Loving Father | Find Your Way Home Week 5

On the surface, the story of Noah and the Ark looks like an “end of the world” conspiracy-theorist, turn or burn, doomsday preacher scenario. But it’s much more than that, it’s actually the key to understanding God’s plan for our lives.

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    - Today, we're going to examine what may be
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    the most misunderstood story in the entire Bible,
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    the one where God comes off like a crazy person
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    with a turn or burn sign.
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    It's Noah and the Great Flood.
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    How can God be a loving Father
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    and then brutally kill, like, basically everybody?
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    How can the story of Noah and the Flood be true
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    and God be the loving Father
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    we'd actually want to come home to?
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    To get the answer, we're going to tackle
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    the hardest questions surrounding this story head on.
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    And I believe if you hang with us
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    you'll see this story in a new light
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    that helps you find your way closer to home.
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    We're hoping to open the front door
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    and find a loving father waiting for us,
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    not the turn or burn sign guy.
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    Hey, I'm Kyle. This is Crossroads.
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    Today, I'm going to look at the story
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    of Noah's Flood under a microscope.
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    This is one of the most famous stories
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    in the whole world.
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    And chances are, you've written an offer,
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    haven't really thought about it in a long time.
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    But take it from someone who's been studying
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    the Bible for 20 years, when you dig in,
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    some of these stories like this
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    become fascinating, and problematic.
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    Frankly, this story has always bothered me, like, a lot.
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    You know, like that one thing you stay up
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    all night trying to figure out because
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    it makes no sense to you. It's like that.
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    Nearly every message I've ever heard about it,
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    I feel like at some point I've been asked
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    to just check my brain at the door
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    and swallow the red pill.
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    But we're not going to do that today.
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    Take it from me, when you dig in,
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    you can actually find real answers that hold water
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    and unlock all kinds of fresh insights about God.
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    We'll read the actual story from Genesis 6
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    in just a few minutes.
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    But I want to give you a quick summary first.
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    It starts like this: God is so bummed
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    at the deplorable state of humanity
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    He says He wishes he had never made us.
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    So He floods the whole earth and kills everyone,
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    except for Noah, his immediate family,
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    and a few lucky animals
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    who basically win the animal lottery.
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    It takes Noah a hundred years to build the ark,
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    which literally means box,
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    and had never been built anywhere before,
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    like, no one had ever seen it.
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    So for the majority of this story,
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    the people watching it unfold saw something incomplete
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    and we're probably super confused
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    about what the -- what the heck is going on?
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    I want you to remember that
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    and I want you to remember this picture.
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    Unless you're an awful person,
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    this story should elicit massive questions,
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    like, How can God be a loving Father
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    and then brutally killing basically everybody?
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    And how does this square with Jesus
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    who saw people messing up too,
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    but rather than kill them, He died for them.
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    And also wait, like, a flood over the whole earth?
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    Is that even possible?
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    And do I really have to believe this story is true
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    if I want to follow Jesus, or can I just kind of
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    write it off as like kind of the Bible gets crazy
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    for a little bit?
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    We're going to tackle all those questions.
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    But I want to start with the last one.
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    Do I really have to believe this story is true
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    if I want to follow Jesus?
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    Because if not, again, all the other questions
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    don't really matter, it becomes really easy.
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    And the short answer you might not like is this: Yes.
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    If you want to follow Jesus, you do.
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    Why? Because Jesus treated it like a true story.
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    In Luke 17 Jesus said:
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    Just as it was in the days of Noah,
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    so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
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    Now Son of Man is His nickname for Himself.
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    So He's comparing the events of His life
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    to the events of Noah's life,
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    which means Jesus basically considered Noah
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    to be as real as Himself.
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    So if you want to follow Jesus, it's not a great idea
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    to disagree and decide this story is just fake.
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    So let's take that off the table
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    and go to the next question.
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    Does believing Noah and the Flood happened
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    mean you must believe the Flood
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    literally covered the whole world?
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    And this answer may surprise you,
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    I'd say not necessarily.
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    See while you can find some really well-meaning
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    YouTube videos that describe how massive canyons
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    could have been power carved in a matter of days
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    by a worldwide flood.
