Everybody has their limits. We can all be accommodating and open to new things- until we’re not. Our culture is open to all kinds of gods- even Jesus. Just like Pharaoh, the idea of adding another god isn’t a big deal. The big deal is when God demands that we obey and forsake the other Gods. When that happens, we aren’t quite as open and willing to listen. This is Pharaoh’s dilemma and what begins our look at the 10 plagues in Exodus.
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Good teams win most of their games; great teams win them all. But even the greatest teams get pushed and challenged. God, however, has no rivals. He has not and will not lose- to anyone at any time. There is nothing he doesn’t look to and assert his sovereignty- nothing.
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Exodus 5-6:13
Research is done. Confidence is high. Everyone feels good. —This is how it feels when we make the big purchase. Days later all of this is gone and doubts creep in about whether we’ve done the right thing. This is known as buyer’s remorse, and the people of Israel had a big strong case of it after Moses had gone to Pharaoh- and for good reason. What kind of God punishes people when they do what they were asked. Who is this Yahweh? And why should we listen to him? This is the question of Moses’s day and it’s still the driving question today.
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What’s holding you back? What fears are stopping you? Moses had no shortage of objections and questions when God called him. He was too scared and too aware of his shortcomings. God makes it clear that Moses has no need to worry, but Moses’s fears were bigger than Moses’s God. What about us? What is truly sovereign in our lives- fear or God?
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So often our lives are built around our perception of ourselves. We analyze and evaluate based on what we think we can achieve. When Moses meets God in the burning bush, God reorients Moses to what
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God knows. What does that statement mean to you? Is it terrifying? Is it comforting? Both are right and reasonable responses. God knows us in our sin, our brokenness, and our rebellion. He also knows us in our pain, our suffering, and our loneliness. How can you find comfort and hope in a God who knows? The answer is in His Son who came and who knows.
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Born under a cloud of darkness. Placed in a basket in the Nile River. Saved by an Egyptian Princess. Moses’s story feels so distant and removed from us today, but his story is a picture of our own story and the gospel.
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What does it look like to be #blessed by God? Do you get money? Security? Friends? A job? A great spouse? Beautiful kids? What happens when you get those things, and it starts to feel more like a curse? In God’s timing and plan, it can be nearly impossible to tell the difference between pain, suffering, cursing, and blessing. It’s in these times we have to remember that God is always at work.
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It can be easy to think that we have accomplished great things when great things happen. So often though, it is God standing right over our shoulder that really is driving our accomplishments. It’s by His help that we are able to claim so many victories. As we open our new building, we celebrate what God has done and consider what it means for us today- and for our future.
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A continual theme of scripture is the importance of remembering. Time and time again we are told- “Don’t forget…” We have to be told this repeatedly because our nature is to be a forgetful people. We look at how the book of Exodus prompts us to remember Joseph, and then we take time in our final gathering at the community center to remember what God has done in our midst over the last few years.
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Making a promise is a big deal. As circumstances and situations change, it can make keeping those promises next to impossible. So what happens when God makes a promise bigger than anything we can imagine and way bigger than anything we could bring about? God keeps his promise. Every. Single. Time. As we start a new sermon series on the book of Exodus, we take a look back on some massive promises God made to an ordinary guy.
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On the brink of a new year, what will the next 12 months look like for you? Do you have resolutions? Goals? Big plans? Whatever the turn of the calendar looks like for you, it’s a certainty that you don’t know exactly what the next 12 months will bring you. So how do you plan for what you can’t know? You plan to be obedient. Jesus tells us that when we are- we’re family.
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Mary’s role in the Christmas story is unquestioned. She’s the leading lady and at the heart of the drama. Mary’s role is so synonymous with Christmas, we forget just how unlikely it is that she’s in this story at all. How do you handle it when you find yourself feeling like you don’t belong- like God is making a mistake? Mary’s obedience is a beautiful example of what it looks like to trust God even when His work is completely unexpected.
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The prequel has become a popular tool for box office success. It allows storytellers to develop characters we already know well; it helps us to know what makes them who they are. Matthew begins his gospel by giving us a sneak peak at the backstory of Jesus. In doing so, he provokes all kinds of questions about who and why God uses the people he does. The answers we find tell us a little about the people in the backstory but a lot about the God over it all.
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The Christmas Story is full of great characters and drama-packed moments, but the Christmas story is a lot bigger than those days surrounding the manger. The story of Christmas is woven all throughout scripture, and that story can be told in some unexpected ways- like the lineage of Jesus where we find some names that just don’t belong there.
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