By Scott Brown Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly Focal Passage: Genesis 45:1-15 On more than one occasion I’ve experienced a fractured friendship or a broken family relationship. Countless more times I’ve seen it in church or counseling sessions with others. There are few things as bitterly painful as a broken relationship that is seemingly beyond repair. Likewise, there are few things as joyfully wonderful as a relationship restored, loved ones

By Scott Brown Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly Focal Passage: Genesis 41:15-21, 33-40 God is faithful to give His followers abilities and opportunities to serve Him. I have a friend who began to seek these opportunities. He began to pray fervently every morning that God would allow him the opportunity to share with someone the gospel. He would then begin to look for those opportunities and committed that he would

By Scott Brown Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly Focal Passage: Genesis 39:3-12, 19-21 I Peter 3:17 says, “For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” Peter wrote this but Joseph lived it. I often stop and look back at some of the moments in my life and am in awe how God protected me from the evil in

By Scott Brown Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly Focal Passage: Genesis 37:5-11, 19-27 Charles Spurgeon wisely said, “God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be mistaken. When you cannot trace His hand you must learn to trust His heart.”  William Cowper, likewise, writes these lines, “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in

By Scott Brown Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly Focal Passage: Genesis 35:1-15 God uses this week’s text to remind us that He is always faithful. Jacob had been gone from home for what seemed like a lifetime and now God was calling him back. He was to go back to the place where God had first spoken to him and made the promise to bless him and continue the Abrahamic