Fear doesn't have to invent a problem to become destructive. Sometimes it just takes a real one and makes it ultimate.

Right after God calls Abraham, blesses him, and sends him out on the greatest faith journey in human history — a famine hits. And within a few verses, the man of faith is lying to Pharaoh and using his wife as a human shield. Pastor Anthony opens with Covid toilet paper lines at Costco and lands somewhere that cuts a lot closer: fear has a way of making irrational things feel completely reasonable.

The sermon tracks three things fear does when it takes the lead. It makes us forget what God has already said — the promises, the miracles, the altars we built. It makes us protect ourselves at the expense of others — Abraham's plan wasn't just a lie, it was a plan that put the person connected to the very promise in danger. And it makes us manage life without God even while we're still going to church and singing the songs. Anthony calls it what it is: functional atheism.

But the gospel turn is the whole point. Abraham's failure didn't surprise God. Jesus — the true son of Abraham — did the exact opposite: Abraham risked his bride to save himself, and Jesus gave himself to save his bride. Which means your fear is not the final word.

Key topics: Fear as a functional atheist | Strategy vs. surrender | When self-protection becomes self-deception | Abraham's failure in the same chapter as his calling | Jesus as the true and better Abraham

Church of the Cascades | Bend, Oregon | Genesis series

God gives direction before he gives explanation — and most of us are still waiting for the explanation before we move.

Pastor Michael opens Genesis 12 with a three-year-old version of himself touching a hot oven his mom just told him not to touch, and the question that follows him all the way to Abraham: why do we keep choosing pain when the better path is right in front of us?

God's call to Abraham wasn't complicated. Leave everything — your country, your family, your security, your wealth, your entire known world — and go to a land I will show you. No map. No timeline. No destination. Just direction. And Abraham went. One chapter after Babel, where humanity tried to build their own name by their own strength, Abraham walks into a story where God says: I'll make your name great. The contrast is the whole sermon.

The conversation after unpacks what faith-fueled obedience actually looks like in real life — how Jackson is navigating the church plant, why Summit City Chapel is squarely outside of what he can pull off on his own, and how to tell the difference between living by faith and just being reckless. Three checkpoints: does it align with Scripture, do the people closest to you affirm it, and does your spouse confirm it? Turns out the Holy Spirit sounds a lot like your wife.

Key topics: God's call to Abraham — direction before destination | Why faith requires risk, not certainty | The contrast between Babel's name-building and Abraham's God-given name | How to discern obedience from recklessness | Summit City Chapel and what it looks like to step out when you know you can't pull it off alone

Church of the Cascades | Bend, Oregon | Genesis series

Safety. Significance. Glory. You were made for all three — just not the way Babel tried to get them.

Pastor Jackson opens with a homestay in Bucharest, a Romanian Yanni superfan, and three hours of silence that somehow perfectly sets up everything Genesis 11 is about to say. One language. One plain. One plan: build a city, raise a tower, make a name. It sounds like progress. God calls it something else.

The Tower of Babel isn't just a story about ancient arrogance — it's the story of every human heart trying to manufacture what God was always meant to provide. A city for safety and security. A tower for significance. A great name for glory and connection to greatness. Jackson traces each one back to the garden, where God gave humanity all three in himself — and shows what's been driving us ever since we walked away from that.

The second half cuts deeper: sin's root isn't just bad behavior, it's "by my will, in my strength, for my glory" — and the ruins it promises to build always collapse into insecurity, insignificance, and inconsistency. The only way out is the same thing Babel refused: surrender.

Key topics: What Babel was actually trying to build and why | Sin as an attempt to find in something what only God provides | "By my will, in my strength, for my glory" | Babylon in Revelation as Babel's long shadow | Insecurity → In Security: who you are in Christ

Church of the Cascades | Bend, Oregon | Genesis series