Courage to Continue

Courage to Continue

Amen. Good morning, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Good to see you all today. We’re excited about this new Siri’s looking for a leader. First Samuel, it’s It’s one of those unique times in the nation visuals history where they’re moving on between transitioning between the wild, Wild West judges season of their leadership structure to the first monarch. There’s a lot of fun wild stories in this in this book, so I’m looking forward to that before that. Welcome again in person. Welcome online. Thank you for joining us. It’s been very encouraging. And it feels like the wild wild west of the first book of Samuel. The time of judges like the Internet so wild and will be place. And it’s been some amazing how some amazing stories have come out of our livestream. There’s live people in our live stream and there and God’s. Using this church is small efforts of communicating the gospel in the Bible and some amazing ways, and it z always. It’s kind of ironic and weird and new and exciting, but I’ll meet some of the lobby at the first or second service, and in my mind, I mean them for the first time in their mind, they’ve been watching and following along for a great deal of time. And so it’s been a blessing. It’s been amazing how God is using technology like he always has to reach people. So thank you for joining us online. Thank you for coming in person. I’m excited about this subject this morning. Let me pray before we jump into it. Is that okay? God, I just bow your heads with me. Let’s pray. God, I thank you for the word of God. I pray that your word would instruct the people who’ve got, uh, combined. If the spirit of God you encourage us, you convict us, you challenge us. Lord, I ask that you would just use your word in a powerful way like you always dio I prayed people would hear from you. Take Bob. I don’t care if they hear from me. I prayed they would hear from you and your word this morning. Convict Encourage challenge. Correct. Lord, use your word the way you dio in the people’s lives. Jesus name. We pray this. Amen. Alright, so back story first Samuel, Um it is ah transition period for the people of God the nation of Israel. It starts off with, ah, unique birth story of Of Samuel, his back story of how he came about the story of his his mother’s faith. Hannah. We follow that narrative of Samuel to Elijah to solve to King David all those kings that you probably knew about and heard about in ST school you probably didn’t know about and hear about the story we’re going to cover today. Two weeks from now, there’s some unique fun. Stories will be coming, but it’s a different style of writing. It’s not gospel writing accounts. It’s not short epistle letter accounts from Leader to leader of churches, its’s narrative writing, its narrative historical preaching. So there’s a variety of stuff, and I will summarize, and we’ll improve our summary ization skills as pastors. But we’re going to summarize the chapter to you a supposed to reading two chapters to start our sermon, and then I’ll go back and I’ll cherry pick and highlight and pull forward lessons that have stood out in my preparation for this passage. So I am. I’m excited. So searching for a leader, um, it seems like the number one indicating factor of what we can or can’t do as a church is that ratio of leadership, how many leaders we have, a leaders capacity, their availability, the leadership pipeline we have or don’t have for certain ministry or certain work? It seems like the biggest pain point for what we can or can’t dio is the capacity we have of available leadership. And I’m excited about what God is doing when the leadership team of our church, how God’s and raising up a variety of young men and women who love the Lord and God is leading them individually as individuals. And God has also asked some of them to step out and leading each other. And it’s been fun, the leadership skills that have been developed and what God has been doing and what God will continue in the future. I’m excited. This this there seems to be a direct correlation to what we could do if what leaders we got. And so this whole book is about the strain of leadership passing the baton of leadership from God and the people of God to the people of God being led by a person. Um, this just foreshadows that all leadership we have is faulty and doesn’t measure up to the perfect leader of Jesus Christ who is coming later. But but think about leadership. Being a leader requires courage. Think to yourself. When was the last time you had to do something that required courage? Remember, courage? The lion was revised. I just lost a bunch of you. Courage. Remember that I showed up here early early this morning. It was really dark. Really cold. There was no lights on except for in the guy bathroom. And I thought, that’s a time sensitive lightbulb. I think someone went in and went out or no one is in the building like that means someone I’m not alone. And I should be along for several hours of just sermon prepping and praying. And like, this is I needed what? Have to swipe, swap the whole building, Look around the whole building and see if we have a squatter. You know, have to see what who is here. And so I scattered around the whole building by myself, like I’m fine. What are they gonna dio? I’m all hang in. There will be more scared to me than I am of them. Probably