One of the challenges in following Christ is the hidden areas of life that we are tempted to hold back. Abraham’s life has been one of a struggle between fear and faith as he has walked with God and seen God’s faithfulness in action. This message explores how God tests Abraham’s trust one final time. Will Abraham hold back part of his life from God, will he look to his own efforts to provider, or will he lay it all down and surrender his future to the Lord? This message explores the role of faith in the Christian life and how Genesis 22 reveals how God provides for Abraham’s redemption and our redemption in Christ.

This message explores how God can take a broken and dysfunctional family situation and use it for his good purposes. We learn how God establishes Isaac as the sole heir to God’s promise to Abraham. But, along the way we see how unaddressed sin, patterns of conflict and sibling rivalry create family brokenness. Yet, we have a faithful God who hears the cry of his people and who can open their eyes to see how he has provided.

The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning that God wants us to carefully remember. Jesus in fact commanded his followers to remember this sobering event. While we can easily focus on the question of why God judged these cities, the real warning is to us as followers of Jesus as we battle our divided harts in a fallen world. Far from showing a distant God shaking his finger at His people, this text is a gift from a loving father to His children who are on a dangerous journey.

Abraham intercedes for Sodom, foreshadowing the true and better Intercessor.

Anger was given to us as our "justice compass", but it is broken by sin. God calls us away from sinful anger and into the practice of godly anger. This message describes how God uses the Gospel to transform our anger into something useful in God's kingdom.

The depression and despair are a universal experience as we live our our life and faith in a broken world. While we are wired to seek a solution to our despair, God meets us in the midst of it showing His power in our weakness and pain. One of the gifts God has given us as we journey through our despair is Psalm 42 which points to the reality of pain and the hope we have in God in the midst of our suffering.

God has given us the gift of emotions as powerful motivators. Guilt and shame are some of the most potent emotions. They were given to cultivate greater enjoyment of God.

The power of fear, anxiety and worry is that it preys upon our desire for safety and control. It tells you things are spinning in your life and are out of your power and for some reason, we double down and think that we can fix things on our own, even though often we got ourselves into the mess we are in. King David was no stranger to fear and in Psalm 27 he shows us how to engage God in times of fear, where to put our hope and reminds us of the security we have in Christ.

Everyone who walks with God will at one point in their life express disappointment in God or experiential doubt in God’s goodness. For Abraham and Sarah, God reveals to them more of his promise; specifically that he will bring Sarah a son with whom he will make his covenant with. But, both Sarah and Abraham laugh at this news. After years of delay, failed plans and unmet expectations, Sarah and Abraham express their doubt through laughter. This sermon focuses on the expanded promise of God to Abraham and Sarah and how followers of Jesus can walk in faith through these seasons.

Abraham's faith is a picture of our faith. While his circumstances are different than ours, we are saved in the same way -- by faith -- and we experience the same struggles to hold on to the promises of God while we wait and suffer. God graciously gave Abraham tangible things he could hold on to while he waited: a covenant made by God himself, a change in name and a sign in his own body in the form of circumcision. While circumcision is no longer required of God's people, it points to another reality that is still true of all who belong to Jesus. It points to a much deeper mark that God places on the heart of all who belong to Him. This sermon focuses on the nature and significance of circumcision to Abraham and his descendants, and ties these underlying realities to how we walk with Jesus today.