Exodus!
Sermon Series from February - May 2021 on Set Free
Exodus Revisited
May 16, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. Why does God have the writer of Psalm 105 rewrite the events he’s already had Moses record in the book of Exodus? What does the fact that this psalm was written 400 years after Exodus say about its usefulness for us living so many years after the Exodus? 2. How does that saying, “The way to build trust in a relationship is to make promises and keep them” strike you? Do you think it is true? Does it help you in your appreciation of God or does it seem like it doesn’t really apply? 3. What promises that God has made are most precious to you and would be most devastating to you if God did not “remember”? What accounts of God’s remembering in the past do you need to “remember” (v. 5) that will help you trust him now?
The Bible's Best Word
May 9, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532 Sermon Application Questions: Think of the two main points from today’s message: 1. God means his presence with his people to be uninterrupted. 2. God means his presence to be known by his people. Reflect on each of these truths as they relate to your life, and then ask: What is the level of my confidence in and my experience of God’s presence? How do I think about it? How does it affect my day-to-day life? How might I grow in experiencing what God desires for me?
A Dreadful Step Back, A Huge Step Forward
May 2, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. Have you allowed any impatience to turn to unbelief and lead you into idolatry? What might that look like? 2. Are you currently perhaps experiencing some correction from God that you need to pay attention to? How would you know that it is God’s correction? 3. If there has been sin, have you responded to God in true repentance? What would true repentance look like? 4. Are you enjoying all that God has for you in Christ today?
"That I Might Dwell Among Them”
April 25, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. What struck you most from these chapters of Exodus regarding God’s desire to dwell with his people? Was there something newly precious to you about Jesus and what he has done? 2. In his commentary on Exodus Alec Motyer says, ‘The Lord, for his part, was willing and ready to dwell in the midst of his people, but it was for them to decide if they wanted him to do so. It is the same for us; we can either engage or neglect these things. We can choose to live at a distance, neglecting those things which would bring God near to us and us near to him.’ Do you desire God’s nearness? What are the things that help you engage with God?
"My Treasured Possession"
April 18, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. Go back and read Exodus 19:4-6 especially noticing the order of things. Are you ever tempted to slip back into thinking that it is your obedience that is the grounds of your standing with God? What is the ground of your standing with God? Why is it tempting to slip back into a works-righteousness? Think about that question carefully because knowing the answer will likely help you avoid the temptation. 2. Do the 10 Commandments (or any other command from God) sound ‘foreboding’ to you or liberating and confidence-engendering? Where is the truly good life found? 3. Do you feel like you are God’s ‘treasured possession’? Why or why not? Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532
What Now?
April 11, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions 1. Have you ever felt like becoming a Christian was leaving something familiar and heading into the wilderness? How so? 2. Do you feel like you actually know God better now than you did five years ago? One year ago? How did that happen? 3. Think of a recent example of God providing for you, whether for your physical needs, your spiritual stamina, or some sound guidance. How did you know that it was God’s provision? Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532
Free at Last
April 4, 2021 • Brett Wendle
Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532 Sermon Application Questions: 1. God says that his aim in the exodus is that (14:4) 'I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and that the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.' Does that seem selfish to you? What are some reasons it’s good for us that God is committed to displaying his glory and revealing who he is? 2. This passage reveals God as his people’s present shepherd. What circumstances in your life right now make you feel your need for a shepherd to lead you and provide for you? How does this passage help you in your need? 3. God is his people’s gracious Savior. Do you ever find it difficult to keep a firm hold on this truth and instead feel more sure of God’s love when you’re obeying him consistently and less sure of his love when you fall short? How does seeing the way he deals with his people in this passage help you? 4. God is his people’s victorious king. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus he has defeated our greatest enemies: sin, death, and the devil. How does being deeply assured of this lead not to living however we want, but living for him? Have you seen this change in your own life?