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    Those claims are, geologically speaking,
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    suspect at best.
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    Also, a worldwide flood poses some other big problems,
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    like all the water in the world
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    would have kind of mixed and swirled together,
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    saltwater oceans with freshwater lakes and rivers,
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    which would have killed all the freshwater fish.
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    But we still have those swimming around today.
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    So while there's not great scientific footing
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    for a literal worldwide flood, there is actually
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    really strong evidence for a very large localized flood
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    in the Middle East that corresponds
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    with the time of Noah.
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    Now, a large localized flood also fits with
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    what I think is like an almost like an Easter egg
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    hidden in the biblical text itself
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    that points to the whole world
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    actually meaning Noah's whole world.
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    Now Easter Egg is a little fresh olive leaf
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    that's carried back to the Ark by a dove after the Flood
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    is a sign that the water was receding.
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    Here's the thing, olive trees die
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    if they're underwater for a year,
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    which is how long the story says the Flood lasted.
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    And do you know who would have for sure known that,
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    because they knew way more
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    about growing olive trees than we do?
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    The people of the ancient Middle East,
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    who this story was originally recorded for.
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    So, you may disagree, but in my opinion
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    there's evidence both in the scientific record
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    and inside the Bible itself for us
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    to take a local flood interpretation.
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    And I wanna say this, I have to acknowledge
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    that God being God also means I fully believe
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    He could absolutely do impossible things,
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    like flood the entire world and then miraculously
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    get rid of all the water
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    and erase it from the geological record.
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    So who knows?
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    Really, I'm not super concerned about
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    what angle you want to take
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    on the scale of the flood.
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    Because what's much more important than that
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    is what you decide this story says about who God is.
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    This story is about a search for home,
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    that place of belonging, acceptance, safety, direction.
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    And this story presses on the most important part
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    of what we're looking for in home:
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    a perfect, loving father,
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    someone who will fight for us, not fight against us.
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    Someone who'll come and rescue us,
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    not come and condemn us.
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    Someone to remind us who we really are
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    when we mess up or lose our way.
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    Not, you know, drown us in a horrible flood.
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    Like at least you think He could have done
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    that merciful Thanos,
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    just kind of turn everybody the dust thing,
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    you know what I mean?
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    So how can this story be true
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    and God be a loving Father?
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    That's the question we're tackling next.
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    - Do you know where you're going?
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    To get different results in life,
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    you're going to have to do some different things.
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    And if you're up for adventure this year,
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    do the Bible Challenge with me.
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    Read every day, get inspired,
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    and see what others are saying.
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    I believe the Bible is more than a book
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    that's meant to sit on a shelf and just collect dust.
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    It's meant to take you somewhere in life.
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    What about you? Where are you going?
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    Download the Crossroads App
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    and do the Bible Challenge today.
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    - Man, I can't say enough about the app.
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    I use it personally and I publish what I'm thinking
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    and learning probably three or four times a week.
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    I'd love you to jump in and start using it
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    with Brian, me, and thousands of other people.
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    Okay, so let's get to our main question.
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    How can this story of this ark and the Flood be true
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    and God be a loving Father?
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    Now, this matters deeply to me personally,
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    because I grew up in and around church,
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    and the answers I got fell apart shockingly fast
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    once I hit that phase in my life,
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    my late teens, early twenties,
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    when you just start questioning pretty much everything,
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    that caused doubts about God,
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    that rippled into every area of my faith
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    and even threatened to destroy it.
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    I think misunderstanding stories like the Flood
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    can be like that first loose thread in a sweater
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    that, if pulled on, could unravel the entire thing.
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    Now, the typical church explanation that I heard
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    is the Flood is about God's justice.
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    You know, the people deserve the punishment they got.
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    And Kyle, you don't want to live in an unfair world
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    without justice, do you?
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    Well, here's my pushback.
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    One, well, God is just,
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    that's a key part of His character.
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    And two, sure, none of us, me included,
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    want to live in a world without justice.
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    That answer alone isn't at all satisfying.
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    Because remember, on this journey
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    to find the place called home,
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    we're looking for a loving Father.
