Hannah’s Hope, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Hello and welcome back to Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist, J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. We just began a new teaching series through the life of King David, so you're joining us at a perfect time today. The prophet Samuel played a pivotal role in David's life, but today we're backing up even further and looking at the life of Samuel's mother, Hannah. And it's easy to read Hannah's story in 1 Samuel and think that the lesson is that if we ask God for something in faith, he will answer.

But Hannah's song of praise and trust in God's faithfulness points to an even greater promise. Pastor J.D. continues to teach us how trust in God's greatest gift, Jesus, leads to identity, security, and happiness. So let's jump back into 1 Samuel chapter one.

Now here's pastor J.D. The search for 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.

Number one, let's talk about Hannah's hurt. Chapter one, let's begin in verse two. Elkanah had two wives. 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. And 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 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 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, 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. On the only scorecard that really mattered to the women in Israel, she was failing. 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 a grievously irritate.

In Hebrew, that phrase literally means to roar or to thunder. She'd prayed about this a lot. Before we go any farther, y'all, let's just stop and ask, where is this happening to you? Maybe in our culture, it's not exclusively your child bearing 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. 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, 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. 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.

All right, hang with me for just a minute. I'm going to take you into the deep end of the Bible pool for a second. When she says no razor will ever touch his head, what she indicates is that she is offering up this kid, this child to a Nazarite vow. Meaning you were giving this child up out of your family and you were giving him entirely to the temple. You see in those days you could not just decide to become a priest like I decided to go to seminary. You had to be born into the tribe of Levi to become a priest. And if you weren't born into the tribe of Levi, the only way for you to become a priest was for you to take a Nazarite vow where you basically get this, you renounced membership in your family.

You got rid of your last name, so to speak. You gave up all your inheritance from that family and you went to live at the temple. So basically in offering this kid up in a Nazarite vow, get this, Hannah is renouncing everything she would have wanted a son for in the first place. This child would not grow up in her house. He would not give her the emotional joy of just having him around. She would not get to show him off at baseball games.

He would not provide for her in her old age. She has given up the idea of having kids as a means of identity, security, and happiness. And when she was done praying, verse 18, then the woman, Hannah, went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad. Now at the end of this chapter, she's going to get pregnant, but she lost her sadness long before she found out she was pregnant.

The order here is really, really important. It's not pray, get pregnant, have joy. It's pray, have joy, get pregnant. What happened to Hannah? The hold, get this, the hold that bearing children had on her heart was shattered. Hannah's hope up until this point, Hannah's hope had been maybe I'll get pregnant, but now Hannah's found a new hope, a new source of identity, security, and happiness.

And what was that new hope? Well, for that answer, you got to turn to chapter two, which leads us to number three, Hannah's praise. In first Samuel two, Hannah writes a song of praise. She says, chapter two, verse one, my heart exalts in the Lord. In other words, my delight in the exaltation of my heart is no longer found in having kids and being a mom and having a loving husband and being successful. My soul exalts in the Lord in God because, verse two, there is no rock like our God. God, you're a better source of identity, security, and happiness than having children was going to be. Hannah goes on in this song to talk about God's unfathomable wisdom, his strength, his beauty, and his holiness. She says, verse two, there's nobody holy like the Lord. There's nobody like you.

There's none besides you. In other words, knowing you, God, knowing you is the ultimate treasure because in you, I have the absolute approval of the only one whose opinion really matters. And now having found my identity, security, and happiness in you, I'm no longer dependent on having children to provide that identity for me. I can have children. I would love to have children, or I could not have them.

Either way, I have you. This was Hannah's salvation, learning to find in God what she had previously sought in having children. In verse four, Hannah contrasts the two different ways people go about trying to establish an identity, to build security and happiness.

And then she shows you the result of each way that you choose. Verse four, look at this. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. Verse seven, the Lord raises up the poor from the dust.

He lifts up the needy from the ash heap. There are two ways, Hannah says, that people attempt to establish identity, security, and happiness. One is the way of pride.