because I’m a bigger guy. But when was the last time you had to have courage? I had a muster courage now have encouraged for a short season like the four minutes it took me to walk around this building and see if I was alone or not. That is a different kind of courage, as opposed to have encouraged for weeks, months and years to demonstrate a significant amount of courage for a long duration of time. That is a difficult thing to dio. Courage is defined as strength in the face of pain or grief, strength, strength in the face of pain or grief have encouraged for long periods of time. That’s what we’re looking at today. There’s this quote that was subscribed and Winston Churchill. I could not confirm this at this time, but here’s this quote I think is really, really ideal for today. It talks about this. It says success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts the courage to continue that counts to be a Christian, living in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the year 2020 beginning 2021. It is the courage to continue that counts for your Walk of God. That’s the title for our sermon today. I think it’s really a good highlight of Hannah’s faith. She demonstrates that this whole entire chapter of one in Chapter two of today’s The Book of Samuel Today the courage to continue. I lack of faith in your life because you lack of fight in your life. You just don’t have courage for challenges in your life. You’re called the lead yourself and lead others. But the courage you continues what were measured by and then that that there is a reality that pain and disappointment is coming for every single one of us. If you subscribe to Christianity and Jesus or you don’t pain and disappointment is coming, your comfort is gonna be attacked. Discouragement, heartache. That is a reality that is coming for all of us. And if you’re young and you’re in the room, this is a very good chapter to look at, so you have a biblical view of discouragement and pain. If you’re old and you’re in the room, you’re older than me. I’m old. So if you’re older than me, I’m calling myself old. It’s it’s a nice I’ve embraced that pain and discouragement is a part of your life. You’ve lived through a thing or two, you know a thing or two, but that we all finish well. If you’re young or old, it’s very timely for us to look at this chapter together about Hannah’s faith as we look at this, this life of Hannah, the courage to continue, how to handle painful, discouraging situations. Pain is not optional. Discouragement is not optional. It’s part of this human existence in life. The fact is, what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the mature from the immature, the godly from the ungodly, the people who make it in this Christian life and those who don’t make it is how they handle pain and discouragement for long periods of time, pain and discouragement. If you were born under a rock this last year, you might have missed all the pain and discouragement that’s happened in this life. But there’s been a lot of heartache that’s occurred in our culture and our city and in your life’s your personal life, your public life and your friends and family. Life is last year that was defined by discouragement and painful situations. That’s a reality. And how we move forward in light of pain and discouragement will mark your walk with God. So the big idea. Big idea. I’m trying to paint for you this morning to make you get on board the passage with me and go through this passage. Pain and disappointment are critical to the Christian life. Pain and disappointment are critical to the Christian life. How you handle that will define your walk with God. So to summarize this passage, Hannah seems to be a happily married young Jewish lady, and she’s growing up. And then time is going along and something is not happening. She is not having a child. Aziz. Chapters Go on. I’m just gonna summarize the chapters for you. Time goes on, and there’s a problem. She’s not having a child. So then her husband, if he’s ah, does not. There’s, you know, why is evil in foolish people? He might be a full might be evil. It’s not necessarily perfectly clear, but he doesn’t do what other men in the Bible have done. When their wives were barren, not able to have Children, he didn’t pray to God like Isaac prayed to God for Rebecca, but instead his solution to the problem was, Well, I don’t know what can fix the problem. It was a very godless, man centered solution, he said. I know how to fix the problem. My wife isn’t having a baby, he says. It’s not my problem. It must be her problem. So he has a second wife. And if you were friends with Hannah on Twitter and she sent you, Ah, Jif of defining what her life is like has a wife with another wife in a relationship of ah, uh, polygamy relationship, she would maybe send you this Jif. This is what life is like in a polygamy relationship. It is not good, so a bad situation goes worse. There’s two women now, and the second wife starts having babies. A lot of babies 10 years go by in this chapter of scholars, point out, there’s 10 years periods of this chapter from start to the finish of this chapter. A chunk of time goes by, not just a weekend. I’m talking like 10 years, and she sees this other woman starts having babies and there’s no like fertility doctors of the time that can say, Oh, it’s him or it’s her. That’s who’s having a problem getting having a child. It’s obviously her problem because this other wife, the co wife, has multiple babies. And think about that every single birthday. The baby’s walking, the baby’s talking the babies, you know, doing things, life, milestone events that happens. All kids lives. It’s like a dig into the heart of a woman who can’t have any Children. And on top of that, the co wife, the second wife, she is rubbing it in Hannah’s face. She’s brutal. She’s relentless, bludgeoning Hannah about the fact that she can’t have a baby. That is handy situation. You’re like, What’s the big deal about babies Like our culture? Having a kid is a blessing. But having a kid in the biblical days is a tremendous blessing. And that culture. 