You Gotta Sing!

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 2:1-11 You Gotta Sing!

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listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Well, good morning.
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Welcome to Recast Church. As Dave said, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here and just want to say thank you for coming in.
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Just a word of note to everybody, we do not cancel church here. We just continue to roll through and we just encourage everybody to use their own discernment, know your own driving skills, and then obviously you guys made it in, so some of you maybe have four -wheel drive, some of you drove a little car like me and scraped the bottom on the way here, but here we are all together.
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And I'm just glad that we have the opportunity to gather together as God's people in this place. I don't know if you realize that, and I think you all do, that what we're doing here this morning in this place, in this gathering in Mattawan, is just a sliver of the global picture of what is happening in the church throughout the world on a
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Sunday morning. So as the sun rises on each consecutive time zone, people are lifting up their praises and giving glory to God and listening to his word and studying all around the world.
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And that's an awesome reality and I hope that you let that settle on you sometimes, that you allow the thoughts that the world and what
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God is doing is so much bigger than what's just happening here in this place, and that's the big picture of the glory and the worship of God in every tribe, tongue, people, and nation is the end result we see in the book of Revelation.
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But our mission here as a church at Recast is wrapped up in this one word, worship.
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It really all revolves around the idea of worship. We want to be a church that worships him and finds more worshipers for his name.
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That was and is our mission statement as a church from the very beginning, before we had ever met together, when we were being sent out from another church to start a church here in Mattawan, we set out with that goal to worship
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God and to find more worshipers for his name. That's what it means to be a part of Recast Church, that's what we're all hopefully together pulling toward and striving for.
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And worship, by the way, I want to be clear, worship is not merely singing songs.
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A lot of us have in our minds the idea that when you're worshiping, well, you must be singing, right? Not so, not at all.
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We can worship by the things that we say, by the things that we think. We can worship God by the work that we do.
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Just the very work that we do can be rendered as worship to God, and also the way that we work, the way that we do the things that God has called us to in life, whether it's a student, the way you study, whether it's a cabinet maker, the way that you make cabinets, if it's delivering for UPS, the way that you deliver for UPS, teachers, the way you teach, all of those things can be rendered unto
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God as worship throughout the day and throughout the week. And, oh my goodness, how about the way we drive, whoa.
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That could be, and ought to be, ought to be worship. The way that we suffer, the way that we rejoice, the way that we interact with our spouses, our kids, our family, our parents, our friends, all of that can be worship and ought to be worship.
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But I think all of us know something kind of deep down, I think that we all know there's something about music.
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Would you raise your hand and say, if it's true of you that there's something about music in your life, is there something about music to you?
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Is there something about the way that God has created music and created you to enjoy music that there's something unique about the connection between the opportunity that we have to worship
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God and music? It's a cool connection, and there are times in life when you just gotta sing.
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There are times in life when you just gotta sing. Have you been there in your life? Have you been to the mountaintop experience where life is going well and things are clicking and God is blessing?
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Maybe God came through for you in a time when things felt dark and hopeless. Maybe He just blessed you out of the blue and you didn't see it coming.
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Maybe it was something that you were asking for from Him for time and time again, and then He came through.
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But there are seasons in life when you just gotta sing. Our text this morning catches
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Hannah here in 1 Samuel singing. She was a servant of God.
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We followed her last week through a very dark valley, a very difficult time in her life. She was infertile, she was barren, she was being attacked viciously by her husband's second wife, which is an issue altogether different and unique.
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And last week we saw God take her from her deep grief and problems into a season of prayer and ultimately led to God's provision for her.
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And you can look that up on the podcast if you weren't able to be here last week. We do record all of the messages.
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If you have a device that you can go to podcast, you can just look up Recast Church in the podcast and find it there.
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Or you can go to our website at recastchurch .com under the teaching tab. All the former sermons are there, the former sermon series.
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If you missed one in a series and you want to get caught up, those are available for you there. But this morning our text picks up right where we left off last week.
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Hannah this week will be offering a prayer slash song to God.
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She's basically going to sing a prayer to God. And the song is so richly theological, but it's also deeply practical.
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It's going to be a song that tells us something about God, and that's why I say theological. That's just a big word that means it's about God or about the study of God or about knowing
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God better. But it's also deeply practical in the way that it's going to impact and hopefully impact everybody in this room for the better throughout this week, encouraging us to rejoice correctly about the way that God rolls and the things he does.
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You see, in our text she's going to rejoice in the deliverance of God. Praising and singing is a powerful way for you and I to express our thankfulness and gratitude to him.
