Wednesday Night Bible Study

How much have you heard about ‘the saints’ in your life? Some religious traditions take great care to memorialize people who reportedly have lived lives overflowing with goodness. When we hear the word ‘saint’ in front of someone’s name, we think of them as being on a higher plane spiritually. But the word simply means holy ones who are set apart. Another word we can use for that is sanctified. And Israel was being set apart and called out to be a holy people by God in the Exodus story. They were far from ‘overflowing with goodness’. But they belonged to God and the Lord was going to work to form them into a nation that was sanctified. Today, all believers in the New Testament are called saints. The same idea that God was working out in Israel applies to us today. How is God working to set us apart, and how can we step into this amazing privilege?

Wednesday Night Bible Study

Have you ever heard someone say, “God will never give you more than you can handle”? When you heard it, did it comfort you or did it confuse you? Maybe if you didn’t think too deeply, you were encouraged by the idea that seemingly overwhelming things are no match for the power you have to overcome. But when you look at your life more closely, it is probably easy to see times where life was simply too heavy and too hard for you. Perhaps there is a reason this saying is not given to us in Scripture (its something people think is in the Bible, but isn’t). In fact, our story today back in Exodus is a perfect example of a person trying to do something good and filling a role God called them to, but being completely overwhelmed. Why would God give you more than you can handle? Let’s see if we can learn from Moses’ experience.

Truth is tricky. While knowing the truth would seem to be a pretty necessary part of life, it is quite common to hear people talk about truth like it is personal or moldable. Some part of us feels like we’re on a quest for discovering what’s true and real. Then hearing that truth is unknowable and relative erodes any hope of finding what we need. On top of that, we are surrounded by people who are essentially yelling at us to listen as they tell us what ‘truth’ we should believe. Jesus wants us to have better than all of this confusion and frustration. He tells us that He is the truth, and He came to give it to us through His life. What we need are answers we can rely on, and our Savior doesn’t want us to live without them. Instead of continuing on the search with tools and ideas that will never bring us to answers, we are invited to know better truth through Jesus.

Continuing our study of Ephesians (after some technical difficulty.

When we’re lost, we look for direction. Or at least some of us do. Without knowing the way, it is much more challenging to ever get to the place we want to go. You can choose to just give up and decide that you’ll never find the way. You can wander and hope that you find the way. Or you can keep listening to others who try to tell you they know the way. But Jesus says He IS the Way. The startling difference should wake us up to the idea that the way for our lives is probably not where most people look for it. As people who have been rescued by Jesus, we have the invitation to know Him as The Way. And this way is infinitely better than everything and anything else that pretends to offer a direction of hope.

People need hope. Without it, life is draining, bitter, disappointing, and almost always too heavy to endure. But with hope, we can do what seems impossible. When people find something they believe gives hope, they are inspired and energized to sacrifice and endure with joy and expectation. Unfortunately, many who think they’ve found an answer for hope live to see that hope dissolve into emptiness. What is the problem? Why are we so often drawn to hope that disappoints? We’re going to see that Jesus offers us hope as well. But the hope He offers is more than a wish or some self-delusion. What He wants for us is to save us from lesser and unfulfilling hopes; not to wipe them away, but to show that every single one of them is just a setup to the real hope we’ve been created to want all along.

1. Don't be casual about the way you love God. 2.Love your neighbor in sacrificial way. 3. Loving your neighbor bridges the divides.

We probably all know that sharing Jesus is a part of what Christians are supposed to do. We are on this earth as people who represent and hopefully reflect the God we serve. Israel was God’s people in Exodus, and Moses was their leader. He gets a chance to share the true and living God with his father-in-law. What is the goal in sharing Jesus? Are we looking to convince someone of a set of facts? Are we trying to get them to adopt some behaviors? Or is there something more foundational that is the most essential outcome of pointing others to the Lord?