3000 years ago, when this passengers this event occurred, having a baby meant financial security. They care for you in your old age. If there’s a bump in the night in a Jewish home back in the day of Hannah’s Day, the dads you know, stomping and you know, 10 young teenage boys and daughters hop up and they all grab a modern day weapon and they go and protect the clan. It was like a clam until you can marry your sons and daughters off and build alliances of other strong, powerful families. They would work your agricultural fields in your livestock. They were free labor just before, like child labor laws. And you know all that stuff. They were free labor. I’ve had my kids shovel the snow the last week, and I was like, I may never shovel snow again the rest of my life. That was wonderful. They were out there for hours. It was great, and I’m in a little soft suburban setting. If you’re in agriculture setting of livestock and crops and fields, having free labor, we have to hire indentured servants. That’s a game changer. You could. There’s just a financial blessing. Security. It was even views patriotic in the day. That’s a good Jewish mom having a bunch of Jewish babies. For the Jewish nation, it was. It was a different world in our world, so let’s not have our 2020 glasses on it. Let’s have our you know what I’m saying. Let’s have our ancient history learning about men and women of faith glasses. But she goes to this entire process of living in a depressing, sorrowful, bleak, pain filled life. Of not having any kids in a decade has gone by. Her husband says tremendously silly, foolish things that a man shouldn’t say to his wife. You get what I’m saying, things you don’t say to your wife. Does this make me look? Does this dress make me look fat men, You’re walking onto thin ice, You gotta There’s things you don’t say, He says his wife will see in the passage. He says her Aren’t I better than 10 sons? And he hands her a double portion of meat. You’re like. Okay, well, that seems weird. You know, your solution had nothingto God and me. You just found another wife had made her life even worse. And then he ends their second portion of me like Mike. What’s that about? Well, in the Jewish religious culture, there was all these sacrifices that they had, and the vast majority of those sacrifices were fellowship burn, offering sacrifices built around a meal. He would bring together ah, piece of livestock and they sacrifice it. They would drain the blood burn. The part of the sacrifice would be given to God. Part will be given to the the priest and the large percentage of that that sacrifice to be given back to the family that came in for that worshipful experience and their whole family and friends. They have a big party together, and he would just. His solution was honored by than 10 sons, and he’d hand her a second piece of steak, a portion of whatever the meat waas and all the time she’s getting dig by these these this enemy. She’s having meals of her enemy. Her rival is rubbing her face and the fact that she can’t have Children. And then she stopped eating and hand. It becomes deeply depressed. We’ll see it in the chapter two, and then she takes the stand. She steps out on faith. She prays to God that if you give me a child, I’ll give them back to you. And then end of Chapter two. She writes an amazing worshipful song about praising and worshiping God in her pain. That’s the section we’re looking at today. Hannah Sorrow is the very first part. We got to realize her pain and her sorrow already summarize this with our summary of the passage. But Hannah is in a no win situation, a no win situation. Hannah has incredible sorrow. Hannah is Hannah is hurting, not just hurting for a week, not just hurting for a weekend because a guy dumped her or hurt because she didn’t get a job. Hannah is in a no win situation in that day and age. According to Jewish Talmud at the time, if you’re a woman who couldn’t have babies and you become divorced and leave your husband, URAS Good is dead. She had no legal rights at this time. No offspring, no heirs to protect her. She was in a bleak, hopeless situation. A quick tangent on polygamy. God does not designed that God designed marriage between a man and a woman for life. You see that? Genesis one, Genesis two. You see that throughout the Bible, but the Bible has big chunks of it that are historical writings of what happens and you see all kinds of things in the Bible. You see polygamy, you see incest. You see rape, you see murder. You see, you see genocide. You see crazy things in the Bible history. Biblical history is the history of what man has done with the time God has given him, and you see good things and