If you grew up in a church—if your parents are believers, members of a church, disciples of Jesus—what does that mean for... you? It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to own Christianity for yourself. You, too, need to repent and believe, to turn your life over to Jesus, to take up your cross and follow him. Esau was a covenant child, and while his story could be considered tragic, we ultimately find God’s covenant faithfulness there. Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches on Genesis 36:1–37:1, taking us through the genealogy of Esau and showing us God’s covenant blessings, God’s severe judgement, and God’s wide-open mercy.

Where do you need renewal to happen in your life right now? Where are you weary, tired, numb? Where are your relationships... stale or taken for granted? How is your relationship with God, your Father in Heaven? Is it growing, exciting, and thriving? Or does it feel static?

In Genesis 35, Jacob’s story proper comes to an end and we see that it’s a sort of climax of Jacob’s life, a renewal. As we look at Jacob’s return to Bethel at this high point in his life, we see that God calls us, even as he called Jacob, to be renewed in our relationship to him. God calls us to recommit ourselves to him even as he assures us of his commitment to us. Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches on this passage, showing the need for renewal, the pursuit of renewal, the context for renewal, and the future of renewal.

How do you respond to the troubles of the present age? Do you stick your head in the sand and hope for... the best? Or do you come out swinging, hoping to win one for your team? We live in a morally complex and confused age. In Genesis 33:12–34:31 Jacob’s daughter Dinah is defiled, and we find Jacob and his sons responding to the horrific situation with compromise and combativeness. But those are not our only options when we find ourselves face-to-face with ugly situations. Listen as Pastor Luke walks us through this passage, drawing some conclusions about the moral complexity and confusion of our age, about the temptations to comprise and combativeness, and about the peace made through Christ and his cross.

Some lessons take virtually a lifetime to learn. The Christian life is a life of being gradually... conformed to the image of Jesus in both his character and his work, daily taking up your cross and following him. In Genesis, we see Jacob slowly learning to walk with God over a period of more than 20 years, and in his life we have both a preview of the life of our Savior and a pattern which we, too, are to live out as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches on Genesis 32–33, teaching us to rest in God’s promises, to cling to God in weakness, and to step out to serve, as we have been served, in Jesus.

We live in a generally mobile age. People rarely stay in one place for long. Because of that it is hard... for us to understand the value of “place” in Scripture. But in the Scriptures, the promises of God hinge on place. In the beginning, God made a place, a garden in Eden. Because of their rebellion, man and woman were removed from the holy place, and they became exiles, homeless, wanderers. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham to Canaan and promises to give a new place to him and to his offspring. Yet, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each leave this promised land for a time, and all three of them experience exile, receive blessing during their exile, and eventually return to the promised land, wealthier than they left it.

Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches on Genesis 30:25–31:55, telling of Jacob’s departure from Laban in Haran, and showing us that we are exiles who will experience troubles and hardships on our journey, but Jesus is with us by his Spirit to bless us and he will restore us on the last day.

Where do you look for wholeness? Living in a world that is under God’s curse, we find that things don’t work... as they were intended. Our present age is broken. We are broken, longing to be made whole again, to no longer sin or be sinned against, to no longer suffer or get sick or old or weary. We long for things to be put right, to be as they were intended from the beginning. But in our longing to be made whole, we so often look to the wrong things, in the wrong places, by the wrong means. In Genesis 29:31–30:24, we find sisters Leah and Rachel following this tragic pattern as they compete with each other in child bearing. Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches on this passage, talking about our longing for wholeness: where we look, why it will never work, and where wholeness is found.

The book of Genesis is a discipleship primer. It is the ABCs of the faith. In... Genesis we learn about the power of God in creation and the beginnings of his covenant relationship with his people. Through the accounts of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel’s early history, we see what it looks like to walk with God. In this sermon on Genesis 29:1–30, in which Jacob marries Leah and Rachel, Pastor Luke Herche shows that walking with God looks like accepting God’s sovereign care, receiving God’s fatherly discipline, and humbling ourselves to serve, even as we anticipate glory.

Every human heart longs to meet with God. It’s a longing we were born with and cannot fully escape. Many attempt... to fulfill this longing by our own methods and means. Whether by moral deeds or seeking signs from heaven, through mind-altering drugs or ritual and tradition, we create all kinds of ladders and stairways to attempt to make our way into the presence of God. In Genesis 28, we find Jacob, fleeing for his life after grievously deceiving his father and enraging his brother, Esau. And yet, it is while Jacob is in this state of exile, sleeping in the wilderness, that God comes down to meet with him in a dream. In this sermon on the well-known story of Jacob’s ladder, Pastor Luke Herche shows that God, in Christ, has drawn near to his covenant children, meeting us in the mundane, promising his protecting presence, and assuring us through the cross and the resurrection. And because God has drawn near to us, we can now draw near to God.

Christianity can often be falsely represented as a means of getting good stuff for yourself: a trophy... wife, a big house, all the recognition “you deserve,” if you just pray for your blessing and claim it in Jesus’ name. But this false gospel misunderstands the nature of blessing and the timing of blessing. God’s true blessing is everything that is good according to God's will and God’s timing. In this sermon on Genesis 26:34–28:9, in which Isaac attempts to bless Esau, but ends up blessing Jacob instead, Pastor Luke Herche shows how to take hold of God’s blessing, exhorting us to recognize our sin, to respect God’s plan, and to put on Christ.

God doesn’t bless you simply to bless you. He does delight in his people and desires to bless them. But God doesn’t bless you simply... for you. God blesses you for his glory and for the good of those around you. Despite human rebellion, our fallen nature, and the wrath we deserve, God is determined to bless. In Genesis we see that the blessing of God comes to and through the seed of Abraham. We see this imperfectly through Isaac, preeminently in Jesus, and, by God’s grace, through us as well. Listen as Pastor Luke Herche explains from Genesis 26, showing how God’s blessing on us changes our relationship to others, freeing us to love sacrificially, enabling us to endure enmity, and serving as a means God uses to bless others.

We all want a good life, to be what we were made to be, to experience what it is to be fully alive, to see our friends... and family flourish. The Bible calls this kind of flourishing “blessing.” Blessing is one of the main themes of Genesis, beginning with God’s abundant blessings on creation in the first two chapters. But by the third chapter, a new word enters the vocabulary of Scripture: curse. Because of sin, curse enters the world and creation is subject to futility and groaning. What once was blessed is now cursed, what once was good is now corrupt. But does this mean we are doomed to lives of suffering and frustration? Or is God’s blessing still possible in a sin-cursed world? Listen as Pastor Luke Herche preaches from Genesis 25, showing through the life of Jacob how God is continuing his plan to bless the nations, focusing on God’s sovereignty, God’s subversion of human expectations, and the foresight of faith.