In The Beginning, Week of February 14, 2016 LEADER GUIDE

Transcription

1 H E HIGHLIGHT Exodus 3:1-15 (HCSB) Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 Then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought: I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn t the bush burning up? 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, Moses, Moses! Here I am, he answered. 5 Do not come closer, He said. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 6 Then He continued, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, I have observed the misery of My people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I know about their sufferings. 8 I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey the territory of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 The Israelites cry for help has come to Me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 Therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. 11 But Moses asked God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt? 12 He answered, I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain. 13 Then Moses asked God, If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is His name? what should I tell them? 14 God replied to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. 15 God also said to Moses, Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation. 1 of 5

2 E EXPLAIN At Long Hollow, we want to equip every single person, no matter how young or old they are, to be able to read the Word of God on their own in such a way that they can hear Him speak. In the Explain section of the H.E.A.R. method, we will provide you with some tools to be able to examine the text in such a way that it is personal and immediately applicable to your life. Many years after Joseph died, after he and his family and the faithfulness of his God were forgotten, the Israelites became enslaved by the Egyptians. After the king called for the death of all Israelite newborns, Moses parents hid him in some reeds, where he was discovered by Pharaoh s daughter. He lived for forty years in Pharaoh s house before being exiled to the desert to live with his people, where he lived for forty more years. From there, he would lead God s people out of their captivity and get them to the border of the land that God promised them. v.1: Whenever a shepherd is mentioned in the Old Testament, we should immediately be looking for a way that this shepherd will relate to Christ, who calls Himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). This shepherd will either be an example of a bad one or a good one, both of which highlight some characteristic of who Jesus is. v.2: The Angel of the Lord is different than An angel of the Lord. We see The Angel of the Lord in Isaiah 63:9, where this Angel suffers for His children and saves them; Genesis 32:24, where this Angel wrestled with Jacob; Genesis 48:16, where this Angel redeemed Jacob from evil; 1 Corinthians 10:4, where this Angel guided the Israelites through the desert. v.4: There are two names for God that are found throughout Scripture (among many other titles): Yahweh and Elohim. Yahweh is traditionally translated (especially throughout the HCSB) Lord and Elohim is traditionally translated God. The Hebrew for this verse reads, When Yahweh saw..elohim called. This may help when answering the Apply question for verse 4. v.6: Moses fear before God is hardly unique. We see the danger of human contact with God elsewhere, like in Genesis 19:21-24, Judges 13:20-23, Isaiah 6:5, Acts 9:3-9, 1 Timothy 6:15-16, and Revelation 19: v.7, v.9. When God says, I have observed, the Hebrew records it as I have surely seen. The verb and tense used do not mean simply I just now saw, it implies continual observation: watching closely for the entire duration of the events that He is saying He has observed. 2 of 5

3 A APPLY Your Leader Guide will have material that the member guides do not have. The bolded material is what the people in your group will have, the other material is only for you to help guide discussion. 1. Look carefully at Who is in the burning bush. (v.2) Is this who you've always thought it was? Is there anything surprising about who speaks at the end of verse 4? Would the verse mean something different if it said an angel of the Lord? Notice that verse 2 reveals that the One in the burning bush is the Angel of the Lord. Whenever this term is used in the Old Testament, it is the writers' way of signifying that this is more than just an angel. Consider this: if this Angel is in the bush and God is speaking out of it, we can assume that God and this Angel are connected in more than just a God sent me to tell you this way. Do we know anybody who is described as the Word of God, Himself? 2. What are the first words that Moses hears God speak? What does that tell us about God? He hears his name. The Creator of the entire universe, who set galaxies into motion, planets into orbit, and cellular mitosis into balance, has spoken for the very first time to this stuttering shepherd in the desert and has addressed him by name. Our God is an intensely personal God, who knows us more intricately than we can imagine. 3. In verses 7-10, God reveals that He is aware of four things regarding His people. He also gives four details about His plan to rescue them. What are those things? What do these eight things say about God s plan in our lives? God understands His people s affliction (v.7), He hears His people s cry (v.7, v.9), He feels His people s suffering (v.7), and He sees His people s oppression (v.9). He reveals that He will deliver them from the power of the Egyptians (v.8), that He will bring them to a bountiful land that they will inherit (v.8), that He will send Moses to speak to Pharaoh (v.10), and that Moses will lead them out of Egypt (v. 10). Remember, no matter how horrid your affliction, that God sees it and has a plan to rescue you through Christ. 3 of 5

4 4. Did God give Moses a time frame for when this plan would be completed? No, He did not. Moses was an eighty-year-old shepherd standing barefoot in the desert who now knew the plot of what is to come, but he had no way of knowing when it was going to happen. It probably felt like forever away. We can often feel the same way. It doesn t make the reality of God s redemptive plan any less real, though. 5. What was Moses' first question to God? What does he mean by this? How does God answer that question? His first question is, Who am I...? He's asking how a nobody like him would be able to pull off a stunt like the one God is describing. God answers this by telling him that Moses by himself may be nothing, but he'll have the power of God behind him. Furthermore, look at the name God gives Himself. Notice how that Name is, itself, an answer: You may not be; I Am. It may be useful to ask someone in your group at this time to share a story of a time when God asked them to do something that they didn t feel equipped for. Have they made a difficult move? Have they gone on a particularly challenging mission trip? 6. Why is God's name, I AM, special? God's name, in Hebrew, is Yahweh. The name that He gives here is clearly intended to be an interpretation of that name, which contains the verb to be. When God tells Moses to say that I AM (Eyeh in Hebrew) sent him, He is literally spelling out Who it was: this is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom the Israelites will know. I AM contains in it all forms of to be. It literally means, I was, I am, I am forevermore. There is no beginning to I Am, just as there is no end to I Am. He forever is. Amen. 7. Did knowing God s plan answer all of Moses' questions? Will we ever get all of our questions answered? How can we live with that? Emphatically, no. The more questions God answers in this chapter, the more questions Moses has about it. We ask God for answers all the time, but it is not our place to know the answers to everything. We could never know the answers to everything. It is our place to say, as Moses did, Here I am, and as Isaiah will in Isaiah 6:8, Send me. 4 of 5

5 These questions are structured to funnel your group s discussion towards an application. They are designed to help you discuss deeper takeaways from the text. 8. How would you describe the everyday life of someone who fully trusts God to have a plan for them? 9.Have you ever known anybody who displays these characteristics? Tell about an instance when you interacted with that person and how their trust in God was evident. 10.What is one area of your life that you need to turn over entirely to God this week? R RESPOND Take two minutes to pray over your response to Question 10. Based on your time spent in prayer and on the truth you have learned from God s word, write down your answer somewhere you will remember to see it this week. Encourage one another through , text messages, or coffee dates throughout the week to build up and encourage each other. 5 of 5