bad things. You see descriptive things in the Bible, and you also see prescriptive parts of the Bible. This is a descriptive part of the Bible that talks about polygamy, but it’s not prescribing polygamy, obviously, just like a few chapters later in two. Samuel, Samuel and the King Saul. Saul’s having this this this trip crazy moment in his life. He’s not over here from God. And so he goes toe. Which Which doctor? Which is? Consult a witch Thio here for the Lord and asked Salmon, who was dead later in the Bible. And God allows that toe workout. So Samuel, the dead profit can speak to Saul. I mean, that’s in the Bible. A few chapters later, I mean, there’s descriptive parts of the Bible that are not prescriptive. So if you have a friend that’s a theological armchair quarterback or proof tech stuff without really knowing what’s going on, be nice to your friends. But there’s descriptive parts, and there’s prescriptive parts. This is a descriptive part that’s not an endorsement of a lifestyle. Polygamy is in the Bible, but it’s not endorsed by the Bible, but men and women. Hannah is in a sorrowful part of her life. She is hurting her infertility, the cultural stigma. Her home life is, uh, is verbal assault. This is This is psychologically tormenting experience she is living in, and there is no hope for the future. No exit ramp, no future hope. She’s just gonna slowly grow old and die. That’s the That’s the destiny. Hannah’s on a bleak, hopeless, sorrow filled life, and this continues for 10 years, scholars say about a decade of heartache, pain and disappointment. Her life is filled with sadness, and sorrow is a reality for Hannah, Hannah is living a life of sorrow. That is the reality hand is responding, Thio the second. The second main thing that we need to grasp as a as a church family, as we look at this passage that will instruct our souls is in verse nine. Let me read 6 to 9 just to kind of catch you up with some stuff already, said Verse five. He gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving Verse six, her rival would taunt her severely just to provoke her. Because the Lord had kept Hannah from conceiving year after year. When they went up to the Lord’s house, her rival taunted her. In this way, Hannah would weep and would not eat. Panel. Why are you crying? Her husband, Ilya Khan, would ask, Why won’t you eat? Why are you why you troubled and my not better to you than 10 sons. On one occasion, Hannah got up after they ate and drank at Shiloh, the priest, Eli, was sitting on a chair by the door post of the 10th of the Lord’s Temple. Deeply hurt, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. Making a vow, she pleaded. Lord of Armies, Lord of Armies, If you will take notice of your servants affliction, remember and not for forget me and give your servants son. I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut. Hannah took a stand. If you read this in actual Hebrew language, it talks about the word used. This is a play on words like we have planned words In our culture, we say fit is a fissile or whatever. If it is a fiddle, is that it? We say that we say, you know, kick the tires and light the fires. No, you don’t say that, but you should say that when you scrape the car and start the car, you should kick a tire, and you should. You should bring that one back the top. But you know, 2020 vision, right? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps under the weather. You know, there’s all sorts of sayings we have. There’s a saying here in the Jewish language of Jewish audience would grasp it, says Hannah took a stand. Hannah put her foot down, she said. Enough is enough. Her husband wasn’t leading out. Who’s being passive had very man centered, man filled response to a problem of Baroness. He was not leading on faith. He was not, he seemed toe. It was just he wasn’t doing what he should have done. He wasn’t stepping on faith, so Hannah put her spiritually foot down and she took a stand. Hannah took a stand, her attitude and her actions changed after she took that stand, weeping and not eating. That’s classic Depression and my better than 10 sons. There’s no answer there. That’s just pandering to pain. That’s not that’s not genuinely fixing the problem. Hannah solution was to take a stand on her faith she had with God, and Hannah took a stand. Hannah then prayed a prayer to God that if he would give her a son, she would give him back to God. And Hannah took a stand in faith. She took a stand in the eyes of discouragement and as of 10 years of sorrow, 10 years of heartache, 10 years of pain and disappointment, Hannah took a stand, and she postured herself in a position of facing towards God and worshiping God. Her husband was passed it to her pain and her situation was hopeless, and she took a stand on her her relationship with her savior. And it goes to our third point Hannah Savior Hannah got up, had brought Hannah Kun is the Hebrew saying word. Hannah took a stand, and she got her eyes off herself onto her savior, the Onley, one who could fix her problem. If you look at those verses five and six. The only one who was responsible for her baroness was the Lord kept Hannah from having babies. God sovereign. Lee had a plan for her pain, and Sana realized that God was the one who could get her out of this mess. It wasn’t her husband wasn’t the priest. Wasn’t her family, wasn’t her culture wasn’t her circumstances