It never ceases to amaze me at how good we are at deluding ourselves into thinking that our actions don’t have consequences. We’re really quite good at this you know. Truly.

Last week on the program we spent some time talking about the fact that when the storms of life hit, as they inevitably do, what we need is some solid ground beneath our feet. It’s a scary place to be at, on a stormy ocean, we’re not made for that, we’re made to be on solid ground and we began looking at a story of some people, a woman called Hannah and her son Samuel and some priests, Eli, his sons Hophni and Phinehas.

Now Hannah, here was a woman who honoured God and God honoured her in return. These priests on the other hand, though they should have known better, they didn’t honour God and as we’ll see on the program today and the rest of this week, those guys reaped their just reward. And the reason we’re looking at this story of these people is that when we’re in the midst of a storm we so often lose our bearings, we so often lose sight of those things that really matter.

And for me, as I’ve spent some time in that story, it’s well, its helped clarify some things, brought them into sharp focus and my hunch is, as we spend some time, during the course of this week, you might find the same too.

Now let’s just briefly recap on this story. Hannah is a woman, she’s married to Elkanah. Elkanah has two wives; Peninnah who has children and Hannah who doesn’t and Peninnah constantly taunts Hannah about not having children, an incredibly painful thing. So Hannah goes and pours her heart out to God and you can read all about this in the first few chapters of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament.

Hannah goes and pours her heart out to God in the temple and she discovers peace It’s what always happens when we do that, and ultimately God blesses her and gives her a son. But Eli is the priest at the temple, he’s the chief priest at the time and he mistakes what Hannah’s doing, he thinks she’s drunk and Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, well they’re bad dudes. They’d been plundering sacrifices, they’ve been not honouring God, there’s a real contrast between the two, between Hannah and her family on the one hand and Eli and his family on the other. Hannah the “nobody”: Eli the chief priest.

See, that’s the thing we so often miss in life. God is hidden, Gods invisible, we forget about Him, we go on living our lives and wondering why things are going from bad to worse and in the middle of this story, last week we stumbled across this verse, the verse when God was pronouncing His judgement on Eli and his sons. 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 30, God said:

Those who honour me I will honour and those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

See this is the kind of pivot on which this whole story turns and this week on the program we’re going to look at how things turn out for Hannah and for Eli and there’s a sharp contrast in their approach to God and I’ve got to tell you, there is a sharp contrast in how things turn out for both of them. It tells us a lot about God, it clarifies the confusion that we might have in the midst of our storm and you see when you get that clarity, when we finally see it from Gods perspective, we get our feet back on solid ground.

Well lets start today with Hannah, this woman with the pain of not having children and the taunts from the other wife and childless couples all over the world know how painful this is. So she goes to God, she pours out her heart, lets have a look at it again, 1 Samuel chapter 1, beginning at verse 9:

Once they’d finished eating and drinking at Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lords temple. In the bitterness of her soul, Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord and she made a vow saying, ‘O Lord Almighty, if you would only look upon your servants misery and remember me and don’t forget your servant but give her a son. Then I will give him back to the Lord for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head. Then she went away and ate something and her face was no longer downcast.

So she pours out her heart and have a look at the thing that happens straight after that, beginning at verse 19:

Early the next morning they arose and they worshipped before the Lord and then they went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with his wife Hannah and the Lord remembered her so in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel saying, ‘because I asked the Lord for him’. When the man Elkanah went up with his family to offer the annual sacrifices to the Lord to fulfil his vow, Hannah didn’t go, she said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned I’ll take him up and I’ll present him before the Lord and he’ll live there always.” “Well do what seems best to you” Elkanah, her husband told her, “Stay here until you’ve weaned him. Only may the Lord make good his word.”

So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she weaned him. After he was weaned she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a 3 year old bull and a ephah of flour and a skin of wine and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When they’d slaughtered the bull they brought the boy to Eli and she said to him, “As surely as you live my Lord, I’m the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord for the whole of his life, he will be given over to the Lord.” And she worshipped the Lord there.

See Hannah had this impossible problem, this impossible prayer, it was a humble, heartfelt prayer and God honours that, we so under-estimate the power of humble prayer, a prayer from the heart. A prayer that just lays it out before God, the way we see it and the way we feel it, God honours that. And when he honours her with the impossible, she honours God back and gives her son over to God for the rest of his life.

Easy to gloss over that story but can you imagine, what motivates her? Her incredible heart to honour God. So she does. She honours Him by giving up the one thing she desired most, her son. And what’s more, she gives her most precious to be under the wicked Eli and his sons, figure that out! Not exactly a great strategic choice, this young impressionable kid but God honours those who honour Him and the more we honour God the more He honours us. Look at this, 1 Samuel chapter 3, verse 19:

The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up and let none of his words fall to the ground and all of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba recognised that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh and there He revealed Himself to Samuel through His word and the word of Samuel came to all of Israel.

See God honoured her in her storm because she honoured Him. Young Samuel went on to become the chief priest, the prophet, the judge over all of Israel, why? Because this nobody, this woman Hannah honoured God, so simply, just by going to Him in her grief. Not by acting badly, not by shaking her fists, not by throwing a tantrum but by pouring her heart out to God and by trusting Him.

It must have seemed such an insignificant thing to do, such a powerless thing to do; “I can’t fall pregnant, I can’t have a child, all I can do is weep before God”, so she does that. In the face of this big, ugly, impossible storm, the pain of being childless, the taunts of Peninnah, the impossibility but for God, nothing is impossible.

God honours those who honour Him. She honoured God in her naivety; she gave young Sam over to Eli and even there, in that impossible situation, God honoured her and He honoured the young boy called Samuel.

God honours those who honour Him and those who despise Him will be treated with contempt. It’s so simple, it’s so powerful. You know, we ignore this at our peril, God is a good God, He honours those who honour Him.

Sometimes we’re so busy looking after good old number one, that we forget something. We forget that in fact, God is number one and one day, sooner or later, that reality will be the only reality.

I guess intuitively we understand that the things we say and do, the way we think and behave, well they have consequences. There’s a link between cause and affect, we know that but oh how easy it is to delude ourselves in this area, to make excuses for ourselves, to live out our own selfish desires and pretend that, “well really, that, that cause and affect stuff applies to other people but not to me”. You know what I’m talking about, we deny it, we deny it, we deny it and all along the warning signs are growing.

The storm clouds start to gather over the horizon, but sometimes it’s not until that first clap of thunder, that we take any notice and then, so often, its too late. The storms gathered momentum and all we can do is brace ourselves for when it hits. We’re going to spend some time today in that space, with a man called Eli because he was in exactly that situation and he just left it too late. Let’s make no mistake, there is a definite link between cause and affect, especially as it turns out, in our relationship with God.

Last week we met a woman called Hannah, a woman that honoured God and a priest called Eli, a man with his two sons, who did the exact opposite even though he should have known better and, what I want to do today is have a look at them again. Hannah was a woman who was childless, she had the pain of the taunts of another wife and she pours out her heart to God and God gives her a son called Samuel. She honours God and she gives up Samuel into His service and God honours her by raising Samuel to replace Eli and become the priest to the nation of Israel.

Now what I want to do right now though is go and look at how God treats Eli and his sons because it’s such a sharp contrast. Hannah honoured God and God honoured her, Eli didn’t. Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were men who should have been shepherding Israel, they should have been bringing Israel close to their God. Instead, Hophni and Phinehas were plundering the sacrifices, sleeping with prostitutes, doing anything but honouring God. Now let’s take a look at how God reacts to that, 1 Samuel chapter 3:

The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare and there weren’t many visions. One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of the Covenant was. Then the Lord called Samuel, Samuel answered “Here I am” and he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, you called me” but Eli said, “I didn’t call you, go back, lie down”. So Samuel went and lay down again. Again the Lord called, “Samuel” and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, you called me.” “My son,” said Eli, “I didn’t call you, go back and lie down.”

Now Samuel didn’t know the Lord yet, the word of the Lord hadn’t been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel a third time and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, you called me” and then Eli realised the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down and if God calls you again say, ‘speak O Lord for your servant is listening.”

So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there and calling as He had the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And then Samuel said, “Speak for your servant is listening.” And the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I’m about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears, tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family from the beginning to end for I told him I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about. His sons made themselves contemptible and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, the guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrificial offering.”