You establish your identity, security, and happiness by the strength of your bow through how many kids you have, how beautiful you are, how much talent you have, how popular you are, your ability to earn money, where you go to school, what kind of job you have. That's one way is through a sense of accomplishment, you establish identity, security, and happiness. The other way is the way of faith. You lean into God and let him become the source of those things. Here's what Hannah shows you. If you seek your identity, security, and happiness through the way of pride, you will end up broken, hungry, and poor.

If you seek those things via the way of faith, you will end up strong and fruitful and abundantly overflowing. By the way, Hannah does go on to have a son. His name is going to be Samuel, and he's going to become the greatest prophet Israel had ever known. In verse five, Hannah says the baron, her, has born seven.

Now, hang on. She didn't have seven sons. She had one son. But seven in Hebrew is the number of perfection, the number of completion. It's the number of God's power. This one son, Samuel, get this, would do more for Israel than 10,000 other sons ever did. Look at verse 21. Indeed, the Lord visited Hannah, and after Samuel, she conceived him bore three more sons and then two daughters. God is a good God who loves to bless people.

When Hannah changed her source of identity from bearer of many children to daughter of the king, God blessed her with multiple children. Listen, I want to point this out simply because it is in the text, but please do not hear this as me saying that as soon as you get your heart right, God's going to give you what you wanted all along. As if just get your heart right and God will make you rich and fruitful, make you pregnant if that's what you're searching for.

That's not the point of this story. But having said that, God is a good God who loves to bless people. And it is often when we lay down our idolatries, it is often when we release the hold that things like success or fertility or family, when we release the hold they have in our heart, it is then that God gives us what we were seeking, but now it's his version of it.

And it's one he gives us with incredible power, not just a son, he gives us a Samuel. For some of you, by the way, this has been your career. You've been asking God for success so that you can find significance. And God says, you find your significance in me.

You stop asking me to give you something in your career that you really ought to find in me. And when you do that, he's going to suddenly put a power of blessing and a multiplication and joy into your career that you never thought possible. For the others of you like Hannah, this dream is having a child, having a kid. You've been asking God for a kid to complete your life. And God says, I'll complete your life. Don't find your identity through having children.

Find your identity and be my child. And when you lay that down at his feet, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes God then blesses you with a version of that, a version like Samuel that's bestowed in power. So many times in my life, I have laid down an idol only to have God weeks, months, years later, pick it back up.

That very thing that I laid down in his feet, pick it back up and hand it back to me. But this time in power. This is Summit Life with J.D. Greer, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. You know, at the Summit, we end every service with the same phrase every single week.

You are sent. And it's a reminder that as we leave the building, every one of us is being sent out into our own personal mission field. And you know why? Because mission fields aren't just other countries, your home, your office, your neighborhood. Those are all your own mission fields. So that's why we designed a decorative pennant style flag that says you are sent to send to you this month as our thanks for your support. It's beautifully designed and it'll serve as a reminder to you every day that you are called to share the gospel with the world around you.

And it's also a great conversation starter with others. Now, today is your last chance to get a hold of it. So don't wait to get your pennant. Give now to support this ministry by calling us at 866-335-5220. Or you can head over to J.D.

Greer dot com slash donate to take a look at the pennant and give your gift online. Now let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in the book of First Samuel here on Summit Life. I've told you before about a guy named Keith Green. In 1982, in a plane wreck, he was a Christian singer. He'd come out of the Jesus movement, druggy hippie that had gotten saved and he had the most anointed music. In his biography, he talks about the fact that after he got saved, he was always a musician. That was his career. After he got saved, he started to sing for Jesus.

That's what you do, right? He said, but I realize I just struggled and I was frustrated. I knew my music was still an idol to me and God wouldn't bless it because everything in me was tied up in music. He said, so I remember God spoke to me and said, lay that idol down. And he gave this date. He said, I put my guitar down.

