Exodus 17:1-7 Moses...
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Exodus 17:1-7
Moses had the most frustrating job ever. The Lord picked him to lead a large group of people on a journey to a place none of them had ever visited. The people had no experience of self-government; they'd been slaves all of their lives. But though they'd been enslaved in Egypt, at least their day-to-day lives were predictable.
Freedom and the wilderness brought new challenges, however. How do you feed and provide water for thousands of men, women, and children? Not many ministers face that task. How do you act as an intermediary between God and a huge group of folks who barely know him? Current ministers sometimes wonder whether their people really know God. Some don't know him well. Moses led a group of people, the size of which would dwarf even a modern megachurch.
Whatever the challenges we face, it's good to have some precedent for dealing with them. Our biggest problem, though, is being ready to answer the question the Israelites asked Moses, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
Exodus 17:1-7
The Amazon River is larger by monumental proportions than the rock from which Moses, with God's help, made water flow. As the largest river in the world, the Amazon drains an area two-thirds the size of the United States. At its mouth, it is ninety miles wide, and 350 feet deep.
The Amazon as the chief river in South America contains more water than the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze rivers put together.
A United States ship with nearly 1,000 people aboard was coming back from a tourist excursion. They were running out of water as they neared the end of the trip on the Amazon. They were trying to make radio contact with other ships in the area.
The pilot of a nearby ship heard their distress call, and radioed to them. "Let down your buckets. The water you are in is clean and pure much purer than the water in your home or that you might even buy in a store." At that time the flow of the river was strong and pure because water from far up river where it entered the river as pure as rainwater. At the mouth of the river the vast volume of pure water continued to flow around the ships on the river.
The Lord Jesus, the living water, surrounds us with such purity and blessing that we can "let down our buckets" and receive that which is pure and purifying.
Philippians 2:1-13
How is it possible for two people to share the same love -- let alone for an entire community to do so? For this to happen, the love would need to have some independent existence, outside their individual lives. We are so used to thinking of love as though it were a personal possession, a commodity in limited supply -- something to be jealously guarded and protected, lest we lose it. Maybe two people "in love" with each other can be said to have the same love, but often what we mean is that they have similar piles of poker chips, which they decide to dole out to each other under certain restricted conditions: "I'll give you some of mine if you give me some of yours." It boggles the mind to think of love as being distributed throughout an entire community.
Philippians 2:1-13
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us.
Talk about a big order! It's sort of like, "Be as big a football star as (name the player of the season)." Or "Be as great a musician as (name a favorite musician)."
How can you and I possibly hope to have the same mind as our Lord Jesus?
Well, we can't -- if we expect to do it all by ourselves. We can't -- but our loving heavenly Father can help us. The last verse of our Philippians passage gives us the good news:
It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure (v. 13).
God's good pleasure comes in seeing you and me growing in love toward those around us. In the previous chapter of Philippians, Paul tells us, I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ (1:6).
Philippians 2:1-13
Sherry shared with her small group how she became a Christian. At the time she had only been married two years and had a son. On the community bulletin board at the local supermarket she saw a notice about a mothers' group that met at one of the nearby churches. She thought she needed all the help she could receive raising her son. So she began attending.
At the time, Sherry did not think about church or religion. She remembers her mother always saying that people who go to church were hypocrites. Her mother would say that people got all dressed up and acted nice on Sunday morning but the rest of the week they lied, cheated, and stole.
At one of her first meetings, one of the other mothers shared her experience of a recent trip to the supermarket. When she got home she discovered that somehow she did not pay for a gallon of milk. The clerk must have missed it. The woman said she went back to the store, explained that she had not paid for the milk, opened her purse, and paid for it. The clerk could hardly believe that anyone would come back to pay for an item they were not charged for. But, the young mother explained, she knew it was the right thing to do.
It was at that moment that Sherry knew there was something real about being a Christian. There was something she had never considered, that Christians were good people. It was shortly after that Sherry gave her life to Christ and joined the church.
The apostle Paul writes, "make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind."
Philippians 2:1-13
Bill was assigned to be Debbie's mentor. For the next month, Debbie would shadow Bill at work, observing his methodology, discovering his techniques, learning his work ethic. It was commonly held that Bill had the best mind at the firm, and Debbie, who was hired out of an Ivy League school, was believed to be the one who would one day succeed him. In a sense, Debbie was learning Bill's mind so she could discover why he was so successful and thereby follow in his steps.
Paul invites us to have the same mind as Jesus, a mind that put the needs of others before his, even to the point of death.
