Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the House of Parliament.
During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Neil’s good friend, the Lord Hailsham, then Lord Chancellor, who was wearing his official robe for a meeting.
Hailsham saw his friend Neil among the group, waved and called out, "Neil!"
Not daring to question the command, and thinking it was part of the protocol, the group of visitors responded promptly and kneel down!
That’s not worship. It’s just a misunderstanding.
• We are going to look at Hannah singing in worship today and capture the heart of a true worshipper.
• We read last week of her persistent faith in God, despite the pain she was put through, how she kept faith with God and God blesses her with a son.
Let’s read the vow she made to God and what happened next.
• 1:11 "O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head." Read 1 Samuel 1:24-28.
God heard her prayer and gave her a son. She named him SAMUEL, which sounds like the Hebrew for “heard of God”.
• Imagine this, every time she calls the boy, it would be “GOD HEARD ME…”
• This is a gift from God. God heard my cry. It’s a constant reminder. Obviously she named him SAMUEL because she is grateful. GOD GAVE HIM TO ME!
And she remembered her promise. So when Samuel was weaned (3 or 4 years old) Hannah brought him to the Temple and left him there in the care of the priest Eli.
• That’s the place Samuel will grow up and learn how to serve God.
• After handing him over, Hannah burst into this prayer song, in the house of God.
• The picture is odd right? You have a mother handing over her son with JOY. We have to understand – it’s the worship of God! Let’s “sing” this: 1 Samuel 2:1-11
Nothing about her son, nothing about herself. It’s all about God and His greatness.
• It’s filled with the expressions of the WORTH of God. It’s the worship of God.
• It sounds almost like a mini-lesson on the character of God. She praises His sovereignty over all arena of life. God presides over everything. Her God reigns.
TRUE WORSHIP IS GOD-CENTRED
We can be caught up by many things ABOUT worship – the songs we sing, the music we use, or the way we conduct it…
• I am distracted by the noise from the fan, the people walking, or the papers flying off… 1001 things.
• At the end of it all, I need to train my thoughts to focus on HIM! True worship can only take place when my mind is ON HIM!
Tommy went to a birthday party and had a great time. The place was beautiful, the atmosphere was warm, the music was wonderful and most importantly the food was great. Everyone had a great time.
His roommate asked him, “So how’s the birthday boy feeling?”
“Oh him? I don’t know. He was not around.”
They had a great time at a party, but the person for whom all this took place was absent!
It can happen in a worship. Focusing on every other thing other than Him misses the point.
• Distractions will be there but set our thoughts right. Jesus is at the heart of our worship. He is the reason we are here.
Deeply immersed in meditation during a church service, Italian poet Dante Alighieri failed to kneel at the appropriate moment.
His enemies hurried to the bishop and demanded that Dante be punished for his sacrilege. Dante defended himself by saying, "If those who accuse me had had their eyes and minds on God, as I had, they too would have failed to notice what’s happening around them, and they most certainly would not have noticed what I was doing."
Hannah’s worship of God here took place most likely, without fanfare and music.
• And she did not worship God because He gave her a son. Chapter 1 tells us she was already a worshipper of God all along. Yearly she comes to worship and pray.
• She prays as “the Lord’s servant” (1:11, 18). She submits to God. That’s worship.
• God blesses her and she offers her son to God. She gives. That’s worship.
• And then she sang a song to God in His house. She praises God. That’s worship.
Look at her song – verses 2-3. “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows and by Him deeds are weighed.” (2:3)
• Humble yourselves before God, the One who knows everything and judges all things. Worship is not about us. It is all about God.
• Worship therefore cannot take place without the knowledge of God. I cannot worship the One whom I do not know. I don’t know what that is but it’s surely not biblical worship.
Do you realise that the more you know Him, the more it affects your worship of Him? When You know how good He is, worship just flows from your heart?
• Get to know Him!
TRUE WORSHIP FLOWS FROM THE HEART
Hannah bursts off her first line: “My heart rejoices in the Lord…” (2:1)
• No regret in making that vow. You can almost sense the excitement and joy in offering the child to God!
• Remember Samuel is the only son she had, after a long wait. For her, to get this child was tough. To offer him back to God would be equally tough, to any loving mother. It’s a sacrifice, but that’s the heart of a worshipper.
Rom 12:1 says offer “your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.”
• To worship God is to give. Hannah was happy to do it. Samuel is a gift from God in the first place.
• True worship flows from a heart of gratitude and gladness.
You know, at first this would look quite sad. Hannah won’t have a chance to see Samuel grows up with her at home.
• But God honours those who honours Him. He does not short-change anyone.
• 1 Sam 2:12 tells us God blesses her with 3 more sons and 2 daughters (2:21).
We don’t worship God for something in return. We worship Him for WHO He is.
• But the Lord is more than gracious to us. He will remember us.
Worship is an attitude of our heart. We tune our hearts to Him and we can worship the Lord anywhere.
We often hear people asking, “So where do you worship?”
A choir teacher was helping a church with their choir. When people ask, his usual answer is: “Oh, I’m here to help the choir; I don’t worship here. I worship at such-and-such church.”
We know what he means, but such words are helping our minds think right.
• Worship is not about a service or a place. A worship without the heart is a religion or a ritual. It’s going through the motions.
• Worship flows from the heart because it stems from a relationship.
TRUE WORSHIP BRINGS HOPE
How can it not be when my own mind is saturated with the thoughts of God!
• Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow STRANGELY DIM, in the light of His glory and grace.
See how Hannah ended the song – 1 Sam 2:9b-10 "It is not by strength that one prevails; 10those who oppose the LORD will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king and exalt the horn of His anointed."
She ends with a prophetic word! There is no king in Israel yet but she sings of one.
• God puts in her heart the expectation of greater things to come. She was led to proclaim a hope and a future (just like Jeremiah - Jer 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”)
• God will prepare them a King - “a man after His own heart”. (1 Sam 13:14)
Hannah’s son Samuel will anoint this King. Her past pain pales in comparison to what God is about to do.
• And this is just the tip of the iceberg. King David is not the end of God’s work. God will raise the Son of David, the Anointed one; the Messiah, the King of kings.
• The KING IS HERE! Can we see beyond the present troubles, to the King of kings who reigns?
I remember reading about a conference at a church where people were given helium-filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt like expressing the joy in their hearts.
All through the service some balloons ascended, but when it was over 1/3 of the balloons were unreleased. Many still cannot let go. They are in the worship service but they cannot worship!
2 Cor 4:17-18 “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Worship Him and see the God who is bigger than our troubles.
Pray:
Father, we thank You for the works You have done and the works You are doing today. Thank you for the song You gave Hannah. Give us a song too, Lord, a song that would cause us to see You in a clearer way and trust You for greater things to come.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, now and forevermore. AMEN.
