Steve Sylvester - September 14, 2025
I'm Not that kind of God
In the olden days, gods demanded radical obedience, even to the point of requiring the sacrifice of the firstborn. But Abraham’s God is not the kind of God that gives laughter (that is the meaning of the name Isaac) and then cruelly takes it away. Abraham’s God seeks relationship instead of blind fealty.
Scripture References: Genesis 21:1-3, Genesis 22:1-14
From Series: "You're Invited - Into Relationship"
Before we are invited, we are already included. Accepting God’s invitation means being deliberate about cultivating our relationship with God, with each other, and with all of God’s good creation. But this is not a “me and God/Jesus/the Spirit” thing, as our focus on individualism has led us into the loneliness of the quietly desperate lives (or, these days, loudly aggressive lives) about which Thoreau wrote. God invites us into community, community that is not about winning and losing, but loving and sharing.