Own Your Suffering - Summer Series pt. 10

I was in Target. I like Target. I was in Target this week, and they had all the fall stuff out and I was excited. And so I put a picture of it on my Instagram. I got a couple of beams that didn't like that, but I'm excited for Fall because we've had an amazing summer. You know, fall has fall flavors, not How about pumpkin spice?

It's like apple and, you know, maple, all those great flavors. Cinnamon. Thank you. Yes. All that stuff fall has for has my birthday. That's important to me. May not be for you guys, but similar to me, fall has nice temperatures. Fall has layers, you know, fall fashion layers. Thank you. Somebody gets it. Fall does not have pollen, at least not for me.

And that's a blessing. That's why I felt. But in the spring. But I'm excited because it means summers anyone that means we've had a great summer at one church pass arrangement sabbatical and the teaching team has been phenomenal This week freezes up if you if you learn something this summer. I know I have every single time. Yeah. I drew the short end of the stall and pass around.

Came back on the day that I had to teach, which is great. You know, they all ganged up on me and beat me up. I'm joking, I'm joking. But this is an amazing burden. And I just realized that it's been a while since I've been up here. So for you guys that I haven't seen before. Hi, I'm Trey.

Thanks. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming to God's TEDTalk. Just getting. But speaking about the speakers last week, Pastor Hunter preached an incredible message, right? He talked about owning your faith and gave us five steps and he threw in some YFC lingo when I work for YFC still. So that's. I was like, Yes. So I see. Great. That's amazing.

Three stories, Phenomenal. But I want to talk about something that might be a little bit harder today. I don't I didn't want to do bullet points and notes and sermon titles coming into this because I wanted you. I wanted us to get whatever God wanted. Like so there's no there's no no fabulous points to write down. I want you to write down whatever the Holy Spirit speaking to you.

But if I had to get assignment title, it would be owning your suffering heart to talk to us about owning, owning our faith. No one talked to us about owning our suffering. So today we're going to dive into first Samuel one, and that's the story of Hannah and Penina and Elkana. And normally we hear the story and we go to the You're pregnant with purpose.

God's going to deliver something. You just push. Not much, just push. And there's birth pains. I don't want to talk about that part. I want to talk about the part before you're pregnant with purpose, right? When there's something that we desire and we're lingering for and we're wanting it, I want want to talk about that. That part. And I'm not saying that we're hanging up because we're not I'm especially not Hannah and I want us to look at this and observe because God's the same God for Hannah that he is for us.

And so there are things that we see in Hannah's story and we see throughout the Bible that can relate to what we have going on. Right? So let let's dive into the text first. Samuel Chapter one, one verse five. All right. And so I'm reading from the NIV, I believe, and I'll go ahead and read when you're ready.

All right, You ready? Ready. All right. If you're not ready, it's on the screen. So it says there was a certain man from Ramstein, a zoo flight from the Hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkana, son of Ham, son of Eli who? Son of Toku, son of six. On information. He had two wives. One was Hannah and the other was Penina.

Penina had children, but Hannah had none. Okay. Year after year, this man went up to his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty Shiloh, where half me and Phineas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. Whenever the day came from Elkana to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife, Penina, and all of her sons and daughters.

But to Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb. A little context, right? So Shiloh is at this time the religious center of the world. Okay. So that means I don't know who all grew up. Listen to Focus on the Family, anybody. It's just me. Okay. Focus on the family now.

Let's focus on the family, because on winter nights when our church had Bible study, if we were late and we were always late, I could listen to the pictures in Odyssey. Right. And if we got to complete it, we always heard this voice say, you know, this production is brought to you by Colorado Springs, Colorado. And so Shiloh was like Colorado, right?

If you listen to it, there's a whole bunch of ministry headquarters in Colorado. You look at some of your biggest churches, some of your biggest, you know, Zondervan, all those great publishers, they're all in Colorado Springs for some reason. I have to go there and figure out why, but they're all there. And so Shiloh was like this place, this religious thing where all of the people would gather at Shiloh to make their sacrifices.

