Today, it might seem like we live in more “civilized times” when people won’t have to die for their faith. But this doesn’t mean that it’s easy to be a Christian today. The Christian life if lived right will be marked by difficulty. It won’t be comfortable and that’s what we learn from our Bible passage today.
Our passage today is famously called the Beatitudes, it is the start of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount.
We all have role models that we want to be like. But as Christians our greatest role model is God himself. And the whole Bible teaches us be like Jesus. But what does that mean do we try to walk on water and heal people. We won’t be able to do that. So what does it mean?
Can we boil down the essence of what made Jesus so great and emulate that? Thankfully, today’s Bible story is about God explaining to Moses what the very essence of his greatness is. And the story helps us to know God better but it also helps us to know what God wants us to be.
We learn two things about God in this passage:
Most of us will go through seasons of overwhelming busyness. Some of us are on a trajectory to burnout and you don’t even know it. The Bible gives us guidance for stressful seasons.
Our Bible story today is about a time when Moses had such an overwhelming amount of responsibility, that he was failing everyone too! God gave him a way out of that kind of trouble, and God wants to help us in a way that’s not too different.
We live in a world in which many people are rewarded for being unkind and unfair. This is called injustice. Injustice is all over the place – in governments, schools, workplaces and homes.
It is everywhere, where many people are using their power to exploit other people to gain an unfair advantage. So, my big question today is how do we respond to injustice? Do we just whine about it? Do we give up? Do we respond with violence?
Our Bible story passage today, shows us the best way to thrive amid an unjust environment. Today we’re starting a new series in the life of Moses. We find that his story starts with his mom and his sister who found a way to deal with injustice.
This sermon is about sex. I think it’s a really interesting topic, but it’s can also be awkward because it comes with quite a bit of baggage.
Looking back, I’ve always wondered why they only used fear-based tactics to teach about sex? Sex is supposed to be a great gift from God. It’s not something to be afraid of or ashamed of. We just need a better theology of sex, even kids these days need to know what the Bible says on the topic.
We can’t avoid the topic, because some research suggests the average age of a person first viewing pornography is 12 years old. For many, the sexual part of our life can be a huge source of guilt and shame. I’ve counselled people who are still affected by sexual encounters from a decade ago. I’ve had conversations with many people whose marriages have ended because of affairs. They’ve told me how it has broken their families.
So, my big question today, what is the best way to handle the sexual dimension of our life? I want to explore the Christian view of sex and why it’s not just “Don’t do it”.
And as it turns out, there is a way to be victorious in this part of our life. No matter how tempted we are, and how much we have failed in the past, we can still please God. That’s what we learn from our Bible passage.
We are expected to put in the energy and time to mentor people- raise disciples strong in the faith. However, this is often neglected and ignored. Maybe because just like parenting; it’s so much work to raise the next generation of disciples. It can be tedious, but we have to understand it’s worth doing/role to play.
So, my big question today, what is the joy of discipleship?
1. There is joy in knowing we will share eternity with our friends
2. There is joy in seeing people grow in faith
Many Christians feel lost spiritually. They look at their relationship with God and it’s become stagnant. They don’t feel like they’re growing, and it feels like they’re just drifting with no direction.
On the other hand, there are other Christians who stay on track with God, and God is taking them places! They feel joy! They feel God’s overwhelming presence in their friendships, in their family and in their career. I believe all of us can experience God like that!
So, my big question today is: how can a Christian stay on track? That’s what our Bible passage is about today.
Our passage today tells us that if we want to stay on track spiritually, we need to make every effort to build character. It’s what matters the most! We should build character when we are alone, and we should build character with others.
Everyone has a reason to do the right thing. Some people do the right thing for practical reasons like if you want to make friends, it probably best to be kind. For other people, there’s a social pressure to do the right thing because we want people to like us.
But these motivations aren’t always fool proof because sometimes social pressure encourages people to be mean. Sometimes it feels good to do the wrong thing like getting revenge. We need a better moral compass, not based on our feelings because feelings change quite often- need something consistent
So, my big question today is: where do Christians get their moral compass from? Our Bible story teaches us that our moral compass comes from being consistently aware of God’s coming judgment (now some are uncomfortable with judgment, but we went in depth with it during our Revelation series, so check it out on our YouTube channel).
Remembering the coming judgment (that we are accountable to God) helps us commit to both fairness and generosity. That’s what we learn from our Bible passage today. Let’s read fom Job 31:13-23, here we find Job explaining why he’s committed to doing the right thing.
Every single one of us is going to one day witness a friend or family member lose someone they love. We will see people experience tragedy and suffer loss. So, my big question today, what can we do when someone is grieving?
That is what our Bible story is about today, our passage today comes from Job 2:11-13, and we’re going to see what Job’s friends did when they found Job grieving terribly.
Most Christians know about God’s devotion to us. We believe this. If we’re honest though, sometimes it doesn’t feel like he loves us. Sometimes when we ask God for help, he doesn’t help us in the ways we might expect and its frustrating.
It feels like God doesn’t care and he is doing nothing. So, my big question today is: How can we get help from God? That’s what our Bible story is about today.
Our passage today gives us two keys for finding help from God: