Winter Retreat Session 1

SESSION 1:

THE LORD OUR BANNER

JEHOVAH NISSI

EXODUS 17:8-16

THE POINT: We are always covered by God's protection.

Intro

Hey y’all, everybody good? Every body sleep well?

Okay so welcome to Winter Retreat 2022. I’m glad we are all here and am looking forward to what this weekend holds here

So let me introduce kind of what this theme is going to be this weekend as far as small groups and bible study go.

All of you should have a note book the front page is black and with green letters it reads GOD IS. So that is our theme GOD is, so over this weekend we are going to look at who God is. So while we are here I want you to really focus on who God is. Treat this weekend as an actual retreat, you are away from distractions, you are away from your normal life, use this weekend not just for something to do before school gets back but use it as a weekend to center you thoughts on God, to refocus what is important as we walk in to 2022.

I want you to leave here this weekend with a renewed since, or for the first time a real actual sense of who God is, and what God has done. I want you to leave here with a higher view of God. That God is truly who he says he is.

I know this weekend may look different than normal, we may not even get to ski, but I want you to ask yourself this question, if everything is stripped away, and that all you are left with is God, is God enough? Is His word enough. That is what I want you to think about this weekend.

So this weekend we are going to look at some of the different names for God in scripture.

So let’s practice, one of the words in the Old Testament for God is translated as Jehovah, say Jehovah with me. Jehovah.

Cool, so let’s get in to the passage. You should all have bible, you were all supposed to bring a bible. So take your bible and open up to Exodus 16:8-16

lets read this whole passage really quick then I will give you some context for what is going on.

Exodus 16:8–16 ESV

8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.” 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ” 10 And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ” 13 In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. 14 And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’ ”

1. NO WATER IN REPHIDIM (V. 8)

Okay cool so what is going on here is God led His people to Rephidim, and there was no

water--but this was the least of their worries (God had provided before; still they complained--again!).

y’all ever met someone who just complains the whole time. Don’t look around the room. But you know what mean. Like they could get everything the wanted but still gonna find something to complain about it.

There was no water in Rephidim, in the passage before this the Hebrew people are about ready to stone moses cause there is no water, even after all the things they had seen God. The still doubted, they walked through a parted Red Sea, yet still doubted.

Then Verse 8, Amalek shows up.

• The Amalakites were descendants of Esau (Jacob-a forefather of the Israelites--had stolen his birthright and his blessing) and they hated the Israelites.

They were set on destroying God's people, the enemy, satan sees us in much the same way.

These were the people against God. they hated, the people of God. They have come to fight.

2 GOD HAS PROMISED TO BE WITH US (wV. 9-13)

So, the fist thing that I want you to write down is this. God has promised to be with us. Let’s look at verse 9-13,

Moses sends Joshua out with the army to fight against the Amalek. Moses tells Joshua that he sis going to in verse 9, hold “the staff of God in my hand.” and we see how this fight plays out, when Moses held his staff, Israel prevailed, but when he lowered it, God's people were overcome by the enemy.

Moses' staff was a visible sign of God's presence. God is with us when things get crazy, when things don’t go our way. God is with us when suffering comes. I don’t want to compare no snow with actual suffering, but we were all kinda looking forward to skiing, but we aren’t getting to. Oh well, we are still here to worship the Lord. We are still here to see God for who He is and more importantly, He is here with us. We are just here with Him, but he is here with Us.

He has always promised to be there with us. Just like the Hebrew people, God is with HIs people.

So what do we take from this?

Look at how Moses is holding the staff of God, when Moses is holding it up, Joshua is killing it, when it goes down, Joshua starts losing. So when Moses arms gets tired, Aaron and Hur hold up his arms. His buddies come over and hold up his arms.

So what does this tell us?

We will be tempted to rely on our own strength when we do, we'll be overcome, it is not our presence but the presence of the Lord who overcomes darkness.

Second thing this tells us, we need community, you need your friends. The christian life is not walked alone. When things get tough, you need friends who point you back to Jesus.

Romans says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. You need friends who are also followers of Jesus, because when you are following Jesus, you look at life different, and your fiends who follow Jesus, know what that is like, and can help you with your perspective.

3. JESUS HAS CONQUERED OUR GREATEST Enemy, Sin!

So what happens next? Look at verse 14-16

The Lord tells Moses to write down in a book and recite it to Joshua, “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amelek.”

Before this morning, had I asked you “who is Amalek?” who would have gotten it right? Ain’t none of y’all. The only book this dude is written down is the bible, and he’s a bad guy.

The we see the name, Jehovah Nissi, The Lord is our Banner, everyone say Jehovah Nissi. That means the Lord is our Banner. The Lord fights for us. The Amalekites vowed to erase Israel from the face of the earth. They had declared war against not only the Israelites, but against God! God's response was to completely blot out the memory of Amalek.

In response to God's protection, Moses built an altar and called it "The Lord is My Banner."

So here is the Good News, The Lord is still our Banner, Jehovah Nissi is still with Us. The Good News is that this passage is looking towards a coming Messiah, this is showing that one day the Messiah is going to come and defeat our greatest enemy, which is Sin.

the Good News is that this passage was written along time ago and we live in an age after Christ has already come and defeated sin and Death on the cross.

So I want you to ask yourself, who is the banner you follow under? is it your own, if it is your own, it might as well say Amelek, because if you do not know the Lord, your memory will be blotted out from under heaven. Who are you going to follow starting this year off in 2022?

This passage is showing us that The Lord is the one who is there. This weekend I want you to answer this questions. Who do you follow? Who is Lord?

Know that Jesus has made a way for you to know Him and for you to have relationship with Him. WHo are you going to follow? Come see Christ as Lord, Come see Christ as King.

pray with me.