Scripture: Genesis 22:1-19

+ Leviticus 1:4

+ Hebrews 11:17–19

+ James 2:21–24

Scripture: Genesis 21:1-21

Proverbs 13:12

+ God is the God who gives laughter

Psalm 126:1-3

+ God will deal with every threat to our joy

Luke 1:67–69

Luke 7:11–17

John 16:20–22

Galatians 4:21–23

Galatians 4:28–31

+ One day our Joy will never be threatened again

1 Peter 2:12

"Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"

"A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King.

Scripture: Genesis 21:1-21

Proverbs 13:12

+ God is the God who gives laughter

Psalm 126:1-3

+ God will deal with every threat to our joy

Luke 1:67–69

Luke 7:11–17

John 16:20–22

Galatians 4:21–23

Galatians 4:28–31

+ One day our Joy will never be threatened again

1 Peter 2:12

"Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"

"A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King.

Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10

"The whole range of human miseries, from restlessness and estrangement through shame and guilt… to the agonies of daytime television—all of them tell us that things in human life are not as they ought to be." – Cornelius Plantinga

+ The default mode of humanity is dead, defiant, and doomed

"Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart which you had pity upon in the bottom of the abyss. Now let my heart tell you what it was seeking there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the evil in me—not that for which I was committing the evil, but the evil itself." – Augustine of Hippo

"The thought is overwhelming, that soon this body of mine must be a carnival for worms; that in and out of these places, where my eyes are glistening, foul things, the offspring of loathsomeness, shall crawl; that this body must be stretched in still, cold, abject, passive, death. It must then become a noxious, nauseous thing, cast out even by those that loved me, who will say, 'Bury my dead out of my sight.' Now, endeavour, as well as you can, to get the idea of a dead corpse, and when you have so done, please to understand that that is the metaphor employed in my text, to set forth the condition of your soul by nature." – Charles Spurgeon

+ Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus

Romans 5:12; 17

+ Partner with God in Kingdom Expansion

Scripture: Genesis 20

+ God is Faithful even when we are faithless

2 Timothy 2:11–13

Isaiah 49:15–16

+ God is vigilant when we are careless

Psalm 19:13

Psalm 119:133

+ God blesses the world through his people

Philippians 1:19

Genesis 12:3

Galatians 3:8

John 5:23

John 3:36

Scripture: Genesis 19

Key Takeaways:

+ The Spiritual Condition of Sodom

Ezekiel 16:49

+ The Spiritual Condition of Lot

Hebrews 11:8-10

+ The judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah is a dress rehearsal for a future and greater judgment

Jude 1:7

Luke 17:26-35

Romans 5:8-10

Matthew 11:20-24

+ Judgement begins with the household of God

1 Peter 4:14-19

1 John 2:15-17

"Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it." – Puritan Writer

"But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance to join His side freely. God will invade...When that happens it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on his side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like and dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left. For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we have really chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it." – CS Lewis, Mere Christianity.

Scripture: Genesis 18:16-33

Key Takeaways:

+ God is a comprehensive judge

+ God is a just judge

Genesis 15:6

Psalm 32:1

+ God is a merciful judge

Isaiah 53:11- 12

Hebrews 7:25

John 15:15-16

Scripture: Genesis 18:16-33

Key Takeaways:

+ God is a comprehensive judge

+ God is a just judge

Genesis 15:6

Psalm 32:1

+ God is a merciful judge

Isaiah 53:11- 12

Hebrews 7:25

John 15:15-16

Scripture: Genesis 18:1-15

Key Takeaways:

Ephesians 3:20

+ God's presence is the guarantee of God's promises

2 Corinthians 1:20-22

"I regard myself as the most wretched of all men, stinking and covered with sores, and as one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King. Overcome by remorse, I confess all my wickedness to Him, ask His pardon and abandon myself entirely to Him to do with as He will. But this King, filled with goodness and mercy, far from chastising me, lovingly embraces me, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the keys of His treasures and treats me as His favorite. He talks with me and is delighted with me in a thousand and one ways; He forgives me and relieves me of my principle bad habits without talking about them; I beg Him to make me according to His heart and always the more weak and despicable I see myself to be, the more beloved I am of God." – Brother Lawrence

Hebrews 5:12-6:1

James 1:2-4

Scripture: Genesis 17

Key Takeaways:

+ Revelation

The revelation of God's character to us is the answer for all the struggles in us.

The revelation of God's character to us always requires a response from us.

+ Promise

+ Expectations

+ A Sign

Sign and Seal

Cleansing and Consecration

Jeremiah 4:4

Jeremiah 6:10

Jeremiah 9:25-26

Deuteronomy 10:16

Deuteronomy 30:6

Ezekiel 36:25–27

Hebrews 8:7–11

Matthew 26:26–28

Colossians 2:11–14

Galatians 3:7–8