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As we start a new year, it’s a great time to reflect on improvements we can make, which is the subject of today’s scripture passage from Isaiah 43:18-19:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”

God spoke these words to the Israelites during a period of enslavement in Babylon. The formerly strong and proud nation was sad and bitter about being held captive, but God wanted them to focus on where He was moving and what He had in store for them.

God loves His chosen people and all of His actions are designed for their long-term best interest, even allowing them to be enslaved. He wants them to remember to focus their hearts and minds on Him always. So to help them get into the right frame of mind and prepare themselves for what was to come, He tells them to quit yearning for the “old days” and stop feeling sorry for themselves. Only then can they focus on His plans for them.

There are definitely times when I focus too much on things of the past. Maybe it’s a mistake I made or an opportunity I missed. But God doesn’t want me to obsess over these experiences any more than He wanted the Israelites to do so. I believe He wants me to ask one critical question about every experience and every situation – how can this experience or situation help me become a better person and be more useful to God?

If we look at everything through this lens, the meaning of each experience takes on a new and exciting complexity. During difficult times, instead of asking “why is this happening TO me?” maybe we should say “This is happening FOR me for a reason and I can’t wait to see where God is moving in this experience.”

Challenging times will still be difficult, but we’ll worry less and experience far less anxiety when we turn our hearts and minds toward seeing where God is making a way in the wilderness of our lives.

Questions:

1. Do you agree that the primary thing we should ask in all situations is how our experiences can make us more useful to God?
2. How would you explain what it means to be more useful to God?
3. Can you think of an experience that was difficult at the time but helped you become a better person and more useful to God?
4. What are some benefits of viewing every experience through the lens of what God has in store for us?

It is always good to be thankful and express gratitude, but this is especially true with Thanksgiving coming up next week. Today, we’re going to look at gratitude from a different angle and we’ll start with our verse, which is from James 1:2-4:

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This phrasing is odd (why should we celebrate failures and tough times?), but James gets right to the point and explains his reasoning. Trials lead to perseverance, which leads to maturity & completeness. This maturity & completeness is then more useful to God, which is the goal.

Thankfulness is typically associated with something positive like good health, financial success, or receiving a gift. If we were to document our gratitude list, trials and difficulties wouldn’t be near the top for most of us.

But let’s look at it from the other side. Think about one of the most challenging times in your life. Maybe it was a death, a job loss, or a financial loss. Now think about some of the positive outcomes of that situation. Your initial thought might be that there were no positive outcomes but think about it and see if you can come up with anything. Maybe a job loss led you to a better job, or a mistake you made in a relationship led you to treat others with more kindness and respect. Or maybe a certain challenge you faced gave you more empathy and compassion so you could be better prepared to serve as the hands and feet of God.

Note that James did not say only be thankful for the “bad” things. His point is that we should be thankful for all things and not just those that appear positive on the surface.

Questions:

1. Does it seem odd to rejoice when you face trials and difficulties in life?
2. Are any of your trials close to the top of your gratitude list? If not, should they be?
3. If you are comfortable sharing with the group, what is an example of a trial or challenge you faced that turned out to be positive?
4. If you started viewing trials and failures as positive outcomes, would you be more or less likely to take risks? If more likely, what is a risk you might take?
5. Before taking a particular risk, how would you engage God in the process?

Last week, part of our discussion centered on where to find God moving in our lives and today we’ll talk about something we can do to reveal His presence.

Our lesson today covers the story of Gideon vs. the Midianites in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Judges. But before we get into that message, remember that the Old Testament follows the same storyline over and over again:

1. God makes a promise to protect and prosper His people if they follow His instructions
2. The people fail to follow Him and fall into sin
3. God allows them to suffer challenging times
4. The people cry out to God for relief
5. God saves them, often by facilitating a huge military victory
6. The people are thankful and can live in peace & prosperity for some period
7. Then the people fail again and the cycle starts again at #2 above

As an example, the very last verse of Judges 5 says, “Then the land had peace forty years.” Then the very next sentence, which is the first verse of Judges 6 says “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.”

