Ep12: Imagine You're a Shepherd

Discussion Guide 

• God has a big plan for Moses and the Israelites. He also has a plan for each of us. How can we find out what He wants for us - what His plan is?

•  How does God speak to us today?

• Look back at the story of Exodus and all the plagues. How do those events show how creation responds to God? How did the plagues bring glory to God? 

Complete Transcript 

As we continue our study of God and nature, we're going to look at three unusual and unexpected miracles in the Old Testament. In a way, all miracles are unusual and unexpected--that's why we call them miracles! But, we sorta expect Jesus to heal blind people and sick people. Those events were still miraculous, but not unexpected. 

This first story is one you're probably familiar with, but sometimes when we become too familiar with a story we miss the miracle. Have you heard about Moses and the burning bush before? Let's try to peel back the familiar and find the miracle again. I want you to use your imagination today. 

Imagine you are a shepherd. You are out in the wilderness. Really try to picture the wilderness, okay? It's a hot desert wilderness, and you have to keep a flock of sheep safe, well fed, well watered, and alive. Probably not the easiest job in the world. 

You approach a mountain, Horeb, which actually means "desert". And out of the corner of your eye you see something you've never seen before. You do a double-take and look back. Squinting and shading your eyes you can't really believe what you're seeing. 

A bush is on fire but it's not actually burning up. Anything on fire is supposed to burn up. That's how it works. Set it on fire and it reduces to ash. But this bush isn't being destroyed. It's not breaking apart and turning to ash. It's simply burning. 

Your curiosity is overwhelming. And besides, if you tell anyone about this, they're going to ask you: "why wasn't the bush burning up?"  Otherwise, they'll just say, "nice story, Moses, you've been hanging out with the sheep too long." So you go over to the bush to see if you can figure out what's going on. Maybe you are just seeing things and that's dazzling sunlight shimmering off of berries. Or some other logical explanation. 

As you approach the bush, wanting to understand what you have seen, there is a voice. In fact, the bush knows your name. "Moses! Moses!' Okay, this went from unusual to weird in sixty seconds flat. But you're invested now, you gotta know more so you say, "Here I am!" 

At this point,  you have no idea what to expect next. One minute you're looking after some sheep and the next minute you're talking to a bush that's on fire but not burning up. And then....then this goes from weird to miraculous. 

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” 

Instantly, you drop to your knees. Without looking up you remove your shoes. Whatever you do, you don't look at the bush again. God himself is in the fire. Only God could cause the bush to burn and not be consumed. And not only that, but God is speaking to you. God could consume you just like that bush. He's so holy, so powerful, so perfect, so righteous, and you are a sinful human so full of mistakes and failures. And yet, he's not destroying you in your sinfulness. He's speaking to you. 

The God of our ancestors, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is speaking to you. He's explaining that he has seen the Israelites suffering in slavery in Egypt. You remember how you saw that suffering too. You'd been raised in the palace by the princess, but you're an Israelite just like the slaves. And you hated their suffering. In fact, you murdered that Egyptian who was beating the Israelite slave that day forty years ago. That's why you were in the wilderness to begin with. You had done something terrible in your anger and you had to leave Egypt to save your own life. The Egyptians didn't want you, the Israelites didn't want you. The desert wilderness with the sheep is where you belonged. 

Expect God is saying something else entirely. Something you can't quite understand. He's telling you that he wants you to return to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go so God can bring them into the Promised Land to bless them. This can't be right. Maybe your ears need cleaned out. 

You say, as respectfully as you can, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

And God says “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

This sounds too good to be true. God wants to deliver his people! Of course he does, he's a good God. He is worthy of praise! But he wants you to do it? You? The one who had to flee Egypt? The one your own people aren't sure they can trust? God must have the wrong guy. 

You ask carefully, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

When God says "I am who I am" chills run through your entire body. From the hair on your head to the tip of your tiny toe tingles. It's the holiest, most powerful thing you have ever heard in your entire life. And so you ask a few more questions, trying to iron out your fears and doubts. God continues speaking to you, and instructing you. As he speaks, you feel courage rising. You are not alone. You've never been alone. God has seen you all the time and has had a plan. And now it's time to do what he has called you to do. 