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But as we're going to see in this text, the contents of what we sing, the content, the actual things that we say when we're singing, have the power to encourage us as well as others around us.
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I believe that the words expressed by the heart of Hannah in this text that we're going to be reading this morning have the power to propel all of us into a week of deeper and more thoughtful worship of our
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God. So if you're not already there, please open up to 1 Samuel 2, verses 1 through 11.
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We'll read the first 11 verses here, and if you grab the Bible that's under the seat in front of you, that's page 129 in that Bible.
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That's an easy way to get there. Otherwise, navigate in your device or use your own Bible and we will read this together.
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Recast, this is God's very word to us. This is what he desires for you and I to hear from him, and it's about him.
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It's going to tell us some things that are true of our God and things that he wants us to know about him.
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So follow along as I read. And Hannah prayed and said, my heart exalts in the
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Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation.
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There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our
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God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the
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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.
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Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
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The barren is born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life.
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He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich.
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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.
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For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and on them he has set the world.
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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.
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The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces against them. He will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
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He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.
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Then Elkanah went home to Ramah and the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, the priest.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to just contemplate and consider who you are and the way that you roll, the way that you work in the history and in the lives of everyday people.
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And you've been doing this from the very beginning. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to open our eyes to see the way that you care for the downtrodden, the downcast, those who are broken, and the great reversals that you are delighted to give to your people.
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Father, these glimpses that we have of salvation, these many, many celebrations that we have that point to an ultimate healing, an ultimate hope, an ultimate fixing of the things that are broken.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would not allow us to lose sight of the good things that you have done for us in this past week.
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I know that everybody in this room has come into this room with a variety of different experiences, no two alike in the sense of what has happened to them this past week.
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But I know this to be true, you have been faithful to us. You have given us things we don't deserve.
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And you have given us glimpses, foretastes of the glory that is to come even in this past week.
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Even if it's just the beauty of the snow on the trees, or a nice warm place to sleep, or fresh drinking water, or something to eat.
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Father, you've given us things that we don't deserve. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to identify you correctly, and to thank you correctly, and to sing before you with joy and delight over the good.
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Because you, indeed, are moving things to your glory and to the best end for your people.
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So Father, please be honored in our presence as we sing to you this morning. I pray that everyone here who opens their mouth to sing would be moved in their heart and worship would begin in their heart this morning, in Jesus' name.
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Thanks a lot to Dave for leading us in the band. And I would encourage you to get comfortable.
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And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, whatever's left back there.
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And then keep your Bibles open, please, to 1 Samuel 2, verses 1 -11, if you keep your
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Bibles open to that. Yeah, so if you keep your Bibles open there, that's going to be our outline for the text, is those 11 verses there.
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And our outline this morning is quite simple, but brings forward the power of praise throughout this song -slash -prayer that Hannah offers.
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In this song of praise by Hannah, she first, in verse 1, thanks God for what
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He has done. So if you're taking notes, you can say, verse 1, thanks for what you've done, is the point there.
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Verses 2 -8, she proclaims why God did it. So from Hannah's perspective, she says,
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I know why you did this for me. I know you and because I know you and because I know these things that we're going to see listed out there,
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I know why you did it. And then verses 9 -10, she then goes on to say, I trust you with the future.
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I've seen what you have done for me. I know where that comes from because it comes from your very nature.
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It comes from your character. And because I know that the good that you have done for me comes from your character,
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I can in turn trust you with the future. Another way of stating this outline so that you don't miss the flow, because the flow is kind of the point of the text, is that Hannah is deeply rejoicing in God's provision for her.
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What did God give her last week in the text? Does anybody remember? Gave her a son.
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That's right. She was infertile, she was barren, she was not able to have children, and God provided for her a son.
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And so she is grateful and deeply rejoicing for that provision for her, and she acknowledges that this provision comes out of his very nature.
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He's a God who sides with the lowly, he sides with the desperate, the outcast, and the down and out.
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And from the place of acknowledging that what he has done for her comes from the place of how he rolls, then
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Hannah trusts that he will keep the faithful, he will judge the wicked, and he will eventually provide a strong and exalted
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Messiah King. So that's the flow of the text. So let's look at her first initial thanks here in verse one together.
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She mentions three parts of her that have been impacted by what I'm going to call throughout this text a mini -salvation of God.
