EXODUS: The God Who Sees
Pastor Brian Schafer
September 29, 2024
We think we need so much, but what we actually need is God’s Presence.
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Exodus 3:1-2
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.
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Take your own notes here…
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Every major movement of God begins
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Exodus 3:2-4
Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
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“You must ruthlessly eliminate HURRY from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day.” - Dallas Willard
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“Silence and stillness is an act of war against the competing voices around us and within us.” - Henri Nouwen
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How crowded or noisy do you feel like your life has become?
ACTION ITEM: This week, begin each day in stillness and silence before God: “Come, Holy Spirit, I need you.” Then, end each day in stillness and silence before God: “God, I give you all my mistakes and shortcomings from today. Help me to rest in YOU.”
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“We are blind to the bush that is burning in our own backyard, and the wisdom that is contained within it. We long for a word from the Lord, but somehow we have been suckered into believing that the pace we keep is what life requires. We slide into a way of life that offers little or no opportunity for paying attention and then wonder why we are not hearing from God when we need God most.” - Ruth Haley Barton
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Take your own notes here…
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Exodus 3:5-6
“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then God said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”
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3 observations: (1) God is HOLY. (2) God is showing us that He is a relational God. (3) God speaks a lot more than Moses speaks.
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PRAYER =
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Take your own notes here…
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Exodus 3:7-8
The Lord said, “I have indeed SEEN the misery of my people in Egypt. I have HEARD them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am CONCERNED about their suffering. So I have come down to RESCUE them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
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He is the God who
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PRAYER CARD: Use this space to write out your burdens to the Lord. This is your prayer.
If you would like to let our prayer team or pastors know your prayer need, then CLICK HERE for the Connect Card, and let us know. We are a church who lifts our burdens together to the Lord in prayer!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
(1) Read Exodus 3:1-4. This is an iconic biblical scene, but how “ordinary” do you think this would have appeared if you were simply standing at a distance observing Moses before the burning bush?
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(2) Why do you think it took 40 years in the wilderness before Moses had this encounter with God at the burning bush? Read verse 4 again. What do you think is significant about God waiting until He noticed that Moses was walking towards the bush before he called out to Moses?
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(3) In the message, we said that “listening to God is what turns prayer from a monologue into a dialogue.” What percentage of your time in prayer is spent talking to God, and what percentage is spent listening to God? Compare that to Moses’ dialogue with God in Exodus 3-4. How can you make space for listening to God?
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(4) What did you think about the example of the Art Exhibit in which people were simply sitting before each other (no words, no other agenda) and just being seen by each other? What would it look like to sit before God and say, “Who am I, Lord?” (See 2 Samuel 7:18 for an example of this).
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(5) The Action Item for this week is to simply begin and end each day in silence and stillness before God. Is this something you hope to commit to? If you’ve already been doing that, what has been your experience so far?
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(6) Pray together.