It's easy to trust God when things are good. But what happens when things AREN'T good? What happens when the worst ghosts from our past come back to haunt us? What happens when the pain we thought we left behind is staring us right in the face?
As we pick up Joseph's story this week in Genesis 42 things get interesting when that very thing happens to him. But now, the tables are turned. Now Joseph has all the power, and can do whatever he wants. Take revenge? Grant mercy? Joseph can do what he wants. The real question is, will Joseph continue doing what he's done to this point? Or will he take matters into his own hands. Either way, Joseph has some big decisions to make.
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Joseph's life has been anything but a cakewalk. In reality, it was worse than most of us could possibly imagine. Betrayed by his brothers. Sold into slavery. Accused of crimes he didn't commit. Forgotten about in prison. It's a tragic story.
And yet, as we pick up Joseph's story this week in Genesis 41, things are looking up in some huge ways. It's a miraculous turnaround, but Joseph played a critical role in it. It can be so difficult to not let the betrayals and injustices in our lives consume us, and Joseph's life is a perfect case study in how to make sure that doesn't happen. If he could survive what he did, maybe we can learn a few things from it.
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The beginning of Joseph's story was terrible. After being his father's favorite son, he was betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers. It doesn't get much worse than that. But for Joseph, this was just the beginning of the roller coaster of his life.
As we pick back up this week in Genesis chapters 38 and 39, things get a lot better. Then a lot worse. Then a lot better. Then, well, you get the picture. It's a pattern we probably understand. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. Mountains and valleys. No matter what words you use the idea is the same, and the hard questions that come along with it are, too.
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Our time is precious. It runs out quickly. And if we aren't careful, before we know what's happened it's all gone. It's an age-old problem, and one that is more and more important as we live in an ever-busier world.
As we finish up Fundamentals this week, we're looking at what might just be the most important fundamental of them all, because, without it, well, we just won't have time for the rest. To figure out how to solve this problem we'll look to the life of Jesus in the Bible for how to not just manage our most precious resource, but how to invest that resource with purpose.
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We were made to worship God. There's nothing more fundamental than that, but what does that mean? For most of us we probably think about music, singing, lifting hands, or other things along those lines. We talk about "worship" as if it's music, but that's complicated. What if we don't like the style? What if we don't like raising our hands? What if we really don't like singing at all? And, if worship is about singing, how can we even know if we're doing it "right"?
This week we'll explore the fundamental reason God made us – to worship Him, but more importantly we'll look to the words of Paul to learn what that looks like practically. And for each of us, when we fulfill our most basic God-given purpose in the way God intended, our relationship with Him grows, but, according to Paul, we are also able to follow Him more closely as well.
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God created us for relationship and intimacy with Him, but so many of us don't experience that intimacy in our faith. Why? What is it that keeps us from having exactly what God says He wants, and that He created us for.
In part one of this four part message series we'll look at the words and life of Jesus, strip back all the religious stuff we tend to attach to faith, and learn one simple, small habit we can put in place to give us access to the intimacy with God we so desperately want.
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What do you imagine when you think of the birth of Jesus? A barn? Animals? Shepherds and wise men? We all have images we think of, but the truth is the Bible tells us very little about what Jesus' birth was like. In fact, two of the Gospels don't include anything about Jesus' birth at all.
Instead, the Bible focuses on why Jesus was born, because to the Biblical writers what it looked like simply didn't matter at all compared to why He came to earth.
This Christmas Eve we'll reimagine the Christmas story, no matter what images come to mind. We'll look at the birth of Christ through the eyes of both Matthew and Luke, to focus in on the most important detail: the "why".
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Have you ever heard God blesses people who are obedient with their money? It's all over the Bible. But sometimes we run into a situation where we're obedient to God financially and we don't experience His blessing how we expect. In the worst of cases it doesn't seem like God is blessing us at all. What do we do then?
The reality is God does tell us he'll bless us. It's all over the Bible. It's a promise. But if we don't know what God means when He says He'll bless us we might just end up with expectations that He DIDN'T promise.
This week we'll explore what God means when He says He'll bless us. We'll gain a healthy understanding of what we can, and should, expect when we're obedient with our money. And we'll wrap up this series by giving one more piece of what God is looking for in us to unleash His blessing on us.