And in that time, that sacrifice was worship, right? So they would make a sacrifice that would give grain offerings and peace offerings and, you know, fatten calves and, you know, sheep and all that other stuff. Right. So all make these sacrifices to the Lord is how they did worship. Right. And so that's one part we look at. We look at Hannah and we look at her room.

That's the second part in that time for a woman, most of their value is found in what they can produce as far as how many children they can have, Can they have a male child to help continue their legacy? Can they have, you know, people to help work it out the farms and that the other stuff? Can they have people who were who could be stonemasons, who could be carpenters, who could carry on the legacy of what their husbands might have started and what their families might have started.

And so this a woman was her value. A lot of her value was found in what she could produce. And so for God to close her womb meant that maybe there was something about her value that he needed to change. And so I think a lot of times we find ourselves in spaces where we have our quote unquote womb closed, right?

We we've seen the same with God. We want to do this awesome thing. We want to I want to make a song. I want to write a book. I want to open a business. I want to I want to like lesbians. I want to paintings for someone. I want to do this. I wanna do that. God. And I can I can see this is happening, right?

We get to those moments and it doesn't feel like it's working out. It feels like God has closed that right. And so we get to spaces like, What do I do with this father? I'm frustrated because I know, I know. I can't imagine that the lady who was cursing the prayer, I know that there's something here, but it's not working out.

What is the moment that you feel? Call to God's pressed paused on What is the moment that you feel? Call to God has pressed pause on. Right? And so we look at that. That might be a dream deferred. It might be a book, it might be a business, it might be a song, might be a marriage, it might be a restaurant, might be photography, it could be all those things.

And year after year, Hannah would go to this place and make sacrifices with her family when all she wanted to do was feel the immediate value and the purpose. She believed that she had. Let's go to verse six says, Because the Lord had closed heinous womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year.

Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her to. She wept and could not eat. I have the opposite problem. I get provoked and I eat right. And so we look at this. We look at this, this beef. I God, why is this why is this detail important? Right? Why isn't enough that Hannah's womb is closed and that she struggled and that she cried like that's that's what we learned about what Abraham and Sarah like?

They couldn't have a child, so they struggled. Like, why is why is let's put in an important in this whole entire thing. And honestly, the beef makes me think of rap. Do we have any rap fans like for great. Oh, that's amazing. So I grew up and my dad, I see some more. My dad would always play, of course, music.

So I was four now old school. You know, for me at that time, I realized now that like teenagers I call the music I grew up on old school, how that feels so sorry, but I grew up on this. I grew up listening to New Edition and Boys and all that stuff was before, you know, albums little bit before one time in the eighties, right?

And so I remember my dad would always play old school us go hip hop, right? And so if you know anything like old school hip hop, you know, there was always beef, right? And so it still is. Guys, I don't know about the new stuff now, but it's probably there is one one lyric that I'll never forget is a song by Roxanne Shante called Have a Nice Day.

And she was just going after everybody, right? She was just returning the favor. And so one of the lines she said, Now KRS one, she going vacation with that name sound like a wreck wack radio station, Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Amazing. Yes. Wack radio station. And that for me, at that time, I was like, wow, she really said that.

That's crazy. Like, that is. But that's rude. I like it, but it's rude. And then Lou referred to something more current for me. Late nineties, early 2000, you had Jay-Z and Nas, right? Rap was crazy, crazy time. And so there's all this beef going on. And the thing about this beef, though, even though they eventually, you know, owned it out there was something that came from the beef that was beneficial to everyone.

Right. And so the radio stations get up, they would call, they would say, hey, you know, let me speak to Jay-Z's people. And Jay-Z's probably like, Nah, I won't come. But he's like, I want I want to talk about this. And so they probably call on his radio stations and they would ask him all these questions, Hey, you know, Jay, how you doing?

This is great. I'm so glad you're here. How's your family? No, that's great. How's your mom in them? That's great. That's awesome. Jay, what about this beef with Nas? And they would really get down to the subject, but this space served to promote their albums, pro themselves, right? Promote the tour stuff. It helped the culture to have something to talk about that wasn't depressing.