Onley. God can change her attitude interactions, and she changed her life by focusing on her savior. Hannah determined that enough is enough him and determined that things would change and Hannah took a stand and she began off more public Walk, a public stand of faith that we see throughout the rest of this passage. It seems like this was a lynchpin moment, a turning moment in her life. Hannah’s life before she took a stand was to find my victim Miss and pain and heartache. Hannah Hannah’s life after she took a stand is in the Bible. If she did not make this stand and take this stand of faith in the face of pain and the stand up in the face of discouragement, we will might not read about Hannah in our Bibles. Her life is defined by taking a stand and verse nine and 10, and Her Prayer to the Lord defined her life in the face of pain and discouragement and her walk with God. It was critical that in that dark moment of the soul, she leaned on her savior. She took a stand on her saviors back. Disappointment is incredibly, This is coming and disappointment is coming. Urgent or slow disappointment, Pain and heartache is coming for you. Christian sorrow is a reality. Taking a stand on your savior is what we’re called to. Dio Hannah took her hurt to the Lord verse 15 and 16. Talk about the word Mara bitterness. Her heart was defined in her life was defined by heartbreaking bitterness. And I know this reality. We don’t like talking about bitterness, heartache, bad times in American church. We’re all about like popularity party. That’s our things. We rally around that were popularity party Christianity, you know, and that’s what we’ve experienced. If you’re younger than me, that’s what you’ve experienced most of your life. We’re all about the party, not about the pain. Most of the Bible was written by people in pain to people in pain by hurting disappointed, discouraged people to hurting. Disappointed, discouraged people. It was not written this prosperity paying free party life. It was written in dark, painful nights of the soul two people that are in dark, painful nights of the soul. An American Christianity. If you experience pain in your life, something must be wrong. There’s large chunks of your Bible that are laments sorrowful, pain filled sections of your Bible, that air written for you. And if you don’t subscribe to that pain filled Christianity, you subscribe to Ah, painless Christianity. Your view of Christianity is like basically cause and effect. You know, if my life is going well, my God must be going well. My life is going poorly Something wrong with me or something wrong with God or something wrong If everyone else we really don’t like to sit in the lament, the pain, the suffering, large sweeping portions of your Bible are written for you toe understand your pain in the biblical way. I pastor is studying this. Last week he used this this diagram here this word diagram bitterness leads to blame leads to blindness leads to broken relationships. For the average person that does pain and discouragement without God. Hannah was in a very bitter situation, and her bitterness leads to blame. You become either thumbs or fingers. You blame yourself and have, Ah, confidence complex and you just everything’s on you. What was me? What was me? Your confidence tanks or you become a finger person. I’m not a thumb person. I’m like a lot of you. I’m a finger person if something’s wrong. The problem. The pain comes this way and it bounces off my chest and I direct that problem off to someone else. And I point my fingers and I blame other people. Heartache, discouragement. Pain goes from bitterness, Pain grows into blame. And I’m blaming people. I’m blaming the culture. I’m blaming my spouse. I’m blaming my kids. I’m blaming my circumstances. I blame anyone else but me, because if I sit in that pain, it exposes inadequacies and fears and shortcomings that I have that you have. We all have things that aren’t We aren’t what we should be were growing or trying to grow, or we should be growing in certain areas. And that is unsettling and discomfort double for your soul in our bitterness leads most people to the blame game. We go down this victimhood life, and I don’t see victimhood in my Bible. There’s a lot of the people in the Bible that should have had a victim mentality. I don’t see that in the Bible. I don’t see as a son of God or a daughter of God gets to be a victim. That doesn’t I don’t see that, and you should see that I don’t see that narrative in Scripture. Not even these rewritten, culturally convenient translations that air getting rewritten so your Bible doesn’t offend your culture. They haven’t done that yet. I’m sure they will in the future. But right now it’s not a thing. The victim is not a card that you see played in the Bible. And then, if you send that blame world of blaming yourself or blaming others, you grow into spiritually blindness of shortcomings and weaknesses in your life. If you’re in a blindness in your life, it results in broken relationships with you and God and you and other people. This progression of pain and discouragement is what we see in this passage of Hannah’s life and what we can see in friends and family’s life that we’ve been around this last year of their life. Bitterness of long term consequences leads to disappointment. Long term disappointment exposes insecurities, inadequacies. Bitterness does not