Sermon - A faithful leader for the people of God - 1 Samuel 2:12-36

I reckon that most of us, if we were asked what the most important things in our life were, faith would be right up there.

At church on a Sunday, faith would be pretty prominent, I think, for many of us.

And on the other side, I think many of us would also put family too.

I think most important things in our life, family and faith, they are probably right up there for us.

And I think that there is nothing more wonderful than we can bring our family together and our faith together.

And I think instinctively, we actually know that that's the kind of thing that we should be doing.

We should be raising our families in the faith that is important to us.

And we know that that's the kind of right and appropriate thing for us to do.

Faith and family are beautiful things, and especially when they come together, we can have an experience, a really rich and beautiful life.

But also, family and faith is not always straightforward, and many of you will have experienced this personally.

Sometimes it can be very challenging to have these two special and important things in your life come together.

So even as I begin, and we're going to be thinking about this as a topic today, just give yourself a moment just to pause and think about how is your family and faith going together.

Maybe for you it is reflecting, you're quite happy with how things are going with your family and your faith.

Maybe the practice of faith in your family life is really solid and strong.

Maybe you're spending time reading the word together.

Maybe you're here at church with your family.

Maybe you spend time in prayer together and it's a really satisfying thing to have these things going together well.

For other people, and I think this is probably many of us, there are places at which there are real pressure points between our family and our faith, and it can be quite challenging.

And this can come up in different ways for different people.

So maybe for you, you've got a, maybe you have a spouse, for example, who's maybe just not as interested in Christianity as they used to be.

And maybe that causes a bit of tension, a bit of friction, and maybe that's just a sadness that you carry.

Or maybe as your kids are getting older, you're starting to see they're just starting to wander a little bit from the things that you raise them with.

And that's a cause of sadness for you.

Or maybe it's when you think about family and faith, it's actually you have to reflect on yourself.

And you realize that although you present quite well with faith, actually the spiritual tank inside is running a bit dry.