This week we will be exploring Exodus 7:8-8:19 together, Confronting the Gods of Egypt.
We are all pretty familiar with the ten plagues. Their decimation of Egypt is one of the most well-known parts of the book of Exodus.
Blood. Frogs. Gnats. Flies. Pestilence. Boils. Hail. Locusts. Darkness. Death of the firstborn.
It reads like the apocalypse...and makes great special effects in the movies!
But what is the purpose of the plagues? Why did God send them on Egypt? And what are we to learn from them today?
The main purpose of the plagues is for the Israelites, the Egyptians, Pharaoh, and the whole world to know that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the LORD, Yahweh, the Great I AM.
He is the sovereign One over the universe.
He is the One who controls nature, who rules over humanity, who both judges and redeems.
To accomplish this purpose, God must also confront all the false gods that vie for people's devotion, allegiance, and worship.
Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. (Exodus 12:12b)
So each of the plagues points to two undeniable truths:
1. God is absolutely sovereign.
2. The false gods of Egypt are absolutely worthless.
We need to be reminded of these same truths today. We may not worship such false gods as Ra, Isis, Heket, Wadjet, Geb, Nut, Apis, the Nile River, or Pharaoh. But we do have our own objects of allegiance, devotion, and worship. Money, possessions, power, fame, technology, sports, pleasure, sex, alcohol, food, YouTube influencers, social media, etc., etc.
Whatever dominates our thoughts, whatever dominates our time, whatever dominates our heart is often our own false god. And we need to allow God to confront it in our own lives...for His glory and our good.
As we study the ten plagues over the next three weeks, may God open our eyes to His absolute sovereignty and His amazing grace and may He expose whatever hinders us from being fully devoted to Him.

This week we will be exploring Exodus 6:1-7:7 together, Getting Back on Track.
Have you ever messed things up in a big way?
Have you ever felt like you drifted so far from the Lord that you didn't know how to get back?
Have you ever been disappointed in God?
These can be common experiences in the Christian life.
When things don't go according to plan...or God doesn't come through in the way that we want or expect...or we find ourselves in a mess that we can't seem to get out of...then it is easy to drift away from the Lord. To get stuck in a rut.
This is where Moses is at the end of Exodus 5.
He has messed things up royally before Pharaoh. The people of Israel are suffering more. And God doesn't seem to be coming through the way that he expected.
Moses is rejected, dejected, doubting, and pouting.
It is at this point that God steps in and acts.
Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh... (6:1)
Exodus 6 is a key turning point in the book of Exodus.
"Super Moses" is gone. In his defeat and despair, Moses is now going to see God's glory, power, faithfulness, and redemption on full display.
Moses will come to know that He is the Lord.
Israel will come to know that He is the Lord.
Egypt will come to know that He is the Lord.
As G. Campbell Morgan once said:
The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and depression is a vision of God.
To see Him is to see all else in proper proportion and perspective.
May we catch a greater glimpse of the Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, All-Powerful, All-Sustaining, Ever-Present, Ever-Faithful God as we worship Him!
This Sunday, we will also celebrate communion together as fellow partakers of God's grace!
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!

This week we will be exploring Exodus 5 together, "Making Things Worse."
Have you ever tried to do something for the Lord and things got worse rather than better?
Moses went through this exact experience.
God called him to confront Pharaoh and to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses didn't want to do it. He made as many excuses as possible to get out of the assignment. When this didn't work, he went back to Egypt half-hearted with a bad attitude.
Things went well at first but then, when he confronted Pharaoh, things went south quickly. Instead of releasing the Israelites, Pharaoh doubled their workload!
The people were crushed under the back-breaking demand. The leaders were livid at Moses and cursed him to his face. And Moses went back to God, licking his wounds.
Lord, why have You caused trouble for Your people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I went in to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has caused trouble for this people, and You haven't rescued Your people at all! (Exodus 5:22-23)
Moses is not a happy camper.
"God, I did what You told me to do and things got worse! Much worse!"
"Lord, why aren't You doing what You said You would do? Why have You made my life so miserable?"
Have you ever felt something similar?
Have you ever questioned God's goodness? His plan? His power?
Moses has.
And he is an example to us all of how our own attitude, our own methods, and our own expectations can often sidetrack us in our Christian faith.
Yet God is still good. And He is still at work. And His plan is still going to be fulfilled. And He can still use us even in our doubt and discouragement. And that gives us all hope!
May the I AM, the All-Sufficient, All-Sustaining One, refresh our hearts through His Word and empower us to follow His steps even when the road seems dark ahead...for His glory and our good!
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!.
______________________________________




CCLI #705548​
CCLI Streaming License #CSPL101898​




______________________________________

This week we will be exploring Exodus 4 together, Making Excuses.
Excuses.
We are pretty good at them.
If we failed to do something that we should have done...or if we don't want to do something that we should do...then you can bet that we can find a pretty good excuse to absolve ourselves or avoid the situation altogether.
It's a human trait that has been with us since mankind fell into sin.
The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree... (Genesis 3:12)
In Exodus 4, Moses continues his conversation with God. God has called him to deliver His people from Egypt...and Moses isn't too fond of the idea.
If God wants to deliver them, why does He need me?
Moses questions God...argues with Him...makes excuses...and tries to wriggle out of the assignment in any way that he can.
He is not too much unlike us. In fact, we can see a lot of ourselves in Moses...if we are willing to be honest.
But God continues to work on Moses until he finally relents to the Lord's will. But Moses' heart is still not in it. And what happens on the way to Egypt is a story that has boggled the minds of interpreters for thousands of years. You won't find it in any children's Bible, or in many sermons for that matter, today. But we'll take a look at it on Sunday. Woohoo!
May God continue to open our eyes to His truth and open our hearts to trust His good, acceptable, and perfect will for our lives.

