A Nation in Crisis

[0:00] so friends we're going to read now together from the word of god and we're going to be reading from a first samuel chapter one we're going to read from first samuel chapter one we're going to read the whole chapter through together this evening so from first samuel chapter one from verse one there was a certain man of ramathiam zophim of the hill country of ephraim whose name was elkanah the son of jeroham son of elihu son of tohu son of zuth and ephra for fight and he had two wives the name of one was hannah and the name of the other peninnah and peninnah had children but hannah had no children now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the lord of hosts at shiloh where the two sons of eli hophni and phinehas were priests of the lord on the day when elkanah sacrificed he would give portions to peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters but to hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her though the lord had closed her womb and her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her because the lord had closed her womb so it went on year by year as often as she went up to the house of the lord she used to provoke her therefore hannah wept and would not eat and elkanah her husband said to her hannah why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad am i not worth more to you than ten sons after they had eaten and drunk in shiloh hannah rose now eli the prince was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the lord and she was deeply distressed and prayed to the lord and wept bitterly and she vowed a vow and said oh lord of hosts if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant but will give your servant a son then i will give him to the lord all the days of his life and no razor shall touch his head as she continued praying before the lord eli observed her mouth hannah was speaking in her heart only her lips moved and her voice was not heard therefore eli took her to be a drunken woman and eli said to her how long will you go on being drunk put your wine away from you but hannah answered no my lord i am a woman troubled in spirit i have drunk neither wine nor strong drink but i have been pouring out my soul before the lord do not regard your servant as a worthless woman for all along i have been speaking out to my great anxiety and vexation then eli answered go in peace and the god of israel grant your petition that you have made to him and she said let your servant find favor in your eyes then the woman went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad they rose early in the morning and worshipped before the lord and then they went back to their house at ramah and elkanah knew hannah his wife and the lord remembered her and in due time hannah conceived and bore a son and she called his name samuel for she said i have asked for him from the lord the man elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the lord the yearly sacrifice and to pay his vow but hannah did not go up for she said to her husband as soon as the child is weaned i will bring him so that he may appear in the presence of the lord and dwell there forever helkanah her husband said to her do what seems best to you wait until you have weaned him only may the lord establish his word so the woman remained and nursed her son until she weaned him and when she had weaned him she took him up with her along with a three-year-old bull an epiph of flower and a skin of wine and she brought him to the house of the lord at shiloh and the child was young they slaughtered the bull and they brought the child to eli and she said oh my lord as you live my lord i am the woman who's standing here in your presence praying to the lord for the this child i prayed and the lord has granted me my petition that i made him therefore i have lent him to the lord as long as he lives he is lent to the lord and he worshiped the lord there amen may god bless this reading of his word here to us this evening so friends before we look together at first samuel chapter one let us spend some more time in prayer before our lord let's pray almighty god we thank you again for the wonderful gift and wonderful privilege we have to worship here with you with your saints on this day we thank you for your word which you've just heard the wonderful story of how samuel came to be the wonderful story of your faithfulness to your people in their time of great need and great trouble we thank you that you are faithful to your people that you are there for us that you will bring justice for your people when they face injustice we thank you that you hear our prayers that you're always there for us that even when we cannot say the words you hear them from our hearts and from our minds you know what is on our hearts you know what we want to say even when we cannot say it you know what we need so help us lord each of us here in all of our needs there are many things going on that maybe we don't know about in our lives here and yet you know you know our struggles you know our temptations you know the things that trip us up the things that cause us to stumble the things that worry us the things that upset us you know these things lord to help us encourage us and strengthen us lord so that we may not be downcast that we may be filled with a peace of god that surpasses all understanding lord we thank you that people can join us online from home or from wherever they are or catch up later on the internet we thank you for this wonderful technology that allows us to do this so that we can still meet even if we're not all in the same place we pray that you bless those who are watching live or catching up later that they would still feel a part of your church that they would still feel included they would still feel a part of the fellowship of your children we pray lord that this town in livingston would know the gospel that there will be great revival here and indeed all around our nation in our day that many would have great conviction of sin that they would hear the gospel preached or explained to them by a friend or a loved one that they would know that they must turn to christ to be saved and that they would do so we know you can do it you've done it in the past you've often waited until things are at their darkest and it doesn't seem like anything could get any worse when the church was at its lowest you have sparked it in the past you have sparked it into life we know you can do it so we pray you would do it again soon and you would help us the church to be equipped and ready and working towards this that the people would know the gospel well be able to communicate it be able to share it they would love it that it would become a part of them lord we pray for this congregation here we ask you to strengthen them in their vacancy that you would give them wisdom and the great and the knowledge to know where to proceed as they look for a minister we thank you for their faithfulness all these years we pray it would continue and that they would grow and flourish and this community would see the light shining from this place and the people that are a part of it and we'll be curious to know what exactly is church all about we're so thankful lord we pray for those who are unwell we know it can be hard we know we're still struggling with covid and its after effect there are other illnesses too which may have been sidelined people's care not been properly looked after things have taken too long maybe we don't know but we just pray you would be with the sick you would help us to minister to them well that they would be encouraged they would be strengthened that they would have knowledge of your presence they would know you're with them and they're not alone strengthen us lord help us to be holy help us to be faithful help us to be kind help us to be people who love you who want to serve you who want to give their lives to you help us oh lord and be with us as we hear from your word may your spirit move within us and teach us from your word in jesus holy and precious name we pray amen so i don't know if any of you are brave enough to look at the news anymore on television or newspapers or your smartphone app or whatever it is but whenever you do open these things or we were listening to the radio on the way in and the news was playing the overwhelming impression that we're given is that the world is in crisis there are all sorts of crises going on around our world and around our nation today the obvious crisis happening in ukraine the terrible things are happening there you've got the climate crisis the energy crisis the public health crisis it seems wherever you look today there is some kind of crisis or other going on and there was also a key factor present in all of these crises that we face and that is the weak leadership the confidence people seem to have in their leaders today seems to be an all-time low and yet it seems to keep getting lower and lower there is no trust anymore we don't trust our leaders leaders we don't believe they'll do what they say they'll do or that they're truly sorry when they say they're sorry or that they will act when they need to there's no trust anymore leadership is important in every aspect of our society as it always has been throughout human history every part of our daily lives is affected by some kind of leadership or other you have the leadership of the church you have the people who run the supermarkets where you buy your groceries your sports clubs you have the people who manage and lead them the people who run the energy companies that set what your bill is going to be for the next year all of these things all boils down to leadership sometimes we look at the great leaders of the past these great men and women who have done great things and we kind of feel nostalgic and longing wishing that we had the same caliber of leaders we had in those days and yet they were not without their troubles and without their downsides too ironically though despite this real real lowness in how we trust and perceive our leaders our ability to choose them is at a historical high never before have we had such power to decide who it is that will be our leaders and not just political leaders not just prime ministers and first ministers and MPs and all that more so now than ever the common people have the ability to influence who their leaders will be through the internet social media and all these things we are now able to choose our leaders and reject them what do I mean by this

[14:21] I mean we can choose who we let influence our lives we can choose not to accept the influence of certain people and we can welcome it from others of course our real leader is not seated on thrones or in parliaments or in boardrooms he's seated in heaven but we let these people influence our lives and we follow them even when sometimes we shouldn't the books of Samuel tell us about Israel's first kings their first royal leaders they tell us about Saul and David who they were how they came to the throne how they fared and it also tells us about the last judge Samuel who's going to be the focus of our evening services for the next six weeks it tells us who Samuel was tells us where he came from what he did how he fared but more than that of course these books tell us about our true king they tell us about God himself about who he is what he does how he fared if you read first and second Samuel together you see glimpses of who God is spread throughout these narratives you can see what he does how he works through his people to shape his kingdom you can see what life is like with him and you can see what life is like without him and we can see what life can become by his grace and by the power of his spirit so three things today then as we consider first Samuel chapter one we're going to look at a nation's crisis a mother's crisis and a promise remembered so firstly then a nation's crisis when we first open first Samuel chapter one and start reading we encounter the nation of Israel which is a nation in crisis their leadership has failed

[16:47] Israel has just endured two centuries of crazy levels of social and disorder it's been roughly two centuries since Israel had entered the promised land under Joshua and we call this era the time of the judges which you can read about in the book of Judges and the book of Judges sums up the state Israel was in pretty well right at the end when it says in those days there was no king in Israel everyone did what was right in his own eyes Israel had no settled leadership they had no political body or organized leadership leadership it seemed that anarchy was reigning they had no leader or at least that is what they thought because of course Israel was unique in the world Israel was a chosen nation of God they were the people God himself had chosen to lead directly indeed they had only become a nation because of

