by Pastor Drew Conley

Losing the sense of connection is not good for any member or family in the church. In smaller churches these relationships tend to form more naturally and may not require formal, intentional structure. In a larger church we must work diligently to make sure no one is left out.

Some of you have such relationships here at church, but many do not, and we all desperately need them. We have a little over 200 in prayer meeting, 65 in LifeGroups, 100 in Ladies' Bible Study, and a small group in Men's Bible Study. When you look at the total number of people involved with the smaller venues, excepting Sunday School (which is primarily focused on teaching), it is apparent that we are not meeting the need of the majority of our church family to connect with one another for meaningful discipleship, prayer, applications, and accountability. And we are hearing from those who are drifting away how much they need these connections. We believe we have to make a concerted effort to facilitate improvement in this crucial area of church health. We have more ground work and then training leaders this summer, and our intent is to launch LifeGroups in earnest by the fall.

If you’ve already found what advances discipleship, prayer, and relationships in your life, by all means continue. As we’ve looked at our church needs and methods available to us in our current culture, we do believe LifeGroups create an effective means of connecting that is very valuable and that needs facilitating. This is not just as another meeting, but as a way of making sure one-anothering happens on a regular, meaningful basis. We’re not trying to conform to a new trend (actually an age-old method), but to meet an obvious need.

Our schedules are tight, with school, work, and family responsibilities so groups meet at different times of the week. For some, Wednesday evenings really are the only time that works with their schedule. Some will be in the prayer meeting that meets in the Activities Center, some will be in their LifeGroups. That’s okay! Because all will be praying, all will have opportunity to be connecting for the sake of meaningful discipleship relationships. The point is not so much the method as the purpose, the healthy church culture. Some will choose prayer meetings here at church, some will find the LifeGroup prayer and discipleship in homes better suited. We want prayer, discipleship, and relationships for encouragement and accountability to multiply not divide. No spirit of “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos.” Multiplication, not division! Stability, strengthening of relationships, not fragmentation or polarization!

We need more praying together, not less. We need more discipleship, not less, more living out the truth we learn from the Scriptures, more strong relationships to encourage and exhort one another to live for Jesus, and to meet the needs we find when we draw close to one another in love. We want to be “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). Open Arms. Helping Hands. One-Anothering with the love of Christ and to His praise.This kind of one-anothering must go on in any healthy church.

1 Samuel 1

Today we honor moms – particularly those who trust in the Lord – and their God-given role in the family. We value the moms in our congregation and the many ways they serve the Lord. Moms truly matter.

Yesterday our ladies’ collected welcome kits for Safe Harbor, a ministry that provides a safe shelter, counseling and support to women who are victims of domestic violence. This morning we consider Hannah, a mother who suffered for a different reason.

I. Moms Who Suffer: Broken ( I Samuel 1:1-8)

To be human is to suffer the effects of sin’s curse on the planet, but there are sufferings especially painful to women and mothers. Some are called upon daily to forget self and serve others who often do not even seem to notice the cost.

All the difficulties of household duties and the demands of a marriage relationship can sometimes be made worse by unwise and unjust conditions.

Other circumstances that would cause moms to suffer include:

• • A husband with a divided heart — polygamy.
  • Barrenness — deep pain for a woman with a mother’s heart. Sometimes caused by delayed marriage, infertility, still births, miscarriage—the hunger for motherhood left starving, parenthood dying, sense of significance and calling in question.

The LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, which is hard to endure in and of itself, especially in a culture where having children is considered evidence of God’s blessing and not having them, evidence of His curse. Yet how often God sends this test to women of faith — Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Manoah’s wife, Elizabeth — all suffered this stigma, but look what God did through their offspring – the promised seed; the father of the nation; the deliverer Joseph; the mighty judge Samson; the forerunner of Messiah.

Ever considered the pain and disgrace Mary suffered as the virgin mother of Jesus? “A sword will pierce your soul,” Simeon predicted.

God’s deliverance starts when we reach awareness of our total inability. The history of redemption goes from one miracle to another—all in the face of impossibilities and devastations.

