Jesus: the Bread

Today we have a shortened teaching followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, as He has asked us in His Word to remember Him. We will follow this with a “sharing time” in which anyone is welcome to share what the Lord has been teaching them in the past month. And then we will spend some time in prayer together.

There are some grand themes in the Bible, and as we have been going through this current series on Broken Vessels, looking at the imperfect lives of the Old Testament that God has used to further His purposes on Earth, one theme I have noticed is that of the provision of food. The actual historical events of the Old Testament not only simply happened and were recorded for us to learn from; they also were shadows of things to come. These things are often veiled, partially hidden, but they are there for those who look, for those who seek, and they point to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Broken Vessels: Moses Part II

Last week we looked at some events in the early life of Moses. We talked about how Moses, when grown up, killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and how Moses, after his secret was found out, fled from Pharaoh into the desert and started a new life as a simple herdsman. After 40 years of living in the desert, God appeared to him in a burning bush that did not burn up, and charged Moses with going back to Egypt and being the vessel God was to use to rescue the Hebrews from Egypt. Moses was reluctant, to say the least, and ultimately, after God explained how He would be with Him through everything, said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else to do it!” I talked about how we can be like this as well – even though in the gospels we are told that God will be with us even until the end of the age, we are hesitant to do many things that take us out of our comfort zone. Sharing the gospel with friends and neighbors and even strangers is something over which we tell God, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else to do it!”

Broken Vessels: Moses, Part I

Today we are going to look at the first part of the life of Moses. The story really begins before Moses is born, and so we are going to look substantially also at the lives of Moses’ parents. In Exodus Chapter 1, we learn that the descendants of Joseph and his brothers became exceedingly numerous as generation after generation came and went. Eventually a new Pharaoh became concerned about how many they had become and feared that they could side with their enemies, overthrow him, or cause other terrible problems for Egypt. So he made them become slaves and forced them to do difficult, dangerous, and oppressive work, hoping that this work would kill off many of them. But what happened is that the Israelites continued to multiply.

Pharaoh then asked the Hebrew midwives to kill the babies after they were born if they were boys. They did not want to do this, and made up a lie that the Hebrew mothers gave birth before they could arrive. Then Pharaoh told his people to throw every Hebrew boy who was born into the Nile.

Broken Vessels: Joseph

The story of Joseph’s life has to be one of the most well known of the Old Testament. It is a great story that has everything in it. There is intrigue and betrayal, rescue and restoration, redemption and reunion. Not to mention, a happy ending. While God does not speak audibly to Joseph in the same way he did to Jacob, it is clear that God is orchestrating Joseph’s circumstances and blessing him even in and through the difficulties. Acts 7:9 puts it succinctly, “But God was with him.”

There is also a lot of story here. No fewer than 12 chapters of Genesis deal with the account of Joseph’s life. If I read the entire story, it would take longer than we normally spend on a message. So, I’m going to pick and choose a little bit, but I won’t take away too much because it is so important to see Joseph’s full life.

In fact, when both Jacob and Joseph are mentioned in Hebrews 11, it isn’t their faith during their lives, but their faith at the ends of their lives that get mentioned.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff. 

 
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.--Hebrews 11:21-22