[17:55] God's promise to their ancestor Abraham God himself had promised to make them into a great nation who would then go forth and bless the world they were a special people no other nation then or now could have claimed to have God as their king the God of eternity the God of creation the Lord of the universe as their king they had God as their leader God who had given them laws to follow instructed them how they were to live how they were to be governed how their society would work how worship would work God who had taken them out of slavery in Egypt and given them this land and told them that they would bless the world and yet despite all that we see Israel turn away from that God and when we see Israel's apostasy and judges when time and time again they disobey God so God raises up some punishment for them and then they cry out to

[18:59] God and say please save us so God raises up a leader who will go and rescue his people this happens again and again and again and it makes us think just how this could be surely you would think having God as your king would have been enough surely he but apparently not it seemed Israel would eventually destroy itself as it lurched from one crisis to another with no end in sight all things just getting worse throughout the Philistines growing internal strife was growing even the last stable form of leadership the priesthood itself had become corrupt he was no longer fit for purpose we're introduced here to Eli the high priest of Shiloh the place where Israel would go to worship God the place where the tabernacle was the place where the sacrifices were performed the place where the Ark of

[20:07] Covenant resided before the temple was built we're told of Eli the high priest who had failed in his role as a father and as a priest we're introduced to his sons also priests Hophni and Phinehas who we're told are corrupt they engaged in forbidden and unlawful behaviour we're told that they would take the best portion of the sacrifices for themselves the things that belonged to God they would have for themselves we're also told they would have sexual relations with the sanctuary serving women that they would take advantage of their situation they're described as sons of Baliel the old Jewish word that would come later to be known as the devil the old King James version calls them corrupt the new King James version calls them scoundrels in the NIV and the ESV they're called worthless and we're also told rather damningly that they did not know the Lord and these are the men these worthless scoundrels these corrupt people these were the men who were serving as priests to God most high these were the men who were in the greatest position of spiritual authority in the land the position they had no right to be in the people hadn't heard the word of

[21:45] God for a while Proverbs 29 18 reminds us that when there is no prophetic vision the people of God cast off restraint that was what was happening the people were not hearing the word they were not being taught the laws of God they had no clear path to follow they lost all sense of guidance they were throwing off restraint this is how 1st Samuel begins with this question of leadership what will God do to save the nation he had chosen to be his people his nation who could possibly lead Israel out of the dark days that they found themselves in and the answer God gives is a curious one it doesn't come from a palace it doesn't come from a castle or fort or place of great learning a university it doesn't even come from the temple from the tabernacle instead it comes from an everyday woman with a broken heart it comes from Hannah so we have a nation's crisis and secondly we have a mother's crisis

[23:08] Napoleon Bonaparte once famously said a leader is a dealer in hope hope that was what Israel as a nation really needed but hope was also what a childless woman Hannah needed as she goes she needs this hope she goes to the only place that she knows it can be found you might say that Hannah was a childless mother you may think hang on that doesn't make much sense and in the modern context you may be right you can't really have a childless mother but I think you also can there's something a bit different here I think most of you would agree you don't have to physically give birth to a child in order to be its mother you can go through the process of adoption or fostering all sorts of things and this was the case I think for Hannah when we first meet her

[24:16] Hannah we're told was the wife of Ocanna but we're also told she wasn't his only wife he was also married to a woman called Peninnah and while Hannah did not have any children of her own we're told that Peninnah did I don't think it's much of a stretch of the imagination to think that Hannah would have helped in the raising of these other children in the household ergo she was both a mother and also she was childless Hannah was in many ways quite well off to be honest she had almost everything an Israelite woman in her day could ask for she was married to a man of good standing we know he was maybe fairly wealthy if not super rich because then he could support his two wives it's also obvious from this passage that her husband loved her dearly despite the fact that she had no children of her own we're also told and shown that they had a genuine and a pious faith they were committed to their worship of God they knew who he was they knew how to properly do the sacrifice and the festivals

