Sermons About Exodus
The Grace of the Law w/ Q & A
This week Pastor Kevin taught on the role of God's law in our lives. We also examined how the law was given out of love and grace, not as means by which we could ever earn God's love.
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How God Reveals Himself
Why do you ask my name?, the Angel of the Lord replied, it is too wonderful for you to understand. Judges 13:16 As we mentioned last week, the Bible is not simply a book, it is a sacred library with a God-designed unity. Its 66 books were written over 60 generations by 40 authors from all walks of life, and it presents a unified picture of God’s plan and purpose for our world. As we read through the Bible in 90 Days we have that rare privilege of overview. We began by looking at paradise and paradise lost. Last week we looked at the promise of a paradise restored which God made through His covenants. Today in the Word we will focus on the self revelation of God especially as he reveals his name to his people. Who is he? How does He reveal himself over time? What shall we do with His name?
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Which King?
Is our message, our gospel only personal or should it affect society too? Carlo draws from some of Tom Wright's material, looking at Caesar, the gospel and the kingdom to show that the 'good news' of the New Testament directly challenged the not only individuals but also the authorities and powers of the day. We have lost the 'social' element to our gospel which has meant that the church has been pushed to the edge of our society.
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Jesus in the Law as seen from Exodus
As we continue our look at Jesus in the Old Testament this holiday season, this week, we are going to make a leap through Biblical history and find our way from the Garden of Eden to the giving of the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai. What lies between is the equivalent of a raw hamburger: a bloody mess. After the Garden of Eden debacle, God bars Adam and Eve from the paradise that they have ruined and sends them out. This is the short story of what happens next. --- Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. --- Cain's great, great, great grandson is named Lamech. Lamech has a short fuse and kills a man because they got into a tussle and who knows where the local buffet for all we know. Lamech also has the distinction of being the first polygamist. --- Things get so bad on the earth that God says every man's heart and intention is evil. So he takes the one semi decent guy, Noah, and tells him to build a boat. Everyone makes fun of Noah when he tells them its going to rain and they say, "What is this rain you speak of?" God puts Noah and his family along with a gang of smelly animals in the boat and floods the earth killing everybody else. Good times. --- God makes a promise to Noah never to flood the earth again, and Noah celebrates by getting drunk one night and passing out in his tent naked. --- A few years later, all the people of the earth have a Led Zeppelin moment and build a stairway to heaven once again trying to be like God on their own terms. God knocks down their puny tower, makes scrambled eggs out of everybody's language and we seem to be right back to the mess we started. --- So God gathers a people to Himself. He starts with a guy that is old, sterile, and has a cranky unbelieving wife. His named is Abraham. --- Not believing that God keeps his word, they decided for Abraham to make a baby momma out of one of their slaves. --- Along the way, God destroys a place called Sodom because they had a morality that was so bad that it made Amsterdam seem like an Amish community. --- Finally, Abraham and his wife have a child the old fashioned way and God goes about creating a people from that son, Isaac. --- From there, God creates a people who grow and grow and grow. --- One of Abraham's relatives, a guy named Joseph with a fancy nancy coat eventually works his way from slave to assistant to head man in charge in Egypt and he saves all of God's people from a drought. --- So the people of God are like the Jefferson's and they move on up to the big house in the sky of Egypt. --- The problem is that they are incredibly fertile. They are start having a gaggle of kids, and the next leader of Egypt the Pharaoh decides to make a work force out of them with no pay. He makes them slaves. --- The groaning of God's people does not go unheard. So God raises up a cowardly, stuttering man named Moses to go to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go." --- Pharaoh is more wise in business than He is the ways of God, and He is unwilling to release his entire workforce. --- God sends blood, frogs, locust, and every other manner of plague on Pharaoh. Still Pharaoh says nope. So God kills every first born male in the whole city except those of His people. --- Pharaoh finally lets them go but in a schizophrenic moment, decides to send his army after the people of God to kill them. --- God once again destroys his enemies by water as the people of God walk across dry land but Pharaoh's army drowns in the Red Sea. So the people of God gather together, and Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to meet with God so God can give them the law by which this new community is to live. While Moses is up on the mountain, the people grow impatient; they sell all their jewelry to goldforcash.com, make a calf, and start worshipping it. Moses in his anger breaks the Ten Commandments, burns the calf and takes the ashes grinds them up into a nasty ale and forces the people of God to drink it. God threatens to blot His people out of existence but instead extends grace to what He calls "an obstinate people." So here we are. God gives His ugly, obstinate, and unfaithful people a law. If Jesus is going to be about restoring the image of God in people, He has some work to do. As we begin to understand what Jesus would have to do with a bunch of laws that range from not eating shellfish to not working on the Sabbath, we need to understand the dedication made at the very onset.
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Our Warrior King
Our Warrior King Exodus 15:3 Three important attributes of God: 1. He is fierce. Passion is the degree of difficulty we are willing to endure to accomplish the goal. 2. He hates. We cannot love people with the love of Christ unless we learn how to fiercely and passionately hate some things. 3. He fights. Perhaps more than anything else, the Christian life is a fight. Scripture: Exodus 15:1-3 Psalm 69:24 Revelation 19:1-5 Isaiah 1:14 Matthew 21:12 Psalm 97:10 Romans 12:9 John 8:42-44 Luke 4:1-13 Matthew 10:34-35 1 Timothy 6:12
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Attitude Of Gratitude
This week Pastor John speaks with us about having an "attitude of gratitude".
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