Every so often Pastor Ben and myself will post up our off cuts from Sunday Sermons. Quite often in writing a sermon we will write material which may be too tangential or may not work as well in the sermon. But it doesn’t mean they will remain on the cutting room floor forever. Here’s a few extra things from today’s message that didn’t make it in:
From Resolve.org was this helpful advice on infertility etiquette that I partly quoted. Here’s a link for the article in full.
http://www.resolve.org/support-and-services/for-family–friends/infertility-etiquette.html
It’s personally written and there’s some helpful advice in there.
–oo–
Another aspect of the passage that I didn’t have much time to delve into was the loaded 2:25b – But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the LORD to put them to death.
This is a very tricky verse primarily because of what it teaches about the relationship of human will and divine sovereignty. Our approach to this issue tends to be EITHER/OR: EITHER the boys would not listen (by the power of the human will), OR God sovereignly caused them to not listen because he planned to put them to death.
But do you notice the passage does not present the issue in an EITHER/OR way of thinking. It’s BOTH/AND: BOTH the boys would not listen AND God willed for them to be put to death (as judgement).
Very much like how Pharaoh in Exodus is both said to harden his heart while God also hardens it as well. Something similar happens in Romans 1 where God gives mankind over to their sin not only so they will go deeper into that sin, but also deeper into the consequences and judgement of that sin. There’s a dual action at work: human will exerting itself (in its enslavement to sin) and God working the same thing.
This dichotomy brings us to one of the great things about the Gospel: unless God acts to reverse our sinful human desires we would never be able to choose faith! Rather, we would continue on in sin. Praise be to God that he has not left us like this.
–oo–
Finally, some people mentioned on Sunday that I breezed through these points very quickly – which I did! Here’s what I said about Hannah’s prayer and what we can learn from it:
1. Hannah’s prayer recognises the utter holy otherness of God. There is not one like him at all.
2. God brings down the powerful and raises up the weak.
3. The utter sovereignty of God in all areas of life, death, riches, and poverty.
4. The faithful judgement of God.
In all of this Hannah recognises in her prayer that in all the hurt and pain of infertility, the Lord is in the middle.