"An Incomparable God"

Dan Newburg

First Baptist Church of Devine

2022 Chronological Bible • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago • Presented 2 years ago • 56:52

1 Samuel 2:1–10

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This morning is Palm Sunday 2022 and I will confess to you that we are in a most untraditional text for the occasion. Palm Sunday is a day within the Christian calendar that marks the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem just days before he was to go to the cross, days before anyone would realize how John 1:29 “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” as John the Baptist declared, would accomplish the taking away of the world’s sins.

We know it as the day that Israel welcomed her true King and Messiah, as he rode in upon a donkey, only to see that same King and Messiah rejected. Thanks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gave the evangelists cause to write, we know what was truly occuring on that first Palm Sunday which gives our hearts cause to exult and praise Jesus. By God’s grace, there are points in time to which we can look back to and see his most direct movement in carrying out his will to bring about a permanent and lasting redemption to this world.

And there are days and moments that occur within our lives which we look back upon and with the benefit of hindsight, can see God’s hand.

One such day in my and my wife’s life was September 27, 2013. In a sense, it was to be a day of completion for Yvette and I. We had been married eight years and quite unlike the Hannah we have just read of in the Bible, September 27th was the day of birth for our second daughter, Lily. It was to be a day of completion because for Yvette and I, being the goal-oriented types that we are, we were about to check a box with one of the things we agreed upon when we were married - we knew we wanted two kids. Now, I won’t tell you everything we aspired to when we were first married, but in case you’re wondering, aside from having two kids, Yvette and I, without any debate, wholeheartedly agreed on this - that neither of our two children would ever become Lytle Pirates. Yvette and I are Mustangs born and Mustangs bred and when we’re gone, we’ll be Mustangs dead and we have another decade of fervent prayer that the Lord wouldn’t place such a trial upon us before we can check that box...

Tension

For those who have welcomed a new child into your family, you know all too well the massive disruption that brings to a home. But September 27, 2013 wasn’t one that was normal, nor were we able to see what God might be doing because of it.

Lily’s delivery was probably within the boundaries of what would be considered a typical delivery. I know so many questions come to mind regarding the delivery of children, but I want to put your minds at ease… From start to finish, it was about eight hours, all tolled and was relatively smooth sailing. Aside from standing for prolonged periods of time to be an encourager, I was really fine through it all and wasn’t particularly tired at the end. Easy for me to say, right?

We thought everything was OK until our pediatrician came in to check on Lily. I’ve only seen two of these examinations so I don’t know if this is par for the course, but the best way I can describe the way our pediatrician checked out our new borns is to compare him to an accordion player in a Tejano band at Fiesta. You know, a guy who’s going to push the squeezebox for every ounce of air it has in it. But with Lily’s examination, the pediatrician’s expression was different than when he looked over Bethany at her birth…and he asked questions about Lily that he didn’t with Bethany. And we soon learned that Lily was born with under-developed hips, she had hip dysplasia. With any medical diagnosis, you read about the worst-case and I will tell you, it sent Yvette and I into a tail spin that was long for us to shake free from.

Truth

This morning’s text comes as a form of response to what I would suggest was a significant tail spin for Hannah. Before we can understand the prayer of response, we have to appreciate what led Hanna to pray this.

Despair

Looking back to 1 Samuel 1, this book tells of the time of Israel that immediately follows the time recorded in Judges. Judges concludes with

Judges 21:25 ESV

25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

and the period of history rolls right into 1 Samuel 1 where we are introduced to a man named Elkanah who kept two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah had children and Hannah had no children. The scriptures say that Peninnah tormented Hannah because she gave their husband children, when Hannah had not. Elkanah was sensitive to Hannah’s turmoil, overtly showing his love and support for her. Despite the great support she enjoyed from her husband, Hannah was overwhelmed by her sense of being a defective woman. Her sister wife’s harassment only added to Hannah’s spiraling down. Hannah dealt with years of depression, indicated by her countenance, her tears wrought from pain, and loss of appetite.

Hannah was dealing with her stuff like most of us do. Society has determined what is typical and when you don’t fall within that range of acceptability, well, the Peninnah’s of the world will do everything that they can to build themselves up by tearing you down. This isn’t to overlook the fact that Hannah’s upbringing also trained her to feel ashamed and embarrassed, in other words, Hannah was just adding to her misery because that’s what she knew to do.

Have you ever felt the suffocating weight of being less than or a misfit? It’s difficult to admit it, I can tell you I know it’s difficult because our first inclination is to conceal it. With hip dysplasia in new borns, the treatment is to hold the ball joint of the femur into place at the pelvis until that pelvic bone grows around the ball joint and holds it tight. Until that happens, the leg and pelvis will just keep popping out of joint. To keep things together, there’s a harness your baby has to wear that goes over the shoulders, around the chest and has foot holders to kind of hold the kid in a permanently seated position, keeping the hip joint tight. There’s no real hiding the harness. It was a source despair for me and my wife. As a parent, your mind wonders, “Did I contribute to that?” In a public setting, you’re on constant edge, hoping against all hope that no one finds out what makes you different or what you’re dealing with. Maybe Hannah would give Peninnah a break from the kids by taking some of them to the market with her, with Hannah’s true motive to give public appearance that she was a perfectly whole woman.

