God Is Bigger Than Anything
Tom Shrader draws from 1 Samuel 1–2 to show that Hannah's barrenness and her subsequent prayer of praise reveal a core principle: God makes human inability His starting point, and His people can trust Him precisely because He is holy, all-knowing, all-powerful, and just. The sermon moves from Hannah's story into a broader call for believers to cultivate a deep, accurate knowledge of God, arguing with A.W. Tozer that how a person thinks about God shapes every other area of life. Shrader closes by connecting three calendar dates—the presidential inauguration, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and Right to Life Sunday—urging the congregation to hold both celebration of racial progress and grief over abortion as a present moral crisis.
“God's tendency is to make our total inability His starting point. Our hopelessness and our helplessness are no barrier to His work; indeed, our utter incapacity is often the prop He delights to use in His next act.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Samuel
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 56 min
Themes: prayer, trust, holiness, suffering, hope, justice, praise, pro-life, struggling with infertility, feeling hopeless, grieving loss, new believer, parent, navigating moral issues, young adult, feeling powerless
Scripture: Judges 21:25, 1 Samuel 1:2, 1 Samuel 1:4, 1 Samuel 1:6-7, 1 Samuel 1:10, 1 Samuel 1:11, 1 Samuel 1:20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, 2 Timothy 3:3-5, 1 Peter 3:12, Proverbs 3:5-6, Daniel 3:17, Daniel 5, Genesis 22, Hebrews 11:32-38, Romans 8:28, Luke 1:46-55, Luke 1:67-79
Theological Themes: attributes of God, omniscience, divine sovereignty, omnipotence, theology proper, knowledge of God, sanctification, biblical ethics
Full Transcript
The Condition of Israel
Open your Bibles, if you would, to the book of First Samuel. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and there will be some guys walking down who would love to get one in your hand. It's on page 202. Also, a reminder that every Sunday after the service, in both the conference center and here in the chapel, there are members of our pastoral team who are here and would love to pray with you. It may be a praise or a prayer request. Maybe you've got something God's done in your life and you just want to tell us — we love that. So please take advantage of it.
I want to spend some time today in really three segments. I want to summarize last week and emphasize the "so what" of that. Then I want to take it into an overview of Second Samuel, chapter two, verses one through eleven. And then I want to reserve maybe the last five to ten minutes for three dates that popped up on my calendar and share some thoughts about those with you.
We parachute into our study of First Samuel, and we parachute into the story of the history of the nation of Israel. There is a whole bunch of stuff that leads up to it, but the condition of Israel is right there. If you turn back a page or two to the end of the book of Judges, chapter twenty-one, verse twenty-five: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." In other words, there was spiritual and moral anarchy in the nation of Israel.
In his study of the book of Judges, Ray Stedman titled it "The Pattern of Defeat." It is the story of the nation following God, then falling away, following God, then falling away. You can see patterns that begin to creep into the thought process, and you can see this fall coming. All of a sudden they develop the same habits — gradually, step by step, they begin to pull away from God and what He would command. Then over a period of time, almost like a slow-heating pot, it is like the old frog in a kettle: all of a sudden they realize they have wandered away. There is some huge sin, and then the cycle starts again.
That is almost always how it is in our own lives, at varying levels. Anytime you see a big blow-up, rarely is it just an event that started the day before. What Stedman points out — and this is really interesting — is not that they were trying to do wrong. They were trying to do what was right, but it was right in their own eyes. They were not setting out in deliberate rebellion, though they are clearly rebellious. But if you talked to them, they were doing what seemed right in their own minds.
A Pattern That Reaches Our Own Day
That can fast-forward directly to the world you and I find ourselves in. It is the very world that Paul predicted when he wrote to Timothy near the end of Paul's life. In Second Timothy, chapter three, he said that in the last days people will be lovers of self, lovers of money — and the list goes on. Then there is this phrase I have always found fascinating, in Second Timothy three, five: "They will hold to a form of godliness, though they deny its power."
