26 Mar 2026
What the Future Holds
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Genesis 17:3-9
Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”
God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
John 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, ‘He is our God,’ though you do not know him. But I know him; if I would say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
General editor:
27 March 2026 @ 12:49 am
Thanks. Hope in our daily lives by
27 March 2026 @ 1:31 am
Thank you for your preaching today. What a fine connection between the readings you conveyed with Abraham “seeing the day” of Christ. Indeed seeing this future transforms the present. May God bless your preaching to all who hear it.
27 March 2026 @ 1:47 am
Thanks Scott ! You are the best Quarterback Preacher I know! You send and catch the pass and always make a Touchdown for all of us! Amazing!
27 March 2026 @ 3:37 am
Thank you for the kind comments. I have to say, in all honesty, God provides. We had a late-arriving cancelation for today, and I had no idea what to preach on. I prayed about it, wandered around in circles for a bit, had an idea about Moses accepting this odd promise at 99 years old, but still felt like it was me deciding what to preach on. Then I looked again at the Gospel, and it popped out that Jesus tells us “Moses SAW’ and I knew that is what the Spirit was lifting up as the right message for today.
I say this, because I think this is an important insight into preaching… you come up with possibilities through study and research, but you remain open to letting the Spirit guide you to which message is the right one for this particular group on this day. Until I felt that, I was not ready to record.
I will also add that as soon as I felt that I recorded this preaching (because I was slammed for time). When I recorded it, I did not know exactly what would say, but I had “the insight.” When I finished, I knew that if I took more time with it and re-recorded it later I could do better, but I settled for “good enough.”
This, then, is a question for other preachers, how do you make the trade-off between “not yet ready” and “good enough”? I think this is a crucial question for the real ministry of preaching.
27 March 2026 @ 5:27 am
Thanks for a great reflection, as always.