Samuel lay down until the morning and when he opened the doors of the house of the Lord he was afraid to tell Eli of the vision but Eli called to him saying, “Samuel my son,” And Samuel said, “Here I am!” “What is it that He said to you?” Eli asked, “Don’t hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide anything from what He told you.” So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him and Eli said, “He is the Lord, let Him do what is good in His eyes.”

Here’s the paradox; Samuel, young boy, didn’t recognise Gods voice and Eli did, yet Samuel was the one that listened to God and Eli didn’t. Remember the pivot of this whole story is the fact that God says in 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30:

I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me I will treat with contempt.

Here is that powerful truth working its way out in Eli’s life. See we can be beetling away in our own selfish ways, ignoring our conscience, treating people with contempt, treating God with contempt, ignoring God, God never stops speaking. You want to know what He has to say, just have a listen. He spoke to Eli over and over again; He talks to us over and over again, how? Maybe you were just flicking around, channel surfing today and you stumbled across this program, kind of by chance or accident it seemed, there you go!

God is always trying to communicate with us, to reach out to us but eventually enough is enough. See, eventually we kindle His anger, eventually the time comes when we reap what we have sown and that’s exactly what happens to Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. You can read about it actually, in 1 Samuel chapter 4, verses 12-22. What God tells Samuel actually happens. There’s a huge disaster happens when the Israelites fight the Philistines and they get defeated and the Ark of the Covenant gets captured and Hophni and Phinehas are killed and Eli dies. God’s judgement falls on that family because of what they have done and today is a wake up call.

Yes! Storms happen in life. Sometimes they’re of our own doing as it was for Eli and his sons and yet, we keep going, we keep going, we keep going, we keep deluding ourselves, we keep pretending like there’s no cause and affect but there is. See God is a good God, God is a righteous God, God is a God who wants to bless us and love us and hold us and pour His love out on us but He honours those who honour Him and those who despise Him, ultimately judgement falls, ultimately they will be treated with contempt.

There is a day of judgement coming. Stuff happens in this life, we live out our consequences and one day, one day you and I will stand before God and He will judge us, He will! We may not like the idea but it doesn’t change anything. One day God will judge us and today’s a wake up call.

Perhaps we’re in one of those storms of life at the moment and you know, when things are going badly, have you ever noticed, we are tempted all the more to behave badly. Let this truth ring in your ears; let this truth drop into your heart. When God says to you today:

I honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

See, if we head off in our own direction, if we do an “Eli” and a “Hophni” and a “Phinehas” right, and just go and do what suits us, one day we will reap our just rewards. And in that place, when God is against us there is no solid ground beneath our feet. There is no solid ground beneath the feet of those who turn their backs on God. It might feel like it for a while, it might feel good for a while but ultimately a day of judgement will come. And the answer is to turn, the answer is to turn back to God, right here, right now, don’t leave it any longer!

I’ve done some dumb things in my life. Really, and I’m pretty sure that you have too – and later, we wear the consequences of those mistakes. The question is, though – how can you avoid making those same mistakes again?

I’ve said a few times over the last week and a half that I am a confirmed land lover. You give me solid ground beneath my feet any day over a luxury cruise. I love good old terra firma and it turns out we all do because we were made to have solid ground beneath our feet. And that’s what we’ve been talking about recently on this program; solid ground.

Now there are things that we do from time to time that are just well, plain dumb. Now they never seem like it at the time but when you look at the consequences, when you look back through the consequences of those decisions with a benefit of 20/20 hindsight, there’s only one word for them sometimes and that’s dumb.

I’ve been there, you’ve been there, lets not kid ourselves. Okay, now that we’ve established the facts your honour, lets get back to those decisions and making sure we don’t go there again, isn’t that the point? Not repeating our mistakes and one of those mistakes is this; deluding ourselves that we are on solid ground, deluding ourselves into thinking that we can head off in our own direction, on our own and expect God to somehow tag along behind and provide solid ground along the way. Like I said; just plain dumb!

If you’ve been with us over this last week and a half, you’ll know that we’ve been looking at the stories of some people, Hannah and Eli and their family’s. Hannah was a woman with a lot of pain but who honoured God and Eli was a priest with position and prestige and not only did he do the exact opposite but as chief priest, in his role, he actually ended up misleading the whole of the nation of Israel. And today, we’re going to take a look at how, not only did that have consequences for Eli and his sons but for the whole of Israel.