You do not really live in a culture or a country that is blatantly atheistic. It may be secular in its nature, but it is not blatantly atheistic. It is really pagan — meaning it is spiritual, it acknowledges the godly, but it worships false gods. That is exactly what was going on in the nation of Israel. So if I am worshiping a false god, even if I am obedient to that false god, I am doing what seems right in my own mind, but it is not right in God's mind. You begin to get a sense of the condition of the nation: total spiritual anarchy.
We said there are three main human characters in our story — Samuel, Saul, and David. But the chief character in our study of the book of First Samuel is God Himself, the Almighty God, the God we find in Scripture. That becomes a point I want to make and come back to again and again.
Elkanah, Hannah, and Peninnah
Let me remind you what we looked at last week. We are introduced early in the book to a man named Elkanah. He has two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. We get the sense from the order of the text that Hannah was probably there first, but she is barren — she has no children. Peninnah had children, and that is what we are told in verse two.
Looking down to verse four, we are told that when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife, and — notice the phrase — "to all her sons and her daughters." We get the sense that there were a large number of children. There is tension within this relationship. In that culture, not having children was seen as a real blight, a stigma. You live in a time where many people view children as a hassle. That was not the case in that culture at all.
This produced a natural tension between the two wives, but that tension was exaggerated further by what we saw in verses six and seven: "Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her." Verse seven tells us: "It happened year after year." Eugene Peterson's paraphrase in The Message puts it this way: "But her rival wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in, never letting her forget that God had not given her children." And this went on year after year.
Hannah's Prayer and the "It's Not Fair" Complex
Year after year, every time she went to the sanctuary of God, Hannah could expect to be taunted. She was reduced to tears and had no appetite. That is the condition she is in, and it is over an extended period of time.
This breaks loose when we get to verse 10. She was greatly distressed. She prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. There is this open outpouring of emotion on her part, and we want to make the point that that is the way to pray. I fear that sometimes our prayers are so formal, so many thees and thous. I have a friend who absolutely prays that way — he goes to a church with high liturgy and he loves it, so even in a small group he will pray, "Father, thou art in heaven." If that is you, that is okay. But the prayers I love are the ones when all of a sudden all hell has broken loose around you. Whatever you are, whoever you are, let that prayer be an expression of your personality.
She makes a vow in verse 11. She acknowledges her affliction and says, in effect, if You will give me a son, I will give him back to You. And God indeed answers that prayer. Verse 20: "In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Samuel, saying, 'Because I have asked him of the Lord.'" The balance of chapter one is the story of her nurturing and raising that son and then presenting and dedicating him to the Lord.
Applying the Story to Our Own Lives
Now, as we said last week, these are historically accurate events. It can be interesting to understand the culture and what is going on in the background, though it is easy to bog down quickly in all of that. But the objective of our study of First Samuel is not just to understand what happened to Hannah, or Samuel, or Saul, or David. The goal is to take those principles and fast forward and apply them to our lives. We do not want to leave it as a dry academic exercise, so we always want to ask the "so what" — perhaps even more so when studying narrative than when we study, say, the New Testament.
So let me ask: as you read this story, do you not almost immediately identify with and sympathize with Hannah? My heart goes out to her. I have a natural response where I look at Peninnah and think, what kind of a person are you to flaunt this? And then what wells up inside of me is: that is not fair. Even if Hannah is barren, if Peninnah cared at all, she would come alongside and love and nurture Hannah rather than taunt her. That is just like us, is it not? We can feel that "it's not fair" complex very deeply.
Understanding the "It's Not Fair" Response
Let me give you the nutshell of how to get around that "it's not fair" thing: you have to really understand who God is. There used to be a plaque in the back of this room that said, "Considering that I deserve hell, anything other than that is a pretty good day." That is really the backdrop.
Maybe this is too transparent, but when I look at the economic situation and what is going on around us, my first flinch is anger. I look at certain politicians and think, you were chairman of the banking committee, you were the ones in charge, and now you want to go after the fat cats — but all of this happened on your watch. I have played by all the rules, made every house payment, done all the savings, done everything right. And then I turn on the television and hear ad after ad saying that if you can get your credit card debt up to $10,000, someone will help you get rid of it. Or someone has the courage to say on a commercial, "I owed the IRS $242,000 but I paid them $24,000." That response on my part probably says more about me than it does about the chairman of the banking committee.
