Month: August 2023

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 12:29-32

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“Now at midnight the Lord stuck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock. During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn’t a house without someone dead. He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and said, ‘Get out immediately from among my people, both you and the Israelites, and go, worship the Lord as you have said. Take even your flocks and your herds as you asked and leave, and also bless me.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

God is going to one day bring judgment on the earth for all the sin that has been committed on it over the course of human history. Now, a great deal of sin was covered by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Actually, all of it was covered, but this covering only extends to those who have been willing to receive it. That’s the problem. Not nearly everyone has accepted His gracious gift. Many have and will yet decide to bear the weight of their sin on their own. They pridefully believe themselves capable of handling the load. They will be proven disastrously wrong in the end. That will indeed be a terrifying day. We know this because the mere snapshots God has given us of judgment in the Scriptures are themselves terrifying to behold. The final plague was a judgment against the sins of Egypt. Let’s talk about what is going on in these hard verses, and why they point us to a God worthy of our devotion.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 12:24-27

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“‘Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, you are to observe this ceremony. When your children ask you, “What does this ceremony mean to you?” you are to reply, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, and he spared our homes.”‘ So the people knelt low and worshiped.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes God reveals Himself in ways that are clear, direct, and unmistakable. More often, though, He works behind the scenes and gives us the task of passing along information about and faith in Him from one generation to the next. He does not, however, leave us alone and unequipped to do this. His big reveals are intended to become tools for us to use in passing on knowledge of Him generationally. We see this in the next part of the story of the Exodus. Let’s talk this morning about the last thing Moses says to the people before sending them on their way to get ready for the first Passover.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 12:21-23

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“Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go, select an animal from the flock according to your families, and slaughter the Passover animal. Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and brush the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood in the basin. None of you may go out the door of his house until morning. When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, he will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Blood is really important. That’s true physically, of course, as we die if we lose too much of it. It’s also true in various other symbolic ways. Relationally speaking, we talk about blood relatives versus those who are just relatives by marriage. Familialy, there is the saying that “blood is thicker than water,” meaning we are going to have closer relationships with our family members than non-family members. When they put ratings on movies, part of what determines how restrictive of a rating a particular film gets is how much blood gets splattered across the screen. Bloody violence gets rated higher than non-bloody violence (think Deadpool versus Star Wars). Blood has also long played an important role in our religious practices. This was the case in the first Passover. Let’s talk about why and what is going on in this next part of the story.

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Toward a Purpose

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This past Sunday we continued in our new teaching series, Nuts and Bolts. Last week we talked about what the church is. This week, we spent our time experiencing together what the church is for. I say experiencing because that’s more of what this service was. Below is the short message I gave at the beginning of the experience. For the rest of the experience and some powerful examples of what it looks like when we get the church right, watch the imbedded video of the service. When we get the church right, the work of Jesus is made possible. Check out some examples of what this looks like below.

Toward a Purpose

The church gets a lot of things wrong. Have you ever thought that? I have a pretty strong suspicion that even if you haven’t you know at least one person who thinks that. You may know a whole bunch of them. You may live with one—or more. Now, depending on how outspoken you happen to be about your own attachment to the church they may sit on those particular thoughts out of respect for you, but they’re there. Do you know why they think the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong? Because the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong. 

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Digging in Deeper: John 15:12-13

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“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the long-running debates about the action/spy-thriller genre of movies is which super spy is the greatest. Realistically speaking, there are only two possible entries in the debate: James Bond and Ethan Hunt. Everyone else falls a distant second to them. Bond has the advantage of a whole series of books and 27 films. Hunt has 9 seasons’ worth of a television series totaling 206 episodes as well as 7 movies with an eighth to be released next summer. Both are cool, suave, and always collected. They always get the job done. And in getting the job done, they’ve saved the world more times than is worth counting. So then, which spy is the better spy? Having recently watched or rewatched all of the previous six Mission Impossible movies, I would like to stir the debate once again by making an argument in favor of Hunt. Let’s talk about why.

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