Through His second commandment, God reveals His desire to be known by who He is and what He has done and not by His image. He sets Himself apart from all other gods by not allowing an idol to be cast in His likeness. God created us in His image and wants to use us to reveal to the world who He is. 

God reveals Himself to Israel for the first time at the mountain.  Through this revelation, He challenges the cultural understanding of what a God is and identifies Himself with Israel to change the cultural understanding of who they were. God's preeminence in our lives transforms us into a holy people that communicate the truth of who He is by the way we live. 

God gives Moses instructions on how to prepare both the people and the place for them to encounter God. We are called to prepare both the place and the people to encounter God. Our motivation is the grace we have experienced in our personal relationship with God and we are moved to share those experiences.

God leads Israel from their place of comfort to a new area so that He can reveal Himself in a new way. He again calls Israel to obey His commands so that they can know Him. God uses the leadership that He established through Moses to communicate with His people.

As Israel is moving forward into the wilderness, God uses an unlikely source to help establish godly leadership to help Moses in taking care of Israel.  How can we apply this same principle to the ministry of the local church?  Through the leadership of men and women called to the servant ministry of deacons and deaconesses.

Leader: Glen Whatley

God is working faithfully to teach Israel about his faithfulness to work even when they are not seeing his work. Helping people out of bondage means being a leader who has faith that God is working in the dark.