We can say we are out there championing the underdog, but somehow it so often comes back to being about us. On the outside we are calling it fairness, but on the inside it is deeply personal.
God Is in Control
The "so what" of this story, at least this far, is that life does not always necessarily make sense. Sometimes we use the phrase "it isn't fair." But here is the answer to that: God is in control. God knows what He is doing. He sees everything. First Peter 3:12 says, "For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears attend to their prayer."
So what do we do? Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him." The lesson coming out of Hannah, and out of this whole idea of fair or not fair, is that fairness is not even the real issue.
God's Sovereignty Over Our Circumstances
We don't even have to guess why Hannah hasn't conceived, because we're told in verses five and six: the Lord stopped it. You might ask, "What are you doing, God? Here's this faithful girl — what kind of a God are you?" You can see how easy it is to get into that kind of thinking. But if you know who He is, and we do, and you know what He's like, then you immediately understand: I may not fully understand all of this, but He's sovereign, He's God, He's in control, and He's not obligated to fix this for me. He's not obligated to do what I want Him to do.
Everything in your life is either caused by or allowed by God — and this story is a great illustration of that. We were all excited about the miracle on the Hudson. It's an amazing thing. But what if the plane had flipped over and they all died? Did God take a nap? God says, "I made the deaf, the dumb, and the blind." He raises up, and I don't always understand His purpose. But if I always understood His purpose, I don't think He'd be much of a God, and it certainly wouldn't take any faith. Whatever the circumstances are in your life, that is the equivalent of this issue with Hannah. God is sovereign. God answers prayers.
God's Starting Point Is Our Total Inability
Speaking of this very issue in his commentary, Dale Davis writes — and I read part of this last week:
> God's tendency is to make our total inability His starting point. Our hopelessness and our helplessness are no barrier to His work. Indeed, our utter incapacity is often the prop He delights to use in His next act. This matter gets beyond the particular situations of biblical barrenness of women. This is facing one of the principles of God's standard operating procedure. When His people are without strength, without resources, without hope, without human gimmicks, then He loves to stretch forth His hand from heaven. Once we see where God often begins, we will understand how we can be encouraged.
Here's my point: God is a big God. There is no obstacle for Him. God is big enough that the Cardinals could win. He's a big enough God to get them there.
"Even If He Doesn't"
Here's what happens to me, and I find it in people I deal with as well. We read a story like this, we mentally say we understand it, and we mentally acknowledge that God is not obligated to act. But our human tendency is to think, "Well, if this worked for Hannah, then it'll work for me." So it becomes our model.
There's a great scene in the book of Daniel that I love. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are ready to go into the fire. Nebuchadnezzar says, "Deny God." And they say, "No, we're not going to do that. Our God is able to save us." And then there's that wonderful phrase — I believe it's Daniel 3:17 — "even if He doesn't." They go into the fire, and Nebuchadnezzar says, "Wait, how many men did we put in there?" They said three. But there are four of them in there — the preexisting Christ. It's an amazing story.
The Hall of Fame of Faith
In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, you have the Hall of Fame of Faith. There's this list of people and all this incredible stuff happening — Moses, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob. The walls of Jericho are falling down, and so on. And then it says:
> And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell.
And then comes the summary:
> Who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. From weakness they were made strong. They became mighty in war, put foreign enemies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection.
I find great encouragement in that. But it doesn't always work that way, and that's why I love the very next part of the passage. Hebrews 11:35 continues:
> Others were tortured. Experienced mocking, scourging, chains, imprisonment, stoning, being cut in two, being tempted, being put to death. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated.
God works in different circumstances in different ways, but always for one thing — His glory. We need to be really careful as we start to apply the truth that God is big.
