Providence Church

The story of the flood is a hard story. We want to look away from it. Because it confronts us with the darkness of sin and the awfulness of God’s judgment against sin. But we have to look at this difficult story to help us see God as he really is. And surprisingly, when we look into the flood of God’s judgment, we discover his mercy and grace there too.

The conflict at the heart of the biblical plot is enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The line of Cain represents the seed of the serpent: escalating sin and evil. The line of Seth represents the seed of the woman: hope in God’s promise of redemption. And we have the same choice that every generation has had: will we go the way of the serpent or the way of faith?

This story of Cain & Abel invites us to think about how anger and sin works at a personal level, especially in our relationships. However we interpret the events in our lives determines how we will respond, and what the consequences will be. Will we listen to God, or will we go the way of Cain?

Genesis 3 tells us why the world is so broken. It's broken because sin corrupts everything and ultimately leads to death. Genesis 3 is a bleak chapter. And it leaves us wondering if there’s any hope for redemption. Is there any good news in the midst of the brokenness? Are there any signs of grace amongst the devastation of the fall? And the answer is, “Yes!" We see glimmers of God’s redeeming gra...

If God made everything good, why are things so bad? The answer is sin. Sin upends God’s good design and corrupts everything in the world, especially us.

The account of the fall not only tells us what happened — they took of the fruit and ate — but also how it happened. It is written for our benefit, so we can understand the components of temptation and sin in our own lives: deception, doubt, desire, and disillusionment.

What is marriage? How we answer that question matters, because there are many different views of marriage in our culture. Genesis tells us, like everything else in creation, marriage is from God. Marriage is created by God, marriage is defined by God, and marriage is a reflection of God. A God-centered view of marriage reveals its beauty and goodness, but also reminds us that it is not ultimate.

Relationship is essential to who we are because it is essential to who God is. But our idea of community often misses the mark. That is why we need to come back to Genesis. These are foundational principles for Christian community.

We live in a restless culture, where it’s hard to sit still, hard to turn it off, and hard to stop striving. It’s exhausting. Thankfully, God shows us that rest is part of being created in his image. He even sets apart a day of rest for us. But, we still struggle to rest. How can we practice rest and experience true rest of the soul?

We spend more time working than we do on anything else. And yet, most of us are in sort of a fog about the meaning and significance of our work. We need a robust vision for work if we are going to thrive in our postmodern world. And a deeper study of Genesis 1-2 gives us just that.

What does it mean to be a human being created in the image of God? It couldn’t be a more relevant question. Because there are a lot of competing narratives out there about what it means to be human…who we are, what we’re here for, and what makes us valuable. Genesis tells us that humanity is the crown of God’s creation.

Genesis 1 introduces us to the one true God who created everything by His Word. He knows what is good for humans and he provides by speaking it into the world. Creation and humanity flourish in conformity to God’s Word. 

Genesis 1:1 is only seven words in Hebrew, and yet it is the foundation for everything to come in the Bible. Not surprisingly, the subject of this verse is our glorious God.

Whether you are new to following Jesus or you have been a believer for a long time, it’s worth returning from time to time to some of the most foundational questions of our faith. In Matthew 4, Jesus gives us some key insight into one such question: What does it mean to be a Christian?

Jesus uses water to talk about our deeper thirst for God, and how he alone can quench it. We drink from the wells of money and success and relationships and approval, but they are all broken cisterns that leave us empty, and thirstier than before. Jesus came to give us living water. 

After reading the extraordinary chapter 15 about the resurrection of Jesus and all its implications, chapter 16 seems so ordinary. And yet the ordinary life and ministry of the church is where the promises of the resurrection get lived out now.

The  message  of Easter is that Jesus died and came back new. The  hope  of Easter is that what happened to Jesus will happen to us. We will be raised up to new life in new bodies on a new earth.

Some in the Corinthian church were claiming there was no resurrection of the dead. They saw it as a sort of foolish superstition—a belief for unsophisticated Christians. But in our passage, Paul wants us to see that the resurrection is central to everything we believe as Christians.

The gospel is not something we believe once and then move on from. It is something we hold fast to, daily. This passage gives us three handles to hold onto: the gospel is historical, theological, and personal.

Paul concludes this section of the letter about the worship life of the church (ch. 11-14) by focusing on the need for order in the worship gathering. Even though our worship gatherings today differ from the Corinthian gatherings, there is much for us to learn here about how to glorify God and edify one another in worship.

The Corinthian’s zeal to experience God took the form of elevating certain spiritual gifts and seeking heightened spiritual experiences. Paul does not dismiss these things, but in the context of gathered worship, he calls us to focus our desire on that which builds up the church. The main work of the Spirit is to exalt Jesus and build up his body.

The truest mark of God’s work in a community is not spiritual gifts. The truest mark of God’s work in a community is love. Because, unlike the gifts, love never ends.

A church can be gifted and growing, but without love, it has nothing. Love is the mark of spiritual vitality, and love is how people will know we follow Jesus. It is important to cut through the vague ideals of love in our day and get some clarity on what this kind of love looks like in everyday life.

One of the main problems in the Corinthian church was division. They were even dividing over spiritual gifts. So, Paul introduces this metaphor of the human body to illustrate what the church should be like and to show the beauty of membership in the body.

Some in the Corinthian church were claiming to have extraordinary spiritual gifts. They were positioning themselves as the “spiritual ones,” and everyone else was a second-class Christian. Paul corrects this thinking with the Corinthians and shows them (and us) the nature of true spirituality.