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    And I'm willing to bet your mental picture of that guy
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    isn't a judge who gives you exactly what you deserve.
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    Son, you screwed up. So, so good news.
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    I'm going to give you what you deserve.
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    Oh, awesome, Dad.
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    Drowning. Yes. I'm so glad you're just.
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    No, of course not.
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    You want what I want?
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    You want someone who will give you
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    what you don't deserve.
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    Someone who will have your back
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    and love you with unwavering commitment,
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    even and especially when you mess up and lose your way.
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    And besides that, if a parent drowned all their kids,
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    we wouldn't ask, "Okay, but did the kids deserve it?"
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    Like, no, it doesn't matter, they're your kids.
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    A good parent just doesn't drown their kids,
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    period, no matter what, end of story.
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    In that light, this explanation of,
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    oh, this is just God being just,
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    I think it falls flatter than Kyrie's take on the earth.
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    So let's step back from the Bible for a second.
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    Do you know, a very, very similar flood narrative
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    is actually in the cultural legends
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    and the ancient texts of literally
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    most of the whole world, like,
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    in China, Egypt, throughout Africa, India,
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    the Philippines, native North American
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    and South American tribes, Korea and Ireland,
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    just to name a few.
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    Which is weird, right?
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    Some people say this is evidence that the story is fake.
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    It's just the Bible just kind of repeating
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    what everybody else already said.
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    But I think it's actually what you would expect
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    if it were true.
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    Like, if a catastrophe of this size happened,
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    wouldn't you expect it to show up all over the place?
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    My question is: why would God want to save
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    this horrible moment and what He looks like
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    an angry tyrant on His story highlights?
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    Like isn't that kind of the exact moment
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    you'd want everyone to forget?
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    Well, I think there's actually a reason.
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    See, it's to highlight the one critical difference
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    between the biblical account and every other,
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    which is why does the Flood happen?
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    To find the answer, let's dive into the story.
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    - All of the springs of the great deep burst forth
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    and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
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    40 days the Flood kept coming on the earth.
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    All the high mountains
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    under the entire heavens were covered.
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    Everything on the face of the earth was wiped out.
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    Only Noah was left, and those with him in the Ark.
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    - So the flood ends, the waters start to recede.
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    Noah's family is saved.
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    There's a rainbow in the sky.
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    It's great, but we still have an answer to the question:
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    why does the Flood happen?
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    And actually, first, let's go back
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    and address the animals and how two of every kind
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    can fit into one boat,
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    because we kind of skipped through that part.
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    So, a couple of things.
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    One, it wasn't actually two of every kind.
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    It was actually two of every unclean animal
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    and 14 of every clean animal,
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    also 14 of every kind of bird.
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    So if you've ever wondered what's God's favorite animal,
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    it's birds.
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    And how did all those animals fit on one boat?
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    You have two choices.
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    One, if you take the local flood angle,
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    it would be easy.
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    Noah had 100 years to gather all of the animals
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    of his world or region.
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    Or if you take the angle of that God did flood the whole world
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    and can do whatever he wants. Awesome.
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    Noah's Ark was probably like Mary Poppins purse,
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    you could fit whatever you want to in there.
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    And here's the thing, it honestly doesn't matter.
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    What does matter? Why does the Flood happen?
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    That's the question that matters.
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    See, in most versions of this story
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    told throughout cultures and ancient texts,
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    the gods caused the flood because their motive is anger.
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    That's the why.
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    One example, there's an ancient near Eastern version
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    that says a goddess was woken up from her nap
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    by humans who were having a rowdy party.
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    So she decided to go all Beth Dutton
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    and just start frigging killing everybody.
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    It's a very simple story:
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    angry god kills misbehaving humans
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    with a very simple lesson, don't piss off the gods.
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    See, the Bible tells a completely different
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    heart for God, not a heart of anger, but of grief.
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    See, if you want to understand God
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    through the entire Bible, you have to understand
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    that God chose to progressively reveal Himself
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    to humanity over time.
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    Which means the earliest parts of the Bible,
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    like the Flood story back in the Book of Genesis,
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    they were recorded when we knew
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    the absolute least about Him,
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    when our view of God was incomplete.