Abraham, Isaac, and the Nature of Faith
When we think of Hannah being barren, my mind immediately goes to Sarah. Here's Abraham — Sarah cannot have children. God says he is going to have a son. He has this child. And then there's that moment in Genesis 22 when God says, "Abraham, get your son." But He doesn't leave it at that. If He had simply said, "Get your son," what would Abraham have done? He would have called for Ishmael. No — God says, "Get your son, your only son, Isaac." And away they go to the sacrifice.
When the time for the sacrifice comes, Abraham leaves the rest of the group behind and says something fascinating: "We will return." Plural. We. And we know from the story that his intent is to sacrifice Isaac. The knife is raised. So when he said "we will return," it wasn't that he wasn't going to go through with it. Something in Abraham's understanding of who God is told him that even this was not the end of the story.
Hannah's Prayer: An Overview
Our understanding of God is the starting point for our relationship with Him. He is a big, big God who can be trusted, and I am so convinced that our view of God and who He is will determine everything else in our lives. It will determine our view of ourselves, our view of our world, our view of our money, our view of our kids, our view of not having a spouse, our view of work — whatever it is, it will flow out of that sense of God and who He is.
In chapter two, the first ten verses are a record of Hannah's prayer. If you love to dig a little deeper, make a note of the Gospel of Luke, chapter one, verses 46 to 55 and verses 67 to 79. The first passage is a record of Mary's Magnificat — her prayer — which is very similar to Hannah's. The second passage is Zechariah's benediction, and it is almost identical in thought. There is a lot of imagery in this section, but I want to get our arms around this prayer quickly.
The prayer divides very easily into three sections. Verses one, two, and three are praise for who God is. Verses four through eight are praise for what God has done. Verses nine and ten are praise for what He will do.
Praising God as the Giver
In verse one, I have five words circled in my Bible, and they are all singular personal pronouns. The word "my" is used four times. This prayer is deeply personal. "My heart exalts the Lord. I rejoice in Your salvation. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies." This is really important: she praises God not for the gift He gave her, but acknowledges Him as the Giver. That is a huge deal.
She praises God for who He is. This is something I find myself coming back to again and again. I would assume that many of you have been around church for a long time, and over a period of time you just see certain themes come up again and again. This is probably a reflection of where I am right now — and unfortunately, wherever I am, I have the front, so you have to go there too.
She also says, "My horn is exalted." The horn is a picture of strength. The idea of strength being restored clicks me into the Psalms, because this prayer — and really this whole section surrounding Hannah — sounds very much like a cry from David's heart: "Restore the joy of my salvation. I am so weary and so tired. God, You do this incredible work."
The Four Attributes of God
Hannah then lists four attributes of God. Let's read these verses. Verse two: "There is no one holy like the Lord, indeed, there is no one besides You, nor is there any rock like our God. Boast no more so very proudly, do not let arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed."
The four attributes she identifies are: God is holy, God is all-powerful, God is all-knowing, and God is just — He is the one who weighs deeds. When it says He weighs actions, it calls to mind the book of Daniel. I believe it is chapter five, where Belshazzar sees the writing on the wall. The inscription reads, in essence, "You have been measured and come up short." God is the one who ultimately rectifies all things. He measures by His own standard.
Among all the attributes of God, she highlights His holiness first. When the Jewish listener heard that emphasis repeated three times, he would understand that this attribute is being acknowledged with the greatest weight — again and again and again. God is holy, wholly other, separate from us, self-sufficient, and independent.
Why These Attributes Matter Together
He is also all-powerful and all-knowing, and that is an important combination. If He possessed one without the other, it would be very difficult for His promises to be fulfilled in our lives. Consider, for example, the promise that all things will work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. A God who was all-knowing but not all-powerful, or all-powerful but not all-knowing, could not make that promise hold.
This was the faith that sustained Hannah — not just in her years of barrenness, but in the moment she had to follow through on her vow and present Samuel to the Lord. If it was a challenge to be barren, how much greater a challenge was it now to give up this child she had bonded with and loved so deeply? God is a big, big God who can be trusted, and our understanding of Him is where everything else in our life begins.
