CALL TO CONFESSION

Psalm 146:3-5

3 Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;

on that very day his plans perish.

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Father, You are our fortress, our refuge, and our shield. Though you wrap us in the protection of your awesome power and strength, we confess that we frequently turn away from you and put our trust in ourselves and others. We are easily enthralled by human glory and fail to see your glory, wisdom, kindness, and care. We are easily impressed by the strengths of others, putting too much faith in them or envying them. Father, forgive us for putting our trust in men, and failing to trust you, our King of Glory. 

Lord Jesus, we acknowledge that every one of our sinful acts of self-worship and worship of man, were fully paid for by your atoning blood. Your life of obedience, demonstrated by your unwavering trust in your Father, replaces our own deeply flawed obedience. Thank you for accomplishing our salvation, and for giving it to us as a free gift. 

Spirit of grace, free is from the worship of man and the fear of man that flows from it. Open our eyes to see the glory and majesty of our great King so that we will run into his loving arms with all of our fears, cares, and our anxious and unbelieving hearts. There may we take refuge in the life and death of our Savior and rest in the power of our victorious King. Teach us to trust and hope in him alone, until the day we stand before him, captivated by his glory, and worshipping before his throne. Amen.

“Take a few moments to personally confess your sins to the Lord.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

Colossians 1:13-14

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

• “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
• That maxim is grounded in the reality that leadership is important.
• When a company has no vision, there is instability. When a home has no direction, there is tension. When a nation has no moral compass, there is chaos. 
• We are living in a day where trust in institutions, the government, the media, and even the church, is at an all-time low. 
• We look around and we feel the weight of a leadership vacuum. 
• There is a crisis of leadership. We are looking for a leader.  

• As we open up 1 Samuel, we find a people who are living in a three hundred year-long leadership crisis. They are looking for a leader.  
• But we’ll see in the first few verses, that when God prepares to save a nation and raise up a king, he doesn’t start with the expected, but with the unexpected. 
• He starts in a quiet, dysfunctional home, with a broken-hearted woman and an obscure man. 
• He starts where no one is looking. 

1 Samuel 1:1-3 There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. 2 He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord.

• The book is named after one of the main characters, Samuel. 1 and 2 Samuel were probably compiled by several authors using different sources probably sometime after Israel is divided.
• Originally, in the Hebrew tradition, the two books are just one and it was later split into two in the Greek translation due to its length. 
• It’s the story of three leaders: Samuel, Saul, and David, during a period in Israel’s history of a massive, national leadership crisis. 
• As we walk through our journey in 1 and 2 Samuel, we will learn principles and life lessons to apply from those OT stories.
• More importantly, we will see how the stories fit into redemptive history, how the events that took place are part of God’s unfolding plan to redeem his people through Jesus Christ. 
• We will glean moral applications, but the stories aren’t merely moral. 
• This is real recorded history that will make us yearn for the true and perfect, Prophet, Priest, and King—our Lord Jesus Christ.
• The opening verses of 1 Samuel act as a “hinge” in redemptive history and Samuel will be a transitional figure between the period of the judges and the kings. 
• This is an in-between moment. 

• The scene is around 1050BC. About 350 years from the time Joshua led God’s people into the land of Canaan.  
• After Joshua's death, the people still had a mandate to complete the conquest of Canaan.
• Judges chapter 1 chronicles the failure to complete the mission and drive out the inhabitants of the land. 
• Instead of driving them out, they determined that they could peacefully co-exist with the pagan nations. But they were wrong! 
• The Lord told them that because they had not obeyed his voice, the gods of the inhabitants of Canaan would be a snare to them. 
• Because they continually did evil in the sight of the Lord and abandoned the Lord, He allowed the other nations to plunder and defeat them.
• And then in their misery and affliction, they would call on the Lord and he would raise up judges to deliver them. 
• These judges were leaders whom the Lord would empower to secure the people’s deliverance from their enemies and restore peace in the land.  
• But the cycle would repeat, a cycle of compromised commitment, an endless loop of sin, suffering, sorrow, and salvation.
• It was an ever-worsening downward spiral of apostasy. 
• This would go on for over two hundred years. 
• The last judge mentioned, Samson, was morally and spiritually compromised. 
• The priesthood was corrupt. The enemy of Israel, the Philistines, were in essence living among the Israelites. 
• The book of Judges ends on this disturbing note: Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
• There was no spiritual leadership in Israel.  Anarchy and chaos ruled. 
• There was no one to provide the kind of leadership needed to bring stability and security to Israel. 
• They had rejected the Lord and his rule. 
• That feels in many ways like the state of our world and culture. 
• God’s rule is rejected. God is not acknowledged. His law is not obeyed. 
• It seems like the motto of our age: “everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.” 
• “Doing what is right in your own eyes” never leads to freedom, only bondage. 
• People think they are breaking free when they reject God’s leadership, but they're just trapped in the sin cycle. 
• Only Christ can deliver us from the sin cycle.
• Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. So if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” (John 8:34,36)