Remember Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, they were bad dudes. These two sons plundered the sacrifices of Gods people, they slept with prostitutes, like these were bad dudes and Eli allowed this to go on and didn’t deal with it. And the executive summary of what God thought about them is in 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 17. It says:

The sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord for they treated the offerings for the Lord with contempt.

And the central theme that pivot on which this whole story turns is in 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30. It says:

God says, “I honour those who honour me and those who despise me I will treat with contempt.

That word “contempt” comes up again. And so this bad stuff is happening, the priests are doing the wrong thing and just as it always happens, one of life’s storms blows in on Israel. The Philistines come in to attack them. We’ll pick it up in chapter 4 of 1 Samuel:

Now the Israelites wet out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites were camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines were camped at Aphek. And the Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel. And as the battle spread, Israel soldiers returned to camp the elders of Israel said, “How come the Lord brought defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let’s bring the Ark of the Lords Covenant from Shiloh so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.” (That’s a good idea)

So the people sent men down to Shiloh, they brought back the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord Almighty who was enthroned between the cherubim. Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Lords Covenant came into the camp all of Israel raised up such a shout that the ground shook and hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, “What’s all that was defeated by the Philistines who killed about 4,000 of their men on the battlefield. When the shouting that the Hebrews are doing?”

When they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp, the Philistines were afraid. “A God has come into the camp,” they said, “we’re in trouble. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Woe to us, who will deliver us from the hand of that mighty God? The God who struck the Egyptians and all kinds of plagues in the desert. Be strong you Philistines, be men or you’ll be subject to the Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight!” So the Philistines fought and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent, the slaughter was very great. Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers. The Ark of the Covenant was captured and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

See, Israel was so used to having God on their side; they just headed off assuming that He was there despite the fact all this bad stuff was happening amongst the priests. They deluded themselves, they said, “there’s no cause and affect for us, no she’ll be right, Gods always on my side”.

See we take this Mighty God, who created the whole universe and expect Him to become our performing poodle, don’t we? He does tricks on our command but Gods not like that, He’s awesome, He’s mighty, He’s powerful and He’s good and when we start dishonouring Him, lets not expect Him to keep honouring us. He’ll always love us, He’ll always forgive us, He’ll always bring us close but on His terms and not on ours.

We can’t sow dishonour in Gods direction and expect to receive honour from Him in return. And the great humiliation of the story is that the Ark of the Covenant itself is captured. This was the place of the very presence of God.

Over the next couple of days we’ll discover that the people who captured it, once they realised what they had actually realised the power and didn’t want God around but that’s for another day. Today, there’s a simple message in this story; we can’t be living out a life of stiff necked rebellion and expect God to toddle along on a leash behind us and bless us on cue and that’s exactly what Israel did. They failed the first time and so they send for the Ark of the Covenant, they went and got God as though somehow, they can push God around.

When you put it that way it’s a bit obvious, isn’t it? And to tell you the truth, that’s my agenda today, to make this plainly obvious. Lets all take a big wake up call here. See when the storm hits, do you want solid ground beneath your feet? Do you want to know that God is with you? Do you want the certain knowledge that, well He’s going to bless you no matter what this world throws at you? Huh, have to tell you, I sure do. Let me go back to this central point, 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30:

God says, “I will honour those who honour me…” It’s a great promise, “I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.”

And there’s a reason for that, God wants a close, tender relationship with us. In order to have that, there has to be a cause and affect. See God can’t bless our rebellion because if He does that, we’ll think, “Oh great, I can do anything I want. He’ll bless that, all I have to do is call God, bring Him over here on a leash and I’ll get blessed”. But “anything I want” is not the place of intimacy between God and me, anymore than the place of intimacy between a man and his wife, is in adultery.

Come on, it’s blindingly, glimpsingly obvious and just to underscore that point in this story, this wasn’t some small defeat by the Philistines, this was the mother of all defeats, 4,000 and then 30,000 Israelites were killed. 34,000 men were slain because Israel presumed that God would just show up like He always had even though they had rebelled against and rejected God. And the irony of it all is that Gods people didn’t get it but the Philistines did. The moment the Philistines heard the Ark of the Covenant had arrived, they were afraid and so they should have been because God is a mighty God.