Matthew 21:23-32
Graham Greene wrote his novella, The Third Man, and the screenplay of the same title. It was set in Vienna immediately after WWII. Vienna had the same separate zones of occupation (British, American, French, and Soviet) as did post WWII Berlin. The plot centers around the racket of military orderlies stealing penicillin and selling it. The black marketers then diluted the drug before reselling it. People receiving the diluted dose could become immune and when the weak drug was administered to children with meningitis, they died.
Greene wrote the preface to the book after the movie came out. The preface reported a London surgeon who took two friends to the movie. The two friends were much bothered by it. Immediately after the war, as military personnel, they'd sold penicillin in Vienna.
Their experience was like that of Jesus' adversaries. They saw ("heard") themselves in a story and were not pleased.
Matthew 21:23-32
One of the exciting and exhilarating things about teaching the Bible is the challenge of answering questions. My pride often factors in because I don't like to face queries I can't answer. I usually try to prepare by reading the text several times, researching it as much as possible, and then praying for wisdom.
Still, I wish I had the humility one graduate school professor demonstrated. He was possibly the most learned man under whom I ever studied. In response to many questions, he'd often say, "I hesitate to talk off the top of my head. I need to research that." He could have uttered an answer none of us in class could have challenged, but he never did.
Jesus gave us another important model. Often he tested the heart of the one who asked. He did that on this occasion. Some questions it's better not to answer, because they are trapdoors to foolishness. I pray for the wisdom to discern the difference.
Matthew 21:23-32
The following story tells of the willingness of a family to work together. The father was a chimney builder. He would stay at the high top of the chimney until the finishing touches were done by other workers. Then he would drop a rope that he used to let himself down. One day he made the crucial mistake of not keeping the end of the rope for himself. The young son raced to his mother and told her the problem, but what other than earnest agonizing prayer could she do? She knew that often you need to put feet on your prayers. She raced from the house, and yelled at her husband, high on the chimney of the house being built. Despite his experience he was bewildered and shaking dangerously with despair. "Unravel the worsted from your sock," she yelled to him. Both of them knew that the socks were made from one large thread of strong wool and that it could hold together. "Hold one end, and put some mortar on the other end to lower it," she called.
He did; the heavy worsted thread held. After lowering the thread they tied a heavier rope to it, and he pulled the heavy rope to himself. He secured the end and then was able to let himself down as was normally done, and he was safe in the arms of his wife.
The hands of Christ, Seem very frail
For they were broken by a nail.
But only they reach heaven at last
Whom those frail, broken hands hold fast.
-- John Richard Moreland ("His Hands")
Moses had the most frustrating job ever. The Lord picked him to lead a large group of people on a journey to a place none of them had ever visited. The people had no experience of self-government; they'd been slaves all of their lives. But though they'd been enslaved in Egypt, at least their day-to-day lives were predictable.
Freedom and the wilderness brought new challenges, however. How do you feed and provide water for thousands of men, women, and children? Not many ministers face that task. How do you act as an intermediary between God and a huge group of folks who barely know him? Current ministers sometimes wonder whether their people really know God. Some don't know him well. Moses led a group of people, the size of which would dwarf even a modern megachurch.
Whatever the challenges we face, it's good to have some precedent for dealing with them. Our biggest problem, though, is being ready to answer the question the Israelites asked Moses, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
Exodus 17:1-7
The Amazon River is larger by monumental proportions than the rock from which Moses, with God's help, made water flow. As the largest river in the world, the Amazon drains an area two-thirds the size of the United States. At its mouth, it is ninety miles wide, and 350 feet deep.
The Amazon as the chief river in South America contains more water than the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze rivers put together.
A United States ship with nearly 1,000 people aboard was coming back from a tourist excursion. They were running out of water as they neared the end of the trip on the Amazon. They were trying to make radio contact with other ships in the area.
The pilot of a nearby ship heard their distress call, and radioed to them. "Let down your buckets. The water you are in is clean and pure much purer than the water in your home or that you might even buy in a store." At that time the flow of the river was strong and pure because water from far up river where it entered the river as pure as rainwater. At the mouth of the river the vast volume of pure water continued to flow around the ships on the river.
The Lord Jesus, the living water, surrounds us with such purity and blessing that we can "let down our buckets" and receive that which is pure and purifying.
Philippians 2:1-13
How is it possible for two people to share the same love -- let alone for an entire community to do so? For this to happen, the love would need to have some independent existence, outside their individual lives. We are so used to thinking of love as though it were a personal possession, a commodity in limited supply -- something to be jealously guarded and protected, lest we lose it. Maybe two people "in love" with each other can be said to have the same love, but often what we mean is that they have similar piles of poker chips, which they decide to dole out to each other under certain restricted conditions: "I'll give you some of mine if you give me some of yours." It boggles the mind to think of love as being distributed throughout an entire community.
Philippians 2:1-13
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us.