[25:34] Hannah knew how to pray who could ask for more well for Hannah she was still very much in a place of crisis which was not made any easier by her co-wife Peninnah while Hannah it seems was infertile Peninnah was super fertile it would seem she's had many many children and she was not above rubbing it in Hannah's face this is probably due to the fact Elkanah showed Hannah favoritism showed her maybe more love than he showed to Peninnah so she was kind of paying back Hannah maybe for this Hannah was desperate for children of her own but it just didn't happen and so she was mocked for it but we're reminded in verse 5 that the Lord was the one who had closed her womb obviously

[26:37] God had some plan in store for Hannah she just didn't know what it was yet of course Hannah isn't the first childless woman we encounter in scripture and she won't be the last God it seems often has a plan involving women who are incapable of having children and in fact using them to bring forth great leaders and figures in the story of the gospel and as we find out here in 1st Samuel it is no different it shows a great thing about God the great thing is that sometimes God can use our inability to do something as a starting point often when we feel hopeless when we feel helpless when we turn to God he can use that hopelessness that helplessness to the benefit of his work as he does here with Hannah Hannah had suffered year after year until finally she'd had enough and she broke down she couldn't take it anymore but instead of running away from her problems instead of running away from her family she goes to the only person she knows who could possibly fix her problem she goes to the only one who could put an end to her crisis she does what the whole people of Israel should have done she runs to God as she does so she wept bitterly sometimes we feel that way don't we when we're so distraught we're so broken inside that when you want to pray when you know you need to pray when you know you want to come to

[28:29] God and ask for his help and yet all you can manage is tears let Hannah be an encouragement to you and let Psalm 6 be an encouragement to you also which reminds us that sometimes our very tears themselves can be seen as a prayer it says in verse 8 of Psalm 6 depart from me all you workers of evil for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping the Lord hears it the Lord hears it so Hannah runs to God she runs to the temple she throws herself down before the throne of grace before the presence of God most high and she pleads with him she offers herself before her God as a servant she also offers her son to be a servant if God should grant her request she says

[29:30] Lord Almighty if you would only look on your servant's misery and remember me and not forget your servant but give her a son and I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head Hannah is extremely bold in her prayer she comes to God directly she calls him Lord of Almighty Lord of hosts remember she's just an ordinary woman she's a simple unimportant obscure woman from an insignificant place and yet she can come before the Lord of the universe the one who is sovereign over all the one who made the heavens and the earth and everything in it she can come before him and as she does so she is expecting that she is important to him

[30:30] Hannah has that wonderful boldness to speak what her heart is feeling to speak with freedom before God the way she prays it's just filled with such incredible honesty and fervor before God and God in his grace and love towards her allows her to pray in this way as he does for all of us we have that same privilege we have that same honor we have that same God so may we also be able to pray with such boldness and with such honesty as Hannah did we then go back to Eli Eli who doesn't recognize what's going on he doesn't know that she's praying we're told her mouth was moving but no words came out she's praying in her heart so he mistakes her for being drunk perhaps this is a common occurrence in the tabernacle in those days and with the poor spiritual state of Israel was in maybe he rarely saw such honest and open prayer maybe he didn't recognize it anymore we just don't know he just didn't recognize it he didn't see it for what it was this story really is incredible because while there is a national crisis going on while there is such a need for good leadership while the temple itself has become corrupt the tabernacle sorry we are instead zooming in onto this into this very ordinary and very relatable crisis a couple unable to have children because this crisis would be from where

[32:44] God's answer to the national crisis of Israel would come from the most unexpected of places the crisis of an ordinary woman God's solution to the great crisis of Israel came from an ordinary woman with ordinary problems when Hannah explains to Eli that she isn't drunk that she's been praying Eli answers her and he says to her go in peace and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him and she said let your servant find favor in your eyes then the woman went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad her face was no longer sad no longer downcast in some other translations

[33:55] Hannah hadn't been promised anything there was no word from heaven or from an angel of the Lord declaring that she would bear a son there was no word of a prophet telling her that everything would be okay that God was going to move powerfully in her life there was none of that there was no word there was nothing all she had was her faith her faith that the God of Israel the God of her ancestors the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob would hear her prayer and it would seem for her this was enough the despair of her heart was lifted and when she returned to the meal she returned a different person than the one who left she was no longer weeping she was no longer refusing her food she was no longer filled with sadness her belief in her