Let me ram this point home today, right in your face; when we head off in our own direction, in our own strength, in our own selfish ways, on our own and we expect God to just toddle along and bless us – forget it! When we’re not in the blessing and the covering and the power of God, obedient to him, when we do that we will reap what we sow, there is no solid ground in that place, none, NONE! Only trouble.

If only we could have God on our terms. You know, He blesses you when you need blessing and the rest of the time, He’s just kind of there when you need Him. Wouldn’t that be nice? But – well, it’s not like that.

Have you ever wanted something in life, I mean really, really, really wanted it and then, you finally get it and you just want to give it back. I think we’ve all experienced that at some point and you know, I think that for some people, it can be the case with God. I know people, lots of people who hunger to be close to God. I know there are people listening today, perhaps you’re one of them and all their lives they’ve wanted “God”, whatever that means. But can I tell you something, even something really good, I mean really, really good like God, well it can be a shock to the system.

And the reason is that we sometimes have this idealised unrealistic notion of what that good thing would be like. Take the young woman who wants, more than anything else, to be married and she finally meets her knight in shining armour and marries him and a year later she’s wondering what happened to her ideas of romance 24×7. Today on the program we’re going to take a look at some people who got God and couldn’t wait to give Him back.

We’ve been looking over this last week and a half, at the stories of a woman called Hannah who honoured God, she poured her heart out to Him when she was in pain and God honoured her. And on the other side there was a guy called Eli and his sons who were around Hannah at the time and they didn’t honour God and they reaped their just rewards. And the whole story of Hannah and Eli kind of pivots on this one passage. It’s in 1 Samuel, in the Bible, chapter 2, verse 30 and God says:

I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

And we’ve seen over this last week and a half how that central reality has played itself out in the lives of Hannah and Samuel, who were blessed by God and Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who weren’t. And you know, in particular, this plays itself out in the storms of life. Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were living the life of Riley. They were the priests over Israel, they should have been bringing Israel to God and yet they plundered the sacrifices and they slept with prostitutes and those three, they died, we saw that yesterday on the program.

Their job was to be shepherd of the nation of Israel, shepherding them towards God. Instead they led them to a place of defeat and again, we saw on the program in 1 Samuel chapter 4, that the Philistines attacked and Israel thinks, “ah well, God’s always on our side and so we’ll go to battle” and all of a sudden, 30,000 of their soldiers are killed. The Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines, the place of the presence of God and strangely, when that happens, the Philistines kind of realise, with a sense of foreboding, when the Philistines learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the Israelites camp, they were afraid.

“A God has come into the camp”, they said. “We’re in trouble! Nothing like that has ever happened before. Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty Gods?”

See, those instincts were right but anyway, the Ark of the Covenant comes into the Israelite camp and then the Israelites and the Philistines went into battle and the Philistines won. A huge defeat, 30,000 soldiers of the Israelites are dead and the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines. Hmm, it turns out they should have gone with their initial instincts lets have a read of what happens in 1 Samuel chapter 5:

After the Philistines had captured the Ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then they carried the Ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside their God, Dagon and when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord. They took Dagon and put him back up on his place.

But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen back on his face, on the ground, before the Ark of the Covenant. And his head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold, only his body remained and that’s why, to this day, neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who entered Dagon’s temple at Ashdod, will step on the threshold.

The Lords hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and it’s vicinity. He brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumours and when the men of Ashdod saw what was happening they said, “The Ark of the God of Israel must not stay here with us because His hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon, our god.”

So they called together the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, “What are we going to do with the Ark of the God of Israel?” And they answered, “Have the Ark of the God of Israel moved to Gath.” So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel but after they moved it the Lords hand was against that city.

Thrown into great panic, he afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumours and so they sent the Ark of God to Ekron and as the Ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They’ve brought the Ark of the God of Israel around to kill us and our people!” So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send the Ark of the God of Israel away. Let it go back to it’s own place or it will kill us and our people.” For death had filled the city with panic. Gods hand was heavy on everything. Those who did not die were afflicted with tumours and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.”