It helps out, right? So there's all these people, all this backlash that comes from this. You have radio interviews. The charts are blown off album sales. I'm a promo. Something Good came from all this beef, know all these people eventually made up Jay-Z, Nas made up, you know, did some did some projects together. That was great. Um something positive comes from Handel speak to right And so we look at this and I'm a guy who when I read the text, especially the Old Testament, I'm always looking up stuff.

So if you're preaching, you see me on my phone, I'm probably Googling something. Not that you said anything wrong, but I like to know. And so we see this point, and so I'm looking up heinous name and putting in his name and Hannah's name means a favor. And Grace Pendennis name means pearl. So there's beef between God's grace and favor and the and perceived object with high value.

So for us, I think we need to ask the questions what is the pearl in our life? What is it we have beef with? What is the thing that we see is valuable, that we're not getting there, right? It could be. It could be, um, financial struggle. It could be an addiction, it could be stewardship. It could be another person like intarsia and h.r.

She might just get on your nerves. I don't know. It could be prioritizing. God, it could be, you know, anything, right? How we steward our money, all of that stuff could be the pearl. And we're always thinking of God. If I had just $100 more at the end of the month, I could do all the things God, if I had any Instagram followers as her, I'll be using it for, Look, I'd be doing the thing right.

God, if I didn't had this problem with this, with the struggle, with this addiction, with whatever. God, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have this issues. I could do all the things. And we often chase and we have beef with that. And we want that over the grace and the favor. Let's go to eight oh, it says her husband.

L cannot say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you down hard? It don't mean more to you than ten sons once when they finish eating and drinking. And Shiloh. Hannah stood up. Now, Eli, the priest, was sitting on his chair by the door post of Lord's house. In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly, and she made a vow saying, Lord Almighty, if you will only look at your servants misery and remember me and not forget your servant, but give her a son.

Then I will give the Lord. I will give Him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head. There was a special thing in the Bible where people would set themselves apart right? And they would do certain things right. There are some other people who know no razors.

You'll touch the hair on my head. You know, you can think of some Samson, right? You know? No, no razors touching his hair. He's doing certain sort of things. So that was a symbol of being set apart from the Lord. And this. This prayer. I love prayers in the Bible because I think it shows us a lot. It shows us what someone prayed and it shows just the response, God's response to that.

I think that's important for us to know when we're looking that and learning how to pray and continue to grow in our prayer life, saying, okay, God, I see that this person prayed this. This is a sacrifices for me and this is how you responded. Those are important things to note in your Bible anyway. Maybe the thing that we're committing to the Lord we don't have yet because we haven't committed to the Lord.

So maybe the thing we're praying about, thing we're frustrated about, we haven't committed to Lord and so we don't have it yet. This says year after year. I wonder how many years is year after year in the Bible, Right? How long was it beforehand? Was like, okay, God no. If you give me this, I'll give it back to you.

Maybe the delay in the thing that we're looking for or the promise that we want to move into or the purpose in the film, when I'm with you, maybe there's a delay there because we're not ready to give it over to the Lord yet. Maybe it's taking year after year because we have to get to the point where you say, okay, God, you can have this, you can have my social media following, you can have my LinkedIn business stuff, you can have my kids God, you can have the spouse that I want the relationship, the mayor, someone you can have that God, it's yours.

Maybe we haven't gotten to that point, so maybe that's why we're in a little bit of this year after year after year after year, and having struggle after struggling and beef after beef in the beef and beef because we haven't said, okay, God, honestly, this is yours. And then we put the action behind it. God, I won't I won't put the razor to his head.

God, I won't do this with the things that you want to give me. I'll make sure that set apart the smooth. The verse 12 says As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth weirdo. Sorry, that just realized that. That's so weird. Why would you get Eli? Oh, hell. Hannah was praying in her heart and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard.

Hannah was praying in her heart and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Ella thought she was drunk, and he said to her, How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine, Hannah replies. Not so, my lord. I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer.