[34:59] God was genuine and it was well placed because as we know God did hear her prayer read in verse 19 they arose early in the morning worshiped before the Lord and then they went back to their house at Ramah Elkanah knew Hannah his wife and the Lord remembered her and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son and she called his name Samuel for she said I have asked for him from the Lord just as the Lord had remembered Noah in the time of the flood just as he'd remembered his people in the time of their slavery he now remembered Hannah whenever God is said to have remembered his people it always leads to some kind of action on their behalf in this case God would kill two birds with one stone he would bring an end to

[36:01] Hannah's crisis and he would set in motion a series of events that would solve the leadership crisis that Israel was facing God gave Hannah a son he gave her what she asked for knowing this baby boy of whom we will hear much more about in the coming weeks will be instrumental in solving the crisis that Israel was currently facing of course we must remember Hannah's case isn't normative there's no guarantee that when we ask God for something like this he will grant it but it does remind us that God cares for his people and that he will do what is right and what is good for them so we have a nation's crisis a mother's crisis and finally we have a promise remembered in the final scene of

[37:01] Hannah's story at the end of chapter one we hear two promises that are being kept we have a promise that was made by Elkanah we don't know what this promise was we only know that it involved going to Shiloh each year with his family in order to fulfill it but this time Hannah did not go as you read in verse 21 the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and to pay his vow but Hannah did not go up for she said to her husband as soon as a child is weaned I will bring him so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever Elkanah had promised had made a vow to go up to Shiloh every year to perform the sacrifices and he does that he fulfills his commitment to that vow even though Hannah doesn't go this time he still goes and does what he promised and Hannah also remembered her promise because Hannah promised that this son would be given to God to his service all the days of his life so she would not return to

[38:21] Shiloh until she was in a position to live up to the promise that she had made and it would seem that Hannah was in full support of this Hannah then spends two to three years probably weaning Samuel this may seem like an awful long time compared to us in the 21st century where you start weaning process at maybe six months old as we had to do with Thomas fairly recently but I have to remember that times were different back then you couldn't just pop down your local shop and pick up some specially prepared easily digestible baby food you didn't have any blenders or anything like that so you can make the same thing at home Hannah just had to make do with herself on what she had and could do so weaning took quite a bit longer but this weaning time now is over and so Hannah sets off with her young son and the rest of her family to head to Shiloh to fulfill the promise that she made but not just that along with

[39:34] Samuel we're told that she brought an offering of thanks an offering of epic proportions it says in verse 24 when she weaned him she took him up along with she took him up with her along with a three-year-old bull an epiph of flower and a skin of wine and she brought him to the house of the lord at Shiloh so she had a bull about 22 litres worth of flour and a lot of wine as a thank you offering Hannah Hannah remembered her promise and she kept it she remembered her vow and she presents Samuel at Shiloh as she had promised can you imagine how hard that would have been we often make promises don't we in the heat of the moment saying we'll do something saying God if you just do this for me

[40:38] I will give you my life forever I will become a minister I will serve you or a missionary or whatever and then the thing happens and then we forget or we're like oh well maybe maybe I won't do that actually there's a better job over here that pays more or something along those lines Hannah doesn't do that she longed for this son greatly and yet she promised to give him up and she does so knowing how hard it was not knowing that she may ever have any more children she'd been blessed with one maybe that was all God wanted for her there was no guarantees of any more but she fulfills her vow there's something worth mentioning here it doesn't really come across in the English in verses 27 and 28

[41:40] Hannah uses the Hebrew word for ask four times it says in verse 27 for this child I prayed and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him therefore I have lent him to the Lord as long as he lives I have as long as he lives he is lent to the Lord and he worshipped the Lord there if you read it more literally it kind of reads it like this it says for this child I prayed and Yahweh gave me my asking which I asked from him and they also have given back what was asked to Yahweh all the days he lives he is one that is asked for Yahweh a bit clunky in English isn't it you can see why they translated it the way they did but it reminds us that she had asked for Samuel that she picks up on the blessing she'd received from Eli after she'd made her initial prayer where Eli said go in peace may the

[42:43] God of Israel grant you what you asked of him she remembers she remembers this blessing in the way she names her son too for choosing his name Samuel which sounds like heard of God or asked of God she remembers that it is God who has given her her son ironically the word asked for will come up again in this story not too far away in the name of Israel's first king Saul from the very beginning God had planned for Samuel's name to be linked to that of Saul and of course both were asked for Samuel was asked for by a grieving mother and Saul was asked for by a nation longing for a king while this story has some unique elements to them this being Samuel's destiny to become God's prophet and judge who will guide