After seven years, we see that Gideon (in Judges 6:13) cries out to God and asks why He abandoned Israel. God tells Gideon that He is sending him to save Israel from Midian. This confused Gideon and he asked, “Pardon me, my lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” Even with God’s assurance, Gideon was still nervous since he only had 32,000 warriors to fight 120,000 Midianites. Then God said:

Even though the Midianites outnumbered the Israelites 4-1, God instructed Gideon to reduce the number of troops down to 300. Although he was nervous, Gideon obeyed and led his 300 soldiers into battle, winning a decisive victory over 120,000 Midianites. In giving them this victory, God showed He was in control. As a result, the Israelites lifted His name up and gave Him the glory.

So how should we apply this lesson to our lives in 2021? Some of you are already a step ahead and thinking about areas in which you need to cry out to God and ask for miraculous victories. Here are some questions to explore that idea further.

1. Who started the conversation that ultimately led to the decisive victory over the Midianites? Does this provide an example of how God wants us to engage Him?
2. Think about how Gideon first approached God in today’s story. Did it sound more like whining or like demonstrating faith in God? Or both?
3. If you knew you were guaranteed to succeed, what victories or accomplishments would you pursue? Have you approached God to help achieve any of these victories?
4. Why do you think God reduced Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 300 before the battle began?
5. How would you summarize the main points of today’s lesson?

Is the Sabbath still relevant in 2021? No doubt the answer is ‘yes’, but possibly not for the reason you might think.  Our passage for today’s lesson is from Exodus 20:8-11:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Two of the primary messages God shared with Moses in the first five books of the Bible were:

1. You shall have no other gods before me and
2. Keep the sabbath holy

I mention these two together because I believe the sabbath is a sub-set of having no other gods (with a little “g”) which we’ll cover below. But first, what do you believe is God’s primary purpose in prioritizing the sabbath so highly? [pause a few seconds to think about it]. The most common answer is that our bodies and minds need rest, and while that is true, I believe rest is not the primary or direct reason God created the sabbath.

After reading through the Bible multiple times and studying it for many years, I’ve come to the conclusion (as mentioned in a previous lesson) that we can summarize the Bible in one sentence……The Bible is the story of God pursuing us. And that’s really all it is.

I mentioned that last point to emphasize that God knows how easily we get distracted and that we need frequent reminders of important messages. So while, yes, we need rest, what we need more is to remember that God provides all blessings and that when we remember Him and rely on Him, He will give us exactly what we need. When we rest on the sabbath, we are telling God that we refuse to worship the “god” that our work can so easily become if we let it. And, in doing so, our minds turn to the one true God, which brings a smile to His face.

Questions:

1. Do you agree with the idea that the sabbath is more about remembering and trusting God than about resting?
2. Did your views of the sabbath change after reading today’s lesson? Why or why not?
3. Have you ever consistently and intentionally observed the Sabbath? What effect did it have on your life and wellbeing?
4. Do you think it is acceptable to do yardwork (or similar work) on the sabbath?  That is, should we try to avoid all work or is the primary focus of the sabbath to take a break from our profession/career?
5. Are there any changes you would like to make based on today’s lesson?

Today’s verse is from Matthew 6:33 which says:

But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Jesus is preaching in this passage about anxiety and worry.  Like any good parent, God does not want us to worry and we are told here that if we seek His Kingdom first, everything we need will be provided to us.  In fact, in the prior verse it says our Heavenly Father already knows what we need.

And when I think about seeking first the Kingdom of God, the first thing that comes to my mind is to start with love.  When we love God by praying, meditating on His Word, and loving to our neighbors, we are seeking the Kingdom of God.

As with most of our lessons, it sounds simple on the surface but is often difficult to put it into practice.  As I’m writing this in mid-2021, one of the biggest challenges to seeking first the Kingdom of God is the extreme disunity in our society.  It seems like every news outlet focuses more on identity politics than on the actual news of the day.  And it goes way beyond the news.  We see many schools, businesses, and places of worship actively participating in the victim/perpetrator dialogue.