I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a woman. I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief. I had a moment a couple of months ago where I was frustrated with God and I was like, God, I'm doing these things and I'm hurting you God. You said in your world that those who sow in tears will reap, enjoy.

And the Holy Spirit said, You're not sowing, you're just crying. I wonder if we ever get to the point where we're just crying right? Sowing pride. And I'm doing some there's action. I'm touching the ground. I am. I am. Maybe I'm praying about something. Maybe I've written out a strategy, a business strategy. Maybe I've made I've made a list and written down, God, this is what I want in the spouse.

Maybe I've written down God, This is the kids I want. And I've taken some parenting classes and I've done some some work, listened to some part excuse me, I've listened to some podcast that's sowing, crying. It's different. Crying feels good. You don't have to do anything. You just let the tears kind of fall and then afterwards you feel a little bit lighter.

That's not the same thing. And you have to get used to looking like, Hey, when I So I'm going to look a little different. Eli thought Hannah was drunk because she was sewing into her shoes, been weeping all this time. She's been crying year after year after year. And now she finally gets the point. I'm going to sew.

God, here's my promise, Here's my word, Here's here's what I'm going to do. God, here's the conversation that we need to have. I wonder, like, God, did you not have this conversation beforehand? But I know there's a difference that we reap and joy when we actually sew in tears and not just cry. We continue to look at this and we look at this point where Hannah sacrifices this, the son that she doesn't have, the son that she's not even conceived yet.

Right. And we learn that Hannah adopts this posture that we need to adopt. And a couple of weeks ago, I had a friend going through some stuff and I was like, what is going on? This is a bad friend. Her life and God said this not about you. It turns out the friend that talked, it completely wasn't about me at all.

I had nothing to do with it that was elevating myself and being frustrated with God. A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned the Scripture and they said All things work together. Okay. Yeah. For those who love the Lord and are. Yeah, let's not forget that part. Oh, we look at that scripture and we think, God, I know I'm in trouble.

God, you're working this out for my good. The Scripture never says that all things work together for the good of you who love the Lord and might not challenge us and say that maybe that's a communal scripture. Maybe that Scripture isn't just for you, but it's for everyone around you. So what is the thing that you are looking at Working in?

Making God, let alone God to work out is not the take the difference for you? What is the good that you get out of it is not the same as the better someone else got of it. Can we sit in ourselves and say, okay, God, maybe it's not just for me. Maybe the most good that's coming from this situation is it for me?

But it's for my neighbor. It's for my friend. I can tell you the story When Megan and I first started dating and we did one of those date break up date things again, get married. And so when we did one of those things, we dated, bought a car, you know that scripture, you know, a man who finds a wife finds a good thing that seems stay with the Lord.

So I was like, yes, good paying. I've got a car. I got this job that I'm not supposed to have because I have a degree. Everything's working out great. We broke up and I lost the job and start struggling and the car got repossessed not once, but twice. I don't know how that happens. How you. How you lose a car twice.

But it happened in the crazy thing about this car I loved. It is not their first car that I bought, paid my own money and my dad took me to the Enterprise. It was used, but it was so great. My dad surprised a lot and I put down the deposit and that that was great. So it was. It was going to be amazing, right?

Bought this car and I loved it. And I think that Scripture, all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord according to his purpose. Right? Maybe me losing that car twice was not for my best. Good. But it was for someone else's. I don't have a I don't have a kid and I have a son who I can teach.

Hey, my pastor Ryan says if it's if it's too much, take it back. I learned it the hard way, but I learned it right. And I can teach my kid. And he has I have learned the hard way. And the crazy thing about this car is that it never showed up on my credit report got repossessed twice, and the second time I didn't own body in the money.

That was I don't know how that happened. I'm not going to ask any questions, but it's just going to be there. Right. And so praise God. All right. But maybe somebody else needed that car. Maybe it served this purpose with me right? All things work together for the good of those. Maybe there's someone else who was loving the Lord who needed that more than I did.

Yeah, well, it didn't work out for for the good. I didn't get the most dividends out of this. Someone did. And if it's not about me, then we can praise God for that. It's a struggle that I went through, benefit someone else more than it benefits me. I can praise God for that. To talk about three story last week and he talked about how was my story and their story and God's story.

