Sermons

This section from Genesis 16 “has it all,” about every human misery that results when we let our desires run amok. These disasters affect not just ourselves but the very ones we love most–and sometimes for a very long time!

God makes a covenant with Abraham that will demonstrate His commitment to Abraham and Abraham’s descendants forever. It involves a stunning prophecy, an exact fulfillment of that prophecy, and a stunning sacrificial twist in story, illustrating the grace of God to us sinners.

Real faith has the power to address the worries, fears, and anxieties that we find in us. God made special promises to Abraham based on a faith that God “credited to him as righteousness, or right standing with God. Let’s see how that happened with Abraham and how it might relate to us.

The Christian faces two kinds of battles: (1) outer, and (2) inner. Life’s outer battles with temptations, discouragements, and troubles are hard enough, but when we are losing inner battles, our outer battles can be overwhelming. Let’s watch how Abraham won some inner battle that enabled him to sail through some outer battles!

Our faith in God is not just a nice theological idea, nor does it make us “religious” people. Real faith shows itself in real life, in real decisions, real priorities, and real purposes—ours, or God’s!

One of the great things about walking with God is the opportunity and power available to us after we fail or act foolishly. We’ll watch Abraham’s descent into terrible folly and his ascent back to his roots.