God Is Bigger Than Anything
Romans 8:28 could not be true if God were not all-knowing and all-powerful. If He were all-knowing but not all-powerful, He could say, "I would love to do something, but there is nothing I can do about it." If He were all-powerful but not all-knowing, He could say, "Too bad I didn't know about it, because I could have done something." But He is an all-knowing, all-powerful, and just God. What the scripture returns to again and again is the reality that God is the one who will redeem, who will take things and make them right.
"Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." That brings me back to the first point: it's not fair. God says, "I'll take care of that." In my relationships with other people, I can quickly say, "That's not fair," and suddenly I want to be the Holy Spirit, the arbitrator. But He says, "No, I'll take care of that." There is something in our hearts — that sense where we think this doesn't seem fair — and God says, "I am the one who is going to take that. I am the one who will raise up the righteous and put down the wicked."
Let me read verses nine and ten from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase in The Message. He writes: "He protectively cares for his faithful friends step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark. No one makes it in life by sheer muscle. God's enemies will be blasted out of the sky and crash in a heap and burn. God will set things right all over the earth. He'll give strength to his king and set his anointed on top." There is the idea of the Judge who will come, the Anointed One — not merely David as king, but ultimately Christ and the redemption that will take place as God reigns.
What We Think About God
A.W. Tozer makes the comment that the most important thing about us is how we think about God. You could add to that: what we think about God. If you look around, you can see all sorts of various approaches to Him. As I said earlier, you are not in an atheistic nation, but you are in a pagan nation. By that I mean we are worshiping gods that we have created in our own image — gods that would act and respond the way we would if we were God.
These are gods that have been edited to fit our preferences. Someone might say, "Don't you believe God is love? Yes. Well, how could a loving God possibly send anyone to hell? All dogs go to heaven — certainly most people must as well." That kind of logic means that if all I talk about is God's love, I have edited who He is. If God is as big as this screen behind me, and all I talk about is one portion of Him — love — I have neglected all His other attributes. His attributes are in perfect harmony and balance because He does not sin. He is a just God and a merciful God and a loving God all at the same time.
Truth Is Not "Your Truth"
We live in a time when a strange legitimacy has been extended to all these competing views of God. I was listening to an advertisement the other day for a book — the author writes financial books, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, that sort of thing — and now he has written a book with his sister, who is a Buddhist. The theme, and I paraphrase though I am confident I have captured the spirit of it, is that here are two people from the same background with two different stories, each having found their truth. We are not looking for our truth, are we? We are looking for the truth.
This is why words matter. This is how these things get twisted. This is why you have to think carefully when someone says, "I'm glad you found something that's true for you." That is not the issue. There are absolute truths, and we have to deal with them. God says, "I am" — this is who I am. It is irrelevant what you think or believe about Him in the sense that what you believe about God changes you, but it does not change Him at all. He is absolute. He is unchanging.
How Our View of God Shapes Us
Tozer's comment is so important because how we think about God defines our relationship with Him. If I see God as distant, removed, somewhat uncaring, or impotent, my relationship with Him will be very different than if I see Him as a loving, caring, intimate God who is deeply concerned about me. Where we begin also shapes the entire journey. If I start from the perspective that man is basically good and just a little messed up along the way, I will have a whole different journey than if I start with the understanding that man is basically fallen.
If man is simply a fender-bender, it just means a little Earl Scheib to pop out the dents and repaint him. That is very different from a car that has been totaled, where there is no redemption value left at all. This brings us to the subject of sin. The moment we start talking about sin and the gospel, many of us think, "I hope all those unbelievers are listening closely." But sin is something we continue to deal with even as followers of Christ. We have to go back to the very beginning and understand that when sin came into the world, it separated us from God, contaminated and polluted everything, and brought a curse on the whole world around us.
One author wrote in 1973 that the very word sin, which seemed to have disappeared, was once a proud —
The Forgotten Word: Sin
"Proud" was once a strong word, an ominous, serious word — but the word has almost disappeared, along with the very notion of sin. Why doesn't anyone sin anymore? Doesn't anyone believe in sin? One author addressed this in a book titled *Whatever Became of Sin*. He noted that 1953 was the last time the word "sin" appeared in a national day of prayer declaration issued by the president, and concluded that as a nation, we have officially ceased to sin.