Hannah’s fertile rival finds pleasure in cruelty. Home should be a joyful place of security, warmth, and care. Instead, cold and cutting cruelty. The sanctuary a refuge for worshipers of God, but her enemy used occasions of worship to drive the barbs deeper into her bleeding heart. Hannah could not even eat. Her tears were her food.

How often dissension, critical spirit, lack of kindness, ill-tempered behavior invade the sanctuary—as if God is blind and deaf, or dead—or as if He finds pleasure in pride, scorn, malice, and slander. Surely such religion is shear form and no heart. And no recognition of God’s character at all.

Carnal weapons prove most deadly and poisonous in the place where people expect to find evidence of God in the lives of others.

A husband that just doesn’t understand the pain of it all — yes, she loved her husband, but did there have to be a choice between him and having children? Why does the villainess of the story have all the children?

Theological significance: Broken world full of broken people. It is those who realize their brokenness—the poor (bankrupt) in spirit—to whom the kingdom of Christ belongs (Matthew 5).

Where do you hurt and why? You likely have found the very place God will prove His power, wisdom, and love.

II. Moms Who Pray: Seek God (1 Samuel 1:9-18)

Her desperation and deep pain drove her to pour out her heart in prayer. Our best prayers are not masterpieces for publication, but  heart sobs that plead infinite mercy and impossible rescue.

When we are broken, struck down, unable to rise, in despair, gripped with gut-wrenching anguish, we cling to God alone. Our hopes have been reduced to One. Our security is stripped away to nothing but Him. “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3)

She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said, “O 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 to 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.”

LORD of hosts—of armies—the righteous Judge with everything at His disposal to accomplish what He desires—“You can do anything!” When you’re in despair, such a God is the only kind of deity that will do.

Your servant — 3x (see also 16, 18) — humble submission in prayer and in her response to mistaken rebuke

Such praying is not the routine worship Eli was used to. He thought she was drunk. But what he was seeing was a woman pouring out her soul to God. Her first ray of hope was his apologetic remark, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.”

“We ought to be cautious how we censure the devotions of others, lest we call that hypocrisy, enthusiasm, or superstition, which is really the fruit of an honest zeal, and accepted of God.” – Matthew Henry

Theological significance: Realization of our brokenness causes us to hunger and thirst for what only God can do.

When do you pray and why? God does not answer every prayer with “yes.” We know so little what is best when all things are in view.  And even when God’s answer is yes, He often waits till we have come to the point of desiring Him more than His gifts and His will more than our plans.

III. Moms Who Rear Children: See Their Part in Redemption History (1 Samuel 1:19-23)

Hannah named her son Samuel, “Heard/asked of God.” She never forgot why he came into existence at all; he was given to God from the start.

It was not uncommon for Jewish mother’s to nurse children till they were about three—then wean them from their mother’s milk. We do not know for sure how long Hannah took with Samuel We just know that Hannah’s time rearing Samuel was short.

She had him for the time when what you’re doing as a Mom demands much but seems to matter little because so much of it is so mundane and tiring — dirty diapers, runny noses, messy hands and faces, broken sleep, at first helpless, entirely dependent on you.

Milestone events: lift head, roll over, crawl, stand up, walk, talk. Rejoicing!

But the more ability the child develops, the more his sin nature displays itself. Terrible twos—starting about 18 months—confirms what you’ve been starting to see in small ways earlier on.

I’ll never forget the moment I knew it had arrived—at the dinner table, upon a small correction, it showed itself, like some rebel demon, full of stormy frowns, had taken possession of my sweet, happy son.

This is the only time Hannah had with Samuel. Is there any doubt how significant that 36 month time period was?

This boy would be worshiping the Lord while grown sons in the priesthood defied God most Holy, defiling worshipers, stealing from God’s offerings, indulging their sinful passions.

This child would hear from the Lord while the high priest slept and the nation starved for revelation from God.

He would preach God’s Word. He would lead a nation to repentance and revival. He would serve years as prophet and judge.

He was God’s appointed instrument to lead Israel into the period of monarchy, anointing the first two kings. The second would be a man after God’s own heart, the ancestral king of the ultimate Son, the Messiah, Christ Jesus.