I put my keyboard away and said, I will never again sing publicly. He said, for a year and a half, he said, I just became a man of God, a father, a husband. I found my identity in God. He said, just as clearly about 18 months later, God said to me again, now pick it up.

He said, this time I picked up those same instruments and they were endued with all kinds of power to the point that when I was on the mission field, no exaggeration, 60% of the people in my generation who ended up on the mission field will point back to Keith Green's music as a significant factor in why they chose to go. You lay down that idol, you lay down that desire for a son and God picks it up and says, now it'll be a Samuel. But see, that brings me to the last and most important part of this story. We had Hannah's hurt, Hannah's hope, Hannah's praise. Now we got Hannah's promise to you. Like I said, Hannah's story gives you a picture of what's about to happen through David. And even more importantly, she's going to give you a picture of what's going to happen through Jesus. Let me break down Hannah's promise into three components.

Here they are. All right, letter A. There is a parallel between Hannah's story and Israel's story. Just like Hannah sought identity, happiness, and security in the son, Israel is going to seek search for these things in a king. To Hannah, God said, Hannah, these things are not found in sons. To Israel, God says, these things are not found in kings either. To both Hannah and Israel, God says, identity, security, and happiness are found in me.

Letter B. Here's the second thing. There is a parallel between Hannah's story and Jesus's story. Every Bible story points to Jesus.

I've been trying to show you that over years of preaching. And this story is no exception. You see, many years later, 900 years later, the Bible would tell us the story of another woman who faced an impossible birth, just like Hannah did. This woman's name was Mary. And Mary's pregnancy was not just improbable like Baron Hannah's. Mary's pregnancy was impossible. Mary did not have a husband and she'd never even slept with a man. As with Hannah, for Mary, having a baby would mean the loss of everything that she held onto for significance and security. Because see, for Mary, in her day, for a woman to be pregnant out of wedlock would mean the loss of reputation. It would mean financial hardship.

It would mean becoming a societal outcast. But like Hannah, Mary grasped the gospel that God would be a better source of identity, security, and happiness than power or money or reputation. And so Mary surrendered herself to God and said, God, I'll find my identity, security, and happiness in you even if I lose all those other things.

Let it be unto me according to your word. Then Mary expressed that hope, just like Hannah did, in a song. It was called Mary's Magnificat.

We only talk about it at Christmas time, but we ought to talk about it a lot more. It's in Luke 1. And get this, y'all. Much of the wording in Mary's Magnificat parallels Hannah's prayer. In fact, I would say on pretty good authority, she's quoting Hannah.

Listen to this. Here's what Mary says. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my savior. I exalt in him for he has looked on the humble state of his servant. 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. Those sound like Hannah's words, but those are actually Mary's words. Both Hannah and Mary declared that they'd found their identity, their salvation in a God who cared for the poor and the broken and gave himself to them.

And they said, better to be your daughter than to have kids of my own. Hannah then gave birth to Samuel who became a priest who then became Israel's greatest prophet. And then that prophet would anoint Israel's greatest earthly King. Mary gave birth to the one who would be the final prophet, the great high priest and the King of all Kings. And that's Jesus. We want to read this story and we want to say, well, see, I'm like Hannah, Hannah asked and God answered. So if I ask God will answer.

And yes, I've told you there's a lot of truth in that, but this story is there primarily to point you to Jesus so that you say my identity, my security, my happiness, it's not in the marriage. It's not in the kids. It's not in the career. It's not in, it's, it's not in success.

It's not in competition. It's in Christ. You see like Hannah, Jesus would be outcast from society. Jesus would be rejected by men. He would be condemned as a criminal. He would be provoked and like Hannah, Jesus would pray for deliverance from that shame and from that curse. But whereas God answered Hannah and God answered Mary, God turned his back on Jesus.

Why? It was so that Hannah's real shame and Mary's real shame and our real shame, our God forsakenness, it was so that could be taken away forever so that you and I could be restored to God. You see our real need, our real shame, our brokenness, the source of all the other pain and brokenness in our life.