C.S. Lewis said, "The barrier I've met is the almost total absence from the minds of my audience of any sense of sin." D.A. Carson, the modern-day New Testament scholar, spoke about sharing the gospel on a college campus and observed that students had no idea what sin was. As he put it, they know how to sin well enough, but they have no idea what constitutes sin.
This matters because recognizing sin is step one for entering into a relationship with God. There is that magnificent scene in the movie *Amazing Grace* where William Wilberforce goes back to meet John Newton, and Newton, now an old man, says: "My memory has begun to fail, but I indeed remember two things. I am a great sinner, but I have a great savior." Your whole view of God is shaped by how you view yourself — because if you didn't sin very big, you don't need a very big savior. If your sin is just a small miscalculation or mistake, then you don't need much of a savior.
The Gospel Is Not Just for the Beginning
While recognizing sin is where the relationship with Christ begins, we make a serious mistake if we think that as Christians we stop sinning, or that sin stops affecting our walk with Him. We also err if we believe we no longer need to return to the gospel again and again. That is why I say to you almost every week: we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. To neglect this can become very dangerous for us.
Two Books Worth Reading
I want to recommend two books that I believe need to be read together. The first is *The Prodigal God*. If you purchased the book pack at Christmas, it is likely sitting in there unread. One of our staff members made the comment recently, while working through this book, that we have never asked everyone in the church to read a single book together — but if we were ever going to, this would be one of them. Copies are still available; you can purchase the Christmas bag for a good deal, or buy the book individually. Head to the commons after the service.
The second book is one that had been sitting on my stack for a long time and that I picked up and started reading recently. It is called *Respectable Sins* by Jerry Bridges. The combination of these two books is genuinely powerful. Even if you are not much of a reader or a student, we are still in January — buy these two books, and slowly work your way through them over the course of the whole year. They are small books, which helps. I would read them in sequence: *The Prodigal God* first, then *Respectable Sins*.
Sins We Overlook in Ourselves
In *Respectable Sins*, Jerry Bridges explains that the motivation for the book stems from his conviction that we as conservative evangelicals have become so preoccupied with the major sins of society around us that we have lost sight of the need to deal with our own more refined, subtle sins. At the same time, he is clear that he wants the book to be one of hope. We never wallow in the hopelessness of our sin; rather, we believe the gospel through which God has dealt with the guilt of our sin and its dominion over us. That is something I need to return to day after day.
The table of contents alone is convicting. Here is just a partial list of the sins he addresses: ungodliness, anxiety, frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue, worldliness, gluttony, and slothfulness. It is a long list, and it covers the territory of fallen men and women. We tend to focus on the big, visible sins out there in the world while overlooking the ones that quietly do damage closer to home.
I will tell you plainly, speaking from my heart as your shepherd: nothing will tear you apart faster than a heart that manifests its sin through the tongue. It is wicked, destructive work. What we pray is that God makes us more and more sensitive to it.
A Story About Grievous Sin
J. Vernon McGee — the old radio preacher, who I should mention is no longer living, though people still apparently drive to Pasadena hoping to meet him, which is going to be a one-sided conversation — tells a story about a phone call he received one Monday when he happened to be in the office. A little ninety-year-old woman, the kind every church seems to have, called and said, "Pastor, can I come and see you today?" She told him she had sinned so grievously. Out of sheer curiosity about what this woman could possibly have done, he told her to come right in.
The Expulsive Power of a New Affection
She came in and said, "I haven't slept all night. I'm just distraught over this sin. It's torn me apart." He asked, "So what did you do?" She said, "Do you remember seeing me at church yesterday?" He said, "Sure." She said, "Do you remember talking to me?" He said, "Sure." She said, "Do you remember what I said to you?" He said, "Well, no, I don't really remember." She said, "Well, I told you that the sermon was good. And it wasn't."
