Sermon Video: Abram fails to live by faith - Genesis 12:10-20

Abraham and Sarah are heroes of the faith, but their lives had challenges just like our own, and they failed to meet some of them with faith.  When famine caused them to seek refuge in Egypt, Abram was willing to put his wife at risk in order to avoid danger that he feared.  This form of, "Let us do evil that good may result," is wholly unacceptable for God's people.  Our call is to do what is morally upright, circumstances don't change that.

Sermon Video: The Promised Land, Genesis 12:4-9

 

God's promise to Abram about the land of Canaan is the foundation for a conversation about the challenging history and complicated present of this land and its people that leads to two resolutions: (1) The Jewish people have a right to live in this land, (2) everyone else who lives in this land deserves basic human rights and freedoms.

Sermon Video: God's Grace in Action: The Call of Abram, Genesis 11:10-12:3

Following the Tower of Babel incident, when God dispersed a human effort to establish his presence among humanity, the narrative of Genesis turns toward the family line that leads to Abram, the man whom God will choose to begin his relationship with one particular people, and through them bless the world.

God asks a lot of Abram, to leave his homeland and trust that God will make him into a great nation despite the lack of children in his marriage with Sarai.  But God also promises amazing things to Abram, going far beyond what any connection to a God in the Ancient Near East would expect to be by proposing to Abram an enduring relationship.  With God it wouldn't be a mutually beneficially bargain, instead it would be an outpouring of grace.

Sermon Video: The Tower and Israel's 70 neighboring nations -Genesis 10:1-11:9

Sometimes it is difficult for us to connect with the purpose behind why a particular portion of scripture was included in the sacred text.  Lists of names are probably high on that list, and so too is the story of the Tower of Babel given how often it is misunderstood.

These two episodes in chapters 10-11 of Genesis are there to set the stage for God's work in calling Abram in chapter 12.  The 70 nations show the diversity that God had to choose from, emphasizing as always that salvation is God's grace not human effort, and the Tower of Babel illustrates this principle in action.  The builders of the tower, a ziggurat, had hoped to invite God (or a god) to come down from heaven to dwell with them, a stairway from heaven (not a prideful stairway to heaven).  This is a noble thought, but a misguided one.  Humanity cannot solve its own sin problem.  We need a savior, and it needs to be on God's terms and according to God's timetable.

Sermon Video: Noah's sons choose between gossip and respect - Genesis 9:18-29

In our only glimpse in Genesis into the lives of Noah's 3 sons, a family incident involving Noah being passed-out drunk leads to one son, Ham, choosing to spread the news about Noah (gossip) rather than help him, and the other two, Shem and Japheth, doing their best to show respect to their father even in his current state.

In the narrative of Genesis, this brief story functions as a device to frame the upcoming judgment of God against Ham's symbolic descendants, the Canaanites.  It also reminds us that issues within our families are some of the most difficult moral questions and character moments in our lives.  It may not be easy, but we can rise above the situation and respond with kindness, honor, truth, and the like.

Sermon Video: The sign of God's covenant with Noah, Genesis 9:1-17

Symbols can be powerful, they can evoke love or hate, assurance or fear.  They can be put to righteous purposes, or evil ones.  In Genesis 9 God chooses to make a covenant with Noah and promises that no other cataclysmic flood like the one that had just ended will occur in the future.  In doing so, God begins a pattern of making covenant with humanity, offering promises to help us navigate this life in connection with him.  God also offers a sign of the covenant, the rainbow, a fitting reminder that one can only see a rainbow when the sun is shining in the midst of a storm.

Sermon Video: After the Flood - Genesis 8

 

The literary structure of the Flood narrative in Genesis draws the reader to 8:1 where we read, "But God remembered Noah." Just as the first half of the story highlighted God's provision for Noah, his family, and the animals during the coming and executing of his wrath, the second half highlights God's provision for them during the time of the waning of the effects of God's wrath. Through it all God cares for his people, for the righteous, and through it all Noah demonstrates tremendous patience and trust.

Sermon Video: God's plan: A Flood and a Covenant, Genesis 6:14-22

God shares his plan with Noah, giving him instructions on how to survive the Flood that is coming and entrusting him with the care of the animals that are also to be spared.  In that process, God promises to Noah that he will establish a covenant with him, further deepening their already existing relationship.

In the end, Noah did what God commanded.  The narrative never tells us what Noah thought about any of this, we simply learn that he obeyed.

Sermon Video: God's Wrath and Noah's Righteousness - Genesis 6:7-13

 

As the Flood narrative begins, God expresses his intention to pour out his wrath on the human population which had embraced evil, especially violence.  At the same time, we note that Noah is different, his life is characterized by righteousness and a deep relationship with God.  As this re-creation through the Flood unfolds, we will see Noah's faithfulness and note that the righteousness of even one person can change the course of history.

Sermon Video: God is deeply troubled by human evil - Genesis 6:1-6

Transitioning from the story of the line of Seth that came before it, and the story of Noah and the Flood that follows after, Genesis 6:1-4 is a passage with a wide variety of interpretations throughout its history.  That being said, it continues the story of Genesis 1-11 of God's work at creating order vs. humanity's ongoing introduction of chaos (through rebellion).

Starting in vs. 5, the chapter shifts its focus to God's observation that humanity has become, "evil all the time."  This, we are told, greatly grieves the heart of God, so much so that God regrets having created humanity in the first place.  This startling conclusion will set the stage for the judgment to come in Noah's day as it sets the God of Abraham apart from those deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East in that the LORD actually cares about humanity and evil, having created the former and being wholly apart from the latter.

