I am fascinated with the songs recorded in the Bible. I’m not just talking about the Psalms as much as I love them, but I’m talking about the other songs. It doesn’t matter if it's the song of Moses that was sung after God delivered the Israelites from the approaching Egyptian army. Mary’s song that was sung before the birth of the Messiah or the multitude of songs recorded in Revelation. I find myself constantly drawn to them. The reason being is that they show me great examples of what true worship is supposed to be. Worship through song is an important part of the life of a follower of Jesus. It’s not just about singing or playing a song, for true worship is an honest response to God’s present work in your life. That’s why when you read these songs in the Scriptures and understand the context that they were sung in, you see passion, you see honesty, and you see God represented in ways that resonate with the writer because of their present circumstances, you can see that these songs are personal. This is one of the reasons these songs are so powerful. It's God meeting His people right where they are in life. It’s His people responding and God is magnified. These songs have also been powerful in my personal walk as well. God has used them to challenge how I worship Him everyday. This morning I want to look at a Biblical song that is synonymous with Mother’s Day. My prayer is that we can come away with not only a better understanding of what our worship to God should look like, but even leave here with a new song of our own to sing to God based upon the circumstances we are experiencing in our life right now. Therefore if you have your Bibles, turn with me to the second chapter of 1st Samuel.
The Basis for Our Worship - 1 Samuel 2:1
Then Hannah prayed: “My heart rejoices in the Lord! The Lord has made me strong. Now I have an answer for my enemies; I rejoice because you rescued me.”
With the first words of 1 Samuel 2, we are given a wonderful insight into what worship is. It doesn’t tell us that she sang it, or it doesn’t tell us that she recited it, but all we are told is Hannah prayed. All throughout Scripture we see prayer and songs of worship as synonymous. Hannah wasn’t just singing or performing for those who were around that day, because just like with prayer, our worship should be just between God and ourselves. True worship is unconcerned with our ability to sing or perform, and it’s unconcerned with if your neighbor is listening or not. It's concerned with one thing — God and God alone. Therefore we see right from the beginning that worship is personal in a relational way, but as we continue to read we see it’s also in an experiential way. To understand how true worship comes from experience we need to understand what has happened up to this point where Hannah lifts her song to the Lord. In Chapter 1 of 1st Samuel, we are told that for many years Hannah had no children and that caused her to be the object of much ridicule in her life. This ridicule caused her much anguish to the point she would find herself not being able to because of how much she would weep. We are told there was a time when she was at the Tabernacle and she was weeping and pouring out her heart to God. She prayed for a son and promised that if God gave her a son then she would bring him back to that tabernacle. She would give him over and dedicate him to a lifetime of service to God. God answered this prayer years later and she gave birth to a baby boy she named Samuel, which means, “God has heard”. Once Samuel was weaned she did just as she promised and brought him to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord and to leave him there to serve. This was when she began to worship. She begins her song with the phrase “My heart”. Her heart was the place that her worship originated. It was from the depth of her soul. All the pain, all the sorrow, and now all the joy was overflowing into her words. Worship must be personal for it to be worship. If it’s not, it’s just singing or a performance. True worship is meant deeply by the worshiper. For example there is a song called “Cry out to Jesus” by the Christian group Third Day. In the song it specifically speaks of losing a loved one, depression, divorce, addiction, being an orphan, and being a widow. When you listen to the song without having experienced any of these things, you might think “Wow! What a depressing song.” However when you are in the midst of any of these things or you have experienced them at some point, the song can become more than a song — it can become worship. The song can be used to worship because you understand its words because you are living it, and you literally cry out to Jesus. Hannah’s song was from her experience. She had been blessed by God and now she has been rescued and had an answer for the enemy. Doesn’t the enemy love to whisper lies into our lives? He knows each of our struggles and he whispers lie and lie after lie. As it’s been said before, if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough everyone will start to believe it, and that is true in our lives as well. However it’s the truth that only comes from God that meets us in those places and shuts down the enemy. It's in those moments that the trust of God comes shining through that should cause us to worship.