It doesn't come from the fact that we can't have kids or we aren't pretty enough or thin enough or successful enough. Our real shame comes from the break in our relationship with our creator. That's what your soul is aching for. And I don't know if you've ever realized that your real problem is that you've lost the approval of your heavenly father and your soul knows that and you feel alienated from him. I don't know what you think you've been searching for. I don't know what you left college thinking you needed to find, but you don't need more money.

You don't need to get to the top of the corporate ladder. It's not more kids or more success that you need to find significance and security. You need to be reunited to your heavenly father. And that's what Jesus, the Messiah accomplished for you by being forsaken for us in our place.

He would restore us to God. Don't just read Hannah's story about God answering a prayer and giving her a kid. Read it as a story about how God gives us something better than kids.

He gives us Jesus. That's Hannah's hope. And that's a hope I can offer you also today. Last thing, there's a parallel between Hannah's story and your story. Hannah looked to a son for identity, security and happiness.

Israel looked to a king. The question I've raised for you this morning is, what are you looking for those things? What one thing has to be present in your life for it to be good? What one thing do you care the most about obtaining? What one thing could you not imagine life without? What would be devastating for you to lose?

If you found out that next week this wasn't going to be a part of your life, what would be devastating? What are you yearning for that feels like life is never going to be complete without it? Is it marriage?

Is it children? Is it success? Is it praise?

Where are you roaring with dissatisfaction and jealousy? What are you seeking and how are you seeking it? Are you seeking to establish your identity through the accomplishments of pride? Are you seeking to receive it through the humility of faith? There's a phrase that Christians use called works righteousness. Works righteousness is where you try to establish your goodness and your salvation through good works.

Being enough, accomplishing enough, doing enough. Here's the thing, get this, there are religious versions of works righteousness, like you act good enough to earn God's favor. There are also, hear this, secular versions of works righteousness. You accomplish enough to earn everybody else's favor. Works righteousness always leaves you bitter, insecure, and disappointed.

That's what Hannah wants to tell you. The good gospel offers you something different, justification by faith. In Jesus is all you need for identity, security, and happiness. Your identity is found in being his child, his servant, doing his will, hearing one day, well done, good and faithful servant from him. Your security is knowing that he holds you in his hand and that nothing and no one can ever remove you from that hand.

Your happiness is found in doing his will and knowing his pleasure and being assured that he will never leave you or forsake you. He is the king that Israel was looking for. He was the son that Hannah was hoping for. And he is what you and I have been searching for our whole lives.

And there's nothing you can do to earn his love. You just have to receive it as a gift to the humility of faith. I don't know about you, but I am so inspired by Hannah's incredible faith. You've just heard the conclusion of our very first message in a new teaching series through The Life of David.

Earlier this week, we concluded our teaching series through the book of Acts. And one of the biggest themes in this book is the idea that every believer is called to live on mission. But I think sometimes when we hear that word mission, we think it's for the pastor or the youth group or someone else. But that's not the case, right, Pastor J.D.? No, I mean, one of the reasons we say it at the end of our service is because it's something that Jesus does to all. They go into all the world. That is a command for all believers. He breathes on them. They receive the Holy Spirit.

The one identity he gave to every follower of Jesus, Acts one, eight, before he left, was you were going to be my witness. And so we have this little thing this month that I'm very excited about. It's a little different than our other resources, but it's a you are sent pendant and it's been put in your cubicle. It's a great conversation starter.

You may start slowly at first, but it'll be amazing just as you make yourself available. What God will do through somebody that just says you're my Lord. Send me. Right. So go to JD Greer dot com.

You'll see a picture of it and I think you'll like it. It's our way of saying thank you when you become a supporter of our ministry. Again, today is your last chance to get a hold of your you are sent pennant with your gift of thirty five dollars or more to support this ministry to give. Call us at eight six six three three five fifty two twenty or give online at JD Greer dot com.

I'm Molly Vitovich. We'll see you next time as we continue our series through the life of David with a teaching called Abusive Leaders and Faithful Shepherds. We'll see you next week on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.