Natalie's Grace Notes

  Friends, we’re now in week 3 of this sermon series that I put together based on the book Questions God Asks Us by a pastor and author named Trevor Hudson. In every chapter of this book, Hudson has us look at a question that our Creator God or Jesus asks in the Bible, and how we might faithfully respond. This week’s question takes us out of Genesis and into Exodus, and the beginning of Moses’ long and harrowing journey freeing his ancestral people from slavery in Egypt. Hudson takes us to chapter 4 of Exodus. By this point in the story, Moses was born to a Hebrew woman, hid from the Pharaoh–who wanted to kill all Hebrew boys–until he was three months old, put in a basket in the river, found and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and raised as a royal who always kinda knew he wasn’t Egyptian. He doesn’t want to mess up his life, but he also feels compassionate and righteously angry for the Hebrew people, who he realizes are his biological relatives. He sees an Egyptian enslaver beatin...

  Friends, we’re now in week 2 of a 10 week sermon series I’m leading you in this fall based on a book titled Questions God Asks Us by pastor and author Trevor Hudson. In every chapter of this short book, Hudson looks at a question that either our Creator God or Jesus pose in the Bible, what we learn from that question, and how faithful people might respond. This morning’s question is an infamous one, and it comes from the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4. The first two of the three sons that Adam and Eve ultimately have, Abel is a shepherd who tends livestock, and Cain is a farmer who grows fruits and vegetables. They both bring an offering to God–Cain brings crops from his field, and Abel brings a lamb. God approves of Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s, for reasons we can speculate on but will ultimately never understand. God tells Cain to hang in there, if he makes good decisions it will all turn out just fine. Immediately after receiving that advice, Cain goes on a “little walk”...

  Friends, I’m starting a new sermon series that’s going to go for ten weeks, until the middle of November, based on the book Questions God Asks Us by a pastor and author named Trevor Hudson. The premise of the book is very simple, but Hudson invites us to go to some deep places with it. Each week in this sermon series we’ll engage a different question that either God our Creator, or Jesus, pose in the Bible. I led a short sermon series on this book for the first time eight years ago, back when I was serving down the road at the Avon church. What I find so compelling about this short book, both then and now, is that Hudson flips something major on its head. Many Christians have a deep-seated belief that the purpose of the Bible, and of faith itself, is to ANSWER questions. Our questions. We ask, God responds. That’s how it works. Why? Because we’d love that. It would be so much more comfortable if God would just do what we want.  Now, to be fair, the idea Christians have that...