The God of Our Worship - 1 Samuel 2:2-3
No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. “Stop acting so proud and haughty! Don’t speak with such arrogance! For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done; he will judge your actions.
Worship is powerful. It is not powerful because of our talents, or it is not powerful because of our abilities, but worship is powerful because of the object of our worship. When we worship God in truth in our lives, our worship changes from just a song to something much greater. It becomes an offering to a living God. When our worship changes, it changes us because we see Him in new ways and we see His work in our lives from new perspectives. This is what was happening in the life of Hannah. She had experienced God working in a mighty way in her life and that was the basis at the beginning of her song of worship. However as she continues, she worships God not only for what He had done, but for who He is. She starts this section by proclaiming the holiness of God. There is no one like Him and that there are no other Gods besides Him. This is very reminiscent of the Shama found in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one!”. There is no one like God in every attribute that He reveals about Himself. He stands alone in everything that He is and in everything that He does. However there are two attributes Hannah focuses on because of her experience of God in her life. The first thing she says is that He is the rock. The idea of the Lord being the rock is often repeated in Scripture. We even find it in two other songs — one being one of the songs of Moses and the other in David’s song. When someone speaks of God being the rock, they are speaking of His eternality, His strength, His stability, His reliability, and the fact that He is forever unchanging. As Hannah worships, she is thanking God for being her strong foundation. He is the one who does not move although everything else in life seems in turmoil. He is the one who is always there and the one who never fails. Isn’t it an awesome thought that the God that Hannah worshiped 3,000 years ago with this song, is the same God that we have been worshiping today. We can worship with the same words because He is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. There is no one harder to trust and more frustrating than a person who can’t make up their mind. However we have a God who does not change, and who is steadfast in the midst of life’s storms. He is the lighthouse we cling to when chaos is all around. He is our rock. The final thing that Hannah focuses on in this part of her song is the fact that God is perfect in His judgement because He knows everything. I’m a big fan of listening to old radio dramas and one of the best kinds to listen to are the old detective dramas. Most tend to have the same story. Someone is wrongly accused of a crime and all the evidence seems to be pointing to their guilt, but at the last moment the hero detective comes in with the piece of evidence that proves their innocence and they are set free. Just imagine a judge who didn’t need to have evidence presented in any case because He already knows all the truth about everything that has happened, even down to the very thoughts and motives of an individual. Then imagine this Judge was perfect in all of his judgments and not fallible like earthly judges can be. That is who God is. He is not just a character we imagine when we think of this perfect judge who brings perfect justice. He is the Lord God Almighty, and is perfect in all His ways. This perfect judgement was one of the things Hannah was magnifying with her song. I said at the beginning that my prayer is that you leave this place with a new song in your heart that praises God. So far we have spoken of worship coming from a place of truth in our lives. Have you thought about what that looks like in your life this morning? Have you thought about what attribute your song will magnify about God? Have you thought about what attribute you are going to draw attention to and lift us because you have experienced it first hand? Hannah's song is not over yet, for she wants to speak to the methods of God as well.
The Method of the Master - 1 Samuel 2:4-8
The bow of the mighty is now broken, and those who stumbled are now strong. Those who were well fed are now starving, and those who were starving are now full. The childless woman now has seven children, and the woman with many children wastes away. The Lord gives both death and life; he brings some down to the grave but raises others up. The Lord makes some poor and others rich; he brings some down and lifts others up. He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump. He sets them among princes, placing them in seats of honor. For all the earth is the Lord’s, and he has set the world in order.
