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What does it mean to be one of God's people? The life of Abraham gives us a very specific picture of what that means. In Genesis chapter 15, we will explore what it means to be in a covenant relationship with God. The good news is, just like Abraham, it doesn't take perfection.

What does it mean to live a blessed life? Or more importantly, how do you live one? The answers to these questions are quite the opposite to common wisdom. As we look at Abraham‘s interactions with the surrounding nations and rulers, we will get to see a clear picture of exactly what a blessed life looks like and how to experience it.

Continuing in Abram’s journey, we see that growing in faith is often a process of learning to trust God through difficult circumstances. While Abram is far from perfect, God remains faithful. Our hope rests not in our ability to get everything right, but in the God who faithfully pursues us and teaches us to trust Him.

Although Abraham lived more than 4,000 years ago, his story bears many similarities to our own. Like us, he carried a past, held hopes and dreams, navigated complex relationships, and faced an uncertain future. As we follow his journey, we discover that his story is also our story. It is the human story. Yet Abraham’s life is also part of a much bigger story, the story of God’s faithful pursuit of humanity. We are part of that same story.

The challenge of this series is that considering God as Triune is complex and often creates confusion. However, as challenging as thinking about the Trinity can be, relating to Him does not need to be. We were literally made to be in relationship with the Triune God. Relating to Him may feel awkward in the beginning, but as we engage in relationship with God, it becomes natural, because it is in our nature to relate to Him.

The fall of humankind wasn’t a surprise to God. Before creation He knew and made a plan for salvation. This plan highlights His good and loving nature. It also highlights how the Father, Son and Spirit work in agreement to rescue us. Our job is simply to respond to His invitation of salvation.

The reality of the Trinity reveals some very important things about why God created the universe, the world, and us. God didn’t create in order to rule, and He didn’t create because He was not completely satisfied. He created as an overflow of His nature. Before Creation, the triune God existed in perfect loving unity between each of the persons of the Trinity. Creation is an overflow of His love and humanity is a reflection of His image.

When considering God, we have a tendency to think about Him in a way that best fits our own expectations. However, because God has revealed Himself though creation, His Word, and the Son, we have the amazing gift of relating to Him based on who He is, not who we expect Him to be. One of the most foundational aspects of God is that He is triune. One God in three distinct persons. In this series we will explore the significance of this reality.

We finish the Book of Judges where we began. The foundational problem of humanity is a problem of the heart. But this problem doesn’t stay in the heart, it spreads to every relationship and infects every community with the destructive consequences of sin. Judges leaves no room to think we could possibly rescue ourselves. And that’s the point.

As we approach the end of the book of Judges we find a two part conclusion to this exploration of a society where, without a king, everyone does what is right in their own eyes. The first, in Chapters 17-18, reveals what lies underneath the choices we make that take us gradually down the wrong path. When we substitute our preferences for the revealed character and will of God, we slip into a form of “worship” that is transactional (seeking to get what we want from God) and convenient (an offering that costs nothing). True worship is focused on who God is and what He wants, not ourselves and what we want from Him; it is an overflow of a life dedicated to following Him when it’s costly.

The story of Samson is disturbing, not inspiring.  If we focus on his exploits we might think he’s a man to look up to. But this is not the account of a great hero of the faith.  Rather, Samson teaches and warns us by his bad example of misused potential.  The Spirit of the Lord stirred him, but he was driven by his own cravings, lust, pride, and anger.  He was the leader Israel deserved, personifying the national failure, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  God used Samson in spite of his flaws and failings.  But his own life was not one of thriving in the center of God’s will. In fact, God sovereignly, almost inexplicably gives Samson the greatest victory of his life at the moment of his death.

When facing the consequences of our own bad choices, it can become easy to simply seek an escape from the pain we’ve caused ourselves instead of slowing down to ask ourselves what was underneath those actions. God isn’t after our behavior, He’s after our hearts and our behavior is usually just a sign of what we really love. Repentance means to turn one’s heart back to God, relationally. As we discuss the life of Jephthah, we will get a clear picture of what false repentance looks like, and ask ourselves how we can practice true repentance.

Most things we need to learn, we need to learn repeatedly and in deeper ways. Such is the lesson of not relying on our own strength to solve life’s problems. This is exactly what the life of Gideon teaches us. It so strongly echoes the story of Moses and Exodus that the we are reminded how we are prone to look for strength in other things and other people instead of truly trusting God. And just like Gideon, God puts us in situations where our weakness is exposed and we must learn to rely on Him more deeply.

Last week we saw that God chooses who He uses, and sometimes He chooses to use some pretty unlikely people. In the account of Deborah and Barak we see that although Israel had a military general to lead their army, God provided wisdom, direction, victory, and rescue for His people through a pair of women–a highly unlikely scenario in the ancient Near East.

Can God use some people, but not others? Does He want to use me? We struggle with these kinds of questions, but Judges helps us with the answers. God chooses who He uses. No matter what your story has been, He can utilize you for a great purpose as He offers rescue and transformation in the midst of the struggles you face.