Of all the people in the Bible, Jacob is one of the most relatable for modern people. His doubts, his struggles, and his failures make him easy to identify with. But one of the most interesting features of his life is the fact that, like many modern people, he wasn't necessarily looking for God. But in this passage, God moves powerfully into Jacob's life, even though Jacob was not seeking him. What's more, God worked in Jacob's life at a time when everything was falling apart for him. Therefore, this passage gives us a great picture of how God transforms our lives in the midst of our fears and failures.
The life of Jacob is the longest story of any single person in the book of Genesis. As the last of the patriarchs, his story marks an important transition point in the narrative arc of the whole Bible. This passage is all about the blessing imparted by Isaac, and Jacob's duplicitous attempt to secure it. As modern people, our notion of "blessing" is pretty weak. But when we begin to understand what blessing really means in the Bible, and how Jacob goes about trying to get it, we begin to get an understanding of just how crucial this is for our own lives as well.
This story is the longest single narrative in the whole book of Genesis. One of the main things it shows us is the providential but hidden guidance of God to bring about the fulfillment of his purposes. That's important for us as late-modern, Western individuals. Because two things we crave are control and personal fulfillment. Therefore we put a lot of emphasis on receiving guidance, and have a lot of anxiety over the possibility of "messing up" our lives. This passage has a lot to show us about how God guides us, but in ways that are quite unexpected.
Facing the challenges and hardships of life is extremely difficult. Facing the challenges and hardships of loving people who are different from us can seem impossible. Is there a way to do either. Even more hard to imagine, is there a way to do both? In this passage, we explore the true nourishment Jesus gives us to move out into the world in strength, hope, and love. We can only do so because he is our "soul food."
At the end of this letter, the apostle Paul reminds the Galatians once again the reason he wrote in the first place: "Don't forget the gospel!" In other words, there is only one gospel, not many. It's common to hear people today say, "What really matters is not what you believe, but how you live." In this passage, Paul both deconstructs that mistake and also shows us how the gospel gives us the answer to our souls deepest (and most vulnerable) questions about worth, value, and significance.
The world we live in can be a place of seemingly relentless evil. Our lives also are filled with times that are so difficult and heartbreaking that it's often hard to find the strength to keep going. When the world and life knock you down, where do you get the resources to persevere? How can you persist in "doing good" when you feel weary and want to give up? This passage shows us by pointing us to the hope that only the gospel can offer.
Everyone wants to be a person of integrity, someone whose everyday life matches their professed beliefs. But what does that look like for Christians? We who claim to have the Holy Spirit inside of us, what does it actually look like for us to have true, Gospel integrity? Paul gives us several crucial directives in this passage on what it looks like when the Church's walk matches our talk. And what is interesting is that all of the commands he gives us, have to do with how Christians treat one another.
One of the most common struggles for everyone is knowing intuitively that there are things in our life that need to change. Not change in our circumstances, but change in us. Whether it's anxiety, fear, anger, bitterness, addiction, shame, loneliness, greed, selfishness, or any number of issues, we all have struggles in our lives. One could call this the quest for character. And that wouldn't be entirely incorrect. But the gospel tells us something very different about the source, nature, and cultivation of that character. In fact, it tells us that it is not even our character, but the work of God's Holy Spirit within us. This week we take a look at how God transforms us in the midst of our struggles.
The question is frequently asked, "If God loves and accepts us by grace, and not because of anything we do, then what motivation do we have for living a good life?" That is a huge question, and a fair one. What kind of motivation does the Christian have for living a good life? Why obey, if God accepts us no matter what we do? The surprising answer of this passage is that the gospel actually gives us a far greater motivation for goodness, and therefore a far deeper call to obedience.
"Freedom" stands at the center of most of our culture's most deeply cherished values. Yet it hardly seems to many people to be an accurate way of describing religion, including Christianity. With its lists of rules and regulations, religion seems to be more about restricting freedom than enhancing it. Nonetheless, the apostle Paul tells us in this passage that freedom is actually what the gospel is all about. How can that be? Join us this week as we explore what the Bible has to say about it.
In this passage, Paul returns to the idea of "gospel freedom," an idea that will dominate for the next several sections of the letter. This story, from the Old Testament book of Genesis, seems a little odd and mysterious at first. But it makes a profound point about the nature of gospel freedom, and the implications for our lives.
This passage deals with Paul's perplexity over the situation of his beloved Galatians. But the heart displayed here is not just the heart of a pastor for his flock, but the heart of a loving God for his dear children.
All people, regardless of how religious or spiritual they may or may not consider themselves, experience a longing for something beyond this world. We may use different language to express it, but we all yearn for the experience of God. Not just to know about God, but to actually have a personal, intimate, and transformational relationship with God. This passage helps us to understand why we need it, what it is, and how we can actually find it.
Inclusion and diversity are some of our culture's most highly prized values. But 2,000 years before this contemporary emphasis, the Bible was already addressing it. This passage helps us understand how the gospel addresses the many "lines of distinction" our world sets up: racial lines, class lines, gender lines, etc. As we explore it, we see how the gospel both affirms our yearning for diversity, and offers a solution that goes infinitely farther than any solution humanity has been able to produce.
If the gospel is that God gives us the status of perfect righteousness, not based on our performance but simply because of his loving mercy to us in Jesus Christ, then why did God give the Law? This question has sparked massive debate within the church for the last 2000 years. Some believed that because God gave the Law, there must be something they must do to contribute to their salvation. Others have mistakenly thought that if salvation is based on grace, then it really doesn't matter how we live. But Paul argues in this passage the the Law of God is not the means of salvation, nor opposed to salvation, but a light that guides us to salvation.
It's easy to think of our late-modern age as one of progress, freedom, liberation, and wellbeing. But anxiety, dread, self-condemnation, and fears of the "apocalypse" are just as prevalent, if not more so, than they were in ancient societies. Our secular society has gotten rid of God, but it has not gotten rid of the "curse." The Bible speaks just as powerfully to our age as it has to ages past. And this passage in particular helps us to makes sense of, and find healing for, one of the most persistent and debilitating problems of our time. What is the curse, and what is the cure? Tune in and find out.
Even though we live in a society that is increasingly secularized, and that sees God as playing no meaningful role in our public life together, we remain just as spiritually thirsty as ever. One of the biggest yearnings of humanity is for an experience of God's presence and power. In this passage, the apostle Paul shows us not just how you begin the spiritual life, but how you grow spiritually as well. And, perhaps counter-intuitively, he shows us that the same principle is operative in both. The way you get in is the way you grow up.
There is maybe no question more central to who we are, or more contested in our society, than the question of identity. What is it? Where do you get it? Why is it so important? This is something that affects us at the most intimate, and personal level. And it is also something that is having a dramatic affect on our society. In this passage, Paul introduces the concept of "justification." As we'll see, this is not some dry, lifeless theological concept. It is at the center of what it means to have an identity.
Racism is one of the biggest, and earliest, issues the church has had to deal with. From its earliest days, the gospel has been at the forefront of confronting and mending the world's thorniest and ugliest social issues. In this passage, the apostle Paul shows us how the gospel actually changes our lives to root out racial, cultural, and social division. But along the way, we see how the gospel is able to do that because of its unique power to address and heal the deepest underlying dynamics and motivations of the human heart.
"Freedom" is on of the most influential and cherished values in our society, whether in terms of social justice, politics, culture, or individual flourishing. Many people would say that Christianity (or any religion) actually erodes personal and social freedom. But in this passage, the apostle Paul shows us a freedom that goes beyond anything our society could ever offer, and makes the gospel the most unique and transformative power in the world.