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Sometimes Jesus says things that are really hard to understand. Like when he says to "store up treasure in heaven". That sounds great in theory, but in reality, there's no "heaven bank" we can drive to and put our money in. So even if we want to do it, what does it actually look like?
In part two of "Mastered" we'll start where we left off last week. Last week we learned that to escape the money trap we have to obey the giver with our treasure. So this week we'll take the next step and explore just what that means. We'll come up with a working definition of "storing up treasure in Heaven", and we'll also discover a practical step we can take to begin doing just that.
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Do you remember Chinese finger traps? The solution is opposite of what you think. Unfortunately, many of us have fallen into a trap the Bible describes when it comes to money, and without knowing it we've become stuck with no way to escape.
This week we're kicking off a new message series called Mastered. During this series we'll be exploring this trap and how we can escape it. The problem is, much like the Chinese Finger Trap, the more we try what makes sense the more we get stuck.
But the good news is, there is a way out. Today, in part one, we'll identify the trap and begin to find a way out. The great news is, once we do, we can not only find freedom from the money trap, but we will find incredible blessing on the other side.
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Praying prayers that move God's heart is a great thing, but if that's all we ever do we've just reduced God to a cosmic Santa Claus, and that's not a role God is willing to play. The reality is prayer is much more than just praying those big, bold prayers. And, it's only by understanding that bigger picture of prayer that this whole process works anyway.
This week we're finishing up Circle Maker by looking at the story of one of the greatest circle makers in the Bible, Daniel. While he's most famous for his encounter with lions, the real secret to Daniel's life was something else entirely. As we look to his story we'll see the key trait that makes a circle maker a circle maker, and form a simple plan to unlock the power of prayer in our own lives.
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Sometimes we dream big, we pray hard, and God doesn't come through. That can be a real challenge when God promises that he moves promptly if we pray for persistence. How do we reconcile God's promise of moving quickly with what seems like inaction for long periods of time? For some this question has destroyed their faith.
This week we'll tackle this issue head on and look not only to the Bible, but also to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity to gain insight to better understand God's actions. And hopefully, by the end, all our faith will be strengthened in the moments it seems like God isn't moving quickly enough.
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If we're going to be people who pray prayers that move the heart of God we have to dream big, but we also have to pray hard. We can't phone it in, and we can't pray just because we're supposed to. There has to be something more, something deeper that drives us to go to God.
This week we'll look at a parable Jesus told, and also at a story of one of the geatest prophets in Israel's history – sometone Honi the Circle Maker was likely inspired by. As we do we'll learn what it really means to pray hard, and we'll also talk about what it looks like in a practical way.
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What kinds of prayers move the heart of God? That's a question many of us have never thought about, but, if we're going to pray prayers that move God's heart, it's an important one for us to ask. Unfortunately for many of us the reality is we don't see God move because we don't pray prayers that require Him to move.
In other words, for many of us, our prayers aren't God-sized prayers. They're "safe". They don't require any risk on our part, which means they don't require God at all. And if our prayers don't require God they aren't going to move God's heart. It's as simple as that.
This week we'll look to three short stories in the Bible of people dreaming God-sized dreams and moving the heart of Jesus to respond in miraculous ways. Plus, packed into the third story is a question at the very center of our faith, and a question that, if we don't settle it in our hearts, will prevent us from ever praying the kinds of prayers that move the heart of God.
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We hear stories of prayers that move the heart of God to do miracles. We read about these kinds of things in the Bible. We know God CAN do miracles, but for so many of us our prayers don't ever seem to move the heart of God to do much at all. Why is that? Why is it that for so many of us we just can't seem to move the heart of God at all? What does it even look like to pray prayers that move the heart of God?
This week we kick of a new series, called Circle Maker, where we'll learn how to pray big, bold, God-sized prayers that move His heart to action. Today we'll lay a foundation for what's to come, and look at two important truths we have to understand before we can pray God-sized prayers. We'll also talk about how to combat the fatal flaw built into all of us that, whether we like it or not, makes God not want to do what we ask Him for.
So join us as we start a new journey together toward praying the kinds of prayers that move the heart of God, and watch as those God-sized prayers become God-sized miracles that only He can get the credit for. Let's learn how to pray for rain.
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