Redescovering Church Part 2

• Rediscovering Church
God’s Distinctive People
• Exodus 3:1-7
• Covenant with Abraham ...
• Genesis 12:2-3 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you ... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
• God Calls His Distinctive People ...
• Exodus 3:7 "I have seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt ...
• Exodus 6:7 I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.
• Israel’s identity as God’s people ...
• Ex 15:13-18 In your unfailing love You will lead the people You have redeemed. The nations will hear and tremble — until Your people pass by.
Exodus 20 Heart of the Law ...
• Exodus 20:1-2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…
• Exodus 20 Heart of the Law ...
Response to God
Worship no other god (1-2)
Honor His Name (3)
Respect Him by recognizing the Sabbath (4)
Relating with Each Other
Honor the Family (5)
Sanctity of Human Life (6)
Pure in character (7-10)
• New Harmony, Indiana (1825)
• God’s call to distinctiveness ...
• Israel to be holy (set apart) ...
• Leviticus 20:22-24 'You shall therefore keep all my statutes .. And you shall not walk in the statutes of the nations which I am casting out before you...I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.
• Reverse effect of external law ...
• Jeremiah 31:31-34 I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
• Distinctive in God’s Character ...
• When God’s People Blend in ...
• Judges 2:11-13 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; 12 and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, …13 They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
• When God’s People Blend in ...
• 1 Samuel 8:19-20 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."
• Are “Christians” any different?
• “When asked to identify their activities over the last 30 days, believers were just as likely as nonChristians to bet or gamble, visit a pornographic website, take something that did not belong to them, consult a medium or psychic, physically fight or abuse someone, consume enough alcohol to be legally drunk, use an illegal non prescription drug, said something that was not true, gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and said mean things behind another person’s back.”
• Consequences of blending in ...
• Jeremiah 2:11-13 Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit...13 'For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water.
• When God’s People Most Effective ...
• Matthew 9:9-13 many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."
• Rediscovering Church
God’s Distinctive People
• Exodus 3:1-7