't matter what it is. You cannot stand losing.

I'm talking about whether we're playing basketball, soccer, or Yahtzee. Every loss feels like a verdict on your self-worth. What's your identity based on? Security. What do you look to to tell you that the future is going to be okay? Fill in this blank, okay? As long as I have blank, everything's going to be all right. What goes in that blank for you? My job, my 401k, my family, my wife, my husband, my health?

Maybe it's your talents. You're like, even if I lost everything, if tomorrow all the things were gone, I'd work for all my life and had to start again with just my children and my wife. If that was you, are you like, I could always start over and rebuild. What's your security in? Happiness. What makes life feel like it's worth living to you? What's the one thing that without that one thing you just really wouldn't even want to go on? Finish this sentence. I could not imagine a good life without blank. What goes in that blank?

First thing comes in your mind. Marriage, money, success, freedom, the admiration of my community, the admiration of my family. The search for those three things, identity, security, and happiness is something we all have in common and it's what the story of David is all about, which is why David's story opens up with another story that at first seems pretty random and disconnected, but y'all, it is not. It is the story of a woman who is pretty down on her luck. Her name is Hannah and every single theme in David's life is going to get introduced in this story. I'm going to break down this story into four parts. Hannah's hurt, Hannah's hope, Hannah's praise, and then Hannah's promise, and I'm going to show you how it all applies to you.

Number one, let's talk about Hannah's hurt. Chapter one, let's begin in verse two. Elkanah had two wives. By the way, just to clear this up, polygamy was tolerated in the Old Testament, though not one single time has it ever condoned. Just about every time you see polygamy in the Old Testament, it is always causing problems like it's going to in this story.

The ideal has always been what God created in the Garden of Eden, the pattern he laid down there when he started everything from scratch, and that is one man and one woman united for life. The name of the one wife, one of the wives' name was Hannah, and the name of the other was, I think it's Peninnah, but I read Panini. That's how I want to pronounce that.

Maybe because I think about food a lot. If it slips out, I'm going to try to say Peninnah as much as I can, but if it says Peninnah, just keep reading. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now he, Elkanah, used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts, Shiloh.

Shiloh was like the proto-Jerusalem, the Jerusalem before there was a Jerusalem. Verse four, and on the day when Elkanah was 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, which strikes me as an odd way of showing affection, doesn't it?

At dinner, you take the plate of your favorite wife and give her two scoops of mashed potatoes and then a seductive wink. I guess that communicated back then. Though the Lord, though the Lord had closed Hannah's womb. By the way, that's Hannah's hurt. She is childless. Verse six, and her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb. Verse seven, and so it went on year by year as often as she, Hannah, went up to the house of the Lord, she, Peninnah, used to provoke her. Therefore, therefore Hannah wept and would not even eat. Hannah's shame and frustration is that she cannot have children.

And her shame and frustration is so bad that at times she can't even eat. Childlessness is difficult for any woman in any culture, of course. But in that society, this was literally the worst affliction that a woman could endure.

And that was for a number of reasons. First, the society was agrarian, which meant that the more sons you had, the more workers you had to work the land. So more children meant more income and more prosperity. Second, this was also an age before social security or 401ks or retirement homes, which meant that your children were your retirement plan. The more kids you had, the better you would be taken care of in old age. By the way, that has always been my plan also. I always tell my kids, I just need one of you to strike it rich.

Just one, that's all I ask. Furthermore, the economic and military health of the nation was dependent on women in the nation having children. More children meant more workers and more soldiers. So women who had lots of children were treated like societal heroes, and women without children were thought of essentially as worthless. Finally, for Israelites, that was the whole promise of God and the promised land and the eternal inheritance aspect. This promised land had been given to Israelite families forever, and your family's proportion of it was contingent on you having sons to hand the land down to. If you did not have sons, it was like your family was being cut off from that inheritance. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says it like this, barrenness in any ancient text is the effective metaphor of hopelessness.