Obviously, not every mom rears a prophet who turns out to be a pivotal leader in the history of the nation and of redemption history. But there is a connection nonetheless.

Every believing mom who pours her life into her little ones, teaching them the ways of God by precept and by example, is herself part of redemption history. Her husband may be an unbeliever, but she sanctifies the home. Her children may be very young, but they cannot help but benefit from her loving touch, her faithful labor, her prayerful spirit, her God-centered devotion. Later they may for a time refuse her counsel and forsake her godly ways, but the eternal treasures she shares with them are often rediscovered when God finally breaks through their walls of resistance and gives them life in their souls.

John Newton had a godly mom and an unsaved dad. His mom died when John was 7, but God used her teaching to convert him twenty years later when he was going through a time of personal upheaval and pain.

Pour yourself into your children early, during the tender years when they bend instead of break. Plant truth and love in their little souls. Make your passion to show them Jesus.

Each child master-designed by God for a purpose—a godly mom or dad do their best to help their son or daughter discover what it is. 

You’ve been given a book with no title–read it! A CD with no cover–listen to it! An island with no owner–explore it! Resist the urge to label before you study. Attend carefully to the unique childhood of your child. What S.T.O.R.Y. do you read in your children? Uncommon are the parents who attempt to learn these given abilities--and blessed are their children

Read my name among the blessed. Crankcase Oil coursed my dad's veins. He repaired oil-field engines for a living and rebuilt car engines for fun. He worked in grease and bolts like sculptors work in clay; they were his media of choice. Dad loved machines. 

But God gave him a mechanical moron, a son who couldn't differentiate between a differential and a brake disc. My dad tried to teach me. I tried to learn. Honestly, I did. But more than once I actually dozed off under the car on which we were working. Machines anesthetized me. But books fascinated me. I biked to the library a thousand times. What does a mechanic do with a son who loves books?
He gives him a library card. Buys him a few volumes for Christmas. Places a lamp by his bed so he can read at night. Pays tuition so his son can study college literature in high school. My dad did that. You know what he didn't do? Never did he say, "Why can't you be a mechanic like your dad and grandfather?" Maybe he understood my bent. Or maybe he didn't want me to die of hunger. But somehow he knew to "train up a child in the way he should go." 
God doesn't give parents manuscripts to write, but code to decode. Study your kids while you can. The greatest gift you can give your children is not your riches, but revealing to them their own. (Lucado, Cure for the Common Life, 126-27)

Theological significance: Women have been key to redemption history. The very first gospel promise, Gen. 3:15, declares that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. In response Adam called his wife Eve (life), because she was the mother of all living. Through a woman the Savior would come. The promise was fulfilled when Jesus Christ was born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), Immanuel—“With us, God!

It is amazing that any human being, members of a sinful rebel race, get to take part in God’s redemptive plan. But that is exactly what God has chosen to do—to make us part of that history, each with a purpose to fulfill, the gospel to declare, God’s character to display—no matter how we make our living.

IV. Moms Who Worship: Glorify God (I Samuel 1:24-28)

And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. And the child was young. Then 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 was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. 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, he is lent to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.

He is but a child, but he worships. Where did he learn? From whom? Hannah — her name means grace, and she knew herself recipient of God’s amazing grace — so she worships not just from duty, but out of gratitude and joy and love.

Their fulfillment of what the Law of Moses prescribed was costly and meaningful: grain offering, drink offering, burnt offering. All we have comes from you, O Lord. Our lives are best used poured out to You, O Lord. All on the altar. Not without blood—no one can commune with you unless blood atonement has been made, innocent life for our guilty ones.

Saints Old Testament and New understand that they have no right to enter the presence of the all-holy God unless their sin is purged by blood. Animals slain pointed to Jesus Christ the mediator between God and man. He is our representative. His blood removes our guilt and reconciles us to God. No further sacrifice is needed.

What kind of worship (worth-ship) did Hannah ascribe to God? Her view of Him shaped her son’s.

Chapter 2:1-2

And Hannah prayed and said,

“My heart exults in the Lord;
my horn is exalted in the Lord.
My mouth derides my enemies,
because I rejoice in your salvation.

