the making of week 1

This series is going to be about growing in our relationship with God

we are going to follow the metaphor of a director as we go through this series

Directors work in movies, and they are the ones who call the shots and help everyone know what do do

they don’t do every individual thing, but they work with the people doing the work and make sure that everybody is working towards the same end goal

a good director keeps their people on task

this is a big part of what we are going to think about today

in our lives, we have lots of things going on

we have school, family, sports, activities, and our faith

it is easy to get pulled into these distractions, and take our eyes off of Jesus

and ultimately, school, relationships, sports, and anything else should be driving towards the goal of following Jesus

Because of all of these distractions, we need a good director to keep us going on the right path

we need to follow that director

For us, we know that God is that director

There is a story in the Bible that shows us the power of spending time with God

In Exodus, we see something really really special

The israelite people had been enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years

they did not know God personally, they did not really know how to follow Him

they had stories from their ancestors about God, so they believed in Him in a general sense. But they didn’t have a personal relationship with Him

then God speaks to Moses and leads Moses to lead the people out of Egypt

God does a bunch of miracles and leads them out of Egypt, but then they are in the wilderness. Out of Egypt but not yet in the land that they are going to

it is in that wilderness that God starts for the first time teaching a whole group of people how to follow Him

God was super hands on with this

these people didn’t have any books of the Bible. They didn’t have anything to really show them who God is and how to follow Him. So God steps in and uses Moses to teach them

God uses Moses to lead the people. God speaks to Moses, and then Moses leads them based on what God told him.

Moses would go into this special tent, and that tent is where he would meet face to face with God

Exodus 33:11

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 33

The LORD would speak with Moses face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend

Moses would have back and forth conversations with God

this time with God was what allowed him to do what God had called him to do

the time with God changed him

God told Moses to go back up this mountain where they had met previously, and God was going to have an important meeting with Moses

Moses does what God said, and goes and has this meeting with God

when he comes back down the mountain and returns to the people, something weird happened

Exodus 34:29–31 “As Moses descended from Mount Sinai—with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands as he descended the mountain—he did not realize that the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone! They were afraid to come near him. But Moses called out to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.”

In this specific situation, Moses met face to face with God for a very specific purpose, and Moses was changed because of it

people noticed the change before he did

in our lives,