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Exodus 15-16: Proving, Testing, Resting

Please open your Bibles to Exodus 15. The last few weeks we have been studying God’s powerful deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt. Last week we looked at how God miraculously defeated the Egyptian army, and led them to safety through the parted waters of the Red Sea, and they celebrated their rescue mightly and created a magnifient song that they sang! When we left off, these were the words ringing in the air. Miriam sang to them:…

Exodus 14-15: God’s Guidance

Please open you Bibles or turn into your scripture journal to Exodus chapter 14. We are on week 8 of 20 our walk through of the book of Exodus, and today we’re finally getting out of Egypt! This “scene” in the story is extremely dramatic, it almost feels like a Lord of the Rings sci-fi fantasy story. It’s more accurate to say that The Lord of the Rings feels a lot like the book of Exodus. You know what they…

Exodus 12-13: The Passover

This morning we are in week 7 of our walk through of Exodus. Last week we looked at one of the most well known and powerful stories in Exodus: God’s judgment on Egypt through the ten plagues. In these plagues God judged Egypt’s idolatry, worship of false gods, proving them to be powerless.  Perhaps there were real spiritual forces at work, but they were no match for The Most High God. Also through these plagues, God revealed to Pharaoh and…

Exodus 7-11 The Plagues

Today’s passage is a story of war, a war between God and the nation of Egypt.  And it is a war between God and Egypt’s gods (or their so-called gods).  The Egyptians worshiped dozens, even hundreds of false gods.  And through the Story of the Ten Plagues, the Lord easily defeats all of them.  God is the initiator of this war because his chosen people, the descendants of Abraham are enslaved, being violently oppressed by the king of Egypt.  And…

Exodus 5-6: God’s Faithfulness in our Faithlessness

Today’s passage sits at a transition between two famous “scenes” in the Exodus narrative: The Burning Bush, and the Plagues. It sets the stage for one of the most important and encouraging messages God sends his people by his actions in delivering them from their bondage. Paul puts it this way to his young protege Timothy: 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:13 (CSB) Let’s back up into our passage from…

Exodus 3-4: The Burning Bush

Let’s read Exodus 3:1-10. Exodus 3 (CSB) 1 Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought, “I must…

Learning to see the invisible

In today’s passage, we see a story of trying to carry out God’s work in our own timing and in our own strength and with our own wisdom, and how this always brings about disaster. Last week, we studied the narrative of Moses’s birth and God’s amazing protection and providence in his being saved from genocide, and being adopted by a princess of Egypt. In today’s passage, the narrative fast forwards through all of Moses’s upbringing and early adult life,…

Exodus 1: Israel’s Oppression

We are beginning a sermon series for the Fall on the Book of Exodus. Exodus is filled with many well-known stories: These are all remarkable, inspiring stories that tell us who God is, and we see examples of both faith and unbelief.  Examples of great deeds of faith, and extraordinary acts of evil.  Almost 2/3 of the book is stories. Yet Exodus has even more to offer us than those stories.  For there is something grand going on at the…

Every Member a Minister

Last week we took a look at one of the points of our ministry emphasis at Stonebrook: “every member a minister.” We have four points to this emphasis that is directing our ministry programs this year.  They are:  Last week we looked at the second point: “every believer a member”, how the scriptures call each believers to commit themselves to a local fellowship, a local congregation, and how we work that out here at Stonebrook through a membership process.  This…

Members of One Another

I have a question to start us off this morning.  How many memberships do you have? Think about it for a second. Costco, Amazon Prime, Sam’s Club, The ISU Alumni Association, Maybe a golf club, a gym membership, Rotary, Toastmasters, Kiwanis, maybe you are a member of a professional association related to your vocation. You can be a member of a coffee shop rewards program, or if you’re like me, you can be a chick-fil-a signature status rewards member because…

2 Timothy 4

If you were to know the end of your life on earth was very close….say, you have a terminal disease…what would you want to say about your life?  Specifically, what would you want to say about your life following Christ? We would not want to hang our heads in shame, thinking of a lifetime of regrets.  Of the many choices we made that were not in line with the will of God. Instead, we would want to worship God for…

2 Timothy 3

Before the Apostle Paul was the “Apostle”, he was a religious leader who hated Jesus Christ and any of his followers.  In his obsession against Christ, he persecuted many men and women, unjustly dragging them off to prison, and even having some of them put to death. A few years later, Paul had an encounter with Jesus, and he repented of his rebellion against God, he believed in Christ, and then he became the most well-known follower of Christ in…

1 Timothy 3– The Mystery of Godliness

When Jesus was on the earth the first time, the religious leaders knew many of the right answers.  They had studied the Scriptures.  Memorized them.  Taught them to the people. But there was a huge problem. Jesus said, Matthew 23:2–4 CSB  The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses.  Therefore do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they teach.  They tie up heavy loads…

1 Timothy 1 The King Eternal

Sunday, May 14, 2023 1 Timothy 1:  The King Eternal Letter writing in our electronic age is quite uncommon, isn’t it?  I was never a great letter writer before texting and emailing, but it’s been years, it seems, since I’ve written a letter, and especially a letter with pen and paper. In the Bible, we have in our hands two letters written by a man named Paul to his protégé.  His disciple in the faith, named Timothy. Timothy was like…

What Does Jesus Say About Human Sexuality?

Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 19. When I talk with my non-Christian friends about my job as a Bible teacher, I often describe my task as something like that of a historian. My job is to understand and to teach what the church has taught about this book since the beginning of the church and for the last 2000 years. My job is not to find some exciting new understanding that has been hidden throughout the ages,…

Revelation 22 – The Time is Near!

Please open your Bible with me to Revelation chapter 22. Today our Revelation series comes to a close. What a great Spring it has been walking through this book with you all. I’ve appreciated the feedback, the questions, the conversations, the encouragement, the little bit of debate, and you know, even the tiny bit of criticism here and there. I trust that as we’ve walked through and made this book more clear over the past 16 weeks that its been…