And maybe sometimes my story is being built so that can help and they can cause me to be able to be a witness to someone else and bring them into that story. It's not about me. I won't be short today being I'm asking you guys to come on back up verse eight. I want to look back at that because I learned something really interesting when I was studying.

Um, interesting perspective, says her husband O'Connor would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why do you not eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? Hunter told us last week that all the the Bible points to Jesus, right? What if this is a parallel to Jesus and what if he's saying this?

Am I not enough for you? You want all these things, You're finding your value in everything else but me. Your husband, Bride of Christ. What if I am enough? Can I be? And how can I be worth more than $0.10? And I'll be worth more than all the followers on Instagram? Can I be worth more than the spouse that I want?

Can I be worth more than a book that be worth more than the painting? So now worth more than the contract that I got at work? I get worth more than the job that you really want. Can I be worth more? Is God worth more? Look at the stained with the names again. It's the grace and the favor of God worth more than the pearl that last thing I want from us to catch up from this is in verse 26 right?

We skip down a little bit. Mother Hannah's had this child, um, and she's going into the place. She kept them a year. I was like, Let me finish breastfeeding them. I'm taking my promise. I'm gonna give them to where he needs to go to finally bring so much. It's important she's making a new sacrifice. And so she sits in this conversation with Eli, and it says, and she said to him, Pardon me, my Lord, as surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here.

You praying to the Lord, the one you thought was drunk. So now I give him to the Lord for his whole life. He will be given over to the Lord and He worship the Lord. There. Going back to the three story idea, It's not about us. This testimony we overcome by the battle him the word of her testimony.

This testimony is not about you, the suffering before we realize the promise, before we see it start to happen. It's not about you. It's all about God. It's all about what he wants to do and how he wants to move through. You. I find it ironic today that the first one was You give me joy deep in my soul, inquire you guys, and come up.

I'm wrapping up. And then we looked at this house. Fight my house and you made a way And we look at the struggle, right? Joy is not happiness. Just in case we thought it was Joy does not mean happiness, right? Joy is the will to stick through it. Joyce. To the middle, to keep a countenance while you are suffering.

That's why I something that it comes from the Lord and not us. I don't know if anybody else has tried to make themselves happy. It doesn't last long right, Joy. Something the resolve that comes from the God. And so in our struggles, in our testimony, in our pain, we're looking for the joy. And we find that, again, not when we're crying, but we're sowing in tears.

We're showing to our suffering. How many of us can say that I'm God, I'm sewing through my suffering. I've been beaten up. This this thing that that says that has all the value that I want. It's said all these things to me. It me, I'm worthless. I look on Instagram and I start the comparison thing and I look on Facebook.

This comparison thing, Sally has more kids than me, and our kids go to MIT and all this other stuff. We look at all these things and they don't hold a candle to all. Well, that's as close to I'm going to pray for us, but I want you to take a second and think of one of your life is the pearl, right?

What are you what are you having peace with? For me is a list of things, comparison being one of the one of the best and top ones. When we had that image in her head, I want us to remember what else I says. Am I not worth more than sin? Since I can remember God saying, Am I not worth more to you than that thing?

That thing that you want to be, that thing that you're struggling with? I think that have to be with, are you not? Is God not worth more? Let's pray. Pass. I thank you for your work. I think you that's true. I think that impacts our lives and what you want to do through our lives. God, as a as we read lists, we focus on this God that she would help us to own our suffering God because there's testimony of that.

There's deliverance in that. There's freedom in that. When we can say, God, you know what? I suffered like Joe, but I suffered. And I went through it and I moved on. I started. I stopped crying. I started sewing. God help us to get to that place. Lord, let every man be like God and you be true. Let every pearl be like God and you be true.

We have to believe here God is as we leave Him, as we move on, that you would just continue to have your way in us. She would give us insight that your holy spirit would speak to us, that wherever it is that we need to commit to you, God, that we're able to do that wholeheartedly. We love you.

We bless you and pray. You mean