[43:45] God's people through a critical crisis who is the chosen instrument of God at this time in redemptive history in that sense this story of a family the story of Hannah O'Connor and Samuel is not the same level as you and of me however they're still people they still have the same problems that we have we can still find common ground with them still feel the same way any believing parent can echo Hannah's actions in general principle people because he was just like us I think we should pray that every child we have should be given to God not necessarily to be a priest but just so that whatever gifts that God blesses them with can be used in his service and of course we all want our children to grow in the knowledge of God to know him to love him to serve him so Hannah's crisis is now over she's been given the son she asked for she's fulfilled her promise to give him over to

[45:15] God's service and while she would perform this sacrifice while she would give up this much long form beloved son for the service of God he remembers her again and we're told later she would have many more children afterwards one crisis is over the other is still going on however God has made the first move he has begun the process he would use to bring an end to the crisis his people were facing if anyone ever tells you that God doesn't care about us this story reminds us that he cares for us so much Hannah's story as short as it is we only hear about her for a short time is a prime example of how

[46:18] God cares about us and cares about our ordinary problems and it gives us an example for us to follow in the way Hannah prayed when Hannah prayed it wasn't a formal empty prayer she wasn't reciting something she'd read in the book or heard before but Hannah this prayer was real the God she was speaking to was real and living he cared for her she cast her cares and anxieties onto the Lord knowing that God who cared for her who cared for the things that mattered for her would be listening remember she walked away no longer sad even though she'd never been promised anything we're told this story because it's amazing because it's unusual because it's wonderful but also because in some ways it's very normal was Hannah's prayer granted because she was more deserving because she prayed the hardest perhaps because she was the most miserable no not at all was it even because of the vow she had made that

[47:39] God fulfilled her prayer no not even that you see while I think it's useful to see examples in biblical characters and to follow them at times we need to be careful understanding the meaning behind the texts we read because this story isn't about Hannah it's not about Samuel it's not about Elkanah or Eli this story is all about God the story begins by showing us how he cared for Hannah and as it unfolds we will see that in caring for Hannah he was caring for Israel what he did for her he was doing for his people God dramatically demonstrates in the life of Hannah the fact that everyday faithfulness by ordinary people can by God's grace change history forever does God care does he care about you and me does he care about the crisis that we're facing yes he does he cared about

[48:49] Hannah he cared about his people he cared about the leadership problem they were facing he cares about the wider world he cares about the crisis that we're facing today and remember as great as Hannah's son would turn out to be he would eventually be surpassed by another son by the son of Mary to see that God cares for you you only need to look at Jesus Christ his coming his life and his death his resurrection and his interceding for your behalf at the right hand of God if we belong to him then we can learn like Hannah to cast your cares onto him because friends he cares for you he loves you he gave his life for you he knows everything about you he cares what you care about your everyday needs your everyday worries he cares about your aching knees he cares about your financial worries all these things he cares for you and he gave his life for you so remember you can always go to him in prayer because he understands and he loves you amen heavenly father we thank you for this wonderful story the story of Hannah who suffered with a problem that many people struggle with that we know maybe some of us have had the same problem and yet she knew to come to you in prayer she knew to cast her anxieties her worries her fears to you you listened to her as you would listen to any of your children because you loved her and you cared for her in this case you granted her prayer because you had great plans for that baby boy who would do great things help us

[51:13] Lord to remember that you always work for our good that in Samuel you worked for the good of your people because through Samuel we would get the king David and through the house of David we would get your son who would come and deal with sin forever help us look to this great king our lord our savior the king of king the lord of lords the one who laid down his life for his sheep who cares for us who loves us and who wants us to know him and to love him and to serve him to help us to do all these things and to go home tonight feeling refreshed with faces that are not downcast that are not sad knowing that God is there for us that you listen to us that you hear our cries that your holy spirit strengthens us that you guard our hearts and minds in Jesus

[52:24] Christ lord we pray that as we go home tonight the peace of God that surpasses all understanding would be with us all through Jesus Christ our lord we pray amen of yes do I pray for you lifetime qu to