Talk about a big order! It's sort of like, "Be as big a football star as (name the player of the season)." Or "Be as great a musician as (name a favorite musician)."
How can you and I possibly hope to have the same mind as our Lord Jesus?
Well, we can't -- if we expect to do it all by ourselves. We can't -- but our loving heavenly Father can help us. The last verse of our Philippians passage gives us the good news:
It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure (v. 13).
God's good pleasure comes in seeing you and me growing in love toward those around us. In the previous chapter of Philippians, Paul tells us, I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ (1:6).
Philippians 2:1-13
Sherry shared with her small group how she became a Christian. At the time she had only been married two years and had a son. On the community bulletin board at the local supermarket she saw a notice about a mothers' group that met at one of the nearby churches. She thought she needed all the help she could receive raising her son. So she began attending.
At the time, Sherry did not think about church or religion. She remembers her mother always saying that people who go to church were hypocrites. Her mother would say that people got all dressed up and acted nice on Sunday morning but the rest of the week they lied, cheated, and stole.
At one of her first meetings, one of the other mothers shared her experience of a recent trip to the supermarket. When she got home she discovered that somehow she did not pay for a gallon of milk. The clerk must have missed it. The woman said she went back to the store, explained that she had not paid for the milk, opened her purse, and paid for it. The clerk could hardly believe that anyone would come back to pay for an item they were not charged for. But, the young mother explained, she knew it was the right thing to do.
It was at that moment that Sherry knew there was something real about being a Christian. There was something she had never considered, that Christians were good people. It was shortly after that Sherry gave her life to Christ and joined the church.
The apostle Paul writes, "make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind."
Philippians 2:1-13
Bill was assigned to be Debbie's mentor. For the next month, Debbie would shadow Bill at work, observing his methodology, discovering his techniques, learning his work ethic. It was commonly held that Bill had the best mind at the firm, and Debbie, who was hired out of an Ivy League school, was believed to be the one who would one day succeed him. In a sense, Debbie was learning Bill's mind so she could discover why he was so successful and thereby follow in his steps.
Paul invites us to have the same mind as Jesus, a mind that put the needs of others before his, even to the point of death.
Matthew 21:23-32
Graham Greene wrote his novella, The Third Man, and the screenplay of the same title. It was set in Vienna immediately after WWII. Vienna had the same separate zones of occupation (British, American, French, and Soviet) as did post WWII Berlin. The plot centers around the racket of military orderlies stealing penicillin and selling it. The black marketers then diluted the drug before reselling it. People receiving the diluted dose could become immune and when the weak drug was administered to children with meningitis, they died.
Greene wrote the preface to the book after the movie came out. The preface reported a London surgeon who took two friends to the movie. The two friends were much bothered by it. Immediately after the war, as military personnel, they'd sold penicillin in Vienna.
Their experience was like that of Jesus' adversaries. They saw ("heard") themselves in a story and were not pleased.
Matthew 21:23-32
One of the exciting and exhilarating things about teaching the Bible is the challenge of answering questions. My pride often factors in because I don't like to face queries I can't answer. I usually try to prepare by reading the text several times, researching it as much as possible, and then praying for wisdom.
Still, I wish I had the humility one graduate school professor demonstrated. He was possibly the most learned man under whom I ever studied. In response to many questions, he'd often say, "I hesitate to talk off the top of my head. I need to research that." He could have uttered an answer none of us in class could have challenged, but he never did.
Jesus gave us another important model. Often he tested the heart of the one who asked. He did that on this occasion. Some questions it's better not to answer, because they are trapdoors to foolishness. I pray for the wisdom to discern the difference.
Matthew 21:23-32
The following story tells of the willingness of a family to work together. The father was a chimney builder. He would stay at the high top of the chimney until the finishing touches were done by other workers. Then he would drop a rope that he used to let himself down. One day he made the crucial mistake of not keeping the end of the rope for himself. The young son raced to his mother and told her the problem, but what other than earnest agonizing prayer could she do? She knew that often you need to put feet on your prayers. She raced from the house, and yelled at her husband, high on the chimney of the house being built. Despite his experience he was bewildered and shaking dangerously with despair. "Unravel the worsted from your sock," she yelled to him. Both of them knew that the socks were made from one large thread of strong wool and that it could hold together. "Hold one end, and put some mortar on the other end to lower it," she called.
He did; the heavy worsted thread held. After lowering the thread they tied a heavier rope to it, and he pulled the heavy rope to himself. He secured the end and then was able to let himself down as was normally done, and he was safe in the arms of his wife.
The hands of Christ, Seem very frail
For they were broken by a nail.
But only they reach heaven at last
Whom those frail, broken hands hold fast.
-- John Richard Moreland ("His Hands")
