New Year, New Me

As I write this, the year 2022 is quickly approaching. When this lesson is actually taught, it will already be the year 2022. All of us get excited about New Year’s Eve. Many of us make resolutions claiming slogans like, “new year, new me”. Usually we have health goals in mind when we make resolutions. Sometimes we have habits in mind, creating new ones and quitting old ones. What about our spiritual resolutions, have you considered making a spiritual resolution this New Year? I hope that you will consider one. I want to take a look at a group of people who needed a spiritual resolution and by examining their situation and response, hopefully, learn some applicable truths for my own spiritual life.

Rescued to Worship

At Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are on our second round of walking through the entire Bible, cover to cover, over the next three years. During our last meeting, we took a look at the calling that God placed on Moses’ life. Moses answered God’s great calling. God was in the process of preparing a spiritual leader to guide the children of Israel out of bondage and into the Promised Land. God has heard the cries of the children of Israel over the years. He has not forgotten them. He is about to move in a way that would change the course of human history. That is what we are going to take a look at this week.

Idolatry: Are you not entertained?

If you saw Russel Crowe in Gladiator back in the year 2000, you remember that line that the title of this article is from. The Romans loved to be entertained. That is our human nature. That is our sin nature. The children of Israel were no different. We are also no different today. We have a way of justifying our idols today, similarly to the way that the children of Israel justified their idols.

Discipleship: Empowering others for ministry

I am working on my Sunday School lesson this week and our passage is Exodus 18. Our previous lesson was on how our sin nature is contentious. God has promised victory to us, we simply have to walk in that victory daily.

Sin Nature is Contentious

As we continue to walk through the book of Exodus, we continue to see the character of God, His working out of an eternal plan, as well as His personal interaction with humanity. While walking through Genesis, we discovered that all of us have been born with a sin nature and that sin nature wants to master us. God’s plan is to rescue us from our sin nature so that we can master it. In Exodus 17, we are going to discover that God is our victory over our sin nature. God reveals this character trait to us through His Name, Jehovah-Nissi. The Lord is our banner of victory. Victory over our sin nature is already ours, we simply must choose to walk in that victory. God shows this to us with His interaction with the children of Israel in the wilderness. Sin nature is never satisfied, ever. The more that it is fed, the more it wants. The children of Israel were hungry, so, by grace, the Lord fed them manna from heaven. They then wanted meat. God gave them meat until it spewed from their nostrils. In Exodus 17, now they are thirsty. Let’s take a look at how their sin nature manifests itself when squeezed.

Delivered from the bondage of FEAR

In our previous Connect Group lesson, we covered the Freedom that Christ offers to us as His followers. This freedom was foreshadowed in the Old Testament book of Exodus with the inauguration of the Passover feast. God frees us from the power of our sin nature so that we may worship and serve Him. We must be careful of idols and other sins creeping back into our daily lives. Sin is like leaven, just of little of it will leaven the entire lump of dough.

Freedom in Christ

I am excited to prepare and teach this lesson during our Connect Group meeting this coming Sunday. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are walking through the entire Bible over a three year period, from Genesis through Revelation. Last Sunday, we jumped into the book of Exodus. Genesis was amazing and I am excited to see what Exodus holds for us. We just saw how Moses answered God’s Great Calling in Exodus 3-4. This week, we are going to see how God extended that Great Calling to the children of Israel through Moses and how God extends that Great Calling to us today, through Jesus Christ. Our passages for consideration today are Exodus 7 and Exodus 12.

Rebellious against God

Our Sunday School classes at Southern Calvert Baptist Church are walking through the Old Testament book of Exodus, focusing on God’s Great Calling. He is El Roi which means that He sees all things and is not indifferent to what happens to us. God intervenes on mankind’s behalf by calling us to come out of our slavery to sin and learn to worship Him. Some respond to the calling in obedience (Moses) while others respond by hardening their hearts to the message (Pharaoh). Once we respond to this calling, God wants to work in our lives via a spiritual mentor. He also wants to take us and train us to share His message of Good News with anyone who will listen. As we learn to walk with God, our sin nature seeks to dominate us like it once did, before we answered God’s Great Calling. It tries to get us to give in to our fears and not walk by faith. It tries to get us to grumble against our spiritual leaders instead of walking in humble obedience to the Lord by submitting to the leadership whom He has put over us. In our last lesson, we learned the purpose of the 10 Commandments. We learned that the 10 Commandments show us just how sinful we are. Moses had a sin nature just like the people of Israel had a sin nature. Moses was tempted just as the people of Israel were tempted. They both respond very differently to temptation.

God’s Calling and Leadership

Over the past couple of weeks, at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we have been studying through the life of Moses, learning about the Calling that the Lord has for all people.

• Answering God’s Great Calling
• Pharaoh’s Response to God’s Great Calling
• God’s Calling and Impacting Relationships

This coming Sunday, our Sunday School classes are going to cover Exodus 16:1-20. This is a great chapter because it reveals the heart of sinful man and the need for strong Biblical leaders.

Remember Christ’s Sacrifice (Exodus 12)

Once again, I am preparing to teach our Sunday School lesson at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. I am excited to begin teacher training soon because I love studying the Scriptures with others. There is great fellowship that comes with sitting around the Word of God and discovering Truth directly from the mind of God. Our church has some great Sunday School teachers and I am excited to be part of such an amazing team. As a church, we are walking through the book of Exodus. So far, we have covered the following topics:

• Moses answers God’s Great Calling
• Pharaoh’s Response to God’s Great Calling