² “There is none holy like the Lord:
for there is none besides you;
there is no rock like our God.

Heart exulting in the LORD

Strength magnified in the LORD

Fear and hurt inflicted by enemies banished by rejoicing in God’s incredible deliverance.

Nobody’s like God — none so holy, none so mighty. Unmatched power, stability, reliability.

Hannah sees in her personal experience the ways of God throughout history. His grand redemption of His people becomes the theme of her song. The God of grace who rescued her did so not just for her, but for an entire nation, and beyond that for the world throughout generations yet to come.

Hannah’s legacy lives on because she is among those virtuous women who fear the Lord. They shall be praised. They are great because they understand how great God is.

Theological significance: Created purpose recovered—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

How big is your God? How do you show it?

Moms Matter!

Romans 15:1-7; 1 John 4:7-12; Galatians 6:1-2

“Helping Hands: Building Up One Another to Christ’s Praise” continues the precepts of last Sunday’s message on “Open Arms: Forging One-Another Relationships in Christ’s Name.” This series of sermons is based off our One Another Covenant.

• Receive One Another (Romans 15:1-7)

“I welcome you into my life.”

• Love One Another (1 John 4:7-12)    

“I love you with genuine, active, sacrificial love.”

• Bear One Another’s Burdens: (Confess, Forgive), Restore (Galatians 6:1-2)    

“I will humbly confess my sin, forgive yours, and restore our relationship.”

We take up Galatians 6 again because restoring others who have fallen is not the only one-anothering activity in view.

I. Bear One Another’s Burdens: Help (Galatians 6:2-5)

“I will help you with your heavy burdens.”

 “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.”

Burdens are a load too heavy for a person to bear alone: deep sorrow, worry, depression, doubt, loneliness, poverty, illness, physical or mental impairment, sudden tragedy, painful divorce, unemployment, shut in, persecution, imprisonment—the list can go on and on.

If you really get to know other people and what they’re going through, you will find many who need a friend to help bear their heavy load. They are crushed beneath it, in despair, cynical, drifting, and suffering alone unnoticed.

Helping to bear such burdens fulfills the law of Christ — love. Love expresses itself by answering to needs of others. This marks us as those who truly belong to Jesus — by this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Why so? Because that is what Jesus has done for us! He did not leave us with our sin debt to bear the wrath of God alone but intervened to lift the load we could not lift. He bore our sin. He died our death, suffering God’s wrath in our place. He rose again victorious, offering forgiveness and life to all who trust in Him. Christianity is a rescue religion, and it shows itself so in the lives of true Christians.

If you’re quick instead to tear down those who are struggling with their burdens, you mark yourself as someone living out of step with the Spirit and neglectful of your own soul. Refusing or neglecting to help others with their burdens shows pride. Any proud person is self-deceived. If he thinks himself superior to others, he needs to take some time to examine his own work for God. He will find plenty he needs to work on and good reasons not to feel he is better than other people.

This is what it means to bear your own load — like a soldier’s pack, what you ought to carry for yourself without burdening other people.

The cure for being so quick to criticize others is to bear your own responsibility of self-examination before God, so that you can help someone else. Those who are proud in themselves and disdainful of others are not being honest with who they really are and are of no use to others.

Whose heavy burden can you help lift?

Because you love with the love of Christ, to whom can you say, “I will help you with your heavy burdens.”

II. Minister Your Gifts to One Another (1 Peter 4:7-11)

“I will use what God has given me to minister to you.”

 ^“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Think Clearly (1 Peter 4:7a) Time is short and the consummation of the age is coming.

Pray Vigilantly (1 Peter 4:7b) Everyone can pray, and anyone who realizes the urgency of the times will do so. Are you helping others with your prayer life? Who are you praying for? Do you listen for their needs?

Love Strenuously ((1 Peter 4:8) Don’t stop extending yourself with all your might to love one another. It will take intense effort, because we all sin and need others to love us like Jesus, showing grace to undeserving people.

People find out if you love them when they have hurt you. What do you do with their faults and sins? All depends on your love for that person.