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I say mini -salvation because salvation is a pretty big word that we can easily, when we're in the
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New Testament era, where we live in the time of the church, and we hear the word salvation, has a very specific connotation to it, about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, and being raised again, and that anybody by faith can be saved from their sins.
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So a lot of times we have that idea of salvation in our mind when we come to a text like this.
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And it can be confusing because in one real sense, one very real important sense, the most important thing that you need to be saved from is your sin, not your circumstances.
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Now the world is constantly looking for salvation from our circumstances, right? Isn't that primarily the thing, we're a victim and we need you to take care of those who are victimizing us, we've got this issue in our life, poverty, we need to be saved from poverty, we need to be saved from this illness, this disease, this cancer, this whatever.
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And those are the kind of mini -salvations that I'm talking about, where, do we pray for those? Do we ask for those kinds of salvations?
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Do we ask for those small picture things? Absolutely. But what is our hope ultimately in? What is it that we're really desperately in deepest need of, and it is the healing that our souls can receive that we might have an eternal hope with God?
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And so I say that she is thanking God outright in this text for a mini -salvation that she has received.
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This is not a saved from her sin kind of salvation that we see here in the text, this is saved from my circumstances kind of salvation.
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And so when she says she rejoices in God's salvation, at the end of verse one, she's speaking about the provision of God, of a son, and the silencing of her rival
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Panina's verbal assaults against her, and that kind of thing. And so that's the nature of the salvation that she's talking about here in the text.
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Don't read too much New Testament theology into the word salvation there. But because of her rejoicing, because of this, because of her rejoicing, because she's thankful for what
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God has done for her in the small scale things, we see that her heart, her horn, and her mouth all react.
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Now her heart, it says in the text, has been moved to rejoice in the Lord, and I would suggest to you that a fundamental observation from the outset of this song of Hannah is that worship begins in the heart.
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And I would contend to you that worship always begins in the heart.
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It never begins with your mouth. It never begins with your vocal cords. It doesn't start with a guitar.
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It doesn't start with a really super sweet drum beat or riff. It always begins in the heart.
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You see, what happens is our heart exalts God. If we really understand who He is, and we encounter
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Him, and we see Him as He is, then our hearts exalt Him, praise Him, and then our hands, our mouth, and our vocal cords only serve the heart as an outward expression of what's going on in here.
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Now can you get that backwards? Can you reverse that? Well, you can fake that the other way, but that's not really worship.
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You can sing and mouth the words. You can play the guitar. You can beat the drums.
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You can do whatever you're able to do, but if the heart isn't engaged in it, then it's not rightly called worship.
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You are not exalting the Lord. Oftentimes, people can be exalting themselves while they're singing praise songs, right?
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So at the end of the day, worship always begins in the heart. And Hannah's heart, here in the text, is full of gratitude and thankfulness, and it's like she's bursting and overflowing with exaltation of the
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Lord. She's just moved from inside to declare these things to be true with her voice.
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And then it says in the text that her horn has changed, too. You might be wondering the same thing as me. First of all, you might be looking at an older version of the
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Bible. So if you have an ESV that was translated and written in 2007, then it says strength right there, and you're confused, because you're like, are you reading the same
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Bible as me? Because the ESV text was updated in 2016, they took out the word strength and they put in the word horn, just to more accurately reflect the
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Hebrew language that's actually in the text. So did anybody notice that? I'm just curious if I just, nobody here has a 2007, okay, a couple of you.
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But it's still worth mentioning that the word horn is there, and so you're wondering when you see the word horn there,
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I mean, are we talking about unicorns here? Like what is she if she's got a horn? But of course she's not a unicorn, this is not
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My Pretty Pony or anything like that. But this is an amazingly common expression in the ancient world.
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It was quite common to talk about lifting up the horn of an individual. It comes from the observation of animals.
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They were a lot closer to animals than you and I are, and it's not just merely, it's not talking about a musical instrument, you might have thought about that right away or something like that.
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But it's not that, it's rams, deer, and other horned animals. The horn was a symbol for strength, a symbol of power.
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And when a horn, when an animal raises up its horn, it's gonna bash something, it's coming down on something, it's an actual show of strength, a show of authority, a show of power.
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And the text says that the Lord has raised up Hannah's strength, has raised up her power.
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So that Hannah acknowledges that she has been brought from a weak and a lowly place to a higher place of strength in the
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Lord. The Lord has done this for her. Notice where the strength comes from? Notice that it's very clear.
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She identified that her horn is lifted up, exalted in the Lord. She has not lifted herself up, but the
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Lord has lifted her up to a place of strength. And lastly, in this opening praise, it says, her mouth is opened wide to her enemies.
