Great Lessons From A Godly Mom

Great Lessons from a Godly Mom

1 Samuel 1:1-20

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - May 13, 2007

*Moms are priceless! One time a Boy Scout leader was watching some new scouts try their hand at outdoor cooking, and he asked,

-“How are you doing? Have you forgotten any essential equipment?”

*One of the boys answered, “Yes, I have...”

*“Oh, what?”

-“My mother!” (1)

*Moms are priceless! Aren’t you thankful for your mother and the mother of your children? They have done so much for us.

*And here the Word of God shows us another good mom: Hannah, a Godly woman, a Godly mom. Hannah was a blessing to her family. She was a blessing to all of the Godly people of her generation. And she can bless us today with some great lessons for life.

1. The first lesson is beware the bitterness trap.

*I wish life was fair, but it’s not. This is not Heaven, and Hannah was having a hard time in vs. 1-10. First of all, she had a physical problem. Vs. 2 tells us that Hannah had no children. And twice in these verses, the Scripture tells us that the Lord had closed her womb.

*Now there is no way that we can fully understand things like that, but we know that God has a good reason for everything He does. And perhaps there wouldn’t have been a Samuel at the end of chapter 1, without the problem we see at the beginning of chapter 1.

*Hannah had a physical problem. She also had a family problem: The other wife, Peninnah.

-Earlier this week Janis said, “Yeah, the other wife is always a problem.”

*This was triply true in Peninnah’s case. She was proud, she was envious, and she was mean to Hannah. Vs. 6 tells us that Peninnah provoked Hannah severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb.

*Peninnah was terribly cruel to Hannah, and it wasn’t a one-time thing.

*Vs. 7 tells us, -So it was, year by year, when Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, that Peninnah provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat.

*Hanna had a problem in her family. Her husband Elkanah tried to help. In vs. 5, he loved her and gave her a double portion, but Elkanah’s love wasn’t enough to solve the problem.

*Hanna had problems, and on top of everything else she had a problem in her spiritual family. It was with Eli the priest in vs. 12-16.

*Listen to these verses again:

12. And it happened, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli watched her mouth.

13. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk.

14. So Eli said to her, "How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!’’

15. And Hannah answered and said, "No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.

16. "Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.’’

*Let’s take a little detour here to make sure that we are not part of the problem. Some people are just mean, like Peninnah in this story. But God forbid that we should be like that: Proud and selfish, taking credit for the things that were hers only by the grace of God.

*God help us to be problem solvers like Hannah’s husband, Elkanah. He couldn’t make Hannah’s problem go away, but at least he was trying.

*And then there was Eli the priest, a leader of God’s people. Hannah was doing exactly the right thing, but Eli thought she was drunk. Nothing could have been further from the truth. And Eli’s jumping to conclusions should warn us not to do the same thing.

*All of us have a little bit of Eli in us, but just like Eli, we don’t have the whole story. I wanted to say that 9 times out of 10, or 99 times out of 100 we don’t have the whole story. But the truth is that we never have the whole story, because we can’t see into the future.

*How could Eli have possibly known that the son Hannah prayed for would in just a few years come to live and serve the Lord with Eli in the tabernacle?

-How could Eli have possibly known that one night God would call Samuel by name? And that he would grow up to become one of the greatest prophets who ever lived?

*We have to be careful about judging other people, especially when we realize that this church is not a show case for trophy Christians. It’s a hospital for hurting people, a family to help each other and as many other people as we can, a lighthouse to shine the Good News of Jesus Christ, and an army to serve the living God.