There is no doubt that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. We are told as much in Isaiah 55:8-9, but do we worship God because of this fact? It’s part of His character that we might struggle to magnify and praise because we usually want things our way and in our timing. We can get upset with God when things are not done our way. However Hannah is worshiping God for just that — He didn’t work like she wanted Him to. Hannah was barren for many years. She was in tears over it many times because she would be picked on. She had probably poured out her heart many times to God even though we are told of only one specific time. Years passed from her prayer in the Tabernacle before God answered. She was now about to leave that same Tabernacle without her young child she was blessed with but she was still praising God because of how He perfectly worked in her life and in His perfect timing. This had to be a tough time for her to worship but that’s how worship works. Worship isn’t just for when we feel like it, or when things are going just as we planned, for worship is when we are broken. Worship is when the tears won’t stop flowing. Worship is in the midst of the trials, and is in the midst of the storm, every moment is a moment to worship. We worship because God is always at work around us and God is always worthy of our praise no matter our circumstance. When we worship something happens with our focus. We no longer focus as much on our problems but focus more on our problem solver. Let’s take a look at what Hannah specifically mentions here concerning God’s work in her life. She speaks first of God working through our weaknesses. This is exactly what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:19. God works in our weakness so that we do not struggle with pride and try to take all the credit ourselves when He is the one who is doing all the work. It’s God who shines through in our weaknesses and deserves all the glory. Hannah’s victory in this moment had nothing to do with her, but was from the miracle God worked in her. The miracle she held in her hands and named Samuel. Secondly, she speaks of God bringing life where there was none. Hannah saw this in her life in a physical sense and maybe you have experienced this in the same way as well. As a follower of Jesus, we call have seen this in a spiritual sense. We were all dead in our sins, but through the grace of Jesus Christ alone, we were brought from death into life. The last thing that Hannah praises God for is that He is in control and everything belongs to Him. His control was shown in His perfect timing in her life. His ownership was shown when she trusted Him by giving back her most precious gift He had blessed her with. Have you ever given God back His blessings? We see this in every service represented in the time we give our offerings to God, we are giving back to God a small monetary portion of what He has blessed us with. Have you given him back more than just your finances? How about your children? It is Mother’s Day after all and according to Scripture, children are a blessing from the Lord. I got a call this week that reminded me that God can take much better care of our children than we ever could. Yes, we do our best for our kids to be good stewards of that gift God has given us, but we have to trust Jesus with them as well. Hannah knew this and thought what was happening right now might not have made a lot of sense. She trusted God and knew God was going to do big things and guess what? He did just that.
His Future Glory - 1 Samuel 2:9-10
“He will protect his faithful ones, but the wicked will disappear in darkness. No one will succeed by strength alone. Those who fight against the Lord will be shattered. He thunders against them from heaven; the Lord judges throughout the earth. He gives power to his king; he increases the strength of his anointed one.”
Hannah shifts to the future as she closes out her song. She speaks of God protecting His faithful ones and this means those who walk in obedience with Him. Yes, there are times God protects us in our stupidity, but there comes a time when He will give us over to our sinfulness to suffer its consequences when we don’t learn. When we walk with Him faithfully we reap the rewards of His promises. This cannot be done in our own strength, because it will fail us. It’s only through the power of the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us once we trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior. There aren’t many times in our lives that God gives us a glimpse of exactly what He is doing. However, there are times that He does and in those times we need to worship and praise Him for what He is going to do. I believe that is what happened as Hannah closes out her song. I say that because of two words she uses — King and Anointed One. Israel didn’t have a king just yet. At the time of this song they were ruled by judges, but Hannah knew something God knew as well. Israel was going to demand a king soon and that man would serve at the pleasure of God. Not only that, but guess who would anoint both the first and second kings of Israel? It was Hannah’s son. It was through this sacrifice that Hannah was making to the Lord that God would use in a mighty way for His glory. The second thing Hannah was given a glimpse of is of the coming Messiah.This term "anointed one” is the first use in scripture of the term, “Messiah”. What a wonderful privilege was given to this mother who trusted God and her son would be the one who would anoint the king through whose line the King of Kings would be brought into this world.
So as we come to our time of invitation, I want to invite you to think about your song of praise this morning. What is going on in your life right now? What attribute of God have you seen on display? How is God working? What does the future hold according to His promises in Scripture? This Mom’s song of worship gives us a wonderful framework to sing, to pray, and to worship the only one who deserves it all.
