Week 3 in our Lenten series, "Ashes to Glory"

Exodus 15:22-27

Matthew 17:1-23

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Scripture Text: Exodus 15:22-27 and Matthew 17:1-23

Quotes for Reflection

Ross Douthout, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
If mind might well precede matter, and the laws of the universe indicate that some intelligence created and sustains existence, and human reason seems to have the privileged ability to unlock existence’s mysterious underlying order, and the seemingly supernatural intrudes upon the natural as often in the modern world as in the past-well, then, you, as a man or a woman trying to chart the best course through a finite lifespan, with difficult moral choices at every turn and death awaiting sooner rather than later, have every reason to take a pretty strong interest in the story you’ve found yourself inside, what part you might be asked to play in it, and how, for you and everyone, it might ultimately end. 

N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone
The secret, of course, is that the size of the faith isn’t important; what’s important is the God in whom you believe. If you want to see the moon, the size of the window you’re looking through isn’t important; what matters is that it’s facing in the right direction. A tiny slit in the wall will do if the moon is that side of the house. A huge window facing in the wrong direction will be no good at all. That’s what true faith is like.

John Calvin, The Institutes (III.2.7) 
Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Charles Spurgeon, Sermon No. 979 “Strong Faith” 
Little faith will take your soul to heaven; great faith will bring heaven to your soul.

Application Questions

1. Reflect on a time when you experienced the nearness or power of God in a way that strengthened your faith. How did that moment sustain you in the season that followed?

2. In Matthew 17, the disciples—who had previously ministered with authority—suddenly falter. What tends to contribute to your own “malfunctions of faith”? Fatigue? Self-reliance? Fear? Distraction? Unconfessed sin?

3. What might God be calling you to in this season that requires deeper trust and obedience? Share this with a few others, and spend time praying together for the faith to follow where he leads.

Week 2 in our Lenten series, "Ashes to Glory"

Exodus 8

Matthew 13:1-23

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Scripture Text: Exodus 8 and Matthew 13:1-23

Quotes for Reflection

Dan Doriani
The parable of the sower continues to declare that many hear the Word and fail to respond to it. Surely most Israelites considered themselves faithful, but most were not. So too, the vast majority of Matthew’s readers believe, often erroneously, that God numbers them among his people. Yet if they hear the Word, disobey, and bear no fruit, they are not redeemed.

Jay Sklar
In sum the signs make clear that Israel—and the entire world—is to obey Yahweh reverently because of his power, confidently because of his faithfulness, and joyfully because of his love. . . . In light of this we do well to ask questions such as these: How might obedience show my belief in Jesus’ power? Are there commands of his I consider too hard to obey or steps of faith I am too afraid to take? What might obedience look like instead? And how might obedience show my belief in Jesus’ faithfulness and love? How can his faithfulness encourage me to obey boldly and to quiet my heart’s fears? How can his love serve as a bedrock of assurance out of which I am free to live with wild abandon to him, knowing he will never let me go? To know the Lord is the most grounding and freeing way to live, because we have been created to do these very things.

Augustine of Hippo
Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You — man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that You “resist the proud,” — yet man, this part of Your creation, desires to praise You. You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

Application Questions

1. Think of a time when you were hard-hearted. How did God lead you to repentance?

2. How have you seen the gospel bear fruit in your life recently? Thank God for his grace in your life.

3. In what area of your life is God calling you to experience the freedom of repentance? What does the fruit of the Gospel look like in that area.

Week 1 in our Lenten series, "Ashes to Glory"

Exodus 2

Matthew 9:1-17

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Scripture Text: Exodus 2 and Matthew 9:1-17

Quotes for Reflection

C.S. Lewis, The Slip of the Tongue
I say my prayers, I read a book of devotion, I prepare for, or receive, the Sacrament. But while I do these things, there is, so to speak, a voice inside me that urges caution. It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go too far, not to burn my boats. I come into the presence of God with a great fear lest anything should happen to me within that presence which will prove too intolerably inconvenient when I have come out again into my “ordinary” life. I don’t want to be carried away into any resolution which I shall afterwards regret. For I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast; I don’t want anything to happen to me at the altar which will run up too big a bill to pay then.