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There's some interpretive confusion over that phrase. I'm giving you the literal translation there, her mouth is opened wide.
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Some have, some of the text, some of the translations have her boasting over her enemies.
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The ESV uses the word deriding her enemies, a word we don't use very often. Some see, some translate it as smiling, gloating, other things like that.
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And again, the Hebrew phrase literally is, it says this in the Hebrew language, my mouth is opened wide to my enemies.
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So whatever we make of that phrase, whether it's gloating, deriding, smiling at them, you know, whatever it might be, one thing is completely true.
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Our rejoicing in God has an impact on those who would like to see us fail.
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Rejoicing derides our enemies because they have no power over God's grace and love in your life.
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When we rejoice, we push back against all accusations. When we rejoice, we push back against wrongs done against us.
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You're not supposed to be rejoicing when you've had wrongs done against you, right? Isn't that what the world would tell you? Isn't that what your enemies would tell you?
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How can he be rejoicing when bad is happening? And it also removes the power that others hold over us.
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You can take anything from me. You can do anything to me, but you cannot take away the one thing that makes my heart exalt.
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And you have no control over the one who can lift me up to a place of strength over adversity.
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Rejoicing is one of the most powerful things that the believer in Christ can do. Rejoicing is one of the most powerful tools available to everyone in this room.
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Giving praise and glory and honor to the Almighty. I want to point out that in this text, sometimes when you're studying and when you're reading the
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Bible, it's enough and it's kind of like it takes a lot to just analyze what's already there in the text.
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But occasionally, it's kind of significant what is absent. And that's a little bit trickier.
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Have you ever noticed that? It's kind of trickier to notice what's missing than it is to notice and really, really dig through what's there.
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But one of the things that I noticed as I was studying this this week is what is absent from Hannah's prayer is the very simplistic expectation that we might have knowing
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Hannah's story. Those of you that were here last week and you know Hannah's story and you know what she went through and what she was enduring, you might expect a specific phrase in this that is completely absent from these 11 verses.
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It's the phrase, thank you God for giving me a son. Did you notice the absence of that?
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She doesn't say thanks for Samuel, thanks for giving me a little boy, thanks for giving me a baby to hold, thank you for doing these things.
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Hannah instead has tied God's provision for her to a change of her orientation and her circumstances.
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So that rather than focus on the simplicity of the gift itself, rather than make the gift the point, it's the change of her life that's the point.
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It's the transformation of her status, the place where she stands and the recognition that God has been for her and not against her.
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Her heart has been moved to worship, her strength has been restored and she has been established over her enemies and that is what she is giving thanks for here in this text.
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Each one of us to consider how your circumstances should lead you to sing and rejoice.
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Does your heart exalt in the Lord? And even maybe more poignant question, where does your strength come from in life?
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Are you elevating yourself? Rams rear up their own heads for one primary reason, to bash other rams.
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Hannah waited patiently for the vindication of the Lord and he's the one who exalted her horn.
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He was the source of her strength. So Hannah is presently in this text, here in verse 1 she's thankful but she moves on to point out that she's not surprised by her fortune.
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God has come through for her, he's taken care of her but she's not surprised because she knows
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God and that's where we get to verses 2 through 8. In verses 2 through 8 she's going to spell out the character of the
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God who raises up people's fortunes, who reverses the fortunes of the lowly and in this section
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Hannah gives us the list of character qualities of the God that we serve. This is really basically it's theology in a nutshell and theology sounds like something that's kind of dusty and people with big books and long beards study and talk about it maybe with a pipe and small glasses or something like that and it's so eminently practical and it's so just knowing
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God, understanding what he wants us to know of himself and what he's declared and first right in verse 2 she identifies something about God, he is unique and exclusive.
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Unique and exclusive is the first theological point here in the text of who God is.
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She says there is none that are holy like you and when you hear the word holy think in terms of set apart, unique, perfect in your nature and character and she says there's none like you
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God. He's in a league of his own and as a matter of fact she goes on to say in verse 2 God is not merely head and shoulders above others, there is none beside him.
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There's none beside him. Look at verse 2 with me, there is none holy like the Lord for there is none besides you.
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There is no rock like our God. In other words it's not like among the variety of gods that we have available, you're a really good one, there's nobody, he's in a category alone and there's nothing else that you can even stand up against him and say well he's better than that, no it's not even in terms of better, he's the only, the unique, the holy one.
