Title: Let's keep the family happy
Contents
Let's keep the happiness of the family (1 Samuel 1:1-8)
God created the universe and all things in the sight of God, and gave them to those who made them in His image, and blessed them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and rule and subdue it.
The first human community to live while praising God and giving glory to God while receiving and enjoying God's love and promised blessings was the family.
Therefore, the happiness of the family is the cornerstone of the revival of the church we serve.
Neglecting the family because of faith is not what God wants.
I hope that all members of the household will receive and enjoy the blessings God has given them by fearing God and loving their families.
I hope that you will keep the happiness God has given to your family by examining what is God's way of keeping your family's happiness in the text.
1, Husband's love could not keep the family happy
There was a man from Ephraim named Elkanah
Elkanah had two wives, one named Hannah and the other named Peninnah.
Peninnah had children and Hannah had no children.
Every year this family left their city and went up to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to God.
On the day that Hannah's husband Elkanah offered sacrifices before God, he gave a portion of the sacrifice to his wife Peninnah and all her children, and gave Hannah a double to comfort Hannah.
Elkanah did this because she loved Hannah more.
The love of a small part was devoted to Hannah, who could not have children.
But Hannah did not find her husband's love any comfort to her.
1) Don't try to find happiness in people
Hannah is not lonely and sad because she does not have the love of her husband, she loves her husband twice as much as anyone else, but that love does not bring her happiness
Love from a person does not bring satisfaction
Husbands love their wives and wives can live a happy life when they respect their husbands while receiving that love.
If either side demands one-sided love, that love cannot be happy.
Her husband, Elkanah, who loved Hannah, must have loved Hannah more because she was trying to appease her troubled heart from not having a child.
Elkanah loved his wife Hannah twice as much, but that love was not happy for Hannah.
2) Happiness is not in material abundance
Hannah got twice as much money from her husband
But the large amount of the material did not comfort Hannah.
Just as happiness is not a sexual order, a person's happiness does not consist in material abundance.
Ecclesiastes 6:2 “There is a man who has received from God wealth, wealth, and honor, because he lacks all the desires of his soul, but God has not allowed him to enjoy it, so another enjoys it, and this is also vanity and an evil disease.”
2, even severe suffering did not break the happiness of the family
Every year Hannah went up to the temple to offer sacrifices to the Lord.
Each time, my husband accompanies Hannah, saying that Peninnah enraged Hannah because of this.
For this reason, Hannah was very upset.
Even today, there is Peninnah who is tormenting God's people.
There are people who can't see others doing well, and there are people who can't see being loved.
Everything I do is positive, but there are negative people in everything others do.
Peninnah did not see Hannah being loved by her husband.
What did Hannah do at this time?
1) I went before God
Hannah did not quarrel with people for love and to live a happy life, but went to God and cried out.
1 Samuel 1:8 “Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping and why do you not eat? Why is your heart grieved, am I not better than ten sons to you?”
I was a person of faith who went before God without relying on my husband's comfort.
I wanted God's comfort rather than my husband's comfort.
1 Samuel 1:13 “Hannah spoke to herself, but only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard, so Eli thought that he was drunk.”
14-16 "Eli said to him, "How long will you be drunk? Stop drinking wine." Hannah answered, "It is not so, my lord. Do not regard your maidservant as an evil woman, for what I have said so far is because of my bitterness and wrath.”
2) Received answers to prayers
1 Samuel 1:17-18 “Eli answered and said, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have prayed for.” He said, “May your maidservant find favor with you.” Then went and ate, and the look of sorrow on her face was no more. no”
3, the happiness of the family was protected by God being with them
Hannah was not a woman who depended on her husband's love, but a man of faith who depended on God's love.
How much did Hannah's husband Elkanah love?
1 Samuel 1:8 “Is not your heart grieved, am I not better than ten sons to you?”
But Elkanah's love made Peninnah more jealous
Hannah's infertility means that the flow of life has been cut off
Hannah was heartbroken that the flow of life was cut off from generation to generation.
God answered Hannah's prayer
1 Samuel 1:20 “Hannah became pregnant and the time came, and she gave birth to a son and named him Samuel, because I have sought him from the LORD.”
Saints!
How do you want to keep your family happy?
Is it your husband's love?
Is it God's help?
A family in which the flow of life is not interrupted is a happy family.
Please do not fight against Peninnah, who causes turmoil, but ask for God's help and build a family in which the flow of life does not stop.
James 4:14 “You do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a moment and then vanishes.”
1 John 5:11 “And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Amen