Have you ever been at a rough spot in your life—or maybe just a confusing spot—and thought to yourself, “I wish I knew what God wanted!” Maybe you even said it out loud as you knelt in prayer. Maybe you said it out loud and pounded your fist on the steering wheel as you drove around town.

One of the topics we’ve discussed extensively on Wednesday nights lately is that 1 John has a lot of repetition. John doesn’t repeat the exact same thing over and over, but there are definitely recurrent themes.

2.21.10 – Abram and Sarai and Hagar and Ishmael

We’ve been singing and thinking this morning about Thanks. Thanking God. Everything we have comes from God, right? That’s easily acknowledged …

But it’s not always easily lived. With our mouth we give thanks and credit to God, but then we live our lives as if we are in charge.

Genesis 16

This is one of those passages that I—in my infinite wisdom (ha!)—kinda wish weren’t in the Bible. Not only is it hard to preach through, it reminds me that even the greatest heroes of the faith have feet of clay sometimes.

2.7.10 – Patience, a Divine Virtue (part 2)

OK, this is the second part of last Sunday’s sermon on the Promise and the Covenant made with Abram.

Look back at the ratifying of the covenant God made with Abram:

Genesis 15:12-16

1.31.10 – The Promise and the Covenant (part 1)

This morning’s sermon is, in some ways, a two parter. We’re going to look at an enormous event in Abram’s life (in Genesis 15) that impacts every one of us. In fact, it’s almost like all of human history is encapsulated in what happens here.

Jan 24, 2010

Genesis 14

I was reading about this passage and there have been some questions over the years. Who are these kings that are mentioned? There’s speculation that this Kedorlaomer may have been the famous Hammurabi, but others doubt that. All four of these attacking kings have names which are similar to names archeologists have found, but there are no exact matches.

How many of us look at the choices we have made in life and regret some of them? Sometimes these are big and sometimes they’re small. You were eating at the restaurant and you know that curry has an interesting effect on your digestion, but you chose it anyway. About midnight, you regretted that decision, but by morning you were OK (and thinking about eating the leftovers).

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jacob, who had a son named Joseph. Joseph was a dreamer of dreams...

This time there was no coat of many colors
This time no one got sold into slavery
But there was a great famine
And there was an unscheduled trip to Egypt...

Let’s take a look at the Four Dreams of Joseph:

Matthew 1:

1.10.9 – Abram

Who here has a friend they can trust? The kind of friend if he tells you he’ll be there at 3, you look for him at 2:45. The kind of friend that if she tells you she’ll drive you to Amarillo on Tuesday for an appointment, you go ahead and tell the doctor you’ll be there on Tuesday.

How is it that we’ve come to trust these friends so much? It didn’t happen overnight, did it? It happened because over time we came to learn that promises made were promises kept.