Storyline Biblical Theology 12 - Exodus 2-4 - "The Raising of a Leader: Moses, Jesus, and You"

That video of Michael Jackson proves that he’s been in a transformation of complete freakishness. Wow, my spell-check actually accepted that word! Isn’t it freaky to watch his face morph from child to adult knowing now that he’s fathering children? Apparently, he named his first son Prince Michael, his first daughter Paris, and his second son Prince Michael II, (calls him Blanket). What a weirdo. Let’s pray for him now! Okay I’m back…do you remember when Michael held out baby “Blanket” over the 3rd story hotel balcony? His fans were freaked out!

Read Exodus 2 – 4. This is exactly the opposite of what Moses’ mother was doing three months after his birth when she hid him in a basket and floated him along the Nile River. God had her hide Moses for protection. The daughter of the King of Egypt found Moses and ended up raising him as an Egyptian prince who was mighty in word and deed (Acts 7). God was raising Moses to lead His people. When Moses was 40, he really wanted to get to know his Hebrew relatives, so he went out among the slaves. He saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Israelites and became so enraged with anger that he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When word got around and the Pharaoh found out, Moses ran away for the sake of his life.

Forty years later, while shepherding a flock, Moses looked over his shoulder and saw a bush in flames but it wasn’t being consumed. Then the bush started talking to him and calling his name? It could only be the desert heat getting to him or…God. After commanding Moses to take off his shoes because of His presence making the ground holy, God tells Moses His plan of using him to free the Israelites from Pharaoh and to escape Egypt. Moses comes back with five different excuses: “I’m not worthy. Who are you really? They won’t believe me. I’m not capable. Send someone else.” God responds with five direct promises: “I will be with you. ‘I am’ sending you. I will prove Myself. I will do it through you. I will send your brother, too.

Maybe you are reading this article and you have come up with so many excuses not to lead others to Christ because your family-life hasn’t been the “American dream” or because you feel your sinful past has you dragging too much “baggage” behind you. Wow, you may sound a lot like one of the greatest leaders of history! God is also promising you that He will give you both the passion and the ability to accomplish every good work through you (Philippians 2:13). God is calling all of us in this passage to follow Christ and to lead others to Him. Where? He tells Moses that Israel is His firstborn Son (Exodus 4:22-23). Calling someone “son” is sensitive language. I remember hearing my dad call my brother-in-law “son” for the first time. As a man, I don’t like to admit it, but it broke my heart. I grew up being my dad’s only son. Of course I understand now. But that’s not what God was doing. He was calling Israel His firstborn Son because that was His purpose for them…to bring about Christ through birth! This passage is filled with the hope of Christ, and it is pointing us to be followers of Christ and to lead others to Him. Check out the response when Moses returns to the Israelites after over 40 years of being away: they believed him, they bowed their heads, and they worshipped God (Exodus 4:29-31).

We must follow Christ toward The Promised Land just as the Israelites followed Moses to their promised land. When Jesus said to His disciples, “Come and follow Me,” they dropped what they were doing and followed Him. That is often how I picture my Christian life. I look at each decision I make and every action I take as either a step with or a step away from Christ. Thinking that really helps me visualize my walk with Jesus as a disciple. Are you reading this knowing that God has called you to both follow Christ and lead others to Him? You are called to be a leader! Reading this article right now may be many future pastors, teachers, missionaries, and ordinary people who lead others to Christ through every day conversations. Many of you who are reading are designed to be a follower. You must be careful about to Whom they are leading you. To sum it all up: Follow Christ first as you lead and follow others to Him!

Storyline Biblical Theology 11 - Exodus 1 - "Enslaved: Our need for coaching, community, and commission"

How many of y’all out there had the pleasure of having hamsters for pets when you were growing up? I see that show of hands. I remember loving to watch those little fur balls run around their cage, exercise in their wheel, and maneuver through all their tubes. I always dreamed of having a play-land that cool! Actually, I finally found something very similar to a hamster cage for adults…The St. Louis City Museum is amazing! But that’s beside the point. From what I remember, we had to get rid of our hamsters because we just couldn’t control them as they were popping new little hamster babies out at the rate of a salad shooter. If we didn’t act fast enough, they’d take over our home and eventually the world! Okay, that was a tad extreme.

Something strangely similar is playing out in Exodus 1. Remember, through a series of God-ordained events, Joseph was taken to Egypt and rose to power under the Pharaoh, so Jacob with his family moved to Egypt to avoid starving from the famine. In Exodus 1, we see how God is faithful to both His commands and His covenant (1:1-7). In Genesis 1, God commands Adam to be fruitful and multiply, and as early as Genesis 12 God makes a covenant with Abraham promising to make him into a great nation with a great land and bless him. Exodus 1 is a fulfillment of God being faithful to accomplish His command and fulfill His covenant promises. We must remember this: whatever God commands, we can accomplish through Him (Phil 2:13). Whatever God promises, He will be faithful to accomplish it!