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    You know, the best way to understand it
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    is to picture what the boat would have looked like
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    as Noah was building it.
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    Remember, it took 100 years.
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    So for most of that entire time, the view of the boat
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    would have been incomplete.
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    And please, please, please hear me clearly on this.
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    I'm not saying it's errant or wrong, not at all.
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    I'm just saying the skeleton of the boat wasn't wrong,
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    it was just incomplete.
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    That's what the view of God
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    through the Old Testament is like.
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    See, the Bible describes that view of God
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    before Jesus as seeing God through a veil or a curtain.
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    You just imagine that for a moment,
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    what it's like to look at a figure behind a curtain.
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    You can probably see their outline,
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    their body movements, but critical details
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    are missing, like, you can't see their face.
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    To tell whether they're happy, sad.
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    You have no idea.
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    You can't see that kind of thing through the veil.
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    It's not that what you're seeing is wrong,
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    it's just that it's not the complete picture.
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    Paul, the author of the majority of
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    the New Testament part of the Bible,
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    specifically said that people who don't believe in Jesus
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    still read the parts of the Bible that Moses wrote,
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    which include Genesis and Noah's Flood
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    with that same veil in place.
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    2 Corinthians 3 says:
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    For to this day, when they read the old covenant,
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    that same veil remains unlifted,
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    because only through Christ is it taken away.
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    Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read
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    a veil lies over their hearts.
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    But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
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    Did you catch that? This is so, so critical.
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    It's the thing that I somehow missed
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    that got me all out of whack.
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    Paul says Jesus fundamentally changes these stories.
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    He completes them.
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    You take another look with the veil removed,
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    you'll get a much clearer picture of God.
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    This is critical if you ever want to read
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    the Old Testament and understand what you're reading.
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    Because you'll read stories that without Jesus
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    make God's motives seem so obvious, like,
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    Oh my gosh, He's so obviously angry,
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    or He's so crazily vindictive
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    or He's irrationally rash right here, like just crazy.
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    But when you add the missing piece of Jesus,
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    you complete the picture
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    and what you thought you saw
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    that seems so obvious completely changes.
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    Jesus said in John 14:9:
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    Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.
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    See, the picture of Jesus in the New Testament
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    sits on top of the language you read
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    in the Old Testament, it's how you interpret it.
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    Having Jesus means that we have
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    the blueprints of the entire boat, so to speak.
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    We know what it'll look like when it's finished,
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    which changes everything when we go back
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    and read the reports as they were written in the moment
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    is the best way to understand God, the Father,
  • 00:15:52
    is to look at every story through the lens of Jesus.
  • 00:15:56
    Who, when He encountered sinful humanity,
  • 00:15:58
    He didn't kill us. He died for us.
  • 00:16:01
    That is what God, the Father is like.
  • 00:16:04
    Jesus going to the Cross
  • 00:16:05
    to give up His life to save yours.
  • 00:16:09
    And when you look at the story in light of Jesus,
  • 00:16:11
    it just changes because we can finally
  • 00:16:13
    see God's face in this moment.
  • 00:16:16
    And it turns out He's crying.
  • 00:16:19
    You probably heard of Palm Sunday.
  • 00:16:21
    It's when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey,
  • 00:16:23
    just five days before He was crucified.
  • 00:16:26
    His plan was to die for the people.
  • 00:16:28
    But as soon as He rode into the town,
  • 00:16:30
    He didn't say, "Have no fear. I'm your Savior.
  • 00:16:31
    Everything's going to be great from now on."
  • 00:16:34
    Instead, with tears in His eyes, He warned them
  • 00:16:37
    about the coming flood of their enemies
  • 00:16:39
    that would destroy them all.
  • 00:16:41
    Luke 19 says:
  • 00:16:43
    When Jesus caught sight of the city,
  • 00:16:45
    he burst into tears with uncontrollable weeping
  • 00:16:48
    over Jerusalem, saying, "If only you could recognize
  • 00:16:52
    that this day peace is within your reach!
  • 00:16:56
    But you can't see it.