leave you where you’re at. If you have unresolved conflict, mental replays of hurt of situations or events that are painful, you become bitter and you blame people. We rarely blame God. We rarely take our heartache and our pain to God and where the people of God and where thumbs and finger people, we point ourselves unhelpfully. Take all that pain and blame on ourselves, or we blame other people. We rarely do what Hannah did in nine and 10, verse nine and 10. She takes her pain and her blame, and she lays it at the feet of her sovereign savior. We rarely see that Christians, and that’s what defines Hannah. That’s her linchpin moment, where her life before that moment in her life after that moment, because no one can fix your pain in your life and make sense of the pain in your life. But God, no one can do this. But God blame bitterness, blame, blindness and broken relationships. Hebrews 12, 5 and six as this and the New Testament. It says this, my son. Do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are approved by him. For the Lord disciplines, the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. Hannah lived a life of sorrow. Hannah took a stand and Hannah leaned on her savior, and that defined her Walk of God. Hannah seeks God’s kingdom and not her. Her husband’s kingdom. Hannah seeks toe glorify God at a personal, great expense. She commits this child to the Lord and Verse 11 and Verse 28. It talks about giving her child away as a young, weaned child, not as an 18 year old or a teenager, and they become honoree as a toddler. After it’s weaned, she commits and vows to give this child for the Lord. No, I don’t I don’t. I like my kids. Your kids are great, too, but I really like my kids. I mean, I was having lunch off my kids this after this afternoon this earlier this week, and one of my kids was after Christmas. He’s like, you know, guys, we should open a store and we should call it what do you say we should call it? I made it, but I made it store. So when people give gifts to people, they say, Where’d you get this? Sad. And they could say I made it like That’s clever. Or like another person that lives in my house. That’s a young lady. Um, not my wife, Uh, at 2 a.m. She came walking into my room half awake, saying, Dad, I lost my fuzzy blanket and my baby doll. And so at 2 a.m. I’m looking for a stupid doll in the in the basement that she left. I mean, that’s just my life. It’s just These kids were fun, you know, we go sledding. It’s just it’s just fun. These kids were fun. I would never give a kid away. I would never give a kid a way to do a church. I would never give a kid a way to the Temple of God to be a servant. God, that is just That is a wild, bold thing in our day. That’s a that’s a drastic, bold things she did in her day. Hannah makes a valid the Lord and worship Lee gives away her best and one, and on Lee Sun to the advancement of God’s work. Functionally, she’s giving away everything every benefit that a proud Jewish mom could have. Yes, Hannah and her sorrow. She takes a stand and on her savior and worship flee gives away her her son. You don’t see a woman here wallowing in victimhood or blaming you See a woman here standing in faith and took a stand, put her spiritually foot down and went all in. And her attitude and her actions change and she worship, flee generously gave her very best to God. She took a stand on her savior. She took a stand on her Lord. And, as you see in Chapter two, her blame, bitterness, Brokenness, blindness, all that path she could have gone down, goes in for pain, turns into praise. You see, they’re all of Chapter two. Nothing in her circumstances immediately changed when she prayed that prayer on the following time she went home. Eventually she became conceived again, conceived to have a child. Her circumstances and her didn’t change. But her attitude did change her actions, and her attitude did change. Her mind was changed by worshiping a loving god her praise her worshipful song that is birthed out of a life of pain we see throughout Chapter two and think about five and six. It was the Lord who kept Hannah from conceiving. She had to make peace with God, should make peace with God, that he was the one that was instructing all this painful situation in life. There’s lessons we will Onley learn through pain. There’s lessons in your life you learn best not the school teacher of comfort by the school teacher of the painful instructor. Pain and disappointment are what define your walk with God and pain is a better teacher than American Christian comfort. Look to the founder of Christianity. Jesus, Jesus lived a life of sorrows, with many burdens and pain absorbing the afflictions of the people around him. Dying dramatically painful, snored, searing, public, embarrassing death with his mom watching and his biggest enemy is watching, strung out in front of everyone for the whole world to see. That’s the founder of American. That’s the founder of Christianity. And then the early disciples. 