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God calls and commissions

February 19, 2017 Speaker: Gary Series: Exodus: freed to be God's people

Scripture: Exodus 3:1–22

Freed to be God’s people: a study of Exodus
God calls and commissions – outline
Exodus 3:1-22
God calls and commissions Moses to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt

1) God reveals himself to Moses and calls him to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, 3:1-12.
How does Moses’ 40 years as a shepherd in Midian prepare him for leading Israel in the desert wilderness? How might God use for good times that we are not where we wanted to be in life?
How does God appearing in a fiery form picture his holiness? The word “holy” means “set apart; separate from, in what ways is God holy? This is the first time in Scripture God explicitly reveals himself as holy. What might this indicate about his purposes for Moses and for the people of Israel? In light of Hebrews 12:28-29, how is God’s fiery holiness to motivate us?
How do verses 7-8 encourage God’s people to trust in him in their suffering? How does v.8 picture what Jesus did for us?
What is good about Moses’ response to God’s purpose to send him to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt? How is this different than Moses’ earlier attempt to be Israel’s deliverer? How does God answer Moses? How might we apply this interaction between God and Moses to our sense of inadequacy about making disciples for Jesus? We’ll see that the “sign” that God has sent Moses wasn’t convincing enough for Moses. Why do you think he wants more than this?

2) God reveals his name, “I am” to Moses, 3:13-15.
God’s proper name, which he says in v. 15 is Yahweh (or, “Jehovah,” we don’t know what the exact pronunciation was; in most English translations it is translated “LORD” with all caps), is the noun form of the verb “I am.” What might God be communicating about himself by calling himself “I am,” or by saying of himself “I am who I am”?
What does the fact that God attaches his name to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and says this is his name forever, mean for his keeping his covenant for Israel? What does it mean for the identity of the people of Israel? How do we understand Jesus’ claim in John 8:58 (see 8:53-59)?
God’s deliverance of Israel would free them out of their identity as slaves in Egypt and into their identity as the people of Yahweh, the God who is eternal and self-existent. So Jesus’ saving of us frees us out of our fleeting world-enslaving identities into our identity as those who belong to Christ. What are some of the default “identities” we live out of? How do we keep growing into and living out of our identity in Christ?

3) God commissions Moses with what to say to the elders of Israel and to Pharaoh, 3:16-22.
What ways should Moses be encouraged by what God commissions him to say and by what God says will happen when he does what God is sending him to do?

More in Exodus: freed to be God's people

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January 14, 2018

Changed by the presence of God

January 7, 2018

God's steadfast covenant love