Exodus 14
Theme: Our theme for this week is “the Red Sea”. Moses at this point has led God’s people out of slavery from Egypt. As they begin their journey in the wilderness the people begin to lose focus on God and grumble and complain. We look at this situation a lot of times and wonder how the people of God can forget so easily, yet we do the same in our own lives. This story reminds us to keep focus on God’s saving work in our lives so we do not become a people that forget, but a people that remembers and glorifies God for who he is and what he has done.
Major Points:
(The deliverance of God) We know from last week the people of God were enslaved to Egypt & this is a picture of us being enslaved to sin. God’s solution to this was to send Moses (who is a picture of the coming savior Jesus) to deliver his people from bondage. These people were born into slavery just as we were born into sin. Our identity is usually tied to our slavery, meaning it begins to define who we are and how we live. That becomes a problem because it robs us of the life God intended for us to live. We were called to be a people that worship God and make his name known. Luckily for us (and the Israelites) God has grace and mercy and sends a savior to deliver us from the hands of slavery, and apart from that savior we can’t do it alone. The Israelites couldn’t free themselves from slavery any more than we can free oursleves from sin: it takes the hand of God to deliver.
(The forgetfulness of man) As God’s people are led through the wilderness they begin to face struggles and immediately take their eyes off of God and what he has done for them. They were two months out of slavery and they began to grumble and say you should have just left us in Egypt, at least we had food and water there! This is a picture of the human heart, we are a forgetful people of what God has done in our lives. Our sin causes us to take our eyes off of God and put them on ourselves. We become selfish and stop looking at ourselves as the person God wants us to be, and start looking back to who we used to be. We see the old life as easier and we fall into despair. Apart from God we live in a mirage thinking the sin of our old lives will fulfill us deeper than God can.
(The only way forward) We have to get our eyes off of our: sin, self, and circumstances. If we continue to look to these three things life will always seem empty. We focus in on these things and don’t realize they will never offer satisfaction & will only suck out the joy in your life. It’s no different than the Israelites looking back to Egypt as if that was a better alternative for their life. We have to start looking to Christ and the place he’s brought us to now, a relationship with God.
We have to know three things to move forward:
Know what He’s done: Split the sea and made a way
Know who you’ve become: from slaves to saints
Know how to live: walk in the identity God’s given you
Question Bank:
How has your week been spiritually? / What is God teaching you?
What sins are you struggling with that you need to confess?
What are the things God has delivered you from?
How could you have gotten free from those things without God’s help?
What has God delivered you into?
How do you show signs of forgetting what God has done in your life?
What are your eyes fixed on from your old life that God is calling you to move past?
How can you remind yourself daily of the deliverance God has given you?
How do you plan to live out the three ways we move forward (listed above) this week?