Feast and Follow with Knollwood

Gathered to His People

What do you want the end of your life to be like? Or to put it in a slightly more morbid way, how do you hope you will behave at your death? I know those sound like odd questions, but really of all things that we can prepare for in life, this is the one certain thing. Only the Christian has the answer for how to prepare oneself for such an event. Only the Christian can view death for what it is, a hated friend. What do I mean by that? How can one be a hated friend? Death is hated because it is a result of sin. The reason why we die is because of sin. Yet death can be a friend in its capacity to deliver us to heaven, something only Jesus could accomplish.

 

Today we are going to look at two points today The Christian faces death with hope yet Christians rightly grieve death.

Reformation: The Lord’s Supper

As we celebrate the Reformation, we will take a brief pause on our journey through Genesis to take a look at another hard won recovery of the the doctrine of the Lord's Supper 

Do Jews Worship the Same God as Christians?

This is an important question that a surprising amount of the American church gets incorrect! 

Blessings Suitable for Him

Don’t you wish you could know the future? I think all of us if given the chance would love even a glimpse or a hint of what is to come in our lives. But as many popular stories tell us, how that future gets to us is often very confusing.

Israel is about to die, but before he does, he is going to place his blessing on all of his sons. The last verse of our passage is going to reiterate that each blessing is “suitable” for each one, and we are going to see how that plays out for many of them here this morning. We will see that some of them, like Reuben, are getting “blessings” that are a result of what they have done. Some are getting blessings seemingly despite what they’ve done, like Judah. Others get blessings, but seemingly not the right ones, like Joseph. What are we to make of these things, how did they play out in history, and what does this mean for us today? We will tackle those questions as we look at our main point today: God’s blessings are suitable yet still need to be trusted.

Are Mormons Christian?

In light of recent events, there has been a robust online discussion about whether Mormons are really Christians. In this episode, we examine some of the basic beliefs of the Mormons and see that they are not compatible with Christianity. 

The Passing of the Blessing

How do you think about God's promises? For Christians, they are the central hope of our lives, because God's promises can't be stopped even by death itself. Because of this, we want to be able to pass on these promises to our children, and a big part of our ability to do that is because of this passage right here. Abraham has been promised that there will be a seed that will bless the nations. Ultimately, that is Christ. The promise is going to outlive Jacob, and we will see the transfer of that blessing here.

Now, our passing on of the blessing looks different. In this passage, the blessing comes ultimately from the Lord but only *through* Jacob. As we will see, the blessing is going to be extended to the rest of the nation of Israel with the tribes forming their own contribution to God's plan. Today, the blessing ultimately comes from Christ but is shared through every Christian that opens their mouth for the kingdom.

The People of Blessing

Last week, we saw that there is a certain restlessness amongst the people of God. The family of Abraham has been wandering the entire book of Genesis, knowing that they will eventually settle in the land that God has promised them. We also, in our own way, are wandering through a strange land waiting for our final, promised inheritance as well. But what do we do in the meantime? Are we just sitting around for 80 to 100 years just waiting to for our lives to really begin? How does God settle His people when they are waiting?

Our main point that we will consider is how God Faithfully Settles His separate people in a Strange Land

Spiritual Disciplines: Fasting

One thing that often isn't mentioned in Christian circles is fasting. With the great help of Don Whitney and his book The Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life, we will attempt to fix that! 

God of the Wanderers

Do you feel unsettled where you are? That’s normal. There is a feeling of something missing here in this world. We aren’t settled here. We shouldn’t be. The world actually isn’t our home, and we are wanderers within it, journeying towards our final destination.

Sometimes it can feel aimless, inefficient, and looping. A lot of “Why did we spend so much time there?” But we aren’t charting our own course. The Christian life isn’t a choose your own adventure. It is being led, no matter how much it doesn’t feel that way sometimes, by the Good Shepherd Himself. God is a journeying God, a God of the wilderness, the desert, the strange land far off, but not because He’s a gypsy. Not because He has commitment issues. It is because He is seeking the lost sheep, the wanderers, to bring them home. And He will wander with them all the way. Indeed, not all who wander are lost. In fact, only the wanderers after Jesus are saved.

In this passage we will see that God leads His people on a journey home.

Spiritual Disciplines: What About the Body?

After discussing prayer, Bible reading, and meditation, we might wonder if we are falling into a trap about seeing ourselves as "brains on a stick." How are we to address that? With some help from Matthew Bingham and his book A Hearth Aflame for God we will answer that question!