For without children, there was no foreseeable future for yourself, for your family, or for your people. Thanks for joining us today here on Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. Before we get back to today's teaching, I want to make sure that you knew about our latest featured resource for all of our financial supporters and gospel partners, and today and tomorrow are your last chances to get it. We've mentioned it before, but living sent is a big part of our DNA here at the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we end every service with the admonition, you are sent. So we decided to take that helpful and inspiring little phrase and put it on a beautifully designed pennant flag to send to you. It's perfect to hang in your home office as a reminder to yourself to live sent and share the gospel with the world around you. We'd love to send you one today with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry.

To give, call us at 866-335-5220, or you can give online and take a look at this new pennant by visiting jdgreer.com. Okay, now let's get back to today's teaching in 1 Samuel. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Now I know we're all sitting here right now feeling smug and self-righteous because, oh, our society has progressed way beyond this mentality. And we have, okay?

But we have our own versions of what makes people valuable, which I'll get to in a moment. But for right now, what I need you to see is that in regard to the primary thing that gave women value in that culture, Hannah was woefully deficient. And what made matters worse is that her rival, Peninnah, had lots of kids and she used that to torment her. That word, grievously irritate in verse six, that's not a, you are so annoying because you leave the toilet seat up kind of grievously irritate. In Hebrew, that phrase literally means to roar or to thunder. In fact, every other time that word gets used in the Hebrew Bible, it's used to describe an actual storm, a hurricane. This is the only place in scripture where that word is used to apply to describe somebody's inner condition. Hannah's heart is tormented.

It's a tormented hurricane of unhappiness, frustration, and insecurity. She'd prayed about this a lot. She'd asked God to show her what she was doing wrong. She'd asked God what he was paying her back for. She made vows to God about what she would do for him. If he would just give her a kid year by year, she prays and prays and fast and gives to the temple, but the situation never changes. And all this time, all this time, Peninnah provokes her that it happened.

Verse six, verse six says that Peninnah's provocation was continual. Oh, Hannah, could you do the dishes tonight? With all these kids, I'm just so tired. We all have our roles in this marriage, Hannah.

Mine is to have kids and yours is to do the dishes. On the Christmas card every year, Peninnah's side of the card always had her with the four boys, her arms all around them. And on the other side was just Hannah and the dog. The point is, Hannah's life was miserable. She felt like she was failing at the one thing that gave a woman value in that culture. And every day Peninnah threw it in her face. Well, Elkanah, her husband, bless his heart, seems sweet, but he's pretty clueless.

Right? Look at what he does. Verse eight, 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 10 sons? I mean, you got to love this guy's self-confidence, right? Just being with me, babe.

Just being with me. I'm better than 10 sons. He's already tried the whole double portion of mashed potato solution, and that didn't work. Now he's like, don't worry, babe. Don't worry, babe. I'm the love doctor.

As long as you got me, you're going to be fine. Before we go any farther, y'all, let's just stop and ask, where is this happening to you? See, like I said, we congratulate ourselves as a culture on how we've progressed past this. We no longer judge a woman's worth by how many kids she can have, but every culture has things by which they assign value to people. Maybe in our culture, it's not exclusively your childbearing abilities anymore, but women in our culture are often told that their value is measured by how pretty they are or how thin they are. In fact, consider this, historians say that you can prove statistically that our society is the first society in history to have a pervasive problem of eating disorders among young women.

First one, why? Well, the reasons for that kind of thing are always complex, but one reason for sure is societal. Our culture says women who have value look like this, and if you don't look like that, you're second class. We got lots of young girls out there who are roaring on the inside with hurricane level insecurity at work in them while their rivals on Instagram provoke them continually.

And by the way, I'm only focusing on women here because this story is about a young woman, but young men are told similar things, are they not? Your significance is in how athletic you are. Your significance is what school you get into. That's how we rank you.

What kind of earning potential that you have. So let me ask you again, where have you felt judged and insufficient by this culture? Where are you inwardly roaring? Maybe like Hannah, it's not even a standard you signed up for.

You didn't even want to compete. It just kind of happened to you. You don't like it, but you still feel the weight of it. It feels crushing. Maybe your situation is actually very similar to Hannah's.

I mean, yeah, our society is different, but it's not that different. Many women still feel like if they aren't married with kids, then a key part of their identity is missing. That's not just sad for them.

