Feast and Follow with Knollwood

God Abundantly Provides

Some circumstances can seem impossible for God to work with much less bless through. The people of Israel needed to be reminded of this. Genesis was originally written to recently freed slaves, slaves who have known nothing but forced service for 400 years. They have just been let go, and are now wandering through the desert looking to one day enter the promised land.

Now it is hard to have hope in a desert. There’s not much food or water. Everything is hard in a desert, and some might be tempted to believe that even God has a hard time working in the desert. Is He able to provide in hard circumstances?

Joseph’s brothers are likely wondering this as well in this moment. They have been shocked to hear that Joseph has forgiven them, but as we will see from this text, the reason that they are about to be blessed is because God has been the one watching over them.

We will look at some of these things as we look at our main point: God promises to provide for His people more than they could deserve to point to Himself.

Sunday Night: The Christian Response to Political Violence

In the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, how is the Christian supposed to respond? There is a lot of advice online, most of it unhelpful. How do we sort through this? That is what we wanted to tackle in this edition of our Sunday Night lecture series. 

God is the Ruler Yet

In the wake of the very public murders of Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and Julie Gard Schnuelle, we took a break from Genesis to remind ourselves of the Kingship of Jesus out of Psalm 2. 

Sunday Night: Spiritual Disciplines, Memorization and Meditation

Tonight, we continue our look at studying the Bible by examining the lost arts of memorization and meditation! 

Come Near to Me

Do you know how forgiveness works when there is some real offense committed against you? It’s one thing to forgive a misunderstanding or a hurtful action that was well-intended. What I want us to know today is how do we forgive someone when the offender did what they did in order to hurt you. There is hate in their heart towards you. What if they, I don’t know, sold you into slavery, on purpose? How do you find it in your heart to forgive things that actually changed the course of your life? That is what this chapter is going to be revealing to us today.

 

What we are going to encounter is some deep theology about God’s control of all things, including His ability to work through human sin. This is where an understanding of these fine points will actually make a real difference in your life. Because unless you understand what God is revealing to us here, you are going to find it nearly impossible to forgive much less reconcile with your offender.

 

Today we are going to see that you are able to forgive because God works through your hurts.

Spiritual Disciplines: Bible Reading

We continue our series on the Spiritual Gifts! Our topic this time is Bible Reading to actually change your life!  

How Can We Clear Ourselves?

In a day and age with GPS, I’ve grown so used to it that using verbal directions given by someone else spikes my anxiety. You know those directions: keep going until you see the hot dog place, turn right at the gas station, and it’ll be the big building on your right. Can’t miss it (yes, I can)! If you see the grocery store you’ve gone too far! The longer I drive without seeing the hot dog place, the unrest in my soul grows steadily. But then! The joy when I see the landmark, just as my guide said, comfort floods my soul; I’m on the right track.

How do you know you are on the right track with your Christian life? What are the landmarks that indicate you are indeed on the road of salvation? How do you know the faith you have in Christ is a real faith that is having an impact on your life? While there will be peaks and valleys, good days and bad days, looking at the whole of your life, do you see evidence of repentance from sin? Are you turning from sin to Christ?

We saw Joseph not sin but what if you’re more like Judah?

The passage that is before us gives us a remarkable demonstration of what it looks like to have repented. We will look at the person of Judah and see the remarkable change that has occurred in his life, and what we can expect from our own.

Today we will see that Repentance requires you to change what you love and how you live.

Spiritual Disciplines: Prayer, Part 2

On this episode, we finish our walk through the book If God Already Knows, Why Pray? by Doug Kelly! 

God's Graciousness in the Midst of Fear

What are you waiting for in your life? Really sit back and think about it for a second. Maybe you are in the midst of a family situation or physical pain that you would say you are waiting for it to stop. Maybe you are waiting for kids to get a bit older, or have a bit more money in the old account, or hit a certain level of your career. Why are you looking forward to these things? If I could venture a guess, based on my own mind, we’re really looking for peace. It’s not really looking for nothing happening in our lives, just the ability to move through life only thinking about what is in front of you.

 

The characters in our passage this story have many things occupying their minds. We’ve got a famine, a grave concern we’ve not had to feel; we have lingering guilt from a two decade’s old betrayal; we have a family conflict stemming from favoritism strengthened from loss; most severely, we have the crushing parental dread of a child potentially in harms way. Where on earth does this family find peace? They are so far in the hole. We can say that they need to trust God, and we find evidence here that they do, but it is pretty buried in a lot of other motivations? Can they find peace, and if they can, can we?

 

Today, our main point is this: God can use even fear-filled obedience to bring peace to His people.

If God Already Knows, Why Pray

We begin a new series in our Sunday Night Lectures looking at the Spiritual Disciplines in the Christian Life. We start by looking through the book by Doug Kelly If God Already Knows, Why Pray?