Hiebert, 256: “Does not mean that love condones or hushes up sins . . . [but that] it refuses to expose deliberately the sins it encounters to the gaze of all; it prefers to refrain from and discourage all needless talk about them. . . . The gracious action of true love . . . is the very opposite of hatred that deliberately exposes sin in order to humiliate and injure.”

Share Freely (1Peter 4:9) Hospitality—lover of strangers—people who can’t pay you back and who have no claim on your kindness. Inconvenience is the nature of hospitality, so complaining about it is self-contradictory. No one feels loved by those who are kind merely out of unwilling duty.

Serve Faithfully (1 Peter 4:10-11)

Whatever way God has gifted you to serve, use it for the good of others. Those who can teach, do so, making sure what you teach is actually from God. If you serve with your hands and feet, do it with the energy God gives you. Heartily, as to the Lord. That’s the way Jesus gets glory from what He’s doing in your life—when you use it for the good of others.

“I will use what God has given me to minister to you.” My home, my gifts, energy, resources of every kind—with strenuous love and faithful service and prayerful support—because I’m seeing clearly that my time is short and the needs are urgent.

What are your spiritual gifts? What are your God-given resources and opportunities?

How are you using them to minister to others?

III. Build Up One Another (1 Thessalonians 5:11-15)

“I will build you up.”

^“ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”

Therefore—motivation

Chapter 5: children of the light and the day, not of the darkness and the night—don’t sleep, but be watchful (v 8): put on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet the hope of salvation. (v 9-10): For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep (have physically died), we should live together with him.

These truths produce the kind of interaction we are to have with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our bond is so strong, even death does not break it. We are joined to each other because we are joined to the Lord. And we live as those who know they will report directly to Him. He is coming.

Encourage—to come alongside, comfort, exhort

Build one another up—like constructing a building, rather than tearing it down.

“Just as you are doing”—already ongoing, but needs constant attention and improvement

Notes three groups of people we are most likely to neglect when it comes to encouragement and building up

Those who lead

Laboring (to the point of exhaustion)

Respect—to know the full value of, to appreciate them

Esteem—consider them very highly in love for their work’s sake

Be at peace among yourselves—one of the greatest discouragements to anyone who labors and leads in the church is contention and divisiveness. It eats at their insides and spoils many a week of God’s blessings.

There is a huge attrition rate among those who serve the church in this way. Easy to see them only in terms of function and to forget they are humans in need of building up too.

I have learned the hard way how much I need brothers in Christ to pray with me and for me, to be there when I’m beat down, to confront me when I’m messing up, to encourage me to keep serving Christ whatever the cost.

Those who are faltering

^“And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”

Put in mind the idle — like soldiers out of rank, they are neglecting their duties; a problem in Thessalonica—people so fixated on the coming of Christ that they weren’t even doing their own work, but were busy interfering with others (busybodies). A person who is interfering in other people’s business usually isn’t minding his own, leaving him too much time on his hands.

Encourage the fainthearted

Come alongside the small-souled (lit.)—worried, discouraged, fearful, despondent

Help the weak

“Help” or “support” the weak—hold on to them; prop them up, don’t let them fall!

Can refer to physical infirmity or to spiritual/moral weakness—in faith and in other Christian graces

Be patient with them all—long-tempered not short-tempered with them; longsuffering is part of the fruit of the Spirit—nearly always deals with your patient response not with circumstances but with irritating people

Those that hurt you

^“See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”

Never retaliate. Ever.

Always seek to do good to one another.

And to everyone! Not just Christians.

Why? Think about the nature of the gospel. Jesus took our blame.

Because of Jesus God treats us with great blessing.

We want to be like our heavenly Father.

He gets glory and praise when we show His character and carry out Christ’s love.

Who near you needs building up? Who is faltering? Who has hurt you?

Open Arms and Helping Hands

“I welcome you into my life.”

“I love you with genuine, active, sacrificial love.”

“I will humbly confess my sin, forgive yours, and restore our relationship.”

“I will help you with your heavy burdens.”

“I will use what God has given me to minister to you.”

“I will build you up.”

Open Arms. Helping Hands. One-Anothering with the love of Christ and to His praise. This kind of one-anothering must go on in any healthy church.