Let my people go

• Ex 6-11 was a tough assignment, as it was all about the plagues brought upon the Egyptians as Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave.
• Lots of questions came up: What disasters does God bring on people because of their resistance? How should we see natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Haiti? Some friends I discussed this with think that before the Fall of man there were no such events! All the science points to a differnt view. There have always been earthquakes, volcanoes, and what we would call disasters. Without them we would have a very dull featureless earth. An important point for discussion though!
• I really enjoyed seeing the theological points involving the many gods of the Egyptians 'defeated' by the living God of Moses. I had no idea of those things before I started researching it.
• However important the Exodus story is as a statement of God's deliverance, it did occur to me that those poor souls in Auschwitz and Belsen probably remembered these events and asked the question: if God could let his people go then why not now? What do you think?
• I was challenged by the question about whether God actually hardens people's hearts, as it says in Ex 9:12. Coming from an Arminian Methodist background myself I do find that a difficult idea! However it does encouarage us to ask important questions of ourselves. The challenge is to reamin soft hearted towards God and our neighbour. How readily to we shed tears?
• I drew attantion to Moses' perseverance, and encouraged us to keep going despite the setbacks. This all makes sense, but when do the setbacks become signals from the Lord that we should change direction. Remember Luke writing in Acts: that the Spirit of Jesus prevented us'

Tony Haines 25.1.10

Notes on Sermon "Worse before Better."

Sermon 17-1-2010 Evening Service

A Series on The Life of Moses, Learning Leadership: “Worse before Better”
The text of the Sermon is Exodus chapters 5 & 6

This passage records one of the most honest exchanges in the Bible, setting down as it does conversations between God, Moses, the Egyptian King and the Israelites, but those between God and Moses are very instructive.

The passage records that God has spoken to Moses about His intentions. However, immediately following this, the situation gets so much worse for the Israelites and especially Moses, as their God-appointed leader. The opposite circumstances seems to be occurring to that which God is speaking about! God promised release from slavery for the Israelites and of a Promised Land, but in this passage we see the Israelites screwed down to cruel forced labour as an expression of Pharaoh’s extreme anger.

This often seems to happen in our own lives – worse before better. Can you identify this in your life, or someone close to you? Take heart!

The main points are:

1. Our honest response to God. What situations are you facing that you need to bring sincerely and honestly to God and in which you need help?

2. Our trust, our perseverance. How do our character traits need to change in order to engender these two qualities? As we let in the grace of God in our situations, spending time with God and getting to know Him better will allow us more to trust in a loving Heavenly Father who carries our very best interests at heart. God’s purpose was to relieve His precious people (Exodus 2.24-25) of their suffering and take them to a land 'flowing with milk and honey'. So much more us as we look to God for breakthrough in the challenges we face.
Hebrew 6.12 says: “Imitate those who through faith and patient inherit what has been promised.”

3. To be seeking His vision, His perspective, the bigger picture, especially in those spheres that we are taking a lead. This may be at home, at work, in church or a particular relationship. “Come near to God, and He will come near to you.” James 4.8.

Some helpful quotes are:
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Sir Winston Churchill)
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
"The biggest enemy of fear is action."

What promise from God can you cherish today?

Haydn Wilkins

Philippians 1 "The Way To Live"

This mornings sermon was titled "The Way To Live" and was based on Philippians 1:12-30. Paul talks about his personal suffering and the threat of death, and wants the Philippians to gain a different perspective on what seems like a disasterous situation .....given what has happened in Haiti this week, this felt like a difficult sermon to preach ....as if there were almost more unanswered questions by the end than there were at the beginning! If you were around to hear it, do post some feedback or thoughts for me.....thanks!
Adrian J

How does God call?

On Sunday evening we looked at the call of Moses in Exodus 3 and 4, and there was so much to share that I couldn't develop the third point! The basic thread of the sermon was that God calls through dialogue .....and that He uses dialogue because this is the way that our human weaknesses and deep set barriers to His call are revealed (and He can then get to work on them), and because it creates the opportunity for Him to reveal more and more about Himself (His character and purpose). The third point from this passage was that through dialogue a relationship is established .....and what I would like to have gone on to look at was why relationship is so important in our experience/understanding of God and our response to Him ....this is taken up well in "The Shack" (which I just started yesterday, therefore not until after the sermon strangely). The main character, Mack, encounters all three persons of God as Trinity and as he struggles to get his head around how God has to be both one and three, God reveals that because He is love, He also has to exist, within Himself, in relationship, as an expression of this love......and living as Christians we are being returned to our proper form of being (that is both physical and spiritual) as reflections of the image of God. Therefore relationships become even more important to us and to our wholeness... our true state of being is in relationship (reflecting God's eternal state of being).
All of which has major implications for the focus we should have on nurturing relationships within the church ....so how, in real practical terms, can we reflect this Trinitarian being-in-relationship within our church family/fellowship? and in our relationships with people who are not yet Christians?

Adrian J

get ready for Moses....

Here's a link to a Youtube clip from a film about Moses :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JzoAyy7edE&feature=PlayList&p=307A9BDDD31F406A&index=4
Ahead of Sunday nights talk on the call of Moses, you could watch the first couple of minutes of this and look out for the key part of Exodus chapter 4 that the film manages to omit! (I wouldn't bother with too much of the rest of the film.....who says there's no ham in the Bible....)