Really interesting story this because this Ark of the Covenant of the God of Israel, this is the place of the presence of God and they put it in the temple next to their God and their God falls down twice. First time they prop him up, the second time his head and hands are cut off and then they discover the impact of having God as a captive in their midst.

See in human terms that’s what had happened, the Philistines captured God, in human terms they won. You know what they forgot; in fact they probable never realised it in the first place, God is not subject to people. God is not someone you can capture and stick in a temple. He’s not someone you can tame and subdue.

Why are we talking about this stuff today? Because you and I deep down, we sometimes try and tame and subdue God. We swing Him round to our way of thinking. We put Him in a temple of our choice; we put Him in the town or city of our choice. We think that God is there to serve us instead of us to serve God. You know what happens when we try to do that? We discover exactly what the Philistines discovered, we discover that God is not someone we can push around.

Okay, we can’t see Him. Okay, perhaps present circumstance do appear more powerful than Him but if we want to be on solid ground in the middle of our storms, that’s what we’ve been talking about these past couple of weeks, we need to get our minds around this.

You look at this maelstrom of a storm that was going on at the time, the battle between the Philistines and the Israelites, 30,000 Israelites killed, who appeared to win? Who should have been on solid ground according to our simple human expectations? The Philistines; they won the war, they captured Israel’s God. But who they captured was the God who created all the universe, not some idol, not some tin pot little god, they captured God and He brought destruction on them. So much so they couldn’t wait to get rid of Him. Do you get it?

When we try to take God by force; force of argument, force of opinion, force of anything, anything that doesn’t recognise Him for who He is, watch out! There’s so many people playing “Church”, playing at being Christians, playing at religion, putting God here and there – THAT’S NOT WHAT IT’S ABOUT! As Dagon discovered, the only way you honour God is when you bow down to Him for who He is – the sovereign God above every power and name and authority in heaven and on earth.

And you know something, Eli didn’t understand it, Hophni and Phinehas didn’t understand it, they died. The person who understood it was the woman Hannah that we’ve been looking at, this woman who, in the middle of her storm, humbly bowed down before God and prayed and honoured God.

You can’t have God on your own terms; we can only have Him on His terms!

What you and I want, is life on our terms. We do…and yet, we can’t for the most part have that. And it’s the same with God. Before we can take a hold of all His blessings, we have to let go of a whole bunch of other stuff …

Over these last two weeks we’ve spent some time, each day, exploring different aspects of a story that kind of talks about having solid ground under our feet; the story of a simple woman with a simple heart who, in the midst of the greatest storm of her life, honoured God. Her name is Hannah. And a story of a man, a priest over all of Israel, who should have honoured God. He was a priest after all and yet allowed his sons to get away with wickedness that ultimately, God wouldn’t tolerate and both Hannah and Eli reaped what they’d sown.

The priest should have been on solid ground but he was cut off, he and all his descendants. The woman, she was a nobody, she had no right to expect solid ground beneath her feet in her storm and yet she honoured God and He honoured her. That’s the crux of it, because as we read this story and you can read it in the first few chapters of the book of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament, the pivot on which it turns is this statement from God in chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. God says:

I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

So what does that mean for you and me, here and now? What does it mean?

You and I, deep down, come on lets face it, we’re basically selfish creatures. Now perhaps you’re a whole bunch further down the track than me in dealing with that but come on, deep down we want our way, we want our needs to be met, we want our comfort, we were born that way. And every now and then you meet someone who seems like a saint and you think, “boy, that could never apply to them” but deep down, deep down it does. And God comes along and says, “I’m God, I am who I am, that’s it!” and God is to be honoured, to be respected to be feared, to be revered.

It’s so counter to our popular culture, it’s so completely opposite. You can’t dress this up; you can’t somehow make it instantly palatable to the popular psyche because it’s totally the opposite of what we’re told by the advertising industry. It’s totally opposite to the mantra of this age, that it’s all about me and I’m worth it.