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Second she identifies him as a shelter of stability, there is no rock like our God. There is no other place of stability, no place of shelter, no place to go for protection that is like our place of stability, our place of shelter and our place of protection.
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That's what she says, there is no other place to go that is like the rock that is our
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God and it's so important that we don't shrink back in fear in the face of a culture that tells you every day that all paths are equal.
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All roads lead to the same end, our culture completely has bought into the lie that all religious expressions are equally valid, all shelters are equally good, all roads lead to the same place but scripture testifies,
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Hannah testifies that their rock is not like our rock, their rock is not like our rock.
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The world will tell you just pick a shelter, just pick some place to park your heart, pick some place to park your life and as long as it's got some significance or meaning or as long as it's serving others or doing a higher work or something that's outside of yourself it's better, it's not what scripture testifies to, that's not what scripture says, their rock is not like our rock and have you tried other rocks, have you tried to go to other places for stability?
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How many of you have found that your life shakes from time to time and it's like the ground underneath your feet, what you thought was stable crumbles, have you been there?
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And you run to some place going maybe it's stable here and it shakes you all the more and people run to all kinds of things but there is one place to run for stability and it is our
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God. Hannah had gone to the right place with her prayers, she went to the strong and stable
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Lord over all and I just ask you and I implore you to answer this question in honesty in your heart, have you come to this rock for shelter?
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Have you come to the unique and holy one? Where does your hope rest for stability in this always shaking world?
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I found one thing to be consistent and that's that life isn't consistent, where do you go when it shakes?
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Have you come to the one true rock? The third thing that Hannah identifies about God after identifying him as unique, identifying him as a shelter of stability, the third is that he is the
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God of knowledge, he knows all hearts and this by the way is not some book learning knowledge, it's not like he's the
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God of Google or Wikipedia, he gets it all, he knows it all. This is a very specific kind of knowledge that Hannah is identifying and it's in terms of the arrogant and the proud, it's identifying the foolishness of arrogance, the foolishness of pride in the light of a
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God who knows who you are. He knows you're not all that, you know you're not all that but you act like you're all that.
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Anybody ever notice that inconsistency in your own life? I can testify that I've been arrogant about things
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I don't even know that much about. You ever speak like an expert to your spouse, those of you that are married in a room?
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Have you ever been in a, somebody just do this, and then I've seen a little bit of that.
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But yeah, you know where you're kind of like all of a sudden you're entrenched and you made a statement and now you're going to stand by it.
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Why are all the ladies laughing, that was a lot of lady laughter right there, yeah because you've seen your husband do it.
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But yeah, it's this idea of him knowing who you really are, him knowing what you really know and him knowing all of the stuff in between all of that.
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You see he says the proud and the arrogant, think like Panina from last week, the proud and the arrogant are pretty silly because they think they are deceiving the
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God who knows all things. So let me just suggest to you, recast, don't act proud and arrogant because the
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Lord is the God of knowledge. You're not tricking him. He knows what is true of you and further the text goes on to say he is the one who will judge all actions.
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He knows it all and he is the right judge of all. You see
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God saw Hannah and Panina, he saw that whole thing unfold, he saw the proud arrogance and the shameful attacks, he's the
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God who sees us in our plight and he knows in ways all actions. Fourth and we're going to take a big chunk of scripture for the fourth point here in Hannah's observation because verses four through eight are one long study in one main point, they serve to identify one big central character trait of our
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God that really had a massive impact on Hannah's situation. He's the God who loves the underdog, he loves reversing fortunes, he loves the humble and he despises the arrogant.
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See our God loves irony and Hannah's song rejoices in these reversals by listing contrast for us.
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It says, God breaks the bows, think like the enemy, the military, the archers firing arrows and God breaks the bows of the mighty but gives strength to the feeble.
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He makes the wealthy beg for bread and feeds the hungry. He gives the barren woman many children but the one who already has many children falls in distress.
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Now please remember to read these as poetic explanation, okay? Think of it this way, think of the text as trying to identify
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Hannah who's just received this glorious blessing from God and is offering thanks to him and saying,
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I know you and I know the way that you roll and I know the things that you do and you're the kind of God who breaks the bows of the mighty but strengthens the feeble.
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You're the kind of God who makes barren women have children. You're the kind of God who raises the fortunes of those who are starving.
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They're generalizations, not every person who's starving is raised up to wealth but they still convey a reality of the heart of our great and generous
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God. He has a bent, think of it this way, he has a bent, he has a tendency, he has a weak spot in his heart for the lowly and the downcast.