This week we will be exploring Exodus 3 together, Encountering God.
Has your life ever been interrupted? Have you ever been on a path that suddenly took a quick detour?
For most of us, we like routine. We like knowing where we are going. We like for our lives to match up with our expectations. And we would like for God to agree with our plan and not throw us for a sudden loop.
In Exodus 3, Moses is humming along. His life is not what he expected but he has gotten used to the routine. After forty long years, he is settled...a family man, a hard-working shepherd, a rural country bumpkin.
But then God interrupts his life.
Moses encounters a burning bush out in the middle of the desolate desert and his life would never be the same.
God calls him to the purpose for which He created him, equipped him, prepared him, destined him.
But Moses is not on board...at least not yet.
What Moses needs to see is not his own failures and inadequacy but rather the power and sufficiency of God. The Great I AM. The Eternal One. The Sovereign One. The Holy One. The Ever-Present, Ever-Active, Ever-Sustaining One.
When we face the overwhelming challenges, responsibilities, and difficulties of life, we don't need to be reminded of our weakness. We already feel that. We need to be reminded of the greatness of God.
May God open our eyes to Who He is, fill our minds with His overwhelming greatness, and strengthen our hearts to fulfill His good, perfect, acceptable will for our lives!
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!

This week we will be exploring Exodus 2 together, Crying Out for Redemption.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Moses. We have either seen Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments or the animated The Prince of Egypt or one of the more recent adaptations of Moses' life.
But surprisingly, as important as Moses is in the history of Israel (and in the history of the world), the Bible only spends 22 verses describing the first 80 years of his life. Wow, that is quite a summary! In the Hebrew language, it is only 300 words. That's about five tweets in the X world.
Though the Bible doesn't give us a ton of the "back story" of Moses' life, it certainly tells us enough.
We learn that he was born in the midst of a genocide, that he had godly, courageous parents, that he was providentially protected and raised in Pharaoh's court, that he was a natural leader and "righter of wrongs," and that he was a fugitive from Egypt who eventually ended up being a family man in Midian.
That in itself is quite a story!
But the Bible doesn't focus on Moses' life because ultimately he is not the hero of the story. Moses, though a natural leader, was also a flawed, impulsive, rejected runaway from trouble. He tried his hand at being a deliverer of his people and it simply did not work. He was a failed leader. He was a defeated man.
But God is going to use this defeated man for the greatest victory in Israel's history.
It is not the man. It is God working through the man that makes all the difference.
May God encourage our hearts as we study the first 80 years of Moses' life and may we be reminded that ultimately it is His power, not our own, that leads to victory and freedom.
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!

This week we will be exploring Exodus 1 together, Living in Bondage.
Exodus begins where Genesis ends. Israel is in Egypt, living in the land of Goshen, under the protection of Joseph, prospering and multiplying.
But as time goes on, things begin to change.
A new Pharaoh arises and stirs up fear, hatred, and opposition to the Israelites.
Suddenly God's people are despised, enslaved, and even targeted for death. The place that once gave them protection, now becomes a place of persecution. The place of their enjoyment becomes a place of their enslavement.
But even in their distress, God's promise remains and His plan is still at work.
As we study Exodus 1 together, it will become clear that we can never count on this world to be our home. God's Word runs counter to the world's desires. And His plan moves in the opposite direction of the rulers and principalities of this age.
We should not be surprised by opposition.
But, at the same time, we should not live in fear. Two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, give us an example of how to live courageously and faithfully in the face of fear.
May God's greatness be so magnified in our minds that we live boldly and faithfully for His glory no matter what this world may bring!
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!

I am excited to jump in to this study through the book of Exodus. After a year and a half in Genesis, then it only makes sense to continue the story in Exodus.
Exodus reveals the character of God.
Pharaoh's question in Exodus 5:2 is the question that the book answers: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go."
We will learn more about Yahweh, the great I AM, the Redeemer, the Lord of all creation in this study.
Exodus also reveals the model of redemption.
The story of Israel's redemption from bondage in Egypt, by the power of God and the blood of the lamb, is a historical picture of our own redemption in Jesus Christ. The story of the exodus, in many ways, is our own story.
We have been set free from the bondage of sin, from the course of this world, from the ruler of this world system, in order that we might walk in covenant relationship with God. We are called out and called to. Called out of serving Pharaoh; called to serving the Lord.
But it is one thing to remove the child of God from Egypt; it is another to remove Egypt from within the child of God!
As we walk with the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, to Mount Sinai, and toward the Promised Land, we will see many parallels to our own walk with Christ.
We are redeemed people, called to follow after God in the freedom of grace, but we are easily tempted to continue to live under the bondage of sin and the world.
As Paul says in Galatians 5:1:
"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."
This Sunday, we will introduce our year-long study through Exodus. We will also have a Bible study guide available for you, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13.
Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!
May God overwhelm our vision with His matchless glory and free our hearts to worship His great name!