  • 00:16:57
    For the day is soon coming
  • 00:16:59
    when your enemies will surround you,
  • 00:17:01
    hem you in on every side, and lay siege to you.
  • 00:17:04
    They will crush you to pieces, and your children too!
  • 00:17:08
    And they will leave your city totally destroyed.
  • 00:17:10
    Since you would not recognize God's day of visitation,
  • 00:17:13
    you will see your day of devastation!"
  • 00:17:17
    Jesus was crying as He said these words.
  • 00:17:19
    He was sad about the destruction that was coming.
  • 00:17:21
    He wasn't happy.
  • 00:17:22
    He wasn't saying, "Man, you pissed me off
  • 00:17:24
    and I planned your destruction.
  • 00:17:26
    I'm sending your enemies to wipe you out."
  • 00:17:27
    No, He was on his way to die for them,
  • 00:17:30
    to do everything He could to try to save them.
  • 00:17:33
    But He also knew that many of them would reject Him
  • 00:17:36
    and His plans and therefore bring down ruin
  • 00:17:40
    on themselves and everyone around them.
  • 00:17:43
    And He was heartbroken because it.
  • 00:17:46
    But He still went to the Cross.
  • 00:17:47
    He still went to die for them anyway,
  • 00:17:50
    like the perfect, loving Father that He is.
  • 00:17:54
    See, Noah's Flood doesn't happen because
  • 00:17:56
    God gets pissed off and punishes everyone.
  • 00:17:58
    That happens because humanity
  • 00:17:59
    chose to not follow God's plans,
  • 00:18:02
    which means God isn't the Father who kills His kids.
  • 00:18:04
    He's a heartbroken Father, weeping for the kids
  • 00:18:07
    who have rejected His good plans and in doing so
  • 00:18:10
    brought destruction raining down on themselves
  • 00:18:12
    and the entire world around them.
  • 00:18:16
    This means God doesn't plan for awful outcomes.
  • 00:18:18
    And maybe that's all you needed to hear today.
  • 00:18:20
    See, I don't know what tragedy
  • 00:18:21
    has happened in your life,
  • 00:18:23
    but if any well-meaning Christian ever told you
  • 00:18:25
    that horrible thing was all part of God's plan.
  • 00:18:29
    I'm sorry it wasn't.
  • 00:18:31
    His plan is most clearly seen in Christ.
  • 00:18:33
    It's redemption and restoration.
  • 00:18:36
    Your miscarriage wasn't His plan.
  • 00:18:39
    The abuse that you've suffered, it wasn't His plan.
  • 00:18:41
    The addiction that you're struggling to kick,
  • 00:18:43
    they're not His plan.
  • 00:18:45
    They're the devastating consequences
  • 00:18:47
    of living in a broken world that's gone off God's plan.
  • 00:18:51
    The best thing you can do
  • 00:18:52
    is to get back on His plan with your life.
  • 00:18:56
    It's my hope today is not just to give you
  • 00:18:58
    a clearer picture of God, The Father,
  • 00:18:59
    it's to deliver the words that I think God,
  • 00:19:02
    as your loving Father, wants you to hear.
  • 00:19:06
    He will not force you to follow His plans.
  • 00:19:11
    Instead, He'll ask you to trust Him.
  • 00:19:15
    - Hey, did you know that only about close to 10%
  • 00:19:18
    of people that will watch this very episode
  • 00:19:20
    contribute to Crossroads?
  • 00:19:21
    Now, wait a minute. That's not meant to discourage you.
  • 00:19:24
    It's just meant to show you that, man, we get it.
  • 00:19:26
    This thing is hard.
  • 00:19:27
    This idea of tithing could be
  • 00:19:29
    a little bit foreign to all of us.
  • 00:19:31
    I know that one of the barriers that I had
  • 00:19:33
    to tithing is like, where is the money going?
  • 00:19:37
    Just show me where the money's going.
  • 00:19:38
    That's one of the hardest ways to get.
  • 00:19:40
    - Absolutely. The thing that sticks out to me
  • 00:19:42
    is that tithing is a spiritual act.
  • 00:19:45
    At Crossroads where donor funded.
