Story of ACTS and 10 Tweets

Hi Five Oakers,

This weekend we start selling (at cost) my new book, The Story of Acts: A 40-Day Guided Journey through Acts.

It will take the place of daily Group Life during our 8-week series on Acts that starts October 4/5 weekend.

I want you to come to the service on October 4/5 having completed the first week of readings. So pick up the book this weekend or next and start in on it Monday September 29. Don't worry about when your small group meets. The small group study will be included with the sermon outline for the eight weeks of the series.

Now for the 10 Tweets on Genesis 43-44, "Detecting Change," in The Gospel According to Joseph series:

1// God works with what he's got but he doesn't leave us as he got us.

2// Change tends to chug along, not charge ahead.

3// Change is hard to detect and appreciate in real time.

4// "Aren't we all scoundrels?"

5// Tests and trials both reveal and shape our character. 1 Pet 1:6; James 1:2

6// Jacob has to be stripped of his idols before he can become who God declared him to be: Israel.

7// Partial change is change nonetheless…and there is no other kind of change this side of heaven.

8// Judah is a profoundly changed man but I’ve tended to see Judah through the lens of his past misdeeds.

9// Is there a Judah in your life but you've turned the page on that person? The Story of God is still be written.

10// Change will make you bitter or better. For better need to see trials & life in light of the longer narrative reaching into eternity.

10 Tweets

Here are the 10 tweets for Tim's sermon last weekend on Genesis 42 in the "The Gospel According to Joseph" series.

1// When your past hangs over your present, it makes you wonder if God can really do anything with your future.

2// Every one of us is willing to bow down to someone or something. Its just a matter of if we believe that person or thing is worthy. Can they save me?

3// "We, your servants, are twelve brothers...the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more." Joseph's brothers were living a lie.

4// "'My money has been put back!' At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling..., saying 'What is this that God has done to us?'"

5// This is what living with guilt does to you. Joseph's brothers are being blessed - their lives are being saved - and all they can see is their guilt and God's judgment.

6// Jacob is living in the same past as his sons. Simeon is as good as dead to him, and he's given up on the future.

7// Jesus reminded Peter of his three denials, because he knew how important it was for him to accept the truth. John 21:15-17

8// We can't accept the truth and overcome our past until we accept grace.

9// Before the brothers recognized their guilt or even asked for help, God was already working his plan to save them from the famine.

10// Jacob's family was going to die. But because the favored son of the father was betrayed, humiliated, and wrongly imprisoned, God was able to put him in a position of power to save them all.