Also strangely similar to the hamsters, the Israelites are getting so numerous from their fruitful multiplication that the Egyptians fear their strength. The new Pharaoh in power didn’t have the same relationship with Joseph as the last, so he decides to make all of Israel slaves to Egypt since he felt they were a threat if war came (1:8-14). Exodus is an accurate historical book with true stories. I believe that God ordained all of these events to bring about Christ through His people and to give us physical pictures of spiritual realities. Such as: just as Pharaoh enslaves Israel, Satan seeks to enslave God’s people in sin because he feels threatened. He is the evil power behind all of this. The Pharaoh then commands the Egyptian midwives to murder all the sons born to the Hebrew children, but out of their fear of God the midwives don’t obey the Pharaoh. So the Pharaoh steps it up a notch and commands all his people to cast every born Hebrew son into the Nile river (1:15-22). Isn’t this strangely familiar to the time of Christ’s birth when Herod ordered a similar command? Why? Behind the scenes you have Satan ultimately wanting to destroy Jesus, his greatest threat. Because we as Christians are in Christ, we must be prepared and expect Satan to seek to enslave and ultimately try to destroy our lives through sin because he desperately desires to steal the glory of Jesus Christ for himself.

This is a very special message in a special service for our student ministry because we are unveiling our new website (www.cbsm.net) which explains why we do what we do. In all of Exodus we will see God using Moses to lead and teach the Israelites, forming the Israelites into a covenant-community with each other, and charging them to be on a mission…His mission. Likewise, our new pastor has given our church a focused direction of coaching, community, and commission which our student ministry has also adopted. These three essential elements of every Christian’s involvement in church protect him from the slavery and destruction of sin. “Coaching”: Our Wednesday night worship service is designed to coach students to worship Christ through our student-led praise band and preaching through the stories of the Bible. “Community”: Our Sunday school is designed to grow students in their faith of Jesus Christ through the teaching of biblical truths and small group discussions with other students. “Commission”: Our Sunday night ministry teams are designed to give opportunities and train students to better serve their church, their community, and the world just as Jesus has called us to do. I pray that our churches will grow like the unstoppable and fruitful force of... hamsters!

Storyline Biblical Theology 10 - Genesis 35-50 - "Now and Later: How Suffering Brings Glory"

Have you ever seen an episode of “Veggie Tales”? I heard one of my favorite preachers tell about an episode designed to teach children about Christian suffering. He explained the one where the deliriously-happy veggies come up against the gruesome garlic demon, Beelze-bulb and his henchmen, the Ginsu Warriors. When asked to renounce their faith in Jesus, the vegetables shook their heads and sang together “No, We are His Cheeseburgers.” Then the Ginsu Warriors sliced and diced the vegetables, as the episode ended with a cold-stiff-dead Larry the Cucumber lying lifelessly in a jar of vinegar reeking with the stench of the pickling process and Bob the Tomato splattered against a wall with only the remains of his seeds and ketchup. You’re right; you’ve never heard of this episode because Christian shows for children don’t deal with real suffering. They merely deal with moral truths such as how to have faith that God will work everything out to be good and how to be nice to everyone. Suffering is the silent subject.

In Genesis 35 – 50, God records the life of Joseph as it was filled with unjust suffering. Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, is the favorite son (out of 11 others) of Jacob from his favorite wife Rachel. In a deep sleep, God gave Joseph dreams that his family would bow down to him someday. The burning jealousy of his older brothers led them to throw him in a hole with no water, to fake his death, and to sell him to a traveling band of Midianites for 20 pieces of silver. The nomads turned around and sold Joseph to Egypt where he served in the household of Potiphar who was one of the Egyptian empire’s most powerful men. God blessed Joseph with success, and that caught the wandering eye of Potiphar’s wife. She wanted a piece of the hot-Hebrew-hunk, but all she came away with was his coat as Joseph ran from her advances. He was punished by being thrown behind bars for sin he did not commit. In prison, God used him to interpret dreams of fellow inmates which God sovereignly used as his ticket out. Pharaoh woke up in a cold-sweat from a troubling dream, and Joseph was the only one around who could interpret it correctly. Pharaoh was so appreciative of Joseph saving the future of Egypt from the coming famine (theme of his dream) that he exalted Joseph as the highest ruler in the land, just under himself of course. This is a story of not only suffering to glory, but of suffering for glory.

The Spirit of God has recorded Joseph’s story to prepare His OT people for Jesus and to point His NT people (us) to Jesus. Like Joseph, but even more so, Jesus is hated by one of His own “brothers” who sells Him out for pieces of silver. He then is severely punished for sin that He did not commit, but His willingness to go through the suffering ordained by God was rewarded with a position of ruling over a kingdom. This time not merely the Egyptian Empire, but the entire created order: the cosmos. As we are in Christ, our story is the same. Peter says that Christians will suffer for doing right (1 Peter 3:14). This Christian life will be filled with suffering more so than glory. But our suffering now will bring glory later. If we are willing to suffer for the name of Jesus now, we will rule and reign with him for all eternity (2 Tim 2:12).

I want a heart like Paul who said that his ultimate desire is to, “know [Christ] and the power of His resurrection, and share in His sufferings.” We hear a lot of talk about relationship with Jesus today, but doesn’t it normally just sound like another friendship? Shouldn’t our relationship with Christ be one as a faithful patriot to a Kingdom, a servant to a King? The more we are willing to live for Christ with a willingness to suffer for Him, the more we deeply fellowship with Him. Because we are living in a sin-cursed, Satan-ruled world, Christians will especially endure suffering because we are the threat. In our suffering, we can’t forget Joseph’s words of faith saying that whatever is meant for our harm, God will use for His good (Gen 50:20). Whatever happens in the life of a believer works towards his or her good, and the good of God is that we might fellowship with Christ by being transformed into His glorious likeness as He was through faithful suffering. So even if you never turn into ketchup for Christ, be willing!