Dependence

Hannah lived in this cycle of despair and depression for years, until one year, before the Lord’s temple at Shiloh, she poured herself out before the Lord. This was something she hadn’t done before, although we can read from 1 Samuel 1 that Hannah and her husband were pretty good at keeping to religious practices. They checked the right boxes. The equivalent here is that they gave their church money regularly and made sure that they didn’t miss Easter services. They were “good Jews” or like some of us might say today, “a good Christian family.” At church when they’re expected to be. Not stirring up trouble at the markets. Good folk in the eyes of everyone around them.

But one day, on one of those trips to the temple that they made faithfully year after year, Hannah does something she hasn’t done before. She does something maybe no one was used to seeing because if you read 1 Samuel 1, even the temple priest Eli is confused by what he’s seeing. From her despair, arriving at a place where she finally knew that she couldn’t fix her situation, she became vulnerable before God and all who laid eye upon her. The trials from her inability to conceive and the oppression at the hand of her sister wife were beyond her control and nothing about what she does, even making it to church when she was supposed to, was going to fix that.

She asked God in a most moving of prayers to give her a son and if he did, she would return that son to the Lord for temple service. And as you read on in the chapter, God did. And as you read to the end of the chapter, Hannah did in return as she had committed to in that prayer. So many might read this and come away with a perspective that prayer amounts to an interaction with a god who is a vending machine. You want a baby? Push the buttons, B-1. Want money? A-3. Health? D-4. You ever hear a preacher on TV talk about “sowing a seed”? He’s asking you to put money into that vending machine while selling you on the idea that you will get more in return that what you put in. The problem is that the god that the TV preacher is talking about isn’t the God of the Bible. He’s not the God who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. He’s not the God to whom Hannah prayed.

“What do you mean? She asked and she received!”, says the person who has been reading along. He’s not the God to whom Hannah prayed…how do I know? Look at how she prayed from what we read at the start. Verse 1, God alone is able to save. Verse 2, no one or nothing compares to the true and living God. Verse 3, God is all-knowing and the standard by which all men and women are measured. Verse 4, God is stronger than the mighty. Verse 5, he starves the full and feeds the hungry, he opens and closes wombs. Verse 6, he gives and takes away life. Verse 7, he gives and takes away wealth. Verse 8, he is in total control of everything. Verse 10, the Lord alone stands victorious.

Friends, Hannah’s prayer is a prayer of dependence and confession. She knows her place before the Almighty and where the Lord has been through her great trial of barrenness. The Lord did not and does not beckon to her call, but she, like the rest of us, revolve around God who, at the same time, is present in our trials and sufferings, using them to bring us to the place where we learn this truth: 1 Samuel 2:9 “...for not by might shall a man prevail.”

Most of you have known my family for years and not a one, except for having maybe heard me share bits of this story before, would know that there’s a thing wrong with Lily, except for the fact that she’s got a dad who is crazy enough to believe God called him to be a preacher. Her hips did what they had to and that trial is behind us. But you better believe that the Lord had a purpose in it. The unsuspecting Dan Newburg who approached September 27, 2013 was a Christian who had drifted from being someone who lived with God at the center of his life. I knew one thing and acted another. You could get to church on Easter and about another half-dozen or so times in the year. I didn’t look at any body. I wasn’t about to talk to any body. I didn’t need anything, wasn’t looking to give anything, wasn’t looking to take anything. I had a great job. Do you see a trend? A whole lot of I in there. Looking back, I’m pretty sure Dan Newburg was the center of Dan Newburg’s universe. That is, until I encountered something where I discovered that 1 Samuel 2:9 “...for not by might shall a man prevail” and there was a God who is beyond compare who was ready to hear my cry.

Application

I want to return to Hannah’s prayer and call our focus as a church to the application this has beyond the individual to the church as a whole. I will tell you that this prayer has meaning and application beyond the individual.

At the outset of the prayer, you see Hannah declaring her heart exults and horn exalts in the Lord. It might come across as odd for a mother who desperately longed for a child for years, who upon entrusting the child to someone else’s permanent care, so quickly moves into a sense of rejoicing. This isn’t just some emotion that she manages to stir up within her. In the Bible, the horn is the picture of strength - we will see the horn referred to often particularly in the Psalms. For a mom to go from so longing for a child to this, what must have happened?

I would suggest to you that she’s discovered in a most personal way who the Lord is. She is singing here a form of her discovery of who God is that is in line with songs that we sing like “my strength comes from the Lord” and “my hope is in the Lord.” The Lord is her rock.

She sings of victory over her enemies, but I tell you it has nothing to do with a sense of sticking it to Peninnah - although that would probably feel really nice. What she’s singing about is the salvation of God that has won a victory over the enemies of God and his people. She’s singing about the expectation for God to deliver and vindicate his people. We can trust that when we face trial, though it remains a mystery to us why the trials come, God is just and will eventually deliver his people when they cry out to him for vindication.