• The book of 1 and 2 Samuel are the solution to the problem, “There was no king in Israel…” 
• What was God going to do about this situation? 
• Well, notice it begins with names and places that are mostly unfamiliar to us. 
• “There was a certain man…of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah.” 
• Is this the man God is going to raise up to be king in Israel? 
• As you continue to read, you will immediately realize he’s not the king they’re looking for. 
• We’re given details about his hometown, his family lineage, and connections. 
• None of these names or places, up to this point, are of any relative importance or significance. 
• It leaves us wondering, why are we being introduced to this insignificant character. 
• Elkanah was an Ephrathite. Ephrathah is also the name for Bethlehem. 
• We know that Bethlehem is a pretty important town. 
• At least, it would become a very important town But not at this time, there was nothing famous about Ephrathah. 

• From the aspect of looking at Elkanah, his hometown, social standing, his lineage, Elkanah and his family were nobodies with no significant power within the nation of Israel. 
• But this should strike us as a familiar theme that has played out before in redemptive history. 
• It should give us a hint that the solution to Israel’s leadership crisis and spiritual darkness, is not going to found in the expected places. 

• Isn’t that just how God works. 
• He uses the obscure, the insignificant, the unexpected, the least likely, to accomplish great things that he alone gets the glory and the credit for. 
• He takes a nobody and makes a somebody. 
• He uses the ordinary to do the extraordinary. 

HIS DOMESTIC SITUATION

• Now, we’re given a glimpse into Elkanah’s home life. 
• Elkanah had two wives. 
• We see in the OT these instances of polygamy and you might be wondering if that was allowed, if it was somehow ok. 
• What you need to remember is that God’s design from the beginning was always one man and one woman for life. “The two shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2)
• While the Bible records instances of polygamy, it never endorses it. 
• In fact, it is a portrait of brokenness.
• The stories of the patriarchs, who had multiple wives, reveals this brokenness. 
• These were dysfunctional households.

• Why did Elkanah have two wives? 
• V2 tells us. His first wife was Hannah was barren.
• Peninnah, his second wife, was able to give him sons and daughters. 
• The reason Elkanah takes a second wife is because of Hannah’s inability to give him children. 
• Not only in that time was a woman’s significance and security measured by her ability to have children, but for Israel, having children had added meaning. 
• God’s people had received the promise that the Savior and Deliverer would come from the line of Abraham. 
• That means the people were looking for the Savior from within Israel. 
• Without children, there was no future for the people of God, there was no hope for the world. 
• The personal pain of barrenness, just as it is today, was very real. It carried a social stigma and was viewed as a sign of God’s displeasure. 
• But I want you to get a sense that in that time, for an Israelite woman to be barren meant she was excluded from God’s purposes for his people. 

• So right from the onset, with the spiritual darkness and national crisis of Israel, we’re being drawn into the sad reality of this family, specifically of one childless woman in Israel. 
• Hannah’s barrenness was a reflection of the spiritual barrenness of Israel. 
• Elkanah’s home was a microcosm of Israel: He was in God’s covenant, yet fractured by human sin and cultural compromise. 

• The irony in the story, is that Hannah’s name means “grace.” 
• And it doesn’t feel like she’s experiencing grace. 
• Deut. 7:14 God promised that there would be no barren among his people. 
• But the nation had sinned, they had failed to do what God had commanded. 
• This story of childless Hannah should catch our attention. 
• Scripture records a number of women in her situation who were unable to conceive children, and in each case, the woman experienced a special endowment of grace by which she could bear a child. 
• And that child born to them played an important role in God’s purpose. 
• Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel.
• Each of these women shared the sadness and the shame of childlessness, like Hannah, but in each case, a child was born to them who was God’s answer to the crisis of their time. 
• So, a story of a barren woman at the beginning of 1 Samuel, is an indication that God was about to do something big. 