The point of this post is definitely not to get political but when politics materially interferes with our ability to love our neighbor, then it needs to be addressed directly.  God did not put us here to fight each other but instead to love each other and grow in unity, just like any parent would wish for their children.  God hates disunity and wants us to grow closer with everyone around us.

So what is the answer?  Many times we think of these challenges in binary terms – for example, in this case, we might think that we need to either ignore it or fight back but I would suggest that neither of those is the necessarily the right answer.  I believe the answer is to refuse to play the game and choose a third option which starts with love. 

If someone brings up a heated political topic, maybe consider saying something like “All I know is that God wants us to love each other and I personally haven’t experienced discussions about [that topic] drawing people closer.”  That’s different than ignoring it because you are acknowledging the toxic nature of the topic and bringing God into the discussion.

That may not be effective in every situation but the broader point we can take away from today’s lesson is that we can more effectively seek the Kingdom of God when we are not focused on identity politics or other distractions of the day.

Questions:

1. When you hear the words, “seek first the Kingdom of God”, what does that mean to you?
2. Do you believe that if we seek first the Kingdom of God that we’ll have less stress and worry in our lives?  If so, why?
3. Do you think the “third option” mentioned above would be an effective approach? Why or why not?
4. What other strategies can you think of to help us focus more on seeking first the Kingdom of God?

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul tells us that Love does not envy.  The Greek word translated “envy” means “to burn with zeal” which implies boiling over with envy, hatred, or anger. In the context of 1 Corinthians 13, the idea is that love does not focus on personal desires. It is not eager to increase possessions. God’s type of love is selfless, not selfish.

Envy is the opposite of God’s command not to covet (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21) but most of us still struggle with envying other people’s stuff.  That brings us to our verse for the day which is from Proverbs 14:30:

Envy rots the bones.

Although envy does not cause destruction immediately like acid, over time it weakens us from the inside.  Envy is such a powerful force that it can literally cause physical illness and here is one way that might happen:

1. I really like that person’s car and I feel inadequate since I don’t have one
2. I need to work harder in order to make more $$ so I can buy one of those cars too
3. I would like to be home for dinner tonight but I’m working late again
4. My wife has lost respect for me because I don’t help out much with the kids
5. I missed most of my kid’s games this season
6. I’m really stressed from working long hours and dealing with the strain on our family; my anxiety level is through the roof and I’m not sleeping well
7. I finally made enough $$ to afford that car but it didn’t give me any more joy and my family thinks I might just love that car more than them which causes me even more stress.

In this over-simplified but very common example, envy is at the root of the problem.

When we envy what others have, we are saying to God that we are not grateful for the blessings He has given us.  What if you gave one of your kids something nice but instead of thanking you they instead only talked about wanting something someone else has?  That is how God feels about us when we are envious.

So in addition to potentially threatening our physical health, envy can separate us from God and leave us even more empty than we would be otherwise. 

Most of us will still struggle with envy when we leave here today but maybe if we work on recognizing it and talking through some strategies, we can start to limit the destructive power of envy in our lives.

Questions:

1. Do you think people today struggle with envy more or less than the people who were alive thousands of years ago when today’s verse was written?
2. Do you agree that envy can cause us to become physically ill?
3. Why do you think God hates envy so much?
4. What are some strategies we can use to help reduce envy?
5. If we can reduce envy, what are some of the positive effects it might have on our lives?

The concept of patience seems so simple on the surface.  All we have to do is maintain our composure at all times and not lose our temper.  Simple, right?  Of course not or it wouldn’t be such a problem for so many of us.  That brings us to our verse for the day from Proverbs 15:18 which says:

A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

For me, the thought of a hot-tempered person brings two things to mind – pain and humility.  Pain in the short term and humility in the long term.  Eventually, even the most hot-tempered person gets tired of the pain & drama and learns that being slow to anger will result in a much happier life.

So today we are going to talk about reducing or even avoiding future damage caused by impatience as well as beginning to heal past wounds.