Now, we laugh at that, but that's how in tune she was to the Spirit of God. We blow past that — we would even in our own misguided way somehow say it was a virtue that she was able to encourage him. But that's what we're talking about. The closer I get to Him, the more I begin to see myself clearly, and I begin to see sin for what it is: anything that separates me from Him.
I came across an author the other day through the Bridges book. He mentioned a man named Thomas Chalmers, so I put the book down and did a little research. Chalmers was born in 1780 and died in 1847. There are apparently a whole range of things he accomplished, but there is one sermon that stands out. If you Google Thomas Chalmers — C-H-A-L-M-E-R-S — this title keeps coming up: *The Expulsive Power of the New Affection*.
I read it the first time and glazed over, so let me give you the heart of it. He says that in life, as we fight this battle with the world, there are two ways to motivate somebody. One is to condemn the world — to present, as he puts it, "the demonstration of the world's vanity so that the heart shall be prepared, prevailed upon simply to withdraw from it." In other words, stay away from this, watch out for that. The other way is to present to them a new affection — a new love.
You were in love with the world, but now, instead of simply being told not to love the world, you fall in love with someone else — and that someone is God. That is the new affection. You begin to fall in love with Him: who He is, what He is like.
What It Means to Fall in Love with God
How do you fall in love with somebody? There is that tingle and emotion at the beginning of a relationship. But some of you have walked in marriage for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years. How does that love grow deeper? It is different, yet there are still moments of feeling it.
Just yesterday in the kitchen — that is all you need to know — I gave her a hug and I was tingling. I said, "I haven't tingled like this in a while." And she said, "Well, that's too bad, because I'm making dinner. So you're all tingled out, my friend. Take your little tingle in there and watch television." But in that relationship, my love for her is now at a whole deeper level, because I know her.
How do I know her? We actually talk, communicate, and experience life together. Our thirty years of marriage have had incredible highs, but we have had our challenges — economic challenges, health challenges with our kids, with Sarah and car accidents, and the struggle we have with Susan now. But all of those things only deepen the love. That is what Chalmers is saying.
You can go the other road — stay away from the world, duty and compliance and obedience — but it is going to grow weary. I am tired of being around Christians whose meter is absolutely at zero all the time. You know why? Because they are scared to death they are going to make a mistake. Everything is solemn, sacred duty. But God put joy in your life. This is a wonderful reminder to me, just in these few verses, about the joy of really knowing God and who He is.
Three Dates Worth Considering
Next week I am going to get into the account of Eli's sons. But today I want to take about five minutes on three dates that landed on my calendar this week, and I should warn you I may run a little long.
Today is Right to Life Sunday. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. And Tuesday is the inauguration. Tyler sent me an email this week from Brad Smith, who is the president of Bakke Graduate University — Tyler is in the process of doing his graduate work there. I have edited the email, but I want to take those three dates in reverse and start with the inauguration. I am simply going to read what Brad Smith wrote and then make some comments.
He writes: "In the last few weeks, I've received emails from friends who say the end of the U.S. is at hand. I have other emails that say the true Christian heritage of freedom for all in the U.S. is just beginning. Some are in despair, others are gloating. For the Christian, this change of leadership brings genuine things to be concerned about and genuine things to celebrate. Even with these concerns, at least for two days, we need to celebrate with a common voice from the depths of our hearts — a true milestone of racial reconciliation is at hand. It's unfortunate that we as Christians have to process this milestone through the window of the media."
Then he writes: "News shows must create a constant story of winners and losers. Over time, people watching these events are increasingly polarized. Talk shows, TV shows, even home networks emerge that cater to one side or the other. The other side, in their absence, is portrayed as vitriolic idiots at best, evil at worst."
This resonated with me. When I spoke after the last election about the new president, and talked of it in terms of this being a man who is now our president, my email lit up. It may be the most negative email I have ever received — other than a few times of pure foolishness on my part.
A Momentous Historical Occasion
How could a Christian even vote for this guy? Well, here you go: ninety percent of the African-American population voted for Barack Obama. Are you telling me that of those people who voted, ninety percent are not Christians? I don't buy that for one second. I may have profound differences with him, and certainly I have a different view of politics and of the world. But number one, he is the president. Number two, I am telling you, this is a significant moment in the history of this country that an African-American can be elected president.