The Last Plague and Passover
March 28, 2021 • Josh Mathews
Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532 Sermon Application Questions - March 28, 2021: 1. God liberates his people through sacrifice. Imagine being a slave under one of the most powerful kings of the day. Your parents were slaves, your grandparents, and on and on as far back as you can remember. Then, in a flurry of time, the God you've worshipped sets you free. How would you feel personally? Towards God? How would being freed impact the way you see relationships? work? Challenges? 2. Jesus liberates his people from sin through his death and resurrection. What do you think about having a substitute take your place for a punishment you've earned? What emotions come to mind? How could/should Jesus' death and resurrection impact the way you see relationships? work? challenges? 3. Share a formative tradition, celebration, or rhythm from your life. It can be big things or seemingly normal habits. What significance has it had on you? 4. Are there any traditions you'd like to start? If so, what are they? And why do you want to start them? 5. Would you characterize your heart as hard or soft towards God? Using the list below, which items resonate with your life right now? Hard-heart... Soft-heart... Resists God Receives God Seeks to work around God’s ways Seeks to pursue God’s ways Endlessly searches for an identity, often within themselves Joyfully Finds their identity in God Bends everything in life, career, friends, family, decisions, and lifestyles around itself Bends everything in life, career, friends, family, decisions, and lifestyles around God Needs the approval of others, therefore constantly compromising to fill a void. Has the approval of God, therefore consistently resting in fulfillment Walks through the struggles of life, often dependent on themselves Walks through the struggles of life, dependent on God Thinks the best life is now Thinks the best life is later Says it’s better to be aligned with their feelings, impulses, the ruling powers and/or social classes of the day, even if it means being opposed to God. Says it’s better to be aligned with God, even if it means opposing some of their feelings, impulses, ruling powers and/or social classes of the day. Ultimately takes on God’s judgment and wrath Ultimately Passes God’s judgment and wrath to Jesus
Pharaoh, the Plagues, and the God Who Preserves His People
March 21, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. Have you had an experience of God preserving you through a spiritually dangerous or challenging time? 2. Have you ever wondered if God is really able to preserve you through everything all the way to the end? What kinds of things make you wonder that? 3. It is clear that God’s working through the plagues and though the exodus is so that people will know, without doubt, that he is the one true and all-powerful God. What difference is that truth making in your life? 4. Were you surprised to hear God call the Egyptians 'my people' (Isaiah 19:25)? What does that do to your vision of God and his purposes? What implications might this have on your own sense of belonging to God? What implications might it have for how you see others? Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532
Pharaoh and the Plagues: Prelude and Round 1
March 14, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. Have you ever found yourself resisting God with a stubborn, even defiant, heart? What did that look like? Trying to ignore God? Pleading with God in a crisis but then reverting to refusing him when the crisis passed? Simply defying him? What brought you to your senses? 2. How aware are you on a daily basis of God’s purpose to bring you 'out of slavery and into a promised place of goodness and freedom'? 3. What do you understand that 'promised place of gladness and freedom' to include? Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532
Resisting An All-Powerful God
March 7, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Music and Lyrics Used by Permission CCLI# 1595532 Sermon Application Questions: Have you ever been, like Moses, in a posture of resisting God out of fear and doubt? What kinds of things did you find yourself saying to God in that situation? Has you fear-based and doubt-based resistance ever turned into outright disobedience? What kinds of things were you saying to God then? What part of God’s response to Moses in Exodus 4-7 was most encouraging to you? Have you experienced that in your relationship with God? Are there some places in your life where there is now faith where there used to be fear and doubt?
The Man and the Mission
February 28, 2021 • Mike Bullmore
Sermon Application Questions: 1. What do you think of when you think of the book of Exodus? Have you, in the past, made connections between things you read in Exodus and Jesus? 2. With whom do you most identify in these early chapters of Exodus? How does what God is doing, i.e. 'forming a people and bring them out of slavery and into a promised place of freedom and goodness', relate to your own life and circumstances? 3. Early in the message Pastor Mike said, 'God’s entire plan of salvation is exodus-shaped.' What parts of the book of Exodus, and of the Bible as a whole, make you say, 'yes, that’s true!'?