Losing our temper is typically triggered by something that is 1) unexpected and 2) stressful.  Notice that I used the word “unexpected” not “unpredictable” because things that cause us to lose our temper are typically very predictable.  So the first step in managing our temper is to use the following three step process:

1. Understand the things that trigger a hot-tempered response
2. Acknowledge that these triggering events are going to happen
3. Have a proactive action plan to help choose our response when the triggering event occurs

Of course, this won’t make us perfectly patient but it may help.

The second condition that contributes to impatience is being completely stressed out.  So today’s second action item is to try to de-stress.  Of course, if you are already stressed out, the thought of adding another item to the list like meditation or exercise might increase stress even more.

So, as we’ve talked about before, the answer might be to identify things you can eliminate from your life in order to start doing new things.  We’ve used the example in the past that if you want to move new furniture into a room, you have to move the old furniture out first.

The final action item for today is to pray about it.  And when you pray, just talk to God like He’s right there with you having a conversation.  Tell him that you hate it when you lose your temper and that you want to get better.  Ask him to help you clear even a small amount of time on your calendar so you can start on your de-stress plan, which is also a more God-focused plan.

Blessings this week as you work toward becoming more patient.  Here are a few questions for discussion:

1. If we know that being hot-tempered stirs up strife, why do we still struggle so much with impatience at times?
2. Do you agree that the three step plan above (understanding, acknowledging, and proactively planning) is an effective strategy?  Or is that too simple?
3. Do you believe that praying to God will help us be more patient?
4. It says above that a de-stress plan is also a more God-focused plan.  Do you agree that those two things are related and if so why?
5. What is one action item that might help you be more patient this week?

What if you had so much debt that it was keeping you awake at night worrying about it?  It would be bearing down on you with the weight of the world, causing extreme anxiety and threating every aspect of your health.  Every one of your relationships would suffer and you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on your work.  In short, picture your entire world falling apart because of excessive debt.

Now, in the midst of that struggle when things seem to be at their worst and you think there is no way you can bear the weight, imagine that someone offers to forgive all of your debts and the only thing you have to do is accept their gift and return their love by loving them and loving others. 

You’ve probably figured out by now that the debt we’re talking about is not a financial obligation but the debt owed for our sinfulness.  And Easter is the time when we celebrate Jesus’ final victory over sin and death on our behalf.

But, because of how difficult it is for us to even think about it, we don’t frequently spend a lot of time on the tortuous pain Jesus had to endure on our behalf.  It was a gruesome death and a burden so heavy that even Jesus himself asked for it to be taken from him, which is referenced in our verse for the day from Luke 22:42:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

It was far, far more than just the physical pain that caused Jesus to make that request.  The true suffering came because Jesus literally became the physical embodiment of our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21).  All of the collective sin of all time was wrapped up the human form of Jesus at that moment and when he died, so did the debt owed in relation to that sin.  That’s what is meant when it is said that “Jesus died for our sins”.

The cup Jesus asked to be taken from him was “the cup of wrath” which is explained in the article linked here.  The “wrath” referenced here is the unimaginably massive amount of anger that God justifiably had (past tense) in relation to all collective sin from all time. 

To give you a sense of just how massive that would be, think about a time when you really lost your temper.  Your blood pressure was probably sky high and you may have been so mad that you couldn’t see straight.  Now multiply that intensity by all of the times in your life that you’ve lost your temper and then multiply it again by all of the people in the world who have ever lived and who ever will live.  That’s already a truly unimaginable amount of wrath but it pales in comparison to God’s wrath at all of our collective sin, which is many times more than that. 

But even in the face of such an enormous burden, Jesus still said “yet not my will, but Yours” and He died to take that wrath on Himself.  He loves us so deeply that the pain of being separated from us was far worse than the pain He endured by drinking the cup of wrath.  Blessed, blessed be the name of the Lord!

Questions:

1)      Have you ever paid off a financial debt that had been burdening you for a long time?  How did that make you feel?