  • 00:19:47
    If you're interested and beginning to give,
  • 00:19:49
    you can just open your Crossroads app,
  • 00:19:51
    click your profile in the bottom right corner,
  • 00:19:53
    the gear in the top right corner.
  • 00:19:55
    And then there's a give button right here.
  • 00:19:57
    - Super easy. - It is super easy.
  • 00:19:59
    - Kyle, you ready? - I'm ready.
  • 00:20:00
    - All right.
  • 00:20:01
    We're going to get right back to Kyle right now.
  • 00:20:03
    What was it you were saying again?
  • 00:20:04
    Talking about Noah and the Flood.
  • 00:20:06
    - That's right. - And the animals.
  • 00:20:08
    - Animals. Got it.
  • 00:20:13
    - It took 100 years for Noah to build the Ark.
  • 00:20:16
    And in those 100 years, there was no sign of a flood.
  • 00:20:18
    There was no rain.
  • 00:20:19
    There was nothing in what he could see or understand
  • 00:20:21
    that said what he was doing day after day
  • 00:20:24
    made any sense.
  • 00:20:26
    But Noah did it anyway.
  • 00:20:27
    He chose to trust God's plans more than his plans.
  • 00:20:32
    And because of that, he and his family alone
  • 00:20:34
    made it through the Flood to see the other side,
  • 00:20:36
    a world remade more beautiful than before.
  • 00:20:40
    And that's the lesson of Noah:
  • 00:20:41
    God will not force you to follow His plans.
  • 00:20:44
    Look at the very beginning of the story again,
  • 00:20:46
    Genesis 6:3:
  • 00:20:48
    Then the Lord said,
  • 00:20:49
    "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever."
  • 00:20:54
    Contend in the original language means to strive,
  • 00:20:57
    to fight or to use force.
  • 00:20:59
    And God, The Father, says, I won't do it.
  • 00:21:03
    This means something important.
  • 00:21:04
    It means we can go against His plans for good
  • 00:21:06
    and caused them to fail.
  • 00:21:09
    We're thinking like, "Wait, what?
  • 00:21:10
    I thought God's plans can't fail? Isn't that heretical?"
  • 00:21:14
    Well, no, actually.
  • 00:21:15
    See while God's overarching cosmic scale plans
  • 00:21:18
    and designs do not fail, His plans for nations
  • 00:21:21
    and individual people, they fail all the time.
  • 00:21:24
    That's actually what sin is.
  • 00:21:25
    It's when you and I fail to follow God's plan.
  • 00:21:28
    And to be clear, His plans are never for us to sin.
  • 00:21:32
    What a monster God would be if He was upset
  • 00:21:34
    for us doing exactly what He planned for us to do.
  • 00:21:37
    You might wonder, well, why would God make a world
  • 00:21:40
    with the potential for that kind of pain
  • 00:21:42
    that comes with us not following His plans?
  • 00:21:46
    It's because a world without the potential for pain
  • 00:21:48
    is also a world without the potential for love.
  • 00:21:51
    See, if God forced us to follow His plans,
  • 00:21:54
    we'd be nothing more than robots,
  • 00:21:55
    just mindlessly following our programing.
  • 00:21:58
    But God must think love is worth the pain,
  • 00:22:00
    and apparently we do too, because we keep having kids.
  • 00:22:03
    We bring them into a world
  • 00:22:04
    with the potential for love and pain.
  • 00:22:08
    See, it's for the sake of love that God says,
  • 00:22:10
    "I will never force you to follow My plans."
  • 00:22:13
    Instead, He'll just ask you to trust Him.
  • 00:22:16
    This message isn't turn or burn.
  • 00:22:19
    It's trust or go your own way.
  • 00:22:23
    And that's not a one time choice in life.
  • 00:22:26
    It's in every phase of my life,
  • 00:22:28
    that choice has taken on a new meaning.
  • 00:22:30
    In high school it was trust God's plan
  • 00:22:33
    for what was healthy and what wasn't,
  • 00:22:35
    or go the way of all my friends
  • 00:22:37
    and get high every weekend just like they were.
  • 00:22:39
    In college it was trust God's plan
  • 00:22:41
    for what He wanted me to do with my life
  • 00:22:43
    that didn't fit the neat blueprint
  • 00:22:44
    or chase money and status above everything.