It is crushing. And maybe like Hannah, you've been tempted to turn to something else to fill the void. For Hannah, it was the affection of a man, but that didn't work. Or maybe you're like a good looks is produced and you would drive to succeed. That's how you're going to establish your worth.

You'll show them. You'll show them when you're at the top in my school that I grew up in, the popular cool guys were the athletic ones. So I tried to excel athletically. And when I figured out that I was not going to be the dominant athlete, I roared on the inside. And so I turned to academics. I thought, well, I mean, what makes you really significant in life is your intelligence and your drive.

Athletic abilities, they matter less as you get older. So I, I will establish my worth through accomplishment. I'll be the top of my class. My significance came from being successful. And as long as I compared well to others, I felt fine. That impulse stayed with me throughout my life. As long as I'm doing comparatively well, well, I, I feel pretty, I feel great. I feel valuable. But if another pastor outpaces me professionally, if his church or his ministry grows faster than mine, more than mine, people talk about him more.

My first impulse y'all is to find something wrong with him. Well, you know, their church only grows because they are theological compromises. Here at Summit, we're committed to the truth. And that's why we don't grow as fast. Cause we say hard things and y'all maybe, maybe that's true. But the point is that the impulse in me to find fault is driven by the fact that I need to find fault to bolster my own sense of significance, because there's still a roar inside of me that comes from being provoked by the rivals. Now maybe ambition is not your thing. Every time I talk like this, I look out at our congregation and I see a bunch of people who are kind of nodding their heads being, yep, I totally get that.

And a bunch of others are y'all looking at me like, what is wrong with you, dude? Like, should you even be a pastor? You should probably be seeing a counselor. Maybe for you, ambition is not your thing, but maybe there's some Elkanah somewhere saying to you, don't worry if you're not enough.

Don't worry if you're not enough in that area, my love will be enough for you. And so you're like, well, if I can just have the love of a good family, if I can just have the love of my husband, if my kids will just do well in school, that's how you deal with those hurricane force winds inside of you telling you that you're not enough. Or maybe you numb those hurricane feelings of insecurity and doubt through drugs or alcohol or retail therapy or binge watching Netflix or some other stimulant. But y'all just like with Hannah, if you're honest with yourself this morning, it's not working. My point here is that Hannah's heard of something we all experience at some point.

All of us are searching for identity and security and happiness. So let's turn from Hannah's hurt to Hannah's hope. Verse nine is the turning point of Hannah's story.

But if you're not paying attention, you will read right over top of it and never notice. Verse nine says, after they had eaten and drunk at the temple there in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now saying Hannah rose is not just inserting some random detail like after dinner, Hannah stood up and went to the living room. No, the word rose in Hebrew, that word indicates a decisive action. In other words, she stood up. She stood up, resolved. She's made a choice.

And what was that choice? She tells you in verse 11, 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 you 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 ever touch his head. What a powerful start to our series on the life of David. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer, and we're here every day on the radio and web sharing gospel truth that transforms lives.

If you'd like to keep up with any of the messages in this series, or if you'd like to study the complete unedited message transcripts, you can find them online free of charge at jdgreer.com. This week is the final week to get ahold of one of my favorite featured resources, our You Are Sent pennant flag. We send a premium resource to all of our financial supporters and gospel partners each month, and this one is especially unique. It's a physical reminder to live the way God wants us to, sent on mission, carrying the good news of the gospel to everyone around us. And it looks fantastic wherever you pin it up in your home or office.

Just make sure it's a spot that you'll see it every day. We'd love to send you one of these You Are Sent flags with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry. We are sincerely thankful for the way that so many of you give generously to fuel the gospel-centered work that we're doing around the world. To donate now, call us at 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or you can always contribute online at jdgreer.com. While you're there, you can also browse Pastor JD's blog. He covers a ton of topics about real life issues with wisdom straight from God's Word. And when you subscribe to our email list, you'll get future blog posts straight to your inbox. Go to jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Be sure to join us tomorrow as we continue our new teaching series through the life of David with the conclusion of today's teaching called Hannah's Hope. Don't miss it Friday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.