One More Thing

Hi Five Oakers, It's the weekend and there are a few things I want to share with you.

The Weekend

This weekend we launch a new series, The David Story: Finding Strength in God. It's an eight-week journey through 1 Samuel. 2 Samuel and the rest of David's story will follow.

Before the David story is the Samuel story, the man who anoints David king. And before the Samuel story is the story of his mother, Hannah. From Hannah we learn what it means to dedicate something of great value to God.

We have several child dedications and it's Mother's Day weekend, so you can imagine how happy I am that this text fell on today and not David and Bathsheba!

FYI

Sarah Bessey on "Motherhood: Transformation by Interruption"

By nature, by nurture, and by training, I'm a planner. I've always been able to make a plan, work a plan, stick to a plan. It's one of my greatest strengths, a dedication that has served me well in everything from my former work in strategic development and marketing to my life now as a writer and a mother.

Amy Julia Becker on "Ordinary Moms, Everyday Heroes: Every mom has the makings of a hero"

I wonder how many young women realized they are also embarking on a hero’s journey when they become mothers.

One More Thing

Dale Ralph Davis writes:

Hannah, therefore, shares in the fellowship of barrenness. And it is frequently in this fellowship that new chapters in Yahweh's history with his people begin--begin with nothing. God's tendency is to make our total inability his starting point. Our hopelessness and our helplessness are no barrier to his work. Indeed our utter incapacity is often the prop he delights to use for his next acts. ...Once we see where God often begins we will understand how we may be encouraged. (1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart, p. 16)

10 Tweets

Here's my sermon from last weekend in 10 Tweets, "The Bible and Sexual Intimacy" in the Loveology series (1 Corinthians 7:1-5

1/ What if sexual intimacy in marriage is one of the means God uses to make us more like Jesus?

2/ We are so sexually broken that our sexual life is full of the pain of unfulfilled desires.

3/ Sex is God’s idea! He created the drive, he made it pleasurable, and then he told Adam and Eve to go do it.

4/ Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. …Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love. Pro 5:18f.

5/ The Bible isn't prudish, but also contains many warnings about sex when it’s taken outside of its God-given boundaries and purposes.

6/ Countercultural message of 1 Cor 7:4 - women have sexual desires & those desires are legitimate & that they're as legitimate as a man’s.

7/ Marital intimacy God’s way teaches us to be less self-centered and more other-centered. 

8/ The biblical ethic for sexual intimacy is training us in self-giving and serving others. It is training ground to be more like Christ.

9/ You might say that sex as a gift to be enjoyed bet a husband & wife who are trying to out-serve each other, even in bed.

10/ Jesus our model. Washed feet - Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (Jn 15:13)