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Further, she goes on to say, our God is sovereign over life and death and resurrection.
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Bluntly stating he kills and he brings to life, he brings down to shale, the word for the grave, think like the cemetery is another way to say that.
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He brings to the cemetery but he also resurrects. See that in verse six.
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And just a quick note here on the reality, as she's identifying the character of God, some of us are really, some of us can be really uncomfortable with different things that scripture says and you're like, wait, did he just say, did she just say
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God kills, is that, are we celebrating that? Are we happy with that? How many of you think, oh, that's cool, yeah,
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I mean, let's praise, I mean, Dave, write a song for us about like God killing, right? Like I mean, is that, this is in the middle of a praise song.
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And she says, yeah, he's the one who kills and he's the one who resurrects, what's going on there?
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I just wanna point out that the Lord is the author of the end of our lives and we can trust him to make that okay.
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We don't need to embrace death ever and we ought not to ever embrace death as a good thing.
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It is not a good thing, it's a broken thing, it's a messed up thing, it's not something that we want, it's not something that is in the original design of God.
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Can we trust him, even in the darkness? Even through the darkness, yes.
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I personally, and I don't know how you're put together, but I find comfort in knowing that it's the
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Lord who's gonna take me. Do you find comfort in that? It's in his hands, he's,
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I mean, the alternative is terrifying to me and that's that it's just gonna be cold, impersonal, random chance is gonna get me in the end, with no compassion, with no hope, with no, you know, no nothing.
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But notice the hope, even in this list of reversals of fortune here, Hannah doesn't leave it with he kills, does she?
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But he brings to life, he kills, but he brings to life.
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The greatest irony of all is that death need not have the final word. It seems like Miracle Max had it right.
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Those who have passed on before us are only mostly dead, but those who died in Christ, for those who died in Christ, the grave holds no permanent sway over them, but they will be raised just like Jesus was raised from the tomb.
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That's hope, right? Do you see how she's saying, even in the twists and turns of the darkest things about our life, which
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I would suggest to you, I mean, for me, I think one of the darkest things that's been a specter over my whole life is that there's a death coming.
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Do you think about those things? I mean, we don't like to talk about death, do we? I mean, Americans don't like to even address it, but that's a reality.
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It's a real thing. We do well to contemplate that and consider that, but also to recognize that in that, even, is the greatest twist, the greatest irony.
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Even the grave does not have the final word over those who are
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His. The Lord chooses who to make rich and who to make poor. He brings some low and He lifts others up.
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You see just this rich depth of the sovereignty of God. He chooses who to give money to and who not to.
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He chooses who to elevate in the business and who to hold back in the business, and who goes forward and surges ahead and who doesn't.
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And I hope that you see a pattern here of God lifting up His people from low places. In verse 8,
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He raises up the poor from the dust and He lifts the needy from the ash heap, a place of mourning, a place of thrown awayness.
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Do you get valuable things out of the ash heap? What is that used for? Maybe fertilizer?
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He gets stuff out of the ash heap, and not only does He take them from the filth of the mourning place of the ash heap, but then
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He seats them with princes in seats of honor. Our God is a God who, hear me carefully, this is a radical message here at Recast.
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Our God is a God who is moving His people onward and upward from poverty to plenty.
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From pain and suffering to eternal health and glory. From weakness to strength and honor.
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From ash heaps to glory in the presence of royalty. Health, wealth, prosperity.
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Let me say that one more time. Our God, Recast, the
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God that we serve, the God that we read about in this story, is moving
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His people upward from poverty to plenty.
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Are you comfortable with that? He's moving His people from poverty to plenty. He's moving
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His people from pain and suffering to eternal health and glory. Are you okay with me saying that?
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From weakness to strength and honor. From the dust in the ash heap to glory in the presence of royalty.
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Is He doing that in your life? Is that your hope? Is that your trust?
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Do you believe that to be true? Listen to me carefully. You cannot be taken from the ash heap to glory without sitting in the ash heap.
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You can't go from poverty to riches without sitting in poverty.
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You cannot go from weakness to strength without being weak.
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One of the biggest religious lies being promoted on this planet is the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel that steals this from us.
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It takes this from us. It makes us uncomfortable with the things that God says is true of His people.
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He is going to make it better for you and me. Maybe not in this life. It conflates the hope that we have.
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It confuses us and makes it like, well, is He for us? Is it okay to say that He's going to fix it?