• God does the impressive with the unimpressive. 
• God does the extraordinary with the ordinary. 
• If you feel like your life or your family is dysfunctional, that it's too messy for God to use, look at this story. 
• God’s answer to the leadership crisis of Israel didn’t come from the palace, but from a dysfunctional home. 
• Don’t ever underestimate what God can do through you even in the midst of your messiness and struggles. 

• V3 Elkanah used to go up every year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord hosts at Shiloh.
• We’re introduced to three other characters, Eli the High Priest, and his two sons, Hophni and Phineas who were priests of the Lord. 
• The priesthood had been failing, we’ll see an example of that later in 1 Samuel. Hophni and Phineas were some wicked men.
• The tabernacle must have felt like a relic of dying religion to the average Israelite. 
• But Elkanah, by all accounts, was faithful to the Lord. 
• He would go to Shiloh to sacrifice and worship the Lord of hosts. 
• Shiloh was where the Tabernacle of the Lord was at this time.
• Every year Elkanah, would gather up his family, and make the 15 mile trek to Shiloh.
• He was a man who took the spiritual leadership of his home seriously, his responsibility before the Lord seriously, and he gave thanks to God and honored the Lord in the way appropriate to his time. 
• In a time of chaos and corruption, here was a man, simply being faithful. 
• He was diligent in doing what the Lord required. 

• Most of us will never be the King David or Samuel, most of us are Elkanahs. 
• We are called to be faithful in the mundane, repetitive obedience while the world around us falls apart. 
• God uses the “year by year” faithfulness of ordinary people to set the stage for extraordinary things. 

LORD OF HOSTS 

• I want you to pay attention to the title given to the Lord, “The Lord of hosts.” 
• That is the first time in Scripture that designation is used for the Lord. 
• "Yahweh Sabaoth" in Hebrew. 
• It means Lord of the armies; Lord of the heavenly or angel armies. 
• That is a powerful term, denoting the sovereign power of God over all powers, he commands the strongest army. 
• We are on the cusp of the establishment of the monarchy in Israel so it becomes a reference for the Lord, not only as the commander of the heavenly armies, but also the armies of Israel. 
• And what is amazing, is that the Lord of the heavenly armies is going to stoop down to minister to one particular barren woman, from one insignificant Levite family. 
• And even when the nation of Israel is leaderless, even when the family is fractured, the Lord of Hosts is on his throne and still in command of the armies of heaven. 
• He is not limited by the spiritual apathy, the moral decay, or the political weakness of the Israelites. 
• God’s redemptive plan is marching forth despite human inability and weakness. 

• In a time of lack in Hannah’s life, in a time of spiritual lack in Israel, the Lord of hosts is the God who commands all of the resources of heaven. 
• Whatever lack your facing, whatever leadership crisis you might find yourself in, we must look to the one who commands the resources of heaven. 
• If he can command the angel armies he can handle your lack and your situation and he can abundantly provide for you and defend you. 

CONCLUSION

• As we look at the story of Elkanah, Hannah, and the shadow of the corrupt priests, we realize they are in reality looking for more than a better political figure or a more charismatic judge. 
• Israel needed a Prophet who would never lie. 
• They needed a Priest who would never exploit them.
• They needed a King who would never fail them.

• And the “Lord of Hosts” is already moving to provide that Leader. 
• But it wasn’t just Samuel, or even David.
• Centuries later, another nobody family from the same region, not a barren woman, but a virgin, would find herself in an impossible situation, much like Hannah. 
• And the Lord of hosts would once again, stoop down. 
• And he wouldn't just send another leader, He became the Leader. 
• Jesus is the True Prophet of the Lord, the very Word of God. 
• Jesus is the Great High Priest, who’d become the ultimate sacrifice. 
• Jesus is the King of kings, who rules in righteousness and perfect justice. 
• He is the Leader we are all looking for!

• If you’re disturbed by the chaos in the world and the great leadership crisis of our times, if you're waiting for a “leader” to fix the mess in your own life:
• Look to the Lord of hosts. 
• Don’t despise the small or messy parts of your life. That is exactly where God works. 
• Don’t do what is right in your own eyes, do what is right in His eyes, that leads to life and peace. 
• Don’t be surprised by the events in the world or tomorrow’s headlines. The Lord of hosts is on his throne and if you are in Christ, He is for you. 
• Expect him to do the extraordinary in the ordinary. 

APPLICATION AND REFLECTION

In light of today's message....

• What did I learn about the gospel?
• How can I apply what I learned about the gospel to my life?
• With whom can I share the gospel this week?