Sermon Video: The Generations From Adam to Noah - Genesis 4:25-5:32

It might be tempting to skip, or at least skim, the genealogical lists in the Bible. No doubt many people do, but there is wisdom in the words of Genesis that describe the generations between Adam and Noah, especially in the deviation from the repetition that is the (brief) story of Enoch. In the end, this section offers us hope, hope that God was working in and through people even before his covenant with Abraham, that even in difficult times there are those who by faith, "walk with God."

Sermon Video: Cain's descendants go their own way - Genesis 4:17-24

In the first of several explorations of the branches of Adam's family tree that do not lead to Abraham and the 12 sons of Jacob, Genesis takes a look at the descendants of Cain.  In the text they build a city, develops its culture, and even a form of case law.  All this to say, they do what mankind apart from a covenantal relationship is able to do and that's not a small thing because we are all made in God's image.  However, as Genesis will show again and again, the branches that are not a part of the upcoming covenant lack one key and insurmountable thing: a relationship with God.  Without God's grace, they lack the means of redemption, thus this passage serves as a reminder to us all of the necessity of God's grace.

Sermon Video: God is merciful, even to the murderer Cain - Genesis 4:8-16

It is well known that Cain killed his brother Abel, what is less well understood is that God showed incredible mercy to Cain when he confronted Cain afterwards. God could have struck Cain down in righteous wrath, ending his life right there, he had earned that punishment. Instead God chose to show mercy, an act of grace that reminds us that all of us who have come to know Christ as our Savior are the recipients of tremendous grace.

Sermon Video: Cain: "sin is crouching at your door" - Genesis 4:1-7

The story of God's involvement with humanity continues in Genesis with the children of Adam and Eve: Cain and Abel. Cain's experience is a powerful lesson on both the reality of sin's tempting power, AND the ability we have (with God's help) to overcome it. Cain could have taken God's correction to heart, he could have learned from his mistake, but he chose anger instead, he chose to indulge sin. We need not follow in his footsteps.

Sermon Video: The Fall: Consequences, Genesis 3:7-24

Following the decision by Eve and Adam to disobey God, the narrative of Genesis explains the multi-pronged consequences of that action, including: guilt, shame, fear, increased pain and toil in life, and ultimately the most damaging consequence in the loss of direct fellowship with God.  That things have changed, and can't be remedied by humanity, is illustrated by the removal of Adam and Eve from the Garden.

Sermon Video: The Fall: Temptation and Rebellion, Genesis 3:1-6

When consider the Fall, the more important thing the text of Genesis is not how it happened, but why.  The why is straight-forward: autonomy.  Adam and Eve could have remained as they were, serving God in sacred space in a priestly function as our representatives, they could have continued to receive from God life and wisdom, but they chose instead a faux-independence on the false premise that things would be better if they went their own way.

Every generation since Adam and Eve has confirmed this choice, humanity continues to choose autonomy over obedience, the path of death and self-destruction over the path of submission that leads to life.

Sermon Video: In the Garden of Eden - Genesis 2:4-17

A look at the Garden of Eden from the perspective of what it would have meant to the ancient Israelites (it owes much to Professor John's Walton's, The Lost World of Adam and Eve), it isn't the same as what most of us were taught.  Adam and Eve are real people, but are they the only people that were alive at the time?  Also, why is the Garden a paradise, what makes it that way, and what does this have to do with human mortality?  The answers offered are not dogmatic, simply an attempt to understand this text as it was originally intended.

Sermon Video: God Rest When His Work is Done - Genesis 2:1-3

What does it mean that God "rested" when his work of Creation was completed?  The idea of completion is key to understanding the idea of Sabbath.  God "rested" because the Temple of his Creation was fully formed and functioning thus setting the stage for God to sit upon the throne of heaven and begin his rule over what he had made.  It is in that vein that Jesus fulfills the Sabbath (and the whole Law of Moses) by completing God's work of redemption, after which he ascended at sat down at the right hand of the Father, thus also indicating that the final victory was forever won.

How do we "rest" by honoring God as Gentile Christians?  We let go of our own vain belief in our independence and accept that God is fully and completely in control, that his will for us is perfect, and that he will finish the work that he began in us on the other side of death.  In other words, we can rest any time of any day by fully trusting in God.

Sermon Video: We are made in God's image - Genesis 1:26-31

At the culmination of Genesis' Creation account, God pauses to explain that his creation of humanity will differ from all the other living things that have come before, for this living thing will be made in the very image of God.  What does this mean?  The implications are plentiful but they include: (1) We are intimately connected to God, (2) equal to every other human who has ever lived, (3) and qualitatively more important than all the other living things that we have been tasked with stewardship over.  In addition, we owe our creativity, delight in beauty, logic, and ethics to the way in which God created us.

Sermon Video: Creation is God's Temple - Genesis 1:3-25

The Creation narrative in Genesis 1 accomplishes two primary things, both for ancient Israel and for the Church today, it tells us who is responsible for everything, and why what was made was made.  The who is simple, the answer is God, nobody else is involved in the Creation account.  The why has a two-fold answer: (1) to be God's temple: his kingdom, abode, and resting place, and (2) to foster the relationship between God and man.  The second task is accomplished thanks to the wonder and awe associated with what God has made, a variety with purpose and beauty that causes us to ask, "Who was it that made it thus?"