Worship’s a funny word, it means “to bow down and to honour” and so we have a clash between popular thought, “its all about me” and honouring God. I can never make those two the same because they’re totally different and most of my life, I lived by the former, “it’s all about me”. Honour! Honour! Get out of here. Bow down! Worship! See this is not something people do on Sunday morning at Church. It’s something that God calls us to do with our lives in all the circumstances of life, on the good days and the bad days and the sunny days and the rainy days and the calm days and the storm days.

It’s something that we’ve seen over and over and over again, this woman Hannah did and honouring God is completely the opposite of pride, it’s the complete opposite and you and I, no matter what we happen to believe or not believe, are infected by the mantra of this age. And so honouring God is foreign to our natural inclination, completely in every department because we live and breathe the “me” mantra.

Let me give you a couple of pictures of how different it is. The first one comes from a story that happened quite a few years after Hannah and Eli. You can read about it in 2 Samuel chapter 24, it’s about King David. He’s done something stupid and he’s been trusting in his power instead of Gods power and he comes to make an offering to God and he goes to a place, a threshing floor. He wants to make an offering and the owner of this threshing floor says, “here, take whatever you want. The wood, the place, the animals, I’ll give it all to you so you can make this offering”. I mean why wouldn’t he, this was the King David after all, the king had power of life and death over him. And yet in 2 Samuel chapter 24, verse 24 David says this, he says:

I will not make a burnt offering to my Lord which costs me nothing.

See, honouring God always costs us something. Sometimes God calls me to give money here or there for His work and it’s almost always at an inconvenient time. It’s almost always something I really can’t afford. I had plans for that money you know and yet I give anyway because He’s my God. I give anyway because honouring God always involves sacrifice, it always costs us something. See we want God on our terms, we want Him so He’ll bless us and keep us and make us comfortable but that it doesn’t cost us anything along the way, you know. I mean after all grace is Gods free favour, always, and it is.

I’m His child, not because of what I’ve given to Him or because of what I’ve done but because I believe in what His Son, Jesus Christ did for me on that cross. But now that I am His child, honouring Him with everything I am, with everything I think, with everything I do and I have, with my time, my finances, my life, completely being sold out to Him, you know something; it costs me and every now and then the flesh winces. But I will not make a sacrifice to my God that costs me nothing.

You know Hannah, the one thing she longed for was her son and when God finally gave her a son, she gave him back to God to serve God for the rest of his life. She honoured God in a huge way, Hannah was on solid ground. No matter what came at her she was on solid ground because her trust was in the Lord and she honoured Him and she knew that God would honour her.

The second picture is a picture that Jesus gave us, it’s His own story. It’s a picture of a grain of wheat; perhaps you’re familiar with it.

I tell you the truth (He said) unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed but if it dies, it produces many seeds. If you love your life you’ll lose it, if you hate your life in the world you’ll keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me and where I am my servant also will be and my Father will honour the one who serves me.

I want you to notice the sequence, “fall to the ground and die and you end up baring much fruit” then “my Father will honour the one who serves me”. See people hold back, you know why? We’re afraid of dying, we’re afraid of losing our life in this world, we’re afraid of being sold out. We think that somehow we have to hang on to what we have and Jesus said, “no, let it all go. Transfer your faith from the things that you can see and grasp, to the great unseen reality, to me and my Father will honour you”. We have to let go before we can receive, if we hang on we won’t get anything.

What are you hanging on to? What are you holding back from your God? What’s He calling you to let go of today? To tell you the truth, until you answer that call decisively, you will never have solid ground beneath your feet. It’s different for each one of us, for some it’s money. You know, we feel God saying to us, “give money here” and you think, “oh no, I really want to go on a holiday. I’ve got that couple of thousand set aside to go on a holiday here and there”.

I have to tell you; sometimes God will lay it on your heart to sacrifice something. Look at Hannah, she had to give up the one thing she wanted the most; her son. If we want solid ground beneath our feet, I’ve got to tell you, it’s about not having God on our terms, it’s about accepting Him on His terms and His terms are very simple. He is the sovereign King of Kings, He is the Lord of Lords, He is the God who created all the universe. He’s not a performing poodle to do tricks for you and me. He is God! And God wants us to be sold out, He wants us to fall to the ground and die so that we can produce many seeds and then, as Jesus said:

My Father in heaven will honour the one who serves me.

God said:

I honour those who honour me but those who despise me I will treat with contempt.