How does Hannah know the Lord is capable of this? How is the Lord to whom she prays and of whom she sings able to, against all the other gods of her day and our days? She says 1 Samuel 2:2 “2 “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.” He’s not a God on the order of those who the other peoples of the world fashion idols for. The Lord is neither a stick man nor a golden bull. She’s singing about and praying to a very incomparable God - there is no one like the Lord. Isaiah the prophet tells us about God and his ability in comparison to the powers of this world: Isaiah 40:21-23 “21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.”

Friends, here’s the thing… Here’s the thing for us on this Palm Sunday. That power to bring princes to nothing doesn’t wind up looking like the way we expect power to look. The Jews looked for a military general who would rid their lands of the Roman occupiers. With just a reference to how the state of Texas has went the last few election cycles, maybe some in this room have looked to Donald Trump and to Ted Cruz and to John Cornyn and to Greg Abbott and on and on down the list to exercise power to vindicate. How is that working out for you?

What we need to be reminded of is that the Lord’s will cannot be elected and legislated. We’re not dealing with someone vying to be elected, he’s already God and you or I are not going to move him off his throne. Neither are we dealing with simply a higher power. Nor are we dealing with a way of philosophy or a concept. This is not some truth that you will discover deep within your self. We are dealing with a living God.

How can we know this? Hannah says in 1 Samuel 2:1 “because I rejoice in your salvation.” Emphasis on your. She’s singing about and praying to a very personal God. A God who has been with her in those seasons of depression and counted each tear she shed. A God who has heard every ugly thing said to her. A God who waited patiently for her cry out to him to vindicate her. A God whom, though Hannah would not yet know, would abandon the riches of Heaven to become man and ride into the seat of religious power backwards on a donkey, knowing full well that he would be rejected, scorned, beaten, and murdered.

Why? Because we are not dealing with a God that we can imagine. What Hannah’s prayer and the cross of our Lord teach us is that we have to reverse our thoughts, abandoning what the world would teach us to hold dear and count significant. God delights to show favor to the weak and the socially marginalized. The power of God interlocks with our weakness. The power of God resists flaunted human strength. This is most evident in the gospel itself - where we discover this about God and his salvation:

God delights to accept and approve those who trust in his Son by faith.

The Lord is an incomparable king who vindicates all who come to him by faith.

Action

Here’s how we live this truth out today. And please do not dismiss these things because based on experience, they’re easier to say than to put into practice. These are on the order of inviting King Jesus into our lives and church.

If we are to be a church who understands the magnitude of this prayer of Hannah, we must be a church with the eyes of Christ. This means that we see each other as Jesus sees us. Everyone here is a sinner who is in need of God’s grace. If we hold everyone to a standard of perfection, then we as a church are saying that we have no need for Jesus and that the death he died wasn’t for us.

In inviting the king to enter our lives and the life of this church so that we have the eyes of Christ, it also means that with the cross as our standard, we must repent of attitudes that would suggest that someone else’s sin is greater than our own. Yes, I’m calling out the Peninnah’s in the room. Those that would see themselves as living right and looking down at others from the tips of their noses.

Whether we like it our not, our community is in transition. Before long, if not already this morning, we will have in our services women who had an abortion, individuals who are struggling with or living out same sex attractions, individuals who are confused about the gender, individuals who the law of this land have labelled illegal immigrants. I pray we do, actually. “Pastor, how can you say you’re praying for that?” And I ask in response, “how can we not?”

Are the sins I have committed that Christ bore for me less significant? Am I, a white, married, heterosexual, American, middle class male, more worthy of hearing the gospel? If we held to that thought, then Jesus neither reigns within us or this church. Do we know the incomparable God and king?

Inspiration

The king of a great nation went out for a late afternoon stroll with his queen when along the path of their stroll, the queen stumbled and sprained her ankle. The queen was in great pain, yet she managed to limp along with great difficulty as she held on to her husband’s shoulder. As dusk settled upon the land, the king and queen came to the home of a humble man where the king came up to and knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” asked the owner?

“It is I, your king. Let me in.”

The owner shouted back, “As if I haven’t heard that one before, enough of these pranks. Go away!”

Now, the king wasn’t used to such talk and the homeowner’s response put him in a state of shock. The king hardly knew what to do, but he knocked again. The owner said, “I thought I told you to leave? What do you want?”

The king replied, “I tell you, it’s the king! Let me in!”

Now angered by the person at his door, the owner rushed to it while shouting, “I’ll teach you to torment an honest man!” The owner threw open the door in disgust, only to discover that standing before him was his king! With great embarrassment, the homeowner extended apologies and brought the king and queen in to attend to the queen’s injury.

Years later, when the homeowner was too old to work, he would spend much of his day rocking on the porch of his house and tell the story of the day that the king came to visit. He would always end that story with the same words: “And to think, to think, I almost didn’t let him in! To think I almost didn’t let him in!”

Jesus said:

Revelation 3:20 ESV

20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

God delights to accept and approve those who trust in his Son by faith. Is he knocking at your door this morning? Open it. Trust. And discover for yourself that the Lord is an incomparable king who vindicates all who come to him by faith.

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