God Above All

1 Samuel 1:21–2:11

By Pastor John Thompson

There are moments in life when it feels as though the world is crashing down around us. Sudden loss, grief, broken relationships, and unexpected difficulties can leave us wondering how we are supposed to keep going. How do we continue when something happens that changes our lives in an instant?

There are many answers we could give, but I believe we are able to continue best when we understand the God we serve.

We do not serve a small God. We serve a big God.

Last week, we met Hannah, a woman who desperately wanted a child. She knew the pain of barrenness and the loneliness of feeling as though no one truly understood her suffering. Yet Hannah discovered that when it seemed no one else heard her, God heard her. In response to her prayer, God gave her a son named Samuel.

But Hannah had made a promise. If God gave her a son, she would give that son back to the Lord's service. Now, in 1 Samuel 1:21–2:11, the time has come for Hannah to fulfill that promise.

That may be one of the most difficult parts of this passage for us to understand. Hannah had pleaded with God for this child, and now she was willing to leave her young son at the tabernacle to serve the Lord. She would not see him every morning when she woke up. She would not tuck him into bed each night. From what we read later, it appears she may have seen him only about once a year.

How could a mother do that?

The answer is found in Hannah's prayer.

Hannah loved God more than she loved anything else. She understood that the God who had given her Samuel was greater than Samuel. She understood that God was worthy of her trust even with the person she treasured most.

Jesus would later express this truth in very difficult words: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

God does not call us to love our families less. He calls us to love Him more.

That makes sense only when we understand who God is. God desires His own glory because He truly is the greatest of all things. If God were to point us toward something greater than Himself, He would have to point us toward something that does not exist. When God calls us to treasure Him above everything else, He is calling us to treasure the greatest good we could ever possess.

Hannah understood the greatness of God. Her prayer reveals three truths she believed about Him, and these truths allowed her to place even her beloved son into God's hands.

God Is Above All

Hannah begins her prayer with an extraordinary declaration about God:

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

There was no one like her God, and because there was no one like Him, nothing else could take His place in Hannah's life.

That truth became particularly important when Hannah's world seemed unstable. She had experienced years of barrenness, disappointment, ridicule, and grief. Yet she could say of God, “For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them he has set the world.”

Think about the picture Hannah gives us.

When it feels as though your whole world is crashing down, remember who owns the pillars.

If they are God's pillars, they cannot break.

The circumstances around us may shake. Relationships may change. People we love may be taken from us. Plans we thought were certain may disappear overnight. Yet none of those things make God any smaller.

He is the One holding everything together.

As we sang when we were children, “He's got the whole world in His hands.” There is a profound theological truth in those simple words. God is so great that the world we find overwhelming is completely within His control. He does not need our help to hold it together.

He is above all.

Hannah's prayer also looks forward in a remarkable way. She declares that God “will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

At this point in Israel's history, Israel did not have a human king. The nation would eventually demand one because they wanted to be like the nations around them, but God's people were always intended to recognize that they had one true King: God Himself.

Hannah was looking forward to something she could not yet fully see.

Ultimately, we can see what Hannah could only anticipate.

Jesus is the King.

He is God's Anointed One. Hannah's prayer points beyond Samuel, beyond Saul, and even beyond David toward the King of kings who would eventually come.

When we recognize that God is above all, we can trust Him even when we cannot yet see what He is doing.

God Humbles and Exalts

Hannah then praises God for His ability to completely reverse people's circumstances:

“The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.”

Then Hannah says something intensely personal:

“The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.”

Hannah knew this truth from experience.

God had changed her situation. She had gone from being the barren woman pleading with God for a child to being the mother bringing her son to serve the Lord.

But God had done something even greater than changing Hannah's circumstances.

God changed Hannah's heart.

The woman we previously saw weeping and unable to eat is now overflowing with joy and praise. Her circumstances mattered, but the greater transformation happened within her.

Only God can truly do that.

And nowhere is that more important than in our problem with sin.

We were not merely struggling with sin. Scripture describes us as dead in sin. It does not get worse than dead. Yet God takes what is dead and gives it life. He takes a heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that beats after Him.

He changes us.

Consider Saul of Tarsus. He hated Christ and persecuted His people. He stood by while Stephen was stoned and was on his way to arrest more Christians when Jesus met him.

God changed his heart.

The persecutor became the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest missionaries the world has ever known.

That should give us tremendous hope when we think about the people in our lives who do not know Christ. Perhaps there is someone you have prayed for repeatedly and wondered whether anything could ever change them.

Do you really believe God is big enough to change their heart?

Hannah's God is our God. He humbles the proud. He raises the lowly. He brings life where there was death.

Our God is big enough to change hearts.

God Gives and Takes Away

The third truth Hannah understood may be the most difficult:

God gives and takes away.

Hannah says:

“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.”

Those words remind us of Job. After losing his children, his possessions, and virtually everything he had, Job declared, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

It is easy to say, “The Lord gives; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It is much harder to say, “The Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Yet Hannah understood that both statements were true.

Everything God gives us ultimately belongs to Him. We are stewards of His gifts.

Samuel was a gift entrusted to Hannah. She had been given the privilege of carrying him, giving birth to him, loving him, and caring for him. But eventually she had to place Samuel back into the hands of the God who had given him.

Parents experience a form of this as our children grow. God entrusts them to us for a season. We raise them, teach them, protect them, and love them, but eventually we have to loosen our grip and trust them to the Lord.

Hannah could do that because she believed in God's sovereignty.

Sovereignty is God's full control over all things.

She trusted that if God had given Samuel and was now calling her to give Samuel back, God could be trusted with him. God would care for Samuel. God would provide for him. God would accomplish His purposes through him.

That becomes much harder when what God takes from us involves death and loss.

Our days are numbered. Sometimes we understand why God allows something to happen, and sometimes we do not. There may be questions that are answered later in our lives. There may be others that are not answered until glory.

The question is whether we can still worship Him when we do not understand.

Can we say with Job, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” even when He takes what ultimately belongs to Him?

Hannah's story points us toward the greatest example of this truth.

Here is a woman who receives a beloved son and then willingly gives that son over to the service of God. In her story, we begin to see a shadow of something much greater.

God Himself gave His only Son.

Jesus willingly went to the cross. He died and was placed in the grave. Yet death did not have the final word.

Hannah had prayed:

“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.”

Jesus went down into death, and He was raised again.

Through His resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death once and for all. And because of what Christ has accomplished, those who humble themselves, recognize their need for Him, repent, and believe can be raised with Him to eternal life.

We can be crucified with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life.

Through all of it, He is with us.

And we can trust Him because our God is a big God.

Conclusion

There will be moments when life makes God feel small.

Loss can do that. Grief can do that. Fear can do that. We can become so consumed by the thing directly in front of us that it fills our entire field of vision.

In those moments, we need to remember what Hannah knew.

God is above all.

God humbles and exalts.

God gives and takes away.

Spend time worshiping Him. Tell Him in prayer how wonderful He is. Open His Word and remind yourself of the magnificent things He has done throughout history.

See again the bigness of our God.

Whatever you are going through right now, God is bigger.

If your faith is in Christ, you belong to Him. He is holding you even when it feels as though everything else is falling apart.

He will see you through.

So even in the midst of despair, remember:

Our God is bigger.