10 of the 11 apostles that started the church died a martyr. I don’t know how we think my Christianity is gonna have no pain. I’m Here’s my pot of my Christianity I’m gonna add some little love joy, peace, Patience, kindness, sorrow Get that out of here. Lament no heartache. I don’t want that in my My Christian. This is my Christianity. Live, laugh, love. You know that’s my Christianity. And that’s not a biblical rural view of Christianity. Pain and the heartache and sorrow should prompt your soul from prey to praise and worship your savior and Onley. God can wipe away all tears Onley God could make a painful, hopeless situation good and bring life into the places where there is no life. About what talks about streams of water and luxuries. Gardens in the desert where there’s no life, no hope, no nothing on Lee, God can turn that ship around. There’s situations we’re in is a church. And as individuals, or if God does not dramatically interrupt our lives through us individually worshiping God and praising God, it will be a lot different outlook if we as individuals and his leadership team use the church, do not rally around praising, worshiping and loving God. We will lose everything we’re supposed to love The Lord your all your heart, soul, mind and strength is what Jesus said and love your neighbor as yourself. There’s not a lot of thumbs and fingers in that statement. There’s not a lot of blame and bitterness and heartache and broken relationships. That’s an eyes off yourself posture we should have off praising and worshiping God and loving and serving others we call the worship gods and the highs and the lows. We’re called the worship God. In a year of plenty or a year of plague, we have you been found worshiping God Close your eyes for a second. Let’s do a little introspection here. Close your eyes. It’s okay. I was gonna I was gonna get you close your eyes this last year. Would you say your life has been defined by blamed by paying my discouragement by bitterness by broken relationships? Has your life been defined by that this last year? Or is your life to find by Hannah of praising and taking a stand on her savior and worshiping God? All right, open your eyes. Look at me. 2021 is coming. It’s not too late. You can still learn a new system of growing in your walk of God and be growing the spirit of maturity, of learning toe having pain prompt you to praise having this life of discouragement prompt you to focus on your God. We’re going to be found some day. But I got and we need to be found worshiping God as people. You don’t wanna be worshiping yourself. You don’t be worshiping the past. Don’t be worshiping bitterness. Blame blindness and Brokenness. We need to be men and women who have found worshiping our savior just like Hannah. We need to put our foot down and take a stand. God, like Hannah also gave Ah one and only son. He gave his one and only son to not only live for you but to die for you to die in your place, to die, to take your place, to take all the bitterness you have in your life to take the blame, the blindness, the Brokenness, the hopeless situation. You are in the completely dead in your sins situation you’re in like in Ephesians. Three or five. I forget it. Talks about were completely dead. Double dead, buried, rotted in the grave, dead spiritually But God interrupted this whole universe and came down in sentence on Jesus Christ that we might have a relationship with God. He came to pull us out of the life of the dead life we had. If we don’t persevere in our walk with God, what do we have? We’re going to be measured by how we finish Christian. Not how you begin, how you finish defines you and you. If you’re my age or if you’re live right now, you get the opportunity. In America. This is America only. And all around the globe they have experienced discouragement of pain before. But America, Christian, you can opportunity worship God in a time of trouble. A time of lament. A time of persecution. A time of difficulty. My parents generation haven’t didn’t live through a time like we lived through this last year. Have you been found worshiping? Have you been found worshiping? Going forward in 2021. You still have a heartbeat. Have you been found worshiping? I know there’s a brother in our church. You all love him. Um we were in that whole. Each one called one each day mantra we had at the very beginning of Koven. Remember that remember that? No. Do you guys remember that? Yes. Yes. Come on, guys. Remember that? But this one brother, he got in his head. I think he’s been calling me a couple times a week, and I think he still feels encouraged. He feels still feels connected. Still keeping himself out there. He has a daughter who is not allowed to come to stuff at this time because of her health. Existing condition she has. That’s a reality. He’s leading his family through. But he steps out of faith and he calls me. It’s a blessing. He put himself out there and talks. We communicate. Let’s close and look at this verse. Let’s pray. And then Lincoln’s gonna close this out here. So success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Let’s be a people that continues encourage with Christ. Amen. Amen. Alright. God, Thank you for today. Thank you for first Samuel and second Samuel. Thanks for the example of Hannah’s faith I paid that would instruct and convict and challenge us. Lord God, I just We just love you. We need you to lead us. Got into the future. I Thank you for the gospel Gives us a reason to rejoice toe hope to have ah have a purpose to live for. Lord, you’ve given a son ship you’ve given us so much In your gospel Lord, I pray we would be reminded off Found worshiping you God, I pray we’ll be leaning on you When times get hard We take our pain and turn into praise God, we commit today to you in Jesus name, Amen.