Speak, Lord: Part 2

Описание: Passage: 1 Samuel 3:10-18 | Message By: Chris Hutchison | Series: The Rise and Fall of the House of Saul - 1 Samuel 1-15How does a faithful parent love their sinning children? Or, more broadly, how does a faithful Christian love a sinning family member? That is a question that we've been asked in various ways over the past few weeks by the book of 1 Samuel. Eli the priest had two sons who used their position to serve their own appetites. Eli knew it, and he gave them a scolding, but he didn't do anything actively to stop them.

And two times, two separate occasions, God rebuked Eli for his failure as a priest and as a parent. The first time was in chapter 2, where an unnamed prophet condemned Eli for honouring his sons above God by actually enjoying the fruits of their theft. The second time came in chapter 3, God spoke through the boy Samuel, and he rebuked Eli not so much for sharing in his sons’ sins, but simply for not stopping them for what they were doing. “His sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them,” says verse 13.

So twice over the last two weeks, as we've just been following along with what God has said in his book, we've heard about different aspects of this relationship between Eli and his sons and we've talked, briefly, about what lessons we might learn about this for the present day.

But there's a lot more to say, and at some point it was clear that we just needed a part two to last week's sermon, which is what we're doing here today.

Speak, Lord

So let's pick up on where we left off last week, and not actually on the issue of Eli and his sons, but on the issue of God speaking the message about Eli and his sons to Samuel.

Samuel said, "Speak, Lord," and received God's message, whatever it was. And he passed it on without tinkering with it at all.

And like we saw last week, that was a hard message. It was a hard message that didn't come padded with any padding of encouragement. God spoke directly and without apology, even though He knew better than anybody else how much his message would upset His hearers.

Just consider that. Today, if we find out that we've upset people by something we've said, we tend to assume we've made a mistake. And often enough that's true, but not always. God upset Samuel. Jesus upset his own disciples all the time, on purpose. And part of being a Christian means that Jesus has the permission to rock our boats as often as he wants to.

Let's learn from both Samuel and Eli about our posture when we hear something from God's word that rocks our boats. Of course it's okay to ask questions to try to understand better. Of course it's okay to say, "How do I actually work that out? How does that apply to this or that situation?" But our default posture should be like Samuel: "Speak, Lord." Or like Eli: “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him” (1 Samuel 3:18).

1. Family is From God

Let's keep that in mind as we listen now to a number of passages from across the whole Bible, some of which we might find reassuring and comforting, some of which we might find profoundly challenging.

Let's start back at the beginning: families are a part of God's good design. God created marriage and childbirth and all of the connections between parents and children and siblings, and this was a part of His good design.

There are bonds of love between members of a family forged in shared experiences and connections that begin at birth and, if all goes well, get only stronger as years go on. And this was God's idea, and God's good design.

So if we ever feel like our families are something that we need to protect from God's interference, we're missing something. Family itself was God's good idea and design. Our family is God's gift to us.

2. Family is About God

Second, we want to remember that even in the goodness of the original creation, family was never an end unto itself. Just like nothing God created was ever an end unto itself. Everything in creation, from waterfalls to water bears, was made to declare the glory of God, and family does so in particularly unique ways.

Out of all of his creation, God made us in His image, which applies to our relationships as well. The clearest example is marriage, and how Ephesians 5:32 tells us that all the way back in Genesis 2:24, God designed human marriage to be a picture of the divine relationship between Christ and His church. It's not like Jesus and His Church are kind of like a husband and a wife. It's that a husband and a wife are kind of like Jesus and His church.

The same goes for fathers and their children. Long before human fathers and sons existed, God the Father lived in perfect eternal relationship with God the Son, and planned to draw us into that same eternal love relationship. So it's not like God is like a human father—it's that the best human fathers are kind of like God. He came first.

And if God is our Father, then we're brothers and sisters, "members of the household of God" (Eph 2:19, 1 Tim 3...