Sermon

Each of us wants to succeed in life. But if we want true success, it’s crucial to work out a biblical definition of the term. Otherwise, you’ll be like the guy who climbed the ladder of success only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall. You’ll waste your life pursuing the wrong goals and making wrong decisions. If our target is wrong, we will fail even if we hit it.

Today’s culture defines success primarily in financial terms, throwing in lots of ideas of power, fame, and money. As Christians, we can easily see the fallacy in defining success in those terms, but often we are influenced by our culture more than we like to admit. As Christians, we show our skewed definition of success when we rush out to buy the latest story of some celebrity who has made a profession of faith, or when we…

Before I get into my message today, I want you to pick a number, any number. Did you pick a number larger than a million? If not, then why didn't you? In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin picked the number one followed by 100 zeroes while they were still graduate students at Stanford University. That number, in mathematical terms, is called a googol, and that became the name of their new enterprise. Today, Google operates the largest search engine in the world.

The chief operations engineer of Google, Jim, says this about Brin and Page: “It takes a lot of confidence and courage to go ahead and do that. But it's rare to find people who think on such a grand scale and are still able to create a great product at the same time.”

Google’s founders were dreamers, and that’s what it takes to accomplish great things. It…

Life Journey Filled with Promises Genesis 35:1-15

Life is a journey; For each of us, that journey is filled with a wide variety of experiences. That is life. Sometimes those experiences feel really good, and sometimes they feel pretty rotten. The Christian walk is also a journey. It has a distinct beginning and a conclusive end. And this journey is filled with God’s promises, but this journey is not easy. Sometimes we understand what’s going on, and sometimes we are confused and ask God. “God, what are you doing, and what am I supposed to do next?” Have you ever prayed that prayer?

We’ve been working our way through the book of Genesis, and today's passage is Genesis 35:1-15. In this chapter, Jacob is leading his family on a journey. Follow Jacob's journey, and we’ll learn some life lessons from it, and I believe God will speak to us about…

The book of Genesis hovers over one family because this is the one family that God has chosen to change all humanity through. This family is the hope of the world. From the previous chapters of Genesis, we see Jacob from his birth, fighting for the upper hand with his twin brother, Esau. And today, we watch as these two brothers come together for the first time in over twenty years. Not only that, today’s passage, Genesis 33:1-20, tells the story of these two brothers’ reconciliation, highlighting how a transformative encounter with God (wrestling in Gen 32) enables humility, breaks fear, and fosters peace after twenty years of estrangement.

I. Fear from the Shadow of the Past (Gen 33:1-3a)

At the end of Gen 32, Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed. However, the circumstances still had not changed. Jacob and his family still faced a dangerous situation. Jacob, this former…