As you return home from this most holy conversation, you know your entire life has changed. You stop dead in your tracks for a moment. The sheep by your side look up at you strangely for a moment as your stop is so sudden. You're wondering what would've happened if you hadn't bothered to investigate the burning bush. What if you had just rubbed your eyes, shrugged your shoulders, and moved on? What if you had decided it wasn't worth going out of your way? What if you just ignored the unexpected and unusual, and had missed God? 

The story of Moses and the burning bush can be found in Exodus 3. When you read it for yourself, you'll see that I took God's and Moses's words exactly from the Bible. But I gave us space to imagine what it might have been like for Moses that day. The fact is, we don't know exactly what was going on with the burning bush. Maybe it was the angel of the Lord within the bush that simply gave it the appearance of being on fire. Maybe it was the sun. Or there's even this plant that grows specifically in that part of the world that gives off gas and occasionally catches fire on its oily leaves, but doesn't burn up. It only burns for a few minutes then extinguishes. But when I read the text, I think about God and his creation. It does what he tells it to do. And if he tells the bush to not burn, it won't burn. 

Does that sound too simple to be true? Maybe it is. But think about some of the other stories we've already discussed on this podcast. The very first episode we talked about Jesus calming the storm. The winds and the waves immediately obeyed him when he said "be still!". God created the water, Jesus was there at creation. The water recognized that Jesus was its master and when he commanded it to settle down, it did. Think about the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River. God told the water to get out the way and it did. Then he told it to go back where it belonged and it did. 

So it seems to me that if God tells a bush "don't burn" it won't burn. At any rate, we learn two important things from the burning bush. One, God is all-powerful and his holiness can consume like any fire, but when we ask Jesus to be our savior, we all become like the burning bush. We carry the flame of God's spirit inside of us and we are not consumed. And two, God will speak to us in unexpected ways, but we have to have eyes to notice it, we have to make time to seek answers, we have to be curious enough to find out the truth. Moses was confused and curious that day--he certainly wasn't expecting to encounter God in a bush on the mountainside! And we don't know when we'll encounter God either. But it's safe to say that if we are not curious and we are too busy to care, we will miss him. 

Ep11: Created With Purpose

Discussion Questions

• Psalm 148 talks about how things in God's world praise Him. How does a fruit tree praise God? How about a cow? What does an old man do to praise God? Whavehat can a child do?

• Go outside on a sunny day and look up at the clouds moving across the blue sky. Do you see how each one is different? How they move and how some bump into others? Look again in five minutes and you'l see a whole new sky no one has ever seen before or will ever see again. One God created just for that moment. How else does God's creation change?

• You are God's creation. He made you just right. God doesn't make junk, He makes masterpieces. How are you God's masterpiece? Why do you think He took the time to make you special?

Full Transcript 

Psalm 148

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

    praise him in the heights above.

2 Praise him, all his angels;

    praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

3 Praise him, sun and moon;

    praise him, all you shining stars.

4 Praise him, you highest heavens

    and you waters above the skies.

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,

    for at his command they were created,

6 and he established them for ever and ever—

    he issued a decree that will never pass away.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,

    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,

    stormy winds that do his bidding,

9 you mountains and all hills,

    fruit trees and all cedars,

10 wild animals and all cattle,

    small creatures and flying birds,

11 kings of the earth and all nations,

    you princes and all rulers on earth,

12 young men and women,

    old men and children.

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,

    for his name alone is exalted;

    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,[b]

    the praise of all his faithful servants,

    of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord

For the entire month of June Bloom Kids Treehouse is looking for God in nature! Warm weather is finally here. The grass is green, trees have leaves again, flowers are blooming everywhere, we can hear the sound of birdsong and crickets and frogs. 

We know that God created the heavens and the earth. The very first verse of the Bible tells us that right up front. You don't get past page one before you find out that God created it all. Everything in the entire universe--everything huge like a galaxy and everything tiny like germ--God created it. But do you ever think about how nature praises God? How animals, plants, water all respond to God? As we dig into the scriptures this month we will learn that everything created by God can recognize his voice, respond to him, and bring him glory. I am praying that we all will have eyes to see God's masterpieces all around us in creation, and to see how creation praises God. From mighty oak trees to silly puppy dogs! 