2)      Although the debt that Jesus paid on our behalf was not financial in nature, do you think the idea of paying off a debt is an effective analogy for what He did for us?

3)      Even though Jesus’ love for us is incomprehensible and difficult to put into words, how would you describe it?

4)      How would you compare God’s love for us with a parent’s love for their child?

5)      What is one thing you might do this Easter weekend to honor the gift of eternal life we were given through Jesus’ sacrifice?

Last week we talked about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us so that we could have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also talked about the idea that, in exchange for His sacrifice, we are called to live with our whole heart for Jesus and that whole-heart living includes more prayer, Bible reading and loving those around us.

Another idea that does not get a lot of attention is the sabbath but, as we approach Easter in two weeks, one simple thing we may be able to do for God is to try making Sundays a true day of rest. God wants us to reserve this day because He knows we need rest and he wants us to focus on him for one full day out of the week.  And that brings us to today’s passage which is from Exodus 20:8-11:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Taking a Sabbath does not necessarily mean we need to be in prayer and reading scripture all day on Sundays but simply that we are called take a break from our normal weekly activities.

For some, this might mean not going into the office on Sunday or not returning work emails. Others may not even do work around the house. However you decide to observe the Sabbath is between you and God but the more you make it about Him, the more he’ll accept it as the gift that a true sabbath is supposed to be.

So, give it a try this week if you can. And maybe try asking your whole household to do the same. Doing it together may even make it a fun exercise where you have to plan ahead in order to honor God.

Questions

1. Do you agree that in our society the Sabbath doesn’t seem to have the same importance in relation to being a “good” Christian as prayer, Bible reading, and good works?  Why or why not?  
2. Do you believe it is harder or easier to observe the sabbath now vs. when the verses above were written?
3. What are some things we can do to increase the likelihood that we’ll be able to observe the sabbath more consistently?
4. What are some of the benefits that might result from observing the sabbath?

Last week, we talked about some of the things in our lives that might keep us from being as close to God as possible and we discussed the idea of “selling” those things to remove them from our lives.  That is a good foundation for our conversation today to help us prepare for Easter, which is three Sundays from now. 

Today’s verse is from Romans 10:9 and it says “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

To those not familiar with the story of Jesus or the broader story of the Bible, it may sound too simple to obtain salvation simply by declaring Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  Shouldn’t it take more work than that?  Shouldn’t it be more involved or complicated?  In fact, there was a lot more to it and the Bible tells us the story.

The entire Bible can actually be summarized in a single sentence – The Bible is the story of God pursuing us.  It is all part of the same story and it all works together to complete God’s plan to bring us closer to Him.

God wants two things from us more than anything else: 1) He wants us to Love Him and love those around us while on earth and 2) He wants us to spend eternity with Him in heaven.  After trying many different approaches, God finally said something like this: “OK, let’s make this very simple.  If you declare your love for Me and have faith in My Son Jesus (who is really Me in human form), I’ll do the rest.  Then you will be saved and spend eternity with me in heaven.”

That’s a great plan but the price for our sin still had to be paid and the one who settled that debt had to experience the worst fate imaginable in order for that sin to be washed clean.  That is why God had to come to earth in the human form of Jesus and die on the cross.  Here is a post that explains the significance of Easter in more detail.

So, all of that is to say that Easter is the day we celebrate the final step in God’s long plan to defeat sin and death.  Jesus’ death and resurrection permanently and completely broke the chains of sin and set us free to have eternal life.  This reminds me of one of my favorite passages from 1 Corinthians 15:54-58:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Questions:

1. How does it make you feel to know that all you have to do is declare Jesus as you Lord & Savior to receive eternal salvation?
2. What does salvation mean to you and what is the value of salvation for you and your loved ones.
3. Do you agree with the idea that the story of the Bible can be boiled down to the simple idea of God pursuing us?  Why or why not?
4. Many believe that Easter is the most important date on the Christian calendar.  Do you agree?
5. The Corinthians passage above says that because Jesus won the victory for us that we should “always give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord”.  When you think of giving yourself fully to the work of the Lord, what does that mean to you?