Bay Area Community Church

Now that the Israelites were free, God needed to teach them to do what would not come naturally – walk with Him by faith. This week we explore how God began to train His children to fly through the weightless world of the deep water. These life lessons still apply to us, since walking with Jesus by faith today is a walk that in many ways is flat-out not natural.

There is a good chance that your life is not always going to go according to plan. Maybe you think you should be further ahead than you are. Maybe you’ve been waiting for things to change. Maybe you are still waiting for God to show up. When God takes the long way in our lives, there is usually a good reason for it. There was for Moses and the Israelites who were led the long way to the sea, and then seemed to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Been there?

“Let my people go!” Such were the words of the Lord to Pharaoh. Ten plagues later, the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt. What was the final event the Lord used to deliver His people from 430 years of slavery? It was an unblemished lamb slain for Passover, whose blood was shed and spread on the door frames of the houses. Deliverance came through the death of a lamb. Sound familiar? This week, we look at how Passover foreshadowed the Lamb of God who shed His blood for us.

Most of us are familiar with Moses, arguably the most famous Jewish person ever besides Jesus. But most are not familiar with his initial feelings on being called into his role as deliverer. At the burning bush, Moses sounds a lot like us, when we are more likely to be afraid than to have confidence in God. There are many reasons to fear the “what ifs” in this life, but what happens when our “what ifs” meet the great I AM?

We’ve all seen it - a person who is not paying attention, perhaps staring at their phone, when they run into something, fall, trip or wander off course. Truth is, we’ve all done it - been distracted. It’s easy to do. The distracted life is defined by a preoccupation with what I have and what I do. It focuses on the wrong things for too long and distracts us from what is real and true. James 5 helps us learn how to avoid the distracted life.

There is an enemy that lurks within each of us, something that wages war inside us. Its fruit is quarrels and conflicts, jealousy and selfish ambition. It manifests itself very early in our children. It leads to a life of independence and prayerlessness. It causes us to be judgmental and to think too highly of ourselves. Most significantly, it is the thing God hates and opposes inside us. What is it? Pride! What is the remedy?

One of the great privileges of being human is using words. Words, it turns out, are incredibly powerful, but our tongues are incredibly difficult to tame. One minute we are praising God, then we get cut off in traffic, and… James speaks to the truth of our ability to build up or destroy through our words, and points us to the truth that our words are a window into our satisfied or unsatisfied hearts.

Digging into James 2, we unpack how our faith is dead if we aren’t producing works and explore how real faith in Jesus leads to an abiding faith, an active faith that overflows from our hearts in the form of works.

Life doesn’t always go the way we expect. Unfortunately, no one escapes life’s challenges - whether it’s a rebellious teenager, a troubled marriage, a life-ending prognosis or something as simple as the result of a poor decision. What is important is understanding how and why God allows these things to happen to us. How we respond to our trials and challenges is always an indicator of our faith and trust in Jesus.

God does not reject us; His love is unconditional for everyone. Because of our self-justification and/or self-gratification, we run away from God. Regardless of which of the two sons in the parable of the prodigal son we relate to, God is extending an invitation for us to repent, turn our hearts to Him and join the celebration of His grace and goodness.