  • 00:22:47
    When I was single, it was trust God's plan for sex
  • 00:22:51
    or go my own way like everybody else.
  • 00:22:53
    And then I got married and it became
  • 00:22:55
    trust God's plan for loving my wife,
  • 00:22:57
    even when I don't want to
  • 00:22:58
    and even when she doesn't deserve it,
  • 00:23:00
    or maybe look at other options because
  • 00:23:03
    I'm not a happy as I thought I'd be.
  • 00:23:07
    See, every day there's a million small choices
  • 00:23:10
    to trust God and be honest, even when it's costly,
  • 00:23:13
    or go your own way.
  • 00:23:14
    Trust God that He'll protect you or sink into anxiety.
  • 00:23:18
    God's question for you
  • 00:23:19
    through the story of Noah is clear.
  • 00:23:21
    He's saying, "Will you trust I'm your loving Father,
  • 00:23:25
    and will you follow My plan?"
  • 00:23:28
    See, my hope and prayer is that today
  • 00:23:30
    gave you more faith in that loving Father.
  • 00:23:33
    The father who loves you, not condemns you.
  • 00:23:35
    The Father who will stop at nothing to rescue you,
  • 00:23:37
    even if it costs Him His own life.
  • 00:23:40
    A Father who welcomes you home
  • 00:23:42
    with a smile, and who always will.
  • 00:23:45
    The Father who has good plans,
  • 00:23:47
    if you're willing to trust Him.
  • 00:23:49
    Maybe you're at a moment in your life
  • 00:23:51
    where you're saying, "Yeah, you know what? I am.
  • 00:23:54
    I am willing to trust."
  • 00:23:55
    And if that's where you're at,
  • 00:23:57
    I want you to sing the song with us right now.
  • 00:23:58
    It talks about trusting God.
  • 00:26:34
    - Hey, if you found this message helpful,
  • 00:26:35
    don't stop here.
  • 00:26:36
    Jump into the Bible Bible Challenge
  • 00:26:38
    that we talked about earlier. Super easy.
  • 00:26:40
    You download the Crossroads app
  • 00:26:41
    and read and journal with the rest of us.
  • 00:26:43
    - That's exactly right.
  • 00:26:44
    And more than that, we've actually got
  • 00:26:46
    something else for you, the tool to help you
  • 00:26:49
    as you do the Bible Challenge, the Genesis Guide book
  • 00:26:51
    that will mail to your house for free.
  • 00:26:53
    You can go to Crossroads.net/BibleChallenge.
  • 00:26:56
    - That's it.
  • 00:26:57
    We'll see you guys next week on Crossroads.
  • 00:27:00
    - Today, we're unpacking
  • 00:27:01
    the story of Joseph in Genesis.
  • 00:27:03
    It's a riches to rags, back to riches story,
  • 00:27:05
    so popular that's been made into a Broadway musical.
  • 00:27:09
    But it's actually about you.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

This is the group part of the Bible Challenge, so your questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will discover what God might be saying to you, and how you can respond through a group discussion.

  1. What’s the craziest boat ride you’ve ever been on? Was it fun? Scary? Did you get sunburned?

  2. What stood out to you most from the message?

  3. Why do you think that stood out to you? What do you think God might be trying to say? (It’s ok if you’re just guessing. This will give you some space to process what it might be.)

  4. What is one way you can respond to what God might be saying to you this week? For example, if you think he wants you to start reading the Bible more, joining the Bible Challenge for the next series could be one way to take action.

  5. Now share a prayer request for the week. Whoever loves taking notes can jot them down (and maybe put them in a group chat, if you have one). Make sure to go around the circle and pray for each other at the end of your meeting, and throughout the week.

More from the Weekend

At Crossroads we’re about the power of God who transforms lives. Everyday we’re getting outside ourselves trying to make a difference in the world. One way we do this is partnering with organizations who literally are changing the world everyday. If you want to jump in and start giving risk free, you can try the 90 day tithe test here.

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Mar 21, 2022 27 mins 17 sec

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