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Is it okay to say that He's making it better? And it can be kind of confusing. You see, this health, wealth, and prosperity gospel,
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I've heard it in America. I've seen it in Africa. I've seen it now at work in Indonesia.
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It feels like every place that I go in the world, I see glimpses and places where this is being taught and preached.
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It says this. This is the false message that the world and that Satan wants to foist on us that God only ever wants
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His children to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. But consider Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and now is exalted at the right hand of God.
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But His victory came through suffering. His time on this planet was miserable. But He now is exalted, and He is our model.
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You see, for me, I say this with all sincerity, God is reversing my fortune.
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My destiny was one of eternal suffering. My destiny was one of right, just, and fair retribution for my sin and my corrupt and broken nature.
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But God, in His mercy, is reversing my destiny. He takes the lowly, the humble, and the broken, and He mends them.
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God loves a good fixer -upper. He found one in me, and He loves to restore the broken.
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By His grace, He gives us glimpses of His big -picture salvation that He is working by giving us smaller, mini -salvations along the way, little hopes to cling to.
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The good things that He does for His children in the here and now are merely foretaste of an eternal glory
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He's bringing for His children in the end. Have you tasted some of it? Have you seen it?
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Have you observed good things in this life? What are they for? To make you fall in love with this place?
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Not to make you fall in love with the one who gives it, and to know that there's more where that came from. He's taking us there.
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He's going to fix it. Hannah knew the character of her loving and gracious God here in the text.
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She knew He sided with the lowly. She knows He sides with the humble. She shares with us what she knows that He loves the downtrodden, and so she's not surprised at all by the reversal of her fortunes.
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She's not like, whoa, that just made sense. She's like, yeah, that's like God, and from knowing the grace, the mercy, and the love that God has for His own children, then we get to the third part in verses 9 and 10.
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She prophesies about what God will do in the future. She trusts Him with the future because she has seen
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Him come through for her, and she knows that's the way He rolls. She says, He will guard the feet of His faithful ones.
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She trusts in Him to guard her. God is the one guiding and guarding the footsteps of His people. Have you ever considered
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His role in keeping you, and holding you, and keeping you from sin? You see, knowing that God works this way, knowing that it makes sense for Hannah to say
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God guards the feet of His faithful ones, it makes all the more sense of the prayer that we should pray routinely that Jesus told us.
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Lead us not, Father, into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Do you pray for God to keep your feet walking on His pathway?
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Do you talk to Him? See, He's the one who can guard your feet, and keep you walking tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.
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Why do you believe that you're going to be, those of you that are Christians in the room, why do you believe you're going to be a Christian a week from now?
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Ask yourself that. Why do you think you're going to be a Christian a year from now? Why do you think that on your deathbed, when you breathe your last breath, why do you think you're going to be a
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Christian then? Because you've got a super awesome faith, you're tenacious, you're strong, you've got it, you're going to just maintain it your whole life long?
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Is that where your hope rests? Do you pray for Him to strengthen you?
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Do you pray for Him to keep you? Do you pray for Him to hold on to you? You see, my trust that I'm going to be all in with Christ at the end of my life is not based on my tenacious faith.
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I've no trust in myself to maintain this walk with God. My hope rests solely in the one who can guard the feet of His faithful ones.
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So I talk with Him about it a lot. Talk with Him about it a lot, and say, keep me, hold me,
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I'm walking with you faithfully. You see, Hannah also understood that judgment is looming,
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He keeps those, He keeps those who are His, but judgment is looming for His adversaries.
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The wicked, it says, will be cut off in darkness, they shall be broken to pieces, and God will thunder against them in heaven.
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The Lord will indeed judge all, and this amazing statement at the end of verse 9, for it is not by might that man will prevail.
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It's not by your strength, it's not by your ability, it's not by the tenacity of your faith, you're not going to wrestle your way into the kingdom of God.
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Not by your ability to obey, but it is not by might that a man will prevail, and at the end of verse 10, we get this amazing glimpse into something that was revealed to Hannah.
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It was granted to Hannah to see something, and say something that was astonishing for her day and age.
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Before the arrival of the first kings of Israel, over 1 ,000 years before the arrival of Christ, the
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Messiah, she sang about Him, she talked about Him, she prayed to God about Him.
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She saw a time coming when God's chosen king would come in strength, and not just any strength, but would come in the strength of God, and that man's strength would be exalted by God, and He would be, and the word in the
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Hebrew language is Messiah. The word anointed one, that's translated anointed one in the
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ESV, is literally the word in Hebrew, Messiah. You see, once again
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I tell you that Hannah's trust and hope didn't end with the arrival of a long -hoped -for son. It's not like, oh,
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I just need a son, God, all I need is, I just need a child, if you'd just give me a child, just give me a child, give me a child, and then she gets the child and that's it.