God delights in his creation. He wants us to delight in it too. God delights in the way a dog uses his keen sniffery nose to find a squirrel to chase, or maybe a bite of food dropped on the floor. God delights in the intricate web of a spider, the mastery of design, the strength of the webbing. God delights in the dandelions that appear each spring without being planted or invited. Now, I'm not saying everyone has to love weeds! I'm just saying that God does.  

And I think that's good news. It's really good news for us that God loves weeds and spider webs and sniffy dogs and snowflakes. These are all things that we complain about sometimes. The dog who begs at the dinner table because his sniffy nose told him you're eating hamburgers tonight. The spiderwebs in the corner of the room, just out of reach and collecting dust. Or the creeeepy spider webs with the creeepy spiders. I get it--I'm not a fan. The snow that dares to fall when we are ready and waiting for spring. The dandelions that make our lawns look less than perfect. These are all things that bother us. That annoy us. That we would do without sometimes....even if we really love our doggos.

God loves all of those things and more. He created them to bring him delight, as well as serve a purpose in the wide world of his creation. This is good news for us because God delights in us too....even when it feels like people would rather do without us sometimes. We all feel that way from time to time. When you've gotten on mom's nerves just one time too many that day. When dad comes home from work grumpy and everything you do is making him worse. When your sister gets so mad at you she says she hates you. When your friends leave you out of their games. When you don't get a good grade at school, or strike out at baseball, or just...mess up. Have you ever experienced any of those things? I have. Even as a grown up I feel that way sometimes. 

But God still delights in me. He created me just the way I am on purpose! He gave me a unique combination of talents, ideas, weaknesses, interests, and personality that no one else on earth has ever had. And he created you to be unique too! It's not just okay that you're not like everyone else--it's spectacular! It's awesome! God delights in you every single day. And you can bring praise to him just by being who he created you to be. 

It would be silly if a spider stopped spinning webs and tried to sniff like a dog. It would be even more ridiculous if a dog stopped sniffering and tried to spin webs! Go ahead, try to picture a dog spinning a spider's web. It's silly, isn't it? God didn't create them to do those things. A snowflake can't be a dandelion that grows in the spring, and a dandelion can't be a snowflake that falls from a cold winter sky. They have to do what they were created to do when they were created to do it. And so do we. 

My challenge to you this week is to walk really slowly around your yard or neighborhood. Look for the little things in nature that you usually miss. You might spy teeny tiny flowers growing in your yard.. You might spy a bird's nest in a tree. You might notice a lady bug or a snail. Maybe you'll look up into the sky at night and notice the stars. Or how the moon changes from one night to the next. And as you observe the wonders of creation all around us, I want you to delight in them. Look at them the way God does, as something he designed on purpose and with a purpose. Thank God for his creation. And then, thank God for creating you. Take time to notice how you are made. Your likes and dislikes, interest and ideas, your beautiful eyes and your happy smile. Thank God for making you just the way you are and ask him to start showing you why he made you that way. The biggest adventure of your life is with God as he reveals why he made you and just how much he loves you. 

The Treehouse Ep10: In Remembrance of Me (BFB May 4)

For the last several weeks we've been talking about how important it is to remember that God is faithful. When we feel discouraged or afraid, we can remember all the amazing things God has done in the past. And when God does something great for us, we can make reminders so we don't forget.

Today, we're going to talk about one more thing that helps us remember. We call it "communion". Communion at church is when we pass around the plates with little pieces of bread (sometimes they're more like crackers), and tiny cups of grape juice. You may have noticed that only some people take the bread and juice, or that you're only allowed to take them after you've asked Jesus to be your Savior. Let's look closely at why that is and what this is all about.

We'll start by reading Luke 22:14-20. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”  And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

So Jesus and his disciples have gathered together to celebrate something called Passover. Do you remember what that story is that was so important in the Old Testament? The story that has kept popping up over the last few weeks? Yup, that's it. The one where God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Our focus has been on the miracle when God parted the Red Sea, but there was another very important thing that happened.