N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone
So how could Jesus and his friends not celebrate? They were in the middle of God’s new work, an outpouring of mercy which was already upstaging the Temple itself. As the prophet Hosea (6.6) had seen long ago, what God really wants is mercy, not sacrifice. The times were indeed changing. God’s new world was being born, and from now on everything would be different. The question for us is whether we are living in that new world ourselves, or whether we keep sneaking back to the old one where we feel more at home.

Thornton Wilder, The Angel that Troubles the Waters
Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.

Application Questions

1. Where do you see self-righteousness shaping the way people relate to one another today? What fruit does it produce—in our communities, our churches, even in ourselves?

2. Can you identify a moment when God exposed self-righteousness in your own heart? How did He humble you and what grace did He give you in its place?

3. If you were living more fully from mercy rather than self-righteousness, who might you move toward this week and what would that love look like?

Scripture Text: Deuteronomy 16:1-17 and Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Quotes for Reflection

Wendell Berry, “Damage”
Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.

Joan D. Chittister, The Liturgical Year
Like a great waterwheel, the liturgical year goes on relentlessly irrigating our souls, softening the ground of our hearts, nourishing the soil of our lives until the seed of the Word of God itself begins to grow in us, comes to fruit in us, ripens in us the spiritual journey of a lifetime. So goes the liturgical year through all the days of our lives.

The meaning and message of the liturgical year is the bedrock on which we strike our own life's direction. Rooted in the Resurrection promise of the liturgical year, whatever the weight of our own pressures, we maintain the course. We trust in the future we cannot see and do only know because we have celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus year after year. In His life we rest our own.

James K.A. Smith, How to Inhabit Time
Time’s relativity and the now’s porosity is lived out liturgically in the church’s worship. To be constituted as such a peculiar people requires a strange sort of synchronization of time. Like operatives launching a mission in a spy thriller, coordinating their watches so they’re all on the same time, the people of God synchronize their soul clocks in relation to the story that cycles and repeats in the liturgical calendar. In the liturgical calendar, we are indexed to the solar time of the Son who is the light of the city of God (Rev 21:23)

Application Questions

1. What is your favorite time of the year? Is there a core memory that marked this time in an embodied way? What does this say about the connection between practice and time?

2. Why is kairos-time so important for chronos-time? Think of an example of how this would play out in your life this week.

3. The season of Lent is marked by prayer, fasting, confession, reconciliation, and generosity. How can this mindset change your outlook on daily life over the next 40 days? How can God’s time cause you to flourish in a particular way in this season?

Mentioned in this episode:

A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 25:1-9, 31-40 and 1 Kings 6:11-13

Quotes for Reflection

Peter Marshall Mason, A Biblical Theology of Architecture?
The church is not at all like a garage; it is more like a richly furnished home into which we may gladly invite our friends and neighbors.

C.S. Lewis, Miracles
The archaic type of thought which could not clearly distinguish spiritual ‘Heaven’ from the sky, is from our point of view a confused type of thought. But it also resembles and anticipates a type of thought which will one day be true. That archaic sort of thinking will become simply the correct sort when Nature and Spirit are fully harmonized.

Phillip Graham Ryken, Exodus
God is a great lover of beauty, as we can see from the collection of his work that hangs in the gallery of the universe. Form is as important to him as function. Thus it was not enough for the tabernacle to be laid out in the right way; it also had to be beautiful. There was beauty in the color of its fabrics, the sparkle of its gems, the shape of its objects, and the symmetry of its proportions. The tabernacle was a thing of beauty. God made sure of this by taking the unprecedented step of endowing its artists with the gift of his Spirit.

Application Questions

1. Have you ever worshiped in a space whose architecture deepened your sense of God’s presence? What stood out to you?

2. Why do beauty and utility often feel in tension in church spaces? How might Oaks faithfully hold both together?

3. What elements of our sanctuary help draw your attention toward God in worship?

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