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The provision of a son was merely an opportunity to express for her a deeper hope, and a deeper gratitude to God for a larger, bigger, more comprehensive salvation that she could foresee was coming.
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Hannah got something that all of us need to truly understand in order to come alive to God, something that I hope that we can apply and even use today in our lives.
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Every sunrise, every passionate kiss with the one we love, every little baby smile, every bite of filet mignon, every sip of a great craft brew, or the smell of coffee in the morning, or whatever it is that really gets you going, every good thing you have ever experienced in life was meant to point us to God.
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That's why they're there. To the God who loves his people and delights to give you good things.
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And what do we do? We let it settle on the filet. Hey, we expect too much out of the kiss.
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We expect the sunrise to linger and last, and it fades, and is the hope in the sunrise?
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Is the hope in the steak? How many of you know that that goes away pretty quick and you gotta get another one?
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With the blue cheese crumbles on it, you know the one I'm talking about? Nobody's paying attention to me anymore after that.
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Some of you just got grossed out, but oh man, I'll eat yours then. Everything you've ever experienced that's good in life has been meant to point you to the
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God who loves you. He is gracious, he is kind, he is good, he is merciful and loving toward any who would come to him by faith and in humility ask for his salvation.
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The problem comes, of course, when we worship the stuff instead of letting the good things be a conduit for our praises to rise to God.
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See Hannah had a baby boy. She doesn't even mention him in the song prayer. Do you see that?
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She let it go straight to God. Instead, Hannah is up in here all talking about God, the
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God who reverses fortunes. She didn't get hung up on the gift, but she just can't get over the giver.
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She's not hung up on the gift. All she wants to talk about is the one who has given her so much.
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He's changed my fortune. She says, isn't that just like my God to change my fortune?
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He raises the humble, he lowers the proud and one day, says Hannah, listen to her, one day he will bring forward his chosen king who he will exalt in power and that is the place where hope rests.
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And this morning, I'm going to encourage us all to worship God in this next step by taking communion together.
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Let's praise our great and awesome God for his faithfulness to us. Let's thank him for the many salvations and let's let those many salvations serve us like Hannah, like they served
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Hannah as reminders of the big picture salvation of the Messiah King. He has come and he has purchased us at the cross.
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So let's celebrate together the great love of God for his people. If you're all in with Jesus Christ, if you've asked him to save you, you acknowledge him as your king, then
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I would encourage you to please come to the table with joy this morning. Remember his sacrifice for you. His body was broken for you because he loves you.
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His blood was shed for you because he loves you. And so we take a cracker to remember his body broken for us.
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We take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us. And let me just ask you to do this this morning.
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I want you to just get rid of the somberness of this moment. I want you to celebrate this.
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I want you to be joyful in this. I want you to not look at your feet and shuffle on your way there.
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Make eye contact, smile at each other, be glad over this. Give a fist bump to someone if that's you.
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You see, what we're celebrating when we come to these tables is the God who has reversed your fortune.
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Condemnation in exchange for eternal glory. What? Are you serious?
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We all just won the lottery. We don't deserve this. Oh my goodness.
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Can we celebrate that together? The greatest reversal of all.
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And we all get to celebrate that together. How can we keep silent? Sometimes, you've just got to sing.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the gift that you've given to us. The celebration of hope, the celebration of an eternal glory, the celebration of a fixing of things that are broken.
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Father, we might have some kind of celebration if somebody has been remodeling their house for ages and it finally gets done and we're all excited about that.
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How much more when you're renovating lives and you're promising to us that we will have eternal days of glory with you?
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So Father, I pray that you would help us to settle in our minds this false notion of letting the good things in life capture us and trap us, but instead, let us thank you for the good things in life and let that praise move on to you.
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I pray that that would be a reality for everybody in this room and then as we have an opportunity to just take communion and reflect on the cost that you paid to purchase us,
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I thank you so much for Christ. I thank you so much for his willing sacrifice for us, for his love poured out for us.
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Father, help our hearts to sing. Help our hearts to rejoice. Help our hearts to recognize the gravity, the weight, the significance, the glory, the beauty.
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This is worth celebrating because you have loved us and taken us from the very gates of hell to eternal places of glory and that's our hope and I pray that it would be everybody's hope in this room.