In my life, when I was a young boy, African-Americans weren't allowed to play in the major leagues. When I was a young boy, African-Americans could not vote. We in Davenport did not have at least a pronounced separation — it was probably implied, and I am probably somewhat oblivious to it.
There is an author by the name of Stephen Oates who wrote a biography on Abraham Lincoln that I love. He also wrote one on Martin Luther King, Jr., and it was a terrific biography. As I was reading it, I was also watching a great deal of footage and video from that era.
Let me tell you: there is no way you would have tolerated what the black community experienced. You would not have tolerated it for a second. As I read what happened to these people and began to see it, I don't have a file for it. There is a part of me — and I will confess this — that, as I listened to conservative black leaders struggle about whether to vote for Obama or not, thought, "How could this even be an issue?" And yet there is something different and deeper there that I had to reckon with.
Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July
I went back and reread a speech by Frederick Douglass. My assumption is that many of you know who he is. He was born a slave in 1817 and died in 1895, and he was a key leader in affecting many of the circumstances surrounding the Civil War and the thought of that era. On July 4th, 1852, he gave a speech titled "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" I reread it just the other day. It is a powerful communication.
Let me read from it. I have edited it, as it is long — you can Google the full version. If something doesn't connect for you, it is probably because I have edited some of the surrounding sense out of it.
> "Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask — I am called upon to speak here today — what have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence extended to us? I say it with a sad disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessing in which you rejoice on this day is not enjoyed in common. The great inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, but not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice. I must mourn. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than any other day in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham. Your boasting liberty is an unholy license. Your national greatness, a swelling vanity. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Your shouts of liberty and equality are hollow."
You feel the pain in those words. They are powerful words.
From Douglass to King to This Moment
When you fast-forward from that speech to what Martin Luther King, Jr. was part of in the civil rights movement — bringing our national sin of slavery and racism at least to the surface so we could begin to see it — and then understand that two days from now an African-American will become your president, this is a monumental, historic event.
I will say it again: I may have profound disagreements with the philosophy. But I tell you what — I have got to rejoice for this moment in our history. I would just pray that for at least two days we can set our differences aside and have some level of celebration. I would encourage you, on the Fourth of July this year, to pick up that Douglass speech. I will bet you read it in a whole different way.
The Modern Moral Crisis: Abortion
I said there are three dates I want to address: the inauguration, the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and today — the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the right to life. There is no question that when you look at the history of this country and what slavery did to this nation, the modern-day moral sin that plagues us is abortion. Every year, 1.245 million babies are killed. If you want to talk about a civil rights issue — a third of those babies are African-American, and half of them are women. So if you are concerned about equal rights, this has to be an issue.
I say all of this not to make you feel bad. I say it to give you perspective and to challenge you to get out there and make a difference. Some of you, rather than needing to run away from politics, need to run toward it. Everyone I am talking about — the media, our public institutions — Christians are simply not present. Well, you are not there, are you?
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he made the comment, "So you are the little lady that started this big war," referring to her writing of *Uncle Tom's Cabin*. Well, maybe you are the one to write the equivalent of that — so that some president someday can take notice and something can change.
A Moment of National Significance
You could be the little lady or the little guy who stopped abortion in America. You could be the equivalent of a William Wilberforce, who over the course of a quarter of a century took a stand against slavery and was used by God to wipe it out in the nation of Great Britain. These are huge times.
I feel compelled to say — and I am political, I like politics — but I think we do a wonderful job of keeping politics out of the pulpit. This isn't a political issue. This is an issue for us as a nation and as a people.
I have a heaviness over some of the thoughts and some of the policies, but I have a joy that the man who is my president couldn't have voted forty years ago, and now they'll play Hail to the Chief when he walks in the room. That's a big deal.
Closing Prayer
Father, will You do this work in our lives? We sin — and God, we sin in some big ways, but we also sin in these small ways. God, it's real simple: focus us on who You are, what You've done, and what You will do. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.