Before Pharaoh agreed to let his slaves go, there were ten different plagues. Everything from frogs and gnats, to the water turning to blood and the sky being totally dark for three days. But the hardest plague of all was when all the firstborn sons in Egypt died in the night. In order for the Israelites to be safe, God told them to kill a perfect little lamb, one without even any markings on its wool. They were to take the blood from the lamb and use it to paint around the doorpost of their houses. As long as their homes were covered in the blood of the lamb, the angel of death would pass over.

Did you hear what I said? Pass over. This is where the name "Passover" came from. And while the angel of death was moving through Egypt, the Israelites were eating a meal God told them to make. He had instructed them to make bread without any yeast. You see, when you bake with yeast it takes a lot of time because you have to wait for the bread to get big and fluffy usually two times before you bake it. It's delicious but it takes all day. God knew the Israelites weren't going to have all day to sit around and bake bread. He knew that Pharaoh's first born son would die and when that happened Pharaoh would tell the Israelites to leave now! And they needed to be ready. So they baked this bread without any yeast and waited to see what God would do.

And sure enough, the Israelites got to leave Egypt. Then, after they crossed the Red Sea and were safe and sound, God commanded them to always remember what he had done to save them with a festival called Passover. Every year the Israelites would eat the bread without any yeast and tell the story to their children and grandchildren of how God saved them from slavery. So when Jesus was living it was well over a thousand years later and the Israelites are still remembering to celebrate Passover every year. There's actually several stories that tell us about Jesus celebrating Passover.

In the passage we're reading today, it is the last time Jesus would celebrate Passover. In fact, that very night Jesus was arrested. The next day, on a Friday, Jesus was crucified. And then on Sunday, Jesus came back to life!

Let's look again at exactly what Jesus said. Verses 19 & 20 say, "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

Jesus was taking the bread and the wine which was for Passover and making a new tradition. We call it communion. He said that the bread was to help us remember his body which was given for us. And he said that the wine reminds us of his blood which was poured out for us. He wanted us to always remember how his blood covered our sins when his body was hurt and broken on the cross. Remember how it was the blood of the lamb that covered the doorways for the Israelites back in Egypt? Can you guess what another one of Jesus's names is? He is the Lamb of God. And this is why. His blood was the payment for our sins. It covers our sins up so we don't have to be punished for them anymore.

This is why communion is only for people who have asked Jesus to be their Savior. Their sins have been covered by his blood! So they can be part of this special tradition where we remember what Jesus did for us. And this is a tradition that we will do until Jesus comes back again! It's already been two thousand years since Jesus went back to heaven, and we're still doing communion to remember him. Jesus told us that someday he will come back and when we're with him again we will have a big feast to celebrate! So communion also reminds us that Jesus is coming back and we can spend forever and ever with him, feasting and celebrating.

If you think you might be ready to ask Jesus to be your savior, you can talk to your parents or another grown-up. Children are so important to God, you mean so much to him! And you don't have to wait to be a grown-up to be saved. But it is a very important thing, so it's important you understand about sin and why we need a savior, and why Jesus is the only one who can save us.

Parents and other grown-ups, in the show notes for this episode, we've included some additional things to talk about as well as prayer. There are no magic prayers or words though! We know that God looks at the heart so don't worry about getting the words just right.

I'm going to close this episode with a prayer. No matter what, we can always pray and thank Jesus for what he's done for us and ask him to keep speaking to our hearts.

Discussion Guide

• If your child has already asked Jesus to become their Savior, take a little bit of time to discuss again what that means. It's good for all of us to hear the gospel again and be refreshed with the joy of salvation. 
• If your child wants to ask Jesus to be their Savior--that's the best news! Take a few minutes to talk about how our sin keeps us from God, but when we are truly sorry for our sins and want Jesus to became the leader of our lives, we can be forgiven! And when we are forgiven and Jesus is our Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside our hearts, and he will never leave us. 
• This is an example of a prayer you could use, but remember, it's not the words that matters. What matters is your child's heart and desire to be right with God. 
• Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I need a savior. I ask you to forgive me and make me clean inside like you. I want you to be my Savior and the leader of my life. I thank you for dying on the cross for me and for loving me so much. I love you too. Amen! 
• If your child (or you!) prays that prayer, please let us know! You can leave a comment on this blog, message us through Facebook, call the church at 614-837-7122, or email us through our website. We want to celebrate with you! Angels are already rejoicing in heaven!